Sir_Nigel

You asked me one day whether we’d always be together. You talked of this a lot and so I thought - Why not? So I had this awesome notion to show my true devotion - I’d get myself some glue and glue myself to you to be always by your side - my perma-fastened bride. As one through thick and thin, stuck firmly by the skin, like a pod with two peas, like…. Bostik Siamese. I couldn’t wait to share my plans to be a pair. But then some practicalities, some day to day realities and worries of that kind crept in to my mind. Like how we’d get through doors, potential chafing sores, to earn an honest bob we could only have one job, despite our romance thriving we couldn’t share the driving, and might some people mock our single roomy smock? And things that I won’t mention could add a strange dimension. Lets just say I feared it might get a little bit weird. And how would we unfetter if I met someone better? Not only would I break your heart, we’d literally be torn apart. We’d have to be anesthetised as doctors grimly ripped and prised. Then what a pickle we’d be in requiring major grafts of skin and possibly some sinew before we could continue. But then when I revealed to you my qualms concerning superglue you seemed perplexed, and a little bit vexed with a strange undercurrent of violence beneath that inscrutable silence. And needless to say we split up that day.

I contravene the Highway Code and stroll down the middle of a four lane road. With no other soul nor a car to be seen it feels like a Hollywood opening scene, like something disastrous happened today - an asteroid struck but it seems I’m OK. The scientists said that no man could survive yet I am uninjured – The Last Man Alive. Our lonesome dude must hunt for food, build a shelter, wield a knife beware emboldened wildlife, defend himself, evaluate, find an Eve - re-populate. Or maybe it’s more of an end credit scene and I’m an unstoppable killing machine, sent to vanquish humankind and this is what I’ve left behind. My mission – Man’s annihilation ….plus all his forms of transportation. Oh what will threatened humans do? You’ll have to wait for DeathDroid 2 In truth there is sun and a temperate breeze and birds twitter sweetly in whispering trees. I’m strolling alone on a tranquil street to the comforting sound of my own two feet and not entertaining the niggling fear the world has now ended but I didn’t hear. Although the forlorn desolation is sad, this new-fangled quietness isn’t so bad. My pace has now slowed, I meander in the road. Gone are the days when you’d look both ways. Now when I do I see something new - neglected old buildings, historical plaques, obstinate undergrowth struggling through cracks and up in a tree where a trainer was flung a couple of blackbirds are feeding their young. Then, at last a taxi speeds past and not so far off I hear someone cough, on the building site there two scaffolders swear. Life in a lull is a little bit dull but I’m not quite alone in this lock down zone.

Go for it.

You may be a sad poet loner but you don’t want to die of Corrona so look out for yellowy glands and constantly scour your hands, ensure you’ve a hanky close by and your alcohol content is high. And if you are writing then please take a bath before touching the keys - a germ on your fat sweaty fingers can carry a virus that lingers - a sentence is all it requires then it seeps down the internet wires and then you’ll unwittingly spread it to every poor sod who has read it. Use a pencil instead of a pen and …..don’t talk to any strange men. And if you do have to endure it then toilet paper can cure it. I hope this is useful to you and clarified what you must do

If you’re feeling a little bit low why not purchase my poems below? diverting and cheap with nothing too deep you carry them round as you go. When going by bus or by train you can read ‘em again and again just put up your feet on the opposite seat and ignore all the jerks who complain. By keeping the volume close by you can use it for swatting a fly it is lethal and keen and will quickly wipe clean - another good reason to buy. It can also be placed on the floor to firmly prop open a door Or by cracking the loaf of an indolent oaf you could gain more respect than before. You’ll notice how carefully I’m promoting my writing in rhyme which works a lot better than sending a letter or trying to say it in mime. Or strolling around with a bell - Proclaiming! - to help the thing sell or hawking my wares at small village fairs with a talented lady named Nell (who’s pretending to die of TB so they stop and take pity you see) ‘Please purchase my book, for my daughter’s sake look’ - disgraceful I’m sure you’ll agree. So this is a much better way - Now I‘ve said what I wanted to say. Just a quick cheeky note to briefly promote my volume of poems today. Rescued from Oblivion – all my poems now in one fat book. Available now at https://www.feedaread.com/profiles/10661/

