The Ceremony of the Meaningless Statuette

But once our pomegranates are aligned with the great tortoise migration routes across the Great Plains of Luton, then we can attach the cabbages to the necessary devices and then we will be prepared. We will, of course, need a suitably-oiled film actress for the all-important Ceremony of the Meaningless Statuette awarded for being quite good at playing Dressing-Up and Pretend, and - at least - a bevy of camerapersons to capture the triviality of the event for all posterity.

You may snigger, mutter to yourself and skulk off to caress the several volumes of your stamp collection deep in the shadowed recesses of your boudoir, but both Steve and I know where you keep the unopened jars of marmalade and what you do with the discarded remnants of yesterday's unread sections of your daily newspaper.

You would think that someone as urbane and sophisticated as Steve would not snort in derision at your pristine underwear and over-elaborate bathroom preparations, but he has travelled the world and spent several nights alone in the dark forests of Kidderminster. He has known the cold dread of facing up to the pimpled excesses of the uniformed shop assistant found within the very bowels of the largest computer retail chains and he has lived to tell the tale of stultified bewilderment that so often meets even the most simplest of requests. You cannot scare him by merely thrusting junk mail into his face. He has seen it all, and smelt most of it. He does not know the meaning of the word fear.

So, for his next birthday, I'm going to buy Steve a dictionary.

Don’t Forget the Butter

We look askance at our shopping lists and the tales and legends they tell of those brave souls who set off to take arms against the mighty Three for the Price of Two offers and the wild untamed BOGOF monsters that haunt the food aisles of the mighty supermarkets that face us ‘ere yet the battle’s dawn had come.

We have mounted our trusty supermarket trolleys and armed our selves with the shields of our shopping list and the leaky biro that will stand as our sword as we prepare to do battle against all the fearful tribulations the ogres of shopping can muster against us. We have strode manfully – and womanfully – down those aisles between the towering shelving units where the very tinned goods have seemed to mock our puny armour of prudent housekeeping, and our desire to purchase only what is on our list. We have wielded our debit cards with the wrists of experts and examined the lists of ingredients with all the knowledge of our mastered wizardry. Moreover, we have o’er brimmed our trolley with all the treasures of this dragon’s cave of the wonders of the supermarket, including some of those nice biscuits that your sister told us about…

and yet…

and yet….

And yet, we have still managed to somehow forget to buy any butter.

Sometimes I Am Cardboard That Dreams

Well, sometimes it does do that, but I’m sure it will wash out… eventually.

I’m not sure if the chicken is meant to cross the road, however, certainly not whilst dressed as a geography teacher, anyway. Not even if it does have the name of the local tadpole diversity outreach coordinator tattooed across the underside of its left wing.

But having said that, now wish I hadn’t, at least not whilst wearing these trousers and your favourite purple peephole bra. 

Sometimes I dream of cardboard.

Sometimes I dream of a strange old man who lies there dreaming of cardboard.

Sometimes I am cardboard that dreams of old men.

Some times are sometimes other times.

Yes, I know it is twitching.

She was the one who like to play bagpipes in the nude. I could see nothing against it (except for the bagpipes, of course) however, there were others in the post office queue who expressed concern, especially over her choice of repertoire and the fact that her goat ate all the postal orders.

Ah, well, we are all young once.

It Is All a Matter of Salmon Fishcakes

 

Ah, now, you may think it is all a matter of salmon fishcakes and how they are re-aligned, but – let me tell you – it is not that simple. Some of us have already returned the table tennis bats to the leader of the church choir in protest, but it is unlikely that it will be the end of the matter.

It is not just a matter of reading bedtime stories to the marmosets either, some of them have already been elected to the local council, so there will be trouble there ‘ere the string is sorted into appropriate lengths for the time of year and a suitable container is found for the loose change.

I, of course, considering the seriousness of the matter have written to my MP - on the back of a £100 note, in order to get his attention. We also have left a trail of blank expenses forms to lead him into the meeting were we will be able to demonstrate the salmon fishcakes to him, and show a PowerPoint presentation on what it means for the wind farm that has been granted planning permission to be built at the bottom of a local nearby abandoned mineshaft. So none of you can say we are not getting involved in local politics….

Big Society – my arse.

Thursday Poem: Falling Out Of Darkness

Falling Out Of Darkness

We have seen so many new days fall out
Of the darkness into the dawning light.
We have taken these paths down to the sea
And stood on the shore, watched the changing tides.

The sea slowly creeping up towards us
Then creeping away in retreat again.
We have seen the shapes and faces in the clouds
And tasted the cold of the winter rains.

Is it time to talk of new beginnings?
Is it time to find a new place to sit
To construct and form all these shapes we make
Out of shapelessness and the empty air?

We need new words to describe this old world
And some old words for all these bright new things
We have discovered amongst these old ruins
Of history that warn of what is to come.

The Dangers of Custard Misuse

I too have seen the stilton cheese ghostly in the pale moonlight as you taunted the naked unicyclist of fate by stealing his A to Z of Bridlington and hiding it behind an unkempt privet hedge, before going on to speak of the dangers of custard misuse in fluent Portuguese.

Back then, though, we knew too much about Nuneaton, and never once considered the dangers of taking our banjos out onto the ring road before noon. I held the tennis racket and you, my little umpire, sat in the seat high above the proceedings and pronounced yourself dissatisfied with the way I tickled the groundsman with that mallet.

