No Comment

Motoring, hmm… I got done for speeding the other week. I was doing 79mph on a motorway with a 70mph limit.
     OK, so it was a fair cop.
     But the government is considering putting the speed limit up to 80mph in the near future. Better still, I have it on good authority that most police forces ignore anyone doing under 80mph.
     Some people might think that the person who decided to prosecute me, for doing less that 80, is a bit of a git…. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Normally, if you are caught speeding, you get fined £60 and 3 points on your licence. But nowadays they have this new thing where you can either pay the fine and get the points or opt to pay £85 and go on a Speed Awareness course – to be ‘Educated.’ I opted for the course.
     Some people might think that ‘Educating’ those who have strayed off the path of righteousness sounds a bit North Korean… I couldn’t possibly comment.

That brings me to the point. The penalty for speeding is £60 and a black mark on your soul. But if you opt to be ‘Educated’ and cough-up £85, your soul is unblemished. 
     Some people might think that by slipping the hierarchy an extra £25 your licence gets protected… I couldn’t possibly comment. 

Talking of motoring, reminds me… The car park in our local supermarket used to be easy on the eye. All the bays were bordered by bushes and greenery and stuff.
    Then a committee of wise men decided that the shrubs were harbouring rats, so they cut them down. You can’t argue with that.

But they’ve got half a dozen recycling skips in that same car park. Very environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, these skips don’t get emptied often enough. But the bold recycling addicts are not put off by that. They just keep piling their new rubbish on top of the old, overflowing, rubbish. So the whole area ends up looking like a Chinese landfill site.

Guess what? The bush-rats moved across to the skips. In retaliation, the wise have men put rat poison down. So, instead of bush-rats and skip-rats we have dead-rats. Here’s one…

     Some people might think that the wise men are tackling the wrong rodents… I couldn’t possibly comment.

Stray thought

Sometimes I wish I was a tomcat and didn’t give a shit.

Little Hodiaki

The American teacher said, ‘Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said “Give me Liberty, or give me Death?”’

She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Little Hodiaki a bright foreign exchange student from Japan, who had his hand up: ‘Patrick Henry, 1775,’ he said.

'Very good! Who said, “Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the Earth?”’

Again, no response except from Little Hodiaki, 'Abraham Lincoln, 1863.'

'Excellent!', said the teacher continuing, 'let's try one a bit more difficult. Who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?”’

Once again, Hodiaki's was the only hand in the air and he said: 'John F. Kennedy, 1961'.

The teacher snapped at the class, 'Class, you should be ashamed of yourselves, Little Hodiaki isn't from this country and he knows more about our history than you do.'

She heard a loud whisper: 'Fuck the Japs.'

'Who said that? I want to know right now!' she angrily demanded.

Little Hodiaki put his hand up, 'General MacArthur, 1945.'

At that point, a student in the back said, 'I'm gonna puke.'

The teacher glared around and asks, 'All right! Now! Who said that!?'

Again, Little Hodiaki said, 'George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.'

Now furious, another student yelled, 'Oh yeah? Suck this!'

Little Hodiaki jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouted to the teacher, 'Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!'

Now with almost mob hysteria someone said, 'You little shit. If you say anything else, I'll kill you.'

Little Hodiaki frantically yelled at the top of his voice, "Michael Jackson to the child witness testifying against him, 2004.'

The teacher fainted.

As the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, 'Oh shit, We're screwed!'

Little Hodiaki whispered, ‘The Scottish rugby team, 2011

aW

Health Matters

aW

Fitness tip: If it’s a muscle, exercise it. If it’s a joint, stretch it. If it’s neither, play with it.

aW

A researcher in Cardiff has found that cockles and mussels never develop arthritis of the hip and knee. He advises sufferers to switch to a plankton diet.

aW

My Hols 2011

                                                 alpW

                                           My Hols 2011
                                                        
                                                    Spring

I get up early and have a quick coffee. That’s breakfast, nothing more. We’re off down the motorway in a couple of hours and I don’t want to keep skidding into service areas for a toilet-emergency. Ever since I changed to drinking wine and whisky my bladder’s lost its elasticity. It used have a couple of gallon capacity when I was a beer guzzler. You go downhill if you don’t practice.

It’s hot today, hot and dry, one of those spring heat waves we get every second millennium. I’ve dumped the cases in the boot and I’m pacing up and down the hall, waiting for Liz. I told her we should leave at noon and she’s working to that. She’s a trooper, Liz. Tell her noon and noon it is. Not a minute late. Not a minute early; emphasis on the latter.

The trouble is, the rules have changed over the last couple of days. I didn’t arrange this holiday so I’m not in on the nitty-gritty. The thing is, we’re going off to a narrow boat on the River Wey. That’s Godalming way. There will be eight of us on the boat. Eight people, that is, and two dogs. Big dogs, like an Old English Sheep Dog that thinks it’s still on the farm and keeps herding everything that moves into one confined space then guarding the escape route, growling like a lion and displaying a set of choppers the size of elephant’s tusks. The other hound is bigger still, a designer breed, Labradoodle, with a head the size of Birkenhead and a mouth like a Great White, lovingly blessed with a voracious appetite. This one’s friendly enough, but could accidently demolish a house or sink a ship with its massive crocodile tail which forever shoots back and fore like a Flying Shuttle. The eight other sardines, selected for the tin, are six adults and two kids, Charlie, nine, and Isobel, six.

When I say the rules have changed I mean the ‘feedback to me’ has changed. The actual rules have stayed the same, but I didn’t know them till yesterday. Originally, they told me the boat was available from 2.30pm onwards. Good. In my little dream that meant that Diz, Dan and the kids would arrive in one car, with Dougle, the Labradoodle. And Jon and Sylvia would arrive in another car, along with Ulf, the OESD. As one, they would sign for the boat, memorise the rules and get things ship-shape. Then, in the fullness of time, Liz and I, both in our dotage, would turn up, and the boat would glide gracefully down-river like a swan at sunset.
Then, yesterday, Jon informed me that we all have to be there at 2.30 on the dot for the briefing and handover. It transpires that we all have to tick all the boxes for Health and Safety and all that jazz. So now we need to leave home around 10.30 so… ‘Come on Liz!’

We’ve arrived at the river-berth on time, 2.30. Diz and Dan are already aboard. Sylvia and Jon are unpacking their car and humping stuff along the path. The boat’s called the Snow Goose. She’s the longest vessel on the Wey with only inches to spare as she goes through the locks, all 16 of them. But she’s narrow. Looking down from a bridge she looks like a piece of coloured rope.

God, I’m thirsty. I’ve not had a drink since 7.30am. And it’s hot out here in the sun, waiting for the man to come and give us a briefing. I’m dehydrating so I’ll nip into that café and grab a coffee. ‘Damn!’ I can’t. The man’s arrived and he’s going to start the lecture. He’s telling us all about it now, rattling on about pumps… toilets… water… locks… gates… fire hydrants… oil… and on… and on. I hope the others know what he’s saying ‘cos I’m still pondering the first pump. The memory’s not what it was and my concentration span is in the goldfish league, and I’m hot and I need a drink.

At last, he seems to have finished. Good. I’ll nip into the café. But no. Now he wants to give us a demonstration on the water. So, ‘Let go for’ard!’ as they say in the Sea Cadets.

The tuition’s finished now but there’s still no coffee. The boys are off to Sainsbury’s to get the supplies and the ladies are busy unpacking and I can’t find any stuff. Maybe a cup will appear at some stage. But it doesn’t. They’re itching to get down the water. So we’re all busy sorting stuff out and getting ship-shape.

Dan and Jon are back with the rations, which turn out to be beer, Becks, to be more accurate. I’m not a Becks drinker myself. But I am mad-thirsty so, ‘Down the hatch,’ and other nautical expressions.

