I didn’t expect the new pool at Reading’s Rivermead Leisure Centre to be a place where I would be shockingly reminded of my own mortality. I like a bit of a swim, and thought the facility would be a grand place to get back into the habit. The problem was, I booked a fitness session by accident, and found myself trapped in a lane where there was no real chance to take it at an easy pace. Every time I turned I was faced by a determined-looking pensioner bearing down on me disapprovingly.
Readership, I lasted twenty minutes, and five of those were me perched on the side of the pool trying not to cough up a lung. When a concerned lifeguard came up and asked if I was OK, I knew I’d over-extended.
I’ll be back, but making darn sure to to book a gentler session. Obviously, I’ve been spoiled by empty hotel pools for far too long. Once my shoulders have fully popped back into their sockets, that is…
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
A busy old week, what with writing triumphs and social gatherings and an emergency plumber call out just when I was getting cocky. Things never run as smoothly as they could (including the first draft of Chapter 21, lost in a version conflict—gods I love repeating myself) ,so you might as well just enjoy the ride.
This chapter brings you alien tacos, the attempt to steal Graceland and a very insistent seagull.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Doesn’t really feel like June, does it? TLC and I are still pulling out jumpers to wear in the evenings. As I sit writing, looking out at the garden this morning, I’m serenaded by the soft hush of rain on the roof. The grounds are looking especially lush right now, but oh what wouldn’t I give for a sunny afternoon to sip wine amongst the flowers? Oh well, you get what you get. We’ll probably all still be in shorts come November and we’ll have no-one to blame but ourselves.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
The two handles either side of the great upturned ale-jug of our island nation, Wales and East Anglia, are places which wear key elements of our character loudly and proudly—an obsession and familiarity with magic, the afterlife and demonic entities, permeable borders (including those between the living and the dead) and an intense dislike of authority. In this TED talk I will focus on the eastern lobe of our big-eared country. It’s familiar territory for me as an Essex boy who regularly holidayed up here as a boy, More helpfully, TLC and I’ve just spent a week in Suffolk, in a deconsecrated chapel a short drive from the coast.
Hello from Swipe Mobile Command, a converted Methodist chapel in the pretty village of Knodishall in East Suffolk. It is calm and peaceful here, a building of clean white walls and high ceilings. A big bright open space where we can cook, listen to music (and at this time of the morning, birdsong) and reset. Aldeburgh and Southwold are short drives away, as is the UFO walk at Rendlesham Forest, where we will doubtless find the truth is indeed out there.
It is June and we are remembering what it’s like to be grown up, married people with proper internal lives. I am increasingly content. All I need now is to get my toes into some seawater.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
I thought May was going to be a rough month, but I didn’t realise it was going to rinse TLC and I out quite this hard. Tough demands on my head space in The Day Job, various issues with the house which seemed to pop up just after we’d paid off The Big Debt, that whole thing with The Critters In The Walls (honestly, that situation turned into a cross between a detective tale and a haunted house story).
But we have survived our plethora of First World Problems and now can look forward to a sunny Bank Holiday weekend and an actual proper break. This time next week we will be waking up after our first night in a converted chapel in Suffolk, ready for some sea air and relaxation. Only forward, Readership. Always look towards the sun. With shades on, of course, looks cooler.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
I was handed an ugly shift on The Day Job this week. 2pm-10pm, which does nothing for your social life or, it turns out, a positive frame of mind in general. It turns out, as I’ve got older, I’ve become much more a creature of habit. Change is not in my nature any more. I’m an early riser, which means any work undertaken after about 9pm is met with an internal mental complaint of ‘shouldn’t you be in bed by now?’ I’ve seen little of TLC, struggled to do anything creatively and generally spent the week in a state of high discombobulation. Back to a normal rhythm from Monday. Clearly, I need a settled routine to be a productive member of society.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
I’ve engaged in a tiny writing challenge for the month. 200 words every day in May. Doesn’t seem like much, I know. The intersticials and intros in each chapter of The Swipe average far more than that. But it’s not really about the wordcount—although by the time we go on our hols at the end of the month I will have accrued over 6000 of the blighters, which is half a novella. The point is twofold. Build a writing habit and have fun with it. Both of which are completely doable when you’re working with such a short daily commitment. I may even share the end product with you.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
We headed up to Reading Town Hall this Thursday to celebrate the launch of Claire Dyer’s new brace of books—a twisty family drama called What We Thought We Knew and a new volume of poetry, The Adjustments. It was great to see her again in all her room-owning glory, and we had the pleasure to catch with a few more Reading Writers alumni and pals. It was one of those nights which gives me hope about my literary aspirations. It’s a lonely existence, so times when you can meet up and share hints, tips and war stories is really important. Check out Claire’s books—she’s incredibly talented as an author and poet.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
I have a new love. She is a stylish blonde who garners admiring glances whenever we’re out together. She moves with elegance and grace. She is warm and soft to the touch. She sings a little two-note song when I slip into her in the mornings…
Look, she’s a car, alright? To be precise, a 2024 Honda HR-V in sand khaki. Our first new ride in twelve years. The end result of 18 months of planning, and wishing and thinking and saving.
Milady.
Why now? Well, after we paid off The Big Debt, we figured we owed each other a treat. And I drive getting on for two hundred miles a week for work. An upgrade to a more comfortable, economical and modern primary mode of transport seemed like a nice way forward.
