To Bournemouth for a Bride

“Well, I stopped at the services so we could get some snacks and coffee. The back door of my Range Rover opened and loads of empty beer cans fell out, followed by Rob.”

Steely the Tinkers’ Friend always likes to start his version of this tale in the following way. We were on our way to Bournemouth for Jonno’s stag weekend, two days that would drastically change two people’s lives and therefore live long in the memory of everybody involved.

First of all, let me just say that technically, Jonno’s stag weekend wasn’t a stag weekend in the truest sense. That’s to say, there wouldn’t be a wedding after it, because the wedding had been called off a month earlier. The bride and groom to be were no longer even an item. However, Jonno, being the fine upstanding chap that he is, decided that the hotel had been booked and the participants very willing, so thought, what the heck. Why should a major emotional trauma get in the way of a good piss up?

Now, don’t get me wrong. These days, I’m not so good at this sort of thing. In fact, on my last stag do for DaveJohnDave, my brother-in-law, I was back in my room at 12.30 with a bottle of mineral water and asleep by 1am.

But at the time of Jonno’s stag weekend, I was at the peak of my stag do powers. Steely picked me up at lunchtime and I climbed into the car to join Steve John and The Sexton. I had helpfully supplied a crate of beer (known as ‘a slab’ round these parts), whilst the others had supplied lager and cider. By the time we arrived in Bournemouth, the slabs had all but disappeared, with half of the empty cans left in the service station car park.

We arrived at the hotel reception in a relaxed frame of mind. The receptionist met us with a beaming smile.

“Are you with the Eckley party?” she enquired.

“Yarp,” replied The Sexton, swaying like a palm tree in the wind.

She kept the smile.

“I’ll book you in one at a time, then,” she explained, before turning to Steely.

“Name?”

“Thrift,” said Steely, quick as a flash.

Steely was a little less relaxed than the rest of us, having driven all the way from the South West, which meant he had the presence of mind to claim the rather plushy single room that Mark Thrift had booked as his own. The receptionist handed Steely the key. Steely went to his car to collect his toolkit and started work on Thrifty’s room.

The rest of us were sharing. My roommate, as usual, was The Sexton. We’d shared a few rooms on trips together before, but by the Sunday morning at the breakfast table, he was explaining that having to listen to me snoring and farting all night in the single bed next to him, culminating in him waking up in the morning to be confronted by my bare arse sticking out of the sheets, made him absolutely sure homosexuality was not a route he was likely to take.

All the stags had arrived by 7pm and sat down to dinner at 7.30. All except Thrifty, who had been seen arriving but had not made it to the dining table.

It transpired that he was at reception, complaining loudly about the quality of his room. The door handle to the bathroom had come off in his hand. He’d hung his jacket on the back of the door, but the hook had fallen off. The wardrobe was locked and the key was missing. When he’d gone for a shower, the shower curtain had come loose and wrapped itself around him. After getting out of the shower, he had dried himself and tried to put the towel back on the rail. Guess what.

What was nearly the final straw for him was when the receptionist questioned as to whether he was Mr Thrift.

The final straw was at 4am, blind drunk, closing the curtains and having the pole land on his head.

Dinner was a raucous, entertaining affair, the food being served by some rather attractive and exotic waitresses, who patiently put up with the usual stag do comments. The hotel manager was equally tolerant during our stay. He hardly flinched when discovering me on Thrifty’s shoulders hanging a pair of The Sexton’s pants on the enormous chandelier.

The other guests were similarly kind. The Sexton and I spent an entertaining afternoon sitting in a hot tub and sauna, in conversation with a young lady and sharing a bottle of Jameson’s whisky before the big night out. Her husband didn’t complain once, even though it was the first day of their honeymoon. She was very informed about rugby, though.

By Saturday dinner time, our last meal together, everything had become rather surreal. In a bizarre moment of genius/madness, the group had unanimously made me the beer kitty holder. At the time, this was like giving a toddler a rocket launcher, but it meant that for a while everybody had to drink at the same pace as me. Therefore, the day’s pub crawl could be compared to one of those films where a group of men have to get across the desert, dropping by the way as the story progresses: ‘Leave me, save yourselves.’

Alcohol fuelled inspiration hit me at the table. I decided that since the stag weekend was going so well, it deserved a wedding reception. We had the groom, we had the best man, and all we needed was a bride.

One particular waitress had been very friendly and a good sport. Nobody could quite pronounce her name, but she was from South America, was dark haired, attractive and about Jonno’s age. Having asked the permission of the manager, we persuaded the waitress to be our bride. A napkin was placed on her head and she was given the flowers from the table centrepiece as a bouquet.

We then had the speeches and toasts. Thrifty (Bride’s father) followed by Steve John and finally Jonno himself, thanking everybody and extolling the beauty of his new bride. She laughed and blushed and even tolerated the stolen congratulatory kisses, before we all disappeared into the Bournemouth night to discover another level of Nirvana on planet vodka.

Next day, we had to get back to take part in the dragon boat races at the docks, since nearly all of the stag party were crew members. We’d been undefeated champions 3 years in a row, but this weekend could be our downfall. Steely briefed us as he drove.

“Right, when we get there, on your best behaviour. Don’t look like you’ve been drinking, act normally and don’t swear, got it?”

Upon our arrival, Steely had to attend a captain’s meeting, where the organisers expressed their concerns.

“Last year, there were reports that one entire crew appeared to be drunk,” the chair of the dragon boat explained solemnly. He looked directly at Steely.

“Have your crew been drinking?”

Steely only shook his head slowly, as if saddened that the chair could even suggest such a thing.

Around the corner, 15 men stood around the back of Jonno’s land rover consuming 3 crates of cheap French lager whilst rubbing chocolate into the back of Thrifty’s pants, removed from his temporarily stolen holdall.

