On Centaurs Only Being Able To Use Wheelchair Accessible Stations

Oh hello sweet, sweet bed! How my heart has yearned for your warm embrace today! I have been suffering you see. Suffering with a hangover. Despite being snowed under at work, I couldn't really do anything this morning except feel sorry for myself (which I do very well). Last night, you see, saw a reunion of sorts.

There were once three friends who started a quiz team in a pub that was due to close down. Every Monday night they would meet, chat, drink and ponder over ridiculously difficult trivia questions. This continued for months; the team grew week after week, new teams formed as offshoots, it was a golden age of hushed conferring, booze-fuelled banter and Tuesday morning headaches. Then tragedy struck (I used the term tragedy in the loosest possible sense). Two of the three decided to return to the world of higher education, leaving poor TbR at home alone! Without them, his quiz attendance fizzled out - the weekly quiz was cancelled and he returned no more to pub in question (though it is still open, a year on, with more customers than ever apparently - I'm taking credit for that).

But they're home for Easter so a few of us headed to the pub for a catch-up drink last night. I arrived late, fashionably, having nipped out for a couple after work, and the banter commenced. Now, I don't want you to think that I don't have any other friends, I do. Honest. But this is a group where conversation wanders into uniquely unpredictable places. Take this excerpt, from last night's meeting, for instance:

D: "Can you imagine having hands where your feet are? Do you think that would work?"
T: "Like a chimp? They have elongated toes."
S: "I don't think it would work - would you be able to stand up straight?"
D: "I don't think so. I'd probably prefer hooves anyway, like Mr Tumnus."
TBR: "Mr Tumnus was a faun though. I'd prefer horse's hooves to goat's hooves."
D: "True. But again, I'm not sure you'd be able to stand up straight."
T: "What about a centaur then? Have all four legs. You'd be really fast then."
D: "True."
TBR: "It would be a logistical nightmare though. I mean if centaurs did exist, their ability to travel would be quite limited - they couldn't get the tube, for example."
S: "No - especially in rush hour."
TBR: "Not just that - what about stairs? I think you'd just have to say 'Sorry, centaurs, but you can only use wheelchair accessible stations."
T: "They'd be alright on the Jubilee Line - 18 of 28 stations are wheelchair accessible.*"

And this is what I miss - the ability to get lost in a conversation about absolute crap and forget how it started. I shall have to make the most of their return - nights out with the Former Quiz Team of Dreams are guaranteed to be good ones.

In other news, I saw the parrots again this evening. Down my road this time. Exciting stuff.

Happy Friday to you all and enjoy the weekend, I'm off to bed!

TbR

*I have checked this and it's incorrect. Poor effort.

On Spring

And so, winter draws to a close. Despite being an avowed winterphile, I am quite pleased - if only because these new blue skies are a bit different to the grey ones I've got used to.

I have also noticed people looking just a bit happier. Is it just because we've had 2 days off work? I'd say no. In fact, I can sense a definite shift in the public mood. Yesterday was sunny, but it was also freezing; nevertheless I saw a couple of beer gardens full to bursting. At Craven Cottage (Fulham vs Wigan - we won 2-1!) the weather varied wildly between April showers and April sunshine and the usual suspects who have season tickets near mine seemed somewhat less arsey than usual. And I don't think it was because we were playing particularly well. N, however, pointed out that even though we won, he didn't feel particularly happy. This leads me to believe that spring may not make people happy. Perhaps, instead, daffodils release a kind of emotional sedative that just keeps people in a fair-to-middling mood.

Whatever the reason, it's affecting me too; on my way home on Thursday someone wheeled a suitcase over my foot at Kings Cross. He apologised, and rather than respond with a grunt or a glare I said 'don't worry!' with a silly grin on my face. What now? That's not like me. Or is it just unlike WINTER ME? I find myself looking at grass verges and thinking how nice it will be to sit on the grass in the sun. Again, unlike me - I normally run for the shadows. I'm not sure what to make of all this gaiety. I think I may wear a face mask tomorrow - if I manage to maintain a bad mood, there may be some truth in my daffodil theory. If I still feel happy, I'll have no choice to conclude that my initial suspicion was correct, that spring makes people happy, despite the weather still being pretty rubbish.

Just Finished: The Amnesia Clinic by James Scudamore

Set in Ecuador in the 1990s, The Amnesia Clinic follows two fifteen year old boys who couldn't be more different. Anti, the narrator, is a British expat - pale, unattractive and prone to asthma attacks. Fabian is the good-looking, athletic and popular Ecuadorian who takes Anti under his wing. One thing they do share, and what forms the basis of their friendship, is a talent for storytelling; both the boys, Fabian's uncle and a host of other characters are seen using imagination to embellish the reality of what's happened to them. In Fabian's case, it's the death of his mother and father. As his mother's body was never found, Fabian concocts a series of barely plausible possibilities explaining how she survived and where she is now - something that Anti later encourages by suggesting she's a patient in an invented Amnesia Clinic on the coast. This leads to a trip across Ecuador to a fishing village that's not on the map; a trip that ends with a bang.

The storytelling theme is recurrent throughout; many characters have opportunities to go off on their own tangent and it's largely up to you decide whether the narrator is reliable, or whether it's complete bollocks. I think everyone's felt, at one point or another, disappointed with the reality in which they find themselves, and longed for something more interesting to be injected into their daily lives. The Amnesia Clinic follows Anti and Fabian at a time in life when the imagination begins to fail - when what is becomes more important than what could be. It's a coming of age story about leaving childhod fancies behind, and learning to accept life how it is - no matter how grim it seems.

The final twist is the icing on the cake - I wish I could go into it more but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. Suffice it to say that it realigns your perspective on the events and characters you've been reading about, just when you think you know what happened.

I've never been to Ecuador, nor South America for that matter, so I'm not sure how good Scudamore's descriptions are - but in my mind it certainly evoked the colour, passion and confusion that I imagine to exist there. This is a good read - it took a while to get into, and I wasn't always sure what to believe but I think it's very cleverly written. Scudamore's characters manipulate your opinion of them with their stories and keep you guessing until the end. This means you can't really trust any of them, and instead wonder what the reality is, beneath the stories and lies.

Next up: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters