Tuesday, 8 December 2009
1st solution to Story excerpt - 2nd easier one below
Ears hours Tory:
Eye van, mine eggs dawn neigh baa, N turd,
loo king disc cone tent head.
“Halo Mike” hiss head “how seat go wing?”
“Hit sew eggs asp pear 8 tin.”
“eye mast leaf hat ones fork can udder.”
"Y sock wick?"
That’s all folks, just a taste of things to come!!!!!
Easiest solution to Picto Puns
Let meat L ewe “how” mice wheat tea hand Eiffel inn love.
Let me tell you how my sweetie and I fell in love.
Ears hours tory:
Here’s our story:
Eye van, mine eggs dawn neigh baa, N turd,
Ivan my next door neighbour, entered,
loo king disc cone tent head.
looking discontented.
"Halo Mike” hiss head “how seat go wing?”
“Hello, Mike” he said “how’s sit going?”
“Hit sew eggs asp pear 8 tin.”
“It’s so exasperating.”
“eye mast leaf hat ones fork can udder.”
“I must leave at once for
“Y sock wick?”
“Why so quick?”
That’s all folks, just a taste of things to come!!!!!
Saturday, 19 September 2009
THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE PAINTING OF THE HAYWAIN, BY JOHN CONSTABLE
February 1821
It was a brilliantly overcast day, the humid clouds banking down on the horizon and the rooks cumbersome in the cold Suffolk air. The wind was futile and restrained, the air heavy and somnolent.
Ebenezer Worzel and his cousin, Thou Sluggard (a name inspired by his mother totally misunderstanding a sermon on Sloth) were walking along a country lane when all of a sudden Ebenezer was run over and instantly killed by a passing haywain.
The only other witness, apart from Thou Sluggard, was John Constable the famous Painter, who was chasing after the haywain at the time in a fruitless attempt to sketch it.
As he said afterwards “What a bloody useless day, from now on I’m only doing landscapes.”
Thou Sluggard ran to Ebenezer's succor. But he was too dead to help. So he made a quick search of the body for any valuables that the undertaker might nick.
“Excuse me” came a cultured voice from behind him.
Thou Sluggard turned in one lithe movement, as opposed to his usual several flabby ones, to behold a small crabby little man with protuberant eyes, bloodshot nose and indeterminate teeth.
“He looks awfully dead. May I sketch you?”
For yes it was John Constable.
"No probs" quoth Thou Sluggard pocketing a very flat and now totally useless fob watch which had been Ebenezer's pride and joy.
Within no time at all Constable had drawn a passing fair likeness of Thou Sluggard.
“Would you like to star in my next painting?” queried Constable highly impressed by Thou Sluggard’s stationary abilities.
“You could earn a pretty penny.” And with this aesthetically pleasing financial inducement Thou Sluggard stepped into his new career.
Many years later he confided to his brother 'A Tooth for a Tooth' the story behind Constable’s famous painting The Haywain.
“Oh yes that were a grand toime, that were, Mr Constable invoited me to come and stay at Willy Lott’s cottage and there I lived for the entire shoot.
(A word to the ignorant. The cottage in the left hand corner is called Willy Lott’s cottage.)
“Of course as soon as the painting got well known Willy made a fortune from the tourists but when I knew him he was as poor as a church mouse. So he was grateful for the little fee he got from Mr Constable for putting me up. That’s my bedroom window on the left of the house.
The painting? Yes I know the whole story. First of all you see the Haywain in the pond? Well there wasn’t no pond there at all, he put that in afterwards, said the painting looked too dry. A stickler he was Mr C. And the clouds! Don’t talk to me about them clouds, took him months until he was happy with them. Mustn’t be too sunny, mustn’t be too overcast, had to be just right. So he would get up in the morning and just wait for the right clouds meanwhile I’d be sitting there all day on the Haywain bored out of me skull.
By the way that’s me sitting in the Haywain though you can only see my back. He originally intended to have me facing the easel. It happened like this. I’d already spent every day for three months sitting in the cart facing him while we waited for the right weather, then one day he shouted:
“By Jove, those are the right clouds!”
So naturally I turned to look at them and quick as a flash he had painted the clouds and me looking at them!
So I never got my face in it, but I still have the shirt as proof.
Another interesting fact, when Mr Constable shouted “By Jove those are the right clouds” his dog Sparky rushed right into frame and just stayed there wagging his tail, so Mr Constable had no choice but to put him in. Mr Constable said afterwards that Sparky must have thought he said:
“Come on Sparky time for walkies.”
But between you and me I think he did it on purpose, I never got on with that dog he was just too pushy for words - always ‘just happening’ to make himself the centre of attraction.
Well that’s show business I suppose - there is Sparky in the foregound hamming it up and I hardly get a look in. Sickening.
Interestingly enough there was a whole crowd of gawpers from the village, which were also originally in the painting. Some were leaning out of the windows of the cottage to get a good look, others were lurking behind that tree in the middle and peeping out from that bush in the middle, a few had even climbed up that tree on the left to get a good look and young James Postlethwaite, that was later decorated at Waterloo, the station not the war, he was standing in the toilets while they were being redecorated and got covered in paint, but that’s another story. Anyway young James was right in the centre next to the dog. He was waving at the easel and shouting: “Hello Mum!”
Mr Constable kept him in for a bit but later decided that although factually true he wasn’t artistically credible so reluctantly had to paint him out. In fact he painted everybody out. He even had a mind to paint me out but I complained. I said look Mr C, I said, I’ve been sat sitting like an idiot on that cart every day for three months it’s just not fair to paint me out and leave the dog in.” Luckily he relented but it was touch and go for a moment .
That horse was a bloody nuisance too. You never saw such a fidgety animal. You can see two horses in the painting right? Not so. Mr C painted his backside and then went on to do a bit of clouds and when he looked again blast me if the bloody animal hadn’t moved in front so he had to paint him there and pretend there were two. That’s why it all came out a bit blurry. Mr Constable pretended he didn’t mind, he said he’d invented impressionism, but I think he was just trying to make the best out a bad job.
I told him before we started I said “That nag is too highly strung, it’ll make problems,” but Mr Constable didn’t pay no heed. Stubborn old cuss he was. But happen he was right after all, who’s to tell?
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Did you want serving? The dangers of SINTAX.
INT: SHOP - DAY
Burton Sinclair enters and starts sorting through a basket of ski hats.
An adenoidal female shop assistant with a vacant look approaches him.
SHOP ASSISTANT
Did you want serving?
BURTON SINCLAIR
Pardon?
SHOP ASSISTANT
Did you want serving?
BURTON SINCLAIR
Yes I thought that’s what you said. When?
SHOP ASSISTANT
When what?
BURTON SINCLAIR
When dId you think I wanted serving?
SHOP ASSISTANT
(Quite baffled)
Um now. Did you want serving now?
BURTON SINCLAIR
(Painstakingly as to an idiot)
Did I want serving now? That doesn't make any sense at all. I can’t wanted to be serving now. It’s an impossibility even for Quantum Physics.
The Manager bustles in.
MANAGER
Was there a problem sir?
BURTON SINCLAIR
When?
MANAGER
Now sir.
Jump cut to:
INT. COURTROOM - DAY
Burton Sinclair is on the stand giving evidence.
BURTON SINCLAIR
...and that’s when I shot him your honour.
JUDGE
Mm well that’s quite understandable. I once garrotted a member of the sales staff at Selfridges for a comparable offence.
Why on earth was this frivolous case ever brought?
PROSECUTING BARRISTER
I did want to talk about another offence, Your Honour.
JUDGE
And when did you want to talk about this offence?
PROSECUTING BARRISTER
Now m’lud.
The judge nods to the court bailliff who pulls a lever.
A trap door opens underneath the Prosecuting Barrister who hurtles out of shot in a downward direction.
JUDGE
Case dismissed.
(To Burton)
Fancy a drink?
The Nude Ghost of Lady Jane MacTavish
Have you ever seen a ghost?
Yes I have and It was a highly enjoyable experience. She was nude, nubile and in her twenties with a real wanton look. One drawback, though, was her ghostly features, she never seemed to be quite in focus, which I suppose you'd expect really. The other minus was the large wooden stake which had been plunged into her right breast, but it was alright as luckily I got a very fine view of the left one, even though, there again, it did look pretty ghostly. Those were all the naughty bits I could see as the rest were hidden by judiciously placed swirls of ectoplasm. Her stomach seemed bigger than usual but that was probably a phantom pregnancy.
What was she doing?
Nothing much. Haunting, I suppose. She seemed quite bored.
Some people say that ghosts are merely recordings in time.
She didn't look like a recording. Unless maybe a DVD.
Where was this?
In a very old Inn in Edinburgh.
Not the Mactavish and Haggis?
Yes I think it was?
My God you must have seen Lady Jane the Wanton Witch of the West, the world's rarest ghost!
Oh really? Well I'll tell you this, judging by the one I could see, she had a great pair of tits.
In The Tempafrost
For some months the tempafrost had been imperceptibly replacing the permafrost. Spring was inching in over the huge silent plateau as winter yarded out. We sat hunched in the separate round corners of our igloo.
In one corner Borodin Hicks, the madman, sat hunched in fur coat and slippers, discussing German Poets with Habnort Springy, the other madman, who was sitting also furred up to the gills and hunched in another corner. I was sitting in fifteen anoraks hunched in yet another corner scratching notes of their conversation with an icicle on the igloo wall, which was nearly covered with row upon row of my tiny yet elegant handwriting. Mute witness to the ineffable amount of indescribably senseless literary conversations I had Boswelled over the past three months.
"I hate effing German poets" monotoned Borodin, "Can't understand a word of the buggars."
"Might it help if you spoke German?" Habnort queried, absently peeling a duck.
"I don't see what that's got to do with it." Retorted Borodin acidly "They should have written in Bloody English, I mean what's the point of learning German just to read some sodding poet? Anyway I hate poetry, not to mention the bleeding Krauts."
There was an intense literary pause.
"I hate effing Russian authors and all," said Borodin abruptly, "what's the point of learning Russian in order to read, at a conservative estimate, a kilo and a half of drivel?"
"Yes they're massive sods them Russki tomes," Habnort agreed. "I've seen them on display in bookshops, piles of the buggars, so bleeding heavy the tables were actually bending in the middle. Perfectly decent tables, unusable after a week. That's your Ivan, a terrible man for writing any rubbish that pops into his head."
"And who can read them anyway? Only bloody Russians."
"I mean what's wrong with English for God's sake?"
"Not to mention the Frogs." Grunted Borodin. But actually if he had grunted it who could possibly have understood it? No, he probably just said it.
"Oh don't get me started on the effing Frogs." Frowned Habnort. But there again, how can you frown a phrase or sentence? Surely a frown is a facial grimace, I mused, you can't facially grimace words, can you? Well maybe you can if you're some sort of facially acrobatic interpretive twat. And anyway what's musing?
The point of my icicle was now blunt. I snapped another from the collection hanging from my nose and continued scratching my notes on the igloo wall even though I knew that it was merely a matter of time before those I had taken over the last three months would soon disappear in the spring melt.
Outside a large male polar bear, whom I recognised as Bumface, capered nimbly by. In the last few months Bumface had only managed to lumber slowly past, obviously spring was in the air.
Habnort leant forward gratefully (how can you lean forward gratefully by the way? The world is full of these impossibilities, I think I'll lie down)
"You know," he said sincerity dripping from every syllable, "these literary conversations are the only things that have kept my sanity together over the past three months."
In the distance over the icy tundra I could see a French film crew filming a rogue Emperor penguin that had got bored and was playing football with the egg it was supposed to be guarding. The chill air was full of muted "ooh la las" at each skillful shot, and even the occasional "Oh good one!" from an Arsenal supporter, named Vertical Pink, who just happened to be there.
"Down with Chelsea, up the Emperors." He yelled as the egg narrowly ovoided flying off a glacier that was in the process of melting.
I put down the book. What superb writing, what insights, what an unbelievably deep intellect. Feeling humbled under the influence of his giant mind, I glanced at the author's photo on the back cover. A handsome devil-may-care face met my view. The depth of the striking eyes was unmistakable, they held you with an hypnotic glint. It was almost more than I could do to tear myself away from their mesmeric influence...
I put down the book in some confusion. Firstly literary arguments in the tundra and then, without any explanation whatsoever, a very impressionable bloke suddenly arrives out of the blue reading a book jacket.
With shaking hands I opened the packet of crisps I had been keeping for just such an eventuality. The wafer thin crunch resounded round the walls of my cell and swiftly brought me the solace that I had so long sought outside my marriage to Fiona, my flawed ex-debutante wife. For the first time in months I found the peace that had eluded me for so many years.
"Letter for you." A missive shot through the bars of the door and onto the Welcome Mat ironically provided by the misanthropic warden.
"Dear Glarns, hope all is well. I hear you're in prison, well it couldn't happen to a nicer bloke. Ha ha. Joke! No seriously, obviously there has been a serious miscarriage of justice. Sorry I was out of the country at the time, still am in fact, otherwise I would confess. Yes it was me twaddle face, twas I, as they say in Women's Romances. I did it! I know no-one will believe me now. I'm in the clear. But it was I and no-one else who pulled the trigger and shot the foul-mouthed bitch."
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Stage, by Meirav Yudilovich, YNET, December 12, 2008
The delightful comedy of the absurd, "Clowns", written by Maor Gillerman and directed by the pantomime and actor Julian Chagrin, concludes the Short Theatre Festival.
The location: back stage. The time: twenty minutes before curtain call.
The characters: the world’s greatest theatre clown, and with him his apprentice/dresser and the supporting actor in the performance. Gil Alon, Liron Gillerman and Gabi Cohen Groendland perform clowning at its best, using every tool available to the clown apart from juggling and stilt walking.
They conduct a dialogue that begins as an interesting one and becomes gripping -- about an incident that occurred to the famous clown during his last series of performances. The play is amusing, it is captivating, it is intelligent, and above all it is beautiful theatre. Here we encounter a wonderfully facetious spirit, entertaining and original, that reinforces the notion that comedy is a very serious business.
"Clowns", by the way, is the play in which the greatest effort was invested in stage decoration and costumes (credit going to Michal Ya’akobi), and in lighting (by Martin Adin), whose presence is felt precisely because it does not draw attention to itself.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
“Clowns” Demonstrates What Theatre Is, by Esti G Haim, Ma’ariv Newspaper, December 12, 2008
Picture of Gabi Cohen Groendland
The play "Clowns", directed by Julian Chagrin, performed in the Short Theatre Festival, touches delicately but mischievously upon the question: What is theatre? Wonderful acting and exact direction make it a brilliant and precise expression of short theatre.
A visit to the Short Theatre Festival is, in my judgment, an experience. Like a short story, a short play is meant to “contain the maximum in a minimum volume.” The play "Clowns" succeeds in realizing this ambition in an original and thought provoking manner.
"Clowns" is correctly defined by its creator as a comedy of the absurd. Everything here is contradictory. The unexpected is expected, reality is fantasy, the real actors are characters, and the viewing audience in the auditorium is supposedly imaginary.
The play takes place behind the scenes in a theatre, in a dressing room, and it portrays a senior and a supporting actor preparing to go onstage for a performance, and the dresser of the senior actor, who assists him, and him only as he prepares to go onstage.
Virtuosity
The three characters are dressed as clowns, and this, it becomes apparent, is their everyday clothing. During the play they change these clothes to those they will wear in the performance – regular suits, which are the costumes of the characters in the play they are about to perform, before another audience, an imaginary one.
The change of clothes is a feat of virtuosity performed during wonderful acts of clowning executed with great precision and charm by the three actors. This is in fact the real performance that we are viewing. Their real performance, for which they are getting ready, is for us, the audience, imaginary; as that which is taking place for them ‘backstage’ is imaginary for their imaginary audience.
As opposed to the two actors (Gil Alon and by Liron Gillerman) who talk for the length of the play about a specific dramatic event that once occurred to Gil Alon’s character, the character of the dresser (played by Gabi Cohen Groendland) remains mute throughout.
The dresser continually works and labors to remove the clown clothing from the senior actor (Gil Alon) and to dress him in his costume for the performance. He is the only one of the three who actually performs realistic work, but he remains dressed as a clown to the end.
The character of the clown is the reality, while the text, which seemingly tells a real story, is fanciful. On a costume crate the graffiti “Fuck Hamlet” is written, while the dresser holds in his hand a polystyrene wig dummy and mimics the famous “To be or not to be" scene from the classic play.
The polystyrene head is also a parodic metaphor of a real skull: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Toward the end of the play the senior actor returns backstage from the imaginary stage, and the dresser removes from his mouth a long colored ribbon that symbolizes “the accessory of words” that has been used and no longer has any function,
Talented Directing
In this context I must mention here the play’s director, Julian Chagrin, whose talent has already been proven in England, where he was winner of the Berlin Film Festival “Golden Bear” Award and Nominated for the the Oscar for short films that he directed. He has lived here for many years, for all practical purposes language-less, thus for him a kind of virtual world. His real world is located in a place where he can express himself in his own language. And perhaps precisely because of that the theatrical language of "Clowns" is so rich.
It is rare that a play succeeds in reaching the heart of the theatrical experience and the essence of the question “With what is the art of the theatre really involved?” Most frequently theatre here falls into the trap of dealing with the difficult state of our current affairs -- which is our lot in this country, where the theatre chiefly serves the ‘goal’, whether as social or other criticism.
At other times the theatre flees toward escapist plays. "Clowns" is a short, brilliant and precise theatrical expression, with superbly talented direction by Julian Chagrin and virtuoso performances by the actors. Set against the wholly suitable background of the colorful stage design and costumes of Michal Ya’akobi, the play addresses the question “What is Theatre?”, with charm and silliness, in which is reflected, of course the question, “What is life?”
"Clowns" demonstrates that indeed “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Imagination is more authentic than reality, and words are more than “words, words, words.”
"Clowns", by Maor Gillerman, directed by Julian Chagrin, was performed at Miktzaron 2, Short Theatre Festival, at Tzavta, Tel Aviv, December18, 2008. Actors: Gil Alon, Liron Gillerman, Gabi Cohen Groenland.
A visit to the Short Theatre Festival is, in my judgment, an experience. Like a short story, a short play is meant to “contain the maximum in a minimum volume.” The play "Clowns" succeeds in realizing this ambition in an original and thought provoking manner.
"Clowns" is correctly defined by its creator as a comedy of the absurd. Everything here is contradictory. The unexpected is expected, reality is fantasy, the real actors are characters, and the viewing audience in the auditorium is supposedly imaginary.
The play takes place behind the scenes in a theatre, in a dressing room, and it portrays a senior and a supporting actor preparing to go onstage for a performance, and the dresser of the senior actor, who assists him, and him only as he prepares to go onstage.
Virtuosity
The three characters are dressed as clowns, and this, it becomes apparent, is their everyday clothing. During the play they change these clothes to those they will wear in the performance – regular suits, which are the costumes of the characters in the play they are about to perform, before another audience, an imaginary one.
The change of clothes is a feat of virtuosity performed during wonderful acts of clowning executed with great precision and charm by the three actors. This is in fact the real performance that we are viewing. Their real performance, for which they are getting ready, is for us, the audience, imaginary; as that which is taking place for them ‘backstage’ is imaginary for their imaginary audience.
As opposed to the two actors (Gil Alon and by Liron Gillerman) who talk for the length of the play about a specific dramatic event that once occurred to Gil Alon’s character, the character of the dresser (played by Gabi Cohen Groendland) remains mute throughout.
The dresser continually works and labors to remove the clown clothing from the senior actor (Gil Alon) and to dress him in his costume for the performance. He is the only one of the three who actually performs realistic work, but he remains dressed as a clown to the end.
The character of the clown is the reality, while the text, which seemingly tells a real story, is fanciful. On a costume crate the graffiti “Fuck Hamlet” is written, while the dresser holds in his hand a polystyrene wig dummy and mimics the famous “To be or not to be" scene from the classic play.
The polystyrene head is also a parodic metaphor of a real skull: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Toward the end of the play the senior actor returns backstage from the imaginary stage, and the dresser removes from his mouth a long colored ribbon that symbolizes “the accessory of words” that has been used and no longer has any function,
Talented Directing
In this context I must mention here the play’s director, Julian Chagrin, whose talent has already been proven in England, where he was winner of the Berlin Film Festival “Golden Bear” Award and Nominated for the the Oscar for short films that he directed. He has lived here for many years, for all practical purposes language-less, thus for him a kind of virtual world. His real world is located in a place where he can express himself in his own language. And perhaps precisely because of that the theatrical language of "Clowns" is so rich.
