BOB JONES LIVE - ON - LINE

 

 

 

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 London, United Kingdom, with all the urban pressures it brings.

I'm based in Hertford which is the slightly sleepy, but historic county town. So, at times, my column can be slightly parochial.

It's meant to be entertainment. Read on:

 

Where am I coming from?

I'm being asked all the time: Do I deal with serious social issues, pull people's plonkers, or take the Michael? Am I a satirist or humorist? Do I play safe or take a risk? Am I middle-of-the-road or on-the-edge? Tongue-in-cheek or in-your-face? Do I entertain or am I a bane? The answer is: I wish I knew. Can't a guy have a good time without all these interruptions? So read on . . .

‘Decorating your home’ – my sound advice for the serial procrastinator

The trouble with redecorating one room in your house is that it doesn’t end there. Once one room is gleaming with fresh paintwork and newly erected flat packs, all other rooms suddenly appear vividly dull. Then, like painting the Forth Bridge, one’s work is never done. Even my back, my hernia and the credit crunch have not saved me this time: I expect to be gamefully employed for the foreseeable future. So, if you don’t fancy never-ending redecorating – my advice is not to start it in the first place.

 

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 Beijing’s Kentucky Fried Chicken. Case proved?

 

 

 

China by wheelchair

 

Holiday fully paid up and it’s nearly time to depart, and then you get a health scare. The quandary: do you go or do you not? This happened to us. Our once in a lifetime holiday to China, postponed in April because my scatty dog fractured my leg, was rescheduled for November, and then my wife injures her hip, cannot weight bear and is reduced to crutches for short distances (kindly handed down by me) or a wheelchair. The consultant took into account the despair on our faces and gave the cautionary go-ahead – ‘but be careful’ he said, warned my wife to watch her step, and the power behind the wheelchair (me) not to get carried away with wayward propulsion.

 

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 UK but China has some catching up to do. Beijing has recently erected ramps at most of its tourist attractions – but in other cities they are rare. The Chinese may have invented paper, gunpowder, the compass and printing, but The West invented the dropped curb.

 

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 Suzhou Airport who was pushing my wife in an airport wheelchair and had probably not attended the appropriate handling course, progressed to the boarding gate and headed for the downward escalator at great speed, even gathering momentum for the decent. I don’t know if he thought that mid-air wheelchair jumping was an event at the recent Paralympics and this was a training opportunity not to be missed, but in response to our muffled screams he fortunately backed off at the last second. The same fellow insisted that the descent should then be by the stairs, crutch by crutch. At the bottom he was asked in Mandarin why he didn’t use a lift. He looked very embarrassed as it obviously hadn’t crossed his mind. Work experience Chinese style maybe.

 

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 Liverpool who sent me a follow-up email enquiring as to their health and wellbeing and requesting updates on their progress. The only details he didn’t supply were their names. Eventually hundreds if not thousands of tiny tadpoles immerged and my hopes were high, but each time I peered into my troubled waters there seemed to be fewer and fewer. The problem: a shoal of fat newts basking on the surface like crocodiles on an African lake. I thought that nature would balance things up but these greedy amphibians ate every tadpole – but one. I observed one lonely little fellow wiggling across the pond to the safety of my friendly oxygen-generating pond plants. That was some time ago. Success last week, I observed one lonely little froglet on a lily pad – Canadian pond weed actually. And now that dreaded surface pond weed is invading again and I must skim off another wheelbarrow-full of bright green slime. My wildlife garden is beginning to look like the banks of a Ware canal – except for the swans ducks and geese being pelted with loaves of bread.

 

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 Africa. It was capsized by a hippopotamus. He swam for the bank but was attacked by crocodiles. He grappled with them and although his legs were injured managed to make the shore and crawl into some cover for safety. Unfortunately the blood oozing from his legs and the possible outcome of his predicament attracted vultures which wheeled above and hopped in ever-decreasing circles around him. Hyenas were also moving in and he heard the roaring of lions in the distance. He survived these threats until dark. (Then the nurse – enjoying himself enormously - paused for dramatic effect before continuing) . . . And then there were the ants!                                          

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 Hertford Museum that they are quite prepared to make the highest auction bid to secure a purchase, only to discard the lot and keep its plastic wrapping.  PCBs now lie hiding under checkout shelves and counters and are only issued by reluctant staff in ones and twos to placate difficult customers. I am the proud owner of six reusable long-life bags. If I forget to take them to the supermarket I decline the plastic to avoid confrontation and juggle twenty assorted packages under my arms to save the planet. They used to be everywhere, blowing in the wind, now a sighting brings twitchers from all over the country. It’s even getting harder and harder to find a plastic bag in my house and my redundant plastic bag distributor hangs empty on the wall. I have come to be reliant on PCBs for those extremely useful little jobs. They have one hundred and one uses: like bagging the Dyson dust into, makeshift bin liners, doggie-do-do picker-uppers, draft excluders, tool bags, sandwich bags, garden bird scarers, wind direction indicators . . . and sports bags (I’m not proud). As a matter of fact my rather fetching Waitrose bag is fetching looks of jealously in the gym changing room from others with their common Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Puma sports bags). If PCBs become extinct, I don’t know how I will manage. If readers have any unusual uses for their plastic carrier bags I’d love to know. (do keep it clean!)

 

 

My Sporting Injury

 

Just like England football icons Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard, I suffered an injury to my metatarsal, thus making me ineligible for international foota duty and any form of household chore. There I was, leaning on the kitchen work service watching my wife cooking the dinner. Giving her some verbal encouragement and a few tips, and . . . a few seconds later I’m temporally crippled, hopping up and down, holding my foot in agony.

 

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 England goalkeeper David James as I vainly clutched mid-air in a frantic attempt of a save, but the can plummeted heavily onto my bare foot.

 

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 Science Museum. This letter also stated that one of their operatives would be popping in at their convenience, unannounced, sometime, over a three month period. I did have reservations about this as it did not specify any dates or times; so in keeping with my home filing system, I binned it. Apparently this was the wrong response, how naughty of me. What I should have done is put my life in abeyance, get in enough supplies and remain entombed in my home 24/7 for the said 12-weeks waiting for the knock on the door.

 

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 Glastonbury Virgin

 

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 UK and Ireland and many already knew each other having shared platforms on previous occasions.  Alcohol, although I enjoy it, does not enhance my performance so I tend to be sparing with it. Some poets seemed able to consume huge quantities and in true poets’ tradition, performed even more brilliantly as their blood-alcohol levels rose.

 

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 Glastonbury mud on the final night. The good news: one of my newfound poet friends found this out from my MySpace and emailed me lots of pics. What a mate!

 

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 Edinburgh Festival:

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 Edinburgh Festival Fringe adventure for instance. I was snug in a good friends’ empty student flat on the second floor of a rather grand, but dark, Victorian tenement. I was a stranger in town. It was my first night. My shows were scheduled from the next day. And I was fast asleep . . . until 3.00 in the morning that is.

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 Palestine.

All this, and my Festival week had only just begun . . .

 

 

 

 

Fed up with British Railways?

Why not fly to the USA and sample Amtrak?

 

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 New York. It was no surprise that these huge monsters were manicured to perfection and very comfortable; a slight surprise that passengers obediently deposited their own trash to the trash flaps; some surprise that a journey of eight hours was supported by a buffet car that stocked snacks only; but of enormous surprise that they suffer logistical problems as do our own beleaguered and bedraggled fleet.

 

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 New York - our connecting hotel coach had broken down!

 

 

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 England flag.

 

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 HOLIDAY SPECIAL

‘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: Liberty! Freedom!  

 

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 England flag, made in South Korea in the other.

 

‘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, Cornwall to present one of my talks. It was a very long journey and I stowed my overnight case packed with pressed DJ and crumpled notes in the storage provided at the end of my carriage. Other than venturing to the restaurant car for coffee and a bite to eat I spent my time looking out of the window, doing a little reading and enjoying an occasional doze. The train was destined for Penzance and I was scheduled to change at St Erth, transferring to a tiny two-carriage connection. Approaching St Erth the train decelerated and I sauntered to collect my case. But it wasn’t there. So I walked briskly to the next facility - and it wasn’t there either . . . or the next! The train had almost stopped. I panicked: sweating profusely I ran the opposite way, repeating my actions just in case I had lost my bearings. I leapt over an untidy mound of dozing back packers and exclaimed to a rail employee as I knocked him over that I could not find my case. He shrugged his shoulders, winded but sympathetic. I thought to myself that there was a distinct possibility of having to re-title my talk ‘Sweaty, Senile and Gormless’. The train stopped. Disaster loomed. I tried once more at the storage area I had first checked – and there was my case, reincarnated. A miracle! I alighted at St Erth, with case, my relief only tempered by the awareness of my possible senility.

