8. Fear Of Heights 2

I have mentioned before about the fear of heights that is in most of us. I'm not talking about steeplejacks, scaffolders or similar types, who seem to have feathers instead of hair, but people as you and I, who feel undressed if they have to ascend a six rung ladder without a parachute.

This fear, I beg to report, is not lessened by meeting it face to face and going up places where you expect to meet angels.

No way!



 

That old feeling of panic and butterflies as big as bats in the tum still occurs, no matter how often you get yourself any higher than eyeball position. And no matter how self assured you sound when describing the wonderful view after you've got safely down again, to people who've got a darn sight more sense than you and refuse point-blank to go up and see for themselves, you know you ain't kidding no-one. Especially yourself.

 

You're in the same position as the bloke who, when standing on the edge of a river on a cold day, testing the temperature with his toe which has gone numb, accidentally slips in just as he's made up his mind to go home, get dressed and have a cup of hot coffee.

 

After he's got his breath back and frantically splashes about to stop rigor mortis from setting in, hollers to his mates who are laughing their stupid heads off from the comparative warmth of the bank side, "Come on in, the water's lovely".

 

There's no way he's going to kid them, cos they can see the goose pimples coming up like a rash of chicken pox all over him. He justs wants other people to suffer the same as him. He knows it, they know it, and he ain't kidding nobody.

 

I've been telling everybody who'll listen to me about the wonderful view that can be seen from the top viewing platform of the CN Tower in Toronto, and I know that while I'm talking to them, they're feeding a no-go programme into the memory bank of their brain telling them to avoid this structure like it was a dose of rabies. They can see the goose pimples that still come up when I think of it.

 

 

This architectural monstrosity is the tallest free standing structure in the world*, being 1815 feet tall, and looks like Cleopatra's Needle gone berserk, we said to our son, Mike, who possibly had thoughts on getting some own back for all the disciplinary injustices of youth, and had told us that we just couldn't come all the way from England and not go up it - what, up that! Where's the top?

 

Fact was, from where we stood at the bottom you just couldn't see it as it seemed to disappear in to the blue like it was trying to dig a hole in the sky.  He laughed and said "Come on, it's not so bad as it seems" and led the way to the lift.

 

The sadists who designed the lift must have bent over their drawing boards and muttered "This'll scare the hell outta any Limeys who go up". It was made of glass and shot up the outside of Tower like a vertical express, reaching the first viewing stage in 50 seconds.

 

This is around 1200 feet up and the girl attendant said "Don't worry about your stomachs, folks, you can collect them when we get down again. Ha-ha!" As my stomach felt like it was draped around my shoes  like a pair of saggy jeans waiting to be pulled up, I didn't think it was funny.

 

My wife and daughter-in-law made a bee-line for the bar to get a gin and lime which they obviously felt would be protective wall to peer over before daring to look out of the windows at the void below, and my son, recognising that this was the end of the line so far as they were concerned, said to me as I leaned nonchalantly against the bar, as far away from the windows as I could get, "Well we're going up to the top platform ain't we? Its only another thirty three stories up."

 

"Why bother" I said "the view's great here, the bar's open and the restaurants got some good grub and -"

 

"Come on" laughed old iron nerves, who I felt had missed his vocation as  test bed engineer and would have done better as a Spanish Inquisitor, "can't go home without going to the top".

 

So up we go again, this time in a coffin that belted up the middle of the building like a rocket out of a bottomless launching pad.

 

My stomach, which had been shakily clambering up to normal position, flopped like a dropped jelly back to the floor where it seemed to resign itself with an air of "If you're going to keep doing that , I'll stay here and wait for you to come down".

Worlds tallest postcard

 

 

We got out on the top viewing platform and began to circle the inside partition which was the furthest we could get away from the windows. That wasn't far, as it was like walking round an enclosed pin head.

 

I thought that so long as I'd got this high I might as well take a peek out of the windows , so edged over and took a tentative look.

 

The view was indeed something, as being a clear day you could see for miles in all directions, especially down. Or it seemed so.

 

I turned to say so to my son and he wasn't there, where was this carefree lad who'd conned his aged parent into ascending into the domain of eagles and angels?

 

Leaning against the inner wall with a sickly grin on his face as he said "I always get jelly legs if I get any height".

 

I thought "Great. You get me up this bloody monstrosity knowing what it does to you, and make out I'm missing something if I don't go up".

 

Should have know better. The same old case of the bloke in the drink trying to kid his mates into suffering with him.

 

Still, the view was terrific, but not if I sprout wings will I ever get used to looking down on skyscrapers and watching planes fly beneath me when I ain't in one.

 

However, if you're in Toronto, you really must go up the CN Tower. It's an experience you'll never forget, as the man said when he fell in the drink.

 

Come on in, the water's lovely. Brrrr.



