Winter walks

So today was another tube strike and after the stress of the last one; hundreds of people queuing at the bus stop and charging towards the suspiciously late buses, packed out, people's faces squashed against the doors, I decided not to bother rushing. I was either going to get out early or late. So, late it was. I was up and dressed by eight, so I just pottered around for an hour. Gazed out of the window, there was a remarkable lack of people on the street; maybe they were leaving late too? I spent ages looking at a Christmas Card I bought yesterday of a girl and her cat staring out the window, waiting, wondering who I should send the card to. The postman came so I opened my post.

When I left the house it was still quiet, a few people around; scarves, hats -specifically big Russian hats and thick overcoats. The bus was quiet enough to get a seat, and lose myself in the crazy world of Bill Drummond. The Justified ancients of Mu Mu indeed. The winter quiet reminds me of last Saturday when I left the house to collect my food. The match was on and I walked past the stadium, the buzz of the crowd getting louder as I approached. There were a few bored policemen on street corners but nobody else. TVs were on in the bay windows of the houses. I walked past the allotments that slope down to the railway line near Drayton Park. They must have scored, there was a huge cheer from the stadium, and seconds later from somebody in his house. He should have stuck his head out the window, he'd have got the score in real time.

After I'd collected my fruit and veg, you could feel the match was about to be over. The police were standing up straight, radio-ing other officers, the stadium announcing the way to leave. The cafes and bars were gearing up for the post-match crowd. I walked home and closed the door, put the heating up and searched for an afternoon film to watch. The adverts are all Christmas adverts. Is Christmas coming early this year?

Career Opportunities (Part 4)

1988 and the world is changing but I’m still standing in front of the weighing scales, weighing boxes of bacon just the same as last year, except now Bros are playing on the radio speaker above my head. This is so depressing. I’ve bought the Morrissey album. I’ve taped a couple of Smiths albums too. ‘If you must go to work tomorrow, then if I was you I really wouldn’t bother…’ Now there’s an idea. The factory hours change to 8 till 5. They take away the smoke breaks, (the men would file down to a smoke filled room downstairs and the women would sit in an upstairs room twice a day). They also stop the 11.30 finish on Friday and it becomes 1 o’clock. Boy, does that last hour and a half drag. They take on two managers, Jack and Geoff, in a bid to increase productivity. Big mistake. Geoff’s a nice guy, but Jack is a moron. He just paces around, thinks he’s a time and motion man. One day he approaches me while I’m weighing bacon.

“I’ve been watching you. You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself. Why is that?”

“That’ll be because I’m not.”

Jack doesn’t respect honesty. Paul and I start to get the blame for everything. We laugh too loudly, we take longer lunch breaks. Water gets spilt on the stairs and some housewife slips and nearly breaks her neck. We get the blame. It wasn’t us but the next time we’re late, we’re asked why and Paul replies:

“We were washing the stairs.”

This doesn’t go down too well.

On my 18^th birthday I take the day off. I run into this guy Will Ryman, who’s always hanging around town. He never has the same job for long, if he bothers working, but he never seems short of cash. Rumour has it he sleeps on the floor at his ex-girlfriend’s house. He calls everyone man and wears big baggy C-17 jeans covered in patches. A few months after he first appears it seems the whole town’s wearing C-17 jeans or the Pepe copies. I’m not wearing a cheap version, I’ve got a job. I buy the C-17 dungarees with the patches.

“I’m off to the job agencies man, come along if you’ve nothing to do.”

At the agencies they have jobs in the window, which, when you inquire about them, aren’t actually available. We fill in the forms and the woman tells us to wait while she checks the files. I’m sitting there dutifully.

“C’mon we haven’t time to wait for her, onto the next one man.”

We head over to the next agency, fill in the form and don’t wait for her either. I figure they won’t call. I didn’t even fill in my form properly.

I start taking a day off a week, usually Wednesday to break the week up. One day I return home and my mum says, “these agencies keep calling for you offering you work.” I’m liking the idea, I could work all different places, work a few days, take a few days off till the money runs out, and then get another temp job. I’m not interested in all that get a job and keep it till you get another one, make sure your CV doesn’t have any employment gaps on it type attitude. My CV says I work in a meat factory. This hasn't been getting me very far.

