The Jabberwocky Of Julius Jones

This is the story what I wrote. It’s the story of a couple of weeks on the front line.

1 - Doing the coke

I haven’t touched the coke for a year and a half, maybe two. I’m clean. This feeling of purity goes relatively unnoticed till the previous Thursday on the forecourt of the local Apocalypse Tesco. It’s quite a hot day (for our little island anyway) and the truck driver that’s been lamenting his long hours with the till staff (they really needed enlightening - you call 14 hours long?) trots back to his truck with the sticky black liquid in the red and white covered bottle nestled under his arm. And my taste buds go into attack - yes, it may be perfectly chilled on a warm day, but all that tar-like sugary junk? Yuck! Time moves on. Eleven years ago I would finish work for the afternoon, pick up a 3 litre bottle at the village store and sink it before starting back in the evening - perfect appetite eradicator all that caffeine. No need to eat in the evening, then miss breakfast and start all over again. These days of course it’s red bull that’s taking the head lines. By the time the red bull revolution had started - I’d had the crash (there’s only so much you can not eat till your body says no) so I thought not starting RB was the best way to give up.

D has never seen the point in not eating - ‘why would you want to punish yourself?’ Well that’s the point isn’t it - subconsciously you need to, and you feel a sense of righteousness when you do, and the hunger pains make you feel ‘strong’ in some perverse way - that you can do that and survive? Or that you’ve got the power of control - ‘I’ll show you’ - which isn’t so different, I suppose, to young kids who leave vegetables pushed to the side of their plate. It’s odd - it only seems to make sense when you’re in that mindset. And when you need to do it, which I really don't now.

Another relapse occurred in ’02 - pushing myself to the edge, physically, mentally - it‘s a common theme. That time I took action - I didn’t want to give in, there must be a way out. It was summer rather than winter this time around so that helped too - too much to miss. I wrote a food diary. Every thing I ate from when I woke to when I crashed. It didn’t take up much paper. I brought some instant porridge oats, some tinned chicken soup (I can always tell it’s bad when I’m craving the chicken soup), some cambazola. Changed the coke for tea. Nice combination. It worked. I was back. Of sorts.

It wasn’t till the 2nd mugging, this time with a gun…….

…..that B came the rescue and I moved out of the war zone that is SE London. Then the reformation could start proper. All the issues you have can be traced back to something. I began tracing them back. Dealing with them. Or accepting them at least. The following January I made it my new years resolution to stop doing the coke. That year I only succumbed once - a can on the tube home from the proms on a hot London day. I had one bottle last year - in the sun outside the biennale, with st Marks in the background. It was awful. The coke that is.

The truck driver goes back to his truck and his bottle and I go back to mine. Water. Sparkling. Can‘t give up the bubbles just yet.

2 - Ham burgler

His gaze flicks left, flicks right, round. He’s moving around, restless. Anyone would think he’s nervous. But I think this is just a type - that’s what happens when you want to make lots of money. The risks involved make you twitchy. Almost nervous looking.

“What do you think?” he asks, looking for a split second directly at me, then switching to look at the customers arriving to his right.

“Great. Everything’s perfect. All fresh tasting - everything tastes like it’s just been cut.” A bacon cheeseburger. But they make their own burgers - it‘s perfectly charred on the outside and cook inside - chop all the beef tomatoes, red onion and lettuce every morning, make their own tomato relish. A revolution among burger places - the start of a franchise machine that‘ll be sold off when it‘s established. P is for profit. It’s only later when I realise what it’s really like, the burger - it’s as good as something I could do myself. It’s a long time since I went anywhere that I could say that. Not that that really matters - nothing’s been too dire, and I don‘t think like that - I don't - if someone offers you haven‘t done yourself that has to be a bonus day, but… well you know.

It seems like everyone wants a slice of me at the moment. A few weeks before it was the dairy guy who wants to take my desserts nationwide. Hmm, quality, mass production. Sorry can not compute. The free food on this occasion was a ploy to discuss his new proposal. He - Mr. Twitchy was the brand man for Virgin. So he knows branding. The place I’m in is record of that fact. It screams it. Now he wants to start a sub brand of his bistro brand. And make it my company. Take the restaurant experience to people’s own homes. It sounds good. It’s what I’m doing already. But doing but do it more, and charging more for it, as there’s a brand to back it up, and customers pay more for a brand, and they stay loyal - film shots of my economics lessons play on my internal screen. I know these things. He’s got to play harder.

