Musings For Airports

 *There's a stainless steel panel on top of the bin next to the toilet in the hotel. When I'm urinating I can see what it would be like if a gigantic John pissed all over me. It's oddly mesmerising. 

*The hotel itself is not great. We're used to the tiniest amount of luxury when we travel - a half decent bed and a fridge would be useful. They are not in evidence here. 

*We've arrived on the hottest day of the year (the following day will supersede it in temperature and will prove hotter than any day of the "long hot summer of '76", and it's not even summer, it's May. The world is toast. It's astonishing that scientists all agree global warming is an imminent threat, farmers agree, as their crops are dust, the general public largely agrees, barring Wetherspoons enthusiasts, that fundamental world change is both deadly and imminent. The only people who say no, it's all FINE, don't be silly, it's all just weather, are politicians and billionaires who are earning money from the destruction of the planet. So nothing happens. We are actively pursuing a global flambe to further enrich the already unfeasibly rich, and there are people who actively vote for this, to, I dunno, spite the the libs? Okay.) and the room is small, the bed is small and wedged against a wall. The window has a snib, so we can only open it two inches. The air conditioning doesn't work. They know this because they replaced it with a fan that doesn't work. It swivels gently, coughing warm air into the muggy interior. The heat is staggering and unrelenting. I can't see the telly for the heat haze. 

*We're here for Susan's dad's birthday. He's 85 and functionally blind now, but he has a sort of magic gizmo that allows him to read in twenty minute spurts. Her mum has recently broken her arm, so the birthday celebrations are slightly curtailed. But a good time is had by all. Geoff, her dad, is ferociously well-read, and we discuss books for several hours. He has read far more than me. He has thirty years on me, mind. 

*I experience the sort of service that informs everyone of my books when I go to the Everyman Cinema to do some writing. I fancy a beer, though none are obvious behind the bar, so I ask a woman who works there. She's posh, southern, with armfuls of spare, tasteful tattoos, and she lists a lot of beers, many of which are sadly prefixed with the words "Brew Dog", and my nose wrinkles. The first beer she mentioned was Italian and acceptable, so I wait for the end of her memory man act, and plump for that one. 

"Sure, where are you sitting?" It's table service. "I don't know - I just got here." "Ah, I can't process the order until you have a table."

So, I go off and look for a table. I find one and put my bag on it to secure it (pub rules) and return to tell her where I am, even though I'm vague because none of the tables have numbers. She's serving a family, but I'm locked in with her now, I can't order from anyone else. We have an established relationship. I have sworn fealty. I'm the consumer as chivalric knight. 

After a few minutes I return to the bar where she's serving another family so I go back to my seat. Another few moments, and I return again. 

"Hello," I say. 

"Don't worry," she says, "I saw where you were sitting."

"Great."

"I'll bring it across. You can pay at the table."

"Great. Thanks."

I return to my table and slip my notebook from my tote (brand new, Tarot themed. Goth adjacent) and start writing. After twenty five minutes I pop my notebook, pen and phone back into my bag and leave, parched. No one runs after me. They don't notice me going.  

There must be a name for this lack of charisma, this anti-rizz, and the thing that I lend to all my characters, even the memoirs. People ask me if the books are autobiographical and, no, of course they're not. But this lack of personality is my gift to all the poor, benighted souls who populate my stories. A friend once said the books were autobiographical, and I replied, "Nothing in the books has ever happened to me." He came back with, "No, but if they did happen to you, that's exactly how you would react." I thought this was unbelievably boneheaded at the time and set my sneer to "derisive", but now I think it must have at least a kernel of truth in it. Damn it. 

One of the novels I'm currently writing features a character absolutely dripping with look-at-me appeal. It'll be a stretch. 

*The next day I'm back at the Everyman, this time with Susan. It's a really nice space, so we, I, am giving a second chance. If you'll recall, in the previous paragraph, I waited half an hour for a drink I hadn't paid for yet, so when it didn't come I left in my standard huff. Today Susan paid at the bar for the drinks so we were obliged to wait the 25 minutes it took to walk them across the room. There was no apology, no acknowledgement of the eons that had elapsed. Just the beer. The girl bringing it was very beautiful, but there are limits to the effectiveness of beauty. 

I found a nice toilet, though

*I'm on the bus to the airport and my phone pings. I rummage about in my bag for my phone and find my friend Duff has sent me a picture of a Scott Walker record. There is some explanatory text but I'm wearing my "far away" glasses, because I've been enjoying views of the beautiful Yorkshire countryside. Seriously, on a sunny day like this, I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful. I pine for England because I no longer live there. I take my glasses off, resting them on my thigh, so I can read Duff's message with my naked eyes. At that moment, the bus driver slams on the brakes and my glasses launch themselves from my leg and down the entire length of the bus, resting at the feet of a woman who has chosen to stand on the half empty bus. She ignores the glasses. A woman gets on. She is the reason the bus driver has braked, and there is a real threat that this woman will step on my glasses because why would she think there are glasses lying on the floor of the bus? I thrust my bag at Susan and stand, blinking into the fuzziness. The man in front has also seen them and rises to collect them, but I'm staggering forward fast into the mist. I think I can see them. The bus starts up and the glasses skid along the floor again and, like a lizard, I notice the movement rather than the shape. The standing woman sees me approach her feet and looks alarmed. The woman who has just got on the bus doesn't know why I'm scrabbling around on the floor, but her sunny smile never falters. She's used to men falling at her feet. 

I retrieve the glasses and, amazingly, they're in tact. I get back to my seat with restored vision and the first thing I see is Susan laughing at me. I don't mind. She has a beautiful smile. 

* The last time I was at Leeds Bradford airport, I thought it was the worst airport I'd ever been to. Well, I'm pleased to say it has retained its crown. It's small, chaotic and there are far too many people in it. They're everywhere, and throwing up the sort of selfish behaviours you can't imagine existing in a civilised society. As hot, weary families with sweat patches and thousand yard stares stagger past them, two middle-aged women pad out a row of four seats with their bags on the empty ones. They are the last seats in the whole airport and they're not giving them up. In one of the two bars - we'll call one the black hole of Calcutta and the other Soylent Green - there is a large gang of tattooed lads - 18 of the fuckers - sitting in a circle and taking up fully a quarter of the available space, shouting and braying and playing drinking games, the beer coming in an unceasing chain like fire fighters passing buckets. They can get seats, together, but Susan and I can't. In the other bar a wounded air conditioner drips water from the ceiling. A yellow cone is placed in the spreading pool beneath it. People sit in a circle around it supping ales. 

We employ a strategy. We sit on a small wall. It is absolutely the last place in the building where you can sit that isn't the floor. There's a large metal pole running across the back of it meaning your buttocks only have about three inches of ledge to play with, but at least it isn't the endless circuit of despair we see other poor souls doing. One must imagine Sisyphus shopping. From this position, I weaponise my man-spreading, retaining our spaces, while Susan goes on a recce for available seating. We communicate by mobile telephone. 

Within ten minutes I get a call. She has secured a table in Starbucks...and they sell beer! This is better than my wildest dreams which are, admittedly, kitten-meek. It's incredibly hot there but is mostly civilised. An island of calm in the unceasing tumult. Yes. It's a victory. I'll take it. 

*Our catchphrase throughout this, well, not holiday, break is, "We need to get some tattoos, Susan. We're getting left behind." Seriously, If I had my time again I'd be an ink baron. That's your actual black gold. As soon as people stopped reading they started tattooing themselves. Ink Baron don't care - it's all about the ink.