I am currently reading Benjamin Dreyer’s brilliant Dreyer’s English, which has eight pages of acknowledgements; a commendable level of generosity (though if this were an Oscars speech, the orchestra would have played him off by the second page). I suppose the longer the list, the more likely someone will be miffed if left out; but also, the shorter the list, the danger that more people will be miffed. What a minefield.
Dedications are much more likely to be read, being right at the start of the book, so funny or touching ones are often more memorable than something similar tucked away at the back. What a shame, though, if the acknowledgements page at the back of Brendan Pietsch’s Dispensational Modernism, which starts: ‘I blame all of you’, had gone unnoticed.
But it’s the love coming off the pages that make acknowledgements so special. Knowing that the book I am about to read (for others, usually the book just read) could not have come into being without all the support and advice and friendship and hard work of others. The reiteration that, no matter the trope of the toiling writer in a solitary study, life – in all its glory and achievement – is a team sport.
COLD-WATER SWIMMING
I wouldn’t say it was extremely comforting when, seconds before my first attempt at cold-water swimming at my local pond, as I hovered near the steps, my skin chill against the air, the jovial lifeguard started to tell me about sudden-immersion syndrome. ‘People can die, because they go into shock,’ she explained, eyes focused on something in the distant trees. ‘But you’ll be fine. Just don’t panic.’
In the summer, I jump into the pond with the enthusiasm of a labrador – ears flying, paws spread skywards. (This was especially the case during last summer’s heatwave, two months of feeling conflicted – the utter joy of that slightly grassy smell of warm forearms, tempered by the fact that the planet is, well, screwed.) Summer swimming is all about the refreshing feel of hair slicked back from the forehead after hours of enduring a sticky, matted mess. Or the tessellating, shimmering patterns of light at the bottom of a hotel pool.
Cold-water swimming is like being plugged into the mains; there is the sensation of a sedentary life spent looking at screens cracking wide open. It’s a body slam-dunking in every department: heart, lungs, brain. The first time, I thought of Jack and Rose in Titanic, as she considers jumping overboard and he tries to talk her out of it: the water will ‘hit you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body’. (Incidentally, has there been a more handsome man than Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic? This is a rhetorical question.)
Jack isn’t wrong, but knives have their uses. Knives can cut binds and set people free. At times I feel so bad that there is a restless ennui, a nihilistic velocity – every human atom bares its teeth; the shock of the cold water takes the edge off that inner violence. There has even been recent research that cold-water swimming can help with depression and anxiety, by improving the stress response.
I’m no expert swimmer. I wear the same thing in all temperatures – a humble bikini. It’s from Topshop – or somewhere similar that might pay its taxes and isn’t owned by Philip Green. There are stronger swimmers who go more often than I do, kitted out in wetsuits and special waterproof thermal gloves and hats.
But even when it’s deep winter in the city and I look as if I took a wrong turn on the way to the Costa del Sol, I feel a sense of pride when I’ve met the challenge of 5˚C scrawled on the chalkboard, as satisfying as a maths equation solved. ‘Reinvigorating’ is an overused word in an era of self-help books and journeys to faraway continents to find oneself, but cold-water swimming is truly that.
BLUE PLAQUES
Peter Kropotkin was a prince and a theorist of anarchism. The incongruously named Charles Coward rescued prisoners from Auschwitz. Edvard Beneš was a president of Czechoslovakia. What do these people have in common? Their names are on a royal-blue ceramic, metal or plastic circle.
The original blue plaque scheme was established by the Royal Society of Arts (then just the Society of Arts) in 1866 to mark the relationships between certain buildings and individuals. The first was placed on Lord Byron’s birthplace in Cavendish Square, in London, although that house has since been demolished.
Since 1986, the scheme, which is exclusive to the capital, has been run by English Heritage. Blue plaques have become so well known that they deserve their own blue plaque. But other bodies administer them around the UK. There are now green, yellow, brown, black and red plaques, as well as white, pink and rainbow plaques. The colours vary according to geography or theme: red for transport heritage; rainbow for LGBTQ+ champions. There are plaques, too, in other parts of the world. It is even possible to buy one’s own novelty plaque.
