Will Self memorably recalled his father’s words on entering his forties. “Allow yourself the luxury of uncertainty”, advised Self Senior.
I think about that phrase more and more. Having been a proud dogmatist for much of the eighties and nineties, I’ve noticed recently how relaxing it is to say ‘I don’t know’, or ‘well, people see these things differently’ or ‘ I guess you have to try and understand what makes him like that’.
A friend of mine – I should qualify that by saying ‘girlfriend’, as I still know not a single man who would be capable of this utterance – said to me, ten years or so ago, ‘can’t we just have a glass of wine each, then put the cork back and have some for tomorrow?’. I had never heard such nonsense. Opening a bottle came with the certainty that an hour later it would be finished.
I set out on New Year’s Eve this year with the relative merits of West End celebrations versus bed by midnight by no means clear-cut. The tube journey to Oxford Circus and the five-minute walk to the 100 Club were sufficient to convince me that despite Wilko Johnson’s bluest rhythms, eleven-fifteen was home time.
The southbound Bakerloo was living proof of Sartre’s maxim that ‘hell is other people’, but I was through the front door by five to twelve. I watched the Thames-side fireworks on Sky News, sitting in bed with a glass of decent Bordeaux, and must have been asleep by twelve-fifteen.
The southbound Bakerloo was living proof of Sartre’s maxim that ‘hell is other people’, but I was through the front door by five to twelve. I watched the Thames-side fireworks on Sky News, sitting in bed with a glass of decent Bordeaux, and must have been asleep by twelve-fifteen.
The next morning, mustering at Tulse Hill for Palace’s ritual New Year’s Day humiliation (the new year's first certainty), my long-time partner in football-related suffering seemed surprisingly perky. He’d been watching the History Channel when Auld Lang Synes were slurred and unwanted kisses slobbered.
Looking at our sleep-deprived, alcohol-paled offspring struggle to stand on the packed train to South Bermondsey, I reflected on the notion that Dec 31st has to be an Unforgettable Night Out, and luxuriated in my indifference to it.
I’ve now got one of those fancy wine-bottle stoppers. It’s plugging a half-full Bordeaux.
