The Retcon Files

In which The Author needs a memory upgrade

You won’t be familiar with the word ‘Retcon’ unless you’re a fan of the sadly discontinued SF series Torchwood – or, latterly, Doctor Who, where it got an unexpected namecheck in ‘Face the Raven’ a few weeks ago. For the uninitiated, Retcon is a drug which Captain Jack Harkness and his pals administer to the unwitting victims of extraterrestrial contact. It’s part sedative and part memory wipe, and it leaves the people of Cardiff with no memory of their close encounters.

I used to think that Retcon would be a great idea, personally. A few years ago I wrote a piece called ‘Memory Dump‘. I speculated about the real-life applications of the Mierzwiak Procedure, the selective memory erasure at the centre of Michel Gondry’s terrific (and terrifying) 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I could free myself from my traumatic childhood memories, wipe out at least one sort-of ex-girlfriend, and get rid of all sorts of crap I remember from the book trade and will never draw on if I live to be a hundred. It was a choice between the Mierzwiak Procedure (non-invasive but still dangerous brain surgery), or a little white pill to add to my nightly cocktail of Things Beginning With M. With no pun intended, it seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

However, to judge from a number of recent conversations, I seem to have been spiked with Retcon quite a few times already. Over the last year or so, I’ve lost count of the number of apparent strangers who’ve started talking to me like old friends. In fact, it’s reached the point where it’s embarrassing.

I used to put it down to the fact that I worked in a city centre shop with a very large catchment. Consequently I met a couple of hundred of people (at least) every week. It was hardly surprising if I couldn’t remember everyone. Oddly enough, when I was in Cardiff before Xmas, literally the first person I bumped into on my way from the station was one of the shop regulars. I groped around my neural archives for his name and came up with Neil. It’s actually Nick. Two letters out of four isn’t bad, though – especially after nearly seven years away from the place.

If I hadn’t met people in the shop, I might have met them on the train, where the same people tend to cross paths fairly regularly. If you don’t believe me, have a quick look at the daily feature in Metro, where lovestruck commuters can invite their fellow passengers out for coffee – or whatever else comes to mind. (My own commuting crush kinda paid off one evening, when I woke Shanara the Dippy Bint in Aberdare and rescued her from an unplanned journey back to Cardiff.)

The third place where I might have struck up a conversation with a random stranger is, of course, the pub. After all, who needs Retcon when there’s beer on tap? If you can’t even remember leaving the place – never mind who you were with, what you were talking about, or what karaoke songs you inflicted on the rest of the punters – then everyone’s favourite legal amnesia drug has obviously had the desired effect.

On Boxing Day afternoon I called into the Lighthouse for a pint, and ended up staying until the early evening. There was a cracking live duo playing there: The Shakes, from Swansea. They’re two middle-aged guitarists who’ve been doing session work for years, and now play gigs and small festivals across South Wales. I had a chat with them while they were setting their gear up, and stayed for the first half of their set. They managed to get through forty minutes without touching anything from the Kings of Leon’s or Stereophonics’ backlists, so that was a good sign. When they stopped for a break, I explained that I had another gig to go to. For once, I wasn’t just making my excuses and leaving.

The other gig was at Aberdare Rugby Club, and featured my friends Replaced By Robots (see ‘Robot Invasion of Earth (Phase II)‘) as the headline act.

[A digression: There wasn’t much competition, to be honest. On my way into town on 23 December, I passed the Constitutional Club, a huge place on the corner opposite the library. For well over a month they’d been advertising a show band (a guy and two women) for Boxing Night, with large full-colour posters in the windows. I know these agency photos are always touched up before they hit the streets, but the women both looked pretty tasty. If the tickets hadn’t been seven quid a throw – and if it hadn’t been in the Con Club – I might have been tempted to check them out myself. On 23 December, though, I noticed this:

I posted this photo on Twitter and added the message, ‘Now you know what happens when everyone in Aberdare will be Replaced By Robots on Boxing Night.’ Andrew L. (one of the keyboard players and vocalists in the band) added the comment ‘Oh dear!’ I just hope everyone who had tickets for the Con Club gig got their money back.]

Anyway, when I got to the Rugby Club the boys were still setting up, so I went into the bar and checked out the price list. Call me old-fashioned, but three quid a pint (in a club, for Goddess’s sake) is almost Cardiff prices. I bought a glass of Coke and killed some time with the big FT crossword until it was time to go upstairs.

