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BOB JONES LIVE
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MY WRITING
PAGE - you are very welcome.
Here are some
extracts from my columns in the Hertfordshire
Mercury’s: 'Keeping up with Jones' & Our Time magazine. They are copyright Bob Harding-Jones 2008 &
cannot be reproduced without permission.
Just a little explanation:
Hertfordshire is a county bordering
I'm based in Hertford which is the
slightly sleepy, but historic county town. So, at times, my column can be
slightly parochial.
It's meant to be entertainment. Read
on:
Where am I coming from?
I'm being asked all the time: Do I deal with serious social
issues, pull people's plonkers, or take the Michael?
Am I a satirist or humorist? Do I play safe or take a risk? Am I
middle-of-the-road or on-the-edge? Tongue-in-cheek or in-your-face? Do I
entertain or am I a bane? The answer is: I wish I knew. Can't a guy have a good
time without all these interruptions? So read on . . .
‘Decorating your home’ – my sound advice for the serial
procrastinator
The
trouble with redecorating one room in your house is that it doesn’t end there.
Once one room is gleaming with fresh paintwork and newly erected flat packs,
all other rooms suddenly appear vividly dull. Then, like painting the
Chinese Fast Food
I was watching an edition of TOTP2 (Compilations from Top of the Pops from
the BBC archives) on the TV recently and could not fail to notice in a 70s clip
that the studio audience that was gyrating to the beat or just bopping to the
rhythm out were all slim – none were overweight. If you were to compare this to
a present day audience at a pop gig the difference in the calorie count would
be startling, and this a mere thirty years ago. In the seventies McDonald’s and
Kentucky Fried had not yet appeared on every British high street and fast food
Drive-Thrus were mostly seen in American movies.
Although my own weight watchers’ health survey is not scientific my
observations of the Chinese during my recent trip there was that they were all
very slim and looked healthy, probably due to the absence of fatty products and
shoals of fish in their diet. I only saw one overweight Chinese - and she was
serving in
We have now gathered considerable wheelchair knowledge on travelling: long distances by air, coach, train; hotels, crossing roads against unbelievable odds and how to negotiate the Great Wall - I think I’ll write a wheelchair travel guide.
Disabled people will be well
aware of the problems of wheelchair users but it was a learning curve for us.
If you are in a wheelchair you are very often below eye level and if waiting to
be served at a counter will have to wave a hand above the surface to attract
attention. Wheelchair access is generally quite good in the
Therefore the Chinese wheelchair user prefers to take his chances in the road with the traffic. And the traffic has to be experienced to be believed. They drive on the right – sort of, and always take priority over pedestrians, overtaking and undertaking, weaving around bemused pedestrians who, thinking themselves immortal, cross slowly and occasionally pause while lorries and coaches straddle them a whisker away from death. Road rage does not seem to be in the Chinese psyche; if you bump another car, get out, walk about in the traffic for a while, light a ciggie and get on your mobile – no stress. Lorry broke down? Jack it up where it stands, even if it’s in the middle of a four-lane highway. Engine change? No problem, but maybe pull over to the curb for that.
But the people were truly magnificent. My wife’s NHS adjustable aluminium crutches drew much envious attention - Chinese crutches seem still to be that old-fashioned wooded under-armpit design. The Chinese seemed to sense whenever we were getting into difficulties and although English is not widely understood, rushed to our assistance – curbing their enthusiasm was often the problem. When my wife dropped one of her crutches and it bounced loudly on a stone floor, we were almost flattened in the resulting stampede to help.
Most scary moment: when a
teenage porter at
Autumnal
Ramblings
Come
on you lot, cheer up! It’s only the British weather. It’s what put the B in
British, and I’ll let you decide what the B stands for. And it’s our British
weather that makes us what we are – a race of whinging whiners. With our
atrocious summer weather set to continue into the autumn, what better than to
shelter in the dry with your pets in front of the tele
for some light entertainment. So many channels - so much dross to choose from;
but with the latest electronic gadgets in hand, watching TV can be an
adventure. We’ve all seen the Sky+ ads with all those famous and busy people
extolling its virtue; and us Joneses have been converted too. The live pause
and instant rewind of a live programme is now an essential in our lives. Phone
rings – press the pause on remote! Knock on front door – press pause! Fall
asleep during a film – rewind! Fancy a cuppa – pause! Fancy a wee – pause, or rewind
on your return if the visit was of an urgent nature. The problem is that if you
multiply the aforementioned by two Joneses the programme interruptions can be
of a longer duration than scheduled in the Radio Times (or equivalent). One
episode of East Enders has been known to take us three and a half hours to yawn
through – although it’s always seemed to last that long to me.
As I’ve being paying far too much attention to my leg fracture recovery
(which has now thankfully fully mended) I haven’t given the Mercury my annual wildlife pond/garden
update. Several years of frogspawn rotting before tadpoles could immerge and an
infestation of choking surface pond weed prompted me to empty the pond during
last winter. This resulted in clear water and bucket loads of spawn – and my
expectations were high. I introduced some friendly pondweed and bought some
pond snails on EBay. (My family though I’d finally lost the plot when I told
them.) I literally received snail mail the very next morning courtesy of a very
keen snail breeder in
Hopalongabob Evensomemore
Last time I extolled
the virtues and dexterity of crutches, and how I became a hop-along expert
after fracturing my leg. But as the hospital doctor advised me on the discharge
day following my final plaster cast removal: ‘Continue with two crutches for
two days, one crutch for five days - then you are on your own, no more
crutches’. Steady on doc! I wasn’t as fast a healer as he predicted I’m sorry
to say. Fracture mending nicely but a foot like a blown-up rubber glove. And as
we in the queue waiting in the corridor of the weekly fracture clinic say to
each other each time we meet: ‘One step at a time hoppy’.
But let’s go back a few
weeks to my first visits to the Fracture Clinic. Just like a caterpillar,
shedding a skin – or plaster – is essential it seems. The initial plaster is
slapped on with great dexterity but removing it for the latest model requires
some heavy equipment . . .
Enter the indomitable
ladies of the fracture clinic. They are in charge. ‘Lay back on the bed’ they
say, and you obediently do. Then quick on the draw with their Black and Decker
with its circular saw attachment on the end whirring round at several thousand
revs per minute, it’s a stick-up. My initial plaster was from foot to groin and
my white-coated operative cheerfully commenced at my foot and progressed with a
straight groove upwards, ever upwards. She passed my knee and continued to make
excellent progress; then probably sensing that I was getting rather tense,
reassured me, purring: ‘It’s OK, it won’t hurt a bit’. I had my eyes tight shut
and the sweat was beginning to drip down my forehead. I was reflecting on
another movie: that scene in one of the James Bond films where 007 was in a similar predicament. (OK, so in James’s case it was
a laser beam, not a saw.) ( . . . And OK, James wasn’t in the QE2 Hospital
Fracture Clinic.) I put on a brave face however and she was right – it didn’t
hurt a bit. On my subsequent visits I had complete faith in their ability and
meekly did as I was told. No sweat.
One last story about
crutches before I discard them completely: pedestrians and drivers are very
courteous when they see someone struggling on crutches I found. So much so that
while I was waiting on the pavement outside my house for a lift in a friend’s
car, securely supported by my crutches, another motorist stopped sharply in the
road and beckoned me safely across. I attempted to explain that I was OK and
was waiting for a friend. My crutch gesticulations were obviously
misinterpreted and he became even more insistent that I cross. So much so that
I did, thanking him profusely. When he had safely disappeared up the road in a
cloud of wellbeing, I nimbly hopped back again hoping he hadn’t spotted me in his
mirror.
Break a Leg Bob – You’re Showbiz!
Keeping up with Jones will not be a problem for most people
at the moment as I have broken my leg. I did not break my own leg of course, that
was accomplished with great velocity by my erstwhile cuddly bearded collie dog
Alfie. When you’re walking your off-lead dog over the fields for a sniff and a
scamper you don’t expect it to return as a misguided missile at warp factor
ten, scoring a direct hit on your leg, instantly breaking it with a loud
crunch, rendering you a helpless heap in the middle of a muddy field in urgent
need of help; and, in my case . . .
without a mobile phone because I had forgotten to pop it into my
dog-walking trousers.
I was (thankfully) on a footpath and
within range of civilisation so no need to panic. The thought of shouting for
help was a little demeaning I thought, but after ten minutes of muddy solitude
- other than my uninjured tail-wagging but impatient for a continuation of his walkies, doggy - I was screaming my head off. No help
arrived for thirty painfully long lung–thrusting minutes; then, at last, a dog
walker appeared with his dog and bone (many thanks for walking my way sir). Our
two dogs decided that this would be a great time to demonstrate how to protect
their respective masters with a snarling display of dog to dog combat as I
dialled 999 on my rescuer’s mobile and summoned an ambulance.
Calling for an ambulance was an
embarrassment. I am an ambulance paramedic when not in my alter ego writer/poet
mode. I made four of my colleagues extremely muddy as they splinted my leg,
carried me off the field on a board and gave me pain relief. Were they
professional? Very. Did they pull my leg? Yes, but
thankfully just the uninjured one.
A health professional in distress was
greeted at QE2 Casualty by staff he knows well. They looked worried after
hearing about his sorry plight and replied in touching unison: ‘Oh dear Bob.
But how’s your poor dog?’ Many readers will have had first hand experiences of
leg fractures I realise, and so have I, but never as a patient. A great time
was had by all as I was x-rayed and my leg pulled literally and metaphorically
in preparation for a back-slab plaster. As I was happily under the influence of
morphine I joined in the fun too.
Later, on Codicote
Ward awaiting the decision of the orthopaedic team, a cheerful and sympathetic
nurse with a wicked sense of humour shared a story with me, commencing
proceedings with a cheeky little wink. He said that my experiences of being
stranded injured, with no means of communication and far from assistance
reminded him of a man who had a similar incident. Not in green and pleasant
Hertfordshire, this man was on a small boat on a river in
But against all the odds our man
survived until the next day and was rescued. I didn’t find out how he was
rescued because my nurse and his wicked sense of humour were called away before
the climax of his tale. However, I think I can guess the ending that he was
building up to. How was he rescued? It had to be by a passing dog walker with
his dog and bone. This rendered my
adventure mild by comparison and I took an immediate turn for the better. It
was very effective therapy.
Conserve
the Plastic Carrier Bag
A
conservation policy is needed for the once ubiquitous supermarket plastic
carrier bag. They are becoming an endangered species. Collectors and
speculators are probably hoarding the different styles and logos in expectation
of making a killing. Museums are on the lookout and I have heard from a
reliable source at the
My
Sporting Injury
Just
like
Now
I know what it’s like. Metatarsals can be very painful. My days of football
practice in the kitchen were abruptly halted by my father when I was about
8-years old with a well-aimed clip round my ear, so as you will have probably
guessed – mine was not a football injury. My injury: is a scourge to anybody
who contributes as I do, to the leisure and sports industry. My injury: was a
beer-can injury. An unopened can of my favourite brew rolled off the work top.
I emulated
Happily,
just like my footballing mates Stevie, Wayne and
Michael, I recovered my fitness amazingly quickly and was able to resume my
chosen career of couch-potatoing in time to enjoy my
meal, accompanied by a replacement unshaken can of best brew in pain-free
leisure. What a recovery. What an athlete!