We’re sailing merrily down the river now, Becks beer coming out of my ear holes. Now we tie up by a meadow in the middle of nowhere and settle down to the evening meal, lovingly prepared by the ladies and washed down with Becks beer.

Now they reveal the sleeping arrangements. The children will be in the two single beds in the stern, with Diz and Dan in the ensuite berth beside them. Jon and Sylvia, who is expecting, will be in the midships ensuite berth. Liz and I have drawn the short-straw, the kitchen, which converts into a bedroom when everyone else has departed, and which is not ensuit.

“Whoa!” I protest. “My bladder’s shrunk and I’m full of beer. I need to sleep near a toilet.”
     “Pee in the river,” Jon says helpfully.

We sit in the kitchen now, chatting and drinking Becks. Then somewhere around 2300 hours a minor miracle occurs, Katie, our granddaughter, arrives onboard with her boyfriend. That’s quite something when you think about it. Katie lives in Plymouth. Her boyfriend lives in Ascot. And we have got the boat tied to a riverbank in the middle of a huge meadow in deepest Surrey in the middle of the night. But come they have. Then, in the wee small hours, they go. Now everyone goes to their ensuite berths while Liz and I set about constructing our bed, with countless mistakes and much cursing by me.

I’m in bed now, and beer’s seeping down the plumbing. I need a pee. I swing my legs to the deck and head for the door in the dark. “It’s bloody cold!” I go outside. It’s even colder, cold enough for frost. I clamber up and stand on the side of the boat. Now I’m peeing in the river. It’s moonlight, a white frost-mist lying over the meadow, owls hooting, I’m shivering, my legs are full of goose pimples, my feet are blocks of ice, and I’m peeing and peeing and peeing. It goes on forever, I can’t stop; tins of Becks multiplying in my bladder…
     I get back in bed. ”At last! Thank God… Yaaaaah!” I’ve got cramp. I leap out of bed and dance and kick my legs in the six inch space between the bed and the bulkhead. I’m in agony, and cold, freezing cold.
At last, frozen and exhausted, I collapse back into bed and pull the blanket over my head. “Thank God for that! Oh no… *@<*+!” The cold has gone for me. I need another pee. I get out of the bed, stagger into the foggy dew, clamber on the rail, owls hooting, and pee and pee and pee…
     Back into bed, “Yaaaaah...!” cramp… up and dance... back into bed… up and pee… bed, cramp, dance, bed, pee, bed, cramp, dance, bed… all bloody night.
     As dawn breaks I pray to lose consciousness. Then comes this almighty banging. Bang! Bang! Bang! starting at the far end of the boat and getting ever nearer and louder, accompanied by a God-awful rattling as Dougle decides to make his way down the boat to say “good morning” to Ulf; his tail lashing everything in sight and his massive head battering doors until they give way.

The next night, Jon and Sylvia take pity on me and offer to swap beds. I’m no gentleman. I accept. Nay… I snatch at the offer. “Yippee!” I cry, diving under the luxury duvet and down into my double-bedded ensuite heaven. “Yippee!”

I sleep sounder than a corpse in a morgue. It’s wonderful; even at dawn when Dougle crashes along the boat on his way to greet Ulf, his great tail delivering a near knockout blow as he goes past. I don’t care. I feel fine.
     But it’s not fine. There are complaints. The others can’t sleep because of my snoring. Another night comes. I crawl guiltily under the blanket. It isn’t bed anymore. It’s the naughty-step. “Lie on your side,” Elizabeth orders.
     “I can’t sleep on my side,” I protest.
     “I don’t care. Lie on your side.”
     “I don’t know where to put my arms,” I protest.
     “I don’t care. Lie on your side.”
     I lie on my side. I can’t sleep. I toss and I turn. The night drags. I drift off.
     Elizabeth pokes me. “You’re snoring,” she accuses, “get back on your side.”
     All bloody night.

And so the days and nights glide happily by as we meander through the English countryside, moseying in and out of locks and mooring to stakes on the riverbank at night. Jon at the helm, assisted by Sylvia, the Viking, who is more at home on water than she is on terra firma. Dan and I are on rope and lock duty, assisted by Charlie and Isobel who take to the life like ducks to water. The dogs too are amazing, good as gold onboard and leaping ashore for a pee and a poo at the locks. Diz and Liz are on galley duty as we lock into the Thames and make our way up to Windsor, picnicking and barbequing as we go.

We are back in the River Wey now. Homeward bound. Dan and I are leaving today. It’s by prior arrangement. We’re not chickening out.
     Now the red light comes on in one of the toilets. The tank is full. We all use the second toilet. Then its red light comes on. This is an emergency, eight people aboard and no toilet. It’s all crossed legs and watering eyes from now on. Jon consults the brochure. There’s a marina, two locks up the river. You can clean out the toilet tanks there. So… full speed ahead.
    
At this stage Dan and I bail out. As we leave the Snow Goose and stride along the bank, Dan punches the air “Yes!” he cries.
     The others beat up river, toilets and bowels full to overflowing, work the locks and pray to the Lord as they make for the lifesaving marina. They head straight for the pump by the sceptic tank, leap ashore and read the notice.
     “Closed on Tuesdays,” it tells them.
     “Shit! This is Tuesday!”

                          Summer

A couple of months later, Liz and I are off on another boat. This one’s a Cunarder, the Queen Victoria, bound for the Baltic.

On the first morning we go to the Lido for breakfast. The Lido’s up-top on deck nine. It’s a good place to eat because it’s bright and informal with picture windows and tables close enough to be matey yet distant enough to be private. It’s buffet service. I don’t usually like buffet service; all those people poking at the sausages and honking over the ash browns. I always end up at with a reject egg and cold bacon. But it’s different in Cunard. The food comes straight out of the pan onto your plate. White Star service. And these posh people turn away to sneeze. Breeding.

The drawback with the Lido is that you have 2,000 people wanting food and a seat at the same time. On the other hand, when you eventually find a place to sit, its good fun to watch everyone else wandering about like lost souls, looking for a parking place, with their White Star breakfast degenerating before their eyes.

We turn out to be sitting next to an American couple, Norman and his wife. He’s a little tough guy, very broad, thickset and muscular. I like him. We get on fine. We both see our respective countries as having deteriorated in almost identical ways. That’s growing old for you.
     Norman brings it home to me. Ever since I left school I’ve been rubbing shoulders with people from every quarter of the globe. I find that, at grass roots level, we’re all pretty much the same. Our main concerns are health, food, shelter and a good place for our kids and their kids to live.
     So who’s causing the trouble out there?

Evening comes round, 2030, dinnertime, black tie and all that jazz. We chose to sit at a table for six. If it was just a table for two, which is what I would have opted for, Elizabeth would have felt out-of-it. She likes people. I’ve got reservations. If we were at a table for four and we didn’t get on with the other two... nightmare. So we settled for six. That gives me a one in five chance of finding someone I get on with.
     In this case we are lucky, the six of us get on fine. The others turn out to be Mr and Mrs Scouse from Liverpool and Mr and Mrs Taff from somewhere full of double-f’s, d’s and ll’s in West Wales, so mealtimes are convivial. As we settle down for our first meal, we introduce ourselves and start feeling our way into a pleasant relationship.
     In mid conversation, my companions disappear as an open menu drifts slowly down in front of my face, like a descending fire curtain, missing my nose by a whisker. Conversation pauses as our ageing Portuguese waiter repeats the operation on each of my fellow diners, until, job done, the debate resumes. We’re chatting away merrily now, when,
     “Whit wid you laike, sir?” a voice like a mating corncrake grates in my ear from behind, hot breath on the back of my neck.
     “Verry naiss,” the waiter assures me when I squeal a startled reply.
     “And you liedee, whit would you laike?” he whispers seductively in my wife’s shell-like before moving round the rest of his flock, repeating himself over and over,
     ”‘Whit would you laik liedee? Verry naiss...”

