Episode II: The Phantom Curtsey Radar. Cool and Counter Cool, Tall Tale II.

Cool and Counter-Cool:

Or; On Not Necessarily Being Uncool

Tall Tale II

Episode II: The Phantom Curtsey Radar

Urgent Repairs

Thankfully, I can see at short distances, so I do the quick customary 360 degree bodily-rotation to establish whether Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) is talking to someone behind me, beside me, or in a blind-spot before me.

Nope.

Recce complete.

She definitely appears to be talking to me.

Panic, - I’m on the spot.

How do I respond to an unbidden, unprompted, unsolicited: ‘I like your suit. That’s really amazing’?

Well, I’m a very modest man, as you know; - humble, a man of solemn humility.

But you have to admit it, don’t you? Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) is absolutely accurate in her aesthetic appreciation of this absolutely amazing suit!

Let’s face it, my dear long-suffering readers, she’s got it right.

She’s got it bang-on!

I better tell The Maestro about this.

Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) has handed me a compliment on my outlandish outer-latex!

He’ll be pleased.

Actually, coming to think of it, I better tell everyone about this.

Everyone should know.

But I better be subtle about spreading the news.

This one needs to be spread like a leak from No. 10 Downing Street.

If I were to rocket-launch the broadcast straight into the public domain, it’s liable to give the wrong impression.

She might think me vain.

I don’t wish her to think me vain because that would hurt my vanity.

I could release the news in one of those ‘high-burlesque’ quasi-confessions I like penning! Yes, brilliant, - no one reads them anyway, so that’s a super-subtle strategy!

Sneaky! Cunning!

Oh, you dastardly fox!

Yes, I could tell my dwindling readership of one person about how, one day, Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) gently, and casually, landed an award-winning decisive mallet-boost to my Street Credibility High Striker!

Even Thor couldn’t have done such a good job!

January:

‘I like your suit. That’s really amazing!'

Thud!

‘Erm.’

Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!

Buuuuiiiieeenng!

Ooh, there’s something odd going on with the bell there!

I think Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) has just totally overloaded my Street Credibility High Striker and it’s seriously malfunctioning.

It’s like one of those web-sites that crashes when Depeche Mode concert tickets go on sale. Shit. My Street Credibility High Striker needs rushing into Accident and Emergency at St Thomas’ Hospital, Waterloo, for urgent repairs.

‘Ok, Doctor. Right you are! So I need to go to both the Neurology and Colonoscopy Departments?’

‘Yes.'

Wobbling On

Anyway, dear readers, (or reader), we better get back to the LBB because I’ve put Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) on the pause-button, and she might be getting impatient for a conversational acknowledgement.

You can’t keep people waiting this long, you know.

It’s not on, not on at all.

Anyway, as you might surmise, there is a significant body of amassing evidence, misfiled case files, and ill-assorted paperwork, that prove I become a little bashful and tongue-tied when receiving a compliment.

But on this occasion something strange happens.

Unexpected. Uncanny.

Instead of the usual awe-struck silence, I start…

… wobbling on!

Wobbling on! Thus:

‘Oh, thank you so much! I must admit, that’s very kind of you. Very kind of you to say so indeed. Well, I recollect, I think it was some months ago, there was a wonderful photograph of you wearing a blue costume, light blue, but darkening, the colour tapering into maybe an azure blue? (If tapering is the right metaphor, and I somehow think not.) Yes, yes, azure. That’s it. And the photograph! Its composition had this symmetrical balance between your costume and an azure sky and sea in the background that mirrored it perfectly. Quite wonderful, never seen anything like it before. You must have been on location! Where would it have been? Well, I can’t remember the name of the designer, I’m afraid, Japanese designer, I think. I love originality. I love things that haven’t been done before! And I took one look at the elegance of the visual grammar of the photography and I thought – wonderful! Really beautiful. Unique!’

Yes, I know what you’re thinking!

Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) here has a tight schedule of costume switches to fulfil, poses and postures to adopt, kinky improvisations with Miss Fortune to enact, photographic deadlines of the here-and-now-type to meet, and, possibly, aeroplanes to catch! She doesn’t need old gits like me wobbling on about azure skies, visual grammar, and symmetrical compositions, does she?

I feel like one of those 15 minute long Prog Rock tracks from the 1970s that takes 5 minutes to fade-in, 1 minute to get going, and 9 minutes to fade-out!

But here’s the thing - and I’m ashamed and distraught to confess it:

I know nothing about photography!

How about that?

Absolutely nothing!

Here I am, a fellow that prides myself on knowing my shit when it comes to shit that I know – and, instead, I make the commitment here to not knowing my shit about the shit that I know not!

But, get this, - Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) manages to fathom what the hell I’m talking about! There really are miraculous happenings and supernatural interventions in this fallen world:

‘Oh, thanks! It was Kurage Latex!’

‘Oh, fabulous! Thanks. I must remember that. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Mister Peeeaaaaril.’

‘Hello. I’m Ruby.’

Readers, I’ll let you into a little secret; - I already know who she is!

Her achievements precede her.

Actually, my achievements precede me too – I bring more disasters with me than the darkest of dystopian novels.

Orwell & Co have got nothing on me!

The Phantom Curtsey

Now, you might have noticed, we’ve done the whole self-introduction and salutation conversational thing at the end of the dialogue. It’s all in reverse order.

But that isn’t the strangest thing. Oh no.

To fully draw your attention to what happens, I’ll need to put Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) on pause again, do a little rewind, and we’ll replay the scene with the addition of vision to sound!

Sound and vision!

Blue, blue, azure blue,

Is the colour of this tune

Where we all live.

Blue, blue.

Let’s all sit back down

Waiting for the gift

Of Dave and Vision!

Waiting being the operative word.

So, here we go:

‘Oh, fabulous! Thanks. I must remember that. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Mister Peeeaaaril.’

‘Hello. I’m Ruby.’

Did you see that?

You didn’t?

I’m not sure I saw it either.

The vision was a bit grainy, wasn’t it?

Now, we all clearly saw the handshake, yes, which she proffered in that replay, - but I mean the other thing.

The other thing.

Now, I’m not sure whether it was an hallucination wrought on the troubled senses, or a technical fault in my visual apparatus, or an intervention from the supernatural realm, - or whether Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) has…

… curtsied!

Has she curtsied?

A little one, a momentary dip and bob!

Did she really?

No. Surely not.

She couldn’t have.

A dip and bob?

Must be my cataracts or the rotating room.

Oh my god, I’m being haunted by phantom curtsies.

This is serious.

I need help.

But if she did, well, that makes me feel like a right-royal Royal!

I feel like one of the great monarchs! You know, like Charles le Fou, George III, or Wilhelm II!

But, succumbed by doubt once more, I quickly realise that the repairs to my Street Credibility High Striker aren’t enough. It needs an add-on Phantom Curtsey Radar upgrade. If it doesn’t get one of those, how can it monitor the psychic value of the cultural environment with any degree of reliable precision?

To be honest, I’m so astonished, I’ve done a double-take. In fact, this double-take has left me permanently cross-eyed.

It’s no wonder why I’m having so many problems relearning the bass guitar.

Actually, it’s just as well I was dumbstruck. If I hadn’t been mute I could have endangered Miss Ruby Alexia (SG)’s patience with another rambling monologue! I could have opened a Trojan Horse of questions or launched a thousand ships of queries about Miss Ruby Alexia (SG)’s ability to play a bass guitar with one of those extra strings.

Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) can play a five-string bass!

Well, I never!

I’m having a problem plonking around with four.

Honestly, if you add another string into the mix, it’s just one string after another.

I wonder if Miss Ruby Alexia (SG) can play slap bass too?

I can’t.

Not a chance!

It’s a very difficult technique.

When I slap the bottom register it lands perfectly; - but whenever I attempt to pop the G-string I always hit a bum note.

[to be continued…]

Cool and Counter-Cool:

Or; On Not Necessarily Being Uncool Pt II

Episode III: The Jaunty Cap