MISSING PERSONAGES

This is Dr. Milton Zigo, Physicist, Academic and amateur cutlery bender. Zigo has been absent since New Years Eve, and was last seen weaving his rather unsteady way across the quadrangle at the University of Exeter, where he has taught for the last twelve years. 

Zigo knows stuff, science stuff, and we need him on our side or to be definitely dead. Please note: this photograph was taken at a party, so he is unlikely to still be holding a handful of twisted forks. 

MISSING PERSONAGE

This is 'Stuart somebody or other'. That's my tankard he's holding and I want it back. If you see him, do let him know that regardless of whether he returns my property or not, I'm going to bang him on the clavicle with the pommel of my Smatchet. That's not a threat, as I fully expect the action outlined in the statement to take place, but I can't actually promise it, so I'm hedging my bets to a certain extent. If it’s in my power, I will totally Smatch him. Because I really miss that tankard. And all that it represents. 

What it mainly represents is continuity. That tankard has hung behind the bar of my local pub for the last nine years. I may not go in the pub every day, or even every week, but, when I do, the tankard is there, and Brian the landlord has it filled with Bacardi before I’ve unzipped my anorak. Post-crisis, I will make my way to that pub. It will be a pilgrimage, of sorts. If the pub is still open, and a type of life still goes on, I shall enjoy a drink from my tankard and think that, no matter how bad things might be elsewhere, there is always this place, this drink, this moment, an oasis of pre in the post, a parcel of the past.

If the pub is closed, or if Bob’s naked body is nailed to the door, even if the place has been burned to the ground, I will retrieve my tankard, bloodied or blackened though it may be, and take it with me on my onward journey. Then the tankard would serve as a relic of a time never to return, a world that is lost to us all for all time. It would hold no Bacardi, then, only a thin, colourless gruel made from things that we would have previously jet washed from the drive. Every sip would be a stark reminder of how low we had been laid but at least I'd have my memories - and my tankard. 

So, yes, it meant something, Stuart whoever, you dirty thief, you robber of dreams, and I will have my revenge upon you and yours and theirs. Enjoy your beer, fucker! 

A BOWL OF GRANOLA

It's three minutes to three on a Monday morning. I'm sitting in my dressing gown having just eaten a bowl of Granola. I went forty years without knowing that Granola even existed, and I still don't have a really deep understanding of it, but up until a few moments ago it seemed invested with almost magical powers.

At 2.30 am, I was laying awake, listening to the general low hum of non-specific anxiety trying to force itself to the front of my mind. This whine of worry immobilised me, but not to the point of unconsciousness, that would have been too easy. It occurred to me that I should get up and go downstairs - not to shoot myself, or start writing a novel, not even to draw up some diagrams and make detailed plans to get me out of the mostly bullshit existential hole I was looking up out of. Instead, I decided that a bowl of Granola would sort me out, that a bowl of Granola was just what I needed, a bowl of Granola would help. But it hasn't helped, it hasn't helped at all.

I don't blame the Granola, it doesn't make any claims for itself as a solution to anything, not even on the box. But my faith in it as something other than a sweet, high calorie breakfast food is indicative of the way we live now, where everything buyable and gettable comes charged with a meaning and purpose borne out of desperation, like a quest for the missing piece that will complete your jigsaw. And, yes, that's how it is with Granola: I didn't have it before, I don't need it now, but I somehow feel that eating a bowl of it will make me feel better about myself. The Granola is a smartphone, or a big telly; it's a holiday, or toast rack muscles; new shoes, new car, new car smell. In my head, it's ambrosia smothered in nectar and served in the Holy Grail. In reality, it's a bucket of distraction, with a cold glug of real life poured over it. The fact is that it will not complete me, or make me a better person, nothing will: I'm already fully formed; for better or worse, this is it.  

I've got to be up at 7. I normally have Granola first thing, so now I'll have to think of something else. More problems. Yet another new day ruined by unrealistic expectations.