It is rare that a play succeeds in reaching the heart of the theatrical experience and the essence of the question “With what is the art of the theatre really involved?” Most frequently theatre here falls into the trap of dealing with the difficult state of our current affairs -- which is our lot in this country, where the theatre chiefly serves the ‘goal’, whether as social or other criticism.
At other times the theatre flees toward escapist plays. "Clowns" is a short, brilliant and precise theatrical expression, with superbly talented direction by Julian Chagrin and virtuoso performances by the actors. Set against the wholly suitable background of the colorful stage design and costumes of Michal Ya’akobi, the play addresses the question “What is Theatre?”, with charm and silliness, in which is reflected, of course the question, “What is life?”
"Clowns" demonstrates that indeed “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Imagination is more authentic than reality, and words are more than “words, words, words.”
"Clowns", by Maor Gillerman, directed by Julian Chagrin, was performed at Miktzaron 2, Short Theatre Festival, at Tzavta, Tel Aviv, December18, 2008. Actors: Gil Alon, Liron Gillerman, Gabi Cohen Groenland.
"Clowns" Short Takes -Review by Kobi Niv, Globus Newspaper, 28.12.2008
Photo of Gil Alon
"Clowns, by Maor Gillerman, directed by Julian Chagrin, is a wonderful performance, funny, mischievous, uplifting. It takes place behind the scenes of a theatre performance, during the twenty minutes prior to curtain call.
It has three heroes – the principle actor, Gil Alon, a full-of-himself prattler, who is taken up in a complicated, meandering story about an incident that happened to him during his travels overseas; the supporting actor, Liron Gillerman, who is obliged to listen to his master’s tale, without taking any interest in or understanding anything about the story; and the dresser of the two, Gabi Cohen Groenland, a clown pantomime who does not utter a word throughout the play. .
The combination of an excellent text for the two actors, which reminds us of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, or Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , together with the theatrical slapstick concocted by director Julian Chagrin, is intelligent and impressive, full of joy, love and theatrical fun. Bravo*!
It has three heroes – the principle actor, Gil Alon, a full-of-himself prattler, who is taken up in a complicated, meandering story about an incident that happened to him during his travels overseas; the supporting actor, Liron Gillerman, who is obliged to listen to his master’s tale, without taking any interest in or understanding anything about the story; and the dresser of the two, Gabi Cohen Groenland, a clown pantomime who does not utter a word throughout the play. .
The combination of an excellent text for the two actors, which reminds us of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, or Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , together with the theatrical slapstick concocted by director Julian Chagrin, is intelligent and impressive, full of joy, love and theatrical fun. Bravo*!
Friday, 7 March 2008
The theft of Soame's voice.
The Author, in a fringe, being groped by his grandmother while his brother Nic pees on him. Ah Halcyon days!
Soames sat up with a start, his throat felt gravelly, as though gnomes had been clog dancing on his larynx.
"Oh my God I bet I've been talking in my sleep, again." He said hoarsely. "I wonder if I ever say anything interesting. I think I will go out to my local electronic shop and purchase a voice activated recording device. Then I will find out what I say. I know I must be talking in my sleep, even sometimes an inordinate amount, because every morning my throat is sore."
Soames went downstairs and duly purchased same. He rushed back upstairs like an excited kid on his birthday, opened the package and set the apparatus up.
That night as he got into bed he turned the button to auto and went to sleep. Next morning he looked at the recorder. The red light was blinking which meant that it had recorded .
He turned it on. First there was about two hours of snoring and muttering which he ran through and then:
"Hello Soames."
He gave a start. That wasn't his voice.
"So you've found me out. I wondered when you'd cotton on."
The voice was strangely familiar! His blood went cold and hairs started up on the back of his neck.
It was Hartman! His next door neighbour!
What was happening here?
The voice continued.
"Yes I've been coming here for months while you slept and using you to talk in my ---our sleep. I didn't want to use up my voice."
Hartman is an actor. Soames could see his point.
He went on.
"Well I suppose I should go, now that my cover is blown. Blast! And tomorrow I was going to try walking in our sleep. Oh well. I'll use up the rest of our last night with the soliloquy from Hamlet, then I'll leave."
Soames turned off the machine while he made himself a cup of coffee and then turned it back on and listened to Hartman's Hamlet in his voice as he sipped.
Soames felt strangely proud, he was rather good.
After the Hamlet came some poems by WB Yates and the ode to a Grecian Urn. About dawn, he knew it was dawn because he could hear the dawn chorus on the tape, Hartman began telling jokes. He ended the whole performance with a rather risque' musical hall song.
"Well, good night Soames or rather good morning. Thanx for the use of your throat it's been real. See you around. And don't bother to sue. There's nothing about it in the law books. I checked."
Soames went next door and knocked, then saw the "To Let" sign on Hartman's door.
He felt oddly betrayed that his new partner had skipped town. Because let's face it they had been partners of a sort, though, to be more accurate, Soames was just the sleeping partner.
Three years later I was still living in the same apartment and was by this time married to Jenna, an artist cum cook.
One morning she said:
"Soamesy you are a dark horse. I didn't know you liked Shakespeare."
I felt a twinge of uneasiness, the mind is very fast.
"Er why do you say that?" I asked, though I knew what was coming.
"Last night you were talking in your sleep and you quoted the ghost from Hamlet. Word perfect."
I love Jenna, I trust her implicitly, we've been through a lot. I told her the Hartman story, fearing ridicule but braving it out nonetheless.
"So he's back?" She said, gorgeous lass, skipping all the doubts and questions one would have expected, and going straight to the nitty gritty, whatever that means.
"Yes so it seems," I said "I certainly never learnt Hamlet's Ghost speech, I wouldn't recognize it if it bit me on the fetlock."
Jenna set her jaw determinedly
"What a cheek. We're going to find this parasite and put a stop to his machinations." She was getting angry , "He has absolutely no right to enter your head without permission. He's trespassing you know."
"He's an actor," I said "he should be easy to find."
I rang Spotlight, the actor's magazine.
Jenna says that when I put down the phone I had lost all my color.
"Hartman died yesterday." I was trembling.
"You poor darling!" Jenna thought for a moment, "Oh my God! He's haunting you."
"Yes that's why he's doing the ghost bit. Poor sod. Still it's not very nice to have to share one's brain with a spectre, wraith or phantom."
"There's nothing for it, we must have you exorcised."
That's how it all started. So far I've seen five catholic priests, several bhuddist monks, a voodoo practitioner and three Christian scientists.
I am still nightly haunted by Hartman's ghost who uses me for rehearsal.
From what I glean from my trusty tape recorder he’s currently doing Ibsen’s “Ghosts.”
"Oh my God I bet I've been talking in my sleep, again." He said hoarsely. "I wonder if I ever say anything interesting. I think I will go out to my local electronic shop and purchase a voice activated recording device. Then I will find out what I say. I know I must be talking in my sleep, even sometimes an inordinate amount, because every morning my throat is sore."
Soames went downstairs and duly purchased same. He rushed back upstairs like an excited kid on his birthday, opened the package and set the apparatus up.
That night as he got into bed he turned the button to auto and went to sleep. Next morning he looked at the recorder. The red light was blinking which meant that it had recorded .
He turned it on. First there was about two hours of snoring and muttering which he ran through and then:
"Hello Soames."
He gave a start. That wasn't his voice.
"So you've found me out. I wondered when you'd cotton on."
The voice was strangely familiar! His blood went cold and hairs started up on the back of his neck.
It was Hartman! His next door neighbour!
What was happening here?
The voice continued.
"Yes I've been coming here for months while you slept and using you to talk in my ---our sleep. I didn't want to use up my voice."
Hartman is an actor. Soames could see his point.
He went on.
"Well I suppose I should go, now that my cover is blown. Blast! And tomorrow I was going to try walking in our sleep. Oh well. I'll use up the rest of our last night with the soliloquy from Hamlet, then I'll leave."
Soames turned off the machine while he made himself a cup of coffee and then turned it back on and listened to Hartman's Hamlet in his voice as he sipped.
Soames felt strangely proud, he was rather good.
After the Hamlet came some poems by WB Yates and the ode to a Grecian Urn. About dawn, he knew it was dawn because he could hear the dawn chorus on the tape, Hartman began telling jokes. He ended the whole performance with a rather risque' musical hall song.
"Well, good night Soames or rather good morning. Thanx for the use of your throat it's been real. See you around. And don't bother to sue. There's nothing about it in the law books. I checked."
Soames went next door and knocked, then saw the "To Let" sign on Hartman's door.
He felt oddly betrayed that his new partner had skipped town. Because let's face it they had been partners of a sort, though, to be more accurate, Soames was just the sleeping partner.
Three years later I was still living in the same apartment and was by this time married to Jenna, an artist cum cook.
One morning she said:
"Soamesy you are a dark horse. I didn't know you liked Shakespeare."
I felt a twinge of uneasiness, the mind is very fast.
"Er why do you say that?" I asked, though I knew what was coming.
"Last night you were talking in your sleep and you quoted the ghost from Hamlet. Word perfect."
I love Jenna, I trust her implicitly, we've been through a lot. I told her the Hartman story, fearing ridicule but braving it out nonetheless.
"So he's back?" She said, gorgeous lass, skipping all the doubts and questions one would have expected, and going straight to the nitty gritty, whatever that means.
"Yes so it seems," I said "I certainly never learnt Hamlet's Ghost speech, I wouldn't recognize it if it bit me on the fetlock."
Jenna set her jaw determinedly
"What a cheek. We're going to find this parasite and put a stop to his machinations." She was getting angry , "He has absolutely no right to enter your head without permission. He's trespassing you know."
"He's an actor," I said "he should be easy to find."
I rang Spotlight, the actor's magazine.
Jenna says that when I put down the phone I had lost all my color.
"Hartman died yesterday." I was trembling.
"You poor darling!" Jenna thought for a moment, "Oh my God! He's haunting you."
"Yes that's why he's doing the ghost bit. Poor sod. Still it's not very nice to have to share one's brain with a spectre, wraith or phantom."
"There's nothing for it, we must have you exorcised."
That's how it all started. So far I've seen five catholic priests, several bhuddist monks, a voodoo practitioner and three Christian scientists.
I am still nightly haunted by Hartman's ghost who uses me for rehearsal.
From what I glean from my trusty tape recorder he’s currently doing Ibsen’s “Ghosts.”
Thursday, 21 February 2008
BURTON SINCLAIR
My eldest son Jeff playing Burton Sinclair.
Photo taken by Nicolas Tickle-us Chagrin.
“Burton Sinclair at your service.”
“Not…the Burton Sinclair? Underwater explorer, male model, brain surgeon, nuclear physicist, nobel prize winner for his work on baldness, Olympic five metre sprint champion, Oxford Swearing Blue, Specialist in Spices, particularly cinnamon and author of the first dictionary of Mongolian into cockney rhyming slang?”
“No, not that Burton Sinclair.”
“Oh then you must be Burton Sinclair the postman, who consistently fails to deliver the right letters into our mail box? And instead stuffs it with all the bills from next door. Who is obviously dyslexic because he folds articles into two when they say do not bend and drops them when they say fragile?”
“No, not that Burton Sinclair either.”
“Don’t tell me you’re the Burton Sinclair who singlehandedly painted the Forth Bridge in one weekend with one can of paint while balancing a bicycle on his nose?”
“No, not that Burton Sinclair, although we are distantly related.”
“Aha! So you must be the Burton Sinclair who invented a machine for turning used tea-bags into portable computers!”
“Alas no, I am not he. I am Burton Sinclair the Policeman and you are under arrest for impersonating a Burton Sinclair Specialist.”
“Not…the Burton Sinclair? Underwater explorer, male model, brain surgeon, nuclear physicist, nobel prize winner for his work on baldness, Olympic five metre sprint champion, Oxford Swearing Blue, Specialist in Spices, particularly cinnamon and author of the first dictionary of Mongolian into cockney rhyming slang?”
“No, not that Burton Sinclair.”
“Oh then you must be Burton Sinclair the postman, who consistently fails to deliver the right letters into our mail box? And instead stuffs it with all the bills from next door. Who is obviously dyslexic because he folds articles into two when they say do not bend and drops them when they say fragile?”
“No, not that Burton Sinclair either.”
“Don’t tell me you’re the Burton Sinclair who singlehandedly painted the Forth Bridge in one weekend with one can of paint while balancing a bicycle on his nose?”
“No, not that Burton Sinclair, although we are distantly related.”
“Aha! So you must be the Burton Sinclair who invented a machine for turning used tea-bags into portable computers!”
“Alas no, I am not he. I am Burton Sinclair the Policeman and you are under arrest for impersonating a Burton Sinclair Specialist.”
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Elks
My brother Gerard Benson the Poet Laureate of Bradford . I am pretending not to be jealous that he has a portrait and I don't.
Gerard plays the other man in this next piece but then so do I. Life is never easy.
Gerard plays the other man in this next piece but then so do I. Life is never easy.
"Hello ."
"Hello there. "
"First time?"
"Yes."
"How have you enjoyed it so far?"
"Ephemeral yet morose."
"Mmm interesting take. I know what you mean in so far as the ephemerality thing goes. Morose? Hmm not sure."
"I look at it this way. Supposing you see an elk in the forest and suddenly without let or hindrance you find him lurking three minutes later in your bath tub . That's what I mean."
"Is it a male elk?"
"That has no bearing on the matter."
"It has for me. I happen to be allergic to large male members of the deer family."
"No problem, I will find another metaphor. You are bunjee jumping into a very deep cave. On your way down, as it is a very great distance to the bottom, you have ample time to leisurely examine the cord bearing you, having paid good money in exchange for safety of mind in the belief that the cord would be a good stout bouncy rubber of industrial strength. Instead you find to your horror that it is, in actual fact, knicker elastic. You have been duped. There is no way back up and you are doomed. However, because of the previously mentioned great distance that you are travelling in a downwards direction, you do have time to make one last call on your mobile phone before you hit the ground with a monumentally sickening thud. My question is : whom do you call?"
"It is an excellent question but sadly I cannot answer it as I never carry a mobile phone. It is the danger of micro waves to my private parts. Parts, I should add, of which I and my wife are inordinately fond. Please choose another metaphor."
"Naturally I respect the delicacy of your feelings and also those of your wife. I will select another example from my vast store. Let us say that you are standing in line for the movies…"
"If I might stop you there before you continue, I never go to the movies because of the proximity of people who might be carrying the plague..."
"I’m so glad you divulged that personal trepidation I will immediately cease and desist from that particular metaphor. Right, here’s one that cannot be distasteful to you. Let us say that you are walking about on the Mongolian Steppes, on the vast plains of grassland stretching as far as the eye can...….you‘ve got agrophobia too haven’t you?"
"Well yes I have actually, but how on earth do you know?"
"Because you are speaking to me from that supine position on the floor that you suddenly adopted when you fainted on hearing about the vast plains of grassland in Mongolia stretching as.....…whoops he’s done it again. I think I’ll leave him there, life’s too short."
"Hello there. "
"First time?"
"Yes."
"How have you enjoyed it so far?"
"Ephemeral yet morose."
"Mmm interesting take. I know what you mean in so far as the ephemerality thing goes. Morose? Hmm not sure."
"I look at it this way. Supposing you see an elk in the forest and suddenly without let or hindrance you find him lurking three minutes later in your bath tub . That's what I mean."
"Is it a male elk?"
"That has no bearing on the matter."
"It has for me. I happen to be allergic to large male members of the deer family."
"No problem, I will find another metaphor. You are bunjee jumping into a very deep cave. On your way down, as it is a very great distance to the bottom, you have ample time to leisurely examine the cord bearing you, having paid good money in exchange for safety of mind in the belief that the cord would be a good stout bouncy rubber of industrial strength. Instead you find to your horror that it is, in actual fact, knicker elastic. You have been duped. There is no way back up and you are doomed. However, because of the previously mentioned great distance that you are travelling in a downwards direction, you do have time to make one last call on your mobile phone before you hit the ground with a monumentally sickening thud. My question is : whom do you call?"
"It is an excellent question but sadly I cannot answer it as I never carry a mobile phone. It is the danger of micro waves to my private parts. Parts, I should add, of which I and my wife are inordinately fond. Please choose another metaphor."
"Naturally I respect the delicacy of your feelings and also those of your wife. I will select another example from my vast store. Let us say that you are standing in line for the movies…"
"If I might stop you there before you continue, I never go to the movies because of the proximity of people who might be carrying the plague..."
"I’m so glad you divulged that personal trepidation I will immediately cease and desist from that particular metaphor. Right, here’s one that cannot be distasteful to you. Let us say that you are walking about on the Mongolian Steppes, on the vast plains of grassland stretching as far as the eye can...….you‘ve got agrophobia too haven’t you?"
"Well yes I have actually, but how on earth do you know?"
"Because you are speaking to me from that supine position on the floor that you suddenly adopted when you fainted on hearing about the vast plains of grassland in Mongolia stretching as.....…whoops he’s done it again. I think I’ll leave him there, life’s too short."
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Tutankhamen's Mummified Scrotal Sac
“Right , does anyone know what this is?”
The class looked blank.
“No ideas at all?”
A tentative hand wavered up.
“Yes, Ponsonby Minor?”
“Is it Tutankhamen’s mummified scrotal sac?”
“No it’s bloody not and take a detention for your cheek.”
“But sir…”
“Don’t you ‘but sir’ me. Tutankhamen’s mummified scrotal sac indeed! Anyone else got any bright ideas?”
Silence.
“Well I’ll tell you ignoramuses what it is, it’s a …aaaarrgh!”
Professor Dolbin was suddenly clawing at his throat from which the head of an arrow protruded! Blood gushed from the wound in spurts, then spurted from the wound in gushes. Then it spurted in spurts and gushed in gushes. A torrent of blood poured from the wound, then a flood followed by a stream and finally a trickle. Professor Dolbin collapsed slowly onto the podium, his mouth frantically opening and closing.
“He’s trying to say something.”
Ponsonby Minor put his ears close to the Professor’s mouth.
“Bloody…. archery …..class.” he stammered and then was dead.
Fancourt from the sixth form came bounding in to the class-room.
“Has anyone seen my arrow?” he said. His eyes followed the direction of the third form’s pointing fingers.
“Oh buggar.” Fancourt said ruefully “I was aiming for his chest. Still, not a bad shot.”
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Sex and soup - without the sex.
The Author performing his famous 'lavatory chain' mime.
"What’s that you’re reading?"
“Two Insinuations on the subject of Gruel.” by Samuel Leibnitz."
"What’s it like?"
"I haven’t got very far yet. There’s a very good chapter on oats."
"Have you read Sacramento’s ‘A short homily on chowder?’ As good if not better than his ‘Intimations on Consomme’"
"You don’t say? I loved his ‘Discourse on Bisque’, soulful and yet thought provoking."
"Sorry but I hated it. He gives ‘Gumbo' such short thrift I found it insulting."
"In my opinion he’s absolutely right, ‘Gumbo’ is a Johnny-come-lately in the elegant world of Potage, a brash newcomer, no subtlety, no je ne sais quoi."
"Well I couldn’t disagree with you more, though if I could I would. Actually, by the merest chance I happen to have written a short work: ‘A Short Guide to Gumbo’ would you like to read it?"
"Oh…how interesting."
"It gives the real story behind Gumbo, it’s early history, the failures, the successes. Did you know that it was originally made from the rubber plant? Hence the ‘Gum’, but this was found to be too chewy so it was replaced with tar, which was in ready supply owing to the road surfaces melting in the heat, but this made the soup too black and also tasted absolutely revolting, so eventually they made it with shrimp."
"Well there’s a thing, now."
"I’m currently penning a work on Bouillabaisse."
"Oh. You don’t have a word processor?"
"No, just a pen. Yes it’s quite a departure from my normal style. There’s lots of sex and violence."
'How can get you sex and violence from a fish soup?"
"Oh not that Bouillabaisse, Francois Bouillabaisse the renegade monk and mass murderer."
“Two Insinuations on the subject of Gruel.” by Samuel Leibnitz."
"What’s it like?"
"I haven’t got very far yet. There’s a very good chapter on oats."
"Have you read Sacramento’s ‘A short homily on chowder?’ As good if not better than his ‘Intimations on Consomme’"
"You don’t say? I loved his ‘Discourse on Bisque’, soulful and yet thought provoking."
"Sorry but I hated it. He gives ‘Gumbo' such short thrift I found it insulting."
"In my opinion he’s absolutely right, ‘Gumbo’ is a Johnny-come-lately in the elegant world of Potage, a brash newcomer, no subtlety, no je ne sais quoi."
"Well I couldn’t disagree with you more, though if I could I would. Actually, by the merest chance I happen to have written a short work: ‘A Short Guide to Gumbo’ would you like to read it?"
"Oh…how interesting."
