ON ICE

Ranulph Fiennes is sawing off the end of his own fingers with a fretsaw. 

It was all going so well. Well about as well as pulling a half-ton sledge across Antarctica at -40º can go. Nothing too much to worry about, just the usual chronic crotch rot, ultraviolet facial burns, gangrenous toes, frozen eyeballs and, of course, gradual and inevitable bodily deterioration, dehydration and starvation. All in a day’s work for Britain’s greatest living explorer.

And I’m right there with him, every agonising step of the way. The monotony, the merciless daily grind - this is a long book, with not an awful lot of pictures. I was going to bail out round about page 200, but it seemed a cowardly and defeatist thing to do - certainly not British.  So 250 pages further on and I’m hanging on in there, the endless routine of get up (if still alive), pack up, trudge forty miles, unpack (if still alive), set up camp, avoid freezing to death, get up (if still alive) and do the whole thing again.  

NEW COAT

A couple of weeks ago, while holidaying on the luxury island resort of Arran on the Costa del Clyde, me and the woman I call my wife dared to think the unthinkable.

I don’t even think we’d taken alcohol.  There was no excuse, except perhaps an uncharacteristic fit of joie de vivre brought on by some unseasonably clement weather.  We decided we were going to buy coats with North Face written on them.  Coats with three-figure price tags, boasting as much technology as the International Space Station, but far more desirable to get into to.  Because it suddenly occurred to us that it’s what people like us do; save thirty quid a week by shopping at Aldi then blow two month’s savings on a coat that keeps us warm at -30ºC.

We knew exactly what kind of coats we wanted.  We’d seen lots of them on the car ferry to Brodick, dotted like luscious jellybeans against the rusty bowel of the car deck.  Not big and puffy as such garments once were.  But thin and tailored, and coming in an array of exotic colours that caught the eye as surely as a Muslim in the site of Chris Kyle’s sniper rifle.

The woman in the Range Rover in front of us was wearing a particularly attractive purple one.  Waiting in line there was little else to do but regard her covetously as she tended the equally attractive Spaniel that languished in the boot.  The car was never going to happen.  And the dog was not a practical option.  But the coat…

Our eyes devoured her garment like a delicious fruit from the tree of designer knowledge.  And sure enough, we did look down upon our unremarkable Mountain Warehouse anoraks and realised, for the first time, that we were … cheap looking.

“There’s an outdoor shop on Arran,” said my wife, looking up from her iPhone.  And our fate was sealed.

Of course with this kind of money at stake, and Yorkshire blood flowing resolutely through our veins, we weren’t going to rush into it.  Our first visit to the serious outdoor gear shop at the foot of Goat Fell showed us that North Face was not the only game in town.  We wondered through the garments like gold-struck dwarfs through Smaug’s treasure: Lowe Alpine, Rab, Craghoppers, Berghaus, Montaine, Jack Wolfskin, Arcteryx, Bergans, Norrona, Haglofs – all within our grasp. 

In monetary terms we could afford it (thanks to Aldi) but neither of us paused even for a moment to consider the true cost of what we were about to do.  How the age of innocence was coming to an end.  How the lady with the Spaniel had rendered us label junkies, who would never again judge a man by his actions, but by the emblem stitched on his breast.

Unperturbed, and in a drunken rush of avarice, we submerged ourselves in the garments, leafing through the small volumes of labels hanging from each specimen, peering with wonder at the strange, transparent pods of stuffing that granted a precious glimpse of the garments’ inner secrets.

Alas, it wasn’t long before the strain of rapture began to show, and we withdrew to consider our findings and plan our next move over tea and a scone in the café next door.  Soon we would be called upon to make the biggest purchase decision since our cars (which seemed much more straight forward – fewer labels anyway).  But it was clear that to do that we would need to serve our time.  We would need to learn a brand new vocabulary.  We would need to master the language of coat engineering and the science of being warm.

A few weeks later, following an intensive course of evening classes, we felt ready to take that step.  We filled the car with money, gave the child who is too young to be left behind a fully charged handheld device to keep it quiet, and headed for Tiso.

