Work In Progress (WIP)

          I was shaken this week, by the news that an old friend had died. The fact that we hadn’t been in touch for more than 40 years does not dim the vivid flashbacks I am still experiencing, though it does cause me to think about the nature of friendship and the circumstances in which it flourishes and dwindles. In our case, the story was one of intersecting social circles at a time before we all settled on our various trajectories, some of which, like ours, never coincided thereafter. So, I can’t help speculating how things went for my former friend. And I mean personally – the stuff behind the headlines of family and career. Did he die at peace with himself, his hopes, expectations and ambitions? Not that any of those things are fixed: in my experience, they can change over time and according to the twists and turns of fate. But was he the same person, in the end, as the one I knew?

          It's a philosophical question and one that has been addressed by many an eminent thinker. It begins with the notion of ‘self’ and what makes an individual a personality, rather than just another ant in a colony. Is it, as Locke contended, the fact of consciousness that defines self? Or is it, as Hulme suggested, merely a bundle of perceptions? Meanwhile, nihilists seem to suggest that the argument is futile, while theologians neatly sidestep the issue by relying on the notion of ‘souls’, which they dreamt up and cannot prove. Since I have nothing definitive to put forward, I will myself sidestep the issue by quoting a stand-up comic, whose name I have forgotten but whose opening lines I remember well: “I’m a man who likes to ask life’s big questions, like: What is our purpose here? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Should we be taking sandwiches?”

          For all practical purposes, we are individual persons and we do have a notion of ‘self’, even if we can but speculate as to how it exists and is perceived. But following on from that, comes another question: are we the same person now as we were before? Or, in analytical language, what makes it true that a person at one time is the same thing as a person at another time? We’ve all heard it said, “He’s not the man he once was,” but what is it that is different? Leaving aside obvious physical changes, are we witnessing altered personality traits or merely an adjustment of ambition (the one being fundamental, the other tactical)?

          In this, I can only answer for myself. The physical parts of me are certainly not as they were, though the changes are due to natural progression, aka ageing. And there are some characteristics that I have never been called upon to test: valour might be an example, as I am of the lucky generation that never went to war. But let’s suppose that I am characteristically pessimistic. Can that be turned around by dint of determination and, if so, would that qualify me as a changed person, or just someone who has changed their behaviour?  My perception of myself is that I have developed rather than changed – and in a good way. I feel older, yes, but more knowledgeable and, therefore, more qualified to make decisions based on logic. Not that I always do, of course: that extra glass of wine often turns out to have been an error of judgement.

         As for my recently deceased friend, I will never know, as all I have now is a snapshot in my memory of our time together. But I am certain that, when it comes to my turn to exit, I would prefer the epitaph WIP to RIP.

 

Short, Back and Sides

          When it comes time for a haircut, I am still unsure, two years after moving here, which barber shop to choose. There are so many of them – too many, according to one of the longer-established practitioners, who has watched competition grow, fuelled to a large degree by Kurdish immigrants who, according to him, “learned it off YouTube”. But, since my needs are uncomplicated (I am thankful that it was my fate to be born into the male gender), I reckon that any competent barber could – or should – be able to do the job. The brief is simple: trim the hair while keeping the style as is. The criteria for deciding where to take my custom, therefore, could readily be defined by price and convenience and, since prices are all the same, give or take a pound, that leaves convenience as the deciding factor. Except that it doesn’t, quite.

          For a while, I thought I had it sorted. Hair Port is situated across the road from the Portuguese café, which was a useful place to have coffee while keeping an eye on the busyness or otherwise of the barbers. But the café changed its opening times and I lost track of them. In any case, it seemed that, despite there being several barbers on duty, I too often got the big, unsmiling, tattooed chap whose manner was arrogant and whose method was rapid and rough. The end result would be fine, but the risk of a cricked neck was always present. So, I started to go to Malmo, a salon named for the Swedish city which had once been the adopted home of this particular Kurdish proprietor. Malmo is conveniently situated opposite the supermarket, where provisions may be obtained before or after the shearing and where there is a handy, secure bike-park. The only snag is that the proprietor is always on the phone (“Sorry, I have a big family”), which means that I usually get attended by his assistant, a nice chap with a gentle touch, but whose method is tediously slow. And, unless I keep an eye on what he’s doing, I sometimes end up with a quiff that is not only inappropriate to my age but also reminiscent of a certain far-right, former politician.

