The police have been in touch, apparently. The whole unpleasantness could go beyond a few hacked-off celebs moaning about getting caught with their pants down. It could even get beyond the take-the-money-and-shut-up stage. It’s bad, in other words.
And yet, we were getting a good going over for not getting more exclusive stories. For not catching more celebs with their pants down. Go figure that one.
Anyway. The point is: it was an important meeting.
And I had to walk in late, all elbows and knees, clutching a half-sipped coffee and dropping my notepad and mumbling apologies as everyone stopped talking and watched. In silence. In disapproving silence. I wanted to say: ‘Don’t judge me! Judge Martin Harbottle, Managing Director of Premier Westward trains! He’s the Delilah to my David here! Be silent and disapproving towards him! It’s his fault! It’s all his fault!’
But of course I couldn’t. I had to grin foolishly and take it like a man. And not a big man, either. Not a man’s Big Man. I had to take it like a small man.
I don’t understand why we’re getting the blame for the sins of our predecessors at the paper anyway. I don’t understand why this sudden need for self-flagellation. We are the Free Press, right? We have a duty to report the news, whatever it might be.
And I have no idea why the shadier newsgathering tactics of my forebears should be in any way relevant to my current job churning out salacious witticisms on the implied indiscretions of the celebrity world. I’m not breaking any laws. I’m not even in a position to break any laws. But I was told to be there. I was told to be there because that’s how it works at my place. You do as you’re told. And turning up late and looking incompetent is generally frowned upon.
So. Anyway. That was my morning. And I’m guessing this is an email you knew was going to come today, didn’t you, Martin? I’m betting you turned up for work this morning; I’m betting you fired up the Premier Westward Super Mainframe Megacomputer and felt your little heart sink.
There was an incident this morning. One of your trains, Martin: it broke down! It totally broke down. Like it was too old or poorly maintained or something. As luck would have it, it wasn’t my train, but still. That old or defective or poorly maintained train broke down and snarled up the line for everyone else.
I wasn’t the only one, of course. It’s not just about me! My train was, as always, packed. (Over-packed, some might say.) And, as always, it held many of the usual suspects, the same faces I see every day. We’re a regular little community – united by habit and circumstance and frustration.
The thing about commuting is that it’s a shared experience. We’re all in it together, as someone once said. We’re creatures of habit, making for the same spot on the platform, the same seat in the same carriage, every day – and so, naturally, commuting becomes something of a glimpse into the human zoo. It’s like watching a David Attenborough documentary – and you start to recognise your fellow victims by their habits as much as their faces.
This morning, for example, from my usual spot in Coach C I counted five regulars.
There was Guilty New Mum, freshly (and early) returned to work after maternity leave, all of a flap, juggling laptop and Filofax and scalding coffee whilst phoning home to check on baby, muslin squares and nipple shields spilling out of her handbag…
Competitive Tech Nerds – two middle-aged banker types with weak chins and big suits – were arguing loudly about the relative merits of Cloud storage versus external hard drives. Which at least made a change from the interminable mobile phone discussions they seem to endlessly recycle (when the new iPhone came out they almost came to blows, so overcome were they by the excitement of it all).
On the seat opposite them was Universal Grandpa – wisps of snowy hair, white beard, M&S slacks, smart jacket, the kindest face you ever saw, copy of the Telegraph. No idea where he’s going every day at this time: he looks too old and too nice to be doing this. And next to him was Lego Head: a huge, heavyset man in (I’m guessing) his mid-thirties about whom I know nothing other than that he has got on this train every single time I have, always makes for exactly the same spot, never says a word to anyone, never reads a paper or a book, never plugs himself into a laptop or iPod or mobile phone… and has hair that looks exactly like it’s made out of Lego.
And down a little, on the opposite side to me, is Train Girl. I don’t know much about her either, other than that she’s easily the best-looking part of my journey to work every morning. Not that I pay too much attention to that kind of thing, obviously.
So there we all were. Delayed, late, in trouble with our respective bosses, thrown together by habit and circumstance, forced into daily unwarranted intimacy, and (with the exception of Competitive Tech Nerds) never once even acknowledging each other’s presence, despite it all.
Does that make you feel a little worse, Martin, knowing the human cost of your incompetence? How would you explain such a pitiful service to us all? How do you communicate such failure? Enlighten me! Educate, inform or at least entertain me. Tell me why I’m getting a pasting at work for the bad behaviour of my predecessors, while you seem to be able to run a shoddy business with impunity.
Can you communicate that to me? Can you do it now? Can you do it, in the words of the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, like it’s 1999? Or even in a manner befitting, say, the 21st century?
Yes? All right! Go Martin! I feel energised! I feel invigorated! I feel like… like a Big Man! This could be a new beginning for me and you! We gotta make it happen!
Yours, in breathless expectation,
Au revoir!
