come in and know me better man

Despite being able to ask and understand these basic questions in a number of languages, I seem completely unable to answer them straightforwardly. When I meet new people I like to ask them: Do you do good things? Pretty much all the ones who answer, ‘What do you mean by good things?’, never seem to hold my attention for very long. It’s the ones who say, ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I’m trying to’’ or ‘I used to’ or ‘yeah, I think so’, that seem to become my friends. You’re your own judge to that question. It gives you space to manoeuvre. For what it’s worth: My name is Chris Jenkins. I’m from Oxford, I guess although I wasn’t born here. I’m doing some years in the middle of my twenties. I think I’m ok, thank you. (God that’s such bollocks, when am I ever OK?). I’d like to do good things – if only for someone else (maybe someone I’ve just met).
I came back from Italy twenty months ago. I was a nicer person then. Probably better looking. Italy seems to have so much more sky than us. But some things were similar. Those same questions were asked. And as you’d expect I couldn’t answer them properly either – some of that was due to poor Italian on my part. Made the mistake of saying I had arses (ani) rather than years (anni). English stands apart from other ‘romance’ languages. We use the verb ‘to be’ with age. Italian, French and Spanish all go for ‘to have’. Not sure which I prefer. Age is something that’s gone anyway. I think ‘have done’ probably sounds best. My name is Chris and I’ve done twenty-something year thingies.

For a while I’d been playing around with the idea of putting a football team of my favourite writers together. The team came together pretty quickly. Had to have Shakespeare in the heart of the midfield doing his creative genuis thing. Support from wing-backs who were both qualified pilots. I guess in footballing terms going with an all American attack wouldn’t been seen as the wisest thing to do. (Although there is Coelho to add a bit of South-American flair). I also feel a bit embarrassed that no females make it into the starting list. Worse than that there are some really big ommissions: Dante, Toslstoy, Milton, Chaucer, Dickens, Flaubert, Cervantes, Mann, Kafka, Proust, etc..etc.. Out of interest who would you have picked? What do you reckon would’ve happened if the two teams would’ve played eachother? I guess a lot would have to depend on who the match referee and officials were…. (hmm Monty Python….)