Monkey Business

As I wandered alongside London's grim,polluted mistress, a portly,be-spectacled stranger propositioned me with an offer I could only refuse but not ignore.
'Would sir like to get in touch with his inner ape ?'
All true, except for the sir and the faux Dickensian waft; he was wearing a black nylon hoodie - adorned with a red logo announcing 'The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.'
I have left the grimmest bit of this invitation to fun,'til last.

He gestured at a large enclosed pen/climbing frame that wouldnot be out of place in a zoo. It was mostly already filled with similar 'keepers' some with video cameras, but there were people in there as well, those who they'd already lured off the street,all of whom were in various stages of play.
I didn't need to be asked twice - I leapt in the cage threw off my clothes and began to pelt those outside with my own excrement. Followed by vigourous public onanism and aggressive sexual harassment. Admittedly I have made it sound easier than it was. I was chased around the cage by guards. Fortunately they lack my climbing skills.

My point is this, in his novel Seeing, the author Jose Saramago describes an electorate who refuse to participate in the political system which serves not them but the interests of a political elite. The bemused political class only eventually realising that they have been utterly by-passed by a society that finds ways to exist and express themselves without them.
So that when David Cameron announces how tough he's been with his veto.
Or there is an utter failure to reach agreement in Durban about climate change. Or wise heads comment on the foolishness of the RBS takeover of ABN Amro, long after the event. Surely we should take to the outdoor spaces and express our disinterest faecally.

Italian Holiday Part One

I was rummaging through some old files and found a brief account of a holiday I took in Italy three years ago. People need to know the truth about Florence. A Room with a View has a lot to answer for. Good day.

Dear friend,

A word of warning about Florence.

Don't go there.
If you must have romantic notions about parts of Italy, and there are many that feel they must. then I urge you not to ruin them forever by actually visiting the place.
It will make you weep with its oppressive ugliness - even if it isn't raining. Which it will be.
It is the worst.
There is a Medici palace, that appears on the face of it to be all right but is utterly ruined by the performance art of George Adekunbebebeetc. whatever his name is.

One is confronted by some of the most ornate, resplendent, breathtaking indoor spaces of the Renaissance - and in each room is a placard proudly telling you how George Adkkkuntbeeetc has ruined it. In the manner of a tiny child showing mummy and daddy little Georgie’s first poopoo.

Some one has written the big words in neat handing for George, to explain what he has done. George is a ‘native African performance artist,’ what this means in practical terms is:
George can't paint (thank god)
He can't write either.
He might just about to be able to hold a stick and smile at you like some kind of retarded Indiana Jones extra in the vain hope that you give him money.
(This is solely based on the only evidence I have, which is a photograph of George, holding a stick and smiling with a bowl that has some coins in it)

What George can do (and has done IN EVERY ROOM) is lay out books, newspapers (whatever stuff he has lying about) in the Palazzo - these are meant to subtly blend in.
Quite how 'The Four Immortal Elements of Creation' that decorate the walls and ceiling, whilst a 16thc terracotta mosaic adorns the floor blends in with half a dozen old copies of Le Figaro strewn across the floor next to a 1970s dinky toy is beyond me.

But clearly not beyond George.
He really goes for it in the Medici private chapel.
There amid the gold leaf and weight of history - George has really exceeded himself.
On the floor he has arranged some books - in the shape of a cross.

My beloved had to explain it to me - but it's clever - you see - a chapel, some books in the shape of a cross. Brilliant. See, clever.

In one room I discovered an upturned paperback and a half empty bottle of mineral water.
What could it mean ?
What was George Abracadabrabayou trying to tell me ?
It turned out it belonged to one of the curators. It was their lunch.
I pondered what dark revelations George had in store for me by chosing to place the 1983 Look-In Annual on the stairs leading to the Exit,what did it mean ?

Ah I see.

Nothing.

The only redeeming thing was that on wandering through this ancient and impressive palace - I happened to walk into a full court session of Florence's civic body - it seems they still use the palace for day to day political business and you can watch.

The mayor/judge - I could not tell which, was brilliant.
He looked like Al Pacino - and in the midst of the court - with many tables of lawyers etc. was sporting a pair of sunglasses and a cheap beige jacket, the sort you would find being worn by many of our fathers.

I liked him more than a little.

The rest of Florence is beset by Americans and the smell of soiled leather. The Ponte Vecchio is small, characterless and adorned with gaudy unpleasant jewellry shops.
The streets are gloomy, and dirty.

Only where they have hidden Michelangelo’s David was there any evidence of scant humanity. There in a semi-circle of pious devotion sat the matrons of Firenze, steadfast, immovable (they were not giving those seats up ever),constant, faithful.
All staring at David’s sculpted and perfect marble anus.

We left Florence - with much joy
But what follows is, another story.

Grecian 2011

IMF Economic Advisors Yesterday

Plans for the recovery of Greece from economic chaos were revealed today to loud applause from fans of the original Clash of the Titans.
Greek Prime Minister, Harry Hamlyn took time out from from his busy schedule chasing after middle aged women in togas, to outline his economic vision:
‘It’s simple, hey lady you’re nice want to star in an advert for soup with me ? real easy, what I done is a clever plan, nice lady, pretty lady, I’ll give you a handbag for a kiss,no knock off. I’ve got all them people from The Time Team, except Tony Robinson, you are a beautiful princess, if I answer a riddle can I show you my diamante thong ? Zeus gave it to me. Gives me powers. Anyway they just dig up King Midas and we clone him and then get the clone to touch a load of stuff. Then we sell the gold. Lady I’m a real popular man, I done it with Ursula Andress and Nicolette Sheridan, you want to make my list. All that gold will get us back on top, fast.’
Opposition Leader Calibos,son of Thetis was quick to dismiss the idea:
‘Clearly the answer to all our woes is to retrieve the Golden fleece.’

Meanwhile in a cynical move to try and put Greece back on the map Joanna Lumley has made a tv programme of her going on holiday there. In the first episode she goes yomping around the Acropolis whilst the camera stays glued to her arse like she was Anneka Rice out of Treasure Hunt. Mythological finance experts were quick to comment: ‘It is no accident that Lumley is here at this time. We fully expect her to emerge naked from the sea in a giant scallop shell, whereupon our debt will be renewed like her virginity off the isalnd of Paphos. Just like Aphrodite.’
‘Yes just like Aphrodite.’
‘Except less of a slag.’
‘Doesn’t she look wonderful for her age.’
‘Yes, but that Odyssey programme’s a bit shit, you don’t see anything.’

Hamlyn was unavailable for comment but was seen chasing after Lumley on a moped waggling his olive skinned privates.
Burgess Meredith was unavailable for comment.
'No comment. I'm dead.'

