The New Normal

An open letter to The Grim Reaper

Hey buddy,

So, what’s the matter, champ? I can’t help but notice you’ve been acting out a bit lately. I mean, since the beginning of the year, you’ve gone on a bit of a celebrity free-for-all, placing those cold, bony fingers on several well-known and significantly talented cultural figures. Evidently, it seems that the talent portion of that statement is more the important piece of criteria for your relentless judgement this 2016. We can determine this fairly simply, since there are plenty more well-known figures left on the planet who are much older and still nowhere near your grasp. Many of them identifiable as career politicians or tabloid journalists.

I’m drifting off topic here. The point is: dude, are you okay? Like, actually? Have things been tough for you lately? Was your 2015 soul-reaping quota for talented famous people way off target and you’ve been ordered to make up for it? Or are you planning a pretty epic gig in the afterlife before the year’s out and simply announcing your line-up bit by bit? For what it’s worth, I stupidly had Prince pegged as headlining Glastonbury 2018 before discovering you’d already booked him for NetherFest 2016.

Perhaps, if you thought of things from a mortal Earthling perspective, you might see how us lot down here are dealing with your rampage, whatever its reason. But I’m a sympathetic one and I’m sure that whatever reasons you may have for ridding the world of laughter and music (you know, the fun things that generally take our minds off of eighty or so years of torment), whilst some of our kind seem to aid you in your bidding; these ones taking more of a scattergun approach, targeting ordinary folk on planes, trains and general public gatherings.

Thinking about it, it’s possible that your intention is one making us more aware of you. I mean, people die every day. I don’t have to tell you that, that’s your job. You don’t stop to tell me how to properly word business-related emails. You’re just doing the rounds until the one day you get to me and I can only hope that it doesn’t involve invisible you pushing me over in the shower and having loved ones blame the slippery interior of the bath. That’s a point – I don’t know if you actually take requests, but if you’d be so kind, I’d prefer to at least be fully clothed when you leave me to be discovered by an unassuming fellow. I’m drifting off point again.

Death – to use your assigned nickname – happens all the time. What’s more, I realise that as we delve further into a constantly connected and switched on society, there are more people of note in our collective culture nearing their later years. We don’t really have to wait for the next morning’s front page headlines anymore. Blimey, barely an hour passed between the moment I heard a colleague state: “bloody ‘ell, Victoria Wood’s dead now” and the moment I watched a national broadcaster replaying old clips of dinnerladies.

So maybe this is the new normal now. We’ve got enough famous people (well, we’ve got enough people full stop) in the bank that losing more and more each week seems like it should be a fairly standard thing. There are enough Internet sensations and teenage pop stars knocking about nowadays that obituaries will probably end up forming the bulk of news items come the latter quarter of this century. I suppose this may be your way of easing us into it, and telling us mere humans not to turn a blind eye to the daily death that surrounds us.

Or you know, maybe you’re just being a bit of a knob lately, in which case you could probably do with a smacking on the bottom with a Woman’s Weekly. Or you know, maybe things have gotten you down lately and you could probably do with a hug. Just, you know, as sympathetic as I am, you won’t get one from me, because… you know… touching.

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Some time ago, I decided that at some point in this lifetime, I’d head to the capital and partake in a ritualistic twenty-six-and-a-bit mile run. I might’ve even stated my intention on this blog but I can’t remember if that’s true and have no intention of backtracking through the last 180 or so of these to check. Either way, it’s still on my list of stuff to do, and something I was reminded of on Sunday as I watched coverage of this year’s annual mass jog around the streets of London, whilst reclining backwards and chewing down on fried bacon and buttery hot cross buns.

Looking as though she’s been limbering up for a marathon, the video accompaniment to this song is somewhat samey. Of course it is, it’s a single take. Anyway, forget the visual. This nice bit of idiosyncratic noises set to altering tempos has kept my mind entertained on the sporadic occasions it’s appeared on’t radio during office hours.

Cate Le Bon – Wonderful