At first I favoured the basic lightweight micro stitch through baffled hoodie with Pertex outer, but couldn't help being taken by that cheeky little newcomer the Featherlite micro baffle HyperDRY down jacket - ultra light and ultra packable as it was.  Although, on reflection, I couldn't help thinking that the wired peak and YKK front zip with insulated baffle offered by the former may come in handy on those trickier summits.  Not to mention the integrated chin guard and adjustable hem draw chord.  But then the latter also boasted anatomical construction with articulated arms for high reach movement and I felt sure I'd be wanting to do that kind of thing at least occasionally.  I was of course impressed that both incorporated 750fp Hydrophobic Down to retain warmth through a higher loft, (even though we don’t actually have a loft of any height).

Eventually the youngest emerged from the café with an almost exhausted iPhone and the decision had to be made: mine was a Montane.  Silver / grey.   Expensive looking.  Hers was a Rab.  Dark blue with pink / purple interior.   Also expensive looking.

Within moments they were in bags and we were carrying them out of the shop and into our lives.  Lives no longer tarnished by the cost-effectiveness of Trespass, Mountain Warehouse and Karrimor.  Warm lives, soft lives.  Expensive looking lives. And that wasn’t all.  As we left I was informed I'd be able to track where my down came from, and off which particular bird, though trackmydown.com.   Add to that – guilt free lives.

Back at the car we considered for a moment whether to put the coats on and decided against it.  Although late October it was still dangerously warm for performance clothing like this.  Even with all the windows down heat exhaustion was a real possibility.  So into the boot they went, hovering almost weightlessly in the cavernous space left by the bags of cash exchanged for them.

And so into November, and still the coats floated inert in the porch.  Bonfire night came and went, but the central heating remained off.  The radio talked about it being the warmest ever recorded.  No one could account for it.  But I began to think that perhaps I could. 

Across Fife whole communities were forced to evacuate their homes as sea levels rose, and parts of Perthshire were plunged into famine as crops failed.  And still the coats remained unworn, their baffled hoodies unchallenged, their wired peaks bone dry. 

And so it went on, until one sweltering, sleepless night towards December I could take it no more.  Pulling back the mosquito net around the bed I strode purposefully downstairs towards the porch.  My wife followed, pleading with me: “For God’s sake, they’re only coats!  Spare them!” But I knew what I had to do, and headed for the top drawer.

But as I raised the breadknife above the defenceless micro baffle a sudden calm descended on the house.  I paused for a moment and turned to the window.  Outside a solitary snowflake drifted down, and I knew that somehow we were forgiven.  And so I put down the knife, put on my coat and stepped outside, into the future.

BEING JOHN SWINNEY

Sitting in the car waiting for the ferry to Ardrossan we saw a bloke in a blue cagoule who looked just like John Swinney.  

Surely not.  What would Scotland's Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy be doing in Broddick?  On a Thursday?  Weren’t there affairs of state to be dealt with?  And what was a man of his stature doing waiting for the MV Caledonian Isles with us half-term, half-arsed holiday makers?  Shouldn’t he be safely stowed in a motorcade of long black sedans with fluttering flags, before being whisked aboard a private jet by a possy of heavily armed men in black suits and sunglasses?

Never one to pass up on a celebrity encounter I got out of the car and walked casually towards him.  There was no one else walking on the pier, so no natural cover to camouflage my approach.  Accordingly I took a wide sweep of his left flank, hoping to catch a glimpse under his hood without raising suspicion.  

On the whole I’ve found that famous people handle encounters with me very well. I don’t think Michael Gambon batted an eyelid when he passed me in his super car on Greek Street.  Although I’m pretty sure he saw me.  How can you not see someone leaning through your open car window with an iPhone pointing at your face?  And Bill Nighey on Piccadilly.  I almost knocked him off the pavement for God’s sake, but he too managed to feign complete indifference to my presence.

