This ailment declares itself through all sorts of symptoms. Some unfortunates sing songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber, (this is incurable without drastic surgery), a number of them have been known to drink hard liquor, (or in a worse case scenario, herbal tea), and a minority ride bell free ancient bicycles on public walkways encouraging fear in the hearts of pedestrians everywhere. (It is, I believe, the modern equivalent of Roman chariot racing…a sort of Ben Hur without the horses but with double the casualties.)

Life is a fearful thing. There be dragons in every dream, salt in every sugar bowl, and soap operas on every television channel. Each street corner seems to be inhabited by either a preacher for the ‘Church of Dolly Parton and Latter Day Gingham Dresses’, someone painted gold or silver and standing still in the hope you’ll give them money to go away, or a group of musicians from the Andes wearing colourful ponchos and large hats, playing carefully carved wooden flutes. Nowhere is safe from these songs telling ancient tales of the high mountains, Spanish treachery and llamas. (Trust me, I’ve heard Peruvian folk tunes in both Oslo and Aberdeen while the snow has been cascading from the less than blue sky and ice has been forming on the chilled noses of the shivering performers.)

You can’t ignore life, or at least you can try but it will catch you out eventually. You’ll be standing there, minding your own or other people’s business, when something will happen that wakes you from that daze of safety you’ve adopted to get you through the week. A policeman will arrest you for looking drunk in charge of a tree, (this might be a peculiarly British thing), or a particularly vicious pigeon might dive bomb and steal the sandwich you’ve been saving for a rainy day, or perhaps an innocent looking apple will fall from the tree you are sheltering under and render you unconscious, allowing the white slave trader who just happens to be standing nearby to steal your wallet, your identity, and then sell your body for medical research. (Just one of the reasons why I don’t carry a wallet!)

Now, of course, there are some who look upon all such acts as a positive signal, and who use these little episodes to sign their way to a Californian lifestyle of fine wine, money and Puerto Rican housemaids, but I cannot take that road. I prefer to think that life is dangerous, scary, and, what’s worse, uninsurable. It’s best to steer clear of excess, whether that be of light, laughter or, heaven forefend, garlic. But you have to leave the safety of the cave sometimes, and that’s how it happened. I think. Or should that is how she happened…?

When I say happened, I don’t actually mean happened. Actually, nothing has, will, or can happen, as I doubt she really knows I exist. To be honest I’m not sure that I exist. Oh, we chat, share the odd drink, catch the very occasional show, but does she see me, and if she did would she call the police, produce a mace spray, or draw a small revolver and aim it at my heart? Having seen myself in the mirror a few minutes after breakfast, I would tend towards all three. Twice. (Actually, I might claim that we chat but I am stretching a point. She chats while I talk unintelligible gibberish at a very high speed. Why do women have this effect on men, or even me?)

To the story: I am in recovery after spending nearly a third of my life with the one woman. It has taken three years to reach this stage, three years of dark evenings and lonely drinks, of staring through windows as the rain fell whilst all the time hoping the phone would ring and a voice would say ‘I am here’. Three years of fear and anger and hopeless moments, but I am now in recovery, and I can look at this vision in wonder. I gaze at her and my mind is as a blank. She walks into a room and suddenly the lights go on. She has entered the periphery of my world and suddenly I am almost whole, or at least the bits of me that remain seem to show signs of being in reasonable working order, but I’m not insane enough to believe that this will lead to a future spent in her life affirming warmth. I may dare to dream, but…no.

Life on your own can be rather dull and empty, the dullness being caused by too much time in your own company, and the empty being the number of used bottles I have to take to the recycling site every week. I am a huge investor at the bottle bank, have never had an overdraft, and expect a large amount of interest to be added to my account any day now. During these days and nights of solo existence I have taken up many hobbies, almost all of them completely useless. For instance, instead of learning the language of the country I live in, I now collect ancient coffee machines and battered samovars. Rather than read life improving books and novels by impressive authors with unpronounceable names, I gaze longingly at the strange little bar two floors below my apartment and imagine lives for the two or three who seem to spend every waking hour there there. When I could be writing my memoirs, ‘Where Did I Put That Bottle Opener?’, I prefer to spend my time looking for that bottle opener. (I know it’s here somewhere.)

Now, you may claim that I am a very sad person who should stop daydreaming and move forward, and maybe you are right. I will certainly find myself a German class, possibly dispose of several hot drink makers, and perhaps even buy a new corkscrew, much as I like the old one, (I’m sure I’ll find it eventually). I could learn to drive, buy a bicycle, drink less, write more, and find a way to live that gives a little hope for whatever time have left. The problem is, I rather like the emotions I have been feeling for the past months, even if it makes sleep quite impossible and leads me to burst into songs by Stephen Sondheim on the 46 tram.

