Nepal brings over my latte, the colouring of which is spot on today. Milky, the lighter side of a toffee. It’s the way a latte should always look. I’m sat at the single table by one of only two heaters in THE café. Nepal, whose man bun, unveiled a few weeks ago and a shadow of The Beard’s own beard, has been bunched into an even smaller bun, places the tall glass on my right. I always bring these over to my left side, by the wall, partly because I’m clumsy and liable to send the glass flying, but also because, as you know, I regularly pass myself off as a left-handed.
I wait a few minutes before moving the glass over to my left. I don’t want Nepal thinking he’s inconvenienced me by placing it on my right, where I cleared all my stuff to make a space for the tall glass placement.
It’s a miserable wet day in south London, though this morning’s 5.5k run lifted my spirits somewhat. I made a vow to myself this lunchtime that regardless of how hellishly hot it gets this summer, I’m not complaining about a single warm day this year. For now, I remain hatted at night and under 80 togs of bedding. It’s no easy thing hauling that bedding over my head at night.
I have three consecutive gig nights starting tonight and I’m excited. This of course is unusual for me. My new material, just under eight minutes of it, is ready to unveil tonight. It means that I’m starting with two plus minutes of an older set until I introduce the next part of the new set.
Writing, as I’ve said before, is never a problem for me. I’ve been writing for thirty years. The problem is learning the material and finding the necessary hours to rehearse and nail it down. Yesterday afternoon, I rehearsed for three solid hours, taking me into the early evening and this morning, just before my run, I did another couple of hours. I’ve also recorded the new set onto my phone to play back on the buses (on my £3 earphones) into tonight’s gig just so it lodges in there. I’ve learned the set but from past experience, until you test it live, you never know whether you’re going to have a blank moment on stage when the material is brand new. I ran it through while out on this morning’s run and I didn’t run into any problems. Roll on tonight’s audience.
What else have I got for you today? Well, I’m a big fan of listening to paranormal shows. Not that I’m a big believer in a lot of the stuff, but I find it fascinating and I enjoy listening to some of the nuttier guests. I avoid listening to the creepier topics at night though in case they lead to a more sleepless night than normal.
I can’t remember which show it was I was listening to the other night, it might’ve been a US one (Canadians make the best radio and podcasts, I stand by that) where the host was interviewing someone that unlocks past life memories. The woman was saying that she had a client who had a phobia of birds, which she described as unusual. As a lifelong sufferer of ornithophobia, I was surprised that she said this was unusual. Surely it can’t be?
Some people are scared of dogs, for instance, and there’s lots of them, but there are even more birds. It can’t be unusual. Anyway, according to her, she unlocked this client’s past life memories and he was supposedly wounded in the First World War and while lying there wounded, he was watching fellow infantrymen, most dead, being picked at by carrion-eating birds. Once they worked out that’s where his fear of birds came from, she said the man was cured of his phobia. I hope that in order to overcome my phobia I don’t need to undergo some past life regression that seems me discovering I was one of the fallen soldiers on those muddy fields.
It’s no small thing fearing birds, when you’re running into them every single day of your life. I think it was worse a generation ago when sparrows were always knocking around with pigeons like a pilot fish congregating around a shark. The little birds always worry me more. The fear was of course compounded by my dad being obsessed with birds and keeping a large aviary (and breeding), no easy thing in a bedsit and I never appreciated him letting newborn chicks walk about on my Subbuteo pitch. His frustration that I didn’t share his love of birds regularly boiled over.
Here in the café, the Head Man of SW8 has just rolled in. He’s got his hat on and has grown an impressive grey beard with the kind of depth that my own beard, disappointingly always struggles for. He’s stroking his chin, as you would, if you had a beard. His latte arrives and he stirs it somewhat awkwardly, right handed, while holding his phone in the other, before licking the froth from the tall spoon. I’ve never seen that before. It unsettles me a little. I know that spoon will go in a dishwasher, but still.
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