Gary Louris True Blue

 

 

 

True Blue

Rusty wire
Bent to make a fence
Rows and rows of houses
Cold and still, until tomorrow

Western waters
Coloured by their stones
Some ungrateful morning
Keep the sand
Stir up the powder

Strip it down
To what, you can believe in
Pass it on
What is right and True Blue, True Blue

Today’s the day
My branches bear their fruit
And all my labour will be rewarded
Then I awake
It’s like starting over.

Witches and their thorns
Rumble where they lay
Revealing sparkling secrets
To hold you would bring happiness
Your absence sorrow.

Strip it down
To what you can rescue
Pass it on
What is right and True Blue, True Blue

Shifting stations and shapes
Giving up ground now
Taking another’s place
Holding ones own
As if you were just born

Find a way
Feel without a trace
Feel fulfilment in this small corner
With no possessions, to create sorrow

Strip it down
To what, you can believe in
Pass it on
What is right and True Blue, True Blue
True Blue, True Blue.

(Not sure if these are exactly the right words)

The Worst Sort of People

 

I entered a new world last week, and it was a dark place indeed from which I have yet to emerge. And I must admit to feeling somewhat damaged by the experience. This is what happened…

I’d entered a short story competition, weeks ago; and later I received an email which invited competition entrants to a prize giving evening.

This was excitement enough.

The teenager and I planned to go, and we placed our names on the guest list. We hoped to enjoy hearing the prize winners reading out their inspirational extracts; whilst at the same time jealously sticking pins into blu tac mini effigies of them.

Simple delights!

We’d got it all planned. It was going to be a fun night.

Then I had an email to say that the judges were “highly impressed” with my short story, and “would I be prepared to read an extract out on the night?” They also tantalisingly asked if I’d like to invite any extra guests.

This sent me into a spin. What did this mean? I didn’t dare to hope, but it was hard not to. Before I knew it I’d invited Half the County to join me at the event. Then I further panicked at the thought of reading an extract aloud to them.

Even worse the details about the event hadn’t yet been emailed. I spent a week in a sort of panicky limbo not knowing the exact arrangements. Two days before the event I was still waiting to find out which particular extract they wanted me to read, and the exact timings.

Eventually, I was told to choose an extract of my choice that would take between 3 and 5 minutes to read out.

This was difficulty enough.

I eventually found a section that would last about four minutes, and panicked some more about my voice, as it tends to dry up when I get nervous.

I spent hours practising my piece and then a nerve wracking day with The Teenager and a Dear Friend who trained me further. By this time I was now having trouble with the simple standing up and sitting down part too and having to practice that as well as the extract.

My hands were like ice when we finally arrived at the library for the event.

I discovered I’d been short-listed.

Another Chap was asked to read an extract. Everyone clapped as he rose to his feet. I tried to listen to his story but my brain had shut down, and I couldn’t make any sense of it at all. He was also nervous and shaking as he read. All I could see was his shaking paper.

Then it was my turn. The Acclaimed Author introduced me, and nobody clapped as I rose to my feet. Only when I reached the very front did the Acclaimed Author begin a half-hearted clap, and as I turned to speak there was a slight ripple of reluctant applause.

I knew that my audience were all probably sticking pins in miniature blu tac effigies of me as I read my piece. There is nothing worse than reading to a dispirited crowd, and if that crowd are dispirited writers too, then it’s ten times worse. They were writers, hopefuls like me, hoping to have some reward for all their hard work, and everyone in that audience had just discovered that they had not been lucky enough to get onto the short list. One dispirited writer is bad enough, but there were forty or so of them in that room together with their disgruntled partners, all of whom had had a wasted journey, and who were now having to listen, much against their will, to my sorry extract, when all  of them would far rather have been giving voice to their own.

I was told much later that I added actions to my story; I have no memory of having done so. I sat down to some genuine applause from Half the County, my Dear Friend and The Teenager, absolutely thrilled to have at last shared something I’d written with an audience.

Afterwards, still in a state of shock, my hands and feet still frozen,  I couldn’t take in anything else that was being said. Nor could I take in any of the other stories that were being read out by the two children that followed me.

I didn’t win anything!

The other chap did.

There were four possible prizes 1^st,2^nd,3^rd and a special prize for an entry from the Shire. The other chap won the Shire prize. Not one of the main prize winners was there to receive their prizes.