Maybe I should take Chet Baker’s advice and say, ‘darn that dream. On the other hand, and I think this is more likely, I might just dive right in and damn the consequences. It doesn’t matter that I might find myself in deep water and can’t swim. Perhaps she’ll rescue me. And if not, it’s only my imagination. Or is it?

We are, I think, friends, although immediately after our first meeting, I took out a life insurance policy that, if it cannot cover acts of god, does cater for acts of women, (which may well be the same thing). I also changed my name, moved house, and began taking a variety of little known Far Eastern self-defence courses. And all I’d said to her was ‘hello’…

I think it is safe to say, albeit from behind a large sofa, that I do not know of a single man who actually understands the female sex. I have come to the conclusion that all women should come with a warning, possibly a small tattoo that says something along the lines of:

‘Danger! Do not touch! Do not feed! Avert eyes at all times!’ Abandon hope all yea who enter here!’

It seems to me that they should also be provided with their own individual instruction manual taking you from initial contact, onto that first dinner together, then meeting with her parents, the signing over of all your worldly goods, and right through until that certain moment when they decide that you are to be replaced by a more up to date version. Of course, the publication in question would probably require numerous volumes and consist mainly of warnings and disclaimers.

‘If you choose to be involved with this model, the makers cannot be held responsible for any hospital bills accrued or mental instability brought on by continuous exposure.’

‘Please note that shoes have a finite, and necessarily short, life and must be replaced at regular intervals’.

“In the case of a malfunctioning female, IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT, and you must accept the consequences’.

‘Please remember that, by design, women are always right. Men are constructed in a way that makes them generally incompetent, and any who do not share this attribute must be returned to the maker for a full refund.’

In return, perhaps men should carry a small card with a reminder…

‘When our product has outlived its use, please dispose of this shell of a male carelessly but in an ecologically sound way.’

It’s difficult to understand why we choose to align ourselves with any particular woman when the invisible rules and regulations which accompany each and every relationship are rewritten by our partner as and when it suits her. It can hardly be a coincidence that men generally live for a shorter time than women, (although it probably feels longer).

And yet, despite the pain that love, lust and shopping for furniture at IKEA can bring, do we actually have a choice? You see, I am more and more beginning to accept that, as a man, (and I do use the term very loosely), relationship decisions are decided upon, if not by individual women, then by a panel of ‘friends’.

Last week I attended a wedding of an old chum, an aging juvenile lead who had moved to Germany, fallen for a tall blond with powerful parents, and decided to align himself with this family for better or for worse. Oh, and I almost forgot, he loves the lady in question too, and I believe that she tolerates him, which is as much as we can expect.

Now, German weddings seem to be a snapshot of life in the Teutonic world. Endless drinking of (not at all bad) wine, large meals of deep fried meat with a minimal amount of barely cooked vegetables, strange costumes for both bride and guests, (lederhosen anyone?), and long, rambling speeches that may or may not suggest the invasion of Poland and annexing of the southern parts of the Czech Republic. It all went swimmingly, and no doubt this was due in no small part to the director of operations, a kind of Medusa from Munich taking the role of what we call the Maid of Honour across the channel.

She did not wear a uniform or carry a riding crop, but there was a power and purpose to this lady that brought to mind the finer moments of the Ring Cycle, especially the little known sections, now rarely performed, that involve sticks with spikes, hot pokers and the rack. If only there had been a suit of bronze armour available, this fine representative of the female race would surely have buckled herself into it, jumped on a white stallion, and driven all men back across the Styx never to return.

As the days wore on…all right, as the hours wore on, (it was a German wedding after all), we mere males became more and more enthralled by this Amazon as she patrolled the room, checking for subversives and gently leading them to a sort of twilight zone by the lake where they were shown the error of their ways and then sold to wealthy Bavarian families for use as hat stands or draught excluders. It also became clear that the wedding would not have been allowed if this latter day Brünnhilde and her followers had decreed otherwise. She was the power behind the throne, and at this time of all times, her words were law.

The wedding went like clockwork, and a small profit was made by the auctioning of certain individuals who had performed various acts of rebellion, such as requesting a small green salad, drinking red wine with white meat, or being found in possession of a sense of humour. And the next day, the survivors, we happy few, were even allowed a five minute start before the dogs were released to ensure we left the property. It was a truly invigorating experience, and the doctors say my chances of recovery are quite good.

I am leading a solitary life at the moment, and while I am not averse to finding myself at the beck and call of a (very) particular woman, especially if she has a taste for wine, a smile that lights whatever room she happens to be in, and moves in that extraordinary way that leaves you in need of a cold shower whenever she passes by, I am a little worried about being judged by her panel of like minded women. I’ve done it before and failed miserably. I should have known then that I was doomed to failure. If only I’d accepted the decision as final instead of appealing to a higher authority. When it comes to women there is no higher authority and it simply delayed my inevitable descent into the abyss.

