tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30136126149203394262024-02-20T09:38:04.891+00:00My girlfriends and other animals - A NovelWhilst on holiday at Barry Island Butlins William is defiled by the sight of two fully formed and unrestrained breasts. During a three legged race for women with child bearing hips, William’s downfall and the destruction of so many innocent lives ensues.TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-87649143417146338982012-02-29T11:14:00.001+00:002012-02-29T11:14:48.552+00:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapter Eight</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jackie Wilson - Reet petite -Christmas number one for four weeks -1986</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Emma was true to her word and didn’t mention our Thompson Twin moment to anyone. In fact we never spoke to each other again until, quite by chance I spotted her walking down Hammersmith high street in London, but that’s for later.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black;">By chance, oh come come my innocent one. Nothing is by chance. It’s all part of the plan, mapped out </span></span></i><span style="color: black;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black;">worlds ago. So sweet and unsullied</span></span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was off to the Edinburgh festival. A group of 'the most promising student actors' in the country had been chosen to form part of a crème-de-la-crème theatre company. Four weeks of rehearsals in Bloomsbury and we were off to perform in St. Margaret’s theatre, Princess Street. Mothers embarrassment more commonly known as my Triumph Dolomite accompanied me to Birmingham where Romeo and Mercutio clambered into the back seat.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘But you assured William he would be playing Benvolio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The five excuses for characters you have offered him have no integral relevance to the play and indeed in Peter Brooks’ adaptation at the National three of them were cut completely’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Mother had a point.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘We’ll have to think about it’ and mother slammed the phone down, well, replaced the receiver firmly, she never actually slammed anything. ‘Slamming doors and telephones William is the curse of the ignorant or at the very least families who claim Social Security’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Mother I really think I should accept their offer, some of the greatest actors started off with the smallest parts’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Well if you think so William, but at least they know you won’t be pushed around’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Whatever you say Mother’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I now had Prince Escalus, Peter, two spear-carriers, the Apothecary, Mercutio and Romeo tucked into my dolomite, the first five characters being the challenging one liners I had accepted.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We were on tour for three weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each day the same as the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wake up at eleven, shower, arrive at the theatre no later than noon, (actually arrive at half twelve), get bollocked by Director for total lack of professionalism, Curtain up at one, Curtain down at four, strike set, leave theatre at five, pick up fish and chips and can of McEwen’s export, back to flat, sleep ‘til midnight, out to Fringe Club, stagger<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>back home at four, sleep, wake up at eleven, theatre by twelve (actually arrive at twelve thirty), another bollocking from the Director and so it went on. Groundhog day was alive and well and living somewhere in the backstreets of Edinburgh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I started the tour weighing eleven stone. By the last performance I had ballooned to a bloated twelve stone six pounds. Anyone seeing the first and last performance would have thought the company had changed actors.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Prince Escalus certainly enjoys his pies’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘He kind of resembles that other actor we saw a few weeks ago’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Perhaps he’s got an overactive thyroid’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I can hear you, you bastards’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By the last performance everyone was so exhausted that concentration levels were not strictly as they should have been, which was a shame because the Director nearly spontaneously combusted when ending what had up to then been a fairly decent run, Prince Escalus who would normally close the play by saying:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘…</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">’ decided that endings were all well and good, but why not tinker with them, just a little. Obviously Billy had intended his very last lines to coincide with the same iambic pentameter that the rest of his play had taken.’Tale of woe…Juliet and Romeo’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nice rhyme, thank you, and goodnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However it was the last performance and my mind was firmly elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact it was firmly in the Fringe Club two nights ago with Rachael Martini the flautist with the Scottish Special Needs philharmonic Orchestra.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Prince Escalus is standing centre stage with Romeo and Juliet dead and the rest of the cast who were still awake looking on sorrowfully.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘For never was a story of more woe than this of Romeo and his Julio’!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Julio! Who the fuck was Julio? Well I had to think fast. From the moment it left my lips I knew Juliet didn’t rhyme with Woe so who better than her half sister and soon to be lady boy, Julio! Not quite the rhyming couplet the bard had in mind, but a good alternative ending I thought.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was at this point I could feel the eyes of the entire cast burning into me. Even Romeo’s eyes opened and stared at me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I would have got away with it had it not been for Mercutio beginning to shake uncontrollably.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Romeo tried to suppress his joy at my misfortune and began what to the audience must have looked like convulsions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mercutio spotted Romeo, Romeo spotted Mercutio and the pair of them broke into insuppresible laughter, tears streaming down their unprofessional faces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The curtain came down faster than usual accompanied by sporadic clapping from the twenty three people who made up the audience.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘What in fuck’s name was that?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Director asked quizzically. ‘Our tale of woe…of Romeo and Julio! Fucking Julio! The cross dressing brother of Juliet ? You total fucking fuck wit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, I can just about accept you fucking up your words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happens, but what the fuck do you think you were fucking playing at’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Director was now frothing at the mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘You, fucking Romeo’ Romeo was still wiping the tears from his face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Romeo and Juliet have just died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not fucking alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I don’t know about you fuckers, and I’m not a doctor, but I would suggest that most dead people are not in a fit state to start pissing themselves with laughter’ That was the cue for Romeo and Mercutio to run out of the theatre howling with laughter.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘That’s right</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, rats and sinking ships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bastards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’d shown the same commitment to your performances, we might have got nearer a Perrier Award rather than just drinking the fizzy piss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll never work in Edinburgh again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll see to that’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He was right; Romeo and Mercutio never did work in Edinburgh again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Romeo went on to become an Insurance salesman, and Mercutio was last seen in Hamley’s as Mr Magic, demonstrating card tricks and illusions. </span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-64148943489944180282012-02-05T21:56:00.000+00:002012-02-05T21:56:24.079+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> <div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Chapter Seven</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><strong>The Thompson Twins</strong></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The summer holidays were coming to an end and I’d spent most of them working with Father driving for the council and selling Aluminium down the tip. Having fucked up my end of year exams yet again I had to retake during the holidays which was a real pisser as it meant I actually had to buy some books and furthermore, read the buggers! Luckily Letts revision notes were available on Nineteenth Century Metaphysical Poets which meant I didn’t have to read the boring fuckers. The money I managed to save whilst working with Father was put towards my first car, a red Triumph Dolomite with Walnut inlay dashboard, leather seats and wooden steering wheel.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bazzer, the fat lad who had nearly won an Oscar for his appearance in a Colgate ad on East Anglia TV had given me the nod that the college super model Emma Eccles was going to be back a week early and staying in his flat.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘And why does that affect me?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘It doesn’t.’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Well why mention it then?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘No reason. She did say though she’d never seen a golden frog before’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that was all it took. I packed my car, said my tearful goodbyes. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Cheerio then Mother’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘And don’t park that monstrosity anywhere near here again. Mrs Cameron reported it as being abandoned. The shame of …’</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s like shelling peas from a pod. Oh the joy of watching it all unfold. Have you ever stood dominoes on their end and watched them fall. They can’t help themselves. Keep going my child, you’re making an old man very happy.</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Stereo which only played every other word and wouldn’t awake from its slumber <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>until you balanced a can of Fosters on the top of it finally spluttered ‘Everybody wants to rule the world’ by <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tears for Fears or as I had come to know it, ‘… wants… rule…world’. Waving and smiling at Mother as she continued to rant about the Shame I and my Dolomite had brought upon the neighbourhood I took one last look in my rear view mirror and felt life streaming back into my constrained and withered veins.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As ‘You are entering Cheshire’ greeted me at seventy miles per hour Morrisey warned me about the perils of dating a girlfriend in a coma. The can of Fosters precariously balanced on the stereo was having the desired effect enabling my tape deck to work without chewing up every cassette I owned.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My plan had been hatched and finely tuned. I was to knock on the front door, feign surprise when Emma Eccles opened it, giggle a little, say something witty, she would find me totally irresistible and voila.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh hello Emma, I didn’t realise you were here. Is Bazzer in?’ Knowing full well he wasn’t due back until Friday.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘No, he’s not back ‘til Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m house sitting for the week, until he gets back’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh I see. I’ll be off then’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Brilliant! What a pillock. Emma shut the door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bollocks.There had to be a backup plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dickie Attenborough always had at least three tunnels in case the Germans discovered one. I knocked the door again.