Rants

Posted on 8 May 2008 at 10:26

 

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It's Saturday 23rd November, 1963.

I am a young man. Soft black hairs have sprouted above my upper lip. I am trying to grow my first moustache. My contemporaries have split into opposing factions of mods and rockers. I veer towards the rockers, but I'm keeping my options open. I am mocked by both mods and rockers because I ride a Hudson Villiers autocycle, which is neither fish nor fowl but smells like one and rides like the other. So this afternoon I will not go for a burn-up round Southsea funfair car park with the other teenage hoodlums, but I will watch television.

John Kennedy, the President of the USA, has been assassinated, and I want to see the latest news. But instead there's the first episode of a kids' show called Doctor Who on. It's OK. In fact, it's pretty good. But it is only when the credits appear that I know I will become a lifetime fan of the programme. I pledge my allegiance not because of the escapism, the acting or the story, but because of the first name of Doctor Who's producer: Verity. I know the meaning of Verity because, before I became an apprentice-hells-angel on a moped, I was force-fed Latin at my all-male school. Verity. Verity. What a marvellous, aspirational name.

Girls allowed

Near to my all-male school there is an all-female school, with a high wall and spiked railings to keep boys with hairs on their lips at bay. I imagine that all the girls in there are named Verity, or if not Verity then they are named after some other virtue. I wouldn't mind getting closer to any of these girls with their virtuous names such as Prudence, Constance, Hope, Felicity, Patience, Faith, Grace or Joy. But they only seem interested in boys named after crime, drugs or sex - like Nick, Charlie and Dick. Sometimes it's hard to be a Mel. But Mel's day will come. I just have to wait for the hippies to arrive.

By the time Doctor Who is in its fourth series, a luxuriant black moustache is riding my upper lip, and I am riding a 582cc BMW flat-twin motorbike as well as a number of women who are not named after virtues but after precious rocks. Thank you Ruby, Jade, Amber and Crystal, and please forgive me for my late arrivals, because I have been working after hours programming my first computer, which I name Verity in honour of my first true love.

I make no apologies for the Swinging Sixties or my personal behaviour at that time. I stand by everything I did and everything I campaigned for, and I think today's cynicism and materialism stink by comparison. It is fortunate that girls are no longer named after concepts valued by contemporary society or even precious stones; instead of being named after those traditional virtues and mineral extractions, they would now be named after new aspirations and tat, and be called Celebrity, Ego and Greed. As for the boys, they could all be named after the icons of our times: "Hey Fourbyfour, come downstairs, darling, your friend Satnav is here to see you."

Hairy moment

It is May Day 2008. Today, I find that the last remaining black hair in my moustache has jumped ship. It has dropped on to my keyboard and lodged between the F8 and F9 keys. It leaves behind a regiment of silver, grey and white bristles to remain on duty, doggedly patrolling my upper lip.

I capture the event through the tiny lens of the camera built-in to my all-time favourite computer, and I will consign the image to the eclectic archive of the times and places and events that have turned me into me so far. But some things never change. I am proud to say I am still faithful to my first true love. Ah yes, I always refer to the memory bank inside my computer as Verity. Her name means truth.

Author: Mel Croucher