A bug’s life

I had a lovely time at the beginning of the month driving with Mrs Burnett to see friends in Northern Ireland, a roadtrip across three different islands and three different countries, with a 3.5 hour run at the front of a large boat where I chugged as many cans of Pepsi as my poor stomach could take because I'd paid extra for lounge access. I now know exactly what a foam fire extinguisher feels like. 

We drove, and the amazing thing when we got to our destination in Northern Ireland was not that it was sunny (though it was indeed amazing – our third visit and the first time we've seen shadows) but that the car was absolutely festooned with dead bugs. The windscreen was so badly smeared it could have been a bathroom window, the numberplate riddled with more legs and wings than a south London chicken shop. 

It made me realise that it's been a goodly amount of time since I've seen such a massacre of invertebrates on the car, at least in the UK. There are some interesting possible reasons behind this – a warmer, wetter spring following a drier winter has meant that bug have managed to survive long enough to be thwacked in the face with a Hyundai. Or perhaps the biodiversity of Northern Ireland is simply better – it's a lush green agricultural land, with cows and sheep aplenty. Or it could be that the insects round those parts are exceptionally stupid and are attracted to fast moving, brightly coloured hunks of metal. 

Coincidentally, I saw on my return to pastures less green but still more green than most other places that the annual dead insect count is set to take place shortly. Basically there’s an organisation that gets motorists to drive around for a bit and then stick a thing on their numberplates to see how boned we are on the climate. Fingers crossed people, but I think it’s looking good. But not if you’re a fly. 

Sun’s out, but let’s give peace a chance

The weather has been quite nice over the last week or two, which is lovely, but I did hear someone roll out a distinctly bleached out phrase the other day. ‘Sun’s out, guns out’, they said. That wasn’t the only thing they said, would have been totally weird if they just walked off after four words, but I didn’t transcribe the rest of the conversation.

It’s a strange thing to say, though. Now actually I can well understand that a period of nice weather is particular desirable in a military situation, you don’t want to be getting bogged down on the battlefield, do you. But at the same time, do you want to be giving away tactics on such a sensitive subject? Hardly going to be taking the enemy by surprise when your strategy is available to order from Etsy stitched on a cap.

I do gather that this person could also have been taken to understand that they intended to air their upper arms during this period of sunny weather, but looking at them I really don’t think it’s anything they would have meant to brag about. Unless direct sunlight is essential to the muscle increasing process, in which case they should have at it.

Personally I don’t like to put too much pressure on the weather – ‘sun’s out, I’ll think about going out myself, but who knows whether it’ll actually last until I’ve finished work?’. Doesn’t look quite the same on a hat, but it’s more realistic.

Truth be told, if the sun’s out I’ll probably be doing much the same as I would have been doing if it was cold and wet, I’ll just be going about it in a slightly happier fashion. Which reminds me, I need to pop to the supermarket. Won’t need the umbrella today thank goodness. 

I’m introducing some tariffs

I’m not entirely sure how all of this works, but I’ve decided to announce tariffs on everything people give me. Again, not sure how it works but I expect I’ll get very rich very quickly and it’ll serve them right for trying to give me stuff.

It’s worked already on a coffee I ordered this morning, where I made them give me two sugars. I don’t actually take any sugars in my coffee, but it’s the principle of the thing.

A principle I’m not too sure what it actually is, but it feels like it could be an important principle. And don’t try to argue with me on this, because I’ll make you pay tariffs on the argument. That’ll be 20 percent extra right there. Boom, no more arguments.

It’s really clever stuff actually, I don’t know why anyone hasn’t thought of it before, it’s not like there are tariffs on coming up with ideas. 

Nostalgia isn’t what we used to be

So WH Smith, purveyor of an increasingly short shelf of magazines and periodicals along with a load of cap that you don’t really want has bitten the dust. It remains profitable, insists its former owner, it’s just not a profit it wants to have to work so hard to make.

