Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time (3 page)

Oh, Martin! Look at us. We’re getting far too serious. We need to calm down. We need to remember what we’re here for. We don’t want to hear about murder and mayhem in the squares of North Africa! Such talk can only bring us down.

Have you ever been on the radio, Martin? I have. And let me tell you, seven minutes on the radio can feel like an awfully long time. When you’re on live radio, seven minutes can feel like all the time in the world.

So there I was, about six years ago, brought in to the studio to grace the airwaves with my insight and analysis on the new Oasis album. All of London was listening. The nation’s capital city was agog! What would I, self-styled voice of the nation’s youth (and at that time contributing rock and pop reviewer for the
Sunday Express
) have to tell this great city about
les frères
Gallaghers’ latest? What would we all learn about the state of British rock?

London paused. London cocked an ear.

And I… blew it. I floundered. Early on in my allotted seven minutes, whilst trying to express my frustration with Noel’s bandwagon-jumping critics, I jumbled up the phrases ‘gets my goat’ and ‘I have a beef with’ (I have no idea why those two phrases were in my mind to begin with) and I loudly declared: ‘That really gets my beef.’

There was a terrible pause. And then I said it again. And then for seven minutes I couldn’t think of anything else to say. All I could think was: ‘What the hell does “gets my beef” mean? Why did I say that? What kind of idiot am I anyway? Gets my beef?
Gets my beef
?’

Martin, it was awful. It was seven minutes of abject misery. And it felt like an awful lot longer.

So please, don’t tell me seven minutes doesn’t really matter. It does. They do. Time is relative. Whether it’s 22 men lying broken in the dust or one man making a prat of himself on the radio: seven minutes can feel like for ever.

Oh, and as I write, on a train in the morning (the morning following the delay I write of today. Did I mention time is relative?), inching past the golden suburbs of Reading, I see we’re already eight or so minutes behind schedule again. Expect another letter later today. And if you thought that being seven minutes late got my beef… baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 15. Amount of my day wasted: 17 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Guilty New Mum, Competitive Tech Nerds, Universal Grandpa, Lego Head, Train Girl.

How goes the war, Martin? Bad guys still winning? Hang in there, soldier. The sun also rises. Dreams never end. It’s Glastonbury next weekend! That’s something good, right? That’s something to look forward to. Assuming it stops raining, of course.

So chin up, private. Eyes forward. Some day this thing’s gonna end. I promise.

But not today. Today things don’t look so peachy at all. Today you’re going to have to kick back and listen to my nonsense for a good 17 minutes of your day. And what’s more, now we’re getting into the swing of things here, you’ll see I’ve made a slight change to the format of my letters. Exciting, eh! More of that later…

But first things first. I do hope that you know how much I do appreciate you taking the time out to reply to me personally. Even when my letters veer towards the sarcastic, the hyperbolic. Even when it might feel like I’m giving you a bit of a slapping, literary-speaking. It’s not personal. It’s not bullying. That’s just how I write, Martin. It’s how I was trained to write.

And the fact you can understand all that and remain so polite makes you a big man. A Big Man. A man’s man. A man’s Big Man.

So. That’s the polite stuff over and done with. Now to business. Much as I respect you as a man’s Big Man, I find myself once again let down by you and your service.

I was 17 minutes late for work today. It meant I arrived late for an important meeting. It was a crisis meeting, one of an increasing number of crisis meetings we seem to be having on the showbiz desk. It was a crisis meeting about ethics. About integrity. (Of all the ridiculous things to have a meeting about on the showbiz desk of the
Globe
, for Christ’s sake.) It was one of those ridiculous meetings where, thanks to the indiscretions and, ahem, eccentricities of our predecessors, we were getting a roasting. It was the whole newspaper in microcosm. It was one of those meetings where we were told not to be so fast and loose with our newsgathering tactics, but at the same time, in the same breath, we were told if we didn’t keep getting the scoops we’d be out on our ears.