Steely returned to collect us and told us about the meeting.

“Just remember what I said.”

We did. But Steely failed to brief Nick, the unreconstructed, boozy New Zealander who hadn’t been on the stag do but was part of our crew.

As we sat at the jetty waiting to go out for our first race, lots of smiling children and families waved at us. Nick suddenly decided to stand up, rocking the narrow vessel side to side.

“Fuck me! Look at the tits on that!” he shouted, pointing directly at a large chested woman standing with her two children and waving at us.

“Great, that’s my sister you ****,” said a voice at the back of the boat.

Steely held his head in his hands. We were tired, drunk, out of control and about to compete against a young RAF dragon boat crew.

We broke the course record.

Which would be a good way to end the story. But not the best way.

A couple of weeks later, after staring for hours at the fuzzy digital photo I had taken of him and the waitress, Jonno made a decision. He returned to Bournemouth, to the hotel and sought her out. She remembered him, of course she remembered him. Yes, Ok, I will go for a drink with you. Meal? Sure…

A year later, Jonno married Artemis, who came from Venezuela. They now have 2 children.

I don’t see either of them that often, but when I do, Artemis always gives me a smile and the same comment.

“Is all your fault,” she says…

Typical Family Dinner Talk? – Minutes of the meeting.

Minutes for family dinner, Thursday evening.

Present: Yours truly, Lady Barton St Mary, Miss Katherine, Master Johnny, Ollie the cat and Stanley the cat.

Dinner was served at 8.00pm.

Stanley requested to be let outdoors. Ollie entered.

Miss Katherine asked if any member of the family would like some peppermint tea. Lady Barton St Mary and Rob said yes please. Miss Katherine asked for preferences. Lady BSM stated that she wasn’t fussy, but would prefer a china cup, not a normal mug, no, not that one, the one with the farm animals on it; place the tea bag in the cup for a little while, don’t stir but lift out.

Ollie requested to be let outdoors. Stanley entered.

Dinner started with a debate about twitter accounts – Master Johnny stated that Miss Katherine was not as popular as him because she had less followers. Miss Katherine observed that a lot of Master Johnny’s followers were people he didn’t know, hence were weirdos. Point of information from Master Johnny stated that Miss Katherine only had friends she did know, which made her less popular than Master Johnny and equally weird.

8.10pm – Lady Barton St Mary confiscates mobile devices and decrees dinner time to be device free. One incidence of Lady BSM checking facebook on her mobile phone was observed and duly noted.

Stanley requested to be let outdoors. Ollie decided not to enter.

Master Johnny revealed that his group of friends would be attending the 2000 trees festival in August. During this time, there will be a challenge to kiss the oldest girl possible. Aspirations amongst the boys vary from mature (20) to really old (30). Miss Katherine suggested that older women may be persuaded to kiss younger boys.

Master Johnny invited Miss Katherine to the festival. Miss Katherine declined on the premise that she was only being asked in order to kiss one of Master Johnny’s friends.

Lady BSM remarked upon appropriate age differences for couples. Miss Katherine offered the formula for a younger partner: Half your age + 7 years.

Lady Barton St Mary stated her intention to determine the age of our new dentist, a Colin Farrell lookalike, for future consideration.

Ollie and Stanley requested entry into the house. Stanley accepted offer. Ollie changed his mind.

Knock Knock Jokes.

Master Johnny made a short presentation on crap knock knock jokes aimed at unsuspecting 6^th formers at school, including the classic:

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Ida Nup…”

Miss Katherine suggested that this may be a shoke.

Yours truly and Lady BSM requested verification of the term.

Master Johnny explained that if something is not very good, it is prefixed with sh-, meaning shit.

Hence, shit joke = shoke.

Members of the family suggested their own versions, including Gulliver’s Travels starring Jack Black (Shmovie) and Ollie Murs (Shmusic).

Stanley requested to be let outdoors. Ollie entered. Stanley decided to stay in.

Master Johnny announced the death of an old family member, the cactus that lives in the bathroom, which has not been watered for 4 years. Several theories as to how the cactus expired were espoused. All members agreed to the disposal of said cactus due to a do not resuscitate notice.

A point of information was raised by Master Johnny regarding the naming of cacti kept at school and owned by a teacher : Pupils are given the responsibility of naming said cacti.

Master Johnny explained that one cactus was given the moniker ‘Billy Ball Bag’ and another ‘Two Knobs’.

A discussion concerning the advantages and disadvantages of having two sexual organs ensued. Lady BSM suggested that during a state of arousal whilst wearing trousers, a rather convenient ledge may be formed for supporting a cup of hot beverage or a plate of sandwiches.

Ollie and Stanley requested to be let outdoors. Stanley left. Ollie changed his mind, then changed his mind again and followed Stanley.

Any other business: Master Johnny and Miss Katherine demonstrated the art of ‘snap chat torture’, which involved the slapping of a sibling followed by a photograph taken on an adenoid phone.

The meeting was adjourned at 8.30pm after a telephone call from The Marchioness of Prestberries.

Ollie and Stanley requested to be let in.

The Whining

Rob thought: A vicious little prick.

He stared at the splinter, embedded in the palm of his hand.

“Ah, yes, the bannister needs seeing to,” said Oldman, butler to Mr & Mrs Shockerly, owners  of Rural Towers, “I’m sure you’re the sort of man who can do that,” he said over his shoulder as he continued up the wide, rickety oak staircase. Rob sensed a mocking tone under the cheerfulness.

Lady Barton St Mary, known locally as Lady BSM, glanced over at Rob. She held a quizzical expression, as if trying to decide whether Rob was that sort of man. Rob, in return, swallowed the growing lump in his throat.