And so I ask again, do men have a choice? I still don’t know, but the next time I find myself staring into someone’s eyes, my glass half full and the bottle near to hand, I shall ask her advice, and if she insists on my being judged by her weird sisters, so be it, I shall take my chances. There might only be the slight possibility of surviving such an ordeal but you only live once. I may be a lost cause, but I won’t give up quite yet. Now, where’s my warranty card?

The god, (she disapproved of the word goddess in the same way that carnivores disapprove of vegetarians, actresses disapprove of other actresses, and Austrians generally disapprove), had no idea of how she had arrived at this point in time or at this part of the universe, but it didn’t really matter to her, although she did seem to remember that the decision to transfer her to the ‘Earth Project’ had involved shoes and, funnily enough, a small closet, (see above). She also gave no thought as to what her role in the grand scheme of things might be except that it would involve interior design, colour co-ordination, the occasional song, and feeding a particular feline.

She had vague memories of the time before, but since time had no real meaning, in fact it had yet to be invented, she wasn’t overly bothered. Time actually arrived completely by accident when a Swiss clock maker discovered that, by the cunning use of springs and levers, (and also by selling his soul to a small puss who appeared one evening in search of warm milk and one or two fish paste sandwiches…the cat gets everywhere, I warn you), he could travel back to the very beginning of existence. This medieval mover and shaker then ‘patented’ his Cuckoo Clock, using indeed a live Cuckoo, (who was not a happy bird by any means), in the hope of raking in the profits and making a killing in the future. On his way back to the early 17^th century, having ‘lost’ his feathered friend in a drunken game of I Spy, a game that used to be played by the immortals for large sums of money, which is strange when you consider that there wasn’t much to spy as nearly everything had yet to be created, including, funnily enough, money, he decided to stop off for a sandwich in 12^th century Romania. Unfortunately for him, the Cuckoo, a wily and malicious creature, got there first…and the clock maker was plucked, stuffed and given a good basting. However, he had planted the germ of an idea. Sadly, when the patent lapsed it fell into the hands of unscrupulous merchants who built the economy of Switzerland on time before investing heavily in chocolate, cheese and safe deposit boxes. One of them even attempted to keep his cheese in a deposit box made of milk chocolate but was arrested before things got really messy. Apparently, you may only use dark chocolate to store dairy products in a number of French speaking cantons.

Now, while time had no meaning, it did pass rather slowly, leaving Astrid, for this was the name of our goddess, in a desperate search for things to do in order to pass the invisible seconds of each non-existent day. She had tried reading, but at that time, (or rather non-time), there were, as yet, no books. There had been, at the very beginning, ‘the word’, but no one could remember what ‘the word’ was. Many suggestions had been made as to what it might be, and most of them are unrepeatable and consist of about four letters. (Western gods would seem to have the sense of humour of a teenage male and about as much intelligence.) It has lately been suggested that ‘the word’ in question was the first word uttered by ‘god’ as he started work on the planet earth, which would make it ‘ouch’…this particular all powerful being was not very good with his angelic hands and had only succeeded in hitting his thumb with Thor’s hammer as he attempted to nail the stars into the sky. But to get back to our story, reading was a no-go area.

She then tried knitting, or would have if there had been any sheep. There were needles and patterns, and Zeus had even ordered a new cardigan for those chilly autumn nights on Olympus, however the lack of wool brought the project to an abrupt end. And then Sigu, who had a thing about modern animal design, came up with the idea for the Alpaca, but the early prototype didn’t quite meet the specifications laid down in his initial plans. ‘Too many teeth and not enough hair’ was the official reason given for the failure of the Mark I, and by the time an improved design arrived, workers had already been laid-off in the Bolivian Mammal Works, (or BMW as the management called it), and the entire idea was mothballed for several generations.

However, her dalliance with South American entities alerted her to a certain something which had come into existence after an incident in the eternal kitchen. A small nuclear explosion had occurred when Ra allowed a little gold and plutonium to come into contact by accident while he was trying to impress his date for the evening. After the smoke had cleared and Daphne, (for it was she), had given her escort the news that his presence was no longer required this side of Hades, all that was left of the would be romantic interlude was a small ball of precious metal. In a fit of pique, Ra threw it across the universe where it bounced off Saturn, beginning a chain of events that would see rings appearing around the would be planet, and then pinged back towards this side of the solar system, deflected off the sun, and bounced several times on the lunar surface, turning off all the lights in one particular area and leaving us with the dark side of the moon. The bean then accelerated into earthly orbit and imbedded itself in a Peruvian hillside, where, over a period of time that might have been anything from a month to a lifetime, (remember, time was somewhere between the tick and the tock at that point in history), it took root and began to grow. After many blue moons the first shoots appeared, followed after an eternity by some fruits, and, to cut a long story short, due to an intervention by the afore mentioned cat, (don’t ask), the first chocolate was produced from these pods, for the plant was cocoa.