I had noticed earlier, in the bar, that the price of a pint of beer was the same as in a posh hotel and, rubbing salt in the wound, there was an additional 15% service charge. I bring this up now. “That’s steep,” I complain. “I was trained to give a 10% tip, not 15.” They all agree.
     “You don’t get...” Mrs Taff disappears behind a bowl of steaming soup, cut off in mid flow. “...15, or even 10% interest in the bank,” she continues when she reappears.
     “I thought we would get cheap…” I say, as a soup plate descends slowly down in front of my  face, “...drinks,” I continue, when my companions come back into view. “After all...” I pause. Mrs Scouse’s head is disappearing before my very eyes, replaced by a plate of something steamy and the face of a Portuguese waiter. “...It’s all duty free on the high-seas.”
     “Did you know you are all paying...” Mrs Taff is saying.
     “Yes, laidee,” the waiter interrupts, sliding something in front of her face.
     She waits patiently. “Eleven dollars a day, each, just for entering this room.”
     “Eh?!”
     “Yes…” Mrs Scouse wants to join in, but a plate hovers in front of her face.
     “It’s in the small print,” her husband springs to her rescue.
     “...Extra service charge,” Mrs Scouse has rejoined us.
     “‘What?!” We explode in unison.
     “Bon appetite,” the waiter tells us.

An alcohol-based hand-gel dispenser, like those on hospital wards, guards every entrance to every dining area. Hawk eyes make sure you comply with the compulsory hand wash. I frown at first but, fair enough, bugs can whip through these tour-boats like a Nebraska twister through a cattle ranch. You can’t be too careful.
     When I go to the toilet, realisation dawns. If I ever thought the alcohol dispenser was a bit over the top, I change my mind now. This bog paper is gossamer thin; deadly dangerous. These rolls should come with a finger bowl attached. They might be OK for the constipated masses and genteel ladies from the shires, but they are of little use to a hairy-assed larger shifter like myself. I visualise a lavatorial crisis and implore the room-steward to leave me ample reserves of paper.

We’ve got class here, big-time. Even the stewards and menials are posh. There’s no riffraff anywhere. All the men have dicky bows tucked away somewhere. And all those women come with trunks full of evening gowns and jewellery.
     But top of the class are the Grill Passengers. I call them the Grillers. They live on deck eleven, close to heaven. You never see them. Nay. You never know you’ve seen them. They’re like Freemasons, invisible to the naked eye. I suspect that they’re those strange people who sit in the boxes in the theatre and squint at the stage sideways, pretending not to be interested.
      I did come across a Griller once. The ship had docked in Tallin or some such place. The gangway for going ashore was on deck A, which is below deck 1 and about as near to sea level as you can get without wearing a snorkel. So we gets in the lift on deck 8 and presses the button for deck A, like you do. But the lift stops at deck 5 and people get it. They press the button for deck A, like you do. But the lift stops at deck 4 and more people get in. They press the button for deck A, like you do. But the lift stops at deck 3 and more people get in. They press the button for deck A, like you do. Now the lift stops at deck 1. Yippee! This is only one deck above deck A. We’re nearly there.
     One woman gets in. We don’t know it, but she’s a Griller. She produces a card, slips it in a slot, and whoosh... the lift shoots back to deck 11, next to heaven, and she gets out without so much as a, “drop dead.”
      Class!
      We press the button for deck A, like you do.

I travel light. Which means that, apart from underpants and socks, which I trample underfoot in the shower, I rely heavily on the services of the local dhobi wallah.
     Elizabeth will have none of this. She can sniff out a washing machine at five miles. If there is a launderette in the land she will load me with a pile of grubby castoffs and drag me to it, like a Romanian peasant’s donkey. This routine happens again on the Victoria where every passenger-deck has its dedicated launderette.
     So, one Baltic afternoon I find myself, like Mr Woo, in a den full of washerwomen who have gathered to gossip and discuss the optimum temperature for fumigating knickers.
     It’s here, in the washing den, that I see her again, the apparition who haunts every launderette in the world.
     The door flings open and she barges in; a big fat woman; solid; super-heavyweight; aggressive; Tyson scowl. As always, she’s hugging that massive basket, piled incredibly high with an impossible amount of festering unmentionables.
    I first heard about this phenomena when my parents were alive and living in sheltered housing. They shared a washroom, like this on the Victoria, with the rest of their neighbours. There was a rota for using the machines, but that went up in smoke when this apparition appeared, like Beelzebub, wielding a loaded basket.
     In my parents’ place, the residents concluded it was the spirit of an aggressive neighbour who had died and was doing the washing for the corpses in the cemetery. But I’ve seen the same vision, many times since, in launderettes as far apart as Australia and the Arctic Circle. So I know better.
     It’s the Devil’s washerwoman.
     This day on the Victoria, in she comes, ignores the queue, and marches straight to a dryer and drags everything out. Then she opens a washing machine, snatches out the wet clothes and stuffs them into the dryer she’s just emptied. Now she tips her basket of putrid rags into the newly vacant washing machine, slams it shut, turns on her heels and marches out, all in a single movement. Not a word spoken. In and out in a flash then back to hell.
     I know about this. She does it all day, every day, in every launderette in the world; seen it with my own eyes.
     The rest of us stand, like sheep in an abattoir, hoping to slip one of our smellies into a cleansing-machine before the return of the demon.

I lean on the rail, gazing over the Skagerrak at the coast of Denmark; flat sea; flat land.
     “Flat earth?” I wonder, but, “No,” I decide. I’ve seen the photographs from outer space. “It’s a bladder of blue cheese.”

Talking of flat earth, reminds me. My dad used to work with a bloke who was in the Flat Earth Society. Mad as a goat. The scary bit is that MI5 put him under surveillance then took him in for questioning. Things like that help me sleep sound at night.

They’ve peppered these flat Baltic lands with wind turbines; uncannily Quixotic in this day and age: Windmills vs Climate Change. May the strongest force win.

It’s evening now. We sit in the open-plan Chartroom Bar having a pre-dinner drink. The Chartroom is on deck two, next to the dining room at the aft end of the ship. That dining room is big, real big; second only in impressiveness to the city-sized theatre situated in the bow. They feed 2,000 people in two sittings in that canteen. If my arithmetic’s correct that’s 1,000 souls per sitting. And they all have to drift past this lounge to get there.
     It’s probably the most fascinating time of any day, to sit in this nautically themed bar, picture windows overlooking the sea, and watch that passageway over there. First, an odd couple drift by, then two’s and threes, then groups. Then a continuous stream of people in dinner suit and evening gown. They all go floating past while you watch; not one hundred, but hundreds and hundreds of them, first in one direction then the other; first to dine, then, topped-up with three courses of bloating calories, back to the ballroom or theatre. None of them are under 70. Some have been dead for years.
     It’s like they are not real. Like they are phantoms, ghosts from the past re-living an age that has gone. Maybe I’m seeing spirits, fresh from their watery staterooms, drifting over the decks of long gone Atlantic liners.
     And look, there’s breakfast Norman. Hey! He’s wearing an army officer’s dress-uniform, more medals than Idi Amin. My God, maybe he’s Storming Norman of Desert Storm. But no... I don’t believe it, that uniform is identical to the one they wore in the American Civil War. I’ve seen them in films.
     So maybe none of this is real, just ghosts from the past reliving the first – and best – four days on the Titanic...
     Our ancient steward in the restaurant, oblivious of people, going through the motions of the years, serving and clearing, serving and clearing, like he did at that last dinner on that fatal day in mid Atlantic...
     Norman in his cavalry outfit, on vacation from killing Confederates...
     The Devil’s Hag, haunting the launderette…
     The Queen Victoria, like the Flying Dutchman, a ship with no cargo, going nowhere in particular; drifting round the flatlands of Scandinavia where Don Quixotes tilt windmills at Continental Drift…

“I’ve seen enough. Beam me up.”