The police have been in touch, apparently. The whole unpleasantness could go beyond a few hacked-off celebs moaning about getting caught with their pants down. It could even get beyond the take-the-money-and-shut-up stage. It’s bad, in other words.

And yet, we were getting a good going over for not getting more exclusive stories. For not catching more celebs with their pants down. Go figure that one.

Anyway. The point is: it was an important meeting.

And I had to walk in late, all elbows and knees, clutching a half-sipped coffee and dropping my notepad and mumbling apologies as everyone stopped talking and watched. In silence. In disapproving silence. I wanted to say: ‘Don’t judge me! Judge Martin Harbottle, Managing Director of Premier Westward trains! He’s the Delilah to my David here! Be silent and disapproving towards him! It’s his fault! It’s all his fault!’

But of course I couldn’t. I had to grin foolishly and take it like a man. And not a big man, either. Not a man’s Big Man. I had to take it like a small man.

I don’t understand why we’re getting the blame for the sins of our predecessors at the paper anyway. I don’t understand why this sudden need for self-flagellation. We are the Free Press, right? We have a duty to report the news, whatever it might be.

And I have no idea why the shadier newsgathering tactics of my forebears should be in any way relevant to my current job churning out salacious witticisms on the implied indiscretions of the celebrity world. I’m not breaking any laws. I’m not even in a position to break any laws. But I was told to be there. I was told to be there because that’s how it works at my place. You do as you’re told. And turning up late and looking incompetent is generally frowned upon.

So. Anyway. That was my morning. And I’m guessing this is an email you knew was going to come today, didn’t you, Martin? I’m betting you turned up for work this morning; I’m betting you fired up the Premier Westward Super Mainframe Megacomputer and felt your little heart sink.

There was an incident this morning. One of your trains, Martin: it broke down! It totally broke down. Like it was too old or poorly maintained or something. As luck would have it, it wasn’t my train, but still. That old or defective or poorly maintained train broke down and snarled up the line for everyone else.

I wasn’t the only one, of course. It’s not just about me! My train was, as always, packed. (Over-packed, some might say.) And, as always, it held many of the usual suspects, the same faces I see every day. We’re a regular little community – united by habit and circumstance and frustration.

The thing about commuting is that it’s a shared experience. We’re all in it together, as someone once said. We’re creatures of habit, making for the same spot on the platform, the same seat in the same carriage, every day – and so, naturally, commuting becomes something of a glimpse into the human zoo. It’s like watching a David Attenborough documentary – and you start to recognise your fellow victims by their habits as much as their faces.

This morning, for example, from my usual spot in Coach C I counted five regulars.

There was Guilty New Mum, freshly (and early) returned to work after maternity leave, all of a flap, juggling laptop and Filofax and scalding coffee whilst phoning home to check on baby, muslin squares and nipple shields spilling out of her handbag…

Competitive Tech Nerds – two middle-aged banker types with weak chins and big suits – were arguing loudly about the relative merits of Cloud storage versus external hard drives. Which at least made a change from the interminable mobile phone discussions they seem to endlessly recycle (when the new iPhone came out they almost came to blows, so overcome were they by the excitement of it all).

On the seat opposite them was Universal Grandpa – wisps of snowy hair, white beard, M&S slacks, smart jacket, the kindest face you ever saw, copy of the
Telegraph
. No idea where he’s going every day at this time: he looks too old and too nice to be doing this. And next to him was Lego Head: a huge, heavyset man in (I’m guessing) his mid-thirties about whom I know nothing other than that he has got on this train every single time I have, always makes for exactly the same spot, never says a word to anyone, never reads a paper or a book, never plugs himself into a laptop or iPod or mobile phone… and has hair that looks exactly like it’s made out of Lego.

And down a little, on the opposite side to me, is Train Girl. I don’t know much about her either, other than that she’s easily the best-looking part of my journey to work every morning. Not that I pay too much attention to that kind of thing, obviously.