The place was filling up nicely when I got into the big room, so I grabbed a chair and staked out a place at the back. I’ve previously mentioned Tug Wilson, who used to come to the Carpenters for the Thursday night gigs. He was well into his eighties, and would have a whale of a time grooving with the youngsters who frequented the place.

Well, on Boxing Night, I knew exactly how Tug must have felt when he was surrounded by people at least half his age. I checked with a couple of other people, and was reassured to find that I was officially the oldest person in the room.

I decided to stay on the soft drinks, mainly because I begrudge paying three quid for a pint and having to wait over five minutes to be served. It wasn’t all bad news, though. The boys played a cracking set; there were lots of attractive female punters in the room; there was a great atmosphere and a good crowd. Gareth L. came in and we attempted to have a chat before admitting defeat. I didn’t see him leave, but when I went to get my final drink there was no sign of him.

This was the point when the Retcon must have kicked in. I was on my way back from the bar when an attractive dark-haired woman started talking to me. She knew my name, and knew that I used to work in Waterstones. Her other half knew me too. A fortnight later I still have no idea how, or from where, though.

The three of us chatted for ages, and we decided to head to Thereisnospoon for a late(-ish) drink. The conversation continued until closing time, covering a wide range of topics. It turned out that she was interested in having a website for her business. I said I’d get in touch with Chris D., who’s sorting out the websites for the Lighthouse and Alwyn’s artwork, and put them in contact with each other.

This was the really awkward part. I simply could not remember her name – if I’d ever known it to begin with. Fortunately for me, my phone battery had died a couple of hours earlier, so I was spared the horror of asking her name when I was saving her number. She took my number, though (that was the easy part) and promised to get in touch when the Xmas and New Year nonsense had died down. Later on, her other half mentioned her first name, so I was halfway out of the dark. Halfway …

We went our separate ways and I walked home, racking my brains to recall how we knew each other. Over the next few days I spent quite a while wondering exactly where the hell we’d met in the first place. I’m still none the wiser.

All I knew for sure was that my new/old friend’s first name was Linda. That doesn’t really narrow it down. (On the other hand, I’ve absolutely no idea what her other half’s name is.) I wondered whether I could track her down via Facebook, but with only a first name it’s a very long shot. I didn’t even have the first letter of her surname, which might have narrowed a billion or so people down to a few million. It crossed my mind to ask my Facebook friends (many of whom were out that night) if they could fill in the missing information. The snag was that there was no guarantee anyone else would remember either – it had been a long few days, after all.

The whole affair reminded me of the time when Jeffrey Bernard was approached to write his autobiography. He famously wrote a letter to the New Statesman, asking, ‘Can anyone tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974?’

Michael Molloy, the editor of the Daily Mirror, replied, ‘On a certain evening in September 1969 you rang my mother to inform her that you were going to murder her only son.’

Next time I can’t think of anything to blog about, I’m going to get one of my friends to post the message ‘Steve O’Gorman is unwell.’

I was in Lidl on Wednesday evening when the woman in front of me at the checkout struck up a conversation with me. Once again, I was totally unable to place her. I knew her face, and I was sure I’d known her for a long time, but her name simply wouldn’t come to mind.

I’ve had to adopt a crafty tactic to cover up my Retcon phases: if I’m chatting to a guy, I call him ‘mate’; if I’m chatting to a woman, I can usually get away with ‘babe’ or ‘chick’.

I once bluffed my way through an entire sub with a book trade rep I’d known for years, by calling him ‘mate’ throughout the appointment. At the end I reached for the diary, flipped it open to that day, saw his name on the page, thought, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, of course it is!’ and said, ‘Right then, Dave, when are you in town next?’ Nicely saved, even if I say so myself.

I managed to hold a fair conversation with my friend at the checkout, all the time trying to remember her bloody name. She left before I did, and headed for her car. That saved me from digging an even deeper hole for myself.

Anyway, I was walking up Gadlys Road when – joy of joys – I bumped into Linda herself. It was perfect timing. I grabbed my pen and scribbled her number on my hand, to make sure I had it when the time came to store it in my phone. Just to complicate matters, it turns out she’s Lynda with a y – yet another Doctor Who reference, folks. Unlike me, though, the Doctor has the enviable gift of being able to remember everyone he ever meets.