                                                 alpW

For the multiculturists

Sikhs face rioters with swords… Kurds defend property… Black kills three Asians… Make tribes, get tribal war. Integration! Integration! Inte…

Theft

A police station in Huddersfield got broken into last night. All the satnavs were stolen. The police are now looking for Leeds.

Brussels

Jeanneke Pis Brussels	Mannekin Pis Brussels

All Wind and Piss

Anorexic Girl

 

This kid phoned me every shift for three years…
then disappeared off the radar

               Anorexic Girl
Sometimes she whispers in my ear,
a tapestry of pain and fear
whose warp and weft weave haunted days
and nightmare dreams, through woeful sobs
and blooded screams; till phantoms from
a private hell enshroud me in
a chilling spell.

                      I’m on a tour
within her mind where those outside
are breaking in and every thought
accuses sin, in saddest voice
man ever heard.

                        Midst grief, defying
spoken word, she can only run
and hide, cringe ever deeper down
inside, avoiding some imagined
threat from friend or foe she’s never
met.

        I know more of her than of
my own, my wasted waif who walks
alone. I want to ride inside
her head and sweep it clean of all
its dread, but will not know her when
we meet, walk past her, crying in
the street.

                 Until she finds the strength
to lay the horrors of the past,
and scream, “I’m me! I’m running free!”
there’ll be no woman sweet-asleep,
but just the child who I hear weep.

Charlie Gregory
Samaritan days

If you would like to read my other poems, follow the link
”Snapshots of Life” or go to:
www.poems-by-charlie-gregory.blogspot.com

                    alpW

Aaaghhh…

I woke up this morning with trapped wind, griping pains.
It explains why this blow-up doll looks so damn miserable.

alpW

Mastermi … er Card

                                          MASTERMI … ER CARD

A friend of ours, who is an Egghead victor, is now a contestant in the BBC Mastermind 2011 competition. She gave Liz and I tickets to see the production which is in Media City, Manchester. That’s how I ended up trying to book us into a Travelodge on the Internet.
     I go through to the TL website and punch in the required dates. “Go to, ’Continue,’” the machine tells me. The next page says that, if I’m an “old customer,” I just need to tap in my e-mail address and password and the booking will be done for me automatically.
     I am an old customer. I’ve stayed at this very lodge several times. Liz and I were there 3 months ago. Mind, I didn’t know that they knew my PW, but OK, I give them what they ask for, address and PW.
They’ve never heard of me. I thought as much. Who has?
     I go back to the original page and put in all that guff about names, addresses, phones, card details … and so on and so on. Now they say they will charge me £2 for the honour of using my MasterCard; so, OK, I use my Visa Debit instead.
“Go to, ‘Continue,’” it tells me. I do, and get a warning to be patient, “don’t dare touch any keys until we give permission.” Nothing else happens so I wait, and wait, and … I’ve waited long enough. I scrutinize the screen. A little remark in red has manifested. It tells me I didn’t tick the “terms and conditions box.”
     “OK, if you insist.” I tick the box then, “Continue.” Now I get the warning to be patient, “blah blah blah …” Nothing else happens, so I wait … and wait … and … Still nothing … “Sod it.” I scrutinize the screen. Another little red note has appeared from nowhere. It says that I’ve put an incorrect card number in. “No I haven’t.” I check, just to be sure. The buggers have only gone and erased my card number, then blamed me for it. I re-type the number. Now I scrutinize every inch of the screen. No more remarks. I go to, “Continue,” and get a warning to be pat-
     At last, I‟m on the next page. I’m a simple soul really. I don’t ask much from life. I just want to stand in the garden and count the clouds. I just need a confirmation and a receipt from Travelodge and my life will be complete. But they won’t give me a receipt. Instead, they tell me that, “for my peace of mind,” they’ve introduced a new security system for Visa cards; and what I need to do now is to type in my e-mail address and … you’ve guessed it … my PW, which they don’t know.
     But, just a minute, there’s a bit here that says that, if I don’t have a password I can tick this box and get one. So I tick the box, and that gives me another page that demands my e-mail address. So I give it to them – again. Now they want my date of birth, “Eh?!” I give it to them.
     Now they want the “Member number,” of my Visa card. I’m not a member of anything so I ignore it and go to, “Continue.” Now I get a box that says I forgot to enter my “Member Number.” The next thing I know is that they’ve zoomed me right back to square one and I have to do everything over again … as a punishment I presume.
     So, if you go back to the top of the page and re-read everything you’ve just read, if you did read it, you’ll get the gist of what I’m saying.
     I did just that. I went through it all again and pressed, “Continue …” and got a page that said my, “Time has expired. This WebPage is no longer available.”
     That’s when I decided to kill myself.
     Anyway, like she does, Elizabeth made me a cup of coffee and told me it could be worse, I could be young and have to spend another 60 years working with computers. Then she suggested that I make the booking by telephone. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?‟
     So I phoned the Travelodge number and got a computerised woman. She gave me a lecture on terms and conditions and all kinds of junk then ordered me to, “Listen Carefully to the following instructions.” Cheeky bitch! She then gave me a string of numbers, one of which would put me through to a carer who would help me to book my hotel. So I pressed the number and it rang, and rang, and rang … Then it cut me off.
     That’s when Elizabeth led me upstairs and told me to lie on the bed.
     Five minutes later she’s back in the bedroom. She dialled the same number; got a human being; booked the hotel; “and the receipt’s on its way.”
     “I’m going outside. I may be some time.”

                                  alpW

                                  

Life’s Not Fair

A woman down our street hasn’t had sex with a man for years, because she’s scared of getting a disease.
Last week she caught e-coli off a cucumber.

alpW

Passing Thought

Climate Change started with the Big Bang and will carry on regardless until the Final Bang. It’s a damn shame; but as you get older you learn to live with it.

alpW

This Just Happened

 

Wpl

I was in the pub with my wife and I said, “The biggest problem I have with you is keeping your attention.”

She said, “Pardon?”

Wpl

 

Daffyd

Wpl

             Tales From the Welsh Valleys

                              Daffyd

Daffyd lives in Blaenrhonnda at the far end of the Rhondda Fawr. He has no family except for Auntie Fanny, his mother’s sister. But Auntie Fanny went to live in Australia before Daffyd was born. So he’s never seen her.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, he got a letter from Auntie Fanny, saying that she was coming over to the UK on holiday and would love to meet him. So Daffyd arranged to meet her off the Cardiff train in Merthyr Tydfil railway station.

On that day he stood on the platform, waiting for the train to arrive. When the train came in, quite a few people got off. But Daffyd didn’t recognise any of them. He had never seen his Auntie Fanny before. He knew she was an old woman, but that was all.

In the end, Daffyd was all alone on the platform and the train had gone back to Cardiff. Then he saw an old woman come out of the toilet near the entrance gate. As he ran to meet her he saw that she was a toothless old crone with a face like a witch and skin like parchment.

‘Excuse me madam,’ pants Daffyd. ‘Are you Auntie Fanny?’

‘No,’ croaks the crone, grabbing his arm in a vicelike grip. ‘I’m all for it,’ she growls, dragging him into the toilet.