My
Spare Tyre
I
suffered a nearly-flat rear tyre - I could see a nail imbedded in it - so I
drove gingerly to my friendly tyre service. They like to build up the suspense
don’t they. They lock you in a little room with a
monosyllabic coffee machine for company, and then escort you to your vehicle
for their expert diagnosis. After my wheel had been inspected I was informed by
the tyre fitter that I would need a new tyre – no surprise there. After nearly fainting at the cost of an
identical replacement tyre he gave me several options, right down to their
special budget tyre. We met about halfway. ‘That’ll be £100 – fully fitted’. I’m so glad that I
decided to have my wheel ‘fully’
fitted – it’s given me so much confidence driving around in safety. I recommend
that everyone has their tyres ‘fully’
fitted; well worth that little bit extra I’m sure.
Mistaken
Identidy
It’s
a great blackberry season this year. Walking the fields with my dog I’ve seen
numerous pickers keenly harvesting the hedgerows, carrying home bags bulging
with lovely plump blackberries. I was following
just such a person – she had a dog too - carrying her bag of bulging
blackberries. ‘They’ll taste great with some apples in a pie’ I was tempted to
jest. I’m so relieved that I didn’t – her bag was full of dog pooh.
Metre
Raid
I
am sure that I’m not the only person who received a letter to state that their
electricity metre was to be replaced – by the latest hi-tech model no doubt. I
have no complaint about this as my metre is surely destined for public viewing
in its own cabinet at the
About
a month ago one of their fitters did catch me in – or on my way out to be
precise. He was most put out that I wouldn’t change my plans to make his day. I
told him that I would be delighted to arrange a convenient time for me – it’s
called an ‘appointment’ I suggested. He didn’t know what an ‘appointment’ was –
a word not in general use by my electricity company’s technicians it seems. My
suggestion was the wrong suggestion: he said it was impossible for him to plan
his day ahead like that – he’d try again sometime, whenever, occasionally,
maybe.
A second man called this week. I asked why he
couldn’t give me some notice as my metre is hidden by two tons of assorted
bric-a-brac and an iron bedstead, but I could prepare space in advance - if I
knew in advance.
‘Not
possible’ he said.
‘Can
I phone your boss?’ I said
‘No’
he said.
‘Why?’
I said
‘I
don’t have any contact numbers’ he said.
‘Dear
oh dear’ I said.
‘Bye’
he said.
‘This
sort of thing used to go on 20-years ago, it’s 2007’ I
said.
‘Is
it?’ He said.
I
noticed that following our polite spat he tried his luck on several other
houses nearby without success and roared off in his van to no doubt annoy some
more households elsewhere. What a complete and utter waste of time!
There
is something radically wrong here. If I were to guess, these chaps cannot be
paid by the number of metres they fit or they would organise themselves, or be
organised. So somebody must be paying for these expensive procrastinations.
Could it be us?
Diary
of a Sixty-Something
The
honour of being selected as a Glastonbury Festival poet was fantastic. But
having to camp in a tiny tent squeezed into a minute soggy space in a crowded
sodden field with the rain belting vertically down and the water table bubbling
vertically up; attempting a balancing act on a wobbly pneumatic mattress/come
sledge half-zipped out of a twisted lumpy sleeping bag not aptly named – all to
the accompaniment of the thump-thump-thump of all-night music and shriek-shriek-shriek
of all-night revellers, wasn’t.
The
pleasure of performing my stuff to appreciative audiences was also fantastic
–even if I needed to keep my wellies on. But strip
washing at a standpipe, negotiating latrines designed for Roman Legionnaires not
southern softies like me - and sharing the duration of the festival with a pair
of friendly underpants, wasn’t.
If
you saw the television reports, I can confirm that the conditions really were
that bad. The camaraderie of performers and punters however was marvellous. It
must have been a bit like this during the Blitz. I didn’t witness any anger or
aggression. Ample lager, pear cider and chain-smoking herbal rollups seemed to
provide the energy and tranquillity required for seventy two hours with little
or no sleep. If you cared to gaze into people’s eyes, they would gaze back at
you with either pinpoint or dilated pupils, sometimes one of each.
My
compatriot poets were a fine friendly bunch, spanning all ages and genres. Most
were used to performing at gigs all over the
Most
readers will know of the famous headline music acts that appeared there this
year, but I chose to update myself on the poetry front, spending many happy
hours listening to the talent on offer. So I’m now an updated poet, have learnt
what MySpace is and now am the proud owner of my own site. I’m currently
networking to my new poet friends, been offered a gig in York and received two
internet offers from young ladies to venture to their naughty websites with my
credit card details. I don’t think that they can be poets, so I won’t.
The
good news: took lots of great pics. The bad news:
lost my camera somewhere in the
Most
embarrassing moment: Tripping over the power cable when the Glastonbury Poetry
Slam competition was in full flow, cutting off all power, light, sound and
leaving the contestants speechless – what a plonker I
was! Unsung hero: one of our band rescued a
semi-conscious man with his head and shoulders through a lavatory aperture
contemplating a fate worse than death 6-feet below.
I
returned to Hertfordshire completely shattered, suffering sleep depredation,
eardrums that pounded a rock ‘n’ roll beat for three more days and smelling
worse than the dog.
Would
I do it again? Of course I would!
This
is an old article of mine, but: Hey, it’s Festival Time again!
My
A First Night to Remember
(And no knickers!)
I’m
a lucky man. My life seems to consist of a long list of minor catastrophes and
trivial misadventures. They queue up, and emerge one at a time; highlighting my
otherwise dull and uneventful little life. I’m a lucky man: they give me some
excellent material to write about. That’s fine with me - just as long as no-one
gets hurt and it’s not illegal.
Take
my
My
pleasant little dream of a successful week packed with audience adulation was
interrupted by hectic thumping on the flat door and distressed screams of a
female voice. It took a few moments for me to realise where I was; that I was
no-longer in a dream; that someone was desperate for help; and that I, in no
uncertain terms, was being asked to deliver it.
I
grabbed some jeans and very cautiously opened my door. The door of the flat opposite
was open and the screaming woman was visible inside; a small child was by her
side and there was a loud noise from within that I couldn’t identify. I
concluded that this was a medical emergency. I felt confident that I could
help.
She
saw that I had responded, and screamed ‘Help me! Help me!’ in a foreign accent.
(I later found out she was Palestinian). As I slowly approached, she shrieked
information at me in hysterical and incomprehensible English.
As
I entered, the cause of the emergency dawned on me. This was not a medical
emergency at all. The woman had a burst pipe. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation I
can manage. Plumbing is a problem. I gulped: my wife assesses my DIY attempts
with derision, and breaks into manic hilarity if I go anywhere near a pipe with
a spanner. This was some burst too. She was filling bucket after bucket from a
loudly hissing pipe and tipping them into her bath. Water was cascading through
her floorboards and I feared for the ceiling of the flat below. I pattered to
and fro in little wet circles, trying to kick start my brain.
I
phoned 24-hour emergency telephone numbers and was answered by pedantic
operators with a check list. Unfortunately I had difficulty getting past
question one: the woman’s name. I tried very hard to interpret what it might
be. It contained many consonants and was hyphenated by gushes of water. They
said they’d ring back. I looked for the mains valve. It was at ceiling-level
12-feet high. There was no ladder. I squelched downstairs to the flat below. A lady
in a nightdress emerged with a ladder and brought it upstairs. She started to
climb the steps, then decided against it. ‘No
knickers’ she said. I ascended the steps.
During
all this, a smiling drunk had been lurching up and down the stairs, buzzing on
doors. No-one answered. He went to the main door and pressed all the buzzers
alternately for half-an-hour. No-one answered. I told him, that if he
continued, he’d wake everyone up. The irony was lost on him. The Palestinian
lady spoke sharply to him. He left immediately. This was as surreal a situation
as I’ve ever experienced. I succeeded in turning off the mains. We all cheered.
I’m now a hero in
All
this, and my Festival week had only just begun . . .
Fed up with British Railways?
Why not fly to the
I
have often berated our rail networks: Hertford East or North - it makes little
difference. Shabby, window and upholstery-stained litter-strewn carriages with
lager cans rolling to and fro and a noisy unruly
clientele to share your journey. This combination is no enticement to
patronise, so if at all possible and contrary to modern energy-saving etiquette
I travel by car where I do not need to avoid eye contact with my fellow
passengers or listen to the unimaginative and repetitive medley of foul
language.
Bearing
this in mind I chose to sample train travel American style, Niagara to
Our
train was the first for several days due to a derailment. This derailment was
of American proportions too: a half mile of inflammable cargoes catching fire
and exploding. We were the first on the re-laid track and witnessed a huge
tangle of twisted rails, carriage carcasses and the upended train - all removed
into a significant acreage of chard forest. Thirty minutes later we ground to a
halt and were told by a moustachioed guard straight out of a Wild West movie
set that the freight train in front had broken down: ‘It ain’t
a movin’!’
There was no option but to gingerly reverse for twenty miles to transfer
to the other track - at about the same speed and distance as our Hertford East
to Liverpool Street ‘Express’. Finally reaching
Watching TV programmes you hate
Due
to visiting or being overruled, have you ever watched a television programme
that you have never watched before and furthermore vehemently announced to the
world that you never would watch ever? And when you settle down to watch this
hated programme, has a feeling of muted pleasure ensued? Or is it just me?
Conversely, my wife hates Woody Allen films – they never get passed the opening
title. I’ve never watched one - ever.
One historic day I muted that it would be nice to watch one before I
died. I selected the channel in time for the title: ‘No, not that one’ she
said, ‘I’ve seen it’.
Little Boxes
It’s advisable to retain
receipts and boxes – just in case. You never know, your goods may be faulty or
break down sometime. But with the receipt and the box you should be able to get
the item replaced, repaired or your money back. Also there are puzzling leads,
plugs, compact discs and just-in-case instructions to be kept safe - or placed
in oblivion in a drawer until the end of time. But how long should you keep
these boxes? One year, two years, forever? And how much house space should be
allocated? One shed, one cupboard, one room, the entire loft? Boxes, by their very
nature, pile up.
Ordinary Bloke’s Column 2007 (Bob’s Blog)
You
probably won’t have heard of me. I’m an ordinary chap, fellow, guy, geezer, bloke. You can call me what you like – it depends if you
were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or received a pair of industrial
gloves and a plumber’s wrench as a christening present. My name isn’t household, so you aren’t going to read this because I’m a
celebrity. The best that I can hope for is that you will persevere out of
curiosity. Consequently I’d better get on with it and throw in some witty
one-liners before I’m wrapping the fish and chips or double clicked to the next
blog.
Drugs,
wife swapping, swinging sex parties and stories about the rich and famous to
make your eyes water . . . sorry, it’s nothing like this at all in our house.
My first wife is still with me after 40 years of a DIY-less marriage. If I
aspire to erecting a shelf, it doubles as a slide and anything temporarily
placed there gravitates to the left before plunging to the floor. If I hammer a
picture hook in the wall, the approximate area will be perforated with holes
like a dart player, throwing his arrows left-handed and blindfolded - and
speckled by a selection of snapped-off picture hooks. The photo of the dog will
always be 3-inches higher or lower than intended - and 3-inches to the left. So
no DIY tips either. We do not boast about our children’s university
achievements: they didn’t go; they spurned university due to inheriting their
father’s academic lethargy. And I won’t be chanting about my wheeler-dealer
kids being well on their way to their 2nd million. They’re happy and normal.
We’ve a large hairy dog that makes me wheeze, two kittens who play dirt-box
roulette and a deceased goldfish. We’ve a garden in a state of overgrown
confusion, a mortgage well on the way to maturity when I’m 75 and hp on a car the size of the national debt
- I’m looking forward to it being mine after 4-years easy payments so I can
trade it in to cover the first instalment of my next.
