WHOSE STAR WARS?

It’s here, it's with us.  And a strange calm settles over the world of Star Wars super fandom.  The people who I thought would feel most strongly, who would rave at its brilliance or spit bile at its loathsomeness, don’t know what to make of it.  It’s not that they don’t like it, they do.  It’s not that it doesn’t live up to their expectations.  Because they didn’t really know what to expect.  They just don’t know.  

I booked tickets months ago to take the kids on the first Saturday.  It seemed like a good idea given the tidal wave of hype that was gathering pace.  But they finished school on the Thursday before, and were both invited to see it with friends.  The Youngest (10) accepted, the Eldest (14) declined.  He wanted to see it first with me.  Because after all, Star Wars belonged to Dad.

The Youngest’s enthusiasm knew no bounds when he somersaulted into the house after the show and kicked off an athletic light sabre battle with an invisible opponent that continued most of the evening.  It was all he could do, because we wouldn’t let him speak.

Saturday came, and he was desperate to see it again.  We didn’t know why, because we wouldn’t let him speak.  So he, the Eldest and I went to see Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Three quarters of the way through, the Youngest leaned over to me inexplicably and whispered in my ear “I’m sorry Dad”.  A minute later I knew why.

So we emerged into the dark side of December, dazed and still very much in a galaxy far, far away.  There was non of the usual post-film analysis and rating.  The Eldest and I were silent.  The Youngest began a tirade of light sabre assaults around the carpark.  “How was it?”, asked my wife when we got home?  “I don’t know,” I said.  And I still don’t.  

But what I think I do know, is that Star Wars has gone.  It’s gone to the Youngest.  And he deserves it.

SWEGWAYS (AND OTHER VILLAINOUS ALIEN SPECIES)

It’s a few days before Christmas and I’m alone in the garage giggling like an idiot. Because I’ve just tested the youngest’s swegway before wrapping it up.  It works, and it turns out I can do it.  

Being able to ride a swegway - or hover board  - depends on your ability to do nothing.  It’s a state of mind.  If you get on and try to do things - like making all those involuntary muscular adjustments that have kept the human race upright and moving in the right direction since we first took our knuckles off the ground - then you’re stuffed.  The swegway takes care of all that.  

It’s the automotive equivalent of the smart phone.  But without the need to wiggle your thumbs.  All it takes is a vague, half-formed inkling that you might quite fancy moving in some kind of direction at some point, followed by the slightest really-can't-be-bothered semi-twitch in a hitherto dormant portion of the underside of your foot and you’re away, a whole world of motionless travel opened up to you.

I saw one on a London street a while ago.  It’s hard to look nonchalant when you’re doing nothing at 5mph along a crowded pavement, but the rider was giving it her best shot.  If ‘rider’ is the right word.  More like ‘person who happened to be standing around on it when it started moving and couldn’t be arsed to get off’.

It turns out I have a special aptitude for doing nothing which doesn’t seem to surprise the woman I call my wife when I drag her round to the garage to demonstrate.  We look down on the alien object with wonder:

“What do you do?”

“Just get on.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing!”

She tried, and she failed.  The swegway offered her freedom from the perpetual bondage of bipedal locomotion and she demurred.  She just couldn’t let go of that tired old concept that to go places you have to do something.

The first thing that strikes you when you lift a swegway out of the box is its weight.  But then this is classed as a vehicle which is why it’s illegal to ride it on a pavement.  The next thing is its other-worldliness.  Two foot pads connected by a swivelling joint and a wheel on each end.  It’s like a piece of something bigger that dropped off.  It’s as though it evolved in a different galaxy, according to a different set of evolutionary rules.  I wouldn’t be surprised if its blood was concentrated sulphuric acid.

Given all this, it’s hardly surprising that swegways are almost impossible to buy. Despite the bewildering array of forms they assume they’re basically all the same and spawn in a mysterious mother ship in low orbit over China.  If you order one online it will make its way to you at its top speed of roughly 10 kmph.  When it finally arrives and you plug it in it is likely to do what any self-respecting alien life form would do and melt your house.

