Baldyman

It’s been a long while since I last posted a blog so I thought it was well overdue for me to make a comeback. Over time, history has been littered with a number of high profile unexpected returns with Lazarus, Catchphrase, Take That and Kathy Beale from EastEnders just a few that instantly spring to mind. I have decided though to go back to 1986 and find my inspiration from the legendary Patrick Duffy in the guise of Bobby Ewing. So without further ado, I will step out of my own metaphorical shower, grab a towel and carry on just like I’ve never been away in the first place and hope that nobody notices.

So what has been happening while I’ve been away? UK politics went into meltdown with a General Election where we had to choose between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn (the chocolate box equivalent of being forced to pick either the coffee cream or the strawberry whirl when all the good ones have already gone!) Brexit continued to be extended to the point that it was giving the DFS sale a run for its money (definitely ends Sunday) and has now been upstaged by the Royal scandal that is Megxit. To be fair to Harry, if Prince Andrew was my uncle I’d probably try to leave the family as well. The Queen was quite understanding of their wishes and offered Meghan a chauffeur to drive her to the airport but she declined when she found out that it was Prince Phillip.

The real reason for my break from blogging was that after 6 months off for good behaviour I reluctantly returned to work back in June. I remember thinking that if the time was right to go back that there would be some kind of signal. A sign from above if you like that would clarify things and leave me in no doubt that this was the correct decision to make. The very next day The Jeremy Kyle Show was taken off air and the rest as they say is history.

So no more squirrel spotting through the office window, the end of Monster Munch and Pot Noodle banquets in my pants watching Sky Sports News and alas goodbye to jostling with frail pensioners in the Co-op for ownership of the last reduced stickered tub of egg mayonnaise mix. I’d attended so many successive Friday achievers’ assemblies at my son’s school that I was struggling to sleep on Thursday nights in the nervous anticipation of who would win ‘cleanest classroom of the week’ and the accompanying dustbin trophy. At home I had become unhealthily obsessed with the laundry to the extent that if I was out on a sunny day I would get genuine anxiety that I was missing the opportunity to wash, dry and fold upwards of 3 loads. And on the fitness front things reached an all-time low when I loudly criticised a sculpted Ninja Warrior contestant on TV for taking a slight breather between obstacles whilst I lay on the sofa gorging myself on soon to be out of date Easter eggs.

Once the decision was made I briefly flirted with the possibility of a complete career change and enrolled my 8 year old son for a brain storming session for potential new professions. After contemplating for a while, his eyes lit up as he announced, “I know the perfect job for you!” Waiting in anticipation of a suitably heroic profession such as stuntman, fireman or superhero, his idea turned out to be on a slightly different tangent. “A scarecrow” he said with a joyous grin, “you’d be brilliant at doing that job!” Thinking this might be an unintentional dig at my lack of mobility and less than up to date wardrobe, his reasoning turned out to be more factually based as he continued, “Everyone knows that birds are scared of bald people.”

Now such was the conviction behind his comment that I genuinely thought that this might be a commonly known animal fact that had somehow escaped me whilst I dozed off through numerous episodes of the Blue Planet. In fact I could almost hear the iconic tones of a Sir David Attenborough voiceover in my head;

“With the white-tailed eagle now finally independent in its search for nourishment, its majestic downward swoop towards its chosen prey is suddenly aborted as it spies the terrifying image of Nick’s big, bald, shiny bonce as he makes his way across the drive to the recycling bin with an empty can of spaghetti hoops.”

It turns out that there is no scientific proof that birds have an aversion to the follicly challenged although I must admit that there are a number of overwhelming similarities between my head and the average sized swede or pumpkin.

With my chances of taking Aunt Sally out for a cup of tea and a slice of cake now in ruins, another employment opportunity then dawned on me when some late night channel flicking saw me stumble across a repeat of last year’s Glastonbury Festival. Now I am not really what you would call a real music lover (I’m more Boney M than Bastille) or a festival goer (I once went to ‘V’ but started complaining at 6pm that it was too crowded and my feet were hurting from standing up all day.) With my younger years filled with legendary big hitting rappers such as Vanilla Ice, Coolio and John Barnes, I considered myself more than suitably educated as I began to watch Stormzy doing his headliner spot. Now there is no denying that the man is both a brilliant showman and performer, but despite my admiration there was still a little part of me that watched and thought, “Well…. all he’s really doing is speaking words into a microphone….I reckon I could definitely be good at doing that.”

Therefore I can now announce that in order to stake my claim as the next big internationally acclaimed rap artist (no jokes about a silent C), I have laid down a dope track (which Google Gangster Translate reliably informs me means I’ve written a song). I am usually a real stickler for the correct use of English grammar but for the purposes of authenticity I have gone the extra mile, thrown caution to the wind and have even amended all words ending in ‘ing’ to’ in’.

They say to write about what you know so my track is entitled ‘Commuting’ or for the purposes of being accurate to the genre, ‘Commutin’. So please picture the scene as I enter the Pyramid stage wearing a necklace Mr.T would be proud of, an unconventionally angled baseball cap and a pair of beltless trousers hanging so low that they expose an inexplicably large proportion of my George from Asda boxer shorts. A sick beat kicks in (I know all the lingo) and off I go…………..

“My train’s already late, I’m not feelin’ great, I’m standin’ on the platform and I’m gettin’ in a state.

It’s only Monday morning but my spirit’s already broken,

I’m prayin’ that I’m standin’ where the doors are goin’ to open.

Commutin’ is a lottery you’re never going to win,

The geezer standin’ next to me is lookin’ to push in.

Herded on like cattle, people treddin’ on my feet,

Unless you’ve bought two tickets get your bag down off that seat.”

