Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time

by Dominic Utton

  So anyway: a year or so ago I was offered the chance to be a grown-up. Of course I took it. Even if it did mean commuting back to London every day. Even if working for a Sunday paper means my working week is now Tuesday to Saturday.

  Can you remember the moment you decided to become a grown-up, Martin? Or were you one of those people who was always a bit grown-up? Were you one of those weird kids who had a life-plan way back when you were doing your GCSE options? Were you focused from an early age? Was it always going to be trains for you? Did you study hard, apply yourself diligently, work sensibly towards a long and steady career in train management?

  I’m guessing that in your case, becoming a grown-up was simply the next logical stage in your development. I’m guessing it was inevitable. Like puberty. Like acne. I’m guessing you saw becoming a grown-up as nothing more dramatic than the thing that comes after leaving university.

  And then what? Find a girl, settle down, if you want to you can marry? Look at me, I am old but I’m happy? Cat Stevens knew it. Despite it all, he knew what being a grown-up meant.

  (Obviously Cat Stevens’ life should not be taken as a literal model for how to be a grown-up. Let’s not do anything rash now. Abandoning your career at the height of your success and vowing never to pick up the instrument of your success again is obviously – or rather, *obvs*, as they say in our magazine supplement – not that sensible, or responsible, or adult-like. It’s not something many school career advisers would recommend. But you know what I mean. The lyrics to ‘Father to Son’: they’re about becoming a grown-up, right? They’re about the melancholy inevitability of having to become a grown-up. It’s a song about accepting defeat. It’s a song about surrender.)

  Where was I? Oh yes. Growing up. I can imagine you were always quite a sensible boy, Martin. A sensible boy, and then a good bloke, and now a steady chap. And then what? A nice old gent… and then fondly remembered. That’s life. That’s the epitaph.

  But that, I suppose, is how you get to be Managing Director of a company like Premier Westward. And not someone who writes about reality TV wannabes and scandalised soap starlets and disgraced pop flops and lecherous actors and priapic footballers and self-loathing WAGs for a living.

  Oh dear. It doesn’t sound much like I enjoy my job there, does it? It doesn’t sound like I get off on what I do. Please don’t think that! You couldn’t be more wrong! It’s just the delay that’s put me in a bad mood, it’s just your rotten trains that are souring my normally sunny disposition. The truth is, I love my job. You wanna hear a secret? I’d probably do it for free. I may not be getting the bylines or the glory every week, but still. I’d probably do it for free.

  Don’t get me wrong, I need the money. God knows I need the money – if it wasn’t for the money I certainly wouldn’t sit on these trains every morning and evening, an hour each way (when they run on time). If it wasn’t for the money and the fact I need to be a grown-up now, after too many years of spectacularly failing to be a grown-up. If it wasn’t for all that… I’d do it for free.

  I’m a good bloke, obviously, a loving husband and father, but I’m also a tabloid journalist. And that makes me a professional bastard. I basically think I’m better than everyone else and at the same time worry that nobody else really realises it. It makes me think I’m always right (even when I sort of know, inside, I may be wrong). Because the Sunday Globe – it is always right, isn’t it? It tells the world what’s right – and more often, what’s wrong.

  We work in absolutes. Black and white and read all over. No grey areas for us! When I write my little bits and bobs, my news in briefs, when I lay it all out for our millions of readers, I can’t afford to see both sides. It’s not what they want – and it’s not what my boss wants. They call it ‘taking a line’ in the tabloid game, Martin. We’ve got to take a line on every story. We’ve got to believe we’re right, or we’re scuppered.

  And do you want to hear a secret? I may only wallow in the shallow end, but I’m absolutely in love with it. With the celebrity world. I’m obsessed by it. I live and breathe it. And I also hate just about everyone involved in it. I think they’re vain, shallow, venal, self-obsessed, back-stabbing monsters. (And that’s just the cast of Hollyoaks.) And I just can’t get enough of them all. And that may be all of tabloid journalism in a nutshell for you right there.

