Do you know, I once worked with a woman who had met that twat, Adolf Hitler, and also Carlos Castaneda.
It’s a weirdly small world.

Thanks to the wisdom of elderly Lois a problem that has puzzled me for over forty years has been solved.

Please put your hands together and welcome Mr Adam Faith singing his hit song, ‘Lettuce, Tomato’.

Go for it, Adam…

As you know I cannily avoid paying for a telly licence by watching cookery programmes in a compluterisational way. But, Oh no, it’s happened again. Can you believe it?

After the misery of ‘One Woolwich ferry’ I was watching a cookery programme and to the same wretched tune and got caught in the maelstrom of Earworm Plus yet again.

This time it was even even worse.

The chef was talking about sugar and he said the horrible words, “some demerera".

Click.

‘Some demerera,
there’s only some demerera,
some demererahhhhh,
there’s only some demererahhhh’.

What on earth am I to do about this vile condition? I’m getting well cheesed with it.

I remember that in about 1966 there was this song on the radio and I can’t find it now but I think that the proper lyrics had something to do with ‘letters to Martha, letters to Martha’

I thought he was singing ‘Lettuce tomato, lettuce tomato’.

Well, I was only seven. Made sense to me. If someone wanted to make a record about lettuces and tomatoes then go ahead. Does anyone else remember this? Please put me out of my misery. It was a man singing it. I think it was about the time that ‘See Emily play’ came out. But I might be wrong.

What I’m going on about is the hair-don’t that is sported by members of boybands and lads of about twenty or so before their male pattern baldness kicks in.

Yes, you know the one that I mean. Have they got their head stuck in a tumble-drier or what?

It’s a sort of whiffy arrangement that you might see on a till-assistant where all their Barnet has been whipped around.

What on earth do they ask for at the barbershop? “Scuse me, but I want to look like like my head was made by Mr Whippy but don’t stick a flake in it".

FFS.

Hello!
Doc Holiday day today. He couldn’t wait to jab me with influenza germs. I can’t have the piggy flu one until next week. As it’s an I.M. jab they don’t let me do it myself although I have to do (tech term) skin-popping every day. Probably I shall spend the weekend feeling like the proverbial bag of.
I.M. and I.V. jabs I really hate.

This afternoon I had a visit. It was you-know-who.

I tore him off a right strip but then he went away to his beloved Woking. Poo, gosh, I can smell Woking. Last seen heading for the station with a can of Shrieking Witch in hand.

Mebbe I shall spend the rest of the day in darkness and listen to the wireless.

He said he was sorry but saying that is not a ‘Get out of jail free’ card.

Have a good one!

I blame IRN BRU for TXT SPK.

As you can probably tell, I have gone a bit Sundays mad.

I like this video because it reminds me of the Navigation. Locking. Dropping down all that way. I would not do it for fun and I tell you that for nothing. I have been under a boat and I wouldn’t go into a lock with two boats in it for all the tea in far Cathay. It doesn’t matter who has fallen in. You are much better off running about with a boathook and pole and if someone gets crushed they shouldn’t have fallen in in the first place. So long as you stay on the boat and don’t start poking your limbs over the side you should make it. Start going over or swimming near the prop or anything daft and then that’s when the trouble starts.

I have got over being furious. I’m just sort of mid-angry now.

When I think about it, there is nothing that I have done that is what I would consider ‘WRONG’.

Maybe it’s about time I went to bed.

People of a certain age, I’m sure, must be like me. As you know I listen to the wireless all the time but I only have to hear the name “Gordon Brown” and my brain goes ‘texture like sun’. It’s just automatic.

Lately I have developed another one. The traffic reports out of London always filter through even though I haven’t been there for years and couldn’t care less if it got flattened. There are a few paintings that I would miss and I wouldn’t like to think of Trouty’s or my aunt’s houses getting involved but I still listen to the traffic reports. Usually this is because I want to know what’s going on at junction 10 on the Motorway 25.

Now it’s the blinking ferry. It goes across the Thames from sort of Greenwich and is operated by two separate ferries that ply back and forth. Have you seen where this is going yet?

Well, on the wireless the traffic lady often says that there is a problem with the Woolwich ferry and owing to technical difficulties there is only one Woolwich ferry (today there weren’t any - they had both bust).