Wpl

EARWAKER PRIZE

My article A Cupboard Full of Skeletons was awarded the above prize

To view the article, follow the link A Cupboard Full of Skeletons
or go …
www.cupboard-full-of-skeletons.blogspot.com

Brink of the Abyss

New poem just published

Brink of the Abyss

Follow the link, ‘Snapshots of Life’
or
www.poems-by-charlie-gregory.blogspot.com

TALES FROM THE WELSH VALLEYS – Blodwyn

 

Wpl

TALES FROM THE WELSH VALLEYS – Blodwyn

Blodwyn lives at the far end of a sleepy valley. She’s got no family, save for an old uncle who went off to be missionary in China.

When he retired the uncle came back to the UK and brought Blodwyn a pet panda as a gift. But the Welsh climate didn’t agree with the animal and its hair started falling out by the bucket load.

Blodwyn was beside herself with worry. There’s no vet in the valley so she went to the doctor for some advice.

‘Well Blodwyn,’ said the drunken old quack when she entered the surgery, ‘what can I do for you?’
‘It’s me panda,’ she told him, ‘all the hair’s falling out. It’s full of bald bits.’
‘We’ll soon sort that,’ says the doc, going over to his cabinet and coming back with a sample-jar. ‘Rub this ointment on the bald spots twice a day ... and don’t ride your bike for a fortnight.’

Wpl

The Under-manager Final Chapters

 

The concluding chapters of The Under-manager have just been posted.

Follow the link – www.scribd.com/poetonahill

Tales From the Welsh Valleys

Dai sits on a hillside, looking out over the Bristol Channel.
   Along comes his butty, Owen.   
   ‘Hi, Dai,’ says Owen. ‘You look pissed-off.’
   ‘Well …’ says Dai. ‘See those boats, down in the harbour there?’
   ‘Yes, Dai,’ says Owen.
   ‘Well, who built those boats?’ asks Dai.
   ‘You did,’ says Owen.’
   ‘Do they call me, Dai the boat-builder?’ asks Dai.
   ‘No, Dai,’ says Owen.
   ‘See those houses, down there?’ says Dai. ‘Who built those houses?’
   ‘You did,’ says Owen.
   ‘Do they call me, Dai the house-builder?’ asks Dai.
   ‘No, Dai,’ says Owen.
   ‘See those fields on the hillside?’ says Dai.
   ‘Yes, Dai,’ says Owen.
   ‘Who ploughed those fields?’ asks Dai.
   ‘You did,’ says Owen.
   ‘Do they call me, Dai the ploughman?’ asks Dai.
   ‘No, Dai,’ says Owen.
   ‘But one bloody sheep …’ says Dai.

The Under-manager Chapters 16 - 20

Chapter 20 and an omnibus of chapters 16 – 20 have just been posted.

Follow the link – www.scribd.com/poetonahill

Wpl

The Under-manager 19

Chapter 19 has just been published.

Follow the link www.scribd.com/poetonahill

 Wpl

The Under-manager 18

Chapter 18 has just been published.

Follow the link www.scribd.com/poetonahill

The Under-manager 17

Chapter 17 has just been published.

Follow the link www.scribd.com/poetonahill

The Under-manager 16

The Under-manager

Chapter 16 has now been published.

Follow the link
www.scribd.com/poetonahill

If you don’t find it there, go into “shelf.”

Wpl

The Under-manager

The Under-manager

Chapter 15 and the Omnibus of Chapters 11 - 15 has now been published.

Follow the link
www.scribd.com/poetonahill

If you don’t find it there, go into “shelf.”

Wpl

The Under-manager

The Under-manager

Chapters 13 and 14 have now been published.
Follow the link
www.scribd.com/poetonahill

If you don’t find it there, go into “shelf.”

Wpl

Stripogram

Wpl

We were in a Travel Inn the other night.
The coffee making kit contained an object called a “Dairy Strip.”
On investigation it turned out to be “Milk.”
They should force-feed a dictionary down the pillock who renamed it – without cream.

In my day a “dairy-strip” was what Farmer Giles paid the dairymaid to do at 5 o’clock on a spring morning.

Wpl

Fleeting Life

A new poem, “Fleeting Life,” has just been posted.
Follow Link A: Snapshots of Life,
or
www.poems-by-charlie-gregory.blogspot.com

Wpl

The Under-manager

The Under-manager

Chapter 12 has now been published.

Follow the link
www.scribd.com/poetonahill

If you don’t find it there, go into shelf

The Under-manager

The Under-manager

Omnibus of Chapters 6 –10
plus
Chapter 11 have now been published.

Follow the link
www.scribd.com/poetonahill

If you don’t find it there, go into shelf

 

ENGLAND EXPECTS

A man’s as mad as a March-hare, but they accept him into the Royal Navy. Then they vet him and allocate him to a nuclear submarine. They give him a gun and live ammunition and tell him to guard it.  So he shoots the Commander. What, exactly, did they expect?

The Under-manager

Chapter 8 of The Under-manager has just been posted. Click on
www.scribd.com/poetonahill
to see it. If you can’t see it there, go to the ‘Shelf’ link. And it’s there

The Samaritan

I’ve published a new poem on my poetry website. It’s called The Samaritan. And it depicts a Befriender’s dream. Follow the link Snapshots of Life. And enjoy it.

I went to the Homebase Garden Centre, looking for inspiration. They have pictures of Jamie Oliver popping out of every plant pot. What’s that about? He’s a cook for God’s sake. I didn’t buy anything. If you wanted a recipe for Cat Pie you wouldn’t go to the Titchmarch Garden Centre ... or maybe you would, in this arse up’ards world.

Chapter 7 of The Under-manager has just been published on
www.scribd.com/poetonahill

They’ve had to print the UK Census Form in 58 languages. It took 20 centuries of blood and sweat to blend dozens of disparate Celtic, Saxon and Nordic tribes into a shaky whole. The multiculturalists have taken us back to the start line in 20 years. Some achievement!

I was just spraying the gooseberry bush with ‘Bug Clear.’
The label says, “Spray today, eat tomorrow.”
“Kills on Contact.”

Crumble, anyone?

New poem ‘Tenerife’ just published.
Go to My Poems, or Snapshots of Life.

Suggestion for the Health and Safety Quango:

Women are notoriously bad at reading maps.
So why not replace this bird in the satnav with a man?
Then maybe fewer cars would drive over cliffs.

Actual Posting Day 09-03-2011

Chapter 5 of ‘The Under-manager’ has just been published on
http://www.scribd.com/poetonahill/shelf

If Chapter 5 doesn’t show immediately, click on ‘Shelf.’

Other Chapters will be published at approximately fortnightly intervals.

l

Actual Posting Date 25-02-2011

Chapter 4 of ‘The Under-manager’ has just been published on
http://www.scribd.com/poetonahill/shelf

Other Chapters will be published at approximately fortnightly intervals.

l

Actual Posting Date 21-02-2011

OK. We’ve just tried two seasonal winters. They’re crap, global warming was much better. Everyone back in the car and rev up.

I was stood at the garden gate, talking to my mate, when this bloke goes by with his cock in a biscuit box. I said, ‘Did you see that?’
     My mate said, ‘Ignore him. He’s fucking crackers.’

Wpl

Actual Posting Date 12-02-2011

Just Released
Chapter Three of my novel The Under-manager, set in Scotland in 1998.
To read this and the previous chapters, go to:-

http://www.scribd.com/poetonahill/shelf

Other chapters will be released at approximately fortnightly intervals.

***

This is a mad, mad land

A friend of ours delivers Meals on Wheels to the old and infirm. She drives a van, and she’s in and out like the Eddystone Lighthouse. A woman approaches her and says, ‘You are not wearing a seatbelt. I’m a council official. Either pay a £60 fine on the spot or attend a Highway Code Course, immediately.’ Our friend says, ‘I’m not paying £60. And I can’t attend a course, immediately, because I’m delivering food to people.’ The official says, ‘If you don’t go to the police station now, and attend a course, we’ll stop you from driving.’ Up against a brick-wall, our friend went to the police station.

