mostly david ephgrave

I went out with my friend Stephen tonight, on one of our famous Old Man Pub Crawls. It could be a sign of maturity that these days, little in the way of alcohol is imbibed. Actually, it’s more likely to do with the fact that Steve works in Hitchin but lives in Stevenage and has to drive home afterwards and I can no longer drink to excess (or INXS) without feeling sick in the night. I’m not sure what happened to me to bring about this change, but it’s probably for the best; no-one wants to see a rowdy inebriated Ephgrave roaming the streets. You’d think that this many years into our relationship – around twenty-three - we would have covered just about every possible topic of conversation we could. In many ways, you’d be right. We long ago reached the stage where we’d prefigure each story with “I may have told you before, but…”. Yet tonight I learnt that he can’t solve Magic Eye pictures (if 'solve' is the right word) and I told him bizarre m...

I suspect the woman on the train wasn’t as interested in the subject of flame-retardant materials as the man sitting next to her thought she was. ‎ This didn’t stop him ploughing on. It’s surprising how long someone can talk about non-combustible insulation without pausing for breath; in this instance, the duration of a train journey from King’s Cross to Hitchin, taking the slowest route. We’re talking forty-five minutes – or  he  was, more like. ‎ That doesn’t take into account when we were held at a signal (the red light being a sign for the driver and not for  him ). It seems Mr Asbestos was hell-bent on filling every inch of available airspace with fire-resistant drivel; completely oblivious to ‎ the monosyllabic interjections from his disinterested companion. ‎ (I've swallowed a dictionary.) ‎ That woman showed patience. It was probably imagining dousing him in petrol and setting him alight that got her through it. It certainly helped me.

Sometimes the briefest of conversations can cheer you up. I have got into the habit of visiting my favourite coffee shop almost daily. It offers a change of scenery if I’ve got nothing else on – and I find it much easier to get on with any work that needs doing, or my writing, when I’m out of the house. It’s also a good way of pretending I’m not waiting for my agent to ring. I visit the coffee shop regularly enough to have a “usual”.  All I need is a Ted Danson-a-like behind the counter for the transition to be complete. I’m usually in my favourite haunt by mid-morning. Today I arrived a little later – and, for no particular reason, was soon getting irritated by the woman in front of me in the queue.   She had one of those old-fashioned shopping-bag-on-wheels things in tow (the elderly's trolley-of-choice) – and despite being tiny, she still somehow managing to fill up the en...

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s probably best to never phone me. I have a gut-wrenching aversion to making or receiving telephone calls. I’m awful at it – and have been known to audibly groan when my telephone rings and I know I have to answer it. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m some sort of recluse. It’s also never meant as a personal affront to whoever may be trying to reach me. I just hate the ‘forced-into-a-corner, you-must-have-a-conversation-right-now’ feeling that can only come with the sound of an unanswered telephone. Stephen Fry summarises it better than I ever could, which is probably unsurprising. He says: “The telephone is a fantastically rude thing. It’s like going ‘SPEAK TO ME NOW, SPEAK TO ME NOW, SPEAK TO ME NOW’; if you went into someone’s office and banged on their desk, saying ‘I WILL MAKE A NOISE UNTIL YOU SPEAK TO ME’, it would be unbelievably rude.” For me it’s not so much a...