Today like every other day he sings in that annoying way- a nasal adolescent whine and songs you cannot quite define, or voices incoherent rap in a jaunty backwards baseball cap. Rap I know sod all about, his singing though is miles out – his limitations magnified by being loudly amplified. With coins collecting at his feet in a busy lunchtime city street, he’s on a fervent quest, it seems, to live his tuneless fat kid dreams. With self-belief and passion strong he bares his feelings, lost in song, the soulful ballads mainly those that no-one over thirty knows. His eyes are closed, he knows some moves and fleetingly his act improves but nothing really compensates for all the notes he desecrates. What’s needed here is a word in his ear, to make him aware that life is unfair and what he enjoys is really just noise, To crush his dreams, spoil his schemes, tell him he’s flat, then hand him his hat. Such a terrible task is a really big ask- the gloom it would place on that great moon face and I just cannot see that falling to me. But if somebody bold, forthright and cold told him to stop the penny might drop and spare us all his caterwaul.

I’m trying to eat but so tough is this meat that I’m wondering whether it’s actually leather. But as I’m a guest I know that its best to chew for a while, swallow, then smile. To leave all this food would simply be rude. I can’t even cut it but where can I put it? A deft little toss to a slumbering dog? smuggle it out to be flushed down the bog? Could it be wrapped in a tissue or two then slipped surreptitiously into a shoe? If only the windows were open for air with one little flick I could fling it out there. My mind wanders back to the dinners at school where battle-axe ladies, insistent and cruel would force you to eat all the gristle and fat. No meat could be wasted - that firmly was that. So you’d bury it furtively under your mash then off to the bin you would anxiously dash. And with these accomplishments daring but shady you’d fool the intransigent fat dinner lady. But though I have tried it there’s nowhere to hide it. No chance to use the old schoolboy ruse. It looks like I’m beaten this has to be eaten. So all I can do is sit here and chew, But chew as I might there’s no end in sight. The meal drags on. All hope is gone. This dutiful chore is hurting my jaw. You may ask, my friend, just when this might end. The answer is never. I’ll be here for ever. I’ve blunted my knife now, this is my life now. If someone you see asks what happened to me - wondering why I no longer drop by, tell them I perished saving someone I cherished as we sought and destroyed a rogue asteroid. Or I couldn’t restrain a runaway train. Or fires were braved, orphans were saved - I dragged ‘em outside and then alas, died. Not met a sad end trying not to offend, trapped in a room in a permanent gloom, day after day just fading away attempting to eat some inedible meat.

He sports a manly torso like Rambo only more so, has weightlifters shoulders, hands like boulders, he’s bull necked, as you’d expect and proudly etched in letters stretched across his chest on a sleeveless vest the name of the gym which created him. A shaven head is perched atop this keenly muscled outcrop - a head of great immensity of an unsurprising density. He’s very keen to say you must sign up today. By toiling in the gym you too could look like him! He’s proud of his physique, but scornful of the weak, anyone not pumped ignored or quickly dumped - an inferior being to his way of seeing. But he chooses to ignore one large apparent flaw: After starting this way he just… dwindles away. He doesn’t continue the muscle and sinew but tapers from burly into eight year old girly - his legs being short and the spindly sort with improbably petite twinkle toe feet. So you stifle a snigger ‘cos he should be much bigger. He’s tried to put right his absence of height - repeatedly tried ways but grew only sideways. But his mirror doesn’t reach the floor so, in his head, he’s six foot four, a superman, a demi-god, nothing even slightly odd. Convinced that he is blessed not merely self obsessed. So even though he’s crass and dim you still might even pity him -a narcissistic man with a wood preserver tan whose upper half is in effect the measure of his self respect, caught between contempt for you and the image he aspires to.

Homewards they go with faces aglow, a picture of happiness aged, content - him in a billowing holiday shirt her in a frock like a flowery tent, well fed and watered, revelries done, waddling home in the evening sun. No strangers I think to good food and drink. Relaxed and unhurried, fat and unworried, they do love their grub and a boisterous pub especially today when its Bank Holiday. Officialdom cautions the old and the fat to eat less of this, cut down on that and points out the issues you ought to address so you won’t be drain on the NHS. But they don’t think twice about meddling advice, taking no measures to cut down on Life’s pleasures, they merrily choose each other and booze and care only whether they’re happy together. They demonstrate how you should live for the now -a worthy philosophy surely until one of them dies prematurely.

Some people I know start an answer with So….. It’s a sort of refrain when they’re asked to explain. Perhaps on TV as an interviewee they’ll be asked for their views on some item of news and they start off with So… and then tell what they know. Or perhaps they’ll address a young trendy professor in a new documentary meant to explain how the Spanish defeated the Moors in Spain. And what do you know - he starts with a So… I don’t hear what comes next ‘cos I’m so flipping vexed. It serves as an irritant, and I get a bit militant. My views are displayed in a modest tirade - That’s not the right function It’s an effing conjunction! you and your snowflake millennial friends with your smug veggie liberal media trends, coolly, offhandedly trying to show you’re a hip metropolitan user of So… Oh for the days of conventional ways where some stern tweedy type took a pull on his pipe, thought for a spell, then began with a Well….

I’ve written a poetry book - there’s a link if you fancy a look. Then you can see if it’s your cup of tea and make a transaction with luck. If you’re feeling a little bit low there are poems - maybe 50 or so. You just put up your feet on the bus or train seat (a bit anti-social I know). Though WH Smith may not stock it, it will fit in a roomy coat pocket you can soon whip it out when you’re out and about. That’s a good selling point - so don’t knock it. In addition, there’s no reason why you can’t use it for swatting a fly it is lethal and keen and will quickly wipe clean - another good reason to buy. You’ll notice how carefully I’m promoting my writing in rhyme which works a lot better than a stiff formal letter or trying to say it with mime or hiring a man with a bell - a Town Crier - to help the thing sell. or hawking my wares at markets and fairs with a versatile actress named Nell (who is feigning to die of TB so they stop and take pity you see) ‘Please purchase my book, for my daughter’s sake look’ - disgraceful I’m sure you’ll agree. So this is a much nicer way - Now I‘ve said what I wanted to say. Just a quick cheeky note to briefly promote my volume of poems today. thank you Sweepings from the Factory Floor

attracted by books and convivial looks I cheerfully stop at a trendy new shop where pricey books lay on arty display the shelves, almost bare uncluttered and spare have a notice which states they’re reclaimed from old crates though miniature cacti mystify lined up like ducks between the sparse books business is thin there’s no-one else in I very soon see this isn’t for me nothing to read nothing you’d need just puzzling selections of photo collections niche little volumes of not very much black and white pictures of nothing as such no landscapes, no faces no people, no places nebulous titles give nothing away nothing to hint what they’re trying to say whose ideal gift would be photos of driftwood? a hipster, role unknown lounges with his phone idly typing jadedly swiping straight outta Hoxton no effing socks on not there to assist he pretends I don’t exist what is this place? this vast waste of space who even looks at these fathomless books? what do they do when they’re done leafing through? the hipster no doubt knows what it’s about one glance can tell if I’m hip clientele but his face says forget it he knows I don’t get it but I still make a show of pretending I know making quite plain my lofty disdain sorry my friend this is way behind trend too hackneyed and worn I am stifling a yawn I came to be thrilled and I leave unfulfilled but I haven’t a clue just who’s fooling who

Bit late for that, it's just a pile of rubble now!

A sizeable crowd has gathered in town to watch as an obsolete building comes down, Just the lonely and elderly looking for ways to fill up the hours of their long empty days, gazing in wonder, flinching in shock at the crash of plummeting concrete block. Watching the destruction, causing an obstruction. It’s something to do ‘til the next bus is due. A notable landmark, I know the place well - it once was an upmarket stylish hotel with a fine reputation for serious nosh back in the days when prawn cocktails were posh. But over the years it faded, grew dated, to a new generation - old hat, overrated. Now monster machinery chomps at the walls, dust clouds erupt as the edifice falls reducing a tower of seventeen floors to a pitiful tangle of rubble and doors. Now I’m pretty busy - got things to do but awed by the spectacle, I stop too. Idly watching slack-jawed for a spell as a mechanoid dinosaur eats a hotel, enjoying each thunderous, sickening crunch, I just need a bucket of popcorn to munch. It’s a sociable crowd, the buzz is quite loud but it’s soon clear to me they don’t see what I see. They have fond reminisces, stories to share - they had dates and romantic proposals in there, 21st birthdays, the odd Christmas do, wedding receptions were held here too. They’re peering through the dusty haze to misty fond-remembered days to a happier time, to a place in its prime recounting how it was back then, recalling shining moments when they were, on joyous afternoons, waved off to seaside honeymoons. Saying goodbye to what survives of fading pages of their lives.

In the bustle of daily commuting I find I increasingly seem to be falling behind its puzzling and rather depressing to see just how many people walk faster than me. I know that it’s not a pedestrian race but there’s still competition to stay with the pace. I’m still in a hurry, my pace isn’t slow but they’re making me look like I’ve nowhere to go. They bustle and weave to the head of the line like their job is much more important than mine. Trying to pretend that as swift over-takers they’re vigorous, go-getting movers and shakers. I used to take pride in my spirited stride and would gleefully wonder how long it would take for the slow and unfit to be left in my wake. I really don’t know when the slowdown began but I’m starting to look like an ambling man. Now I have to accept that a healthy young lad might, in a fair race, beat a something-ish dad But that round little fat girl half my size with an audible rasp from her corduroy thighs whose short chubby arms seem to scoot her along will also dart past in the hurrying throng. And did I imagine or actually see her teddy bear rucksack waving at me? Although she is young and undoubtedly keen she isn’t athletic or sporty or lean, her arse is the oversize waddling kind, so how does she constantly leave me behind? How can I challenge her? what can be done - an undignified trot, a desperate run? Options are few but I know what I’ll do to get back in control - …..I’ll affect a cool stroll. You hurry past baby, I really don’t mind, I’m a man unconcerned with the day to day grind. Fly to your workplace, fast as you can but me, I’m a loose livin’, slow-walkin’ man, just takin’ my time and enjoyin’ the day, not rushin’ around in that hot-headed way. And wherever I go you can safely assume that nothin’ goes down until I’m in the room. I’m takin’ a stroll so the folks gotta wait. And no mother**cker tells me that I’m late. There’ll be envious glances, questioning talk ‘bout the self-possessed guy with nonchalant walk. Brows will be wrinkled, goals re-appraised, serious questions on life could be raised. And I’ll draw on a cigarette cool as can be as they slow to a casual saunter like me.

Shining with triumphant glow I gaze upon my vanquished foe reflecting on the sweat and pain that left him there so soundly slain. I’d stood aside for far too long and watched the beast grow broad and strong but sometimes when the cause is right a man must take up arms and fight, reject the weak defeatist talk and wield the mighty garden fork to slay the brute that I shall dub The All Engulfing Monster Shrub. Unchallenged now for years unknown and menacingly overgrown, it triumphed here for half an age - the Ghengis Khan of foliage. And so I launched my vengeful raid with loppers, fork and trusty spade. With branches slashed much ground was gained, but still the knotted trunk remained. I plunged into the sturdy brute dismembering its tangled root. My anger rage and hate released I sliced and hacked the stubborn beast but even with its guts revealed this creature simply would not yield. Hour on dogged hour we fought but all my efforts came to nought. Weary and frustrated now, a sheen of sweat upon my brow, I briefly thought of sweet retreat but spurned ignoble vile defeat and summoned one last killer blow to finish off my stubborn foe. I heaved and heard a mighty crack then turned the b****** on its back. Disinterred and dying there its roots now reach for nought but air like creepy crawly feelers stilled as if some monstrous bug I’d killed. I lean upon my blade and rest my foot upon its conquered chest. I doubt that you will ever see a man as brave and strong as me. I may erect upon this plot a stone to venerate this spot to mark that noble day I slew the shrub that simply grew and grew.

