Once up-on a time, in a land far away (Liverpool), I used to write for the university newspaper. The following article is one of the columns I wrote at that time. In the decades since I wrote this, I have become a reformed character. Far from being late all the time, I am ridiculously early. We all know that there’s nothing worse than a convert (just try smoking within a mile of where I’m sitting if you’re not convinced of the veracity of this statement). Well, that’s what I am as regards punctuality. I’d rather arrive for a meeting half an hour early than half a minute late. And when the person I’m meeting is late I am not all impressed.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this product of a younger Terry.
It wasn’t my fault, guv: the clock had no hands! Photo credit: Clock with no hands, by Terry Freedman
According to an old proverb, it is the early bird which catches the worm. It's a pretty good thing, then, that I'm not a bird, or I'd starve. I am one of those unfortunate people who arrive late for every appointment. I always wait until the last minute before leaving the house, or if I do leave early I think I've got plenty of time so I dawdle and browse in shop windows. Thus, I always arrive late.
I must, at this juncture (juncture's my latest word, having gone through "peripatetic", "antediluvian", "pedantic" and "terminological inexactitude") state that it isn't always my fault. Have you ever noticed how, when you start out really early in order to be on time for a special appointment, the bus is late, you bump into a long lost friend, the traffic lights aren't working, you get lost in a one-way system? All these things have happened to me. I sometimes wish I could find a really original reason for being late. One bloke I knew came into a lecture late and said his little cousin had poured a pot of glue on his head and so he had to wash his hair. I thought that was a pretty good one.
I never bother to offer any excuse, because I know that nobody will believe me anyway. A friend of mine always arrives late with the excuse that someone stopped him on his way over to me and asked for directions. This habitual latecomer only once arrived at my doorstep on time, whereupon he apologised for being late, because he thought we had arranged to meet ten minutes earlier.
I am sure that there are some deep psychological reasons for my arriving late all the time. Perhaps it's a subconscious rebellion against all the people I know who arrive everywhere on time or early. Who knows?
Whatever the reasons, it's good fun. It's pretty boring arriving or time. What joy there is in interrupting seminars, climbing over people in lectures, keeping friends waiting in draughty places! Unfortunately though, perhaps because of old age creeping up, perhaps because I keep missing the beginnings of films, I am starting to feel a pang of conscience at being late for everything.
Although I remember with an nostalgia the time I arrived thirty minutes late for a fifty minute lecture, and, last week, fifteen minutes a late for a seminar (the latest I've ever arrived for a seminar, and so an achievement of which I'm especially proud), I am trying to reform. In view of this, I hereby make a public apology for arriving so late for the aforementioned seminar, and if the lecturer concerned is reading this, I promise not to arrive more than five minutes late for the next one.
My career as an habitual latecomer is over, I only hope that one day when T. Freedman Junior arrives on the scene, he'll carry on the family tradition which I have humbly started. All that remains is for me to say that the reason I am now on the back page of this newspaper is that I always hand my articles in late. But I'm trying. Maybe next time I'll get them in earlier (ie, not so late) and be on the inside back page.