Not so John Swinney.  As I approached he turned and gave me a look that I will never forget. In the split second our eyes connected, he punched a whole through my firewall, hacked straight into my central nervous system and downloaded a simple clear message:  “I don’t know who you are, or what you want,” it said, “but if you’re here for a fight, I’m ready, and I’ll win.”  Liam Neeson couldn’t have put it better.

This was no mild mannered bureaucrat.  This was a fighter, a man brutalised by years of struggle and combative debate.  A man resigned to living in a constant state of high alert, ready at any second to fight for his life – or at least, his corner.  For a split second I saw Holyrood for what it really was; not only a ridiculous looking building, but a rank bear pit where only the most ruthless and battle-hardened could survive.

But then came the postscript - quieter, deeper, more personal.  Piped in almost pleadingly from behind those piercing eyes that had seen so much that they would rather, for the moment, forget: “Not here,” they said, “not now. I just want some peace.”   But that was all I was getting.  The link was broken and he strode back to his car.  

And I felt so sorry.  So sorry for potentially being someone I wasn’t to a John Swinney who has learnt that he can’t let his guard down, ever.  I felt like running after him, holding him in a tender embrace and reassuring him that although, as a Yorkshireman living in Scotland, I can’t help feeling a bit upset by the anti-English sentiments expressed by some of his compatriots, I’m a hundred percent behind self-rule as a basic democratic right.  Who wouldn’t be?  So he really had nothing to fear from me.

But I realized that however well intentioned it was there was a risk that such a move might come across as a bit creepy.  And probably not enhance the quality of John Swinney’s day.  Anyway, I wasn’t too keen on triggering the John Swinney Auto Defence System for a second time.  And seeing what it could do when he was really cross.  So I resolved to steer well clear of him from then on.

I returned to the car.  Lacking any alternative source of excitement, my family quizzed me about the encounter.  Was it really John Swinney.  Yes it was.  What was he doing?  He was … being John Swinney.  Did I say anything to him?  No. Did he say anything to me?  No - I mean yes.  I mean … no.  I was irritated and lapsed into silence.  In the ninety seconds since I’d left the car I felt I’d really got to know the man.   This was no ordinary celebrity encounter.

But then disaster struck. The tannoy announced that the ferry was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions, and apologised if any inconvenience had been caused.  Given that there were no roads to Ardrossan and no other boats, and that everyone on the pier seemingly had a good reason for wanting to go there that morning, it was hard to envisage a scenario where this wouldn’t be inconvenient.  Still, we were but idle holidaymakers, so it wasn’t such a problem to book a place on the next ferry and sidle off for a final frolic on beach until it was time to go.

But my thoughts returned to John Swinney.  And his affairs of state.  Not only was he living with the constant threat of annihilation at the hands of rampant unionists, but now he had an awkward phone call with the boss to worry about too.  Would Ms Sturgeon take a sudden squall in the Firth of Clyde as an acceptable excuse for missing that afternoon’s cabinet meeting?  But, given my vow of non-intervention, there was nothing I could do.  It was something he’d have to face alone.  So we left John Swinney on the pier in his Peugeot.

Two and a half hours later we returned.  The queue on the pier had reshuffled itself, stragglers from the last boat merging with newcomers for the next.  But the Peugeot hadn’t moved, and John Swinney was still in it.  Had he successfully evaded public attention during the intervening hours I wondered?  I couldn’t see any corpses lying on the pier or floating face down in the sea around it, so I assumed he had.

But would the next boat sail?  Had Nicola fixed the weather to afford her wayward deputy safe passage back to her side?  Yes she had.  The wind had dropped, we were good to go.  So we drove on, unloaded ourselves into the vibrating belly of the vessel, and made the grim ascent through watertight hatches and windowless steel stairwells to the lounge deck, where we joined the customary scrum down for the vessel’s last few remaining bacon roles.

Once underway I left the family languishing in a cushioned corner of the lounge and stepped out to take the sea air.  The sunny south-facing decks were thick with hardy outdoor-types huddled in the lee of thickly white washed boat parts.  So I headed aft into the shadows to commune with the ocean and watch Arran receed romantically.

