Simplicity in a Virtual Rat Race

Weetabix. 9am wake-up and no one is in the house; the dog has been taken to the vets for another session of hydrotherapy. 

If I’m honest, I could use a break and a trip to a spa right now. I have barely seen anyone this year, and I think it is starting to show. Another 6 months at home is looking increasingly likely. The cycle of my days continues: submitting job applications, receiving no feedback, then wallowing in my room. Dad’s return later in the evening marks the end of another day. Dinner follows, then slumping in front of the television (another episode of Frankie Boyle talking about being Scottish).

Mum assumes an even earlier bedtime, averaging a total score of quarter past 7 on a weekly basis after a couple glasses of white wine. All imagination is becoming drained, and my willingness to see the bigger picture is slowly starting to shrink. The situation right now, is wholly other, and it’s evident that this scenario is as unnatural to a twenty-two-year-old as the possibility of Rishi Sunak turning up unannounced to a socially distanced thrash metal gig. Let’s be honest though, it’s not just me experiencing this.

A rat called Beans – the pet of my village friends, Miles and Piers – is nearing the end of his life. I had the pleasure of meeting it on several occasions over the summer. Most of the time pondering why his claws were so long as it scratched and mischievously explored the entirety of my neck, arms, collar bones and shoulders. 

The past year has seen the transition of the human rat-race into a virtual, near transcendent, form. How does one sharpen one’s elbows from the confines of a living room? The corporate game is changing, mobilising the competitive, dog-eat-dog, insufferable LinkedIn virtue-signaling congratulatory cuckary. Now you don’t even have to leave the house to do so, if anything it’s become easier. I doubt nice rats like Beans, or their human equivalent, naturally want to get set and go on the kind of a job start line, juiced up with steroids and elaborate qualifications piped full of hot air. Still, the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 games didn’t mean that this kind of race wasn’t going to go ahead.

How do we combat this? Whilst I appreciate a good level of competitiveness is healthy and important, the current levels presented in today’s employment climate are counter-productive and fulfil a noxious, unnecessary cyclical growth of expectation, self-loathing and disappointment. With respect of the late David Graeber’s essay “What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?” to reduce humans simply to “market actors, rational calculating machines trying to propagate their genetic code” removes us from any notion of self and its surrounding notions of moral life, freedom and self-consciousness. Corrupted by the short-term validation and pomp of working at a prestigious company or scoring a competitive starting salary was not something I worried about at 10 years old. I was picking up moss for my War Hammer figurines, making dens, eating picnics, and sliding down hills in my Weird Fish fleece with muddied knees. Recently, I have reflected on that smiley, happy go lucky chappy, and I think he has taught me more about the person I want to be today than any course or profession could. This type of play wasn’t passive or governed by rules. It is this authentic innocence which charts a route towards simplicity, not to be confused with a need to strive for total perfection. That would not have made young Harry happy.

It reckons and requires a collective step back - many of us are in the same boat at this stage. Acknowledging this is easier said than done, as it becomes impossible when you see some friends around you independently tackle and get to grips with it all somewhat. Only naturally at this ruthless point do you start to compare your efforts and achievements from a distance as we have been taught to do throughout school and some through early academia. We forget the fact that many of us are lucky enough to have parents who are able to support us, and simply want us to do what makes us happy. Picture each household, and the collective struggles experienced some way or another, and that may provide you with the answer you need to ask yourself which attitude you take to scrolling through recruitment sites; how you approach suggested job roles and view other applicants whether as actual people with families and problems, or as bots within this zero sum game. 