So
there you have it. I’m an ordinary bloke with an ordinary family with plenty to
complain about . . . see you next time.
Dear Santa: please gimme a
parking space for Christmas
There’s
street near to me that, although suffering an unfavourable cars to houses ratio
like everywhere else, manages to cope. When a motorist is unable to park
outside his or her house and has to find an available gap further up the road,
it’s not the end of the world so to speak. There are a few notable exceptions,
but in the main there is a bit of give and take all round, a little community
spirit – call it what you will. Everybody eventually manages to park their
cars. Possibly not in a favoured location, but always well within a day’s march
of the front door. It’s been this way since time since god proclaimed that a
man should take him a wife, they should beget children, live in family harmony
and at their maturity, each girl child should bring
forth a sporty car complete with girlie accessories and each boy child a big
white van.
That
was until recently. Pleasant but pernickety policemen had organised a raid of
this East Herts street.
Years of neighbourly getting-on-together was in danger of plummeting into a
range-war for parking spaces. Overnight, the resplendent smile of
neighbourliness was replaced with the grimace of gritted teeth and
parking-related stress syndrome.
Whether
these policemen were indeed pernickety or reluctantly responding to a complaint
from an unknown busybody not following the local custom is unclear. It is said
that at least one fine was issued to an errant motorist: he parked they said –
‘illegally’. Cars straddling pavements to allow busses to get through per the
time-honoured custom were instructed to no-longer straddle pavements and
forthwith park per 1932 AA guidelines, six inches from the curb. The fact that
busses could no-longer get through the restricted road width was considered
irrelevant. Prior to this purge, vehicles were indeed blocking the pavement on
one side of the road, but as local custom dictated, there was an unimpeded
pavement on the other side of the road for pedestrians, toddlers in buggies and
dog walkers. Since legal intervention, pedestrians had a choice of footpaths,
but zigzagging busses, lorries and emergency vehicles
were in danger of harvesting wing mirrors, an accumulation of vehicular
paintwork and an occasional withering
Most
motorists in this street do not implement the unwritten householders’ 11th
Commandment: ‘The space in the road outside your house
is yours: let no-one else park there’. Most non-car owners accept that their
houses will enjoy an uninterrupted view of parked cars. This street had a
relaxed attitude that had stood the test of time, an acceptable compromise. But
who was to blame for destroying the equilibrium: police, pedestrians or
parkers? This street was transformed into an unhappy street, no sign of joy
apparent except for the whistling builders and odd-jobbers doing their rounds;
quoting for digging-out and concreting front gardens, dropping-down curbs and
designing underground car parks.
So,
how do you manage parking in your street?
Halloween
It’s the annual invasion of the dreaded Americanised Halloween trick or treaters and their entourage of adult enforcers. Ok, so I’m a sarcastic old grump, but I have to get my kicks where I can.
Halloween:
a cauldron’s mix of mini-witches, hats, broomsticks, greasepaint and
intimidation systematically trawled our streets: our little satanic angels were
at it again, predatory droves of them scouring every housing estate near you.
In the past I have tried leaving my house and creeping back on all fours under
the cover of darkness. A feeble ploy, they must have been hovering in midair
somewhere and swooped to knock on my door as soon as I clicked it shut. My
turning all the lights off, hiding behind the settee and letting my dogs bark
until they were hoarse routine didn’t work either. Their management and
security section have grown wise to it and sent them back every twenty minutes
to break my resistance without mercy.
This
year however I was spared all Trick & Treaters.
My garden path had been freshly concreted that very day and the system of
wooden and metal barriers was duly constructed to bar all human and animal life
from planting even one tiny footprint or paw. This worked wonders. Not one
attempt on my front door. Marvellous, the ready-mix is already on order for
next year.
Back to school – me too!
Sixth Form Choice
I spoke with sixth formers
about comedy and language, and went armed to their college with my special Bob
Jones name-dropping list of ‘with it’ comedians I’ve met. Eddie Izzard might
only have said ‘Hello’ to me before he was famous, but in my book that’s a
conversation, and this might have been the turning point in Eddie’s career –
you never know. The sixth formers would be impressed - wouldn’t they?
I asked who their favourite
comics were, my list at the ready in preparation to strike off the names, one
by one. One student contemplated for a moment, then caught me completely off
guard with ‘Charlie Drake’. Then another followed up with ‘Tommy Cooper!’
I
hesitated. ‘I used to watch them on the Tele’ I said, screwing up my list into
a paper ball.
MY SUMMER
‘We’re all going on a summer holiday!’
Cliff Richard coined this immortal line in 1962. We don’t all go on holiday at
the same time of course, and rarely by bus, and hardly ever with Cliff, unless
we’re the Blaire family; but all the same, quite a few of us are currently conspicuous
by our absence. Firstly, our schoolchildren are on their summer break – hooray!
This is much to the delight of schoolteachers who are now on general release
and have several weeks to de-stress, go to therapy, the pub, or just jump up
and down, babbling over with joy. Perhaps you are a teacher, reading this in
the waiting room of your friendly shrink. Or, perhaps you are not, but have
observed them being bundled into police vans at closing time, loudly
proclaiming:
But where, oh where, have all our
schoolchildren gone? There aren’t many of them visible during the daytime.
Perhaps they are operating a sort of reverse curfew: in during the day – out at
night. Or, more precisely, in bed during the day, on the tiles at night, but I
could be wrong. Other than our newly-liberated teachers our pavements are
strangely quiet, and our roads almost deserted. It’s extremely tempting to
drive around in circles just for the pleasure of it and continue contributing
to global warming without the usual pressures of other motorists.
Hertford Tourist Office take note: our
summer holiday calm might be a blessing in disguise. Tourists could be
encouraged into Mercury Country for activity holidays and
simultaneously improve the aesthetic quality of our towns. Summer events could
be organised such as the Great
Supermarket Trolley Repatriation Race when each competitor drags a trolley
from the canal or river and races at acute angles back to whence it came. Also,
Sweep a Street, Veto a Vomit and Pursue the Pooch Pooh competitions
would prove enormously popular and be contested with enthusiastic vigour I am
sure. Additionally: a ‘Solve the Hertfordshire Highways Maize Conundrum’ where
tourists jump in their cars and attempt to drive through Hertford to Ware
without hesitation, repetition or deviation would be a challenge to the holiday
adventurer. Our Highways Department would join in the fun and organise as many
simultaneous road closures and diversions as possible. Luckily they already
possess vast experience of this. First Prize: A Day’s Fun Filling in Potholes.
And on our return from our holidays to
the Costa Packet, we’d all have a much, much nicer place to live – including
our schoolteachers.
IT’S FOOTBALL – BLOODY WORLD CUP FOOTBALL
‘It’s football, bloody football on the tele - again! I can’t stand bloody football! I can’t stand
it! It’s interfering with my life. It’s going on and on . . . and on and on . .
. and on! When will it ever end?’ This quote isn’t mine readers, I love foota and am saturating myself with World Cup coverage in
front of my television set whenever I can. It’s Alfie my dog’s thought bubble
as he stares mournfully from the garden through the patio window at me,
transfixed, agape, watching football in front of the box. Alfie is wondering
what possible human catastrophe or disaster could be happening in the world to
cause his daily walks to be delayed, curtailed, foreshortened; or conducted
with so much impatience that he now has to suffer the daily indignity of being
dragged by the neck past his favourite sniffs and leg-cocking pit stops so that
his master can return home in time to turn that ‘*****’ foota
back on the tele – again! Alfie cannot comprehend how
anything in this world could be as important as his walk,
or why the other dogs on their walks are being unceremoniously hauled passed
him without so much as the customary reciprocal wet nose do-se-do and lick of
the goolies. There’s just no fun in dogs walks any
more.
‘Football rules during the World Cup -
Ok!’ This isn’t another quote from my dog dear reader, it’s my thought bubble as my wife and daughter’s daily ration of
television soaps are reorganized and even cancelled. Horray!
I say, it’s about time I asserted my rightful machismo front row seat in front
of the box once more. Television schedulers: I toast you with English passion
from the depths of my sofa with my traditional can of Danish lager in the one
hand and salute you with my
‘It’s just not fair: delayed, curtailed,
foreshortened, reorganized and even cancelled – that’s what they are.’ No it’s
not my dog again, or me; it’s my wife and daughter bitterly complaining about
their stupid irrelevant soaps as I stretch out on the sofa in my footie trance
ignoring them completely save for a dismissive wave while they take their
rightful positions, relegated to the dining room to do some knitting and sew on
a few buttons.
World Cup Football has given me an
amazing new power and supremacy that I never knew I had. So there’s life in the
old slouch yet. But how long can I keep this up? Well, I’m hoping that I can
make it right through to the World Cup Final. Game on!
Old vs. Young: and the
winner is . . .
(From Our Time magazine: Spring edition)
As time goes by our mental faculties are
occasionally challenged by the younger generation. I personally treat these
challenges as enjoyable little tests to keep me on my metal. They’ve never been
a problem – I’m a wise old bird, or to be more precise, a shrewd,
deep-thinking, prime-of-life sexpot. (But maybe I’m biased.)
The following story relates, when for
the first time in my life, I doubted my mental competence. My fears proved
completely unfounded however, an unlikely brain-teasing challenge between
generations bringing tears of devilish joy to my eyes.
I was travelling by train from Hertford
to St Ives,
On the return journey a made a mental
note where I’d left my case and reinforced it with the location - as a marker -
of a tiny lady with a booming voice and five disorderly travel bags. As the
train approached
At Paddington I smugly collected my case
and filed up the platform, only to be overtaken by the even sweatier young man;
pulling his case with one hand and his rather bad tempered girlfriend with the
other. At the barrier he was urgently enquiring about trains back to
The Boat People of Hertfordshire
Have
you seen the huge new
I
have taken quite an interest in the history of boat people lately. This was
fired by reading a book by one of my favourite authors: Sheila Stewart,
entitled Ramlin Rose The Boatwoman’s Story (Oxford University Press). She traced the
descendents of Oxfordshire boat people who gladly contributed family anecdotes
and memories. Sheila weaved their reminiscences into the fabulous story that is
Ramlin Rose. I have empathy with the subjects
that she chooses for her books and this was also a delightful read. It is a
composite of the lives of the itinerant and mainly illiterate boat people whose
narrow-boat cargoes preceded and supplemented the railway and road transport
system of today. Goods of all typed were moved by narrow-boats all over the
country, skippered by families who lived, loved and reared their families on
them. Sheila has again chosen a poorly documented subject and rescued its
memory for posterity in another hugely entertaining book - an intriguing social
history and gripping yarn rolled into one magical package. Her boat people
mainly travelled the
The
folk who live or holiday on the narrow-boats nowadays are literate and lead a
life of relaxation and leisure, but is there an undocumented history of
Hertfordshire boat people plying their trade, waiting to be uncovered? Ware and
Hertford have a long tradition steeped in the brewing industry and boat people
must have frequented our canal and river systems in the first half of the
twentieth century and before that. If any readers have memories or can
contribute any information about the boat people of Hertfordshire, I’d be
delighted to hear from you.
I Recycled for Jesus
By the time that you read this, Twelfth
Night will have passed, your twelve drummers will have drummed their last, your
Christmas decorations will have been taken down and you will have screwed up
and crumpled the remnants into a large pile of black bags for rubbish
collection. Not me, I strove for a recycled Christmas this year. Waste not want
not. And my motto: Recycle for Jesus
- and I’m sure Jesus approved. I did my bit to save the Planet, and it all
started in the nearest place that I have to Heaven - my loft.