“I think we’re going to be happy here,” she announced, following the tall, balding valet.

Rural Towers sat atop a hill overlooking the village. The local kids called it ‘the big scary house where old people live.’ A large, gothic three storey rectory, built in the 1840s, it gazed impassively down onto the surrounding gardens. Like an elderly person with a tendency to stare too long, the whole place was slightly disconcerting. What added to its menace was the fact that the house had been neglected; no repairs or improvements, no alterations or projects had been undertaken for more than 40 years.

The local kids may have thought it was scary, but their parents and older residents in the village simply called it ‘The Overlooked Hotel.’

Now, nearly six years after the splinter incident, the family were doing their best to make something of The Overlooked. Obviously, the staff helped, but Lady BSM was insistent that Rob did his best to use his DIY skills on the old place.

Rob had seen it as an opportunity to turn his life around. Moving away from the old home, with its close proximity to Bargain Booze, meant his drinking habit could be contained. Of course, Rob was fairly confident that he never overindulged, but Lady BSM insisted that receiving a Christmas card and ‘We miss you’ postcards from a discount off licence was not a common practice.

Also, being stuck out in the middle of the country, protected from the villagers by a high, electrified security fence, meant that Rob had plenty of thinking time to write his blogs. That was, when he wasn’t painting something. Or putting something back together.

He’d enjoyed teaching, but the paperwork and the bargain booze finally saw him snap one day and he lost his job. It had taken 3 hrs for paramedics to get the poor admin manager to hospital. The surgeon stated that he’d never seen a rolled up enrolment form stuck so far up somebody’s backside before.

The sale had been fairly painless, although neither Lady BSM or Rob had met Mr and Mrs Shockerly. There had been rumours of Mr Shockerly suffering some form of breakdown and Mrs Shockerly and their twin girls disappearing, but that’s all it seemed to be, just rumours.

Miss Katherine and Master Johnny, Rob and Lady BSM’s children, had settled in well. Miss Katherine spent a lot of time travelling, mainly into town where she spent a lot of time with friends. She had become a very astute vodka aficionado, sampling different varieties across the town several evenings a week, occasionally returning to The Overlooked for fresh clothes and meals.

Master Johnny took a little longer to settle. He had an imaginary friend called Tony, who seemed to advise Johnny on his best course of action. Tony insisted that Master Johnny looked for a new direction. Tony was also responsible for Master Johnny’s frequent showering.

“Another shower?” Lady BSM commented one afternoon.

“Yes, Mother. Tony says not only should we be tough on grime, we should also be tough on the causes of grime,” explained Master Johnny.

“I see,” said Lady BSM rather doubtfully.

“Yes. Tony says the three most important areas are ablution, ablution and ablution.”

Neither she nor Rob were surprised when one day Master Johnny announced that Tony had left him to take up a rather lucrative public speaking tour followed by a consultancy position in the Middle East.

It was around this time that Master Johnny was encouraged to take an active role in helping around the house, something he disliked intensely.

“Aww! Why do I have to do this!”

“Errrr!! It’s sooo booring!”

“I’d so much rather be doing something else…”

Parslow, the groundsman, found Johnny in the garden, complaining about having to collect logs for the fire. Parslow invited Johnny into the garden shed, where he made him a cup of tea and gave him a nip of whisky whilst listening to his grievances.

“Boy, Ah think ah know what’s different ‘bout you,” said Parslow.

“Yous like yaw daddy, yous like me, yous  has da Whining,” he explained, putting a hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Awl da time, whining ‘bout da jobs yous hava do.Whining ‘bout yer aches an’ yer pains…”

Johnny looked askance at Parslow, a short, ruddy faced little man from the West Country, with a check shirt, rolled up sleeves, moleskin trousers and wellingtons.

“Why are you talking like a black man from the deep south?” he asked him.

Parslow stared off into the middle distance.

“Jus’ seems right, son. Just’seems right.”

Later that day, as Master Johnny skateboarded along the corridor, he was confronted by a huge wave of blood heading his way. He managed to flee before it reached him. Rob, who had been up a ladder painting one wall red, was unaware that Johnny had dislodged the floorboard that caused him to fall off.

This was all too much for Rob, who’d landed on his head. Dazed, he stumbled down the stairs, collecting another splinter in his hand from the bannister. He started to feel dizzy as he entered the drawing room, to find Ollie the cat standing behind a bar, wearing a bow tie and polishing a wine glass.

“Evening, Sir. The usual?” asked Ollie.

Bugger me, thought Rob. A talking cat.

“I try not to drink these days, Pussykins,” Rob explains.

“Go on. Just have the one,” says a voice sitting next to him. Rob turns to face Stanley the cat. He has a sly grin and a cigarette lolling out of the side of his mouth.

‘Scratching the furniture and smoking in the house – Lady BSM will make you into a handbag when she finds you,’ thinks Rob.

Rob licks his lips and smiles back.

“I suppose one won’t matter.

Ollie elaborately presents a bright blue cocktail and places it on the bar. Rob takes a sip. It contains so much vodka it would make a Magaluf barman wince.

Rob peers around the drawing room.

“Quiet tonight, Ollie,” he says.

“Yes sir, but they’ll all be in later. All the other husbands and men of the house who live here.”

“You mean lived here,” Rob says, winking at Ollie.

Ollie stares impassively back before yawning widely.

“No. They all still live here. Like you. You’ve always been here. You’re the DIY man.”

A small chill runs down Rob’s back, his eyes widen and he fixes Ollie with an intense stare. He picks up his colourful tipple and pours it down his throat in one swift move, the vodka forming a warm channel in his chest. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and shakes his head.