  And so I write about them. That’s why I write about them. And now that I work for the most-read English-language newspaper in the world, and also the most notorious tabloid newspaper in Britain, what I write about them has an impact on their behaviour.

  You know what that impact is? You wanna hear another secret? A secret about the world of tabloid journalism and celebrity?

  For all the fuss we make about their bad behaviour, and for all the fuss they make about our reporting of their bad behaviour, all any of it does is makes their bad behaviour worse. That’s how it works. That’s the Faustian pact. That’s the hidden symbiosis of tabloid and celebrity. Bad behaviour shifts newspapers, and shifted newspapers make reputations. Nobody remembers the nice, quiet, sensible family men and women, do they? Nobody remembers the good blokes, the steady chaps.

  And, believe me – anyone who wants to be a celebrity wants nothing more than to be remembered. For whatever reason they can get. Being remembered – that’s the point of it all. No matter what their publicists say.

  It’s a perverse sort of logic, isn’t it? If I were to write in the Globe about the terrible service I get on your trains, for example, well, that would be seen as a bad thing within your company. The sort of thing you’d actively discourage me from doing. Normal people, normal companies, people like you and companies like yours – you don’t want to be remembered. Not by the popular press. Not if that’s what it costs. And quite right too.

  Oh dear! Am I ranting, Martin? Do I rave? Am I beginning to sound like a tabloid monster? Like the worst, seediest kind of hack? Am I giving you the willies? Do excuse me. I’m just being honest.

  Because that’s another thing about me (we’re going to find out so much about each other, Martin. We’re going to become such confidantes!) – I’m disgracefully honest.

  I’ve built a career on it. Or rather, I’m building a career on it. Because, while I’m being honest and before you get too scared, I’m no big shot. I may write for the biggest and baddest paper in town, but I’m no kingmaker or king breaker. I’m not the Fake Sheikh. I’m just a reporter on the showbiz desk. I write what I’m told. And – contrary to popular belief and stereotype – I make sure everything I write is true.

  My mate Harry the Dog says it’s going to be the downfall of me, my honesty. ‘Don’t be so bloody honest all the time,’ he says. ‘Don’t start forming your own opinions, just write what you’re told to think.’

  His mate Rochelle (she’s the editor of the magazine supplement – it’s called Amazeballs!, I’m sure Mrs Harbottle is a fan) is even more perplexed by the idea.

  ‘Honesty? Totes yawnsville,’ she told me. ‘Like, seriously: whatevs.’

  What about you, Martin? What do you think? Are you worried I’m going to write about you? About your trains? Is that why you wrote back to me? I can’t help wondering…

  Tell you what, seeing as we’re here, why don’t you tell me about yourself? Do you love your job? Or do you grow frustrated? Do you sometimes feel like you’re no longer doing the things that fired up your passion for train management in the first place? Is being Managing Director of Premier Westward trains a bit like being headmaster of a very large and very complicated school? Are you one of those headmasters who first got into it because he wanted to teach, to feel the visceral thrill, the exhilarating responsibility of standing in front of a roomful of children and actually educating them… and now spends his days gazing at spreadsheets in an office by himself, balancing budgets and juggling timetables and stressing over staff quotas and never actually going anywhere near a classroom or interacting with any of the children except to send them home in disgra
ce?

  Or do you love the power? Do you get off simply on being the man in charge? Do you prefer being the field marshal, safely miles behind the front, gazing at his models and blithely giving the orders?

  Of course not. You’re the man of action! You’re there on the sharp end, helping out where you can. You told me that already.

  Hey, guess what? Look at the time! Tempus fugit! Twenty-one of your minutes wasted. My work here is done… but I do look forward to you addressing my concerns. In fact, I can’t wait!

  Au revoir!

  Dan

  From: Martin.Harbottle@premier-westward.com

  To: DantheMan020@gmail.com

  Re: 07.31 and 19.50 Premier Westward Railways trains between London Paddington and Oxford, June 3.

  Dear Dan

  Thank you for your emails concerning the delayed 07.31 and 19.50 of June 3. I do understand how frustrating being late for both your journeys must have been.