And what did Astrid do with the chocolate? That would be telling. I’ll simply say that if you attempted it in public today it might leave you with an enormous smile on your face but lead to a lengthy spell in prison. Just talk to the cat. Any cat…

I suppose that, given I am sitting at my ancient Mac in a café and words are appearing on the screen in a somewhat erratic fashion, then the answer is yes. I must admit I’ve been here for over an hour and have so far managed only to add to my list of possible essay titles, (I look forward to dealing with ‘The Ophelia Problem’), and think deeply about what I should have for lunch, (cheese on toast perhaps), but suddenly the flood gates have opened and I am ready to put finger to keyboard, if you’ll excuse the phrase.

It would seem I have a major problem when it comes to writing in that, if I actually try to compose something to order, my mind is a blank. I basically have to throw words on the screen, juggle them about a bit, stand on one leg, hum ‘The Internationale’, and then, if I am lucky, a theme will appear as if out of nowhere. I suppose you could say the words come first followed by an idea of sorts. Well, it works for me.

Writing is a great escape, almost as important to me as the weekly pub quiz, and only just behind red wine, music and meeting dogs. It is, in all probability, more important than sex, but my memory no longer goes back far enough for me to remember…

What is it with memory? I have been doing quite a bit of reminiscing lately. I think it started when an old friend, someone I haven’t seen in about fifteen years, got back in touch and suggested a visit to Vienna. We met when we were both teenagers at a summer school for aspiring actors, (yes, I was young once upon a time). He played guitar, charmed the girls, and introduced me to the music of James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg. (Dylan was beyond my understanding. I tried some ‘Blood on the Tracks’, but had no ‘Desire’ to continue. Can’t sing, can’t play guitar…apart from that, marvellous.) And then Andy changed direction, became an accountant, got married, moved away, got divorced, eventually emigrated to Canada, got married again, and we lost contact. But we will catch up over countless Austrian beers and ancient LP’s, and perhaps a fragment of our youth will return, if only for an hour or two. We may even look at old photos, but that might be going a step too far. I have visions of scary hairstyles and even more terrifying clothes. Oh fashion, where is thy sting?

How much will we have changed since those heady days when the world was our oyster and hope sprang eternal? I was told quite firmly last week that hopes and dreams are worth little unless they become reality in which case I would have failed to pass go. I’m not sure I agree with this assessment of my existence, but she was probably right. Have I wasted countless years? Maybe, but I have so many friends in my life that I must have done something right.

It would appear to be quite unusual to end up doing what you were desperate to do when you were young and ever so slightly naive. I’ve spent the last thirty odd years wanting to act, and so, I suppose, as I am on a Viennese stage in a few short hours kissing a beautiful girl in a back-to-basics production of Orwell’s ‘1984’, I’m actually rather lucky. I think most of the males who see the production are envious, although that doesn’t have much to do with me. Indeed, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. OK, so I’m not playing Chekhov at the RSC or collecting my umpteenth Tony on Broadway, but I do spend my evenings in a theatre with like-minded people, telling a story and hopefully adding something to the lives of the audience. The money might be almost non-existent, but we are doing something we believe in. After all, I could be working long hours for some faceless banking corporation or insurance company, (and believe me I have done this), arriving home with only a microwave meal and a bottle of something to keep me company through the night.

I am willing to accept that I may have ever so slightly misjudged the balance between dreams and reality in my life. All right, I have frequently made the most momentous miscalculations and mistakes over the years, but while I could attempt to address this in the time I have left, it would, I think, take something away from what and who I am. I agree that I am quite probably the most inept self-publicist on the planet, which is suicidal in the theatre world, and that when it comes to blowing my own trumpet I seem to have totally mislaid the mouthpiece. It has endlessly frustrated the women in my life, (not that there have been many), but that was the guy they met in the first place and so surely they’ve only themselves to blame. And there must have been some good times…even I can remember those.

Having said all this, I do come home in the evening to a cold sandwich and with the need for a bottle or two to get me through the hours of darkness, so not everything in my vineyard is rosy. (Or should that be rosé?) Perhaps there will come a time for action instead of studied inaction in the coming months, but I don’t think I can write those days quite yet. I can dream a little, hope a little, and maybe something or, more importantly, someone, will arrive in my crumbling little life and blow the past away. Maybe they are there already but I simply haven’t noticed them…now that would be fairly typical.

Until that moment arrives, and god help me if it doesn’t, I shall make occasional visits to Café Sperl, order a pot of coffee, start up my computer, throw words at the screen, and hope that they form themselves into something coherent and possibly amusing.  As I said at the beginning, I have a title I need to work on, ‘The Ophelia Problem’…you want to know the idea? Get thee to a nunnery!

In this little part of Norge, (that’s Norway to any non language student who happens to be reading), in a small cabin by the Oslo Fjord with the sun beating down, (the summer can be a delight in this corner of the frozen North), I am looking back at the early part of my year. I suppose that’s one of the things you do when on holiday. Yes, we are on holiday. We have vacated the grey days of work, and the even greyer roads of Leytonstone, and toddled north to visit the family. Not my family, you understand, but the boss’s family. My family are almost as far north as this point of Scandinavia, but a little further to the west and a touch wetter. And windier. And rather cooler, one would suppose.

