Flytrap

          During the summer months, fruit flies hang around our kitchen. Despite my obsessive efforts to keep everything clean, still they circle slowly around, seeking out any whiff of organic matter. I suppose they do no harm, but I am unaccountably irritated by their insouciance and just cannot resist trying to squash them. Fooled by their slow flight, I grab at them with one hand, but they scoot away with super-powered acceleration. Occasionally, I catch one in a two-handed clap, but the sudden violent movement often has repercussions in the form of spillages and breakages that are even more irritating than the pesky flies. And so, I use a deadly trap, a glass containing an inch of cider vinegar, sealed at the top with clingfilm perforated with a few holes small enough for them to crawl in to but out of which, inexplicably, they are unable to escape.

          Yesterday, it being the start of October, there was a chill in the air marking the end of the fruit fly season, so I emptied the contents of the trap, a sludge of tiny, semi-pickled carcasses, down the toilet – though not without a pang of guilt. After all, the philosophy discussion group I attend has recently touched upon ahimsa, the theory of non-violence and compassion towards all living beings, as contained in Hindu, Buddhist, Jainist and several non-religious philosophies. Then, today, an item in the news tweaked my conscience even more. Scientists have produced the first wiring diagram for a whole brain – that of the fruit fly! Leaving aside, for the moment, the repercussions of this astonishing scientific breakthrough, the realisation that such tiny creatures really do have a brain (rudimentary though it may be) induces in me more sympathy with the concept of ahimsa.

          But, speaking as a person who prides himself on possessing a degree of practical skill, I do marvel at the fact that the researchers were able to slice the fly brain into 7,000 slivers in order to analyse the neural connections. Their feat of precision puts into the shade my own, recent achievement, which was the re-hanging of our internal doors so that they fit snugly into their frames after a whoosh of resistant compressing air and a reassuring ‘click’ (though my Other Half, who is congenitally disinclined to close anything fully, will never experience the sensation of satisfaction that comes over me each time I “put wood in th'ole”, as they say in Yorkshire, or thereabouts).

          But the brain of a fruit fly is commensurate with its function in life, which is to multiply and thrive, I assume. Unlike the human brain, it doesn’t create for itself problems by striving for much else. Take, for example, the paralysis my own grey matter experienced this week when a programme on my computer acted unexpectedly by renaming a file, then refusing to save it. Although my first reaction was panic, I did then attempt to analyse and rectify the process. But I failed and had to call on the expertise of James at Computerbase, who, with a few deft taps on the keyboard and a dismissive, “What’s your problem?” demeanour, soon set things right. My problem, obviously, is a lack of understanding of how the programme works. There may well be capacity in my brain to acquire that knowledge, but what’s lacking is motivation.

          One day, scientists may be able to scale up their brain-mapping technology to the human level, whereupon they will be able to fix our apparent wiring faults. Meanwhile, I would like to set them a more modest goal: to explain why fruit flies can’t find their way back through the holes in the clingfilm. And, with my much bigger brain, allied with my newly acquired compassionate streak, I really ought to be working on a non-lethal way of ridding the kitchen of the irritating little buggers.

Frank and Me

         It’s not just the changing weather that signals the end of summer; there are other markers, such as the darkening evenings which, for me at least, reignite the fancy to read novels. Currently, Richard Ford’s works are capturing my attention, especially those featuring Frank Bascombe, a character with whom I feel some affinity, though he is American. What we have in common is our year of birth, our left-leaning politics and the degree of equanimity with which we bear the burden of guilt imposed upon us by an accident of fate – our white, western, male boomer ‘privilege’.

          Meanwhile, the warm, sunny second week of September insisted that summer wasn’t done yet and it was time, for those of us who are able, to make the most of it. The kids were back at school and we had the fields of leisure to ourselves. But first, I had one commitment to dispatch – helping out with the annual street party thrown by the charity with which I associate. My role as a volunteer involved a long day of interacting with the public, topped and tailed by the physical activity of dragging out and putting away a lot of bunting, chairs and miscellaneous kit. I had been suffering some lower-back pain (as a result of sanding and painting the skirting-boards at home, I’m sure), so I was apprehensive of worsening the condition. However, I awoke the next day pain-free – a testament to the aphorism “use it or lose it”. I wish I could pass this good news on to Frank, as he is something of a martyr to the aches and pains of his elderly frame.

          Then it was time to exercise the privilege of we self-employed/un-employed. We threw our hiking boots in the campervan and set off for a few choice days out – part of our on-going project to explore our recently adopted location on the border of Devon and Cornwall. We based ourselves at the village of Lydford, a place that has it all: ancient pedigree, interesting topography, a campsite on its periphery and a good pub at its heart. (It once had a post office, too, but now it’s a bijou residence.) Archaeology concludes that Lydford was established in the Bronze Age and documented history tells us that it was an important place in Saxon times – so much so that the Danes attacked and captured it in 997, overcoming its formidable defences, both natural and constructed.

