Handling Loose Balls

Posted on October 9, 2011 by emmacalin

Me and my big mouth! Over a couple of drinks with a colleague of Gilles last night I mentioned my difficulty with the offside rule. Now- all of his life this guy had been waiting for an unsuspecting little butterfly to fall into the back of his goal net. He was on me like a spider sensing the death struggle of a gnat. Within seconds I was wound into a cocoon and injected with a paralysing sporty drug. Salt and pepper pots, a beer glass, several coasters and a wine cooler shunted up and down the table. I agreed with everything that was said but was suddenly confronted with a test to see if I had been listening. I had not been! I had got behind the pepper before the gin bottle was played.

So it was that instead of my Sunday morning romantic novelist’s lie in with warm baguette, I found myself with a bunch of parent types at the edge of a windswept recreation ground. Gilles had agreed to bring me to watch his chum’s boy play football and to finally split the infinitive and the atom of the offside rule. The ref looked like he had the right clothes but the guys who ran up and down the edges looked like passers-by who had been handed flags. It was these conscripts who were to judge the offside rule. Seemingly anyone you meet in the street who can hold a flag will know it.

The game kicked off and various stampedes of lads hurtled up and down. All of a sudden, a parent type shouted “Ref! That’s gotta be offside – Lino, Lino- you must be blind!”

“Lino – that kitchen floor stuff?” I ask Gilles.

“Lino – it means the linesman,” (That’s the conscript guy with a flag).

The referee blows his whistle for play to continue. A parent of the opposing side calls out “well played lino! – that was never off!”

It then became apparent that the lino guys were from each team and their decisions were allegedly based on a biased interpretation of the rules. By the end of the game it was more or less agreed that all of the officials had obviously lost their sight with solitary handling of their balls. Why does anyone want to be a football official?

Torn shreds of clouds scampered across a pale sky as church bells peeled for morning service. The sound of a ball punted at the far end of the field reached my ears long after the action. This is a world of rules facts and beauties. We are nothing but poor interpreters and conscript linos.

Emma thinx: A granted freedom is merely a longer chain.

Offside Default Swap – Simple!

Posted on October 8, 2011 by emmacalin

Since I am supposed to be a writer of books I really ought to say something on the subject now and then. Writers can be some of the world’s least interesting people since they sit writing – often with quite a grumpy and taciturn manner. When I was in my poetic mode I did a fair bit of wistful wandering. Then I would have a couple of drinks and forget what I had thought. Poets like me can be quite up themselves to be honest. However, in my guise as Laureate of the virtual supermarket shelf I am experiencing a few moments of glory this weekend. My book “Knockout” is at No.2 in the Kindle Interpol section and at No.28 in both the Romantic Adventure and Adult Romance tables. This is astonishing to me. My short story “Sub-Prime” is at No.2 in the “Workers Rights” section and at No.6 in the “Working Class” section. Come on now my dear dear readers – lash out that 99 cents/86 pence and make a middle aged bus driver feel like a No.1 best seller. Thanks in advance guys – I knew we could make it together.

Dear Oh dear on the economy stuff. Seemingly we are all doomed. The market tail is throwing the dog off balance. The politicos will not do as they are told and guarantee to bail out infinite debt.(As soon as you pay some off they increase the interest rate and want more). I actually heard a City guy moaning that politicians are too aware of the voters and tax payers. The solution is simple. Get rid of the politicians and democracy and have free elections for bankers, traders, spivs and gangsters instead. It looks increasingly to me that the big players have nearly jockeyed themselves into a position where their hedges/ default swaps et al will clean up the plate and it will be advantageous to crash the show. Governments will then pour liquidity into the sieve and the well placed hands will catch it. I wish all the free marketeers good fortune and merely comment that the rule of Law and the universal acceptance of property rights will only ever be maintained by the State. Be careful how much you crash. Barbed wire might be a good investment.

Since I have been working more or less full time I have not been able to read as much as I would like. I am still with Bert Carson’s “Fourth and Forever”. I’m enjoying the read but cannot quite grasp the rules of American Football. In soccer I’m afraid that the offside rule is even more baffling than most items on the financial derivatives market. Wouldn’t you worry about a best selling romantic old trollop who could run the line with a flag and deal you a forward rate agreement?