We were young then, and in love, but unfortunately not in love with each other, but that didn’t prevent us from putting the sauce of our choice on each other’s bacon sandwiches as we sat together in that small café of possibility.

I remember licking your stamps as you held the envelopes out to me as we hid from our fellow workers in the stationery cupboard of forgotten promises and superseded memo forms. Little did we realise then that our young hot passion would one day grow as stale and musty as those boxes of unused memos and we would forget each other, just as those unused boxes of stationery had been forgotten by far too many office supply audits.

Still, though, these days every time I see an A5 envelope in need of a stamp,  I think of you and smile.

This is the Thing

Here we are. It doesn’t look like much, but then we long ago gave up on hoping for something special, something transcendental. It is like living a life amongst all those adverts that promise that this is the product or service that will change your life – this is what you have been all your life waiting for. This is the thing that will make everyone lust after you, love you, make them all jealous of the life you are living; that this is the gold at the end of your rainbow, your Eldorado, your new found land.

Of course, it never is. Occasionally one such product, service, sexual position, method of exercise or whatever the hell it is may be a more pleasant addition to your life, but it is nowhere near the earth-moving orgasmic-like experience promised by the advert, the magazine article, the book, the TV programme, the sexual technique.

In the end you do get use to a life of disappointments, both small – like this – and large. After all, by now your wining goal at the World Cup Final should have been regarded as the greatest sporting moment in the history of human civilisation, your novel should have one every single prize and critical plaudit in the world, that little thing you do that brings on the most mind-shattering orgasm in you partner should have had potential bed-mates eagerly queuing at your bedroom door.

Instead, though, here you are going about this usual life in an ordinary run-of-the-mill town, still waiting for it all to happen and knowing – deep-down - none of it ever will.

Still, though, there is always the chance that – tonight, at least – there may be... just may be… something good on the telly.

About That Hat

Now this may come as a surprise to you….

BOO!

Anyway, moving on, I see that very little is been written in the mainstream media about how much sellotape is really necessary to attach the Diversity Outreach Co-ordinator to the westward facing wall of your immediate neighbour-but-one’s garden shed. Surely, in this day and age the media must realise that ignoring such popular pastimes is the way to total oblivion. For example with the number of websites devoted to this particular popular pastime, the number of YouTube hits and the t-shirt sales that have turned what was once a quiet hobby of the devoted few into such a worldwide sensation makes it so hard to ignore or overlook. Normally, we would expect the newspapers and the print media to be devoting page upon page to it, like they do with any other sudden fashion, fad or trend.

I am beginning to suspect a conspiracy, and I suspect the penguins will be behind it… as usual.

Anyway, if you hold this pomegranate and cast your mind back to the heyday of Nationwide on our TV screens, I am sure you will agree that just maybe something is afoot that we do not know the wot of. At least, it may be an idea to keep an eye out for the penguins, at least until a week on Tuesday… perhaps longer.

Anyway, are you really sure about that hat?

Warning Wristband for Women Developed

Following news that someone has invented a wristband that advises men about their partner’s PMT by changing colour, researchers have also announced a similar wristband to be worn by men to enable women to judge their mood too. The wristband for men will tell their partners how well his football team did in its latest match, going from bright red – warning of miserable bastard – when they lose, to green – possible outside chance of a shag, if he is not too pissed when he gets home - when they win.

As the inventor who developed the product, said:

As every woman knows men are totally irrational creatures, whose moods and biological rhythms are all dependent on how well eleven men who he has never met are at kicking a ball around a large green field, often while wearing hideously-coloured shirts that one woman would want to be seen dead in.

The wristband works by connecting itself to the football results and downloading the results appropriate for his team. For example, someone in Leeds would get the Leeds United football results, some one in Wolverhampton would get the Wolves scores (although it is hard to see why) and someone living in Sussex would – obviously – get the Manchester United scores downloaded to his wristband.

The wristband would then change colour according to his team’s results, red if they lose, yellow if they draw and green if they win. With the green indicating that it is safe to approach the man and possibly even talk to him without getting little more in return than a monosyllabic grunt and an attempt to continue to watch the TV even whilst the woman is standing right in front of it.

As the inventor of the wristband herself, said:

When the wristband is green, indicating a win for his team, it may even be possible to have a conversation with him, maybe even about soft furnishings, or perhaps the possibility of going to visit your relatives for an extended stay, without him suddenly remember an important event he must attend down at his local.

However, critics of the device have pointed out that it is too crude a system to be a reliable indicator of a man’s mood, with one pointing out that:

This device, although it can tell us women if our man’s team has won, drawn or lost, takes no account of other just as relevant indicators of the grumpy bastard’s moods. For example, every football fan has a team he hates as much, if no more, than he loves his own team. Their results, their league position, and how his mates who support that team are doing will all have an impact on his mood. As will the belief that he could do a far better job than his team’s current manager, and why they spent all that money on that hopeless new midfielder, whether or not to try poisoning the referee’s guide dog and many, many other factors.

All of these can affect a fan’s mood, but none more than those strange feelings he tries to ignore when he finds himself wondering what the new number 7 looks like when he is taking a shower right after the match. Just when he is all hot muddy and sweaty and the hot water is streaming down the muscles on his… er… excuse me a moment… must be off… urgent appointment… bye.