          Lydford sits at the western edge of Dartmoor and just above a gorge, the latter seemingly inconsistent with the relatively gentle lie of the land. Yet, there it is! A mini gorge, with all the features of a maxi (except scale), complete with a Devil’s Cauldron of roiling water and a spectacular, 30 metre waterfall, known as the White Lady for its resemblance to long white tresses. No doubt Americans would be underwhelmed by the experience, though I would hope for at least a polite show of interest from Frank.

          The small scale of the gorge rules it out as a hike, so we took one on adjacent Dartmoor the next day. It’s a bleak landscape and famously treacherous in bad weather. Yet, even on the clear, sunny day of our visit, we found it a less than joyful experience. Like the Lake District, Dartmoor used to be completely forested and, with that in mind, it is hard to ignore the fact that these uplands, famed for their ‘beauty’ and favoured by hikers, are really despoiled and degraded regions. The pleasure of being in them is tempered with grieving for what they once were.

          Before leaving, we returned to the café at the gorge, which adjoins an old orchard, where the apples are free to gather. We took a load home and stewed them for the freezer, while planning which films to see now that the cinemas have come back to life. Autumn was in the air. Or ‘fall’, as Frank would have it.

Healthy Concern

          This week, I was summoned to the clinic for a periodical blood test to keep track of an illness that I may or may not develop. Though I remember vaguely being told about it, the origins of the diagnosis were lost during the transfer of records from my former home, so I keep turning up for the test, just in case.

          I suppose I shall get a definitive result one day but, meanwhile, an actual health-related incident occurred when I spat out part of a tooth that had come asunder. The broken-off remnant is tiny in comparison to the gap it has left, which, to my probing tongue, feels cavernous and has a razor-sharp edge. The breakage was to be expected, in fact I had anticipated it, given the antiquity of the tooth and my penchant for toasted slices of sourdough, the crusts of which are more dangerous than pork crackling and can slice through your gums as well as lay waste to your teeth.

          I may or may not get a repair done, as there is no pain and the sharp edge will eventually wear blunt. No, the real problem here is finding another type of bread to toast, given that none of the alternatives available locally are to my liking (Cranks wholemeal being the gold standard). So, I’m exploring the viability of making bread myself and, already, a friend has offered up a couple of recipes. The prospect is unappealing, since it will introduce an unwanted chore into my studiously idle hours. Ideally, I will find a method that involves not having to wait hours for the dough to prove – a requirement driven not by impatience but by my innate unwillingness to schedule every detail of life. Another stipulation would be the no-knead method – not that I’m lazy, but my arthritic fingers will protest; as it is, they are aching from the exertions of sanding doorframes in preparation for their coat of new paint.

          Incidentally, the fingerprint detector on my phone no longer recognizes my skin, presumably because most of it has been worn down by repeated, vigorous contact with 120s grit sandpaper. This is a bit of a nuisance because – if I’m wearing a dust mask and/or goggles – the face-detection doesn’t work either and I’m back to inputting a PIN.

          Overall, however, I am in good health (forthcoming blood-test results notwithstanding), something for which I am particularly thankful, having just attended the funeral of an old friend.

          I can’t claim to have been very close to Tony, a big man with big appetites and a cavalier disregard for risk. There was a period, long ago, when we might have grown together, but geography rather precluded it. Still, I am tight enough with at least part of his circle to have stayed in touch and enjoyed his generous, enthusiastic company over the years. He died suddenly, though not unexpectedly. Anyone with basic medical knowledge could have predicted the outcome of such an immoderate lifestyle as his. Nor did it come as a surprise that there was a huge throng of mourners at his wake, given that he lived his gregarious life in the town where he was born. The wake was not mournful, though I did detect among contemporaries, the feeling that Tony could have been with us a good few years longer yet.

          On the scale that runs from well, through unwell, to deceased, I am pretty much at the alive-and-kicking end, where I make some effort to remain. There’s nothing like the passing of an old friend to strengthen that resolve. But Tony’s approach to health and well-being was not, shall we say, as pernickety as mine. He was not the kind of man to fret over the results of a blood test.

Listening

          The internal redecoration of Wonderman Towers is well under way and, with vast expanses of wall and ceiling now double-coated, there remains only the east wing to tackle. Progress has been satisfactory in more ways than one, because I’ve been using the time spent labouring to listen to stuff – switching between playlists and podcasts, as the mood takes me – and it feels like I’ve covered ground mentally as well as physically. It’s a very satisfactory form of multi-tasking, though it comes with one proviso: take care not to become so carried away with what you’re listening to that you end up painting yourself into a literal corner.

          One of the podcasts I like is The Writer’s Voice, which is put out by The New Yorker. It comprises short stories, previously published in the magazine, read aloud by their respective authors. Of course, being a good writer possessed of what is called an authentic “voice” does not necessarily mean you can read aloud, convincingly, the fruits of your authorial labour. There are professionals who take on this work: they are called actors.

