Revision's getting me down. Cramped in a tiny space, staring at a small screen, genuinely not remembering what my life was like before exam season started. I have a vague recollection of it, but it feels a little bit like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. That was my life then, this is my life now. Everyone tries, but no-one quite understands your pain.
With that in mind, to alleviate the stress, I'm going on an organised coach trip with a load of old people, my mother and my septuagenarian grandparents. At least, I assume the coach trip will be full of old people. I don't think it's going to be like This is Spinal Tap, put it that way. Admittedly, Paris lies at the end of this coach-trip, much in the same way that both Heaven and Hell lie at the end of purgatory.
My Mum's been on several coach trips recently. She says they're fun, but I think she means 'laughing at the moronic people is fun'.
Case in point: 4 days into her coach trip around the USA, they were asked to say a little about themselves. Anodyne stuff, until one Australian bloke declared,
'Hi, I'm Peter, and I'm bitter'.
And that was the end of the exercise.
I can't guarantee to blog about the architecture of Notre Dame, or the fine French cuisine, but rest assured, gems like these will be diligently reported.
My experiences of coach trips in recent years have been largely punctuated by awful, interminable official coaches travelling to away days with the Blues, in which bus drivers 'hilariously' put on Mission: Impossible as we travelled to North London for an ultimately fruitless relegation showdown. As if that wasn't bad enough, on the way home we were treated to an 'outrageous' 'flick' with 'Eddie Murphy' whilst people looked forward to the prospects of another coach trip to Barnsley.
So what do I expect from my four days with the cast of Cocoon? Fourth toilet stop by Dover? Pickled onions being passed round the back of the bus? Eddie Murphy? It doesn't bear thinking about, it really doesn't.
I might be being pessimistic. When I informed Twitter of my impending holiday, I was told by one person that it would be like 'going on holiday with twenty versions of your Nan'. Bon-bons, Horlicks and racist generalisations, then.
The last time I went to Paris for an extended period of time (mysterious, no?), I cried at seeing Captain Hook and shit myself. That won't be happening this time.
We're not going to Disneyland.
*credit to one of my followers on Twitter for the title- the best effort in a plethora of wonderful puns*
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Re-marks on hitting 20
I'm 20 next Sunday.
Normally, I'd think to myself, like every birthday, that 'oh, it doesn't feel that different to 19, or even 12'.
But it really, really does. There's an old cricketer's adage that once reaching a half-century, or a century, you should re-mark your guard, and build your innings again. The equivalent to that tit in every Sunday League football side that shouts 'it's still 0-0!' Even though it's not 0-0. Baffling.
The last few months almost seem like they've been designed for me to re-mark my guard. I never hit a century in cricket, or a half-century, but I did once hit 20. So I'm re-marking here.
Figures from my childhood have been outed as horrible, vile monsters, cheating me into giving them my laughter and attention. Other lynchpins of my childhood have disappeared into glorious and deserved retirement, when you believed they'd go on forever. Whoever decides these things have even released my favourite novel as a film a week before my birthday, almost by way of drawing a line under the last twenty years.
I didn't write a blog when I was 10, mercifully. I was on holiday in Amsterdam. Canal trips and museums, not weed and whores, before you ask. But if I did, I'd have jotted down the following conversations 10-year-old me might have had with present-day me.
'Go on, Ed'.
'What?'
'There's The Great Gatsby. Take it by way of a birthday present'.
'But I don't want it. The film will be a let-down. There's no way they can transfer the floral prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald onto the big screen. Especially with Baz Luhrmann at the helm. Did you keep the receipt?'
'It's non-returnable. It's the Apollo in Leamington meeting Hollywood. They don't do receipts. Now go and watch it, and find a different book to define yourself by for the next ten years. Maybe some Ben Elton'.
'Oy, Ted'.
'What? Why are you calling me Ted? That's a name from my childhood'.
'Sir Alex Ferguson has retired. David Moyes has taken over'.
'What? David Moyes? He's still Preston manager, isn't he? I remember, they beat us in the play-offs, like, yesterday, and I'm still not quite over it, and-'
'Well, he's clearly got over it. He's Manchester United manager. And why haven't you got over it? You won a trophy. You saw it, with your sister. A generation to finally see Blues win a trophy whilst still being at school. That wiped away all the pain'.
'Ed. Wake up. Sports Report. The music. Start whistling'.