My loft is the place where my unwanted
things accumulate. My loft is a boom to hoarders like myself. It consists of
boxes labelled ‘XMAS DECS’, boxes of toys going back to the Neolithic period
when my kiddies were smaller, poorer and slower witted than me. It consists of
surplus chairs that are only needed at Christmas and New Year when relatives
swarm around our Festive table. It consists of boxes of books that I’ve
promised myself to read but forgotten where I’ve put them. And it consists of
mysterious bundles of I know not what – all unjustifiably labelled ‘junk’ by my
wife. Car Boot sales have tempted, but I have always taken the easy route up
the rickety staircase to Hoarding Heaven and dumped my annual surplus where the
Sun don’t shine.
So this year I decided to utilise my
bulging storeroom in the sky and reduce its contents before the ceilings of my
upstairs rooms sagged under their cumulative weight – and save the Planet. So
if you are a close friend or a relative, I hope that you were not offended to
receive from me a dusty but once loved item of bric-a-brac for Christmas
wrapped up in a dog-eared sheet of wallpaper circa 1970 – it was for the good
of mankind.
The
following are jottings written down in my journal recording for posterity my
pre-Christmas day of loft exploration:
10.00 am.
I have just returned from an exploratory
mission through the hatch to my loft. I am a little cold, but elated. Don’t
bother taking your little ones to see the latest Disney classic: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe, my attic is even more wondrous and amazing; and
tickets to view will be marginally cheaper too.
1.00 pm.
I have now retrieved and sifted through
several boxes of Christmas decorations and spent an enjoyable few hours
reassembling our 100-piece Christmas tree that more aptly ought to have been
labelled ‘100-Piece Xmas Monkey Puzzle Tree (Rather wobbly. Two bits
missing.)’. No problem, the bald patch can face the wall. ‘Never throw away
your Xmas lights: even if some of the bulbs don’t work, you can always
cannibalise them and mix and match.’ What idiot said that? You never can of
course, no two sets are compatible, but if a few bulbs don’t light up – who
will realise, or care.
3.00 pm.
No shelf, hook or bare surface in the house
is safe. Our Christmas tree fairy is somewhat bedraggled and looks like she’s
just returned from an all-night party. Cuddly toys, candles, silver stars,
baubles compete for attention and our accumulation of ornamental Father
Christmases smile down at us in chronological order.
4.00 pm.
I’ve just found a bag bulging with party
poppers; part of a cheapo job lot no doubt and no guarantee. I wonder if they
will still pop?
5.00pm
All done! It’s time to relax. The tree
lights are glimmering and the freebee ‘jingle bells’ CD from the newspaper is
jangling. And what’s more, this year, the Joneses are looking forward to a
merry Christmas and a happy New Year without wasting the World’s diminishing
resources.
Postscript: So there you have it. Most of the lights worked; most
of the poppers popped; I indeed recycled for Jesus. There’s now a large pile of
black bags waiting at the top of our stairs to be returned to our loft for next
Christmas. I hope God is pleased.
·
My wife and I both think that we are always right – what’s wrong with that?
For my part I don’t like to admit that I am ever wrong and my wife is ever
right. My tactics are to firstly insist loudly and indignantly that I am right.
Then, if she persists that she is
right, stubbornly ignore the possibility. Then, if circumstances prove that she
is right, and there are witnesses,
and if there is no other possible course of action but to admit the she is indeed right, I finally, through gritted
teeth, deny that that she was. My wife, for her part, knows that she is always right – and that’s that!
Under the Influence
(Excerpt from Our
Time Column)
Have you ever been under the influence? I’m sure that all of us
have, even the soberest teetotaller. But I’m not talking alcohol here, I’m talking
about the influence that other people have on us: maybe because of the esteem
we hold them in, maybe because we would like to be a little like them, or maybe
because of their celebrity status, hoping some of it will rub off on us.
I have heroes, Stephen Fry is one. His mastery of the English
language and in-depth knowledge of literature makes me green with envy. I could
listen to his wonderful articulation for hours, and then spend several more
hours thumbing through the dictionaries and reference books looking up the
quotes and words that I hadn’t recognised or didn’t understand – brilliant!
During a recent interview Stephen was asked what car he owned. ‘A London taxi’
was the unlikely reply, then he continued to wax lyrical about how versatile they
were and how any luggage of any size or shape could be accommodated with ease
inside. Before I realised what was happening, I found myself thumbing through
the used car ads searching for second-hand
Fashion is a little like that. It can be originated by those
catwalk models who strut their stuff exhibiting two nipples behind a net
curtain while wearing six inches of cotton supporting one strategic postage
stamp. But do we really want our own ladies to emulate these models? (Letters
from readers welcome - don’t forget the photos!)
Why should I have to share a Breakdown with my
Computer?
If
I was the sort of bloke to suffer a nervous breakdown, it would probably be
triggered when I have to phone my computer helpline. I was talked into insuring
my laptop for a period of three years; and with only a few months to go on my
contract I am finally getting my money back. The latest problem is that it’s
suffered a serious hardware attack, so they have arranged for a carrier to
collect and transport it post haste to their Computer Intensive Care Unit. Very
efficient it all sounds, but experience tells me not to hold my breath. When it
was recalled for its first laptop lobotomy a few months ago, the National
carrier failed miserably to achieve the Computer company’s own set standards,
not arriving on the appointed day, or the next. They eventually arrived on the
third day at 6.00 pm, just as I was gnawing the leg of my computer desk and
making wailing noises.
I
have spent an hour on the phone this morning attempting to obtain confirmation
that the local carrier depot will indeed collect today. They haven’t received
any instructions they say. After another hour on the phone my computer bods
said, ‘Oh yes they have’ and: ‘They’ve confirmed it too!’ ‘No we haven’t’ said
the carriers. Eventually I spoke to someone with some common sense who was able
to speak unaided without the aid of her script. She told me that they would
send special priority instructions for the carriers to collect today, without
fail – after all, I am the customer. I wonder which day they will arrive:
today, tomorrow or the next? Furthermore she has given me a super special
reference number to get me out of trouble. If only life could be that simple .
. .
The Beatles: almost three
It’s amazing: my Hertfordshire neighbour turned down Brian
Epstein’s invitation to be the Beatles drummer, replacing Pete Best, so Brian
recruited Ringo Starr instead. It’s true! The rest,
as they say, is history. So instead of the fab four
Liverpool lads, it might have been the fab three
And what have Tom Jones, Van
Morrison, Englebert Humperdinck, The Kinks, Petula Clarke, Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, George Martin, Mike D’Abo and scores of other top names in the music business
got in common? And what legends, now in pop heaven looking peacefully down from
their melodic clouds, share this common denominator? Well, Brian Epstein, as
I’ve already mentioned, does. And Dusty Springfield does. And Billy Fury does.
But what pop icon would probably wish to deny ever having any connection
whatsoever with our mystery man?
Do you have someone famous as
a near neighbour? I have: he’s very famous but hardly anyone has heard of him.
He is Bobby Graham, that’s who. Bobby Graham is my mystery man. And who on
earth is Bobby Graham many of you will quite rightly ask? However, if you asked any of the
aforementioned famous artistes face to face, or perhaps through a medium, they
would be delighted to tell you all about him. Bobby Graham - my near neighbour
- is regarded as probably the greatest British drummer ever – that’s all! Don’t
be modest now Bobby – you are the greatest, countless professionals share this
opinion. Bobby has been featured on more hit records than any individual
artiste or group in the
The music industry knows
Bobby well but to the general public he remains anonymous, except for me and a
growing unofficial appreciation society. Until now that is. This unassuming man
now has his biography as a session man published - written by ‘rock ‘n’ roll
barrister’ Patrick Harrington: it’s unsurprisingly titled The Session
But who was it that would
probably wish to deny ever having any connection with our mystery man? Dave Clark, that’s who! Fabulous drummer Dave
Clark, wasn’t he? No he wasn’t, he mimed; he was a fabulous mimer,
that’s all – Bobby Graham was the fabulous drummer we all stamped our feet to
while slamming that distinctive beat on all Dave’s hit records. Session
musicians were at it everywhere at that time. They played on some of the great
hits while the sexy groups combed their hair, posed for the photographers,
picked up all the girls and went to music and singing lessons on the quiet.
Session musicians ‘ghosted’ for many a pop band on records and this was an
accepted fact in this phase of the development of popular music.
Read all about the larger
than life characters in the music business of the swinging sixties. Read about
how it really was it in his great book . . . and don’t forget the CD that goes
with it, all available via the Internet of course. I however popped round to
see Bobby personally, have a chat, buy one of each, and get them autographed.
Bobby’s my near neighbour – and now he’s my friend too.
Bobby has recently decided to
retire professionally, but might occasionally put a mean band together to play
his passion – jazz. If you ever get the opportunity to hear him live, take it .
. . he’s fab!
The Session Man ( The
Story of the
By Patrick Harrington
& Bobby Graham
Broom House Publishing
£6.99 ISBN 0 9549142-0-1
The Session Man CD by
The Bobby Graham Band, Catalogue No: BHR 0001
More information with
Pay Pal purchasing facilities: http://www.thesessionman.co.uk
Our Time Column
Set in my ways? Who, me?
Getting
set in your ways? Me too. Once we find an easy and economical method in doing
things, or a comfortable life style, or a fixed routine, it’s all too easy to
relax and settle down into it. Once that suitable mix is found, we allow it to
set. And that’s that. There’s no need to experiment any more . . . is there?
Let’s
take a few examples shall we? ‘As comfy as an old pair of slippers/old
pullover/ old pair of underpants.’ Actually your slippers may well be comfy,
but they are also unstylish and require a risk assessment before you trip over
your own pompom. Your pullover is stretched beyond measure and now sags to your
knees with your hands reaching its padded elbows. And your underpants could
possibly cause a disease outbreak of pandemic proportion. You may well be a
happy chappie, but beware the set-in-your-ways trap,
it takes the excitement out of life, makes us predictable and dare I say it,
boring. It doesn’t matter a fig what other people think, I know, but if you
start thinking yourself as boring, maybe it’s time you shook yourself out of
it.
Do
you stick with the same old habits and rituals? Eat the same meals at the same
time on the same day each week? Watch the same television programmes? Always
choose the same meal from the same restaurant? Read the same newspapers. Make
love dangling from the same boring old chandelier? If so, give change a try: leave half an hour
earlier and drive an alternative route, choke the remote and select a different
TV channel, and go to another restaurant with a complicated menu and order
something you cannot pronounce without dribbling; and why not try reading the Daily Obituary - it’s a hoot! And,
finally, what’s wrong with the missionary position anyway?
My
electrician son has the right idea. As a teenager his bedroom was bedecked with
huge glossy girlie posters on all his walls and cheeky young ladies grinned
invitingly down from his ceiling. They had been posing there for years. He was
getting set in his ways. And as he was in a steady relationship with his
girlfriend, he took the big decision to rip them all down and move on. He has
replaced vital statistics with electrical formulae. His bedroom is now bedecked
with posters with hieroglyphics such as:
RESISTIVITY
AR < > PL
E.g.
R = 
(Whatever
that means)
I’ve decided to move on too. I’m changing my ways
before my wife tells me I’m boring and my friends fall asleep before I can
finish a sentence. I still watch the telly on Saturday nights, but now when the
National Lottery numbers are called out, I decline to join in the thunderous
applause with the studio audience - even if number thirty seven has featured
one hundred and forty two times before and deserves it. I’ve also taken to
reading in bed, and am finding the Screwfix catalogue absolutely riveting. Set in my ways? Me?
Not any more. And (I can hear you ask) what about the lovemaking? . . . Answer: mind your own business!
