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Ian McMillan presents a weekly word-based programme on BBC Radio 3 called The Verb on Saturday Nights. The Verb features the word as written, spoken and performed and it's fantastic! Fish Time | Summer Time | Winter Boy | Travelling Man | Suspense I'm usually the first up in our
house, first downstairs, first to put the kettle on. First to
hear the fish. It doesn't talk, of course. Or sing. It bumps
into the side of its tank and blows bubbles at me. It wants feeding
and it recognises me as the man with access to the fish breakfast.
Now, I thought fish had hardly any memory. I thought they only
had a three second memory span, could only just remember who
they were, kept going Oh No! I'm Wet! Then briefly remembering
they lived in water, then going Oh No! I'm Wet! again. Not our
fish. It remembers. It's like an ancient storyteller telling
tales of a time before your time and before my time. Depending
on the dressing-gown, of course. © Ian McMillan 2004 Fish Time | Summer Time | Winter Boy | Travelling Man | Suspense Summer Time Summer is a time for joining things, for putting your name forward, making your voice heard. Riots usually happen in Summer, demonstrations are certainly not a Winter game. So I've joined the New Apostrophe Movement, or to give it its proper title, the Ne'w Apostrop'he M'ovement, or the N'AM. The thing is, I know about apostrophes. I know the difference between its and it's and frankly, my d'ear, I don't give a dam'n. I know that people (often Daily Mail readers) get really cross and stamp their delicate feet when they pass a butcher's shop with a sign in the window saying LAMB CHOP'S and they go into the shop, still stamping their feet so the butcher thinks his space is being invaded by Daily Mail-reading flamenco dancers, and they say, with sarcasm dripping from their voice like molasses 'What belongs to the lamb chops then ?' And the butcher says 'Eh ?' and the people who are cross about apostrophes say 'If you put an apostrophe there it means that something belongs to the lamb chops' and then a regular customer comes in and says 'I'll have half a pound of minc'e ' and the butcher says 'See! That's how we talk round here!' I confess that for years I was cross about apostrophes and then I woke up in a cold sweat (which is a new kind of quilt we're developing in Barnsley) and realised that it doesn't matter. The rules of Grammar aren't punishable in a court of law. So now I'm liberate'd! I can spend the whole Summer gambolling in the fie'lds and having pi'cn'cs in the grass, drinking w'ine and ch'ompin'g sandwiche's. And it doesn't matter! Apostrophes can turn a simple word into an epic. Take egg, for instance. Boring word. But E'gg: delightful! How about E'g'g ? What a big egg! Footprints becomes f'o'o't'p'r'i'n't's and you can see 'em walking across the sand! I'll. Start. On. The. Fu'll. S't'o'p. N'e'x't ... © Ian McMillan 2001 Fish Time | Summer Time | Winter Boy | Travelling Man | Suspense Winter Boy A lot of people like to jet off to the sun. I wouldn't like to do that. I'd like to jet off to the cold. I'm a Winter Boy, born in January and happy as a snowman when the nights are dark and the wind is howling. As I stand in the bus queue with huddled figures saying 'Isn't it cold ?' with a downward cadence to their voices, I say 'Isn't it cold ?' with an upwards cadence to my voice. I like the way the wind slaps me in the chops when I step out of the house to get the chilly milk; I like the way I have to watch my step when I'm walking to the Post Office because it might be icy; I like the way the sky opens up and snow pours out of the clouds like dandruff from a scratched head. In a previous life I must have been a Finn, or a Laplander, or an Inuit standing over my father's ice hole hoping for a glimpse of something fishy. As global warming takes hold I'm sure that more people will appreciate the Winter for the jewel it is. As the ice caps melt and Malton is by the sea all year and nobody in Britain ever wears a coat from March to November, the idea of Winter will become a sought-after trendy thing. Channel 4, rather than showing endless films of bright young things leaping about in Ibiza, will show endless things of bright blue young things hopping about to keep warm in suddenly-desirable Siberia. People will stand in bus queues sweating, saying 'Isn't it hot?' with a downward cadence to their voices, and when the bus comes and they rattle off to work in steaming offices they'll dream of the holiday they've got booked in the British Antarctic Territory; the snorkel parka and thermals already packed, the snowshoes standing beside the case like tennis rackets, the hot water bottles bulging in the overnight bag. People will show off frostbite rather than suntan. They'll show off about the fact that on holiday you can see their breath, even at midday. They'll prepare for the holiday by opening and closing the fridge door and wafting the cold around them, dreaming of the midnight sun. Enjoy the Winter while you can. It's all too short and Summer's just around the corner with its endless heat and long warm nights with the sunlight pervading everywhere. I'm a Winter Boy. © Ian McMillan 2000 Fish Time | Summer Time | Winter Boy | Travelling Man | Suspense Travelling Man The bus came. Al got on it. The taxi came. I got in it. The taxi bet the bus, just. This is a true account of what happened. The 0808 to Stevenage was late, so I caught it, just. I stood, gasping. The train was made up of lots of little trains. There was no way you could get from one train to the other. 