Sometimes on the news they’ll say This fella got sent down today. They show a picture, black and white, a nasty piece of work alright. The face is chilling, darkly grim, no wonder they arrested him. Of course he’s a criminal, everyone cries, you can tell that he is from the look in his eyes. It is plain from his face that he’s broken the law Why didn’t anyone spot it before? The man is a dangerous weasel-faced rat. You don’t need no Hercule Poirot to see that. And you wonder why, with that in mind, the trial was such a long ‘un when you only have to look at him to see that he’s a wrong ‘un. Why bother with the evidence, the witnesses, the law? they shouldn’t have to go through all that rubbish any more. And as it’s plainly obvious his face so clearly fitted why then even wait…… until a crime has been committed? They ought to send the coppers out so people with such faces are rounded up and put away in tightly guarded places. We all could help the bobbies on their scrutinizing beats by pointing out the miscreants who wander through our streets: Just check the blank expression on this unassuming geezer - I bet he’s chopped his girlfriend up and stored her in the freezer. And this one with the starey eyes - it’s written in his face - he’s plainly plotting slaughter in a crowded public place. and don’t believe this sorry lowlife’s mitigating tale his face says I’m a Reprobate so pack him off to jail. You also might prognosticate from sallow, wan complexions which sad pathetic specimens have nasty predilections. And surely that man’s sunny joviality must hide a dark and dirty secretive, disreputable side? So when you see some shady type you think is maladjusted - something in his halting gait that shows he can’t be trusted or an ordinary businessman whose strangely muddy boots might hint at lonely wayside graves for missing prostitutes, become a crime stopper and tell a passing copper. Just one little nod and the shifty or odd will be taken away. Much simpler I’d say.

I have done up many houses in my decorating trousers - commodious and wide with large pockets on the side they promise easy movement and are quite beyond improvement. Though stained and splished and sploshed they are steadfastly unwashed, with feint emulsion smell they’ve served me very well. I’ve increased the price of houses in my deep and spacious trousers. They once were worn with pleasure for daily wear and leisure both stylish and voluminous, I revelled in their roominess. A casual and modish phase and those were very happy days but sadly they grew dated and so were relegated. For paintin’ now and groutin’ and not fit to go out in this much diminished pair I drag be-crumpled from their carrier bag accepting as I put them on that now those heady days are gone. But though I’ve waved a sad goodbye, now and then I’ll see this guy, who, boldly of his own free will wears this dated style still - swanning past with flowing stride with giant pockets on the side, apparently uncaring of what trousers he is wearing. Has no-one thought to stop and say those trousers are bit passé, no friend to question or condemn, no wife to firmly veto them? And then with condescension I’ll allow myself a mocking smile - and scorn that poor deluded fool whose fashion sense is so uncool. Does he really think he wows us in his buff outmoded trousers? And yet I know that deep inside I too would like to freely stride through public places free of care resplendent in a pristine pair and not to give a hoot who sees my trousers flapping in the breeze the pockets stuffed with all I need, a free and happy man indeed. Yet bound by pride and self-esteem this image must remain a dream. If only on that fateful day I’d reverently stored away my trousers ‘til the moment when they’re hip and happening once again or even just preserved the pair ‘til I’m too old to <Removed> care.