The Acclaimed Author announced the prize winners, and I didn’t even realise he had.

The Acclaimed Author then read out the winning story, but I couldn’t hear a word.

The Acclaimed Author then spent half an hour telling us all to write.

Boxes of chocolates were given out to the children who’d read out their work.

I didn’t even get one of those.

Half the County, Dear Friend and The Teenager were disappointed, and I felt terribly bad and embarrassed about having dragged them out all on such a cold night.

Later, when the room was nearly empty we were approached by the Acclaimed Author.

‘I was hoping to speak to the Shire entry people,’ he said, not realising he was actually talking to one of them as he looked straight over my shoulder.

There had only been four readers, two of them had been children, and one of them had been the Other Chap to whom he’d already spent an age chatting to. In a room that was practically empty apart from the organisers you’d have thought he would have recognised me as the other person who had stood there next to him reading an extract aloud for four minutes.

Hurt, I walked away from him.

His books were on sale. We picked one up and turned to a page. He’s a fine writer. But hurt would-be writers in a state of shock do not make for good customers. So I didn’t buy one.

Writers are the worst sort of people, it is true, for to my shame  I must admit to taking a modicum of pleasure in the fact that  the Acclaimed Author has read far more of my work than I have read of his.

And I intend to keep it that way!

Forever!

To the Makers of Guns

 

I think the crowd couldn’t stop what happened because they were afraid. Afraid of only one thing: the guns that the guards were carrying.

At one stoning two relatives did rush forward to reach the girl who was about to be stoned, and one of them, a child, was shot and killed.

Nobody else dared to move.

If the guns were not there then the crowd could have surged forward and freed the woman. If I had been there I too would have surged forward. I also would have wanted to hold back the ones who had stones in their hands, but had I really been there then I too would have been afraid and would have had to stand by and do nothing.

The guns would have made me afraid.

To the maker of guns.

To those that design the shape, sculpt the grip and polish the whole assemblage. Your guns will always fall into the wrong hands. Your guns will always intimidate those that would wish to step forward to right a wrong. Your guns will always kill a child. Your guns always bring fear and never a sense of security.

So in Somalia we have a Stone Age method of execution that can not be prevented because the men who encircle the girl with hands full of stones, are protected by a circle of men wielding modern guns.

The guns you designed.

The guns you made.

The guns you sold, which as always have fallen into the wrong hands. It was ever thus.

Men are foolish with guns.

So why are you still making them?

The girl was stoned to death, and none could rescue her because the foolish Islamic sentence was backed by men holding guns.

And guns will ensure that the next girl, once she has given birth, can also not be saved from the fate that awaits her. The presence of your guns will see to that.

So if it was you that designed the guns, made the guns, shipped the guns, trafficked the guns and then defended the use of the gun, then you are the ones holding the stones that will be thrown at the next Somalian girl’s head.

To the makers of guns, you are the Stone Age murderers. You are the stone throwers.

To the men who stood behind Islamic laws and condemned a girl to death by stoning, words can not express my disgust.

To the men that tied and bound her, words can not express my disgust.

To the men that dug the hole and partly buried her, words can not express my disgust.

To the men that threw the stones, words can not express my disgust.

To the makers of guns

To the ones who were stoned to death I wish you the deepest peace.

Halima Ibrahim Abdurrahman

The Evolution of the Species

 

We are studying the evolution of the species. The class are doing research.

Nobody likes me The Boy claims.

He has been at the centre of antagonism the whole morning in the classroom. Things are being uttered at a volume level that I cannot detect. All I can see are faces turned between the sparring partners. His Enemy’s face is bright. His Enemy is enjoying this campaign. I give The Boy a table to himself with his back turned to His Enemy so that he is literally in a better position to ignore his enemy’s wounding comments.

His Enemy is now rallying his troops. He is gathering to himself a whirling vortex of allies who are similarly fixated upon The Boy.

I attempt to draw His Enemy back toward the laptop computer screen. He has chosen this method of researching Darwin and the evolution of the species. He is waiting for his computer to access the Internet and seems to be having trouble. His computer won’t allow him to log on. Then it won’t allow him to go on the internet. Then the web pages will not allow him any access. This is a situation he is enjoying, for how can he do any research work if the computer will not connect? His pencil is idle and while he is thus disconnected and disengaged he can enjoy taunting The Boy further.

Later they wait for assembly to begin. In the absolute silence The Boy has heard more taunts, and he gets up to complain once again. I take him outside the hall so that he can have a chance to chat about his problems.