The rear deck was largely empty, just one solitary figure pressed against the handrail.  It was wearing a blue cagoule and before I was able to retreat the John Swinney Auto Defence System had swung into action sending him bounding up some nearby steps to the upper deck and to safety.

Feeling utterly wretched I headed back inside, unable to believe that I had betrayed his trust so soon.  What would he be thinking?  Would he be calling in the Special Boat Service to neutralize this menace that simply refused to leave him alone?  That wouldn’t be too difficult: a few days earlier a line of navel frigates had appeared from nowhere and arranged themselves at chillingly regular intervals along the horizon.  To protect John Swinney?

I hate myself for it now, but the term ‘human shield’ did come to mind as I retreated into the shop and took cover in a small crowd of school children clustered round the Top Trumps stand.  Here I gathered myself and considered my next move.  Surely, on a ship of this size, with so many passengers, the chance of running into John Swinney a third time was small?  I’d just have to be vigilant. So I crept back to the lounge, keeping an eagle eye out for anything that moved and was blue.

I crossed paths with John Swinney a further four times during the voyage, on average, once every eight minutes.  Twice in the restaurant, where I was purchasing tea and John Swinney was coming, and then going, with a small Latte.  Once, and in a prolonged way, in the lounge, where it turned out that John Swinney’s entourage had encamped bang opposite mine, so it was inevitable that he would return there with the aforementioned Latte, and I’d be waiting.  And finally on the car deck, where the crew had somehow contrived to park John Swinney’s car immediately alongside ours.  And I had never noticed.

As it turned out the crew ushered John Swinney’s car off the boat ahead of ours.  And a huge weight lifted off my shoulders as I watched John Swinney escape onto the British mainland.

John Swinney, forgive me.  I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But I guess my story is just one of hundreds of John Swinney stories generated that day onboard the MV Caledonian Isles.  Stories that will be told by everyone who noticed that on Thursday 22^nd October 2015 they were on a ship with John Swinney.

But I have a feeling it isn’t a story John Swinney will tell all that often.

THE DAY FIFE STAYED AT HOME

Last night they closed the Forth Road Bridge - completely.  Someone had suddenly found a technical fault - presumably a piece of road hanging off, or a high tension cable gnawed through by some passing sea monster.  I hardly slept a wink, imagining the scenes of terror and panic that would greet me the following day as I attempted to cross the Forth to Edinburgh.  

Presumably the Kinkardine bridge - the alternative road crossing to the west - would simply be overwhelmed with traffic and topple over into the mudbanks.  The motorway to the North would be overrun with crazed reprobates ramming through the road cones and 'having a go’, or tearing through crash barriers and rampaging through the gardens of Dalmeny and Inverkeithing to find an alternative route.

And what about the people who simply didn’t know it was closed; who were camping in a remote glen in the Highlands or had given up TV and radio for advent?  There’d be thousands of them milling around stationary vehicles on the approach, lighting bonfires, eating children and pets, performing strange rituals to appease the road bridge Gods.  This was not going to be pretty. 

So I must admit to a certain amount of trepidation as I ventured out this morning - to evaluate the situation and beat a hasty retreat if required, with little actual hope of seeing the capital.  South towards the bridge I drove, knuckles gleaming white on the steering wheel, scanning the horizon for signs of bonfires, flashing blue lights, gangs of rabid Fifers brandishing car and body parts.  But nothing.  No cars, no marauders.  The road into Inverkeithing - quiet.  My usual parking space - vacant.  To the station - not even a queue at the ticket office.  The platform - no corpses, half a dozen equally spaced commuters standing quietly.  In came the train, only one minute late, with no one clinging to the roof.   I even got a seat next to the window.  

And as we crossed nonchalantly over the Forth Bridge I looked over to the empty road bridge and thanked God that the Dunkirk spirit was alive and well.  That collective instinct to do the right thing in times of crisis and avert disaster.  To tear up the rule book and focus on what is really important in life: survival, well being, social responsibility.  To question the meaningless rituals that govern us day in, day out, and ask: is there a better way?  Do we really need to go into the office?  Is staying at home and watching Homes Under the Hammer any less productive than another meeting about key performance indicators and balanced score cards?  Do we need a bridge at all? 

