TheBanyanTree: A diversion, and a long way from home

[John Bailey]

Sunday February 27, 2005

A DIVERSION, AND A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Most of my day has been spent getting stuff ready for eBay, and uploading 
the first few of them. Time consuming, and not very interesting. I enjoy 
writing the descriptions but the detail and the photography really isn't my 
bag at all.

Speaking of bags, I did steal a happy hour or so to take up pen and brush 
and make a sketch of my famous 'bag' -- actually, a cheap shoulder-hung 
commodious hold-all of many pockets in an uninspiring black canvas with 
black zips, strap and buckles, all faded and tatty with much use. I don't 
go anywhere without it, and haven't done since the mid-70s when the stuff a 
chap has to carry around with him got to be simply too much for pockets.

And it's the stuff inside that makes any bag interesting unless it's one of 
those beautiful be-jewelled purses that are, probably rightfully, still the 
province of women who enjoy a bit of glamour and glitz in their lives.

I decided then, after a false start, to pull all the stuff out and draw bag 
and contents together.

It's truly astonishing what I find necessary to carry about with me. From 
left to right, my leather wallet, holding cash and credit cards, till 
receipts, unfiled vouchers... no way of not carrying that. Slightly in 
front from there is a plastic breath-mint case, all rattly and ready to aid 
in clearing those after-coffee moments. Then, a small stack of 
documentation and portable writing/drawing books, starting at the bottom, a 
ring-bound ruled notebook in a hard cover, then a bright red pensioner's 
wallet, containing cheque and paying-in book and with a sad hole left where 
my weekly State pension book used to live. Above that, a leather-bound 
slim-style filofax pocket book where I keep stuff like my driver's licence, 
insurance documents, and plastic cards that won't fit in my wallet. There's 
always a wad of yellow ruled paper in it, too, not much used these days but 
after years of executive note-taking, impossible to cast aside entirely. 
Above that is my small case-bound sketch-book complete with elastic band to 
hold it shut against the water-buckled pages that are eternally anxious to 
escape. Next to these is my faithful pencam, with two spare batteries. 
Then, the most recent addition, my Dell PDA or pocket PC, sitting on its 
own black leather case. In front there is my essential cellphone alongside 
my favourite drawing pen and, lastly, a good old-fashioned Pelikan 
propelling pencil.

If I'm going to be out for any length of time there's usually a slim volume 
of verse to tide me over long waits in waiting rooms, a small pack of wet 
wipes, and a couple of individually wrapped Italian biscuits in case I get 
munchy. There's even room for a small bottle of mineral water if I think 
I'll need it.

There it is, then. Didn't take too long to draw, or to apply the washes. I 
used some cheap Winsor and Newton watercolour paper which buckled as I 
worked. I don't mind that too much but a product labelled as suitable for 
watercolour ought to be better behaved. I deliberated over the 'black' 
washes, considering whether I should use a true black, and decided that a 
succession of Indigo, followed by Payne's Grey, and finished up with the 
classic burnt ochre mixed with ultramarine. The result is far more blue 
than reality but by the time I'd got to that point I was painting what I 
saw growing on the paper and in my mind, and I find the blue-ish washes 
much more exciting than the dull, inpenetrable black you'd get in a photograph.


[A picture of the sketch is available for the click-enabled at:

<http://www.oldgreypoet.com/2005/200502/20050227.html> ]


There is a story behind my carrying a bag but there would be, wouldn't there?

Time before last I was in Los Angeles -- I reckon it was in 1983 but don't 
hold me to it -- I was there to attend and participate in a large computer 
conference sponsored by IBM, with my expenses paid for by my then employer. 
During a break I was sitting in the smoking section (can you imagine, 
smoking in Los Angeles?) of the long hall provided for coffee and nibbles 
consumption between sessions, my bag at my side. Not this bag, but a rather 
smaller one in black calf leather. Same shape and function, though. I 
zipped it open, pulled out my pipe, matches and baccy, and commenced to 
stoke up and enjoy a good British moment.

Two young women had been observing me, whispering and giggling, and 
pointing at me. In my stoic British way I decided to ignore this display of 
bad manners, putting it down to another of those aspects of American social 
interaction I really don't understand. Not that giggling, inconsiderate 
young women are unique to the States, far from it. Finally, curiousity 
prevailing, the bolder of them piped up: "Say, what do you carry a purse for?"

"To hold my personal things," I replied evenly, in that slightly cold and 
flat British monotone that gets us such a bad name.

"Well, Gee, we thought you'd have your lipstick in there."

"Terribly sorry to disappoint you."

Answer came there none, apart from pulling back, losing the foolish grins, 
and then sidling away, sheepishly.

Now, being fair, this was long before blokes in the States adopted the 
European way and began to carry a bag about with them, moderating over the 
years, as we have, to something more along the lines of a large haversack. 
So it could be that these young women had never seen a man with a bag 
before. Doesn't excuse them of course. Bad manners are bad manners and 
there's nothing truly to excuse them.

Next on my agenda was my appearance as a guest speaker at a side meeting, 
where I gave a presentation of the way we were pioneering the use of the 
IBM 'TIF' product (don't ask, and I won't tell) in Britain.  Only a fifteen 
minute talk but I'd prepared carefully, and I knew several of the people 
among the 100 or so in the audience so I didn't feel too much like a 
British fish very much out of British waters. I got a good few laughs, and 
a number of sympathetic "yeah's" when I described the difficulties of 
persuading IBM to support one of its lesser-known products away from the 
'strategic' mainstream. Red faces from the line of black-suited IBMers in 
the back row but one. Highly satisfactory. But then I noticed a pair of 
even redder faces in the very back row. There were the two young ladies 
from my coffee break encounter.

Afterwards they had the good grace to come up to me, apologize nicely, and 
say they hadn't realized I was English. We slipped off later and had a very 
tasty pastry and Coke together, they smoking cigarettes and me puffing away 
at my pipe, and we became good friends in the ships that pass in the night 
sense of the word.

Hey ho. Funny old world, 'ennit? I'd better get back to my eBaying.


--

John Bailey   Lincolnshire, England

journal of a writing man:
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>