Brendan the Third

Beej, as the South Coast’s premier spymaster liked to be called, was to Eastbourne what Rick Astley was to love.
They were well acquainted.
I once spent an excruciating lunch with him (Beej, not Rick Astley) in one of Eastbourne’s Pizza Hut clones. All we could eat, which in Brendan’s excuse for a mind, and despite posters (and later protests) to the contrary, was only valid whilst his plate was clear.
So he would periodically visit the gents, his pockets stuffed with crusts from the pizza slices.
Someone, I forget who, maybe me, maybe Sir Alec Guinness (who was never one to pass up all you can eat pizza) told him quite sensibly to stop it before he blocked up the toilet.
I forget the exact words he used, but the gist was entirely that the crusts weren’t in the toilet bowl. Fella.
He was closeting them in the cistern.
And he was pleased by this. In much the same way as a dog who has performed a good trick will look at his carer for approval. My applause was reserved for the person who would eventually have to remove the mouldering mass of dough owing to the smell1

Which brings me untidily to Brendan’s marriage and preceding stag.
He met his future wife in Eastbourne, she was a hairdresser, ten years his senior, with two young children. It will be of little surprise to learn the depths of George Smiley the Younger’s feeling for his weef-to-be, were I to tell you, gentle reader, the absurd lengths he went to ensure the taxi taking him to the church went past the ‘Lezza’s’ parents house (see Part 1).
But let us first part the mists of time and the curtains of shame as we go back to that night, that portended such connubial bliss to come. Operation Stag-Do was being run by a corpulent ginger depressive who Brendan had given the diverting codename of ‘Timbo.’ aka The Best Man. It was not uncommon, if you had stayed out all night, to find him on the seafront in the early hours of the morning, sitting in one of the windbreaks (which inevitably smelt more or less strongly of urine) reading a book about physics. No idea why, Jeorge once caught him eating apples gloomily in a caravan as a teenager, so maybe he fancied himself an auburn Isaac Newton. Anyway Timbo’s first stop on this celebration of the solitary life of Beej was to the Kitten Club in a run down suburb of Brighton. Fortunately I had brought a book.
We were lead gingerly by the titian fatty down the stairs to a room where there wasn’t enough room to swing a cat, let alone watch a bored mother of two dance to Wham in various states of undress. Years later I met a lady, fully clothed, who had worked there for a while, she told me a lot about her son who did Speedway (I hoped, without conviction it was a method of taking amphetamines). She made quiet, disparaging comments about the dustiness of my bathroom whilst I tried to excise the image of her and her then paramour, Calibos, Lord of the Marsh and the son of Thetis, using what I believe is known as a ‘ball-gag’ in a caravan near Castle Donnington2.

Ignore Hamlet, in fact, fire Shakespeare’s entire canon out of one; you have never seen tragedy until you’ve seen the expression on the face of a fat ginger virgin in his mid-20s whilst a woman (doesn’t matter who, I suspect even his mum would do) gives him a lap dance. I spent two hours trying to read a book. After that it was drinking and not dancing in a club, then an hour long taxi ride back to Beej’s secret hideout (the house above a hairdressers he shared with his beloved). We got there long before his fiancé had returned from her hen do, so the James Bond of Eastbourne plans a little surprise:
‘We should hide,’
‘Why ?’
‘Well we can jump out.’
Everyone (myself and the best man and a large Canadian, who no one knows) agrees, waits ‘til Brendan goes upstairs then we put on the telly and drink more beer. An hour or two passes. At some point I go to the toilet. A chubby forearm clutches the sill.
‘Brendan what are you doing out there ?’
‘I’m waiting to leap out on the missus.’
‘In the toilet ?’
‘Um yeah.’
‘Well I need to go.’
‘Oh just close the window, I can balance on the kitchen roof if it’s quick.’
I thank the gods that I just needed a piss and then contemplated not opening the window again. But I did.

His future wife returns with her friends, they have had a much better time.
‘Where’s Bren ?’
Nobody answers.
Our eyes all gesture upstairs. There’s sadness in all of them, compassion too. Poor woman.
She’s had a couple of drinks so what passes for sublety amongst us is lost on her. Fortunately she needs the bathroom. Fortune is relative in this instance, I think everyone was just glad it hadn’t been one of her friends.
Minutes pass.
There’s a scream, surprise not fear, a very loud crash. Then a pause, followed by a heavy footfall down the stairs and then the front door slams.
No one does anything for a bit. Then I, and a possible future bridesmaid to the oh-so-happy couple venture silently up the russet paisley (that’s not a euphemism they just had nasty carpet). The toilet is at the top of the landing, facing the stairs. The bowl is the first casualty of Brendan’s master plan, then the pot pourri strewn over the broken enamel like dirt on a coffin. At the risk of neglecting the very real human tragedy of the evening, I confess my first thought was, ‘if someone tries to flush that, the room’ll flood.’
My companion discovered the third casualty in their bedroom. The future Mrs Spy, eyeliner and nose running.
Those of you who have seen me channel my inner Columbo will know what follows, so there is no need to make you suffer as I did to piece together The Case of the Broken Bowl.
Beej had hidden outside the bathroom,holding on by his arm and balancing on the kitchen roof. Upon hearing his wife to be, he launched himself bodily into the confined space. Fortunately she had not begun to avail herself of the facilities. His ingress and landing were not controlled and his foot went through the porcelain. He saw no way out other than the most brutal. He told her he ‘didn’t love her and couldn’t go through with it.’ He then vacated the building.
There was discussion about the very nature of Beej, whereupon it transpired that she was well aware 1. - 4. of the following ‘facts’
1. Beej had never got over the death of his uncle who died in a plane crash.
2. Beej had got the scars on his legs from the plane crash he was in with his uncle.
3. Beej’s uncle lived in Chiselhurst. He ran a greasy spoon café.
4. Brendon obtained the scars whilst trying to ‘karate kick’ his elder brother after he (Beej) had just got out of the bath. At the age of 5 or so his towel had fallen off and the naked youngster had sailed over his brother (who ducked) straight into the glass partition.
5. Beej had not, as he claimed to Jeorge ‘caught one in the leg in Bosnia’
6. Nor had he,as he claimed to me, ‘been shot in the leg parachuting into France.’

Beej’s mother had helpfully revealed 3. and 4. and I contributed 5. and 6.
None of which located Brendan, Ace of Spies. My work done3 I found a quiet corner and settled down to sleep.
The Best Man later found him asleep beneath a bench in a nearby pub garden at 3 in the morning.

Brendan the Spy and Dee the Hairdresser were reconciled the next day and married the following month. They have one son. They separated after Beej relocated to the garden shed of the domicile, where he lived for two months estranged from his wife, before returning to his parents house. They have never divorced. ‘Uncle Bren’ now lives in France with a lady and their young son.


Footnotes
1 The pizza crusts, not Brendan the Spy’s sweaty carcass; which would doubtless expire in just such a place, a half-smoked rollup made of the unprepossessing remains of another, already smoked, cigarette hanging from his fat purple face

2 An image Jeorge had conjured for me whilst I was cooking them all dinner. All true, Calibos had cheerily informed him. I wonder to this day what make of caravan it was.

3 Actually I found Brendan ‘round the corner (I am not without tradecraft of my own). We discussed his options, it was clear he still had feelings for The Lezza and was convinced he could win her back by travelling to Paris and finding her. I disabused him of this fanciful notion with certain salient pieces of evidence to the contrary, the chief of which was that she had enjoyed frequent periods of intimacy with Jeorge, indeed he had visited her in Paris quite recently. It was at that point H.17 decided to retreat still further, both geographically (from me) and mentally (from life). I could not be bothered to pursue him. There was still beer to be had and the task of bringing him in from the cold belonged to a fatter, gingerer man than I.

Modern Life: Conversations with my Window Cleaner

'Where are you off to,anywhere nice ?'
'The Isle of Wight,'
'Oh lovely,used to go there as a kid'
'Never been there myself,my mum lives there though,'
'Oh it's very nice, and I'll tell you something, you don't get any black people there.'