Our
Time column
Haircut
Sir?
What does every young male child have to
suffer at periodic intervals, continues throughout his life and gives him a
clip around his ear every single time?
Haircuts of course! I go to my barber’s
at regular intervals. And when I do, each of my visits takes a little less of
his time than the last. I don’t get a discount for this either. After years of
tidying up my mop of unruly hair as a loss leader, my barber is now gathering
in the profits that he richly deserves and has been patiently waiting for; and
my follicles, by reason of their reduced numbers and feeble resistance, offer
less and less of a challenge.
Haircut wise, things have changed quite
a bit over the years. As a child I winced with pain as razor-sharp hair
trimmings trickled down the back of my neck and stabbed me in the back. As if
this was enough to bear, I also had to perch on an embarrassing wooden board,
praying for my freedom, with my mum or dad sitting behind me to ensure that I
didn’t make a break for it and escape. As a young man, I ogled swim-suited
babes in the then very saucy Titbits magazine whilst waiting my turn. And after the
cut, my newly-named ‘gentlemen’s hairstylist’ rubbed in the Brylcreme,
sprayed on the cheapo toilet water and offered me something for the weekend as
I sashayed out of the saloon, combing and coaxing my mane into a huge greasy
wave to impress the girls. Then, as a mature fellow, being asked: ‘Same as
before sir?’, ‘How are the family?’ or ‘Where will you be going on holiday this
year?’ Discussing the finer points of professional soccer, the prevailing
weather conditions in the wide world outside his shop and the price of fish
also featured heavily. These professional chat lines continued right through
middle age, delivered with verbal dexterity by my again-named barber.
I now consider myself a dignified elder
statesman and my barber has developed a new angle on asking for the style I’d
like: A Tony Curtis, short back and sides, crew cuts, number ones and twos are
no longer on my menu. I seem to have passed the ‘a general tidy-up sir?’ phase
too. My most recent visit resulted in him telling me by way of compensation
that now my hairs have become grey, or as I would prefer to describe them,
silver, they will no longer fall out. This made me feel much better. He also
offered to trim my eyebrows and clip the bum fluff around and trailing hairs
escaping from my ears. This made me feel much worse. I also noticed him peering
with professional interest up my nostrils. But he didn’t care to mention these
virile bristles I know are sprouting there. And I didn’t mention to him that
they can grow an inch a day and that if I leave them for a week, playful kids
use them for skipping practice or for tying up their teachers.
‘Shall I trim your nose hair sir?’ he might of
thought of asking, but he didn’t care to mention it. That’ll be the next phase
probably.
From my Hertfordshire
Mercury column:
It’s
an Alternative New Year (2005)
New Year’s resolutions:
blood sweat and tears. And for what? These resolutions do indeed ruin a
primetime window of self-indulgence opportunity. If you don’t make ‘em, you won’t break ‘em I say.
The Christmas, New Year festivity and
overindulgence is unfortunately over at last. It must be, because all the fat
ladies are singing, and the fat gentlemen are bobbing up and down on the scales
too for that matter. So it’s New Year resolution time for those who insist in
participating: the gyms and fitness rooms are swelling and trembling with
festive fat, swimming pools are overflowing with portly plungers and the
highways are wobbling with huffing puffing cyclists with overhanging bottoms.
Not a pretty sight; especially when they are featuring incredibly stretched
designer sportswear Christmas presents and are supported by pornographic
shorts. But it won’t last. It never does. We all eventually revert to type and
our previous life style, some sooner than others. This may well sound
defeatist, but it’s the truth, it’s human nature in the raw. Anyway, no matter
what your doctor tells you – fat is fun. I say crawl back on the couch in front
of the tele and dialup a pizza.
Down in the fitness room
rookie keep-fitters defraud their especially formulated work-out schedules; in
the pool swimmers stop for air and exaggerate their lengths; and on the roads
cyclists get off and lean on their bikes when they think no one’s looking. All
this splendid activity can actually continue into February in some exceptional
and stubborn cases. Are they happy? No they are not.
As for other favourite
resolutions: smokers are now becoming outcasts of society even if they are
paradoxically the most social of people; nowadays they are forced to huddle and
hunch outside their offices every hour for a quick drag while non smokers
inside get on with their work. Restaurants no longer welcome smokers with
wall-to-wall ash trays and pubs will be next to follow their example for sure.
So smokers are wasting their time giving up smoking every New Year – the law is
on their case, and there will soon be nowhere for them to hide anyway. My
advice: rebel! Save money on nicotine patches, buy more fags.
Eating healthily? The ozone
destroying lettuce and carrot juice brigade bulge with an influx of
enthusiastic recruits every New Year, but within a few lean weeks, deserters
have taken their foot off the gas and are again happily wallowing in saturated
fat. Why torture our poor bodies in the first place?
Curbing alcohol consumption?
It’s a non starter, no thanks, don’t be stupid. Drinking to excess is a
centuries-old tradition handed down by all British mums and dads to their little
children.
Why bother with New Year
resolutions in the first place? They only end in failure after a few long weeks
of misery and self denial; but as it’s a British ritual, and if you really must
. . .
From my Hertfordshire
Mercury column:
Did I tell you
the story about the time that I got locked in the gentlemen’s loo with three
ladies? No, I couldn’t have, because it only happened very recently.
I’m sometimes
asked to give my talks in some fabulous locations. The
I arrived at Haverfordwest for my after-lunch booking in good time to
hear the morning’s speaker, Lynne Allbutt: UKTV
Style’s gardening presenter, Welsh personality and a saucy calendar model for
charity (as I found out later on the Internet). Lynne has led a fascinating
life, undertaken various careers and has the ambition and drive of a Geri Halliwell in wellies. When I
arrived however, Lynne had not yet arrived, the organisers were frantic and
their 300 ladies becoming restless. I offered to talk before lunch and this
lowered everyone’s blood pressure considerably, but Lynne appeared just as I
was being introduced, so I sat back down and kept my tinder dry.
And that time I
got locked in the lavatory with three ladies? Read on: during the lunchtime
interval the 300 ladies commandeered and took their turn to visit the Gents
loo, or their own. Fair enough, there was just one man there after all (me) -
but his bladder had become insistent, so he waited outside in neutral territory
until it emptied (the loo that is, not his bladder thankfully). The last lady
out checked that the coast was clear and it was safe for me to go in, but to
save embarrassment, once inside, I entered a cubicle, just in case. A moment or
two later the door banged and sound of women sharing a hilarious joke resounded
around the gents. There must be
something about being confronted with a gentlemen’s urinal that makes women
giggle - I don’t know what it is. But for me, being stuck in that lavatory
cubicle was no laughing matter. However, after briefly contemplating how things
might develop if I delayed my presence for too long, I decided to make a break
for it there and then. So, after attending to said bladder, I rapidly zipped up
and walked briskly out, head held high. It made for some excellent opening
comic material for my talk however – thanks ladies!
Our Time Column with a Festive Theme
'A New Kitchen for Christmas?'
It’s said that the most stressful things in life are divorce, and moving house. I’d like to add Christmas - and fitting a new kitchen yourself or having one fitted. Furthermore, a combination of them both could be the festive recipe for disaster.
15-years ago we proposed to have a new kitchen for
Christmas, and it was a calamity of epic proportions. We invited a fitted
kitchen representative round to our place for a chat. Two reps arrived, with
samples – and good quality stuff it was too. They weren’t hard-sell cowboys
either, quite pleasant in fact. They sat down and designed a lovely kitchen for
us, costed it, and asked for a deposit with the
balance to follow in full before delivery could be made. Well, honest as we
thought they were, we were very dubious about parting with several thousand
pounds of our hard-earned stash before seeing as much as a flat pack. We
consulted a solicitor who sent a quick-fire letter to them stating that we
hereby refused to pay in full in advance; we would pay the balance on
completion. He charged us a fat fee for this and failed miserably to get even
as much as a ‘You must be joking mate!’ reply. Apparently, we were told by
those who know, this was the way kitchen people did business. Take it, leave
it, or Do It Yourself. So we took it, sent our cheque, held our breath and
crossed our fingers.
Meanwhile the days were ticking off our Advent
calendar and they were not answering their phone. My wife had been promised
that she would get her new kitchen in good time for Christmas, and we both gave
a huge sigh of relief when our two kitchen friends delivered in person with an
assortment of cabinets in an old van, then left . . .
Meanwhile the days were ticking off our Advent
calendar and the section of our house which was now a kitchen warehouse was gathering
dust. And they were not answering their
phone. We gave an even bigger sigh of relief when, at long last, they arrived
for a brief measure-up. Then they left . . .
Meanwhile the days were ticking off our Advent
Calendar and we were living in a bomb site with no catering or cooking
facilities. And they were not answering their phone. And there were not many
days left on our Advent calendar. And we were expecting twelve for Christmas
dinner. And then the phone rang. It was one of our kitchen fitters.
‘Unfortunately’, he said, they had gone bust. He was very sorry but they were
out of business and could not complete the job. My wife, already on the edge of
a domestic collapse, now tripped headlong into it. She told our man that while
he would be at home with his family at Christmas with a nice kitchen and
home-cooked turkey, hers would be lodging in a Salvation Hostel somewhere
supping soup and she would be confined to a secure mental unit. He said that he would do what he could. We
were resigned to our fate.
Amazingly a knight in shining armour, or to be more
precise, a fitter in an old overall arrived on Christmas Eve, the final day on
our Advent calendar. He said that he owed our kitchen chaps a favour and would
fit our kitchen. He did. And a happy ending . . . just!
And blow me; we are having a kitchen for Christmas
again this year. Will we ever learn?
Our Time Column October 2004
Me and my Physio
I’m healthily active. I am a lucky man. My bones creak
here and there, and my muscles ache there and here. Minor stuff, but there are
three painful exceptions.
The first was about ten years ago when my neck
suddenly went into spasm as I was crossing a road. The sternocleidomastoid
muscle is the second most powerful muscle and one of mine decided to
spasmodically jerk my neck to one side until I was crying on my own shoulder.
This would have been inconvenient at the best of times, but we were on holiday
in
The second occasion was when I needed a physio top-up for my neck as it was beginning to twitch. I
was instructed to lie on the physio’s couch and
relax. Then, without warning he jumped on top of me from a great height,
grasped my neck in a tight hold, and twisted until it emitted resounding crack.
Then, when I thought my ordeal was over, he repeated the performance from an
even greater height. It was like a scene from a Pink Panther film when Peter
Sellers as Inspector Cloueau jumps on his
unsuspecting oriental houseboy Kato, practicing his karate. Then I was put in
traction and my neck stretched while my physio set a
ticking clockwork timer and went for a cuppa. When I was released, I peeped
into the other cubicles: each contained implements of torture and an
uncomplaining patient with their clockwork timers ticking merrily away. I
didn’t enjoy this course of treatment one little bit, but my neck’s been much
better since thanks.
The third occasion is ongoing and I have a strained
back this time. My new physio has no sadistic tendencies,
but I’m being stretched on the rack to the clicking of another clockwork timer,
then electrodes are stuck on my buttocks and the current turned up till they
judder.
I now have much more sympathy for anyone with mobility
problems: drivers of vehicles make no allowances to people with limps as they
attempt to cross a road. And if they stop in the middle clutching their neck,
they just beep and weave around.
