The Back Of My Front Door

When I moved into my flat, I was surprised by how much stuff the previous owner had left.  Furniture – fantastic.  Cutlery – brilliant.  Odd bits of old paperwork, a curious collection of, I suspect, somewhat racist if historically interesting prints… less so.  The cork board on the back of my front door though – fantastic.  I have so much stuff pinned to it.  Local library opening times, details of the local sports facilities, the packets from all the plants which I have entirely and utterly failed to cultivate in the boxes outside my front door.  (My next door neighbour’s cat!  Oh, but I do love cats, but if this feline poops in my flower boxes one more time….)  Leaflets of things I should really attend and explore, righteous reminders to self to sort this or that domestic failing out, a small piece of paper reminding myself of the main reasons why I don’t believe of god, so that when the Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on my door unexpectedly I have my argument immediately to hand, and of course, endless pages of notes on stuff I need to write.

Quite why the notes on things I need to write ended up on the back of my front door, I don’t know, except to say that it is the ONLY corkboard in my flat, and I guess that lent it a certain practical inevitability.  None of the notes I keep there relate to works in progress, but are reminders of things which should perhaps, some day, be a note in progress.  Glancing at the list, I see immediately a reference to Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, who was hailed by the plaque on the front of her house as the ‘mother of computing’.  A few notes below that, and there’s a reminder that after the surrender of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, the German generals were all confined together in the same dacha, creating quite possibly the bitterest housewarming party imaginable.  There’s a fake Afghani village in Norfolk, run by the British Army to train its soldiers in how to handle the local customs; a Belgian schoolteacher who in World War Two led the British tanks into Antwerp on a bicycle; ‘Pope Idol’ suggests a note, a reminder to consider the power of indoctrination, another note reminding me that pirates are cool and that the Blue Road to Goradze is fascinating.  To my delight, I can also see two notes which I’ve already fulfilled – ‘Loopers’ and ‘Locusts’ (watch this space) so might cross them off my list.  Oh god, and here’s a note reminding me that the International Peace Organisation Association is the rather incongruous name by which the major mercenary companies of the world like to hold their parties in Dubai, and another suggesting not to forget the value of the thrill seeker’s pickpocket festival.  In all, I have about twelve pages of these notes, collated over years of sitting up and going ‘oh, that looks interesting!’  Quite what I’ll do with them, I’m not yet sure, but perhaps one day, if I ever get writer’s block, they’ll come in handy…