Just For Lookin' Thru

Wilful neglect The virtual ruin fascinates me because it is almost untouched since it was built. The cupboards in the kitchen remain; the pantry and meat cupboard is under the steep staircase. It still has the original Victorian cast iron fireplaces in all the upstairs rooms and the original Victorian linoleum on the bedroom floors. Each square is made to look like a rug, and placed centrally on the wooden boards. Two are green and brown designs so are interesting although pretty drab, but I particularly like the one in the back bedroom which is a rosy pink with leaves and flowers - the back bedroom; with the soaking walls and the plaster which has just fallen off the wall in one great lump the size of a double bed. The back walls of the house are soaking because the owner of the house has left it empty for some years, meaning to do some work on it, and not getting round to it, and he has allowed a broken gutter to pour many seasons of rain down the walls. This is also why the enti...

Sitting outside in the evening sun with ice chinking in my gin and tonic, our chatter is interrupted by the mildly irritating, feeble piping of a child’s recorder. Five or so minutes later a little boy, aged about seven, is planted by the entrance door to the theatre, and carries on blowing down the damned thing. A woman folds a towel and places it by his feet. The boy’s little sister is placed alongside her brother; she’s about five. The woman walks up and down the piazza with a mobile phone clamped to her ear, talking incessantly. Sometimes she comes and sits with a man but they do not go near the two children. The children are pale; they look miserable, and keep going over to the man and woman, but are brought back to the theatre door. It is not obvious the first time he does it, but the man makes a flamboyant gesture of bending forward, dropping coins onto the folded towel, giving a thumbs up sign to the little boy, smiling broadly and then walking away. He seemed to be a man in th...

You're not from round 'ere then? I am surrounded by delightful young families, happily retired couples, or contented empty nesters, enjoying their return to pre-children companionship and some freedom from parental responsibility, as well as a large number of women who have escaped their marriages and bought a dog, preferring long walks and book clubs. One of the imbalanced things about living in the west country, as with living in the farther reaches of Scotland, is that there is a surfeit of single women and a dearth of suitable single men. The men are wage slaves, and to be found in the south-east whereas women, on the whole, like a bit of a view. This must be the centrifugal effect, as though single women have been flung out from the frenzied middle of a dance, and have landed, like so many wallflowers on the hard chairs all around the dance hall. I can tell you; those chairs are hard; and sitting on them makes you invisible; not, however, to the sort of man who has an ...

Ralph's mates from Pentewan have all turned up in a mini bus to hear him sing and play, and he walks onto the stage looking comfortable; he's amongst friends. He's a big man; very charismatic, with a warm smile and a beguiling aura of powerful gentleness. He's relaxed, we're relaxed, and he sits with his guitar, chatting easily between songs, and playing with an easy familiarity with us, and with his material. His guitar playing is intricate and playful; going from ragtime to blues to folk, and his voice is deep and rich. He comments that he's put together quite a serious programme for the two hours he's on stage; it's true that the lyrics are thoughtful and the subjects serious, but there is light material too; a tune about Laurel and Hardy, and one or two covers of old blues numbers. When he sings Streets of London there are happy sighs and the audience sing along very softly; as softly as a whisper. It feels as intimate as if we were just a few people...

Dropout Kurt arrives in town and calls up his old friend, earnest father-to-be Mark to suggest a camping trip out in the forest, away from the city. They haven’t seen each other for some time and the film suggests a desire for intimacy as well as a quest for peace. Something of a lost soul, Kurt is emotional and, at times, to be pitied. He lives outside society, in a world of new age type retreats and travels, which seem to have left him out on the margins. In contrast, Mark has a home and a pregnant partner, and tunes his car radio in to phone-ins with much loud chat about the state of society in America but he seems only half alive. They drive out of town, with the camera as passenger, which gazes out of the car window while a gorgeous soundtrack by Yo La Tengo sets a mellow mood. The use of extended silence makes me a little uneasy; it’s hard to get away from memories of Deliverance, and a sense of apprehension. In the city, the glass of the car windows insulates us...