Our Time Column August 2004
(Excerpt)
My name is Bob: I'm a Chocoholic
. . . As a self-confessed chocoholic I find my daughter’s chocolate hoard a little too tempting at times. I am quite good at not buying chocolate for myself, but home alone, this undeniable urge overtakes me and I feel compelled to search the house for chocolate booty. Contents of cupboards are turned-over in my quest and I have even been known to rip up floorboards in desperation. My daughter is very sympathetic of my little weakness and writes off any small discrepancies in her chocolate stocks philosophically with good grace - even when I was caught red-handed eating her chocolate Easter rabbit. Her rabbit stands, or stood, about two feet high and was hermetically protected in a thick, see-though plastic wrapping. It had been sneering at me for months. The chocolate bunny was asking for it. I was sorely tempted and carefully prized open the top of the wrapping, removed a portion of delicious milk chocolate, and popped it closed again. After all, no one could possibly notice one absent ear. My rabbit sorties developed into a daily log of petty larceny, and within a week her rabbit was headless, armless and without any visible means to hop. I had eaten her rabbit . . .
Our Time Column July 2004
Snap Happy
I purchased my first digital camera quite recently, I was almost
the last in my family line to convert from the old fashioned 35-millimetre
spooled films that I have struggled to load and unload for many years. The more
technology has progressed and these cameras have reduced in size and increased
in complexity, the more problems I’ve had. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve
crept sheepishly into a chemist, not to buy something for the weekend, but to
ask very nicely like a small child for a responsible adult to change the film
for me. Now, to cap that, I’ve snapped up a bargain camcorder in the
I don’t put my difficulties with modern technology down to
my age, that’s not the problem. I’m sure that if these items of equipment had
been invented a little earlier – say about 1960 – I’d have no trouble at all. I
took some of my best photos from a sale-price Kodak camera that cost £1. It
only took eight pictures per film and I attached the flash equipment to the
side of its casing by two huge screws. Cameras really flashed in those days.
One crackly flashbulb for every pic, then the spent
bulb, now transformed to misshaped, molten glass, was ejected with gusto to the
floor, just like the professionals - what satisfaction. My camera had one
switch pointing to either an image of a big man or an image of a little man,
and another switch that pointing to a picture of a cloud, or the sun. It may
have taken a little time for the penny to drop, but after that I produced some
excellent family snaps. Now, mystifying symbols and Egyptian hieroglyphs have
replaced simple cartoon fun – and I ain’t no
My mother-in-law unfortunately never did master the art of
cameras of my era. If they have been invented a little earlier – say about 1930
– she’d have had no trouble at all. Or would she? When I think back, she had
particular problems with snapping photos. Relatives bought her a procession of
the latest ‘easy to use’ family cameras, to no avail. The problem was that she
suffered from incurable photographer’s twitch. She could decapitate the whole
family with one click and a startled ‘whoops!’ We tried to anticipate the
difficulty and moved as a family unit, one step to the left, dipping our knees
in one movement just before she clicked. Mum, bless her, possessed an automatic
self-correcting reflex which resulted in angulated photographic studies of the
ceiling and electric light fittings.
My cunning digital camera has a facility to delete any
photo not up to scratch. Very clever, but it’s all so small I cannot tell the
good from the bad. So I took it into the chemists and asked very nicely like a
small child for a responsible adult to develop all of them for me. The very
pleasant female assistant looked at me and said comfortingly: ‘Ahh . . . I’ll take your memory card out for you if you
like?’ This resulted in 95 photos. It seems that I’m a worse photographer than
my mother-in-law was. I’ve severed heads, blurred views, and produced an
angulated study of a hotel ceiling and electric light fitting.
As for my camcorder, it’s early days yet and I’m encouraged
by some passable footage. Unfortunately every scene has a one-minute introduction
of blackness accompanied by my cursing voiceover attempting to rectify the
fault. Then I take the lens cap off.
Our Time Magazine June 2004
Aging
Progress.
Welcome
to my first column in Our Time. There is a very good chance that you, dear
reader – like me – are no longer of that certain unfortunate age. You know the
age I mean: it’s the age of youthful monosyllabics,
constantly on their mobiles, swigging multi-coloured alcopops
drinks and downing pints of strong lager before sharing some communal bad
language for a good time. But that’s enough about our children and
grandchildren. What about us: the generations who prefer rock and roll to rap,
marriage to cohabiting and garage; and gin and tonics and pints of warm frothy
bitter to Smirnoff Ice Triple Blacks and supercharged Stellas?
So,
what about us? And as I am a prime
example, what about me? Maturing? Well, yes I am – in a handsome, dignified,
elegant sort of way, but aging? Not me. Never! I am forever eager to
demonstrate to my wife, children, colleagues and anyone else who knows me how
young I am. A family occasion is my speciality and it’s when I get the ideal
opportunity on the dance or disco floor. I can join my lean mean nephews, elfin
nieces and their amazed friends and demonstrate how uncle Bob can wiggle it
about a bit just as well as he ever did. I might be a beat or two behind, and I
might be carrying a little more behind, but in the excitement of the occasion
I’m sure that no one notices. My enthusiastic YMCA semaphore has become a
dyslexic YCAM, but I have found that the younger generation admiringly
interpret the spectacle as a new form of messaging. That’s me, always at the
sharp end of technological developments. I’m a trendsetter, and on occasions it
has been known for the floor to empty and an audience gather in wonderment of
my agility and artistic interpretation.
I am confident that many of you readers are elegant trendsetters like
me.
I’m
currently negotiating my nifty fifties but when my adult children first referred
to me as ‘pops’, and my work colleagues as an ‘old timer’, I was mortified. On
reflection however, it was obviously intended as an endearment. These
whippersnappers now often ask for the benefit of my superior knowledge and
experience. And that’s how it should be. Questions such as: ‘‘When are you
going to retire?’ ‘Why do you listen to Radio 2’ and ‘How many times do you
need to go to the toilet?’
My
dear contemporaries: do not despair friends. We hold the numerical advantage
with our numerous life-packed years. We have been there and done that. And if
we haven’t, then we should be ashamed of ourselves. As an example I remember
the Mods and Rocker riots of the sixties. I was there
when history was being made: hundreds of pimply teenagers tearing up and down Margate
Yes,
life could be hard and horrid in those days. No satellite television, no sexy
texts, just a kiss and a cuddle with your girl and home alone by eleven. Then a
draughty bedroom and ice-cold sheets lay in wait. Our only comfort for the long
cold night . . . a hot water bottle that reverted to cold after 30 minutes.
We want a wheelie big wheelie bin
Eric’s in town
Did I say five adults? Let’s make that six shall we. We have an
American guest - for two weeks only. College Student Eric has never been let
loose on English soil before and we are taking turns explaining our British
customs and culture to him. And our British customs and culture can sure take
some explaining, yes siree Bob! Americans know little
about us it seems, Eric’s home-town bank issued him with euros. We explained to
him that our local pubs might think he was taking the Michael. Then we had to
explain what taking the Michael meant.
Questions,
questions, questions: why are English kitchens so little? Why are our fridges
so small? Do we really use that tiny toy washing machine? Mind you, he was
amazed at the size of our man-sized tissues. They have nothing that big in the
States apparently. We can brag about that at least.
Eric
continues his barrage of questions: Why does everyone drink so much alcohol
here? (I have since concealed my wife’s gin bottles.) Why is our ‘soccer’ a
contact sport and why does everyone verbally abuse the referee? What are the
rules of cricket, rugby union, rugby league . . . tiddlywinks? How can any game end in a draw? Wow, that
rugby looked tough, and those guys didn’t wear any protective pads!
Eric
is loving our traditional English grub: bangers and mash, roast beef and
Hell Drivers
Does anyone
remember that classic 1950’s black and white British film ‘Hell Drivers’? It
had a fantastically talented, testosterone-soaked cast: Sean Connery,
The good news is
that I believe ‘Hell Drivers’ is being remade in glorious Hertfordshire colour.
The bad news is that it appears to be in the Mercury area: on the B158 Lower Hatfield Road between Hertford and Essendon to be exact. I drive it frequently, and am
frequently persuaded to give way to enormous quarry type tipper-lorries bearing
down on me. They thunder past, leaving me by the roadside, engulfed in a huge
deluge of choking dust. It doesn’t seem to matter which of us has the legal
priority, the ‘quarry’ lorries always gain the right-of-way by pure weight
advantage and gritty determination. I haven’t noticed any film cameras, they’re
probably hidden, but if all this action is in aid of producing another British
classic film, I won’t complain. I’ll just pootle to
the car wash, pay my fiver and expectantly wait for the pre-launch publicity.
You never know, I might be part of a dramatic and dangerous chase. Or even better,
I might be able to brag incessantly about my brilliant supporting but essential
role in its thrilling thundering climax.
These lorry
drivers have remarkable acting and driving skills and are without question highly
experienced stunt professionals. Only last week I was forced to veer sharply
into the curb as I approached the mini roundabout at the bottom of the hill on
Bullock’s Lane, to avoid one of these ‘Hell Drivers’ rumbling and rattling
towards me. I had to gasp with admiration as I clearly saw him hunched over his
steering wheel, fag in mouth, mobile phone on ear, pivoting his huge vehicle on
a five pence piece around the tiny roundabout. I saw the stubble on his chin; I
glimpsed the well-rehearsed sneer on his face; I sensed the smell of celluloid;
I had witnessed a ‘Hell Driver’ with admirable attitude and ability. What a
scene! What a shot! What a take! Again, I didn’t notice any cameras, but was so
proud to ‘do my bit’ as an extra for the British Film Industry on location for
‘Hell Drivers 2’. I was left awestruck in his wake: static, petrified,
law-abiding little old me - crapping myself.
Cold callers bring me to the boil
I’m told that I have
a pleasant telephone manner. I answer my phone with a cheery ‘hello’ and enjoy
a few pleasantries with the voice on the other end of the line – even if it’s a
wrong number. Be warned. This is now incorrect. When my phone rings nowadays, I
suffer a total change of personality. I pace up to my ringing phone, snatch it
from its mounting, grit my teeth, and bellow and split an angry and accusing
‘Yeah?’ into the mouthpiece. My face goes red and blotchy, my veins stand out
and throb conspicuously on my neck and I bring my blood rapidly to the boil at
a dangerously high pressure. If it turns out to be friend, family, or an
invitation to give a humorous talk to the ladies of a Women’s Institute at one
of their meetings, I grovel an instant apology and tell them that I had
forgotten to take my medication and was a little grumpy.
Why? Because I am
saturated everyday by telephone cold callers, unsolicited marketing calls and
telephone sales calls. These meek and mild titles are hardly fitting or
horrible enough to describe adequately the annoyance that they cause. My
bombardment starts early in the morning with no respite until late in the
evening. I hate each single second of every conversation that I am forced to
share with these telephonic parasites.
I’m usually pretty
quick to suss them out, and when I tell them a firm ‘No, I am not interested!’
They tend to give up gracefully. Most are polite, but I cannot forgive them for
that, they are intruding on my personal time and space. I hate them. Whereas I
used to tolerate the odd double glazing call, I now receive a mind-boggling
assortment of time wasters every day. They range from the see-through
double-glazer, to the persistent and prying ‘Would I like to make a will?’
‘Would I like the front of my house improved.’ Would I like a new kitchen?’ No
I wouldn’t. No I wouldn’t. No I wouldn’t. So: shove off! So: Shove off! So!
Shove! Off!
They are becoming
more cunning and conniving . One of the latest was a cheery, youngish-sounding
female who responded to my grumpy ‘Yeah?’ with a pally:
‘Hi yer, how you doin’?
Nice day isn’t it.’ To my shame, I allowed her to get three complete sentences
past my audio defence system before I realised that she was no friend of mine.