“One Woolwich ferry…”

(Brane engages and clicks body back into life)

‘there’s only one Woolwich ferry,
one Woolwich ferrrry,
there’s only one Woolwich ferrry…’

This is sung to the tune of Quanto de la Merdo or whatever it’s called.

Now I didn’t ask for this and I don’t like it but it just happens.

If you don’t like me you might be pleased to know that I have had a fairly bollocks day. My neighbour, Mani, called round to see if I was alright and took away two great big bags of rubbish which made me feel ashamed. Later I found out that someone who should know better had been going about calling me a “shit” and saying that we had fallen out. It wasn’t true then but it bloody well is now.

I’ve been using my breadmaker again and I think I’ll try to take a loaf to Buffs every week with a little extra from the SooperDooperMarket. I only make savoury breads so this time I went for thyme, cumin, poppy seeds and mustard. It does smell nice. I popped in a tin of soup to dunk it in. I don’t know whether anyone has eaten any of this stuff yet; they probably throw it out of the car window on their way home.

Guess what. At Buffs this evening I got a charge stuck on me and I am the City Constable (until next month). The charge was that I had ‘Impoverished a fellow and elderly Brother’. What had actually happened was this Brother I had espied doing handbrake turns and breaking the speed limit in his electronical go-kart and I offered to help him with his shopping in case he wanted a 5kg box of Omo off a top shelf. He stopped at the bananananas and chose two whopping great blackened and bruised ones. I said “Oi! No! You don’t want to have those manky things, Have these three small yellow ones”

I got found Not Guilty and he’s still got a banananana left. Ruddy pensioners.

There was a time, a while ago, when I made something up and it has now become common parlance. Never mind my intellectual copyright. I don’t know if it got copied by a paper because I don’t waste my hard-scrounged money on ‘em. What I did was refer to Mr T. Bliar as ‘Teflon Tony’ because nothing ever seemed to stick to him. It must have been quite late because I think it was Clive Bull that I telephoned. Since that day I have heard my joke referred to about once a week and I heard it again today. I don’t particularly mind as imitation is flattery (usually).

Now I’ve got another one. I want this in writing with the date and time on it. You know them PCSOs that wander about? Well, I refer to them as ‘Happy Shopper Coppers’.

For the benefit of Amerikalanders and those who do not pay attention I should explain that a PCSO is a Police Community Support Officer. This means that they are not a proper Policeperson (modern lingo) but they hang about telling 11 yearolds not to smoke crack in the shopping centre and have absolutely zero powers. ‘Happy Shopper’ meanwhile refers to a generic brand of goods bought from a cash and carry and flogged in corner shops. You can get Happy Shopper matches and washing-up liquid and biscuits and is the kind of hallmark which means ‘crappy’.

So, that’s my joke. ‘Happy Shopper Copper’.

I think the letter ‘P’ should be removed and that would save 25% on tunic labelling. And they shouldn’t be dressed up as attempted policepersons either. If they want to support the community that’s all well and good but they should be dressed in white or green or something.

Another attempt to impersonate the Constabulary is the ‘Special Police’. They have ‘Special’ written on the arms of their tunics but I like to think that it kind of means ‘Special Needs’. Tourists often think that means that these people are a bit more special than ordinary policepersons but in fact they are entirely voluntary and don’t they just show it.

At Brixton I was wandering about in the factory and one of my favourite sergeants said “Oi, Joe” (see, I’ve got a lot of names and I’ve been called a few more besides) “come and have a look at this!”

It was a crime-sheet that had been written out by two Specials. Oh deary me.

This sergeant was also responsible for a great gag. Some engineer had come round to see about installing some air-con or something and he had drawn some squares which were all cross-hatched and contained the word VENT in different places in the Comms Room. It didn’t take long before someone with a matching pen added a few more. Then, when my relief were off-duty (thank goodness) a builder type bloke came round and smashed holes through all the bits of wall that were marked VENT. One particular one was the one that went straight through the back of the secure property cupboard where all the drugs and flick-knives and stuff were kept.

