David Mitchell

Thursday

David Mitchell

Japan shows up Britain’s impoverished councils

From our UK edition

I’m halfway through a stay in Japan, the land of the free public toilet. City squares, riverside walks, bus interchanges in the middle of nowhere – chances are there’s one waiting. The grubbiest are old but clean enough. The cleanest are like operating theatres. I think of days in British cities where you have to draw up a dot-to-dot itinerary taking in that Starbucks (customers only); that department store (if it hasn’t closed down); that museum (entry £5). And I’m a guy: we have it easy, I know. Why is public provision for this basic bodily function so dismal across the UK? I keep hearing this vicious rumour it’s because councils no longer have the money to maintain on ‘discretionary spending items’ like evacuating bodily waste.

Monday

David Mitchell

U-turn if you want to: a short story by David Mitchell

From our UK edition

Twiddling my thumbs at the Rotterdam depot. Waiting on 72 pallets of Chinese tumble dryer. Five games of online chess, four YouTubes of sweary parrots, three Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares, two Idiots In Cars and a partridge in a pear tree later, it’s 12 noon. Another Pot Noodle for lunch. Spicy seafood, the label alleges. Tastes like my boxers on Day 5 of my European Tour. Paris-Frankfurt-Warsaw-Gdansk-Rotterdam loop. Got some cubes of mango for dessert. Yard manager Gus blames a chronic shortage of forklift drivers. Only three out of ten showed up today. They get better offers elsewhere, Gus says, so off they bugger. Must tell Emily. ‘See, O Daughter of Mine? It’s not just Great Britain!’ My daughter’s gone all lefty now she’s a nurse. Reads the Guardian, God help us.

Thursday

David Mitchell

The surreal joy of putting words in an actor’s mouth

From our UK edition

More than 200 non-US residents stood in the queue ahead of me. A grand total of four Homeland Security officers were on duty in the glass booths. I texted my ride to expect me in Arrivals in an hour, at best, and tried to compose the opener for my Spectator diary. I didn’t get far: after an early start in Cork, my long-haul flight from Heathrow to San Francisco and watching Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, my brain was scrambled eggs. Nearby, an elderly traveller fainted. The well-rehearsed response by the tired-looking staff suggested this is a daily, if not an hourly, occurrence. I read a few chapters of Donal Ryan’s novel All We Shall Know. Public book-reading is becoming a very niche activity.

Thursday

David Mitchell

Let’s not forget all the decent cops out there

From our UK edition

One victim of police brutality is police decency. Our son has a tutor, J., who works with autistic kids in our corner of West Cork. After lockdown began, she was no longer able to work with her students, one of whom had a birthday coming up in March. The boy lives in Bandon, 15 miles away, so J. phoned our local garda station to ask for permission to drive beyond the lockdown radius to deliver a small gift and card. The garda on duty gave her a polite no, as birthdays weren’t on the list of exemptions. Fair enough. Twenty minutes later, the sergeant called J. back. He had to visit the Bandon garda station that afternoon, so if she could bring him the gift, he would hand it on to a colleague in Bandon, who would deliver it at the boy’s house on his way home that evening.