“Is this all a dream?” Rob whispers.

Ollie’s eyes narrow as they fix on Rob.

“I’m a cat. I’m wearing a bow tie. I’m polishing a glass. I have opposable thumbs. What the bloody hell do you think?”

Rob looks at Stanley, who shrugs, before turning his attention back to Oliie.

The bartending pussy leans forward. Rob does the same.

“Now,” says the feline, “we’re at 1,168 words already. Go and chop your family into little pieces.”

Rob wakes up on the sofa to find his laptop next to him, his latest blog on view. It reads:

AllDIYandnoblogmakesRobadulboyAllDIYandnoblogmakesRobadul boy AllDIYandnoblogmakesRobadulboyAllDIYandnoblogmakesRobadul boy…

Meanwhile, Lady BSM is sitting on the bed reading ‘Homes and Gardens’ when Master Johnny stumbles in, wet and in shock. She notices the terrible bruises around his neck and leaps up to embrace him.

“What happened to my poor little boy!” she cries.

He replays the events of the past few minutes over and over in his head:

Heading towards the door, knowing it would be dangerous to enter. His arm rising, his hand pushing the unlatched door back on its hinges, the hazy, naked figure behind the opaque shower curtain, suddenly rushing at him, her icy, cold hands around his throat, squeezing, squeezing, him kicking hard to get away…

Miss Katherine suddenly crashes into the room.

“Johnny! I told you Oonagh was in the shower! What were you thinking! Oh and by the way, mum, the water’s freezing again, can dad fix it?”

Lady BSM absent mindedly stroked Johnny’s hair, considering.

“Well, with this thick snow, it would be difficult to get to B & Q. But we could have a go.”

Johnny at this point starts to shake. He emits a low, croaking sound.

“Eck Nan et name. Eck Nan at name,” he appears to chant.

Miss Katherine and Lady BSM exchange looks as they hear heavy footsteps on the stairs. Miss Katherine moves over to the door and peers out. Her father, looking rather dazed and angry, is lumbering up the stairs with an axe.

“Ooeer, dad’s in one of his moods, let’s hide, Johnny. Mum will sort him out.”

“Eck Nan et name,” says Johnny, writing something on Lady BSM’s Period Homes magazine before disappearing out of the door with his sister.

Lady BSM picks up the magazine and reads Master Johnny’s scribble.

Ec nan et naim.

She frowns and concentrates on the words, using all her crossword skills. As the bedroom door opens, she realises that it makes just one word.

Ecnanetnaim. But it’s backwards.

Ecnanetnaim = Maintenance.

Rob is standing in the doorway, breathing heavily. It had all become too much. The painting, the wallpaper stripping, the leaking roof, the burst pipes, the blocked drains, the paint swatches, the fabric samples, the unbalanced central heating system, the wobbly floor tiles, the K word… the K word!!!

He glares at Lady BSM with wild eyes.

“Here’s JOHNNY!!!” he bellows, raising the axe.

Lady BSM stands up straight and strides across to her demented husband. She touches him lightly on the arm.

“No,” she says calmly, “you’re not Johnny. Johnny is your son. He has the whining. But he’ll grow out of it. I take it you’re going out to chop up some logs?”

“What?”

“You’ve brought a dirty old axe into the bedroom. Now take it downstairs and make a start. Miss Katherine and I are going to B&Q, if we can get through the snow.

A few minutes later, Rob finds himself in the garden by the woodpile, holding on tightly to the axe handle, sitting on a freezing log with a resigned look on his face. Lady BSM’s car moves silently away through the thick snow.

Inside The Overlooked, the faint sounds of a swing band drifted out through the draughty windows, an image of a grainy photograph of Rob and Ollie in a dinner suit hanging in the hall…

 

 

Race With A Camel.

Wordpretzels, today was the day I took part in The Forest of Dean Half Marathon, a beautiful run through the trees situated in the magnificent county of Gloucestershire, South West England. I would share some photos, but I forgot my camera. Therefore, I will have to use somebody else’s.

As you know, I am quite keen on running. I know that some of you are keen on running too, such as runnersami http://wordpress.com/#!/read/blog/id/11246489/, who blogs exclusively about running and beer. What’s not to like?

The FOD Half. That’s me, 1700th from the front. Just on the right. Waving.

I’m also aware that a lot of you would prefer to bang yourself over the head with a tin tray than go running, so I thought you might like an insight into what a race day is like.

It usually starts with parking  your car in a muddy field, whilst being directed by a volunteer in a yellow jacket. Yellow jackets tend to either be a) old and very keen that you follow their every instruction, or b) very young and relaxed in their parking a car approach. They also have a tendency to wear some form of quasi militaristic uniform, for example boys’ brigade, scouts or some other regimented representation of a religious/monarchist cult organisation. These days I prefer the older ones, who point dramatically at another grey haired yellow jacketed official who guides you into your imaginary parking bay with the accuracy of a flight attendant on an aircraft carrier.

The uniformed spotty youth, on the other hand, spends his time looking at his adenoid phone whilst waving his arm around in the air, giving the occasion a certain je ne sais quoi, but also leaving me confused and generally badly parked.

I like to arrive in good time for an event, so that I can prepare at leisure and not be stressed. In most cases, you have to collect a chip and a race number. A chip is a little device that times your run and you generally wear it around your ankle. It bleeps when you step on a blue mat at the start and finish, so the start of a race involving thousands of people emanates lots of bleeps. I always have this mental image of a supermarket check-out worker on amphetamines hurling items across the scanner at break neck speed, which if you shop exclusively at Lidl, would be impossible for you to imagine.