* Not any more  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_Tower 

 



7. My Lady Nicotine

aka Giving Up Smoking

We've all met him, the character, who, when asked how he did it and didn't it ever worry him, looks at you as if you were a little bit of a feeble minded excreta that the cat had just dragged in and says in the bloody toffee nosed tone, no, he's never felt the slightest inclination to have another one and stopped no bother at all, let's see, seven years ago.

We've all probably looked at this super graduate of 'Know thyself' and wondered how the hell anyone can be so strong minded when you yourself have only given it up since yesterday morning and can think of nothing else but the utter ecstasy of having another fag and to blazes with the Government warning on the cigarette packet. I've always had a sneaking feeling that there's something odd about these blokes who are bursting with health and increased prosperity since giving up having a crafty spit and a drag in the bog during working hours, and can run up a flight of stairs like a gazelle, when the average bod with a good healthy smokers cough can't walk down them without getting out of breath. Something like a eunuch telling you that sex don't bother him, and he can't understand why your eyes stick out like organ stops when looking through the latest edition of 'Playboy'.

Mind you, I must say I have found it easy enough to give up smoking, so easy I once gave it up six times in one week, but I realised after the first attempt that it was not withdrawal from the weed which was the main obstacle one had to overcome. Far from it, there's the wife to start with.

She says she ain't going to influence you one way or the other, it's entirely up to you, but you must admit you have not been the same since you gave it up, have you? This always amazes, as you've been your normal cheery self and more than usually tolerant and loving towards your spouse and offspring, and immediately ask her what the hell she is talking about.

Well, says she, you have been a bit touchy, haven't you? This treachery from the one who has sworn to be your helpmate and comfort in moments of stress generally results in your slamming the door on the verbal battle that ensues, because you don't stand a chance of coming in a good second there and when the house has stopped vibrating her parting words of  "See what I mean" follow you down the garden to the shed, where you cool off by chain smoking the fags you left there when turning it in.

1970's ciggies

Perhaps there's something in what she has said as life settles down peacefully enough afterwards, you return to your hearty coughing on rising in the morning and she returns to her "You want to given up that filthy habit", and the circle is once more complete.

Then there is the question of what on earth to do with your hands when not rolling a fag or holding one between the fingers. Solve that and you are home and dry. When other blokes are tapping the ash into tea cups or flicking their dog-ends at the blind eye of the passing cat, you are aimlessly finger tapping on the table top or sitting on your hands.

I know a chap, who in sheer desperation to find something for his hands to do, learnt to crochet and became very adept at it. His home became full of beautiful crocheted chair backs, side board mats and table cloths, which his wife proudly showed to all her mates, who in turn got at their husbands quoting him as a kind of Guru of the crochet hook. It was only after she has entered a shawl he'd made for his old mother, in the homecraft section of the local show which took first prize, and he had to step up and receive it in the company of two ladies aged eighty and eighty-seven, who took second and third place, that he saw the vulnerable position his hobby had placed him in, and decided he'd be better off with a few tobacco stains on his fingers than crochet callouses.

And of course, the curse of substitution. All sorts of queer objects have been bunged into mouths deprived of the habitual occupant, the fag. Chewing gum, excessive food, match sticks, gobstoppers, you name it, and I'll bet it's been there.

I was taken back to my childhood the other day when a mate of mine, who was into the second week of self-imposed torture, turned up at work with what looked like a large stick insect between his lips. He said, when asked if he had gone weak and started on cigars, no, it was Spanish wood. Hadn't heard that name since I was a nipper and was cast back to the days of tiger nuts and locust beans.

Tiger nuts were identical to rabbit droppings except some were as hard as iron and apt to break off lumps of teeth while others were bad inside the skin and tasted like they looked, but most appealed to the taste buds of kids. Locust beans were like small flat bananas, mahogany coloured and just as hard, but lasted for hours even when you could bite bits off them, which was the reason for their popularity when income was counted in farthings.

And coming back to Spanish wood, it was a kind of edible bush sold in small sticks, which you sucked in the same way as cigarettes and the sap had a flavour reminiscent of weak lemon tea brewed in a Georgian chamber pot. While not a favourite buy of kids of yesteryear it was not without appeal mainly, as I said because it was cheap. It's main drawback was the soggy, splayed condition the end in your mouth got into, bits of soft wet splinters getting in between the teeth and stuck under the tongue.

Anyway, I did notice that after removing this repulsive titbit from his mouth a few times during the morning and gazing reflectively at the messy butt, he quietly tossed it into the gash-bin and lit up an old dog-end he had tucked away in his pocket.

My Lady Nicotine had once again triumphed as she mostly does, but it's nice to do battle with her now and again, if only for the same reason that having a row with ones beloveds has it's compensation. It's so nice when you make it up.