Which is why I went to the only good old fashioned, truly terrestrial high street name stocking swegways this Christmas: Argos.  No interminable wait.  No melted house.  Just instant gratification.

And what a gratification.  Remember how good it felt when you first learned to ride a bike? No?  Me neither.  But I’m guessing it was something like this.  A sudden broadening of horizons.  A realisation that moving moderately quickly doesn't have to be hard work.  In fact, in the case of the swegway, any kind of work at all.  The controlling movements are so instinctive that within minutes you hardly notice you’re doing them.  It’s man and swegway in perfect harmony. Legs suddenly feel very old hat.

But alas, it soon came time to surrender the device to the youngest via the proxy of Santa. Within minutes he was gliding round the house like a well-lubricated chess piece; smooth, silent, effortless.  Deadly too, when you added a glow-in-the-dark Kylo Ren light sabre with sound effects.  People outside the window stared in, struggling to come to terms with the improbable movement of his upper body, and wondering how we came to own a child on wheels.

The swegway was exactly what Christmas should be, and once was.  A superpower in a box.  A pair of wings.  I felt it again.

A few days later Argos recalled its swegways.  Apparently they were melting houses, so I took it off the youngest and watched him melt down too.

The staff in Argos took the swegway off me and gave me back my money.  And that, as far as they were concerned, was that.  No compensation.  Not even an apology.  It was really very simple you see: in the beginning, there was some money, and there was a swegway. The money was mine, the swegway was theirs.  Then, for a short period, the swegway was mine, and the money was theirs.  Now the money is mine once again and they have the swegway.  What could the problem possibly be?  How were they to know that, at some point, the swegway was his?  And made promises it couldn’t keep.

The shop assistant hadn’t been trained to apologize and the manager was not authorized to show signs of remorse.  He ripped a page out of the catalogue with the customer service number and handed it to me.  I called it.  The operator jokingly asked if the swegway had blown up yet and had a good chortle.  But unfortunately, being complained at wasn't part of his job description either.  So he gave me an email address. I wrote to it, it bounced back.  I called again and was given another.  24 hours later an automated message came back asking for an order number so it could process my email.  I don’t have one.

On reflection I think swegways do belong on this planet.  What’s the odd melted house between friends.  Argos on the other hand? I’m not so sure.

RECOVERED

I’m being Recovered.  Processed like a piece of lost luggage, or a suspicious package, by an elite group of highly trained individuals with walkie-talkies, bright yellow waistcoats and passes round their necks that give them access to absolutely anywhere.

The family huddled next to me seem to have been in Recovery for much longer than I. Days possibly.  They look malnourished and worn out.  The children are tearful and listless. The mother comforts them as best she can.  The father is clearly exhausted, asking repeatedly for information.  When will they get help?  When can they leave?  Or at least I assume that’s the kind of thing he’s asking because it’s not in English.  And the Recovery Team only talks in English.  And only into walkie-talkies.

The man in charge turns to me and, without detaching the handset from his face, asks what gate I need.  I tell him, and he immediately relays the information.  86 is an embarrassingly high number considering the Transit I’ve been Recovered from only goes as far as 39.  But this isn’t a time for pride, for saving face.  It’s a time for survival.

It had only taken a momentary lapse in concentration. But if you’re going to wonder absent-mindedly onto a public transport vehicle, make sure it’s not the Stansted Transit to Gates 1-39. You see, it doesn’t behave like any other train you’ve been on. There’s no standing politely to one side to let everyone off before you get on. It always returns empty.  Because the Stansted Transit to Gates 1-39 isn't a train at all.  It has no driver.  It has no soul. It doesn’t give you a second chance.

Over the years scores of people must have tried to take a return journey on the Stansted Transit like I did.  My guess is that many of them weren’t as lucky as me, and are still wondering the concrete catacombs somewhere below Gates 20-39.  Me, I got picked up almost immediately at Gates 1-19. They treated me well - perhaps it was my smart clothes and iPhone 6S that did it. Perhaps they thought I might be worth something on the international Surplus Business Traveller market.  Anyway, I was herded into the Recovery Enclosure with everybody else, but soon given my own corner next to the disconsolate family.