Last year at the Tewkesbury Half, the race started and as I shuffled towards the start line, I realised that I’d left my race chip in my car. I veered off to the car park, fitted my chip and confusingly started with the 5 mile runners, looking bemused as to why an overweight middle aged man was at the front of their line up and wasn’t waiting for the gun. The commentator took great pleasure in explaining my predicament. In return, I gave him the appropriate hand signals.

Anyhow, having collected the necessary equipment, I then enjoy watching all the other competitors warm up. Some of them appear to want to run several miles before the race. Others have strange contortions or rituals to help them stretch their muscles.

I don’t bother with warming up. I read that older people didn’t need to after they were 50. Though to be honest, it might have been an article about sex.

Then there are the wonderful sights to behold. Fancy neon kit, lycra and flashy colours, knee braces, compression tights, old men in worn out cotton running vests, long socks, tight shorts, tight short shorts… all sorts.

What I may have looked like running past the lake in the forest this morning. If I had a different head. And body.

And the shapes and appearance of the runners. Grey and white haired, bald, big, small, thin, fat, gorgeously attractive and terrifyingly ugly. They’re all there.

But don’t be fooled by appearances. Very often, the runners in the seriously streamlined kit pulling the entire professional warm up moves are more often than not the ones puffing and struggling by mile 7.

Do not underestimate anybody.

Two examples:

1)    In my first half marathon, I reached a steep incline at mile 10 and diligently put my head down, trying to ignore the burning sensation in my calves and my fading ability to take in enough oxygen. As I endured this experience, a man who must have been in his 60s wearing an M&S singlet and an old pair of shorts overtook me, chuckling. I couldn’t believe it. What made it harder to accept was the fact that he was also pushing his son in a wheelchair.

2)    The following year, I was left standing at mile 8 by a pantomime camel, who rushed by at incredible speed. This time I was prepared. By mile 11, I caught up with the camel, which appeared to have fallen on its haunches, heaving huge gasps of air into its head and bottom at the same time. Punching the air in triumph and shouting ‘In your face, camel!’ as I ran past was greeted with bemusement by the watching crowd.

I’m not even going to mention the rather rotund lad in a rugby shirt and cut-off jeans who stubbed out his fag on the starting line and disappeared into the distance, never to be seen again. Maybe he just stopped at the next off licence, but I have a feeling he would have completed the race and been in the pub on his third pint by the time I crossed the finish line.

The Forest of Dean course is multi terrain, so there are lots of places to trip up, which I tend to do on a regular basis. I haven’t as yet fallen arse over tit, but have come very close to it on lots of occasions. Not so much a run as a ‘nearly fall over’ for 13 miles.

Of course, there are some beautiful sights to see in the forest, but when you’re pursuing a personal best, this becomes an unnecessary distraction. Much like the female runners, since lycra is extremely forgiving, and lots of these women are very well toned. A well-defined bottom combined with the sort of noises a tiring woman makes in only one other physical situation can make you completely lose track of your running aspirations.

Then there’s the camaraderie. People often give me encouragement, nodding at my knee brace and making sympathetic comments. Today I managed two acts of kindness, both jelly related.

I noticed a stream of coloured objects toppling out of a man’s jacket in front of me. I accelerated and tapped him on the shoulder. He was wearing an ipod. I smiled and told him he was losing his jelly babies. But as I smiled at him and he removed his earplug, the only word he heard was ‘baby.’

The panic in his eyes made me repeat my statement. You could see the relief on his face as he realised he wasn’t being propositioned in the woods whilst running 8:30 /minute miles.

At mile 11, two young girls were giving away jelly sweets from large ice cream style containers. I didn’t want any, but took a handful and gave them to the mother of a little girl as I passed by. They cooed their appreciation as I disappeared into the distance.

“So, a sweaty, smelly, middle aged man tried to push sweets into the hand of a little girl before running off into the woods,” was how Lady Barton St Mary recounted it when I told her.

“Eww, Dad, what did her mum say? Was she freaked out?” asked Miss Katherine.

Thanks. In an instant I’d turned from a kind, thoughtful athlete into an opportunistic paedophile with ADHD.

I’d like to finish with a funny ending, such as me taking a wrong turning and ending up in a nudist colony or an angry ex-olympic middle distance runner catching me up and punching me for giving his little girl some perspiration stained sweets, but I can’t.

I ran the best half marathon of my life. Although if I told you my time and you are a serious runner, you might find that funny.

Bell Bottom Trousers and a Stiffy

Lady BSM and I had a very late night last week when we stumbled across a TV programme entitled ‘Disco in the 70s’ and all the memories of my disco heydays came flooding back.

Those of you who know me well are probably aware that as a youngster I would have been classified as a punk. Or ‘punk rocker’, as my dad referred to me. He added an adjective to this, which I’m sure you can guess.

The great thing about punk was that older people didn’t get it. My brother-in-law hated it so much, when he came home to find me playing ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ on his stereo hi-fi whist pogoing round his living room, he dragged the needle across the record before hurling the offending vinyl at the wall.

Thinking back, he may have accidentally invented an early form of hip- hop/ scratch music. However, at the time, it made me realise that this music was definitely for me.

Only The News of the World, Bill Grundy and my brother-in-law thought it was the end of civilisation. We thought it was fun, exciting and far better than listening to ABBA, Brotherhood of Man or Queen.

But this only tells you part of the story. Yes, I loved punk, but I was still listening to other stuff, just like any other youth at the time. I had my records by The Stranglers, The Clash, The Pistols and The Damned. But they sat alongside albums by Pink Floyd, Rush, Van der Graaf Generator and Wings.

As the punk ‘revolution’ started to fade into ‘new wave’ during 1977, something pivotal in our youthful lives happened.

It was Ozzy who drew our attention to it, telling us animatedly about a new film called ‘Saturday Night Fever’.