Paul’s determined to leave. He comes in one Monday and says he’s been offered a job at Tesco’s and he’s got his notice in his hand and he’s going to give it to Tony Adsett this morning. I tell him I will to. I go over to a slightly wet metal table and hastily write out my notice.

“I’ve told Tony,” he says.

I go over to Tony with my note.

“I’m leaving too,” I say.

“You as well. Are you going to Tesco’s too?” he asks.

“No, I’m just leaving.”

“Well don’t hand your notice in till you’ve got another job.”

“No, it’s OK, I’ll be alright, I’m going to leave.

It’s the Thursday and I clock in, knowing this is the last time I’ll do this. Matt Clark isn’t in today so yesterday he was saying how I had to be in on Friday. I can’t come in anyway, I’m booked in to collect my contact lenses tomorrow, so I’ll be able to see at last. Besides it’s pay day, another week’s wages plus tax rebate to go with the £500 I have saved.

It gets around that we’re not coming in tomorrow, so people come and say goodbye. I’ve been trying to keep it quiet because things happen when you’re leaving. When one of the butchers left they stripped him naked, tied him to a chair and took him upstairs.

Nothing happens though. We clock out, I arrange to meet Paul at twelve the next day at Mcdonalds, then I get the van home. The van, with the chat going across, I’m waiting as we crawl along, hoping they won't ask me any questions about the fact I'm leaving. I don't want their opinion. It reaches town where a few people get out, I tell Bert I’m getting out here too.

“See you tomorrow,” someone says. I slam the van door shut, turn and cross the road out of sight and start walking towards the future.

Career Opportunities (Part 3)

So let’s get this straight, you get 4 weeks off a year, plus bank holidays and weekends and that’s it, rolling on into the future till you’re 65, which in my case is 48 years off. You work one job until you get another. And get this, you have to be grateful because in today’s climate you’re lucky to have a job. These are the unwritten rules.

At work I’m considered quite thick. You’re being watched, they’re waiting for you to make a mistake, because thick people work here and just as long as it’s you and not them everybody’s happy. I’m starting to believe the hype. I’m short sighted but too vain to wear glasses, so when people gesticulate to me from far away, I just squint and wave. I’m insulated in my own world to escape the boredom, with ‘Tommy’ going round my head. I wear the worst clothes; an unwanted jumper I got as a Christmas present, tight faded jeans, all hidden under the blue overalls anyway, with steel toecap Dr Martin shoes - a good grip against the greasy floors. People tend to write their name on the white caps we have to wear. I’ve written ‘Hat’ on mine. Whenever the inspectors come over we have to wear hairnets, the rest of the time we don’t bother. My clothes stink of meat and when I get home I change immediately, part of the process of separating work from home life. But the smell of meat never quite goes away.

1987 doesn’t get off to a good start. I’m sent to work downstairs in the beef department, amongst a bunch of butchers where the piss taking is turned up to ten. I start the morning breaking ice off slabs of meat with an iron bar. I’m trying to blend in with the walls to avoid the butchers’ attention. I move over to the EDL department, the wall blending fails when Mole lets me use his donkey (which is basically a couple of forks with an electric steering handle used to pick up pallets). I think I’m getting the hang of it when I come through the plastic partition the same time as Mole comes the other way and I smash into his ankle. Poor guy, he’s flat out and bleeding. Mole is off work for a week.

By the time he returns I’m sent up to work in the bacon department. In the bacon department you queue in the morning and Steph dishes the jobs out. I always try to get put on the weighing machines. You put the packaged bacon on the machine, it produces a label with the price, you stick it the price on and put the package in a box. Box full, you send it down the production line and start on another. A guy at the end makes the boxes and you shout ‘boxes’ at him when you want more. For amusement I put the bacon on the scale and lift the scale up slightly to see how much I can reduce the price. One time I send a big slab of bacon out priced at 4p.

The days are depressing me, you live for the feeling of relief that you’re going home. Sunday nights I lie awake unable to sleep wondering what I’m going to do with my life. I lose myself in a world of books and music. I have a CD player but there aren’t that many CDs available. The Beatles being Beatles do it properly. George Martin pops into Abbey road to clean up the master tapes and the CDs are released in order, Sgt Pepper being released on CD exactly 20 years after the original was released. I’m getting intrigued and start buying the CDs as they come out. I’m not that bothered by ‘Please, Please Me’ so I wait for ‘Help’ then get ‘Revolver’, and I’m starting to get hooked. It’s not that far from the Who, and you can hear sounds in it that people like Paul Weller picked up on. I start listening to the Sex Pistols and the Clash. I work in a meat factory. ‘Career Opportunities’ says more to me about my life than anything else around. I’m looking for something new though, something you can go and see rather than just read about.