And cue much hand wringing today in the press about the disappearance of WH Smith newsagents from the high street and what a sad day it is for us all. It's going the way of Woolworths, Rumbelows, C&A, Dixons, BHS. Indeed, when I was young I got all of my back to school essentials in long dead establishments – shoes from Dolcis, coat from Allders, glasses from Dollond and Aitchison. 

I will say that I hadn't even realised that Topshop, Thorntons and Debenhams weren't around anymore either. Which brings me to my main thought – if a name disappears on the high street and there's no one there to see it... You see, we're told we need to be sad about these things dying off, and it plays into a deep set nostalgia that things used to be better.

But if we really cared about the like of WH Smith, Woolworths and Blockbuster we'd actually have gone to shop there, wouldn't we? It's a dog eat dog world out there, and there's always someone trying to sell you a better dog for the job. 

Everyone’s talking about it

There are very few people around saying that Jaguar’s rebranding campaign was actually any good, instead we’ve had this weird backstop of ‘well at least you’re talking about it’. I never believed that even when Eastenders said it. If everyone talking about it was the goal, it would have been cheaper to send the board of directors streaking down Whitehall, even with train tickets the way they are.

The strangest thing about the whole deal is not the generic one size fits all visuals, or misreading the room (the world is miserable, and here we have a luxury carmaker reminding us that everything is awesome as long as you have plenty of disposal income), it’s the fact that the one job of a car company is to sell cars.

Everyone is talking about it, sure, but to what end? If we learn anything from Jaguar’s rebranding it’s that its products have been rubbish and the whole company has been phoning it in for the last few years. But just wait until you see what we’re working on… in two years.

Sure, Jaguar was a bit fusty and out of touch, but now it’s a carmaker without cars, a letterhead and a blank social media profile. Might as well go the whole hog, get a PO box address and move back into its childhood bedroom. No cars and no clue, but everyone is talking about it…

My body makes a funny sound

I’ve got to the devastating age when you have to start paying a bit closer attention to the weird sounds your body is making. No, not those ones. Like a few years ago when we were in Strasbourg for a few days and I was stretching my arms out behind me in a languid fashion and heard a rssssht sound like velcro come from somewhere near my right ear.

It wasn’t immediately painful, I wasn’t tempted to roll around on the floor or anything, but any sudden movement from my arm would result in a temporarily demobilising pain. Turned out I’d torn my RSJ. No, that’s the living room one. The shoulder one is the rotator cuff. Still hurts a little occasionally, even now, but I suppose I have to accept that I am simply getting old and need to warm up thoroughly before I stretch in the morning.

Just now I sort of puffed my cheeks out as if I was blowing up a balloon and there was a fizzing sound in the back of my jaw, like I’d tipped over a bottle of lemonade by accident. Random bodily function or minor life impacting ailment? Well, that’s the fun these days, when so many exciting alternatives are the preserve of much younger folk than me.

I brush my teeth

I was brushing my teeth just now at a motorway hotel in southern Germany, on my way back from a really rather fun drive to Italy. I gave my tongue a little once over with my tongue scraper – not a massively regular weapon in my toiletry arsenal, but when you need it you need it.

I put it down on sink next to my toothbrush to dry off while I prepared to pop down to breakfast and charge the car. The thought struck me, what if I died while I was out of the room? I had a vision of an investigating police officer spotting the tongue scraper and asking his forensics colleague if my tongue really was clean. ‘Sieht sehr gut aus,’ she would say – looks great.

I dried it quickly and put it back in my bag.

Don’t mind me…

Don’t mind me, I’m procrastinating.

I’m supposed to be doing something else, and once I exhausted all other methods of putting off the relatively minor but incredibly dull other thing that I’m supposed to be doing, I thought to myself ‘Samuel, why don’t you write something fascinating for that blog you started and never put anything on?’

And I replied ‘Me, that’s a great idea. I have after all exhausted all other methods of putting off this relatively minor but incredibly dull other thing.’ Doesn’t that make you feel special? I really should just get on and do it, but it’s impossible to muster the motivation within my fickle brain. It’s fickle like that.