 

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 Reading a young man started displaying abnormal behaviour patterns. They seemed familiar. He had no doubt spent the last four hours pattering on his laptop, nattering on his phone and snogging his girlfriend; but now was in a blind panic, sprinting up and down the carriages, knocking railway personnel and passengers asunder in desperation to locate his case. This proved beyond all doubt that I had no senility problem.

 

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 Reading. We had both received the same mental agility test: old v young. I triumphed, he failed: obviously not a shrewd, deep-thinking, prime-of-life sexpot like me. (But maybe I’m biased.)

 

The Boat People of Hertfordshire

Have you seen the huge new Mill Lane housing complex overlooking and dwarfing the narrow-boats in the Hertford Basin? The developers state that it’s a ‘Landmark Riverside Development’. It certainly is! It seems at first sight that has been renamed Hertford Riviera by the developers. That’s the first impression prospective buyers probably get when they scan the placards outside. But if they read again more carefully and without their imagination getting the better of them it is actually to be named Riviere. This clever wordplay conjures up an optical illusion of an idyllic Mediterranean scene. Nice one Higgins Homes, Professor Higgins would have been proud. ‘Riviere’ is French for ‘river’ according to my dictionary, or, alternatively and more exotically ‘a necklace the diamonds . . . of which gradually increase in size up to a large centre stone’. I’m sure that even in Estate Agent talk this would be a little over the top for a block of flats. All this is very well but as I recently walked over the wooden bridge connecting Folly Island to Dicker Mill in the winter sunshine; my main observation was that this apartment block rearing its immense ugly head was casting a giant suffocating shadow over the whole vista. Those people who either live or spend their leisure hours pottering about in narrow-boats in or near the Hertford Basin probably had no recourse to object to the local planning authority about this development. Quite simply: Hertford boat people now have a huge concrete barrier blocking out their midday sun. These buildings would have been denied planning permission in any other location which blocked the light of adjacent homes I’m sure. 

 

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 Oxford and Grand Union Canal and river routes from the Midlands to the Regent’s Canal, London, but may have connected to the Lea Valley and Hertfordshire via the River Lea. They initially had horse drawn or ‘Butty’ boats but eventually changed to motor boats. To state that they had a hard life would be an understatement. It could be literally a life and death struggle to earn an honest living.

 

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 London taxis. Stupid I know, but if I’d found one during my irrational impetus, I might have picked up the phone to hail my first London taxi. I’ve attempted to psychoanalyse my response and have come to the conclusion that I must be jealous of his intellect, and would in fact like to be just like him. If I could weave a magic spell to achieve this, I’m sure that it wouldn’t work out, I’d probably be a little jealous of the original but happy little old me – warts and all.

 

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 Liverpool lads and a Cockney sparrow!

 

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 Liverpool lads and a Londoner.

 

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 UK. If you misspent your youth in the swinging sixties, you will no doubt have been misspending it swinging in time to a Bobby Graham beat. Name any classic pop 60s record and it’s odds on that Bobby is playing on it. Watch a faded 60s Top of the Pops clip and you might spy Bobby on the drums. That’s if you knew who he was and what he looked like. This is because Bobby Graham although versatile enough to accompany the high profile big bands of the day and play his first love, jazz, was enticed by the guarantee of earning a regular income, into the world of rock ‘n’ roll session musicians. He hauled his drum kit up many a winding staircase to many a recording session, tucked his fee of crumpled banknotes in a grubby old envelope into his back pocket, hauled his drums down again, dragged them to his old car, and on to the next studio. Big names, hit records galore, but he received no artistic credit whatsoever. Bobby was regularly requested and often insisted on by name because it was widely known that he was the best - the most sought after session drummer of the time. If Bobby had received a penny for every play of every record that he played on, he would undoubtedly be a millionaire. But he is not, he’s my near neighbour.

 

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 Man. As you might expect, the heady sixties lifestyle with the birds, the booze and rock ‘n’ roll cocktail took their heavy toll. Like so many other artistes, there was total burn out. So his is a warts and all story with all the highs and all the lows. The good guys and the bad guys.