At the same time, it is also important to stress the exclusivity of this angst, as the recent political climate has highlighted an ever-gaping level of social inequality in this country. There are many unemployed young people who can’t even consider the rat race as a possibility for them, thus something they can’t reject in the first place (unlike me). For money-hungry aspirants and those chasing cultural capital and influence, this race is a classist network however cutthroat or frilly and just it may appear. From the upper echelons of privilege, abstracting yourself away from the base foundation of humility and the collective will draw you unconscionably towards the perception of a supposedly better lifestyle. A compassionate, genuine and loving existence, which this year has already had its teeth kicked in, has and will become a further commodity in itself. This goes without saying that if we aimed to ‘potentiate each other’s pleasures, and not keep score, would we begin to notice everybody starting to win’ as inferred by Bob Black in ‘The Abolition of Work’. Having this awareness is integral to changing the landscape of the way we occupy our time and dissolve the distinction between work and play which satisfies our emotional, aspirational and material needs.

Catching myself singing ‘killing me softly’ on occasion under bated breath, with my eyes closed just how Nick Hornby’s Marcus performs it in front of his hippy knitwear mum to keep the peace. I can wholeheartedly say that it has been testing. Balancing family expectations and routines next to our own aspirations in an opaque maze of somewhat infinite opportunities that could be applied to, or the list of endless recommended and socially acceptable things I should think about doing according to family friends. All said and considered, it’s simple to think we are all in this alone and have a license to cry ‘f*** the world, it’s mine’, grabbing what we can and dashing as fast as possible across the finish line. It is perhaps better to take the time to consider core values we hold dearly and the importance of those around us. Although it may not feel real or necessary behind the anonymity of a remote screen, it might just save you from thinking you won a race despite having travelled in the completely wrong direction. The penny will probably drop when a Pret sandwich is the highlight of your day in a bullshit job you hate. 

Sitting in dressing gown. Drinking tea. Weetabix has now turned to mush. Going on a small walk. That is enough for today, now I can relax.

Back in the Village - A Postcard From Tillington

Crisply sealed, licked and pressed I hope this letter has found you and not lost itself in the jumble of a rural Royal Mail depot, or the elusive gap of a mailing van. Addressed to all whom it may concern, this is your fondly speaking village, to which you may have the pleasure of living in once you’ve sprawled from your London jobs and cubby holes to a thatched nook with ‘proper values’ in the country. Not much has changed here over the last six months and all remains well at the back end of September. Brown breasted sparrows find shelter in the brambled hedgerows and the Canada geese drop in on their migration back to the place where they were purpose-built to mate and nest. These seasonal Autumnal markers indicate the somewhat earlier transition of life. I am just wanting to touch base before we surely meet more quickly than expected.

There are 437 of us here, separately living between the Harrows and Leconfield estate cottages up the road, adjacent to the stone and mortar wall built by Napoleonic prisoners of war in the late 18th century. The boundary oak pavilion and cricket green overlook the South Downs Duncton Parish and the neighbouring chalk stream mills of Burton Park. The roll call of villages over decades has offered young talent to urban areas leaving the older and established residents. Families move away, the village school closes. We at least have a pub, church and hall. That said, based on the current climate others could be returning back in a somewhat different and unexpected way. 

For the most part, it is the perceived rural idyll that consistently attracts the retired townsman who ‘envies the villager his certainties’. In Britain, he has regarded urban life as just a temporary necessity, as in Ronald Blythe’s Akenfeld, a village in Suffolk. Angela and Gerald (Pictured together) have lived here since 2004, living in the transformed post-office, closed and converted on the stroke of the millennium following a retired move from London. Organising meetings for the local walkers, supporting and helping to run the church, mens and women breakfast talks are something they know-how and have immersed themselves into the institutional structure of the village. Sat in their kept garden, with wilded Hollyhock lining the edges of a well-kept lawn next to pruned Roses, it is a comfort to know that this pattern and bliss of a steady tempo of village life is safe and well.