Dan
PS. Just read this back, Martin, and worried it may sometimes appear like I’m bullying you. Don’t worry. I’m not. I’m not really threatening you with the diabolical power of the Sunday Globe. I’m a straight-up bloke, I keep telling you that. I’ve no intention of taking this conversation any further than between us. Trust me. (Though I am interested in whether that means your responses will stop. Are you only writing back to me because you’re a bit scared of who I work for? Because of the power of negative publicity? Because we do look a bit scary at the moment, don’t we? What with all these headlines we’re generating about ourselves? Or do you write back because you really do care about running a good service? I wonder.)
Letter 7
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 17. Amount of my day wasted: 13 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Guilty New Mum, Lego Head, Train Girl, Universal Grandpa.
Dear Martin
What’s happening? You’ve gone all silent on me. I’m getting worried. Three letters without a reply. You don’t really think I’m a bully, do you?
And I wanted to get your thoughts on the North African situation, too. I told you those 22 weren’t firing on the army, didn’t I? The Globe newsroom is rarely wrong! I told you they’d become a flashpoint for something far bigger. I told you those few minutes of madness would have major repercussions. And now… thousands. Thousands of angry men with flags where before there were barely two dozen.
What’s going to happen out there? What do you think? It’s a little bit worrying, a little bit horrible… but it’s exciting, isn’t it? It’s news! News is happening!
Have you spurned me, cast me aside, left me in the lurch? I do hope not. Everyone I love goes away in the end.
(Actually, that’s not strictly true. It’s just a lyric from a Johnny Cash song I like. The people I love don’t go away. Or at least they haven’t yet. The people I love: they’re going nowhere. At least, that’s what they tell me. ‘What am I doing, Dan?’ they say. ‘I’m going nowhere. I had a career, I used to have a life – and now I’m stuck in with the baby all day, surrounded by dirty nappies and dirty baby clothes and dirty baby, talking nonsense with someone who can’t even understand what I’m saying because she’s only two months old, watching Jere
my bloody Kyle and Eamonn bloody Holmes and Alan bloody Titchmarsh and not even bloody hearing them over the noise the bloody baby’s making cos it won’t bloody sleep and I think I’m going mad and there you are having fun at work all day with all your funny, clever, single, baby-less friends and here I am going bloody nowhere…’ That’s what they tell me. That’s what the one I love tells me. She’s not going away. She’s going nowhere.)
Oh dear – is this sounding like therapy, Martin? Are you to be my therapist? Would you like me to tell you how I really feel? Would you like me to share?
OK then, I will. I’ve got a bit of time of yours to waste today, after all. Here’s how I feel. Here’s what I’m feeling right now.
Have you looked outside your window recently? Out beyond the usual view, I mean? There’s a whole world out there. Look at North Africa. It’s revolting! And it’s not the only place – it’s just the latest. Something’s always happening somewhere. And that is why I became a journalist. To be a part of it. Not to read about the world on my Twitter feed whilst sitting delayed outside Slough; not to scroll through websites while chugging at half-speed past Didcot Parkway; not to flick through other people’s copy in other people’s newspapers while stalled near Southall. I became a journalist to be a part of it all.
Outside it’s all going on – and I joined the newspaper so I could watch it unfold from the inside. So I could be a part of it unfolding.
There’s nowhere like a newspaper when there’s news about. It’s so exciting!
Watching it all get written up, being part of the process that moulds that raw information and unsculpted experience and makes it into news.
What could be better than that? Seriously. Even if the rest of the world largely thinks we’re pond-life, even if the rest of the world thinks we’re monsters. We’re making the news. We may be rats, but at least we’re not mice. We’re doers!
Let me tell you another anecdote by way of illustration. (Don’t worry, this one’s not humiliating.)
Do you remember when Princess Diana died? Of course you do. Tall blonde lass, liked a holiday, married that odd feller with the big ears, unfortunate business with bulimia, three of us in this marriage, Queen of Hearts, landmines, Paris underpass, all that stuff. That’s the one! Well, you may also remember that she died very late on a Saturday night. My boss once told me that when she died he received a panicked call from the night news desk – and he ran – literally ran – into the office, straight from the pub.
Everyone was called in – and everyone came in. They came from their beds, from other people’s beds, from pubs, from clubs, from wherever they were. They came in the middle of the night and they put together a whole new newspaper in a matter of hours. Half of them were drunk, a good number were a good deal worse than drunk. But they worked like maniacs through the middle of the night, because it was the most momentous news story of their lifetimes and they didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world than in the newsroom reporting it.
My boss – he said it was the best night of his life. He’ll tell anyone who asks: the night Princess Diana died was the best night of my life. As you might guess, that sentiment often gets misinterpreted.
But do you understand what he means? Do you get it?
There’s nowhere like a newspaper when there’s news about. It’s a thrill, a buzz, an adrenaline kick. Working in a newsroom: it’s mainlining the zeitgeist. It’s utterly addictive. Even when you’re the story yourself. Especially so. All this unpleasantness alleged against the Globe… it’s worrying (Beth is worried, for sure) and some of the details are undeniably unpleasant… but I can’t deny it’s exciting.
I want to be amongst the action, Martin! I want to be with all the stuff that’s doing stuff! I don’t want to be stuck in a crummy seat on a crummy train staring at some crummy town out of the window, thinking about the things I’m missing.
