Somebody decided there should be a book of my Guardian columns. Yes, really. I cringed a bit at the prospect. I mean, one a week is too much for some people. So how is a whole book of them going to work? At least it wouldn’t take much effort on my part, I thought. How wrong I was. For a start, I had to go back and read hundreds of them. They really are a bit much all at once. Spoons, ageing, footpaths, drinking, spectacles, death, ADHD, death again. And so on. My colleague Caroline Frost, having been persuaded to interview me about the book for a literary festival, read 60 columns at one sitting and seemed a bit shaken by the experience. It’s more for dipping into, I told her. An excellent toilet book, perhaps.
Speaking of toilets, the column I wrote about having a urinal in my flat was a gamechanger, in the sense that no longer am I stopped in the street and asked either about my drinking or West Brom. Now it’s invariably about what I wee into at home. Only this week I was stopped at the BBC by a chap I didn’t know who asked me if I minded answering a “sensitive question”. Oh God, what now? Cringing with embarrassment, he said, “Is it really true you have a urinal?” I laughed and told him that I did and that I was relieved his question was about nothing serious. But his expression suggested that he considered my having a urinal really was a rather sensitive matter.
I still find it odd that people find the idea of a urinal weird. It’s just a small toilet fitted a bit higher up a wall. Perhaps it’s because they think it’s like something you would find in the gents in a pub, a proper big floor-to-waist-high job with a channel at the bottom featuring cigarette ends you can try to chase away. It’s weird, too, that I’d mentioned having a urinal before, on radio, television and in other newspapers, and it had never caused much of a stir. I can only conclude that Guardian readers are more urinal sensitive.
The reaction was mad. One newspaper even claimed that my column had caused a spike in urinal sales. I wondered if this all might bring about the offer of the lucrative product endorsement deal I’d been dreaming of. No such luck. For that, I’d have to wait until I wrote about the misery of having to wear a compression sock. I’m pleased to report that a year after the piece came out, representatives of a manufacturer of compression wear have been in touch. I’ve instructed my people to speak to their people.
All in all, I’ve been engaged in an orgy of oversharing. It was the only way I could come up with anything to write about. And in more ways than one it’s changed my life. Five years ago, after I wrote about the difficulties I have bending down, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief asked me in for a cup of tea. She told me the piece had made her laugh. And we ended up getting married. She’s not laughing now!
It’s a privilege to be able to share random stuff, and not one I take lightly. If anyone stops me in the street to tell me they’ve read a column, I’m pathetically grateful. Often the complimenter can’t get shot of me and ends up having to pretend to have a train to catch in order to make their excuses and leave. But when my dad died, I don’t know how I’d have coped if I hadn’t had the opportunity to write about it. That said, writing about it also led to more pain.
An old friend of our family, Angela, a nurse from Neath, read what I wrote about how horrifyingly unprepared I was to be with Dad as he lay dying. She sent me a text that completely floored me. She said we should try to see it as a privilege to be with someone as they died. Rarely do you read or hear something that utterly reframes how you see things. If you were with someone as they were born, as they came into the world, you’d feel it was a privilege, so why not see it the same way if you’re with them as they leave this world? No one, least of all Angela, was saying it’s easy, but if I’d managed to channel even a tiny bit of this thought it might all have been a bit less awful.
Her wisdom came too late for me and my dad, and I’ll never stop regretting that. I think every day about how I could have done it better. My only consolation is that I went on to write about this and people from all over the world got in touch to express their gratitude. I take no credit for this – the credit is all Angela’s. It was my privilege to be able to pass on her wisdom and give it the reach it deserves.
I’m also grateful to have learned – bluntly, through desperately looking for something to write about – how even the most mundane things are freighted with meaning. A hug, a stone, a handshake, a recipe, a supermarket delivery, a spoon. I always end up realising that there’s a lot going on there. Or perhaps it’s just me. That’s my fear. But there always seems to be at least one person who feels the same way. OK, writing about a favourite spoon might have been born out of desperation, but then a woman told me about mourning the loss of the spoon with which her late mother served up food. “There was just so much love in that spoon,” she said sadly.
