It has been a slow week. No visits to and from the police; no sleepless nights dealing with someone suffering from a full-blown episode of paranoid psychosis; no having to wait 45 minutes for 111 to answer, then giving up; no hiding out at a friend’s house for the night; no visits from any of the children; no being sort-of chatted up in trendy pubs; no agonising dealing with the bailiffs and handing over one’s pension; just dealing with lawyers about a matter that I will keep to myself for now, and coping with the crises of my friends. Those are private but, hoo boy, they really could fill a column or two.
A kind person from this magazine sent me a signed photograph of Angela Rayner and when I am in serious funds I shall get it framed, but for now it just stays on my bedside table, and every so often I turn to it and sigh. As for funds, I did have a mauvais quart d’heure today when I checked my bank balance and asked myself how I’d managed to go £100 past my overdraft limit overnight. But then I realised the sum was actually in credit: I’d been paid. I used to have a troubled relationship with the accounts payable department of this magazine, but for the last few years they have been absolute angels. Consider this mention an early Christmas card.
So, what with this week being thin on incident, I am going to have to fall back on one of my standards: what’s been happening at my local Waitrose.
Oh no, not again, you might be saying. Sorry, but this is important. The first thing is that someone spoke to me in the lift. This only goes up one floor, from the shop itself to the car park, but I have a hill to climb after that and then stairs, and life’s hard enough as it is, so why not use it? It’s a brief journey, then, but time stretches hugely when someone tries to make conversation.
“How’s your day been?” asked a man with a sandy beard, a baseball cap and pastel shorts.
“I’ve had worse,” I said, when I’d recovered from the initial shock.
“Hmm,” he said. “‘Had worse.’ Yes, I suppose I have, too.”
The lift crawled up another inch.
“I like your…” and he waggled his fingers in the direction of his throat, in order to indicate that he was talking about my neckerchief. I’ve mislaid all of them, apart from the vibrant red one; it does rather stand out.
“Thank you,” I said. My gaydar has improved since moving to Brighton – but the needle wasn’t flickering; this wasn’t a pick-up. “Stylish but practical,” I added. “Keeps out the cold.”
“You don’t see many of them these days,” he said, as if I was actually wearing a top hat.
“Well,” I said, “if you are going to see them, Brighton’s as good a place as any.”
Good grief, how long is this lift journey taking? Also: I see these neckerchiefs all over town, sometimes even being worn by dogs. (I like it when dogs wear them. It gives them a raffish air. Like me, I suppose.)
I forget the rest of the conversation. One day, I thought, I’ll be in the lift and a beautiful, rich divorcee will compliment me on my neckwear and then say something like, “I know this is awfully forward of me, but don’t you write for…” and then she will pop me into the passenger seat of her Mercedes and all my troubles will be over. That, or a whole new set of them will begin, but it’s a risk I’m prepared to take.
The other big Waitrose-related news is that they have got rid of several tills and replaced them with self-service checkouts. I mean this must have been a major operation, the D-Day of supermarket reorganisation, accomplished overnight, in stealth, and with no disruption at all to customers – apart, of course, from the disruption of having to use a self-service checkout. I used to like the little chats I’d sometimes have with the people manning the tills; you don’t really get the chance when all they do is pop round to press a few buttons confirming you’re over 18.
It’s been a week now and I still hate it. Everyone hates it. So why do they do it? I thought the ’Trose was one of the more enlightened employers. And don’t tell me to go somewhere else: there isn’t anywhere else, not on this side of town at least. There’s a Lidl by the Marina but that could be in Timbuktu for all the good it would do me.
Anyway, dear God, here I am, reduced to writing about my shop again. But it’s a big part of my life: I go there at least five times a week, and over four years that adds up. That means I’ve been there at least 1,000 times. Eat your heart out, Adrian Chiles. I hear a book of his columns is being published. Well, I have a similar one out next year, but I’m not married to the editor of the Guardian and I’m not on the telly, so no one will buy mine. Although maybe a beautiful, rich divorcee will buttonhole me in the lift at Waitrose and ask me to sign her copy before complimenting me on my neckerchief and then ravishing me. A man can dream.
[See also: Another week, another encounter with the long arm of the law]
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This article appears in the 30 Oct 2024 issue of the New Statesman, American Horror Story