In fact, is it too late to have a quiet word with the Queensferry Crossing people and say we’ve decided on second thoughts not to bother?   Surely there are people in Edinburgh Council who specialise in difficult conversations with engineering companies.  And of course they can leave what they’ve already done - might come in as diving boards or something.  

IRON MOUTH

“I don’t know what I’m looking at," said the dentist, as we clustered round the screen to examine my freshly taken X-ray.  

That, I thought, was an unusual thing for a dentist to say.  Because if there’s one thing you can be sure about with dentists it's that they always know exactly what they’re looking at.  And exactly how to describe it to the person whose job it is to write it down.  Without questioning.  Let’s face it, when was the last time you heard a dental assistant say: “Hang on a minute, slow down a bit.  Are you absolutely sure you got that right?  Doesn’t sound very likely to me.”  You don't.  Because when it comes to the inside of your mouth, there are no surprises. There’s nothing there that doesn’t have a name.  And the dentist knows what it is.

And another thing about dentists is that - yes, they sound like they know a lot of stuff, but the truth is that what they let you know they know is just the tip of the iceberg.  It can only ever represent a tiny fraction of the sum total of what they actually know.  It’s as though when they’re training they have to learn everything that happens below the mouth first.  On the way up, as it were. 

But the rest of what dentists know they usually keep to themselves.  Either because, as a simple patient, you simply wouldn’t understand (that’s where the assistant comes in - they need someone who talks their language), or because it’s just not relevant.  But they still know it, and sometimes it just slips out:  “You’re right-handed aren’t you?” they’ll say as they examine the erosion on your lateral incisors. Or, “you eat a lot of bananas don’t you?” as they prod around in your soft palate.  

And they get away with this unchallenged because dentists are the only people who speak to you while their hands are jammed down your throat.  So nobody ever says: “I’m sorry, but I fail to see the relevance of that comment," or “do you mind if we keep my personal life out of this.”  So dentists have evolved into unique social animals that do not understand the laws of conversational exchange, because nobody ever talks back.  You don’t understand what they’re saying, but they keep talking anyway.

So when a dentist says “I don’t know what I’m looking at," you know you’re in trouble. Who else can you ask?  The dental assistant only writes down stuff the dentist says.  They don’t know what that stuff looks like.  So they’re no good.  I could suggest we look at Google, but I suspect that wouldn’t go down well.  In fact I think my dentist probably wrote Google, so if she doesn’t know, it won't.  So what happens now?  The dentist is looking at something that she hasn’t got a name for.  And that thing, I suspect, is the small metallic-looking shard lodged in the region of my left nostril.

Let’s be clear, this was never going to be an entirely straightforward examination.  It was the first appointment with a new dentist who, given my complete lack of dental records – and inability to conjure up any useful memories of what’s happened in my mouth over the last thirty years - was going to have to figure out a pretty complex situation entirely from scratch.  Complex because a number of upper teeth were unexpectedly removed by the front of a Mini Metro in 1978 and replaced a few years later by the sturdiest man-made structure since the Forth Bridge. 

“Any facial injuries?” the dentist enquired.  I thought for a moment, running through my index of recent incidents to see if it happened to include being shot in the face or getting shrapnel embedded in my skull.  No, if any of those things had happened, I certainly couldn’t bring them to mind at that moment.  Perhaps I should go home and have a leaf through the holiday photo album to jog my memory.

As the dentist moved in for a closer look I began considering how this might play out.  They could pull out the upper left incisor, screw out the bolt holding it in place and extract the object through the cavity.  But, again like the Forth Bridge (and not the Forth Road Bridge - unfortunately), that in-plant was built to last and I couldn’t see it being extracted without the help of Balfour Beatty and an industrial measurement of dynamite. 

So how about going directly through the upper lip and drilling through the cartilage directly below the nose?  That should do it.  But – I don’t know – there’s just something about drill / face combinations that doesn’t appeal to me.  It would be okay I suppose if I happened to have an exploding watch and a ridiculously far-fetched film script guiding my every action.  But the day so far had had a distinctly non-fictional feel to it.  There had to be another way.

