Taxi Driver

Today I had to get a taxi to work. The local company has recently implemented automatic number recognition software. This means when you call up it recognises your number and also the name(s) used to book a previous taxi. I tend to use the names “Adam Ski” and “Michael Carmichael” when booking cabs and it always makes me giggle hearing a computerised voice relaying the message “Hello Michael Carmichael, please press 1 to be picked up from…”

Anyhow, I was waiting outside when the wagon approached. A wagon was probably the most succinct description I could give it as the car was an old Volvo Estate. I got in and turned to my right to be greeted by the friendly old face of a taxi driver. He was wearing a flap cap with his bushy white hair shooting out from all sides. On closer inspection he had bushy white hair shooting out of his nostrils and ear holes too. At this point I shivered and told him to take me to work.

Within a few metres down the road he starts telling me about himself. How, he’s lived in this area for 15 or so years. How his children have grown up and don’t like him anymore. I didn’t mind him opening up his heart at 8:57 in the morning, what I did mind was that when he spoke he’d turn and face me, enticing my eyes to make contact with his while all I did was look ahead at the road blearily, when...

“Shit, look out”. I yelled.

The driver turned his attentions back to the road and swerved at the roundabout just missing an oncoming car from the right.

“F… didn’t indicate” He shouted.

‘Didn’t indicate. You weren’t looking at the road.’ I thought.

The driver turned back to me and squinted his friendly eyes as he smiled.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you there”

A little uncomfortable with the sudden rush of adrenaline at that time of the morning I decided to ask him the usual cliché question.

“So what time did you start?”

Still staring he rubbed his hat and leaned forward.

“I started at 6 and will finish at 2am tomorrow night”

Now 2 am on Friday night/Saturday morning means you’re likely to be working around town. This involves dealing with an outpour of inebriated end-of-week revellers desperate to go home. More often than not things are fine but it is known that some of them will vomit in the car, try and run away before paying or just end up mugging the driver.

My eyes widen at this enlightenment and this time I did turn to meet his stare. He must have been in his late 60’s, around 5 ft 5 and quite slow at changing gears. In fact he’d always jerk as he struggled with the gearstick. Pity started to spread through as he’d have no chance against a group of males looking to get away with not paying.

“You don’t work up town during Friday night do you?” I asked dismissively.

“Of course I do young man. You get the most money from those people.” He told me.

I couldn’t believe this man wouldn’t be taken advantage of. He had a podgy friendly face and seemed very effusive.

“But don’t you think it’s dangerous” I replied.

“Dangerous? Huh.”

He then swung his head backwards so that I looked towards the back of his seat. There behind the seat was a baseball bat protruding out the bottom. He then pulled up into a bus stop and deftly swings it out from beneath him.

“You see, this bat can cause damage. But the nails I have hammered in will cause pain. No trouble.”

Slipping the bat back under the seat he drives off again leaving me sitting there not knowing where to look. His stature and looks were a deceptive feature and my hands became sweaty as I imagined he didn’t like to be paid in a £20 note and swung his club of nails right across my face demanding a lower denomination or else!

“That’ll be £7 please.”

“What, oh yeah, we’re here. I’ve only got a £20, I hope that’s ok?”

He nodded and handed over the change.

As I left the car he wished me a good day and once again squinted his peepers as he showed off his missing teeth. I just walked into work thinking I wonder who’ll stupidly cross his path tonight.


Well, after a few weeks off I've finally thought about which direction to move the progressive prose I've grown over the months. Here's my latest contribution.


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…

“I don’t know if I’m all right. To be honest it hasn’t sunk in yet, the impact is just waiting in my mind, waiting for the moment to completely flush all other thoughts out and take over my life.”
…
“She stole from me. Bottom line.”
…
“I caught her Keith, it wasn’t rumour. I came home after my shift yesterday, I didn’t think anyone was in but I heard a noise from my room. I knew Tommy was out so I quietly ran into the kitchen and grabbed the bread knife. I went upstairs and saw her stuffing our rent money into her purse.

