Poem 20/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

’I think there has been a mis­un­der­stand­ing…’ my new boss said, stand­ing over me with a look of both hor­ror and con­fu­sion on her face. ‘…When I said I couldn’t wait to hear your pro­posal, I was actu­ally refer­ring to your thoughts on how we can improve the one-way traf­fic sys­tem in the town centre.’

‘Oh,’ I replied, the thorny stem of the rose still prick­ling my mouth as I clam­bered to my feet and slipped the lit­tle black box into the inside pocket on my blazer.

‘I sup­pose this means I should can­cel the party?’ I asked, remem­ber­ing how much money I’d spent get­ting a spot in the ‘announce­ments’ sec­tion of the local paper.

She fired me a look of utter disbelief.

‘Inci­den­tally, if you get a visit from a con­grat­u­la­tory bar­ber­shop quar­tet this after­noon, just send them my way, I’ll set­tle up their fee.’

The entire office had stopped work­ing and were star­ing by this point. I per­formed some sort of over the top curt­sey, as if the whole thing was meant to be one silly joke, went back to my desk and began work­ing on that other proposal.

*

Poem 19/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

Every autumn I attempt to start again. Reset. Refresh. To rid myself of any bad habits.

It’s always been this way, per­haps it’s that link to start­ing school again each Sep­tem­ber when I was younger.

I will eat health­ier. No more potato waf­fle sand­wiches, I promise myself, forc­ing a spoon­ful of por­ridge and banana into my mouth.

And I will quit smok­ing this time. (Or maybe I’ll wait until Christ­mas is out of the way and save this one for the new year.)

I will stop wast­ing pre­cious work time spy­ing on ex-girlfriends and for­mer class­mates on Face­book, I decide, try­ing to find a pic­ture of her where she maybe looks as though she misses me.

I will tweet some­thing of actual worth some day soon.

I will stop watch­ing repeats of var­i­ous com­edy shows on Dave and read more books instead. I’ve got a pile of so-called ‘clas­sics’ that have so far pri­mar­ily been used for col­lect­ing dust.

And I’ll quit with the con­stant Alan Par­tridge impres­sions. (Nb. If a girl I like has never seen the show, quot­ing it com­pletely out of con­text isn’t as funny as I think it is in my head. They just look at me like I’m mental.)

Finally, I’ll stop spend­ing my days writ­ing lists of res­o­lu­tions I am never going to stick to.

*

Poem 18/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

At this point in my life, I’m forced to con­cede that it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever score the win­ning goal for Arse­nal against Man­ches­ter United in front of sixty thou­sand ecsta­tic fans at the Emi­rates Stadium.

But I played my part in help­ing New­lyn Non Ath­letico win the Min­ing League 2 Cham­pi­onship in 2009, in front of a tipsy crowd of eleven, four of whom were substitutes.

And I’ve never hitched across Amer­ica to see the sun set over the Grand Canyon, all the while neck­ing whisky straight from the bot­tle and suck­ing on a fine cigar.

But I’ve watched it rise over New­lyn quay in the autumn, all pink skies and sil­hou­et­ted seag­ulls, as I fin­ished off a bowl of porridge.

Granted, I still haven’t got around to cre­at­ing the genre-defying musi­cal mas­ter­piece that will top the charts, sell out are­nas and unite peo­ple all over the world with its stag­ger­ing lyri­cal content.

But I’ve per­formed to a few hun­dred peo­ple at Glas­ton­bury and other venues here and there. And some­times friends and fam­ily will come up to me after a gig, sound­ing some­what sur­prised when they say: ‘Yeah, you were quite good actu­ally… Much bet­ter than I expected.’

And I’ve not yet man­aged to have sex­ual inter­course with the French actress Audrey Tautou. In fact, I’ve not so much as had the chance to even intro­duce myself.

But I’ve held the naked body of the only girl I’ve ever truly loved, looked into her eyes and not needed any­thing else.

*

Poem 17/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

In the begin­ning, I tried my hard­est to keep it under wraps.

My dirty lit­tle secret, like a sor­did love affair with an older mar­ried woman. Or a middle-aged man try­ing to con­ceal his pen­chant for down­load­ing cheap Euro­pean porn off the internet.

But this sort of thing is impos­si­ble to hide away for too long.

And when the evi­dence is this con­clu­sive, denial just appears an act of sheer desperation.

It was recently brought to my atten­tion that I’ve started to groan aloud when I have to reach down and pick up heavy objects.

