The North Circular is big for me. This is an A-road that does what it says on the tin, running semi-circularly round the north of London. In my childhood, our parents called it the “North Surk”. When my father stood by our car with my uncle (who worked on the Ford production line all his life) talking about “double-de-clutching” and the “camshaft”, the North Surk sounded manly.
Wherever we go to in the world, we seem to have to go on it, across it or over it. (Why does that remind me of something?) It’s a feature of Sunday trips to my wife’s parents, so it’s always the opening line on arrival: “How was the North Surk?” This may well bring up Hangar Lane, a huge roundabout bestrewn with traffic lights that guarantee hold-ups and road rage. In the centre is one of the great art deco tube stations of the Piccadilly line, and all around the circumference is what could be an exhibition of multicultural Britain: a Polish supermarket, a Chinese restaurant, a kosher butcher.
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We went to the Helford River in Cornwall. I discover quite soon that it’s not a river, it’s an “inlet”. And yet it looks like a river, the estuary of a river, in fact. I’m reminded that geography is two things: all the stuff we can see in the landscape and the terms we use to describe it. The water, which slides up and down the banks below where we’re staying, doesn’t ask itself whether it’s a river or an inlet. It just does its watery thing.
While I’m eating my eighth Cornish pasty of the week, this reminds me of that word “grammar”. I once heard a presenter on the radio say that she was “bad at grammar”. Her grammar was fine. She was a fluent and accurate speaker. I think she meant she was “bad” at knowing all those grammar words like “past participle” and “subordinate clause”.
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We record a programme about Old Age. I’m asking our guest, Lucy Pollock about it. She’s written a book about old age. I’m very interested because I am fairly sure that I am old. Beth, the producer, hatches a plot. She asks the guest to ask me a question. A trap! Outrageous! Tables turned! The question is about… old age. What do I think of it? I immediately think of how cutting toenails doesn’t get easier over time. After the thoughtful discussion we had had just prior to this moment, toenails seem trivial, so I don’t mention them.
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I do the Olympics. I run, jump, swim, shoot, fight, ride BMXs. I get annoyed that commentators talk of silver and bronze medals as “great”, “wonderful” but only a few weeks earlier England being beaten in the football Euros final was a “failure”. What is “second”, then? A failure or great? I walk round the house moaning about it. No one takes any notice. I watch the diving. This time I’m a judge. I call out the scores before they come up. Amazingly, I’m mostly right. Perhaps I could be a diving judge when I’m older.
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One of our cats thinks I’m Mum. She follows me about, sits outside the loo waiting for me to finish, complains when I get in late, always asks me for more food. When she sits on my lap, she head-butts my hands to order me to tickle her. One thing worries me. Sometimes her lap routine is that she pushes her bum into my face. I’m not OK about this. I say to her that even if I am her Mum, it’s not reasonable to expect me to sit there with her bum in my face. I think I’m getting through to her.
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We are invited to a Sikh wedding. The bride comes from a Sikh-Muslim family, the groom has converted to become a Sikh. The wedding is in an old manor house. The women have on beautiful ornate dresses adorned with jewels and dazzling make-up. We men are in grey and black suits. My wife had said that I must wear a tie. I don’t have a tie. She buys me a tie. I said that I haven’t worn a tie for 60 years. She said, “Wear it.” When we get there, hardly any of the men are wearing ties.
The meal lasts all evening, with an interlude for dancing and speeches. The groom’s father reminds us that this is happening at a time when people are on TV saying that multiculturalism has failed, but, hey, look at us, here now. Then there’s loud disco intermingled with live bhangra drumming. We can’t stop ourselves getting out of our seats and raving. Inhibitions about Dad-dancing (or even Old Age dancing) are thrown to one side. Every few minutes the DJ shouts, “Put your arms in the air!” I do. Every time. I wonder if there has ever been a time in my life when I’ve done as I’ve been told so dutifully, so often and so keenly. And in a tie. Maybe in my second year at grammar school? My wife says that we ought to go to bhangra dance lessons together. I’m pretty sure this would involve a trip round the North Surk.
Michael Rosen’s “Almanac: Weird and Wonderful Words for Every Day of the Year” is out in September with Ebury Press