“It broke my heart to see her stealing from me. After I was accused by our landlord for stealing money from the rent collection, she knew how annoyed I was about being accused stealing it. Tommy wasn’t even considered of anything and he’s the one who spends the end of his month scampering round and chasing up people so that he has enough money to pay for rent. It was a real blow to my confidence as I study all day and work most nights I’m not the sort of person who would sneak around trying to find money round the house. And Karen knew all this, I told her that I was going to be evicted unless the money could be found. She saw me almost in tears as I racked my brains to find out where the money had gone and all the time she was the one who took it. I feel so betrayed.”

…

“ I was absolutely shocked mate, I ran up the stairs almost stumbling over them as I was hell bent on catching whoever was in the house, I wanted to smash this robber’s face in, I don’t know if I would have used the knife but I wanted to mess him up. And then I saw that it wasn’t a him it was a her. It was my girlfriend, the person I though I loved, the person who knew what I was feeling and she stole from me.”

…

“Yeah she tried to tell me what she was doing, but I saw it all. I saw her putting the money in her bag, stashing it at a frantic pace. There was a few moments when she didn’t notice me and when she did she started crying and trying to let me let her explain. I wasn’t going to do that, I was too angry and feeling betrayed. I told her to give back the money and get out. She started pleading to me to let her explain, she threw her self at me but I just couldn’t stand the sight of her and told her to go. And as she left, she even bloody well asked if I was going to tell the police. I told her no, but only because she’s going to give back the money she already took from Tommy and me. She carried on blubbering and then eventually said she would.

…

Yeah, I’m meeting her early this morning after my shift ends. She says she has the money.

…

No I haven’t heard her side, I don’t want to. What justification can she give to me? I haven’t got time for her now. Look I gotta go as my break is up. We should meet up for a beer tonight?

…

“Uh huh.”

…

“No worries, I’ll ring you later, and thanks for listening.”

Yannish puts the phone back in his pocket and flicks the slowly extinguishing cigarette to the ground only to quickly pick it realising that he no longer should do this. He walks through the bushes and out of sight.

Magic

Now I’m not talking about the black/white or voodoo magic that occurs and what I know nothing about and I’m terrified yet curious of. No, the magic I mean is the one that’s common but also rare. Firstly when walking along, minding your own business in life, your thought pattern ambling along with today’s chores and entertainment when suddenly, a ripple. The spark. It’s tiny, even miniscule. An idea conjured from experience, timing, aptitude, luck even determination flickers in your head. Some of us quickly write it down, some smile and nod at the same time knowing they’re on to something. Others may get scared, unsure what implications it will have. And others, they just feel slightly embarrassed by it, they know it’s a great idea, something worth pursuing but it’s the 50th one of the week and none have been acted on so far.

Yet that still isn’t magic. The spark needs to be nurtured, requires a dose of rational thought but most of all it requires guts, sheer confidence that the idea is worth following through and pushing things over in order to turn the idea into reality. It is possible you may think I’ve experienced magic. I, unfortunately never have but I have seen it. It was seeing someone who just one day had an idea, they thought it was great, I thought it sounded rubbish and told him so. In fact others did too. Yet he carried on and followed it until one day the idea blossomed into something astounding. I could only look in awe. His idea brought him financial reward attracted many dignitaries seeking advice and collaboration. Now to me that’s magic, something that started from absolutely nothing to end up being a thriving product that spawns a mini economy and which enables him to slap Mr Marx across the backside as he rips a hole in the lower part of the Status Quo and calmly walks through onto the higher tier where a cigar and brandy is waiting.