And I’ve taken to com­plain­ing about the youth; start­ing sen­tences with things like ‘I remem­ber when I was young…’

When friends first began point­ing this out to me, I was ashamed. I’d defi­antly refuse to accept their claims that I was ‘always grumpy’ and ‘such an old man’ or that I ‘dress like a golfer’.

But I recently spent £22 on a dress­ing gown, and it’s get­ting harder to defend my corner.

So now I embrace it. (Get­ting on, I mean. Not the dress­ing gown. That I just wear around the house.)

I’ve also pur­chased a tweed jacket and splashed out on some expen­sive spec­ta­cles. (Although these are more a prac­ti­cal neces­sity than a lifestyle choice. With­out them, I can’t see properly.)

And I don’t really mind the fact that I’m get­ting older, because some­times it’s nice to get to bed at a rea­son­able hour on the weekends.

So I can then lis­ten to Jarvis Cocker’s Sun­day Ser­vice on 6music with­out feel­ing like my head is about to explode due to exces­sive pill pop­ping the night before.

And to be able to eat a Sun­day roast with­out want­ing to chuck it back up immediately.

And look for­ward to watch­ing Match Of The Day 2 with a clear head, cup of tea and slice of lemon driz­zle cake, despite not really lik­ing Colin Mur­ray, or the fact that Arse­nal lost 8–2.

*

Poem 16/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

’Pammy,’ I call out from the kitchen to my dearly beloved, who sits gaz­ing at the tele­vi­sion in the liv­ing room. ‘I’ve just had a text from Macca. He wants me to go and watch the foot­ball down The Fox & Hound with him.’

No reply. She just car­ries on sit­ting there, watch­ing a repeat of Chang­ing Rooms on BBC One. (It’s the one where Handy Andy loses his tem­per with Lau­rence Llewelyn-Bowen).

‘Yeah, reckon we might get a Chi­nese after. Check out that new place on the high street.’

Still noth­ing. Just the sound of Carol Smi­lie patro­n­is­ing an unhappy couple.

‘Maybe head out to a club later on. You don’t mind… Do you, babe?’

‘The one thing I said was no green,’ Rob from Nor­wich says to the cam­era, hav­ing just been intro­duced to his newly-decorated lime green bedroom.

‘Thanks, babe. I’ll text you later.’ I say, giv­ing Pam a peck on the cheek, grab­bing my keys from the bas­ket on the table and head­ing out the front door.

There are def­i­nite upsides to hav­ing an inflat­able doll for a girl­friend, I think to myself, while pon­der­ing the sort of shenani­gans Macca and I might get up to.

*

Poem 15/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

• Wake up
• Hang out washing.
• Feed kids and get them off to school.
• Drive to Mabe and track down Phillip Burns. Punch him in the face for get­ting off with San­dra Williams all those years ago.
• Drop folder off at work.
• Pick up wages.
• Set Bar­gain Hunt to record on Sky+.
• Sit at bed­room win­dow watch­ing Mrs. Mooney next door while she does her daily aerobics.
• Pos­si­bly eat a baguette. Maybe salad and cream cheese.
• Fetch kids from school.
• Spend an hour learn­ing French with Michel Thomas.
• Cook din­ner.
• Put the bins out.
• Prank call Phillip Burns pre­tend­ing to be his dead grandfather.
• Put kids to bed.
• Tell Suzie I love her.
• Try not to snore.

*

Poem 14/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

I sup­pose you had a right to intervene.

After all, it’s just as much your flat as mine. And you’ve got sev­eral bags of stuff that you’re yet to unpack.

It’s dif­fi­cult try­ing to sort through what’s worth hang­ing on to and what isn’t though.

If I could, I’d keep it all. But you’ve already warned that if I do that, you’ll leave me.

So it’s time to make some decisions.

But despite what you say, I love every sin­gle one of these so called ‘awful woolly jumpers’.
Plus win­ter is on its way soon.

And though I haven’t got round to it yet, I have every inten­tion of read­ing Pop­u­lar Marine Fish For Your Aquar­ium ~ Vol­umes 1–8.

And The Beginner’s Guide To Philosophy.

And that Dick­ens col­lec­tion might be worth some­thing someday.

I may not own a record player, but it’s only a mat­ter of time. So while it may seem imprac­ti­cal to you, I’d pre­fer not to get rid of the mul­ti­ple stacks of vinyl and cas­sette tapes.

That Talk­ing Heads sin­gle is a rarity.

And I bought the Mouse­hole Male Voice Choir LP because I liked the cover, but also because my grand­dad used to sing with them. Although he was a bit of a dick, he’s dead now, so it’s nice to have a lit­tle some­thing to remem­ber him by.