I will never tire of a blue plaque. I cannot count the number of times I have walked by one, then caught it out of the corner of my eye and doubled back to learn that an eminent physicist once rented a room in such-and-such Georgian home, or that an author died at a tragically young age in this Victorian terrace. Some plaques commemorate movements, moments, events, records or institutions rather than people. Every time I read one, it is as though the street has opened like a textbook.
There are two main reasons for my appreciation. The first is a nerdy passion for facts. The second is the beautiful way the plaques evoke a place as it once was: Bloomsbury Square, say, as Virginia Woolf would have known its corners. I love the idea that one might bend down to do up a lace on the exact spot that a rock star stopped to light a cigarette. Then there are the plaques attached to the houses you can barge right into: John Lennon’s in Liverpool, or Sigmund Freud’s in north London.
But it is the quirkier ones that really lift the spirits. Tommyfield in Oldham has a plaque that announces it as the home of fried chips. A plaque in Tottenham, London, is dedicated to Luke Howard, ‘namer of clouds’. The greatest, though, might be on a council block in Brighton, erected by the Centre for Pagan Studies: Doreen Valiente, the ‘mother of modern witchcraft’, we salute you.
LITTLE ACTS OF KINDNESS
A little while ago, I was sitting on a bench, reading, when an elderly lady approached me. ‘Excuse me,’ she asked. ‘Would you be able to help me with my shopping?’
I beamed. Of course I would be able to help her with her shopping! Let’s get this shopping-helping show on the road, I wanted to shout. For I am an excellent person and enthusiastic assistant to those in need. Unfortunately, it turned out she didn’t mean shopping as a metonym for shopping bags, but as in … the verb. She had not yet been to the shop. This was not me lifting two Lidl bags and carrying them to the bus stop, as I had envisaged; this was me going to Lidl.
Forty-five minutes later, this wily elder of mine – who had also swindled me out of £3 by this point and made a fair few comments I would describe as bigoted – let me know that she lived on the top floor of a block of flats but, not to worry, because the block was only a mile or so away. Despite all this – ‘this’ being the entire afternoon – I still feel contented that I helped this lady out, even if I have avoided her since.
Good deeds are considered selfless, but they are often not. This is because a fair number of good deeds take minimal effort; the effort is outweighed by the feeling of self-satisfaction. If anything, it is pure human profit, and as such perhaps not altruistic at all. (There are, of course, the times when we go above and beyond, when we inconvenience ourselves for others. I can summon up many occasions when friends, all over the world and in all seasons, have gone above and beyond for me.)
However, mostly it’s something that, for you, takes very little, but can make all the difference to another. The teenage girl frantic in a strange city who asks for directions, or to borrow your phone. Lifting someone’s suitcases down station stairs or grabbing one end of a frazzled mother’s pram, its inhabitant blotchy-faced and screaming. Tapping a rushed businessman on the shoulder to return his wallet.
I truly believe the whole world would collapse without these interactions, or to use the American argot: the act of paying
it forward. In fact, one doesn’t need to be the do-gooder or the recipient to be warmed by an act of kindness. Even reading about them can be a joy. Do a good deed today, then – even if it’s just holding a door open. And I will do one for someone in turn. As long as it’s not their entire weekly shop. Never again.
BATHS
As a nipper, although frankly I mean until about the age of eighteen, I wasn’t keen on baths. I was hyperactive and staying still for a period of five minutes or longer required effort. As a teenager, I found baths not conducive to my lifestyle, which mostly consisted of being late. Quicker bathing meant more sleep; more texting; more listening to indie bands with unfathomable names made up of punctuation.