So there we all were. Delayed, late, in trouble with our respective bosses, thrown together by habit and circumstance, forced into daily unwarranted intimacy, and (with the exception of Competitive Tech Nerds) never once even acknowledging each other’s presence, despite it all.

Does that make you feel a little worse, Martin, knowing the human cost of your incompetence? How would you explain such a pitiful service to us all? How do you communicate such failure? Enlighten me! Educate, inform or at least entertain me. Tell me why I’m getting a pasting at work for the bad behaviour of my predecessors, while you seem to be able to run a shoddy business with impunity.

Can you communicate that to me? Can you do it now? Can you do it, in the words of the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, like it’s 1999? Or even in a manner befitting, say, the 21st century?

Yes? All right! Go Martin! I feel energised! I feel invigorated! I feel like… like a Big Man! This could be a new beginning for me and you! We gotta make it happen!

Yours, in breathless expectation,

Au revoir
!

Dan

PS. Just read this back, Martin, and worried it may sometimes appear like I’m bullying you. Don’t worry. I’m not. I’m not really threatening you with the diabolical power of the
Sunday Globe
. I’m a straight-up bloke, I keep telling you that. I’ve no intention of taking this conversation any further than between us. Trust me. (Though I am interested in whether that means your responses will stop. Are you only writing back to me because you’re a bit scared of who I work for? Because of the power of negative publicity? Because we do look a bit scary at the moment, don’t we? What with all these headlines we’re generating about ourselves? Or do you write back because you really do care about running a good service? I wonder.)

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 17. Amount of my day wasted: 13 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Guilty New Mum, Lego Head, Train Girl, Universal Grandpa.

Dear Martin

What’s happening? You’ve gone all silent on me. I’m getting worried. Three letters without a reply. You don’t really think I’m a bully, do you?

And I wanted to get your thoughts on the North African situation, too. I told you those 22 weren’t firing on the army, didn’t I? The
Globe
newsroom is rarely wrong! I told you they’d become a flashpoint for something far bigger. I told you those few minutes of madness would have major repercussions. And now… thousands. Thousands of angry men with flags where before there were barely two dozen.

What’s going to happen out there? What do you think? It’s a little bit worrying, a little bit horrible… but it’s exciting, isn’t it? It’s news! News is happening!

Have you spurned me, cast me aside, left me in the lurch? I do hope not. Everyone I love goes away in the end.

(Actually, that’s not strictly true. It’s just a lyric from a Johnny Cash song I like. The people I love don’t go away. Or at least they haven’t yet. The people I love: they’re going nowhere. At least, that’s what they tell me. ‘What am I doing, Dan?’ they say. ‘I’m going nowhere. I had a career, I used to have a life – and now I’m stuck in with the baby all day, surrounded by dirty nappies and dirty baby clothes and dirty baby, talking nonsense with someone who can’t even understand what I’m saying because she’s only two months old, watching Jeremy bloody Kyle and Eamonn bloody Holmes and Alan bloody Titchmarsh and not even bloody hearing them over the noise the bloody baby’s making cos it won’t bloody sleep and I think I’m going mad and there you are having fun at work all day with all your funny, clever, single, baby-less friends and here I am going bloody nowhere…’ That’s what they tell me. That’s what the one I love tells me. She’s not going away. She’s going nowhere.)

Oh dear – is this sounding like therapy, Martin? Are you to be my therapist? Would you like me to tell you how I really feel? Would you like me to share?

OK then, I will. I’ve got a bit of time of yours to waste today, after all. Here’s how I feel. Here’s what I’m feeling right now.

Have you looked outside your window recently? Out beyond the usual view, I mean? There’s a whole world out there. Look at North Africa. It’s revolting! And it’s not the only place – it’s just the latest. Something’s always happening somewhere. And that is why I became a journalist. To be a part of it. Not to read about the world on my Twitter feed whilst sitting delayed outside Slough; not to scroll through websites while chugging at half-speed past Didcot Parkway; not to flick through other people’s copy in other people’s newspapers while stalled near Southall. I became a journalist to be a part of it all.