"It gives the real story behind Gumbo, it’s early history, the failures, the successes. Did you know that it was originally made from the rubber plant? Hence the ‘Gum’, but this was found to be too chewy so it was replaced with tar, which was in ready supply owing to the road surfaces melting in the heat, but this made the soup too black and also tasted absolutely revolting, so eventually they made it with shrimp."
"Well there’s a thing, now."
"I’m currently penning a work on Bouillabaisse."
"Oh. You don’t have a word processor?"
"No, just a pen. Yes it’s quite a departure from my normal style. There’s lots of sex and violence."
'How can get you sex and violence from a fish soup?"
"Oh not that Bouillabaisse, Francois Bouillabaisse the renegade monk and mass murderer."
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
The National Twit’s Association
My son Jesse brilliantly playing the part of the 'Other Twit'
“Hello, can I speak to Quentin please?”
“Sorry, there is no one here of that name.”
“Strange, I’m sure he gave me this number.”
“As I said there is no-one here of that name.”
“Is this 752 3574?”
“Yes.”
“Funny. May I ask if he’s ever been there?”
“Yes. He just went out.”
(Long Pause)
“You’re a twit.”
“Thank-you.”
“You really are a very big Twit.”
“Well, though I say it what shouldn’t, I am a founder member of the GBH.”
“What’s that stand for? “
“The National Twit’s Association. “
“So why are the initials GBH? Surely they should be NTA?”
“That’s a good point. Never thought of that.”
“You really are a very serious twit.”
“Flattery, flattery. Would you like to join?”
“I’m not a twit.”
“How do you know? Have you ever taken the Twit Test?”
“No of course I haven’t.”
“Then how do you know that you’re not a twit?”
“Because…I know I shouldn’t be asking this, but what is this test?”
“Oh you just answer three simple questions. Would you like to take the test? It’s a lot of fun.”
“I don’t know.”
“Go on what do you have to lose?”
“Oh alright.”
“Goody. Okay question number one. Who would you rescue in a fire?
1. A beautiful blonde starlet with huge knockers.
2. A beautiful redheaded nymphomaniac with huge knockers.
3. A very ugly but grateful unmarried heiress with dodgy knockers?”
“Sorry, there is no one here of that name.”
“Strange, I’m sure he gave me this number.”
“As I said there is no-one here of that name.”
“Is this 752 3574?”
“Yes.”
“Funny. May I ask if he’s ever been there?”
“Yes. He just went out.”
(Long Pause)
“You’re a twit.”
“Thank-you.”
“You really are a very big Twit.”
“Well, though I say it what shouldn’t, I am a founder member of the GBH.”
“What’s that stand for? “
“The National Twit’s Association. “
“So why are the initials GBH? Surely they should be NTA?”
“That’s a good point. Never thought of that.”
“You really are a very serious twit.”
“Flattery, flattery. Would you like to join?”
“I’m not a twit.”
“How do you know? Have you ever taken the Twit Test?”
“No of course I haven’t.”
“Then how do you know that you’re not a twit?”
“Because…I know I shouldn’t be asking this, but what is this test?”
“Oh you just answer three simple questions. Would you like to take the test? It’s a lot of fun.”
“I don’t know.”
“Go on what do you have to lose?”
“Oh alright.”
“Goody. Okay question number one. Who would you rescue in a fire?
1. A beautiful blonde starlet with huge knockers.
2. A beautiful redheaded nymphomaniac with huge knockers.
3. A very ugly but grateful unmarried heiress with dodgy knockers?”
“The heiress.”
“Hooray! Welcome to the GBH!”
“That answer doesn’t prove that I’m a Twit.”
“Yes it does. The right answer is all of them. Welcome.”
“Okay. Now I’ve got a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Where is Quentin?”
“This is he.”
“But you said there was no-one of that name there.”
“I was lying to protect the innocent.”
“Hooray! Welcome to the GBH!”
“That answer doesn’t prove that I’m a Twit.”
“Yes it does. The right answer is all of them. Welcome.”
“Okay. Now I’ve got a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Where is Quentin?”
“This is he.”
“But you said there was no-one of that name there.”
“I was lying to protect the innocent.”
Sunday, 6 January 2008
The Thing
St Frisbee and his famous vision of the Virgin Doris (played by Sophie 'Schnozzle' Chagrin) which has nothing to do with the ridiculous piece below.
"Hello Basil."
"Hello Tom."
"I just got this."
"Oh. That’s nice. What is it?"
"I have no idea, but Adrian Cadwallader just got one and I thought it looked rather nice."
"Yes indeed it does look very nice. I wonder what it is."
"Yes, so do I."
"Could it be a Victorian backscratcher?"
"Funny you should say that, I thought so too, at first. But when I tried it I only succeeded in causing several deep lacerations, so I don’t think it’s a backscratcher."
"It’s a challenge, there’s no denying it. Did you ask Adrian Cadwallader what it is?"
"Yes, he says he has no idea. He bought it because his MP had one on his desk when Adrian went to complain about the epidemic of stoats."
"So possibly his MP knows it’s function?"
"Adrian was dubious. He says his MP doesn’t know anything, which is probably why he’s going to be made a minister."
"Well it obviously serves some function. Maybe it’s an objet trouve’?
"But I didn’t find it, I bought it."
"Hm good point. Could it be a bottle opener? Or a model of the Titanic? How about an implement for getting stones out of horses’ hooves?"
"At one moment I did think it might conceivably be an old English plumbers wrench."
"How about a Babylonian market weight?"
"Or a Polynesian toothpick?"
"I know! It’s an elephant sexer!"
"Maybe it’s an ancient microscope, you know before glass was invented."
"It might just be the fossil of a hitherto unidentified thing!"
"Hello Darling."
"Hello Darling. Basil, have you met my wife Cynthia? This is Basil Barcestershire."
"How do you do, Cynthia?"
"Nice to meet you Basil. So have you chaps found out what it is yet?"
"We were just discussing it. None the wiser I’m afraid."
"Well, listen to this. I just had tea with Agnes Haliburton. I described it to her and she’s almost positive that it’s a Middle English conversation piece!"
"Ah here’s Burton with the tea."
"Excuse me sir."
"Yes what is it Burton?"
"I couldn’t help overhearing. I think I know what that thing is, sir."
"Oh really?"
"Yes I saw a great many similar objects in the great war. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a German Blickenspieler."
"Good Lord, you don’t say. A German Blickenspieler eh? And what is a German Blickenspieler when it’s at home?"
"Ah there you have me sir. We never found out. Some of the lads thought that it was the work of the devil. Still others thought it might be the Holy Grail.But the majority were of the opinion that it was invented by the Krauts for the purpose of annoying us."
"Ah here’s Hetty with the cakes."
"Sorry, Ma'am, if I might interpose, Ma’am?"
"Yes Hetty?"
"Well begging your pardon, for listening ma’am, but before I came here I worked for a doctor. And I’m almost certain that he used one of them gadgets what’s concerning you. I recognized it as soon as I saw it."
"How interesting Hetty and what was this doctor’s speciality?"
"Well begging your pardon for the language, ma’am, but he was a proctolologist."
"Do you mean ...proctologist?"
"Yes ma'am that's the word."
"Oh! Good Lord! I see. Hetty would you be so kind as to take that …thing and put it in the dish washer?"
"Yes ma’am."
"Oh and Hetty."
"Yes ma’am?"
"The long cycle."
"Hello Tom."
"I just got this."
"Oh. That’s nice. What is it?"
"I have no idea, but Adrian Cadwallader just got one and I thought it looked rather nice."
"Yes indeed it does look very nice. I wonder what it is."
"Yes, so do I."
"Could it be a Victorian backscratcher?"
"Funny you should say that, I thought so too, at first. But when I tried it I only succeeded in causing several deep lacerations, so I don’t think it’s a backscratcher."
"It’s a challenge, there’s no denying it. Did you ask Adrian Cadwallader what it is?"
"Yes, he says he has no idea. He bought it because his MP had one on his desk when Adrian went to complain about the epidemic of stoats."
"So possibly his MP knows it’s function?"
"Adrian was dubious. He says his MP doesn’t know anything, which is probably why he’s going to be made a minister."
"Well it obviously serves some function. Maybe it’s an objet trouve’?
"But I didn’t find it, I bought it."
"Hm good point. Could it be a bottle opener? Or a model of the Titanic? How about an implement for getting stones out of horses’ hooves?"
"At one moment I did think it might conceivably be an old English plumbers wrench."
"How about a Babylonian market weight?"
"Or a Polynesian toothpick?"
"I know! It’s an elephant sexer!"
"Maybe it’s an ancient microscope, you know before glass was invented."
"It might just be the fossil of a hitherto unidentified thing!"
"Hello Darling."
"Hello Darling. Basil, have you met my wife Cynthia? This is Basil Barcestershire."
"How do you do, Cynthia?"
"Nice to meet you Basil. So have you chaps found out what it is yet?"
"We were just discussing it. None the wiser I’m afraid."
"Well, listen to this. I just had tea with Agnes Haliburton. I described it to her and she’s almost positive that it’s a Middle English conversation piece!"
"Ah here’s Burton with the tea."
"Excuse me sir."
"Yes what is it Burton?"
"I couldn’t help overhearing. I think I know what that thing is, sir."
"Oh really?"
"Yes I saw a great many similar objects in the great war. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a German Blickenspieler."
"Good Lord, you don’t say. A German Blickenspieler eh? And what is a German Blickenspieler when it’s at home?"
"Ah there you have me sir. We never found out. Some of the lads thought that it was the work of the devil. Still others thought it might be the Holy Grail.But the majority were of the opinion that it was invented by the Krauts for the purpose of annoying us."
"Ah here’s Hetty with the cakes."
"Sorry, Ma'am, if I might interpose, Ma’am?"
"Yes Hetty?"
"Well begging your pardon, for listening ma’am, but before I came here I worked for a doctor. And I’m almost certain that he used one of them gadgets what’s concerning you. I recognized it as soon as I saw it."
"How interesting Hetty and what was this doctor’s speciality?"
"Well begging your pardon for the language, ma’am, but he was a proctolologist."
"Do you mean ...proctologist?"
"Yes ma'am that's the word."
"Oh! Good Lord! I see. Hetty would you be so kind as to take that …thing and put it in the dish washer?"
"Yes ma’am."
"Oh and Hetty."
"Yes ma’am?"
"The long cycle."
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
GOTCHA!
My son Jeff playing one of the characters in this turbid yet rancid sketch.
“Gotcha!”
“Unhand me at once, sir! How dare you manhandle my person?”
“Oh Lord! Sorry, I thought you were Bert, we’re playing Gotcha!”
“You unutterable scoundrel. Look what you’ve done to my lapel, it’ll never be the same again.”
“I’m ever so sorry, I really am. I’ll buy you a new one. However I’m interested in your previous remark , the one about me being an unutterable scoundrel. I didn’t quite understand it.”
“What is there not to understand? Your behavior was that of an unutterable scoundrel. There, it is simple.”
“Except for one tiny point: you did utter it and therefore I put it to you, gentlemen of the jury, that at that precise moment it stopped being unutterable.”
“Have you said farewell to your sanity? I am alone, there is no jury here.”
“Sorry about that, I’ve just lost a case in the crown court for lewd behavior towards a nun and it slipped out. Well that was my defence anyway. However, as the French say “let us return to our sheep.” but that's your frog all over, only got one thing on his mind.
If you had said, for reasons of verisimilitude, (I take after my Father bless his heart, he was a real stickler for accuracy was my old Dad) if you had said, “You Utterable scoundrel” then all would have been well and I would have had no reason to question you.
In fact if my dear old Dad had been here I’ve no doubt that he would have joined me in congratulating you. But alas that cannot be, as tragically, he has been defunct for the past forty years. The innocent victim of a crazed steam roller driver who suddenly, without let or hindrance, chased him down Mornington Crescent to his doom. He was buried in fifteen coffins, in the flat season”.
“I cannot help musing that your father must have been a pretty useless runner to have been run over by a steamroller.”
“If you must know," sob " he was jogging backwards for Charity.
He was the 1907 Reversothon Champion for North Finchley.”
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
SNORING.
The Snorer and the Snoree. Guess who is who.
“You were snoring again last night.”
“Me? Snoring. Nonsense.”
“It sounded like an air raid siren competition.”
“Absolute rubbish. I never snore. I am famous for it.”
“You would have put a road drill to shame.”
“Unmitigated boloney. I have a well deserved reputation as a very quiet sleeper.”
“When you first tore me from the arms of morpheus, the din was so deafening that I was positive we were undergoing a terrorist attack.”
“Pure drivel. The thing is a palpable falsehood.”
“Then wiser counsels, namely the left hemisphere of my brain, prevailed and I realised that this horrendous hubbub was actually being emitted from the vicinity of your face, namely your proboscis.”
“I refute this vile calumny with every fibre of my being.”
“Your nasal trumpeting reminded me of a herd of elephants in musth.”
“I absolutely and completely reject any comparison with pachyderms, in whatever condition of sexual excitement they might find themselves.”
“Luckily I recorded the whole thunderous event and I will now play it back. Excuse me while I insert my industrial ear plugs and lock myself in this sound-proof cupboard. Here goes. "
A deafening noise fills the room. The chandelier starts swinging in desperate parabolas. Loose window panes shake in their frames. A downstairs neighbour, who has just furiously invoked the deity in an acrimonious dispute with his wife, assumes that God is rebuking him, there and then mends his errant ways and for the rest of his days becomes a model husband and incidentally an incredibly boring person.
But tragically it is Poopoo, the pygmy chihuaha,who is the real victim of the whole affair. In a frantic effort to escape the earsplitting din, he leaps desperately off his cushion hurtling to his death onto the stone floor five inches below.
“So what do you have to say about that?”
“You clearly have a lover. Who snores.”
“Well that’s a start. At least you admit that that strident racket resembled snoring?”
“Well yes and no. It could be a cry for help from a very misunderstood man.”
“Again we’re getting somewhere. Yes, I agree that you are misunderstood. I for one misunderstand you most of the time, especially when you are trying to pretend that you don’t snore. For God’s sake, take a look at yourself in the mirror, your nostrils are frayed.”
“Stuff and nonsense! My nostrils, which incidentally are my most attractive feature, have never looked better.”
“You do realise, I hope, that you’re in complete denial?”
“Me in denial? Poppycock. Ha ha ha, if there's one thing I'm not, it's in denial. I absolutely and categorically deny it.”
“Me? Snoring. Nonsense.”
“It sounded like an air raid siren competition.”
“Absolute rubbish. I never snore. I am famous for it.”
“You would have put a road drill to shame.”
“Unmitigated boloney. I have a well deserved reputation as a very quiet sleeper.”
“When you first tore me from the arms of morpheus, the din was so deafening that I was positive we were undergoing a terrorist attack.”
“Pure drivel. The thing is a palpable falsehood.”
“Then wiser counsels, namely the left hemisphere of my brain, prevailed and I realised that this horrendous hubbub was actually being emitted from the vicinity of your face, namely your proboscis.”
“I refute this vile calumny with every fibre of my being.”
“Your nasal trumpeting reminded me of a herd of elephants in musth.”
“I absolutely and completely reject any comparison with pachyderms, in whatever condition of sexual excitement they might find themselves.”
“Luckily I recorded the whole thunderous event and I will now play it back. Excuse me while I insert my industrial ear plugs and lock myself in this sound-proof cupboard. Here goes. "
A deafening noise fills the room. The chandelier starts swinging in desperate parabolas. Loose window panes shake in their frames. A downstairs neighbour, who has just furiously invoked the deity in an acrimonious dispute with his wife, assumes that God is rebuking him, there and then mends his errant ways and for the rest of his days becomes a model husband and incidentally an incredibly boring person.
But tragically it is Poopoo, the pygmy chihuaha,who is the real victim of the whole affair. In a frantic effort to escape the earsplitting din, he leaps desperately off his cushion hurtling to his death onto the stone floor five inches below.
“So what do you have to say about that?”
“You clearly have a lover. Who snores.”
“Well that’s a start. At least you admit that that strident racket resembled snoring?”
“Well yes and no. It could be a cry for help from a very misunderstood man.”
“Again we’re getting somewhere. Yes, I agree that you are misunderstood. I for one misunderstand you most of the time, especially when you are trying to pretend that you don’t snore. For God’s sake, take a look at yourself in the mirror, your nostrils are frayed.”
“Stuff and nonsense! My nostrils, which incidentally are my most attractive feature, have never looked better.”
“You do realise, I hope, that you’re in complete denial?”
“Me in denial? Poppycock. Ha ha ha, if there's one thing I'm not, it's in denial. I absolutely and categorically deny it.”
Friday, 23 November 2007
Unconscious Rules
Two Idiots and One Highly Intelligent Person
"Oh bag and tree and creeping things that curdle platitudes on the bosky dell. Oh to lurch the rainy day's litter of thought and prosperity in cunning contiguity to the prevailing force of henpecked virgins in supermarkets."
"What on earth are you talking about? Have you absconded from your brain?"
"What on earth are you talking about? Have you absconded from your brain?"
"It's my new style, I let the Unconscious rule. Whatever he, it or she says is gospel to me."
"What a load of rubbish.It's no use just using any words that come to mind, placing them in strange proximity and then expecting them to make some sort of rational sense."
"You're ignoring my Unconscious. Surely he has a place to play in this? Maybe on the contrary he is revealing to me dramatic secrets from my higher self. What do you think of them apples?"
"Ask him then."
Long silence.
"You see? The jury's out on that one. I mean prove that YOU HAVE AN UNCONSCIOUS."
"Well you just did. Why did that part suddenly come out in Capital letters?"
"It was a mistake."
"Huh! There are no mistakes, it was a definite signal from your unconscious. Game set and match I think."
"Bollocks!"
"Bollocks is not an argument. It's just a load of balls."
'So is your unconscious."
"Aha do I hear fear? Is this the cry of a desperate man, using body parts to support his contention that the unconscious doesn't exist? Not very convincing I'm afraid."
"Alright then, armpits. It's a load of armpits. And scrota. Yes that's more like it, it's tons and tons of pink scrota. That's what your Unconscious is."
"And yet I see that you Unconsciously gave it the respect of a Capital U. Very interesting."
"Oh…recta!"
"You're ignoring my Unconscious. Surely he has a place to play in this? Maybe on the contrary he is revealing to me dramatic secrets from my higher self. What do you think of them apples?"
"Ask him then."
Long silence.
"You see? The jury's out on that one. I mean prove that YOU HAVE AN UNCONSCIOUS."
"Well you just did. Why did that part suddenly come out in Capital letters?"
"It was a mistake."
"Huh! There are no mistakes, it was a definite signal from your unconscious. Game set and match I think."
"Bollocks!"
"Bollocks is not an argument. It's just a load of balls."
'So is your unconscious."
"Aha do I hear fear? Is this the cry of a desperate man, using body parts to support his contention that the unconscious doesn't exist? Not very convincing I'm afraid."
"Alright then, armpits. It's a load of armpits. And scrota. Yes that's more like it, it's tons and tons of pink scrota. That's what your Unconscious is."
"And yet I see that you Unconsciously gave it the respect of a Capital U. Very interesting."
"Oh…recta!"
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
I wont to be a riter
The riter and the bloke with jinger hare.
*
"I wont to be a riter." It was a thin bloke with jinger hare wot stood planetively befour me.
I looked up from the book on etiket, speling and gramma wot I was riting and gaiv a derisoree grin.
"So" I postewlated "you wont to be a riter?" I gufford "in a pigs bum"
I conkluded and went bak to my musterpiss, chuckaling.
I looked up from the book on etiket, speling and gramma wot I was riting and gaiv a derisoree grin.
"So" I postewlated "you wont to be a riter?" I gufford "in a pigs bum"
I conkluded and went bak to my musterpiss, chuckaling.
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Two Characters fire the Author - with dire results
Albert Ponceville de Twoot strode into the drawing room with a fevered expression.
“What’s happening? What's all this noise about?” He queried, feverishly (thus proving beyond all doubt that my recent description of the expression with which he just previously strode into the drawing room may justifiably be described as 'fevered'.)
Magnus, who had been playing his new tuba (I say ‘playing’ but maybe I should have been more precise and said 'doing impressions of an enraged cow') looked up.
“Oh sorry Alby, did I disturb you? I was just testing out the new new arrival.” and he patted the shiny brass intrument with pride.
Albert thoughtfully lit up an Egyptian cheroot before he spoke.
“Look Maggie this cannot go on. Every week you buy a different musical, and I use the term loosely, instrument, and each time it gets noisier.”
“But I’m a musician,” complained Magnus “surely I must be allowed to ply my trade?”
“Magnus!" Interrupted Albert angrily. “Please don’t force me to mention the …you know what.”
There was a tense silence, this was a particularly sore point with Magnus.