I’ve met him once before some months ago.

On that last occasion there were two PE teachers working with the group. I’d first noticed The Boy after he’d refused to participate, and had gone off in a sulky huff to sit alone. The tough PE teachers had had little sympathy for him.

On that occasion he had spoken to me of his anger. He’d said that when he felt angry it was as if there were two wild horses inside him, one black, and the other white; and that they were pulling away inside him in different directions.

I had found his metaphor fascinating and had hoped to hear another such description as we now sat outside the hall, but this time he is more prosaic. I give him the chance time to air his grievances; and then explain to him a simple technique that might help him to escape his tormentor’s attention.

He does not listen.

His mind is hard-set on his negative way of responding to His Enemy and he cannot change.

Later, I use different ploys to keep His Enemy in the classroom a little longer so as to give The Boy some rare moments of peace on the playground. His Enemy is a wise wily boy. He immediately sees through my ploys and complains, saying that he is being blamed for something that is of course all The Boy’s fault.

After break His Enemy now lingers towards the back of the line where The Boy is now standing. I see the gleam in His Enemy’s eye, he knows that the long walk to the music room along the corridor will give him ample opportunity to taunt The Boy further. So I detain The Boy a little longer while the group leaves with the music teacher so that he will not have to walk so closely to His Enemy.

The Boy tells me that he was fine until His Enemy moved into that school.

That’s when I realise it is my fault that this boy is being so tormented.

For I know His Enemy.

I also know His Enemy’s’ Mother.

His Enemy’s’ Mother had been distressed by her son’s behaviour in another school. He was being picked on by the other boys, she’d told me. He was being bullied and teased by the other boys. He was miserable and unhappy.

His Enemy’s’ Mother told me that was why he was lashing out and likely to get himself excluded from school, and getting the label of being a difficult child.

His Enemy’s’ Mother couldn’t accept that her boy was in fact the tormenter and the bully.

There were collective sighs of relief when His Enemy’s’ Mother finally decided to move him to another school.

And I had failed to gently remove the scales from her eyes.

I later see His Enemy looking around with delighted wicked eyes as he realised there would soon be another chance to torment with lunch time approaching..

The Boy, his blond hair longer than that of any girl in the class, declares that nobody ever does anything.

Something must have happened in the music lesson.

There is a dreadful fight for survival going on here. A battle that would have intrigued Darwin, and I’m glad I’ve only have to spend an hour or so in their destructive company.

I reach for my hat and scarf.

‘Did you hear what The Boy did this morning, before he came into the classroom this morning?’ his teacher later asks me.

I shake my head.

I am told how The Boy had somehow managed to create a terrible, disgusting mess with the contents of his nose, and then instead of shielding this from view had instead chased and taunted the other children with a sight so repulsive that one of the other boys had ended up being physically sick.

This was in the presence of parents.

The caretaker had had to be sent for to find sand to cover the mess.

I’m utterly shocked and appalled; and I wonder which horse was responsible for that.

And then I realise that if these two boys represent the pinnacle in the evolution of the species then the faster we get back to the amoebic form the better.

How to be the World’s Worst Mum Step Fifteen: Camping.

 

‘I’m going camping on Thursday,’ the teenager informs me. ‘I’ll need a sleeping bag.’

Then the following day just as I’m about to leave to visit two schools, I hear The Teenager emerging from his room.

‘Where are you going?’

I explain and add, ‘And afterwards I’ll go and buy you a sleeping bag.’

‘Oh,’ he says, disinterestedly as I close the front door.

Later on, I drive to an outdoors specialist shop some miles distant right on the edge of town.

I like the natural stone paving in this shop. It speaks to me of mountains and of the wilderness, and reminds me of when I’ve been camping before.

The sleeping bags are to be found at the top of a spiral staircase. I don’t have a head for heights and so find the climb unnerving. At the top I look at the different sleeping bags. Someone, I was told, would be joining me to help me soon.

I know exactly what I want.

Eventually, after a long wait someone comes up the stairs to help. By this time I’ve upgraded my choice from a simple basic sleeping bag to one that could withstand the super cooled temperatures within the Large Hadron Collider.

‘I need a large sleeping bag and a large sleeping mat too,’ I explain.

Such a simple request.

He hands me a tightly wrapped bag. ‘This one’s good.’