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Bazzer said I could borrow his Best of the Thompson Twins LP’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh right, do you know where it is?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘He said in his bedroom somewhere’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Come on in then and take a look’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘If you’re sure?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘I’m sure’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Excellent. Only if you’re sure?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Well I think I’m sure’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Super’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jackpot; the enemy within. It was all very well gaining entry, but what was I going to do when I found or didn’t find the Best of the Thompson twins LP.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Any luck?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Not yet’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Do you want a cup of tea?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Smashing, thanks’ Stop saying smashing Will.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Germans had fallen for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now all that was left was the capture of the secret decoder, followed by a swift escape over the border to Austria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘What are you doing here so early?’ Emma enquired.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was the obvious question really, one I should have been prepared for. Dickie wouldn’t have found himself lost for words.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘What are you doing in Germany?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘William -72541- Corporal’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Answer my question you schwine hunt’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Will, why have you come back so early?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Will, twenty one, brown eyes’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘What?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Um, sorry, to borrow Bazzers Thompson twins LP’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘You came back to college a week early to borrow a record’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Yeah, it’s a very important record, as far as records go, it’s a picture disk and they only made two of them and if I don’t get it…can I use the toilet?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There were droplets of sweat forming on my forehead and above my top lip. I plunged my face into the half full sink of icy water and stared into the mirror.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s a picture disk…pathetic…what the hell are you going to do now…she must think you’re bloody nuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tell her why you’re here…be a man…you’re here because you knew she’d be here and you’re going to give her what’s what.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Think Will. What would Dickie have done? In the Great Escape they had three tunnels: Tom, Dick and Harry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tom and Harry had been discovered. I was left with no alternative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dick was my only way out!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Emma, I didn’t come back early for the Thompson twins, I came back because I knew you…’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I stopped dead in mid-sentence, my mouth trawling for plankton and my body a Medusa masterpiece.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Emma was lying on Bazzers oversized bean bag, two Thompson twins singles ‘Doctor Doctor ‘and ‘Love on your side ‘ covering her ample and what I assumed were perfectly proportioned breasts. Their other hit,’You take me up’ strategically positioned. Apart from those three vinyl songs of eighties genius all trace of what presumably was once clothing had vanished.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Shall we listen to these now or later?’</span></div>
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</span>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-11497769073011503032012-01-29T22:22:00.000+00:002012-01-29T22:22:13.525+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I’ll come quietly’ and with that Katy offered both wrists to the officer to handcuff.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You too’ said the understandably and less than delighted officer.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘But I hardly know her officer. I’ll just get my golden frog and be on my way’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Leave the frog, you’re coming to the station’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As I sat in the back of the Panda, Katy up front and flirty with our arresting officer, a walkie-talkie, yellow fluorescent jacket , log book, handcuffs and truncheon<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lay unattended next to me . How it all managed to get stuffed under my dress shirt is still a scientific mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admittedly I looked two stone heavier<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>than when I got into the car, but Katy’s new aficionado certainly didn’t notice, as he was far too preoccupied trying to avoid another accident whilst having his left thigh squeezed by a paralytic Scotswoman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By the end of her interrogation Katy had succeeded in seducing our arresting officer (now referred to as Ben) who had fallen hook, line and sinker for Katy’s womanly ways, and had agreed to give both her and I a lift back to the college campus.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Thank you Ben.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve been very kind and understanding about it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See you in the 'Pissed as a newt' on Saturday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kissy, kissy’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Kissy, Kissy? How on earth did you get away with that?’ I said incredulously.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘If we’d made it to the copse you’d have found out’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Walking back to the three bedroom house where me, Mel, the gang and thirty eight other students lived, Katy’s Blue Nun really began kicking in. Voices in my head filled every step. It was like tuning into FM and only getting Medium Wave. I began running to shake off the crackling invaders but they wouldn’t leave me alone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.’ Mel was quite rightly concerned for my welfare as the last time she had spoken to me I was going to get her a packet of dry roasted nuts – that was 6 hours ago!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You prick’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Good to see you too Dave’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Dickhead’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Hi Wends’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Cock’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Yep’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It appeared the whole gang had stayed with Mel to lend moral support.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Wanker’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘That’s it. Night all’.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I slammed the bedroom door and collapsed on the bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mel thanked the gang for their support when there was loud knock on the door. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Morning madam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry to disturb you so late, but we have reason to believe that you have something that belongs to us’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Bravo two tango…’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Police accompanied by Mel and the Gang listened intently as they followed Bravo two tango into my bedroom and under the duvet. Dave began rummaging<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>around inside my dress shirt causing involuntary spasms of giggling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘This is not a laughing matter sir.’ </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I’m not laughing, I’m giggling’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was at that point that two offices persuaded Dave to step aside, one holding my arms above my head as he straddled me, the other ripping open my dress shirt.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Bit forward aren’t ya. I don’t even know your names?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was my ‘Midnight Express’moment, but instead of finding fifty kilos of hashish strapped to my abdomen out popped the log book, fluorescent jacket, handcuffs, truncheon and finally the Walkie Talkie. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I promise I haven’t stuffed anything up my arse’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘He just gets a little over excited at times.’ Mel loved me unconditionally.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘He’s also a complete and utter knob’. Fair to say the gang didn’t share Mel’s unqualified emotion.</span></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-7076843960637579822012-01-22T21:04:00.000+00:002012-01-22T21:04:28.055+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Katy McTavish, a slightly rotund third year Special Education student yanked my arm and dragged me to the car park. Ordinarily I would have refused Katy’s advances, but tonight Katy had something that no-one else had. Tonight Katy was the new messiah. Tonight Katy had a room temperature bottle of blue nun.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Where are we going’? Not at all interested in the reply as I salivated at the thought of my parched and cracked lips being moistened by Katy's naughty Fraulein.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘I’m taking you to a quiet little place I know at the edge of the copse’ Whispered Katy in a sort of unnerving Misery Chastain sort of way, still yanking me towards her Datsun Sunny.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">'I'm your number one fan'</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Katy, can you try and stay on the right side of the road? I think the cars coming the other way would sort of appreciate it’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh, don’t be such a wee girl and open the wine’</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Katy, for God’s sake get back on this side of the road, you’re going to kill us’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘O flower of Scotland’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Please Katy’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When will we see your like again’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘I’m begging you Katy’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘That fought and died for your wee bit hill and glen’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘I dont want to die Katy'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘And stood against him’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘Would you like me to touch you’?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘Proud Edward's army’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘Would you like to touch me’? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">‘And sent him homeward tae think again’ Katy's Private Fraser stare bore into my very soul with her maniacal gaze. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">As Katy began laughing uncontrollably my thumb forced the cork deep into the Blue Nun </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">causing an enormous eruption to explode over us both, the sudden shock jolting my head violently against the passenger window.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">'Please let me go Katherine'? I was now blubbering like a baby, tears merging with droplets of room temperature Riesling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span> </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We swerved violently as Katy struggled to keep control. Blue lights from the car on what should have been the opposite side of the road to us, but was now the same side of the road as us alerted me to the fact that if death didnt get us first then we were probably in a spot of bother. As we flew past the flashing blue lights Katy waved.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘For fuck sake Katy what are you doing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re pissed out of your head, I’m covered in Blue Nun and you’ve just waved at a police car’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh you big pansy they’ll never catch us’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘What’!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As my cheeks began to suck in and out like astronauts approaching G-force, images of my childhood flashed before me; Bouncing on my orange Spacehopper, lazy hot summer days in the paddling pool, egg and cress sandwiches, hula hoops, fizzy Tizer, count Dracula lollies that made your tongue go black, Tucker Jenkins, Valerie Singleton.’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“’Dear Lord, Please forgive me for I knew not what I did’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘They’ll never find us in here’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As we smashed into the archway that normally led to the car park of the ‘Pissed as a Newt’ public House, Katy’s Datsun estate quickly became Katy’s Datsun Saloon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My legs neatly tucked under my chin. The police car pulled up alongside our now very stationary vehicle, Katy wound down her window.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Don’t say a word Katy. Let me do the talking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just don’t say another word’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘I’ve had a teeny weenie bit too much to drink officer’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh fuck it’</span></div>
