General
Like Flies
0Several times over the last few months, I’ve started to write a post mourning the loss of someone I admired or was at least sad to see go. Every time I started, another one walked the plank – Patrick McGoohan, John Mortimer, Tony Hart, John Martyn, Lux Interior – so I’ve been scared to do it in case it’s my latent psychic powers bumping them off.
Clearly, mentioning it here is a risk, if my theory is true, so if Morrissey starts to look a bit peaky, think up an alibi for me.
Sunday Night Telly Talk
2“oooo, nice”
“Fiona Bruce?? Really?”
“Well, not much but I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crisps”
“Not even Cheese and Onion”
“hmmm, tough one.”
Keep Off The Grass
0“Look, it’s for your own good!”
“maow”
“I’m really not trying to poison you”
“MAOW!”
Negotiations with elegant black cat were not going well.
After a rush Saturday night trip to an emergency vet followed by a tense Sunday waiting for her to be looked at by a second vet, turns out all the dozy mouser had wrong with her was grass stuck in her throat.
Cats are deceptively fragile machines. As previously discussed, Rumpole fell foul of a piece of string. Holly tried to better her with a piece of grass. Doubtless, Rumpole will attempt to regain her title of most-pathetic-moggy by injuring herself on a fluffy towel.
Anyway, Holly had no trouble taking the antibiotics cunningly crushed into her food and even liked the anti-furball stuff I was to paste onto her paws for her to lick off.
At First.
By day two, applying the paste required the use of oven gloves and a vice, and resulted in a “dirty protest” style smearing of brown gunk all over the kitchen.
I’m sure there’s a reason why i haven’t turned them into slippers. I’m SURE there is.
Stuff Yer Black And White Cat
4Saturday morning – mild hangover – full strength lurgy – maximum desire to stay in bed.
Turned on the radio to hear high-up wonk from the Post Office getting duffed up a bit by John Humphries
“So. The post office. It’s a bit shit isn’t it?”
(That may not be the exact wording – it was early)
“No, no, no. We delivered Twelve-ty gazillion packages a day, on time and on target. We do an excellent job in difficult conditions”
“Postman Pat, perhaps but the reality is, is it not, that it is, is it not, a bit shit?”
I pulled up the duvet, planning to nod off until Sandi Toksvig turned up to take me somewhere exotic.
“And what about Parcels? You don’t deliver them when people are actually at HOME, do you? and then you take them to a sorting office in the middle of nowhere which is only open between 07:31 and 07:34 on the first Thursday of Whitsun, do you not? what are you going to do about it?”
At this, I stirred uncomfortably. I had a parcel to collect. An important, nay VITAL parcel. The parcel containing all the presents my family had spent their time and money choosing and wrapping to be unwrapped and enjoyed on Xmas day. By Me.
“John, John, John – Your local post office is opening earlier and closing later over the xmas period. We have extra staff members ready to service you, the much cherished customer whom we venerate and adore. Of course, today IS the busiest day of the year and there WILL be busy-ness and queues and strife and chaos and woe and wailing and gnashing of teeth and some minor delays MAY be experienced by a few unfortunate customers but I think you’ll find that we’re offering an excellent range of … “
Suddenly, I was awake, out of bed and hurriedly putting my feet into my shirt sleeves. Within a couple of minutes I had my clothes on the appropriate limbs and was on the bus. Leapt off by the post office at 08:59. So far, so good.
The queue for the post office was on the street. “Already?” I thought. Then I noticed the door was locked. “But I heard the nice man on the radio saying they were open early? Don’t they USUALLY open at 9?”
The door was still locked at quarter past nine. Unrest in the queue. Pension books were being rattled against bus passes.
A fast car dramatically screeched to a halt. A hand was stuck out of the window, waving a key like the Lady of the Lake bearing Excalibur. The woman at the front of the queue ambled over, took the key, stuck her head in the window, chatted for a moment and sauntered back as the driver shot off, delivering keys wherever they were needed.
After some jovial banter (“i’ll probably set the alarm off now – ha ha ha ha ha”) the door was unlocked and the queue shuffled inside. By 9:30, I’d reached the front and handed over my card. Postofficelady peered at it, ran her finger down a list, then the second page of the list, then the first page again, then shook her head
“parcel, is it? and it’s definitely here? only it’s not on my list. What size is it?”
“the card I just gave you is all the information I have”
“Any idea where it would be? only it’s not on my list.”
“where? how would I possibly know?”
“It should be have been logged on my list. Do you want to have a look on my list while I have a look in the back?”
After 5 minutes of shuffling box sounds, she re-emerged.
“i’m sorry, it’s not here.”
“oh. Really? well….”
“you’ll have to phone Parcelforce – NEXT”
“I’LL have to?”
“yes – NEXT!”
“but the card said …
“NEXT!”
Tutting and hard stares were getting me nowhere so I resigned myself to calling Parcelforce HQ. They
also had a list. Their list said my parcel was at a different post office to the one the driver had written on the card.
“and where is that, exactly?”
“Well, I don’t really know the area so i can’t give you directions. I can give you the post code?”
“How would the postcode help me? I’m standing in the street with nothing but a broken umbrella and an altogether useless piece of card in my hands. What am I going to do with a sodding post code?”
“Can’t really help you mate. Can’t be far though.”
Relying on a bus stop map and directions from a man who warily stood between his dog and the bedraggled, beardy man dripping rain on his shoes, I finally found the place. And got my parcel without any fuss or hassle or rudeness. And I’m now aware of a Post Office I never knew existed before.
As luck would have it, I’d now walked almost all the way back to where I started, only now I had a box full of parcels, some recently acquired greasy-fry-up provisions and an extension to my loathing for mankind.
“it’s beginning to feel a lot like Xmas”
Go B.O. Go!
0This week, I’ve been wishing there was some way I could register a vote for Obama.
In anything.
Then I saw yesterday that he’s reversing the ban on stem cell research and calling a halt on the oil drilling in Alaska and wonder if I could, in some way, have his babies.*
This rush of enthusiasm may not last as far as him actually getting to the White House but I’m quite enjoying feeling hopeful about what a politician will achieve. I’ve not felt so positive about a President since Jed Bartlett.
The downside, of course, is Buffy the Moose Slayer thinking she can beat him next time if she just starts running now. Sweetie, not even if you tied his shoelaces together and took the bus.
*that would be future seed of his loins, not anything Gary-Glitter-style to do with his current offspring. Just so we’re clear.