My friend, Charlie

It was a bitterly cold wintry day and I was meeting a couple of former colleagues for Xmas lunch. We’d arranged to meet at the German Market in St Ann’s Square Manchester and Charlie was a longtime friend of one of my colleagues. Two things immediately stood out about Charlie. First of all, he had quite a posh southern accent and he wore a cravat, which together give him an air of being from a different era. He was extremely easy to chat with and I took to him immediately.

After the Xmas event, lunches begin to happen more frequently, and I discovered that Charlie was a wonderful lunchtime companion. He was an accomplished painter, and his individually painted Xmas cards were always a delight to receive. His casual comment regarding a shop in London which was ‘where I always get my ochre!’ completed that Bohemian aura.

Charlie‘s other great passion was wine, which he sold as what would be called today a side hustle, which ‘enables me to drink better wine’ as he put it. Every year he would make a trip to France to bring back champagne, which I began to buy from him regularly, as it was both reasonably priced and extremely good. On one occasion, when Charlie came to my house for lunch we were celebrating his return to his favourite libration after having been quite poorly for some time. To underline the special nature of this event, he brought a bottle of vintage champagne from the same vineyard, which he carried in an insulated champagne carrier, the like of which I’ve never seen before. I have to say that that champagne was exquisite! At the same time, despite his considerable knowledge of wine, Charlie was not a wine snob in any sense. He once said that the only description any wine really needed was that ‘it tastes good and gets you pissed’ and I do find that difficult to contradict.

I went to visit Charlie for lunch one day and his house was, I can only describe as delightful – it could have been specified by a set designer working on a Bohemian drama. The front room was packed with items from his two passions – cases of wine, as well as several easels, tubes of oils and acrylics and a variety of artist tools and materials. The next room was lined with bookcases and much of the floor space was taken up with framed pictures, leaning against even more books. From between a couple of the frames, Charlie pulled out a small print and casually said, ‘This is my Magritte!’ Over lunch he told me that one day many years ago, he got a call from his mother who had a small shop selling artists’ materials, saying she had a painting that he should see. He walked into her kitchen to see propped up on the stove an original Picasso! A builder had brought it in as he thought ‘It might be worth a bob or two.’ I transpired that it was part of a major theft, which had been hidden in an old building. The thieves have been caught and convicted and sometime later this haul was discovered by this demolition crew!

Charlie was full of interesting surprises, none said for self aggrandisement, just parts of his life. Charlie once told me that when he was at college, ‘ol’ Penrose was always dropping in!’ that would be Sir Roland Penrose, artist, historian, and husband of legendary photographer Lee Miller – the one who was photographed in Hitler’s bath on the day of his suicide!

Charlie for me fulfilled both my criteria for good friendship and conversation. He was interesting – very interesting and always interested. I loved talking to him and though I didn’t know him very well, I felt a great warmth for him and from him and I miss him a lot.

How many views?!

I saw a post this morning by somebody who had looked at his TikTok posts, checked the actual statistics and was deeply disappointed. I inevitably did the same and was equally disappointed. Back in November, I began posting my songs on TikTok and I got 700 views which I thought was a reasonable start. However, the statistics show that less than 1% of those viewers actually watch the entire minute and a half and the average watch time was 0.1 seconds and of course, if that is the average then some people must’ve watched for less than 0.1 seconds – how is that even possible? It does however, underline the fact that contact is brief to say the least. This leads me to believe that ‘viewers’ click on the Follow or Like button as soon as the image appears in the hope of gaining another follower.

I’ve often mentioned the sad belief that the Internet allows us to have a potential audience of millions, whereas in reality, the vast majority of the audience are themselves creators, hoping that you can be added to their audience. Unfortunately this incestuous situation seems to permeate the internet. There are thousands of people offering you a ‘side hustle’ whereby you can generate huge sums of money as opposed to the paltry sum they’re asking to help launch you on this lucrative career. Your preference may be writing in which case, there are a multitude of sites which will help you find an agent, edit your book, or even give you ideas of what to write about. Yes, believe it or not I’ve read posts saying ‘I want to write a book, but I don’t know what to write about.’ I presume they want to have written a book without the blood, sweat and tears. Again they need have no fear as there are numerous sites which will create a book from scratch which requires no effort or input whatsoever.

Of course you might simply want to actually write as I do, but sadly you might find that the people who respond to your carefully crafted creations actually just want the reciprocal back scratching. Many people enjoy writing a regular piece, but often these become self referential talking about their processes, their feelings and their opinions, though in fairness, I can’t be too critical as I am here now, finishing a blog post about the internet. QED

Happy anniversary!

