Routines Don't Have to Be Routine

Since getting into a regular routine myself, I have begun to notice that other people go about their business with quite strict routines also. This is never more evident than on my leaving my place of work, where my routine of: iPod, engine, leave, is always followed by being stuck at the very first traffic lights. It is during this wait, where I am stuck cursing the colourful trinity, that I begin to wonder whether the black lady will be waiting by the side of the bus-stop. After driving the same route home every day, I have begun to notice landmarks, and I didn’t consciously notice the black lady until one day she was not there. I panicked.

I began to wonder who had removed the black lady from her side-of-the-bus-stop vigil, this slouchy dignitary who stands on no plinth. Then I realised that she is an actual person and not just a marker to let me know how far along my route I am, which led me to question my mental process. Instead of going on much of a journey of self-analysis, I decided to compose a song I now sing whenever there is a significant lack of black lady by the bus stop. It goes: “O-o-o-h black lady by the bus stop / where are you today? / Have they taken you away?” but then I am past the bus stop and I lose interest.

If you are wondering, when she is there as usual, I do not have a song to greet her, that would be weird. Instead I just shuffle past nervously, bowing my head, which is a difficult and dangerous thing to do in a car.

Here is another thing I observed whilst driving home. It was already dark by this time, and I was just nearing my old University, when I noticed too men standing awkwardly close to each other and jittering around aggressively. I realised that one of the men had his arms around the other, and looked to be shaking him quite violently. The man who was being held by the other was seemingly of Asian descent, it is impossible to be more specific from the brief glance I had from my side window as my pimped-out Aston Martin ZX Spectrum whooshed past sexily doing one like off Tokyo drift. The reality of the situation then sunk in as I came level to them. What I had originally believed to be a highly localised example of a racial riot was actually one guy helping his friend stay upright as he struggled to 1) stand up and 2) not fall into the road, as he tried to rollerblade. I was momentarily heartened by this, thinking that this is surely the world that Martin John Lennon King had surely dreamt about and/or been able to imagine. Turns out it is easy if we try. I soon got over this rather quickly though, as I decided to be indignant that people were attempting to learn to rollerblade in the dark on the edge of a main road. Bloody immigrants, coming over here, rollerblading on our pavements, right next to a busy road! Direct them to a skate park, that’s what I say.

The new routine I am cultivating involves a midday viewing of the channel NHK World. NHK is a Japanese television channel, where NHK World broadcasts in English and has shows about various aspects of Japanese culture. My sister and I began watching the channel in the summer, when we were much enamoured of the show Nihongo Quick Lesson, an endearingly cheesy show teaching basic Japanese phrases. We decided to put this show on series link using our futuristic Sky Plus technology, but then decided against this as it inundated our planner with infinite repeats since the show is played so many times a day. I randomly went back to the channel a few weeks ago, as there was nothing of any merit on any other channel, so I thought I’d give it another opportunity. And NHK World delivered, though it may not be for the reasons they would have wanted. The channel is run on the same sort of format as community radio, where the news comes in every hour, although on NHK World it lasts for an entire half hour, as though it doesn’t have enough shows to fill anywhere near enough time. And it doesn’t, which is half the reason it is utterly magnificent, where shows that under-run mean that a few minutes have to be filled with footage of squirrels with a lovely piano composition over the top, and also that shows that don’t have enough material have to seek things that have nothing to do with the title of the segment. For example, a show entitled Chinese Noodle Odyssey, which is something I would consider going on, begins by telling you about noodles in China (tick), but then discusses bean paste pancakes (at least it’s still food), then going off completely and showing some traditional Chinese shadow puppets. There was also a wonderful scene where the host ate some Chinese flat bread and basically said “Eugh, that’s gross!” which is the sort of honesty that is utterly missing from Western food programs.

By far the best part of NHK World is the weather, where a woman who, when standing in profile, has the shape of the letter S talks through some weather that you ignore, and then for 5 minutes the screen is full of a list of 5 international locations with their temperature and weather, with calming nothing synth whispering over the top of it. I have decided that this is the most tasteful 5 minutes of footage that will ever be broadcast in any given hour. Anyone who doesn’t want to know the temperature of Los Angeles, London, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur in the same segment, simply doesn’t deserve a television. It feels like what I imagine television would have been like in the oldie olden days, before everything had to be loud, short and viciously screamed out of the screen into your tearful soul. It is television that can be as comfortable as radio, where even the strange mix of stilted Japanese-English and the nose-wrinkling cheese of American-English accents and dialects can meld together and be enjoyable. One segment had a Japanese-speaking Italian musical-director travelling around introducing ancient Japanese scroll-art. What beautiful individual decided that was a segment that needed to be made? Whoever they are, I love them.

So, about the footage of the squirrels. There was one squirrel which stood still and looked as though it had a marvellous punk Mohican running the length of its body, leading me to exclaim that the Japanese were bound to imagine Pokemon if there are creatures like that inhabiting their forests. The squirrel then moved and it was merely a trick made by holding its tail to its back, which disappointed me deeply but perhaps gives an insight into the creation process of some pokemon. I would like to think that someone who was tricked into believing that a squirrel could have a Mohican would then decide to fill the gap with animation once it turns out to be untrue.

In animal news that is closer to home, I think I witnessed the puppy discovering rain this afternoon. We are attempting to get him to realise that the correct location for bowel evacuation is out the back (of the house and also of his body), and it began to rain when he was out there. The sight of a small dog attacking the sky and almost doing a back-flip will certainly be my favourite image of the day.

But only because there is no such thing as a Mohiquirrel.

P.S. I just helped extricate a bottle of Ribena from a glitchy vending machine for a small child, this is not in my job description and makes me a hero.