Hello? Hello? Anybody there?
No. Nobody there. The eerie sensation of writing a column for Christmas Eve in the certain knowledge that no-one's going to read it. What's the word count? Thirty-one. Another eight hundred or so words to go.
Bless me, but it's lonely here. No readers, no critics, no friends, no passing strangers, nothing, nobody. A vast and noiseless vacuum.
Helloooooo? Is anybody there?
Silence. God, but it's eerie. I've often wondered what it would be like to be marooned in your space suit in outer space, and now I know. It's like this. Alone. Completely alone. Wonder if even the editor will read this? Probably not. What's the word count so far?
One hundred and thirteen, I think. Seven hundred to go, not one of which will ever be read by a single human being even in a century of February 29ths. . . What was that? - Nothing. It's your nerves. Calm down.
- Don't tell me to calm down. If there's one thing which makes me need to be told to calm down, it's being told to calm down. I was calm until you told me to calm down. Now I'm not.
Take advantage
- Good. So now you can calm down.
- Do Not Tell Me To Calm Down. Ever. Do You Hear Me?
- Temper, temper. I'll tell you what. In order to calm down. . .
- I'm Warning You!. . .
- . . .why don't you take advantage of the situation? Why don't you say the things you'd never have the nerve to say if you thought people were reading you? Now that nobody is reading you, so have a go. Shout your head off! Bawl obscenities! Mention the unmentionable!
- What? You mean like about women drivers?
- Exactly that. Women drivers. Now if the sisters were to read your opinions on women drivers, you'd be able to join the Vienna Boys Choir. But they're not going to. So speak out. Tell me what you were saying about that Lexus driver.
- You mean the woman? Well it was a bit unusual, because (a) it was, as I say, a woman, but (b) it was a big car driver. You've noticed - we all have, I suppose; my wife certainly has - that women drivers hardly ever let you through. You know, you're stuck on a a side road, and there's a steady but slow moving stream on the main road. Very, very few women drivers will wave you through. And big car drivers of either sex, hardly ever. Yet there I was, trying to get out onto the Foxrock Road, when this Lexus slowed down and waved me through. And it was a woman driver. Incredible!
- They do say the Lexus's understated but sophisticated elegance attracts a better class of driver.
Never cheery
- Do they indeed? Never been in a Lexus. Rather pricey, I believe. Well, this woman not merely let me through but waved me through cheerily. And she was young and good-looking too. That's another thing about women drivers. Good-looking or not, they're never cheery. And when you let women drivers through, they never acknowledge you. Ever. Men wave, smile, beep their horns, flash the old hazards, that sort of thing. Women just sail through as if it's their right. Especially one with the sunglasses on the head in red BMWs.
- You're not going on about BMWs again, are you? After that last thing you wrote, you were dropped from their race-day guest list.
- No I'm not, a mere aside. Happy to be dropped, incidentally. All those BMW drivers in the one place. Ugh. But you know the kind of woman driver I'm talking about. When you're stuck in traffic, you're passed by some blonde illegally driving a red car down the bus lane. She's got sunglasses on her head and she's smoking Marlboro Lites. The sort who'll never give way to you and never thank you for giving way to her. Probably works in property or financial services. What I wouldn't give to run a chainsaw through her tyres as she's revving her engine in the bus lane at the red lights.
- Why do women drivers behave so differently from men drivers?
- It's not just a question of driving. Often, when you open a door for a woman, she says nothing. Passes on through, talking to her friends, as if you're invisible. Do it for a fellow and he's all over you with gratitude.
- Again: why?
Bent bumpers
- Completely different species. That's the point. Women take courtesy for granted. On the other hand, men are far more dangerous. You only have to read your newspapers to see that. Lethal. It's this simple: men of military age cause fatal road accidents. Women generally don't cause accidents, except when they dither - shall I, shan't I? Dither and slither followed by bent bumpers. Men don't dither. Men go for vroom and doom. Much worse.
There! Did you hear something? Is somebody listening? Is there a reader out there? A feminist, mayhap, sharpening the knives to ready me for the Vienna Boys' Choir?
- Hush. There's nothing out there. No readers. No audience. All is still. All is quiet.
- So there'll be no complaints?
- None. No readers, no complaints.
- Good. Happy Christmas.
- Same to you.