 

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 UK’s greatest session drummer)

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 Eden Project for example: well, not quite, but very close - in a village about five miles away in fact, and it was a great opportunity to spend a few days in fabulous Cornwall. And St David’s, Pembrokeshire is another example: well, not quite - in a small town a few miles away actually, but another great opportunity to spend some time in equally fabulous West Wales

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 Cornwall , and more to the point, I was standing in the middle of a busy road unable to move, making grimaces and grunting with pain as the holiday traffic beeped and weaved around me. My teenage son thought it was a great laugh and reckoned a few family snaps would be a hoot. It took me an hour to shuffle to the nearest doctors’ surgery where I was prescribed deep-heat lotion and told to be on my way. The spasms were unrelenting and I taxied to the Casualty Department where a doctor was very accommodating with the Valium - I felt great for three hours. He advised I contact a local physiotherapist. We were staying at a genteel, family oriented hotel and when the young, blonde physio carrying her black attaché case arrived to collect me from the lounge to escort me to my room, ‘escort’ seemed to be the operative word as the scene turned a few heads and raised twice as many eyebrows. The physiotherapy was excellent - I wished I had consulted her in the first instance. Massage completed and neck collar applied, she advised that I curtail my holiday and get more urgent attention from home. My wife reluctantly drove the 300 miles return journey while I grimaced and grunted in the back, my son gleefully taking over as second in command in the front. My neck creaks to this day. (And I still have the family snaps.)  

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 USA while on holiday, and I’m now proudly, if only briefly, well ahead of the family pack. If only I knew the problems that lie in wait.

 

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 Indiana Jones.

 

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 beach, tipping up deck chairs and flicking sand in each other’s faces. Hundreds of gleaming motorbikes and glistening scooters parked on the front, and scores of bemused policemen in reserve, eager to tell anyone the time. And me and a girlfriend observing from the safety of the amusement park: her in her pretty summer dress, and me in my woolly Marks and Spencer pullover. 

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

I’ve had it right up to here with East Herts District Council. They are unable to offer affordable housing to my adult children because (like many others) they are British, have jobs, pay taxes and earn a moderate income. This means that (like many others) they have no alternative but to live with their parents. That's why we all share the limited space in our packed house. I couldn’t believe it, but the refuse that we five adults accumulate in one week does not qualify us for a larger wheelie bin. They’ve got to be joking, right? If we could only make room for one more person we would qualify for a giant green wheelie bin said the extremely pedantic East Herts District Council. Our rubbish collection is on Tuesday and our bog standard black wheelie bin is brim full again by Friday. Each day after this we take turns to jump on top of our rubbish, compacting it like French grape treaders. With luck, this allows a few more inches of room – just enough to squeeze in one more little bag. This emergency measure is only possible until Sunday morning. After that, even climbing onto the roof of our shed and making high velocity jumps into it makes no further impression. So, what on earth can we do with our excess bags of household waste from Sunday until Tuesday EHDC, do tell me? Rent space in neighbours’ under-utilised bins? Creep out after dark and pop our additional bags into any wheelies we can find with some available space? Surly EHDC are not encouraging us to recycle our rubbish in this way? However, if anybody does glimpse a shadowy figure in my street in the dead of night, furtively grasping a mysterious black bag or three, possibly full of potato peelings and a few empty baked beans cans . . . it’s definitely not me, I’m not admitting to anything – OK?

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 Yorkshire pud – kebabs! And he likes our Hertfordshire girls too. First night on the town in Hertford they pinched his bum five times - an All-American record. Eric is enjoying himself, on his birthday he went with his new-found Hertfordshire friends to Stevenage to party and taste the night life. Hope he remembered to wear his American Football butt protector.

 

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, Stanley Baker, Patrick McGoohan, Herbert Lom . . . to name but a few. It was about a rough and ready bunch of tipper-lorry drivers tearing about the English countryside at breakneck speeds to earn their bonuses - by fair means or foul. To get the effect of breakneck speed they speeded the film up, so the action appears extremely jerky: quite amusing in comparison to the advanced standards of today’s movies, but none-the-worse for that. ‘Hell Drivers’ remains an extremely gripping and classic British film.

 

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 – I know your number.

 

‘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 Kent county athletics championships, he would scorch the track, lapping everybody else at least once. Running against the clock, he couldn’t be beaten. Running against top international opposition, often, unfortunately, he was.

 

David Bedford graduated to be one of the original organisers of the London Marathon. No doubt, there will be countless Bedford look-alikes with 118 tops running next year. I think David ought to get a divi from 118 118 and all those hairy impostors - for a charity of his choice.

 

 

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 Battle Poetry Festival, near Hastings , 100 miles away from the Hertford area, so that if disaster struck, at least no one would know. An ex-professional musician colleague of mine suggested that I prepare a Bob Dylan number. ‘Dylan’s a poet – and he can’t sing either’ he said. The festival coincided with the Battle of Hastings enactment weekend and the streets and pubs were crowded with Saxons and Normans in full battle dress. Offensive weapons appeared mandatory. These warriors looked the part, but not one of these scary soldiers dared pop their helmets through our poetry festival doors.