The purpose of this letter is to warmly invite you to reside and enjoy this space, which I have been so lucky to have lived and grown up in. When you do so, please touch lightly and respectfully. I am sure this will come in the coming months, as coronavirus pushes people seeking space and tranquility away to the countryside with their remote tertiary job roles behind a laptop screen. Be sure to engage in local life, contributing where you can. It is not simply a playground to accommodate London’s attitudes and habits (after-all this area is not Soho house in the sticks). Our village and local town already offers itself as a conduit pipe for urbanites and wave of younger professionals. The bunted pub garden offering priced craft pints or a £4 scotch egg outside the ‘Hungry Guest Deli’, is a little pastiche leading a trail away from the heart of our village community and the characters it outsources. Whilst visually appealing, the really beautiful patina is encapsulated in individuals such as the Bob’s of this world, (Pictured on the lawnmower) who has lived here his whole life, attending school, playing sports, bringing up a family and running the local menswear shop Allan’s in Petworth market square. With whom I had the task of mowing and keeping the cemetery trim and buff over lockdown!

It was always sadly a joke to point out the people from London who would never say hello on a walk. If they did talk, they’d only do so to ask a direction or a trivial question about ‘how far Petworth is from here?’. If an image of Steve Coogan in ‘The Trip’, unauthentically posing on a country hillside in his six hundred pound Colombia down jacket doesn’t come to mind, I’m not sure what would. To steward and preserve these areas and the features of modesty, kindness and character which are so integral to such uncontested spaces and people is crucial. Meanwhile, make sure to be on time for cream teas and a socially distant autumn garden trail next week. Can’t wait to see you all.

Best Wishes

Tillington (and Harry)

America Just Before - Motor Mobility

Merged in a setting of browned and broken wall tiles, damaged electrical charging ports and scuffed flooring a rancid smell of stale cigarette smoke and sweat circumvent in a wafted current around the waiting room. Railed benches tarnished and scraped by the sharp sides of heavy luggage zips unveil a rusted copper beneath a chipped pastel paint coat, covered by children's cots and toys on top of bloated bin bags of clothes. Slumped in a beleaguered state, it’s late evening with the bus nearly set to depart. Waiting, sitting hour on hour between sorely pitched travel announcements and delayed arrivals, a defeated pace is maintained. Sordid with users, cons, and the ill, crudely paints harsh tones of a Hogarthian style picture transforming old English slums of the Victorian era into the forgotten of a new America. ‘All those travelling from Dallas to Albuquerque, stopping via Norman, Oklahoma City and Amarillo may y’all please be ready to present your tickets and secure your tags to your luggage’. Picking up belongings, passengers heavily heave their way towards the queue kiosk, barely lifting feet an inch off the floor as if weighted wearily by the defeat that there was little else they could do to speed their terminal boarding. After all, they were the last stop of a bus which had not even left the station.

Arriving at a context of how these terminals as outposts of outsiders exist and the people who use them, moves towards an understanding of an identity that is the epitome of what it isn’t to be a ‘True American’. The negative-correlation between poverty and car ownership suggests that many lack the basic mobility to react to life-changing events. Car ownership is less readily associated with the poorest fractions of a society built on the rights and sentiment of the gasoline pump and long-distance journeys. These people are stuck or waiting at the price. This is little seen as a primary index of poverty and discrimination in the US, and in my belief, it should be. There has been little commentary of it since the death of the original hitching Hobo, or up to the closing credits of Midnight Cowboy, with the protagonist Ratso passing of pneumonia at the back of the bus with the satisfaction of finally having arrived in sunny Florida.

Being sized up as I held my ticket, a man with worked leathered skin and sorely blistered dry eyes looked me up and down until he asked me how tall I was. He had ‘Red neck crazy’ tattooed on the back of his neck above the white cut trim of his worn vest, and an ink poked cross on the rook of his nose. Tempered on the surface exterior of his intimidating and imposing demeanour was a sensitivity which had been thawed and cracked by the grievances which he was troubled by. Unable to get a job coming in Auburn, he told me how he had decided to travel to Mobile in the hope of getting one. Meanwhile boarding the bus, Isiah who I had spent the remainder of fourteen hours conversing at the station with had already resumed a curled foetal position, tangling his legs between the crevasses of armrests and aisle levels. Only to wait for the cool morning to rise before showering at his house, prior to witnessing his two best friends on trial for suspicion of attempted homicide.

