FraserWords

How strange it is to be back in the world. I had forgotten all the finer points of living in an office, working with other people. Now that I am back in journalism, producing the news and features part of a Sunday newspaper for three days a week, I have to re-learn some essential life skills.

For example, dressing respectably. I have walked around in rags for so long I rather miss the draft howling around my nether regions from the holes in the trousers.

And drafts! There’s another thing! Offices are centrally heated and have other people in them, unlike my home office which is at the top of our ancient stone-built Cornish edifice and consequently, shall we say, has a more natural heating system. There are only the dog and I up here, and we are happy with Cornwall’s fresh air. But in an office there are, quite rightly, other people’s comforts to consider, and not many other people are fond of the sort of brisk temperatures I like (bedroom windows open even in the depths of winter, for example). Therefore, I sit at my desk with beads of perspiration dripping down my large smooth forehead, wriggling with discomfort. I expect I’ll get used to it.

Another reason for wriggling, though, is the imperative to control the more base bodily functions. For many years now, working alone and from home, if wind has needed to be expelled it has been expelled. Often very loudly. This, I seem to remember, is frowned upon in a civilised environment and so I clench. This has a sort of backdraft effect, causing my stomach to rumble uncontrollably. It sounds like there’s a pod of whales in there, singing (The Brother Who Must Not Be Named would say my stomach is now so vast it also looks like there’s a pod of whales in there).

Furthermore, when I make a mistake at home, or the computer crashes, or I become stressed, it is possible to vent frustration with the loud use of Very Bad Words. I have been known to call my computer (and I apologise for this) a Jeremy Hunt. Again, this is frowned upon in society and I am having to re-learn the social skill of keeping my big mouth shut.

I was never very good at this, of course. I remember a group of ladies from a local WI being shown around one newspaper at which I worked many years ago. My desk backed onto the entrance to my department. Unknown to me, the ladies had shuffled into place behind this desk, on which I stood, beating the screen of my computer with a rolled-up copy of the Daily Mirror and suggesting at the top of my voice that it had had an unnaturally intimate sexual relationship with its own mother.

Oh well. If I am to make a journalistic comeback – and it seems I am – then I must become civilised again. Wish me luck.

Oh, and do buy the Sunday Independent. That would help.

 Launched in style

How lovely it was to see so many brothers and sisters of this place at the launch of my book, The Promised Land, on Halloween. I was really rather overwhelmed by the number of people who came, and very grateful too.

Brother Jonathan and Sister Elaine gave a beautiful reading of one of the stories within to an (appropriately enough) eerily silent pub, and many of you were kind enough to buy a copy (understandable, really, given its excellence and the sheer unbeatable value of its price).

I must mention our Stormin’ Brother, who had asked if I would sign his copy of my book with a phrase of his choosing, were he to buy one. I promised I would before really thinking about it – then recoiled in horror at the rashness of my undertaking. Our Stormin’ Brother is this place’s representative of unfettered right-wing capitalism, you see, whereas I, as you may have gathered from various subtle hints over the years, am somewhat the opposite. What would he make me scrawl? Something with which he could blackmail me?

‘Here it is,’ he said, as I quaked. ‘From the right’ (I shuddered) ‘to the left’ (I looked puzzled)…. ‘of the bar’. Our positions at said bar are the reverse of our political views, you see. Wittily thought out, Brother, and thank you for your support.

Thank you to all my friends who offered their support too. I was really touched.

Now then, to all of you who were kind enough to buy a copy, my thanks and I really hope you enjoy the stories. To all of you who have not yet invested – why not? What’s wrong with you? Get on with it.