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BOB
JONES LIVE - ON - LINE
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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 . . .
I have a verruca which has stubbornly resisted all efforts to kill it
or inducements to leave by its own accord. It’s a pain in the a*se, or to be
accurate, the big toe. I’ve been its host for more than ten years and it’s
thrived on a regime of freezing and pummelling. When I was a teenager I had so
many verrucas on both feet they were almost a rash, but they were all removed
by a nurse with a scalpel and a lot of attitude. She whooped with excitement
with each extraction and mounted them on a display tray for me to admire before
I hobbled home. Verrucas never returned until my current incumbent little
critter. I’m in the hands of the professionals but it seems that they don’t go
in for verrucca assassinations anymore. It’s the politically correct approach
nowadays. Next step will be counselling probably, but not for me, for my
verrucca.
Recycling – Glastonbury style
The recycling
story runs and runs. When I was invited to perform my poetry at the Glastonbury
Festival in 2007, blue bins and brown bins were a just a figment of our
imaginations. All poets were compelled without exception to camp in an area
named ‘Green Futures Field’. It was extremely environmentally friendly as the
name suggests, and so were all the other poets. There were many small stages
where performers of all genres - famous and infamous - strutted their stuff,
sometimes energized by members of the audience peddling stationary bicycles rigged
as electric generators. We poets pitched our own tents but shared a communal –
in all senses of the word – tent for herbal teas and vegetarian snacks. I’ve
always been a greasy spoon and mug of char sort of poet but I was catered for
too with good old PG Tips. On my arrival I was invited to make myself a cuppa
and share a chat with several other poets and the organisers. I boiled the
water carried from the stand pipe on the camping gas and popped in my
caffeine-enriched teabag and stirred. After three circuits of the cup and a
squeeze I propelled it to the nearest black plastic rubbish bag. Good shot,
straight in. Then there was an immediate silence and the warm friendly mood
changed to one of ice-cold horror. I had inadvertently deposited my teabag into
the discarded cans black bag, not the biodegradable recycling black bag.
Realising my heinous crime I delved through the slimy beans and sticky
sweetcorn dripping cans, retrieved my teabag and popped it into the correct
black bag. I was forgiven by my environmentally-friendly hosts and let-off with
a herbal warning.
Modern man – Who, Me?
I’m not a new or modern man.
Nowhere near: I can’t cook, wash, iron or dust. I have no domestic skills whatsoever.
I am a man about the house who was never a new man in the 60s when he married
and he hasn’t evolved - other than cleaning the toilets and replacing the
toilet rolls. Things are slowly changing however and under instructions from my
temporarily incapacitated wife, I have been attempting to master the mysteries
of the washing machine. I do not understand the controls, but that’s not a
problem as I am given step by step instructions. It’s getting the dirty washing
to the utility room and into the little porthole of the washing machine that’s
the problem. I stuff it all in, but after I have programmed and pressed go and
the machine gurgles into life, I can retrace a trail of unwashed socks and
pants, through the kitchen, across the lounge, up the stairs, and back to the
dirty linen basket. There must be a way of avoiding this. And why is there a
similar trail on the lawn from the washing line to the back door?
Next time: Can’t Cook, Still
Can’t Cook.
‘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