By 5:30 am, drifting and humming, the driven stretched chassis continues to file down the central route, only disrupted by the faulted oil cracks across the asphalt and excited cries of infants bouncing buoyantly on top of their mother’s thigh, vaulting over and under stiff seating and planting their clammed hands on the cool side of the window. Gawping at faint shadows of heavy wielding trucks hurtling in the opposite direction to their next mid-stop with their small eyes, is an innocent distraction to the eery reality of mundane life. Unrested, hungry and parched with unsavoury crusted sour lips, I only watch, nestling into the cushion of my jumper while other passengers mulch in the comfort of travel-worn pyjamas donned in frayed fur-lined slippers. The novelty of my form of travel is not a reflection of the lived experiences of people who consistently use this form of locomotion in moments of genuine need and daily life. I must stress this, as someone ‘on vacation’ and for those people who will continue to uncomfortably depend on it, even amidst the turn of the transformative pandemic. Any place of destination is already determined, on the journey itself, and any type of life an individual can expect to live, to be left picking up the pieces and scrapes of a broken and fixed country on top of all other belongings. 

Back in the Village - Man Cave

In a small world before…

“Fucking hell, you’re having a really good day Haz, no we call him Hagrid… get us some cold drinks, give us numbers for covers tonight, and why can’t service just do their job and make sure they have sauces ready before they run food”. Blah blah blah, the constant clack and snipe of talk, criticism and debauched conversation are masked in the plain view of spices, gas stoves, and greased floors, it’s 1:30 pm mid-service. Temperatures griddle and sear, concealed and broken by the thin veneer of sweat coating rouged faces and torn dockets that lie in near sight of a disorganised warm steel counter. Who was the first person to ask why Chef’s choose to do such a stressful job? For all I know, that individual certainly never worked in a kitchen; it’s a magnificent thing. Braised and stewing on a Tuesday afternoon service, a potent musk of testosterone rises from the pot, to be served with a confit of Spring vegetables and finished with a middle finger to my face. Service, please. 

Unwritten on any menu, is a set word of mouth course that every waiter has no choice but to try. Under no pretence, it has to be swallowed, right in front of the kitchen for them all to pay witness. As a starter of Leek & Cheddar tartlet served with a 63º egg and rocket is being enjoyed on table 11, to be followed by a Loch Duart pan-fried salmon risotto, it is my turn to pick up my fork and quickly tuck into my salty humble pie without guests realising. “Come on you big slut… phwoooooar look at you go” carrying encumbered wooden slabs and sunk plates onto the side, before immediately closing the door to mute the dissonance of foul mouths and stressed tone. Nothing comes a la carte, this shallow fry is a right of passage. Only then will I have a spot to sit around the fire, to be protected and sheltered under the cover of the cave, billowing its sighs of smoke.  

Escaping reality, this space exists and is castaway in it’s own world; away from the tables of punters enjoying a recommended Malbec, poaching the world’s issues from their privileged position. It is it’s own island, away from the flombayed pleasantries, sweetened niceties and dressed up values of a place removed. Tousled surfaces, white jackets stained and unbuttoned laying bare a cleaved carcass on the side of the counter. It is a carnival of the animals, who can taste blood and weakness. Golding’s Piggy asked the question of whether “we’re Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”, for four hours these men are all. A momentary escape to the pleasurable hot deserted island where they can be let their id scream and dance in the worst shadow of each other's company, before returning to their families for tea when the mains are garnished, compliments have been digested and the final plates have been called away. 

