Short of ideas again, I took myself out for a walk. Out for a stroll, a traipse, a promenade and a dander. It clears the head, lifts the heart and exercises both the calves of legs and the balls of the feet. Ultimately it can inspire perspective and some possible notions for this job in hand. And so, on foot, I began to contemplate the fine art of perambulation.
I myself have been walking since I was no age and my first steps were, I'm sure, an occasion of great pride for my parents. I see myself staggering towards my mother's smile and outstretched arms. She is holding her breath. I see myself totter and lurch and panic as my then chubby legs fold under me and I feel the slow-motion bounce onto my well-padded backside - the shiny security of the lino once more under my hands. Giant step for mankind etc. I have been stepping out ever since.
My current adult amble is a strange one. Because of the length of the now skinny legs and the further than average distance between the feet and the brain, it sometimes looks as if my pedal extremities don't quite belong to me. Down as far as the knees I am in reasonable control of my stride but after that the two feet appear to be on their own and tend to move off at various angles of their own choosing. I am also convinced that one leg is slightly longer than the other and that the feet do not exactly correspond either. Furthermore, the scale of my ears causes me untold difficulties in high winds. All of these factors contribute to my unacknowledged capacity for a spectacular variety of gaits - impressive and otherwise. Much also depends what I'm wearing - heavy shoes, boots, trainers etc. Clothes, too, are of huge significance. In a suitable raincoat for example, I can walk like Robert Mitchum. This would be impossible in jeans and a T-shirt. And while I can saunter with some confidence in a well-pressed suit, this is quite impossible in shorts and a T-shirt. In such circumstances I become painfully conscious that my feet are away on their own again and that I must surely resemble some long-legged, large-footed and multi-jointed insect. Hard to be Robert Mitchum when such is your self image as you attempt to enter a public house with some degree of cool.
John Wayne famously walked as if he was trying adhere precisely to a straight line drawn on the road - only it wasn't a straight line. Bogart's walk was the least convincing thing about him - only Cagney could really walk (and dance) like a tough guy - without ever bending his knees. Woody Allen walks like he wishes he was invisible; this is the most effective walk in cities and it's the one I employ in the bus fumes and building site dust of Abbey Street.
Other suggested role models for advanced urban walking are Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Mister Magoo and Max Wall.
For the rural trek I suggest you try Wordsworth, Miley or Moses as demonstrated on the big screen by Charlton Heston.
As a younger man there were many lesser styles to be perfected. One was to walk with your hands in the back pockets of your flares, elbows high and the palms of your hands pressed against your backside - a fad started, I believe, by either the Osmonds or David Cassidy. Another was to walk while keeping your head moving in a nodding motion as if you were chewing something difficult. The hands were positioned high in the pockets of a Wrangler jacket and once again the angle of the elbows was the key. Although this style of motion was promoted by the television method actors of the day it nevertheless made its exponents resemble rare breeds of chicken and died out in all but the hardest of cases.
Rock stars are the last purveyors of the truly stylish walk. Keith Richards has a walk that involves staggering, keeping upright against all odds, waving his arms about and scratching his head. The promotional video for The Waiting For A Friend is surely rock's finest hour in the history of great walks. When the human riff is joined by Jagger we see, side by side, two of the finest walks in music history. I have not yet perfected Jagger's walk, although in foolish moments I have been known to do a fair representation of the dance (buckleppin' as it's known in my part of the world). Bob Dylan is another who walks without bending his knees. He throws his feet out in front of him without particularly getting anywhere and also employs many of the techniques developed by Keith Richards (see above).
While he lived in Dublin, I made an extensive study of the movements of the rock 'n' roll great, Jerry Lee Lewis. His method is to hitch his trousers as high as he can under his oxters, lower head in a kind of snaky motion and once again keep the pointy elbows jutted out behind him. It's a mean walk befitting the Killer. After such observation I have concluded that you simply cannot be a rock legend without a recognisable walk of your own - Chuck Berry's duck-walk being a case in point - and over the coming weeks I intend to take a very close look at Bono.
I was about to suggest that walking should be an Olympic sport but I've just remembered that it already is - and a very daft one too. While we may all occasionally dream of chesting through the finish line in the hundred metres or the marathon, it seems a strange vocation that anyone would wish to waddle for victory. Just how foolish must such an athlete feel? How do you feel, exactly, when you're out training in the morning and you meet the milkman?
Even so, don't ever knock anything when there's glory to be had, and Ireland has a proud sporting record when it comes to walking. There exists an old Currier and Ives print of a man called John Ennis The Celebrated Pedestrian. He was second in the International Pedestrian Six Days' Contest for the Astley Champion Belt at Gilmore's Garden New York in 1879. The distance covered was 475 miles and 300 yards and himself and his moustache did it in five days, 21 hours, three minutes and 49 seconds. And he wore green trousers throughout - the finest Irishman that ever walked.
And so I whistle to myself tunes like Walking After Midnight, Walking To New Orleans, Walking In The Rain, Walk On The Wild Side and anything by the Walker Brothers.
I study closely the various trots, shuffles, moseys, dawdles, stomps and light treading on Grafton Street and I note the various steps of gardai, lovers, businessmen, poseurs, punks, tourists, eejits, movie-stars, tough guys and clerics. I think there just might be something in it. After all, I can mimic these walks at the drop of a hat and that's a rare enough talent in the present day. What about a one-man show? At the Gait Theatre perhaps?
John Kelly is a writer and broadcaster. His book Cool About The Ankles is published by The Blackstaff Press.