Soilman

Er, gosh. Wow. Can it really be that long since I last updated this blog?

Dear, oh dear. I’ve not gone a month without posting since I started this nonsense four years ago. I guess circumstances must really be as difficult as they’ve felt. I won’t bore you with the details.

Anyway, I’ve actually been to the plot and dug up some veg. Carrots, my reliable standby, have been excellent this year. We’ve had buckets and buckets of ‘em. A welcome consequence of the rain that otherwise ruined our summer (shame about the chickweed, which has run rampant in the wet).

One nice thing: I’m just back from Rome, one of my favourite places EVAH. Spent three days simply walking… and walking. Really the most wonderful city in the world: beautiful, exciting, stimulating, moving. I’m footsore, but delighted.

Just the one disappointment: couldn’t get into the Galleria Borghese, so missed the ticklesome statue of Pauline Bonaparte, posed from life as she reclined, Venus-like and semi-naked, on a divan. When asked how she could possibly have posed naked, she replied: “Oh it wasn’t cold. There was a stove in the room.”

Love it that she’s still embarrassing her wretched brother all these centuries later.

I’m sad tonight. I got this letter today.

I’ve been on this allotment site seven years. I’m not one of the oldest people there, but I’m one of the longest serving. I produce crops every year and often they’re ‘best in class’. In short, folks know I’m serious.

Then I get this.

It’s true that the plot IS weedy and I’ve not been there much in the last month. Readers of this blog will know some of the reasons: in-laws visiting, heavy workload, two weeks of bronchial problems and rain coinciding with my free moments. I certainly don’t deny the plot isn’t looking its best as a result.

But here’s the thing: Anybody who knows anything about my record on this site (and lots do) should have assumed that it was a temporary glitch and not got in touch until much later. Certainly I’m stunned that I’ve got this letter after just a month of inactivity.

I was angry at first. Now I’m just sad – sad that my fellow allotmenteers are so quick to ‘grass me up’ despite my record on site.

I often say that the worst thing about getting older is the growing sense of disappointment with oneself and other people. Today was a big disappointment spike. Disappointed with myself for putting myself in this position. Disappointed by my colleagues’ intolerance.

Of course rules are rules – and you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. So I’ll use this as a wake-up call, and tidy it pronto. If it must be pristine to keep ‘em off my backs, it will be. I’ll sleep even less… but I value my plot and am grateful for it.

I’ll not see my neighbours in the same light again, though. They wouldn’t give an inch, and now I daren’t. Neighbours are apparently to be distrusted. So I’m withdrawing from the smiles and the chats.

Which I guess makes us all the losers.

I know I shouldn’t, but I really do have to comment on Hugh Grant’s interventions into the phone-hacking scandal.

Hugh’s a splendid chap and I have huge respect for what he’s trying to do. The cynic in me fears he’s motivated less by selfless concern for the public good than by revenge (it was News International papers that cheerled the story of his embarrassing roadside blowjob), but I’m willing to suspend my cynicism. Hey, right thing even for wrong reason etc etc.

My worry about Hugh and his enthusiastic cheerleaders is that they risk exemplifying the dangerous adage that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

I don’t disagree for a second with his analysis that “there has been a grotesque power over our lawmakers.” Spot on. That’s how Murdoch (and, for ages, Conrad Black at the Telegraph) kept scandal at bay. Nobody in public office (or in a private position of power) wants to offend the media – obviously. It’s dangerous.

And yes, it IS grotesque. It affords the media, as I’ve said before, a disproportionate and shocking power. Which they will abuse. That’s human beings for you.

But here’s the thing: The alternative – politicians wielding grotesque power over the media – is far worse. If, like me, you deplore the vices of a free media uncontrolled by government, wait until you see the behaviour of a ‘free’ government unrestrained by media.

Speaking for myself, I’m forever amazed by what our lords and masters get up to even when they know the eyes of the press are upon them (parliamentary expenses, anyone?).

Believe me, you do NOT want to live in a country where the media lives in fear of politicians. On the contrary. We want our lawmakers and powerbrokers to fear the press. We need them to.

The downside, as ever, is that this has a price. Freedom – of the media, of the individual, of society – always does.

Example: You want to be free to own a firearm? Fine. But you’ll have to put up with an increased risk of being shot, or seeing your children shot. Americans, on the whole, understand this freedom dilemma better than Europeans, and I admire them for it. This side of the Atlantic, we’re all for minimising risk – all risk – at the expense of a wide range of freedoms.

When it comes to press freedom, it is exceptionally dangerous to tinker – no matter how noble or desirable the goal. I’m all for preventing a repeat of the phone hacking, and all the rest of it (I have an even greater interest in stopping it than a non-journalist), but every ‘solution’ proposed, so far, scares the shit out of me.

It should scare the shit out of you too. We must get this right – which means cool, unemotional deliberation and great, great care.

We do not need excitable luvvies running around talking about grotesque press power and demanding that politicians ‘control’ the media.

Given the news today – SECOND lesbian blogger turns out to be middle-aged American man (following on from the first, yesterday) – I thought I should just take a moment to reassure readers of my identity.

For the record: I am NOT a lesbian living a secret gay life in Syria or a lesbian activist running a feminist website.

I AM an allotment holder lamenting shitty crops and whingeing about lack of rainfall. I AM, furthermore, a boring, middle-aged man living in London’s suburbia and trying not to succumb to a midlife crisis by pretending to be a person of the opposite gender campaigning for things I don’t fully understand.