Emma thinx: If the markets are free why do they enslave us?

Making a Splash

Posted on October 7, 2011 by emmacalin

Last weekend at the motorway services I saw an advertisement which said “You shoudn’t have to plan your life around toilet stops”. I must confess I don’t know what product they were offering. I guess it was some kind of she-wee potty or maybe some medication. All the same, I think we’ve all known one another long enough to reveal some of the inner secrets of bus driving. You just cannot stop the bus and get off for a wee. The same problem applies to lorry drivers. My ex husband used to carry a 2 litre plastic milk bottle. If he hit traffic and he was trapped in the cab he would dangle his dingle into the neck and obtain relief. In cold weather with a failed heater, this can be a challenge even for the well developed male. If ever you pull into a lay-by you may see a few containers looking like they contain whisky or orange squash. They do not! Some very inconsiderate truckers just empty the full bottle out of the window whilst travelling at full speed. Do you still want that wind in your hair cabriolet? I hope you realise that in reading this you are being admitted to an inner cognoscenti of romantic novelists, truck and bus drivers. If you are on or driving around a public bus and you feel that the driver is pushing the boundaries of traffic etiquette please try to be aware that the poor soul at the wheel may be in a desperate plight.

The reality is that we are animals no different to say – cats. We have to go but we want to do it somewhere else, and certainly not in our own clothing. The agony of the long distance bus driver is known to many folk in different guises. My worst personal incident was when driving a coach into central London a few years ago. I had had lunch a little late and had had an extra cup of tea. On the A40 I hit terrible traffic. As we crawled towards the Marylebone Road I knew that I could not make it to any kind of refuge. Just as we were about to take the flyover I saw a park to my left. I pulled over, waved at my open-mouthed passengers and dived for the gates. LOCKED!!!! Pressure was unbearable. Then I saw some kind of yard with bins. I dived in and squatted between some huge galvanised stinking cylinders. After a desperate wrestle with trousers – release at last. Even if the Queen of bloody England (she hasn’t got bits) had turned up I could not have stopped. Evidence of my crime flooded out into the street. I felt that sense of shame and relief that surrendering soldiers must feel. Then I bolted back to the bus. The passengers were coming up to London to see a show. I think they thought it was part of the entertainment. A couple of guys gave me a decent tip and a wink.

Emma thinx: The purest happiness is release from anguish.

Brown Eyes To Turn France Red.

Posted on October 6, 2011 by emmacalin

I wait at the end of a block of lock up garages. The usual lad is not there. Above us is a concrete village in the sky of about 8 storeys. I watch a woman of close to my own age dragging herself on crutches down some steps towards me. She hauls herself breathlessly up to my window. I notice she has two lip rings.

“Ee’s not comin’ today – ee’s got an ‘eadache. I would ‘ave phoned but me credit’s gone,” she says.

I thank her and reverse the bus as she struggles back up the concrete steps to the sky village. The radio plays “It’s all about tonight” by a young electro-warblesse called Pixie Lott. The pumped out pop culture kinda overlays the grey inarticulate desperation of so many lives. This is the way we are – a proletariat of tinsel, piercings and tattoos, climbing the stairs of manipulated individualism towards a nirvana of that lottery win, that Friday night out, that romance like what they does in them trash books.

Well, that cheered you all up didn’t it. My home seems far away this week as I watch the fallen leaves begin to swirl more and more in the Autumn gusts. In France the socialists slug it out to see who will challenge Sarko for the presidency. The departure of DSK from the picture threw everything into disorder. Last night I watched Martine Aubry speaking on the French News. From the distance of the UK I find myself warming to her. She may or may not have had a few problems in the past (it is a job to tell when there are so many dirty tricks). But, if she has had a few issues then she knows about struggle and humanity. She answers questions patiently and has an air of being a neighbour to whom you could chat. She also has kind eyes. Martine – I would vote for you if I had a vote. As it is I’ll just tell Gilles to vote for you. The poor old boy slogs up and down to London directing his branch of the corporate world. He wants to go home. I’m gonna cook him some moules tonight. A couple of weeks ago he saw a rabbit running across the sports field. He glanced at me with a grin. I know what he was thinking. Oh yes I do!