And this is the maddest bit.

At the police station she had to wait in a massive queue of taxi drivers, van drivers, social workers and dozens of others who had been trying to do something useful before being grabbed by a jumped-up jobsworth and ordered to go on a worthless ‘course.’ Then, when she came out of the ‘course,’ there were dozens of other ‘real workers’ waiting to go in and waste their day.

Don’t anyone tell me we need these petty tyrants. Sack ‘em! Sack ‘em and sod ‘jobs for the boys and girls.’

***

What’s the difference between iron man and iron woman?

Iron man is a superhero and iron woman is a simple instruction.

Wpl

Actual Posting Date 06-02-2011

Wpl

Two new poems have now been posted. ‘Beware the Shadows’ and ‘Caithness.’
Follow the link Snapshots of Life.

Wpl

My neighbour hired one of these Eastern European women-cleaners to give his house a spring-clean. It took her 5 hours to Hoover the living-room. Turns out she was a Slovac.

Wpl

Tommy got sent home from school again today. The teacher said to him; ‘If I give you £20 and you give £5 to Sue, £5 to Mary, and £5 to Jane, what have you got? ‘Three blowjobs and enough left over for a kebab was the wrong answer.

Wpl

Actual Posting Date 29-01-11

Just Released

Published on http://www.scribd.com/poetonahill
Chapter Two of my novel The Under-manager
set in Scotland in 1998
other chapters will be released at approximately fortnightly intervals

Actual posting date 23-01-2011  

                                           Announcement

                                    The Under-manager
                                             © Charlie Gregory

To date, I have not been able to find a publisher for this one.
So I have decided to serialise it on the internet.

The intention was to publish the chapters at fortnightly intervals on my ‘The Under-manager’ blog, but unfortunately the cut-and-paste facility gets corrupted on my website.

But all is not lost, I can cut-and-paste on my Scribd Site at
Scribd.com/Poetonahill so I will serialise it there.

Each time I publish a new chapter I will announce it here.

Chapter one has now been published on
Scribd.com/Poetonahill

Hope you enjoy it … Cheers Charlie

Actual posting date 16-01-2011

This stupid woman in my satnav dumped me at the wrong destination the other day. I paid her back on the journey home though. I punched in a random postcode and laughed at her recalculating for an hour.

Actual posting date 06-01-11

I get sidetracked by trivia.
I spent the morning wondering which is the most depressing, dismantling the Christmas decorations or arriving home off holiday with a fortnight’s dirty underpants in the case.

Husband reluctantly buys ungrateful wife a car for her birthday.
’Don’t like it,’ she moans. ‘I want something that goes from 0 to 160 in 3 seconds.
’He goes out and comes back with a set of bathroom scales.
’Stand on that ,’ he tells her.

 

At school today, my mate’s granddaughter was asked to do farmyard impressions by the teacher.
For some reason the teacher was not happy with, ‘Get to fuck off my land before I fill you full of lead, you gypsy bastard!’

Doctor rings husband of a patient and says,
’I’m afraid there’s been a mix up with your wife’s test results so we don’t know if she’s got Alzheimer’s or Aids.’
The man replies, ‘What the hell am I supposed to do about that then?’
The doctor says, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll put her on the wrong bus. If she finds her way home, don’t sleep with her again.’

Actual posting date 05-01-11

New poem just published -  ‘Just Went Away’

Go to the Snapshots of Life Link .

 

Cheers - Charlie

Actual Posting Date 02-01-11

My wife’s got the tele on. It’s a repeat. If I sit watching a repeat, I’m repeating my life.
I don’t have guts to repeat my life. It was complicated enough the first time…

 

Actual posting date 1-1-2011

My New Year Resolution:

Eat More Bacon Butties.

Actual Posting Date 10-12-10

                                                                                                Hi    

                                   MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE
                TIME TO KICK OUT 2010 AND SQUARE UP TO 2011

This is by way of a summary of our year 2010, so you might have read some of it before. In a nutshell, for the first 6 months our feet didn’t touch the ground. But the last 6 months have been pretty quiet.

For starters, we went to Slovenia in January, with Diz, Dan and the kids. I’ve never been to the Alps before, so that was another box ticked for me. It was a skiing holiday for the bolder folk, which means everyone except me. I’m a little fearty really. Ever since teacher told us about gravity I’ve been terrified of falling over.
     Diz’n’Dan were zooming about like Batman and Robin. Charlie, 8, Isobel, 5, and Liz, my beloved, all took skiing lessons. On day one, I had mixed feelings, watching Liz shuffling sideways up a misty mountain with metal bars strapped to her feet, like a crab in a chain-gang. I feared I might never see her again, but she suddenly came screeching out of the clouds like a Stuka dive-bomber. This was before the lesson on stopping and turning. Legend has it, that if it wasn’t for those tables and chairs at the bottom of the slope, she‟d be going still. It all came to a head on day 3 when she went out of control, leaping about like a firecracker while going uphill backwards. That’s when they discovered that she had her boots on the wrong feet.
     That same day, Isobel and Charlie went up the conveyor belt unaccompanied, then came hurtling down like the Tell-twins the day they spotted William striding across with an apple and bow in his hands. Isobel forgot to open her eyes and smashed into a mesh-fence at full speed. I wasn’t there, but Liz caught it on video. There’s this almighty collision. Then chaos as Liz runs with an international crowd of rescuers to untangle limbs and scrape organs off the wire, camera swinging all over the place, legs, feet, snow, sky, mesh and skis. Then from out this babble of excited tongues, like a rerun of Pentecost, comes this one calm voice as Isobel announces to the world, ‘I am so all right.’

A major event in the family this year is the fact that Jon and Sylvia produced a song for a Cypriot writer, Nasos. He was so pleased with it that he asked them to form a group and perform it on Cypriot TV in a competition to choose the Cypriot entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. So they formed a group called Jon Lilygreen and the Islanders and won the competition. That was the start of five  months gruelling work for them, with radio and TV performances and interviews in
Cyprus, Greece, the UK, Holland and Sylvia’s homeland of Norway – all of which culminated in the EvS Contest itself. That was in Oslo, in May. It’s their story, so I won’t go into here. But, in the event, Liz and I went over to Oslo to watch the actual competition. Being a Brit, I never realised how seriously they take it on the continent. I mean, let’s face it, a lot of it is pure Euro-trash. Once you get south of Calais and east of Germany, pop music deteriorates into something resembling a circus – acrobats, bell-ringers and comic-singers. But there’s a massive following round the world, mainly weirdos. Every hotel in Oslo was booked up. In the end, after trying for 3 weeks, Liz and I managed to get the last 2 beds in a backpacker’s hostel. In the event, that turned out to be perfect, and cheap.
     Don’t tell anyone this, but we really enjoyed the competition and, in fact, the whole experience. Our fellow-weirdos in the audience were good entertainment in their own right. Oslo is a beautiful city. They’ve got the traffic tamed perfectly over there. And the transport system is the best I’ve ever come across. 
     There was something Jon Lilygreen said that I really liked. In a BBC interview, they asked him what he hoped would come out of all this. His reply was, ‘I hope that, when I’m older, I can look back and say, ‘We had a laugh.’ I like his style. There lies the key to happiness. I hope he doesn’t lose it. No mention there of fame or fortune or wanting to escape from a council estate, which is all you ever get of these wannabes on X-factor.