The previous week he had bought a new set of bagpipes, well new for him, they were admittedly second-hand but in excellent condition having been used only once before and then having been immediately sold on e-bay the next day by a newly married wife who had stated firmly that it was either her or the bagpipes but that one of them was definitely leaving.
Magnus had bought them for a song and on their arrival had perpetrated such a series of ghastly sounds that cook had run home in tears to her mother, two of the otter hounds had attacked a gardener and Miss Niff the Governess had gone into hysterics, crying “Thank goodness they don’t smell as well.”
The only positive result had been the miraculous healing of the deaf ear of Bitmop, the under-footman.
“It’s a miracle” he shouted euphorically “I can hear again.”
But after several more hours of the relentless din he had run screaming up to his room demanding earplugs and a bonus.
“I will never forgive you for what you did,” cried Magnus emotionally “It was just a poor innocent instrument and you…” his voice faltered.
“Oh for goodness' sake! I did what any sensible person would have done under the circs.” Retorted Albert crossly yet not without a twinge of guilt. “The whole household was falling to pieces, I had to act quickly.”
“Yes but… a shot gun,” blurted Magnus “couldn’t you have thrown it in the lake or given it sleeping pills? You could have done it humanely.” he was near to tears.
All at once Albert felt an enormous feeling of irritation at being in this ridiculous story and asked me to remove him without further ado, which of course I did, because I always obey my characters.
*****************
Albert’s place has now been taken by a Lapplander called Scroln Scrolnsson who speaks no English. We will see how he fares, but personally I fear the worst.
“Fworpdottir tul nip dupersnagsson?” Exclaimed Scroln angrily shoving a dead walrus under Magnus’s nose.
“Who the hell are you ?” screamed Magnus jumping back in shock, “and what’s happened to Albert?”
“Glorter skol dorttir crernsson.” Retorted the Lapplander, brandishing a harpoon in emphasis.
“I’m sorry but I cannot understand a word you’re saying,” Magnus was almost hysterical. “Hello Author? A minute ago I was in an English stately home talking to my best friend Albert and now I’m standing shivering in a sodding snowstorm somewhere near the North Pole trying to make sense of the maunderings of some Scandinavian imbecile as he brandishes a defunct mammal under my nose. Don’t you understand that Authors must have at least some semblance of responsibility towards their characters? ”
Magnus was almost crying in frustration. “And another thing, please stop writing things like: ‘Magnus was almost crying in frustration.’ People will think I’m an absolute wimp. I never bloody cry, I can’t, my tear ducts were stolen by an organ thief when I went into hospital to have my tonsils out. Oh for god’s sake that’s not true either.”
“Hoerner hoernersson!” Yelled Scroln Scrolnsson abruptly.
“Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here.” Shouted Magnus now exasperated to the point of madness by the irksome Lapp. “The whole thing’s become a bloody shambles. I’m sorry but I have no choice but to also depart from this narrative post haste. And you can take my name off the credits too.”
*****************
Dear Reader I’m really sorry about this. I had no idea he’d be so sensitive.
Well that’s the end I suppose, I was hoping for a happier denouement.
You see, I can now reveal the secret, Scroln Scrolnsson is an eccentric multi-millionaire philanthropist who is just about to die and has decided that he will leave his immense wealth to the last person he sees before his demise and now there’s no-one left so he has no idea what to do with his bulging fortunes. Oh well.
“Hello? Er it’s me again.” It was Albert. “I was thinking that maybe I acted a little hastily a while ago, so I’ve come back.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” It was Magnus who had magically reappeared as well.
“I left last so that gives me first claim to the money. Fuck off or I’ll buy a suzaphone and play it outside your bedroom door.”
But it was too late, Scroln was already dead and his immense fortune, instead of coming to Albert and Magnus as I had hoped, went to Bitmop the under Footman who by mere chance happened to arrive at the North Pole at exactly the moment of Scroln’s demise.
Bitmop promptly blew a raspbery in the general direction of Albert and Magnus, gave in his notice, married Dora the parlour maid and bought the huge mansion which had been in Albert’s family for hundreds if not thousands of years, but which, by a clever lawyer’s trick, now belonged to Bitmop. Albert was given one day to pack up and had to move into a hut in the grounds until he found a place. As for his good friend Magnus things went from bad to….
“You bastard!” Screamed Magnus. “I demand a second opinion! You can’t just destroy my life like that, I was just about to be hired by the London Symphony Orchestra and now my life is in ruins.”
Okay Magnus, now I can reveal all and show you what a cruel fate I have just saved you from. You would have joined the LSO and in your first concert would have sat in the back row playing a b flat on your tuba.
BUT and I capitalize the ‘but’ deliberately because:
1. I can do anything I like as I am the author and I have Godlike powers and
2. Because it’s a necessary piece of punctuation to help emphazise the dire future which would have been yours had I not intervened in my timely, nay saintly, way.
I am Authorus ex Machina and don’t you forget it.
You see Magnus, and now the terrible truth can be told, had you played that fateful b flat that night at the proms, it would have been the signal for a terrorist attack of enormous proportions. The arch villain, a lapsed Muslim from Solihull, by the name of Mustapha Krap, would have told his waiting hench-persons ( yes some of them were indeed female, probably lesbians too, if they wanted to enjoy any of the 70 moustached virgins waiting for them, up there, I mean, get real, who is still a virgin at that age who doesn’t look like the back end of a very fat, unshaven bus?) that they will explode the entire city of London when they hear the Tuba play it’s ominous b flat. And you, Albert, would have died in the concomitant rubble. So get stuffed Albie, my little fictitious twitty friend and learn to trust your author.
*****************
Stern Warning to all Author’s Characters who get uppity
“Toe the line you stupid jerks, remember that you are but figments of my imagination and I can do anything with you that I please, heh heh heh!”
And as the sun sets slowly in the East we leave snowy Lapland with the haunting echoes of the author’s fiendish laughter fading gently on the breeze.
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Queen Victoria's Secret Life
“ ‘LADY HYACINTH TRENCH'S DIARIES’
14th August 1884. This morning was summoned to the Royal Gym. Queen Victoria, having just terminated her daily weight training was swinging on the trapeze doing her “You Tarzan We Jane” imitation.
"Hyacinth, it's time you and us painted the town red.”
We were to meet that evening in Her Majesty's appartments in time to have a couple of beers and don suitable disguises.
Later that night, in a thick London Pea Souper Fog, two navvies might have been seen slinking out of one of the innumerable side entrances of Buckingham Palace. The fog was extremely dense and only after her Majesty had hailed a sentry box, several shrubs and a cottage did she finally manage to secure a Hansome Cab.
"King's Arms, Cheapside and make it brisk." She snapped as she swung lithely into the interior pulling me in after her with one tug of her huge arms.
"Well, Hyers, here we all are again."
The Royal ‘We’ plus me making at least three.
"Yes King's Arms. Only Pub in London that serves Pluggers Wallop! Best beer in the world. The lot of us might see a little action tonight."
Whenever the Queen was excited the Royal ‘We’ became more and more numerous.
“The crowd of us should be there shortly.” She expertly cracked a brazil nut in her bicep, a sure sign of imminent fireworks.
Ahead the glow of a well lit Public House could dimly be discerned through the ochre miasma.
The Queen sprang nimbly to the pavement with a lithe back-somersault and arm in arm the throng of us entered the packed public house.
Leading me in her wake, Her Majesty shouldered her way through the villainous assemblage crowding the noisy room until we arrived at the bar.
14th August 1884. This morning was summoned to the Royal Gym. Queen Victoria, having just terminated her daily weight training was swinging on the trapeze doing her “You Tarzan We Jane” imitation.
"Hyacinth, it's time you and us painted the town red.”
We were to meet that evening in Her Majesty's appartments in time to have a couple of beers and don suitable disguises.
Later that night, in a thick London Pea Souper Fog, two navvies might have been seen slinking out of one of the innumerable side entrances of Buckingham Palace. The fog was extremely dense and only after her Majesty had hailed a sentry box, several shrubs and a cottage did she finally manage to secure a Hansome Cab.
"King's Arms, Cheapside and make it brisk." She snapped as she swung lithely into the interior pulling me in after her with one tug of her huge arms.
"Well, Hyers, here we all are again."
The Royal ‘We’ plus me making at least three.
"Yes King's Arms. Only Pub in London that serves Pluggers Wallop! Best beer in the world. The lot of us might see a little action tonight."
Whenever the Queen was excited the Royal ‘We’ became more and more numerous.
“The crowd of us should be there shortly.” She expertly cracked a brazil nut in her bicep, a sure sign of imminent fireworks.
Ahead the glow of a well lit Public House could dimly be discerned through the ochre miasma.
The Queen sprang nimbly to the pavement with a lithe back-somersault and arm in arm the throng of us entered the packed public house.
Leading me in her wake, Her Majesty shouldered her way through the villainous assemblage crowding the noisy room until we arrived at the bar.
In as many minutes she had chugged nine or ten pints of Pluggers Wallop and was loudly arguing with a group of dockers about the sport of "Spitting." It seemed that in their midst was the local champion, a large personage named Bert. His claims seemed preposterous and Her Majesty determined to put him to the test.
So, there and then, it was decided to hold an impromptu competition, the Queen challenging the champion, the contest to take place immediately in the crowded snug. Everyone promptly ran for cover and those that could not find shelter covered their pints with hats, beer mats or religious tracts (these last being in plentiful supply as the Salvation Army had just passed by.)
I knew that Her Majesty was not only an Olympic Class Spitter, but was also a renowned Hawking Blue as well as a proven Long Distance Snail Drowner, furthermore she was capable of extinguishing fifteen candles in the Ten Yard splutter.
However I did not fancy the face of the Champion. His huge cheeks indicated vast powers of propulsion, while his immense chest suggested a tremendous thrust of wind. And, with eyes crossed, that long thin nose could be a devastatingly accurate sighting device. Certainly a by no means insignificant opponent.
The match was to be ‘Bell Playing’, the most difficult of all the spitting competitions! The Expectoraters were to perform a piece of music by spitting at a row of bells. Each competitor was allowed five minutes in all to compete. In this time he had to dry his tongue in front of the fire (to prevent ‘spit stashing’, a common deceit), then gather enough fresh saliva to last him through the tune and also, of course, to play it.
The Landlord was voted Judge. He would be giving points for accuracy and musical feeling and penalties for wrong notes and dribbling.
This particular competition was to be ‘Call the Tune’.
The competitor would only be given the title of his piece of music as he stepped to the line, and woe betide him if he did not know it.
The Champion drew the short straw and amidst much cheering from his mates and massaging of his salivary glands from anxious seconds, walked confidently to the mark.
The Landlord gave instructions: “Right Gentlmen, remember, no slavering, slobbering or slurping. No hawkers or circulars. Spit straight and may the best man win!”
Bert let his tongue hang out by the fire for some seconds until it began to steam and then proffered it for inspection by the judge.
"Good'n dry!" Came the time honoured verdict. “Right Bert, your tune is ‘The Merry Widow Waltz.’”
Bert frowned for an instant, then his brow cleared and he gave a thunderous laugh.
"Oi knows it begod! Ha ha!" and without further ado he commenced salivating as hard as he could. The hushed throng could hear the rush of liquid surging around his teeth. Soon he was ready and what a performance!
Note perfect, a good firm waltz rythm, the playing was simply virtuoso!
The accurately shot globules hissed through the air in perfect concatenation, zinging into each bell with Maestro-like technique. The audience was enthralled, ignoring the fine mist that was gently vapourising over them. One final, masterly crescendo and then - uproar!
"Bravo!!" There was a huge roar of applause. The crowd was on it's feet, never had they heard such spittiffication.
But then a voice accustomed to being heard pierced the hubbub.
"My turn I believe?"
So, there and then, it was decided to hold an impromptu competition, the Queen challenging the champion, the contest to take place immediately in the crowded snug. Everyone promptly ran for cover and those that could not find shelter covered their pints with hats, beer mats or religious tracts (these last being in plentiful supply as the Salvation Army had just passed by.)
I knew that Her Majesty was not only an Olympic Class Spitter, but was also a renowned Hawking Blue as well as a proven Long Distance Snail Drowner, furthermore she was capable of extinguishing fifteen candles in the Ten Yard splutter.
However I did not fancy the face of the Champion. His huge cheeks indicated vast powers of propulsion, while his immense chest suggested a tremendous thrust of wind. And, with eyes crossed, that long thin nose could be a devastatingly accurate sighting device. Certainly a by no means insignificant opponent.
The match was to be ‘Bell Playing’, the most difficult of all the spitting competitions! The Expectoraters were to perform a piece of music by spitting at a row of bells. Each competitor was allowed five minutes in all to compete. In this time he had to dry his tongue in front of the fire (to prevent ‘spit stashing’, a common deceit), then gather enough fresh saliva to last him through the tune and also, of course, to play it.
The Landlord was voted Judge. He would be giving points for accuracy and musical feeling and penalties for wrong notes and dribbling.
This particular competition was to be ‘Call the Tune’.
The competitor would only be given the title of his piece of music as he stepped to the line, and woe betide him if he did not know it.
The Champion drew the short straw and amidst much cheering from his mates and massaging of his salivary glands from anxious seconds, walked confidently to the mark.
The Landlord gave instructions: “Right Gentlmen, remember, no slavering, slobbering or slurping. No hawkers or circulars. Spit straight and may the best man win!”
Bert let his tongue hang out by the fire for some seconds until it began to steam and then proffered it for inspection by the judge.
"Good'n dry!" Came the time honoured verdict. “Right Bert, your tune is ‘The Merry Widow Waltz.’”
Bert frowned for an instant, then his brow cleared and he gave a thunderous laugh.
"Oi knows it begod! Ha ha!" and without further ado he commenced salivating as hard as he could. The hushed throng could hear the rush of liquid surging around his teeth. Soon he was ready and what a performance!
Note perfect, a good firm waltz rythm, the playing was simply virtuoso!
The accurately shot globules hissed through the air in perfect concatenation, zinging into each bell with Maestro-like technique. The audience was enthralled, ignoring the fine mist that was gently vapourising over them. One final, masterly crescendo and then - uproar!
"Bravo!!" There was a huge roar of applause. The crowd was on it's feet, never had they heard such spittiffication.
But then a voice accustomed to being heard pierced the hubbub.
"My turn I believe?"
The Queen, completely unconcerned, was already drying her tongue before the fire. The cheering died down, bets were placed. Bert was now firm favourite. After that brilliant tour de spit I am ashamed to say that even I held out little hope for Her Majesty's chances. The Landlord peered at the Royal Tongue.
“Good'n dry!" and he repeated his previous admonitions to the Challenger. Then came the tune: "Rather fitting, yours, Handel's Water Music!" A shout of laughter went up. My heart sank, Classical Music had never been her Majesty's strong point. The Queen was stony faced. I was nervously searching for an emergency exit when she suddenly gave a contemptuous snort.
"Morceau de gateau," she muttered and began trying to salivate. But what was this? Was she in trouble? Oh fiendish ploy!! One of Bert's seconds was standing beside her eating a lemon! It was a catastrophe! The Sovereign's lips were puckering up. They were being helplessly sucked by vaccuum into the arid mouth! No spit, no contest! Her eyes were desperate, the tip of the regal nose was turning white and buckling under the relentless pressure! Suddenly I had an idea! I rushed over to the supper counter and picking up a leg of mutton waved it excitedly in the air! "Your Maj...blast, Fred, look!"
She looked about her, drawn and haggard. But when her demoralised eyes saw the gesticulating viande they lit up with joy! In quick succession I exhibited smoked herrings, veal chops, a smoked salmon, a good black ham and a large ripe stilton. And then, oh happy sound! From across the crowded room could be heard the sudden flood of released saliva surging across the Imperial Molars! A roast goose, a venison pasty and a jar of pickled lampreys and the job was done!
Her eyes were gleaming now, her salivation like the great rush of the English Channel at full tide.
"Objection!" "Foul!" Bert and his supporters roared in anger.
"No showing food! Vat Bloke vas cheating. Unfair! No vittle flaunting!"
There was a surly hum of agreement while the Landlord considered the protest. Then he delivered his verdict.
"Vere's nuffink in va bleeding rules abaht it, Bert, so belt up!"
And to Queen Victoria, Empress of all the Indias, he shouted: "Right mate, spit on."
A silence fell over the assembled throng as the Queen stepped up to the starting line. Then the miracle happened! Not only did she expectorate superbly, striking each bell with superb assurance but …was it possible? She was playing chords! Yes, indeed, twin, triple and even quadruple gobs were simultaneously striking their targets with eerie magic. Could it be? Was it possible? Now she was hurling spinners! They were curving through the air pinging their targets with devastating accuracy then ricochetting onto an adjacent bell! Never before had the mob heard anything so beautiful. Indeed, throughout the packed room a suspicious moisture was creeping into the eyes of even the most hardened spectators and even some tears as well.
The end was spectacular. Five oblate spheroids of gyrating spittle struck a penultimate chord then rebounded fantastically to perform the final majestic harmony! The five bells rang mellifluously, sonorating throughout the hushed room. Then the ultimate touch of genius: a soft ptui! and a fine spume floated through the air to mute and finally silence the exhilarating carillons!
There was an awed hush for some moments and then suddenly a great cry erupted from the throats of the hardened spittophiles.
In the ensuing bedlam the crowd was enthusiastically banging the bar with beer mugs, fists, wives, whatever was in reach.
The Landlord lifted the Queen's arm and yelled into the pandemonium: “The Winner!"
Queen Victoria, radiant in her moment of victory, acknowledged the plaudits of the crowd with becoming humility.
"Thank-you, you are so kind. Sorry about the arpeggios, lost my lip for a moment."
The only person who seemed unimpressed was Bert, who sat alone scowling in a corner. "Come on Bert," called the landlord, "ain't you going to congratulate the winner?"
"Yes, go on Bert, be a sport." Urged his friends.
"Winner be blowed," came the surly answer. "That weren't proper spitting, just bloody tricks!"
I felt her Majesty tense, the blood rushed to her cheeks and then it happened. One minute Bert was wearing an old top hat and the next minute he wasn't! The Queen had hawked a splasher and knocked it off! A hoarse yell of rage and then turmoil! Everyone was hitting out, right, left and centre. Luckily I was able to vault over the counter out of harm's way and managed to get a safe view of the subsequent events. Queen Victoria of course was in her element, punching, gouging, biting, sometimes boxing, sometimes deploying Savatte, the French sport of foot boxing also known as kicking, sometimes throwing an opponent with a judo technique, or using Ugg Lee the Chinese Martial Art of pulling frightening faces. Soon she had fought her way through the throng and was just about to throw Bert through a window when an extraordinary scream pierced the tumult! The combatants froze in shock. Onto the bar had leapt a hunchback! His eyes flashing, his lips writhing, his long simian arms flailing like a manic windmill. The fighting stopped dead. There was total silence. All eyes were fastened on the capering cripple. Suddenly from his foam flecked mouth came the ghastly cry: "The Bells! The Bells!"
And snatching up the spittle spattered set he said:
"I had a hunch this would happen. Sorry dears but they cost an absolute FORTUNE!"
And clutching the bells the bent campanologist minced proudly out.”
“Good'n dry!" and he repeated his previous admonitions to the Challenger. Then came the tune: "Rather fitting, yours, Handel's Water Music!" A shout of laughter went up. My heart sank, Classical Music had never been her Majesty's strong point. The Queen was stony faced. I was nervously searching for an emergency exit when she suddenly gave a contemptuous snort.
"Morceau de gateau," she muttered and began trying to salivate. But what was this? Was she in trouble? Oh fiendish ploy!! One of Bert's seconds was standing beside her eating a lemon! It was a catastrophe! The Sovereign's lips were puckering up. They were being helplessly sucked by vaccuum into the arid mouth! No spit, no contest! Her eyes were desperate, the tip of the regal nose was turning white and buckling under the relentless pressure! Suddenly I had an idea! I rushed over to the supper counter and picking up a leg of mutton waved it excitedly in the air! "Your Maj...blast, Fred, look!"
She looked about her, drawn and haggard. But when her demoralised eyes saw the gesticulating viande they lit up with joy! In quick succession I exhibited smoked herrings, veal chops, a smoked salmon, a good black ham and a large ripe stilton. And then, oh happy sound! From across the crowded room could be heard the sudden flood of released saliva surging across the Imperial Molars! A roast goose, a venison pasty and a jar of pickled lampreys and the job was done!
Her eyes were gleaming now, her salivation like the great rush of the English Channel at full tide.
"Objection!" "Foul!" Bert and his supporters roared in anger.
"No showing food! Vat Bloke vas cheating. Unfair! No vittle flaunting!"
There was a surly hum of agreement while the Landlord considered the protest. Then he delivered his verdict.