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</span></span>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-26080327285380089282012-01-15T23:08:00.001+00:002012-01-15T23:20:46.916+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Chapter Six</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Blue Nun</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Flying Pickets – Only you – 1983</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I should have realised. Three years living and sleeping with the same person yet never actually consummating the union. I should have realised. Fiddly diddly, but never actually docking and shaking hands with the Cosmonauts! I should have realised. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We, that’s the gang (‘Wye aye Dave’, ‘Take no shit Yorkshire’, ‘Up the revolution Wends’, ‘Posh southern twat ME’ and ‘Too bloody lovely for her own good Mel’), did everything together, drank, partied, partied, drank, drank and partied, studied (occasionally). The fact I was having a sexual relationship with a tube of hand cream didn’t really seem to bother me. So here’s the thing. Mel and I would do all the usual things, all the fiddling, but that final push to the Promised Land, well it just never happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously I took this as a huge compliment, believing my weapon to be of such proportions that any girl would naturally recoil in horror and so in order to maintain some sort of status quo and semblance of normality coitus would become a kind of simulated affair. Not dissimilar to when you have one of those cinema hot dogs and you’ve been a little over zealous with the mustard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out came the hand cream, massage nether regions, Pearl and Dean intermission and out with the hot dog; A sort of rubbing, sliding, slipping kind of masturbation. And yet did we care? The gang were in the middle of its arty farty poncy utopia and the rest of the modern world could piss off. If Mel and me or Wends and me or the whole bloody lot of us wanted to cover our genitals in salad dressing then so be it. It was art and we had convinced ourselves it mattered.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“And the winner for best actor is…William for his portrayal of Hamlet”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was a sultry July evening with just a hint of jasmine and the unmistakable aroma of hashish floating on summer’s forgotten memories. My first year at the ‘Down and Out’ College of Further Education was coming to an end with the end of year Oscar’s held in the dance studio. Dressed in our dinner suits courtesy of Oxfam and the Sue Ryder Home, I had just received the ‘golden frog’ for best actor. All those rehearsals in Karen’s (COW), let it go Will, parents front room blubbering to Rose Royce had fully prepared me for such an occasion.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘I’m overwhelmed by this award, although fully deserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d firstly like to thank my Director Dave whose total lack of direction allowed me to explore my character in my own way and bring something to the stage never before seen in this part of Cheshire; My fellow actors who stood by me on stage mesmerised by such a monumental performance, and of course my mother for marching me down the job centre and allowing me to fully express my inner passion at this wonderful college of advancement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I dedicate this award to me for all the bloody hard work I put in researching and rehearsing such a challenging, yet ultimately rewarding part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank you all so much’. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Bloody good speech old boy”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Super acting”, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“You deserved it”. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“You showed such…charisma”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">They loved me, the critics, the paying public and my fellow thespians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ok, so we were all first year undergrads pissing our grant up against the wall in the name of Art, but allow me my dreams, for what are we without our dreams?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The ceremony over we moved into the Mandela Centre for a sumptuous feast. Alright, we moved into the Mandela Centre, (normally our canteen and fag break area) for Pasties and whatever booze we could find.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The evening was taking on its familiar look. Dazzler, the fat boy who had been in an advert for Anglia TV, had trapped some poor unsuspecting fine art student, recanting the merits of Colgate dental floss, the product he almost won a best actor in an advert in the Anglia region for. The Steve Biko Society were huddled in one corner of the room planning their next direct action The dancers were still in their black leotards and brightly coloured leg warmers and were as ever plieing and demi-plieing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The jocks (rugby team), now true to form were dipping their cocks into the hookers pint of Guinness whilst he was away in the bogs chucking up last nights vindaloo. All in all a fairly typical and unexceptional end of term bash. That should have been the end of it. The gang should have gone home and I should have cuddled up with my ‘golden frog’. That’s what should have happened, but she had to go and make an appearance. I didn’t want her there, I hadn’t invited her, but she was in no mood to take ‘NO’ for an answer. Provocative and brazen she sidled up to me with that unmistakable look of hers. Wet slim and ready to erupt as soon as I touched her slender form. I twitched uncontrollably as she slipped into my trembling hands. Mel had gone home early, the gang were nowhere to be seen, I had just won a ‘golden frog’ for fuck sake. We looked at each other with that look. That look that can only mean one thing. The consequences of that German forthrightness were to leave a devastating mark on us all. A bottle of room temperature Blue Nun can do that to you.</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-61754568095286711942012-01-08T21:21:00.001+00:002012-01-08T21:21:25.987+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Karen's parents were away on a six-week Hoseason self catering cruise giving us the freedom to play happy couples in between hours of endless revision. As we lay in each other’s arms, she with taught boyish buttocks nestled into the faux fur oversized bean bag, me my trembling buttocks precariously hanging on for dear life in fear of sliding off the tactile slope of happiness, we dreamt of all the awards we would one day pick up.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘And this year’s Oscar winners for their portrayal of Spear Carriers number one and two in Spielberg’s ‘Encounters of the third Spear’ goes to William and Karen now joined at the pelvis who share best actor and actress since becoming inseparable due to Karen’s surgical detachment from Chris (previously known singularly and collectively as ‘Chris and Karen’) and whose reattachment to William (soon to be known singularly and collectively as Will and Kaz) has created a quite outstanding tour de force. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>APPLAUSE.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Thank you all so much, we’d like to thank everyone we’ve ever known’ and so it went on. We were blissfully happy, blissfully unaware, blissfully self indulgent, we were so full of bliss, when out of the blue I received a telephone call from a college I’d auditioned for earlier in the year.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘We keep some places back for students who really impressed us at interview and we’d like to offer you a place to read English and Drama’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t believe it. Somebody actually wanted me. I’d finally impressed someone. But this college was number seventeen on my list of places I never wanted to study at. Not if they were the last college on earth would I contemplate going there.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">'Thanks very much, when would you like me to start?'</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I later found out that of course there were no places kept back for exceptional auditionees , only places left over they couldn’t fill and rather than leave empty and risk losing funding they filled them with the thicko’s and total wasters who ordinarily the college wouldn’t <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>touch with a barge pole .</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I told Karen of my imminent departure she was devastated beyond devastation. Hours upon heartbroken hours were spent crying and kissing, kissing and crying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fate had thrown us together and fate would cruelly tear us apart. We didn’t need a University to teach us about life. Karen’s parents Rose Royce album was our Alma Mater, showering us with wisdom and guidance. Our tears cascaded onto the vinyl of despair as ‘love don’t live here anymore’ comforted us with its prophetic musings.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I left the following Friday bound for Crewe, Karen came to see me off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cried some more, our tears now threatening to become cavernous stalagmites. We told each other we’d never find another love like ours, that one day we’d meet again and whatever life threw at us we were now singularly and collectively as one. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well what a load of bollocks that all was! The Friday evening of the Friday afternoon of the most devastating Friday of our Singular and collective lives saw heartbroken Karen in attendance at David Bartletts ‘going away’ bash with fifty other successful undergraduates who were all looking ahead to a place at one of their top three chosen Universities. Obviously the emotion of total devastation and loss for me had overwhelmed Karen to such an extent that she quite understandably felt the need to seek comfort, legs wrapped around David, his hairy white arse pumping for all his worth.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> I just wish I had found this out at the beginning of term rather than at the end and certainly prior to buying Athena’s entire cuddly toy department on my newly acquired credit card. Cow!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a way I think she was far too nice a person to tell me to my face ,that I’d only ever been a fill-in during the summer holidays, and that in a strange way she was helping by allowing me to run up hundreds of pounds on my credit card on twenty seven <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>assorted stuffed bears. COW! Mother was furious of course when the statement arrived and promptly cut up my four and half weeks of independence. For the next three years I would receive an allowance by recorded delivery to be picked up at the bursars lodge on the last day of every month. On the days it was supposed to arrive and didn’t my culinary skills were put to good use varying my diet from dry Shreddies to Shreddies with brown sauce. But what did it matter? What did any of it matter? I was at my seventeenth choice of further education and ready to study… get pissed…and study…get paralytic…and study… rekindle my acquaintance with my donkey derby friend.</span></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-14410172639809493682012-01-03T18:45:00.002+00:002012-01-03T19:23:09.416+00:00<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">William returns on Sunday 8th January 2012 having been kidnapped by Katy McTavish who attempts to outrun the local constabulary in her Purple Datsun Sunny after consuming the entire German National reserve of Blue Nun... </span></span>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-60760350302929531682011-12-18T21:15:00.000+00:002011-12-18T21:40:19.225+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span><strong>Chapter 5</strong></span></div>
