Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I’m sorry I missed last week. I have no excuses, but lots of good reasons. A friend once told me this – ‘You shouldn’t make unrealistic promises. Making up exotic excuses for being late or not doing something is wasting even more energy. Either do it, or apologise if necessary for not doing it.’
Sound advice. So I’m apologising. Instead of making up excuses, I shall tell you stories of some of the things that contributed to the loss of last week’s column.
We duly filled them with books
As I think I mentioned, I moved house. It was a long and painful process. There must be ways of making the whole thing easier and less like hard work, but the only way I can think of is to have vast amounts of money, and just paying someone to do the whole thing while you go on a cruise or something exotic and a long way away.
Chance would be a fine thing. I doubt that even people with a lot of money would find themselves owning more books than we do. In a previous lifetime, moving house, the removals men gave us loads of sturdy boxes to pack our stuff in, and we duly filled them with books. They had to be unpacked of course, because even the removals men couldn’t lift such large book-filled boxes.
Raid the supermarkets for vegetable boxes
So now I raid the supermarkets for vegetable boxes. They’re like deep trays with a handle hole at each end, and they stack. Most important, you can’t fill them too full and do your back in. We filled hundreds of them with books. Then we had to collect even more, because they’re also wonderful for DVDs and CDs.
You’d think a box of DVDs would weigh about the same as a same-size box of CDs, but the CDs contain so much more plastic, and old-type plastic at that. I remember hearing a rumour many years ago that Philips, the electronics giant, who mainly developed the CD, also patenting a box that the discs should come in, that favoured their own products.
Squeeze it even lightly
That story might be entirely apocryphal, but it would explain why you have to spend so much money on a CD that has a box which cracks if you squeeze it even lightly, with two tiny tabs on two dainty little arms, which break instantly if you drop it. I also remember a programme on TV many years ago, called Tomorrow’s World, that brought to our notice new ideas and products which might become useful.
The late great Raymond Baxter presented it much of the time, and in one programme he wore a white coat and visited a factory where technicians were etching strange shiny aluminium disks with those new-fangled lasers. Mr Baxter solemnly announced that these discs were capable of storing information, but it was highly unlikely that they would ever be commercially useful, because they cost so much. I loved that programme. By the way, that’s the current statement on the use of hydrogen-powered cars. Watch this space, because I predict we’ll all be in them in a few years. They’ll be driverless too.
Eyes and teeth that fall apart
Yes, moving was only one of the stories that prevented last week’s column from being written. There was also the small problem of a dodgy tooth. I often wonder how these over-religious people explain why we’ve apparently been designed with so many fantastic advantages, but at the same time with eyes and teeth that fall apart and stop functioning in so many basic ways.
When I was younger and asked these questions, I was told either to shut up, or that they work perfectly in a state of innocence, but we misuse them by eating sugar and reading books, or that God did it and He knew best. I remember the trouble I got in when I questioned the idea that we were made in His image, so did that mean that He got toothache too? Imagine being God’s dentist! ‘Open wide! This is only going to hurt a little!’
It was already done for
I was so busy packing and sorting everything out that I couldn’t manage an emergency dental appointment until the day after we moved, which was perilously close to deadline for my column. By this time it was really hurting, although not all the time, thank goodness, and I was getting to that point where I couldn’t sleep properly or even think straight.
My emergency dentist was excellent. He took an x-ray, confirmed that there was a lot of decay too far down to fill, and started to talk kindly about what might be done to save the tooth, although we both knew there wasn’t realistically anything that could be done for it, for it was already done for. So he whipped it out, and off I went, mercifully pain-free and with a crater the size of a sinkhole in my jaw.
Normal life just goes on hold
That didn’t help the writing of the column. Nor did the lack of Iinternet or mobile phone at the new address, and nor did a trip to Ludlow that had been booked many months before. That’s another thing they don’t tell you about moving house. You can’t just sell your house and move any more. Somehow it takes months to sell it in the first place, and then it either takes long months or mere days to complete. The effect is that normal life just goes on hold for long periods. You can’t go away or make plans of any sort.
In our case we had to wait forever to get our contracts exchanged, and then we had a week until completion. It was a mad scramble. And we managed to get moved just before our trip to Ludlow, to the Medieval Christmas Fayre they hold at the end of every November. Ludlow was new to me, and it’s a lovely place, with a proper castle and lots of old houses with sunken roofs and windows at odd angles.
Varying between Vikings and Cavaliers
We were able to shop and eat and relax in the place where we stayed, which we really needed after the horrors of the move, and on Sunday there was the sight of medieval militia marching through the market to the sound of a drum. They wore an assortment of dodgy helmets and halberds and pikes from various timescales varying between Vikings and Cavaliers, but they were obviously enjoying themselves a lot.
Then they proceeded to harangue us varlets to form rabbles (medieval queues) in broad west-midland accents that seemed scarily appropriate. We were then herded in through the portcullis to spend large amounts of money on vaguely medieval gifts and victuals. It was great fun, and it made all thoughts of a column flee from my mind.
I was very happy there, especially when I saw a display of medieval dentist’s tools and realised how lucky I am to be living now rather than then.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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