My interrogator is seemingly unmoved by the depth of my incompetence and probes further:

“What time’s your flight?” he asks, checking his ruggedized timepiece.

“Ten to six.  Can you get me there?”

“Should be fine.”

Should be fine?  He's playing with me surely.  The old trick, give me hope then dash it to pieces with an iron fist.  How can I believe this man?  What about the circuitous bus ride around the apron under armed guard?  The full body search and endless debrief in the dimly lit room with the slo-mo ceiling fan and double-sided mirror?   The protracted negotiations with my people back in Scotland?  Surely I’ve already seen too much?  They won't let me go this easily will they? 

“Thank you - I’ll do anything.  Really.  Just please give me a chance….”  But he’s already walked away to interrogate a couple of hapless new arrivals.  

A chance, that’s all I want.  A chance to redeem myself.  To prove to the world I can follow simple directional signage. That Gate 86 is within my capability.   A chance to get back to Departures and depart again.

I slump back against the wall and close my eyes, imagining the queue of speedy boarders on Flight EZY237 joyously filing past the security desk on its way out into the barren stairwell where it will no doubt be held happily for another 20 minutes in arctic conditions before being led out into the rain to stand contentedly on the plane’s steps for another ten minutes while the people in the front seats have a chat and fold their coats ever so neatly into the overhead lockers…

“Sir.”

I look up with a start as a large moustached operative approaches.

"Sir.  It’s time to go.”

“Yes, yes of course.”

I gather up my possessions and follow him, wondering vaguely why I’ve been chosen and where he's taking me.  But I have neither the spirit nor the courage to question him.  I’m in Recovery now, and people in Recovery can’t make their own decisions.  That’s why they’re there.  So I traipse obediently behind him towards a locked door.  A single swipe of his security card and we’re through.  

I turn and catch a final glimpse of the family with whom I’ve shared a corner for so many minutes.  I knew one day I’d have to leave them to their own fate.  Now it’s time to face my own.  The mother is watching me.  She nudges her husband and points. I know, it’s not fair.  I’ve only just arrived and they’ve been there forever.  But it’s every idiot air traveller for his or her self now.  Mercifully, the door swings closed...

“Sir, we have to keep moving.”

I follow him up a staircase towards another door, steeling myself for what will undoubtedly be a long and gruelling journey. By my own reckoning we’re nearly 70 gates away from my destination, and I doubt we’ll make it before sun down.  Another swipe and we’re in.  He holds the door with his foot and beckons me through.

“There you go. Gate 86.”

And there, indeed, I go.  As though spat through a wormhole, ejaculated through a tear in time and space.  I turn to thank my Recoverer, but he’s already disappeared back into infinity. Giddy with relief I join the back of the cue and file onto the crowded aeroplane. I can hardly believe it.  Recovery has recovered me and here I am.  Recovered.  

Seems like I’ve done the place a disservice thinking of it as a purely three-dimensional terrestrial-type affair. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity – along with all its little labour saving quirks and foibles – is bound to apply to Stansted Airport.  As it does to all unimaginably complicated places which insist on expanding continuously despite being way too big in the first place.

I decide I’ve earned a little in-flight pampering and order a cup of tea and a light snack. But my mind returns once again to Recovery. While I’m being served luxury bistro items in a pressurised cylinder forty thousand feet over Manchester, what is happening to the family I left behind? Will a hi-viz Time Lord deposit them safely back into their own dimension, or will they join the legion of the dispossessed, reading free copies of the Daily Mail and eating McCoy’s out of vending machines for all eternity? Again I ask myself, why do I deserve to be the one that got away…?

I'm jolted out of my reverie by a searing pain in my groin as sudden turbulence sends the entire cup of scalding tea over my lap.  For a second the agony is overwhelming and I make a noise that I doubt has ever been heard before on EZY237.  The crew quickly issue me with a sachet of burn relief ointment, but the seatbelt signs are on and I can’t get to the toilet to administer it.  So I sit in sodden misery, in a mood that even a pack of Grate Britain All-British Cheddar Crackers Made With Freshly Grated Wookey Hole Cave-Aged Cheddar cannot lighten.

Retribution enough I think.