Tape 156: Living In The Moment
Every now and again my mum sends me Instagram videos of things you can do in London. I find it very endearing that she still does this despite the fact that I’ve lived in London for nearly fifteen years. Broadly speaking, the videos fall into three distinct categories, with more or less equal distribution. The first category consists of things I genuinely didn’t know about London and have been excited and grateful to discover (“This Old Ruined Church Has Been Renovated Into A Fondue Bar;” “This Broom Cupboard In The Offices Of A Major International Bank Conceals A Secret Underground Lake.”) The second category consists of things I still didn’t know about London, but which are utterly banal (“Are You Even Really A Londoner If You Haven’t Tried This Big Croissant?”) and the third, and my personal favourite, is just things that everybody definitely already knows about London but which are presented by the content creator as some sort of incredible discovery (“Top 10 London Hidden Gems For Foodies, No. 3 – Borough Market.”)
Recently Mum bucked the trend by sending me an Instagram video of something you can do near London – namely, walk to the Ouse Valley Viaduct and get someone to take a photo of you jumping in the air.
As you can see, there’s a really photogenic quality to the way the Ouse Valley Viaduct recedes into the infinite that really makes you want to go and take selfies there. Miranda and I decided we would go immediately – life had been a bit heads-down lately, a bit nose-to-the-grindstone, and we were feeling a little boxed in by the digital urban sprawl, the feeling of living a version of life dictated to you by an algorithm instead of truly embracing your freedom to live in the moment. It was time for us to tear up the map, breathe the air and go to a specific bit of the countryside we had seen in an Instagram reel in order to take photos of ourselves.
We got the train to Balcombe with only seconds to spare, meaning I had no time to buy a packet of crisps before leaving London. We had each bought a delicious artisanal sandwich from the bakery on our road in order to lend our hike a nice rustic flavour, but I was feeling a bit anxious about the unexpected lack of crisps. The bakery doesn’t do crisps, and I really thought I’d have time to get some at the station. “I’ll get some at Balcombe,” I said out loud over and over again to calm myself on the train, but my leg didn’t stop twitching the whole way there.
To my horror, Balcombe turned out to be a village with no apparent mechanism by which to obtain crisps. We did see a sign advertising a village open day at the church, and it’s possible that if we’d gone to that we might have been able to get some crisps, but we simply didn’t have time. As we disembarked, we noticed that another large group had also got off at Balcombe and started setting off in the same direction as us.
“Look at those city types,” I tutted as we sped past them. “Probably only here to take photos of themselves at the viaduct.” Miranda reminded me that that was why we were here, and I scoffed. “No, we’re also doing an extra loop that takes us round the reservoir. I bet they’re not doing that, those city slickers. I bet they’re just going to go straight to the viaduct, take some selfies and then leave. Ah, the chronically online! No real appreciation for the great outdoors!” With that, I seized a slender branch from a nearby tree and snapped it off then twirled it around like a walking stick and laughed a hearty countryside laugh. A woman looked out of the window of a nearby house and shouted “What the hell are you doing to my garden?” and we set off at pace.
Behind us, the group of hikers were filling the air with their laughter and affectionate chatter. I marched ahead, rolling my eyes. “Come on, let’s put some distance between us and these galumphing clods,” I laughed.
The main reason I had decided we would walk round the reservoir was because there was an activity centre at the bottom of it which I suspected might sell crisps, but the reservoir itself was also very beautiful, I think. I couldn’t really tell because I spent most of the walk thinking about how hungry I was. I was really trying to live in the moment, but it was difficult when I had imbued a future moment with such significance – the moment when I would buy and eat some crisps.
Eventually we stopped and ate our artisanal sandwiches on the shores of the lake, but without crisps, the lunch felt incomplete. “This lunch feels incomplete,” I said between mouthfuls. “I need crisps.” We marched on until finally we got to the activity centre, where I bought some crisps, and also a Coke and a Twix, all of which I gorged myself on ravenously. Feeling bad about how little I had been able to live in the moment up until now, I decided to give expression to the wonderful feeling of my hunger abating by repeating my hearty countryside laugh and chucking my rubbish into the lake with an infectious joie-de-vivre. “Some do-gooder will fish that out,” I chuckled when people started shouting at me. The manager of the activity centre was making his way over to us now, looking red and angry, so we legged it.
As we neared the viaduct, we passed the same group we had become separated from earlier, now sitting in a big circle in a beautiful meadow, laughing and chatting. I raised my eyebrows and scoffed. “I knew it,” I said. “I knew they wouldn’t stop and actually appreciate the viaduct. They just took all their pictures and then walked off. No appreciation for the countryside. No ability to live in the moment. Pathetic.” Miranda said it seemed to her like they were having a lovely time, but I just laughed. “You wait til we get to the viaduct,” I said. “We’re going to really appreciate it.”
When we got to the viaduct, we found a large group of hikers standing in the archway taking photos of themselves. I laughed to myself. “Look at them,” I said. “Chronically online. They’ve just come to take selfies. Sad, really.” I tapped my walking stick against the solid brickwork of the viaduct then looked up at the top of it and nodded in an impressed way, to make sure the people taking selfies knew they were dealing with a real viaduct connoisseur. Then I wandered up and down the viaduct for a bit, looking at it from different angles and nodding. Then I went back to the bit where you’re supposed to take photos, but the group were still up there.