Everyday is a school day. This morning I learned about a style of architecture called “Brutalism”. Essentially it means that 60’s concrete slab style. When I was young it was thought to be modern and artistic. There’s a big debate over whether or not to demolish Preston Bus Station. There’s some folk who want to keep it as a monument. I can see both sides to this. Speaking as a bus driver it looks as if there is plenty of shunt room. Take a look at the picture and let me know. Comments from fellow bus drivers very welcome.

Emma thinx: Room to manoeuvre – get your guy to tidy the lounge.

Turkish Bath

Posted on October 5, 2011 by emmacalin

I am writing this between my 2 shifts. The morning session was calm-ish. The architect of yesterday’s belligerence was brought out to the bus by his grandmother.
“Why did he come home so upset?” She asks.
“He had a row with a girl about some beaver”. I reply rather disingenuously.
“He’s written her a lovely note to say sorry.”
“Oh – that’s wonderful..”
I hear a shriek behind me as the girl tears up the note. Probably a split infinitive or a misspelling I guess. Grandma and I exchange kinda female motherly “well what can you do?” expressions.
I pull away and increase radio volume to max. Kelly Clarkson belts out “BECAUSE OF YOU” in an accusatory tone of voice. Yes that’s quite right Kelly – it is always because of those others isn’t it. I sing along. I …. I am an artist I tell myself.

I swing the bus into the college yard to do my homeward run.. A fluorescent clad tutor with clipboard approaches. ” We’ll get them all on and then bring out X (the aggro lad).”
“His Gran asked me what had happened this morning.” I say.
“Tell her to contact us. We deal with these things professionally. You shouldn’t be speaking to people. He’s on the spectrum.”
“I speak to all kinds of people…I can’t help it.” I reply with an irritating antagonistic simplicity. The tutor knows she’s taken a jab but can’t quite figure it. To patronise or not to patronise? – That is the question. She is an educational professional. She can’t help it. She gives me a hard look. I tweak an eyebrow and stare her out. I never did take to teachers you know.

A couple of days ago I did a mass shoppage in ASDA. I won’t go on about how they have reduced the size of pack weights and kept the same prices. Anyone who thinks that price inflation is 5% either hasn’t got weigh scales or a memory. Anyway, I wanted purity, cleanliness and British tradition. I bought 2 bars of Wrights coal tar soap,( I have never seen this in France). A whole childhood of coarse damp towels, icy bathrooms, stinging eyes and tender flappy bits flashed through my mind. Coal Tar – a substance so brutal that germs commit suicide rather than do battle. I studied the wrapping. It is now “traditional soap”. In very small print underneath are the words “with coal tar fragrance”.
Surely not! Has this last link to virginity and purity been defiled? I study the label. In even smaller print are the words “Made in Turkey”. Everything is crumbling. Prime Minister Cameron wants me to pay off my credit card and celebrate a gay marriage in his Tory conference speech today. I just want to soap my bits in an aroma of Empire and BRITISH industrial carbolic. I saw a sign outside the local pub. “Pint of Stella Artois and a Madras curry for £5.” Thank you God. Some traditions stretching back to the Ancient Britons still survive.

Emma thinx: Diversity – a university for twins.

The Sultan Of Sullen.

Posted on October 4, 2011 by emmacalin

All of the kids except one come out of college at 3.45pm. The final passenger finishes his class at 4.15pm and emerges at about 4.30pm.(Funding only runs to one bus for the whole city). He does not rush. He is a charmless youth whom I think of as the Sultan of Sullen. If such thoughts ever became known to the Authorities I think I’d be looking at a spell in jail. Whilst we all wait for him the kids do what they do best: ARGUE and FIGHT. I suppose I should care, but I really don’t. A student runs from the bus in tears and returns with an harassed tutor who attempts to intervene in a matter of infantile infinity rooted in the affairs of a pop singer called Justin Beaver who one supports or does not support. After five minutes of counselling the teacher rolls his eyes at me and suggests that I seat various kids apart. I suggest firmly that I am a bus driver and that louts who cannot behave should walk to college. Eventually the Sultan of Sullen turns up and exclaims “F**k**g shut up you c***ts” (Actually I couldn’t have put it better myself).The tutor exits stage left pursued by a stare.