 

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 Sussex group called Titus performed prior to me, and all I can say is that they were marvellous. Traditional folk songs blended with Beatles’ classics and even some recent releases. I bottled out. I knew my limits. There is no way that I could have followed such brilliant music.

 

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. Essex audiences are often quite the opposite: energetically vociferous - the ladies throwing their underwear. ( Basildon , 1997.)  

Leaving our shores for a moment, I recall a holiday in Malta a few years ago. The Maltese love the British we were told. It didn’t seem like that to me. Our hotel waiter made a point of serving us and any other Brits last. He would sickeningly ingratiate himself with all German tourists, leaving us Brits trembling with the unjustness of it all - but too meek to object. He may well have been the only Maltese waiter holding a grudge against us, but it spoilt our holiday and we’ve never been back.  

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 Scotland and found the Scots genuinely sociable. It’s always a pleasure to chat.  

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 Berkshire Steam Fair. In the 1960’s when I was a sinewy agricultural student in Berkshire , I knew it as ‘Flash’ Carter’s Fair. John Carter - 'Flash' - was into pre 1950s American cars and military vehicle in a big way. That’s how it all started. Traditional fairground attractions powered by steam were a small feature, but Flash and his family lovingly bought and restored more and more from all over the county. These days the fair is predominately steam, tours all over the UK and serves as a brilliant, interactive, living fairground museum.

 

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 Berkshire countryside. But these were early days, everything is safe, legal and fully insured now I’m sure.

 

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 Edinburgh Festival show. Sharp one liners and witty Jewish patter and song. Brilliant. Well worth the admission money on its own. (As they say). 

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 Alps, it isn’t.  If in doubt, we give glucose or a glucose releasing injection anyway. He had glucose syrup packed with his insulin and I dosed him with this and as much Coke as I could get him to swallow, free of charge, courtesy of Cyprus Airways. His recovery was very slow indeed. I received a message from the captain. He wanted to know if he should land and needed a decision within 10 minutes. If he missed his chance to land at Vienna, it would be another two hours flying time to Cyprus. The decision was made, and then belatedly another diabetic announced himself, complete with glucometre. Blood sugar extremely low: confirmed hypo.  

Often patients recover from hypos well, thank the ambulance service and continue with their day - this time he had to land in Vienna. Austrian Paramedics and police boarded the plane. Happily our man was now recovering swiftly. We had a paramedic huddle and agreed that it would be safe to continue rather than imposing him to an expensive skiing/strudel break. The patient recovered fully. I received double allocation of wine with my in-flight meal and a duty-free gift from the captain – a bottle of champagne. Not only that, but although the patient was on his own, he was travelling with a party, and they invited my wife and I to a slap-up wine-saturated meal with them at a Paphos restaurant the next day. Did I accept? Of course I did.  

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 Lancashire villages has now come to an end. I’ve had such a good time - and got paid too. What on earth am I to do with myself now? I clocked up over 3,000 miles, visiting villages the length and breadth of the county. I have performed to audiences varying in size from 30 to 200 in village halls, community centres and as a grand finale, in front of the altar of a beautiful church in the tiny village of Lowgill (not even on my map), hidden away in the breathtaking Forest of Bowland; close to the Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumberland county borders. As far as I could guess, this village consisted of three small cottages and a large tractor. But about 50 people appeared from nowhere just a few minutes before the show was about to start. The promoter informed me that the unusually early start time of 7.00 pm was to enable the audience to find their way safely home in the daylight without getting lost - and they were the locals.

The night before, I was at Earby, which I was reliably informed by half the audience, is in Yorkshire. I was also reliably informed by the other half of the audience that it is in Lancashire. A bit of good-natured red rose/white rose rivalry then. Politicians are to blame of course, altering the county boarders to manipulate a few more party votes no doubt. But the good villagers of Earby will have none of it. Vigilantes erect illegal ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ signs where they think the boarder should still be. They are top quality, well-designed signs too. If the men from the council arrive with maps and clipboards and remove them, they reappear the next day before you can say By ‘eck. So, I had Lancastrians to the right of me, and Yorkists to the left of me. It was a bizarre but delightful evening: a Hertfordshire hedgehog, orchestrating verbal jousting between the two camps, lit by Lancashire Electricity and supping Yorkshire water out of a glass tumbler made in Taiwan.

........................................................................

 

‘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