THUD NOT PHWOMP

It fell like a house brick and struck her right on top of her head. With a thud. It’s the first time I think I’ve ever heard a thud. A genuine one I mean. I’d always thought ‘phwomp’ a more accurate representation of the sound of impact. But thud is definitely the sound six hundred pages of Alan Bennett memoirs makes when it comes into contact with the head of a smiling French woman.

That she was still smiling afterwards goes some way toward validating the theory that the French are nothing more than a nation of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Pathetic.

I’m kidding of course. I like the French. I like their bread. I like their doors. I like their letters. I like the coffee I’m drinking while I’m writing this. And I like the café I’m drinking it in. Tres bon, mon ami. Tres bon.

Actually, she was very gracious and nonchalant about it, which I was grateful for because she’d taken a pretty solid hit to the bonce and I was embarrassed. The train hadn’t even left St Pancras Station and already I was laying down friendly fire.

I don’t know what it is about long-haul vehicles but I really struggle to get stowed and seated in any coordinated way on a plane, train or coach. No matter how prepared I am or how little I am carrying, by the time I reach my seat I invariably find myself with more stuff than hands, making all attempts to safely consign any bags to the overhead compartment an examination in advanced juggling technique. I also seem completely incapable of carrying a bag down an aisle without scalping a nanna or poking a toddler in the eye.

I have such difficultly that I am now convinced that all luggage is, in actual fact, organic. And by that I mean that every single suitcase, backpack and rucksack is a living, evolving entity, capable of changing shape and dimension in a way that is imperceptible to the human eye. Exactly what triggers this alteration is a mystery, although a working thesis suggests that the sound of pneumatic door mechanisms may be involved, as may the sound of people patting their pockets to reassure themselves that they’re still in possession of their passports. Whatever causes it, the end result is that all items of luggage will undergo subtle but instantaneous variations in length, width and depth the moment they are brought onto a vehicle. The extent of these variations is dictated by the width of the aisle and the number of people waiting to be seated. And they are continually altered. While your bag may appear to fit comfortably between the chairs or slot into the overhead compartment. It won’t. It just wanted you to think that it would. Masters of subterfuge these bags. Tricky bastards all of them.

The function this shape shifting plays in the wider scheme of nature is also difficult to assess. On today’s evidence its purpose may well be the removal of smiling French ladies from the gene pool, but it strikes me that the use of autobiographical novels as a means of natural selection is not only arbitrary, but entirely unnecessary. And thus, entirely unnatural.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson