I have a plan…

A very wise woman recently told me that the secret of life, well, one of the secrets anyway, is to have a plan. This lady, a person of great beauty and goodness, told me that anything is possible with the right plan. And so I have decided that I must have one. But there are so many available…which should I choose? There is no need to worry because she will help me. She? Lets call her M, for want of a better letter. M suits her perfectly. She is the definitive M, unless you are a fan of James Bond, of course.

M told me that I must first decide what I want from life. Now, that is a complex question with more answers than I care to imagine. I once yearned for the great roles in Chekhovian dramas. I saw myself as Konstantin, (who shoots himself), or the Baron, (who gets shot), or Triofimov, (who certainly should be shot).  There seems to be a common thread here… So, let’s pass on theatre.

Do I want money? Well, money is useful up to a point. It keeps you warm, (no, I don’t mean by burning it), it feeds you, (and I don’t mean lightly toasted pound notes with cheese), and it keeps the wolves from your door, (although I wouldn’t try it in the Canadian wilds…the wolves might just leave your jangling coins and chew on your jangling bones). And, as the Beatles said, it can’t buy you love, although most marriages seem to think it can and should, and some men have tried to purchase affection without success. But it can be helpful, and a little financial security would be good.

The problem is I live in Vienna. And no matter how much you earn in Austria, you have to pay more than that in tax. Letters from the tax office are actually written in blood, the blood of citizens foolish enough to be more than 5 minutes late with their social security payments. The only people to escape these extreme punishments are chimney sweeps and coffee house owners, the two businesses vital to the well being of this country. Oh, and anyone with a violin, dressed as Mozart, or carrying a pastry. And if you have a small, yappy dog, or a blue rinse in your hair, you get a large discount.  It is a strange country in many ways…or possibly in most ways…

Should I seek a new relationship? After I became single again, I thought about it for about 5 minutes and then stumbled upon the answer, I fell in love with a…well, it doesn’t matter where she came from. I can’t explain why or how it happened.  She appeared, we met, and I fell in love.  Unfortunately she lived with an Austrian astrophysicist of quite unnatural brilliance.  He wore a monocle, drank only mineral water, wore sensible shoes, and drove practical cars at breakneck speeds.  He was young, good looking, had his own teeth, and I fell in love with his woman. And she, I think, fell a little in love with me. But just a little. And probably not quite enough…so love is probably not the new way.

Which leads to my next little obstacle, my wife, or should that be almost but not quite ex-wife. How do you become unmarried? I don’t mean how do you get divorced. That’s easy. You go to a lawyer, empty your heart, rage at the world, and then he gives you a bill for every penny she’s left you with, she runs off with the first halfwit she meets, and it’s over. You take yourself off to the nearest bar and drown your sorrows with the 15 Euros you have tucked into your sock for emergencies. No, I don’t mean divorce. I mean how do you become unmarried. As if the preceding 15 years had never happened to you. As if you had never been involved with a Norwegian and spent large periods of your life struggling over the glaciers that form the Viking heart and soul. As if you were still young enough and naïve enough to believe…in what?

The thing is, once married always married. You can’t undo the vows and pledges, even though they apparently mean about as much as a politician’s promises when an election is called. You can’t forget, although you might seek electric shock therapy to make you forget, the bad times. As for the good times, I have no wish to try to forget those…

Where does that leave me? Perhaps I could make a list of the things I cannot do but which a full and complete life should encompass. On the other hand, a reminder of my inadequacies, which have been pointed out to me by countless women, not a few men, and several dogs, might well leave me in such a state of shock that I would be forced to abandon all hope and become an accountant, or even worse, a teacher of English as a foreign language, and as English is a foreign language to me, I don’t think that would take me very far.

I could list the things I could do…but the column of my achievements would be, shall we say, on the short side, and only of interest to therapists, stand-up comedians, and possibly my mother.  Or I could…no, there are far too many ‘ors’ in my life, an endless supply of ‘maybes’, and ‘if onlys’ too numerous to make sense of. It’s about time I took control of the little that is left and made the damn thing work.  So, what do I really want to do?

Well, I want to learn to drive. I’ve always loved cars. Not all cars, but idiosyncratic rattling UK and Italian models of a certain era. Actually, I dream of owning a small vintage sports car and setting off for tiny adventures with someone I care for in the seat next to me, the rain gently leaking through the crumpled hood, and our breaths quickly steaming up the windscreen and quarter lights. The journey would be the important thing, not the destination, although, as the sports car in question would be British and almost as old as me, perhaps reaching the end of the next street would be a good beginning. And who knows what ending it might lead to…

I must learn to play the saxophone.  I have no idea if I have any musical talent, apart from an ability to play the National Anthem on the spoons, and it really doesn’t matter, but if I could play ‘It Never Entered My Mind’ only once in my strange life, I think it would almost let me die happy on the spot. I am in love with jazz almost as much as I am in love with…ah, too much information. After all, we’ve only just met.

I have a desperate need to return to New York. My mind drifts almost every day to thoughts of Greenwich Village. I long to spend my evenings in the Blue Note or Smalls, drinking in the music, along with occasional beers and bourbons, and possibly, just maybe, meeting someone whose life is as fragile as mine. We’d make contact over a dry Manhattan, find we had the need to get to know each other, and the time would simply pass until there was nothing left to say. We’d arrange to meet the next day at the Museum of Modern Art, drink coffee at the Carnegie, walk in Central Park…but…

I should never fall in love again. I am no good at it, and it leaves me lost and even more alone that when it all began. On the other hand, maybe I am good at it but am completely out of practice. I prefer to look at it in this light. However, if anyone wants to test this hypothesis, I strongly suggest you talk to the one or two ladies who’ve taught me everything I do not know about the subject.

And so, at last, it seems I have a plan. I shall drive to New York with my saxophone and meet someone, although not the love of my life, over cocktails and ‘Stolen Moments’ in the Half Note. And everything will be ok. Or so I am assured by M. And she is a very clever lady with sparkling eyes and a never-ending determination that things will come right if you want them to. Should I believe her?  And what is there to lose anyway?

Now, where can I learn about sax, sex and parallel parking? Is any of it actually legal? And is it possible to do all three at once without calling for medical assistance?

There was this…

How far might we go in pursuit of humour? I ask this innocent question having been harangued by a young woman after making a silly remark at the expense of a far-eastern country of which, in all honesty, I know little, and which I dare not name for fear of reprisals. How, I asked, can I be expected to take a country that eats sushi seriously? Why should I not express doubts over the sanity of a people that insists on eating a fish so poisonous that only certified chefs may prepare it, leading to a number of deaths every year? Thinking my points entirely reasonable, you will imagine my surprise at the wild eyed response aimed in my direction by the Canadian actress I had, up to that point, considered as harmless as a woman can be. Which, of course, is not very,

Far too many countries take themselves far too seriously. This is a dangerous state, leading to dangerous States, leading to chaos, destruction, and Macdonald’s restaurants. All right, so perhaps the use of Macdonald’s and restaurant in the same sentence is unacceptable, but you get my drift. I would suggest that civilisation, as we know it, can only survive if we tease each other mercilessly. National characteristics are generally amusing, sometimes hilarious, and often faintly ridiculous, and yet they help to make us the individuals we are. As such, we should not be afraid of them but celebrate them, even if it enables the rest of the world to laugh at us.  This can even apply to Canadians, despite the regular humour bypass operations carried out in Quebec hospitals. (Have you ever seen, ‘Kids in the Hall’?)

I have never been entirely sure of Canadians. They would seem to be a simple people intent on communing with the earth and exporting sporting stars to the United Kingdom. They collect maple syrup, play delightful games such as ice hockey, have been known to allow their cousins across the border to make cut-price television programs in Vancouver, and entertain the world with their comic politicians. Who will ever forget Pierre Trudeux and his pantomime family? How the continental sophisticates of middle-of-nowhere Canadian provincial life amused us all with their wild ideas of a Free French state, distributing baguettes and soft cheese all round, and with vineyards as far as the buffalo could roam. Sadly, Canadian wine never did catch on as the local Grizzly bears developed a taste for both the grapes and growers, and Brie could never really take the place of blubber and elk antlers in the native North American diet. This begs the question of what is Canada all about? The answer would seem to be that it’s about being terribly worldly and serious.

I have often thought of Canada as a kind of USA with a conscience, and no little culture. The literary world is inhabited, almost entirely it would seem, by Canadians, theatre directors with new and thrilling ideas pour forth from cosmopolitan North America at a fearful rate, and both Jazz and intelligent rock music owes a great debt to the descendants of the Hudson Bay Company. Canada, it could be supposed, is awash with artistic, critical and scientific talent, but the worrying thing is that they are losing the ability to use that most basic of tools, that most essential of all human skills, irony. They are, in short, becoming Americans.

Now, would it be so bad if Canada were to become the 51^st State? It would lead to some jealousy in Britain, where certain members of the lunatic fringe have been striving to achieve this status since Margaret Thatcher began her ‘special relationship’ with Ronald Reagan. What a wonderful couple they made, ex-matinee idol and back street brawler, like two characters from a bad horror film they terrified the world with their threats and cajoling. They took us all to the brink before someone removed his batteries, hid her flick-knife and false teeth, and restored us to the normality that was Bill Clinton and John Major. (They also had a ‘special relationship’, but Hilary and Norma knew all about it.) The advantage in this new arrangement for the US is that Canada has vast tracts of wilderness, huge areas of natural beauty, just waiting for the finishing touches that only an oil company can add. What can be better than an hour or two of Moose spotting whilst delighting in the nobility of an oil pipeline? Better still, add to your memories of the family picnic by holding it in the shadow of a concrete tower belching black smoke and carbon monoxide? It doesn’t stop there of course. If Esso or Texaco didn’t fancy setting up a refinery or two in the more desolate parts of the Northern Provinces, what better use could be made of the area than as a ‘not really a prisoner of war’ camp, so beloved of the Bush Administration? Or perhaps it’s time that Disney opened a theme park North of the Arctic Circle? Mind you, the differences between a prison camp and Disney World are so minimal that it should actually be possible to combine the two without too much trouble, and without anyone noticing.

But let’s say, for arguments sake, that for whatever reason the people of Canada, ungrateful lot, decide against the ‘US Solution’. How do we return them to the fun-loving, comedy festival holding chaps we know they used to be? Does the answer lie in funnier education, with laughter and joke classes for the under sixteen’s? Or should they, perhaps, pursue a farcical approach to world affairs? They could follow the example of the French, for instance, who have attempted for years to appear ridiculous on the world stage. But while they have succeeded up to a point, they have yet to show any discernible sense of humour.

No, it would seem that there is no clear path to our goal of comic nirvana. Instead, we must strive to bring laughter and fun to the sad eyed many we may meet on our travels. I, for one, still hope to see a smile begin in a certain Canadian actress’s eye, a flicker of response to a joke or a tale, instead of a steely stare and an unsaid threat. I have recently been told a funny story that might just do the trick. Would you like to hear it? Oh, all right, there was this Englishman…