He talks of Country life magazine, big articles, Ascot picnics, Wimbledon packages, and being able to promote it in their existing places. Almost sound good. And then -

“Of course because it was linked to the main core brand I’d want 51%”

I stop eating.

“50%” he corrects himself.

I take a sip of water.

“I bring to the table the branding, the investment [he mentions 50k at some point], the back-up....” he says

“.....and I have the infrastructure, the systems that work…..” I follow on. And with the other company that has the slick, efficient, nice looking waiting staff, it does seem like the perfect combination.

I leave later, somehow, the previous week’s full on 7/11 extreme work still taking it’s toll, at that point with a go for it attitude.

It’s not till the next morning and the 50% sinks home. 10% commission to regular clients, 50% to them doesn’t really add up. And D’s words from a couple of weeks back ’and who’ll be doing all the work?’ And I think of the artisan chocolatier, and her small scale, independent, no mass production, best quality attitude - she wouldn’t think much of this. And nor do I. Come on - it’s about branding. And I hate that. That’s what the last two years have shown me isn’t it - that brands suck. It’s where the wrong guy gets rich, and the people who care go broke - just look at supermarkets and their producers. It’s the small scale producers who really care about what they do - and that’s what it’s about. It’s not about money. I’ve just created this life which I really like - why would I want to give it up for someone else to be in control - yes it might be called mine, but all those annoying accountants, and him in the background asserting the rules?

A narrow escape.

So I’m leaving it. It makes it easier for him if I say yes - otherwise he has to start from scratch. Oh well. Hard cheese. We might know each other’s hands now after talking - but I know they’re not starting till at least Autumn, and without me that could be even later. I wonder if they’ll find anyone else who’s up for it. They probably want to find someone who’s working for someone else already - once you start on your own you can’t give it up. That gives me a few months to push on. It gives me a head start. Which is almost as good as a head stand, but not quite.

On top of this there’s the small fact that they owe me £1,200. I add it up that morning. Not a bean in the 2 months since they started, despite the reminders. It becomes clear how they do business. Well they can f*** off. I send them a letter saying I’m not taking them anything else till they pay me. It p***es me off for at least 3 days. Especially with the VAT bill going through this week coming. Something you don’t want to do - as I’m reminded by a grovelling phone call from my veg supplier (after they messed up something a couple of weeks ago) - is p*** off your suppliers.

And at the end of the day I’m not in this to make it easy for anyone..... but myself. You’re in this alone.

3 - You’re in this alone.

The dessert goes out. I attempt to sigh, but it becomes 3 sighs, and that feeling comes. The adrenalin crash. And I have to curb it quick. Still a lot to do. This is the Friday, the last of 6 days there cooking 3 meals a day - cooking, setting tables, washing up, washing and ironing tablecloths, uniform - even I had underestimated how much work it is for 10 people. The previous Sunday I’d gone from the kitchen in a tent in a field at the wedding for 120, to my kitchen at home, to this kitchen by the sea in Cornwall all in 8 hours, working then driving through the night to get there to do breakfast.

I’d spent the week turning this kitchen in to mine and now there was stuff everywhere. Every cupboard full of jars, packets, bits and bobs, all the equipment - proccessor, mixer, ice cream machine, pots, pans, trays, crockery littlering the work tops, boxes of stuff all over the utility, stuff in the washing machine, in the tumble drier, and that was without the washing up. Now it was time to pack up and out. It began to look like the 7th January after you’ve taken down all the Christmas decorations.

The kitchen was basement level, down a nice steep flight of stone steps. A long way to drag heavy stuff up when your energy levels are dwindling by the second.

In my life I’ve worked hard. Nothing was quite like that week. 368 covers in a week between me and A it’s a record - beating the 244 in one weekend I did with mum last year. I maxed out. Only this time there were no blue flashing lights. Driving licence in tact. I stopped twice to power-sleep on the way down.

4 hours later, 22:30 I’m packed up and walk in the door of the apartment (nice balcony overlooking the sea incidentally). Adrenalin crash. How I get out of the place, down in to the village to use the payphone to phone the orders in (because of the cliff there was no mobile reception anywhere) I have no idea, and am still not sure I quite did it, although the stuff did turn up.