Then: a mid-twenties baptism into the devoutness of baths. A love of soaking bubbled to the surface. This love smells of lavender and bergamot oil. It feels like the damp, crinkled edges of book and magazine pages. It sounds like nothing, aside from the quiet swish and gargle of water when rearranging limbs. It tastes of the mug of tea balanced precariously on the side (but not so precariously as to be anxiety-making). I have a friend, Greg, who enjoys nibbling at cheese while in the bath; he even creates a little foil boat for it. He is an icon.
I cannot pinpoint the ‘Eureka!’ moment (Archimedes’ famous bath pronouncement) but it was probably around the time I swapped tagging pictures of nights out on social media for browsing Mumsnet for tips on moth control, AKA sinking into a premature middle age. What do babies and I have in common? We both have a strict 7 p.m. bathtime.
Running a bath is an art. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running a Bath: well, screw up temperature control and the experience can spill into disappointment. Either the water cools too quickly, forcing one out before time (as with getting to the pool too close to the whistle for a decent swim). Or the water is too hot, and one is left sweating profusely and feeling faint; philtrum transforming into an oxbow lake, knees turning a football-club red. But get the perfect temperature, and worries evaporate. Intrusive thoughts are sweated out.
As with purposely taking long bus journeys, I use my time in the tub to read. It is rare that I take my phone into the bathroom, because if I really can’t last an hour without it then I might as well let the waves take me. Of course, there is also the small matter of cleaning oneself. A good scrubbing of the back. A leg lolling over the side, being smoothed. A face mask that resembles a muddy accident. Standing up to get out, the tired hours of the day cascade away. Woes circle the drain. We float on.
ARRIVING EARLY
I am a chronically late person. I am not proud of this. It is a flaw in my character and, I am certain many of you reading will agree, a significant one. Some people don’t seem to mind tardiness. I am lucky to know quite a few such people. Others understandably find chronic lateness the height of rudeness and emblematic that an individual values their own time over that of everyone else.
My main issue is that I am easily distracted. I am somewhat childlike in my facility to have my attention captured by, well, literally anything. Most people grow out of this, but I seem to have grown further into it. (Although I suppose children don’t regularly catch sight of an interesting coverline on a copy of the New Yorker lying around the house and get drawn into a 20,000-word article while shower-wet hair begs to be dried.)
A diagnosis of ADHD, long suggested by colleagues, has finally been been confirmed by a psychiatrist. In certain phases of mental ill health, I find it difficult to gear myself up to leave the house and feel deeply that my presence will only ruin any social event. So sometimes there are genuine reasons. Although I feel citing the studies that suggest lateness is associated with intelligence might be going too far. I think, with me, it has something to do with optimism.
It is a contented bliss, then, to be early. Habitual early birds probably will not experience this high. But I have a theory that one of the purest forms of happiness is relief. Relief has a lightness that unlocks carefreeness, which speaks to freedom, and freedom is happiness.
The extreme tension I feel when rushed and late, despite it being self-inflicted and a social form of self-harm, means that when I do manage to be on time, or, even better, early, it’s a felicity to savour. As an individual who will sometimes forget keys but never a paperback, any unexpected portion of time for reading is exciting. Earliness also offers the opportunity for observation; seeing the things one misses when flitting between modes of public transport and walking with the determined velocity of Richard Ashcroft in the video for ‘Bittersweet Symphony’. Or I’ll just think about who I am meeting and how pleasing it will be to spend time with them. Still, it will take a little more time (natch) for earliness to stick.
WALLPAPER
I am not saying I do not live an exciting and fulfilling life, but I enjoy ordering A4 samples of wallpaper online. I am saying that I truly believe the moment capitalism spiralled out of control was when homeware stores started charging for tester pots of paint. I am saying I’ve bought a plant from Homebase to cover my shame when walking out with rolls and rolls of the test wallpaper one tears off the racks like clingfilm.
All this forms what I am going to refer to as the ‘renter’s renovation’. Long-term renters will know that only minimal changes to decor are permitted. Renters will also know that a single gossamer strand of cobweb spotted in a moving-out inventory check can see a portion of deposit chalked off.
