Jonny McCambridge: A week in my life - smelly slippers, kitchen roll and the mug

Unexpectedly my boy pauses the game, looks at me earnestly and says: ‘I’m being serious here daddy, but I can’t play anymore because your slippers are so smelly that they make me want to vomit.’

Stung by the directness of his attack, I retreat to the other room where I take off the slippers and sniff them. I cannot disagree with my son’s conclusion. In a dramatic gesture, I throw the malodorous slippers onto the open fire. Surprisingly, they are effective as fuel and burn quite well.

I am warmer than I have been all day. Apart from my bare feet, which are now freezing.

MONDAY: I do a radio interview to promote my new book. I always get a wee bit tense doing broadcast so I walk around briskly while I’m live on air, with my mobile pushed hard against my face. Because I’m nervous, I become slightly breathless.

Later a friend texts me: ‘What was that noise in the background when you were on the radio?’

I listen back to the recording. Then I hear it. An ugly sound, like an inexpert cello player roughly pulling the bow across the strings.

I’m confused for a moment before I realise what it is. It is the sound of me breathing. A course, rasping amplification of the workings of my lungs for everyone to hear. I sound like Darth Vader, but more threatening.

‘That’s not going to help shift too many books,’ I think to myself.

TUESDAY: In the morning I am having problems with my work computer. It won’t allow me to log into an application I need. I call for IT assistance.

An English man phones me and remotely takes control of the computer. I explain the problem. I watch as he makes the cursor flicker about my screen.

‘Jeez, I’ve never seen this happen before,’ he says reassuringly.

‘Mmmm,’ I respond.

‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’

I tell him I have. There is silence. I begin to suspect that’s all he’s got.

After another half hour he manages to open the application, possibly by accident. He cheerily bids me farewell.

In the afternoon I try to use the application again. It won’t open. I call for IT assistance.

A different English man phones me and takes control of my computer.

He says: ‘Jeez, I’ve never seen this happen before…..’

WEDNESDAY: The horror of home-schooling goes on. I am trying to teach my son the two times tables. This involves playing him a song sung by a Rastafarian cartoon character accompanied by a tortoise (I can’t master the accent but my dancing is admirable).

My son is doing well while we recite the sums in sequence. He knows how to count in twos. But when I begin to mix them up, he flounders.

‘You are doing them out of order daddy!’ he complains.

‘That’s the whole point, you’re supposed to learn them!’

He looks at me suspiciously.

‘That’s just dumb, you’re making that up. Why would anyone ever need to learn that?’

I can think of no immediate answer.

THURSDAY: I click onto Amazon to check the progress of my book.

There is a useful section on the site entitled ‘Customers who bought this title also bought…’

It allows an author to see what other books your customers like, allowing the writer to feel that he is part of a larger artistic landscape, one of a community of like-minded creators.

I check that section for Afraid of the Dark. It says customers who bought my book also bought Regina Blitz household kitchen roll, 560 super-sized sheets of triple layered strength. The product is number 1 in the Amazon kitchen roll chart.

I scratch my head. What is it about my book which immediately makes the reader think about kitchen roll?

‘Could be worse,’ my wife reassures me. ‘It could have been toilet roll.’

FRIDAY: I go to the big supermarket to do the weekly shop.

While I’m in the foyer, I step aside to let a woman pass. A large security guard stops us at the door and tells us we can’t go in together, shoppers are only allowed to enter alone.

She looks at me.

‘But I’m not with him, I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

She looks unimpressed. I nod along sympathetically.

The security guard accepts his mistake and allows us to enter. We both head straight for the fruit and veg aisle. I look back and see the security guard; he seems satisfied that he has played his part in making the world a safer place.

SATURDAY: I wake early. My wife and son are still asleep.

I make a pot of coffee and locate my favourite mug. It is an old tin cup with a small metal ridge along the top. It was a Father’s Day present and I’m quite attached to it. I feel that coffee doesn’t quite taste right out of any other receptacle.

I take my first sip of the steaming liquid.

When I go to lower the cup I realise there is a problem; it is attached to my face.

Some of the bristles from my moustache have become caught in the metal ridge.

I hold the boiling hot cup there for some seconds before I summon the courage to yank it free. I yelp in pain as some coffee spills on my trousers.

As I’m rubbing my painful lip I notice that three bristles are still attached to the rim of the cup.

I’m going to have to find a new favourite mug. Or else shave my beard again.

* Jonny McCambridge’s new book, Afraid of the Dark, published by Dalzell Press, is available now on Amazon

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