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<span><strong>Love don’t live here in anymore</strong></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘<span style="color: #444444;">Oh bollocks, shit, piss and tits’</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #666666;">An apt expression of disappointment I thought, having just received my A-Level results.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #666666;">One ‘E’ in Theatre Studies, an ‘F’ (FAIL) in English Literature and the piece de resistance, a ‘U’ (The examiner couldn’t even be bothered to continue reading such a depressing effort – UNGRADED) in Humanities. Not quite Oxbridge material, in fact not quite anything material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mother might want to have a little chat about it some</span>time.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘That’s the end of your life then, before it’s even begun. Ruined. No future, no hope, no nothing. Get your coat; you’re coming down the job centre with me’</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘No I’m bloody not’</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">As Mother pushed open the doors of the job centre, all I could see were hundreds of what appeared to be homeless down and outs.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘Alright mate, pick up your sleeping bag, and join the other fuck wits who failed their A-Levels’</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘Ticket number 207’</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">I was shaken from my nightmare by the tannoy calling my number. Every meaningful juncture in my life was filled with bloody tannoys only this time there were no errant breasts or adults dressed in coats of red.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘My son William has just received less than favourable examination results and would like to sign up with your agency’. Delivered in Mother’s telephone voice, without the aid of a telephone.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘What can William do?’ replied Jennifer with laconic disinterest that mockingly mirrored my economical and concise Humanities paper.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘Act!’</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘I beg your pardon?’</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘Got any acting jobs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got an ‘E’ in Theatre Studies’</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">Mother was surprisingly understanding.</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">‘I have never been so humiliated in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Act indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as we get back home you’re to telephone Reading Technical College and find out when you can retake your examinations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’ll be no gallivanting with your friends, not that you’ll be able to as they will all be off to university’</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">The next eight months were not looking particularly rosy.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #444444;">How I got involved with Karen, more commonly known as ‘Chris and Karen’ (joined at the pelvis) I still to this day do not know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However I must have made her laugh or she really liked boys who could only see out of one eye due to their hair obscuring the vision from the other, either way fate brought us together and I ended up spending the majority of the summer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at her parent’s house, revising! </span></span></div>
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</span></span>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-67891234306159695762011-12-16T20:03:00.000+00:002011-12-16T20:03:49.522+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #444444;"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ empathetically enquired Adrian in total harmony with my inner turmoil.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘She had five before I even got a look in’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘What are you talking about?’ </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘That night at Fiddler’s, the bastard, we were supposed to be…just me and her’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘And!’ exclaimed Rob ‘it was supposed to be just her and me until you decided that delivering my bloody rose gave you automatic entry into the land of whatever you sodding well fancied.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Well I’m sorry about that, but I didn’t enter into the land of whatever I sodding well fancied. Admittedly I wanted to, but she was the one who decided to hold an all comers party and don’t act so coy, you were one of them!’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I didn’t even see Gillian that night, not until she came crying down the stairs after you’d upset her’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I counted five of you total gits, all boasting about how long it had lasted and what positions you’d ended up in…bastards’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Will, we’d bought Fiddler one of those blow up sheep. We were pissing about and trying to outdo each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We thought you’d seen it in his parent’s room’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s when the pause of all pauses hit me; that special moment of realisation, the epiphany to end all epiphanies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Oh fuck what have I done?’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gillian and I didn’t see each other again for close to ten years. When I did bump into her outside the Hawaiian bar in Slough I tried to explain how I thought she was a blow up a sheep and that Gavin the Fanny shouter along with Fiddler’s parents’ Harveys Bristol Cream had altered my otherwise caring and sensitive disposition. The fact that in Gillian’s eyes I’d had ten years to think up such a ridiculous and pathetic excuse didn’t seem to impress her.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You were a wanker then Will, and you’re still a wanker.’</span></div>
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</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-46115810963128206072011-12-14T11:53:00.000+00:002011-12-14T12:12:31.429+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">The Sir John Barleycorn was a beautiful quintessential English country public house. Set back along a disused dirt track and nestled between a cohort of tall fir trees and great gnarled oaks. Only patrons with endless time and money took to navigating the desolate pathway that lead to the entrance of the Sir John. Octogenarians in charge of killing machines blazed along the dusty highway oblivious to the destruction they were causing. Young children, beloved pets and barely mobile elderly could be seen throwing themselves into hedgrows in fear of their lives as the mobility Grand Prix tore past them in dribbled anticipation at the refuelling of its aged and wizened navigators. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">It had been a week since Fiddler’s party and we were all meeting up for a very civilised country drink. We were a bit chameleon that way. Being brought up ‘Middle Class’ (The ‘Middle Class’ that meant ‘Middle Class’ and not the ‘Middle Class’ that the ‘Working Class’ adopted as soon as shopping in John Lewis became accessible to everyone) meant you pretended to be anti-establishment by wearing zips on your Corduroy, whilst taking full advantage of a privileged upbringing and borrowing your mothers VW Golf to quaff lager and lime and the occasional floater coffee at some out of the way country retreat.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">All was well for the first hour. I was playing darts with Adie, Bob was trying to put his little finger through as many beer mats as he could pile on top of one another and Nobby, Farter and Sandy were seeing how many dry roasted peanuts they could balance inside one ear. All in all we were having a very nice unassuming middle England time of it.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Take the bait my friend and let the music play. You are mine and I am yours. Let our greatness shine upon the non believers. It is time’</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">Nobody told me, not one of my MATES had warned me. As I pulled out my last dart and turned to pick up my lager and lime, there standing at the bar was Gillian. Not on her own, but laughing and looking in that way that says ‘I think everything you say is absolutely hilarious, say some more you very, very funny man’. Who had she snared this time?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘I didn’t think there was anybody left’ I muttered under my breath.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Alright Will, can I get you a drink?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Thanks, another lager and lime, cheers Fiddler”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">Fiddler! The same Fiddler that she’d chucked months before Rob had entered the land of jam and honey. Fiddler, hard as nails punk rocker Fiddler who only referred to me as ‘Knob’ as we passed on the stairs of inequity? Fiddler who was now wearing an Aaron jumper and beige chinos?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">That was it, I wasn’t about to have my bloody face rubbed in it.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Scotch, no ice, i’ll bloody teach her. Whiskey please…make it a double. Another scotch and make it a bloody large one…don’t tell me what to do, just give me the bottle’. Satan’s mouthwash cut the throat of inhibition leaving him lifeless and drained of colour. The show was about to begin and I had a full house to entertain. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Ha, ha, that’s so funny.’ Gillian could barely contain her over exaggerated drool for Fiddler’s every ridiculous utterance.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘We’re going on a picnic on Sunday to the Berkshire Downs, do you fancy coming?’ asked Fiddler as he smoothed the crease on one leg of his chinos.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘That’d be really great thanks, I’d love to.’ replied Gillian now quite unable to contain a high pitched giggle that seeped from her pouting and luscious lips.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">That was it. Those tossers had pushed me over the edge. Going on a picnic? Fiddler was about as punk as Boy George.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">You can’t help but see the funny side of it can you? A pathetic picked upon lonely masturbator to this. You really have come an awfully long way my friend’</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">As I climbed onto the table I knocked over some stuffy cow’s Gin & Tonic.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Oh, I say young man, look what you’ve done’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Oh I am sorry, would you like me to lick it up for you?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"> ‘Oh, I’ve never been so insulted. I shan’t stay here and be insulted’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Good, well fuck off and be insulted somewhere else’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">Fiddler tried to grab me, but I managed to move away just in time, leaving him sprawling on the adjoining table, face first in some bloated Octogenarians beef and ale pie.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘Has anyone here seen a slut?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">I was really going for it now. Rob and Farter had hold of both my legs and were trying to tug me off the table.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"> ‘Come on don’t be shy. Surely someone here has seen a slut. That’s very disappointing. Still no one, well let me help you out. Here’s a slut’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">The room fell silent as I pointed directly at Gillian. By now the scene resembled a second year food fight. Fiddler was wiping bits of beer and gravy from his face. Mrs. G&T was struggling to start her mobility scooter and I was delivering my sermon from the mount with Gillian moments away from emptying the entire contents of her Kahlua and milk all over my head.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘It’s only a pound…roll up, roll up and if you’re lucky you may not have to wait for sloppy seconds…number six, that’s me…six in one night…introducing the one and only…whore’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">And with that Gillian’s Kahlua exploded into my face. The landlord, with the help of two locals, Farter, Nobby and Rob, carried me face down and unceremoniously dumped me onto the car park shingle.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">‘He’s banned…for life!’ said the landlord as he fingered his heavily Bryl creamed hair neatly back to its former glory. ‘I don’t ever want to see him or you around here again, do you understand? One other thing. Did she really have six in one night’? </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;">And with that they bundled me into the back of Mother’s VW Golf.</span><br />