What I do experience is random ideas popping into my head. All of them sound absurd but yet they all bring a smile to my face. Those that know me will notice that my lips occasionally curl up, when they do it’s another idea sliding its way into consciousness. None of these ideas are acted on, I sort of feel a waster for them. I can’t say they’re great ideas because none of them have been executed then judged if successful. What’s successful anyway? Bringing loads of money or spinning of the Maslow tip, ‘self actualisation’? All I tend to do is slightly smirk then label the idea and store it in the back of my mind to be acted on ‘when I’ve got more time’. I know I’m not the only one here, we all get these ideas. The next time you do get one and think it’s actually quite good, go for it. Seriously if it ever comes off it’ll be fucking amazing and then you can tell me about and I’ll probably write a further paragraph after this one.

Ming The Clam

I think it’s pretty fitting that the oldest animal in the world highlights the oddities, greediness and curiosity of the human psyche.

I’m not really that clued up with the latest news, although I try, some just slip me by, like the important email at work that I accidentally delete. Well I only found out recently that scientists discovered the oldest living animal (well it was October 2007 actually, read here) . Great I originally thought, and decided to look into a bit more. It turns out it was a clam who had lived between 405 – 410 years old and is considered the oldest living animal in the world. It was dredged off the coast of Iceland and found its way into a laboratory. Now (although I’m led to believe) the only way to find out the age of this animal was to kill it. As simple as that. Now this concept sent my mind spiralling into many different directions as I tried to think this through, how Mr Paddington’s Shadow would deal with a situation like this and another under the guise of a scientist. The question I ask is why kill it? It’s likely that from its shell that it was old anyway or at least an interesting specimen for scientists, otherwise it wouldn’t have ended up in a laboratory. So why not just let it live, sure if you want to quarantine it somewhere, do so, I don’t think Clams are big movers anyway, but why stab it, shot it or tear it apart just to find out its age? I can only think that it was certain types of motivations that led to this action. Perhaps the science team couldn’t resist, they just couldn’t resist from fame not just amongst their revered colleagues but also the mainstream exposure. The thought that their generation, their collective group was the first to discover the oldest clam in the world (not some fisherman off the coast of Iceland). Are these thing things motivate us? Being considered a great amongst your peers and admired to some degree by the general public. I’m not being judgemental here, the people that killed the clam were working in the remit of their expertise, their livelihood, probably their passion. Would I do something equally as challenging if would reap the rewards in an area I love (fuck knows what it is but being part of an artistic project does stimulate me)? Yet there’s the other option which the rational kinder aspect of me that refuses to empathise with the scientists has to say. And it says, let the clam live. Let it see out its natural life, maybe it could live another 100 or 1000 years. So you as a scientist won’t be able to claim fame and someone else down the string of time will be there the day Ming pops his clogs and who in turn will probably ejaculate in his pants out of sheer excitement when telling the press. Weighing up the two consequences from the result of the two actions there is really not much of a contest if you can relinquish yourself from glory. Let it live and let it go. Just like the lady from Titanic did with her nice shiny jewel so that one day someone else could find it in an oceanic exploratory mission.


One thing I want to know is if they’ll be an investigation on Ming as he certainly didn’t die of natural causes.


P.S. The font is the way it is because Blogger is being pants this evening.

