The end of one rainbow

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Now, why would I have gone to all that trouble of starting to document my task of documenting a new open mic night only to come to a shudderingly abrupt halt just eight weeks into the project.

Well, there are two reasons. First, my wife kept saying ‘do you really think you should be writing a blog when you are earning as little as you do?’ which is, sadly, true on one level.

Second – and if it hadn’t been for this point, I probably would have ignored my wife and continued – I chickened out.

When writing a blog, one needs to be brutally honest and true to one’s thoughts and opinions, however upsetting they might be for the people you are writing about. When organising an open mic night, one needs to nurture relationships and create a nucleus of loyal participants. Pissing people off could well be counter-productive.

The fact is, the main body of support I got for the Plough’s Tuesday evenings included Psycho Deano (a lovely bloke), Sassy Lozza (my wife), The Mafia (nice people, but always tricky in terms of conversation), Jeff the Jock (who is as lovely as he is boring beyond belief) and Not Manic Mark (again, as sweet as honey, but a real effort to talk to and play with). Among this group, only The Mafia would both play and sing. All the others either required me to play and/or sing. But I needed these people to make sure that someone was there in the pub to keep East End Bob happy.

So, taking the micky in a blog might not be the most conducive method of mollification of my muso masses. With these guys coming regularly, anything else was a bonus.

And so the Tuesday evening chugged on through up to Christmas and into the New Year, becoming stronger and more defined with each passing week. In order to keep East End Bob happy and in control, I agreed to a pay cut, but he was decent enough never to pay me the minimum amount – always adding a little extra on and often giving me the full fee.

Then the last week of March was upon us and – after a couple of quiet evenings – no-one came! For the first time ever, not a single person showed up. I was gutted. East End Bob was mortified.

This stung me into action. I immediately got on to the Slough Observer and wrote press releases, gave interviews and sent over pics (taken by The Mafia). The lovely people at the paper promised me good coverage.

Then I got a message to ring East End Bob…

“I think we’d better knock it on the head,” he said… At least I think that what he said. It could have been ‘a thud with berry knocker on the air’, but I took it to be the first one. The second one was just ridiculous.

The next Tuesday some 15 people turned up having seen the article in the Observer. I wasn’t there. I just smiled a knowing smile and thought to myself: “Bob, you chickened out. We’re as bad as each other.”

My wife is better than me

It’s the weekend – joy! What’s more the sun is shining… What’s more it’s my wife’s and my first wedding anniversary – what more could one want?

It has already been one of those idyllic mornings when the simplest of things fill one with joy and love. Cutting Lorraine a flower from the garden to take up with her wake-up cup of tea, being given a really nice bottle of wine and a photo album of our wedding and honeymoon, enjoying a radio show together (Des Lynham and a mate nattering about golf – very funny – very middle class – very middle aged), cleaning out cars and then discovering Lorraine in my studio discovering this blog.

I started it on Wednesday and now it’s Saturday – four days, four blogs. Lorraine actually inspired me to start writing a blog when she started her own last September. That’s how slow a starter I am… And this is how slow a ‘continuer’ she is. Today, after seeing my first three efforts, Lorraine dived with vehemence on to her computer and began continuing hers. You can see it here.

In case you haven’t clicked through to look it at it by now, it’s called ‘My husband is better than me – grrr’. Bless her. And while much of what she has written in said blog is quite true – including the willy cleaning habits… Just in case – the thing that is wrong is the very premise of the piece. I’m not better than her. She’s better than me.

We both work as writers, but while I tend to burble out the first thing that comes to mind and then click on the upload button with a flourish a few minutes later, Lorraine has the ability to write something, look at it, correct stuff, re-write it, re-correct it, change the ending, edit out the unnecessary bits and then give it a final gloss and re-re-re-re-correct. This is real writing. This is what real writers do. Not splurge their never-ending thoughts on the trivia of musical instruments, music, writing, or whatever, and then be happy with the results with barely a second glance.

What is more – and as her blog describes – she does this while putting a load of laundry into the washing machine, filling the dishwasher, doing the ironing, dusting, cleaning, cooking and organising our diaries and finances for the next 15 years. If she finds herself at a loose end, she’ll pop out into the garden and go shopping… For fun.

How do women do it? Why can’t they simply sit down and do nothing? As I mentioned in ‘The joys of mediocrity 1’, my habits are generally half-hearted and even then it done with extreme struggle against my unending ability to do absolutely nothing. I can watch football or listen to an album and have not a though in my head about what needs to be done. Women don’t seem to be able to do that. I think I would pity them if it weren’t for the fact that they are continually jemmying men out of their seats and into some chore or other.

And this brings me back to the opening. This has been a wonderful morning – as have been the past few Saturdays, because I have got out of bed, fully prepared (and psyched up) to do at least one relevant chore before anything else.

The difference this morning is that exactly one year ago, we were meeting up at Auchen Castle in Moffat to promise ourselves to each other for the rest of our lives. It was a wonderful day – and that makes today a wonderful day, too.

I met Lorraine 30 years ago – it was an inauspicious start to a relationship. We were in a show together and that was pretty much the beginning and the end of the story.

When we met up again nearly ten years ago, there was an attraction. Nine years ago, we became friends. Eight years ago we were best friends. Six years ago we became lovers. Four years ago we began living together. Last year we got married. Today we are going to the garden centre to buy Lorraine a shrub that she really wants.

The joy of that big day one year ago almost pales into insignificance with the simple beauty of being there for each other, of being together, of doing stuff together. My life, thanks to her, is pretty much complete.

And to top it all off – she’s loads better than me at pretty much everything.

Happy anniversary, Darling – I really love you.