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</div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-9615071504396403472011-12-07T22:34:00.001+00:002012-01-03T14:00:18.715+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">'It's no good casting out devils. They belong to us, we must accept them and be at peace with them' D.H. Lawrence.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">William takes a rest and will return on Wednesday 14th December.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thanks for following and see you all next week.</span><br />
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</div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-53644870356222210282011-12-04T18:38:00.001+00:002011-12-04T18:53:50.899+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I looked back into the kitchen. Gavin had vanished and as I walked towards the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>foot of the stairs a maniacal inhuman gut wrenching laugh filled the room. I was twelve tiny steps away from docking with the cosmonauts. As I went up, Fiddler came down, passing me on the fourth step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Alright Fiddler’?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘What’s it to you?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Nothing, sorry to bother you’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Well Good luck anyway, nice cords, knob’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I continued to climb the fifth and sixth step. It hit me on the seventh. Why was Fiddler wishing me ‘luck’? I had been aware of a steady stream of my ‘mates’ slipping upstairs at fifteen minute intervals, returning looking flushed and with a grin as big as the proverbial Cheshire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was I about to become just one of the many or was I one of the chosen few?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was I just a complete and utter knob for thinking Gillian could possibly want anything to do with an eleven stone stick insect? I began to come over all queasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My stomach was churning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To think I had fooled myself into believing that Slow motion Gillian and I were to become an item. An item like Chris and Karen, fellow sixth formers joined at the pelvis who no longer had their own single identity and were now forever acknowledged individually and collectively as ‘Chris and Karen’. As I climbed the stairs my mind went back to Rob’s love poem; ‘…my love unbound, it cost me a pound’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Is that what he meant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not the rose, but love’s first union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had he paid for Gillian’s services? Had all the flushed and pimply gits, who were now swapping sordid stories in Fiddler’s living room, paid for their pleasure?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I entered the bedroom, my eyes immediately became transfixed to the single bed, unmade and crumpled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t want </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">to look, I wanted to act as if the situation were as normal to me as getting up in the morning, but<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whatever I did to try and avert my eyes from that bed of inequity, my head was twisted and my eyes magnetised to that filthy mess.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Where have you been?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told Fiddler to tell you I was here ages ago’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Well, he didn’t, did he and I would have thought you were quite busy enough without having to worry about where I was’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Well, for a little while yes, but I couldn’t keep going indefinitely’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘You’re unbelievable, have you no shame?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re all talking about you downstairs. It’s disgusting. I thought tonight was going to be special.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you think I’m paying for it? You really are an entrepreneur of exceptional fortitude. You’ll need to open a safety deposit box if you carry on at this rate”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘What are you talking about’?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>‘Don’t give me that Little Miss innocent routine. What do I get for fifty pence? I don’t have a pound. All that slow motion stuff and bunnies running about your mother's hall, was that all made up as well?’ I was really flowing now.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Bunnies?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Tartan picnic blankets and overripe strawberries. What a mug I’ve been. Let me tell you something. I don’t pay for it and if I did I wouldn’t pay anywhere near as much as those pimply gits. A pound? It’s pathetic.’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘I don’t know what you’re rambling on about. I was really excited about tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After you dropped that rose off I thought you were really sweet and kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tonight you sound like all the other wankers who can’t hold their drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought you were different”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now forgive me, but wasn’t I the one who should be aggrieved? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who was it that had turned Fiddler’s bedroom into an all night drive through? She thought nothing of her actions. I was supposed to accept it as an everyday occurrence. I wasn’t even the first. Number bloody six! Infantile grins greeted my deflated stick insect of a body as I descended the Kama Sutra highway.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Stick it to her William’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘Oh piss off’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As I slammed the door and headed home my head was filled with images of sweaty youths pumping for all their worth, zits popping with each thrust, faces in pained exultation, pubescent greasy backs arching, screams from their barely broken voices;</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘…love unbound, it cost me a pound!’</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-35693350823715459162011-12-02T23:12:00.001+00:002011-12-02T23:29:28.062+00:00My girlfriends and other animals <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Fiddler’s party began as most parties began. Not that I knew how most parties began as I’d never been to one before. Anonymous spotty teenagers were lolloping in the kitchen mixing two litre plastic bottles of woodpecker cider with the entire contents of Fiddler’s parents’ drinks cabinet. Now Fiddler’s parents were not the most adventurous drinkers. It had been rumoured that Mike Huxley’s parents had been to Spain three years running and once to a Greek island before the rest of Essex discovered it. The Huxley parties saw big bulbous plastic bottles of woodpecker smooching and canoodling with sleek and slender bottles of Malibu, Cinzano and Tia Maria; names so wet and exciting they made you want to dress up in grass skirts and wear a hat full of fruit. Fiddler’s caravanning parents were nowhere near as moist and slippery. My swollen litre of cider rubbing itself against a half open bottle of Harveys Bristol cream. There was talk of an almost full bottle of Warnicks advocaat floating around, but I think it was just idle gossip.</span> <br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> The music was in full flow with Fiddler cranking up ‘Do They Owe Us A Fucking Living’ by the Crass which sounded nothing like Shalamar or the Kids from Fame. Several youths in mohair jumpers and pretend safety pins in their ears (talk about unoriginal) were all doing the pogo and knocking into unsuspecting females who had foolishly ventured away from the comparative safety of the kitchen.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘This is smashing all this pogoing’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Why did I have to say ‘Smashing?’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> 'Did you say smashing?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Yep, gonna smash this place up with some smashing’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘knob!’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> They were of course quite correct. Knob was pretty much spot on. I really needed to get out more. I skulked my way back towards the sliding door of the kitchen resigned to spending the rest of the evening with Gavin Robinson who only grunted and said 'Fanny' at the top of his voice whenever he felt threatened which was always. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Will, what are you doing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been waiting for you upstairs’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘I beg your pardon?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Fanny’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Hi Gavin’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Gillian. How are you? I was just talking to Gavin about…’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Fanny’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘That’s not what we were talking about. Where have you been?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Why don’t you pop upstairs? See you in two minutes?’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> This was it. This was bloody well it. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Gavin I have to leave now to see…’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘Fanny’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘No not Fanny, to see Gillian. Wish me luck. It’s been nice talking with you Gavin’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> ‘And you my friend. I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying and I’m losing control’ </span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-84539443281066366762011-11-30T22:17:00.000+00:002011-11-30T22:43:12.812+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now owning a sex pistols record doesn’t give you automatic entry into the Kings Road Punk chapter but what made me, in my eyes, a bona fide, couldn’t give a toss, anti-establishment rocker was when I asked mother if she wouldn’t mind popping along to Timothy Whites to pick up some zips of assorted colours and lengths. Mother was more than accommodating as it was on her way to the British Home Stores cafeteria where she was meeting Mrs Dudman and Mrs Cameron for their fortnightly sojourn to discuss the shortcomings of Mrs Smart and Mrs Baker who were likewise rendezvousing <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on the first floor of the Littlewoods cafeteria to discuss the shortcomings of Mrs Dudman and Mrs Cameron. Mother very kindly sewed them onto my freshly pressed corduroy trousers. Blue, yellow, red, green you name it I had it, all sown on far too neatly. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">With Fiddlers party rapidly approaching I squeezed into my sisters mohair jumper (four sizes too small) and raided Mothers sowing basket for safety pins that I could link together and with the aid of some fabric plaster covering one of the pointy ends attached them to my ear, the plaster acting as a protective barrier to my virgin lobe and giving the illusion of someone who had obviously had his ear skewered with a knitting needle. Now if that didn’t make me Johnny Rotten and Sidney Vicious I don’t what did!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I was ready to smash Fiddler’s parents’ home up real bad. Gillian had warned me to take my shoes off in the hallway as Fiddler’s Mum and Dad had just had a new cream shag pile fitted. I could do that. I’d smash it up later, when the carpet was a little more worn.</span></div>
