When I wake up the radio is on and my phone is ringing. At first I don’t understand why I am lying in bed fully dressed. Then I remember: I got up at 6am to go to the gym, hoping the trainer would be able to address my bad shoulder. While I was tying my shoes he called to say he was stuck in traffic, and postponed until 9am. So I went back to bed. I assume he’s ringing to cancel. But it’s not him.
“Hi Tim,” says the person on the other end. “It’s Richard from the Today programme.”
Richard wants to know if I would like to come on just before 9 to discuss locker room talk, in light of Donald Trump’s recently leaked remarks.
“Basically,” he says, “what is it men really talk about when they’re alone?”
“I’m meant to be at the gym,” I say.
“We can send a taxi for you, if that helps,” he says. This is my choice: talk about locker room talk on the radio, or talk in a locker room.
“OK,” I say. “Fine.” I cancel the gym by text.
“What are you doing?” my wife says.
“Going on this,” I say, pointing at the radio. “To defend locker room talk.”
“Is that a good idea?” she says. It occurs to me that it is not. Ten minutes later a black cab pulls up. The driver confirms my name.
“What’s taking you to the BBC?” he says.
“What men talk about when they’re alone together,” I say. His eyes catch mine in the rearview mirror.
“Christ,” he says. “Don’t tell ’em.”
We pick our way through heavy traffic. Fifteen minutes into the journey my phone rings.
“Where are you?” says Richard from the Today programme.
“Wigmore Street,” I say. “At a red light.”
“Keep me posted,” he says. Five minutes later he rings again.
“We’re close,” I say. A minute later he rings again. I lean forward.
“He says you should pull over,” I tell the driver. “And turn off the engine.” I sit with my phone to one ear and my finger in the other, listening to a serious discussion about the danger of dismissing claims of sexual assault as banter.
“What do you think, Tim?” says the presenter. I say that when I am alone with other men we mostly talk about things that are physically wrong with us. It seems, in the circumstances, gravely inappropriate.
“Well that didn’t go well,” I say, after hanging up.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” says the driver.
“Me neither,” I say.
“What now?” he says.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I have no further instructions.”
“I’ll take you home, if you like,” he says.
On the way back the driver tells me he once played professional football for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. We discuss Trump, and the obstinate nativism of Americans.
“America starts wars,” he says, “so its citizens can learn about geography.”
“Wow,” I say. “Did you make that up?” He asks me where I went to school. I tell him.
“Christ, you’re American,” he says. “Sorry, I thought you were Irish.”
“Don’t worry,” I say.
“Can you do state capitals?” he says.
“I could once,” I say.
“Ask me a difficult one,” he says. I think for a minute.
“Michigan,” I say.
“Lansing,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, how am I supposed to know what men talk about? I barely leave the house.” I reflect on my morning as the taxi rises up on to the Westway.
“Tim,” says the driver. “If I was to say South Dakota.”
“Pierre,” I say.