We actually queued up to see it at The Classic in High Barnet. Ozzy had already seen it twice and had rather alarmingly taken to wearing a white cheesecloth shirt with an accompanying cravat. The shirt was open to reveal a large gold medallion. This was complemented with high waisted black trousers, flared from the knee, and black dress shoes. Very alarming. More alarming is the fact that Ozzy spent a lot of time in Elstree with the posh kids who went to Haberdashers Aske’s School. This group included a rather loud girl called Vanessa, Graham Hill’s son Damon and a very posh boy called Cowell.

Looking back, maybe it was Ozzy’s sartorial influence on the young Simon that makes him dress the way he does today.

I think it was also the real beginnings of that rather modern habit of ‘male grooming’. At the time, grooming for men meant a bath once a week and a splash of Old Spice on a Saturday night before going to the pub.

It didn’t take long before I also had a rather tidy collection of disco records, because, although I was first and foremost a punk, disco music couldn’t be ignored. For 17 year old boys, there was a good reason for this.

Girls.

Girls were more likely to take notice of songs that told them they were more than a woman or a sexy lady. They welcomed boogie nights and boogie wonderland and felt love, whereas a punk invitation to ‘stick my fingers right up your nose’ seemed surprisingly less seductive.

This meant that any social gathering involving disco music meant you had a pretty good chance of getting to dance with a girl. And not just the ‘step, point, step point, roll your hands, night fever pose’ dancing, but, if you were lucky, a full on, Lionel Richie, Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady smoochy slow dance towards the end of the evening, after she’s had one or two Babychams and you’ve had a couple of Skol lagers*.

The most memorable bi-annual disco for my group of friends was the Borehamwood Athletic Club Dance, held at various venues, but mainly at the Ballroom Dancing School just off the main shopping area known as ‘The Village’. Here, boys would gather dressed as best they could to impersonate John Travolta.

And failing dismally, because we weren’t the greatest dancer. We weren’t Halston, Gucci or even Fiorucci. Most of our clothes were hand me downs from older family members. We could manage the big collars; by this time, punk was introducing us to drainpipe trousers, but discos demanded full on flared trousers with high buttoned waistbands. My mum always called flares ‘bell bottomed trousers’, likening them to something a sailor would wear.

If I remember correctly, I had one of my punk hating brother-in-law’s old shirts with tiny prints of Charlie Chaplin on it, with rounded collars that nearly touched each shoulder. This was accompanied by a pair of M&S flares and some slip on black shoes with tassels.

The courting ritual would start with girls on one side of the room and boys on the other, eyeing each other up. Ozzy would usually make the first move, being the only one who a) took disco dancing lessons and b) smoked cigarettes, which all girls at the time seemed to like.

Slowly, boys and girls would pair up. Because this was an athletic club disco, the female middle distance runners had the best choice of boys, whilst the shot putters and discus throwers were more open to negotiation, but by the time the slow dances came around, everybody would be happy and have somebody to cling on to whilst The Bees Gees asked how deep your love was.

Being boys of a certain age, you had to find a way of dancing intimately with a fragrant young lady without your body giving away its baser intentions, if you get my meaning. This meant that one had to adopt a particular position, with faces close together, a tight embrace above the waist but a definite separation at the hip to avoid causing offence. Or bruising.

This resulted in a scene reminiscent of girls trying to drag a rather reluctant chimpanzee with a desperate look on its face around a sprung wooden floor.

Finally, the lights would come up and those fortunate enough to impress their beaus got the chance to walk them to the bus stop or even home, with the hope of at least a snog.

I can imagine the mums talking about this the following day.

“Ooo Renee, I saw your Kevin at the bus stop last night after the athletic club disco.”

“How did you know my Kevin had been to the disco?”

“He was wearing bell bottomed trousers, stank of Brut 33 and had an erection.”

These were the days when you took your disco singles to parties. My favourite 12” single at the time was played over and over: ‘In The Navy’ by The Village People. I was a big fan of The Village People. Who would have guessed?

Then Gloria Gaynor sang ‘I Will Survive’, which only later became the anthem for those groups of  women who dance determinedly around their handbags with defiant expressions on their faces, tears streaming down their cheeks and shaking their fists at any unsuspecting male ‘bastards’ who may be in their eye line.

Then there were the lyrics. Odyssey told you that you were useless at pulling because you’re a native New Yorker. Patrick Hernandez told us we were born to be alive. I think he must have had medical training.

Then there were the bands. Chic, organised by the weird and wonderful Nile Rodgers; Barry White, Donna Summer, The Jacksons, Heatwave.

Yes, Heatwave. Watch their video performance of ‘Boogie Nights’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpyqZ4HAtrk&rel=0

 

The man on the drums looks like a car salesman and his name is Ernest. The man on the keyboards is called Rodney and wrote all the songs, despite looking like the group’s accountant. In fact he wrote lots of songs, including Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.

The lead singer is wearing his nan’s hat.

What’s more, the front men demonstrate to our children exactly why their parents dance the way they do at birthday parties and wedding receptions. On the positive side, this Top of The Pops version is introduced by the sainted Noel Edmonds and features a picture of Gerald, my old fag from school, who used the stage name Leo Sayer.

Disco can be meaningless, naff and daft. But at least you can have a good time AND get the girl.

Even if you’re wearing bell bottoms…

 

* Skol was a form of coloured water sold in the 1970s.

Tech No logy – The Parent of Idiotic Geniuses

Lady Barton St Mary and I settled back on the sofa and watched a film called ‘Made in Dagenham’ the other weekend, which contained a song called ‘Green Tambourine.’

“Oh, who sang that?” I enquired.