But, like most of us, I love to put my stamp on a place; to match up my personality to my environment. And I love wallpaper. I square the renter’s dilemma by using literal squares; I order lots of sample wallpaper and create a collage on a distinct section of wall.
I affix the wallpaper using glue in the corners and middle, which can be easily and totally cleaned off, rather than proper permanent paste. Though I despise the term ‘feature wall’, that is essentially what this process produces: a pleasing, DIY display of colour and pattern and design.
Wallpaper, like everything, goes in and out of fashion. When I was growing up, it was definitely out of fashion. Now it has had a renaissance. Queen Anne even introduced a wallpaper tax (in 1712, it lasted until 1836). One way people got round it was to buy plain paper and stencil it. Which I like to think is the sort of creative-thinking antecedent to what I do. I’ve never actually understood why this tax was introduced, so I assume Anne had some sort of traumatic wallpaper-related incident and held a grudge.
Many styles have flourished throughout history: Baroque designs, hand-painted Chinese landscapes, silk damasks, floral patterns, flock, 1960s Pop Art varieties, the orange-and-brown scrub-down vinyl of the 1970s, abstract. The Arts and Crafts stylings of the King of Wallpaper, William Morris, remain favourites of mine.
At various times, the wallpaper industry has been screwed by such events as the Napoleonic wars and even the 1973 oil crisis, but it goes on surviving, seeing off challenges from awful, cloying wall decals (Live, Laugh, Fuck Off). Not even the discovery that George Osborne is the son of the co-founder of Osborne & Little could quell my passion. Wherever I sort-of-hang my wallpaper, that’s my home.
FLIRTING
Calling someone a ‘flirt’ isn’t seen as an insult, but in some cases it might serve as a snide sort of traducing. It’s also not great reputationally at the moment, post-#MeToo. But I would argue that those who have responded to #MeToo by moaning that, ‘God, nobody is allowed to flirt any more,’ might just have flirting very wrong indeed.
Flirting is lovely. I am a flirt. I flirt all the time. There is, for me, both a spoken language of flirting and a bodily one. In conversation, there is something of a frisson to a wonderful, witty back and forth. I might not be physically attracted to my interlocutor – hell, it might even be a friend, and the idea of hooking up weird – but it’s the thrill of the exercise. I hesitate to say that language is sexy, but also: it is.
I am a big fan of physical contact. Obviously, one must be attuned to those who are not so keen (and yes, there are times when it is inappropriate, but again, thes
e circumstances should not be difficult to determine). I live for an enveloping hug. An upper-arm squeeze; a casual knee tap; an arm slung around a shoulder; a wide smile; a hair ruffle; lifting a stray eyelash from a cheek; holding hands; linking arms. This behaviour is second nature to me, with friends, with friendly colleagues, with people I meet at parties who I’m getting on with riotously. Touch is so important.
People frequently see flirting as a prelude to sex. Clearly, the former can very much lead to the latter. But as the above examples show, this is by no means always the case. If I straighten a colleague’s tie and dust off his shoulders, it’s a form of flirting, but I don’t want to shag him. If I’m sitting close to someone, drink in hand, and I gently slap their leg when they make me laugh. Well … maybe I want to kiss them, but other times, that wouldn’t even occur to me.
These aren’t mixed messages. I think I make it pretty obvious whether my flirting is a mechanism to signal sexual interest, or just the way my enjoyment of an interaction manifests itself. And people who know me well, know that I am tactile. The phrase ‘harmless flirting’ exists for a reason. Plus, at the end of the day – well, any time of the day – who doesn’t want to be flirted with?
POT PLANTS
I fully agree that we need to be more proactive about teaching schoolchildren the fundamentals of modern life. Financial education; preparation for the world of work; explanations of how mortgages and rental contracts work … lessons like these would mean that come their early twenties young people might not feel so stressed and adrift.
The Joy of Small Things Page 6