Now I don't know my window cleaner very well, and after the above conversation,less so than I thought. I'm still getting used to the idea that I even have a window cleaner, but well the windows were dirty and he was in the road and the wife said, 'the windows are very dirty.' So that was that.
I've always thought he was a nice chap, he'd sometimes stop for a cup of tea and ask if I followed the football, which I didn't and occasionally he'd leave his ladders around the back because he didn't have a car.
So I'm a bit surprised to discover I've got a racist window cleaner.
Is he a racist ? Or was he making some sort of joke about black and white, a play on words with the Isle of Wight ?
Maybe he thinks I'm a racist ?
Do I look like one ?
Is that racist ?
What about me has said that's ok ? Why does he think I might choose my holiday destination on the basis of skin colour ? Maybe he's peered through the window whilst cleaning it and seen my copy of Bridget Hitler's Diary and thinks it won't be an issue.
What's more worrying is I'm starting to sound like David Mitchell, Mark from Peep Show. The thing is I just don't know him well enough to ask what he meant, we're not exactly drinking buddies, which after another revelation, it turns out, is just as well:
'I'll get my car back in a month,'
'Oh, what happened?'
'Got banned didn't I. Drink driving. They test you though,now,have to be clean for a month. They test your hair. I'm doing it now. Tough going.'
Is it wise for him to be near all that window cleaner, I mean,the temptation.

I scuttle back indoors. The wife returns and I tell her, she's shocked.
'You didn't tell him we were going on holiday did you ?'
I shrug. I'm resigned to it now. Yesterday he just cleaned my windows every month. Now I fully expect to return to find our house broken into whilst someone runs a BNP rally/AA meeting in the front room. Better hide my copy of Mein Kampf though, it is signed.

Let them dig flower beds

You may or may not have heard, but there's been quite a bit of 'rioting.'
There's a lot of tough talk about, and if someone had put a brick through my window when my daughter was asleep upstairs I'd want them strung up. And I'd be right.
But 24 hr courts ? Really ? I didn't see that happening when MPs were fiddling expenses with public money.
Anyway here's a little story about arson:

'Yeah... I, erm, I was at a party and I drifted into a greenhouse with a friend, saw it was full of cacti and lit a match to find our way, as there were no lights on. The flame accidentally touched one of the cacti, which glowed rather beautifully.'

Was it an accident, then? He looks at me. Only at first, it seems. 'We did that to a fair number of the cacti. Not really knowing what we'd done.'

The greenhouse belonged to a professor of botany whose life's work had been to gather and nurture exotic specimens from all over the world. 'He'd been to the jungles of Brazil and stuff to find these cacti.'

The boys weren't arrested, because they ran away. 'We didn't know what we were doing. We were teenagers, we'd drunk too much - frankly, we did behave appallingly, irresponsibly, criminally. Next morning, one of the organisers of the exchange rang me up and said, "We know you did this." I came clean.'

The boys were taken off to see the professor, who was livid, but he was somehow persuaded not to press charges. 'Instead they created a kind of community punishment for us. Me and the other bloke ended up having to dig communal flower beds in the baking sun. Then I spent the summer with my mum, going round one specialised garden centre after another, trying to replace some of the cacti. Of course they were tiny, and his were all large.'

One of the boys, who was 16 at the time, had this to say about the recent riots:

"the priority, right now, is to punish the criminals, to get them in court and to get them behind bars."

Not digging flower beds and going shopping with your mum ?
Just in case anyone was unaware, the man responsible,why Nick Clegg the Deputy Prime Minister of course.

Of course the Prime Minister is far too sensible to get caught, he ran away early when the Bullingdon Club embarked on a spot of criminal damage.

I wait with faint hope that the government will stop trying to make political capital out of the rioting. And what happened to the business with Rupert Murdoch, everyone seems to have forgotten.

Some Bards Are Gooder Than Others: The Further Adventures of Tirian & Jewel

This month's 'They're not as poetic as they think' prize goes to another classic attempt at simile by regular winners, Tirian and Jewel: "It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun."
"I know," said Jewel. "Or as if you drank water and it were dry water. This is the end of all things. Let us go and give ourselves up."

Tirian: 'Or as if,as if you ate a bag of monster munch and they were air flavoured,'

Jewel: 'Fuck's sake Tirian stop looking at my exercise book and stealing all my simile ideas. And get some human friends you girl-haired munder'

Tirian: 'Well what is dry water anyway. Just because you found that copy of Ted Hughes 'The Iron Man', doesn't make you the Poet Laureate of Narnia.'

Jewel: 'Only virgins can approach unicorns Tirian. Fact.'

Tirian: 'I have massively had sex. With loads of dryads. At a time. And talking animals.'

Jewel: No you haven't or you couldn't come near me, and globbing off to that portrait of Susan Pevensie doesn't count'

Tirian: Let's not fight,I hate it when we argue.' [They nuzzle. Jewel becomes excited]'Hey King Lune's got a poetry jam on in Archenland this evening,let's do it.'

Roonwit: "So how was that poetry night thing you guys went to at Anvard?"

Jewel: "Oh we didn't go. It was spitting and we didn't fancy getting soaked on the way there."

Roonwit: "Oh...crap."

Jewel: "Nah, it's ok...well, no. I was actually real...ly, really disappointed... really disappointed. It was like eating a delicious cheeseburger and then discovering that there was no cheese in it. Or burger. Tirian said it was like inviting a hundred guests to your birthday party and then finding they were murderer guests. Or like doing the ironing and then finding - "

Roonwit: *looks at moon* Wo, is that the time? I've got this thing..it's like...now and..."
(sound of hooves)

(2 posts in 1 day. Though really this was Ben 'The War' Warwick's idea, which I sadly ruined by trying to introduce sex into Narnia. It's all Susan's fault, or Joy Gresham's or something. Anyway it's from The Last Battle, the one they will never ever film ever. Never.
Though the only way to really do this justice is have Michael Hordern read the part of Roonwit, Tony Slattery as Jewel and whoever you can get as Tirian, maybe Nick Hancock - he's in nothing a lot nowadays. Or whoever played Eustace in the BBC Narnia).

Let Gayfellow Take You To The Cleaners

'There is only one reason why we are showing you this . . . (dramatic pause the size of which would make Harold Pinter hang his head in awe) so that you are armed with knowledge, because knowledge is power' ('power' should almost certainly be in capitals but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sorry)
Wise words from LA cop and silver fox, John Barrell.
Somewhat undermined by the clip of two teenage girls speeding and then crashing into a family car, what pearls does John have for us:
'Wowee man, they must be going 100 miles an hour.'
Thanks John we can all take something from that.
Maybe the knowledge that cars go fast.

So Australian Masterchef.
I loved Professional Masterchef - a special blend of an interested world class chef, Michel Roux Junior, whose ego didn't need re-assuring by getting needlessly fraught over nothing every 15 seconds (Gordon Ramsay take note) and offered genuinely useful advice, and a fat bald clown who used to sell vegetables and may have eaten a pie in a pub once. You, like me , will be doubtless thrilled to know Greg the Greengrocer is opening a restaurant serving 'good honest food' whatever that is. Personally I like my food dishonest: a sly lasagne, dishonest tarts (you knew that was coming).
Anyway, Australian Masterchef. Why bother ? I thought. How wrong I was. 30 seconds in and not a kitchen in sight. Instead there's a man in tears, telling another man how much he misses his wife. Eventually it transpires that the weepy man is a contestant and he's quitting the show because he can't stand being apart from his wife. It's not clear but it's implied she's given some sort of ultimatum - the host isn't taking it lying down though - they start showing clips of the interview process and there's the wife saying she'll be fine with him doing the show.
10 minutes in and there's still no cooking.

