Julian Cole

FOUR days off in a row has left me too unfocused to grapple with important matters. This is perhaps unprofessional. I'm sure that Hugo Young would not let such a domestic distraction deter him from rattling on about the Euro or Paddy Ashdown in his column in The Guardian.

No, you can be sure that Hugo could lay his hand on some high-minded planks of opinion and build himself a pulpit. Hugo, you can bet your first Euro, would not write about Christmas shopping and taking his five-year-old daughter to the doctor's.

But fie on opinions for the moment. Opinions, we all have them. This column has them piled to the ceiling in dusty, tottering stacks, opinions for every eventuality. Well, almost every eventuality.

The two women in my life are suffering from a nasty cold which has rendered them deaf and affixed tissues to their noses. First the five-year-old went down, then my wife followed. Both now have a perfect excuse to ignore me, as they shuffle and snuffle through the day.

"Pardon?"

"What's that?"

"Atishoo!"

Monday was spent Christmas shopping. Yes, CHRISTMAS SHOPPING, that's what I said. Sorry, all this shouting is wearing me out. It is to be hoped that all the right presents were bought, as we didn't have a list and communication wasn't always easy.

"That just leaves your mother and my mother."

"Pardon?"

"I said..."

"Sorry, can't hear a word."

We return home laden and exhausted. It is possible that there are more tiring human endeavours than Christmas shopping in York, but I'm not prepared to consider the counter claims of climbing Everest until I've had a sit down and a cup of tea.

Tuesday morning and the five-year-old looks pale and is complaining of ear-ache. So instead of writing this column, I take her to see our GP. The last time we went there together, she earned a mention in this vicinity. I had booked in for a check-up of a male nature, and she sat and watched intently as the doctor carried out his inspection. On the way home, as we walked hand in hand down the street, she said in a voice of piercing clarity: "Daddy, why was that man looking at your willy?"

Anyway, this time the doctor looks inside her ear instead, which must be less distressing for him. He takes her temperature with one of those stick-on thermometers, and says that she has an ear infection. School will be all right, he thinks, so we cash in the prescription on the way. She is only half an hour later than her classmates.

As we walk down the corridor, I start to speak but she says "Ssshh!", as lessons are on and didn't I know that you weren't allowed to speak. I drop her off and linger by the door for a moment, peeping through the window into her little world. Then I walk home, enjoying the slight guilt of not being at school, not being at work, not being anything much. I buy a paper, wonder what Hugo has to say, but go for a run instead and think about what I might write.

Later I have to pick up six children from school, which is twice the usual Cole quota. As we return in a riotous tumble, it occurs to me that some people actually have six children, a thought which brings me out in a sweat. Perhaps it's my turn with the family cold. The five-year-old survives the day at school, but looks pale. We talk about the doctors and I act as the communicator between her and her mother.

"She had a thermometer on her head, one of those strips."

"Pardon?"

"A thermometer, stuck on her head..."

"Lipstick on my head?" chips in the little girl herself. Admitting defeat, I sneak upstairs to write this column. Now what do I think about the Euro?

3/12/98

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.