In the midst of all this, Katie, our other granddaughter was in a fencing rally in Sheffield. So we went up there with Penny and David, her mam and dad, to support her. Another bonus on this trip was that Janet and Graham, Liz’s cousin and her husband, live in Macclesfield; and their son, Alexander, is a fencing enthusiast too. So the three of them, and Ellen, another of Liz’s cousins who lives in Macclesfield, were at the rally too. So there was a family get-together on the sidelines.
     I know that this is an anomaly, but I love motoring and hate traffic. So, whenever possible, I take the B roads. Everyone else is battling it out on the motorways and dual carriageways while I saunter along the back-tracks. On that trip to Sheffield we had to go up the motorway on the way off because of the time element. That took 3½ hours. But coming back we did my usual opt-out, down through the middle of the White Peak, then across country to Mid Wales, then down through the mountains and Welsh Valleys to Cardiff, no motorway at all. That took 7 hours; not everyone’s cup of tea, mind; but we took a break every 2 hours and had beautiful scenery every inch of the way. It was Bank Holiday Monday and, on the radio, we could hear road reports of traffic jams all over the country, but we hardly saw another car.

David’s still in the navy; that’s 25 years now. At the moment he’s still on a degree course in Marine Engineering. In his spare time he fences for the navy and acts as a judge for the Field-gun events. This year he was actually running in the competition again, on a B team now, so we took a trip down to HMS Collingwood, Gosport, to support him. He finishes his course round about Christmas and after that he’s back in Plymouth. Penny’s doing OK; she’s in management in a hospice. Katie’s a boarder in Plymouth College, and she’s well into fencing and several other sports.

There are some weird people about. A bloke knocks on our door the other day, and says he’s selling garden gnomes. He says he makes three deliveries a year. ‘Eh? Do they escape or something?’ He just looks ordinary to me. I’d expect someone like that to have wild eyes and electric hair.

Sylvia and Jon have this big Old English Sheep Dog, Ulf, 7 stone of boisterous bone and muscle. As part of its exercise or bonding or something, Jon gets down on the floor and fights with it. One day, just after the Eurovision, they’re having this scrap when the dog leaps up in the air and lands on Jon’s inside thigh. I won’t go into details, but he ended up with a bad case of DVT. Then, because of the way things worked out, he was being treated in Cardiff, rather than up the valleys. So, to cut down on travelling, he was based at our house for a couple of weeks. Then one day, for some reason, Liz was looking after Charlie, 8, for a couple of days. And so it came to pass that one evening, Jon, Charlie and I were sat at the table together, 3 men talking men’s talk. In the middle of the conversation, Charlie announces, ‘I hate my sister!’
     ‘You don’t really hate her,’ I tell him.
     ‘I do!’ he says.
     ‘Brothers and sisters talk like that,’ I tell him. ‘When your mother lived here she said she hated me, and she’s my daughter.’
     ‘She still does!’ he says.
     Jon collapses in a hysterical heap of laughter, DVT clots flying all over the place.
     ‘It’s true!’ yells Charlie, wondering what the joke is.
     That’s the story of my life. Mr Nice Guy, and what do I get?
     Jon is recovering from the DVT now. He’s back on the mountains and running again. But it was a close call. Mind you big dogs can be a handful. Last year he was playing with it on the beach when it charged at him. He thought it would swerve round him. The dog thought he would jump out of the way. The dog didn’t and he didn’t. Bang! Jon flies up in the air and lands with a crack! It was a broken rib that time.
     DVT this time.
     Here’s to the next time.

Ageism has been getting steadily worse since I was 40. The other day I found myself in Tesco, buying elixir, when this armchair comic on his perch at the till says, ‘I hope you’re over 21.’ And I retort, ‘closer to 121.’ Then a voice in my head says, ‘you are.’ So I do a quick sum. And I am. So I need this drink.

There’s strange behaviour close at hand too. I get talking to one of the ladies from the wider reaches of the family. She’s in my age group and remembers the World War. Ever since it ended she’s spent her life preparing for the next set-to with Germany. She’s got rooms full of tinned meat and beans and things – to keep her going in the rationing. (Yeah! I‟m talking about you missus.)
     I thought it was hilarious and told another lady from the opposite end of the circle. I thought she would roll about laughing, but it turns out that she does the same thing; hoards food for the next war. (You know who you are too; sitting there among your baked beans, blackout curtains drawn, sipping gin and knitting balaclavas for the boys at the front.)
     That’s two women in my wider family, waiting for it all to kick-off again, the moment Adolph gets back from Argentina. So, by the law of averages, there must be millions of little old ladies, right across the land, sat in darkened rooms every night, rolling-pins at the ready, waiting to cosh a Kraut. By the same rule, if women do it, men must do it too.
     In the dead of night the fields must come alive as rheumy old gits scramble through windows, the moment nurse turns her back; to patrol the hedgerows, 4-iron at the ready, re-living the Home Guard.

In the morning, when I look into the shaving mirror, it’s painfully obvious that I’m well into life’s last chapter. I’ve spent years ticking boxes. Now it’s getting dodgy. The card’s nearly full. I’m reluctant to tick that last box.
     But, as if to remind me that the end is nigh, I get a form from the DVLA telling me that my driving licence is due for renewal. They make me renew it every 3 years now, so that when I fall off my perch, I won’t be leaving a valid licence for some scallywag to be driving around with. This time it gives me the option of ‘filling in the form’ or ‘applying online.’
       The form itself is a piece of cake – 4 or 5 boxes to tick, that’s all. But it assures me that online is even quicker and easier. So guess what? Yeah, that’s right. I fall for it.
     Off upstairs; switch on the computer; wait for it to sort itself out; into Internet Explorer; punch in the web address.
     Up comes the web-page, which assures me that this is all for the best. But it’s already taken longer than filling in the form.
     Anyway, I start the action and fill in page one. This asks exactly the same questions that the form asks; but, in addition, it wants my driving licence number, which is already printed on the form.
     Click NEXT and get page 2; which asks as many questions again, including details about my passport, ‘But I’m not going anywhere.’ But then it assures me that it will do an automatic check with passport-control, by computer, to verify my identity. Good – if that makes someone feel better.
     Click NEXT again. Now it wants my date of birth and my mother’s maiden name, ‘She’s dead!’ Now they want my address, which is where they sent the form in the first place. ‘I’ve lived here for the last 30 years. If I didn’t live here I wouldn’t have the form! You also sent a form here 3 years ago. Remember?’
     Now I must invent a password which, of course, I will be expected to remember. But which I will forget, because I already have several passwords on account of different sites demanding different combinations, but this site won’t accept any of them. So I invent yet another password – which I make a note of. But I will lose the note anyway.
     Now they want my place of birth … which is covered by my passport clearance. ‘So where are we going? My mother’s dead. And my place of birth hasn’t changed since the last time … and probably never will change – unless I become a born again Christian. So what’s this all about?’
     But, hey, they haven’t finished with me yet. Now they want me to invent an easily remembered number, so I pump in my date of birth, which is the only number that will stick in my mind. But the thick sods say it’s no good. Of course it’s good. So I give them another number … which they accept and I forget.
      Click NEXT!
    Now they want the 12 digit number printed on the back of my licence. They’ve already got my licence number because I’ve keyed it in. But now they must have the number off the back – in addition. So I type it in and check it; then click NEXT.
      But they reject it. So I type it in and check it; then click NEXT.
     But they reject it. So I type it in and check it; then click NEXT.    
     Bang! They stop me in my tracks. They say the number’s wrong so they don’t know who I am. I’m unidentifiable.
     ‘But,’ I cry, ‘You’ve checked my passport!’
     They don’t respond… even when I punch hell out of the keyboard.
     ‘But,’ I scream, ‘I’ve given you my licence number! And address! And mother’s maiden name! And place of birth! And I invented a new password … which I forget! And a memorable number … which I forget! And the number you have just rejected is the number you invented and stuck on the back of my licence for just such an occasion
as this! But now you reject it! And you reject me! And you tell me I don’t exist …! Bastards! Bastards! Bastards…!’
     So I go downstairs and fill in the original form with four flicks of the pen. And now I stride to the post box in the morning sun and fresh air and think … This is the way life was before they invented the computer. But now it’s gone. Gone forever.

