He’s a brilliant bloke – in both senses of the word. Brilliant in that he’s a genius; but also, he’s a brilliant bloke. My best mate and ally against the daily madness of our boss. And now two-ton richer.
Anyway. What was I saying? Oh yes, it’s bad out there. What with the indiscriminate killing of peaceful protesters and all. But it’s bad in here too. It’s looking very bad! That half-wit Scottish crooner, the one with the famously bewigged hair and the refreshingly down-to-earth girlfriend (the same ‘refreshingly down-to-earth’ girlfriend he’s been cheating on, by the way, regularly, methodically, blatantly, outrageously, with every starry-eyed casting-couch candidate or ingenuous young media wannabe he can get his manicured hands on) – he’s definitely taking us to court, it seems.
(He’s not taking us to court, Martin. He’s got no beef with you and me. He’s fine with us. We’re cool, in his book. We’re gravy.)
He’s taking my employers, the Globe, to court. He doesn’t like our methods. He doesn’t like the way our methods have exposed him as the duplicitous, cheating liar he is. He thinks that by telling the world about his many and varied and predictable and often quite grubby affairs, we’ve somehow broken the law. And, more worryingly, it would appear that the Crown Prosecution Service agrees with him.
My boss is not a very happy man. His boss is even less so. And his boss is furious. And as for his boss… she’s incandescent. And she only answers to one person. And he is not the kind of man anyone ever wants to see angry.
And, most pertinently for me, all of this anger does not bode well for the little guys, the rank and file. We’re the bottom of the food chain, and we’re the ones who bear the brunt of the men who bear the brunt of the big men’s wrath. It’s only a matter of time before they start the shooting too. Or the firing, at least.
It would probably be best if I didn’t lose my job. You know, what with the mortgage and the wife and now the baby and all. I got responsibilities! And while I hate having to stand on your terrible trains every morning and evening, while I seethe every time I shell out hundreds of pounds for my monthly season ticket, I nevertheless don’t want to find myself stuck in Oxford, at home and out of work.
I’ll be honest, with you (I’m always honest with you!), things aren’t exactly peachy at home. Beth’s not happy. She’s depressed, in fact. Postnatally so. A doctor told her. All that lethargy and listlessness, all those fuzzy-brained mornings in front of Jeremy Kyle and dreaded nights trying to get Sylvie back to sleep; all those zombie walks in the pre-dawn hours with wailing baby at her breast, struggling to latch on, struggling to go down, struggling to bring up wind… it’s made Beth depressed.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with postnatal depression (do you have kids? How old are they?) but, basically, it’s a proper ache. Because there’s not much that can actually be done. Sylvie’s not going anywhere. Sylvie’s needs remain the same (constant, unrelenting). And when it comes to just about everything apart from the odd nappy and the occasional winding, I’m not really able to help. I’ve got to go to work to earn the money to pay for the nappies. I’ve got to get more than four hours’ sleep a night so I can manage to actually do the work to earn the money to pay for the nappies. It’s a vicious circle. There’s nothing I can really do.
What can I do? Not about the North African thing, and not about the paper being taken to court thing (both are regrettably out of my hands) but about the postnatal depression thing. If you’ve got kids, tell me: what can I do? Don’t tell me this one’s out of my hands as well.
Oh – there’s another thing, too. Before I forget. My trains. Your trains! They’re not getting any better, are they? Another 11-minute delay to my journey home tonight. As if the slaughter and the suing and the miserable wife wasn’t enough. I’m not getting home until half-ten anyway – and now you’ve bunged on another ten minutes on top of that. You’re totally, as Shaun Ryder so eloquently put it, twisting my melons, man.
Au revoir!
Dan
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 21.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, June 30.
Dear Dan
I am sorry to hear that you have been delayed again. It’s really not good enough and you have every right to be angry. The 07.31 on June 28 was subject to mechanical issues and the 21.20 service from Paddington on June 30 was late arriving into the station and so subsequently late leaving the station again. I hope this helps ease your frustration a little.
To answer some of your other questions, yes, I have two children, both (thankfully!) grown up and at university now. I well remember the sleepless nights and endless nappy changes though!
Although I wouldn’t claim to be any kind of expert on postnatal depression, I can tell you that after the birth of our first, my wife found the support of friends with babies who were in a similar position to hers to be very helpful. Perhaps your GP might be able to put her in touch with other new mothers?
I am also sorry to hear about the situation at your work. I must admit, to the casual observer, it does seem that certain sections of the press have overstepped the mark on occasion. It’s interesting to learn of the crooner in question’s colourful love life, however! Has this been reported?!
Best
Martin
Letter 12
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 21.48 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, July 7. Amount of my day wasted: 11 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Corporate Dungeon Master.
Martin: it’s been a week. No delays for a week. Well done! Outstanding work.
Thank you for your last letter – advice taken on board. Beth saw the doctor this week: she’s got a flyer for some baby groups, some coffee mornings and whatnots. She thinks it’s all a bit pointless, but like I told her: that’s just the depression talking, right? (She didn’t think that was very funny. Mental note: don’t bother with the black humour and can the dark wit when you’re dealing with a postnatally depressed woman. It’s really not worth the tears and the apologies.)