The Beastie Boys are beginning to hit big. Matt and I have tickets to see them with Run DMC at Brighton Arena. A few others have promised to come down too. I’m not sure about it, this is my first ever gig. When people ask me in ten years time what my first gig was I’m going to have to remind them of a long forgotten one hit wonder comedy white rap act. But I’m beginning to love them. They have a song called ‘Girls’ which is them rapping over a cheap keyboard pre-tune. It is clearly the best song ever. They appear on TV, jumping up and down on stage, a girl in a cage behind them. Then they turn up at the airport and swear at the British reporters. It doesn’t get any better than this. Mike D has a VW sign around his neck. People start to copy him, it becomes a craze. Mole’s VW gets beastied.

At the Liverpool gig a riot ensues when the Beasties take to the stage. Suddenly no-one is going to the Beastie Boys gig anymore. Matt is talking of driving there later and just seeing Run DMC. I’m naïve; who cares about a riot? I want to see the Beastie Boys. He eventually agrees and drives us there in his white beetle.

We stand near the back to watch the Beastie Boys. Matt does his neck strutting dance and I copy him. After a couple of drinks I head into the crowd for Run DMC. I’m right in the thick of it and as the band take the stage the mosh pit pushes backwards and forwards violently. I lose my balance and fall into the masses. All I can see is legs. Great, first gig and I’m going to get crushed to…

A huge guy lunges in and pulls me out of the crowd.

“You alright mate?” he asks.

“Yeah, cheers.”

Back at work things are as oppressive as ever, but we do manage to have a laugh sometimes. Rik Mayall is the biggest comedian ever and we are all huge Rik fans. Me and Paul are re-enacting some Dangerous Brothers stuff at the weighing machines one day when this guy Jamie turns round and starts joining in with the quotes. He could recite word for word the lot. He’d been to art school for a year then due to parental pressure got a job. He was pretty shy and ate his lunch in the locker room alone. But mention Rik Mayall and he sprang to life. We become friends and meet up to go to Brighton to buy records some Saturdays.

People come and go from the factory but not me. Icontact one agency and they ring back enthusiastically about a job in a hi-fi shop, because I’ve told them I'm interested in music. I ask them to put me forward for it. Leave it to me they reply. It sounds like I'm in good hands. It’s my first dealings with agencies. I never hear from them again.

I take a week off. I’ve nothing planned I just don’t want to go to work. Walking along Hurst Road I hear my name being called from a loudspeaker. It’s Mole, who’s hooked up a speaker to his car so he can sing ‘Are you lonesome tonight’ to passing girls. We hang around for the week playing pitch and putt and drinking in the Crown.

Eventually they put me onto the end of the production line. This is a pretty good job because you get to work under the radio speaker, which is virtually the only place you can hear it due to the noise from the machines. You weigh the boxes of meat, write the weight on the box and put it on a pallet, until the pallet was full. Den, a mad ex-teddy boy from the fifties picks them up and delivers your pallets to you. He always sits in the same place in the canteen. He has this method for catching flies.

“You just got to follow it along the table then clap your hands in the air above where you think they’ll be, ‘coz they’re fast and then they’ll fly into your hands.”

One day a butcher called Wally comes up to me and says:

“Why do you work here?”

I ask myself this regularly but nobody else ever does.

“Well it’s money isn’t it?” I shrug.

“This place is alright for people like him,” he says, pointing to someone a bit backward, “but you’re wasting your time here. You’re not stupid.”

1987 is disappearing out of sight to the sound of the Proclaimers and T’Pau’s ‘China in your Hand’, and still I work in a meat factory. I’m looking down the production line at the lads cutting the meat, the housewives loading up the vat pack, the lads and girls on the weighing machines. They say you should be grateful for a job in this day and age, there’s some who can’t get work. They say it’s easier to get a job if you’ve already got a job, you don’t want any gaps on your CV.