The Creosoting Days Of Yore

Of course, back in those days we had all the aardvarks a man and/or woman could possibly contemplate creosoting in one day. There were aardvarks as far as the eye could see* and the chin could ponder. We had our creosoting brushes of course and our extra-large tins of creosote, but oh, how puny they seemed against such overwhelming odds.

Of course, today the tide of fashion has changed and it is no longer so fashionable, seen as so necessary, to creosote every single aardvark in one’s vicinity any more. People say it is for the best, but I’m not so sure. One day – and I’ve a feeling it won’t be too far into the future, someone will be strolling down the household goods aisle of their local supermarket only to be suddenly confronted by a brace of un-creosoted aardvarks in front of the vast arrays of various and multitudinous tins of spray polish and THEN what will they do? It will be far too late and all our cries of ‘I told you so!’ will sound so hollow.

A sad day it will be indeed.

 

*applicable to the very short-sighted only.

Getting Out in the Fresh Air

So this is it. Perhaps it is not quite as large, or as jewel-encrusted as you’d hoped, but still not something to be sniffed at… at least, not in polite company anyway. Still, as they say ‘many a pork pie makes a whole great fuckin’ heap of pork pies, and no mistake guv’nor’.

Now, I am not one to dismiss, or disparage, what might be called folk wisdom. I think there is a lot to be said for what is often called common sense, and I have spent a great deal of my life out on the common engaged in various country matters, but that need not detain us here, but we could spend sometime getting to know each other over in those bushes over there. That is, if you’ve remembered to bring the bobble hats, watermelon and the flippers.

Speaking of which, it is not often you see such a fine pair of flippers out in the wild, and I’ve been to Whitby. So let us have no more overtly sexy talk of cash book reconciliation, at least until we see the whites of their invoices.

This used to be such a nice place too, the wide open spaces of the grassy areas, the dark woodlands and the discreet, softly-ferned and hidden little places. Places where a man, woman and their kinkiness diversity outreach co-ordinator could engage in mutually satisfying erotic auditing practices out in the healthy open-air, without fear of startling too many badgers and upsetting the squirrels.

Teacake Riots

Anyway, Deidre, are those the Tadpole Infestation devices, or are you just pleased to see me? I have the Digestive biscuits, here, in the plastic container with an airtight seal. Therefore, we no longer have to fear the airline stewardesses, but the seal can sometimes be temperamental, so feed it plenty of freshly-caught haddock-flavour fish-style sticks.

Now, I do not know why the professional Toad Beguilers are massing in serried ranks, at the edge of the Leisure Centre car park. All I do know is that they are angry and hungry for revenge…. Well, either revenge or teacakes.

Consequently, as we have no more teacakes left, it very much looks as though it will be the revenge, then. Gird your loins, my little ukulele, for a highly-aroused Toad Beguiler hungry for revenge can be a fearsome sight this early in the morning. Especially when they rampage across a car park crazed with desire for teacakes. Many a woman, even ones as… er… handsome as you, Deidre, has oft had cause to rue the day they were caught up in such a fearsome event.

Tomorrow… the World

Anyway, I suppose those are your own ears? I only ask because I’m a nosey bastard, and it is absolutely none of my business, which is why it is such an interesting thing to ask. It is a truth not universally acknowledged that other people’s business is often far more interesting than our own – which, I suppose, Miss Austen, is why we read novels, for even the business of made-up people is far more interesting to us than our own lives. Even the lives of Samuel Beckett’s characters, where nothing happens with alarming regularity, some people find more interesting than their own lives, even if it just passes the time. But, then, time would have passed anyway.

You may be wondering what this has to do with the penguins that are often the subject – or at least the Guest Stars – of so many of these… er… meanderings. Indeed you may. Not only that, I’m wondering too.

Over time, I have got rather fond of those penguins, despite their propensity to enter my thoughts, and thus, these… well, these meanderings with both the frequency and seeming alacrity with which they do. I mean, you have to wonder why. After all there are far more blogs out there which you’d assume they would find more interesting to appear in.

If I were paranoid – and which one of you was it that said I am – I would begin to wonder whether the penguins have singled these meanderings out for some ulterior motive of their own, and that – perhaps – this is the way they are going to infiltrate and then take over the human world. First the frozen wastes, then the chocolate biscuits, then the blogs, then the world – it is a fiendishly subtle plan – you must admit.

Cheese on Toast and Modern History

You may very well have some considerable expertise in recognising the various forms of cheese on toast, up to and including the rather tricky Double Gloucester on wholegrain, but there is no need for you to disparage those who have not achieved similar equitable academic attainment. After all, this was a country that won the war against Nazi Germany mainly through its ability to distinguish the various cheeses and the uses they could be put to in conjunction with toasted breadstuffs, especially in the crucial battlefield environment.

Scholars, for example, now recognise it was the 8^th Army’s cunning use of Sage Derby on toasted sliced white that was the critical factor in Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein. Furthermore, the liberation of Italy would have not been such a victory for the Allies, if the use of Lancashire cheese on toasted battlefield-ready baps at Monte Cassino had not been authorised by the British war cabinet in time.

As for the use of cheese on toast in general throughout the cold war, it is now apparent that with out the daring use of cheese on toast by the western powers then there would have been no ultimate fall of the Berlin wall.