The 23rd of January is an anniversary for me, for on that day 54 years ago, I passed my driving test. I’d been driving regularly, and of course studying my Highway Code. My father had given me his copy to read which was so old it should have been printed on a scroll. You may not believe this but it contained not only hand signals for using whilst driving a car or riding a bike but also diagrams showing how to indicate your intentions with a whip whilst driving a horse and cart!

My father suggested I should have some lessons to ‘fine-tune’ my driving skills for the test AND so I could do the test in the driving school’s car which was an Austin 1100 – a sort of overgrown Mini. You very rarely see any that have survived as ‘classic cars’ as they all just rusted away. Also there must be very few cars that would deserve the title Classic less than an 1100. The lessons cost 25 shillings each – that’s £1.25. I had four – Friday, Monday, Friday and one before the test on the Monday. Yes – I remember more details about that driving test than about my A-levels, my first degree and my Masters. So when I’d completed the test, the examiner said there were few junctions where I’d stopped which only required me to slow down, but nevertheless he was prepared to ‘give me the benefit of the doubt.’ Thanks. I jumped happily back into my father’s car and told him the good news, to which he responded. ‘Good – now you can really learn to drive.’ – yes, ever supportive.

Bizarrely some 20 years later, I passed my motorbike test, and again I heard those kind words ‘but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.’ 

Can I help you, sir? Hm . . .

There seems to be an ongoing debate about so-called ‘customer services’ – the discussion being ‘Are they barely adequate?‘ or ‘Are they totally and utterly useless?‘ I have always come down in favour of talking to a human rather than going through interminable options or dealing with a speech recognition system, which is in need of a hearing test or being proudly directed to ‘our website’ where there are pages of irrelevant possibilities, hidden within multiple menus and FAQs. Incidentally, the latter never include the most frequent query, which must be ‘Why?’ – I mean to say who would have suggested that a complex automated system requiring constant maintenance and updating would be more effective than having someone to talk to?

Anyway, I’ve aways preferred the human touch every time, but I would add an additional condition to my preference in that it has to be a human that listens. Let me elucidate with an example from this very morning.

I had decided that I wanted to change my network supplier, an operation, which I rashly assumed would be minor though it developed into major surgery. Within the first few minutes, I had established that I wished to cancel my account, due to the absurdly high roaming charges in Europe. I was then cross examined as to where I was taking my business to which I replied that I hadn’t decided. Unfortunately, this was insufficient information, so I randomly selected some other networks until I’d got over this hurdle. Then the trouble really started.

Again, I was asked for my reason for leaving and I re-iterated the issue regarding roaming charges, but to no avail. Now I’m aware that staff should be protected from abuse. However when I had to repeat my simple requirement over and over again, whilst my antagonist continued to try to offer me options, none of which met my criteria, I have to say, I could easily have begun to hurl out odious and vile insults in a fashion rarely to be heard in the leafy suburbs of South Manchester. However, gentility prevailed, and after a mere 26 minutes and 17 seconds, I achieved my aim, though I was a little taken aback, when her parting words were: ‘Is there anything else I can help you with today, Sir?’ I politely declined her kind offer.

The Capitol Building

The other morning, I walked past the corner where I began my working career. I say corner because the building where I worked, is no longer there. I had a degree, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, and I was joining the staff of Manchester Polytechnic – as an assistant caretaker. The Capitol building was a classic listed art deco cinema. It had been a studio owned by ABC TV, where the legendary series Armchair Theatre was staged. It was broadcast live and once a member of the cast died before the last part. During the commercial break, the cast decided they would carry on without this important character. As a result, the denouement involved several speeches which began : ‘Well ,you know what Dave would say, if he was here!’ Consummate professionalism! It was rumoured that the ghost of that actor haunted the cinema.

I was assistant to two brothers who were equally cunningly lazy. Their office had a number of small mirrors strategically placed, so they could see anybody approaching their door whilst they were dozing on cushions on the floor. I went on to discover that of the thirty or so members of staff, I was one of only three that was a graduate. I lasted a few months before your haunted I was offered a contract to teach Social Psychology, a career move which confuse the human resources department in a most satisfying way.

Some years later, the land was sold to a property developer with the proviso that the facade of the building remained intact. It mysteriously collapsed at 3:30 am on a Sunday morning. I was describing this accident to a friend saying there was no proof, but… At this point, he looked extremely sheepish and said that he now worked for that same developer and they still boasted about the accident. Shameful.

Could do better . . .

I loved this story. This guy is getting 2.6 million pounds, whilst being actually sacked. His logic is extraordinary.

“There are 100 things commentators say I got wrong  but hopefully I got 101 things right ” does this mean a man who does this job only has to be slightly better than pure chance to be considered  successful?  

I wish I’d said that . . . (complete the phrase)

‘ONLY A DEAF MAN COULD WEAR A TIE LIKE THAT! ‘

Oscar Wilde

Syzygy? No, Bottoms . . . .