***

The dentist turned from the screen and ripped off her latex gloves with a decisive snap.  She nodded knowingly at the assistant who nodded back.  It seemed they had a plan.  “Take a seat,” she said sternly, and I sat on the edge of the dentist chair, gripping it hard and fearing the worst.  “I’m afraid I have bad news Mr Hewitt.  The condition you have is inoperable.  The invasive agent cannot be removed through conventional surgery.  Further more, the prognosis is not good.  It is inevitable that the object will travel through your blood stream where it will become lodged in your heart, resulting in almost certain death.  I would give you two weeks – three at most.”

Again she glanced up at the assistant who returned a slightly nervous look, biting her lip almost imperceptibly.  It seemed she was not as comfortable as her senior colleague in delivering this news. “But there is something we can do,” the dentist continued.  “It’s an untested procedure that isn’t widely available yet.  The risks are high, but at least it will give you a chance.  I have to warn you that you will be the first person in Clackmannanshire to have this treatment."

It was all I could do to utter a vague grunt in acquiescence, so stunned was I with the revelation.  She motioned to her assistant who went over to a cabinet and brought back a white cylindrical canister with NHS Forth Valley stamped on the side.  She unfastened a number of catches and a hiss of compressed gas escaped into the room as she removed the lid.

“Do you know what this is, Mr Hewitt?” she asked, taking out a strange glowing device that resembled a miniature head light with various wires and circuits protruding from the back.

“Yes,” I stammered, “I know what that is. Surely you can’t expect me to go through with this?”

Oblivious to my protests she continued, gazing adoringly at the object: “A mark six nuclear powered arc reactor.  Capable of generating a magnetic field strong enough to prevent the shard entering your heart.”  She turned and fixed me with her steely eyes:  “It’s your only chance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I exploded.  “I only came in here for a check up, and now you’re talking about installing a powerplant in my chest.  Doesn’t the NHS have anything better to spend its money on?”

“Imagine the power Mr Hewitt.  Eight gigajoules per second.   Almost unlimited clean energy.  Enough to power your home, your neighbour’s home, the whole street – they’ll love you for it.  Imagine the Christmas lights – all coming from you!”

“Yes, and lethal doses of Palladium poisoning my blood stream.  Bet it doesn’t mention that on the prescription does it!”

“Mr Hewitt, you’re way out of date.  That problem was resolved years ago.  This model runs on perfectly safe Vibranium tablets.  You can get them at Lloyds Pharmacy across the road.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to regain some kind of composure.  “Okay, the power sounds good, and I like the whole armoured suit thing.  I’ve always wanted to be able to fly, so I’m good with that.  But my family, the people I love – they’re mortal. They’re just ordinary people.  And I like them that way.  And while destroying marauding super-villains will be great for a while, I just know that sooner or later the thrill will wear off and…I’ll just want to be normal again.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take some time to think about this Mr Hewitt?”

“No, I’ve made up my mind.  What’s limitless clean power if you can’t be there for the people you love, sharing in their triumphs, consoling them in their times of need?  Who wants to be indestructible? Isn’t it our weaknesses that make us who we are?  That make us human?”

“I see,” said dentist, placing the device back in the box.  “I see.”

***

“I think what we’ll do is take another picture,” she said finally.  Good on her, I knew she’d know what to do.  Another picture was of course the answer.  The camera never lies, but X-rays – wouldn’t trust one as far as I could throw it.

Five minutes later we’re huddled once again around the screen, me painfully aware that my allocated twenty minutes has elapsed, but the dentist showing no sign of losing interest in the case.  I wondered how long it’d been since she’d last not known something.  Possibly years.

But now the story was a whole lot clearer.  The metal shard was not, in actual fact, metal.  Or a shard.  On closer examination it turned out to be some ordinary old stuff that someone at some point had used to fill a space above a dead root.  Standard procedure.  Seems she knew what she was looking at after all, just didn’t know it.

“Funny how different something can look when you change the angle,” she concluded.

How true.

“See you in six months?”

“Yeh, okay.”

PRIMARY 1 NAILS IT

Here it comes.  I brace myself as the conductor-cum-child-herder raises her hands to call the primary choir to order.  It’s time to unleash the cutest thing anybody has seen - at least since last year’s carol concert.  It’s time to forget the stress and endless 'to do' lists that mark the irrevocable descent into Christmas.  Forget for a moment the on-going pressure of locating, securing, hiding, wrapping, hiding again and covertly depositing the small mountain of gifts gradually converging on the house from all four corners of the globe. The audience holds its collective breath in a state of anticipatory rapture.  This is it, the pay off.

Primary 1 stands up, hands held together neatly in front, hair carefully coiffured, uniforms ironed and pristine.  It’s taken weeks - months.  After near-continuous rehearsals the words are firmly lodged in the kids’ subconscious. They don’t know it yet, but thirty years later they’ll still be driving them crazy as they loop endlessly through their head in a congested and foul tempered Asda carpark the week before Christmas.  The teacher pats her head and by some kind of miracle every child produces reindeer antlers from somewhere, summoning forth an involuntary ‘Ahhhh’ from mothers’ throats, and a small measure of bile from mine.

A clonky intro on the piano and they’re off, mouths wide, chins up, eyes closed - four rows of near-identical finger puppets twitching spasmodically in time to the frantic arm movements of their controller.  By the end of the second verse the audience has reached near orgasmic bliss, and is pushed over the edge by the third which introduces an assortment of vaguely relevant farmyard animal impersonations.  The antlers, become horns, then ears, and the parents become putty in their waving, flapping, clapping hands.  Most laugh, some cry.  Mothers fall back in love with the small creature they shrieked at for a protracted period that morning for leaving its violin in the bus shelter, and fathers begin to think that the school fees might be worth it after all. 

But then, just when it seems the song is over and the Everest summit of cuteness has been attained, Primary 1 delivers its killer blow. A jazz hands finish.  The audience is stunned temporarily by this re-definition of what cuteness can be.  By the jaw-dropping spectacle of the sweeping cutescape that opens up before them. Then they clap, then they cheer, then they thunder.  Several people stand up without realising it, enrapt in an ecstasy that temporarily lifts them out of themselves and deposits them on a higher plane of infant devotion.  Once everyone’s stood up, and there’s nowhere higher to go, they revert to roaring, stamping their feet and wolf whistling.  

Primary One begins fidgeting nervously as the scene unfolds before it.  Several couples rip off each other’s clothes and copulate in the centre isle, their passion re-ignited by the showbiz genius of their offspring.  A number of delirious fathers stage dive into the third and fourth rows, and the primary teacher is hoisted up and passed triumphantly around the auditorium high above the heads of the seething crowd.  The headmaster mounts the stage and begs the audience to control itself, but is quickly swallowed up in a mob of adoring mothers, scrabbling to secure a token shred of his clothing.

There’s only one thing that can be done and, extracting himself from the scrum down of parental passion, the headmaster does it.  He calls the school jazz orchestra on stage.

Thank God for that. The first bars of White Christmas splurge out across the hall and arousal levels return to normal.  Stage diving fathers return to their seats and assume their customary forced smiles.  Molesting mothers replace their faux fur stoles and take up position at their sides, applying themselves to the traditional task of trying to attract the attention of their child without attracting attention to themselves. 

And as Primary 1 is led off for counselling, I return to leafing through the programme and fantasising about the end of the show and the twelve carol-free months until the next.

AIRPORT PHILOSOPHY PART 1: THE IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES

“The identity of indiscernibles is an ontological principle that states that there cannot be separate objects or entities that have all their properties in common. That is, entities x and y are identical if every predicate possessed by x is also possessed by y and vice versa; to suppose two things indiscernible is to suppose the same thing under two names.”

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Or, to put it simply, if two things are the same, at least one of them doesn’t exist. Or, to put it simply still, to exist you have to be different from everything else. A simple enough idea I picked up in a philosophy tutorial way back and somehow have never quite shaken off.  In fact, I think of it often, and drop it into conversation. When conversation is slow.  Which can cause some problems, because people tend not to believe you.  Oh come on, they say, what about those coffee beans. Or those baked beans. They’re all the same.  And all exist.  No they’re not the same, I counter.  They have equivalent physical properties, but positionally they are quite different, i.e. one’s here, one’s there.  Therefore they’re not the same.  And the doubter retreats, not so much vanquished, as bored.

Yes, it always seemed to me that Mr Leibniz had it sown up, and no amount of bean-orientated conversations would ever change my commitment to the absolute truth of the principle. Until now.  

It’s 0640 hours in Edinburgh Airport.  A frequent flier, I amble casually through the heady delights of duty free, past perfumed sirens plying trays of liquor, 'twixt mountains of Toblerone, to the departure board.  A quick check and I’m sauntering to Gate 19 to catch the 0700 to Stansted.  Although of Speedy Boarder rank, I decide to forego the privilege on this occasion and languish instead in the comparative comfort of the lounge and watch the sad-old queue gradually squeezes itself out past the guardians of the security desk into the frigid staircase beyond.  Until there’s just me left, at which point I’ll stroll stylishly through the doors and straight onto the plane. Because that’s the way I roll. I’m not a queuer - I’m a duty-free spirit.

Just as I’m about to stir myself and join the herd, I glance up at the board, and suddenly this trip to London becomes note worthy.  I’m about to get on the wrong plane.  True this is the 0700.  And true it’s going to Stansted.  But it’s not Easyjet.  It’s Ryanair.  With the blood beating loud in my ears I rush over to take another look at the departure board and my worst nightmare is confirmed.  There are two planes flying to exactly the same place at exactly the same time, and I’m about to get on the wrong one.  And the other one is leaving about now, twelve gates away.

In that moment of panic I have no one to blame but … Gottfried Wilhelm.   Because of him I had foolishly thought that two identical planes would not be able to leave for exactly the same destination at exactly the same time, so had not even bothered checking the operator of the first ‘0700 to Stansted’ my eyes alighted on. Thanks to Gottried Wilhelm I was now at the wrong end of the airport facing the unbearable prospect of having to tell my worldly, well travelled colleagues in London that I wouldn’t be with them today because … I tried to get on the wrong plane.  Never did I think that disproving a philosophical principle could be so embarrassing.  

And as I clattered through the terminal my mind turned to the ramifications of what had been revealed to me that morning.  I would have to rebuild my life around the principle that two things can indeed be identical and still exist.  My eldest would have to be allowed to get that Lego Bionicle for Christmas even though it’s the same as the one he got last year except its left elbow’s green.  There would be no excuse for not watching the Queen’s speech, or the next James Bond film, and I might even have to take an interest in who becomes the next Tory leader.  

Finally Gate 7 honed into view.  And no sooner had I started dismantling my old belief system, than it was time to put it back together again.  As was.  Because the queue was still intact, the flight delayed.  So there you have it.  Gottfried Wilhelm - you’re off the hook.  

It must all have been a huge mistake.  Probably the fault of the eagle-eyed gentleman in the control tower.  Eagle of eye perhaps, but not sharp of mind.  It was probably the terribly clever, silk-tongued Easyjet pilot who put him straight, pointing out that although he’d been given the go-ahead to push back and fly off to Stansted, he couldn’t do it because there was Ryanair plane about to do exactly the same thing, and the identity of indiscernibles principle as expounded by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz states that there cannot be separate objects or entities that have all their properties in common. So wouldn’t it be better if he waited for a bit?

And so I caught the plane with my, and Gottfried Wilhelm’s, reputation intact.  

So, dear fellow air traveler, what have we learnt from this? Well, airlines may be good at many things, but refuting philosophical principles and overcoming the inherent restrictions imposed by physical space and time are not two of them.  So the next time you see two flights going to the same place at the same time, they’re not.

Coming up Airport Philosophy Part 2: Metaphysical Solipsism.