Furthermore, it is only the use of Chinese-backed anti-cheese-on-toast political edicts by the rulers of North Korea that has kept the communist party in power there up to the present day. This has been deliberately engineered by the ruling party by denying the majority of the population the freedom to access cheese on toast in the way that is regarded as fundamental to the political process in the democratic West,

The Traffic Lights of Doom

Now how do I go from here down towards the ring-road of all we hold most dear, without falling foul of the Traffic Lights of Doom? I have pondered the Keep Left signs of all our dreams and tarried long by the Humped-Back Bridges of all that we fear, while the Double Bends haunt our very nightmares.

I have marvelled at your thighs when you’ve changed gear when approaching a sharp bend, and I have wished so hard to be the indicator stalk that your long gentle fingers caress as though you are holding the steering wheel of your lover. I wish I was the clutch pedal of all your desires and how my heart accelerates when you put your foot down.

You could drive me to the end of the motorway of desire and take me down the slip roads of our forbidden love, down all the by-passes of your deepest needs and round the ring road of your wishes, and out onto the quiet country roads of all you’ve ever wanted or desired. Then I would take you in my arms and hold you long into the night as we sat together parked in the car park of all our dreams come true.

An In-Depth Understanding Of Marmalade

Now you may be the sort of person who dares to leave their ukulele unpolished when demonstrating your reserves of strawberry jam to the mandatory government inspectors, but did you really expect no-one to comment on the state of your knees?

Now I know it is not unusual to have to keep anchovies under your hat when visiting someone who is rumoured to be Welsh, but there is no need to carry a protractor, unless, of course, you are too close to Pwllheli, and your cucumber is not as fresh as the operating instructions demand.

Those of use who fully understand the use of marmalade in an erotic context will by now already be thinking of ways to remove the necessary volumes of the encyclopaedia from underneath the visiting relative.

Therefore, we have now reached that point in our TV viewing schedules where even the prospect of a second cousin, or even an aunt, approaching from downwind has long since ceased to be a prospect that fills one with undue trepidation.

But then, you understand marmalade, so you will already know this.

Do You Get Chips with It?

Let us take each other firmly by the elbow and go throw rainbows at any passing vicar, or any other person of an ecumenical persuasion as we dance down the street resplendent in our earmuffs, mittens and brightly-patterned wellies. Let us laugh at the paucity of travel agent premises which once o’er-brimmed the very High Streets of all we hold dear, now gone to that place that shops go to die, that place where the excessive amount of shoe shops that once plagued us all went too.

I shall take the ceremonial Cornish Pastie, held aloft at the head of the procession down that very same High Street. Then place it with all due solemnity and ceremony on the cusp of the town centre fountain, before turning to face the amassed congregation. We will then sing the praises of fast food as we revel in our good fortune to have a High Street so heavily populated by that wonder of the modern age that is the Most Holy Take-Away.

Here, in this modest High Street, it seems there all the foods of the world laid out for us to sample. If only it were not far too much trouble for us to heave our enormous sweaty bulk from outlet to outlet in order to taste all the wonders their many differing menus provide, and – of course – to make sure we have chips with everything.

Thursday Poem: Secret Keys

Secret Keys

She has so many keys, collecting them
All since she was such a very young girl
To lock her secrets deep inside her dreams
Where no one could rip them away from her
And let them flutter broken to the ground
To fall into muddy pools and be lost
So far beyond her reach for ever more.

She has such delicate and fragile dreams
So easily broken by this hard world
So many secrets she dare not utter
In case the world is listening to her.
It has too many ears, listening out
Ready to take everyone’s own secrets
And spread them out for the whole world to see.

Evolution and Erudition

So, anyway, there you were standing in the post office queue, holding a trout and singing what verses you could remember from the Elvis Presley version of Heartbreak Hotel in Flemish. I could not take you eyes off you, especially the way your subtly disguised your almost complete nakedness by wearing just the one, rainbow-striped knee-length sock, and a mitten.

It may well have been love at first sight, but these days I am no longer sure that such a thing exists, especially after the incident with the policewoman and the tin of corned beef in our local park.

I thought long – and hard – about what kind of conversational gambit would give you a good impression of me, display my charm, wit and sophistication in an erudite way that would – forever – impress this moment of our initial meeting on your mind.

So my ‘Hey there, sexy tits, bit cold for no knickers today, don’t you think?’ may not have quite struck all the right notes I was hoping for, but at least it was a conversation opener… at least, that’s what I’d hoped.

It is funny how long it takes to get the breath back after a sudden sharp knee to the groin. I always think that it is one of the mistakes of evolution to leave something as delicate as the testicles in such an exposed place, but then a sudden sharp knee to the groin does tend to put on off thoughts of continuing the species, at least for a while, so maybe evolution is on to something after all. However, that would not really help explain why – even after all these thousands of years of evolution - there are still so many twats around.

The Underpants of Anticipation

Elephants!

I'm sure I saw one hiding behind the fridge. Once you get an infestation, they are just so difficult to get rid of, especially if they get into your cupboards. They will eat anything, and everything, especially - of course - raspberry jam.

I don't expect any of this, but I do expect some form of chips when my desire for fish grows on apace. There are rumours of mushy peas out there too. Nurture and protect your pickled onions ere that day arrives.

I cannot expect to go down towards a new take-away without wearing the underpants of anticipation. I recall, only too well, how those anchovies were arranged on your carpet to point towards Huddersfield.

I have seen you naked, except for that hand-knitted Arran cardigan, standing up on the cliffs and staring out across the sea to the far foreign shore, where, I know for certain, you had dreams of Swedish vacuum cleaner repairmen.

