Low Life

Jeremy Clarke

Wednesday, 4th February 2009

Best laid plans

Apart from going to the nearest town one afternoon to have teeth out, I hadn’t been out of the village for six weeks. I might have been depressed about this normally, but a jolly outing I had entered and underlined in my diary for the end of January kept my spirits up. I was popping up to the metropolis to watch a football match — an evening game, under floodlights.

Our new manager, whom the critics were, to start with, eager to write off as an ingénue, a loser, a chancer, even a chimpanzee, was proving to be a man of honour, wisdom, good humour and sanity. Under him, the team was playing attractive, thoughtful football again. And winning. We’ve become bitterly disillusioned with our football club in the past few years. Beginning with the spivs in the boardroom, it appeared that the rot had spread down through every level, even as far as the outsourced disc-jockey. But since Christmas, on the pitch, a miracle has been unfolding before our very eyes. The team just gets better and better and some of us are starting to believe. I couldn’t wait to get up there and see them play again.

The journey to the stadium involves a half-hour drive to the station, a three-hour train ride to Paddington, then an hour by Tube. I’d pre-booked the trains and match tickets. All I had to do was show up on time at the station and enjoy the day. But things didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped.

Just before I left the house I put in a new pair of contact lenses. I change them once a month. Each lens has a different strength: one is for reading and close work, the other for distance. Getting them in and settled can be a fiddly job, and somehow I got them mixed up and put them in the wrong eyes. As I was already cutting it a bit fine for the station, I left them in and decided to do the switch on the train.

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Bill Corr

February 6th, 2009 9:28pm Report this comment

Has Jeremy Clarke offered this appalling true story to Rowan Atkinson as a Mr Bean episode?

I once jerked open the door to a priest's confessional - occupied by a priest hearing a confession - in Liverpool R.C. Cathedral under the impression that it was a loo [I had been drinking Guinness earlier and was bursting for relief] but this contact lens tale has THAT beaten easily.

David Short

February 6th, 2009 10:04pm Report this comment

Sounds like one of my journeys!

It was Boris who introduced the alcohol ban on the Underground. I support the general idea, but I do think it should only be enforced on anyone with a shaven head, tattoo, foul mouth, or combination of either.

Not long after the ban, not having had any breakfast and being famished at lunchtime, with a long Tube journey in front of me (and all Tube journeys seem long now, being fraught with delays) I bought an M&S sandwich and a small bottle of nicely-chilled white wine. I wouldn't normally eat or drink on the Tube, but needs must.

Then once on the train, I realised even little old me was subject to the ban...

I'm sure it wasn't brought in to prevent people like me refreshing themselves in a moderate manner, but we all suffer because of the yobbo element.

Anyone who really wants to get pissed on the Tube will of course continue to do so, by injecting bottles of Coke with vodka.

Nev Parker

February 7th, 2009 11:22pm Report this comment

Jeremy Clarke had a very hard act to follow, he's gone down a different, but no less entertaining and well written path. Thumbs up from me Jeremy

Christopher Bennett

February 8th, 2009 3:38am Report this comment

Jeremy, I fell about. I was taken straight back to Gerald Hoffnung and "The Bricklayer".

Kered Ybretsae

February 8th, 2009 6:06pm Report this comment

I'll drink to that.

James R

February 9th, 2009 4:22am Report this comment

The problem is the contact lenses. From what I can gather, they do not suit your lifestyle. Why not just wear glasses? Sure, the Boleyn End (or whatever they have down there) might chant something about 'Harry Potter' the first couple of times, but they'd get used to it.

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