I speak of size. ‘He’s taller than you. I do need a large sleeping bag. Is this one large?’

‘Yes,’ he says.

We turn to the mats. But there are no large ones on display.’

He goes into the back to get one.

He is gone an age.

Eventually he returns carrying a mat, ‘Anything else?’ He helpfully takes the sleeping bag from me as I nervously attempt the descent. This shop is obviously designed for hardy mountain goat types rather than the likes of me.

I pay at the checkout and leave.

I have mental images of showing The Teenager how to inflate the mat and then of him snuggled contentedly inside the sleeping bag like an Egyptian mummy. I can’t wait to show him.

‘What’s that?’ he asks.

He’s horrified.

He’s looking at the price tags.

‘You spent that much!’

He knows we have hardly any money. I have spent a fortune. I’m touched that he’s thinking about the expense, and is realising how much things cost.

I explain the thinking behind my extravagance.

‘It will last a lifetime. It will come in so handy for university and for when you go travelling.’

‘But I don’t like sleeping bags.’

‘But you’re going camping.’

‘Yeah. But you’ve spent all this money,’ he reprimands. ‘You shouldn’t have spent that much money on these.’

I’m touched.

I’m thinking at last he understands how stretched we are for cash. He’s looking at the price tickets again.

‘You really spent this much!’

I am a bit ashamed of the amount I’ve spent, but I know I’ve got something that will really last. I can imagine him travelling the world using them.

‘You shouldn’t have.’ The Teenager declares. ‘You could have spent that money on…’

I’m ahead of him. I can guess what he’s thinking. He thinking of the bills, of food or perhaps of some new clothes for me.

‘‘You could have spent that money on games for the Wii instead,’ he declares. ‘That’s what I really want. Can’t you take these back? ’

‘Oh,’ I say, as I finally understand his thinking.

Outside it is still raining heavily. I feel bleak.

‘Well, if you don’t want them I can use them.’

‘Okay,’ The Teenager says dismissively.

But in my head I still have the image of him trying them out, and I eventually coax him into doing so.

We open the mat first.

To my horror as it unfurls I can instantly see that it’s too small.

The teenager lies on it. Everything from the waist down is still on the hard floor.

‘He’s given me the wrong size. I’ll have to take it back.’

I drive the long distance back to the shop through the heavy rain.

The sales assistant sees me, looking wet and bedraggled with the half inflated bright orange mat, as soon as I walk in, and instantly understands the problem. He calls out and says he’ll go and find a larger size.

I don’t have to say a word.

The new mat is green. The Teenager is in a more conciliatory mood now as we unfurl it in his room and inflate it.

He lies on it and almost likes it.

We turn to the sleeping bag.

There’s something about it that doesn’t look quite right.

The Teenager snuggles into it.

It’s too small.

He doesn’t look like an Egyptian; instead he looks more like a curling maggot as he squirms on the floor.

I check the label.

The size I’ve been given is ‘Regular’ not ‘Large.’

There is a handwritten ‘L’ on one of the tags.

‘I’ll have to go back again,’ I say. ‘Please come with me.’

I know I’m losing it. I know that the teenager’s presence will help to keep me calm.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Just think of cool wet grass.’

‘Think of cool wet grass,’ he calls again, as I manhandle the sleeping bag downstairs together with all the packaging, receipt and my debit card.

The paving stones at the entrance to the shop no longer hold the same appeal. It seems to me that they are the ideal setting now for a ritual sacrifice and disembowelling.

My sales assistant is nowhere to be seen. I guess he’s already spotted my ignominious entrance and has now run off to hide in some very distant outback.

I explain the problem to someone else. She goes off to find the right size, as I sink my head onto the soft downy sleeping bag on the counter.

Cool wet grass.

Someone else asks if they can help. I explain the problem and indicate the label.

‘Oh the ‘L’ means it’s a left sided zip,’ this new assistant informs me as he moves away.

After he’s gone, I think back to how I’d had to free a squirming maggoty teenager by using a zip that was definitely sewn onto the right-hand side of the sleeping bag.

I know that some future hapless customer determined upon having a left handed zip is going to be disappointed.

A long time later my sales assistant returns to say that they don’t have that particular sleeping bag in large.

I have to re-ascend the scary spiral stairs in order to find another.

She’s very careful with me, she can see I’m close to tears, she doesn’t understand that it’s a combination of everything.