It was only when I got home that I realised who the woman at the checkout was. Her name’s Liz. She grew up about half a dozen doors away from me. Not counting my cousins, I think she’s the woman I’ve known for the longest period in my entire life. Even worse – she used to be my local Plaid Cymru councillor, and her husband is the branch secretary! I’d seen him less than twenty-four hours earlier, when he’d given me a lift home from the meeting. Ridiculous!

When a computer runs short of memory, you can either delete some unneeded files or upgrade the hard drive. In fifty years’ time it might be possible to do the same thing with the human brain – plugging in extra storage as and when required. Until then, unfortunately, we’re all in the same position as the schoolboy in Gary Larson’s cartoon, asking to be excused because his brain is full. (Of course, the cybernetic memory add-on could be an uncomfortable affair, because human beings have only a limited number of expansion slots.)

If I’m like this now, a couple of months short of my fiftieth birthday, can you imagine what I’ll be like when I’m in my eighties? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Even Tug managed to remember people’s names on the odd occasion. Scary prospect, isn’t it?

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Codeine Nights

In which The Author has a very peculiar morning

As my regular readers won’t be surprised to learn, the arrival of the cold and damp weather here in Wales has had its usual effect on this ageing body of mine. My back has been giving me some grief for a couple of weeks. I probably didn’t help myself by standing out in the pouring rain on Remembrance Sunday. I haven’t been to the service for a couple of years, but I made a special effort to get up early and head to the ‘cenotaph’ in town. After reading about all the men from Aberdare who didn’t return from the Great War, the least I could was to go down and pay my respects in person. I seem to be paying the price for it now, though.

As well as my back problem, my old shoulder complaint is peeking around the corner every so often. As a result I’m back on the Co-codamol fairly regularly, as well as some anti-inflammatories which have undesirable effects on my stomach. Given that it’s very difficult to find a comfortable position in bed, I’m getting a couple of hours’ sleep every night at best.

To add insult to injury, my noisy neighbours appear to have moved out quite abruptly, and now the builders are in instead. They arrived at about 8.30 this morning, and immediately started hammering on the party wall. After about half an hour I conceded defeat and headed out for some fresh air and exercise.

I say ‘exercise’ – that actually lasted as far as the bus stop near the school. The bus was approaching, so I decided to jump on rather than walk into town. Then it crossed my mind that it would go right through to Glynhafod, passing through Aberaman and Cwmaman en route. The early morning mist was burning off nicely, and there was even a patch of blue sky over Cwmbach. It seemed like a good excuse to take the camera for a stroll, and maybe track down some more Aberdare Local Board of Health street signs. I wanted to do a bit of on-the-ground research for the joint project with Geoff E., too, which would take me into that neck of the woods. With the idea fresh in my mind, I paid a bit extra and bought a through ticket to Aberaman.

At least, I think I did. Let me explain…

Some years ago I read an intriguing article about the phenomenon of Lucid Dreaming. Put simply, it’s a stage of sleep wherein you’re aware that you’re dreaming, and so can alter the course of events consciously. I’ve been doing this involuntarily for years, so it’s a subject which has been of interest to me since I first heard of it. (In fact, when I was a student the second time around, I lent a book on the subject to Gareth M., one of our psychology lecturers.) Anyway, according to the article I read, one of the indications that you’ve entered this strange state of consciousness is that texts don’t read the same way twice. If you read something in a Lucid Dream, and then re-read it immediately, it’ll be different the second time.

So much for the theory.

When the bus got to Aberdare, Kristy got on, heading back home. She’d been in town early on a Thursday morning as usual. We used to meet up regularly for coffee every week, and we’ve pencilled in a catch-up for next week. It’s more likely to be next year, knowing Kristy.

I got off by the Blaengwawr pub and headed into the side streets. I hit lucky straight away, with not one but two old signposts in Henry Street. The second one, fixed to the upper storey of an old stone house, looks fantastic. If I had one of these signs on the front of my house, I’d do anything to preserve it in this condition.

This is an area of Aberaman which I’ve only explored a couple of times. The first time, Stella and I had gone for a long walk along the old canal, cut through the Ynys playing fields, walked over the footbridge, and emerged near Violet Street. I was disappointed at not finding more of the old signposts in the vicinity. I followed my nose into Gwalia Terrace, and then into Tudor Place. The latter is one of the streets on our list, but it seems that the modern houses there simply share a name with the original row of cottages.

