Author: James Aylett

While waiting for my last entry to appear on Technorati (I really have far too much time on my hands), I discovered that some cabinets run amok with their beardiness.

William: cancel the beard growing.

If there is no more clear indication that we need a new government, it is that they’ve run out of beards in the cabinet. Not, it has to be said, that there are many options on the other side of the house either – the Tory shadow cabinet has no beards to speak of (my money is on William Hague getting there first), and the Lib Dems have just one.

What has happened to our great bearded politicians of yesteryear? Why have we lost the fundamental family value of facial hair? How can we make a difference?

Today’s attempt to be a productive and worthwhile member of society was to vote. Since I’m at home at the moment, I got to do this quite early, and was slightly disappointed by the speed with which I went through. No surprise, however, that the only party member there to check what was going on was Liberal Democrat: there are Labour supporters in my area, as evidenced by the nasty red/yellow signs their houses sport, but nothing like the density of Lib Dems – and I’m not even sure that Conservatives are allowed out unaccompanied in West Chesterton.

Later, I wandered down to Jesus Green, since I’d been assured that it was the place to be in the sun; unfortunately by the time I got there the sun had all but vanished, but it was still pleasant to lie on the grass reading and enjoying the warmth. It’s been quite some time since I did this – I think I managed to get away a couple of times during the run of Out Of Your Mind in Edinburgh, but the last time I remember having such blissful lack of concern for anything at all was in Central Park over four years ago. (I was reading Dragon’s Egg by Robert L Forward; now, Romanitas by Sophia McDougall.)

When it started to get chilly I picked myself up, waved goodbye to the people foolishly trying to balance on elastic stretched between trees, and wandered back home. I feel more productive already.

It turns out that the best thing about Darien blogging from his bicycle tour round Tuscany isn’t his own witty phrasing of the situation, it’s actually the Italians’ (right at the end).

I’m Scared isn’t so easy either.

Nothing In This World by Hoku.

I don’t usually listen to the lyrics of songs while I’m doing other things, and I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t started with this one…

“Hello. You probably need reminding that my mother was Prime Minister once, for
ages and ages, and nobody liked her very much. How different things are now! I’d like to start by agreeing with David, because he’s a Conservative and I probably should agree with Conservatives or they’ll take away my badge; then I’d like to agree with Ed because I think the Lib Dems might be getting important and if I’m nice to them maybe I won’t have to go to a jungle to get on TV in future.

“I remember something about Coventry which no one else does, and I find it funny. It’s okay, you don’t have to laugh; I’ve learned to be tolerant of people who aren’t me and my mother.

“I’m going to ignore anything that Steve has said completely, because I don’t read the Independent, and anyway he’s a journalist and uses far too long words for me. Lord Falconer scares me slightly – no, don’t look at me, you’re frightening. Why couldn’t you have sat at the other end of the table?

“In conclusion, I’d like everyone to remember who I am and perhaps to laugh when I speak, and if anyone knows a good stylist, I’m running out of weirdly-coloured jackets.”

It’s amazing how quickly you forget things – and equally how quickly you remember them again. Like French: I was taught French up to the age of thirteen or so (strictly speaking there were lessons until GCSE at sixteen, but I don’t remember learning more than how little you needed to know about pronunciation to pass), at which point I was, I’d like to think, not bad. I could have small conversations in French, providing they weren’t really about anything, and at one point I bought a headphone adaptor while on a school trip to Normandy. But then I was thirteen – my conversations weren’t about anything anyway (“la belle dame ne m’aime”), and a headphone adaptor was pretty hot stuff. I had more trouble trying to buy coat hooks in St Malo, but that was a few years later and quite a different story.

The point is that since then I’ve barely touched French – the odd brush with it, but nothing serious. Nonetheless, when I visited my sister in Lyons a few years ago, I found that not only could I still get by, have little conversations about nothing, and indeed buy headphone adaptors, I could also, after a few days there, start to follow along with more complex conversations (“la belle dame ne m’aime, mais veut dire de quelque chose”). I couldn’t join in (in any case these more complex conversations belonged to girls, which I’ve never really got the hang of), but I could sense it within my grasp. The patterns of the language had started to make sense, leaving me only with the north face ascent of my underdeveloped vocabulary. I had regained my thirteen year old’s French.

So it is with manual transmission.

Up until about two years ago I hadn’t really driven – a handful of lessons when I was seventeen, including two test failures, at least one of which was because my instructor managed to remove all confidence in my ability to reverse park just before the test, and the other one went wrong when I accidentally boxed in a learner driver who was going about two miles an hour and refused to get in lane. Since then I’d lived in Cambridge and London, neither known for being terribly car-friendly, and Cirencester where it seemed sacrilegious to the sheep (and in any case I still couldn’t drive).

Then, during 2004, doing some calculations of how much it would cost to take An Extremely Memorable Emergency up to the Fringe, we realised that it might actually be possible to buy a car, drive it up ourselves, and still wind up spending less than if we’d hired one. This turned out to be utterly false, but not before I’d signed up for driving lessons again. This time they worked.

So come January 2005, I was a licensed driver, although it wasn’t until January 2006 when I bought a car, for the tour of Impromime; the set consisting of a large tower, I needed a large car, and wound up with a Vauxhall estate which for some reason everyone else keeps calling a Volvo. Like many estates these days it’s an automatic, and thank god or I’d probably still be learning how to park the bloody thing.

Yesterday morning I dropped it off for a bit of love from the place I bought it, and they gave me a little courtesy car in return. Not exactly a fair bargain, and particularly not so because, as is common with small cars, it had manual transmission.

I didn’t stall it leaving the dealership.

Actually, I didn’t stall it very often at all – once at a roundabout in Newmarket, once parking outside my house, and once as I left the A14 because I’d been driving in fifth gear for twenty minutes or so and had completely forgotten it had a gear stick. Three times in half an hour still isn’t great though, and I cycled on to the station feeling a little worried about driving the car back again.

This morning dawned bright and crisp, or at least dully-lit and wet, and to my complete surprise I was able to actually enjoy driving while paying attention to gears, clutch and so on; given a couple more hours I’m sure everything would have flooded back again and I’d be talking fluent manual again. My conversations probably still won’t be about anything in particular, but dammit all my cars will have headphone adaptors.

Lucy Porter, that is (and I couldn’t quite bring myself to say “… but I make her come late”, although I’m sure she would have done in my position).

I saw her last show two years ago in Edinburgh, on her opening night there, and she started about 45 minutes late – the entire venue was running late, show after show being delayed. Not her fault at all.

I saw her latest show two hours ago in Cambridge, on her only night there, and she started about 30 minutes late – the entire city was running late due to a traffic accident. Not her fault at all.

I’m beginning to wonder if it’s my fault.

However she was excellent tonight, very funny and tiny, and exactly what I both wanted and needed. I thoroughly recommend seeing her show if you get the chance.

Just don’t go with me.

To: James Aylett
From: Sendit.com Update
Subject: HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE only 15.99 pounds

Well, well. I remember when the only way you could see both at the same time involved dressing like Hermione and having in your possession some very obscure pages of the fama suturae.

These days he’s clearly just got desperate. £15.99 for a candid glimpse of Harry and the Goblet? You’ll be able to buy a lurid written account of his adventures scribbled by some hack, next.

Oh, hang on.