"Vere's nuffink in va bleeding rules abaht it, Bert, so belt up!"
And to Queen Victoria, Empress of all the Indias, he shouted: "Right mate, spit on."
A silence fell over the assembled throng as the Queen stepped up to the starting line. Then the miracle happened! Not only did she expectorate superbly, striking each bell with superb assurance but …was it possible? She was playing chords! Yes, indeed, twin, triple and even quadruple gobs were simultaneously striking their targets with eerie magic. Could it be? Was it possible? Now she was hurling spinners! They were curving through the air pinging their targets with devastating accuracy then ricochetting onto an adjacent bell! Never before had the mob heard anything so beautiful. Indeed, throughout the packed room a suspicious moisture was creeping into the eyes of even the most hardened spectators and even some tears as well.
The end was spectacular. Five oblate spheroids of gyrating spittle struck a penultimate chord then rebounded fantastically to perform the final majestic harmony! The five bells rang mellifluously, sonorating throughout the hushed room. Then the ultimate touch of genius: a soft ptui! and a fine spume floated through the air to mute and finally silence the exhilarating carillons!
There was an awed hush for some moments and then suddenly a great cry erupted from the throats of the hardened spittophiles.
In the ensuing bedlam the crowd was enthusiastically banging the bar with beer mugs, fists, wives, whatever was in reach.
The Landlord lifted the Queen's arm and yelled into the pandemonium: “The Winner!"
Queen Victoria, radiant in her moment of victory, acknowledged the plaudits of the crowd with becoming humility.
"Thank-you, you are so kind. Sorry about the arpeggios, lost my lip for a moment."
The only person who seemed unimpressed was Bert, who sat alone scowling in a corner. "Come on Bert," called the landlord, "ain't you going to congratulate the winner?"
"Yes, go on Bert, be a sport." Urged his friends.
"Winner be blowed," came the surly answer. "That weren't proper spitting, just bloody tricks!"
I felt her Majesty tense, the blood rushed to her cheeks and then it happened. One minute Bert was wearing an old top hat and the next minute he wasn't! The Queen had hawked a splasher and knocked it off! A hoarse yell of rage and then turmoil! Everyone was hitting out, right, left and centre. Luckily I was able to vault over the counter out of harm's way and managed to get a safe view of the subsequent events. Queen Victoria of course was in her element, punching, gouging, biting, sometimes boxing, sometimes deploying Savatte, the French sport of foot boxing also known as kicking, sometimes throwing an opponent with a judo technique, or using Ugg Lee the Chinese Martial Art of pulling frightening faces. Soon she had fought her way through the throng and was just about to throw Bert through a window when an extraordinary scream pierced the tumult! The combatants froze in shock. Onto the bar had leapt a hunchback! His eyes flashing, his lips writhing, his long simian arms flailing like a manic windmill. The fighting stopped dead. There was total silence. All eyes were fastened on the capering cripple. Suddenly from his foam flecked mouth came the ghastly cry: "The Bells! The Bells!"
And snatching up the spittle spattered set he said:
"I had a hunch this would happen. Sorry dears but they cost an absolute FORTUNE!"
And clutching the bells the bent campanologist minced proudly out.”
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
What the Butler Did
Bottomley glanced up from his newspaper.
“I see that the Labour Party went swimming again.”
And returned to the page.
Glotters intent on inventing a new type of bottle where the liquid would be on the outside held there by vacuum magnets, grunted absently.
Mrs Gladstikely-Brown was able to to perform fifty chin ups before the silence was broken by the next utterance.
“I think the floral clock’s stopped.” It was Tulip in her habitual tone of exasperation.
“Why what thyme is it?” Bellowed the Colonel into her deaf ear in an exaggerated parody of a really annoying Colonel bellowing a bad pun into somebody’s deaf ear.
“Colonel Butterswoop,” interjected Mother calmly “we omitted to tell you at the outset that we charge ten P per pun in this house. So far you owe about fifteen pounds, which of course will go to charity. I thought it best to tell you before you bankrupted yourself.”
“Dear Lady” bellowed the Colonel gallantly “I’m willing to pay you pun for pun.”
Somewhere in the room a cash register rang up another ten p.
Bottomley glanced up from his newspaper.
“I see that the Labour party went swimming again.”
And returned to the page.
There was a tense silence, eyes were met, puzzled looks shot across the breakfast table, glances crashed in mid scrutiny, cheeks blanched and adam's apples gulped as the observation hung in the torrid air like a penis at a cross-dressers’ confessional.
Bottomley glanced up from his newspaper.
“I see that the labour party went swimming again.”
And returned to the page.
It was Mrs Glastikely-Brown who saved the situation.
“I think Mr Bottomley’s caught in a repeating groove. Allow me.”
And whipping out her pruning shears she snipped out the offending sentence from the broadsheet.
“Thank-you very much,” said Bottomley gratefully “I could have been reading that all day.”
Mrs Glastikely-Brown went over to the sideboard and loaded her plate with whelks.
“I love their little whirly shells,” She confided to Mother as she returned to the breakfast table. “Pity they taste so revolting.”
With that she withdrew a hat pin from her rusty black bonnet and after expertly skewering out one of the shells’ inhabitants, flicked it under the table to Tabitha, her tabby cat. A name which was universally loathed and had cost her seven pounds in pun fines this week already.
Just then Father jogged past the french windows in his dressing gown, pith helmet and wellingtons.
“Morning Hortense” he panted and disappeared from view.
“Morning Horace” replied Mother stirring her tea with Cousin Broderick’s commemoration spoon.
There was a sudden cough beside her. Mother screamed in shock.
It was Blandford the butler who had buttled into the room as unobtrusively as ever.
As usual Mother managed to turn her inadvertent shriek into a high pitched cough. Nobody at the breakfast party seemed to notice.
“Excuse me, m’lady”
Blandford was gingerly holding an ancient bakelite telephone on a silver tray as though it might bite him at any moment.
“You have a telephonic communication. It’s a gentleman…” there was a slight pause “… by the name of Ffoulkes. He asserts that the matter is ...” another pause “…rather urgent.”
His tone implied that this Ffoulkes entity was clearly some oick attempting to worm his way into the company of a fully paid up member of the aristocracy and if he had his way he would have him stoned in the village pillory.
“Thank-you Blandford.”
Mother took the receiver and placing the part intended for hearing against her ear simultaneously put her mouth in the vicinity of the area used for talking into.
“Hello Mr Ffoulkes? Lady Beamish heah. May I enquire if your name is spelt with one Eff or two?” The answer seemed to reassure her. “Two? Excellent.” She beamed at us. Two F’s meant he was, if not actually an aristocrat, at least a member of the upper crust of the British loaf. The conversation could be maintained on an egalitarian note, unencumbered by irksome efforts to interpret the vagaries of the lower classes.
“And how may I have the pleasure of helping you, Mr Ffoulkes?”
She listened for a moment, her gaze resting lightly on the mullioned ceiling for better understanding.
“Aha, yes, I see no problem with that. And when would you like to come?” Again the eyes roved the ceiling.
“Next Tuesday? Fine. Well why nor come for tea? Shall we say four thirty?”
She returned the receiver to it’s rightful place.
“Blandford, Mr Ffoulkes will be teaing with us on Tuesday. Afterwards he wishes to visit the library. That will be all.”
“Yes m’lady” and Blandford was no more, the wraith had departed as stealthily as it had appeared.
“I wonder how he does that.” thought Glotters, “Maybe I should invent an aircraft based on those very qualities. I could call it the er…” seeking inspiration his eyes roamed the same area of mullioned ceiling that Lady Beamish had recently scanned.
“…the ‘Very Quiet Airplane? No, lacks pazaaz. The ‘Stealth Aircraft? No, rubbish.” He toyed with his kipper in search of inspiration. “I know, the ‘Sneaky Plane’!”
In the absence of a pencil Glotters started doodling plane designs on his napkin with a crust of burnt toast.
Mother hied herself to the buffet and returned with a generous helping of buttered crumpets.
“Mumsy” I whispered “ watch your bum.”
Vanity fought briefly with greed and won. She shot me a loving twinkle and a grateful nod. “Thank-you dear” she mouthed.
“Anyone for a crumpet?” She enquired sweetly. “I find that I am replete.” “Foolish not to really.” Said Mrs Glastikely-Brown and from her voluminous bag drew forth a telescopic fork, pulled it open to it’s full extent and lunging across the table opposite Mother, expertly speared several crumpets in one jab and de-telescoped them back to her plate.
“Did you know, Lady Beamish, that I am a very distant relation of the royal family?”
“Good gracious Mrs Glastikely-Brown, I had no idea.”
“Yes indeed, I am eight hundred and twenty third in line to the throne.”
An uninterested buzz staggered round the table.
“So,” said Tulip “if all eight hundred and twenty three of them were suddenly to succumb to some new form of ghastly influenza or all sink together in some Titanic type disaster you would be Queen.”
Prudence Glastikely-Brown coughed modestly. “That is so. An accident of birth, no more than that. One makes no claims, one is not special, one is exactly the same as all those who have not been so fortunately born.”
And the conceivably future Queen daintily popped an entire crumpet into her mouth, her cheeks bulged for an instant, there was a gulp and the possibly future royal face regained it’s previous regal placidity.
“Unless,” she continued “DNA has anything to say on the subject.”
She regarded the assembled company archly. “One cannot deny one’s genes.”
Colonel Butterswoop threw a pound note on the table.
“But can one deny one’s trousers? Keep the change.”
I got up from the table.
“Will you excuse me?”
“Where are you off to dear?” Asked Mumsy.
“I thought I’d have a canter round the grounds.”
“Mind you’re back for lunch dear, Chef’s making Octopus cakes.”
I ran across the quadrangle to the stables, my feet crunching on the gravel. Belair was feeding. His black coat gleamed and his honey sweat scent calmed me at once.
*******************************************
My name is John and I am twenty two and they say that sometimes I get funny thoughts - sometimes, well most of the time really. They say that I cannot tell what is real and what is … in my head.
Last year Mum and Dad took me to a Doctor, he's been awarded the Nobel Prize for being a Man in a White Coat. He recommended that I go and live in a TV Series about Heaven with Angels in white coats. After a day an Archangel told me to take pills. He said it would make me become a normal young man. I asked him why everyone wanted me to change into someone else, because I was very happy the way I was. He said that it was for my own good - but it was very clear to me that it was for the good of everyone else except me.
The Archangel made me take the pills and all my wonderful thoughts stopped and the colour drained out of my life - all those different monochromous shades, you’ve no idea how many hues of grey there are until you’ve been there. I realised that it was a TV series about Hell, not Heaven. I didn’t like living like that, I didn’t see the point.
So I jumped off the roof to put out the grey feeling. It was dark and I landed on a compost heap which broke my fall and also my arm although not necessarily in that order.
Then Mum and Dad came and got me and cried and said that they would never ever try and change me again. I stopped taking the pills and the colours came back.
And here I am.
Belair whinnied softly as I stroked his gleaming black neck.
One good thing about the TV Series I was in, they told me to write what I think every day. And this is it.
********************************
In the library Fungebert Parademop colligated nervously.
“I’m colligating again” he fumed, “this must cease if I am ever to succeed in the world of business.”
I entered with an upturned bucket on my head to catch the droppings.
“Glad you could make it, Peebles Vindors.” He said with a tremor.
I nodded slightly as a full nod would have sent the bucket flying.
“Drosso modo, Fungebert.” I said. He appreciated the old school motto and gave me a wry smile. “You’re the only one who’s had the decency to turn up.”
“Early days, old man, early days.”
All at once a beautiful girl walked into the room and looked around tentatively .Her beauty was so startling that tears burst from under my eyelids. She was so superbly gorgeously magnificently fabulous that torrents of scalding tears flowed down my cheeks unbidden. My heart junkered like an oil well hammer, my spleen went dry and at least one kidney stopped working there and then.
“Oh sorry I thought this was the dining room.” And she was gone. Out of my life and out of this story. That’s life though really, isn’t it? The really good ones disappear leaving the rubbish behind.
“I’m thinking of changing my name.” Declared Fungebert abruptly. “It’s just not in the public interest.”
“To what?” I inquired.
“To something more prosaic I suppose. Anyway I’m sick of being called Sponge Bath as a joke.”
“Rise above it, old man.” I counselled not really giving a damn but anxious to look as though I was helping a friend.
“I was toying with Twiddles Botsneer. What do you think about that for a name?”
He couldn’t be serious. And I was the one who needed pills?
I played his game.
“Twiddles? Um, let me see….” But no, stop! To give that idiotic nomenclature even a passing thought was wasting precious time. Who knows what disaster might befall me in the next minute or two – the ceiling might fall exactly where I was standing, a boiler could well explode, a mad starling could crash through the window bent (in two meanings) on a suicide mission and impale my jugular with it’s beak – any disaster was possible, (notice I don’t say likely) and here I was wasting my last few seconds pretending to be polite. No this thing could not be.
I decided to pull the plug on what up to now had been a pretty unmomentous friendship.
“I’ll tell you what I think. I think that as a first name Twiddles is a complete load of rubbish. And as a family name Botsneer is the absolutely worst one you’ve ever come up with and you’ve come up with some dillies. Remember Benchpress Argoblast? Pragputt Norty? Rarar Rararsson? Where do you get these absurd appellations from? What is this constant obsession to acquire a different name? Does it make your life any better? No, your life is still disastrous whatever you’re called, it changes nothing. It'll always be the same you. The only thing these ludicrous labels do is to make you sound like a complete idiot. Forget it. Stop being called something different every month, go back to being Richard Robinson, That was a good name and it also had the sterling quality of being the name you were bloody born with! Or with which you were bloody born, take your pick, hanging preposition or not.”
During this harangue Fungebert never took his eyes off me, I think he even stopped breathing. At the end he sighed massively, thought for a minute and then said ruminatively:
“No seriously, Twiddles is a sort of chummy name wouldn’t you say?”
Why waste what was left of my life?
“Yes, very chummy, also very chappy, pally, buddy and extremely blokey. Go for it.”
“Oh I'm so glad you think so. If you only knew what it means to me.”
Whatever his name is, Twiddles is a classic twit, there’s no way round it.
“I see that the Labour Party went swimming again.”
And returned to the page.
Glotters intent on inventing a new type of bottle where the liquid would be on the outside held there by vacuum magnets, grunted absently.
Mrs Gladstikely-Brown was able to to perform fifty chin ups before the silence was broken by the next utterance.
“I think the floral clock’s stopped.” It was Tulip in her habitual tone of exasperation.
“Why what thyme is it?” Bellowed the Colonel into her deaf ear in an exaggerated parody of a really annoying Colonel bellowing a bad pun into somebody’s deaf ear.
“Colonel Butterswoop,” interjected Mother calmly “we omitted to tell you at the outset that we charge ten P per pun in this house. So far you owe about fifteen pounds, which of course will go to charity. I thought it best to tell you before you bankrupted yourself.”
“Dear Lady” bellowed the Colonel gallantly “I’m willing to pay you pun for pun.”
Somewhere in the room a cash register rang up another ten p.
Bottomley glanced up from his newspaper.
“I see that the Labour party went swimming again.”
And returned to the page.
There was a tense silence, eyes were met, puzzled looks shot across the breakfast table, glances crashed in mid scrutiny, cheeks blanched and adam's apples gulped as the observation hung in the torrid air like a penis at a cross-dressers’ confessional.
Bottomley glanced up from his newspaper.
“I see that the labour party went swimming again.”
And returned to the page.
It was Mrs Glastikely-Brown who saved the situation.
“I think Mr Bottomley’s caught in a repeating groove. Allow me.”
And whipping out her pruning shears she snipped out the offending sentence from the broadsheet.
“Thank-you very much,” said Bottomley gratefully “I could have been reading that all day.”
Mrs Glastikely-Brown went over to the sideboard and loaded her plate with whelks.
“I love their little whirly shells,” She confided to Mother as she returned to the breakfast table. “Pity they taste so revolting.”
With that she withdrew a hat pin from her rusty black bonnet and after expertly skewering out one of the shells’ inhabitants, flicked it under the table to Tabitha, her tabby cat. A name which was universally loathed and had cost her seven pounds in pun fines this week already.
Just then Father jogged past the french windows in his dressing gown, pith helmet and wellingtons.
“Morning Hortense” he panted and disappeared from view.
“Morning Horace” replied Mother stirring her tea with Cousin Broderick’s commemoration spoon.
There was a sudden cough beside her. Mother screamed in shock.
It was Blandford the butler who had buttled into the room as unobtrusively as ever.
As usual Mother managed to turn her inadvertent shriek into a high pitched cough. Nobody at the breakfast party seemed to notice.
“Excuse me, m’lady”
Blandford was gingerly holding an ancient bakelite telephone on a silver tray as though it might bite him at any moment.
“You have a telephonic communication. It’s a gentleman…” there was a slight pause “… by the name of Ffoulkes. He asserts that the matter is ...” another pause “…rather urgent.”
His tone implied that this Ffoulkes entity was clearly some oick attempting to worm his way into the company of a fully paid up member of the aristocracy and if he had his way he would have him stoned in the village pillory.
“Thank-you Blandford.”
Mother took the receiver and placing the part intended for hearing against her ear simultaneously put her mouth in the vicinity of the area used for talking into.
“Hello Mr Ffoulkes? Lady Beamish heah. May I enquire if your name is spelt with one Eff or two?” The answer seemed to reassure her. “Two? Excellent.” She beamed at us. Two F’s meant he was, if not actually an aristocrat, at least a member of the upper crust of the British loaf. The conversation could be maintained on an egalitarian note, unencumbered by irksome efforts to interpret the vagaries of the lower classes.
“And how may I have the pleasure of helping you, Mr Ffoulkes?”
She listened for a moment, her gaze resting lightly on the mullioned ceiling for better understanding.
“Aha, yes, I see no problem with that. And when would you like to come?” Again the eyes roved the ceiling.
“Next Tuesday? Fine. Well why nor come for tea? Shall we say four thirty?”
She returned the receiver to it’s rightful place.
“Blandford, Mr Ffoulkes will be teaing with us on Tuesday. Afterwards he wishes to visit the library. That will be all.”
“Yes m’lady” and Blandford was no more, the wraith had departed as stealthily as it had appeared.
“I wonder how he does that.” thought Glotters, “Maybe I should invent an aircraft based on those very qualities. I could call it the er…” seeking inspiration his eyes roamed the same area of mullioned ceiling that Lady Beamish had recently scanned.
“…the ‘Very Quiet Airplane? No, lacks pazaaz. The ‘Stealth Aircraft? No, rubbish.” He toyed with his kipper in search of inspiration. “I know, the ‘Sneaky Plane’!”
In the absence of a pencil Glotters started doodling plane designs on his napkin with a crust of burnt toast.
Mother hied herself to the buffet and returned with a generous helping of buttered crumpets.
“Mumsy” I whispered “ watch your bum.”
Vanity fought briefly with greed and won. She shot me a loving twinkle and a grateful nod. “Thank-you dear” she mouthed.
“Anyone for a crumpet?” She enquired sweetly. “I find that I am replete.” “Foolish not to really.” Said Mrs Glastikely-Brown and from her voluminous bag drew forth a telescopic fork, pulled it open to it’s full extent and lunging across the table opposite Mother, expertly speared several crumpets in one jab and de-telescoped them back to her plate.
“Did you know, Lady Beamish, that I am a very distant relation of the royal family?”
“Good gracious Mrs Glastikely-Brown, I had no idea.”
“Yes indeed, I am eight hundred and twenty third in line to the throne.”
An uninterested buzz staggered round the table.
“So,” said Tulip “if all eight hundred and twenty three of them were suddenly to succumb to some new form of ghastly influenza or all sink together in some Titanic type disaster you would be Queen.”
Prudence Glastikely-Brown coughed modestly. “That is so. An accident of birth, no more than that. One makes no claims, one is not special, one is exactly the same as all those who have not been so fortunately born.”
And the conceivably future Queen daintily popped an entire crumpet into her mouth, her cheeks bulged for an instant, there was a gulp and the possibly future royal face regained it’s previous regal placidity.
“Unless,” she continued “DNA has anything to say on the subject.”
She regarded the assembled company archly. “One cannot deny one’s genes.”
Colonel Butterswoop threw a pound note on the table.
“But can one deny one’s trousers? Keep the change.”
I got up from the table.
“Will you excuse me?”
“Where are you off to dear?” Asked Mumsy.
“I thought I’d have a canter round the grounds.”
“Mind you’re back for lunch dear, Chef’s making Octopus cakes.”
I ran across the quadrangle to the stables, my feet crunching on the gravel. Belair was feeding. His black coat gleamed and his honey sweat scent calmed me at once.