Sometimes, on a night-duty, I used to stick my beak into the CID offices and all the usual stuff was there. Ashtrays and cold coffees and Scotch in the filing cabinets (this was getting on for 30 years ago). All the crime-sheets that had been completed went through these offices to see if anyone could be arsed to have a look at them. They used to photocopy some of the most crap ones and pin them on the noticeboard. I particularly remember one which read something like ‘records stolen by Cliff Richard and Rod Stewart’. Well, at least we knew who we were looking for.

At this time I was living in a section house up Newington Butts way. Funny name but it’s where people were compelled to pratice archery and hence the name. Just down the road from the Elephant and Castle which is a corruption of Infanta de Castille. I used to love my history up there.

It was quite a good place to live (except for one of the two times that I nearly got shot) and if you were to lie in the bath with your head underwater you could hear the tube trains going past a long way down. Oh, and where I got bottled and had my cheekbone broken in three places.

In the basement was a sort of ironing and locker room. I was down there one day tending my bicycle (Holdsworth Elan) and I found a pair of gigantic underpants. Big white ones. I made haste to show my colleague, Worzel, what I had discovered. He said that we could have some fun with these massive knickers and rushed to the shop to buy a Mars bar.
When he returned the Mars was applied, most lavishly, to the gusset of said pants.

Then we went to the canteen. The staff of the canteen were all black. You will see why I mention this in a minute or two. Worzel asked Grace if she knew how he could get his pants clean because he had an inspection in the morning. Then he picked off a bit of chocolate and ate it and she was nearly sick. We ran away and hid.

At Brixton there was a DC that Worzel didn’t like. I won’t type his name but Worzel wrote his name in Biro on the inside of the elasticated band of the above-mentioned underpants. Now, this DC was on holiday for a fortnight so, on nights, we went into the CID office and hung them, inside-out, on the coat hooks. The pants stayed there for about two weeks and five seconds when he got back to work.

In the Police FORCE (not Service) there is a very strange vein of humour. It’s not exactly funny but, at the same time, it’s the funniest job that I have ever had. After all the stress that you are under a very strange humour level developes. You laugh at death and you laugh with life. The first dead body that I ever saw was a murder victim. You can’t start crying.

One day I had a weekend off and you only got one once a month unless it was cancelled. As I recall it was about 8 in the morning and I was walking across the road to my car as I was planning a visit to the maternal home. There was a monumental BANG and I looked down the road but I couldn’t see anything so I started running. The section was built on a corner and when I got to the top of the road I was outside the canteen windows. There was a (I think) Mark 3 Cortina driven straight into the front of a 7.5 tonne lorry. I was the first one there. The impact speed must have been about 50 to 80 mph.

The lorry driver was walking so I didn’t bother about him. The canteen windows had started to open. The section house is full of working officers but at that time on a Saturday lots of them will have been asleep after nights or at work or gone away. I checked the car over. The family inside were black (I’m not a racist, it’s just why I mentioned colour above) and looking inside I reckoned the driver was either dead or dying and the woman in the passenger seat didn’t look too good either.

In the back of the car I found a little girl. She must have been about three but if she’s still alive she must be thirty or so by now. She hadn’t been in a kiddy-seat so I reckon she must have hit the back of the passenger seat and then bounced back. So I’ve got dead bloke, dying woman and screaming kid all covered in blood to deal with.

I gave this child the once over (I’m not bad at first-aid) and lifted her out of the car and handed her through the window to the canteen staff. It’s funny how your brain goes into automatic; it’s the training I suppose.

By then there were coppers jumping out of windows to get there. It was the second worst accident that I have ever seen. I did what I thought was right at the time. The last thing that that little girl needed was a load of beefy white blokes all over her. I do think of her from time to time and I hope that she is alright - the canteen staff will have looked after her, of that I’m sure.

Sometimes things aren’t very funny.

No, I’m not talking about compluter hackers, I’m talking about coughs.

At Thirst Hall the superstructure seems to be made, largely, of a mixture of cardboard and tissue paper - that’s how posh I am.

My favourite neighbours, as regular readers will well know, are The Creeper and the newly installed Mrs Creeper. Mrs Creeper has had a bit of a cough for a few weeks and thanks to the excellent transmission quality of the walls, floors, blah-de-blah, I could tell it was a cough of the feminine kind. I can’t say that I was exactly sorry because it was her that let the bath overflow and caused water to drip through my bathroom light fitting.