I say the boss’s family, but they are actually, and finally, my family, after we silently absconded and got married in the early spring of 2005 in New York. We’d only been together twelve years and so some people might suggest that we rushed things a touch. Perhaps it would have benefited us to have taken a little more time to get to know one another, to discover the real us, to learn about our significant other’s little foibles, but you have to take a risk sometime and ours was marriage. So, here we are a legally bound couple, and now she owns everything I have, and I don’t. Or that’s how it seems. I’m sure there are benefits to wedded bliss, although, despite searching high and low, I haven’t found many yet. I really should have read the small print before getting into this. But there are certainly occasional, very occasional, down sides to this union of two minds.

Take friends, and, if you’ll excuse the cliché, I wish you would take hers. Not all of them I hasten to add, but just one or three who insist on holding strange, unarguable political views and breeding as a group. It’s possible, of course, that breeding forces you into taking up ridiculous positions on everything from the state of the Algerian economy to the price of dog biscuits in Kuala Lumpa. Perhaps, and I say this whilst hiding behind a large sideboard, it is hormonal. But I think not. Indeed, I’m fairly positive this isn’t the case here as these particular females, let’s call them Anne, Line and Ingebjørg, (obviously not their real names), have always been a little difficult with me. Ok, lets say it; they’ve always been difficult with everyone! Or so it appears to this individual… Now, it should be obvious from the above list that these three ladies are Norse, (although I say again that the names used are purely fictitious and are simply a rough guide to help us on our way).  They have their own Scandinavian peculiarities, the most important of which are a sense of humour bypass, a tendency to use violence on the male of the species, and the Viking god-given right never to be wrong. (All Norwegian women, and most Danish, claim to be infallible, whilst Swedish girls claim nothing but the right to be tall, blonde and athletic. Just an observation…) Any similarity between these three and certain characters from a Wagnerian opera has little to do with coincidence and almost everything to do with genetics. In short, even without well-rounded operatic figures, horned helmets and shiny breastplates, they seem to be tour guides from Valhalla Inc., leading the weak and innocent to a predestined doom. But I digress.

Why mention Line, Ingebjørg and Anne, (pseudonyms remember, and in no way similar to the actual names of these young women), and the distress they delight in spreading, whilst we are on holiday? Can I not forget them for just a few short days and revel in the freedoms that August on the Oslo fjord might bring to a tortured soul? Well, yes, I could, if it were not for the ´wedding party´. You see, when we got married we ran away without so much as a word or a gesture to anyone. We flew to the States, bought a licence, dragged a friend in as a witness, stood in line at NY City Hall, said I do, had a beer at a Ukrainian café, and then told friends and family the story as we sipped Manhattans in a Brooklyn bar. (It really was like that.) But now, some months later, we have to pay for our madness by taking part in a strange Norwegian celebration, or feast perhaps, that will make the bosses circle feel part of the event, and the happy couple feel as if we should have run away again! And Ingebjørg, Line and Anne, (and once again I assure you that these names were chosen at random), are, despite my protestations, to be a part of this. And their partners, of course, although two of these unfortunate chaps are, sadly, banned from conversing with me in the belief that I might take the opportunity to lead them to freedom, (or at least the nearest bar). The other manacled male has always seemed to be an all right sort of guy, but that was before he came under the ‘improving’ influence of the one we now know as Anne…although that, of course, isn’t her name, is it? There are also likely to be newly born infants present, children of the afore mentioned couples, gurgling and dribbling, leading their one subject parents to turn each conversation towards the agonies of child birth, or the pleasures of feeding through the hours of darkness, or, god forbid, to reach into a pocket or bag and produce a digital camera filled with images of either the gory birth or endless days of child rearing since. Don’t you just hate digital cameras? And new parents?

So, here we are waiting for the events to unfold. Already this tiny celebration has taken on a life of its own, led by the ever so slightly mad women on the outer fringes of Oslo suburbia, who are even now dreaming of droning speeches, marquees, and catering companies, and it has been accepted by we followers as inevitable. And so we wait, and the awful darkness that is the wedding fest draws ever nearer…and it leaves me with one question, one thought that might yet save us from any more of these torturous celebrations. If we don’t just marry a person but actually marry into a life, is there any way of deciding which areas of your partner’s life you are legally obliged to be involved in? Shouldn’t the marriage licence actually have tick boxes that you can choose either to opt in or opt out of? Questions along the lines of, ‘Do you wish to be a part of all family arguments, especially the one involving your spouse’s behaviour when she was 15 and her use of the family home as a hotel?’ Or, ‘Your wife to be has a long standing grievance with her, so called, best friend, concerning a long haired scruff by the name of Jonas, illegal events in a sauna, and a pickled herring. Do you wish to be a part of the conversation when this all comes to the surface after an evening of ancient recriminations and a glass or five of her fathers very special cask-aged Aquavit?’ It would make life so much simpler.