*******************************************
My name is John and I am twenty two and they say that sometimes I get funny thoughts - sometimes, well most of the time really. They say that I cannot tell what is real and what is … in my head.
Last year Mum and Dad took me to a Doctor, he's been awarded the Nobel Prize for being a Man in a White Coat. He recommended that I go and live in a TV Series about Heaven with Angels in white coats. After a day an Archangel told me to take pills. He said it would make me become a normal young man. I asked him why everyone wanted me to change into someone else, because I was very happy the way I was. He said that it was for my own good - but it was very clear to me that it was for the good of everyone else except me.
The Archangel made me take the pills and all my wonderful thoughts stopped and the colour drained out of my life - all those different monochromous shades, you’ve no idea how many hues of grey there are until you’ve been there. I realised that it was a TV series about Hell, not Heaven. I didn’t like living like that, I didn’t see the point.
So I jumped off the roof to put out the grey feeling. It was dark and I landed on a compost heap which broke my fall and also my arm although not necessarily in that order.
Then Mum and Dad came and got me and cried and said that they would never ever try and change me again. I stopped taking the pills and the colours came back.
And here I am.
Belair whinnied softly as I stroked his gleaming black neck.
One good thing about the TV Series I was in, they told me to write what I think every day. And this is it.
********************************
In the library Fungebert Parademop colligated nervously.
“I’m colligating again” he fumed, “this must cease if I am ever to succeed in the world of business.”
I entered with an upturned bucket on my head to catch the droppings.
“Glad you could make it, Peebles Vindors.” He said with a tremor.
I nodded slightly as a full nod would have sent the bucket flying.
“Drosso modo, Fungebert.” I said. He appreciated the old school motto and gave me a wry smile. “You’re the only one who’s had the decency to turn up.”
“Early days, old man, early days.”
All at once a beautiful girl walked into the room and looked around tentatively .Her beauty was so startling that tears burst from under my eyelids. She was so superbly gorgeously magnificently fabulous that torrents of scalding tears flowed down my cheeks unbidden. My heart junkered like an oil well hammer, my spleen went dry and at least one kidney stopped working there and then.
“Oh sorry I thought this was the dining room.” And she was gone. Out of my life and out of this story. That’s life though really, isn’t it? The really good ones disappear leaving the rubbish behind.
“I’m thinking of changing my name.” Declared Fungebert abruptly. “It’s just not in the public interest.”
“To what?” I inquired.
“To something more prosaic I suppose. Anyway I’m sick of being called Sponge Bath as a joke.”
“Rise above it, old man.” I counselled not really giving a damn but anxious to look as though I was helping a friend.
“I was toying with Twiddles Botsneer. What do you think about that for a name?”
He couldn’t be serious. And I was the one who needed pills?
I played his game.
“Twiddles? Um, let me see….” But no, stop! To give that idiotic nomenclature even a passing thought was wasting precious time. Who knows what disaster might befall me in the next minute or two – the ceiling might fall exactly where I was standing, a boiler could well explode, a mad starling could crash through the window bent (in two meanings) on a suicide mission and impale my jugular with it’s beak – any disaster was possible, (notice I don’t say likely) and here I was wasting my last few seconds pretending to be polite. No this thing could not be.
I decided to pull the plug on what up to now had been a pretty unmomentous friendship.
“I’ll tell you what I think. I think that as a first name Twiddles is a complete load of rubbish. And as a family name Botsneer is the absolutely worst one you’ve ever come up with and you’ve come up with some dillies. Remember Benchpress Argoblast? Pragputt Norty? Rarar Rararsson? Where do you get these absurd appellations from? What is this constant obsession to acquire a different name? Does it make your life any better? No, your life is still disastrous whatever you’re called, it changes nothing. It'll always be the same you. The only thing these ludicrous labels do is to make you sound like a complete idiot. Forget it. Stop being called something different every month, go back to being Richard Robinson, That was a good name and it also had the sterling quality of being the name you were bloody born with! Or with which you were bloody born, take your pick, hanging preposition or not.”
During this harangue Fungebert never took his eyes off me, I think he even stopped breathing. At the end he sighed massively, thought for a minute and then said ruminatively:
“No seriously, Twiddles is a sort of chummy name wouldn’t you say?”
Why waste what was left of my life?
“Yes, very chummy, also very chappy, pally, buddy and extremely blokey. Go for it.”
“Oh I'm so glad you think so. If you only knew what it means to me.”
Whatever his name is, Twiddles is a classic twit, there’s no way round it.
Sunday, 12 August 2007
Love thy Neighbour and then Cook Him
Hello again. Tonight a little dish I created myself. It's called Skull and Crossbones.
First the Skull. Choose the Head with care – mugging victims are always favourite, there's a lot of them, they're usually fresh and very cheap.
Steer well clear of suicides, they often taste bitter and there's something rather depressing about the flesh.
Remember, you don't want your head too old so do inspect it for wrinkles and broken blood vessels.
These days with the prevalence of cosmetic operations make sure you check carefully for plastic surgery scars as these can hide a multitude of sins. Note that botox and silicone taste revolting and will completely ruin the dish. You have been warned!
Look for a good pair of jowls and strong knotty jaw muscles – that's where most of the meat is. But please don't ignore the rest of the head.
Gum with mint sauce is nice and chewy, thin ears make excellent crackling and eyelids are as good as crisps any day.
By the way Tongue in Cheek makes an excellent TV Supper.
Some gourmets like the heady bouquet of an Alcoholic's Nose, delicious canned, stewed or pickled and again always in constant supply.
If you like Brain, buy your head in a University Town, they're usually bigger and easy to get as their owners are often notoriously bad drivers.
Do go easy on Double Chins, I know they're a temptation and delicious with Housemaid's Knee or Tennis Elbow, but oh the cholesterol!
As for the Eyes, you have the old standbyes of course, Iris Stew and Cornea on the Cob, but normally I use them for decoration, just giving them a slight glaze. Some of my colleagues find this short-sighted of me, they maintain that one can make a most successful Eyes Cream. If you try this do scale them for contact lenses first.
Before cooking, soften the Head in a sauna for half an hour, then blanch the cheeks, comb the hair and jug it.
Well so much for the SKULL, now for the CROSSBONES.
Do choose Arms that aren't too brawny. Weightlifters biceps might look tempting but take a tip, they're just tough and boring – so forearmed is forewarned.
Slender arms look elegant, hold a surprising amount of meat and are very tender – excellent for Muscles Marinieres.
As for the Fingers, snip off the thumbs and hey presto Petit Fours!
My next article is entitled: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" with diagrams.
I will also be preparing a real Shepherd's Pie and demonstrating how to plug up a 'Cock a Leekie'.
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
At last, the built-in cliché critic
This is me after friends superglued my fist to my chin.
The pic has nothing to do with the following piece.
“Good Lord is that the time?” Frowned Jack.
Just one question: how you can ‘frown’ a piece of dialogue? Frowning is a word used to describe creasing the forehead in worry or stress, it’s not for emitting sounds from the mouth.
He jerked out of bed
As opposed to jerking off? Come on get real- you can’t just use any word. Try something that actually describes the action.
and ran to the bathroom his feet pitter pattering on the parquet.
Hang on, is this a kids’story all of a sudden? Decide on the genre for Christ’s sake.
He regarded his reflection in the mirror
As opposed to the toilet?
and ruminated on the wrinkles and creases that permeated his grey visage. Old age has no charms he thought just the dreadful inevitable decline into the grave.
If I need to be depressed I’ll look at my bank balance.Do me a favour - try and be a bit more entertaining. The odd joke might help.
He shrugged into his clothes
What is he, French!
and made for the door.
What did he make for it? A handle?
Just as he was about to head for the office
Ah, suddenly he's a soccer player
he saw the letter lying on the door mat. He stooped to pick it up, his old bones creaking like dry wood.
If this goes on I’ll have a nervous breakdown.
The buff envelope contained a sinister missive.
Yeah I know those sinister missives, they’re usually a final notice from the gas board. I got one this morning, did you have to remind me?
It was anonymous, there was no signature.
Oh is that what it means? Thanks for clearing that up for us.
and was written in exquisite handwriting on Basildon Bond paper . His heart beating madly he read the dread words.
“I know your secret, you monster and you will rue the day you were born. You’ll be hearing from me sooner than you think.”
Jack crumpled the paper in his gnarled hands and gazed unseeingly out of the window.
So his secret was out in the open at last. He felt a strange sense of relief. At least there was no further need for concealment.
The bullet came through the window and hit him in the heart.
He was dead before he reached the floor.
I just went to the toilet – I hope you haven’t perpetrated any horrors while I was… what on earth…? I don’t believe this, you cowardly little creep, you got rid of him as soon as my back was turned. You couldn’t bear a few words of constructive criticism so you killed him off.
I wash my hands of you, you’re a waste of space…what do you think you’re doing? Put down that pen, you fool, you’ll never get away with… aaaggggh!
Suddenly Jack woke up and realised that it had all been a bad dream.
He looked around, there was no critic, he could write what he liked, he had won.
Oh yeah? Well strangely enough I was in the same dream too, you moron, you don’t get rid of me that easily. Pathetic!
Just one question: how you can ‘frown’ a piece of dialogue? Frowning is a word used to describe creasing the forehead in worry or stress, it’s not for emitting sounds from the mouth.
He jerked out of bed
As opposed to jerking off? Come on get real- you can’t just use any word. Try something that actually describes the action.
and ran to the bathroom his feet pitter pattering on the parquet.
Hang on, is this a kids’story all of a sudden? Decide on the genre for Christ’s sake.
He regarded his reflection in the mirror
As opposed to the toilet?
and ruminated on the wrinkles and creases that permeated his grey visage. Old age has no charms he thought just the dreadful inevitable decline into the grave.
If I need to be depressed I’ll look at my bank balance.Do me a favour - try and be a bit more entertaining. The odd joke might help.
He shrugged into his clothes
What is he, French!
and made for the door.
What did he make for it? A handle?
Just as he was about to head for the office
Ah, suddenly he's a soccer player
he saw the letter lying on the door mat. He stooped to pick it up, his old bones creaking like dry wood.
If this goes on I’ll have a nervous breakdown.
The buff envelope contained a sinister missive.
Yeah I know those sinister missives, they’re usually a final notice from the gas board. I got one this morning, did you have to remind me?
It was anonymous, there was no signature.
Oh is that what it means? Thanks for clearing that up for us.
and was written in exquisite handwriting on Basildon Bond paper . His heart beating madly he read the dread words.
“I know your secret, you monster and you will rue the day you were born. You’ll be hearing from me sooner than you think.”
Jack crumpled the paper in his gnarled hands and gazed unseeingly out of the window.
So his secret was out in the open at last. He felt a strange sense of relief. At least there was no further need for concealment.
The bullet came through the window and hit him in the heart.
He was dead before he reached the floor.
I just went to the toilet – I hope you haven’t perpetrated any horrors while I was… what on earth…? I don’t believe this, you cowardly little creep, you got rid of him as soon as my back was turned. You couldn’t bear a few words of constructive criticism so you killed him off.
I wash my hands of you, you’re a waste of space…what do you think you’re doing? Put down that pen, you fool, you’ll never get away with… aaaggggh!
Suddenly Jack woke up and realised that it had all been a bad dream.
He looked around, there was no critic, he could write what he liked, he had won.
Oh yeah? Well strangely enough I was in the same dream too, you moron, you don’t get rid of me that easily. Pathetic!
Saturday, 28 July 2007
Inspector Trench unmasks the Toad
Caricature of Inspector Trench by Shimon Wasserschtein
“…yours faithfully, Underhand and Sly, notaries at law. Type that in quadruplicate, Mrs Argument, but first bring Inspector Trench the Robert Toad file.”
An enigmatic charisma hung in the dim air.
“The…the Toad File, sir.”
Inspector Trench peered cautiously at the Morrocco binding and filigree leather work. Hand-tooled, he thought, the dirty beast.
He blew a cloud of dust from the cover. A dwarf solicitor sneezed cautiously in the corner, legal motes danced in the sunshafts.
Toad! Robert Toad. A paralysing attitude of inoffensive sophistry had been his only redeeming quality in a lifetime of turgification.
Inspector Trench was worried. Snightly Grabbston his young aide de camp knew the signs. Inspector Trench threw things when he was worried. Now he was throwing ledgers, account books and small clerks about the room. Snightly ducked as a junior partner flew over his head and landed with a crash in an ancient deed box…dust was everywhere, great clouds… cumuli of grey specks.
A worried head poked through the door. That was clever, thought Snightly.
“Please sir,” bleated a voice half choking on the strato nimbus of dust. “Please, sir.” Quaked the voice “The wall sir, the wall!” Inspector Trench paused in his travails. Yes indeed somehow the wall was moving. It was no longer stationary. Snightly riffled his triple pointed tongue across the hard corn of his lips. He glanced at Inspector Trench.
He seemed undecided, cloaked in vertiginous, untouchable aberrations. He’s lucky, thought Snightly, I can’t even say that.
“Please sir,” bleated a voice half choking on the strato nimbus of dust. “Please, sir.” Quaked the voice “The wall sir, the wall!” Inspector Trench paused in his travails. Yes indeed somehow the wall was moving. It was no longer stationary. Snightly riffled his triple pointed tongue across the hard corn of his lips. He glanced at Inspector Trench.
He seemed undecided, cloaked in vertiginous, untouchable aberrations. He’s lucky, thought Snightly, I can’t even say that.
Inspector Trench made a move at last. His well-shod foot deliberately treading down on the floor carrying the full weight of his leg and half his body, the other coping effortlessly with the problems presented by the other half. Snightly knew the signs, Inspector Trench was walking.
He followed in trepidation. Trench hesitated. His clear blue eys held vestiges of wonder and yet ….pity?
He shook his head, he’d somehow got the ribbon of an old deed wrapped round his head. He wanted to get it off. A beat of time pulsated in the shrill stillness. A giant silence pervaded the room. The sniffling squeals of rats and mice, bats and cockroaches were somehow silenced by the imponderable weight of that transcending moment.
Trench savagely tore the ribbon from his head, his trilby buckled, cracked and tore from the sheer power of the man.
He followed in trepidation. Trench hesitated. His clear blue eys held vestiges of wonder and yet ….pity?
He shook his head, he’d somehow got the ribbon of an old deed wrapped round his head. He wanted to get it off. A beat of time pulsated in the shrill stillness. A giant silence pervaded the room. The sniffling squeals of rats and mice, bats and cockroaches were somehow silenced by the imponderable weight of that transcending moment.
Trench savagely tore the ribbon from his head, his trilby buckled, cracked and tore from the sheer power of the man.
Trench was perturbed, things were wrong, Snightly knew the signs … a tidy man Trench, everything in it’s place and a place for everything.
No worms in the lettuce, no crumbs in the bed. The dust was annoying his elegaiac sense of propriety…his incandescent sense of the structures of relativity… a cousin complains when stepped on, etcetera. Time stood still.
Snightly screamed at the shrill jangling of the telephone.
“Inspector Trench, it’s for you.”
“Tell them I’m not here.”
“He says he’s not here.”
Indistinguishable mumblings prolonged the moment.
Cataclysmic paradox, thought Trench, with a weary shrug.
He stood looking at the moving wall. It was beginning to gape open, a great hole. Black sable night. He felt slightly hungry. Genevieve would be waiting for him. His blind, deaf, mute, limbless bride of only a week.
“Inspector Trench, it’s for you.”
“Tell them I’m not here.”
“He says he’s not here.”
Indistinguishable mumblings prolonged the moment.
Cataclysmic paradox, thought Trench, with a weary shrug.
He stood looking at the moving wall. It was beginning to gape open, a great hole. Black sable night. He felt slightly hungry. Genevieve would be waiting for him. His blind, deaf, mute, limbless bride of only a week.
He felt a sudden pang of loneliness. Commissioner Renoir would be expecting a report and Von Stalhein would want to see him tomorrow morning for an explanation...
He blinked and two puffs of dust floated to space. Snightly coughed gingerly. To tell the truth he felt like a Tom Collins. He wondered how Tom was and how pleased he’d be that Snightly was now an aide de camp.
“Aaaaarhheeeeaaaeeehieee!” The sudden shriek pierced the dust-laden air. The very ear-drums felt battered and insecure, unable to cope for long with the ghastly high-pitched sound. Snightly knew the signs. Inspector Trench was screaming.
“I must stop doing that,” thought Trench “it plays hell with my larynx and also my chances of promotion.”
His lapis lazuli eyes, the brilliant blue that had pinned a thousand criminals, were gritty. He felt like a good warm soak. Oh well better get on with it.
“Come out Toad.” He said quietly into the pit. There was a startled rustling. Hearts stopped beating. Snightly felt the sudden sledge -hammer of apprehension. An articled clerk scurried into a corner.
“Aaaaarhheeeeaaaeeehieee!” The sudden shriek pierced the dust-laden air. The very ear-drums felt battered and insecure, unable to cope for long with the ghastly high-pitched sound. Snightly knew the signs. Inspector Trench was screaming.
“I must stop doing that,” thought Trench “it plays hell with my larynx and also my chances of promotion.”
His lapis lazuli eyes, the brilliant blue that had pinned a thousand criminals, were gritty. He felt like a good warm soak. Oh well better get on with it.
“Come out Toad.” He said quietly into the pit. There was a startled rustling. Hearts stopped beating. Snightly felt the sudden sledge -hammer of apprehension. An articled clerk scurried into a corner.
The dust atoms were re-arranging themselves. A writhing turmoil of particles settled into a shape and out of the gloom stepped the loathesome shadow of Toad! Snightly shuddered and drew back sharply. Inspector Trench gazed with candor, unafraid. The piercing blue eyes somehow detached and God-like. Remote, bored?
“But how…?” Toad let the words die away of their own volition. Trench turned away. This was the moment he always hated. The confrontation. The ‘yes you did,” “No I didn’t” So childish and unnecessary. Toad just stood there. A travesty of a man. Shambling now. Pitiful. Snightly glanced at the hands that had polished the Royal Toilets of Continents and indeed of incontinents, now fumbling at his sides like twin opossums.
Trench felt a pang of remorse then a pang of hunger. What a pity his wife couldn’t cook. Suddenly Toad lunged for the door. Almost disinterestedly Trenches foot snaked out and kicked Snightly on the shin. Snightly screamed shrilly and the vibrations snapped the last remaining wire of the chandelier which plummeted down pinning Toad to the floor, spreadeagled under the weight of the jingling crystals.
“But how…?” Toad let the words die away of their own volition. Trench turned away. This was the moment he always hated. The confrontation. The ‘yes you did,” “No I didn’t” So childish and unnecessary. Toad just stood there. A travesty of a man. Shambling now. Pitiful. Snightly glanced at the hands that had polished the Royal Toilets of Continents and indeed of incontinents, now fumbling at his sides like twin opossums.
Trench felt a pang of remorse then a pang of hunger. What a pity his wife couldn’t cook. Suddenly Toad lunged for the door. Almost disinterestedly Trenches foot snaked out and kicked Snightly on the shin. Snightly screamed shrilly and the vibrations snapped the last remaining wire of the chandelier which plummeted down pinning Toad to the floor, spreadeagled under the weight of the jingling crystals.
Toad was trying to say something. “You…” His lips, blue with imminent death, desperately tried to shape the doom-laden syllables but nothing emerged except his appendix.
Slowly from every statutory nook and litigious cranny a mouldy crowd of legal midgets emerged, slithered cautiously into the light and stood there blinking and curious in their shrouds of ancient cobwebs. Miniature clerks, wee solicitors, elfin attornies, diminutive commissioners for oaths, sparse notaries, scant scriveners, pocket proctors, exiguous equity draftsmen, belittled barristers, minor magistrates, stunted silks, little lawyers and petty pettifoggers. As the great truth slowly dawned, a massed, musty cry of joyous latin eulogy quavered grittily in the farinaceous air. Life could continue as before; a limbo of timeless, money-making procrastination.
“I’ll have my tea now.” Trench was gazing into space.
Snightly felt a huge soaring joy. He knew the signs. Inspector Trench was gazing into space. Wanting his tea.
“I’ll have my tea now.” Trench was gazing into space.
Snightly felt a huge soaring joy. He knew the signs. Inspector Trench was gazing into space. Wanting his tea.
Suburbaphobia
My wife Rolanda acting the part of Granny Trench
One aching day I had to stay with Grannie Trench for three months - my Dad was ill and my Mother couldn't cope with me as well as Norman and the twins. So I got the boot.
I knocked at the front door, cunningly hidden at the side of the house by an architect who, one must presume, had actually seriously sat down and planned this semi‑detached stucco hutch of doom.
I can see the scene:
The architect has been burning the midnight oil.