I should have taken you away from all this then, and put your wiper blades on my old Ford Anglia. We could have driven off into the sunset, both of us naked except for our cardigans.

Don’t Mention the Penguins

Any further mention of the penguins would be superfluous, including this one. Consequently, I would be most obliged if neither of us mentions them again… except in context, of course.

Well, now, having said that, though, there doesn’t seem much else to say today, beyond denying any involvement with, or by, any penguins in the issue of the day. However, such is the subtle nature of the penguin, they do have a habit of insinuating themselves into many a current affairs issue where one would not normally expect to see quite so many penguins.

Just by way of example, I’m sure such a person of wit, erudition, depth and perspicacity as someone who makes a habit of reading this… thing… will no doubt have noticed how there always seems to be at least a brace of penguins in the background when any politician is interviewed about the issue of the day on Parliament square. Of course, the penguins do go to elaborate lengths to remain unobtrusive, but by its very nature any attempt to seem unobtrusive always draws the attention and the penguins play upon this apparent paradox with all the wiliness we have come to expect from this very subtle flightless seabird.

String Of An Unsuitable Length

But it doesn't happen like that, especially if you do not use the devices. We have all been to Wolverhampton, even without the okapi, and our banjos were never - ever - so out of tune.

Blame it on our chiropodists if you like, but that is what is bound to happen when all your string is of an unsuitable length.

Still, as they say, you can't make a glockenspiel without breaking zebras.

Well, it has been a slow, quiet, day, so we've spent the early morning examining the state of our Rawlplugs and sorting our extensive collection of politician's chins into ascending order of preposterousness.

However, as we still have the ladder and the extensive collection of adult sex toys, it is therefore time to go down to the local library once again. So, if you do happen to hear a persistent buzzing and low semi-muffled groans coming from just behind the Reference shelves, please do come and join in. But, do remember to bring your own Double-Glazing Salesperson, as we do not provide them, at least not on Mondays.

Anyway, so there you have it. Next week it will be The History of Trigonometry, so please stick around.

Sandwiches and their Consequences

Sometimes we do not have quite as many sandwiches as would otherwise be deemed necessary, but wild free-living anarchists that we are we do not feel the need for any government-mandated packed lunch guidelines. We feel – and this may make authoritarians sneer at our presumption – that we are quite capable of making our own decisions about such matters. Furthermore, we find ourselves capable of dealing with the consequences without any counsellor or outreach co-ordinator coming to our assistance, no matter how deep or profound our distress on finding out that the jar of sweet pickle is – in fact – empty.

There have been times too when we have managed to buy shoes for ourselves without having to consult any EU guidelines on shoe buying, or even having to attend any local council-run shopping awareness scheme, or even a session at our neighbourhood Lace-Tiers Anonymous.

In short then, it seems that we are quite capable of doing so many things ourselves, without the interference, or – blasphemous as it may seem - any involvement by the agencies of the state, benevolent or otherwise. Sometimes, foolish as it may seem, it is as though we see ourselves as individuals, responsible for ourselves, and not as mere entities of some state-mandated victim collective that needs a helping hand from some agency or other even to look after ourselves in the way that we see fit.

Still, I suppose it takes all sorts.

Over-Earnestly Trousered Stances

Now, as the weekend is upon us, I turn away from car parks and put all my spanners back into the appropriate compartments. She gets dressed and then pours what remains of the custard down the drain before placing the seedless grapes back in the fruit dish. The working week is once again over for a couple of days.

It is time to pause this talk of goats and helicopters and diversity outreach co-ordinators, penguins and sexual deviance, for, as we all know, the world out there is a serious place, which looks with disdain on all those who would wish to dance through its ponderous days while laughing at the over-earnestness of its seriously-trousered stances.

We have left the stains of freedom over its self-important bed sheets, and left its pillowcases of pontification in complete disarray. We have let slip the hamsters of anarchy across its purposeful hours. And that can no longer be tolerated by the stern-faced Traffic Wardens of Meaningfulness.

So, now the Tax Inspectors of Staid Seriousness are massing at the borders of our small, frivolous, land, waiting, just waiting for me to dare to smear salad cream across her heaving breasts just one more time.

So, until we meet again in the cold early light of yet another Monday morning: Goodnight, ladies. Goodnight.

Keeping the Tadpoles under Our Hats

It now seems – according to recently-published research conducted on behalf of the UN – that we have been paying far too much attention to the tadpoles. Therefore, from here on in, I will not mention them again, that is as long as we all remember to keep them under our hats… as usual.

Still, these days you don’t seem to get as many of the things we get less of these days, at least according to our fallible memories. There was a time when we had all the things we had, and a large bucket to put them in, but we were young then and we still thought that novelty socks were a remarkable achievement of Western civilisation. Oh, if only we had realised at the time, we would not have been so proud of our grouting trowels.

Back then though there was quiche aplenty and the delights of smearing salad dressing across each other’s naked flesh as the sun set over the plastic mouldings factory on the far horizon.

Still, at least, nowadays we do not have to mention the tadpoles, but there remains the problem of pointing out that we are not mentioning them without mentioning them, especially if we have them balanced precariously on our heads underneath our hats.

Sometimes I think our apparent need for excessive bureaucracy involving itself in the minutia of our lives is not as beneficial as some would have us believe.

