BARTLEBY

Do you have skills? Of course you do. We all do. The trouble is they’re not necessarily the right ones, at least not for the world we live in at the moment. When I was eight or nine, for example, I knew how to adjust the points in a car engine so that it would run smoothly. At the time I knew what ‘points’ did, where to find them and how to tweak them with the aid of a brilliantly simple but absolutely essential tool comprising metal strips of differing thicknesses. 1/16th of an inch. 1/24th of an inch. That sort of thing.

I knew this because my stepdad used to do all his own car maintenance, and I helped him. I changed oil. I replaced brake pads. I would probably have built my own car by now had my apprenticeship not come to a halt almost as abrupt as the one we experienced halfway to Edinburgh. Someone, it seemed, had dropped a nut into the engine (no, not that kind of nut) which… well, you can probably guess that it wasn’t very good for the car.

But I learned a skill, to wit using the points-measuring-tool, which at the time was quite useful. Nowadays I imagine the job of the ‘points’ is done by something electronic, and any fault diagnosed with a laptop. When we’re told that we all need more skills, it’s about learning how to use software rather than working with antique measuring devices and whatnot. But then there are those, and our Ms B is one, who are quite sure that the whole digital universe will implode one day, at which time we will need all our old analogue skills and we will be found wanting! When electricity becomes extinct (no I’m not sure how this is supposed to happen), we won’t remember how to operate a manual typewriter or whisk an egg by hand – or will we?

Some would argue that those skills are gone and forgotten and that without digital technology we will be as helpless as babies, but I disagree. You only have to look at the dog, who has been so badly trained that he barely knows how to sit, but who nevertheless possesses a startling array of skills. When no more than six months old he found his way into a sheep field and, as I chased after him crying ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ for the benefit of any farmers who might be watching, herded them into a corner. He then separated one from the flock and took it to a different corner, ready for – I don’t know, shearing?

Now he is six and too old for new tricks, you would think. Ha! Recently we were visiting relatives in the country. They have a lawn with bushes along one side and a tree at the end, and we were sitting under the tree, facing the other way. Suddenly we hear an excited bark. Almost ‘I found a rabbit!’ but with a note of perplexity: ‘I found a… this?’ We went over and there, in the middle of the lawn, curled up tight, its spines covered in wisps of grass, was a massive hedgehog. Very much alive and, to judge from the snoring, fast asleep. There was no way it had transported itself into the middle of the lawn. It had been moved there, presumably by the dog. But how? We considered ‘nudging with the snout’, but a dog-owning friend assured us that this would have left the dog with a nose full of prickles. ‘Rolling with the paws’ would have had a similar result.

All we can think is that this city dog, this – let’s face it – cockerpoo, has deeply buried, almost magical skills designed to help him survive in situations quite different from the life he knows.

I, meanwhile, have tracked down the points-measuring-device. Together we are ready for anything. ■

MAGAZINE

Steve Miklos steve@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

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