Then, the other day, I heard more hacking but this was of the male kind. I strongly suspect that during their no doubt juicy lovemaking procedures she had passed on her ovine/bovine/porcine influenza to drainage expert Mr Creeper himself.

Sometimes I wonder about myself. Am I harsh? Do I care? Is there really a God that wreaks revenge?

On a lighter note, I bumped into some neighbours that I do particularly like. They asked me whethether I had heard the news (which I hadn’t). They are moving to Finsbury Park in Norf Lahndon and invited me to a goodbye drink on Bonfire Night. I pointed out to them that Finsbury Park backwards is Krapy Rub Snif.

Well, I used to live in Lahndon and you got to edjercate people, ain’tcher?

“Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take ‘em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. “

“Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s lonely man… “

“I still can’t sleep. Damn. Days go on and on. They don’t end.”

I was trawling through the wisdom of Travis Bickle from, of course, the film, ‘Taxi Driver’.
My attention was drawn to a lunatic at the station and that’s why I started to think about the rain. He went on and on and after about 90 minutes of him shouting I called 999.

Two cars arrived but they didn’t nick him. Thanks to my expert description they had him straight away. Some you win and some you lose.

Someday a real rain will come.

.

I was watching Eggheads round at Vodka Mick’s Mum and Dad’s house the other day. I knew most of the answers before the selections came up.

In Private Eye they have a little thingy dedicated to daft answers. i.e.:
Q: What was Hitler’s first name?
A: Heil

Anyway, I was going to tell you a really funny thing but I can’t remember what it was (I have got brain atrophy) but I did do a funny one at Buffs the other night. They were were talking about a widow of a brother who had gone before and she had trouble with a door. So this bloke turned up to see about it but he said ‘I’m only a plumber’ so I said ‘Yeah, but there might have have been a tap on the door’.

See what I did there?

Then someone else said he ’should faucet’.

My joke was quicker though (although it was ripped from Les Dawson).

There was something I was going to tell you but I can’t remember, for the life of me, what it was.

Lah la…

The clocks go back soonish.

This is how I feel - Thanks Beatles.

“Your day breaks, your mind aches
You find that all her words of kindness linger on
When she no longer needs you

She wakes up, she makes up
She takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry
She no longer needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years

You want her, you need her
And yet you don’t believe her when she says her love is dead
You think she needs you

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years

You stay home, she goes out
She says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s gone
She doesn’t need him

Your day breaks, your mind aches
There will be times when all the things she said will fill your head
You won’t forget her

And in her eyes you see nothing
No sign of love behind the tears
Cried for no one
A love that should have lasted years”

For No One.
That’s just how I feel today. I’ve tried a few things but nothing fills the hole in my life. It’s Cathy that I miss. Now I will never see her again but no one will ever be the same as her.

Cath, please remember me as I remember you. If you ever read this be sure that I think of you.

Take care,
H.

(Meanwhile, upstairs, the dope-smoking, bath-overflowing, new Mrs Creeper is coughing her lungs up. This has been going on for several satisfactory days. I would advise haggis manufacturers to call at their earliest opportunity.)

Owing to popular demand I have decided to release a picture of some of the injuries I received in my most recent fall.

No. It is NOT a picture of my bumcrack. Mine is rather peachy and would probably make the World Wide Wait explode with the number of hits it got. No, this is a picture of my mid-thighs from when I went over the, ahem, ’safety’ rail on the Waltzer at the Unfair and bent it most considerably (and then got told to eff off).

The bruise is about mid-way between my knee and my hip so you can tell how high that rail of safety was. Luckily I only fell about five feet and landed on an unimportant part of my face. Don’t worry, gurls, because I have decided to be asexual so I don’t have to worry about going out on the pull (just like the last decade) so my once pretty features can take a fair bit of bashing. The nose things on my specs need a bit of rebending though.

As I am in a generous mood I shall let you all in on my secret recipe for my breadmaking machine. I use the white bread recipe but I add an extra teaspoon of yeast, a tablespoon of poppy seeds and a full teaspoon of good old mustard powder. Mmmmm, it tastes lovely and that’s how come my thighs look so delish. Not like bumcheeks at all. Oh, and it’s one third brown flour - nearly forgot.

