Ah, Is This Not Happiness?

Home Humour Essays Travel Images

This comes to us by way of The Idler. It's a contribution to their web project based on Chin's Thirty Three Happy Moments: 'Chin Shengt'an was a 17th century playwright who once found himself stranded with a friend in a temple for ten days because of a rainstorm. While thus secluded, the pair compiled a list of the truly happy moments in life. The wonderful thing about Chin's Happy Moments is their lack of piety. Material pleasures are not rejected in favour of loftier ones.'

It's a cold, frosty night in January around 6 pm. Orion is rising in the eastern sky as I wheel out my pushbike from the garage and put a bottle of orange squash in the cage. I'm snugged up against the wintry chill in my Gore-Tex jacket, tights and gloves.

I pop an ear plug into each ear and push a minidisc that has Tangerine Dream's "Force Majeure" encoded on it into the player. Just as Edgar Froese's mellotron is stabbing into my brain, I nose out of my drive up the road into the dark Yorkshire Wolds.

The snow is falling gently as I gain altitude and enter the hills proper. The absence of street lights throws the stars and planets into vivid relief. Jupiter and Saturn hang in the sky as the odd scary meteor flashes by, unseen by the city dwellers of Hull barely a dozen miles away.

I'm flying along at 25 mph as another Moog sequence starts up. Just then I remember there's a live football match on Five Live tonight. I press the radio button on my remote attached to my jacket and the 1512 kHz preset Radio Vlaanderen's French service barks in my ear. I smile as I null the signal out by pointing it at the transmitter in Wavre, Belgium and retrace the line back to my own position in Yorkshire.

I flick past the presets set to the Voice of Russia and the BBC World Service until I reach 909 kHz just in time to hear the rousing tones of the "Sport on Five" theme tune start up.

After a little over two hours have gone and 30 miles are under my wheels, I head for home gently glowing. I return to the sauna in the garden shed and turn the stove on. Putting my bike way, I fill the sauna pail with fresh cold water and add a few drops of Siberian Fir essence.

I open the large fridge and collect an armful of bottles containing Keighley's finest; Timothy Taylor's Landlord ale. Also in the fridge is a pack of Bratwursts, so into a sheet of foil go a couple of Thuringian sausages and on the hot stones they go.

A plate of rye bread, German mustard, pickled dill, beetroot and red cabbage is prepared. The sauna now is a cube of tropical heat in the winter chill. I turn on the radio and return to the match and relish the sting of heat as I pour some water onto the hot stones. The first slug of beer hits the back of my parched throat as I smell the first waft of cooking Bratwurst. Ah, is this not happiness?