Anyway, ta for the advice. We’ll see if it perks her up any. Though between you and me, if the baby’s making her depressed, I’m not sure that going someplace where there’s going to be lots more babies is really going to help. If my dog was making me depressed (I don’t own a dog, it’s another metaphor. The dog is a metaphor for my baby. But not in a bad way, obviously. I’m not comparing my baby to a dog! What kind of monster do you think I am?) – if my dog was making me depressed, you wouldn’t advise me to hang out at a dog show, would you?
If, say, sitting on trains was making me depressed (which, to be honest, it is), then you wouldn’t recommend I catch more trains, would you? Would you? Actually, perhaps you would. Perhaps I’m asking the wrong man on that one.
Anyway. She’s going to take little Sylvie to a baby group today. There’s another tomorrow. We’ll see if sharing the pain helps.
But enough about me. It’s a bog-standard-length delay today – and what with the only other evening regular being Corporate Dungeon Master tonight (mid-forties, pin-stripes, thinning hair slicked back, actual briefcase containing immensely powerful-looking laptop on which he plays role-playing games all the way home; from what I can gather, surreptitiously glancing over the aisle or at the reflection in the window in front, his character would appear to be a barbarian wizard. I’m not entirely certain, but I think the game’s called Ragnarok. Either way, I’m not sure how much he actually enjoys it as every journey seems to involve a steady stream of swearing at the other characters on his screen, all those little bare-chested, weapon-wielding avatars running around like headless chickens) – what with it just being me and Corporate Dungeon Master on the train tonight, I’ll cut straight to the chase.
You asked me about our litigation-happy singing friend. The crooner and Blue-Mooner. The on
e with the spectacular syrup and the girl-next-door girlfriend (although they haven’t actually had sex in years, take it from me – theirs is a union based on mutually beneficial publicity alone. Love has nothing to do with it). The one with the one massive song two decades ago and that other massive song five years ago and a lot of lucrative nonsense in-between. The one with the roving eye and the wandering hands and the entirely unfussy kilt etiquette. Oh yes. It’s all true. And oh no, most of it hasn’t been reported. Not because it’s not true, but because the truth gets suppressed under injunctions, or super injunctions, or privacy rulings, or a significant ‘favour’ for the hapless girl who could prove it to be true (sudden celebrity boyfriend, appearance on reality TV, big fat pile of cash), or a significant threat to the hapless girl who could prove it to be true. Or even occasionally because the papers can’t prove that it’s true without implicating themselves in the process.
It’s a tightrope. Finding the truth is the easy bit. Being able to tell the truth is another thing entirely.
Our crooning friend: let’s say, for example, that it became known to someone on the news desk that he enjoyed the attentions of a pair of spectacularly young-looking Estonian girls at an establishment known as ‘Slavs to Love’ in a rather run-down part of London’s once-fashionable Pimlico. Let’s say it became known because another girl at this establishment was concerned that the two Estonians in question were neither there entirely consensually nor of a legal age to consent to anything that our friend might demand of them.
This is entirely hypothetical, by the way, Martin. You understand that, right? It’s all entirely conjecture and I’m making no accusations against anyone. Good.
So: let’s say someone from the news desk looks into it. Let’s say she finds the girls, confirms that something is very rum indeed and arranges with them to set up a hidden camera and a mic the next time our priapic lounge lizard comes a knockin’.
And what happens next?
Nothing. Slavs to Love is suddenly and mysteriously no more. A police raid. An entirely coincidental police raid the day after our visit. A police raid that came courtesy of an anonymous tip-off. Our girls? Disappeared. Deported. Back to Estonia. The whistleblower who alerted us in the first place? Suddenly spotted out and about on the arm of hot young (gay, as it happens) boy bander Nero Duncan. And she won’t return our calls. And Mr Duncan happens to share an agent with… yes, you guessed. I don’t need to say any more, do I?
Shocked? It is shocking. And there’s plenty more where that came from. There’s a file of unprovable but entirely true dirt on the man as heavy as the Stone of Scone. And plenty more like him. No wonder he dislikes us so much. We know what he really is.
But what’s this? Our word count has been reached! Fair’s fair, you only used up 11 minutes of my and Corporate Dungeon Master’s time, and so I’ll take up no more of yours. But I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.
Au revoir!
Dan
Letter 13
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 / 07.52 / 08.06 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, July 12. Amount of my day wasted: err… Fellow sufferers: Lego Head, Universal Grandpa, Competitive Tech Nerds.
I’ll be straight with you from the start, Martin, I’ll level with you from the get-go: I don’t know how to handle this one.
The thing is: I didn’t even catch one of your trains this morning. I couldn’t catch the 07.31 because it was cancelled. Why was it cancelled? We were never told. So anyway, undeterred and relentlessly optimistic as always, I stuck around for the 07.52 and guess what? That got cancelled too. We weren’t told why about that, either.