“I don’t know,” replied Lady Barton St Mary, who, unlike me, isn’t particularly bothered about these things. I was about to reach for my trusty laptop when I thought, ‘No. I’m going to figure it out for myself, like you had to before technology came along.’

Sure enough, by turning my back on instant information and relying on my neurological impulses and intellect, it wasn’t long before I gave up in despair and tried to think of something else; one of the advantages of having a butterfly brain is that this really didn’t take too long.

The following morning, however, the song popped back up in my brain, like a piece of slightly charred toast on one of those do it yourself machines* you find in the dining areas of Mediterranean hotels at breakfast.

I reminded Lady Barton St Mary, who, despite my protestations, picked up her itube adenoid phone and briefly tapped on its surface.

“The Lemon Pipers!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

“Argh! Of course! A one hit wonder! I knew that!”

Lady BSM gave a derisory snort of laughter.

“Oh yeah. Of course you did,” she said, ambling off to make a bacon sandwich.

Ok, I didn’t remember, but at one time I did know.

However, these days, you don’t need to know anything. TechNology has taken care of that. Everybody carries around tiny computers with big memories masquerading as a mobile telecommunications device that can tell you anything. Which means that everybody is an expert on virtually everything, even those regarded as too ill-informed to appear on The Jeremy Kyle Show. All because of a tiny smartarse telephone.

Think about it. These days, if you want to find out about a film, where do you look? Thinking about a holiday? Wondering how to fix your ipod when it freezes?** Want to change the battery in your VW remote key?***

Easy. Google it.

At school, we were often given projects to do. This would invariably mean that the teacher would expect you to go and do some research on something that you regarded as rather dull but was fascinating to the teacher. For example, my geography teacher gave us this project: Gable Roofs in Borehamwood: A history, 1925 – 1974. Or something like that.

In order to complete this task, you would have to go to the library and do your utmost to find at least one book on the subject, but even if such a thing existed, you know that the class swot would have rushed immediately to the library to reserve the only copy. Also, it would have been highly unlikely that you could provide any photographic evidence. That would mean borrowing your dad’s Box Brownie, risking being beaten and robbed of it down Shenley Road. Also, you would have to wait for the photos to be developed at Boots, which could take a week and was very expensive. Plus the fact that the film roll had to be finished, which would mean hanging on until after the summer holidays, when you could separate your blurry snaps of gable ends from pictures of granddad asleep in a deckchair wearing a hanky on his head and his false teeth on his chin.

Nowadays, kids just turn on the laptop, type in gable ends of Borehamwood, get some information and photos and press print. Or more likely, these days, the parents do it so that their kids can spend a little longer on Faceache and Twaddle.

More alarmingly, all those mysteries that one had to search dictionaries and encyclopaedias for can now be found in seconds, as I realised the other week at (almost) voluntary work.

I was teaching a group of ladies. At the end of the session, I set them a task.

“Here’s a challenge for you,” I said, “by next week, find out what a google is.”

As I tidied up my stuff, I could hear a faint clattering noise. I looked up to see ten women tapping away on their adenoid phones.

“It’s a one followed by a hundred zeros,” said one of them.

“Yeah,” agreed another, “and a googleplex is a one followed by a google of zeros,” she added as she wandered out.

“Yes,” I said, deflated that my task had been answered almost dismissively, “but what does that mean?”

She shrugged as she disappeared out of the door. I looked at a couple of other departing learners hopefully. One of them smiled sweetly and said,

“Dunno. What Google says, I s’pose.”

This made me wonder how much information is now kept in computerised hard disks rather than in human brains these days.

How long before you can make it into highly skilled jobs by just using a search engine?

In the future can you imagine going into hospital for an operation and experiencing this?

“Hello, I’m the consultant surgeon. Nothing to worry about, I’ve been on youtube and watched several step by step videos on this procedure on my ipad and it looks like a breeze.”

No doubt this could be followed up by the operation being postponed because the doctor’s forgotten his phone charger.

If you think this isn’t possible, a friend of mine told me about the 14 year old doctor they went to see who asked for their symptoms before typing them into google. Of course, the child medic may have been tweeting. ‘So many sick middle aged grunters – god I’m bored! #givemantibiotics…’

What about politics? Prime Minister’s Question Time?

“I would like to know how the Prime Minister intends to reduce the deficit by imposing such radical austerity measures that have always historically failed!”

“I would like to give the right honourable member an informed but pithy reply, but at present I only have two bars on my moby.”

To be honest, it’s almost certain that we’re being governed by idiot geniuses these days, although some of them already inhabited a virtual world before the World Wide Web existed. It was called independent school****. I know. I googled it.

What I found out from Google:

*Conveyor Toasters, such as the Pantheon CTI, £302.67 excluding VAT.

**Hold ‘Menu’ and ‘Centre’ simultaneously until the Apple icon appears on the screen.

*** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiK-_w8yBvw

****There are only 2 old Etonians in the present cabinet, but more than half of them spent their secondary education in an independent school.

The Lemon Pipers were a 1960s psychedelic pop band from Oxford, Ohio, known chiefly for their song “Green Tambourine”, which reached No. 1 in the United States in 1968. The song has been credited as being the first bubblegum pop chart-topper.

There are lots of funny cat videos on youtube.

Don’t type in ‘Asians shaving’. It’s a long story.

Crazy Cats, Volume 2 – Ted the Cat

During the time we’ve lived together, Lady Barton St Mary and I have housed a number of cats; most of them haven’t hung around for that long. Most of us imagine a cat’s life to be an idyllic one; sleeping for a large proportion of the time and being provided with regular meals.