Time Intensity

Is it me or is 2008 whizzing past as quickly as Dwain Chambers running not on drugs? We’ve already completed a quarter of the year already and yet that groggy feeling I had on New Year’s Day is still fresh in my mind. Why is it going so fast? Well in my opinion work dominates the most important hours of the day, the ones where you’re most productive, rasping with new ideas, new dreams and things to accomplish for the day. However the hours are filled with meetings, general chit-chat with people you don’t really know, general chit-chat with people you do know, time spent reading emails, time spent carefully writing emails, chasing people for work, being chased for work. It’s no wonder things go so fast, the day is full of this apart from this tiny window of opportunity during lunch time that you can take a breath and just chill. Yet these things that we want to do and want to accomplish are still there, it’s just they get pushed further back because of the stuff mentioned above. And eventually they’re shoved so far back that they move from forefront to the subconscious department where it’s vaulted. To only brought back out when something reminds you of that idea or objective. For example, having completed another day at the office on Friday I headed off into town and decided to purchase some DVDs. I was in Zavvi when I heard Shed 7’s Chasing Rainbows when reading the synopsis of Run Fat Boy Run. As soon as the symbol taps kicked in I knew what it was straight away. I felt myself rocking, thinking how good this song was, in fact it reminded me of the time when I said to myself I’d move to New York. I had this track on my Sony Discman whilst walking back from the shops having bought Mojo and reading an article about the music scene in NY. The idea sounded so strange in the present though. I couldn’t believe I used to think like that and for a moment I sort of realised that I didn’t know who I was. Yet, when thinking it over again and again, it is something I’d love to do. It’s just that I forgot about it because my mind was occupied with something else. Sure there are other factors like money, nerve and opportunity to take into account if I ever were serious to go there but still this was one of thousands of things that run through my head but because of daily routine they just disappear. I don’t think I’d ever end up in the Big Apple but I’d still like to do the things I think, even the little ones, like spend a day in a coffee shop reading Sophie’s World then pop over to the library and read up on all those philosophers she discovers. One of the reasons I look in awe at someone who do something that they love for a living is the fact their ideas are tied to their livelihood and opportunity to fulfil those are theirs to waste. I don’t think my boss would be too happy if I phoned in sick for 6 months to prat about. Whereas I feel that time sneaks up on me and every year things seem to happen a little faster. I don’t dislike what I do or who I am, in fact I quite like my strut and outlook on life. But I guess I wish I could do more ‘cool stuff’.

No prose. I did do this though

Touch My Toucus

There are sometimes when things happen that there’s not enough time to judge what has just occurred to react accordingly to it. However, you can make time if as soon as the event has happened you try and relate it to a past experience. I was standing in the line at a cafeteria waiting to pay for my yogurt not caring much for the people behind me or the person in front of me. I was slightly tired having decided to watch ‘five minutes’ worth of Rambo II on ITV the previous night only to stay up till 1am to watch the complete film. My head was rolling with ideas like, ‘should I get a John Rambo hairstyle with accompanying red headband?’ whilst waiting for the man in front of me to pay for his food when suddenly he turned rather quickly, his arm flinging across, crashing through my personal space and landing gently against my balls. I quickly bolted straight my mind thinking, ‘what on earth just happened here?’ I thought again, ‘was there intentionally cupping?’ I couldn’t remember as it all happened so fast. I turned to face the man in front of me who started to apologise for what happened. I guess he made enough contact to realise what he brushed. I didn’t acknowledge him at first. He was apologising at an alarming rate, ‘sorry, sorry, sorry I..I..didn’t mean to do that.’ Hmm, sounds like he’s done this before, he says ‘sorry’ three times before switching to ‘I’ twice. I then remembered a moment that happened to me at work one time when I was carrying a large box of paper in front of me. It was so large that it obscured my vision so I relied on my other senses. Unfortunately they are as finely tuned as a Ford Cortina after its 25 year service. After a few paces I felt the tips of my fingers and then my knuckles feel something very soft, bouncy and pleasant. They were breasts. After deducing what they were the dread of being hauled up in front of a tribunal for sexual harassment soon sunk in. Realising that I’d better deal with this situation quickly I popped my head around the box, hoping to see one of my female friends that would just laugh it off. Instead it was an extremely pretty girl that only made things worse, I didn’t know who she was but started apologising straightaway, explaining I didn’t mean it and I couldn’t see past the box and that I wouldn’t do that sort of thing. I almost did it again as I re-enacted the event and just how possible it was for such a thing to happen. Luckily she broke out a massive smile and said it was alright and no harm was done. A massive relief went through me. Turns out she was a temp and a really cool girl. We became friends before she left to become a secretary at some warehouse.

As I was about to ask the guy if he enjoyed it I realised that maybe he did do it by accident like I had done when carrying the box so instead told him it was alright and to enjoy his spaghetti meatballs!

Shock horror. No progressive prose this entry. I’m sort of giving myself some time to reflect on what the hell to do with the characters I’ve created!