I at least want my life to be as exciting as my bored, frustrated wife thinks it is. That seems fair, doesn’t it?
Au revoir!
Dan
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 17.
Dear Dan
Thank you for your most recent letters. Of course I am always happy to hear of your concerns, if unhappy that you have cause to write at all!
Your train home on June 8 was delayed due to the slow running of a freight train in the Didcot Parkway area. On both the 14 and 15 June signalling problems on the Oxford–Paddington line meant that a ‘go-slow’ order was in force. On June 17 problems outside Reading meant many trains, including yours, were congested in and out of the station. We put the safety of our passengers above all other concerns at all times, even if it does unfortunately result in some trains running slightly delayed.
To address your other concerns: I hope you don’t attribute my responses to any worry over negative press. I like to think that as Managing Director, I am receptive to the concerns of any Premier Westward passenger.
I am sorry you feel that your time on our trains is not as stimulating as it might be. And I imagine that life at a tabloid newspaper must be very exciting! I expect you have plenty of anecdotes to match that of your boss.
And yes, the situation in North Africa is very worrying. It puts things into perspective rather, don’t you think?
Best
Martin
Letter 8
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, June 22. Amount of my day wasted: ten minutes. Fellow sufferer: Overkeen Estate Agent.
How the devil are you, Martin? Well, I hope? In the pink? Good, good. Well done.
I gather you had a rough night of it last night. I hear that all Premier Westward services out of Paddington yesterday evening were – not to put too fine a point on it – up the spout. Down the Swanee. Round the U-bend. Nothing moved, as I understand it, for hours.
I monitored it all on the internet. I kept a window open on my desktop as I worked into the night. All those winking ‘delayed’ signs reproduced faithfully for the benefit of the world. Just as well I had to work late, eh? Just as well my sadistic boss was in an especially bad mood (the threat of legal action against one’s employers can do that to a man, I hear). Just as well he wanted all my copy rewritten. Or I’d have been right round the U-bend myself.
As it was, I escaped with a mere ten-minute delay to my journey home. As it was, my wife was only moderately cheesed off with me. Lucky me!
Or rather – lucky us. Me and Overkeen Estate Agent. My sole regular fellow traveller on the night shift home.
He’s an odd one, is Overkeen Estate Agent. I only ever see him when I’m on these later trains – and he always seems to have come straight from work. The shiny suit, the tie in a fat footballer’s knot. (What is that knot? Like a quadruple-Windsor, far too big for any shirt collar, squatting there at the neck like a fat silk Buddha. Who decided that was a good look? And when did we start taking sartorial direction from footballers anyway?) He’s always on the phone (a white iPhone – and that in itself speaks volumes. He chose the white model. He looked at the black version and said: No. I want a white one. I am male, I appear to be heterosexual… and yet still, despite all that, I’d prefer the white iPhone. That’s the sort of person I am) and he’s always saying things like: ‘We need to drill this down’, and ‘Let’s get that actioned asap’. He uses words like ‘diarise’ and ‘bro’ and ‘PDQ’. He calls people ‘legends’. He’s about 14 years old. I’m simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by him.
But, to be fair to him, he rarely seems bothered by the train delays. He just keeps talking nonsense into his white iPhone and staring at his reflection in the window.
But then: I’ve been thinking. If I’m to write to you every time my train is delayed, and if a
massive, will-to-live-sapping delay should therefore prompt an equally massively time-wasting letter to you in return, then there may be a problem in my otherwise brilliantly childish revenge plan.
Are these letters nothing more than me wasting even more of my time than you’ve wasted in the first place?
That, Martin, would make all this decidedly Pyrrhic. A Pyrrhic victory. Do you know what a Pyrrhic victory is? Of course you do – you must have benefitted from a classical education. Where was it? Rugby? Stowe? Where then…? St Andrews? Cambridge? Or have you worked your way up from nothing? Managing Directed your way out of the mean streets? Was it a case of sport and management directoring being the only legal options for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks?
I’m going with the classical education. The traditional route to the top. Born to rule, eh? Effortlessly schooled in the ways of casual superiority.
Anyway, no shame in that either way. We play the hands we’re given, right? You am what you am! You need no excuses. You deal your own deck: sometimes the aces, sometimes the deuces. Dead right!
Where was I? Oh yes. Pyrrhic victories. Let me explain, just in case you skipped class that day.
A long time ago, in a country far, far away, there was a king called Pyrrhus. As Ancient Greek kings go, he was pretty tasty. Gave the emergent Roman Empire a bit of a spanking on more than one occasion. He took no lip off nobody. He was a born winner.
But there was a flaw. Old Pyrrhus, he was a bit over-keen. The way he saw it, winning was all that mattered. Victory had to be pursued – no matter what the cost. Until, after one particularly bloody encounter at a place called Heraclea, his defeat of the Romans was so absolute that it ended up costing him his whole army too. He won the battle, but he also kind of lost. And a certain Mr Plutarch, who was a leading tabloid scribe of the day, coined the term ‘Pyrrhic victory’ to describe that peculiar kind of victory that comes at a prohibitive cost to the victor.
Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time Page 3