Two stories about Reading (Part 2)

Generally, when we get back to our desks after lunch, the serious business of getting through the afternoon begins. This involves a fine balancing act of conference calls, emails, spreadsheets, sloping off to the kitchen and maybe a quick peek at what’s going on in the wider world. You can guarantee that at some point Iain will have a look at an online sailing forum he frequents called “Sailing Anarchy”; a wonderful idea since I imagine anyone rich enough to be able to afford to sail would have rather a lot to lose from anarchy, much in the same way that it’s always poor people you see looting.

It seems to keep him occupied all the same, occasionally he’ll chuckle and say “look at this” and I’ll wheel my chair over to see a picture of what I assume is some colossal sailing cock up. I will then nod and say “boy, that looks messy”, as I feel this is what is expected of me - even though I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a picture of people sailing well and badly even if they’d run aground in one of the photos, much in the same manner that being completely unable to drive makes me the least critical passenger on earth.

About once a week my IM will ping at roughly 2pm with a message from Iain containing a link to a story from our local online paper, the Reading Post, which Iain and I have both been known to scour for titbits. We don’t do it to work out the latest on crucial local developments like the council’s evil plan to charge everybody for car parking, or what’s happening to the swanky twenty-first century office complex we were meant to have opposite the station and whether, as predicted, it will probably be built halfway through the twenty-second century. No, we read the Post because, I’m very proud to say, Reading is home to some of the strangest people in the cosmos. Not a week goes by without some classic appearing on the front page and me listening to strangulated guffaws from my ginger wingman at the desk next to me as he tries to get his mind round some of the antics of the lunatic fringe of my little town.

The dominatrix was a textbook example.

I defy you to read a news story which begins “A Twyford dominatrix was today cleared of blackmailing her Botox doctor after she secretly filmed him performing a sex act in front of her.” and not be compelled to make your way, agog with fascination, right through to the end of the story. It’s a whole different world out there, one in which a simple story raises so many questions. The sleepy town of Twyford has dominatrices? They have their own dedicated Botox doctors? There are people who are quite happy to give an interview to the local newspaper in which they go on record as saying “I am a normal woman and I am a grandmother. I also happen to be a dominatrix”? Why don’t I need a passport to visit a town in which things like that happen?

Best of all, the woman’s husband was convicted of blackmail, which means there is a subsequent story in the paper which begins “A Twyford man who blackmailed his dominatrix wife’s Botox doctor was today jailed for three and a half years.” Are there many novels with a better opening sentence than that?

It’s not all high end stuff about expensive humiliation, blackmail and cosmetic enhancements. My local paper also captures the grotty side of Reading’s chav subculture perfectly. The classic example has to be the story of the levitating Wheat Crunchie. Under the headline “Forced to move by ghost terror” the Post told the searing exposé of a family who were desperate to move out of their Whitley home because they were convinced that it was plagued by poltergeists.

For the uninitiated, and I hope that’s most of you, Whitley is a part of Reading only slightly less civilised than most parts of Helmand Province. Its unofficial anthem is either “Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting” or “This Wheel’s On Fire” and if I lived there, I too would make up any old cobblers in a desperate attempt to be rehoused. But if I did, I’m not sure I would mention that my neighbours had seen a solitary crisp rising out of a packet as evidence of supernatural activity. I think, from my experience of horror movies, poltergeists usually do something a bit more impressive like toppling a bookcase. What would the malevolent spirit do for an encore, juggle some Maltesers? The photograph accompanying the story showed the family, with two of the children - both a suspicious shade of ginger - gripping a packet of Wheat Crunchies (Worcester sauce flavour, in case you were interested) as if it was taking all of their strength to stop them jumping into the air. They all looked scared out of their wits, although another possibility is that they never had any in the first place.