Good Evening Mr Bond There are two couples to take round a little house on a new estate on the edge of town and I have strict instructions to make sure that the cat must not get out. I’m dreading this because I imagine a swift little beast slipping through our legs as soon as we open the front door. There’s no sign of it though and we all squeeze in, afraid to open the door wider than our sideways body widths, and close it with relief. Monsieur Chat peeps seductively round a door frame leading into the living room, delicately places a furry paw onto the hall carpet and sways towards us, allowing his body to brush lingeringly against the paintwork. Truly, this is Blofeldt’s cat. Condemned to a life indoors, his only pleasures are sensory. He is brushed, smoothed, fondled, and caressed. The world beyond the window; a world of territorial disputes, raking claws and screams in the night, is unknown to him. He slinks towards me, arching his back with pleasure and kinking his tail in...

McEwan’s novel about ambition, personal betrayal and revenge features Clive, a modern composer trying to complete a major orchestral work, his friend Vernon, an editor trying to save his ailing newspaper, and Garmony, an unscrupulous right-wing politician on the rise. In common, all three have, in previous years, been lovers of recently dead Molly. They meet at her funeral and the story follows the next few weeks of the men’s lives. Vernon and Clive act as one another’s conscience, each infuriating the other. Which is more important, honesty, friendship and trust or Vernon’s newspaper and Clive’s symphony? The novel presents the difficulties of balancing personal and public morality, the importance of private shame and public reputation, the conflict between taking a moral decision for the greater good, or putting first ones own desires. Not just a simple exposé of a politician with a vulnerable side, Amsterdam is full of double standards and surprises, and takes a long, cynical look a...

An email from a friend of mine arrives; she complains that, at work, she is routinely subjected to gruesome accounts of female colleagues’ intimate medical procedures and gynaecological problems. I am all commiseration because I, too, have had years of listening to workplace chats about periods, childbirth and sex lives. Oh please. Later, I wander off for a walk in the early evening sunshine and it is so silent and so beautiful that I flop down on the grass and lay awhile gazing out over the rolling fields, and the mouth of the river, and fall into a reverie. Two men pass by. A few minutes later sounds of women’s talk float nearer and, by the time the two females of the species draw level with me, I have risen up from my deliciously recumbent position in the meadow, alert and tense, something like a meerkat. “I do feel for her. Going down that IVF route is such an emotional roller coaster. I was never prepared for how terrible it was going to be.” I remain frozen in my meerkat position...

Everyone wants a bargain. Hell, I do. We’ve got a Victorian end-of-terrace house on at 220K, in need of renovation, and I expect to be killed in the rush. I rather fancy I may have a go at it myself; buy it, do it up and make a few grand. I’m supposed to meet four parties at the place and we have instructions to go in through the back door because the front door doesn’t open. As I drive by I see a couple peering through the filthy front window so I hope they will find their way round to where I’ll be with the keys. I find a second couple at the back of the house so the other two parties have looked and run away and, truth be told, it looks quite shocking. The thing to do is to look past the utter rankness of the external and try to visualize the finished project. So, brightly, we start climbing over bits of fallen, rusted iron guttering, all broken into short sections in the yard. The man is walking with a stick so I feel it is judicious to move aside some of these more obstructive...

Ah, the joys of flying. Enjoy the bracing ten minute walk from the car park to the airport. Discover the bag you’ve measured does not fit into the little frame for acceptable cabin-sized baggage. Be confident that you have no dangerous objects such as tweezers, razors or nail scissors. Be prepared to embrace your masculine side and spend your holiday growing big eyebrows and leg hair. Discover that a sealed carton of non-dairy milk is considered an explosive risk in the cabin. Pay just £6 to have your bag put in the hold but, before it goes off on the conveyor belt, unpack and re-arrange the contents in order to accommodate said milk, ignoring queue forming behind you. Be turned back from the departure lounge because you have a sealed carton of fruit juice and a bottle of mineral water to drink in the departure lounge and during the flight, AND to bag up any small vials of perfume or cosmetics. Return to security having eaten lunch and drunk all liquids, and roll towards the lady who g...

I had an odd visit today. Never mind that the houses that we sell are at the lower end of the market, but I was unprepared. I meet a young couple buying their first home in an ex-heavy industry area. It’s a tiny terraced cottage and, when I open the door, I take a breath and try not to move far inside. Obviously someone very old has recently died here. The brown, yellow, and orange wildly swirling carpet is an inch deep in filth and dark, sticky looking stains, and it smells. I try hard not to appear as nauseated as I am feeling and keep looking out of the window where the sun is shining and I can see an apple tree and a line of washing blowing in the Spring breeze. As I gaze outwards a fat, ugly bulldog waddles past, onto the grass beyond the window and squats down to dump his load onto the garden. I now remember being warned at the office that we had a place on the books where the neighbours’ dogs use the garden of the property for a toilet whilst it’s empty, and I wonder if th...

The bad-tempered hibernating bear part of me has been temporarily pacified by the sudden arrival of Spring today. I drive around in my car, wearing sunglasses, with the windows open. The sky is a deep Mediterranean blue and birds are singing in the hedgerows. How soon I forget the misery of the last four months with one burst of warm sun and blue sky. It is the return of hope, like coming up from underground, from the dank, dark, almost suffocating pressure of winter into the light and air. Glory be. It is even better that each week I show people round these houses, I come into the office the following week to find they are all under offer. Either there’s a shortage of properties or I am a stunning saleswoman. Every property looks fabulous today, and all the viewers are in sunny moods; outgoing and cheerful. No-one is taciturn and morose. Until I meet Mr Expert at the end of the afternoon but he’s not going to spoil my day. He comes with his old mum to give his second opinion on a ...

On the return train there is no dining car layout, instead we have plastic boxes with pre-packed sachets of washed and cut fresh apple, all the way from France, biscuits in wrappers, a bread roll with a smear of filling, and as many drinks as we like. Same company, different style of catering. Why? There is a buffet car though, for the gourmets among us. The carriage is full of workers, beavering away on their laptops or shouting their importance into mobile phones. I wish they’d shut up. I don’t care who they are or what they said to so-and-so in the meeting. I pity the poor fools that think this qualifies as a life. A very attractive, and smartly dressed Scotswoman was very loud on her phone on the way up here, on her way to Glasgow after a day of such meetings. I was sitting about ten seats away but, such was her annoyance, her conversation was inescapable. Not really a conversation, but a diatribe, directed at her son, aged 19, who had a friend that had annoyed her very much by ‘li...

Michael Buerk chats about Carnage and the Media and says he feels strongly that the public must see real images of the results of violence. He also says that he firmly believes that fictional violence anaesthetizes people against the reality. It seems to me there is an anomaly here. If fictional violence makes us immune to real violence, then surely repeated exposure to real violence via news reporting will have the same effect. I have a particular question I want to ask him but there are many hands going up in the auditorium and I don’t get the opportunity until later. I approach him and ask him if he would mind answering a question I have. I can feel an extraordinary energy from him; the power of his mind. He exudes mental acuity, and it fascinates me how we can sense that. It’s like being next to an engine. Anyway, I feel very strongly about this particular issue and ask him what he thinks about newspapers printing front page photographs of corpses with their body fluids staining th...

The softly spoken, quietly friendly German visitor has hurt his back. He has hobbled into the town and bought some Tiger balm because he feels that heat will help. I suspect he may have a disc prolapse but he is sure it is not so serious. The third time I see him I ask how he is. We’re all a long way from home and a bit of friendly concern can go a long way. Hell, I’d appreciate it. I am seated at the kitchen table, writing up my notes from the morning. He asks me if I would rub some of the balm into his back. Of course. He is standing before me; my eyes are about level with his stomach. He unbuckles his belt, unzips his jeans, and drops his trousers. They fall to his knees in a moment. I blink and am up, out of my seat, and round behind him in a flash, darting into a safe position with the pot of balm, anxious not to see more than I have already seen. I am more comfortable with the back of his underwear and, as I compose myself before action, he reaches round and pulls down his underp...