It Takes Liquorice Allsorts

So, here we stand tea cups at the ready and the thought of fondant fancies at dawn haunting our minds. We have looked into the abyss that is the evening TV schedules of our lives and realised that there will never be enough anchovies now the pizza of all our dreams lies forgotten in some muddy puddle of what is left of our future lives.

Still, having said that, you can’t complain, can you?

After all when all is said and done worse things happen at sea and you have to look on the bright side and… well, you weren’t thinking of going out dressed like that… were you?

Oh.

Still, I suppose it makes all sorts. Speaking of which, have you finished with that liquorice I loaned you when you were talking of re-tiling you bathroom in a style reminiscent of a mid-1960s discotheque, so that you could dance around to the hits of Herman’s Hermits as you towelled yourself off after you bi-annual bath and full re-creosoting.

If not, then I will have no choice but to issue you with this demand for full repayment in the equivalent number of wine gums by the end of the month, if you would be so kind.

All the Time Anyone Could Ever Need

It takes time, but then everything takes time. Everything takes time and does not give it back. The time is gone… gone forever. You will never know what it was she was going to say on that day on the riverbank as you sat together watching the swans sailing by as if they had all the time in the world, all the time anyone could ever need.

She turned away, said it didn’t matter and got up, walked away. Those words remained unsaid, stolen by that moment in time. That time too, must have stolen something from her because she was never the same again, at least not for those last few days before she said goodbye and was gone… gone forever.

Then she was gone, stolen by time and out of reach. You didn’t realise at the time – time again, you see – that it was those words that she had never said, floating away down that river into the past that held the secret.

For days, weeks afterwards you would, whenever you could find the time (time again, it gets everywhere) make your way back to that place on the river. You’d go just to watch the swans swim by, hoping that one day – somehow – that time might float by itself again, and only this time she would turn to you and tell you what was on her mind and – somehow – you’d make it right again.

Time, though, never comes back… and neither did she.

Strip Ludo

There are no reasons here. We left them all on the bus. Over there is the small round thing. It is rather shy, but does like to eat eggcups. I now know the name of your pet Nigel and why it lives like that. May it never again darken the entrance to your car park, Doreen.

Still, though, you have to laugh - that is an order - even when it is naughty to touch the special parts of a lady during the statutory period of mourning. It doesn't matter that you use a special mourning-draped touching stick either. These, though, are things you will learn with time, my little stapling machine. Time and the battery-powered badger. Time, the battery-powered badger and liberally-oiled genitals. It is for your own good, my little stapling machine, and you will thank me for it later,* maybe even returning the favour.

Still, the longer we sit here the more our ice-cream will melt. I have the baton rounds and you have the recently-lubricated llama, so let us go to the garden shed and play strip Ludo once again.

But let us go quickly, my little stapling machine, for the chocolate éclairs are all gone from the shops. It is the time for their annual migration, mighty herds of them stampeding across the plains of Llandudno. So, we too must go soon.

 

*By using the PayPal link in the sidebar.

Riverbank

There is no alternative; this has to go on, day after day; a stream of words that flows, past this point where you stand and watch, like a river flowing on down to the sea of memory. One day these particular words will reach that sea and be lost in the past, become more words amongst so many other words that have flowed past this point and then become lost.

Mostly, you like to sit on the bank and watch the words go by, if not here, then somewhere nearby. It is nice here, though, the words flow by at a gentler pace than at other places on this river. Here they do not rage and storm, run through rapids, or flood the plains. Here it is just a gentle babbling brook that only occasionally rises to a rage. Often it washes something down, something incongruous that seems to have broken off some lose bit of sanity, turning it and twisting it as the water of words eddies and flows so that it becomes absurd, out of place, but perhaps it is those moments that you come here for. You realise though, that they happen less and less often these days as though the stream itself is tired of trying to erode away the foolishness of the world it runs though and that it too is as tired as you are.

Now all it seems to want to do is flow by, leaving you with little to remember or concern yourself with, but – seemingly, more than content – for you to sit there on the bank and watch it quietly pass.

Our Favourite Small Mammals

These days the words will not come, unless the donkey has been well-lubricated. We still laugh at the spanners, but it is nervous laughter now. We know what the eggs will be used for, and what will turn us all into a Hamster of Doom.

Still, that is not what we are here for. It will not help us to wear the necessary ladies underwear, even without the peach and the diving helmet.

Look at that over there!

We do not expect to see such stains on the clean sheets. We are the ones who cannot say the names of our favourite small mammals in mixed company. But we do know the price of heavy-duty axle grease and for what erotic purposes it can be used.

Now you laugh.

Now you cry.

Still I do not go to the shops on Tuesdays.

It is not necessary to wear clothes when you are naked. Even my bank manager is aware of those differences.
"Still," as wise old Norbert Goatdisaster used to say. "It will always rain when the water falls from the sky, and when it is not raining, it doesn't."

These are wise words. Remember them always, my little Cost Accountant.

Add Salt to Taste

Let us take each other firmly by the throat and dance away down to the very fish and chip shops of all we hold dear, now that the sun is setting over the mushy peas of all we once dared dream.

Once, we thought, there would be vinegar aplenty and our chips would have all the salt – with do regard to the strictly enforced government mandated daily allowances thereof - a person with socks to call their own could ever want or need.