From time to time she disappears to discuss sleeping bags with the assistant who is still hiding somewhere in the outback.

‘He’s on his lunch break,’ she tells me.

I realise I haven’t had breakfast yet.

‘Is your son very large,’ she asks me after she returns from asking for further advice. She makes an unconscious movement with her hands and I know that the cowardly sales assistant hidden in the outback thinks that I’m trying to buy a sleeping bag for a super-sized teenager.

She thinks he’s fat.

Cool wet grass.

‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s tall and slim.’

I don’t think she believes me.

We eventually find another sleeping bag which claims to be 220cms long, and at the till I am asked to pay another £18 pounds.

‘It’s a different make you see.’

Back home The Teenager unfurls the sleeping bag and crawls into it. He looks like an Egyptian mummy.

‘I think the other one was better,’ he says. ‘I think the other one was larger. The other one was better.’

Cool wet grass. Cool wet grass.

There’s a pause.

The Egyptian speaks.

‘And anyway,’ he sighs. ‘I’m not sure that I still want to go camping on Thursday.’

I leave quickly, go downstairs, take my socks off and step outside.

Cool wet grass!

 

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I’ve got a World’s Worse Mum here…’

 

‘I’ve got a World’s Worse Mum here…’

I’m trying to get reinstated on the lists of two schools as a supply teacher. A computer glitch i.e. a human mistake led me to be deleted from the supply teaching lists. New readers start here:

http://deepestdarkestengland.blogspot.com/2009/10/end.html

http://deepestdarkestengland.blogspot.com/2009/10/mellow-and-cordial.html

I have my brand new shiny CRB paper that dropped through the letter box to show to school secretaries, and a new payroll number to give to one of them.

At the first school the secretary takes my CRB form photocopies it and takes my payroll number. It seems I’m now sorted there.

At the second school things go so differently. I offer the precious piece of paper to the secretary.

‘Have you got the letter?’ the secretary asked. She’s looking at me over the top of her spectacles.

‘Letter?’

‘You should have a letter to say that you are on the supply teachers’ list.’

I have worked at this school before. She knows me. She’s employed me as a supply teacher before.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

She looks at me as if I’ve just lied. She goes and comes back with a folder flips through a few pages and shows me ‘The Letter’ as if to jog a rather woolly memory.

‘No, I haven’t had that letter.’

She looks at me in surprise and disbelief.

‘Well, you should have had a letter. I can’t employ you until you’ve had a letter.’

‘I saw…’ I give the name of the woman I’d met when I had to prove who I was and verify the legality of my existence and my credentials at a meeting two weeks ago, ‘…she said I would be reinstated on the supply teacher’s list. There was a computer glitch. That’s why my details were deleted.’

‘Well, I suppose I could ring her,’ the secretary says, looking at me as if I’m the glitch.

She goes to the back of her office and reaches for her phone. Her office is large and she is at the far end of it. I’m left sat waiting in the chairs by reception. I’m holding a red football I had to remove from a chair to do so.

‘I’ll have that,’ it’s the caretaker. He takes the football from me. He knows a dubious type when he sees one.

I give him the ball.

‘Hello,’ the woman’s strident voice says on the phone. ‘Can I speak to…’ her voice is loud and brittle.

She is connected.

‘Yes, I’ve got…’ she holds my name up in the air as if it’s a disgusting piece of soiled underwear, ‘…here. ‘Yes,’ she says, cosying up to the woman on the phone. ‘Oh, tell me about it.’ There’s more of the same. Then there’s a louder sentence, designed to shame, humiliate and catch me out is uttered, ‘She says she hasn’t had the letter!’

I listen mortified.

I hear fragments. ‘She’s here now. Yes, she’s here. Yes, she’s just brought in her CRB certificate. Postal strike. Tell me about it.’ Her words are rebounding off the double glazed windows in her sanctified office. ‘Yes, she’s here.’

Then there is silence.

I wait.

A door opens unexpectedly behind me, it’s the secretary. She pops her head through.

‘You haven’t been sent a letter,’ she confirms. ‘They haven’t been notified that you’ve cleared the CRB check. When they’ve been told they’ll send you a letter to say you can now teach. You’ll have to bring me the letter.’

I stand up to leave, and try to think of something, anything nice I can say.

‘Thanks for alerting me to the problem,’ I say. ‘If it wasn’t for you I would have had no idea that things had gone so badly awry with my details.’

