Notes from the Sofa

It’s a big ask, and it’s well outside my comfort zone, but, having just read John Rentoul’s iconic book The Banned List, on improving one’s writing, I’ve decided to take flight on this learning curve, and clear over all those level playing fields.

At least it will force me to think outside the box, will draw a line under earlier Oldie pieces and may get me through to something more existential. Now I will ring-fence all earlier Oldie pieces and foreground a road map for future writing.

So I must step up to the plate and give the idea a kickstart. Let’s hope it will produce a plethora of pleasantries for the reader. Even if, at the end of the day, I may need to kick it into the long grass, after all, the whole idea may be a fake dawn; it may be fatally flawed and dead in the water. But it could be a gamechanger. It’s really only moving the goalposts; just a means of going forward.

Be in no doubt that, in the current climate, it will be ground-breaking for me. But there is no cast-iron guarantee it will work. It may just grind to a halt, become an epic fail and then I will need an exit strategy. But, hopefully, it may be greater than the sum of its parts; otherwise, it could well be my swansong.

I hope readers will be able to take this on board, without getting into a tangled web where they have to make swingeing cuts in order to U-turn. If it produces a wall of silence, please whisper it without fear or favour. But maybe I’d better put it on the backburner and stop all this blue sky thinking. I suppose we’d better have closure. Thank you for your patience. Thank heaven there were no boots on the ground.

But, despite the closure and the absence of boots, I was disappointed by the quality of my new writing. It still seemed to be a little too cliché-ridden for this moment in time.

So I was heartened on the following day by receiving a fine compliment. I get them every day, of course, but this one was unusual. I had gone across to see Ken, my neighbour, whose entrance is exactly opposite mine.

When I got back to his gateway, I couldn’t get out. The recycling van had parked right across it. No room at either end to get past – but the driver’s cab had no doors. So I thought, I can walk through it. Just then, one of the chaps came out of my entrance; so I called out, ‘Is it OK for me to walk through your cab?’ ‘Mr Briggs?’ he said. ‘Yes.’ ‘I love your films. I’ve got all your films, Father Christmas, The Snowman, The Bear ... When The Wind Blows is my favourite.’

He extended a muscular arm, covered in tattoos, and we shook hands in the driver’s cab. He must have been about forty or so, with a short, silver beard.

It was good that, for once, it was not a bookish person, teacher, librarian or devoted mum, but an everyday working bloke.

It was so touching, this chap liking When The Wind Blows so much, that I thought I would give him a copy of the book, if I could find an English one. So, the following week, I stuck a note on the recycling pile in the barrow: ‘TO WHEN THE WIND BLOWS MAN. PLEASE GIVE US A KNOCK. GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU.’

I caught sight of their van from a side window; so I went up the garden to meet them. He was very pleased to get the book but didn’t want his name put in it; so I just signed it. The other chap, when he saw how far the barrowload had to go from the garage to the gateway and how stooped, elderly and frail I was, said, ‘Look, leave the barrow there and we’ll come in and get it.’

Wonderful. Nowadays, I do find it quite a struggle and I can only just about lift the half-ton box of wastepaper.

What is going on? Perhaps I am getting old, do you think? And all those empty wine bottles – where on earth do they come from?