Nocturnal

Damn I've been keeping some strange hours recently.  It's all down to the impromptu siesta I've taken to having round about eight o'clock, on nights when it's my turn to put young Frankie to bed.  Typically, I will put my head down as well, thinking 'long day at work, just shut my eyes for ten minutes, won't actually fall asleep of course', only to find myself waking up with a start on the floor next to a slumbering baby, and stumbling wide-awake downstairs and turning on Channel Five to find it is nearly nine-o-clock, and Newcastle are well into the first half against whatever mediocre European opposition are being served up this week for the delectation of the Geordie nation (I am wondering by the way what I ever used to do with Thursday nights before they came to be dominated by the avuncular tones of match summariser Joe Royle, who is Channel Five's answer to Mark Lawrenson, except it is possible to conceive of going for a pint with Joe Royle without feeling the need to smash his head repeatedly against the fruit machine within the first ten minutes, just on general principles).

Where was I?  Oh yes, those strange hours.  So then it's ten o'clock, Newcastle United have set the nation (or at least the half-dozen neutrals who will tune into a meaningless UEFA cup tie on Channel Five on a Thursday night) quite a-buzz with a stunning backs-to-the-wall goalless draw in Frankfurt, and you're still wide-a-fucking-awake.  And it is your turn to make the dinner, so there is nothing for it but to search the larder, where for some reason you become strangely attracted to a combination of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans, and mushrooms, topped off with three strong cups of tea, a slice of toast and a healthy helping of gentleman's relish.  Twenty minutes later you're sitting in front of the evening news with a full English breakfast, and entertaining serious thoughts of moving straight onto a light ploughman's lunch over the late-night Dutch Premier League highlights, to be immediately followed by a Roast Beef dinner complete with Yorkshire puddings and after eight mints while perusing the early editions of the morning papers. 

By then of course it is past your weekday bedtime, but the strong cups of tea are starting to take effect so you decide just to sit down and attend to some business at the computer.  Three hours later you look up to realise you have written an entire Residents Association Newsletter (complete with headline puns which you are inordinately proud of in your sleep-deprived near-hallucinogenic state, such as 'See You Later Alleygating'), written a very lengthy email largely concerned with Newcastle's European adventure to fellow Geordie Ben, and drank two more cups of strong tea...and that yorkshire pudding/ morning paper combination is starting to look ever more tempting.  It is at that point that you come to your senses and decide to go straight to bed without any further ado- only in climbing up the stairs you wake the baby up, and have to spend twenty minutes soothing him to back to sleep with a ball-by-ball analysis of Newcastle's European set-play defensive strategy.  And then, of course, it is time for another cup of tea.

So- you get the general idea, I hope.  What I am saying is that I am gradually becoming nocturnal- or at least as near to nocturnal as it is possible to become while still holding down a nine-to-five job in a town centre office.  The whole sorry adventure is sure to end in tears and I will end up hopelessly deranged- but on the plus side, my neighbours will receive more pun-filled newsletters full of reminders about when to put their wheelie bins out than they will know what to do with, and I will become an expert in Dutch football.  Hell, and if I have any time left I may use the hours between five and seven AM to launch a bid for the Prime-Ministership, like that crazy woman who ran the country on two hours' sleep a night back in the eighties (what was her name again?)

Right- I'm going to bed now before the temptation to start work on a Yorkshire pudding, them maybe destroy the miners' unions and launch into an ill-conceived invasion of a faraway South Atlantic island, becomes absolutely irresistable.  That's if I can get up the stairs without waking Frankie up again, of course.  Wish me luck everyone.  I really do need some sleep. 

Comments

[overnighteditor]

You don't need sleep.

It's a lie THEY tell you to keep control.

[abby]

oh dear, this indeed sounds like a slippery slope. Perhaps your attempts to cut down on offfice vending machine tea during the day are backfiring horribly. I seem to remember that this was how Kafka went mad (not the vending machine part but working in the insurance company all day and then writing all night). You'll probably develop a bad case of consumption soon, which will be very literary!

[jonathan]

Well OE and Abby, you will be respectively pleased to know that I have somehow got through the day without resort to either of my usual work-day cures for a sleepless night- the long lunch-hour spent fast asleep on the bed in the sickroom, and the fourteen styrofoam cups of 'number 53' vending machine tea. Instead I have battled my way through the day fortified only by vast reserves of willpower... oh and a lunchtime routemarch to the local arthouse cinema bar for an extra-large cup of their bohemianly-priced cappucino.

Just fourteen minutes to go now, and I can fall fast asleep on the train home and wake up in Crewe. Which is perhaps not quite such a literary mishap as a dose of consumption, but just as likely to put the dampeners on your weekend...

[beth]

I quite like Mark Lawrenson actually. But if I had to choose, I'd rather have Jimmy Armfield round for a cup of tea.

And that James Milner cross against Celta Vigo last week was well worth staying awake for.

[Iain]

//Twenty minutes later you're sitting in front of the evening news with a full English breakfast, and entertaining serious thoughts of moving straight onto a light ploughman's lunch over the late-night Dutch Premier League highlights//

Great post!

I have met exactly one football manager in my thirty seven years in this earth, and that manager was Joe Royle. I didn't go for a pint with him, but I did spend a good half-hour interviewing him for our school newspaper, without having the slightest inclination to bash his head against a large, solid object.

A very nice man, and approachable enough to be even setting up his own appointments, even in the heady days of Oldham Athletic's League and Cup success. I picked up the phone one day during the school holidays, expecting to be offered some revolutionary double glazing or life insurance, only to hear the familiar Scouse tones saying "Hello - could I speak to Iain, please? This is Joe Royle, callng about the interview you requested..." 'Flabbergasted' does not even come close to describing the feeling.

My career as a school newspaper journalist lasted about a term, but that particular memory still lingers on. Joe Royle: All-Round Good Guy.

[jonathan]

If I was having Jimmy Armfield round for tea I'd definitely make it in a pot, I think he'd appreciate the touch, what with his old-school tendencies such as getting excited about Blackpool's results and referring to Claude Makalele as a 'half-back'. He does talk a lot of sense though, I think... and shows an absolute intolerance for any lapse into levity from his co-commentator (no coincidence, I think, that you never hear him paired with Lawrenson..)

And your Joe Royle story confirms my impressions, Iain... I remember even when he went to Man City he retained that 'bloke down the pub' approachability... the Guardian once ran a feature revealing how his 'open door' policy extended to receiving impromptu visits at the training ground (which, chaotically, doubled as the Moss Side community sports centre) from Waltermittyesque fans offering their services as players. Mind you looking at some of City's results towards the end I think he might have given one or two of them a game...

[beth]

You'd use leaves, not bags, as well I think.

...is it just me, or has something funny been going on round here?

[looby]

Great post J, very entertaining, although if you do discuss Newcastle's defensive strategy with Frankie you'll have to be careful of these over-zealous social workers.

That falling asleep early evening is a syndrome I well recognise from my shiftwork days. There's really nothing much you can do about it until the pattern of your life changes really. And it's amazing how I used to go to the computer at midnight "to check my e-amil" then found I'd written a small novella by 2.45am.

Good luck!

Btw - how great it is to see those lovely words "Eintracht Frankfurt" in the media again. When I was growing up it seemed impossibly exotic and awe-inspriring that English teams were going to play them.