My state of independence

Being a self-employed copywriter in Ringmer is often a thankless task. This is good. In the past I’ve crafted letters from various chief executives, I’ve given voice to a cartoon mobile phone, I’ve interviewed one of the greatest racing drivers of all time and I’ve briefly become an expert on international rail travel. All great fun - and without any sign of Mark Bridge, whoever he is. My name rarely appears in print. As a result, no-one stops me in the street to offer their opinion. No-one photographs me when I pop to the shops wearing pyjamas and flip-flops. No-one asks me if I’m him from that thing.

The freelance lifestyle is also unstable. This is also good. While some of my contemporaries get their thrills from driving fast cars, kite-surfing and wild parties, I get my adrenaline rush from wondering whether my invoices will be paid before our mortgage is due. This is much safer, with absolutely no chance of a twisted ankle.

A writer in a big city may talk about working in a different coffee shop every day for a change of scenery. Here in Ringmer, fewer choices mean fewer visits. Ruling out the local pubs - which is a good idea, because I'd be inclined to stay for a bowl of chips and a pint when I'd finished my coffee - I'm left with a choice between Café Ringmer, an outside table at the bakery and the regular ‘Souper Saturday’ fund-raiser at the village hall. Quite simply, living in a village saves me a fortune on my cappuccino budget.

Then there’s the freedom. I don’t have any set hours to work, as long as I get the job done. I can stay up late if I want (although, to be honest, I often start dozing on the sofa before 10pm. The Newsnight theme might as well be a lullaby.) I can work at weekends, without any of the annoying paperwork associated with overtime payments. And I can even start early, just like most other people with regular jobs.

Of course, there are disadvantages. By not commuting, I miss out on the camaraderie of fellow travellers as we stand nose-to-armpit on public transport, I don’t see the cheery gestures that drivers exchange at the Cuilfail roundabout and there’s no chance for me to boost my circulation as I sprint through the rain to my desk.

Let’s face it, I am a man of mystery. And I’m about to become even more mysterious, because this is my last East of Earwig column. To everyone who’s enquired about the new house (still delightful), the grandson (still delightful) or the late Rupert (still in his little packet on the bedroom windowsill); thank you for joining me on my voyage of discovery through Ringmer. Meanwhile, if you’d like to know what happens next… I’m open to commissions.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 138 March 2018.

Turf Wars: living next door to malice

Our home is at the centre of a discomfiting territorial dispute. It started when we moved house last summer and - despite our best efforts - hasn't gone away. Harry the cat has, understandably, claimed our garden as his own. The cats that live next door see it as more of a community asset, particularly as there’s a conveniently cat-sized hole in the fence. Despite Harry’s insistence that the hole was only intended for hedgehogs, his fellow felines still pop round for the occasional chat. All we can do is shake our heads and shrug our shoulders in sympathy whenever Harry looks to us for support.

That’s pretty much the only disharmony in our street: intermittent tail twitching and a muttered miaow. Fortunately there's no personal disagreement whatsoever. Loving our human neighbours is remarkably easy. On a broader scale, Ringmer’s neighbours are equally likeable. Obviously I can’t say a bad thing about Lewes. (That’s due to contractual obligation rather than any personal preference.) Occasionally we hear a little noise when you throw a party – there’s some kind of thing you do every November, isn’t there? – but we’ve got used to it now. Barcombe Mills: it’s a delight to have you alongside us, although a bit of a shame about your lack of mills. Firle brings joy every time someone from the village says your multi-syllabled name. Obviously Isfield is notable for having the only working railway line within a significant radius. And talking of machinery, I really ought to mention Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum, which is surely the only place in the country that successfully combines ducks and racing cars without any harm to eider.

But all this is missing the biblical point of ‘love thy neighbour’. Jesus told the story of a man walking from Jerusalem to Jericho, which is rather like walking from the spiritual beacon of Ringmer to the far side of Hove, except that the road was considerably more dangerous. Not only was there no separate cycle path, there were also gangs of bandits roaming the countryside. In the bible story, the traveller has his life saved by someone who – in other circumstances – would have been seen as an enemy. Totes awk, as the Samaritan might have said when he texted his mates afterwards.

So, as well as loving my neighbour's cats and all the friendly people in our road who popped a Christmas card through the letterbox last year, it seems I have a biblical mandate to love people who live further away. Not just those in surrounding villages or even born-and-bred Brightonians. No, if I’ve understood the parable correctly, it seems I am being called to love those from far-away lands with lifestyles I don’t understand. Despite their strange customs and unfamiliar accents, the people of West Sussex are also my neighbours.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 137 February 2018.

Planning my own fun

As a child, I loved planning. Special occasions were as much about enjoying the anticipation as relishing the event itself. When our summer holiday approached, I created countdown charts on graph paper. Each square represented an hour to be coloured in. Such was my enthusiasm, when the chart was about half-complete I'd change the axis and redraw it on a larger scale. Eventually, after a few revisions, there'd be a square to fill every five minutes, which meant the time between finishing breakfast and walking to school became an unusually productive time of day. Then there were the library visits to research our destinations, the notes I wrote... I'd pretty much experienced the holiday in advance before mum and dad had even loaded the car.

This fondness for project management was reinforced by the TV shows I watched during the 1970s and 1980s. In Mission: Impossible, the Impossible Missions Force would be given their instructions every week via self-destructing tape. They’d make a plan and would carry out their mission (if they chose to accept it) to save the world from plotters in fictional Eastern European countries. Then The A-Team crashed onto ITV in their GMC van, with Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith telling us he loved it when a plan came together. Their enemies may have been closer to home but the format was pretty similar: a briefing, some far-fetched plotting, at least one explosion and a wisecrack to wrap things up.

These days, I live in a village where everyone has a plan. Ringmer has a non-explosive neighbourhood development plan that was adopted following a referendum in November 2015. It becomes part of the decision-making process when Lewes District Council and the South Downs National Park Authority are considering planning applications, although sadly it doesn't offer much help when the county council proposes closing the local library. Best-laid plans and all that, as Robert Burns nearly said.

Which made me realise the flaw in all these schemes. All my holiday ideas were at the mercy of little brother, whose fondness for steam railways caused many a detour. The secret IMF team was often at risk of discovery, despite their implausibly effective latex masks. And nothing went as expected for The A-Team, even though they were a crack commando unit. Yet, in all these cases, everything worked out alright in the end.

Could this be a lesson for me? Apparently so. Last Christmas, a study published in the Journal of Marketing Research suggested that having a strict schedule for your weekend wasn’t a good idea. Not only did this reduce the excitement from anticipating your activities, it also reduced the enjoyment you experienced from each event. The best solution, according to authors Gabriela Tonietto and Selin Malkoc, is to keep your plans relatively vague until the day of the occasion. Which means it’s probably best if I put my graph paper away this year.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 136 January 2018.