Amidst the short days and cold weather, the other abiding tropes of the New Year are no less irksome – and here I’m thinking chiefly of the forced retrospective perspective. This sustained backward glance is a thing best nipped in the bud through left-of-centre anecdotal footwork, as demonstrated by this man lured into reminiscing by a colleague in a bar.
Man #1: “I think it’s been an amazing year.”
Man #2: “In what way?”
Man #1: “Auspicious, important. A lot of famous people died.”
Man #2: “That’s your yardstick?”
Man #1: “Well no, but at the same time, you think about it… Gaddafi, the Korean fella, Steve Jobs…”
Man #2: “I remember that day.”
Man #1: ”Yeah?”
Man #2: “I’d been in the eye hospital. Had quite an involved sort of procedure. They did a bunch of stuff to it. I was in there all morning and then they give me these eye drops and say I have to put them in every hour.”
Man #1: “Hardcore.”
Man #2: “Not when you’re sleeping, just when you’re awake. But it’s a lot. Basically, whenever you think about it, it’s been an hour. Anyway, so I been in hospital and then I have to go to town to get this thing for one of the kids, a voucher thing from the Apple store, you can’t get it online, so I go in there, reluctantly, ‘cause I sort of hate the place anyway, not knowing that Jobs is dead and of course…”
Man #2: “How was it?”
Man #1: “Well it was mayhem. There was a sort of vigil out on the pavement, people starting at candles and all that, TV crews filming them. Then in the shop it was busy but they had a handle on it, they were coping. One of them tells me which queue to join, which seems like it will take a while so I think – eye drop. But the queue moves fast and I’m at the till with the thing running out my eye – so the bloke there thinks I’m crying and kind of reaches out, like ‘it’s been a tough day for us all.’ To which I’ve overreacted perhaps, going, ‘No. No, it’s eye drops, I’m not crying. It all went a bit Wickerman after that, more high tech, though. I got the voucher and legged it. Then I got home and that girl from N-Dubz, the one off X Factor, was on Jonathan Ross. I realised I quite fancied her. Which is odd cause when I’ve seem their videos at the gym, I just thought they were idiots. Idiots on a yacht.”
Man #1: “Quite a day then.”
Man #2: “Well like you say, it was a major year.”
Illustration by Johnny Ryan
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Previously: Michael Holden’s Deleted Scenes – Top Deck Curveball Comedown