04:30. Dawn. I become awake. My eyes open at least. The limbs say no.

04.50 Tea. Too tired to think of eating. Seen too much food that week. I pack up the stuff around the apartment. I open the doors of the van, and find it’s on such a steep slope, probably 60 degrees at least (the whole village is a hill really) that things start falling out all over the drive - foil, bananas, milk, a handful of lemons, a box of smelly tea towels - all the messy bits. I reverse down to the level almost clipping the side wall. I’m sure this sounds good to the neighbours. The tyre’s quite down now. I’ve been looking at it all week, and I resolve to do something about it on Monday when I’m back.

I’m sure I leave the apartment far too clean - it looks like I’d never been there, but I know what it’s like - that Saturday clean up feeling.

05:30 I take the wrong road out of the village and am heading to Torpoint, but that’s OK, no point turning around, I can just go back that way. I look for the road map to check, but that’s when I realise it’s still with my brother back at home - I’d chucked it at him when he went off the week before, so I had to hope for the best. I was sure it would be OK. A half hour later I get to Torpoint. That’s when I find that there isn’t actually a bridge here. It’s only a ferry, and as it’s only 6am it’s not open - that line across the water I saw on the map must have been a dashed line - ferry crossing. I’d missed that bit. So I have to spend more time going back on myself then picking up the main road. That all takes time and time is critical. 2 events that night 27 & 16, and lots of last minute things to do - unpacking then making tarte tatin, roulades, ballottines of duck, the stuff only I could do, then repacking.

It’s just after 8 when it happens. The whole van shakes and it goes loud, and it feels like I’m driving on nails. I’m on the inside lane, just going coming up to the slip road with cars coming in from the left, and the van’s veering left. I cut the speed, and run out of steam on the hard shoulder. Heart’s going. I get out. The left front tyre’s in shreds and smoking - ah the smell of burning rubber. Great. Now what. I haven’t got time for this. The RAC. I pick up the mobile - they can deal with it. Mobile’s dead.

Flashback - the night before, late…. he flips the mobile open, and it’s dead. Only 15 hours after it went on charge. All that roaming to catch a signal it could never find. The recharger lead is in the van - he’ll get it after he pours a drink…….

S***. Now what. I look up the side of the hard shoulder - any idea how far it is to the next emergency call box? Who knows? Could be miles. And it probably wouldn’t be working when I got there. But I’ve done that before - when the Morris Minor conked out on the way back from Rick Stein’s (everything has to have a special ending). Luckily that time it conked out just a few metres from an emergency box. In that case it was the petrol pump again - a bit beyond my scope. This was just a tyre. How hard could that be? It’s 11 or 12 years since the last time I did one, and that was the minor too. I grab the handbook - I remember there’s a jack and spanner behind the drivers seat - not that I’d ever need them, or so I thought. There is a spare tyre (you should really check these things - but there’s only so much time), and I jack the van (after driving forwards so the jack’s not on the bit of the road where there’s a step between the new tarmac and the older lower level, then backwards away from the drain cover). Now I’m like one of those people you see on the side of the motorway with their stuff all over the verge.

I fix the tyre on and look at the other side - it’s dangerously low too. Happy days. It should get back to base though, so I can sort it out then - there’s another 2 hours + driving in the evening and I don’t fancy doing this in the dark. I drive on to the service station to wash my hands, black with the ingrained tyre dirt with a laugh - you have to laugh otherwise it gets to you.

Whenever you’re at a peak moment - when you’ve worked your hardest to pull something off, there’s always something s*** to push you even further. And it’s these times that tell you one thing - you’re in this alone.

4 - What he thinks when he thinks about things (i)

I’m sure there must be something easier to do.....

5 - Ham burglar part 2

Two days after the meeting with Mr. Fidget, and a day after I decide the computer says no, I get an email from one of most regular clients (the one who kick started me on this track), and they’ve brought another 2 houses - one rather large. So that means loads more for me to do, and I tell them about this week-long new idea, and that’s a goer. This thing makes me realise I like them. They have respect for what I do. They know what quality is, and they also don’t have a problem with paying for it. One of the other clients hasbrought another house too - it’s a good time if you’ve got the readies, so I can expand on my own thanks very much. And I'm sure there's a book to write.....

6 - What he thinks when he thinks about things (ii)

...... it'd be no fun though.

I like stories with happy endings.