Youth Hostels are great; a huge advance from the boarding houses of a century ago, but working on the same, simple idea. Cheap accommodation for a variety of travellers, all bunked up together – only today the beds are clean and not lice-ridden. I come into the bunk room and see the window has been opened although it is bitter winter weather outside. I see another bed has been taken. I close the window and chat to my room-mate who is from Germany, over for a National Trust working holiday. Her friends think she’s mad to pay to come to the UK; to work, and eat bad food in bad weather, but she smiles and says she loves everything about England, and that they don’t understand. I bump into another woman in the kitchen. I look twice to make sure, but it is a woman. Her hair is close cropped; she’s thick set, wearing a round necked black tee-shirt and black straight leg trousers. Her voice is deep, her manner brusque and bluff. I realize that this is the window-opener. I feel wary because sh...

The Literature Festival is a jolly affair. Hordes of animated, chattering people are everywhere and there is a warm, friendly atmosphere. Strangers talk to each other as if they were old friends, all brought together by the love of writing, reading and the opportunity to hear about and discuss a wide range of topics: History, Philosophy, Travel, Humour, News and loads besides. My task this week is to chat to as many writers as I can and try to get an understanding of how they feel about attending festivals such as these, and why Literature Festivals have grown in popularity over recent years, such that they are now the main marketing method for publishers (so I am told). Each author I approach is delighted to be there, and see it as an opportunity to meet their readers, to socialize with other writers, and to enjoy the scenery of the Lake District. It’s a stimulating mini-break for writers and an escape from slaving alone over a desk in an isolated garret. I have lugged two enormous ha...

I’m on the train to Cumbria for the Literature Festival on the shores of Derwentwater. Strangely, a first class single is cheaper than a return ticket but I’m not complaining, and am looking forward to the promised free tea and coffee all the way there – five hours. I step into the compartment but, seeing that is laid up like a dining car, I retreat, and look in the next compartment. No, I was right the first time; I am to travel for five hours with a table in front of me, laid with a French style heavy paper mat, cutlery wrapped in a blue serviette, a wine glass and a white china dish containing a white china cup on a doily. I try to make some room for my papers, and manage to write a bit amongst the crockery and cutlery. I am soon joined by two Chinese men who smile and bob their heads at me and, by gesticulating, indicate that they want to know if the seats are taken – they’re not – and if they may sit down. They sit and chatter with great animation and good nature, and I smile and ...

I meet young first time buyers at a tiny nutshell of a cottage, new on the market at 120K. The sitting room appears too small for a sofa – a deal table and a couple of chairs would have been a luxury when the old place was built. Upstairs there is just one room, not even a landing and, as we discuss the best way round to put the bed, I am quite wistful. What a precious and unforgettable time this is; buying a first home together, and I’m very anxious that they only go ahead with it if they’re sure; I want to minimize life’s pitfalls for them, or to delay them awhile. I emphasize the need for a full survey, point out the woodworm, and suggest they go away and talk it over for the weekend. It’s a dear little love nest but the price still has to be right, and unforeseen problems revealed – so love doesn’t get too battered too early. There’s an offer of 385K in for a huge but shoddily built place out in the country. Over six months on the market, frequent viewers all thinking it’s overpr...

This is a highly intelligent, deeply affecting film. Shot in documentary style, it offers the realism of unforced observation, yet it is brilliantly arranged and choreographed. Innaritu has achieved actors’ performances which appear absolutely natural, and understated, and which give their characters enormous dignity. The result is so accomplished that the unfolding story is totally absorbing. A sequence of events is set off by an accident when two brothers are arguing over the distance a rifle can fire; they hit a tour bus. The introduction of the rifle into the Moroccan community suggests corruption of a way of life, and the film shows how far-reaching are the repercussions of this mishap. Innaritu plays with timing and fate, guns and panic. People are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and characters respond differently when under pressure. Only the Englishman is unsympathetically portrayed, when his fear and suspicion overcome any compassion. Social divides and t...