Richard Baum

It has become clear to me this week that I am not actually very good at anything. And this disturbs me somewhat.

When I was at school I was never really very accomplished at art. Or science. Or sport. I wasn’t awful at them, I just wasn’t very good. I could kick a football, a skill which foxed some people. I just couldn’t kick it in the direction I intended. And I could more or less get through a biology class, even if on occasion I muddled my fallopian tubes with my umbilical cord rather more than I am comfortable admitting to my female friends. But I excelled at nothing. There were always the people who were so obviously going to be professional botanists or astronomers or cricket players that they could’ve sawn their own limbs off and still made the grade. I was always getting 7 out of 10.

Thankfully there were subjects like english and history, and there were just enough of them to mean I could drop the unpleasant ones like physics, and acquire exams in things that relied on opinion more than fact.

And I was never very good at doing things either, like cutting stuff out or managing to put on my lab coat the right way round. I just assumed that this awkwardness and general lack of skill at anything whatsoever would disappear along with my youth, rather like being nervous around girls. Unfortunately, whilst the lack of nervousness around girls has now disappeared so completely that I say the most horrifically inappropriate things to them without even realising it, the physical awkwardness remains and I still can’t tie my shoelaces without giving it my serious and undivided attention. Double knots present a sometimes insurmountable challenge to this day. Which is probably why I never warmed to the Cubs.

A few months ago I needed to get undressed in a hurry. Without delving into the detail, I can tell you that it took me so long to untie my shoes that she almost gave up and went home.

My problem with doing stuff has been brought into sharp focus in the last couple of days during attempts to paint the spare room. For some reason known only to herself, Tamsin has taken a violent dislike to the blue colour its walls were painted, and has plumped instead for a mint green. Both old and new colours appear fine to me (someone who really, really, couldn’t care less even if the walls were adorned with prophetic images of my own death), and yet we have been gripped by emulsion madness these past few days, spending more money and significantly more time in B&Q than I am in any way comfortable with. The place is choc full of real men wearing steel-toed boots and talking to nodding staff about drill bits. I don’t know one end of a claw hammer from the other. It makes me uncomfortable.

And yet my rushed exit from the mammoth DIY warehouse only hastened the nightmare that was returning home to actually commence the painting. We bought a couple of “rollers,” mis-named in my view because whilst Tam achieved a smooth action, my one was obviously faulty and bumped along the wall like a car on a rumble-strip. In addition, our two tubs of paint were clearly differently mixed, because whilst her’s applied itself without streaks and evenly across the surface of the wall, my paint looked like the inside of an Aero.

And when it came to the tricky bits (which, for me, was everything from the moment I opened the door, but which I was informed by Tam is the corners and the tops and bottoms), believe me when I tell you there were nearly raised voices. Apparently the dust sheets and masking tape weren’t just there for show, a fact which was relayed to me in exasperated tones after I had splattered both roof and carpet. She’s obviously not keen enough on the mint green to want it on the ceiling…

I escaped the painting briefly by offering to cook tea, which remarkably is an activity I can accomplish without either poisoning us both or setting the house ablaze, despite it involving chopping, stirring, decanting stuff onto plates, and diluting glasses of Vimto.

The room is now painted, and we’ve got there in the end. But not before the relationship was sorely tested. And I got paint on my nice polo shirt.

So the whole experience has left me thoroughly emasculated, and reminded me again of the folly of my school days when teachers had me trying to draw bowls of fruit for reasons beyond understanding. I wasn’t good then, and I’m clearly no better now. My hands and I have a relationship of mutual tolerance, and nothing more.

I often think of the astounding good fortune I’ve had, living in this country at this time. The wonder of living in the twenty first century, when our houses are built for us (and the less stubborn amongst us realise that painters can be found in the Yellow Pages) and every help in life is made available. So many of us have every comfort, every chance, every opportunity. Yes, I know there are problems and that not everyone has an equal chance. That’s wrong, but this is a jokey post and I hope you get the joke in what I’m saying. Even in a world where everything’s not perfect, I am grateful that simpleton buffoons like me, barely capable of changing a light bulb without contemplating writing a will, don’t go homeless and hungry because they can’t hunt and forage. Thank God for scientific progress that I can take advantage of without understanding a bit of. It has clearly saved my life. Don’t get me wrong - I am curious about stuff. I just know my limits, and they come somewhere just after knowing how a lava lamp works and a long way before knowing how the large hadron collider works.

And thank God for being able to do things involving words. Words and ideas and talking to people, and basically not having to do anything that involves scissors or rope or balancing stuff. I’m better at the words and the thinking and the ideas and the getting things done, even if it’s not me doing them. And that’s no bad thing at all. Not just for being a councillor, at which I hope I can bring these skills to the table. And not just at work, where they seem to serve me well. But also immediately after I’ve accidentally trod mint green paint into the carpet. Because I can think of a fantastic excuse…

Rick