The pie problem

Jed was sleeping in again. He wasn’t there to meet the morning boat, and when I called round his house the lazy scamp was still asleep. It was after 6.30, meaning he’d already slept through over twenty minutes of daylight.

 

I knocked gingerly on his door, noting that he still hadn’t got round to fixing the bell. Eventually he crawled downstairs half-dressed, looking for all the world like a student forced to arise before noon for his annual exams.

 

“What is it?” he said. “Why have you woken me so early?”

 

“It’s the world, Jed. It’ll all happening out there while you sleep, seven billion people laughing, singing, fighting, breeding goats.”

 

“Honestly Alun,” he said, “you want me to get up at six in the morning to breed goats.”

 

“I just mean you’re missing out on things, Jed. You missed the morning boat for one thing, there was mail, two letters for me and one for you.”

 

“Two letters for you!” Jed said, “I didn’t know you knew that many people.”

 

“That’s ‘cause you’re never awake to notice.”

 

I opened the first letter, it was from my friend Boris in Luhdansk, with whom I’m playing a game of chess through the mail.

“Can I borrow your chess set?” I asked Jed. I’d memorised the set-up of the board in my match and made Boris’ move, a pawn pushed to E5. I realised that he was trying to trap my bishop and responded with a bold move, which I wrote down, placed in an envelope ready to post.

 

Jed was pottering around making coffee and toast, still 95% oblivious to the world, so I opened my second letter. It was from my friend Phil, in Cambodia, with whom I’m playing a game of Confuse the Squirrel. Phil’s move was to dig up the nut the squirrel had just buried and replace it with a signed photo of Jeremy Hardy.

 

Interesting! It left me in a difficult position. I decided to spray the soil with the essence of nutlessness. That will really confuse the squirrel.

 

I wrote down my move and placed it in an envelope ready to post.

 

“What’s your letter,” I asked Jed.

 

He opened it. I sometimes think Jed would never do a single thing if I wasn’t there to prompt him.

 

“It’s from my friend Mark,” he said.

“Who’s Mark?”

 

“My friend in Poland. I’m playing a correspondence pie fight with him. Hmm, his move is a pie to the left side of my face.” Jed took out a clipboard with a much-scribbled-on piece of paper and added more scribble to it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

 

“It’s my pie chart,” Jed responded. I use it to keep a record of the pie fight. It’s been going on for over a year now.”

 

“It all seems a bit abstract, Jed” I said, “a pie fight by paper.”

 

“Oh, no,” Jed said, “this is just for the archive. I act out the fight in my pie room.”

 

“Your pie room?” It’s amazing what someone you’ve shared an island with for thirty years can manage to keep from you.

 

He led me to the back of the house and into a room which stank to high heaven of stale cream. To say the room was a mess would be an understatement, there was cream, custard, shaving foam and gunge everywhere. Jed hastily donned a cream-clad garment. “This is the suit I’ve been using for the fight,” he said.

 

Jed had taken a can of squirty cream out of his fridge, and proceeded to squirt a ‘pie’ onto a paper plate. “Would you mind obliging?” he asked, “only I don’t often get the chance of help.”

 

I didn’t need asking twice. I hurled the pie hard into the left side of Jed’s face.

 

“Could you take a photo?” Jed asked, “Only I like to keep a record to send to Mark.”

 

I took a photo as requested and retired to the kitchen for a coffee while Jed changed and washed off the worst of the mess.

 

“I didn’t know about your pie-fight obsession, Jed,” I said when he returned.

“Oh yes, I’d love to turn professional, but I can’t enter the official pie-fight competitions as I’m not qualified.”

“Not qualified?”

 

“I don’t have a degree in clowning. I’ve never been to university.”

 

“Well, couldn’t you do a correspondence degree, Jed? You read all the time about the clown degrees universities are offering online now.”

 

“That’s a really good suggestion,” Jed said.

 

I really had no idea what I’d started. Jed signed up for the course that afternoon and the next day he was up early, waiting for the morning boat.

“You’re up early, Jed,” I said.

“I’m waiting for my course materials, they’re coming in the post.”

 

As Jed predicted, there was a large package for him. We took it back to his house where he opened it: it contained a purple curly wig; a selection of red noses and books entitled The History of Clowning and Slapstick: Theory and practice.

 

For the next four years a remarkable change came over Jed. He’d be up before six every morning and would be there, dressed, breakfasted and waiting for the morning boat when I arrived.  He would work hard on his clowning every minute of every day.

“Watch this,” he’d say, “I’ve been working on my routine,” and would fall over onto his arse.  “Incredible, isn’t it?”  he'd say. 

 

“But you fell over exactly the same way yesterday,” I’d say.

 

“No I didn’t, this was a completely different fall, the double slip routine. That was really hard to learn as well. Watch, I’ll do it again in slow motion.  You see, I start to fall, than I collect myself, regain my balance, and just as it looks as if I’m about to return to an upright position I slip a second time.”

 

It wasn’t just practical clowning, of course. Jed also had to write a 5,000 word thesis on an area of clowning.

 

“So what are you doing your thesis on, Jed,” I asked him.

 

“On the history of clowning. I’ve discovered the identify of the very first recorded clowns.”

 

“Really, who were they?”

“Their names were Jed and Alun. Very little is known about them, they were banished from the mainland for being too silly. They fled to an unnamed, obscure off-the-map island where they founded a community dedicated to total, extreme absurdity, surrealism and silliness.”

 

The four years passed, during which time Jed came to know more about clowning that about anything else in the world. He could talk for hours about the subtle tricks clown-school had taught him, and would notice clowning skills when he saw them employed on the TV. “Ed Milliband must have been to clown school,” he often claimed, “you simply can’t achieve that level of silliness by sheer chance. He has a clown walk, a clown grin, and his bacon sandwich technique is Phd level.”

 

Eventually it was time for his clowning exams. Jed refused to visit the mainland, so a clown academic visited the island to carry out the practical assessment. It was then simply a matter of waiting for the results.

 

I was woken early that morning by Jed hammering on my door. He’d arranged for the boat to come especially early that morning with his results.

 

“It’s clown-school,” he said, after I’d hastily dressed and made my way downstairs, “I’ve failed my clowning exams.”

 

“Failed, Jed?” I said, “but how can you have failed? You know everything there is to know about clowning.”

 

“They say that’s the problem, apparently I’m too serious about clowning.” He read an extract from the letter. “Your approach to clowning is overly academic, you’ve forgotten to have fun.”

 

“Never mind, Jed,” I said. I’ve got a letter for you.”

 

“A letter? But I’ve just collected the mail.”

 

“No, a letter from me.” I handed it to him.

 

Jed hastily ripped open the letter and read out what I’d written.

 

“Pie to the face from the right side, Jed moves forward to avoid it, only to be hit by a second pie rising upwards.”

 

“It’s a correspondence pie fight, Jed,” I said. “My first move.”

 

“You knew I’d fail!”

 

“It’s life Jed. You never get what you want from it.”

 

“But you do, Alun. I’ve got a correspondence pie-fight with a correspondee I can actually throw pies at. It’s all I’ve ever wanted in life."