          It was for this reason that I cycled up to Hair Port on Tuesday morning, thinking to give them another try. The big man wasn’t there, which was encouraging. There was just one, unemployed barber lurking with his phone at the back of the shop. But, as I walked in, I realised that I had forgotten to bring with me the seemingly universal currency of barbershops: cash. Ever so hopefully, I asked him if I could pay with my phone. The response I got was morose and perfunctory. “There’s an ATM over the road,” he said, thrusting his chin in that direction. Fine, but I only had the phone with me and ATMs still need an old-fashioned card poked into them. I knew I had to cycle home for cash and start again, which I did with bad grace and not so much as a “See you later”.

          On the return journey, I decided, in a fit of of pique, to risk it and go to Malmo instead. The boss was on the phone but smiled and said hello, while beckoning his assistant to prepare the chair for me. The gentle barber seemed pleased to see me, so I resigned myself to his painstaking twiddling, and made sure to be firm in my instructions regarding the quiff. In the end, he did a good enough job, so I handed over the cash, told him to keep the change and asked, by the way, if they accept card payments. “Yes, of course,” was the answer.

 

One Thing After Another

          The past week flew by in a series of seemingly unconnected events. Daily routines were lightly disrupted for a couple of days by our hosting a visitor and the better behaved of her two beloved dogs. Since we have never had a household pet and I have never felt the desire for one, I tend to think of such visits – whether as host or guest – as a form of ‘cultural exchange’. On the one hand we have the self-centred lifestyle in which the protagonists are unencumbered in the pursuit of their personal interests: on the other, the dog-centred world of duties and obligations. From my observations, it appears that dog-owners put the needs of their animals first and only then feel free to turn to the pursuit of their own fulfilment. My lack of enthusiasm for this approach to life remains unflinching. Nor has there been any movement on the other side of this particular cultural chasm, from which we might conclude that there is mutual incomprehension of the other party’s position.

          Prior to our visitor’s arrival, I decided to patch up some screw-holes in the bedroom wall and paint over them in the existing colour. I got a book of colour swatches from the shop and set about finding a match, but the two-centimetre squares of printed paper in a dozen slightly differing shades proved to be more baffling than helpful and I ended up buying a very expensive litre of the wrong one. It almost matches, but not quite. Now, I am resisting the self-inflicted pressure to re-paint the whole room, using the arguments that the difference is barely noticeable, we don’t spend much time in that room and the lights are off much of the time when we do. I am fortunate in having a partner for whom interior décor is a subject of low priority so I could get away with it for as long as my sensibilities allow – which is probably not long, since I am already re-considering the colour scheme of all the other rooms – even though I know there are more pressing issues in our lives.

          For instance, I am becoming involved in a Community Building Company, a form of charitable organisation that has set itself the goal of buying and re-purposing the empty buildings on nearby Union Street, a once fabulous centre of entertainment in Plymouth. The theatres, cinemas, pubs and clubs that once thrived there shut down as the Naval base shrank and home-entertainment became more pervasive. Our intentions are not just to rescue such architecture as is notable, but mainly to ensure that speculative property development does not displace the local population, much of which falls into the ‘inner-city deprived’ category. And as part of the ‘community-building’ process, an annual street fair has been established. At this latest one, I got into conversation with a woman at the artisan bakery stall. She said she was considering moving to the neighbourhood and wanted to be sure that good food outlets were available. “Well,” I said, “It’s a chicken-and-egg situation.” Of course, we did exactly the same recce before we moved here two years ago.

          Re-building communities after their original raison d’être has disappeared is tricky. Thatcher’s policy of industrial closure took little or no account of the consequential destruction the communities that depended on them and, even now, there is very little Central Government support for repairing damaged social fabrics. Listening to the radio this morning, when the Prime Minister and her acolytes finally deigned to speak to the public about last Friday’s “fiscal event” announcements, I heard nothing to give me hope that this has changed. Despite widespread expert opinion that the new policies are causing economic havoc for us all, we heard only a refusal to acknowledge any causal connection. It’s all just a series of unconnected events, apparently.