  The problem in the morning was caused by a late-running earlier train in the Reading area which unfortunately had the effect of congesting many subsequent services, of which yours was one. The delay in the evening was due to faulty signalling in Southall. It is something we are continuing to address with Network Rail and I agree that it is simply not good enough.

  On a personal note, I would like to assure you that as Managing Director I take all of our customers’ concerns very seriously – and not just those who work for ‘tabloid’ newspapers! But on that note, I would also like to stress that I consider this a private correspondence and would not expect any of it to appear in print.

  I do hope that, even if you are unhappy with the service we are providing, I can assure you on a personal level that as Managing Director of Premier Westward, I am striving to do all I can to provide you with the best commuting experience I can.

  Yours

  Martin

  ‌Letter 4

  From: DantheMan020@gmail.com

  To: Martin.Harbottle@premier-westward.com

  Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, June 8. Amount of my day wasted: five minutes.

  Just a little one today, Martin. A small but perfectly formed five-minute delay. Pert – that’s the word. A pert little delay.

  So small, so perfectly formed, so pert, in fact, that I’ve not even had time to finish my crossword today (confession: I love a crossword, me. I’m a sucker for a wordsearch. I’m all over a good game of Scrabble. My dad used to make them up for me, when I was a kid – meticulously tracing out the grids, shading in the dark spots with the retractable pencil he kept in his jacket pocket, carefully writing in the clues underneath and always including a space for ‘workings out’.)

  Anyway. This isn’t one of my dad’s. This isn’t in his league, sadly. This is the morning ‘Commuter’s conundrum’ from my daily red-top. I’ve scanned it in for you and everything, Martin. See if you can finish what I’ve started.

  Au revoir!

  Dan

  Across:

  1. Period 1811–20, beloved of Dandies

  5. Internet journal

  10. Lawful

  11. Ideal

  12. Melancholy

  14. Number in Frodo’s fellowship

  16. Cut

  18. Keep in custody

  20. Stuffy, uptight person

  21. Take advance action

  24. Dampened follicles (3,4)

  25. Every little helps for this supermarket

  27. Cricket exam

  28. Mass-transit system

  Down:

  2. And so on

  3. __ Nous – Between ourselves

  4. Pick, select

  6. Citrus-like herb

  7. Impudence

  8. Move nearer to target

  9. Position

  13. Improves through paint or wallpaper

  15. Published issue

  17. Indicator

  19. Frugal home of Ancient Greeks

  22. Sing the praises of

  23. Fly-killing method

  26. Large body of water

  ‌Letter 5

  From: DantheMan020@gmail.com

  To: Martin.Harbottle@premier-westward.com

  Re: 19.50 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, June 14. Amount of my day wasted: seven minutes.

  Dear Martin

  Seven minutes. ‘Oh come on!’ you’re thinking. ‘Give us a break! Cut us some slack! Seven minutes? What’s seven minutes?’

  Seven minutes, Martin, is 420 seconds. It’s over one tenth of an hour. It’s a cigarette. It’s the first glass of wine after another long day. A lot can happen in seven minutes. A two-month-old baby girl promised a kiss from Daddy before she falls asleep could drift off kiss-less in those seven minutes.

  Seven minutes can be an age, an eternity. It all depends on context. E, as I’m sure you don’t need reminding, totally equals mc squared.

  Take the recent brouhaha in North Africa. All those protestors, stopped in their tracks, shot down, executed. The authorities there are saying it was self-defence, that the army was fired upon first, that they were reacting to a hostile situation. I’m hearing different in the newsroom. But the point is – it all happened in a few bare minutes.

  In a few minutes – not even as many as seven – those 22 men went from just another bunch of chanting, protesting citizens uppity about some civil rights abuse or another to corpses. Bundles of rag and bone. Dead in the dust. Whether they were firing too, or whether they weren’t.

  Seven minutes can change the world. And if I’m any kind of journalist at all, I reckon those few minutes in the heat and the madness and the dust and the sand are going to cost an awful lot more than just those 22 bodies.

  Oh, Martin! Look at us. We’re getting far too serious. We need to calm down. We need to remember what we’re here for. We don’t want to hear about murder and mayhem in the squares of North Africa! Such talk can only bring us down.

  Have you ever been on the radio, Martin? I have. And let me tell you, seven minutes on the radio can feel like an awfully long time. When you’re on live radio, seven minutes can feel like all the time in the world.

  So there I was, about six years ago, brought in to the studio to grace the airwaves with my insight and analysis on the new Oasis album. All of London was listening. The nation’s capital city was agog! What would I, self-styled voice of the nation’s youth (and at that time contributing rock and pop reviewer for the Sunday Express) have to tell this great city about les frères Gallaghers’ latest? What would we all learn about the state of British rock?

  London paused. London cocked an ear.

  And I… blew it. I floundered. Early on in my allotted seven minutes, whilst trying to express my frustration with Noel’s bandwagon-jumping critics, I jumbled up the phrases ‘gets my goat’ and ‘I have a beef with’ (I have no idea why those two phrases were in my mind to begin with) and I loudly declared: ‘That really gets my beef.’

  There was a terrible pause. And then I said it again. And then for seven minutes I couldn’t think of anything else to say. All I could think was: ‘What the hell does “gets my beef” mean? Why did I say that? What kind of idiot am I anyway? Gets my beef? Gets my beef?’

  Martin, it was awful. It was seven minutes of abject misery. And it felt like an awful lot longer.

  So please, don’t tell me seven minutes doesn’t really matter. It does. They do. Time is relative. Whether it’s 22 men lying broken in the dust or one man making a prat of himself on the radio: seven minutes can feel like for ever.

  Oh, and as I write, on a train in the morning (the morning following the delay I write of today. Did I mention time is relative?), inching past the golden suburbs of Reading, I see we’re already eight or so minutes behind schedule again. Expect another letter later today. And if you thought that being seven minutes late got my beef… baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

  Au revoir!

  Dan

  ‌Let
ter 6

  From: DantheMan020@gmail.com

  To: Martin.Harbottle@premier-westward.com

  Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, June 15. Amount of my day wasted: 17 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Guilty New Mum, Competitive Tech Nerds, Universal Grandpa, Lego Head, Train Girl.

  How goes the war, Martin? Bad guys still winning? Hang in there, soldier. The sun also rises. Dreams never end. It’s Glastonbury next weekend! That’s something good, right? That’s something to look forward to. Assuming it stops raining, of course.

  So chin up, private. Eyes forward. Some day this thing’s gonna end. I promise.

  But not today. Today things don’t look so peachy at all. Today you’re going to have to kick back and listen to my nonsense for a good 17 minutes of your day. And what’s more, now we’re getting into the swing of things here, you’ll see I’ve made a slight change to the format of my letters. Exciting, eh! More of that later…

  But first things first. I do hope that you know how much I do appreciate you taking the time out to reply to me personally. Even when my letters veer towards the sarcastic, the hyperbolic. Even when it might feel like I’m giving you a bit of a slapping, literary-speaking. It’s not personal. It’s not bullying. That’s just how I write, Martin. It’s how I was trained to write.

  And the fact you can understand all that and remain so polite makes you a big man. A Big Man. A man’s man. A man’s Big Man.

  So. That’s the polite stuff over and done with. Now to business. Much as I respect you as a man’s Big Man, I find myself once again let down by you and your service.

  I was 17 minutes late for work today. It meant I arrived late for an important meeting. It was a crisis meeting, one of an increasing number of crisis meetings we seem to be having on the showbiz desk. It was a crisis meeting about ethics. About integrity. (Of all the ridiculous things to have a meeting about on the showbiz desk of the Globe, for Christ’s sake.) It was one of those ridiculous meetings where, thanks to the indiscretions and, ahem, eccentricities of our predecessors, we were getting a roasting. It was the whole newspaper in microcosm. It was one of those meetings where we were told not to be so fast and loose with our newsgathering tactics, but at the same time, in the same breath, we were told if we didn’t keep getting the scoops we’d be out on our ears.