Ah, but we were young, young and foolish and we had gambolled ‘til dawn’s early light not realising what political mendacity lay just beyond our horizons, and how what we once thought could be freedom would turn into this dull mundane slog of an existence. An existence where even the salt we dare put on our chips is watched over and a stultified populace knows Big Brother only as a brain-rottingly bland (Un-)Reality TV programme.

It seems that whatever we do, whosoever we vote for, all we will ever get are those who feel it is their duty to tell us what to do, what to say and what to think and – even – how much salt our chips need, irrespective of our own quite legitimate needs or desires.

Extra Fried-Bread

Now the Marsupials of Doom are gathering in all the adjacent car parking facilities of your nearest local shopping centre. So our plans of escape have turned into small amphibious landing craft without adequate sanitary provision. Therefore, we are now like bewildered table-tennis players who stand at the counter in so many late-night kebab shops while penguins haunt the dreams of Scandinavian low-cost short-haul airline pilots.

So far, then, just a typical mundane early February Monday.

But you would be wrong to think that, even though you do tend to favour the wearing of knitwear usually associated with the more-traditional folk singer. Such perspicacity may make you almost irresistible to women, ladyboys and the more-easily beguiled of the smaller rodents, but it does not mean your frozen vegetables are welcome in everyone's freezer.

Hush, my little garlic-press, now it is growing late and we may never have another day as uneventful as this. So, it is time for all brave men - and us cowards too - to go down to the café and order the All-Day Full English Breakfast with Extra Fried-Bread.

Monday Poem: Nothing Else But Stillness

Nothing Else But Stillness

The world will grow so green around us soon
While we wait for time to begin again.
At night, still there are stars against the sky,
And there is sound and there is silence too.
The paradox of stillness within all
This motion, turns all our worlds around us.

This is the shape of things that will fall down
And fade away to the forgetting dust,
Just leaving the barest traces behind,
The fading echoes only of what was.

We thought this time was permanence. We thought
That this was all it now could ever be.
But, there was silence here a time ago.
And there was stillness there, beyond all time.

To these slight forms that fade and then dissolve,
While there is nothing else but stillness here.
And there is nothing else but motion now
As even stillness moves around and shifts.

This needs keeping as though it was once real.
We need the shape of it around our lives
While there are dreams we hold onto, as though
They could then make us real and give a shape

Here is the sky and I can hold it high.
Here is the ground and it is underfoot.
While nothing does ever remain the same
And there is only now and changing still.

There is not much else to say and nowhere
For us to go. There is only the time
that turns, and turns on throughout all our skies.

Our Songs of Loss

We expect only the sound of distances and learn how to sing our songs of loss. We do not remember those songs we used to sing of love and of good times. We no longer do those dances either; dances that told of how life could be good, dances that held out a promise of tomorrow, joyful dances where boy and girl would turn around each other holding hands as though they were dancing each other into a better, brighter, future, dancing into a better world.

These days we only have slow dances; mournful, hesitant, steps that tell only of what is gone, what we have lost. Our songs can only tell of the unreachable distances between where we are now and what once used to be.

Now we only have only the sombre songs and the slow funeral dances. Our words have turn to ash and our homes are cold and barren. We no longer look towards the future and the rising sun with hope and a song we can sing that fills our days with promise. Instead, we can only look back at our sleepless nights and the cold unreachable past and sing these songs of mourning for all we have lost.

Stormy Weather Afoot

Prepare to sellotape your entire collection of semi-professional bewildered stoat auditors to the nearest telephone pole, my little slide-rule, for there is stormy weather afoot and you don’t want to be caught out in a gale in just your pink day-glo wellies and a sou’wester, like last time, do you? For there are times when it is best to be prepared for the worst, as it is always wise to check just who has rung your doorbell before you open it. That is, unless you wish to be caught by the door-to-door god-botherers, and have to spend nearly a minute of your precious time having to send them on their way by making sure they have you marked down in their little books as a godless heathen. Preferably, one who will be one of those they delight in seeing their god - in his infinite love and wisdom – send down to be tormented in eternal pain for all eternity in the very pits of hell, and can’t you just imagine the smiles they’ll greet all that with on their smug little tightly-pinched faces.

However, be that as it may, I do hope you will not find yourself caught in the incoming squalls. Despite your tendency to bang like a cellar door in a hurricane I know you do not like to be caught out in the unpleasant weather that this season almost invariably brings. It can be very unfortunate to be caught out when there is a nip in the air when one is as habitually underdressed for the prevailing weather conditions as you are wont to do.

I know I have often cautioned you about stepping out into the outside world without making sure you have enough ring-spanners for any eventuality that may befall you, but time and again it seems my entreaties have fell on deaf ears. However, I do see that these days – after the incident with the instant custard on the High street, you do carry a tin of mixed fruit cocktail with out on your excursions, so my time has not been entirely wasted, I feel.

The Incident

So, you. You look like the thing you look like. There is no string left here, Doris.

But all the green ones are gone now, eaten with the first chips of the season. Now, only rain falls.

If this were Tuesday, then you would be naked and coated in honey. But we do not have Tuesdays anymore, not since The Incident.

Ah, The Incident. We will never be able to forget. We will never be able to forgive. But, still, life must go on. Someday we will be able to put the container back on that shelf, and the marmoset will learn how to walk again.

It would be best if that did turn out to be the case, but we are no longer allowed to wear the uniform of a marsupial ticket inspector. Not since The Incident.

