This morning I got on the bus at the end of my street and, as usual, asked for 'a single to the BBC please', using my best newsreader voice, and peering at the lowly driver over the rims of my 2001-vintage media spectacles. I don't know who I think I'm fooling. The busdriver, as he made clear by displaying a complete lack of deference during the transaction, doesn't believe for one minute that I'm a high-flying television reporter off on an urgent assignment, and knows very well that as soon as the bus has gone I'm going to turn my back on the BBC's towering Oxford Road HQ, and scuttle off into a dingy sidestreet leading to a not-particularly-exotic industrial estate. And sure enough that's exactly what I do- but not before stopping en route to avail myself of a bacon sandwich from the handily-placed Gregg's The Bakers, directly opposite the Beeb nerve-centre.
At least that is the idea- only I seem to be having a little bit of trouble gaining access to the premises. The establishment appears to be open for business- there are bright lights, and shelves full of steaming pastries on display- but the sliding door fails to respond to my approach, and I can't seem to locate the join where it may be prised open. For several minutes I peer through the clear glass at the liveried assistants scurrying back and forth carrying large plastic trays of jam doughnuts- and then a woman strides along the street and promptly turns sharply left, reappearing moments later at the counter with a chicken-and-stuffing sandwich on white bread. It is only then that I realise I have been trying to enter the shop through the plate-glass window.
Well I blame the bus-driver- as I realise when coming back out of the bakery (by the door this time, what do you think I am, stupid or something?) he had let me off just a few yards past the bus-stop, no doubt as retribution for my persistent failed attempts to convince him and his colleagues I'm someone off the telly, using only a flimsy impersonation of Gordon Burns and some eyewear that was fashionable five years ago.
An inauspicious start to the day, then- and to the first year of my life as a 38-year-old person. What I think I am trying to tell you is it was my birthday yesterday. That got off to an inauspicious start as well- due to an administrative oversight (the person whose turn it was to take care of the 'birthday rota' forgot to look at the noticeboard) my office colleagues failed to mark the occasion- until the afternoon when I came back to my desk to find a box of Cadbury's Heroes and a card bearing the hastily-scrawled signatures of the team, with the giveaway exceptions of people who hadn't been in since Friday. Things started to look up at tea-time, though, when I returned home to find that not only had Charlotte and young Frankie remembered my birthday, but that they had marked the occasion by baking me a Victoria sponge. Frank took one look at the four candles (isn't that a Two Ronnies sketch?) and burst into tears- then when I blew them out burst into tears again because they had gone out. He's a sensitive child.
And as if a home-made Victoria sponge was not enough, there were presents as well; including not one but two coffee-table sized books with high intellectual cache- a Guardian guide to International Cinema from Charlotte, and, well, we are really not sure what the book is that Abby has got us, but it is in French and appears to be some sort of possibly-quite-inaccessible work of scholarly sociology, debating in great depth the new-found enthusiasm of our cross-channel neighbours for small enthusiasms (it is called 'Passions Ordinaires', an if anyone would like to tell us what it is really about there is a special prize).
In fact do you know what? Sod the coffee table, I'm going to be taking my scholarly French paperback on the bus tomorrow, and I'll be putting on my best 'Newsnight Review' voice when I hand over my £2.00 to the driver. I'll not have these low-down Stagecoach scumbags calling into question my intellectual credentials- with the help of my birthday presents I'll soon have the fellows on the 197 believing they've got Melvyn Bragg himself on the 8:17 down Stockport Road, damn them. Now I just need to see some way of updating those out-of-date media spectacles of mine...
Happy (belated) birthday Jonathan! I take it you'll be reading your Guardian Book Of International Cinema in that swanky bohemian bar we went to (the name of which escapes me)? Look forward to seeing you pontificating on 'Newsnight Review' - wearing those glasses, of course.
Posted by: Ben | April 26, 2006 at 03:34 PM