When the 08.06 joined them in the by-now oh-so-fashionable cancelled club, I walked. I turned around and walked out of there, all the way to the bus station, where I paid a further £15 and caught a coach to London. I left Lego Head and Universal Grandpa looking serenely confused on the platform – Competitive Tech Nerds had already left, swearing at the useless information boards and talking about catching a taxi together (I think I caught them arguing about whether to get it as far as Reading or to take a chance on Didcot). There was no sign of Train Girl or Guilty New Mum: they must have bailed even earlier.
Don’t get me wrong. Obviously I didn’t have to catch a coach. I could have stuck it out and stuck around. A nice man at the station did tell me things were likely to get moving by about 8.30, but he couldn’t promise. He confessed that he didn’t know what was going on either.
Which sort of begs the question: who did know? Somebody must have known! Why didn’t the person or people who knew why those three normally packed commuter trains had been apparently inexplicably cancelled, tell some other people, so they could tell the rest of the people in your company, so that those charged with keeping the passengers who pay to use your trains informed about where their trains might be could actually do so?
It’s not rocket surgery, is it? It’s not brain science.
So, yes, I could have stuck around and taken my chances on things getting moving again by 8.30, but the thing is, even if the nice man at the station was right, the platform was by then already full of (at least) three trains’ worth of passengers anyway. The chance of getting a seat would be less than zero. To be honest, I didn’t rate my chances of even getting on the thing at all. If it came at all.
So I left. I made like a Tom and cruised. I got me up and got me out. I got the coach, and arrived to work about an hour and a half late.
Do you have any idea how angry that made my boss? We’re not talking about the most stable of men at the best of times. We’re not talking about the most level-headed, hear-both-sides, judge-not-hastily, slow-to-react kind of man in even the most favourable circumstances. We are, in fact, talking about someone who was always borderline unhinged. A man who was close to the precipice even before all the current legal unpleasantness.
We call my boss Goebbels. That’s his nickname. He’s proud of it too. He has a reputation for unreasonable behaviour. He once sacked the entire graduate trainee intake (eight fresh-faced kids eager to work 14-hour days for minimal pay for two years just for a shot of a job at the end of it) because one of them refused to strip to her knickers and streak at an England v Sweden match (it was for a story, obviously – the girl in question bore a striking resemblance to an A-level student the England manager had been rumoured to have had an affair with. We couldn’t persuade the actual girl herself to do it – the fact that she was 17 made things a bit tricky – but Goebbels thought it would still make a good page lead with a lookalike).
Of course she refused. I’d have refused too, and walked before he could sack me. But it was a bit harsh to sack all the other grad trainees just because of her unwillingness to whip her top off in front of millions and play ball.
He’s been known to throw books, telephones, fax machines, computer monitors, once even a chair, at reporters failing to file good copy. He infamously made one of the sub-editors stand all day on a table in the canteen with a dunce’s cap on, because he had used a split infinitive in a headline.
He is not, in short, a reasonable man.
And now his job’s threatened. Now the police and the Crown Prosecution Service and even hacks from other newspapers are questioning his means, motives and methods – well, now he’s gone full-blown psycho.
Turning up an hour and a half late with nothing but some phoned-in excuses about cancelled trains? It cost me a thwack around the head with a 1988 edition of Who’s Who (a particularly fat year, that year, too. Just thank God it wasn’t a hardback copy) and a promise that I would work at least an hour and a half late every night for the rest of the week.
I got off lightly. But my card’s marked. There’s a blot on the old escutcheon, as Harry the Dog might say.
And, of course, that’s not all of it. I’ve got another problem.
My other problem is, how does this morning’s marat
hon delay square with this pet project of mine? If the length of this email is to reflect the length of my delay, if I’m to waste a proportionate amount of your time (as you have wasted mine), then what do I do about today’s sorry situation?
It’s a test case, is what it is. It’s – as our bewigged adversaries in the legal profession prefer to put it – a precedent. If, for example, I decide that a cancelled train is the equivalent of, say, 30 minutes’ delay, then that’s how it’ll have to be from now on. The precedent will be set.
But does that mean that three cancelled trains require me to bang on for an hour and a half of your time?
I’m not going to bang on for an hour and a half today. To be frank: I don’t think I could manage it. I haven’t got it in me to keep you stimulated for that long. So I’m going to devise a formula. A secret formula! An equation involving the relative differences between scheduled journey times for the train I should have got and the coach I did get, factoring in an integer representing the cancellation of trains (multiplied by three) and with a little bit added on for the walk from the train station to the bus station. And a little bit taken off for the slightly shorter tube journey at the other end. And then a wordsearch right at the bottom to cover all the extra time I forgot to include in my original calculations.
What did happen this morning? The buzz in the station was that a train broke down. Could that be true? Again? How often does that happen? That trains break down, I mean? What’s the lifespan of your average passenger train these days? How often do you replace them? And is that too many questions for one paragraph?
I await the answers with breath firmly baited. Or bated. And in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a cheering thought. One ray of sunshine in an otherwise grey and overcast day.
Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time Page 5