I apply for a couple of jobs, my hard work rewarded with two rejection letters. So you don’t want a meat packer with four CSEs working in your office ‘eh, penpusher? Something has to change. I’ll be eighteen next year. There’s no way I’m working here when I’m eighteen.

Keef

Hey get this, I'm on my way out of Honolulu, when the customs guy picks up Bobby Keys' saxophone and a syringe falls out. He's busted and I'm next in line with Keef. (What are you talking about Davison? You're on a crowded bus in rush hour London on the day of the tube strike). Oh great, so I'm momentarily sent hurtling back to reality, surrounded by people on mobiles, phoning home to explain they won't be on time for dinner because the traffic's backed up for miles.

I was at Waterstones in Piccadilly as Keith Richards was turning up to sign his book, which I've been getting into since I bought it last Monday. I turn up late, the queue big, the security as helpful as ever.

"How many people roughly have been through so far, 100, 200?"

"It's not for me to say."

Great, another unhelpful thick shit who can't count is put in charge. The table where Mr Richards sits is surrounded and I don't even catch a glimpse of him. I just wanted to check he was real.

Reality isn't what I need this week, everything is falling down, having to deal with idiots entangled in crappy administration systems which fail you every time (Yes you - Islington council), customer services that never offer you a thing until you're leaving. Too little too late fuckers. I'm getting through the crazed world of Keef with the drug busts, the dealings at customs and all the crazy characters on the world tours, waiting for Sunday.

Sunday is where it's at. Ah, sweet Sunday. Tracy is working at the t-shirt shop so I'm cooking. The sweet smell of Bramley apples drifts from the kitchen, the lamb is slow cooking in the oven and the coffee is on the hob bubbling away. The heating is on, the 45s and 33 1/3s were dusted off and on the turntable earlier, but now I'm listening to Mr Cocker on 6 music, with his wonderful crackling records, on an autumn day.

The next time I go to Honolulu it'll be with Mr Oliver and Mr Hardy. Honolulu baby, where'd ya get those eyes?

Thirty-Three

So on my second week off all is good. The new Belle & Sebastian record is released which I buy from the friendly guy at Rough Trade West. Even the news is good; 33 Chilean miners successfully rescued months earlier than anticipated. I'm feeling relaxed and look at the tension around me in a bemused fashion; the cyclist arguing with the car driver, the girls playing truant shouting at the policemen that they don't understand, repeatedly, as they try and think up a plausible story. I'm sailing by on all this free time. And who's that over there? I could swear it's Richard Dawkins standing at the station, by those Christian posters, you know the ones, they say 'Do you believe in God?' then they have three options: Yes, no, maybe. Dawkins has a big black marker pen and is frantically putting a big tick in the 'no' box and stamping his foot, like Rumplestiltskin being told we all know his name.

I go to visit my sister who has a new daughter, brand new, two weeks old when I turn up. Beautiful. Then I go to my parents' house. It's funny going home, funny walking the streets, it's like in the Magician's Nephew when they go to the ruins of the city with all the people turned to stone. Something happened here only it was a long time ago, and all the people who made the town what it was have disappeared. Some of the buildings and streets have changed, some of the landmarks are still here, but they're full of other, unknown people. Mind you, if I ventured further than the distance between the station and my parents' house I might see someone from the old days.

The week back at work starts OK - whatever was I worried about? - but then it starts to decline. The news is bad, some fat cheeked fool announces the budget and the next thing you know Ian Duncan-Smith is on the television having a go at the Welsh. Telling them to get out of their town and to the job centre in Cardiff. Listen Duncan-Pillock, there is NOTHING written on those cards in the Job centre that could ever be called a job.

Then it's another early morning and I'm having trouble pushing the buttons through the button-holes on my shirt sleeves. Why does this stress me out so? Maybe I'll play truant, at least the police won't stop me.

Postcards from Ibiza (Part 3)

Being on holiday, you don’t need to be anywhere, you don’t need to rush but there’s still something inside pushing you along. If you took me to paradise I’d say this is perfect, where are we going next? I’m kind of fidgety, maybe we’re all like that? If the moment is perfect you still feel the need to leave it, because a perfect moment is always in danger of being made imperfect by outside forces, or by going on too long. So we lie on the beach in Portinatx, we lie on the beach in Santa Eularia, looking at the sun kissed Mediterranean sea calling out to us, then swim in the clear Mediterranean water, looking back at the beach calling out to us to come and dry off on its warm sand.