'You can't get a cup of tea' said the guard whose name was Michael, 'because the buffet's on the next little train and Stevenage is the first stop.' I proffered my credit card and said RETURN TO STEVENAGE PLEASE in a voice slightly too loud for the space. Michael said 'I haven't got a thing to swipe your card with. It's in the next little train. I'll let you off.' This is a true account. I planned my day. I travelled in state, free. At Stevenage I was met by a man called Gavin. 'You like non-league football, don't you ?' he said. YES I said, in a voice slightly too loud for the space. ''We'll squeeze a few in' he said. This is a true account. We went to Hemel Hempstead Borough, Berkhamsted Town and Tring Town. At each ground I sat and drank in the seats, the grass, the goalposts, the relationship of the sky to the goalposts. I planned my day. We got to the museum. I made poems with delighted children. Gavin took me back to Stevenage. 'We've got time to squeeze a couple in' he said. GOOD I said, in a voice slightly too loud for the space. We went to St Alban's Town and Stevenage Borough. I drank in seats, grass, goalposts, sky/goalposts interface. This is a true account. I got the train to York. I was to be met there by Margaret who was to take me to Wetherby. The train broke down two miles outside York. A woman on the tannoy said 'The power has failed.' A man sitting near me said 'That is the very worst'. A woman on the tannoy said 'We are now a failed train'. A woman on the tannoy said 'We are now a cancelled train'. We sat for two hours. It was getting hot because the air conditioning was off. A woman said to the guard, whose name was Ray, 'How long will the oxygen last ?' Ray pretended to consult a thick book. 'Nine weeks' he said. This is a true account. The train got to York. I was met by Margaret. We went to Wetherby. I read poems in a dark church crypt to a small, keen audience. Afterwards a man called Ted gave me a lift home. We stopped for Fish and Chips on the outskirts of Wetherby. We talked about the fact that I might have been the only person in the world who had been to Tring and Wetherby that day. We talked about Stephen Sondheim musicals. I planned my day. This is a true account of what happened. © Ian McMillan 2000 Fish Time | Summer Time | Winter Boy | Travelling Man | Suspense Suspense On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of made-up suspense, or Toy Suspense as I call it. In the mystery book or film or play, there's no real suspense because the writer and the actors and the director know that it's just made up. On the other hand, as I stood in the bus shelter today, waiting for the bus to take me to Barnsley, I was in real, not Toy, suspense. It was 7.45am. Would the 7.47am 275 come before the 7.51am 273? Suspense. Which driver would it be? The Happy Geordie? The Nice Old Bloke? The Flying Scot? The Miserable Git With the Rings? Suspense. When the bus came, would there be a seat? Suspense. I'm like a real Inspector Frost: my life is all suspense. I'm not the only one, either: my goldfish has a life of suspense, partly because it's got such a short memory span. It swims gently round its bowl all night, in suspense because it doesn't know if I'll ever feed it again or not. Each night it forgets who I am. Each morning I come downstairs in my green dressing gown and the suspense is over. The goldfish goes crazy. Well, Goldfish Crazy. It knows I'm there to feed it. Not me exactly, of course: it doesn't think 'Ah, here's Ian McMillan, the well-known poet, performer and broadcaster, with my disgusting smelling flakes', no, it thinks O O O O, which rendered into English means: 'Here comes green blob with food'. It thinks I'm a green blob because I always wear my green dressing gown and it recognises me. Sometimes my green dressing gown gets too covered in soup and cheap cider and I have to put it in the wash, and then the goldfish just goes O O O, which of course means something completely different to O O O O. I'm like the goldfish: my life is suspense, then food. And my mouth is often opening and shutting. Do you know, somebody just burst a small brown paper bag next to my head. I can't think why. © Ian McMillan 2000 Fish Time | Summer Time | Winter Boy | Travelling Man | Suspense NEW: Ian McMillan Vs Andy Martin: Ideas Have Legs is published by FUEL. (includes the poem Endless Shedness)
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