I crossed the brook and followed my nose again, wandering through a couple of side streets before emerging at Saron Chapel. I knew exactly where I was now: Lewis Street, the main shopping street of Aberaman itself. I headed for the southern end, crossed Cardiff Road, and walked up Mount Hill Street, all the while looking out for the distinctive shape of the Board of Health signs.

I drew a blank there, so I ventured into Commerce Place instead. At least, that’s what I think the sign said. Then I looked again.

‘That was odd,’ I thought.

I carried on walking, heading in the general direction of Aberaman Surgery. This is part of my own GPs’ practice, so I’ve been there a few times when the Aberdare surgery is fully booked. I was walking past the new flats when another sign caught my eye. Once again, the Altered State of Consciousness warning was there when I read it a second time.

By now, I was convinced that the codeine had kicked in. I wasn’t walking around Aberaman at all – I was still tucked up in bed, having a particularly vivid lucid dream.

I found another old sign at the corner of Regent Street, so I changed direction and headed towards Godreaman instead. These are old streets, so I managed to convince myself that I’d strike a rich seam of Board of Health signage. I was very disappointed when I didn’t find a single one. However, in Pleasant View the codeine struck again.

At this stage the lucid dreaming part of my mind was thinking, ‘What the actual fuck is going on?’, while the proofreading part was whimpering in a corner.

I dropped back onto Jubilee Road and headed towards the Bonki. Here, something else unusual caught my eye. A police van was parked opposite the corner, and three officers were standing outside a house, shouting up at the first floor window. As I walked on, the front door opened to reveal a dodgy-looking bloke in a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. It occurred to me that I might have just witnessed my first ever drugs bust. Fortunately, I had the good sense not to take any photos.

I decided that the long walk into Cwmaman could wait for another day, and retraced my steps as far as the Jubilee Bakery. Here I encountered a familiar Aberdare figure: Johnny No Shoes. (There are no prizes for guessing where his nickname originates!) Now I knew that I was definitely in an altered state, because he was wearing a sturdy pair of boots.

I explored New Street and Ffrwd Street, but failed to find any more old signs. I decided to call it a day, and followed the main road as far as the Aberaman Hotel. This used to be a huge old pub back in the day. I went there a few times, when the Cynon Valley Quiz League was still going strong. It’s been empty for ages and there’s no sign of any development work going on any time soon.

Now I wandered through some more long terraces, running roughly west uphill from Cardiff Road, hoping to find another batch of Victorian hangovers. To my surprise, the only one I spotted was right at the start of George Street, partly hidden behind a downpipe. I decided to call it a day and made my way back along Cardiff Road. The Rock was open, and I toyed with calling in for a livener. I remembered that I hadn’t been to the cashpoint, so I carried on walking towards town.

A casual glance up Mount Street turned up another sign. Like the one in Henry Street, it was on the front of a stone house, and looks very nice in its proper surroundings.

Back on Cardiff Road, I was surprised to find two Board of Health signs in fairly quick succession. The first is on the front of the old Phoenix Theatre Workshop; the second is on Number 1 Cardiff Road. Now I was almost at the town centre. I was about to call it a day when I glanced up the stone steps towards Bethuel Street (I hereby challenge you to find that on a map) and saw the original sign for Dumfries Street attached to the end house. I climbed the steps and then spotted another original, this time for Wind Street, on the side of the old Oak pub, which became the Oak Shop, and which is now a private house.

I meandered through the side streets once more, finding another two signs in Dumfries Street, including this one, low down at the corner of Cross Street.

My final port of call was Rhian’s grandparents’ house. We had a pint on Monday, and she mentioned that they had an original sign for Bute Street on their house. I took a cheeky shot of that one and headed back towards the town centre. I’m expecting a text from Rhian any time, wondering why I was outside her grandparents’ house earlier today.

Finally, heading towards Aberdare Library, I glimpsed the original Ynysllwyd Street sign on the side of a house. Painted over to match the render, it seems a world away from the pristine Henry Street sign I’d found at the beginning of my expedition.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to today.

I think.

Of course, I could wake up at any moment and find out that the whole thing was just a codeine-fuelled lucid dream. It would certainly explain Johnny’s shoes and the whole mis-spelling thing, wouldn’t it?