Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time (4 page)

Outside it’s all going on – and I joined the newspaper so I could watch it unfold from the inside. So I could be a part of it unfolding.

There’s nowhere like a newspaper when there’s news about. It’s so exciting!

Watching it all get written up, being part of the process that moulds that raw information and unsculpted experience and makes it into news.

What could be better than that? Seriously. Even if the rest of the world largely thinks we’re pond-life, even if the rest of the world thinks we’re monsters. We’re making the news. We may be rats, but at least we’re not mice. We’re doers!

Let me tell you another anecdote by way of illustration. (Don’t worry, this one’s not humiliating.)

Do you remember when Princess Diana died? Of course you do. Tall blonde lass, liked a holiday, married that odd feller with the big ears, unfortunate business with bulimia, three of us in this marriage, Queen of Hearts, landmines, Paris underpass, all that stuff. That’s the one! Well, you may also remember that she died very late on a Saturday night. My boss once told me that when she died he received a panicked call from the night news desk – and he ran – literally ran – into the office, straight from the pub.

Everyone was called in – and everyone came in. They came from their beds, from other people’s beds, from pubs, from clubs, from wherever they were. They came in the middle of the night and they put together a whole new newspaper in a matter of hours. Half of them were drunk, a good number were a good deal worse than drunk. But they worked like maniacs through the middle of the night, because it was the most momentous news story of their lifetimes and they didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world than in the newsroom reporting it.

My boss – he said it was the best night of his life. He’ll tell anyone who asks: the night Princess Diana died was the best night of my life. As you might guess, that sentiment often gets misinterpreted.

But do you understand what he means? Do you get it?

There’s nowhere like a newspaper when there’s news about. It’s a thrill, a buzz, an adrenaline kick. Working in a newsroom: it’s mainlining the zeitgeist. It’s utterly addictive. Even when you’re the story yourself. Especially so. All this unpleasantness alleged against the
Globe
… it’s worrying (Beth is worried, for sure) and some of the details are undeniably unpleasant… but I can’t deny it’s exciting.

I want to be amongst the action, Martin! I want to be with all the stuff that’s doing stuff! I don’t want to be stuck in a crummy seat on a crummy train staring at some crummy town out of the window, thinking about the things I’m missing.

I at least want my life to be as exciting as my bored, frustrated wife thinks it is. That seems fair, doesn’t it?

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 17.

Dear Dan

Thank you for your most recent letters. Of course I am always happy to hear of your concerns, if unhappy that you have cause to write at all!

Your train home on June 8 was delayed due to the slow running of a freight train in the Didcot Parkway area. On both the 14 and 15 June signalling problems on the Oxford–Paddington line meant that a ‘go-slow’ order was in force. On June 17 problems outside Reading meant many trains, including yours, were congested in and out of the station. We put the safety of our passengers above all other concerns at all times, even if it does unfortunately result in some trains running slightly delayed.

To address your other concerns: I hope you don’t attribute my responses to any worry over negative press. I like to think that as Managing Director, I am receptive to the concerns of any Premier Westward passenger.

I am sorry you feel that your time on our trains is not as stimulating as it might be. And I imagine that life at a tabloid newspaper must be very exciting! I expect you have plenty of anecdotes to match that of your boss.

And yes, the situation in North Africa is very worrying. It puts things into perspective rather, don’t you think?

Best

Martin

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, June 22. Amount of my day wasted: ten minutes. Fellow sufferer: Overkeen Estate Agent.

How the devil are you, Martin? Well, I hope? In the pink? Good, good. Well done.

I gather you had a rough night of it last night. I hear that all Premier Westward services out of Paddington yesterday evening were – not to put too fine a point on it – up the spout. Down the Swanee. Round the U-bend. Nothing moved, as I understand it, for hours.

I monitored it all on the internet. I kept a window open on my desktop as I worked into the night. All those winking ‘delayed’ signs reproduced faithfully for the benefit of the world. Just as well I had to work late, eh? Just as well my sadistic boss was in an especially bad mood (the threat of legal action against one’s employers can do that to a man, I hear). Just as well he wanted all my copy rewritten. Or I’d have been right round the U-bend myself.

As it was, I escaped with a mere ten-minute delay to my journey home. As it was, my wife was only moderately cheesed off with me. Lucky me!

Or rather – lucky us. Me and Overkeen Estate Agent. My sole regular fellow traveller on the night shift home.

He’s an odd one, is Overkeen Estate Agent. I only ever see him when I’m on these later trains – and he always seems to have come straight from work. The shiny suit, the tie in a fat footballer’s knot. (What is that knot? Like a quadruple-Windsor, far too big for any shirt collar, squatting there at the neck like a fat silk Buddha. Who decided that was a good look? And when did we start taking sartorial direction from footballers anyway?) He’s always on the phone (a white iPhone – and that in itself speaks volumes. He chose the white model. He looked at the black version and said: No. I want a white one. I am male, I appear to be heterosexual… and yet still, despite all that, I’d prefer the white iPhone. That’s the sort of person I am) and he’s always saying things like: ‘We need to drill this down’, and ‘Let’s get that actioned asap’. He uses words like ‘diarise’ and ‘bro’ and ‘PDQ’. He calls people ‘legends’. He’s about 14 years old. I’m simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by him.

But, to be fair to him, he rarely seems bothered by the train delays. He just keeps talking nonsense into his white iPhone and staring at his reflection in the window.

But then: I’ve been thinking. If I’m to write to you every time my train is delayed, and if a massive, will-to-live-sapping delay should therefore prompt an equally massively time-wasting letter to you in return, then there may be a problem in my otherwise brilliantly childish revenge plan.