Must dash; doc’s in the morning.

There is photographic evidence of the injuries I suffered at the Unfair. Unfortunately the picture doesn’t look like bruised thighs; it looks like a bum-crack.

Anyway, I’ve been making bread again and I have a secret recipe. It’s a savoury bread and should be good with ham, cheese or bacon sarnies or maybe with a Ploughman’s.

It’s good to have a secret recipe.

Shall I tell you?

No.

They are here again so lock up your garden sheds and hide your generators.

I went out with Mick today and made 6 quids on the windlass that I magged up recently. Then we went to dig up the bottle that I had had my eye on but it turned out to be rubbish. I found a decent, if filthy, mooring line in some debris and handed it over to Terry who still has a boat.

After a quart at The Pelican we made our way back home.

The Unfair was still on in the field by New Haw lock and Mick really wanted to have a go seeing as he used to be, ahem, a Fairground Worker. No, I didn’t say thieving p**ey at all.

We went on this thing that went round and round and then we went to have a go on the Whizzer or something. I got told that I couldn’t take my backpack on the ride and that they would look after it. Yeah. Right.

Having chosen to keep my belongings I chose not to ride. Then we had a hotdog. £2.50, I ask you.

Then we went on the Waltzer.

The Waltzer is supposed to make you feel all giddy and dizzy and all that. It certainly worked. After the ride I made my way towards the steps but failed to see the, ahem, ’safety’ barrier as it must have been made out of Meccano. I walked staight through it and landed on my face about six foot down. Mick made sure I was alright but I still had one boot jammed in the steps.

The helpful assistant didn’t ask me if I needed an ambulance or anything. No, he told us to FUCK OFF! and started pointing at his bent up rails. Looking back I realised that I had made quite an impression on them.

We laughed about it all the way home.

Having just coughed nigh on 80 quids on utility bills I feel a bit sick.

Just as soon as I have a couple of quids in the bank it all goes away again and I don’t know which tree they think this money grows on but I wish they would tell me.

The wireless is full of ‘getting sickies to work’ but as I am now am a disabled and over 50 I don’t suppose I’ll be first on the hunting list. But I thought about it.

My good idea is apiary. That’s right, beekeeping. If it was good enough for Sherlock Holmes then it’s good enough for me. The honey-bee is under attack from disease and from neonicotinoid pesticides and when they all die, according to Albert Einstein, the entire human race will have but four years to live. Four years and then we are all dead. That’s it. The End.

However, as a disabled, I reckon I could do a bit of beekeeping.

I was going to buy a new wristwatch (as mine has decided to be broken) or go away and hide over Crimbo but maybe I’ll buy a hive.

Best I do some reading up, eh?

As any fule kno…

Nigel Molesworth

Anyway, as I was saying, as any fule kno it is part of my Civic Duties as Official Parish Nuisance to listen to the wireless at all times. I listen to LBC 97.3 and my brane seems to connect with the travel reports. This is a bit weird seeing as how I haven’t owned a car since 1991 and haven’t driven one since 1997.

But the travel reports seep in and I’m caught, nearly every day by something along the lines of “…and massive tailbacks, anticlockwise, from junction 10 at Wisley because a car has turned over on the sliproad to the A3 and is spinning around on its roof. The air-ambulance is trying to land but traffic is backed-up to junction 14…”

Or

“…two lorries have crashed at junction 10 and traffic has backed-up to Gatwick. There is a spilled load of milk and one of the vehicles has split a fuel tank so the entire motorway will have to be resurfaced. Motorists are advised to take the A3 and then A31 along the Hog’s Back and may God have mercy on you all…”

Now, is it just me being sensitive to reports about a junction that I know well or is junction 10 on the Motorway 25 really one of the most dangerous places in the world?

You know, I always thought that I was six foot tall. Vodka Mick maintains that HE is six foot tall but when we stand together I am probably two inches taller than him. So either I am 6′2″ or he is telling porkies again.

Now then, usually I stumble about with my head bent and that’s how come I don’t tread in dogplop and I manage to find 18C pipes and live .38 rounds on the towpath. It’s part of my job as being a Parish Nuisance and telling people off for not locking properly. Honestly, a clove-hitch isn’t difficult.