I’ve got no leverage, nothing to hold over myself as a worthy threat – I know that I won’t follow I through. (Follow through, incidentally, is the literal translation of the German Durchfallj, or diarrhoea. Though you could more amusingly translate it as ‘fall through’. Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humour? Not me.) I really should get cracking on that other thing. 

The slow boat to Belfast

17:16, Thursday: I’m on a train. Well, I’m waiting for a train. Hopefully the train isn’t going to be late. A train to catch a boat. I’ve already been on one train to get here, had to run down the street dragging my case behind me, fling myself across a level crossing as the train went past and then jam my shoulders in the doors as the thing tried to leave without me. Our local train station is great for dramatic last gasp do or die efforts to make the next train to London. This next one should be more sedate.

17:40, Thursday: Actually on the train now. It’s going to Liverpool, where we’ll swap for the overnight ferry to Belfast. It’s been ages since I went on a long distance train in the UK. This one’s got plugs and big winged headrests on the seats that block out the rest of the carriage. Which means it’s been a delightful surprise each of the three times already that I’ve been hit in the head with a roller bag trying to find where it’s reserved a space.

19:03, Thursday: The carriage is full of people complaining about how awful London is in Scouse accents. Can’t say I’m inclined to defend the place if I’m honest. Plus fewer tourists means I can get around quicker. The train was 17 minutes late before we even departed because of ‘signalling’ issues. The issue presumably being that the light didn’t turn green when it should have. Fortunately my wife being my wife we have a buffer of over an hour that wouldn’t have been there if I’d have been the one to book the tickets.

20:33, Thursday: There’s something delightful about a train-based picnic. I brought some homemade hummus with me, chopped carrots and some boiled eggs. A delightful repast. I added some sandwiches that I bought at the newsagents in Euston (not to draw any attention to the brand, but it rhymes with WH Smith). Modest little numbers, but nevertheless they cost the same as an all-inclusive holiday in a North African coastal resort. We’re now running 39 minutes late. Apparently being a little bit late makes you a lot late because they give your bit of track to another train. I’d just overtake all the slow people if it was me.

21:33, Thursday: On a bus. Took a taxi from the station that smelled of sick and checked in for the boat. I’ve never been a foot passenger on a boat before, you just have to guess what you’re supposed to do next and where you’re supposed to go. Now we’re sitting outside the terminal on a freezing cold bus while a man watches videos on his phone at full volume, watching people in their cozy cars drive onboard. I’m ready for my bed. Well, a bed. I think we’ve booked something down near the bilge pumps.

22:31, Thursday: Seeing what’s on the ship takes about four minutes. Some good offers in the little shop, people gathering around the bar and others staking their claim to a patch of soft seating they’re going to try and call home tonight. We’ve booked a cabin, which has fold out bunk beds, a tiny television and an en-suite bathroom pumping sewage smells back up through the plug hole. It’s surprisingly comfortable. Time for bed, after we’ve spent a few minutes watching all the truck drivers say hello to the lady on the welcome desk. Easy to forget this sort of thing is a regular part of work for some.

05:51, Friday: Never has a crackling tannoy been less welcome. Don’t know if the speaker in our cabin is broken, but the bim-boom opening jingle sounds like someone’s about to murder the US national anthem on an electric guitar that’s just been run over by a van. ‘Goodmoooorningleddiesngennlemen’ – anything is too perky at this time of the morning. Short of it is that we arrive in Belfast at half six and have to be out of our cabins by quarter past. What I hear is ‘Plenty of time to jump in the shower’. It’s quite lovely and warm.

08:51, Friday: Missed the bus connection from the ferry into Belfast, would have been three hours to the next one. Felt a bit strange just sitting around on the boat while all the important people with their cars went back to warm up. It’s a four-mile walk through the picturesque industrial heartland of Belfast’s docks to get to the centre. We have found a hipster cafe down an alleyway to get the feeling back. The rest of our weekend adventures beckon. We’re flying back to London – would I do this boat route again? Maybe, if I was driving.