I Need a Break …
     I’m in self flagellation mode today. So I head for the computer to book coach tickets online. Being of a naïve nature I go to the official website of National Express.
     In the appropriate box I click on the window headed ‘Departure Place’ and type in ‘Cardiff.’ A menu immediately appears and asks if I want ‘Cardiff West?’ ‘Cardiff Gate?’ ‘Cardiff University?’ Or ‘Cardiff something else?’
     I don’t want any of them. Two are on the motorway and two are inaccessible. So I type in ‘Cardiff Bus Station.’ The website responds, ‘Departure Point Not Known.’
     We are talking about the National Coach Company here, and it’s never heard of, ‘Cardiff Bus Station.’
     Their main Welsh office happens to be in Cardiff Bus Station, right opposite the bay from which the coaches leave. So I try again and again and again. But it doesn’t recognise Cardiff, or Cardiff Bus Station, or Cardiff Central, or any other bloody Cardiff except the inaccessible points that it keeps on its menu.
     So I head for the telephone and phone the National Express booking line. Now I’m through to a computer that wants to know what I want and why I am calling National Express.
     Why does it think I’m calling National Express – to buy a bloody banana? But the computer rambles on, do I want this option or that option or any one of ten other options.
     When I finally get it to understand that I just want to book a ticket and get on a coach and bugger off somewhere, it tells me that, ‘There will be a surcharge of £2 for booking by telephone. It would be cheaper and simpler to book online.’
     ‘Uuugh … You fu …’
     Now a clerk appears on the line. ‘Where are you departing from?’ he wants to know.
     ‘Cardiff,’ I sob.
     ‘So that will be Cardiff Bus Station …’
     ‘Uuugh … You fu …’

That all happened in the first 6 months. Since then things have quietened down. There was an interesting weekend in West Wales with Jon and Sylvia in August, when we walked over the Mynydd Preseli to the Bluestones – the place where the druids found the Bluestones which they used in Stonehenge. That was another box ticked for me.
     Then, in October, Liz, Diz and I flew from Bristol to Inverness, then hired a car and drove up to Wick, for the funeral of Elizabeth’s Uncle Donald. David travelled up separately and met us up there.
     Still in October, Liz and I were across in Northern Ireland for a short break. We were at the Giant’s Causeway that time, which was a box ticked for Elizabeth. And Donegal and the Gaeltacht were boxes ticked for me.

So, that was 2010. Let me see… What comes next?
Ah…

Cheers, and a Merry Christmas to one and all.

Bye

                                        Wpl

                                               Christmas Magic?

These fairy lights have been lying dormant in the loft for 11 months. So how-come they’re so bloody tangled?

                                       Wpll

                                              The NHS is Getting Worse

My neighbour says he’s just had phone call from the doctor.

The doctor said, ‘I’ve got your wife here and we’ve got a problem.’ My neighbour said, ‘What is it?’

The doctor said, ‘There’s been a mix-up with her test results so we don’t know if she’s got Alzheimer’s or AIDS.’

My neighbour said, ‘Hell! What can I do?’

The doctor said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll put her on the wrong bus. If she finds her way home, don’t sleep with her.

                                     Wpl

Posted by Welcome

at 23:45

Actual Posting Date 12-12-10

                                     Wpl

                                                 SUMMARY

A student, studying history at university, says he doesn’t know the          symbolism behind Winston Churchill’s statue.
Same student demands that we pay for his university education, and is then photographed pissing up the statue.

                                         Caption in newspaper,
“Never did so many give so much for so few thanks.”

                                    Wpl

Actual Posting Date 30-11-10

Wpl

I don’t have much luck growing rhubarb in this garden. I bought a fresh plant this week. The “Growing Instructions” say, “Don’t Eat the Roots.” Hmm... So that’s where I’ve been going wrong.

Wpl

Actual posting date 26-11-10

Just done a crafty three-miler over the hill; moon, eyeing up the sun across a blue sky; air, crisp as a white wine; fields, white with frost; hedges, smothered in old-man’s beard; Cardiff, down there, bubbling softly in a bowl of hills; lovely wife for company. This is the way I live it up.

 

 

Actual posting date 24-11-10

Silly swine... My wife just took some magazines to the local surgery. They said they don’t put reading matter out anymore – “Because of Swine Flu.” Hmm...

Actual postin date 18-11-10

Wpl

“Hot! Burn!”

The instructions for my new electric razor say, “Wash the head in hot water;” followed by the warning, “Hot water can scald.”

Seeing that most boys and girls don’t normally start shaving till after the age of 12…

Wpl

 

A Thought for November

Rudyard Kipling’s son, Jack, was one of 8,000 men killed
in the battle of Loos in September 1915.
He was 18 years of age.
This poem is Kipling’s response.

My Boy Jack
“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Has anyone else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind –
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Kipling

 

Wpl

Anyone here naïve enough to watch the BBC news reports?
Then you must have come across that gem, Orla Guerin.
Let’s face it, with Orla’s face and voice she only had two possible roles in life –
Disaster Reporter or Undertaker.

Wpl

It’s probably my age,
but when a bloke speaks to me about his, “partner,”
I presume he’s gay and his partner has a bald head, moustache, and smokes a pipe.
Then, when his partner turns out to be female, I think,“What’s your problem, Sunshine? Why don’t you marry the girl?”

Wpl

Merrie England Still Exists
I wish I was still a real cigarette smoker instead of a brain-fuddled alcoholic hanger-on. When I make one of my occasional cross-country forays by coach I watch with envy as, at the comfort stops, the nimble footed addicts are out of their seats and into the elements, faster than a fox with hounds on his tail, and already disappearing in a cloud of homemade fog, lungs going like the clappers of hell, phlegm flying in all directions, before the driver has finished opening the door or the rest of the crew have prized open their sleep-glued eyes.
Then, while their travelling companions are huddled over jam and drink spattered tables in the rip-off glare of the Services, trying to work out whether they are drinking tea, coffee or urine, our intrepid band of devil-may-care, brown fingered, ‘Whose afraid of the big bad C,’ warriors, are out in the God-given air, come sun, rain or snow, forging bonds of fearless companionship, as only the rejected, despised, outlawed and condemned can do.
 
Sensing the revival of a long lost breed, last seen in the bulldog stubborn Englishness of Robin Hood’s men, ‘Us against the world; Whose afraid of chemo and the surgeon’s knife,’ type of hero who once accompanied Raleigh and Cook on their voyages of discovery, and Nelson at Trafalgar, I feel I have no option but to join them. To do anything other would make me a lesser man – a gutless chicken of a total abstainer.
And so, forgoing the curly butties and soggy pastry of the Services; the bookshop; one armed bandits and McDonald’s; I weather the weather with my modern hero’s, inhale their passive smoke, assure them that I am one of them at heart, an ex smoker with tattered lungs, a heavy drinker with an addled brain and rotting liver and early onset rigor mortis; not up to their high standard maybe, but still a Merry Man at heart; cough and spit with the best of them; join in their merry banter of lung shadows, morning coughs, X-rays, lobectomies, pneumonectomies, cold turkey, stunted growth and breathlessness.

And sometimes, just sometimes, they accept me as one of them. And then, for one fleeting moment, I feel,
“Sod Your Five a Day Real!”

Wpl