The Strange Days of Chris D Price

And still no straightforward answers.... typical. 

Lime week is over.  The tubes may struggle to get up and running tomorrow, but run they will, and people will head back down the stairs to their usual subterranean transport and breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have to climb on board a hired boneshaker until the next mass walkout.  I will miss it though.  The excitement of finding a bike on an app map, and heading there before it was snaffled by another desperate commuter.  The joy of following a crowd of novice riders, the cars and taxis stopped in their tracks by a new metallic wave.  On Tuesday, my first day cycling across London I discovered two things; 1. There are a lot more one-way roads than I expected, and I've been on the wrong way on most of them. I've had more arrows pointing at me than the Sheriff of Nottingham. 2. I've also discovered that cyclists of very judgmental of the casual bike-user. Today a lycra-clad buffoon swore at me for waiting in the wrong place at the lights, and...

I was in Kerry, Ireland on holiday.  The thing about being in Ireland is that it is a country of extreme weather, you can be bathed in bright sunshine in the morning, and hidden in a blanket of thick freezing fog by teatime. It's like England in spring, all year round.  I was staying in a cottage, in a small village surrounded by the most amazing countryside od ever seen. The beaches on the west coast of Ireland amazed me. The purest white sand beaches I've ever seen, but devoid of people and cold. I saw a pure white horse standing in yhe shallows early one morning. A sight that was almost so stereotypically Irish that I wondered if an advert was being filmed there. It wasn't.   One day the fog hung thickly in the air. I had planned to go to a picturesque village in the hills called Sneem, but with the views hidden it seemed pointless, and with the hire car due to go back in a few days it seemed more sense to make use of it.  I remembered seeing a po...

    I sat on the chair, waiting for the timer to start.      Bleep...bleep..bleep.      I hit pause. Exercise can wait for a moment.      I'll be fifty-four in two months' time, and in the past few years, I have done zero minutes of exercise. Zero. Walking to the biscuit tin and back doesn't count, apparently. I walk every day, at least 7000 - 10,000 steps, or so my smart watch tells me. It's not real exercise, though, nothing that makes me sweat, or get out of breath, or cause endorphins to rush through my body.      It's not all through laziness and apathy. Last year, I slipped a disc in my back, a herniated disc, as the doctor later called it. It was, without a doubt, the most pain i have ever been in. It hit me in the middle of the night as I tried to reach the toilet in our ensuite, a muscle spasm left me immobilised and gripping the door frame with white knuckles,  unable to move forwards or backwards ...

  Most people have no issues with greeting people. You have to sidestep them as you enter bars and restaurants. Every day, everywhere. Strangers and groups of friends air-kissing and shaking hands like there is no tomorrow.  "It's lovely to meet you."  "I haven't seen you for ages."  "Let me introduce you to..."  Shake shake, hug hug, kiss kiss.  For me, it's not so easy. When I meet someone, I have a second of awkwardness, not knowing what to do next. I wonder if I should be shaking hands in a work situation. Or in a social setting, kissing on one cheek, or two, or that half handshake half hug thing that men sometimes do to greet other men.  It's all very confusing.  I once tried a both cheeks' kiss, and due to my hesitancy and uneasiness I accidentally kissed the recipient on the earlobe. The memory of that still makes me shudder.  I use these examples as background for the strange thing I did once when I bumped into someone in the st...

Outside the shop, my heart thumps in my chest like it wants to explode. I already know the feeling of humiliation I feel will stay with me for a long time and leave me in a cold sweat, haunting me in quiet, self-sabotaging moments for years to come. I Will have to avoid this shop from now on, scratch it out of existence in my brain. It was my favourite lunchtime spot, but no more. I can never go back. Friday Lunchtime. 12pm. There is a jerk chicken shop on the road next to where I work. It has changed hands and names a few times, but the food has always been exceptional. Jerk Chicken, rice, and peas for £ 9. It’s not somewhere I visit every day, but as an occasional Friday lunchtime treat, it’s perfect. The shop is, as always, filled with twenty-something trendy people. When I step inside, I feel immediately self-conscious. I want to fit in, to feel good enough to belong, but I know I’m not, and I don’t. I stand in my grey suit in the doorway, feeling like a relic from working days now...

“I can’t believe it’s true.” I say to myself incredulously as I grab another biscuit from the packet, tearing at its wrapper to get inside.  I dunk it into the steaming hot cup of tea, waiting impatiently for the chocolate to melt. Usually, the chocolate melting into a cuppa would annoy me to no end but today was different. Today, I needed the truth. As the chocolate melts away, I see the sight Phil has promised. Mind blown. I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of The Planet of the Apes, seeing the statue of Liberty half-buried in the sand. The truth had been there in plain sight all along. "You maniacs! Damn you all to hell!"  I phone Phil immediately, just as he predicted I would in the pub earlier. Our usual chat about football, music, and spreadsheets (Phil works in Accounts, too) had been detonated by the biscuit bombshell he had dropped onto our conversation.  "I told you it was true." I can hear the smugness in his voice. "It's been public knowledg...