This very evening I thought I had better go to the SooperDooperMarket and as I was plodding along I saw two scummers on the other side of the road. One of them had a run at me so I stood up straight. I also have the security of knowing that I have a razor in my bag.

He got half way across the road and then he retreated.

After I had been to the shop I went to walk home and who should I see loafing about? That’s right, the scummers. Now I have been trying the Will Self stare and I try to combine it with my own ‘dead eye’ look. I drew in my breath and pulled myself up to whatever my 6 foot plus might be. Killing people with your eyeballs is rather fun.

I saw (and I’m not joking) them look at each other and then they sort of disolved and melted away into the darkness. Maybe it’s what I used to do but I’m not actually scared of anyone. I have a head like a lighthouse and a razorblade. In the past I got my nose broken and, much later, got hit with something that broke my cheekbone in three places. I think it was a bottle that didn’t break.

A few months ago I was introduced to someone in a pub. ‘He’s a murderer’, like I was supposed to be scared. I said hello and asked him about his tatts. They weren’t coloured in and he explained to me all about them.

I’m glad to be 6 foot and maybe a bit and I’m glad that I don’t flinch. I might well be a disabled but I’ve got the stare and still look as if I could do you some damage. Ho hum…

Way back in the seventies, when I was 15, I hitched round France. I had a road map and a rucksack and got tipped out of the car by my parents on the grounds that I would see them in a week or two and then they roared off and left me in the middle of nowhere.

The first thing that I did was smoke a fag that I had cunningly bought on the ferry. Then I had to make my way to the Route National 10. I got stuck at Tours for seven hours. I got fed up and started to read my book and I wasn’t even hitching but a car stopped and I got in. I wanted to get to Poitiers to the Youth Hostel. We were going along, this bloke and me, and I realised that we were going down some backroads. “To tell ze truth", he said, “Ah am a ‘omosexual". I had a rather nice sheath knife attached to my belt on my left-hand side. I wondered if I would ever see Mummy again. It turned out that he had seen me hitching and gone away and turned around and come back to pick me up. That nice man got me to the hostel ten minutes before it shut for the night.

Those French; it’s like they have a different word for everything and I sort of wished that I had paid more attention at skool. One day, when it was hot and I was really thirsty I saw an old man tending his garden plants. I asked him if I might have a glass of water. He looked at me in a most suspicious way. He asked if I was German. I assured him that no, no I was Anglais. His eyes lit up and he gave me water and we bade each other a bon day.

I beat my parents to the Dordogne.

This was where I met Jaki Whitren:

This was when her song, ‘Give them a day’, was Tony Blackburn’s record of the week. I was SO in love with her - she must have been about 23 or so. She was beautiful and I actually went to her house in Brantome and sat about in the garden singing with her.

Scotty from Americaland told me how the video was recorded. The microphone that she thinks she is singing into is dead and the vocals come through that spit-filter thingy and are picked up by the very expensive mic behind.

On the way home I got picked up by a French couple near Chartres and in the morning I was listening to Bob Dylan in the kitchen with the man and his missus came down the stairs with nothing on. Nude French bird! Hoorah!

I got a lift off an English couple who took me back over the channel on the condition that they could have my duty-frees. They dropped me at East Ham.

When I eventually got home my mother told me that I smelled and I went and played ‘Isn’t it nice to be home again’ by James Taylor.

And that’s what I did on my holidays about a million years ago.

There were things that I had to do today. Therefore I did none of them. I wasn’t feeling all that great and the weather looked like it might wazz down at any second. But, hold on there, I needed to get to Maddlestone to show my paperwork relating to me being a disabled.

Problem.

Ah, but what is this? A telephone, you say. I wonder if it works.

‘Hello housing benefit person, glad you can help me because I am a disabled and I don’t want to get in trouble for not telling you but I’m not going out today or any other day if I can help it.’

The nice lady that I spoke to told me that she would look into my case and give me a bell back. And she did. And she told me what I should be paying my landlord which is 20 quids less than I have been paying. She checked all the info that I had given her and now I don’t have to go to Maddlestone after all. I still have to pay a monkey a year on the council tax but it’s all swings and roundabouts I suppose.

Then I thought I would chance my arm and try to get a bus-pass on account of being a disabled.