However, it is worth remembering that when a cat goes outside, the whole scenario changes. They spend their time defending their territory against other cats, fighting, scratching and biting. There’s the abundance of other tempting wildlife, which is hunted, caught, dismembered and consumed. Except for the guts and tails, which are left on the doorsteps of the poor unsuspecting big monkeys who live there.

Then there are roads. This is usually the downfall of most cats, eventually. You can outrun a big monkey, but a big metal box containing one or more of them is another matter. This basically was the fate of the cats that never stayed long, but ended up squished on the highway, a rather upsetting and traumatic event if you are the big monkey that they owned.

He was the first of a pair of cats that Lady BSM and I lived with. Initially, we only wanted one cat, a tabby cat, but a black and white kitten, who looked like a toy panda bear, looked at us with pleading eyes and made the journey home with us too.

A fairly accurate representation of Ted the Cat. We didn’t take photos of our pussies in those days.

The tabby cat was named ‘Tabby’ after hours of deliberation, but our teddy bear lookalike was always going to be called Ted. It turned out that Ted was a bit of a survivor.

Sadly, the road claimed Tabby a few months later and Ted, like any normal cat, took the news in typical fashion. He didn’t give a shit. In fact, secretly I think he was pleased that he was now able to dominate the food bowl.

Much to his displeasure, having survived a house move, we brought home another tabby kitty, but again, it didn’t take long for this one to be splattered across the busy A road where we lived. Ted, somehow, had this uncanny ability to stay out of harm’s way. But was very good, on more than one occasion, of putting us in it.

The first property we lived in backed onto the garden of a well-known local hard man who played rugby for a team regarded as the most fearsome in the locality. In fact, he was part of a family dynasty, known for settling differences and exacting justice by rearranging people’s features, sculpting kneecaps and offering free electro therapy to the genitals of any (what they regarded as) deserving individual. To protect me from being stuffed in the back of a van, having my legs chopped off, being encased in concrete and dumped in the Severn, let’s just call this neighbour ‘Don’.

Often, Don would engage me in conversation, which of course, I never refused. Don was very fond of his trophy winning racing pigeons, who lived in a shed in his garden.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Artist’s impression of Lady Barton St Mary finding gangster’s dead pigeon on kitchen floor.

Sure enough, one day I was in the kitchen at the moment Ted squeezed through the cat flap with one of Don’s prize racing pigeons in his mouth. I immediately adopted the pose of Edvard Munch’s famous subject, not daring to let any sound emit from my mouth. Ted placed the now deceased bird at my feet and looked up at me proudly. At this point, Lady Barton St Mary entered the kitchen and reflected my pose. I don’t know how long we stayed like this, but by the time we’d composed ourselves, Ted had given up on the whole food bowl refill idea and gone to sleep on the sofa.

We dealt with it the only way we knew we should. We wrapped the deceased animal in carrier bags and disposed of the body by driving to the tip. The vision of Don’s henchmen scouring the neighbouring dustbins and finding the missing pet in ours was too much to leave to chance. Don, incredibly, never asked us if we’d seen his pigeon, so I have to assume he didn’t blame us or Ted. Perhaps some other innocent pussy ended up sleeping with the fishes.

I can only assume the joint of beef Ted brought home wasn’t Don’s, either. It was beautifully cooked, juicy, with the lovely aroma of Sunday lunch. Again, whilst Lady BSM and I adopted the position, Ted ensured that his plunder was quickly consumed. Too quickly, as it turned out.

“I don’t know what’s happened to Ted, but it doesn’t look good,” Lady BSM said a couple of days later. I went to have a look.

Ted was wandering around the kitchen with something trailing out of his bottom. What was it? A huge tapeworm?

On closer inspection (but not too close), I identified it as a piece of string. The sort of string that is used to tie a beef joint. Dumb cat.

“Oh my word, how are we going to get THAT out?” asked Lady BSM.

At this point, Ted scampered past, string trailing from his bottom. Instinctively, I stamped down on the string, making Ted increase his pace. With a strangled wail from Ted, the trapped string unravelled from his arse. With his bulging eyes, I’ve never seen a cat look so shocked.

Then there was the climbing. We rented a place in the country, which we called Bri Nylon Cottage due to its tasteful décor. We were awoken one morning by the calls of Ted asking to be let in through the bedroom window. Except we were on the first floor. Ted had climbed the ivy clad wall to let us know of his intentions.

He also had a fondness for sitting on the window ledge of our spare bedroom, where he would wake up any sleeping guests demanding entry. One Saturday morning, I was surprised to see Ted fly vertically past the kitchen window before flattening himself on the concrete floor.

Gerald, my old fag from school, had been asleep in the spare bedroom before being bothered by Ted’s incessant requests to get in. Sleepily, he had opened the bedroom window rather too quickly, bumping Ted off the window sill to the ground below.

Ted accompanied us to our next home, where he was joined by a baby, Miss Katherine. He regarded Miss Katherine with the same attitude he had for all the other kittens that hadn’t survived: with barely concealed contempt. Watching the many times he wrapped his paws around her face without releasing his claws was almost admirable. They did become friends of sorts, since Katherine was very fond of giving Ted a steady supply of titbits. In return he would grudgingly let her stroke him, always wearing the expression of someone who had dog muck stuck up their nose.

It was here he displayed a real love of emery boards, those things one uses for filing nails. If he ever found you using one, he would insist on getting involved. He liked nothing more than the feel of an emery board on his teeth. Crazy cat.

The day finally came when Ted grew old and very poorly and had to make regular visits to the vet. Eventually, one day, I gently put him into a box and walked to the end of the road to the vet’s.

A shake of the vet’s head told me everything I needed to know. I gently stroked Ted’s head as the vet gave him his injection. He purred gently for the first time in days, looking up at me before gently closing his eyes.

Mine were more than misty as I made the journey home alone.