I have no doubt that in Europe, this semi-civilised continent with numerous peoples and a common history of fighting each other to a standstill, we have no chance of such farsighted thinking. But we were joined together in New York, the cultural heart of the land of the free, (let’s not discuss the use of the words culture and USA in the same sentence here), which surely means we have options, perhaps options yet to be envisaged even there. And this is why I call for divorce to become legal between friends, and possibly, I suggest, amongst some family members. Even the boss is beginning to see that I might have a point here, that a lawful separation from certain acquaintances or blood relations might be beneficial to all parties and lead to a quieter, more contented life. Of course, it goes without saying that this friends and family divorce would only apply to my new family. My old family and friends are in most ways perfectly fine, and actually seem to be fonder of the boss than they are of me. Which is slightly worrying, don’t you think? Mmm, maybe this divorce thing needs a little tweaking, but I’m sure it’s the way forward for we legally bound couples. I mean, there has to be some hope for us, doesn’t there?

The nationalities that arrived included Australians, (they get everywhere, apart from quite possibly Australia), English, Austrian, a solo Scot, and four Bulgarians. Yes four…put it down to drunken revelry on a late night underground train with a particular birthday celebrating woman. Anyway, I sent the invitations by email a few weeks before, only to discover that one of the eastern European ladies was somewhat confused by the word haggis as she believed it might be, not to put too fine a point on it, a sexual disease. It seems an innocent request that she attend a ‘haggis bash’ meant ‘please come over for tantric sex on the rug while I transmit a strange illness to you by the warmth of a roaring fire’, or something along those lines.

It would appear that there is hardly a word in any language that doesn’t mean sex in Bulgarian. Cabbage for instance, a green thing that inspires fear in young children all over the planet, apart perhaps from areas near Munich where it is looked upon as the food of the gods, has some weird connection with the losing of virginity in provincial Plovdiv. ‘I must go eat the lord of all vegetables, the cabbage, and maybe nibble a few princely sprouts as well’, is seen as an invitation to have a wild time in the back garden, and I don’t mean digging up a few carrots and trimming the roses, although now you come to mention it…but no. Let’s just prune that particular subject at the roots! It’s interesting that the most popular occupation in that part of Europe is the growing of green vegetables. (Ok, this is obviously untrue…but it might just be accurate.)

Of course, confusion over words can be a major problem the world over, especially if you’re an American. Citizens of the good ole’ US of A speak in a tongue unlike almost any other language, and yet in some distant form it is related to English. No, not the English found in certain parts of the UK, but more a third cousin twice removed, washed and placed in a spin drier, beaten with sticks, painted a garish colour, mixed with glue, thrown from a tall building, and then blown into a million pieces by high explosives before being put back together by a three year old with her eyes closed, sort of English. I can almost understand my stateside friends who were raised in a major city across the pond, but if they come, for example, from Kansas or Oregon, I might as well be listening to an Eskimo speaking Russian whilst playing the bagpipes.

Leaving English to one side, there are nations who demand the right to speak numerous languages, for example the Swiss, who not content with one have three or possibly four, depending not only on where you were born, but also on which way the latest referendum has gone, India, a country with more languages then people, and China, where there are so many symbols in their alphabet that some are still being discovered as we speak. At the last count Mandarin had 4,598 letters, 76 colours, twenty two birds and a small tree, but that may have changed radically in the few seconds it has taken to write this.

And then there’s style: no, not expensive shoes, silly hats and man-bags, but how different nationalities actually carry out a conversation. Let’s take the French, who can make a request that you stand on the right hand side of an escalator sound romantic, but only if you use an umbrella while listening to protect yourself from the spray that erupts from their Gallic mouths. Or Italians, who flail their arms so much in conversation that the energy they produce, if harnessed, would solve the world’s electricity problems in a trice.

Now, I have to state here, quite unequivocally, that I am no expert on language. I can barely speak my own, and anyone unfortunate enough to be in one of my classes when I taught for a period in Vienna, will probably have less understanding of English than the average member of the ‘Eastenders’ script writing team. However, I think it unlikely that any nation in the world could have as many words with sexual connotations as Bulgarian seems to have. Unless you count Iceland, where the weather is so severe that every sentence includes an invitation to ‘sit by a volcano and examine each other’s glacial heights’, or certain parts of Germany, where the wearing of lederhosen has made sex such an impossibility that people are left to simply imagine what the act might be. It also probably explains Wagner and the Ring Cycle. (Well, something has to!)

Which brings us back to Bulgarian. Today, believe it or not, is Valentine’s Day, a day beloved of card, chocolate, and cuddly toy manufacturers the western world over. But not in the frozen wastes of the Balkans, where a short time after the villagers have completed the daily routine of potato counting and sheep measuring, the sleepy inhabitants will be in a state of high excitement for quite another reason. It is St. Triphon’s Day, the Day of Wine and Love, where every true citizen takes it upon himself, or herself of course, to rush to the cellars, drink of the vine and then find somebody to have a drunken fling with amongst the empty cabernet casks.