She beams, ‘so some good came of it,’ she says with officious delight, as I leave with my diary empty of future work.

‘Yes,’ I lie.

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Mischievous Night

 

Something occasionally goes awry with my computer. The colours become different and strange. It’s as if they have a brittle metallic hue with a sort of dotty appearance. Usually, whenever that occurs I shut down and restart the computer: that well honed method that usually solves most computer glitches.

This time though I didn’t want to do that.

I’d been working all day creating a lesson plan. I’d started in the morning, developing ideas and then finding, modifying and creating resources to support them. I had a lot of material I needed to print off, but a lot more still to do.

I had opened web sites and I didn’t want to close them down. I also had another problem: the printer.

Once upon a time, there were the halcyon days when the computer and printer used to communicate with each other over the wireless network; but such days are long gone. Some sibling rivalry between the too means that they no longer talked to each other.

To print I would need to carry my computer downstairs, plug it in to the power, and connect it to the printer. It seemed the better option, despite the iffiness of the colours on the screen, to continue with what I was doing before the need to carry the computer downstairs.

I was congratulating myself on the success of this plan as I finally finished working. It was late but I had got things sorted out, at least for the first lesson. The websites I’d been using could now be closed. Extra unneeded documents could be saved and then closed down; and I was left with six precious documents that I needed to print.

All I had to do now was to take the computer downstairs, connect it to the printer and print: simple.

A five minute job.

Probably less.

Except, I had forgotten that I was dealing with a computer.

Computers have a six sense. Somewhere hidden amongst their silicon circuitry is a dubious algorithm that can detect the importance of certain documents and an associated human’s need to hold such documents in their hands. Computers are hard-wired to respond to such neediness; and will do everything within their power to thwart such urgent desires.

A computer is like a wayward child.

A testing wayward child.

A computer is like a child who does something utterly dreadful, who then looks at you with a blank face, totally oblivious of the surrounding destruction, and asks, ‘Do you still love me?’

You look at them and despair.

‘I know I broke the Ming vase,’ their eyes say, ‘that I used permanent black maker on your yellow silk dress,’ their eyes plead, ’that I took the innards out of the television just before you sat down to watch your favourite programme,’ they sigh, ‘but do you still love me?’

Or in computer speak this conversation is summed up with a simple blank face. The face that has reduced many a computer user to tears: The Blue Screen of Death.

That’s what I’m now looking at.

‘Do you still love me?’

Except this isn’t the tradition Blue Screen of Death. It’s a more upmarket stylish Blue Screen of Death with black stripes.

Nothing I touch or do can return the screen to life.

All the Toshiba computers we’ve ever had all seem to have very poor battery back up. I can only use my ‘laptop’ if it is connected to the mains power. The Teenager can only use his ‘laptop’ if the battery is removed completely. I dare not run my computer on battery power as I know I will lose any Internet connection in less than five minutes.

I re-plug the power cable.

Nothing.

I do an emergency shut down, take the wayward computer downstairs, hook up the cables and wait.

I know a computer tantrum when I see one, and I know that the best plan is to walk away and leave it for a while.

I’ve learnt this after long painful experience.

I know that the best solution is a cup of tea.

With Zen like composure I later return, switch the computer back on, and then walk away again. I don’t want to see that blank blue face again if it’s still there.

From where I’m standing in the distance the computer is calling me. It’s making conciliatory chirping sounds. I go to look, there is a new screen. It tells me Windows didn’t shut down properly, what do I want to do?

It’s nice to be given an option. I go for the full re-launch, and walk away again.

Later, I find my precious files that luckily I’d saved before the crash. I retrieve them and send them one by one to the printer.

The printer has all the time been watching this little drama and decides on some copycat behaviour, to gain some attention of its own. So as each piece of paper exits its mouth it manages a swift intake of breath and manages to whip the paper back inside again chomping it for good measure.

It’s never done that before.

‘Paper jam,’ it yells at me, flashing ominous orange lights. ‘Paper jam!’

Calmly, I extricate the paper and begin again.

This time I sit by the printer to prevent the next sheet from being gulped back inside.

Amazingly, just over an hour later, I have managed to coax the computer and printer into giving me the precious documents that I need.

Success.

I don’t want to think that it should have taken less then five minutes. That I now have more grey hairs and that a few teeth have nearly been ground to dust.

I look at the clock.

It’s midnight.

But at least mischievous night is over.

 

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