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</div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-61230993906302346982011-11-27T22:38:00.000+00:002011-11-27T22:54:06.775+00:00My girlfriends and other animals <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fiddler’s parents were away caravanning for two weeks and a few select guests </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">were invited round for an evening of Sham 69 and the Angelic Upstarts. Before my lavatory flusher friend Wayne had left school I wouldn’t even have heard about Fiddler’s party let alone get an invite, but obviously my new haircut, loss of milk bottles and newly acquired dramatic confidence had begun to open new doors. </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who was I kidding? The only reason I was allowed within a two mile radius of</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fiddler’s soiree was entirely down to Gillian, wondrous slow motion Gillian who had inexplicably persuaded Fiddler that I was almost human and might be kind of fun to have around. Fiddler was a hard as nails piss off punk rocker which was a bit of luck because so was I, in a kind of new romantic ,jazz funkster Leroy from Fame sort of way. The minute Gillian told me I was invited I asked mother if she’d buy me a Sex Pistols single.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘A sex what dear’?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Pistols Mother. It’s a band we’re studying in music. Mrs Catchpole says it could </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">be the difference between winning or losing chorister of the year.’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How on earth I managed to get a copy is still a mystery. Having picked up six</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Coffee and Walnut cakes and two multi packs of beige braided pants from British Home Stores Mother strolled purposefully into HMV and summoned the nearest unsuspecting store assistant and proceeded to enquire as to the availability of a single by a group that had Sex and Piss in its title. To Mother’s eternal credit I was presented with ‘Friggin in the Riggin’ and quickly tucked it into the sleeve of my Disco Inferno LP away from Fathers gaze. Late at night when Mother was absorbed in last February’s copy of Readers Digest<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Father had nodded off to radio Luxembourg I would retrieve my anti establishment vinyl of filth and slip it onto my high fidelity turn table. Head phones the size of saucepans with sliding volume controls on each ear allowed me my own private comfort and the chance to dream of Fiddlers party, slow dances with slow motion Gillian and whispered moments of sweet cherub promises. Sidney Vicious also serenaded me with soft sweet tales about a </span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Captain with a daughter who fell in deep sea water delighted squeals revealed that eels had found 'er sexual quarters. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My leg warmers really had to go.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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</span></span>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-13219301682844630822011-11-25T11:19:00.000+00:002011-11-25T13:06:06.806+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My new friend Robert, a physics genius who had recently burnt off all his eyebrows when sticking a hairclip into an electric socket was leaving with his family for their annual pilgrimage to their chalet (garden shed on stilts) in Great Yarmouth.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Will, last week at Richard Flange’s party I got off with Gillian Feelgood. I mean really got off!’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Bollocks. She’s going out with Fiddler ’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Chucked him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m telling you, my old fella’s flashing like a belisha beacon’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Everyone’s feels like that the first time’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course, I had no idea what it felt like the first time as I’d never done it the first time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I’m going down to the chalet tomorrow’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Shed’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Funny, and I want to give Gillian this rose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will you take it round to her’? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Are you serious?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘This rose, like you, forever true, my love unbound, it cost me a pound’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You’ve got to be kidding’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘It took me ages to think up’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘It cost me a pound – is that all she’s worth?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Well it did cost me a pound’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘It may well have, but you’re not going to get very far if you tell her that. How about my love like saliva, it cost me a fiver?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Very bloody funny. She’ll think I’m a dribbling idiot’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘As opposed to just an idiot’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Look do this for me and I won’t tell anyone about your Christmas number one collection’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Tomorrow you said?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My newly acquired sixth form confidence had brought out in me a dramatic side I never knew existed. Years of playing peacemaker to Mother and Father had fine tuned my spontaneous improvisation techniques to such a degree that I had now been chosen to play the lead in the school play. Les Cenci by Antonin Artaud, a Sado-masochistic tyrant who rapes his daughter and holds her captive. Mr Sycamore, our drama teacher, said he’d seen something in my audition that disturbed him to such an extent that casting me as the lead was a prerequisite to the show’s success. He also wrote to Mother asking if everything was alright at home.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘My love unbound, it cost me a pound. He’s bloody nuts’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gently tapped on Gillian’s front door praying she wasn’t in so I could return to the normality of the drama studio and the tying up of my daughter to a thirty foot wooden wheel of torture. No such luck, my heart began to quicken as her silhouette drew closer. As the door opened the light around Gillian turned to soft focus, her hallway wasn’t a hallway anymore, but a field of brilliant red poppies. Fluffy, cotton tailed bunnies hopped out of the doorway, two doves of peace whiter than white hovered above my head and Gillian tossed her head to one side, her long flowing hair following a split second later, as hair always does when you toss it in slow motion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A young couple were lying on a tartan picnic rug sharing a glass of Asti Spumante whilst sucking the juice from an overripe strawberry. The stylistics popped up from behind a golden syrup coloured haystack and began singing, ‘I can’t give you anything, but my love’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I knew what I had to say. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘This is the first my friend. I can hardly contain my joy. Betray them both and let us begin’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And with that I stepped over the threshold and the world changed from ten pence bags of sweets on a Saturday morning to lavish five course lunches at the Ritz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was then I knew that although I may not make it through to dinner, I was damn sure I’d have a bloody good lunch. </span></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-17062141537488462952011-11-23T10:41:00.001+00:002011-11-24T09:16:27.639+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapter three</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My love unbound</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Don’t you want me’ – The Human League – Christmas number one for five weeks – 1981.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They were all at it. Every last sodding one of them. Since Le Frog I had added a further twenty five pathetic minutes to my relationship portfolio consisting of me man handling Katy Crabtree after social club down a pitch dark private road. I was good. I mean really good. The truth was I only touched Katy Crabtree on the outside of her pants, well alright, on the outside of her dungarees which were on the outside of her pants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that she had on a parka, over her dungarees, which were over her pants shouldn’t concern you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look, it was a step up from Gill in accounts and endless hours of self-gratification immersed in the shower section of Mother's Argos catalogue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Father came home from work, an antiquated Roberts radio held together with a roll of fabric sticking plaster and the long wave button permanently depressed; his only companion along with his beloved Park Drive and the odd second, third and fourth hand novella borrowed from the mobile libraries badly thumbed section. They must have been happy, once. Why would they have bought me from my other Mother if they didn’t love each other, just a little? I saw Father smile once, back in 1942, a sun faded and crumpled photograph. A Sergeant and two Corporals, sitting in a bar in downtown Cairo, his trade mark Park Drive limply attached to his cracked lips, a bottle of beer raised in silent salutation to some unknown hero. The three of them smiling, fighting for their country, ready to die at any moment, yet all three, smiling.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Tell your Father his pillows and blankets are at the bottom of the stairs’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">They couldn’t even be in the same room as each other. If one accidentally stepped into an already occupied room, out went the current incumbent, unless of course it was a Saturday night and Mother was watching Dixon of Dock Green. Then and only then would she remain steadfast and resolutely swallowed up by the green sofa, a glare that told Father he better retreat if he knew what was good for him.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Did I tell you I never wanted children?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You didn’t Father, sorry to have inconvenienced you’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘It’s just that she wanted them, so I gave in’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Gave in’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Well you know, conceded to her demands’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘In a good way?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘In a different way’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘But what about me?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You’re different’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I don’t understand’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Father went back to radio Luxembourg and his fourth hand copy of ‘Catcher in the Rye’.</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-39364057207980988842011-11-20T20:19:00.000+00:002011-11-20T20:23:48.029+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I’m home darling’. Bollocks – Le Frogs’ Mother was back.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘In here Mummy’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘In here Mummy. What do you think you’re playing at? I can’t find my pants'</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Put mine on’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘What!’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Hi Mummy’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Alright, alright – it’s just a piece of string’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I left Le Frog via her bedroom window, a piece of string dissecting my buttocks as I shuffled my way back to school as quickly as my newly acquired undergarments would let me. My meeting with Aunty Veronica would have to wait just a little longer. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mothers’ tube of Yardley hand cream was a welcome relief easing the probable irreparable damage caused by Le Frogs’ underwear of torture. For the next few days I just about managed to shuffle my way between classes with the excuse that I was suffering from severe chaffing due to an allergic reaction brought on by a new pair of polyester pyjamas. It was true I was experiencing a little irritation from them, but nowhere near as much as the open wounds caused by Le Frogs’ dental floss excuse for underwear. Why did I have to say pyjamas? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Mongers back’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I didn’t mean pyjamas, I meant boxers…and Monger is not back’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mother’s insistence for polyester had to stop. Le Frog had a lot to answer for and at the first available minute I would chuck her. Obviously I had already been chucked the minute I ran off wearing her underwear. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Please forgive me Gill? She meant nothing to me. Let’s snuggle on my bed and listen to St Winifred’s School choir”</span></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-75517623697546382332011-11-18T09:34:00.001+00:002011-11-18T09:38:47.201+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Like most long term relationships Le Frog and I had our disagreements, our moments of passion, our in depth political, religious and metaphysical debates. Le Frog and I were an item for a total of forty five minutes. The relationship blossomed when I inadvertently touched her front bottom whilst rummaging around for my metal work overall. Well not her actual front bottom but the vicinity of where her front bottom would have been were she not wearing the protective clothing Mr Lomax demanded in order that the entire class should produce an aluminium dustpan and ashtray set.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘My mum’s at work, let’s go home during lunch and I’ll show you that thing you just touched’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That thing! I was about to be shown the thing. Gill from accounts, you’re chucked. I was going to see the thing. What did the thing look like? Could you hold it, what colour was it, did it speak? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I’d very much like to meet your thing. Thank you so much for asking’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I made the best dustpan and ashtray set ever. Even Mr Lomax who usually referred to me as Spazzer commented on, ‘a job of significant craftsmanship’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Le Frog and I ran all the way to her house. Our Golden ticket, Willy Wonka excitement unable to contain itself as she fumbled for the front door key. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now the trouble here, having only undressed in front of Mother was that it became almost impossible to hide the fact my whole body had begun to tremble. Tremble, maybe to soft an adjective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point convulsed would be more appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bucking bronco would have looked positively geriatric compared to my involuntary spasms of downright bloody fear.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Are you cold? Hurry up; we’ve only got twenty minutes before mummy gets back’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Before mummy gets back?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not only was I wrestling with my brown and beige braided pants, which mother had bought from British Home Stores, but I now had a time trial to contend with and in all likelihood instant castration if Le Frogs’ Mother caught me.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘That’s better…now, what’s this then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Barry needs someone to talk to…’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Barry?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could have understood, monster or weapon or perhaps untamed beast of the Amazon, but ‘Barry’. It was this use of another boy’s name, which incidentally was the name of the local ‘special ‘kid who licked metal railings that slightly unnerved me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t look like a Barry, not that I knew which ones did look like Barry.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Hello Barry – you look like a little lollipop that needs sucking’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was getting beyond a joke – BIG, HUGE lollipop that needs sucking thank you.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘There we are all sticky and limp like a shrivelled Satsuma’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Right that’s enough.’ I pulled Le Frog away from Barry my small shrivelled citrus fruit.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I thought you said I could see the thing?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Well here she is. Veronica’s been waiting for you’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That was it. Referring to my thing as Barry and her thing as Veronica was the final straw.</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-44726196336465409812011-11-16T10:05:00.001+00:002011-11-16T10:17:43.887+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My entire Comprehensive existence was spent fending off Wayne Dawkins and his cohort of monkeys thanks to Mothers insistence that two magnifying glasses be attached to my face.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Mr Magoo stinks of poo time to shove him down the loo’ </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Face pushed into bowel by Wayne, flush executed by one of his chimps, hold breath as long as possible, toilet paper wrapped round head and sit crumpled in heap for the remainder of break time. And so it went on for six years. Wayne did show a glimmer of human kindness by removing my glasses before submerging me into the shit hole and I thanked him each time and by the end of it I actually managed to hold back the tears. The truth was I had run out of them. They had become so hardened over the years that they had solidified into a huge impenetrable concrete mass that sat steadfastly and resolutely behind my bulging eyeballs. By the time I eventually reached sixth form Wayne had already left School to pursue his vocation in the pharmaceutical Industry as predicted by his careers advisor. Trafficking Heroin and Cocaine also enabled Wayne and his baboon’s time to enjoy a much earned break at her Majesty’s pleasure. Gill from accounts was still my only visual aid to my impending blindness and Mother and Father were now unable or unwilling to spend the same time together in the same room. In fact they had lost the art of direct communication altogether.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Mary’s boy child’ – Boney M – Christmas number one for four weeks – 1978</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Tell your father his tea’s on the table’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Tell your mother to stick her tea up her arse’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Tell your father to stick his tea up his own arse’</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Tell your mother she’ll have to retrieve breakfast and last night’s dinner from up my arse before I can fit tea up it’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Tell your father to piss off’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Another brick in the wall’ – Pink Floyd – Christmas number one for five weeks – 1979.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With Wayne pursuing his new career path I was a little lost for things to do at break time.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Hey, Joe 90 over here’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Break time was nearly over and I was in the middle of finishing off my third packet of pickled onion monster munch.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘It’s your old friend, from the Donkey Derby. It’s been a while I know. Sorry for the wait, but I had to be sure you were the one. Wayne did a good job I see and now Mummy and Daddy are fuelling the fire. It warms my heart to see a plan come together so beautifully. Time to leave Gill alone and move onto pastures new. Take those Hubble telescopes off and get some contact lenses.I hear they’re all the rage. You need to look the part if we’re to pull this off. Remember the innocents need your filth to survive. Only you can help them through this. Now go forth my son - show them the light’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘There’s no one quite like Grandma’ – St Winifred’s school choir- Christmas number one for two weeks – 1980.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sixth form was fanbloodytastic. I had new contact lenses, my hair was really trendy, all brushed over one eye like the Human League and a girl had actually spoken </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to me once. The only small downside was the uniform. It was as though Mother had been employed as Secondary Modern fashion consultant <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and I had progressed from a life of beige to an even more horrideous life of brown. Brown suit, brown shoes, brown socks, brown tie and this really was taking the piss, brown shirt. They </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">called it brown but I knew what this bastard in disguise was really masquerading as – BEIGE. This tiny vogue irritant however counted for little as the girl who had spoken to me once was about to speak to me twice.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We called her ‘Le Frog’ because her mouth went from one side of her head to the other, no cheeks in between, just one long, never ending mouth, and when she smiled her face became a dentist’s paradise. Teeth jutted out from every angle, every shape, every size. I say we because since Wayne’s departure and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my new makeover I had acquired friends who for the first time actually spoke to me rather than make mentally handicapped noises as they walked past me or stuck notes on my blazer with the words ‘Monger ‘written on them. </span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-41716527570594032342011-11-13T17:14:00.001+00:002011-11-13T17:34:17.000+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapter Two</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Le Frog</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The rest of the holiday became a blur. Possibly because I spent most of it barricaded in my chalet bedroom twitching to images of Gill’s wondrous hallelujah’s whilst listening to the New Seekers – ‘I want to teach the world to sing’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I just don’t know what’s wrong with him.’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mother was discussing my Howard Hughes like reluctance to leave our Chalet bedroom with Mrs Musgrave and the rest of the Coffee and Walnut cake brigade. ‘I mean have you ever been before, it’s so much fun, of course you have to maintain standards, but there’s so much to do and it’s all inclusive, as much as you like’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As much as you like. That’s it mother, as much as I like. Returning to the land of beige didn’t seem anywhere near as depressing now I had my new companion. Gill and I would spend all of our free time together hidden away from the rest of my classmates in the child friendly concrete tunnel that had until now only claimed one council kid’s life. Each child psychologist agreed that my ‘imaginary’ friend was just that and I would soon grow out of it. Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, Mud’s ‘Lonely this Christmas’ and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ afforded me only a modicum of comfort during my years of psychological therapy. It wasn’t until the Christmas of 1976 when Johnny Mathis started singing about Children being born that Mother decided enough was enough. Imaginary or not, psychologically disturbed or not, I needed a pair glasses and a new record collection. Please don’t do it Mother. They said it was because I sat too close to the television. I knew however that Gill and I had spent far too much time together and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my eyes had spun round to the back of my head. Either way I was whisked off to Mothers optometrist for the fitting of two gold top milk bottles that signalled to the rest of the world that I was happy to be publicly ridiculed for the rest of my life. Years of therapy instantly eradicated. I blockaded myself in my bedroom, my space hopper and assorted piles of Shoot magazine my only defence against the inevitable incursion by Mother. Noddy, show me a sign. Les, guide me to the Promised Land. Freddie please tell Mother not to completely and utterly ruin my life. My futile attempts at seeking solace among my Christmas number one’s left me bereft of all hope. Even Mr McCartney and his Wings couldn’t offer me any respite and they’d been at number one forever.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Mull of Kintyre’ – Wings – Christmas number one for nine weeks – 1977.