Now we must go out into the garden, clutching the packet of frozen sprouts against our left knees as we recite the local train timetable for autumn/winter 1957 backwards.

We should never forget how easy it is to remember to forget to remember.

One of Those Days

Well, now, as you are probably more than well aware, today is one of those days. They seem to be happening with increasing regularity these days. It is almost as if the world is conspiring against us, eventually, to turn every day into one of those days.

Of course, back in the good old days, any day that was one of those days was regarded as something exceptional, unusual, something to be remarked upon, something to take notice of. Now though, when it seems at least every other day turns out to be one of those days, it is getting to the point where to even remark upon the fact that today, of all days, is turning out to be one of those days, does start to seem superfluous. After all, we rarely remark upon the fact that the sun rises in the morning, or that the sky is above the ground, because that is the way that it always is. Therefore, to remark upon it would become such a matter of stating the obvious that even a MSM opinion columnist would think twice about making an article from it… maybe.

Consequently, it seems that it soon will become the case that rather than remarking on the fact that today seems to be turning into one of those days, in the very near future we will only make such comments when – after all - it turns out to be that today wasn’t one of those days after all.

A Winter Morning

It is often like that, a moment takes on a special sort of significance, something beyond the ordinary day, which changes everything. It started out much like any other day. It was sunny and unusually warm for a February day.

For years, she had regarded February as the worst month of the year. By the time February came around, she had grown tired of the winter. The grey dull days of February seemed to be endless, following one after the other. Sometimes she felt as though it would never be spring again.

This one Sunday morning seemed different, though. She awoke to the sharp sunlight streaming in through a gap in the curtains with a strong, solid-seeming shaft of light where the dust motes danced languidly.

For some reason she had woken easily and eager. Not at all like her usual reluctant, hesitant surfacing from some deep, dark ocean. She felt reborn in some way, full of life and energy.

She threw back the sheets and stepped straight out of bed and into the beam of sunlight. It felt warm, almost alive on her naked skin.

She pulled back the curtains and stood blinking, but smiling, in the warm light. Outside the grey dull world seemed to have woken up too. It had turned green and light. It too seemed almost eager for the return of spring.

A Dead End

We shall not look upon their like again. This, when all is said and done, is rather a good thing as they were - well… shall we say - one of the less picturesque routes down which evolution had blindly ventured.

Still once we had found a cardboard box large, and sturdy enough, to contain them, it was just a matter of sneaking out deep into the woods at the dead of night and digging a hole deep enough for the aforesaid box. A time and place where we discovered – much to our chagrin – that digging a hole in the dead dark of the night deep in the mordant woods is not quite such an adventure as the films and TV detective programmes would suggest.

Not only that, their screams and pleading as the dirt was heaped back over the securely fastened cardboard box is not something we will easily forget. Nor will we forget their promised offers of rather startling sexual perversions in return for us sparing their rather pointless lives, which will haunt the dark hours of our dreams and nightmares for probably many months to come.

However, moving on to more pertinent, if less illegal matters, it seems that today is World Nothing In Particular Day. This is a day instigated worldwide by the UN, in what they use instead of wisdom, for the leaders of most of the world’s poorest countries to spend what ever international aid they have left over from this year’s budget on nothing in particular. A day when such dictators consider spending their aid donations upon something like another brace of diamond-encrusted solid gold ornamental life-sized helicopters for each of their mistresses, or something equally vital.

Elephant Sack Race

So, this is how it is, and these are the armpits of a Swedish dental receptionist. I saw her wearing waders and a small German hat in Wolverhampton, one Tuesday morning.

This should have been like an elephant hopping towards the finish line in that never to be forgotten sack-race of your nightmares.

I could have trained each of those ferrets to become ambassadors to the Latin American government of your choice. I would have - oh, so willingly - eaten your toast… despite the rumours.

So, that is how it happens and we have to learn how to become like small attachments to use on our electric drills at the stroke of midnight. Some of this is old, some of this is new, but most of it will irritate those of us who would prefer not to be Canadian at such an intimate - and potentially embarrassing - moment, especially with that custard-covered traffic warden in such close proximity.

What else is there, except a small device we can utilise to insert peanuts into the nostrils of our more prominent media celebrities?

I should have known about times like these before I spread the peach slices all over the dental hygienist.

The Very Paintbrushes of the Soul

Let us tarry no longer, my little lava lamp, let us go and dip our brushes into the pot together and turn this whole world white (with a hint of apple), or let us go hand-in-hand to emulsion all we see into a nice shade of magnolia, ere we grow a day older.

Once we were young and had dreams of wallpapering this world with truth, beauty and justice, but now our dreams of a DIY world made good never go beyond a swift perusal of the DIY Superstore catalogues that fall like tears though our letterbox, promising us a domestic nirvana the like of which we almost dare not look upon. We know though, now we are older, wiser and a little less flexible about the knees, that such young dreams will remain forever beyond the mere paintbrushes of all we can afford… or hope to one day possess.

We know our paint trays will know nothing of those luxurious thick paints that flow like molten gold and leave our walls like those of the palaces of kings, emperors and the more ruthless dictators. We will be lucky to have that thin gruel of discount warehouse paint that covers our walls like the dribbling piss of incontinent hamsters and leaves us with the hairless, hard brushes of disappointment.

Still, even though we are no longer so young, we can sit on our stepladders with a hot bacon sandwich each… and dream.