In a world now…

Written four months ago, and it could not feel any further away, mulling the letter of notice which signed my immediate redundancy. Completely justified, with no apology or sweetened aperitif needed as the facts were already on the bill, this is a tale of the times which could not feel any less flat and bland. What will be missed is that concentrated pocket of space, a focal for a highly concentrated level of energy and interaction that was incomparable to the stillness of the village that surrounded it. A walled cauldron of creativity paired with a primal camaraderie, that induced an acute thermal red cluster above the five heads and griddles working on at all times, around a contoured sea of washed blue and green. Though knowing before I started waiting here, this job wasn’t to be forever, it still made it ever apparent that we need others to react and bounce off. A common goal driven to perfect a service gelled a kitchen cohort to making them one of the best (although maybe TripAdvisor reviews describing ‘the tall man with disturbing smile’ made my waiting skills one of the worst). I am sure in the immediate future, people will struggle without the cohesive recipe of these workplace environments, as new forms of communication will evolve beyond the comfort of the cave, perhaps for the better. All said, when the kitchens do open be sure to give your compliments to the chef, it’s only polite.

Back in the Village - Dogged Days

Aged seven, an earliest memory was running away from my Aunties dog called Widget, meandering and weaving through the paved hung garden from the two-tone plastic swing into the safety of my grandma’s conservatory. Frightened, bursting into tears, and sliding the door shut, I was finally safe, bounded with the warm stifled air of the extended room. What had been nipping close to my ankles and gnarling between small steps was no longer a danger, as I looked at it through the mottled glazed panel, barking and asserting it’s decrepit dominance. Behind it’s wired coat, rotten teeth and life extending steroid injections was a well-loved creature, one which could do no wrong. Signing off on every birthday card and featuring in the staged family photos, the old smelly bag of bones managed to find itself everywhere. It was this aspect of ownership which I invariably disliked the most about this dog, and it wasn’t even it’s fault that it was made to feel at the centre of attention. Did he make me despise all pedigree chums indefinitely? No. Did he make me start to question their owners? Yes.

What this dog and many others around me in the countryside have exposed, was a bracket of owners, who are totally dependant on their furry friend. Here and there I do get a gentle satisfaction when I scratch their beard, sneakily give them a treat or twiddle their ears as they lean comfortably inward, although I find it nauseating how people can be so obsessed and wet about them. Embodying a third child, or an extra head at the table, these mutt’s become socially personified characters. Qualifying their personas to fit the image of the owner, you’re more than likely to witness a brown Labrador called Monty slobbering all over the rind of fat from ‘Daddy’s’ Sirloin steak, left for him on the worn level of the pub floor, “Ooooooo there you go boy… ah ah don’t walk over there…no sniffing Daisy’s bottom… Come here!”. There’s no fucking escaping these owners, coming as commonly as the Land Rover defenders they drive, and the shotguns they pack over the shoulder of their Schoffel gilets.

Invariably, the hound is never the priority; it’s about the concerns and anxieties of the owner. By creating and training these dogs characters much to Pavlov’s delight, these owners can distract from their insecurities and woes. Plastering and glueing their lives much to the similar effect of a good pint, blending a necessary social lubricant to allow a fluid flow of conversation with other country bumpkins. Quelling the nerves and without having to say a word about yourself, is a perfect formula offering a maximum outcome. Dogs fill the void of people by becoming their own characters in these remote spaces and sparse vistas and have become an essential part of maintaining the constant social climate within the village and beyond. There are no hospitals near here, so it’s the most immediate means of replacing a lost crutch (which may be floating down an overflown river thanks to Storm Derek this weekend).

All this being said, I’m starting to think a critical message is being barked which is not my intention, so perhaps I ought to put my muzzle on before someone bites back; no one wants to play with an anti-social dog. It’s easy to be dismissive of the value these domesticated beasts have, which is considerable for some. Enabling any person to be able to arrive into any situation or environment, eradicating underlying feelings of loneliness and uncertainty, which can be readily felt around here when it’s dark by 5 pm and there’s not a yellowed spill of the street light outside seeping past the front curtains. It’s the mushiness and gooeyness I struggle with, which escapes me whenever I see a small sausage pitbull mongrel (yes I’m sure it was painful) cotch next to the opening of the bar, or be escorted begrudgingly on his lead round the pub by a stubborn child. All the while, swirling on his large glass of Shiraz or spinning the metal container of straights, his master masks in his silent company. The steady companionship, mirrored by their routinely quiet entrance and ease is something that does not need to be talked about or implied, but simply enjoyed.