All this and Cesar Romero as the Joker on ITV4. Only equalled (never bettered) by Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, who's stuttering assaults on grammar and word order seemed like a precursor to Yoda except in green spandex and a lavendar mask.
Must dash the Joker's up to something with an inflatable sultan and The Gayfellow Cleaning Company.
Armed only with knowledge I run to the Batpole


The Clown Prince of Cooking

Romero's Ghost

Brendan the Spy Part Deux: The Man From Kays Catalogue

‘The devil will rise in Sidley woods and the end of the world will begin there,’ so prophesised the bald Scotch sex pest and black magician, Aleister Crowley. He’d fallen on hard times and was living in a boarding house on the Ridge in Hastings and anyone who’s been to Sidley ever will understand why he picked that particular spot.
The only problem, to paraphrase dicky-eyed ex private Peter Falk, is that Sidley Woods is now mostly a Gateways carpark. Again anyone who’s been there for more than 15 seconds will know that if Death rode a Pale Horse into Sidley, locals’d have it up on bricks and be boiling up the hooves for glue before he’d had a chance to shout ‘Apocalypse Now.’

But if it did happen. There’s only one group of people to stop it.
The former employees of the independent cinema, sadly closed once again (just in case you’re interested, the Former Proprietor is still after the lease, though given his political aspirations he’d probably have to get someone in to run it for him – is this a job for the Ass. Man we hear you cry ? Or more likely weep. Not likely, the fat clown’s run away to France to avoid parental responsibilities and credit card debts). We’ve had experience of this sort of caper after the Stormtrooper job, so it’s not as if we don’t know what we’re doing. (Yes it is)

By Stormtrooper, I do of course mean we were wearing white disposable decorators boiler suits and half head rubber masks. We were also carrying plastic guns, for this was before the War on Terror. We were promoting a local laser tag business, that having been opened by Jon Pertwee no less, was now proving something of a second home to the local taxi firms. Our fee – a bottle of cheap vodka, ten quid and a free game each – not bad for dumping the leaflets in the bin and going to the beach. Two of our number were a little more zealous and thought they’d give out some of the leaflets before heading for the off licence and decided to start with the local jewellery shop (it was next door). Who thought they were trying to rob the place.

Now two of us had opted out of the diy stormtrooper look. HRH because he’d been given a ‘Darth Vader costume’ instead. Which was a full-head mask, a homemade black cape, and a lightsabre. Well, a stick that someone had painted neon yellow. No expense had been spared, no thought had been given. With the stick he looked a bit like a blind person, which given that the mask lacked eye holes, he was.

The second of our group to express himself individually was of course Brendan the Spy, clad in one of those jumpers with epaulettes and arm patches that were usually navy, this one was black. To top it off he was wearing a headset (that wasn’t plugged in), I have no idea to this day what he thought he looked like. You will be utterly unsuprised to discover that in between missions to the former Yugoslavia, France, London, the Pizza Pasty shop, fatso, prince of espionage had been pelted with eggs from a moving vehicle to the clarion cry of ‘oi blazer’ (he was sporting some sort of jacket and carrying an empty briefcase).

The mission such as it was ended in the way that such things do.
HRH, with the help of George the Coolest Soul produced three young ladies,having stolen their cauldron. George was briefly captivated by a well chested lady of inferior diction with a marked resemblance to a sulky bloodhound. One of her companions had a sharp face and a caustic manner but rapidly sussed that HRH despite being in possession of a beige leather jacket and a yellow stick had his own flat. Needless to say we were rapidly evicted as HRH pursued a short lived, non existent romance. One of our number, an unfortunately ginger ex Harrovian went off in pursuit of imaginary foreigners to fight. The rest of us found a beachfront shelter to smoke in. It was at this point that Brendan the Spy set off for the promenade, framed against the shore, like a catalogue model who’d really let himself go. He began to weep gently.
An hour passed. Bereft of nicotine someone asked him what was wrong. Once more with feeling:
‘You don’t understand I’ve got blood on my hands.’
Not again.
‘I don’t know if I can go on.’
This was new.
‘Well go and jump then.’
A pause.
Britain would not be so easily parted with her top, top secret agent.
Daft and tragic merkin that he was.

It's All Over Bar The Smiling

Berk Alert: Happy Birthday Brendan the Spy

Well in honour of The Covert One's birthday (not that he remembered my daughter's, or has as yet managed to acknowledge her existence even in passing) I thought I would treat you, gentle friend, to a few recent words from the ribald larkmouth that is Codename H.17:

"whole heartedly agrees that breast feeding is healthy and natural, and that a woman should be able to do it anywhere. I would also like to point out that masturbation is also natural and healthy, not that you'd think it with the reaction I got on the number 9 bus this morning"

There is no number 9 bus you sorry berk, you live in France.
I'm afraid that's all we have stomach for from the newly Gallic humourist.

Morris Dancing Is My Life - Part 1

Yesterday I was mugged by the retail chain HMV. There was no violence, but it was definitely a mugging.
I bought a computer game. They’ve re-issued Goldeneye and I was lulled, by nostalgia and the desire to pretend to kill people from a distance, into buying it. It’s a good game. So the sleek and practiced thug who bags up my purchase nonchalantly throws in a bit of over the counter banter.
‘It’s only a pound to insure it for a year. In case it gets scratched.’
Now I never buy this sort of insurance since Lynn Faulds Wood
(mother of quintuplets Ben Folds Five) off of that Watchdog convinced me it was tantamount to fellating an uncircumcised incubus and not nice or good for me.
But it’s only a pound. And what if it gets scratched ?
So I hand over my shiny quid and slope off home to kill Oddjob.
Obviously the game doesn’t work.
There are rules to these sorts of things, and it follows that if I buy insurance for the first time, I’m going to need it.
Now all I need is the receipt. Which I had, of course, thrown away. A trivial matter to get it out of the bin. Except fate is conspiring this week, the stars are in alignment, Tarva and Alambil are in conjunction and Coriakin-invisible is taking a big thick piss in my mouth.

The Duck’s Egg’s Tale
I bought half a dozen duck’s eggs this week, from a farmshop. Big yolked, unpasteurised loveliness. It’s not much of an anecdote and you can see where we’re going. Now, I cooked four of them for breakfast, but two, because my fridge is a bit on the knackered side spontaneously froze. So I unsentimentally dumped the two frozen unfertilised embryos in the bin. They had gone gelatinous and by the time I threw away the receipt, they were a little on the ripe side, in a way that only an oriental gentleman can appreciate. Just to set the scene I also dumped half a dozen full nappies from a teething one-year old into the receptacle. Now she is an angel, so much so that her feet don’t quite touch the ground, but don’t let anyone tell you that their brown jewellery doesn’t smell just like everyone else’s.

Now there is a ray of light here. One I don’t deserve. The angel’s mother, herself a paragon of loveliness intercedes.
It is at this point Simon Bates should start playing the music from ‘Our Tune’ (itself the tune from Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet –the one with Michael York).
I pop out to buy some milk and when I return there is the receipt on the table. My wife smiles like the saint she is and I resolve to buy her some wings. I’d write to the Pope about her, but he’s a former child Nazi who’s become something much worse, and I don’t really want to court the favour of the invisible man with a beard.