The best thing about that story was that an especially eagle-eyed regular reader recognised the haunted mother’s name, did a spot of Googling and found that she had been in the paper more than once. Has someone stolen a six foot inflatable Santa from your front garden? Talk to the paper. Did the pharmacy accidentally give you anti-histamines instead of anti-depressants? Likewise. She’d even managed to get one of the stories into the Daily Mail, which is the equivalent of being selected for our Olympic team to represent Britain in the event of wasting everybody’s time. It’s almost enough to make you proud of being from Reading in its own right.

Those aren’t even my favourite stories in the Post, because I’ve saved the best two for last.

The first one is the story about the security guard which appeared under the headline "Man died after sex act went wrong". He was working the night shift at an office building in the centre of town, and at the end of his shift the security guard covering the day shift (I would say "relieving him" but I won't, for reasons which are about to become apparent) came in to find him lying dead on the floor of the men’s toilets wearing rubber boots, a wetsuit and a gas mask. A gas canister was on the floor next to him. Apparently he wasn’t sure who the mysterious corpse was at first, because only his eyes were visible. Not only that, but they found further latex outfits in the boot of his car and squirrelled away in the ladies’ toilets.

My first instincts on hearing that story were to wonder how many people who are into auto-erotic asphyxiation own more than one wetsuit. Was he keeping one for best? Was he saving a trip to the ladies’ for a special occasion? But more to the point, it all just seemed a bit excessive. I mean, honestly: how good a wank do you want? The vanilla version seems to be enough for most people. And other thing - for most people the effort of putting on a condom can be a bit of a boner killer, but imagine if the condom is thick, black and covers your entire body. Where’s the fun in that?

But the best thing about the story was tucked away in a paragraph towards the end of the story and barely mentioned: it was only his second day in the job.

Generally, it takes me about three months in a new job to feel like I understand the lay of the land. Six months in, I might just about feel up to pinching the occasional pad of Post-It notes or some posh pens. I don’t think I’ve ever felt comfortable enough in a job to knock one out in the gents, let alone do so while making use of some very specialist apparel. What on earth went through his mind when he headed home at the end of day one? "The only thing that could have made that day at work better would be a spot of extreme masturbation" perhaps? Or could it have been "Well, I think I’ve made quite a good impression. Time to dust off the wetsuit"? The mind boggles.

And my favourite story in the Reading Post, you ask? Well, that would be the one that went up last Wednesday, because last Wednesday they published me. They did a competition to let one of Reading’s bloggers write a column in the paper, and I took part and I won. So people at work have had to put up with me being insufferable for the last week as I made the most of the fact that this is probably as close as I’m ever going to come to being a local celebrity. They've borne it with very good grace (more than I deserve). Some people, on the other hand, have been less understanding; I asked Kelly to pick up a few extra copies for people who had shown an interest, and when I got home that evening she greeted me at the door with a look of consternation.

“Are you sure it’s on page 15? I looked and I couldn’t see anything.”

“What do you mean? It’s definitely on page 15. I checked.”

“Oh dear. I couldn’t find it. And I bought loads of copies, I had to go to two different shops. It is the Reading Chronicle we‘re talking about, right?”

At this point I was beginning to feel decidedly stressed.

“It’s not in the Chronicle. It’s in the Post. I told you that! I told you that several times. Jesus, I can’t believe you… oh, you’re joking, aren’t you.”

I sometimes think Kelly only married me for those moments when the penny drops and she can properly start pissing herself laughing.

Being published was the perfect Christmas present and talking about it feels like as appropriate a way as any to wind up my last blog post before the festive season begins in earnest. By the time you read this, with any luck, I will have hopped on a plane and will be taking in a beautiful view across the Bosphorus. My Christmas turkey this year is going to have a capital T, and I can’t think of anything nicer. Anyway, if you’re interested in reading the article, it’s online here and if you want to see what it looked like in the newspaper, a picture is below. Oh, and if you want a copy, it turns out I inexplicably have quite a few lying around. Have a lovely Christmas.