'Fantastic. Is that funny bloke still on it? Really like him. Proper, vintage voice. Old-school'.
'He's run into some trouble. Pleading guilty to some nasty crimes'.
'Oh, really? But I always loved driving home from the match with my Dad, laughing at him, wondering what on earth was going on in the match. I really hope it doesn't taint memories for people'.
'Ed. Ed. Why aren't you revising?'
'Revising? I don't need to revise. I'm going to be a footballer'.
'You're not. You were crap at football. You were crap at all sport. You dance instead'.
'Fuck off'.
In some ways it feels like someone's given me an Etch-a-Sketch as an early birthday present, imploring me into wiping it clean, and urging me to move on and find new things to define my life by, rather than Paul Scholes. I guess that can't be a bad thing. In other ways, it feels like Armageddon, as if the Millennium Bug will somehow shut down my body when I have to put a '2' as the first digit in my age.
You'd think, in a digital age, this sort of stuff wouldn't happen. I don't mean my body shutting down, that's nonsense. I mean feeling distanced from the past. I'm a couple of clicks away from locating 'Brum' on YouTube, or a Paddington audiobook. But even that's a contradiction. Clicks? YouTube? Audiobook?
Plus รงa change...
Normally, I'd think to myself, like every birthday, that 'oh, it doesn't feel that different to 19, or even 12'.
But it really, really does. There's an old cricketer's adage that once reaching a half-century, or a century, you should re-mark your guard, and build your innings again. The equivalent to that tit in every Sunday League football side that shouts 'it's still 0-0!' Even though it's not 0-0. Baffling.
 |
| Spot the world-weary one |
Figures from my childhood have been outed as horrible, vile monsters, cheating me into giving them my laughter and attention. Other lynchpins of my childhood have disappeared into glorious and deserved retirement, when you believed they'd go on forever. Whoever decides these things have even released my favourite novel as a film a week before my birthday, almost by way of drawing a line under the last twenty years.
I didn't write a blog when I was 10, mercifully. I was on holiday in Amsterdam. Canal trips and museums, not weed and whores, before you ask. But if I did, I'd have jotted down the following conversations 10-year-old me might have had with present-day me.
'Go on, Ed'.
'What?'
'There's The Great Gatsby. Take it by way of a birthday present'.
'But I don't want it. The film will be a let-down. There's no way they can transfer the floral prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald onto the big screen. Especially with Baz Luhrmann at the helm. Did you keep the receipt?'
'It's non-returnable. It's the Apollo in Leamington meeting Hollywood. They don't do receipts. Now go and watch it, and find a different book to define yourself by for the next ten years. Maybe some Ben Elton'.
'Oy, Ted'.
'What? Why are you calling me Ted? That's a name from my childhood'.
'Sir Alex Ferguson has retired. David Moyes has taken over'.
'What? David Moyes? He's still Preston manager, isn't he? I remember, they beat us in the play-offs, like, yesterday, and I'm still not quite over it, and-'
'Well, he's clearly got over it. He's Manchester United manager. And why haven't you got over it? You won a trophy. You saw it, with your sister. A generation to finally see Blues win a trophy whilst still being at school. That wiped away all the pain'.
'Ed. Wake up. Sports Report. The music. Start whistling'.
'Fantastic. Is that funny bloke still on it? Really like him. Proper, vintage voice. Old-school'.
'He's run into some trouble. Pleading guilty to some nasty crimes'.
'Oh, really? But I always loved driving home from the match with my Dad, laughing at him, wondering what on earth was going on in the match. I really hope it doesn't taint memories for people'.
'Ed. Ed. Why aren't you revising?'
'Revising? I don't need to revise. I'm going to be a footballer'.
'You're not. You were crap at football. You were crap at all sport. You dance instead'.
'Fuck off'.
In some ways it feels like someone's given me an Etch-a-Sketch as an early birthday present, imploring me into wiping it clean, and urging me to move on and find new things to define my life by, rather than Paul Scholes. I guess that can't be a bad thing. In other ways, it feels like Armageddon, as if the Millennium Bug will somehow shut down my body when I have to put a '2' as the first digit in my age.
You'd think, in a digital age, this sort of stuff wouldn't happen. I don't mean my body shutting down, that's nonsense. I mean feeling distanced from the past. I'm a couple of clicks away from locating 'Brum' on YouTube, or a Paddington audiobook. But even that's a contradiction. Clicks? YouTube? Audiobook?
Plus รงa change...
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