So, perhaps it’s not sex, but love, (with a little grape juice thrown in), that Bulgarian language and tradition bring to our party, for if we were all to honour St. Triphon on February 14^th the world might just be a better place. On the other hand, why not celebrate and practice the fine arts of viticulture and the heart each minute of every hour instead of on a single grey day in mid-winter? I have to admit that I need much more practice in one of these skills than I do of the other, but I am loath to say which. Suffice to tell, the bottles are lined up in my cosy room. Would anyone care to join me? I even have my own bottle opener!

Just for a change I am sitting in a favourite haunt of mine in Bratislava. A light lunch of coffee and Slovakian salad, and I search the eyes of fellow diners for signs of light. Monday morning is much the same everywhere, each face a calendar for the week showing day number one, and with freedom too many long hours away.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Slovak women are a delight, and I don’t simply mean the young and foolish. Oh, of course fast food and a lack of exercise is taking its toll, and the rotund are becoming more prevalent, but there is a certain something that suggests true beauty…the same, I think, can be said of Bulgarians, (who are far more dangerous), and the very occasional Austrian, (who are far more…Austrian). Perhaps it’s a central and eastern European thing.

I am here to escape Vienna, work, and life, if only for an hour or three. It was brought to my notice a few days ago that my now ex-wife has become engaged to a serial divorcee, and the news hit me rather harder than it should have. It seems an astonishing choice, and even without this male creature’s changeable nature, it is a difficult thing for me to come to terms with. I met him perhaps once or twice, but he was so utterly invisible that I struggle to see his face. I think he was just about capable of speech, or at least the occasional grunt may have passed his lips. I am unable to answer the question of why a seemingly intelligent woman would give up all hope and align herself with a man who if he had one more brain cell would have doubled his present quota. Do I sound bitter? Damn, and I was trying so hard not to. Failed again. C’est la vie…

The trouble with broken love affairs is that you can easily lose your faith in the people around you. One girl betrays you and your muddled brain begins to think, ‘hang on, if the love of my life can use me as an ash tray, what will all the others, the people I may yet fall in love with, do when they get restless?’ Of course, just because my (ex) wife seems to have bashed her head on a crash helmet once or twice too often and cannot understand what she has lost, it doesn’t mean everyone is like that. Or does it?

I have a friend: let’s call him Brian for want of a better name. He would have us believe that we are not meant to be monogamous. But then Brian, (yes, that really is his name, but don’t tell him I told you as he prefers to think of himself as Sigmund, or even possibly Carl, for reasons too obscure to go into here), lives a solo life in a mountain cabin, thinking deeply about Nabokov, occasionally venturing into the big city to ply his trade as writer/actor/teacher, stare longingly at women between the ages of about 18 and 49, drink two glasses of wine and then slide gracefully under the table.  I love him dearly, but he is an Australian after all, and so how can I take his thoughts on the nature of love, trust and the male middle age crisis seriously? And I pair the words love and trust carefully, for without one, you cannot have the other.

As Chet Baker once sang, I fall in love too easily, I fall in love too fast, but now I think I’d rather not get involved in the whole sorry business again. I want laughter and just a little hope, not tears and a lack of faith in the entire human race, which is what I think I suffer from now. There should be a word or words for it…maybe there are.  I am an unbeliever, a relationship agnostic, or perhaps even a love atheist. Is this really possible? And yet…

I went to a jazz club last night, Porgy and Bess in Vienna, a place I have grown fond of over the past months. There was a trio of Danish singer, Norwegian pianist, and Swedish double bass player, performing. As they began to play I had no real idea what to expect, but the opening notes from keyboard and strings were so achingly beautiful that you could not fail to be moved. If there is need then this was it, and I fell in love again, but this time with the music.

I was there on my own, although the plan had originally been to be with company, but because of Natalie Portman, a late starting film, a Romanian training to become Big Brother, (a long story), and because I’m a rambling idiot, (a very short story), I was alone, and, funnily enough, I found I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to share the moment, or perhaps moments, with someone, but…and so, in between the notes, I glanced around, hoping that this particular someone was there. But she, whoever she is, didn’t arrive, or if she did, we did not find each other after our eyes met while the songstress sang of broken dreams. Or even trip over each other’s feet ending up in a heap in the darkness amongst half empty wine glasses and an untouched strawberry mousse, which I think would be much more likely if I’m involved.

And there’s the problem, to be or not to be single, and do we actually have a choice in the matter? And if we have a choice, can we phone a friend for advice or ask the audience. Life is rather too complicated at times, and if you listen to a little music at the right time, or read some words by Chekhov or Shakespeare late in the evening, it may become blindingly clear, staggeringly unclear, or sometimes even both, and I’m still not sure which I prefer.