I direct the bus out into the traffic. Miles away there has been a crash and rather like stock markets, serial panic has set in. I inch my way across the city, dropping off my students. Suddenly a plaintiff call from a girl behind – “Emma – I need a toilet.” Now, this kid has been on the bus for nearly 2 hours. To my left are some bushes on a kind of road island. I pull over. I don’t ask but I hope it’s just a pee. I get her off the bus and stand there as a kinda guard. After far too long she comes back looking grubby with a branch of holly in her hair and dead leaves sticking out of her clothing. I didn’t ask – I did not want to know the answer. No one died. So far I’m not in jail. All in all a good day. Romance writing and middle class life in France (or anywhere) seem like a universe away. Well, actually they are.

Nobel prizes today for the dark matter physicists. These are the guys who have shown that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. Apparently this leads to a theory of dark energy. Look – my dark roots used to grow at an increasing rate until grey energy started to take over and slow everything down into decline. Believe me guys – everything will shrink back. Classical Physics remains unchallenged.

Emma thinx: Would a dark matter neutrino out-accelerate its own non existence?

That curtain smile

Posted on October 3, 2011 by emmacalin

From the genteel parks and terraces of Leamington to the cab of my bus this morning. “Ee’s doin’ is teef.” Came the voice from the 23rd floor. Regular readers will know that this is the standard response when I call to pick up a particularly time challenged student. “Could ee do is teef before the bus comes?” I reply.

“Wah? We dunno when you’re gonna be ‘ere?”

“Get ‘im ta do is teef when ee gets up.” I reply in dialect

“Ee does – ee gets straight aht a bed and does ‘is teef.”

I wonder if I’ll ever meet the voice from floor 23. I suspect she has a hard life up there. At least the dental hygiene should be OK.

I’m never really sure how to feel about animals. I always keep in mind how much I enjoy eating quite a few of them. I know that as a Romantic novelist I should be a cat and dog lover with at least a frilly poodle called fartio. I can never quite get over the knowledge that cats torture little birds. Dogs on the other hand roll in dung and lick their own and other dogs’ bottoms before moving on to your face. Both species can be infected with parasitic worms that cause severe illness and blindness in children who are apt to pick up cat and dog faeces. If this kinda stuff worries you check out Toxocariasis here. I only mention this because a friend’s daughter lost her vision on account of this problem. I suppose that my attitude to animals is unsentimental, practical and culinary.

All the same, I can see the charm of dogs. In the yard where the buses sleep there is a rag-bag of sheds, grease pits, vehicle repairers and various oily humans who appear to have been absorbed in an osmotic process by their overalls. All sorts of welding, car cutting, foreign tongues, hammering, revving engines, paint spraying and diesel smoke merge to form a synthesis of something I call Fumanity. I adore the place. In amongst this mechanical stew lives Alf – the workshop dog. He is a terrier and looks like he is a kinda mobile wiping rag. So many lubricated hands pat him that he has taken on the colour of sump oil. He kinda growls out with lop-sided white teeth through an axle grease beard. Most of the time he runs about with an old football begging for anyone to kick it for him to chase. Then he dives under or into trucks, bins, piles of scrap, greasing pits or buses to retrieve it. He also attacks any kind of water hose – the water just beads off the grease. If anyone wants me to investigate the full story of Alf please let me know. I believe he has lived there for many years.

Just as an aside I must admit that since I have been back on the buses, grinding out a working life, all that romance fiction seems wonderful, yet for me un-writeable. I just can’t imagine swooning in the arms of a billionaire hunk. I dream of traffic and hooting road- ragers. If a spillionaire (saturated with uncountable wealth) hunk cut me up in his Ferrari I’d probably smack his smug orthodontically perfect gob.

Emma thinx: Do it doggy fashion. Collar him and take the lead.