I have also written about my favourite coathanger but on that, so far, I am alone with my feelings. I don’t think that one even made the cut for the book. But if you are someone with a favourite coathanger, please do get in touch. I’d really be most grateful.
Curiouser and curiouser: excerpts from selected columns
I’m a great enthusiast for urinals in the home. This is an enthusiasm shared by very few people, especially women, who have been known to retch at the very sight of it. This baffles me. Many a chap has been chastised about his incompetent use of conventional toilets – poor aim, not putting the seat down and so on. Well, here’s the answer: a receptacle at the correct height for ease of use, which is neat, tidy, clean and flushable. It changed my life. Gentlemen – or anyone with a penis – trust me: it is wonderful to have a toilet of one’s own.
Spare a thought, if you will, for compression sock-wearers at this time of year. In shorts – or a skirt or dress, for that matter – there are no two ways about it: they’re not a good look. And the class 3s only come in that awful beige, the ghastly attempt at skin colour that is a match for no one’s skin.
The one consolation is that, while my instrument of torture makes for a terrible start to the day, it is a wonderful way to finish it. Oh, the relief when the bastard thing can be peeled off as I make ready for bed.
If you’ve been on the telly a lot, you tend to get recognised. Unaccountably, I suppose, this seems to motivate people to speak to you. It’s a great conversation-starter, but it’s always the other person doing the starting. This dawned on me a few years ago when Croatia’s Davis Cup tennis team beat Great Britain at Wimbledon. I was invited to the group’s celebration party at a pub in that part of London. The Croatian friend who had invited me couldn’t come, so I knew not a soul there. But, no matter, I thought: I’ll just turn up and win friends and influence people with great enthusiasm.
In I walked, looking around in expectation of being engaged in conversation. Nothing happened. Nobody recognised me, therefore no one felt any urge to talk to me. OK, then I’d have to start a conversation. I opened my mouth to speak to someone, but nothing came out. I’d utterly forgotten how to do it.
I’ve never forgotten that awful feeling of being lonely in a crowd. So, every day I try to start a conversation with a stranger, hoping they don’t edge away in alarm. And I hope I’m always as open as possible to a conversation anyone sees fit to start with me.
I have started getting feelings for my spoons. I blame Tim Hayward, restaurant critic for the Financial Times, for this. He wrote a brilliant piece last week about his search for the perfect spoon. At first glance this was a bit random, even for me. But before long I was with him all the way in his quest for the spoon of his dreams, a spoon of just the right depth, size, shape, length and other variables.
I surveyed my spoon drawer and considered my feelings. I was disappointed to see I have no fewer than 17 wooden spoons. Disappointed because this implies a certain shallowness, as if I’m some kind of spoon Lothario, collecting notches on my bedpost, focusing on quantity rather than quality. Stirring without love is just exercise, after all. But sorting through them, I realised I do have a favourite. It’s more of a spatula than a spoon, but it suits me very well. I had always looked out for it without knowing I was doing so and felt a twinge of disappointment if it didn’t come to hand. If ever I lost it for good, I now understood, I would miss it for ever.
I went to the Croatian embassy recently for a gathering of Croatian professionals in the UK. Upon entering, I thought I’d walked into the wrong event; it felt more like a youth club for exceptionally well-dressed people. I was a good quarter of a century older than nearly everyone there. They all seemed more confident and wiser than me. All of them spoke English far better than I spoke their language. It felt as if I didn’t have a lot to offer.
I got talking to one impressive young woman studying chemical engineering.
“Postgrad?”
“No. First degree. I’m only 20.”
She turned out to be the daughter of a famous Croatian goalkeeper. Sloping off home, I checked his Wikipedia page and discovered that I’m considerably older than him, too.
When I got back, I made myself some cocoa and went to bed.
The Curious Columns of Adrian Chiles is published on 10 October (Profile, £10.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
Join Adrian on 10 October, 7.30pm-8.30pm, when he will discuss with fellow Guardian columnist Zoe Williams his brilliantly bemused tour of British life as captured in his new collection of Guardian columns. Book tickets at theguardian.live.com