Back in the Village - Ground Zero

“Now Harry it’s the Christmas carol service tonight, and I’m singing three kings. You can join with me at 6 o’clock” my Dad remarks, flicking and turning the thin pages of the Telegraph magazine in his relaxed Crew fleece and Fat face slippers in front of the flickering open fire. Caught In the midst of grey cast shadows, I knew that I was back home in the rolling hills of the south downs. Sat on my chest was an odd feeling, but after a long three years and not quite graduating later I’m back where I started, in a house I was last properly acquainted with when my temperament was still marred with the lingering musk of lynx body spray and voice breaks. Locating just quite how I feel is fraught, whilst sipping my Baileys and wriggling my toes into the oaken coloured carpet. Deflated would be too harsh, and ecstatic would be an overstatement but I know that for the minute, it’s right being where I am. There is no need to scoff brie and cranberry filo pastries and descend into a privileged gripe, after all I am not a cul de sac casualty quite yet.

There isn’t really much in the village, a pub where I work, a village green I grew up playing football on, a healthy handful of village fanatics and a feeling that is very far removed from the rest of the world (or at least one I’ve been used to). It’s scarce, sparse and it ceases to change, except for the rotation of people in it. If they’re not retired commuters who know each other from the 7:42am train from Haslemere to London Waterloo, or aren’t part of the local village church goers they’ll most likely be a horse or dog breeder, who has as many pictures on their mantle piece of pedigree terriers as they do of their grown up married children. A community changes, although the ethic and customs of the village stay the same, this being said I’m only just starting to really understand them; it is crucial I do.

Despite growing up in this house I never assimilated into the community. Most evenings on weekends were consumed around drinking my dad’s Old Speckled Hen ales and eating a takeaway curry from Meghdoots tandoori, since I wasn’t ever cool enough to be invited to a party. Alternatively I was spending the majority of my time at my £28,000 a year boarding school away from any form of outside life. Restrictions and security were high, and my exposure to any form of outside life was always limited to a free period trip to Tesco for a meal deal and a selecky of snacks and bites. In both worlds I never saw anything aside from a weekend sports fixture card, an academic timetable and a Friday chapel hymn sheet. Confronted now at 22 years of age is a place I still call home, yet I never got to properly know it past that second date phase. However, now I have one more shot to make it work out and start to try and properly catch feelings for it, and appreciate it for what it is.  This being said let’s see if I lose my marbles before Countryfile airs, my Hunter wellies start to give me blisters and the cords I was given start to chaff.

There is a lot to meet and experience in the world, with a lot of it being found in your own back patch without trying to sound too earthy and preachy. Sure I might hold some bias, since I can’t put a car past 4th gear or check my rear view mirror to see the sign of my village move into the backdrop, but I do still think it’s the case. It is easy to be dismissive (like every bouncer smirking at the green glaze of my provisional license) of your environment, although it’s better to acknowledge the positives and negatives and begin to embrace it’s ambiguities and express them from your own perspective, instead of going looking for controversy. I’m not trying to encourage a culture of pre-packaged local safari’s, rather I am promoting the idea that there is beauty in this space and the areas that you occupy, coupled by a collection of people who might be more similar or different to you than you may have imagined.

Whilst the carol service did make my eyes roll, and jilted me to scurry to the cupboard to get another drinky, I’ve realised with sobered January reason on this very bleak Monday afternoon, that it was and will be the closest thing I have to a sense of community in the forthcoming months. This is something we cannot take for granted, even if it’s as weird and backwards as we supposedly think. The mundane speaks for itself, and chasing an idea of a world far away is not going to solve differences, if anything it will isolate us from the only localities we know. There is no need to shout London the loudest just to prove a level of social validation and shelve any embarrassment of not having better wanting of something bigger, this being said maybe it’s about time I now change my Hinge profile location from Finsbury park to Petworth park.