She was eager to earn commission to secure an appointment for a no-doubt
equally devious rep to call personally at my house. Some callers are pre-armed with my surname,
probably purchased on a list sold by a company who I must have dealt with at
some time and stupidly omitted to tick the: don’t
sell my personal details to other
companies box on their confusing form. My house is full of Mr Joneses and I
recently asked which Mr Jones they wanted? The cold caller craftily repeated
‘Mr Jones’. I said: ‘He’s not in.’ He said again : ‘When will he be back?’ I
repeated: ‘He’s not in.’ He said yet again: ‘When will he be back?’ I repeated
again: ‘He’s not in.’ . . . and so on and on. We had by then got ourselves into
a pre-scripted loop. I was obstinately holding my ground and he was literally
going round in circles. The only thing he could do was to lose his temper,
virtually snarling his repeated question at me. The only thing I could do was
to put the phone down. I shudder to think of elderly or vulnerable people
pressurized in this way by these unscrupulous zealots.
Do these cold
callers have a warm heart? One surprisingly did. He apologized profusely for
having to ask such intrusive and unwanted questions and said that he’d had
enough of it and would quit at the end of the day. I almost softened and
implored him to reconsider . . . almost.
118 118 David Bedford
‘118 118 - We know your
number’: brilliant advertising slogan? Well, it’s made those 118 118 tops a huge success at least. They are now a fashion
item and are out to impress, jogging about everywhere or propped up against the
bar of your local. Is this a brilliant advertising triumph for their new
directory enquiry service? No, it is not. It has had a negative effect on many
of us. I, for example haven’t used any of the new 118 company numbers since the demise of
192, and it hasn’t changed my life. The original service was too expensive and
often resulted in hilariously conceived wrong numbers from grouchy staff
anyway. So why pay even more for them via disinterested personnel in UK and
Irish call centres, or via the precise syntax of Indian call centre staff
clutching their certificates in English (Bombay 2003); but with no idea how to
converse on equal terms with the average Brit - who has an inferior command of
the English language than they have.
Use the Internet, say the
stupid experts – it’s free. Sorry – it’s useless. It takes five minutes to get
plugged in and online, and another ten to search for a number. Failure is
guaranteed. Sorry – I just haven’t got the time.
Those David Bedford look-alikes
are comical though. Younger people will not remember David Bedford, but I
remember the original well: I used to run with this top athlete in about 1960/1
and it wasn’t a joke. Venturing on a training run with him would only result in
a cloud of dust from his running shoes and his bobbing long black hair
vanishing into the far distance. I was a Blackheath Harrier too, but at the
time classified as a youth. David had the fastest track times around and was a
European record breaker from 5 - 10,000 metres. At the
David Bedford graduated to
be one of the original organisers of the
Ukulele Bob (or:
‘I uked e’m in Battle
I have kept very
quiet about it, but for the past year or so, I have been practicing the
ukulele. I say that I have kept it quiet, but my family keep telling me that
I’m not quiet enough. ‘Do keep it quiet’ my son tells me as he goes to his room
to switch on his sound system at full volume. And I do - sealing myself off
from the world with all the doors closed, I plinky
plink as softly as I can. I have been progressing steadily if not spectacularly
and have, after 12-month’s self-tuition, almost mastered the plonky plonk. I was ready for my first public
performance. I selected the National
There was a folk
morning scheduled at a nearby pub on the Sunday morning. Ideal. A few amateur
musicians, a few duff notes from players and singers – I would blend in well, I
thought. In reality, a late change in programming meant that the event would be
on a stage in a large hall. A professional
I decided to
break out my uke during my performing slot during the
afternoon. Its diminutive sound disappeared into the void of the large hall.
Then the penny dropped that most of the audience did indeed know me. I became
nervous. I had selected one of Bob Dylan’s well-known sing along tunes and the
audience joined in with gusto, politely waiting for me to catch up at the end
of each verse. My nerves jangled and my performance dipped.
I said that the
audience was friendly. They were. Many people came up to commiserate
afterwards, telling me how much they admired my bravery. The organiser of the
event helpfully suggested that I should attempt to play the triangle.
We do not have any folk clubs in the Mercury area as far as I know, but some pubs have open music evenings. I propose to turn up unannounced with my ukulele. Watch out!
Stereotypes
'Now you're a
typical Englishman - stiff upper lip!'
Stereotypes
The English are stiff-upper-lipped. The
Irish are full of lip. The Welsh are tight lipped. The Scots are mealy-mouthed.
Is this true or a load of old stereotypes? They can be further subdivided into
the English: North, South, East and West; The Irish: North and South; the
Welsh: Hills and Valleys and the Scots: Highland and Lowland. It’s even more
complicated than this. Townies differ to countryfiles,
rich to poor, the superior airs of our Royal Family to the foul airs of the Royle Family. It can get complicated. In my own unofficial
survey of Bob Jones audiences I have found Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire
often undemonstrative, sitting with crossed arms and nervous smiles. They do
however tell me afterwards how much they enjoyed themselves – it’s just that
they don’t like to show it.
Leaving our shores for a moment, I recall
a holiday in
I suppose that there must be a grain of
truth in it all, but most of us try to judge people as individuals, not
slotting them into any predetermined national or cultural characteristics. Now
I’ll tell you a little story that made me change my mind – about the Scots at
any rate. I have often visited
Driving home via the west coast we found a
small hotel in Oban. We were delighted as it was getting rather dark and we
didn’t fancy sleeping in the car. The hotelier was very welcoming and we
decided to eat in the bar. The service and food were satisfactory, even though
he forgot our coffee order when we were the only ones eating there. Then I
noticed that the bar had a display of cigars. This tempted me to complete my
meal with a relaxing smoke. The display cases turned out to be full of dummy
cigars and the tins empty, but just when I thought all was lost, mine host
triumphantly held up a very tiny and very cheap cigar, obviously secreted for
special customers like me.
I rarely smoke, so do not carry a lighter
or matches, proof of this being my home collection of pub matchboxes dating from
about 1962. True to form our man did not stock matches, but rather than miss a
sale, disappeared, mumbling something about his own lighter. After a short
interval, he returned brandishing what can only be described as a cheapo
plastic lighter - the ones that cost about 50-pence and get binned every ten ciggies. Nevertheless, I was duly grateful. I commenced to
strike a light. As my wife will confirm, I have a problem with lighters. The
problem being that for me, they refuse to light. This time I excelled myself.
Not only was there no spark, but the lighter shattered on the table in a shower
of its component parts. Mine host lovingly picked up every useless bit, then
left in a Scottish huff. His manner change completely. He was extremely upset.
‘I’ve had that lighter a year’ said he with a tear in his eye.
The next morning we were not on speaking terms, but he conveyed a message through my wife. He had apparently stayed up half the night re-assembling all the bits, and his beloved 50-p lighter was once again in full working order - for his personal use only.
Sixth Form
Choice
I
spoke recently with sixth formers about comedy and language, and went armed to
their college with my special Bob Jones name-dropping list of ‘with it’ comedians
I’ve met. Eddie Izzard might only have said ‘Hello’ to me before he was famous,
but in my book that’s a conversation, and this might have been the turning
point in Eddie’s career – you never know. The sixth formers would be impressed
- wouldn’t they?
I asked who were their favourite comics, my
list at the ready in preparation to strike off the names, one by one. A student
contemplated for a moment, then caught me completely off guard with Charlie
Drake. Then another followed up with Tommy Cooper!
I hesitated. 'I used to watch them on the tele' I said, screwing up my list into a paper ball.
Flash Carter’s Fair
One of the few remaining traditional steam fairs is
visiting Hertford this weekend. It’s known as the Royal
Flash was a school chum of a close friend: literally a larger than
life, powerhouse of a man with a shock of red hair who organised country events
to make the eyes boggle. Antique sideshows and rides vied with scores of
ex-military equipment enthusiasts who dismounted from convoys of decommissioned
American jeeps and armoured cars - even tanks! Vehicle spare parts dating back
to the year dot were unloaded from equally ancient cars, vans and lorries and
were soon on display to oily buyers. Wives and kids trailed behind, licking ice
creams and sucking candy floss. At the boxing booth, custom was drummed up and
volunteers sought to fight an athletic looking boxer flexing his muscles,
skipping on the corner of the stage. Overhead, one of Flash’s mates - a pilot -
performed a breath-taking air display in his Spitfire: ‘dive-bombing’ the
excited crowd; roaring overhead at incredible speed and sound, just above tree
level. All safety and local byelaws were unquestionably contravened and milk
yields a mere trickle as he repeatedly strafed the
A network of friends and supporters eagerly acted as marshals to
collect the entrance money and prevent people getting in free. I was happy to
be one of these to supplement my student grant, but declined Flash’s invitation
to dig the latrines – even when he offered me double pay. On one occasion, I
sensibly decided to let in a wild looking man who steadfastly refused to part
with the entrance fee. Just as well probably, as I found out - just in time -
that he was one of the professional boxers.
Tragically, Flash Carter died too young, but his dream lives on,
safe in the loving care of his family. I’m hoping to go to the fair, and I
won’t be boxing – or digging the latrines.
Downstairs at the
King’s Head
Although I
regularly perform as a speaker, poet and general funster,
I hadn’t performed at a comedy club as a stand-up for nearly 10-years. I am
shortly to speak to sixth form students who are studying humour and language –
and comedy clubs certainly have plenty of both. Therefore, I though it might be
a good idea to tread the boards once again in preparation, so I dusted off a
few of my jokier poems, wrote a few more and headed
to a friendly venue, suitable for first timers, learners and established
performers who might wish to try out some new material. The audience never know
in advance: amongst the unknowns they might get a surprise bonus of a top comedian.
Or they might not.
So it was a phone call to manager
Peter Graham and off to Crouch End’s Downstairs at the King’s Head’s Thursday
Comedy Try Out Night. Acts are given between five and ten minutes and it’s traditional
for punters to give a friendly reception to those with the courage to try
stand-up.
It was a good night with a dozen or more acts filing
up to the mike in quick succession. These acts were approximately divided into
very funny, quite funny, not-at-all funny, and in urgent need of psychiatric
therapy. And one act who had drunk far too much alcohol and couldn’t remember
his jokes. This was in itself hilarious and this would-be comic was given
generous applause. He promised to try again another night without his six pints
of courage-building but mind-fuddling lager.
The hit of the evening for me however, was Sol Bernstein (alias Steve Jameson), an oldie like me, who was warming up for his
And how did I fare you ask? Well, put it this way: I
got some good laughs, but I won’t be giving up the day job just yet.
Bob Jones vs
Uri Geller
Paramedic or Paranormal?
Bob Jones:
Hertford humorist, writer and poet. I must be - it says so at the top of my
column. But these are alter egos. When I’m not one of these, I work as an
ambulance paramedic – or is that my alter ego? I get confused at times. When
I’m not working for the emergency services, the public kindly allow me to
pursue my artistic side: I rarely spy people needing emergency treatment or
come across a road traffic accident out of uniform. Some of my colleagues
attract medical emergencies like casualty departments. Not only do they trip
over collapsed people when they do their weekly shopping, sick babies are
presented at their front doors in the middle of the night.
This all
changed during my holiday flight to Cyprus. A passenger was taken ill. ‘Can I
help, I’m a paramedic?’ I enquired. We learn to say things like this as part of
our training. This was the first time I’d had the chance to speak the line
without the aid of a uniform. All that training had paid off – I was word perfect.
‘Yes please!’ said the steward, and I saw the immediate relief that these
simple words could give.