          Nevertheless, the half-dozen authors I’ve sampled so far do make a pretty good fist of it. I suppose they are all accustomed to reading out loud to audiences on their promotional tours. There is one writer, however, whose voice I found so grating that, no matter the quality of what she had to say or the subtlety and emotion with which she imbued it, I could not endure her nasal, whining tone beyond about three minutes (the app has a helpful timer on it). I felt guilty about curtailing her effort, but I might salve my conscience by reading her piece – once the job is finished, of course.

          Coincidentally, I came across another source of the amusing and sometimes edifying effects of the spoken word. During my evening down-times, I’ve been delving into the BBC iPlayer archive of documentaries made in the early 60s. The black and white footage makes everything look dreary – even scenes shot in colourful Carnaby Street – so it’s as well that my memories of the time are in vivid, Sergeant Pepper-style colour.

          What is harder to call to mind, however, is the way people spoke. And when I say people, I mean those of us who were there. Did we really sound like that? There seemed to be a lot of stilted formality about it. Surely, the way we speak nowadays is more relaxed? Well, maybe. We would need a big AI programme to analyse the data on that. Perhaps we have just become more comfortable with the technology of recording. Thanks to phone-enabled video production, it is no longer unusual to hear our own voices and see our own actions, hence we don’t feel so inhibited when confronted with cameras and microphones.

          But, while listening to recorded material has its benefits, there are times when you want to chip in. This is where the University of the Third Age philosophy discussion group comes into its own. At yesterday’s meeting, we considered the main tenets of Kant and Bentham and, notwithstanding the aphorism, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, we sought similarities in their respective principles of the ‘categorical imperative’ and ‘utilitarianism’.

          Briefly put, we considered whether the proposed ban on smoking in beer gardens would accord with the great philosophers’ ideas. One of our number blurted out immediately her abhorrence of the “nanny state”, a pejorative and emotive phrase that deftly by-passed any philosophical consideration of the example. But we carried on regardless to conclude that Bentham would vote in favour of the ban on the grounds that it would benefit the majority. Kant was harder to call but, since he advocates a universal moral law that applies to all beings, it seemed likely he would also be in favour. By the way, albeit Kant is a towering figure in Western philosophy, contemporary reports inform us that he had a weak and tremulous voice, quite unsuitable for podcasting, I imagine.

 

  

 

On Choosing One's Destiny

          Finally, we decided on a colour for the walls. It’s called Tundra Frost. Despite my slight embarrassment at returning several times for sample pots, the man in the paint shop told me that I was nowhere near the record, which is held by a person who bought 46 pots to determine two shades of cream for one room. It made me feel quite decisive.

          I became impatient waiting for the decorators who said they’d do the job to get back to me so, while my Other Half is away for a week, I’ve taken the opportunity to get on with it myself. The fact is, I never could resist a DIY challenge, especially one that fell comfortably within my abilities. Nevertheless, I have a nagging feeling that, despite enjoying the work itself, there are more momentous issues crying out for my attention. I am also a little anxious about meeting the somewhat demanding deadline.

          Am I over-worrying the situation? If so, I put it down to the accumulation of knowledge and experience that clogs my mind and inhibits my motivational impulse. Oh, for a return of the simplicity of youth, when everything was an adventure upon which I would embark without hesitation. Nowadays, I think at least twice about everything.

          Last week, our friends took us on their catamaran, as passengers, for a sail up the River Tamar. I chose not to get involved in manoeuvring the vessel. I have tried it before and decided that life is too short to spend it acquiring skills that I don’t need (I have a tendency to become sea-sick), which left me in a position to observe not just the scenery, but also the procedure. Under sail and with strong but variable winds, experience is required to navigate the several sharp bends while keeping to the deep channel. It’s not what you call ‘plain sailing’. But conditions were favourable, the crew were competent and we had time before the tide turned to drop anchor and enjoy lunch in the spacious cabin that straddles the hulls.

          Our destination was Calstock, around which the lucrative industries of mining and lime production thrived at a time when the spoils had to be transported down river by sailing barges. It seems to me that those involved in that trade must have mastered not only the skills but also the longanimity required to sit out the vagaries of wind and weather without suffering constant deadline-stress syndrome. Perhaps they enjoyed the work/life balance. If so, they were probably not best pleased when the railway arrived and deprived them of it.

          As to whether I could spend my time more profitably than by wielding a paintbrush – it is a moot point. We are all living our lives to a deadline (literally), we just don’t know when it’s scheduled. It makes sense, therefore, to make progress, while we can, with whatever we are best equipped to achieve. This is a thought that preoccupies me increasingly, in direct proportion to my diminishing future prospect. It can lead to a sort of desperation to try anything – as, for example, when I went recently to a performance given by a fifty-strong steel band. It was certainly impressive; there was no conductor up front and no sheet music to guide them through their impressively complex pieces. And yet, once the novelty wore off, I could find only so much musicality in the hitting of steel drums with sticks, no matter how masterfully executed. I left the hall uninspired, but in awe of the commitment of those involved.

          But I must get back to the job. Satisfaction lies in its completion, on time, within budget and to a competent standard: of that, I’m sure. It’s just the Tundra Frost I have a lingering doubt about.