“Walk the streets of London, there’s nothin’ here I like,

Almost got run over by a speedin’ Boris bike.

Think about the money that is goin’ in my purse,

Goin’ home I’ll have to do the same but in reverse.

Commutin’…. a day can feel like months,

No bus has come for ages but now two turn up at once.

The driver’s in a hurry, not really what I need,

Drivin’ even faster than Sandra Bullock did in Speed.”

“Feelin’ sorry for myself as I’m rushin’ like a nutter,

Then I spy a homeless guy just sittin’ in the gutter.

I bet he’d like to swap with me given any choice,

He wishes me a pleasant day in a humble, quiet voice.

London….not the place I want to be,

But at the end of every day I have my family.

Commutin’, I thought it was a curse,

The real truth of the matter is it could be so much worse.”

One of the main obstacles I think I could face in my quest (apart from a lack of a singing voice, rhythm or any style) is that a middle aged, bald, financial worker who went to Grammar school in Dorset, doesn’t quite fit the usual profile of an urban lyricist from the street. So to counteract this perceived disadvantage I think it’s vital for me to have as convincing a rap persona as possible. After a great deal of thought I have managed to narrow it down to the following possibilities;

• Baldzy.
• Baldie Rascal.
• Iced Bun
• Bald.i.am.
• Notorious B.I.G (Forehead).

Unfortunately at the time of writing I have yet to be snapped up by Eminem or Jay- Z so have reluctantly re-joined the delight of commuting daily to the capital. A combination of middle age and 6 months off had seen my patience levels diminish considerably (they weren’t particularly high before) which I soon discovered isn’t a good mix when you are once again walking the streets of London. If I’m not being brought to a standstill by someone in front of me decelerating like an indecisive sloth as they check their phone, I’m almost losing an eye to a waywardly thrusted umbrella as the pavement traffic attempts to combat the ever glorious excuse for UK weather. And please don’t get me started when it comes to the countless swathes of over enthusiastic international tourists. If my journey home is delayed one more time by a ‘Jack the Ripper’ tour group blocking the way, there’s a distinct possibility that they might get to witness a particularly gruesome murder of their own.

My new route to work has also given me a first-hand insight into the numerous lunatics, who with a blatant disregard for their own well-being, choose to ride a bicycle on the streets of London. They come in all shapes and sizes, from the spray-on Lycra brigade astride machines worth more than my car, through to the fully suited, portly businessmen wobbling along on their recently rented Boris Bikes. Packed in pedal to pedal like a mass of luminous, helmeted sardines, they agitatedly hover at numerous sets of traffic lights waiting for the first faint flicker of green. Joined on the grid by roller bladers, skateboarders, electric scooters and even Segways, the sight is like a cross between the Wacky Races, a Mad Max mob and the start line to the London to Brighton but without the comradery or charitable intent.

These same cyclists have now also been given some official short cuts between adjoining London streets that somehow allows them to legally hurtle across busy pedestrian pavements. Ignorant to this fact, my first day back became close to being my last as I narrowly avoided being  mown down by a hipster who was seemingly attempting to beat the world land speed record on a bright pink 1970’s Grifter. If the wind whistling through his ridiculously large beard hadn’t alerted me to his presence in advance, I probably wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.

One distinct benefit of returning to work is that I get to return to the world of public transport and the endless supply of blogging material which it provides. I have a long history of incidents and encounters on buses with the majority of my journeys resembling deleted scenes from ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. For some reason I seem to be a magnet for the most ‘eccentric’ fellow passenger on board, and trust me there is often several worthy candidates to choose from.

On this occasion it was on my first week back at work and came in the form of a wonderful old lady who boarded accompanied by her drag along tartan pattern shopping trolley. Sitting snugly next to me (despite the bus being practically empty) she immediately struck up a conversation telling me that it was her 80^th birthday next month but she still felt as fit and alive as she did when she was 14 years old! Before I had a chance to decide whether shaving off 65 years was maybe mildly excessive even for a soon to be octogenarian, she swiftly changed topics to the weather. “Do you think it’s going to rain today?” she enquired, “Yes I think it’s supposed to later” I replied politely. “I hope not” she continued, “My Derek hates wet weather. Whenever it rains he walks around in circles banging his head against the bars.” My immediate conclusion was that Derek was either a crazed husband incarcerated in some kind of Hannibal Lecter type institution or more hopefully a caged family pet.  

“Derek’s my budgie” she explained, “well I say mine, I inherited him from Maud after she was murdered at her care home.” Murdered at the care home!? She suddenly had my full attention. ”They found her dead,” she elaborated, “And the very next day two members of the staff left. You can draw your own conclusions from that!” And indeed I was as her early morning murder mystery conspiracy had got my mind working overtime. Had John Nettles (who having played both Bergerac and DCI Barnaby was in my eyes for all intents and purposes a real detective) turned up to investigate? Was it a crime scene worthy of Midsummer Murders with Maud ritualistically pinned to the lawn with croquet hoops with a Werther’s Original mysteriously placed inside her clenched fist as the murderer’s calling card? Or was this more of a case of classic Care Home Cluedo?  Care Worker Kevin, on the Stannah Stair Lift with the lead piping? But then just before I had a chance to interrogate Miss Marple on any of the finer details she was gone, alighting at the next stop with a wave and a cheery grin. I never did get to unravel the real mystery behind poor Maud’s untimely demise but whenever rain is forecast I do often think about Derek.

After a few delays my children’s book is now in the final stages before publication which is a very exciting time. I hope to have more details to share about this in the near future. And thanks to anyone who has visited the Baldyman Facebook page in the last few months. Seeing these notifications has spurred me on to return to doing something I really enjoy!