A man who doesn’t have to try too hard

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to write a review of Cleve West‘s book, Our Plot. Say how rubbish it is and he’ll get the hump with me; say it’s great and I’m bigging up a book on MY territory. Snookered.

Cleve’s also had far too much of a good run this year – his garden won
Best in Show at Chelsea Flower Show and despite being diminished by the ravages of late middle-age the ladies still seem to fall for his dark, unsophisticated charms. I was in no mood to add to his list of accolades. I thought I ought to go and visit his allotment (the ‘plot’ of the title) and check it out for myself, see if I could puncture his bubble a little.

I hadn’t planned to but I got the phone out and recorded a little. Anyone who knows Cleve knows that the intervals between him mentioning his youthful almost-Olympic standard athletic exploits are about as long as it takes the flavour to leach out of a Juicy Fruit. I’ve edited them out where I can but one may have snuck in. What follows is a Smörgåsbord* of advice for anyone aspiring to be on the box, anyone aspiring to create something out of box, a little domestic animal care advice, some companion planting ideas, a bit of celebrity topiary and a distinct lack of coffee.

The review, begrudgingly reasonable, should be in next month’s English Garden magazine.

On the way up to London to visit Cleve, I sat over the seat from a fellow train traveller who smelled of something rather strong. I thought it might’ve been Toilet Duck. I suspected it might have been Hai Karate or possibly Denim**. It was a very powerful recollection of a smell – someone I knew in the distant past had this as their chosen smell.

I pretended to go to the loo so I could get a look at him, to see if I might deduce from his appearance what the aroma might be. I should’ve had a good look on my way back but the sod was reading the FT, held up and covering his face. Half an hour later I went to the loo again (a real visit this time, stats fans) – he was still reading the paper. How was I going to figure out what the smell was if I couldn’t see his face?

On the spur of the moment I asked him if he knew whether this one stopped at Clapham Junction. Bingo: paper down. Young/middle aged, dark haired, not unfashionably dressed in a worky kind of a way. He said the train did indeed stop at Clapham Junction. I thanked him and sat down.

I had expected a moment of revelation…curly perm – Brut; long hair, shirt too open – Blue Stratos, etc. But no, I hadn’t a clue. And now, it dawned on me, I faced a conundrum; there were 15 minutes til Clapham….and I wanted to go on to Waterloo…but if I stayed on the train he’d think I was weird for having not got off at Clapham having asked him if it stopped there. He might think me asking him was me making a move on him.

The train stopped at Clapham Junction.

I made my decision. I got up, got my things together…he looked up from his paper as I walked past and I said ‘thanks’ in an overly deep voice. I got off the train. And walked quickly to the next carriage and snuck back on.

I sat down. I could smell the same perfumey smell. I was puzzled…maybe it wasn’t Mr FTreader after all. The tea trolley approached. I had an idea. I got a packet of ready salteds and faux-casually asked the man what that smell was: “apparently some joker stuck a nail in a can of Lynx last night, right between the doors of these two carriages, smells like a whore’s drawers it does”.

Aha. Lynx. Solved. I was pleased but also not pleased: confusing the 70s/early 80s scents with the much later Lynx was a schoolboy error, the olfactory equivalent of mistaking Liquid Gold for Fool’s Gold.

Into Waterloo and as I got off the train I saw Mr FTreader getting off a carriage up ahead. He saw me too. He did the James Finlayson doubletake only slower. I nodded and half pointed behind me in that ‘I’d explain but I can’t really’ kind of a way. He must still be wondering whether it’s halitosis, whether his wife was having him followed him, whether I was a stalker…

* You try finding all the novel characters for Smörgåsbord on a Mac

** I tried very hard be able to perfect that deep voiced advert as a kid….so to this one. I remember thinking that if I ate them my voice would actually go that way too. I moved quickly on to these, voice unchanged.

That pic is rhubarb crumble made with sweet cicely seeds…very nice it is too