Still, you’ve no sym­pa­thy when it comes to my predilec­tion for nos­tal­gia. And even I find it dif­fi­cult to jus­tify keep­ing a sculp­ture of an owl con­structed from the dif­fer­ent parts of a dis­man­tled clock.

So you’ve given me a dead­line. If at least half ain’t gone by Sun­day, then it’s goodbye.

In hind­sight, I prob­a­bly shouldn’t have arranged to go rum­mag­ing in my favourite Cause­way Head haunts this afternoon.

But it’s been a while since I’ve vis­ited Barnado’s.

And my mum’s already tipped me off about an old tweed jacket in Oxfam.

As well as a box full of fam­ily por­traits from the thir­ties lan­guish­ing on the bot­tom shelf of Can­cer Research.

*

Poem 13/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

My lips have been brag­ging ever since you first lay a smacker on them.

Now they won’t stop bang­ing on, ask­ing ques­tions, antic­i­pat­ing when it might hap­pen again.

Because the first time felt like I’d been sucker-punched. Or like when I try to exe­cute a bicy­cle kick on the foot­ball pitch but fail to arch my back prop­erly and end up wind­ing myself. It knocks the stuff­ing right out of me.

And it’s left me with a sense of uneasi­ness. Like when you trap a wasp under a glass. What do you do then? Leav­ing him to suf­fo­cate seems cruel but the sec­ond you try and set him free else­where he’s going to go men­tal and attempt to sting you, right?

And that feel­ing isn’t some­thing that I would usu­ally enjoy, but when it’s you doing the dam­age I can’t stop myself com­ing back for more.

*

Poem 12/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

There’s not much to do in Westerham.

I would spend my week­ends walk­ing alone. I’d amble up to the local recre­ational field and sit myself down on the frosty grass beneath a tree and amongst the dead leaves and slugs and snails. I’d cir­cle the foot­ball pitch and the grass would crunch beneath my boots, like the sound of a giant eat­ing a bowl of Shred­dies at breakfast.

All the while I would think about how slow the days were drag­ging by, like an old steam train chug­ging along the tracks.

Then I’d go back to my uncle’s house and watch Final Score, hop­ing that Arse­nal had man­aged to beat West Bromwich Albion and that Man­ches­ter United had slipped up at Ewood Park.

And I’d make myself mac­a­roni cheese for din­ner and drink some wine and smoke some more cig­a­rettes and write poetry in my (cousin’s) room while star­ing at the giant poster of Jakki Degg’s arse.

But Jakki Degg didn’t really do any­thing for me. And most of the poetry I was writ­ing was shit anyway.

*

Poem 11/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

Take a lit­tle walk down to Sandy Cove, it’s one of my favourite spots on the planet.

Where the jagged edge of the Cor­nish coast­line merges into indus­trial wasteland.

One man cuts a lone­some fig­ure, cast­ing his fish­ing rod off the end of the pier. The early bird catches the worm, they say. But judg­ing by the look on his face, he’s caught fuck all so far.

An elderly cou­ple recline in deck chairs beside their parked car; sun­glasses, news­pa­pers and a wrin­kled bronze complexion.

Wan­der through the weeds and this­tles, across the tar­mac and gravel, and lis­ten to the seag­ulls squawk from up high or the waves break gen­tly on smooth eroded rock.

Learn from the graffiti-stained wall which sticks out like a sore thumb that ‘Jimmy Frethes is a per­vert’, that ‘Tamzin iz a slag’, that ‘Jason + Mandy woz ere’ and that ‘Fat Bar­rie sells dope’.

But be care­ful not to tread in any one of the many dog shits scat­tered across the foot­path, as if strate­gi­cally placed there like land-mines on a battlefield.

*

Poem 10/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

‘And now, hav­ing cut my beau­ti­ful assis­tant Marie in two, I shall put her back together again!’ the Amaz­ing Marco declared to the audi­ence with a twin­kle in his eye and a Cheshire Cat grin stretched across his chops. But as he turned round and spot­ted the blood seep­ing out of the pair of wooden boxes and trick­ling across the stage, he was resigned to accept­ing that health & safety were really going to come down hard on him this time.

Par­tic­u­larly with it occur­ring so soon after the inci­dent with the rabbit.

*

Poem 9/20 of ‘My Hard Drive Went And Died On Me’
by Cal­lum Mitchell (2011)

As his wife stood by the front door to their house with her bags packed, wait­ing for her taxi to arrive, Mal­colm couldn’t help think­ing that his reac­tion to her admis­sion ear­lier that after­noon that she’d sold all his old ath­let­ics tro­phies at Sunday’s car-boot, was per­haps a lit­tle rash.

*