All chipper I’m back to HMV to be greeted by a different sales assistant. She’s all cheery and has bright orange hair. At least she is until I explain my difficulty.
‘This game. I bought it here, yesterday. It doesn’t work. I keep getting an error message. Can I have a new one please ?’
She consults with her brethren.
‘Sorry. We’ve sold out.’
‘Well can I have a refund ?’
Pause. Hasty huddle around the cauldron.
‘Yes. You’ll need to sign here and give your address.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘We can’t authorise the refund without it.’
So I get my refund. But there’s,in the words of Columbo,
“One small thing bothering me.”
The pound. That has not been refunded.
Now I know. It’s only a pound. But you see it’s mine.
I paid a pound for insurance for a game which I, through no fault of my own, no longer have.
‘You haven’t refunded the pound.’
‘We’re not authorised to.’
They say that Lucifer was a redhead.
I get a look that tells me it’s only a pound and would I please go away because I’ve interrupted their day enough. And I know it’s not their fault. But it is somebody’s and they’re going to pay. The very precise sum of one pound because it’s mine and I want it back. And I know how. Using Morris dancing.

Simon Fox is the CEO of HMV, he lives with his wife and three children in Berkshire. And he owes me money

Short & Sweet

Well, it is father’s day today,
and I have a badge. Which pretty much makes me the happiest person alive. Ever. So my thanks to Tarquina Superba and her mother (there was a card too and I’m grinning all over my daft face.) and for those of you who have no interest in the sprig of the Blancmange line – a recipe for chocolate brownies.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
3oz/85gr self raising flour
9oz /250g caster sugar
6oz/175g butter

1 tbspoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 mars bar
200g cooking choc – dark chocolate at least 75% cocoa solids

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar until they are pale and thick (like the son of my mother’s second husband)

2. Melt 175g of the chocolate, the cocoa and the butter together in a bain-marie (look it up)

3. Add the results of 2. & 3. together, add the vanilla essence, fold in the flower. Add the chopped up pieces of Mars Bars

4. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking tray. Pre-heat the oven to 150-185 (Gas Mark 3-4). Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

5. Now turn the oven off and leave it for an hour. Take it out of the oven and leave to cool.

Time for bed. Icing tomorrow. Good night all.

Actually tomorrow is now today thanks to the miracle of editing- so here's the icing.

Very simple: 1/3 butter to 2/3 icing sugar and add 2-3 tablespoons of cocoa powder.
You might like a lot of icing or virtually none. The two important things are:
i) Get the ratios right so it doesn't end up too gloopy.
ii) Make sure the brownie has cooled,otherwise the icing may melt.

Mix it all up, apply icing and that's it, you're done.

Brendan the Spy Part 1: Ass. Man & The Lezza.

BRENDON THE SPY
I met him, when, as young men, we both attended the same 6th Form College. He was retaking his GCSEs in between acting as a secret agent for Her Majesty’s Government. Some of you may have been a mite more credulous about such a revelation, but really his credentials were impeccable. He told us everything (perhaps the only clue that these stories were not of the first truthfulness). So brilliant were the deceptions that he even had cover stories for his lies:
Brendan the Spy was recruited by MI 6 at the age of 17 owing to the skill he demonstrated at Cooden Air Pistol Club at the age of 9.
His explanation for such an unlikely turn of events, “well you see, it’s the last thing anyone would think of.”
Another version was that he responded to an ad in Friday Ad. ‘Wanted Spy. Must be British,’ or somesuch.
His explanation for such an unlikely turn of events, “well you see, it’s the last thing anyone would think of.”

In several evenings of drunken sincerity he told a number of people how he had acquired a scar on his leg.
1. He parachuted into France, landing on the edge of an old airstrip somewhere in Normandy. The government was using trainee spies because foreign governments would have no record of them, making them ‘Perfect Spies.’
Unfortunately all of them were killed in a firefight, except Brendan, who managed to shoot his way out.

2. Using the codename H.17 he parachuted into Bosnia. With the rest of his team he abseiled up a building (yes) and killed everyone in an office.
Unfortunately all of them were killed in a firefight, except Brendan, who managed to shoot his way out.
That story was told to us by his then girlfriend. As he told her, he wept and punched the wall, all was silent outside Errols Kebabs except for his anguished cry, “I’ve got blood on my hands.”
I know what you must be thinking, how on earth does he have a girlfriend ?
I had first met her sporting a t-shirt that he had had made for her. It had a passport photo of them both (thankfully small, for her sake) with the immortal words ‘Yum Yum, He’s The One’
He wasn’t it turned out. You may be surprised by this, after all he had a pet name for her, ‘the Lezza.’

Brendan (the Spy) quickly decided that GCSE Maths and English weren’t for him, he was (as he often told me), “such a smart bloke” so qualifications were largely irrelevant.
He had got a part time job which became a full time career, working at the local independent cinema, he was rapidly promoted to Assistant Manager,or Ass. Man as he insisted we call him without irony. The Proprietor of the cinema would routinely empty the till and spent the day in the pub avoiding creditors. Brendan in a gesture of lofty patronage would employ a few of us: someone on the till,an usher, whilst the Ass. Man put on the film. He didn't really know how the projector worked, and it was not uncommon for the film to get shredded whilst we drank snakebite on the roof. There is some sort of moral to this tale about not leaving your livelihood in the hands of a seventeen year old and his mates but it was lost on us. The owner eventually and inevitably lost the cinema, last time I saw him he gave me some speed and told me of his elaborate plans to ‘get it all back,’ that was a decade ago. More recently I heard he ran as the BNP candidate in the General Election last year.
Some evenings he and Brendan would drive up to Galley Hill, “to watch the gays.”
I recall BtS sauntering into the cinema one day clutching an envelope bearing the legend O.H.M.S.

‘See,’ he said proudly. It contained a letter from H.19 (Robbo) to H.17 (Brendan the Spy). It confirmed that his ‘transfere’ was approved. He was going to Europe, Switzerland most likely, so he and the Lezza could stay together when she had a year abroad at University. I was puzzled, the letter was written on tracing paper. “Easier to burn,” he informed me sagely.

The Lezza went to University then moved to Paris. She is fluent in French and German, with a passable knowledge of Italian. She is always rather vague about what she does.

Brendan, for a long time, worked in a series of mobile phone shops. After some months each would close and he would move on. He did go to France in the end, leaving behind debts, an estranged wife and a young son who gets into trouble at school. The boy’s teacher thinks he would do better if his father was in England. It is just another in a long line of sacrifices Brendan the Spy has had to make for Queen & Country. Defende Regnum young man, Defende Regnum.

Marc Singer Sideways Acting Masterclass

I have known actors, maybe you have one downstairs, it’s possible you may be one yourself. It’s not important.
But this is.


The Beastmaster.

It is the incredible tale of a young man, Dar, son of Zed, brother of Tal.
It is a world where only women, villains and animals have names longer than one syllable.
Owing to a prophecy that Ma-ax (High Priest of Ar –played by a young Rip Torn – you know, he plays an old Patches O’Hoolahan in Dodgeball. The young Patches is played by Hank Azaria from the Simpsons, and Huff, and Grosse Point Blank) will be killed by ‘Zed’s unborn son’ , one of Ma-ax’s witches teleports him pre birth from his mother into an ox, then teleports away (cackling). She gets killed before she can sacrifice him by a balding merchant. Just before she dies she is suddenly, briefly naked before putting her clothes back on to leap into a fire. When she dies, she cackles too.