Are these letters nothing more than me wasting even more of my time than you’ve wasted in the first place?

That, Martin, would make all this decidedly Pyrrhic. A Pyrrhic victory. Do you know what a Pyrrhic victory is? Of course you do – you must have benefitted from a classical education. Where was it? Rugby? Stowe? Where then…? St Andrews? Cambridge? Or have you worked your way up from nothing? Managing Directed your way out of the mean streets? Was it a case of sport and management directoring being the only legal options for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks?

I’m going with the classical education. The traditional route to the top. Born to rule, eh? Effortlessly schooled in the ways of casual superiority.

Anyway, no shame in that either way. We play the hands we’re given, right? You am what you am! You need no excuses. You deal your own deck: sometimes the aces, sometimes the deuces. Dead right!

Where was I? Oh yes. Pyrrhic victories. Let me explain, just in case you skipped class that day.

A long time ago, in a country far, far away, there was a king called Pyrrhus. As Ancient Greek kings go, he was pretty tasty. Gave the emergent Roman Empire a bit of a spanking on more than one occasion. He took no lip off nobody. He was a born winner.

But there was a flaw. Old Pyrrhus, he was a bit over-keen. The way he saw it, winning was all that mattered. Victory had to be pursued – no matter what the cost. Until, after one particularly bloody encounter at a place called Heraclea, his defeat of the Romans was so absolute that it ended up costing him his whole army too. He won the battle, but he also kind of lost. And a certain Mr Plutarch, who was a leading tabloid scribe of the day, coined the term ‘Pyrrhic victory’ to describe that peculiar kind of victory that comes at a prohibitive cost to the victor.

Interesting, eh? But also, eye-opening. A Pyrrhic victory. Are my letters Pyrrhic victories? It gives me pause. Oooh, and it makes me wonder, as Robert Plant put it. Am I the real loser here? Twicefold? Firstly for giving you so much money for such pitiful service every day, and secondly for wasting my own time in order to waste your time writing about it?

Possibly. I’d welcome your thoughts.

But on the other hand… to hell with it. I’m with Pyrrhus.

Until next time,

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, June 22.

Dear Dan

Thank you for your email. I feel it’s the least I can do to personally offer an apology when your journey home has been delayed.

I fully understand your irritation with your most recent delay. I suspect, however, that you did not realise that the delay was due to a particularly nasty fatality at Hayes and Harlington. It did take some time to reopen the line, partly due to the actions needed after any death on the railway, but also due to the driver having to be relieved from duty due to the trauma.

I am sure there are always things we could do better, and I expect that this was true last night. However, there are times when the circumstances are genuinely outside our control. Clearly last night’s incident was not something you could be aware of, nor indeed would our customers have realised quite how difficult the situation was at Hayes.

Although we work closely with British Transport Police and Network Rail to prevent suicides, sadly we are not always successful. Line closures at peak time will lead to long delays due to congestion. We took a number of measures to reduce these, but there was a lengthy period where all trains were stopped and this inevitably caused problems for our customers. Delays then knocked on to later services such as yours.

I am sorry for the inconvenience this caused.

Martin

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 23. Amount of my day wasted: 18 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Lego Head, Competitive Tech Nerds, Train Girl.

Martin: we’ve become penpals! We’re totally e-buddies. I’m developing a more regular dialogue with you than I have with my own wife. I feel we’re getting… intimate.

Guess what? My train this morning, as I scoured the papers for the latest on the worsening situation in North Africa, as I digested the details of the marches and rallies, as I read with increasing scepticism the assertions and proclamations of the men in charge (terrorists, Martin? Can those protestors really all be terrorists? I doubt it), as I made mental tallies of the dead (that bomb in the market place) and the rumoured dead (those shaky YouTube videos, the shuddery figures running away from the men with guns)… my train this morning, as the burnished rooftops of Reading town reflected the rosy-fingered dawn in all its glory outside the grimy windows and Lego Head sat staring into space as usual and the Competitive Tech Nerds talked loudly and without listening to each other about the Web 3.0 (nope, no idea either)… my train this morning was delayed.

What happened? I do hope it wasn’t another particularly nasty fatality. I feel bad enough about the last one. And I also (sincerely) hope the driver of the train that hit whoever it was last night is OK. That’s a pretty crappy thing to have to deal with and I’m sure you’re not paying him enough to do so.

But on the other hand – don’t you have contingency plans for such eventualities? I mean: people do jump in front of trains, don’t they? They do it quite a lot. Isn’t there a system in place, or does the whole flimsy façade crumble and fall away every time it happens?

Perhaps – and I’m no managing director, obviously, so take this with a pinch – but perhaps what you could do is concentrate on running a business that can cope with the occasional emergency. (I say ‘occasional’ but you know what I mean.) What you could do is put your energies, abilities and (whisper it) budget into making Premier Westward trains the kind of company that doesn’t fall apart every time something awkward happens.

Or am I being hopelessly naive again? Am I applying disingenuous tabloid logic onto a very complicated situation?

Oh dear, I’ve just read this back and realised that now I’m sounding very cross. I’m not generally a cross person. You should see me normally. I’m lovely. I’m a pussy cat. It must be something about your trains that bring out the grumpy old man in me. It must be something about these letters that reveal the person I really am. I did wonder if this would become like therapy, didn’t I? Are you really to be my therapist, Martin? Will you be my shrink?

I’ve got 18 minutes to fill today, and in the absence of anything else to talk about, why not? Let me tell you some more about my life.

I’ve been thinking: how much of our lives are just a succession of Pyrrhic victories?