“They’re hogging the viaduct,” I hissed to Miranda. She said we could just wait. “But I’m getting bored,” I said. She suggested we sit and read our books for a while in the shadow of the viaduct, but I could see more hikers approaching from the road. “We’ll lose our place in the queue!” I gibbered. Did it matter? she asked. We had all day. “But it’s not fair! We were here first!” I countered. The group on the viaduct finally clambered down, and I seized our chance, pushing in front of the new arrivals and angrily shouting “It’s our turn, excuse me, us next!”
As an aside – Miranda and I had recently shot a short film and our DOP on the day was suffering with slapped cheek syndrome, which he’d picked up off his kids. Slapped cheek syndrome manifests as a rash in children and as joint pain in adults. It quickly passes, but is quite contagious. Miranda and I had both noticed that our wrists had been feeling weak and sore recently, and had come to the conclusion that we had probably caught it too. So, as we attempted to hoist ourselves up onto the viaduct, we both found ourselves repeatedly stumbling back onto the ground going “Oof!” and “Ow!” Both the group who had preceded us, and the group who had come up behind and were now waiting for us, started laughing. “We’ve got slapped cheek syndrome!” I protested. “Our wrists are sore!”
Eventually we made it up onto the viaduct and stood there trying to work out what to do next. We soon realised that one of us actually had to climb up onto a different archway in order to take pictures, so I quickly ran and clambered onto the next one over (again with plenty of stumbling and feeble cries of pain). Eventually, I turned back to Miranda and jumped in the air, like someone living in the moment. “Did you want me to take a photo of that?” She called across the gap. “Yes please!” I replied, and jumped again. “Do it again, I didn’t get that!” she said. “Just keep jumping until I’ve got it.” I jumped for a third, fourth, fifth time, still grinning, arms wide.
I cannot emphasise enough how embarrassing it is to literally jump up and down in front of a group of people who have already decided that you are an idiot. When people post photos of themselves jumping in the air, it looks like they have somehow been frozen in a state of ascendance. It looks like they are rising to their higher self. When you actually jump for a photo, you simply lurch your stupid body about a foot off the ground before thudding back down. It takes less than a second, and feels a lot like you’ve banged your head on the sky. “I’m living in the moment!” I explained to the jeering onlookers in between jumps. “Which one?” they snarked back.
We swapped round and I took some photos of Miranda, and then people behind us started complaining about us hogging the viaduct, so we got down and let them have a go. Then we looked at the viaduct for a bit, and then went “Ok, let’s move on.”
Five minutes further on, we could no longer see the viaduct as a stand of trees had come between us and it. As we approached a gate, we saw a group of hikers coming the other way and stood back to let them pass. “Are you sure?” said one of them. “There’s a lot of us.” “No, please,” we replied, “it’s nice to take a moment to appreciate the landscape.” We stood there for about ten minutes as literally two hundred hikers walked past us in single file. Every two minutes or so, one of them would say “Are you sure? There’s a lot of us,” and we would explain that yes, we’d done that bit, don’t worry, it’s nice to take a break etc. After about five minutes, it did occur to me that perhaps we should’ve stayed at the viaduct for longer and we’d have had a nicer view for this bit and could’ve appreciated it a bit more, but we’d made our bed and could now do nothing but lie in it.
Anyway, we came back to London refreshed and revivified and with many great photos of both of us landing awkwardly on our feet immediately after a jump. It’s remarkable what getting out into nature and really living in the moment can do.
A Cool New Thing In Comedy – This week we saw Katie Norris’s Farm Fatale at Soho Theatre, and my God, it’s a good show. I implore you all to go before the run finishes on Saturday. It’s formidably funny. Also, if you don’t mind me plugging something of my own, I’m bringing You Wait. Time Passes. to the Pleasance in a couple of weeks and would so love to have nice busy audiences on both nights. I’m already really enjoying this new show and very proud of it, so if you’d like to come along I’d love to see you there!
What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – Katie’s James Acaster song, I think.
Book Of The Week – Still on Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, but nearing the final stretch now. It’s so good. I was wrong, the mum isn’t secretly a bee, but there have been loads of other revelations and family secrets. It nails that sense that you can never really know someone, that what you see of them is never the full picture of who they are. I love it.
Album Of The Week – Fame And Wealth by Loudon Wainwright III. I love Loudon, he writes the funniest songs about being an asshole that anyone has ever written. This album boasts a song called “I Don’t Think That Your Wife Likes Me” in which he tries to work out why that might be and can only surmise that it’s because he’s famous and she’s jealous. I think it’s a masterpiece.
Film Of The Week – Not seen any, soz, been busy. Seen anything good?
That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought, and if you enjoy the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage other people to subscribe, I’d really appreciate it! Take care of yourselves until next time,
Joz xx
PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.
PPS It’s that time of the year when the Frieze Sculpture Fair returns to Regent’s Park. My favourite bit of it this year is this big sad scrotum daffodil chicken:
