I Hate Arthur C Clarke

He wrote the book and the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He came up with the idea of geostationary satellites, which revolutionised communication, television broadcasting and weather forecasting across the world. He has a type of orbit named after him. He has a species of dinosaur named after him. He has an asteroid named after him. And he was responsible for a disastrous misunderstanding in 1983 which resulted in me standing in front of my entire class at school and crying like a girl. And I’m not a girl.

By far my favourite book in those days was Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, not a single word of which I understood. But it had pictures of crystal skulls and real actual ghosts and monsters, which was good enough for me. And what’s more, because it was a book for adults rather than 8-year-old children, and it had been on TV, it was Definitely All True.

As with so many other things in my life back then, I wasn’t content keeping this to myself. The world had to know. So I took my tattered copy of the book in to school one day and told Mrs Paisley the deal – ghosts and monsters and stuff are real and it’s Definitely All True and it’s in this book and everyone should know. To my absolute delight, she agreed, and arranged an impromptu reading in the library. I remember my excitement at the prospect of having my book leant the unquestionable authority of being read to us by Mrs Paisley.

But then disaster struck. As everyone was getting settled on the floor around Mrs Paisley’s chair, she gave me back my book and said “here you go, remember to read it loud enough that Samantha and Suzanne at the back can hear”. Then, turning to my classmates “now everyone, Andrew has brought in a book that he would like to read to you all, so be nice and quiet and when I come back we can talk about what you all thought”. The blood drained from my face and my ears started ringing.

“Me read it out to them? What the hell are you talking about? I can’t do that, I don’t even know what any of these words mean and the sentences go on forever! Are you insane?”

...was what I wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead I turned slowly to the sea of expectant faces, looked down at what was now my least favourite book in the world, and tried to read some of the stuff that wasn’t the pictures.

I remember very clearly that it had fallen open at the chapter about sea monsters, and I gave the first sentence my best shot. On the third attempt, however, I caught sight of my friend Geoff, who was sitting in the front row and pulling faces at me. So I decided the best course of action would be to set the book aside for the time being, tell Geoff that he was in Big Trouble when Mrs Paisley got back, and then burst into tears.

I still have the book somewhere, and I still haven’t read it. It has caused enough trouble already.

No Ball Games

Being a goalkeeper was a lonely existence which suited me down to the ground. On arrival at the Big School, cross-country running soon took its place as the only activity I was any good at. It transpired that I could run quite fast, as long as it was over uneven ground, past foliage, through puddles, and between trees.

Again, as with my career in goalkeepery, this was perfect for a young aesthete such as myself. Firstly, it was a reasonably safe option. There was very little danger of being tackled, and still less danger of being knocked out or impaled by a badly aimed projectile.

It also afforded ample opportunity to let my thoughts rise above the mundanity of everyday school life, and tackle the real issues: Can Mark Mitchelson really arrest me just because his Dad is a policeman? Will I get into trouble if I go the Long Way Home tonight? Is it true there’s a school in America where you don’t have to do any work?

I had done it again. I’d found a sport that allowed me to ponder life’s great mysteries, to extract myself from the unseemly business of being about 13. Not for me the painful bewilderment of being hit in the face by a size 5 mouldmaster football. Not for me the missing teeth and brutalised shins of a hockey team changing room. Never for this thoughtful child the twisted human carnage of an adolescent rugby scrum.

And crucially, as with keeping goal, my newly adopted sport had its place in outsider art – as a film that would for years allow me to pretend I’d read the book of the same name. It completely validated my choice and confirmed my long held belief - that I was a misunderstood antihero. From assembly until lunch. Every Thursday.

Albert Camus, Peter Handke, Erland Tangen.

In some ways I was a late developer. In others I was an old head on young shoulders, setting myself up for a future as a self-regarding gobshite with aspirations of poetic and artistic grandeur. I think this is best summed up in my choice of sports - more specifically school sports. I was a child who, even as the Savlon was applied to the latest grazed knee, always had one eye on his memoirs.

At the age of about 7, there was a decision to be made as to what kind of sport I would subject myself to: I could have chosen hockey, but those sticks didn’t seem to have much give in them. Rugby always looked to me like a game being played by far too many people at once, on the same pitch. So football it was. But not for this child the camaraderie that comes of pulling on the same shirt as all your tiny team-mates, nor the concerted everyone-running-after-the-ball tactics, as drilled into us by our foul-mouthed and foul-tracksuited manager. I wanted to be the goalkeeper. "It was good enough for Albert Camus", I’m sure I thought, "so it’s good enough for me". Naturally too, by that age I had already enjoyed Peter Handke’s excellent novel about murder and the dilemmas of free will "the Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty Kick", so really it was a no-brainer.

Then came four years of standing alone in the pouring rain, ignored as my team-mates celebrated each goal, vilified for each one I conceded. Four years of staring into space while I tried to invent lyrics to go with the Superman theme tune. Four years of standing exactly in the middle of the goal because Princess Leia would be executed if I didn’t. Four years of being caught unawares by lightening-fast attacks while I was figuring out whether I’d prefer to be Batman or Robin at playtime on Monday. Four long years, in which time I think Cults Primary School won about three games.

As an aside, special mention should now go to Erland Tangen, a slightly odd Norwegian boy who scored an absolutely spectacular goal against me in my second season. A right-footed volley from the edge of the box, which fairly thundered into the roof of my net. It was like a proper grown-up goal, and would have been goal of the season had Tangen not been one of our own defenders trying to make a clearance during what became a 7-0 defeat.

But then came the step up to the Big School, where the team’s manager had it all wrong. He made no mention of the importance of a goalkeeper letting his thoughts wander all over the place. Nothing about cultivating an air of aloofness that would stand me in good stead for my adult years. He wanted his ‘keeper to pay attention, bump into people, get in the way of the ball, even catch it. My goalkeeping career was over.