Wreaths of steely blue smoke float gently around his leonine head from the meerschaum pipe clenched between the strong teeth in the ashtray beside him.
His pencil, poised to strike, hovers over a blueprint, like a falcon over a rabbit. Suddenly he makes a lightning pass. There is a long pause then, in a quiet, triumphant voice:
"Deirdre!"
His wife who has been waiting on the landing for hours bursts into the study.
"Darling, have you...?" Her voice falters with emotion and the question hangs in the air together with the smoke.
"Yes, I've..." and here his voice falters too and hangs momentarily beside his wife's voice and for a while both voices hang there in the smoke, faltering together.
But then he gathers momentum.
"They all said it couldn't be done, but they were wrong! I've done it! I've put the front door at the side!"
"Darling! You're a genius!" She kisses him then rushes off to wake up the children and tell them the good news.
Reluctantly I rattled the tinny knocker on the front door round the side of 21 Floral Tribute Grove.
From somewhere inside there came the distant sound of cracking bones. I deduced therefore that Grannie was walking, logic forcing me to the conclusion that she was on her way to open the door for me.
Wrong. Since when has senility been in the same neighbourhood as logic?
In a few more moments I was forced to consider the possibility that, since she was gaga, she had probably heard the knocker and thought it was the telephone.
I knocked again. `Rat a tat'. Then `rat a cat'. Then `cat a mat'.
Silence came and went. And came back again. Then it hung around a bit, got bored and went off somewhere more interesting.
Then suddenly there was action. The letterbox flap slowly lifted a millimetre.
"Go away or I'll call the vet." This delivered in severe tones.
There was a pause while I tried to work this out. Last time I'd visited she had claimed that she was the victim of starlings, whatever that meant. I saw that nothing had changed. Why should it, when she was having such a good time?
"But Grannie, it's me, Robin."
"Go away. I'll set the cat on you, see if I don't. I know starlings." A whiff of dead body floated through the flap.
"Granma, this is Robin, I've come to stay with you. Robin, Edwina's son, Edwina your daughter, remember?"
Silence, of the tangible sort.
"Look, let me remind you, um er, last time I was here I..." This was getting ridiculous. No it wasn't, it was normal.
I stood there and for the life of me I couldn't remember anything that I'd ever done there. Come on brain, I must have done something.
Well, I watched her crumble, bit by bit. Surely you remember me, Gran? I was the one who heard you disintegrating every day.
"This is Robin! I've been coming here every month for five years."
Even the silence was getting fed up.
I had spent so much time in this dump, was it possible that this was all I could remember?
I rattled the tinny knocker again, punctuating the emptiness.
Maybe I'd always been here, rat a tatting my life away.
Have you ever had the thought that this particular moment of your life is just being endlessly repeated, on and on and on?
For me, forever knocking at that bloody door. For you, forever reading about me doing it.
Quite possibly I've always been standing here knocking.
I can't definitely prove the contrary, can I? Because if I try to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door, it might only mean that I have merely spent eternity trying to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door.
How do I know that I am not furnished with artificial memories about a non-existent past and also with fake aspirations for a future that will never come?
For eternity I've been standing here knocking fruitlessly and for eternity I'll just keep on doing it. Doing it. Doing it. Doing it.
The flap fluttered a fraction.
Hope hung in the air. By it's neck.
This was becoming a matter of principle. Or was I just a boy wanting to be let in, somewhere, anywhere?
You fiendish hag, in another second I'll snake my hand through the letter flap and throttle your skinny old neck.
Then a flash of inspiration.
"I broke the nose off the plaster Marlene Dietrich hanging on the wall."
Suddenly the door opened a crack. Joan of Gaunt was standing there in a little bone‑revealing housecoat, that was, frankly, rather fetching. Fetching as in "Fetch it Rover."
"Oh, it's you. I thought it was them birds. They pecked the cat last week.I phoned the RSPCA to spray them. They said they don't and to ring the Council. Not to mention the tomatoes."
Baffling non sequiturs were the main hazards in her conversational minefield.
She started to close the door on me. But not before I had shot out an anticipatory foot.
"Tt tt, now the door doesn't work. It's the droppings. I know my rights."
"Hello Grannie, you've shrunk again."
"Oh it's you. Your Mother owes me ten bob. Wipe your shoes, there's been a lot of manure recently."
She was alluding to a substantial load of horseshit that had been dumped on her front lawn, by the cherry tree, by a truck and by mistake. It had been intended for the fanatic rose growers at number nineteen. It was also before I was born. Can she always have been gaga?
"It's me teef. I went to the dentist on the national health. He said he'd never seen such a mouth."
Well, he certainly deserved a VC for looking into it.
I didn't want to risk receiving an answer by asking what the dentist had meant by this cryptic comment. I had my suspicions though.
It did occur to me at that moment that I should just sit outside for the next three months because I'd probably have more fun.
I was right too.
My suburbaphobia dates from those flat years.
And whenever I have no choice but to pass through such open prisons I am irretrievably forced into a helpless melancholy, a total despair which permeates my very soul.
It is such a massive depression that I have to chip away at it for months as through I am encased in a monolithic block of black granite.
I knocked at the front door, cunningly hidden at the side of the house by an architect who, one must presume, had actually seriously sat down and planned this semi‑detached stucco hutch of doom.
I can see the scene:
The architect has been burning the midnight oil.
Wreaths of steely blue smoke float gently around his leonine head from the meerschaum pipe clenched between the strong teeth in the ashtray beside him.
His pencil, poised to strike, hovers over a blueprint, like a falcon over a rabbit. Suddenly he makes a lightning pass. There is a long pause then, in a quiet, triumphant voice:
"Deirdre!"
His wife who has been waiting on the landing for hours bursts into the study.
"Darling, have you...?" Her voice falters with emotion and the question hangs in the air together with the smoke.
"Yes, I've..." and here his voice falters too and hangs momentarily beside his wife's voice and for a while both voices hang there in the smoke, faltering together.
But then he gathers momentum.
"They all said it couldn't be done, but they were wrong! I've done it! I've put the front door at the side!"
"Darling! You're a genius!" She kisses him then rushes off to wake up the children and tell them the good news.
Reluctantly I rattled the tinny knocker on the front door round the side of 21 Floral Tribute Grove.
From somewhere inside there came the distant sound of cracking bones. I deduced therefore that Grannie was walking, logic forcing me to the conclusion that she was on her way to open the door for me.
Wrong. Since when has senility been in the same neighbourhood as logic?
In a few more moments I was forced to consider the possibility that, since she was gaga, she had probably heard the knocker and thought it was the telephone.
I knocked again. `Rat a tat'. Then `rat a cat'. Then `cat a mat'.
Silence came and went. And came back again. Then it hung around a bit, got bored and went off somewhere more interesting.
Then suddenly there was action. The letterbox flap slowly lifted a millimetre.
"Go away or I'll call the vet." This delivered in severe tones.
There was a pause while I tried to work this out. Last time I'd visited she had claimed that she was the victim of starlings, whatever that meant. I saw that nothing had changed. Why should it, when she was having such a good time?
"But Grannie, it's me, Robin."
"Go away. I'll set the cat on you, see if I don't. I know starlings." A whiff of dead body floated through the flap.
"Granma, this is Robin, I've come to stay with you. Robin, Edwina's son, Edwina your daughter, remember?"
Silence, of the tangible sort.
"Look, let me remind you, um er, last time I was here I..." This was getting ridiculous. No it wasn't, it was normal.
I stood there and for the life of me I couldn't remember anything that I'd ever done there. Come on brain, I must have done something.
Well, I watched her crumble, bit by bit. Surely you remember me, Gran? I was the one who heard you disintegrating every day.
"This is Robin! I've been coming here every month for five years."
Even the silence was getting fed up.
I had spent so much time in this dump, was it possible that this was all I could remember?
I rattled the tinny knocker again, punctuating the emptiness.
Maybe I'd always been here, rat a tatting my life away.
Have you ever had the thought that this particular moment of your life is just being endlessly repeated, on and on and on?
For me, forever knocking at that bloody door. For you, forever reading about me doing it.
Quite possibly I've always been standing here knocking.
I can't definitely prove the contrary, can I? Because if I try to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door, it might only mean that I have merely spent eternity trying to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door.
How do I know that I am not furnished with artificial memories about a non-existent past and also with fake aspirations for a future that will never come?
For eternity I've been standing here knocking fruitlessly and for eternity I'll just keep on doing it. Doing it. Doing it. Doing it.
The flap fluttered a fraction.
Hope hung in the air. By it's neck.
This was becoming a matter of principle. Or was I just a boy wanting to be let in, somewhere, anywhere?
You fiendish hag, in another second I'll snake my hand through the letter flap and throttle your skinny old neck.
Then a flash of inspiration.
"I broke the nose off the plaster Marlene Dietrich hanging on the wall."
Suddenly the door opened a crack. Joan of Gaunt was standing there in a little bone‑revealing housecoat, that was, frankly, rather fetching. Fetching as in "Fetch it Rover."
"Oh, it's you. I thought it was them birds. They pecked the cat last week.I phoned the RSPCA to spray them. They said they don't and to ring the Council. Not to mention the tomatoes."
Baffling non sequiturs were the main hazards in her conversational minefield.
She started to close the door on me. But not before I had shot out an anticipatory foot.
"Tt tt, now the door doesn't work. It's the droppings. I know my rights."
"Hello Grannie, you've shrunk again."
"Oh it's you. Your Mother owes me ten bob. Wipe your shoes, there's been a lot of manure recently."
She was alluding to a substantial load of horseshit that had been dumped on her front lawn, by the cherry tree, by a truck and by mistake. It had been intended for the fanatic rose growers at number nineteen. It was also before I was born. Can she always have been gaga?
"It's me teef. I went to the dentist on the national health. He said he'd never seen such a mouth."
Well, he certainly deserved a VC for looking into it.
I didn't want to risk receiving an answer by asking what the dentist had meant by this cryptic comment. I had my suspicions though.
It did occur to me at that moment that I should just sit outside for the next three months because I'd probably have more fun.
I was right too.
My suburbaphobia dates from those flat years.
And whenever I have no choice but to pass through such open prisons I am irretrievably forced into a helpless melancholy, a total despair which permeates my very soul.
It is such a massive depression that I have to chip away at it for months as through I am encased in a monolithic block of black granite.
Suburbaphobia: A fear of suburbs ‑ (usually caused by enforced stays when a child) the cure is very long and complicated and doesn't work.
What irritates me beyond all connivance is that my little brother Norman adored going!
He always had such a marvellous time, he couldn't wait to visit as often as possible.
He would gladly have spent his entire childhood there.
I suppose she must have loved him.
He always had such a marvellous time, he couldn't wait to visit as often as possible.
He would gladly have spent his entire childhood there.
I suppose she must have loved him.
Sirre Pergammonne fichtes ye Greene Knicht.
Caricature of Sirre Pergammonne by Shimon Wasserschtein
Onne thee eleventhe daye ov mye Queste Ie didde comme acrosse ae cleeringe inne ye foreste.
Ae Greene Knighte waz thaire awaitinge tourneye.
"Hoe Varlette..." quothe hee, quyte rewdlye Ie thocht,
"...yoore muther iz ae cowes nostrille ande yore fathere rezembulles ae pigge's bumme."
"Hooe arre yee, ohe discurteouse knicht, thatte yee yuse mee soe ille?" Quothe Ie, inne loftye tone.
"Iffe yee muste knowe, Porridge braine, Ie amme knowne az ye Greene Knichte. Cumme ande ficht, scaredye cusstarde."
Ande soe sayinge didde vulgarlye projecte hiz tung owte atte mee.
"Yea verily, az mye name iz Sir Pergammon, Ie wille teeche yew ae lessonne, ohe churlishe knave. Ande annyewaye yore fathere iz ae scillye sossagge."
Ande Ie did chuckelle lowdlye toe irritayte himme. Thisse made himme madde ande hee didde forthewithe challenge mee toe mortalle combatte ore ae ficht toe ye deathe, wycchever cayme firste.
Nutthinge dawntedde Ie lowered mye vizor, aymed my lance and chargedde. Butte mistakinge hisse greene armoure didde felle ae yungge syckamoor.
Ie thenne prevailledde uponne himme toe weare a redde carnationne soe thatte Ie coolde perchaunce reckoggnize himme.
Alle thatte daye thee greene woode didde ringge richt lustilye withe oure thrustes. Whenne wee hadde shatteredde oure lances wee dizmontedde ande foucht amaine withe oure grate broadswordes. Ande agayne ye greene woode didde ringge richt lustilye withe oure grate smashinge hittes.
Uponne ye blaydze of our broadswordz breakinge thereof, wee continuedde fichtinge fore fulle five dayse withe oure daggerz.
Whenne theeze hadde worne downe toe ye hiltz, wee threwe ye handlz atte eeche othere fore ae weeke untille wee loste themme inne ye dense mediaevalle undergroathe.
Fore ae goode fortenicht wee didde wriste-wresttle untille oure muscelles coolde goe noe furthere.
Ae Greene Knighte waz thaire awaitinge tourneye.
"Hoe Varlette..." quothe hee, quyte rewdlye Ie thocht,
"...yoore muther iz ae cowes nostrille ande yore fathere rezembulles ae pigge's bumme."
"Hooe arre yee, ohe discurteouse knicht, thatte yee yuse mee soe ille?" Quothe Ie, inne loftye tone.
"Iffe yee muste knowe, Porridge braine, Ie amme knowne az ye Greene Knichte. Cumme ande ficht, scaredye cusstarde."
Ande soe sayinge didde vulgarlye projecte hiz tung owte atte mee.
"Yea verily, az mye name iz Sir Pergammon, Ie wille teeche yew ae lessonne, ohe churlishe knave. Ande annyewaye yore fathere iz ae scillye sossagge."
Ande Ie did chuckelle lowdlye toe irritayte himme. Thisse made himme madde ande hee didde forthewithe challenge mee toe mortalle combatte ore ae ficht toe ye deathe, wycchever cayme firste.
Nutthinge dawntedde Ie lowered mye vizor, aymed my lance and chargedde. Butte mistakinge hisse greene armoure didde felle ae yungge syckamoor.
Ie thenne prevailledde uponne himme toe weare a redde carnationne soe thatte Ie coolde perchaunce reckoggnize himme.
Alle thatte daye thee greene woode didde ringge richt lustilye withe oure thrustes. Whenne wee hadde shatteredde oure lances wee dizmontedde ande foucht amaine withe oure grate broadswordes. Ande agayne ye greene woode didde ringge richt lustilye withe oure grate smashinge hittes.
Uponne ye blaydze of our broadswordz breakinge thereof, wee continuedde fichtinge fore fulle five dayse withe oure daggerz.
Whenne theeze hadde worne downe toe ye hiltz, wee threwe ye handlz atte eeche othere fore ae weeke untille wee loste themme inne ye dense mediaevalle undergroathe.
Fore ae goode fortenicht wee didde wriste-wresttle untille oure muscelles coolde goe noe furthere.
Thenne, fore threee monthes, wee richt verilye calledde eache othere rewde ande horridde naymz.
Fynallye wee coolde notte thinke ov anye moore nastye ynnesultes oore evenne ynnuendowes. Soe wee pullede ugglye fayces fore fulle twoe yeares untille wee gotte boredde, exchangedde addresses ande roedde home, eeche toe hiz owne separayte castelle.
Fynallye wee coolde notte thinke ov anye moore nastye ynnesultes oore evenne ynnuendowes. Soe wee pullede ugglye fayces fore fulle twoe yeares untille wee gotte boredde, exchangedde addresses ande roedde home, eeche toe hiz owne separayte castelle.
Friday, 11 May 2007
Lorna probably fails the Personality Probe
My wife Rolanda acting the part of Lorna. Not an easy role.
***************************************
The Emblem of the Universal Cabbage encircled the Scrutineer’s Ulnia.
Lorna, her head plugged into the Thought Supervisor, was undergoing her annual Personality Probe.
Everything was going well and yet… if she were to fail?
She felt a tremor of…of…something alien. What they used to call…fear?
“Permission to blink?”
“Granted.”
Oh what welcome relief! The utter luxury of feeling the blood course through her eyelids. For a moment she almost loved her Scrutineer, then, with a shudder, remembered his cruel work.
She examined him with remorseless eyes, his ghastly thin-lipped hands, the belly-button gazing at her unseeingly from his forehead, the antenna-like feet flopping down on each side of the shaven kidneys on top of his head.
“Urrgggghhhh!” She shuddered “ I wouldn’t have sex with him if he was the last man er creature er mutant on earth.”
Then she realised with a start that she had thought the unthinkable.
Lorna, her head plugged into the Thought Supervisor, was undergoing her annual Personality Probe.
Everything was going well and yet… if she were to fail?
She felt a tremor of…of…something alien. What they used to call…fear?
“Permission to blink?”
“Granted.”
Oh what welcome relief! The utter luxury of feeling the blood course through her eyelids. For a moment she almost loved her Scrutineer, then, with a shudder, remembered his cruel work.
She examined him with remorseless eyes, his ghastly thin-lipped hands, the belly-button gazing at her unseeingly from his forehead, the antenna-like feet flopping down on each side of the shaven kidneys on top of his head.
“Urrgggghhhh!” She shuddered “ I wouldn’t have sex with him if he was the last man er creature er mutant on earth.”
Then she realised with a start that she had thought the unthinkable.
She had forgotten that the Scrutineer was reading her every thought!
A hurt blush started to the Scrutineer’s feet, tears poured from the orange eyes in the savage mouth under each armpit and a hideous sound emerged from the rectum under his adam’s apple.
“Oh buggar. He’s either burping, crying or farting, but, whatever he’s doing, I’m in very deep shit!”
A hurt blush started to the Scrutineer’s feet, tears poured from the orange eyes in the savage mouth under each armpit and a hideous sound emerged from the rectum under his adam’s apple.
“Oh buggar. He’s either burping, crying or farting, but, whatever he’s doing, I’m in very deep shit!”
© All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Sunday, 6 May 2007
I was the R.Whites Lemonade Man
Above, me in the famous R.Whites Lemonade Commercial.
Me in the 2nd (unknown) R Whites Commercial: "The Pop Star" Story below!
*****************************************
Maybe I’m not objective but I don’t think that it’s particularly good,
or well directed or for that matter well performed by me.
But maybe it’s because there is a stunning song written by Rod thingmejig (sorry Rod) the father of Elvis Costello.
It was sung by a session singer and is very catchy, the “R.Whites”
refrain sounding like “Alright!”
I actually made 2 R.Whites Commercials at the same time.
The second one was much, much better. (photo above) I played a manic rock singer with long blond hair singing (well miming) the song and gyrating madly all over the stage.
But it was never repeated. Why? Well, and now the dastardly truth can be told, it appears that an unknown Elvis Costello was playing guitar in the group behind me and when he became mega-famous it is rumoured that he didn’t want to be seen as a humble backing guitarist so he didn’t agree for it to be shown again, understandably for him I suppose,
*****************************************
In the early 70’s I acted in the famous R.Whites Lemonade commercial
WHICH RAN FOR 17 YEARS! It was the longest running commercial
ever in UK TV History.
But to be honest, I really can’t fathom why it was so much loved.
WHICH RAN FOR 17 YEARS! It was the longest running commercial
ever in UK TV History.
But to be honest, I really can’t fathom why it was so much loved.
Every year it comes in the top 2 or 3 of the 100 favourite UK TV Commercials of all time.
Maybe I’m not objective but I don’t think that it’s particularly good,
or well directed or for that matter well performed by me.
But maybe it’s because there is a stunning song written by Rod thingmejig (sorry Rod) the father of Elvis Costello.
It was sung by a session singer and is very catchy, the “R.Whites”
refrain sounding like “Alright!”
I actually made 2 R.Whites Commercials at the same time.
The second one was much, much better. (photo above) I played a manic rock singer with long blond hair singing (well miming) the song and gyrating madly all over the stage.
But it was never repeated. Why? Well, and now the dastardly truth can be told, it appears that an unknown Elvis Costello was playing guitar in the group behind me and when he became mega-famous it is rumoured that he didn’t want to be seen as a humble backing guitarist so he didn’t agree for it to be shown again, understandably for him I suppose,
but not for me,
what about my repeats???!!!
I do have one indelible memory from the R Whites Commercial.
About a year after it was shown, I was in a pub. A man at the bar beckoned me over with a huge grin. Aha, another fan I thought, he wants to meet a celebrity, I'll brighten up his day.
"Hello." I said patronisingly.
"Hello, do you know," he said chuckling happily "that my son hates you?"
Big pause.
"Well thanks for the information." was all I could think of.
Exit one abashed actor.
I do have one indelible memory from the R Whites Commercial.