One thing I do know, without the right company, (and possibly a decent Pinot Noir), the rest is silence. And so I shall look out two glasses along with that souvenir corkscrew from Ulan Bator, (I knew it would come in useful), and spend a little time investigating my CD collection. I shall then simply wait and see. You never can tell…

Well, I never believed I would hear that phrase uttered, and especially not by a beautiful girl. What did it mean? Had my luck turned for the better with a long evening of Eastern European lust lying ahead? Or was it some little known put-down of the type beloved of most of the women I know?

‘I’m sorry…suck a…’

‘Saxophone. Yes’

‘I thought you said that. Excuse me for asking, but where should I…we…’

‘Suck. Well you need lessons’

Now, you can call me old fashioned if you like, I really don’t mind, but how could this woman know that I had problems with the blowing of my saxophone. Had some long forgotten, (aren’t they all), lover blogged about my inept ‘ musicality’ on the world-wide-web?

‘Yeah, don’t let him near your woodwind honey, he’ll just nibble the reed for a few seconds and then fall asleep blaming a hard day at the office. And as for his tongue work…’

‘Why…how do you know I need lessons?’

‘Well, it’s obvious isn’t it. When was the last time you played a tune on any horn?

I collapsed heavily into a nearby chair, my mind scrambled at the thought that the world knew about my inadequacies in the music department. Desperate, I threw out the old line.

‘I can still hold a tune’

‘You’d better make the most of it, because you won’t be holding anything else for a long time.  Face it, your days of playing in any duo are long gone…solo is all you have…unless you come with me for lessons.’

But I just need a little practice. It’s been a while.’

A year or six more like. I’d been on my own too long and life was far too short for the sort of practice I needed now.

‘Your finger work is shot to pieces…’

‘Ok, when do we start…the lessons I mean?

‘I have to make a call or two…just stay there and relax.’

Which is why, a few days later, I found myself at ‘Saxraum’ with an alto sax in my hand playing the intro to Smoke on the Water…she really did mean a music lesson. Damn it!

Now, in some strange way it all makes sense. You see, I am going through a learning phase. I am learning how to exist on my own as I wait for my single life to be returned to me. It isn’t easy as it involves long periods of meditation in smoky bars with smoky voiced women and unfiltered men. Now, I quite enjoy the smoky voiced women…the more the merrier I say…but I have to stub out the men. I have no interest in the male mid-life crisis. I mean, I’ve been living one for the past…perhaps I’ve been living one all of my past.

I am learning how to live on my own after endless years of sharing. I find myself contemplating kitchen appliances and curtains, vacuum cleaners and cutlery, gas bills and light fittings, which is fun in its’ own sad way. Certainly my knowledge of bed linen has increased ten fold as my boredom threshold has collapsed into a state of Zen.

And I am learning how to play the sax.

I have always wanted to play…something. At school I was handed a tuba, which was bigger than me, and we couldn’t become friends. I tried guitar but we were only passing acquaintances. I had a recorder once, but that was in a different world before I realised how important music was to me. In general, kids who play the recorder should be locked away for the good of society…and the teachers should be ashamed of themselves. Will the fractured sound of  ‘London’s Burning’ ever leave me in peace?

There is something vaguely surreal about learning to play something like the sax in Vienna, the city of Wiener Schnitzel, Wolfgang and waltzes. Since I arrived here I’ve watched numerous students, young and old, wandering the streets with an endless array of instruments strapped to their shoulders, which is impressive when you are a pianist. I have a tip for would be musicians: learn the flute, the harmonica, or better still the triangle. They are small enough to carry in your pocket, and quiet enough that the neighbours won’t attack you with a heavy object when you practice late at night.

When I lived in London, one of the kids next door played the clarinet in the garden. As we were in the UK, it rained occasionally, and she had an ingenious contraption attached to her music stand. At the first touch of rain, she would play a certain note and a miniature umbrella would spring into life, keeping her instrument safe and dry. Unfortunately, when the wind was howling and the water was falling in a perpendicular manner, it wasn’t quite so successful, leaving her with wet feet and a soggy score? How we suffer for other people’s art.

And how I suffer for my art. Saxophone lessons are not easy. Every session is like a visit to the gym. It leaves your lips dry and bruised, your muscles filled with lactic acid, your ears ringing from the high pitched squeaks you produce on occasion by accident, and in a typical Austrian late spring you are quickly drenched with sweat.  But it is fun. Strangely, unpredictably, marvellously it is fun.  (Although I guess not for my teacher…) I am living a tiny dream, and one day in the long distant future, when I am too old to care and there is no one around to hear me, I shall play something that reminds me of a little Vienna bar and a strange lady who forced my hand and sent me to ‘Saxraum’.

Funnily enough, I am meeting her in that same bar tonight. I wonder if she’d like to see how my lip work has improved? Probably not…now, where’s the music stand?

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?

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…