For total clarity: I will NOT be coming out any time soon as a high-rise, homosexual apartment dweller trying to set up a branch of the Terence Higgins Trust in Riyadh. I will not be leaving my faithful followers feeling betrayed, wondering whether they can trust any of my detailed onion planting advice, or whether it was all the figment of a foetid metrosexual imagination.

This, I hope, will put your concerns to rest.

I’ve been meaning to make more videos, but I never seem to have the time. Doing it properly means several days’ work, so it always gets deferred.

Having said that, I think I should try harder: I looked at my stats today and was astounded to discover that my planting asparagus video was played 72 times on Sunday alone (300+ plays over the whole week).

Clearly, this indicates that there’s a shit load of folks out there who need help with planting asparagus. Whether my video actually helps them is another question: 49 of yesterday’s 72 lost interest before the video was finished. Perhaps they didn’t like my hairdo.

It all made me wonder what topics I should be covering. The ones I thought would get most interest, because they’re difficult (ie growing brassicas and carrots), do OK… but get nothing like the traffic of the asparagus video.

Given the volume of visits to my site coming from a search on ‘planting onion sets’, I’m fairly confident a video about that would go down well (also ‘soil sex vegetable’… but I think I’ll pass on that one).

Gotta say, this baffles me. Planting onion sets doesn’t seem, well, terribly difficult. Or am I missing something?

Anyway, I figured I’d probably learn most by throwing open the question. So, dear readers: if there’s a vegetable problem that vexes you – and which a video would help to clear up – what is it?

If I get consensus on any particular topic(s), I promise I’ll make a video about it/them. But please, no vegetable porn ideas. It’s illegal in my jurisdiction. And besides, I’m too old for that shit.

Done it at last… and already I’m nervous. The weather has taken a turn for the worse today. If we get frost again, I think I’ll lose it completely. What kind of crappy year are we having??

I’m going a bit easy on the corn this year. Last season’s crop was so sensational that we gorged ourselves nightly for what felt like months. It was all a bit much – and despite a 12-month lay-off, I’m still not that enthusiastic at the prospect of more.

Now that Spring is most definitely here, I’ve abandoned the gym and have been running outside for a few weeks.

It’s nice, especially first thing in the morning. Love that smell of musty, misty air half an hour after sunrise. Shame you have to get up so bloody early to experience it.

Life, in short, feels fairly good – especially now that I’m harvesting fresh asparagus almost every night.

Just a few worries, though. Perhaps somebody out there fitter than me can help answer them:

• I can now run comfortably for 2.5 miles, but anything above 3m still hurts like hell. Oddly, some days it’s more painful than others. I ran 5.5m once and it felt OK. Other times, it’s crucifying to reach even the 4m mark. Why on earth is this? I watched people running the London Marathon on Saturday and wondered how the hell anyone can ever do it. I mean, I reckon I could run non-stop for 10km if there were a crash cart waiting at the finish line… but 26 miles? Huh?
• I’m not really speeding up. OK, a bit – I’m up to about 5.5mph from 5.2mph… but that’s hardly significant. I thought after three months of running regularly I’d see a bigger improvement. Or am I being too impatient?

Seen the forecast… eh, eh?

Warm, sunny, windless, gorgeous (er, apparently).

I’m smacking my lips. Can’t wait to get stuck in to my allotment and actually do some work this weekend.

Maybe even cut the first asparagus. Now I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Huge thrill this morning. Managed to take my morning shower without the bathroom light on.

“Pray, why?” you may ask. “Is this some new eroto-luminance perversion popular with the allotmenteering classes?”

Not exactly. It’s one of my personal winter foibles. You see, the day I can shower at 7am without artificial light is the day I know the sun is rising significantly earlier.

I’ve tried a few times over the last three weeks. Mostly with cartoon results – stubbed toes, histrionic slips with wild, flailing arms. I almost gave up last Tuesday when I spent 5 mins in pitch blackness trying to work up a lather with the soapdish.

But today, I managed it. Only shaving was a serious challenge: I look like Sweeney Todd’s practice dummy.

Still, the point is made: Spring’s bloody close.

Said my piece about the RHS on the Guardian today… for those who’ve not read the uncensored version already.

I was perhaps a little disappointed that the responses come, by and large, from the gardening industry; those who work in horticulture or earn a living writing about it (or work/volunteer for the RHS itself). They are influential, to be sure, but they’re not punters. Their coin is green-tinged. They must comment delicately on one of the biggest, richest and most influential players in their industry… if they intend to make a career in it.

That’s partly why I volunteered: I’m an outsider. No such worries for me.

It’s got me thinking, though, about my outsider status… which I wear as a badge of pride. Regular readers (you need psychiatric help, but thanks anyway) will know that I miss no opportunity to be vulgar, shocking and boorish. Rejoice in it, even. Kicking down folks’ expectations of the middle-class, educated, 40-something suburban gardener is an unspoken mission statement of this blog.

In case you hadn’t figured that out.

Most of the time, this suits me fine. I’m used to the outsider role. I’ve played it all my life. Like Groucho, I never want to belong to any club that would actually have me. The kicking, screaming inner child couldn’t bear it. And somebody has to throw bottles from the back.

But now and then, like today, I’m forcibly reminded of the main consequence of taking that role: Namely, that you influence nobody that matters… ever. Your views are too vulgar, too weird, or just too ‘unhelpful’ (the dread adjective that invokes, in three syllables, the full lexicon of British patrician hauteur and contempt).

Perhaps the reminder is good for my humility (there is some, honest). At the very least, it helps me with the midlife crisis problem: I suddenly remembered, today, my favourite childhood book: ‘The Outside Cat’ by Jane Thayer (scroll down a little to read it). And that’s been worth a fortune to me.