The passenger
was a diabetic suffering from hypoglycaemia - a severe ‘hypo’ (low blood
sugar). And although it was obvious that he was a diabetic due to the syringes
of insulin in his hand luggage, it wasn’t possible to confirm that his blood
sugar was too low or too high, as his glucometre
(used to measure this) was nowhere to be found. A request was put out to find
out if there was another diabetic on board – he would have a glucometre and the diagnosis could be confirmed. (No
response.) Hypos are an everyday job for ambulance staff, but with no
colleague, no equipment, no suitable drugs, no ambulance, no radio contact, no
backup, 3,000 ft above the
Often patients
recover from hypos well, thank the ambulance service and continue with their
day - this time he had to land in
Things
couldn’t have been more different on our return flight. I was no longer a VIP.
Uri Geller plus entourage were in the best seats posing for photos with the
crew and bending spoons.
Bob Jones, Stansted-Paphos flight, very important. Bob Jones, Paphos-Stansted flight, anonymous passenger – that’s
showbiz!
Back at Stansted we filed off the plane towards customs, but Uri
was returning purposely back to the plane, weaving through our procession of
swinging duty-free carrier bags; why? Uri Geller: mind-expander, spoonbender, top brain . . . had forgotten his hand luggage.
Cats
& Mice
Readers might remember
that at the first sign of a mouse in my house a few years ago, I scampered up
the A10 to the Wood Green Animal Shelter to rescue a cat. Freddie has been in
residence ever since – that’s my cat, not the mouse. The mouse in question was
dispatched humanely without Freddie raising a paw with the aid of a trap and a
morsel of cheese. Freddie has lived in the lap of luxury ever since, served
regular meals enthroned in our best chair, without having to prove himself in
the mouse department.
Last week that all changed. A
mouse appeared from behind our television set while we were watching Pet
Rescue. My wife saw it first. ‘It’s hiding behind the TV’ she informed me as
she made a spurt for the door. I woke up the cat, held it on my lap in
readiness for a quick release and waited for the reappearance of the mouse. A
few minutes later the mouse made a cautionary break for it, pausing every few
steps to peep for danger. I shook Freddie awake again and pointed him in the
mouse direction in expectation of the chase. Freddie jumped off my lap, but ran
to his feed bowl in the kitchen – he obviously thought it my responsibility to
do the catching, his the eating. Meanwhile our mouse had again retreated behind
the tele. Freddie and I regrouped and waited. Mousy
advanced into the open, and getting into the spirit of things, stood on his
haunches, did a little dance and wave to give Freddie a sporting chance.
Freddie remained uninterested and unmoved.
The execution was planned. (To aggrieved mouse lovers out
there: just wait until you’re invaded by mice. The first day you might
open the door and politely invite them to leave, the second day wave a broom at
them and shout ‘Gercha’, but by the third day you are
attempting to purchase Semtex on the Internet.)
‘Peanut butter is the best mousetrap bait’ my wife told me. So the demise of
the mouse wasn’t my fault, it was hers. If I had persevered with cheese, our
mouse would probably already be an expectant grandmouse,
with a plush pad in one of my cupboards behind my collection of nature
magazines, having mousy friends round, telling Freddie the Cat stories.
THE
YOUTH OF TODAY!
(A Play on Words)
The scene: my house. The characters: my son and me.
First Character: You lack motivation.
You laze in bed all morning. When you do get up you spend hours and hours on the
couch in front of the TV. You hang about on Hertford streets and drink in all
the pubs in the evening, stay up to ridiculous hours at those niteclub epicentres of sin - Zeros and Beckets; and when
you do stay in, waste the whole night on your b****y computer, surfing the
Internet or whatever it is you do. You come and go when you please with not so
much as a word. Your hair's too long. You play your CD player so loudly it
makes the house shake. You don't help around the house. You don't talk clearly
: I can't understand what you say - you just grunt in ever-decreasing
monosyllables . . . and you put the phone down on your friends without saying
goodbye before you've ended your conversations.
Second
Character: Well - that's just your opinion son.
I'm such
a cool dude
I’ve purchased some cool
summer shirts from Hertford’s Saturday market at a bargain price. I told my
sons that they cost £20 - discounted from £70. What I didn’t tell them was that
it was £20 for the lot. These shirts have made quite an impression. They have
already been to Oasis gigs, all-night clubbing and in red-hot clinches with
sultry young maidens. That’s before I got the chance to wear them of course.
That's it then
So my
performance tour of
The night before, I was at Earby, which I was reliably informed by half the audience,
is in
........................................................................
‘I’m a bad baby sitter, got my boyfriend in your
shower, Woo! I’m making 6 bucks an hour’. You’ve guessed it, I’ve been listening to the background music
in Hartham Leisure Centre’s fitness room, The Matrix
again. And my face was getting redder and redder - not from pounding the
running machine, but from the lyrics – most of which are unpublishable
in the Mercury. I had to go out of my
way to jump on some equipment a little nearer the speakers just to make sure
Princess Superstar really was singing the words that my ears at first did not
believe. I wasn’t offended, I find the Matrix an excellent place to update
myself with the latest teenage terminology and courting customs. They are all
recorded for posterity and the Hartham audio library
sportingly play it back to the general public for our general interest and
edification. And a catchy little song this was too. I couldn’t stop myself
singing it out loud when I returned home in front of my adult children and my
wife: ‘I’m a bad baby sitter, got my
boyfriend in your shower, Woo! I’m making 6 bucks an hour’ Quite an impact
I must say: my kids currently avoid me and I’m sharing the kitchen with the
dog.
Ware’s
Wodson Park Leisure Centre: what a contrast. I popped
in to have a look. Their reception area was festooned with culture: an art
exhibition featuring paintings of nearby gazebos by local artists, all for sale
at reasonable prices. And Estate Agents’ advertising too. So it’s possible to
buy the painting of the gazebo, the real thing, or both. Do go and spend an
hour or so there without even breaking into a sweat. Then I peeped in their
fitness room. It’s come a long way since my membership lapsed a few years ago.
An area with one running machine and an old bike has been enlarged and crammed
full with what I can only describe as the latest fitness tackle. And no sign of
the old plug-in radio cassette. I didn’t sample the piped music but it’s
probably just as up to date as the Matrix’s. And they have a crèche available,
so mums and dads can pump-up in peace.
The Matrix has
equally modern equipment but no crèche.
So I conclude from my research and newly-acquired knowledge, that while
parents getting fit at Wodson Park can leave their
kids safe on the premises, parents at Hartham may
well have employed at home, a bad baby sitter, got her boyfriend in their
shower. And. Woo! She’s making 6 bucks an hour.
Hertfordshire Tales
Do any
readers remember the great Bernard Miles and his hilarious Hertfordshire Tales?
His rustic character Nathaniel Titmarsh would
introduce himself with a cheery: ‘Good ar,er,noon. I
were born 'n' bred in Ivinghoe in the cownty of ‘Ar’fudshire’. I can
tell you that to this day in Lancashire, Hertfordshire’s main claim to fame
still seems to be Bernard Miles and his brilliant monologues. My map states
that Ivinghoe is now in Buckinghamshire, so the
county boundary movers have been at it in our county too. ‘Welcome to Ivanhoe:
it's in the County of Hertfordshire’: I’m designing a sign right now - and in
the dead of night . . .
A few years ago I tried to reacquaint
myself with Sir Bernard’s repertoire; on tape, cd or
vinyl. Amazingly, Hertfordshire Libraries had nothing on their database. Essex
Libraries did, but it seemed that the tapes had not been returned and were lost
forever. I telephoned the Mermaid Theatre, London - which was founded by Sir
Bernard Miles - and even more amazingly, they said that they hadn’t heard of
him. They promised to ring back . . . and I’m still waiting.
Two weeks ago a kind lady from St
Albans sent me a scratchy recording of some of the Hertfordshire Tales. She
used to perform them in dialect she told me. Some of the humour is a little
outdated - the world has moved on apace - but many of Bernard’s one-liners are
top drawer and would still produce a fantastic audience reaction now. This
wetted my appetite, so I surfed the net and found a company that sells a
comprehensive cd collection of his work. Yet another
amazingly: they are situated in Ontario Canada; or perhaps it should be,
Ontario, Hertfordshire.
My
Lancs tour reaches Blackpool Front
I am now
mid-way though my tour of Lancashire village halls with my one-man show Laughter
in the Village. And I’ve now been able to add some great Lancashire
characters to Hertfordshire’s finest.
After performing at a tiny ancient hall
in a village perched on top of what seemed like a small mountain a few miles
outside Blackburn, the following night I performed in an immense and grand
newly constructed hall a few miles outside Blackpool, packed with an audience
of almost two hundred, none of whom had ever heard of me. Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown
has a show in Blackpool and I think that my promoter must have lied to the
whole village that he would also be making a special appearance under the
pseudonym: Bob ‘Gabby’ Jones.
Touring like Billy Connolly
- but I can only say 'bum'!
You may well have
followed Billy Connolly’s World Tour of England, Ireland and Wales on the tele. I wouldn’t miss it. Billy always finds a new angle
and informs and entertains effortlessly.
My very-own tour of
English villages is nothing like that at all. Whereas Billy cruises about on
his motorcycle accompanied by a film crew, pausing only to perform to packed
theatres and swear a lot. I attempt to locate isolated villages in my car with
an ordinance survey map, and the help of my wife who feels sick every time she
attempts to map read. Whereas Billy appears to knows his way around, I have to
stop, check my compass, open gates, roll over cattle grids and toot-toot at any
hill sheep posing in the road ahead waiting to be photographed. Whereas Billy
performs to an audience in eager expectation of his uncompromising comedy, my
village hall audiences always have an Aunt Maud in the front row with her arms
folded, threatening me to use language no worse than bum.
BACK
FROM HOLS
I've just returned from my holiday: a
1-week bargain package-tour of lots of different cultures and countries. Twenty
minutes at every place of interest followed by 2-hours locked inside a tacky
tourist gift-shop run by the coach driver's cousin. I succumbed to all the
sales pitches from all the itinerant traders and have returned, with a
sun-blotched face, happily clutching plastic bags, bulging with cheap old tat.
It doesn't matter how exotic your
holiday. As your plane returns over the English Channel to the south coast, the
pretty patchwork of fields in every shade of green that greet you are hard to
equal anywhere. And I have to own-up to a lump in my throat as my plane flew
low over the M25 prior to landing at Gatwick.
POND
UPDATE
You wouldn't think it possible to get
so much pleasure from a hole in the ground. The 1st year I dug my wildlife pond
I got tadpoles, frogs, and wiggly things galore. This year I've got newts and
nose-diving dragonflies. Next year I'm hoping for an empty milk crate and an
old tyre.
NATURE:
IT'S MURDER OUT THERE!
Back home in a Hertford garden, birdie
youngsters playing hide and seek in the apple tree are taught the rudiments of
living off welfare handout, and a colony of sparrows agree to lodge in the
branches of a large shrub for one more year - in return for a 5% share of the
family's gross annual product in the form of premium wild bird seed and Tesco
medium-sliced bread. One blackbird fledgling remains: cuddly, innocent and
vulnerable. Three cats and a magpie are drawing lots.
Down at the pond, times are good.
Tadpoles have become froglets at last - touring the
surface with huge smiles on their faces. They've come up in the world now and
won't consider themselves pond life for much longer. Meanwhile, a wriggling and
writhing mass is murdering and eating one another under the surface. On the
evening's damp grass, an army of black slugs with elasticated
antennae at the ready, file out in random formation from the compost heap,
sucking up to anything that doesn't move . . . and midges and mosquitoes sally
forth in search of blood. By the rhubarb, the bramble patch is making its
annual bid to conquer the World.
All copyright Bob Jones 2006