Surely it can’t be that hard to find an appropriate card but why in this shop do I see so little for little old me? This limitless choice is terrific but some are just too damn specific. You can find in these wide-ranging aisles: To my Step Brother Over the Miles, To my Grand Nephew over the Sea, You’re Just Like a Mother to Me, So Happy to Hear That You’re Wed! but Sorry Your Dog is now Dead. If your dad has begun a new life and run off with your trashy ex-wife, there’s a card for the tough moment when you decide that you’re talking again. If your Grandpa is banged up inside ‘cos he strangled his mail order bride, there’s a verse that can neatly convey what you think you are trying to say. If someone you once knew as Jack who had changed to a Jill but switched back has a baby with someone called Butch, there’s a message that covers that much. If someone you didn’t expect joins a infamous middle east sect there’s a leaving card here on the shelf saying Good Riddance, Go **** Yourself. Why can’t people just be Normal like me? My life is not an Eastenders’ plot. I just want to pop into a shop for a card to say Happy Birthday without soppiness or sloppiness without over-sensitivity or laboured inclusivity. No post-modern funnies or cutesy effing bunnies. I don’t want to browse like some big girl’s blouse, just leaf through one or two then mutter… That’ll do.

That’s Bouncy Castle man in his Bouncy Castle van. His face I vaguely know from children’s parties years ago, expecting geniality I found a grim reality of stale booze and neck tattoos. No castle in the back- business must be slack, maybe someone’s stolen it, perhaps it’s got a hole in it. He chauffeured it from door to door and this perhaps became a chore, increasingly dissatisfied and sick of all the hassle he thought there must be more to life than pimping out his castle. Now it seems he’s combing streets collecting broken garden seats, here an old bike wheel, there a jagged bit of steel, rusted kiddie’s swings, twisted, stark, abandoned things some I think forsaken, others slyly taken. Flogged for cash - he’ll know a bloke - some dodgy dealer up the smoke. But are his urban salvage schemes crushing children’s tiny dreams? His van promotes but does not bring the big exciting bouncy thing. ‘Oh Mummy’, they cry as his van clatters by, a death trap of old scrap, ‘Why does that man have a misleading van?‘ Excited hopes are trampled flat - they won’t be jumping round on that. And now they’re nonplussed full of doubt and mistrust, with misgivings growing about the way things are going. Could Santa drive past on a cash-in-hand job - a sleigh full of rubbish, a fag in his gob? And if he’s now earning a crust in this way, might stockings be empty on Christmas day? And they might start to feel that he’s not even real. Mummy has lied, their childhood just died and the world they now face is a mean horrid place. See what you did? for a few measly quid, Scrap Metal man in your Bouncy Castle van.

An old friend rang me up to say come celebrate on Saturday, we haven’t met since God knows when we’ll round the old gang up again. As usual he’d choose a proper back street boozer with sticky carpets, 60’s bogs, where old guys sit with dozing dogs, a no-frills pub for no-frills men - a proper old school drinking den. Not for us a poncey bar with girlies sipping Pinot Noir, or out with those whose afternoons are one long hazy Wetherspoons or shouting in some sweaty place to endless booming Drum n Bass with braying students thinking they’ve just invented drinking. So come the day the lads arrived, amazed this grotty dump survived, the mood nostalgic, light and merry, the banter flowed like hen night perry. Though largely past our youthful prime, still having such a jolly time. But later when I paid a call whilst pointing percy at the wall I heard an inauspicious slosh and found the toilet floor awash. A recent client, ham of fist, had aimed perhaps but…largely missed. Emerging from that fetid place I still maintained a cheery face but now I faced a dampened night for one shoe wasn’t watertight. This episode imbued a slow decline in mood, my ribaldry had ended, a cloud of gloom descended. This inattentive urination now prompted wider rumination, a taking stock of what I’ve got, reflecting on my current lot – questioning the paths I choose, the friends I keep, my choice of shoes. Boozing in a back street slum, ponging like a wino bum, however did I sink to this? my sock is soaked in someone’s p**s. I could not shrug or simply scoff my foot too wet to laugh it off. But now I might suggest that when we get together once again perhaps we could identify somewhere nicer, somewhere dry. Though poncey bars are not our scene there must be something in between with modern chic facilities and freshly cleaned utilities - a Local run efficiently where punters point proficiently. The sock, as soon as I got in, was dropped into the outside bin, then after gravely mulling through the future of that bloody shoe I judged its fate to be the same – the shoe must shoulder all the blame. I chucked it out and set to rights my post traumatic sleepless nights. But sympathisers shouldn’t fret - my foot just got a little wet, I paddled in a warmish tide. Now it’s over. No-one died. And now with time and quiet rest I’m almost wholly convalesced.