Graffiti On The Wall Of Time

Posted on October 2, 2011 by emmacalin

In something of a departure from my normal rantings, today there will be rather more photos than words. We have just arrived back from the Midlands having spent the night in Royal Leamington Spa. This is a lovely town which grew prosperous as a spa where the wealthy came to take the medicinal waters. Judging from the crowds of youngsters in the park in the hot sunshine (29degrees C – that’s 84 F), the waters have turned to beer and cider. Wow – once the world gets to know this the town is gonna boom. I must say that what impressed me was the huge cosmopolitan diversity of good natured folk – the boozers, snoozers, cruisers, rowers, throwers, snoggers, sloggers and bloggers all getting along. If we could get rid of all the nonsense (tribe,religion,social class) of this world and just let all folk live with enough beauty and dignity we’d crack it wouldn’t we. SO WHY DON’T WE? For a couple of magic hours I kinda saw a bit of a vision of hope in Jephson Park.

But, comrades – the park had to be there. And it is there because of public funding. In the short term you could save a fortune by closing it down. I bet there are grey gutted bean counters who could tell you to the cent. The park was constructed originally for the wealthy visitors – but the poor were allowed in between 7 and 10am. After that you had to pay. Since then municipal (public) funding has opened the show to one and all.

Various monuments around the park attest to the philanthropy of various men who probably sought (perhaps egotistically) a form of immortality. Well guys, you have lived on far as me and I’m sure as far as all the folk basking in the Autumn joy. Edward Willes, Henry Jephson, Dr Hitchman and Alderman Davis you boys all done good – and you’re still doing it. Also my sincere thanks to the Warwickshire District council for funding the facility. I guess you guys are under pressure but as long as folk have souls and hopes, you should never take the short term view.

As I write the crows are calling out their names and scribbling their graffiti tags on the wall of time. They write a heritage on each dying moment of future. Chance has brought me for a short while to hear them. Yes – there is joy. Yes there is!

Emma thinx: Go to the park. Ask why?

Great Rooks From Little Acorns Grow.

Posted on September 30, 2011 by emmacalin

Near to my temporary home here in the valley of the River Test there are three oak trees. Two of them contain colonies of rooks while the other is a kind of neutral uninhabited territory between the two tribes. Living here I am able to indulge my love of crows. I am certain that they are at least as bright as I am. As far as I can tell the two trees contain two separate tribes. When I put food out on the lawn one tribe or the other make the first raucous swoop. When the other lot appear they peck at one another rather than the food. At the first hint of risk they all fly off – all except one hero whom I have named “Hook-Beak”. At first Gilles thought I was talking about him because he does have a rather Gallic snoz. Hook-Beak kinda wanders round all the various shamozzles with his hands behind his back. As others flap and squabble, he eats. He looks like a retired old crow who never made it to the government but never got defeated either. If I can get an interview with him I’ll post it on here. It’ll be Frost and Nixon with feathers. First question will be if he has any ideas for peace in the Middle East

Today the guys are feeding on acorns. They edge out carefully like old time sailors in the rigging. Then they harvest the acorn neatly and fly off with their prize. On this beautiful autumn morning I am alive and able to sit at my window and share in their endeavour. I lead a very privileged life. I’ve been trying to get a photo of Hook-Beak but I can’t get close enough.

Friday is a relatively easy day on the bus. My biggest problem is getting the dear little souls out of their front doors. At the tower block today I pressed the intercom and spoke to a lady. “Ee won’t be long Love – Ee’s doin’ ‘is teef.” She advised me. Now, since he lives on the 23rd floor and has to take a lift (if it works) it means at least a five minute wait. If 14 kids all make me wait 5 minutes I’m gonna run at least an hour late since the schedule assumes that I suck the students onto the bus with a Star Trek tractor beam without stopping. When I hear executives talking about stress I wonder if they know what life is like on the bottom. Saturday tomorrow – joy joy joy – I won’t have to get up at 6.am.

I see the Saudi lady driver is now not to be whipped. I knew that once the king read my views he would change his mind.

Emma thinx: A stitch in time saves some smug bastard from telling you so.