After over a decade in our old whip, the change was a steep learning curve. Modern cars are—different. Science-fictional. The first weekend spent with Harvette was nervous, as we got to grips with all the strange noises and lights, the toots and whistles as she gently showed us how she liked to be handled. Also, she’s bigger and wider than the Nissan Note we’d pulled over 100,000 miles in. All of a sudden the road through Sonning seems very narrow indeed.
Running in a new car is a lot like learning to drive all over again. Where’s the fuel tank lid? Where’s the fuel tank lid release? How do I put on the rear window wipers? All the muscle memory accrued through twelve years of Note ownership went out the window in moments. Reversing onto the drive suddenly becomes a nervy exercise in angle management which, to be honest, the fancy reversing camera isn’t really helping with. I’ll be grateful for it soon, I’m sure, but for now I’ll stick to mirror, signal, manoeuvre.
A lot of research went into our decision. Like, a lot. I became very familiar with the work of Mat Watson of Carwow on YouTube, who is the most approachable and entertaining of motoring journalists. It’s a tough gig, though. Because one thing I immediately noticed once I started digging into our shortlist was that there are very few genuinely bad cars on the market anymore. Sure, there are lemons to be had, but in general if you’re buying new or nearly new, you will struggle to find a car that isn’t comfortable, easy to drive and stuffed with safety features.
Which means that, when reviewing a car, it’s tough to find things to complain about. If you want a perfect definition of first-world problems, look at motoring vids and wait for phrases like ‘scratchy plastics’ (in other words, slightly cheaper finishes on the interior surfaces), gripes about the number and size of cup holders, or rage at the amount of USB-C plugs available. If the worst complaint you can find about a new car is how long it takes the powered boot to open or that it’s a bit noisy when coming up to line speed on the motorway (both grumbles pointed at the HR-V as major reasons not to buy) then frankly, you’re barrel-scraping.
Let’s talk a little more about the safety measures. Most new cars now have more radar sensors and cameras than nuclear submarines. You drive in a bubble of radio, an envelope of security which gives fair warning if anything intrudes.
And I’m all for it. My view after six years of driving into work is that everything else on the road is out to get you. You will be aggressively tailgated if you dare to travel at national speed limit in anything other than the inner lane. People will decide to pull in front of you with half a car-length’s distance then slam on their brakes. In urban situations, pedestrians with their heads in their phone and earbuds in will wander out into the road in front of you without looking up. All of these have happened to me this week, and I thank the full Honda Sensing suite of safety refinements for keeping me out of shunts and crashes. It’s crazy out there. You need all the help you can get.
I’ll be frank. I want a car which makes my commute and everyday travelling needs simpler, easier and less of a chore. In this, Harvette is a star. On the motorway, firing up adaptive cruise control and lane-assist means she very nearly drives herself. I long for the day when I can roll into the back of my motor, say ‘take me home, sweetie’ and be chauffeured back to bed. Autopilot on Teslas or California’s self-driving taxis don’t do the job but, based on the technology available to us here and now, the dream is not that far away. Take the driver out of the equation and road traffic accidents drop to nil. The vehicles aren’t the problem, it’s the numpties behind the wheel.
So why Harvette? That’s a question with two answers. To be honest, we made the choice when we first started looking at cars last year. I drew up a shortlist which TLC quietly decimated. The cars I’d picked were too big for her. But, after she had summarily dismissed the Honda CR-V (which is, to be fair, a big lump) she spotted its smaller classmate. Within three minutes of settling into the seats, enjoying the high, wide views and cooing over the soft-touch steering wheel, we were smitten. And to be honest, every car we looked at after that didn’t have the warm fuzzies we got from the HR-V. A test drive this February settled the deal after a nervous wiggle around the twisty B-roads around Swallowfield, and we signed off on finance before Easter.
It’s all in the gut, I guess. If you drive, you know what sort of car suits you. Neither of us are petrolheads or speed demons. It’s nice to have a car with the legs to get you out of trouble when a three-lane trap of caravans and Amazon lorries is closing in front of you, but we don’t believe in monstering it. Reviews of the HR-V highlighted how it was built for people who didn’t care if their car was a bit—you know, boring.
That’s us, Readership. Target market. We want a decent boot. We want fold-flat back seats which also, cleverly, flip up like theatre seats when you have a big plant to bring back from the garden centre. We want a smooth and elegant ride. Who needs to blast when you can cruise?
And yet. Honda are riding high in F1. The Honda Civic regularly breaks lap records on the Nürburgring. And Harvette will pull 0-60 in under nine seconds—quicker than the 80’s hot hatches so many car journalists revere. We were looking for a boring, practical car. We ended up with a speedy looker. And that colour! It’s sort of champagney with a hint of green. According to the DVLA, it’s ‘beige’. Heathens.
So why Harvette, part two? Well, the name was always going to be Harvey (HR-V, come on, keep up) until Darren at Marshall Honda referred to the test car in feminine terms. After that, well, we didn’t want to misgender. And Harvette sounds like a cool 50s motoring marque that only the real nerds know about. She has her own personality, we feel. A classy lady with a practical bent but a quietly wicked sense of humour. And she really does toot out a little tune when I start her up in the mornings. ‘Hi, Rob’ she says. ‘Morning, sweetie’ I reply.
God it’s pathetic.
In summary, then. We bought a new car. I like it a lot. I’ve been boring everyone I know about it, so now it’s your turn.
And this is why we will never charge for content on Excuses And Half Truths.
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