Today is a day for c*nts.
I've smiled a lot today. Up at 5 to catch a train to the airport. I didn’t smile then. The fucker didn’t come.
I got one train later than I normally would, because I’m always so anal with flying and I get there with hours to spare. But I challenged myself and went for the reasonable option. I was very not Zen on the platform. In fact, I inadvertently called the absent train a c*nt.
I made it, amply, in fact. My stress was all my own.
There was a strangely attractive gentleman in the airport. He smiled. He was a little waxy and perfect-skinned, but he had nice eyes and glasses and seemed possibly even about my age. I saw him lots of times, like the kingfisher. He pleased me, and each time, we smiled. Had I seen him at baggage reclaim, I had decided to chat.
I sat next to someone on the plane - not my smiling gentleman - who took my details for a possible teambuilding job. He let me talk about the stuff I love to do, and whatever comes of it, for that I’m grateful. What I hope comes of it (and he said this, not me) is that he ups and leaves his job to do something he loves and something that lets him spend his evenings with his kids instead of in some soulless Ibis reception area.
He was a skin scientist. My first. I don’t think I asked the right questions – how can you make me ageless, do anti-ageing creams really work? It never occurred to me. Perhaps I could have asked him how to get rid of this persisting midge-bite mound that’s been there since July.
And then there I was, in Frankfurt, first at the airport and then at the Hauptbahnhof waiting for my train. It’s so pleasing that you can just flit and be somewhere else so quickly, walking about in their space as if it were your own.
The man opposite me was eating his sandwich out of the bag. Between bites, he readjusted so that the sandwich was further inside the bag. Each time he went in for his next mouthful, the bag was up around his ears. Made me think of horses.
Once in Wuerzburg town centre, my next c*nt appeared. A car, dithering about which way to turn, was in the way of where a cyclist wanted to go. The man on the bike bellowed 'Du bloede Fotz!' [doo blur-der fots] It took me a while to remember the words. They sound so sweet and anodyne. Not as sharp and harsh as ours. But another man in the street shouted that there were kids around and to watch the language, so I think I remember rightly.
It made me think, though. It's not the sounds themselves, but their intention and, in the case of that one word in particular, their taboo. When I receive them in another language, there's an airlock in between. I can see their offensiveness, but I don't feel it, not even the tiniest pang of shock. In English not always either, depending on the context, but it's much closer to the core.
I feel privileged to be able to play like this with words. It's brilliant fun.
And you've got to love the Germans. Looking for somewhere to eat in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, I saw the ultimate snack bar, Wursthelden (Sausage Hero), with its sausage of the month on offer (white sausage with simnel bread, if you're interested). Only here. I will be sure and find a Sausage Hero before I leave. In my mind's eye, I can see Victoria Sandison's face.
And now I'm here. Work finished, for today at least, and just playing to do for the next few days. I know I get the pleasure of Kati Schweitzer. Alex is already here. I'm hoping to see lovely Heike, Max, Michael, maybe, who knows who else, and to meet new playing people I don't know yet. And I'm very happy indeed at the prospect of playing in a workshop with Patti Stiles... thank you, Kati, for sorting all that out when I was sitting on a hill on an island off the coast of Wales, hoping I'd get to book my festival tickets in time.
I get to play with lovely people for two or three days. Who wouldn't be grateful for that?
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