Last night – watch Doctor Who with Anna S and David B, having just been on Amazon ordering a Dalek 3D Bath & Shower Gel dispenser for my 70-year-old father, at his request. Proof positive that children’s TV is often wasted on children.
Today is the first time this year that London is warm enough to open one’s front room windows, and A&D worry that their new cat will jump out into the main street. We watch him – over the back of the TV – climb onto the sill and look out onto the road for a minute. It’s his first time. As soon as he hears a car approach, he jumps back into the flat and runs into the other rooms. It’s as if he fears the vehicles are likely to crash into the front room. I think of that story about the audience to the cinema pioneer Friese-Green’s early experiments, rushing out of his screening room when they see a film of a train heading towards the camera.
Actually, I did once witness the kind of occurrence that the cat was worried about. It’s a year or two ago, and on Junction Road, close to Archway tube, my northbound bus stops and everyone is told to get out. The main road ahead is blocked by another double-decker, parked but filling the street left to right, at a perfect ninety degrees to both lanes. It seems to have emerged from the left-hand side street near the bus station, as all the Archway buses do, but due to some sort of brake failure (or driver madness) must have continued dead ahead and crashed into the grocery shop immediately opposite. Not quite embedded in the architecture, but it’s a head-on collision. “Wasn’t my fault,” I imagine the bus driver saying later. “The grocery shop refused to swerve.”
I try to imagine what that must have been like for the people in the flats around the shop. I should ask the cat.
In the latest adventure, 42, the Doctor is up against two possessed men wearing bug-like helmets with a horizontal eye guard. It’s Doctor Who versus the band Daft Punk, who posed for their publicity photos in similar helmets. I suspect this is an observation made elsewhere on the Internet. In fact, I’ll lay money on someone editing the episode to a Daft Punk song like ‘One More Time’ or ‘Digital Love’.
Aferwards, we repair to a Crouch Hill pub, The Noble, and meet a long table of gentle friends. At the bar one of the other customers asks me “What’s the occasion?” He means my black suit. All around are in lighter summer clothes. It’s a perfectly good question, but I’m honest in my answer. “It’s the way I like to dress.”
However, at this point I develop an absolutely searing headache and start feeling a bit sick, to the point when I can’t think straight or hold a conversation. Being me, I start to wonder if I have some terminal virus. I wonder what it could be, but know that the best thing to do is go straight home and straight to bed. I manage to find a minicab office and am safely tucked up within minutes, two Ibuprofen duly downed. Sunday morning, I wake up in a pool of sweat but feel utterly recovered.
A taxi ride to a waiting bed in a quiet and private room.
It’s rather unambitious definition of heaven, perhaps, particularly as there’s no one else in the bed. But for me it’s a phrase representing utter bliss, always worth every penny of the expense. Leaving the pub early without buying more drinks probably paid for the cab, anyway.
A taxi ride to a waiting bed in a quiet and private room.
