Even
though we are at the fag-end of the year, something happened today that will be
the defining feature for me, and possibly for a few others too.
My ‘creative space’ is not my brain, it is
a ‘squalid corner’ of the third floor where my desk (cluttered) is hemmed in on
one side by a sawn-off storage unit, a plastic segmented bookcase and a queeny
printer; on the other by a series of CD box vaults, the back of an IKEA
bookcase and an Anglepoise (knock-off not real) lamp; behind three low-rise
bookshelves, a bewilderingly large number of plastic mini-shelved units and a
lopsided arrangement of Things Too Large to Put Away Properly; in front is a
low wall and the stair well. And this
altogether conducive-to-creation ensemble is finished by a high-backed office
chair that is literally falling to bits, with the faux leather coming away in
specks.
Enough, I said to myself, I said, is
enough! A new chair is necessary and,
furthermore, it will be something that can sweep up my Christmas and Name Day
offerings into one coherent present. The
‘Name Day’ thing is important in this part of the world and you ignore the
recognition-through-presents at your own risk, it therefore follows (as the
night the day) that reciprocation can work together for good. As my Name Day is actually Boxing Day a
seasonal personal present objective makes sense, so I thought a new chair would
concentrate minds and contributions.
Having tried a selection of chairs in all the
main superstore outlets in the vicinity and found all of them lacking, Toni
actually discovered a dedicated office furniture outlet with ‘sale’ prices in
Cornella, a place a few towns along one of our motorways and a place passed
through by me on my daily journey to the School on the Hill.
Today was the day we visited the
place. I had (in mind and written in my
notebook) a list of desirable attributes of the New Chair. It had to have i) a base of five wheeled feet ii) a high back iii) gas suspension iv) be ergonomic v) be made of leather vi) have no arms or have removable arms vii) look ‘the business’. I did have a vague sort of idea of what sort
of cost it might be, but I decided to be adventurous.
The end result of much sitting and trying
this and then trying that, was that the ergonomic trumped the leather. The seat that I have decided on, and indeed
ordered for delivery in January looks a bit more medical than office-like, but
it is comfortable and virtually everything that can, adjusts.
And the cost.
Toni was and still is shell-shockedly
stunned that any sentient life-form could even contemplate paying so much for
what is, after all, at the end of the day, an office chair. Well, I have.
Or at least I have paid a deposit.
And even the 20% deposit was large.
So, you can imagine that the whole thing (the other 80%) is, well, monstrous.
In my defence, I would opine that my
complete lack of smoking is a major factor in allowing sums of money which
would have gone up in smoke and been ingested in tar to be used for something
that is much more (much more) useful and necessary. But is an awfully large sum of money. For a chair.
And,
as its main material is a sort of mesh (to allow for air flow and healthiness)
you don’t even get plush, buttoned leather for your money – in spite of the
fact that the money you have paid could easily have allowed wheels to have been
fitted to a handmade ottoman and still have had money left over.
And I don’t care. I have got (or at least will have) what I
wanted. And it is something that will be
used. And used constantly. And, and I think I am trying to persuade
myself here rather than any reader. And
so, I will stop. But I (and that is the
important pronoun) I, think that it is money well spent. And I sincerely trust that I will be saying
that in twenty years’ time (when I am still using the bloody thing) and then dividing
the price I paid in 2020 by the number of years I have been using it and saying
to myself, “It’s a bargain!” and “My back has never felt better!” and so on.
I am further encouraged by the fact that
the person selling me thing was actually using one of them as her own office
chair. And that has to be good. Doesn’t it?
Yes?
What the AOTC (Advent of the Chair) will
necessitate is Doing Something to the chaos of the third floor. Such a splendid beast must have space in
which to dominate the surroundings. The
detritus behind me at the moment must go.
Where? I know not, but somewhere
not behind me. The Chair will be brought
unto me by the lackeys of the firm and they will Construct The Chair, presumably
by bringing up the pieces to the third floor.
There is no room whatsoever to do any construction so, what years of
nagging by Toni have failed to do, the AOTC will force me to do: create space
where no space exists.
My last and latest attempt to Clear Up the
third floor comprised checking through long unopened files and junking and
shredding irrelevant papers. This
created gratifying large bags of rubbish, but not any appreciable space as I
had been excavating rather than bulldozing.
Something much more radical is called for, and to be frank, I am not
sure that I can muster up enough iconoclastic zeal to do the necessary. Toni has, bless him, offered to do the ‘tidying
up’ for me, but I know that I would have to ‘dispose’ of him after the event
when I realized what priceless pieces of ephemera he might have got rid of!
So, the next few weeks are going to demand
a positively Dominican level of material rejection from me if I am to make any
impression on the cluttered chaos. Wish
me luck or wish me the equanimity to see the AOTC as setting a diamond in the
dross of attic confusion!
And yes, I am well aware that I have not
actually told you the price of the thing.
And yes, I have no intention whatsoever of so doing. I may be happy (if that is the word that I am
looking for) with what I have done, but I think that I can only convince others
by denying them specific totals. Better
to speculate with lurid imagination rather than condemn in black and white! And you will have noticed that I chose a
generic chair for illustration rather than something more identifiable.
And
talking of the unjustifiable, Johnson is trying to have his cake and eat it: he
fulfils his promise to allow us to celebrate Christmas but wants us not to do
it because it will fuel the increase in Covid infection. So, what this appalling man is actually doing
is putting the onus on the British People.
He lacks the courage to admit that he was wrong to promise a variant on
the “it will be all over by Christmas” (that always works out well!) and
instead of imposing legally enforceable restrictions he is leaving it all up to
us. He will then, of course, wash his
hands and say that it was made clear by the government that there were risks
involved and people were warned, but people will be people and therefore you
have only yourselves to blame! He truly
is repellent.
Here in Catalonia and in Spain things do
not appear to be much better. Our prime
minister has had to self-isolate because of his proximity to the French
president and we all know that all hell is going to break out after the
Christmas period.
We have gone through a year when normal
has been taken out roughed up, lightly killed, spat at, insulted, trampled on
and general bad mouthed. I think we know
that we are in the final stretch, and I further think that we know that the
final stretch is not going to be measured in weeks but rather in months. And probably quite a few months. I am telling myself that I will be lucky,
very lucky, if I am vaccinated by April.
And since I tick a few of the ‘at risk’ boxes, I think it is going to be
the end of the summer or the middle of the autumn until a majority of the country
is close to having had the jab.
Given those expectations, Christmas is neither
here nor there, it is just an odd date in the unrelenting sequences that we
have been subject to during this pandemic.
But
my chair will be here in January.
Something concrete to look forward to.