The young man grows to young manhood. In the mean time Zed despite being held by Max for all that time has somehow managed to sneak out of the pyramid where he is being held hostage (did I mention he’s been blinded) and father a second child. He then sneaks back into his cell. The old devil.
Dar becomes a man, for some reason (maybe to do with being in the ox) he can talk to animals, like Dr Doolittle. It’s not long before he’s got a small menagerie – a panther,an eagle and 2 ferrets.
He uses his gift to see through their eyes to spy on girls bathing in a pool (in the Director’s cut they’re bare-chested – one of them, Tanya Roberts, was a Bond girl from Living Daylights). There are some fights, one of the ferrets dies biting May-Axe in the nuts and then exploding. Another witch turns into a dove. She cackles when she dies too. It might be a family tic
The Beastmaster’s younger brother is made king , wearing a big nappy. The city rejoices.

It’s a great story only made better by Marc Singer’s unique approach to acting. Marc you may remember was cameraman Mike Donovan in the original V (he also played an emerald miner who was Bobby Ewing’s friend from college in series 8 of Dallas (the one that was a dream) – he has used the powerful acting technique that he developed in all his work. It is very simple but incredibly effective; wherever you are supposed to be and whatever you are doing, always present your side profile to the camera. Whilst it isn’t the most natural pose in the world it does ensure that the audience can always see all the acting you are doing with your face, all the time.
Of course the technique has its detractors, Al Pacino was famously dismissive, ‘I never heard of that,’ his eyes seemed to say.
But for the naysayers amongst you, including local actor Stephen Yardley (Ken Masters – Howard’s Way not Streetfighter), I suggest you look at the results of what happens when Marc doesn’t use the technique. It isn’t nice.








Not Nice.

Poop Deck Shanty

‘Daddy’s set fire to himself and has to go away.’
This was how my paternal grandfather’s (Leonard Sexbeach Blancmange,you may well have heard of him) departure had been announced to his sons. His daughter was too young to grasp the detail.
The First Pair of Hands to Advertise Washing Up Liquid on Television (my grandmother’s proud boast) gestured expansively into a resigned shrug. And that was that.

My great grandmother, on my mother’s father’s side, was immensely proud of her small feet. She used to hide in the cupboard and pray in a language she made up, when she wasn’t smuggling fresh produce over the German/Austro-Hungarian border. Her husband was a celebrated gambler, swearer and less well-known plumber. He tried to kill himself in 1927 but only succeeded in shooting himself in the back (not easy) in one of Berlin’s municipal parks.

Actually Leonard had fallen asleep with a cigarette whilst waiting for his wife to come home from the affair she was having with an out of work actor called Wallis Bramhall Leviathan. You might have missed him in the Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood, every Christmas half my family would stare and point:
‘There he is.’
‘Is that him ?’
‘I think so.’
There he was, third tree on the left or somesuch, I have never been able to identify him.
He became my father’s stepfather and as for L.S.B., well no one I know ever saw him again. My father and his siblings were never curious. It transpired he expired, a furious alcoholic, in a small village in Wales in 1993, I never found out the details as I was no longer on speaking terms with his son, my own father, who did not find out the fate of his father until 2007, by then Norris Spoonpudding Blancmange, was quite literally living illegally on (if not in) his own shit. With impeccable foresight he had sold his house to pay off his second wife and with the meagre remains he had realised romantic notions of a nautical existence. This was interrupted by a brief residence at the local camping site before he ‘climbed aboard’ the Manati* of Wry. The illegality and the excrement derived from his unwillingness to regularly empty the septic tank on board, instead plumping for dumping his untreated load straight into the river where it accumulated upon the sandbank on which the pride of the waves was firmly lodged, ensconsced like a gravid hippo in it’s own faecal tar.
Something of a regular supplicant at the altar of Bacchus himself, it is only a matter of time before he stumbles on the gangplank and plunges headfirst into a thick brown mess of his own devising. I hope, gentle reader you will join me in wishing him a bon voyage.

* Manati from the Taino (pre-Columbian people from the Caribbean) word for ‘tit’

My Year of Dallas - the End. For now.

EPILOGUE


I don’t know if it was a dream, or a nightmare but I am done with Texas, there’s nothing for me here now. Dallas just has too many memories.
The day I crossed the border was the last time I dreamt of the man in red. He’s standing at the roadside waving, there’s a nasty leer on his face. I just keep on driving.


I still get a card from Clayton and Miss Ellie at Christmas, the message is always the same and it’s not handwritten but I am grateful for even the smallest of kindnesses..

I don’t know if you can ever put the past behind you but I try. It’s been three years since I last spoke to a Ewing and there isn’t a day that goes by without me thinking of J.R. But I woke up this morning feeling lighter, more carefree. I’m surprised by the letter on the mat. It’s from a young wildcatter, name of Blake Carrington, he sounds keen and it’s been so long since I’ve seen enthusiasm from anyone. He’s invited me to Denver, Colorado, just to talk. Well I think I like the sound of that. I think I like it very much indeed. I decide I’m going to go, and I’ll make him a gift of a pork pie. One of the Gourmet kind, the one with pickle.

Ray and Me

RAY

Now that Ray Krebbs has discovered that he is Jock’s son he is looking to become a serious player. I have started noticing things about him. Little changes. He doesn’t wear plaid so much, and he definitely doesn’t have sex with Lucy in the barn anymore, now that she is his niece or half niece (if there is such a thing). Though this may be more to do with him being married.
I like his new wife, Donna, but am worried that she will leave him because he can’t cut the mustard as a big man, a Texan man, a man of power.
Late at night, when no one but Ray is awake, I telephone him and try to re-assure him but we both know that, what he is, won’t be enough to keep a lady like that. Sometimes he cries down the telephone to me:
‘All I know is ranching,’ he sobs,’ it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s all I’ve ever loved. I can’t change and I don’t want to.’
‘Not even for the woman you love ?’
And then I feel cruel and heartless for what I have said. I wouldn’t upset Ray for the world. Then I start to cry too. There we are, two grown men sobbing our tragic hearts out at three o’clock in the morning. It’s terrible.
That’s why I suggested we go into property development.

This cheered Ray up a lot. Even though neither of us know anything about it, I think it’s a project we can both work on. I am sure it will be a success.

Hurray, I have found the perfect project for me and Ray. It’s going to be a themed island for monkeys: Ray Krebbs’ Monkey Island. I will remain a silent partner, which is OK by me. I want Ray to get all the glory, then he can feel proud of himself and so can his wife. Maybe then he won’t cry so much anymore.

Ray’s all fired up about the Themed Island idea. I got him some books from the library about monkeys and he’s read them all, cover to cover. He’s been telling me all about them, apparently monkeys are quite similar to cattle in some ways which should make things a lot simpler. Ray knows everything there is to know about cattle. He tells me things have improved with Donna a lot, especially sexually. I am really pleased for Ray, that sort of thing is important in a marriage. I have always thought of Ray as a considerate and generous lover and it’s important that Donna sees that side of him. He needs to show her his vulnerability as well as his strength for their marriage to build a strong foundation from which it can grow. Much like a property development.

Well things certainly have changed. Ray’s no longer interested in Monkey Island, him and Jock and Punk Anderson have gone in together to develop some swampland. I have to say, I’ve seen a different side to Ray and I’m pretty disappointed. Property development was my idea, and now he’s just brushed me aside to spend time with his dad and his buddy. I thought we were better friends than that Ray. I suppose I was wrong.

Ray doesn’t answer my phone calls anymore.

It’s not about the money, though I did have to re-mortgage my house to buy that island in the Medway, it’s about friendship and trust. I know Ray wanted more than anything to be accepted by Jock and his friends and family, but I feel like he has betrayed me to do it. It wouldn’t have been so difficult to include me in his new deal. I suppose he just didn’t want me around. I won’t say it doesn’t hurt, but I’ll get through it. I hope Donna never sees this side of him though. It’s not a pretty sight I can tell you. Maybe a cheese and onion pasty will cheer me up. Especially if I pop it in the microwave first. Warmth and comfort, oh Ray why can’t you be like pastry.