Rushing, waiting, strolling by, they go the way I go, the daily cast of characters I see but do not know. A ginger girl who takes her dog to do what doggies do and on her pudgy finger swings a little bag of poo, a crumpled, beige, deflated man so crushingly alone, perhaps a sad librarian or lowly office drone, that dapper, pigeon-chested gent so elegant and grand, at four foot two a ringer for the mayor of Munchkin land, the gloomy Pole who sometimes brings another Pole along, his spirits clearly lifted by his murky mother tongue, the beauty salon lady with the wood preserver tan displaying all the beauty care a fifty-something can. the careworn carer trudging off down grim suburban roads another day of changing beds and emptying commodes, Amongst this throng I saunter along - same faces, same places, same cogs in the machine, shackled to routine. All stick to the tradition - no hint of recognition. Don’t catch an eye. just scurry by. Walk, don’t talk or nod. Thank God Because smile, nod, nod, smile would get pretty tiresome after a while just to say Hey - we go the same way every day. Yay. Why pretend you’re someone’s friend? or risk an erroneous Hello to some bloke you don’t know? We seem to get on very well in isolated parallel. So there goes Beardo, Wierdo, Boozer, Loser, the fella with the psycho eyes, the lady with the thunderthighs and lots of folks I’ll never know but go the way I go.

And finally, the headlines say - someone famous died today. The highlights of their life are shown - a leading actor, widely known. You note the loss and carry on, it’s not like someone close is gone. But almost every other day some public face will pass away - a movie star with lasting fame, some faded former household name, a legend in the world of Rock whose early death is such a shock and those the daily papers choose to tuck away with lesser news: entertainers, sit com stars, a character in Z Cars, comedians now seen to be spectacularly un-PC. Some half-remembered name or face can take you to another place and deepening nostalgia grows for long gone teatime kiddies shows, classic dramas, shared delights, and cosy gathered Christmas nights. The passing of the famous lends no mourning as with special friends but still I feel they’ve grown to be perhaps a little bit of me as recollections left behind in dusty corners of the mind. And then with every passing day I find these pieces swept away. Yet still I’m in a healthy state, I know I won’t disintegrate. These memories are merely fluff compared to stronger, deeper stuff But still I’m more aware of how a fading world seems further now.

It looks sound asleep on the path, on its side but no, its not dozing or resting it died. Recent I’d say, it’s not rotting away. Fresh off the tree it looks like to me. Its squirrel friends, weeping, know its not sleeping, their squirrel caps doffed as they scurry aloft. And there it will lie with the world passing by to furnish a feast for some hungry wee beast and myriad miniscule mites to enjoy, or will it be nudged by a snotty small boy with a stick who will pick and poke ‘til some bloke in hi-vis, with official approval, oversees its removal. The go-to guy when squirrels die. It’s only a grey, you might say, as he wheels it away on a bed of old leaves as its squirrel wife grieves. It’s sad that it’s dead but I’m glad it’s not red.

He’s a hulking great slab of flubbery flab whose doughy excesses and elbow and knee spill over his seat and across onto me so I’m caught in a rib-crushing weighty compression like a medieval way of extracting confession. And he’s brought along snacks in large multipacks to manfully munch before he has lunch: bite size pork pies, a cheap and nasty corned beef pasty, a tubful of mini rolls suitably dinky, a large pack of party bites curried and stinky. He also smells faintly of cheese, he could do with a squirt of Febreze Reason enough to flounce off in a huff but the train is too full so… there’s nowhere to go. And why should I let the smelly fat get take over my spot like the Magic Porridge Pot? There seems little chance I could halt the advance. Would the fat sod even feel a sharp prod? Complaints would be futile, I can’t put the boot in, I’m like a small nation encroached on by Putin. But I stubbornly cling to my slim half-a-seat, feeling him wheezing, hearing him eat and pray I don’t come to no permanent harm as another spare tyre flows over the arm.