</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-30578495119863127362011-11-11T10:12:00.001+00:002011-11-11T10:16:27.558+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Boredom threshold was just about reaching its limit for a seven year old watching overweight office clerks shuffling around a field when hurtling towards me came a vision that would signal that monumental moment in all boys’ lives; tadpoles do in fact turn into frogs. As Gill from Accounts rose into the air clearing the oversized beer barrel with her newly adjoined twin, out they came. The theme tune to ‘It’s a knockout’ played from the monstrous metal tannoys, Stuart Hall couldn’t contain his laughter anymore and Eddie Waring punctuated the frivolity with ‘that’s a lovely up and under by Gill from accounts’. Bouncing up and down, side to side, free from years of male chauvinist restraint. Jellies on a plate, wibbling and wobbling, gasping for air. I was mesmerised by their power, their desire not to have me avert my gaze. They were crying out to me, engaging me in their silent communication. As Gill landed on the other side of the beer barrel out they came, her angel cakes, her baby pillows, her Betty and Wilma’s, my first glimpse of fully formed breasts reached out to me and begged for forgiveness. I ducked under the rope in an attempt to catch Gill and her metronomes but she and they were too fast. A Red Coat caught hold of me and told me to stay back as it wasn’t safe. WASN’T SAFE! This was my Shangri la, this was my moment of no turning back; this was his cue.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Hello my friend. I have waited a long time for you. Let us begin. So nice to have you at last. Shall we go?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Back at the chalet of immeasurable fun Mother continued her monologue to Father that slouching was not acceptable and what would the neighbours think. Father was trying to finish his potato waffles whilst telling Mother we were in sodding Wales and if the neighbours could see him from their bedroom window then they’d be doing bloody well, sister had finished eating the buttons off the settee and I, well I was staring out of the chalet window overlooking the now deserted Donkey Derby Obstacle course, my once beautiful and unsullied mind now awash with images causing David Attenborough’s trousers to twitch and dance their own wondrous dance. Handel’s Hallelujah chorus drowned out Mother, Father and Sister now throwing up settee buttons. A smile, an epiphany, an enlightenment beamed across my face as the sun began to set and the last Donkey was led away back into its straw covered lorry.</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-52496730224467933152011-11-09T14:18:00.003+00:002011-11-09T14:18:52.079+00:00My girlfriends and other animals<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Welcome to Barry Island Butlins. You’ll be staying in Beige chalet number twenty nine. Just kidding, there’s no beige here. Red chalet number twenty nine located directly behind the donkey derby obstacle course. If you hurry you might just catch the three legged race for mums who want to have fun. Will you be participating madam?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Drive on Denys’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mother began to rewind the window as Father gently drove past the inanely grinning lady who oblivious to Mothers disdain continued with her over familiar and animated geniality. A knowing genuflection by Father at this deranged Cheshire cat of a woman alerted her that all was well despite the very real possibility of an horrendous death administered to her courtesy of Mother. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Window wound, we were trapped </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">once more inside our volcano of torture. Donkey Derby?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What sort of language was this person dressed in red speaking of?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ok, I knew what a donkey was and I had heard of Derby because Brian Clough was their manager but the two together, well it made no sense whatsoever. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mother ushered Father laden with suitcases of varying shapes and size up the extraordinarily brightly coloured stairs venting her vitriol about the need for standards to be maintained even if he did think he was on holiday. Sister was by now fast asleep, one cheek super glued to the same sucker of human flesh that I had just retrieved my buttocks from and I was allowed to wander aimlessly and unnoticed towards the mysterious and unintelligible ‘Donkey Derby’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Millions upon millions of people had gathered around a course made up of varying heights and levels of difficulty. The prelude to the main event, not that I knew what the main event was; a three legged race for women of child bearing age and hips. I pushed my way to the front and held on for dear life to a rope repelling the expectant throngs.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now someone should have warned me there and then that my life was about to change forever, that innocence was about to be sodomised and buggered in equal measures, but my new friend wasn’t going to spoil the surprise by making his entrance too early, no, I would have to wait for that unwelcome pleasure.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Women of all shapes and sizes were shackled together giggling and looking paradoxically self- conscious as they approached the starting line that was to mark the </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">beginning of the end for my innocence and a journey that would see the destruction of so many innocent lives. ‘Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep’ by Middle of the Road segued neatly into the main arena relegating any thought of tying Yellow ribbons round old Oak trees.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘This is crazy in ‘it?’ giggled Gill from fourth floor accounts.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Absolute madness. If they could see me now they simply wouldn’t believe it’ chuckled Catherine from fifth floor photo copying. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Well we are on holiday. If we can’t let our hair down now when can we?’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You’re so right but I still think it’s just a little nuts – what a hoot’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘On your Marks, Get Set, GO…’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And they were off, hurtling round the Donkey Derby obstacle course oblivious to the devastation they were about to cause this innocent of innocents. Saturday 14th June 1972 – 2:27pm. </span></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-265076813668038002011-11-07T19:33:00.000+00:002011-11-07T19:33:50.845+00:00My Girlfriends and other animals<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapter One</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Donkey Derby</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without a Christmas number one my life would be meaningless. I have them all. From the very first day my life changed forever. Vinyl discs of unlimited joy. They comfort me.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Long haired lover from Liverpool’ - Jimmy Osmond - Christmas number one for five weeks -1972.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mother said I was ready.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Doesn’t he look lovely, it’s this month’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>colour. That Ted Heath’s got wonderful bone structure you know and what a fabulous chuckle. It’s more topaz than anything else. I’m thinking of having the kitchen done out in it’</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mother dressed me in beige. Beige shirt, beige vest, beige socks, beige trousers, beige pants. I suppose I can count myself lucky that my lunar landscape had been lit up with the aid of a pair of my cousin’s orange Gola trainers. Were it not for them I would barely have been visible to the naked eye when clambering into the back seat of our mustard coloured Austin 1100.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Father sat motionless, a flaccid Park Drive hanging down from his lower lip; Sister gurgling to herself and dribbling Cow and Gate carrot and Beef Casserole; Mother her tube of Yardley Lavender hand cream firmly in hand, sucked in what little air remained from our oven on wheels and began to conduct Father through a maze of A roads and road side cafes, whilst lambasting him for slouching and not sitting up straight.We were leaving the safety of home and the threat of everything beige and heading to a world that laughed in the face of topaz. As Father remained silent whilst being berated for loosening his tie and removing his Harris Tweed sports jacket, Sister continued to regurgitate and Mother barked orders in between coming up from her Readers Digest, I tried to free myself from the one length leather back seat that my buttocks were sticking to, dressed as I was in my one hundred percent polyester David Attenborough Safari number that the manufacturers had neglected to install outlets for ventilation.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The sun shone directly into my eyes for the entire three hours and twenty seven minutes that it took Father to navigate his way to the Promised Land. A pained look of constipation etched itself across my creased and overheated face; the sun relentless in its disregard.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘If you soil yourself again William…. Denys sit up straight’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Mother was far more anxious about the damage I may cause the polyester and what people might think if they caught a glimpse of Father not sitting at exactly ninety degrees than any overwhelming concern for the state of my bowels. As we entered through the towering gates I wound down my window and stuck my head out just enough to hear tranquillity shattered. Exhausted, a little constipated (as yet unsoiled) and with my arm about to drop off due to the exertion needed for operation window </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">release, my ears were suddenly invaded by an overwhelming array of metal tannoys that sprouted from every tree and building flowering with the vigour afforded mother’s prize Begonias. Through these shatterers of silence came a man singing about tying a yellow ribbon round an old oak tree. People were swimming in a pool with windows built into the wall pressing their faces against the glass distorting their chlorine filled red eyes even more like seals desperate for their next meal. Children running free from parents who were otherwise preoccupied chasing men and women dressed in coats of Crimson. The lunatics had well and truly taken over the asylum. I had crossed the threshold into a world where normal service had been removed. Children’s utopia was alive and well and beige was on the list of things never to be mentioned. The sign by the pool side guided me to my new world order;</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘NO BOMBING OF FAT PEOPLE. NO HEAVY PETTING AND NO BEIGE...EVER!’</span></div>
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<br /></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3013612614920339426.post-69925447987368274912011-11-06T15:59:00.000+00:002011-11-06T15:59:43.546+00:00I like my mum<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Me and My sister don’t see my dad ever again. I guess he didn’t run at a thousand miles per hour past the witch’s house at number eighty two. Me and my sister don’t see my mum ever again. I try and explain that the witch at number eighty two has stolen them but they don’t listen to me. Me and my sister lie down on the grass and let the sun wrap itself round our faces. I hold my sisters hand and whisper to her. They want to take us to the shops where we have to wait to be chosen like my sister and my best friend the black baby. My sister and me aren’t going back so we tell them we need to get our teddies and go upstairs. I hold my sister so tight and she looks into my eyes. We kiss each other and tears trace happy memories down our cheeks. We climb the bunk beds where we used to wake at three O’clock on Christmas morning with more excitement than the world. I wrap my snake belt around my sister’s neck and loop my pyjama cord around mine. They’ll understand that we didn’t want to go back and let us stay a little longer. My sister and me smile and hold hands. They said I wasn’t ready the first time when my mum bought us potato waffles but now it’s different. I don’t know where my sister is but I know we’ll be playing on our orange space hopper with the growth coming out of its head soon. I can see my mum and my dad and uncle peter and aunty Sheila and Goody Putnam and everyone I’ve ever known. They look so small and fuzzy like the telly when the national anthem is played and the picture vanishes. My mum is still in Liptons buying Potato waffles and my best friend the black baby is smiling and playing with some lego. My dad is sitting in a room alone with his new best friend, Johnny Walker. One day they’ll understand why we didn’t want to go back to the shops. One day they’ll understand that I loved my mum more than Count Dracula lollies that make your tongue turn black. One day I know that they will love me as much as I love them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love my mum she let me stay up and watch Dixon of Dock Green and eat after eight mints.</span></div>TJWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13898787015233105527noreply@blogger.com1