Good news. They’ve discovered oil in the Medway and I’ve sold the oil leases on my island to J.R.. He says with any luck I’ll be an oil millionaire, just like him. He’s being kind, trying to make me feel better after what happened with Ray. He knows the value of friendship unlike his half-brother. Well Ray Krebbs there’s more to being Jock’s son than just having him as your father, you’ll realise that one day, I just hope I’m there to see it. I get home to discover J.R. has sent me a 10 Gallon Hat, just like one of his. Inside the hatbox is a small note, it says simply: ‘For a true friend.’
I am not embarrassed to admit that I weep uncontrollably for over an hour and a half.
To celebrate my good fortune I treat myself and my hat to a night out in a Travel Lodge. Dinner is a Luxury Sausage Roll from the Gourmet range and a Steak Slice, then it’s on to the arcade for an evening of games and a whirl on the fruit machines. I wonder, would my life be any richer if I had someone to share all this with. Probably not.

Two days later, I get a postcard. There’s no picture. It’s from the library. The books on monkeys are overdue and there’s a small fine to pay. Ray never returned them. I don’t know, sometimes you think you know a person and then they go and do something like this. Some friend you are Ray Krebbs.

My Year of Dallas

It's possible that you are unaware of the fact that there are 357 episodes of the soap opera, Dallas.
It is not possible that you are unaware of the soap opera, Dallas.
Now there are 2 TV Movies (War of the Ewings and Return to Dallas)
There was also the 'mini series' Dallas the Early Years (divided into 2)
Finally there was the cast reunion: Return to Southfork.
Which gives us a total of 362 watchable episodes of Dallas.
Which is 1 a day for a year with 3 days empty days. Now I'm sure you can fill them with something - your spouse's birthday/ a religious festival or two, but we both know it's not the same. Note I haven't included Knott's Landing (a mere 344 episodes)- though some do guest star Bobby, J.R. and even Kristin.
Anyway here is part of

My Year of Dallas:

J.R. EWING

I want to tell you about the time I met Mr J.R. Ewing in a motorway service station.

At the time I was on the road a lot. I worked for a well known producer of savoury snack foods popular with the roadside community. I can not name them as they are real and may well come after me, but suffice to say they made a lot of pasties, sausage rolls, savoury slices and pork and pickle pies.

I had just received a big order near Thurrock, when there, before me, unmistakeably was Mr J.R. Ewing of Dallas, Texas. Live, in the flesh, larger than life itself. He was enjoying a scotch egg bar from a rival manufacturer whilst trying to obtain a toy from one of the many quality vending machines. We recognised each other at once.

‘Hey there boy. How’re you doing ?’
J.R. is all smiles, he is always pleased to see me. We have been friends for many years. I think it is because he knows that, whatever happens, I am on his side.
‘Good to see you J.R.. Always good to see you. Let me get you a drink, it’s been too long.’
The shop doesn’t do his usual, bourbon and branchwater, so we make do. I have an energy drink made from bull sick and he has a Fanta. We sit on the kerb and catch up:
‘ . . . ever since young Bobby took up with that Barnes woman he’s started getting interested in the business. Now I’m out on the road whilst he’s in the office with daddy.’
‘Don’t worry J.R., you’ll think of something. You always do.’
‘I don’t know. It really isn’t looking good for ole J.R..’
‘Anything I can do to help ?’
‘I don’t know, this isn’t like selling pasties. If I could just think of a way to ruin that Barnes woman. Maybe if Bobby saw her with Ray. They used to have a thing a while back . . .’
‘That’s not a bad idea. But I’ve got a better one. Not far from here, deep within a forest, lives a witch. Now apparently she has an enchanted spinning wheel. It’s said whoever pricks their finger on it, will sleep for one hundred years. Find that; if Pam pricks her finger, then there’ll be no need for Bobby to stay in the office. He’ll be back on the road in no time and you’ll be back with your daddy running Ewing Oil, where you belong.’
J.R. looked at me with tears in his eyes. Tears of gratitude.

Disaster. The spinning wheel was lost in transit. It was being shipped back to Galveston on one of Mr Eugene’s oil tankers. I think his wife Sally may have been responsible. She is a very tricky lady. Mr Eugene is no fool, he knows what’s going on, but doesn’t care. That Sally, she is one fine woman, even if you can’t trust her. I send her a Chicken and Mushroom slice as a compliment. I wonder how J.R. will take the news. He’ll need me by his side at this difficult time. We arrange to meet at a Little Chef on the way to Welwyn Garden City, but I am forced to abandon the rendezvous. It is clear I am being followed; Bobby and Cliff must have got wind of our plans and are trying to use me to get to J.R.. I can’t let that happen. I ditch my car and go cross country, they won’t be able to follow me. But I am wrong, they have hired a spotter plane. I am able to get a message to J.R.’s secretary, Luella, from a public telephone. Hopefully he will get it and just keep on driving.
I am forced to spend four days hiding out in a bunker on a nine hole golf course, just to be safe. I can not say, but I think the heat is off. At least for now.
When I get home, on the doorstep is a bottle of champagne, a pair of slippers and a tin of Quality Street. J.R. always takes care of his friends.

I’ve just seen Sue Ellen having lunch. I spotted her queuing for the All You Can Eat Buffet at Pizza Hut and she wasn’t alone. I know she didn’t see me though. I like to be careful. That woman is a tramp and a drunk, I don’t know why J.R. puts up with her, he really is too good for that woman. I’ve decided to help him out by spying on her and finding out her plans.
I sneak around to the back of the building and find myself a spare uniform. Hang on someone’s coming. Don’t panic, keep calm. Remember J.R. fought in Korea. What would he do ?

Fortunately it was only the Assistant Manager. I’ve left him tied up in the store room under a pile of pizza boxes. I doubt he will raise the alarm anytime soon, I clubbed him pretty hard, and when I hit people they stay down. Just like Jock taught me.

I pretend to take the order from the table next to Sue Ellen, she doesn’t even notice and only has eyes for her new man. I don’t see who it is at first, he has his back to me, and then he turns his head and I realise who she’s with. I nearly blow my cover and my cool when I see her companion; none other than Cliff Barnes. I just think what would J.R. do. He needs me now, he needs me to be strong. For him.

‘ Deep Pan Supreme Family Feast with Super Cheesy Garlic Bread.’
I look at the excitement, the bare unconcealed greed on their fat faces. Don’t you understand what’s going on, how can you be happy when J.R.’s arch-rival is in the next booth, having lunch and more besides with his enemy’s wife. But they don’t understand, how can they, little nothing people, barely real at all. They can’t even begin to comprehend what this will do to J.R., sure he’s tough, he’s had to be, but he loves that woman, why does nobody but me see that. I throw their order in the bin, it’s the least I can do, maybe it will teach them a lesson. Now I’ve got to speak to J.R., he must know at once and it is better that he hear it from me than from some stranger.

J.R. doesn’t take the news well. He puts a brave face on it, but I can hear the quaver in his voice, most people wouldn’t notice, but I do. Most people don’t realise how vulnerable he really is, they just see the hat and the face he shows them: ‘Good Ole J.R..’ But I know the real him, the boy behind the man, who yearns for his daddy’s approval and his mother’s love. He’s had to fight for everything. Gary and Bobby never had to get their hands dirty, it was all laid out on a platter for them, just like breakfast at Southfork every morning. Not J.R. though, he earned every cent of it. Now he’s got a new fight on his hands, a fight for the woman he loves, and I’m going to see that he wins it.