About a year after it was shown, I was in a pub. A man at the bar beckoned me over with a huge grin. Aha, another fan I thought, he wants to meet a celebrity, I'll brighten up his day.
"Hello." I said patronisingly.
"Hello, do you know," he said chuckling happily "that my son hates you?"
Big pause.
"Well thanks for the information." was all I could think of.
Exit one abashed actor.
Why am I suddenly telling you this? Because last week a nice UK TV Company rang me out of the blue. They said they are making a programme about TV Icons of the 70’s called "That's What I call Television" and would I like to fly to London from Israel and be interviewed? So I said yes and I’m going next week and will update you on the whole trip.
Sir Manganese Trenches' Grim Prophecy
Sir Managanese Trench and his nurse at the Lunatic Asylum where he spent his last years.
From my novel 'Hoots or The Honorable order of Treasure Seekers'
*********************************************
SIR MANGANESE TRENCH was educated at Thing School for the Very Bright and at the age of eleven won a triple first at Newton College Oxford in three new branches of Astrophysics created by himself.
At twelve he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of Cranium, the rarest metal in the world, microscopic deposits of which are only found on the brows of geniuses.
At the age of fifteen and three quarters was knighted for his work on ‘Ignored Space’, the boring bits between stars and planets.
SIR MANGANESE TRENCHES GRIM PROPHECY
"In the next two hundred years the world will be plunged into a grim nuclear winter. For two hundred years after that there will be a mild nuclear spring with radio active winds light to variable and some scattered fallout.
After the hydrogen bombs have fallen, in the expected surprise attack, the shock will be so immense that the polar icecap will melt, revealing a polar kneecap, America will be partly submerged and the Capital of the World will be Edinburgh which will be in New Zealand off the coast of Poland, near Texas, on the borders of Peru and Denmark, in the Himalayas.
The good news is that Australia will disappear altogether."
© All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
2 Comments
Chromatic, 88 said...
Dear Sir Mangenese,This prediction is fascinating. Though "grim" indeed, it is bracing in its honesty. What future do you see for the Shetland Islands?I. (Digger) Ponne, SrShetland Islands
24 May 2007 01:11
Chaggers said...
Dear Digger, Thank-you for your comment. It's quite amazing that you should mention it, for Sir Manganese held an extra special place in his heart for the Shetland Islands, he likened them to baked beans, a foodstuff of which he was inordinately fond (this indeed might have been responsible for his well known flatulence - see the book: "Gasbags, a loving history of Famous Farters.")
Sir Manganese was of the opinion (this is shortly before he went barking mad, convinced that he had become Piccadilly Circus) that in the final cataclysm, the Shetland Islands would bounce into the air and land upside down in the Dead Sea which was now in Canada. Luckily no-one would notice any difference.Hope this helps.
J. Chagrin, deceased.
Friday, 4 May 2007
Saving Lady Trudy
Lady Trudy, Jack and Bernard
(Played by my son Jeff, my daughter Sophie and her boy-friend Meiron)
Below is an excerpt from my novel:
"HOOTS or the Honorable Order of Treasure Seekers." *******************************************
"Saving Lady Trudy"
Bernard knocked, panting, on the massive mahagony door of the Vermilion Room, where Lady Trudy was ensconced.
There was no answer. I knocked, we waited, no answer.
Bernard knocked again, still no answer. We took it in turns to knock. Still no signs of life.
I shot Bernard a significant look.
He answered it with an expressive shrug.
I raised my eyebrows eloquently.
He frowned momentously.
I narrowed my eyes knowingly.
He sucked in his cheeks suspiciously.
I said “Bernard pulling funny faces is all very well, but maybe Lady Trude has somehow been … got at?”
The words sent a chill through the air. We exchanged worried glances and then returned them.We set our jaws. We knew what was in each other’s mind. As one man we retreated down the corridor to get a good run and then with a mighty roar charged the door - at the very moment that Lady Trudy opened it.
This was actually very good news for us, as we ourselves would have been the eedjits taking any battering that was going on in the vicinity, since it is well known that massive mahogany doors are not even remotely susceptible to the hurlings of soft out-of-condition shoulders and would not have budged an inch.
Unencumbered by exotic timber but still roaring, we shot past Lady T’s astonished gaze and hurtled into the room.
Not content with this singular mode of entry, our lively progress was now aided by the medium of a carpet, upon which we slid, arms and legs flailing hysterically, across the highly polished wood floor, our roar suddenly replaced by a terrified screech.
Luckily a halt was precipately made to our progress by a friendly chesterfield sofa over whose substantial back we flew just before we would have shot out of the window.
“What on earth were you doing? Have you been drinking? Why didn’t you try knocking?”
Our heads rose from behind the sofa. “We did.”
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Thursday, 3 May 2007
Vast Bulk
This is my eldest son Jeff and he ought to be ashamed of himself, but he isn't. I blame his parents.
Below is an excerpt from my novel:
"HOOTS or the Honorable Order of Treasure Seekers."
****************************************** ********
Quizzically I glanced at the Fatman. His vast bulk seemed to quiver, a raging scream of silence threatened the evening air, clandestine thoughts filtered like guilty spies from my subconscious, grim forebodings, ghastly acts of imminent cataclysm.
Uneasily he shifted his vast bulk. Too late my mind raced towards the only solution. Of course! It had been…but no…but yes! It had to be.
I looked at him, my eyes straight as dies. He sensed my loathing but shrugged it off like a drake off a duck’s back, arrogant in his vast bulk, and in that moment I knew. I knew with an overwhelming certitude that I had been right all along, my instincts had not failed me, my resurgence of self-confidence gave me a sudden blinding insight into the whole terrible miasma.
He must have seen the lightning flash of cognisance, because, as though already accused, he shifted uneasily, one enormous hand twitching faintly like an elephant’s liver.
Suddenly he heaved his vast bulk from the chair, moving surprisingly slowly for such a fat man, and with a horrible bellow leapt from the balcony, like some agonized pachyderm, his vast bulk crashing through the matchwood verandah, splintering it like so much matchwood.
A startled shriek, a horrible cry and then a ghastly thud as his vast bulk hurtled through the pavement ten stories below into the local subway system, smashing through the roof of a passing train and squashing a German ourist who was in the process of being mugged for the second time that day.
A siren howled mournfully in the night.
****************************************** ********
Quizzically I glanced at the Fatman. His vast bulk seemed to quiver, a raging scream of silence threatened the evening air, clandestine thoughts filtered like guilty spies from my subconscious, grim forebodings, ghastly acts of imminent cataclysm.
Uneasily he shifted his vast bulk. Too late my mind raced towards the only solution. Of course! It had been…but no…but yes! It had to be.
I looked at him, my eyes straight as dies. He sensed my loathing but shrugged it off like a drake off a duck’s back, arrogant in his vast bulk, and in that moment I knew. I knew with an overwhelming certitude that I had been right all along, my instincts had not failed me, my resurgence of self-confidence gave me a sudden blinding insight into the whole terrible miasma.
He must have seen the lightning flash of cognisance, because, as though already accused, he shifted uneasily, one enormous hand twitching faintly like an elephant’s liver.
Suddenly he heaved his vast bulk from the chair, moving surprisingly slowly for such a fat man, and with a horrible bellow leapt from the balcony, like some agonized pachyderm, his vast bulk crashing through the matchwood verandah, splintering it like so much matchwood.
A startled shriek, a horrible cry and then a ghastly thud as his vast bulk hurtled through the pavement ten stories below into the local subway system, smashing through the roof of a passing train and squashing a German ourist who was in the process of being mugged for the second time that day.
A siren howled mournfully in the night.
I wiped the beads of sweat from my panting brow and with some difficulty eased my vast bulk from the sofa. I walked to the telephone and dialled.
“Yes?”.
“It is done,” I said .
“Sorry, wrong number.”
I dialled again.
“Hello?”
“It is done,” I said.
“Well I’m very glad dear, but it’s still a wrong number. Wait a moment, is that you Henry? Stop playing silly buggars, I mean honestly.”
I hung up wordlessly, cursing my lack of combative vocabulary and the vast bulk of my fingers, so unfitted to the mundane task of accurate dialling.
I rang room service.
“Lord Mortimer Trench here, room 711. Send up a lot of anything with saturated fats.”
I settled my vast bulk down to contemplate the Bangkok skyline, on the tattered poster of Thailand hanging on the stained wall.
“Yes?”.
“It is done,” I said .
“Sorry, wrong number.”
I dialled again.
“Hello?”
“It is done,” I said.
“Well I’m very glad dear, but it’s still a wrong number. Wait a moment, is that you Henry? Stop playing silly buggars, I mean honestly.”
I hung up wordlessly, cursing my lack of combative vocabulary and the vast bulk of my fingers, so unfitted to the mundane task of accurate dialling.
I rang room service.
“Lord Mortimer Trench here, room 711. Send up a lot of anything with saturated fats.”
I settled my vast bulk down to contemplate the Bangkok skyline, on the tattered poster of Thailand hanging on the stained wall.
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
Two Twits Talking
TWO TWITS LOOKING AT EACH OTHER JUST BEFORE TALKING
“‘Squinder’. Is there such a word, I wonder, as ‘squinder’?”
“'Squinder'? Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Well there should be, it’s a very sensible sounding sort of word.”
“I agree, another unfortunate shortcoming in the English language. Mark you, one could also say the same thing about ‘glank’.”
“Yes ‘glank’ is a good word too. Could one though, I wonder, let’s say in a parallel universe, ‘squinder’ one’s ‘glank’?”
“Hmm, intriguing. Yes I suppose there must be at least one parallel universe out of all the googols of possible ones, where it would be quite normal to squinder one’s glank.”
“Yes, it would probably be expected.”
“People might even be disappointed if one didn’t. They’d say, blast another glank unsquindered, what is this generation coming to?”
“'Squinder'? Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Well there should be, it’s a very sensible sounding sort of word.”
“I agree, another unfortunate shortcoming in the English language. Mark you, one could also say the same thing about ‘glank’.”
“Yes ‘glank’ is a good word too. Could one though, I wonder, let’s say in a parallel universe, ‘squinder’ one’s ‘glank’?”
“Hmm, intriguing. Yes I suppose there must be at least one parallel universe out of all the googols of possible ones, where it would be quite normal to squinder one’s glank.”
“Yes, it would probably be expected.”
“People might even be disappointed if one didn’t. They’d say, blast another glank unsquindered, what is this generation coming to?”
"Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation, what about the word ‘quilch’? Surely that’s deserving of a smidgeon of consideration?”
“Quilch? That's a stupid word.”
“Yes, pathetic, next you’ll be saying ‘snurd’ or’ blutterpooth.’”
“Or ‘cradgebasket’ or ‘twippy’. You can’t just say any word and expect it to be accepted.”
"Blicksnort.”
“Oh come on! Get a life.”
“No that’s my name, Blicksnort.”
“Quilch? That's a stupid word.”
“Yes, pathetic, next you’ll be saying ‘snurd’ or’ blutterpooth.’”
“Or ‘cradgebasket’ or ‘twippy’. You can’t just say any word and expect it to be accepted.”
"Blicksnort.”
“Oh come on! Get a life.”
“No that’s my name, Blicksnort.”
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Sex and how to Laugh at this Blogge
My wife Rolanda likes to laugh a lot, though I often don't get the joke.
********************************************************
(I put the word 'sex' in so you'd read this. I feel no shame)
********************************************************
Remember that every time you don't laugh, a fairy dies or a baby gets tooth-ache.
Even if you don't understand the joke make a ha ha noise, you can always work out what was Funny in later life, like once you're retired or in prison.
Even though Chortling in public may seem out of place, like at funerals, riots or book-burnings, go for it, you're only young once.
Cackling is for ducks only - although scientific experiments have so far failed to prove satisfactorily that they have a sense of humour. Or 'humor' if they're American.
It is often best to train with some low Snickers until you feel confident enough to build up to the full-blown Snigger.
A Guffaw in time saves nine. (nobody knows what this means)
Serial Gigglers be warned, in the present climate it is best done in the privacy of your own trailer.
Titters. (The less said about these the better.)
Next week - Clothing Tips
Helpless Hysteria – the pros and cons of the diaper. The controversy rages on.
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Cock and Bull Story
Me supporting my wife.
********************************
Trench chewed his lip nervously, things weren’t going at all well.
Jackie’s sex change operation had been a complete fiasco.
As soon as 'she', sorry, 'he', had returned from the clinic 'he' had walked proudly into the loo, unzipped the new addition to 'his' anatomy and taken a standup pee,
“I’ve been looking forward to this moment for years” he/she said.
It was at this seminal moment that Jacky, unused to this novel form of urination, had pulled a tad too hard and his/her brand new state-of-the-art penis had came off in his/her hand.
Jackie’s sex change operation had been a complete fiasco.
As soon as 'she', sorry, 'he', had returned from the clinic 'he' had walked proudly into the loo, unzipped the new addition to 'his' anatomy and taken a standup pee,
“I’ve been looking forward to this moment for years” he/she said.
It was at this seminal moment that Jacky, unused to this novel form of urination, had pulled a tad too hard and his/her brand new state-of-the-art penis had came off in his/her hand.
Trench will never forget the scream.
To make matters worse Jacky had involuntarily tightened his/her grip in shock with the result that the offending penis, lubricated with antibiotic cream by the clinic that very morning, had shot from his/her hand into the air, bounced off the mirror, ricochetted off the sink and flew down the toilet.
But what made matters much worse was that as Jacky had lunged to retrieve it he/she had inadvertantly pushed the handle and flushed the toilet.
Just when you thought that matters could not get any worse, Trench had then had to call the Emergency Services to rescue Jacky’s hand from the S bend where it had become inextricably stuck when he/she had done a desperate dive after the delinquent dick.
To procure Jacky another state of the art cock would cost a fortune. They had been very lucky with the previous one, one careful man/lady owner, hardly ever used and certainly not for sex, and in fact hardly even for urinating, as he/she had died of kidney failure. So they had bought it from the undertaker for a song .
“I wonder if we could attach a remote controlled dildoll?” Trench wondered. “Surely it would work on the same principle? Of course this time it’d have to be riveted on.”
The smirking firemen, who had spent an hour trying to pull Jacky free while making superhuman efforts not to giggle, finally gave up.
“Sorry sir, but we’ll have to smash the porcelain.” Said the Chief unsuccessfully trying to supress a grin.
Trench waved a weary hand in acquiescence.
The chief took a large sledge hammer and smote the S bend.
To make matters worse Jacky had involuntarily tightened his/her grip in shock with the result that the offending penis, lubricated with antibiotic cream by the clinic that very morning, had shot from his/her hand into the air, bounced off the mirror, ricochetted off the sink and flew down the toilet.
But what made matters much worse was that as Jacky had lunged to retrieve it he/she had inadvertantly pushed the handle and flushed the toilet.
Just when you thought that matters could not get any worse, Trench had then had to call the Emergency Services to rescue Jacky’s hand from the S bend where it had become inextricably stuck when he/she had done a desperate dive after the delinquent dick.
To procure Jacky another state of the art cock would cost a fortune. They had been very lucky with the previous one, one careful man/lady owner, hardly ever used and certainly not for sex, and in fact hardly even for urinating, as he/she had died of kidney failure. So they had bought it from the undertaker for a song .
“I wonder if we could attach a remote controlled dildoll?” Trench wondered. “Surely it would work on the same principle? Of course this time it’d have to be riveted on.”
The smirking firemen, who had spent an hour trying to pull Jacky free while making superhuman efforts not to giggle, finally gave up.
“Sorry sir, but we’ll have to smash the porcelain.” Said the Chief unsuccessfully trying to supress a grin.
Trench waved a weary hand in acquiescence.
The chief took a large sledge hammer and smote the S bend.
The porcelain shattered. Water flooded the floor. Jacky’s hand was free at last.
“I’ve got it!”
She was waving a small pink sausage-like thing in triumph.
“I caught my dick!”
The grins on the firemen’s faces slowly faded to disbelief, followed by stunned belief, followed by a mad rush through the front door, from whence could be heard the well known sounds of a group of smart-alec firemen throwing up in the front garden.
“Fetch the sewing kit dear, I’ll have it back on in a jiffy.” Said Jacky happily. “Whoopee, I can still become President.”
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
“I’ve got it!”
She was waving a small pink sausage-like thing in triumph.
“I caught my dick!”
The grins on the firemen’s faces slowly faded to disbelief, followed by stunned belief, followed by a mad rush through the front door, from whence could be heard the well known sounds of a group of smart-alec firemen throwing up in the front garden.
“Fetch the sewing kit dear, I’ll have it back on in a jiffy.” Said Jacky happily. “Whoopee, I can still become President.”
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Friday, 27 April 2007
'Woperson’s Lib Personifesto.'
Lady Adelina Trench and my wife. Guess which is witch.
Below is an excerpt from my novel:
"HOOTS or the Honorable Order of Treasure Seekers."
**************************************************
The first politically correct non-sexist woperson’s lib personifesto
By Lady Adelina Trench - Suffragette.
By Lady Adelina Trench - Suffragette.
Died 1912 after chaining herself in protest to the 'Titanic'
“The peopleace to us all is the typical huperson being’s lethargy that faces all new movepeoplets.
To propose an apeopledpeoplet against the existing laws on epersonipation is riskmonarch all.
All wopeople must make the ultimate sacrifice like it’soines. The age of ropersonce is past. We will childcott parliapeoplet!
We will fight all who stand in our way, from the Itbrides to Personhattan, from Ms.Issippi to Parentparentgascar.
Apeople.”
To propose an apeopledpeoplet against the existing laws on epersonipation is riskmonarch all.
All wopeople must make the ultimate sacrifice like it’soines. The age of ropersonce is past. We will childcott parliapeoplet!
We will fight all who stand in our way, from the Itbrides to Personhattan, from Ms.Issippi to Parentparentgascar.
Apeople.”
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
"Fuck!" is a word with which one should never begin a sentence.
This is me supported by my wife Rolanda.
"PSEUDONYMS"
Prologue
'Fuck!' is a word with which one should never begin a sentence, let alone a short story or a novel, reference book, or, God forbid, a religious tract. How can you follow it? But still 'Fuck!' is how I am intent on beginning this sentence, short story, novel, reference book, or religious tract, because, as you will see in a few seconds, it is the only possible word to use in the context.
But first the names. At all costs we must protect the names, otherwise there could well be incriminations of a serious nature and the someone who could be seriously incriminated would doubtless be me. So let’s find some really good believable pseudonyms. I’m normally not too good at this but here goes:
Plungeface Twatweed? Gorgonzola Petulant? Grobmaster Nippers Jnr? No, that there was a Grobmaster Nippers Senior might be asking too much of the reader’s goodwill. Snortletwerp Feeelingz? Who says you can’t have three e’s?
Rottweiler Tneap? Something double barrelled always adds a touch of class. Creosote Plough-Hinge? Gorgeous Neat-Rembler (hidden pun, that’s quite subtle) Tancredi Blodge-Chirping? Am I looking for male or female names? That’ll help narrow it down a bit.
Well Henry and Charles were blokes and Ethel was a female.
So two guys and a gal.
Norbert Masterspleen? Blister Jerbil the Third? Martita Titt-Titting. Overdose of tits. Martita Treadwell? Not bad, it’s the first one that’s anywhere near human. Let’s go with it for starters. So, Martita Treadwell.
Now the chaps – Sordid Bottletop? Ablution Dayweary? Argathon Pendips? Good if Charlie had Greek ancestry maybe, but as he didn’t we’ll move on with alacrity. Alacrity Speedfury? Tnid Gluppy? . I need a glass of water, best food for the brain they say. Walter Freakworthy? Blad Twig-Fumbler?
Hang on, Blad’s quite an original first name - it contains ‘bad’ and ‘lad’ and in fact ‘bad lad’ And with that hint of ‘bladder’ it also smacks of mortality.… Blad. Blad Trousers? Blad Pinkperson? Blad Corsico? Yes! I’ll go with that. So Martita Treadwell and Blad Corsico.
Now the last one, something slightly more sensitive sounding as for instance: Apparition Shymaster? Ephemeris Shadow? Frailty Possums? Quiver Wobble-Quake? You’re losing it, get a grip on yourself …. Agrippon Yossef? Joseph or how about Joe? That’s a manly name. Joe Crimea? Joe Gallipoli? Joe Russian Front ? Why wars all of a sudden? Come on you’ve nearly got it… Joe Juggins, Joe Juxta, Joe Kersall? Yes that’s good, another pun and it fits! Joe Kersall. So Martita Treadwell, Blad Corsico and Joe Kersall.
Now we can begin.
Chapter 1
“FUCK!” yelled Joe Kersall, Martita Treadwell and Blad Corsico as they fell off the cliff.
THE END
(See what I mean? It’s the only word)
©All rights reserved Julian Chagrin 2007
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