Sometimes, when I am in a conversation with someone and I temporarily leave the space to, say, go to the bathroom, I find myself, when I am out of vision of my interlocutor, pulling a face towards a non-existent camera. This is to illustrate the disjunction between my direct reaction to the interlocutor and what I might be thinking at the tme. Do not be concerned, if you are my interlocutor. I am only doing this because I have seen it on the telly. In reality, I am rarely fuming at how the conversation is going, and, if I am, I will probably mention it. What I am doing is just trying to artificially dramatise my inner life.

Moreover, even if I was repressing anger at something when talking to someone, this would probably better represent my true feelings, compromised and controlled and fitted within a temporal context, than a brute, spontaneous reaction taking the form a disbelieving gurning at an imaginary camera, because what you might call true feelings are best got at through an aggregated sampling of moods over a period of time. This model conforms less to the modes of drama and its generic embodiment through film and television and more to the modes of the late 19th century analytical novel.

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There is little evidence for many of the legendary scenes in folklore. Robin Hood (if he existed as an individual) probably wasn’t around during the reign of King John and Richard the Lionheart, so we probably never had the scene where the famous outlaw recognises the absent king in the greenwood. William Tell never shot an apple off his son’s head with his crossbow. St Paul almost certainly never underwent the conversion on the road to Damascus (it is never mentioned in those terms in his own letters and in Acts of the Apostles written many years after Paul’s death the text seems to be lifted verbatim from Euripides Bacchae). These old texts are all subject to the usual collage, bias, literary manipulation and ideological weighting that invisibly inform legend and myth. A nice one that has been on my mind this week for some reason is St Paul escaping the city of Damascus in a laundry or small cattle basket lowered down out of the city walls. This might be closer to the truth as St Paul mentions it himself in his letters. It is a rare moment of concrete picaresque adventure in what are otherwise rather abstract epistles. I wish we had a bit more of that kind of stuff from Paul. In Jules Vernes’ Around the World in 80 Days there is no scene in a hot air baloon, although most illustrations of the book show such a scene, simply because of its pictoral value, I suppose, and because there was such a scene in the classic film with David Niven. The other one I like in a similar vein to the Paul basket story is Charles II of England hiding in an apple tree with Roundhead soldiers below him. I remember it made a lovely illustration in my primary school history book with the perspective from Charles’ point of view looking down on the metal helmets of Cromwell’s troops.

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The Park Hotel in Vitznau on the Vierwaldstaettesee (Lake Luzern in English) must be one of the swankiest of swanky hotels in Switzerland. Three years ago we went in there and asked if we could play the Boesendorfer grand piano. The staff were very welcoming and let us play the instrument for a couple of hours (when I say us, I don’t mean me, you understand).Through the open doors of the hall we were in we could look out onto the drinks reception on the esplanade on the lake. This was during the Luzern Festival and many of the residents of the hotel were attending the concerts a few stops along the lake. Last month we were in Vitznau again and thought we might pop into the Park Hotel again to maybe renew that agreable experience. On the door was a Scandinavian hotel manager right out of a Stanley Kubrik film. He intercepted us and explained how the hotel had changed since the Covid years. It had become (I quote from the card we were given) a Health and Wealth Centre, no longer a hotel, no longer open to spontaneous visitors like ourselves. Customers had explained they were no longer comfortable with the ebb and flow of the life of a grand hotel; they preferred to hire suites within the hotel complex and have entrance to the place restricted to the hoipolloi. The place was now policed and controlled. It had become a kind of gated community, a bleak index to the post-covid world of the very wealthy. They are shut away from all public intercourse in a sterilised glass unit. Health and Wealth Centre tells it all. Where was the piano? I asked. It too had been put into isolation.

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When I am in bed, before my mind goes haywire and leads me into the perverse antechamber of sleep, I try and organise my thoughts. I read something the other day in one of those advice pieces that the internet is forever foisting on us that before you go to sleep you should assemble a to-do list for the next day. I do not do this. I think about money. On holiday I used to get all the bank notes out of my wallet and count them. I am a kind of Fagin, I suppose. Though I am not really taking any lascivious pleasure form these bank notes or from the figure I imagine in my current account when I am in my bed at night. It is more that I am creating a kind of relaxation by seeing that I am sufficiently well provided for for the next day at least. It was probably what was on Fagin’s mind too. This might put me into a state where I might be able to doze off, for I am not an easy dozer and need everything to be just right. The other thing I might do is think about the calender; how many days to my next pay cheque. As you see, another money matter. However, this is a less relaxing daydream, as I grow irritated at myself for wanting time to pass quickly to get me to that pay-cheque day. What am I doing? I think to myself. Just wishing my life away, because what happens at the end of all the pay days? You are just one month closer to the final due date, when the final pound of flesh has to be delivered (that would be Shylock) .

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The business of purchase is a painstaking and psychologically taxing one.

When I was at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Berne last month there was a gaggle of businessmen undergoing in some annexe room to the gallery a training session on communication or creativity or something and they were, almost to a man (there were only men), wearing dark charcoal suits. I thought, that’s a rather cool look in the heat of the summer, I’ll look into buying a dark charcoal suit when I come back to London. When I returned from my travels I went onto Jermyn Street and looked at all the classic suit shops: Hawes and Curtis; TM Lewin; Charles Tyrwhit. They were all much of a muchness in dark charcoal suits. They were suits for middle management types, industrially mass produced, cut for work with a long jacket and unflattering trouser width, and the salesman treats you like a battery hen (one said What’s the occasion? as if I’d never worn a suit in my life and in another shop the salesman with a big red wine-sodden nose said Work or pleasure? as if everyone’s life was so clearly compartmentalized.) Neither, I amswered, which foxed him). I refrained from a purchase on Jermyn Streer. I went into John Lewis to see what was on offer in the odds and ends department. I saw what I thought was an attractive charcoal jacket (not dark charcoal and not part of a suit). After oo-ing and ah-ing I bought it. At home i looked on line to try and find the trousers that went with it. I thought I’d found them and ordered them. When they came they weren’t the right trousers and the whole ensemble did not look good. Grey des not flatter me. I looked like a grey man The shape was too fuddy-duddy. It slowly dawned on me the entire look was a mess. Could I get my money back? I extirpated the wrapping for the trousers from the bin just in time. I have had the returns label printed and will post the trousers back tomorrow. Some people are doing these returns every day, I know. Buying and returning; buying and returning. I am innocent in the matter, but that’ll be £100 saved. As for the jacket, I will go to John Lewis tomorrow amd try and get my £`150 back but I have no receipt. I have conflicting opinions on this. One tells me they won’t refund without a receipt (the receipt went thoughtlessly in the bin straightaway). Another say no John Lewis are fine, they’ll refund you no problem. Even if they don’t I have decided on my line. – No sir, we can’t refund without the receipt, I’m afraid Sir. – What! Even though you can see I bought this from here on my bank statement. – I’m sorry sir, it’s John Lewis policy. – All right, I’ll say. Here’s the jacket back. I can’t wear it. Sell it again for another £150. And with a theatrical yet sovereign motion I will hand the jacket back over the counter. They will receive the pristine garment aghast. This will be some kind of a victory. After all, I will never wear it. I am happy with this as a gesture. even though I’ll lose the money. I’ll feel somehow vindicated and might not feel the heartburn that insists on rising in my gullet when money has needlessly slipped through my fingers.

Yes, the business of shopping is a painstaking and psychologically taxing one and you must be ready to pick out any minor triumph from the ashes of your day.

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