We do a bit of Kayaking. On the beach waiting for the party before us to come back to shore, I’m worried I’m not going to be able to control the Kayak. There’s a woman stuck only a few metres out. If I get stuck I want to be way out to sea. OK, no-one will see me to rescue me but more importantly, they won’t be able to stare, point and laugh. A couple of Kayakers return to shore, we put the life jackets on, and off we go. We’re soon getting the hang of it - I think I was born to do this - the beach is far behind us, we’re out to sea and bobbing about, the sound of hollow plastic hitting against the water.

I go on a mountain bike expedition. There are three of us, Josh, who’s 16 and from Dundee, who I like, we met him when we were playing table tennis and he immediately offered us his ping pong stuff. He’s friendly and good mannered and enjoying his two weeks in the sun. I think if you’re 16 the hotel must be ideal. Then there’s our leader, Stephen, who’s Dutch, and has a habit of saying: ‘Don’t die Josh’, or ‘How many times did you die out there?’ We travel 11 kilometres, starting off fast downhill, the hills ahead of us, then off-road into the forest covering the red-brown ground before hitting rocky ground. The suspension on this bike is amazing, I wouldn’t want to try this on my bike back home. We stop off to look over the cliffs.

"It's beautiful up here, yes?" says Stephen, as we look at the twinkling blue ocean below.

Below in the bay he points out the ghostly shell of a hotel, all the brick work but nothing more. Apparently it was half built then it was discovered the building was illegal as its owners had no planning permission. So it stays there unfinished, haunting an otherwise perfect bay.

We carry on up to the lighthouse where we stare over the cliffs. There is a lot of glass here from parties and a rusty car lies smashed on the rocks below. Our guide takes us to a bar in Portinatx where I get a well deserved fresh orange. Josh is knackered and decides he’s deserved a pint of San Miguel. Oh to be young again.

The guides like giving orders. Stephen guides us across the rocks telling us the best way to ride the bike, how to use the breaks, how to use the gears. When we finish for the morning, he’s still giving advice.

“OK, get a shower or take a dip in the pool.”

Slightly patronising, especially as I’ve been supervising my own showers since I was 34. But the guy’s OK, he’s got an interesting job; taking people out Kayaking and mountain biking, resting up in the afternoon and performing the shows in the evening, it beats the real world.

The real world, our real world is calling us. An evening in the Zulu lounge restaurant; drinking wine, watching the lights of the yachts in the bay, listening to the sea on the shore. A last day in the sun, schools of fish swimming around us and bumping into our feet. We’ll take these memories back with us, back to the English autumn.

Postcards from Ibiza (Part 2)

Another blue sky day and the stresses of the life we’ve made/fell into are falling away until we’ve nothing to worry about, apart from the insect bites (about 3 daily) and the fact the arm on my shades is loose so if I lean forwards they slip off my face. Important stuff.

Different characters at the hotel are making themselves apparent. There’s the posh couple who take a decanter of wine for dinner instead of a glass, the big couple who hang around the back for the entertainments looking non-plussed. Then there’s the big friendly-looking Scottish fellow, he looks a little like Buster Bloodvessel, who we see one time dive bombing into the swimming pool creating a tidal wave to wake the surrounding sunbathers.

We develop the theory that the hotel booze is so watered down you can’t get drunk on it. This is an all inclusive hotel, you can go in any time of day and get free drink yet we don’t really see anyone drunk. To put this to the test we order endless wine and settle down to watch the evening's entertainment. As we drink we notice a couple who fetch drinks by hopping in their socked feet to the bar. Surely this isn’t the behaviour of the sober? The entertainment consists of a themed evening, tonight 'Saturday Night Fever', that the cast dance and mime along to. This is better than it sounds, perhaps due to the hot Ibizian night, maybe down to Olivia, a long haired entertainer who's clearly relishing his role, and has a big booming voice he likes to employ regularly, introducing and closing the evening in four languages.

Before the clock has struck nine there’s people being sick in the toilets, disproving completely, the theory that you can't get drunk on the hotel booze. It's not us being sick, I should add, we’re busy applauding the evening's entertainment as if it’s the best thing we’ve ever seen, and right now, with this amount of free wine in us, it is.