Making the Cat Laugh (15 page)

Virtually overnight, my flat turned into a 24-hour Jeff season-cum-masterclass. Friends popped in and found themselves being pushed roughly into seats while I snatched up the video control.

‘Watch the way he says ‘‘Small world’’ in this scene.’

‘Oh God. More Jeff.’

‘Have I shown you the bit where he glances away to one side, and sort of rubs his nose before the ‘‘Listen, princess’’ speech? It’s brilliant. The man’s a genius.’

In the end, they gave up expecting me to talk about anything
else; instead they patiently cut nice Jeff pictures out of magazines for me, bless their hearts. After all, we are each entitled to find our own peculiar way of dealing with celibacy, and it turned out that this was mine. Jeff. I was even happy. ‘This is great,’ I said. ‘The last time I had a crush on someone it was in the pre-video age, but now I can watch Jeff deliver the ‘‘Small world’’ line fifteen times together if I want to.’

‘Mmm,’ they agreed.

And now it is Wimbledon, and I get so excited I expect tennis on all channels, all day. More. I get so involved that I even relish the on-screen computer statistics, tabling the number of times each player has changed his shirt or wiped his face with his wrist-band. In the old days, when Dan Maskell said, ‘Seventh double-fault,’ I would think, ‘Oh crikey, what an old bore.’ But now I exclaim, ‘Seven!’ and get angry with the commentators for making nothing sensible of such a thrilling statistic. ‘Ah, now, seven double-faults,’ said a Dull Donald during a match last week. ‘Lucky for some, but perhaps just a passing statistic in a famous victory.’ I could not believe it. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I yelled. ‘Good grief!’

Thankfully the Wimbledon binge contains built-in limits, and will be over by Monday. I do not watch tennis at any other time of year: say the words ‘French Open’ and ‘Prudential-Bache Securities Tennis Classic’, and the pulse-rate does not lurch. It is the annual two-week tournament of Wimbledon – the stars! the knees! the knock-out! summer in the city! – that is so unputdownable. It makes me think of warm summer fairs and dances in Thomas Hardy; the travelling circus setting up tents for solstice-week on some pagan hillsite, and the whole town queuing up nightly on hot dusty grass to grab it before it goes. I am getting carried away, I suppose. But honestly, for an all-alone binge, Wimbledon is almost as good as sculpting indoor jelly stacks. And a lot less messy.

What does it mean, anyway: ‘Do not remove lid before cooking’? There you are, in the kitchen, cook-chill dinner in your hand, oven nicely heated to 180 degrees, saliva glands triggered to the point of no return, and you receive this gnomic instruction about the lid which stops you dead in your tracks. Does it mean take the lid off, or don’t take the lid off? Why does life have to be so complicated?

‘I’m cooking it
now,’
I reason (I have to talk it through, slowly, usually sitting down). ‘And I didn’t take the lid off
before.
Which was
right.
Hmm. All right so far, then. So perhaps I should take it off now. But perhaps they mean not to take it off until
after
it’s
cooked.
But then of course I
will
take it off when it’s cooked, won’t I, ha ha, because otherwise I
couldn’t eat
it. Hmm. So why would they mention it? I mean, if I didn’t take the lid off
then
I’d have to throw it away uneaten, and all that cooking would have been a waste of time. Hmm. And they show a serving suggestion on the box, so they can’t mean for you not to get the food out, otherwise they’d show a picture of a foil box
in a
bin. Hmm. And another thing …’

This goes on until the ghost of Bertrand Russell whooshes through the kitchen (screaming what sounds like ‘For Pete’s sake’) and dashes the box to the ground. It’s usually Russell, but sometimes it’s Wittgenstein. I have lost a lot of dinners that way.

As a consumer, one often finds oneself on the receiving end of superfluous advice, and I suppose it is a measure of one’s mental health how one deals with it. Buying a couple of ice-cube trays the other day, for example, a friend of mine discovered an interesting household tip on the packaging: ‘Keep a tray in the ice-box for those occasional drinks, and keep another in a chest freezer in case of unexpected callers or a surprise party!’ Could have worked that out for myself, thought my friend – but then she is a sensible, well-adjusted person who does not experience semantic vertigo over the
removal of tin-foil lids. A more neurotic and literal-minded consumer (i.e. me) would have read this ice-tray advice on the bus home, and been obliged to go back to buy a chest freezer.

My hobby, by the way, is replicating serving suggestions. You know: I study the picture on the packet and re-create it with the real food. It is an unusual and creative pastime, I like to think. Sometimes, with a frozen dinner, the serving suggestion seems to be that you just take the food out of the dish and put it on a plate with a sprig of parsley, which is a bit too easy and not much of a challenge, quite honestly. But sometimes you have to add new potatoes or peas or something, and a bottle of wine in the background on a chequered tablecloth, and then you can spend quite a lot of time getting the composition just right. I have never told anybody this before.

Sometimes, just for a change, I defy the consumer recommendations. For example, recently on a bottle of hair conditioner I came across the advice: ‘And then just arrange your hair in its usual style!’ And I thought, well, I shan’t then, and I put my head in a bucket instead. I thought the advice was slightly redundant, in retrospect (from inside the bucket). I mean, if they hadn’t said anything I would have arranged my hair in its ‘usual style’ without even thinking about it. I wonder how they know where to draw the line, these people. Perhaps there are other bottles which advise, ‘Arrange your hair in its usual style, and then have a nice cup of cocoa’. Or, ‘Arrange your hair in its usual style, and then take a holiday in the West Country’.

Some manufacturers of prepared meals tell you that, after cooking, you should empty contents on to a plate. Before long they will also tell you to eat contents, burp (optional), wash up the plate, turn off the lights and lock the back door before going to bed. People are not being credited with much initiative, it seems to me. But then I am clearly susceptible, because I read all small print, listen to all advice. ‘Serve chilled,’ says
the gazpacho carton, so I go out and stand in the rain without a hat. The strange thing is that when I come back in, the last thing I want to eat is some cold soup.

Recently I read some advice for people living on their own. I thought it would be about creating a helpful mental attitude, but it said things such as ‘Don’t open the door to strangers’ and ‘Have baths on a regular basis’. I was reminded of a student journalist who once shadowed me for a day and who told me that the lecturers on the journalism course had given her some pretty good advice. ‘What do they tell you to do when you interview somebody?’ I asked, hoping for some useful interrogation tips. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘they say don’t forget to take your bus fare. And always have a sandwich with you in case of emergency.’

So that’s it, then. I don’t open the door to strangers, and I keep taking the baths. I arrange my hair in its usual style, and I empty contents on to a plate. I carry a sandwich at all times. It’s all you can do, really. I remember that I used to pass a doorway on the way to work each day, where I saw a little sign: ‘Speak into the microphone.’ And even if I was late, I would say ‘Oh, all right then,’ and think of another old Max Miller routine to regale it with.

In the early 1980s, when I was a compulsive
Blue Peter
viewer (recording it while at work, and priding myself on not missing a single show), there was a very upsetting Thursday evening which I shall never forget. There I was, safe in the usual items (potted biography of Louis Braille narrated by Valerie Singleton; how to make a Dinky Toy car-park out of a cornflake packet and a drinking straw), when suddenly Simon Groom announced brightly, ‘And today we reach the letter M in our Dogs’ Alphabet.’ I felt as though my entire world had been
tugged from under me. Did he say ‘Dogs’ Alphabet’? What Dogs’ flipping Alphabet was this, then?

I remember standing up abruptly from my working-girl TV dinner, and spilling jelly and custard on the carpet. I choked on some hundreds-and-thousands. I was so outraged that I virtually ignored the ensuing scenes of a large mastiff dragging a
Blue Peter
presenter skidding across the studio floor, knocking over those triangular stands with teddies on, amid reassuring shouts of ‘Ha ha, everything is under control.’ I was too angry to enjoy it. ‘When did you do the letter L?’ I shouted, in a sneering tone. ‘Nineteen seventy-two?’

So it is with some trepidation that I announce that today we reach the letter H in our Single Life role-model series. Ahem. The choice is wide: Heidi, Miss Havisham, Hinge and Brackett, Harvey the six-foot rabbit. Oh yes. Each tells you so much about the advantages of the unmarried state – in which you can be mad, Swiss, invisible or purely imaginary, and can run around with your hair on fire. But actually I have invented the Single Life role-model series because I want to discuss the little silhouette woman in
Hello!
magazine who illustrates the films-on-TV page, and she is such a strange phenomenon that I couldn’t see how else to bring the subject up.

She speaks to me, this lonely figure; I don’t know why. Next to the review of each film appears this little illustrated woman, who is evidently watching the TV from a firm 1960s low-armed chair in an empty room. She is wearing outdoor shoes and a knee-length skirt, and she is reacting with bold body language to the quality of the films she is watching. I can imagine her watching that famous
Blue Peter
episode alongside me, and expressing the whole thing more eloquently, and without words – a hand cupped to her ear (‘What’s this?’); her arms folded in front of her (‘I don’t believe it’); she shakes a fist (‘Someone will pay’). She is a mime, you see, this woman. Her body is her tool.

Her role is this. When the film is very good, she stands up and applauds enthusiastically; when the film is entertaining she leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, possibly holding her breath. When it is only fair, she sits back, with her hands in her lap. And when it is boring, she sticks her legs out and flings back her head, as though she has been shot.

I have some quibbles with the authenticity of these reactions, of course. Personally, I lean forward with my head in my hands when the TV is terrible, not good. I jump out of my seat only when I want to ring up
Blue Peter
and give it a piece of my mind. When the telly is exciting, I lie back happily with a cat on my chest; and when it is excellent, I slide down so far in the chair that the only thing vertical is the top half of my head.

But the compelling thing about this woman is not the form but the intensity of her reactions. She concentrates without let-up, whether the stuff is good or not. In the course of a week’s films she leans forwards, leans back, stands up, claps her hands, gets shot, leans forward and leans back – but she never stops watching. Why did
Hello!
choose this figure? I suspect because she is the antithesis of the couch potato. She is slim and active and self-possessed, and she would never be caught dribbling hot Ribena down her neck by trying to drink it without sitting up – which is what I do, now I come to think of it, while reading
Hello!

She gives the lie to all those worthy sociology projects, in which closed-circuit cameras are rigged up next to people’s television sets, to observe how broadcasting is treated in the home. Through the fishy lens, you see the ghostly figures of Mum and Dad wandering in, reading the paper, blinking stupidly at the screen while exciting car-chase noises and gun shots emanate from it, and occasionally pointing at the picture and saying, ‘I know that bloke. He was in, you know, whatsit called. Yeah, he was,’ before wandering out again.

I have never seen one of these experiments applied to a person who lives alone, but I think it would be rather different, and a bit disturbing, because of the aforementioned intensity of response: ‘What Dogs’ flipping Alphabet?’ ‘God, I
hate
Noel Edmonds!’ ‘Why are the weather forecasts so short, for heavens’ sake!’ ‘They’ll never get a self-respecting Dinky car in a car-park made out of cornflake packets!’ and so on.