Tutankhcolman & the Norwich Shroud

The Shroud of Norwich is soon to return to its rightful place – bunged in a cupboard far from the prying eyes of history. Few know of the relic and its association with ‘The Old Ones ’ known to the simple folk of Norwich as the Coel Men (literally translated as ‘The Ancestors’). It is said they are the last of the line of Coel (opinions divide if this was indeed the venerable king of rhyme and legend often mis-spelt Cole. Some think Co-El was from another planet entirely, a dying world, and may have been the brother of No-El Edmonds, both scions of the House of El).
Whilst making war on the Romans, the Coel formed an alliance with the Northern Wicca and it is from this line which the Norwich Colmans descend. For whatever reason they were certainly long lived, but being desirous of even longer life, through their arts devised a powder that when a body was covered with it kept them alive even beyond the grave. The process left a waste product,a yellowish powder that was then sold to the masses as a desirable condiment.

After several centuries, more and more powder was required to preserve them as the living dead. The Colman patriarch sought other methods to ward off death. Initial talks with a Confederate soldier, the notorious voodoun necromancer, Saunders came to nothing when it became clear that his secret blend of herbs and spices created mindless, brain-eating monsters (it was this that was responsible for the Kentucky Derby Zombie Massacre of 1878)

Napoleon’s attempt to raise an army of the dead in the Nile kingdom had captured the popular imagination and ever since there had been a steady stream of amateur Victorian necromancers all keen to learn the secrets of eternal life and avail themselves of a bit of jewellery or pottery. In the murky backstreets of Cairo, Colman purchased a shroud inscribed with the spells against death itself. Saunders was not to be outdone, posing as a rival, he travelled under the pseudonym Colonel Mustard. A clash was inevitable, and the two saucerors fought a running battle which left most of downtown Cairo covered in a fine yellow powder. Neither could claim victory but importantly for humanity when the dust cleared,the shroud lay in two pieces, one remained in Cairo, the other taken to Norwich castle and thankfully forgotten. Until now

Boxworld 7

Time flows differently here, quicker somehow:

At first it’s a dream come true.
The first thing Rob does is get a newer, bigger house for him and his parents, sell the old one he says, you don’t need it.
There’s money left over.
Rob goes to the bingo every night. He loves it and they all love him. That first month he gets a round of applause just for coming through the door. Imagine that.
At the Chinese he’s late a few times and sometimes people come in just to see him.
They don’t order anything.
After a while it’s a bit of a nuisance and the owner has a quiet word.
Which is ok because Rob doesn’t need the money.
And soon he has a girlfriend and she loves him and she takes him shopping and he gets a new wardrobe and clothes to put in it. And a car. They take a holiday. The first he’s had without his mum. He misses her and talks to her on the phone his girlfriend bought for him (with his money, ‘it doesn’t matter he can afford it’)
They should get a place together she tells him one night, they could have more privacy, it would be just like when they were on holiday but all year round.
He hasn’t been to the bingo for a while, his girlfriend doesn’t like it.
His parents don’t mind moving, the new flat’s a bit smaller than their old home, and his mum cries a bit but that’s just because she’s going to miss Rob.
Come on Rob his girlfriend says. The new house has a jacuzzi.
Rob and his mum are crying again, it’s just like that day back in the studio, when he felt so powerless . . .

And then it’s as if there are walls on all sides, and peering down at him kindly is a huge face, a smiling man with a beard. And in other times and other places he is known by different names (although maybe his beard is a little less blonde)
He closes the lid . . . there’s nothing more to see in that world.
And with an oustretched finger time in the studio flows once more, and this time Rob chooses the right box.

Robert’s Nest Egg

At last there’s proof. For years many of you have clung to the ridiculous belief there’s a parallel universe out there. A world where you work for the British Secret Service, under the cover of running a small independent cinema on the south coast of England, and Katie Pike didn’t dump you. And you actually look a bit like Charlie Sheen (like he was in Navy Seals, not now).
And you’re not fat, don’t live in France with someone who maybe used to be a man, never spent two months living in your wife’s shed, no one threw eggs at you for wearing a suit to college (and carrying a briefcase), nor did they shout ‘oi Blazer’ at you as they did so.

Yes, this other, better, world is real. It was created on Monday. Nothing to do with the Hadron Collider or Einstein-Rosen bridges or black holes or any of that science guff. Nope. The universe spontaneously diverged after Rob dealt too early on Deal or No Deal.

Rob was a big, gentle chap with two jobs, mild learning difficulties and a fondness for bingo. He had his list of numbers but after some early setbacks he decided to call it a day at £8000.
Everyone liked him.
Except Noel.

Noel in case you had forgotten, used to steal toys from children by pretending to be other children – he operated a fake used toy exchange out of an old warehouse that used to belong to the BBC. Appallingly haircutted children would send in toys in the belief they were going to get a slightly used Action Man paratrooper playset. The whole thing got shut down after Watchdog investigated. Noel never got involved directly and his middleman, ‘Cheggers’ Chegwin did time (he got early parole for organising inflatable obstacle courses for underage prisoners).

And twinkly triangular-headed Noel plays out ‘what would have happened.’
Just for fun.
And because it’s in the contract.
If Noel doesn’t get to rub salt and piss in the wound, whilst pretending to look sympathetic. No eight thousand pounds for you. That’s the deal.

And the big-haired, small hearted prince of highlights, sort of Branson look-a-like has struck gold.
Rob’s got his mum with him and he’s crying and she’scrying. And Noel’s rubbing his hands like he’s about to start singing ‘You’ve got to pick a pocket or two.’
If Rob had stuck to his list he could have had the quarter of a million.
But he didn’t.
So he lost.
And Noel loved it.

At this point the universe had enough.
It’s been sitting there whilst every day 22 of Schrodinger’s boxes spew out poison.
So now there are two universes one where Rob won and one where he didn’t.

Of course in both of them, Kerry-Ann’s husband leaves her after she gambled away £130,000. You can see it in his eyes and there are some things the universe can’t fix.

Lovers of Bromley

I write this in furious haste. Gentle reader I need your help

I have been contacted by the B.E.S. (Bromley Exploration Society) in Cairo who have heard of the proposed development and are even now organising a petition. They are sending a letter via e-mail to various members of the B.E.S. around Egypt

Dear Bromley Lovers

Please sign this petition to stop the extension of the Tiny Tots Nursery further into the playing field at the back of the houses in Bourne Road. There might be the remains of an Anglo-Saxon village underneath it. Or maybe an unexploded bomb from World War II. A child may have even have found an ammonite there. Maybe.
I have been there once with my metal detector and found 37p in 1979, back when it was quite a lot of money.
We don’t need more places for children to learn in the area. There are enough in North Bromley.

If you like me are a Lover of Bromley, please sign this petition,

Egyptian Man.

Of much less interest, I also received this e-mail:

Hello My Friends who love Egypt,

Please take a moment to sign the petition to stop development along
the northern shore of Lake Qarun in the Fayoum. There are too many
understudied fossils, prehistoric villages, ancient Egyptian, Greek,
and Roman ruins in the area. We do not need tourist villages in the
area. The southern shore has plenty.

I have explored the region for over thirty years and know that what
we find here may rewrite what we know of man on earth and
definately man along the Nile.

It was from an American lady, I can not be bothered to include further details.

One of these may be genuine. I'm not sure which.