‘Hello Council Person, I’m wondering if I could have a bus-pass please thank you?’

‘Why do you want one?’

‘Because I am a disabled and it will help me broaden my horizons.’ Why the flying fuck they think I might want a bus-pass apart from going somewhere on a bus is beyond me.

Now I could tell that I wasn’t speaking to a doctor, not even one as good as me, so I just read out a paragraph from the DWP letter that awarded me raspberry status.

She said that she would send me a form and that it would have to be signed by ’someone in authority’. Like who? Seeing as how I used to be a copper and could have sticked her and thrown her into the back of a van I wasn’t sure how authoritarian she wanted me to get. We settled on Doc Holiday but I won’t be seeing him for a fortnight due to his scaffolding/lawnmower crisis.

Then I enjoyed watching The Sundays. I can’t embed this but have a try at this:

Summertime.

I’m quite worn out now.

Nighty night.

A little while ago I notified someone of a version of this song by John Martyn. Well, he is a man and so am I but the original is very womanly.

The album version has pops and clicks overlaid so that it sounds like vinyl but this is a live version. One of my all-time faves.

Laydees and gennelmen, please put your hands togethether and welcome Portishead doing Glory Box (and seek out the John Martyn version if you have a chance):

Lovely.

I was of a mind to call this piece, ‘Manual Evacuation’ but only the nursing sorority would get it and it’s not that funny either. Anyhow, the Dept. of W. and P. have come to their senses and I am now DISABLED.

Now all I have to do is disable myself all the way to Addlestone and hand in some bits of paper. I might even get a bus pass.

My new router has only disconnected once this evening so things are looking up. 18:25 and it went down half way through my last blog so I phoned AOHell (yet again) and they still want to send an engineer into my home. Ah, but I don’t want them to. They asked me to knock up the neighbours and ask if they have any bonkers home-made tellies or Crimbo lights or shite like that. Well, I don’t really get on with upstairs (overflowing bath and 02:00 pissed-up disco) or next door (dog the size of a Shetland pony and rather rude) so I maintained that I wouldn’t be doing that.

Fingers crossed.

Today was Doc Holiday day so I made sure I was up early. I had two large espressos and a bacon sandwich before taking my seat in the waiting room. I always sit in the same seat (OCD) and get there half an hour early. He prescribed me some, ahem, bottom medicine and some double rations of the usual because, guess what, he is on holiday next week. He’s not going anywhere; he’s just tarting up his mansion. The scaffolding has to come down so his gardener can drive his lawnmower in. I do love him but some of this stuff you couldn’t make up.

Buffaloes went well this week and I highly recommend the fraternity. Sorry, ladies but you aren’t allowed. I made a couple of charges and had one stuck on me. All lodges seem to be a bit short of members but all you have to do is ask - it’s not like the Masons.

That’s about all the news I have for now so, until we meet again, cheroooooodles!

Sorry to have been away for so long. I’ve been ill and so has my Fisher Price wind-up compluter (7.99).

Anyway, I’ve got a new router now so let’s see how long it takes me to break this one.

When I was loafing about in the SooperDooperMarket the other day I heard the remark quoted in the title of this piece.

The soothing sounds came from another aisle so I wasn’t sure which particular child it was aimed at. Now then, I’m a deadbeat Dad but as far as I recall I never spoke to either of my children like that (they may disagree). It’s true that I used to make them go into sweetshops and I would say ‘And what is confectionery, children?’ and they would have to reply, ‘The work of the devil, Father’.

Well, you have to have a laugh, don’tcha?

‘Shut up or I’ll wring your neck’ seems a bit OTT for my liking, but there you go.

I remember pushing the lad about in a pushchair thingy when he was about 18 months old. He had taught himself the alphabet (in capitals) by watching Blockbusters but I only found this out when he started chucking all the Boggle dice everywhere. Anyway, we were in Smiths and I was looking at the books and when I was pushing him along he was going ‘Oscar Wilde, Chatterton…’ because he recognised books that we already had at home. A woman came up to me and said, ‘Scuse me, but I’m a teacher and I’ve never seen anything like this before’. I said to the lad, ‘What’s the capital of Outer Mongolia’ and he said ‘Ulan Batar’. She nearly fell over.

My compluter is playing up again so bye for now.