JonnyB's private secret diary

2007-10-13T09:37:00.000+01:00

JonnyB’s private secret diary has moved.

The new URL is
www.privatesecretdiary.com

Please update your links accordingly.

Thank you,
JonnyB.

2007-10-12T10:28:00.000+01:00

Boos ring out around the Village Pub.

“What...? What...?” I ask crossly. “That is what it says here. ‘What is the largest port in Basra? Iraq. I am merely reading what it says on the sheet.”

“Basra is in Iraq!”

“Yes but for all I know, Basra could also be some – some historic regional area or something. For which Iraq is the chief port. Like in... er well there is ‘Washington’ the state and ‘Washington’ the city. And the place on Tyneside,” I add, helpfully.

There is more booing. Neil, who is wearing a suit and has therefore been drafted in to help me read the quiz, suggests we skip this question. I gesture frantically to the Foxy Barmaid for another free pint of beer. We move to a controversy about chromosomes.

“There are twenty-three pairs,” I insist. “It says so on the sheet.”

“Thirty two!”

“There are not thirty-two. I mean – I know you’re from Norfolk...”

“We’ll accept thirty-two,” concedes Neil. He is weak. The LTLP and Mrs Short Tony, who also does science, glare at us. I realise that I have drunk half of my free pint already. I wave at the Foxy Barmaid to be ready for the next one.

The next question is in French. This throws me a bit. The following one is in Italian, which I am more comfortable with as it is ‘names of pizzas’. I place my empty glass under the pump in order to be helpful.

“Thanks for your help tonight,” the Well-Spoken Barman offers at the end. I reply that I enjoyed it very much but would perhaps not want to do it every time. Somebody approaches me to play the banjo at the Church Fete next year.

2007-10-10T10:02:00.001+01:00

The door closes with a satisfying ‘thud’.

Set in to the eighteen-inch stone wall of the cottage, the safe is my insurance against the lawlessness of the modern world. We do not have a Bank in the Village, so I use my safe to store important documents, etc., such as the questions for tonight’s pub quiz.

I am the questionmaster!!! I have been especially selected from all the villagers for my natural authority and diction, plus the fact that I was quite drunk when the Well-Spoken Barman asked for volunteers. I have been thinking for a while that I should maybe do some community work, and this, coupled with being secretary of the snooker club, fits the bill nicely.

One of the problems with our modern society (apart from the lawlessness (see above)) is the fact that people do not care about their community. It is difficult to get volunteers, and when people do put their hands up it tends to be for the ‘glamour’ jobs like working with disabled children. Doing the pub quiz gets overlooked and what’s more I do not even get paid for it apart from in free beer all night.

I cannot deny that I am nervous however. I have not really been involved in a major quiz since the Nicholas Parsons debacle.

There is a knock at the door!!! It is Mrs Short Tony, visiting on a pretext.

“Have you got the questions yet?” she asks, her eyes darting around the kitchen. I know her game.

2007-10-08T10:03:00.001+01:00

I tidy the house.

The LTLP and Toddler have been away for a few days in order to allow me to both catch up with some sleep and to get some work done. Clearly I have not done either of these things, having mainly been either playing snooker at my exclusive Snooker Club or watching the rugby at the Village Pub.

There is a single portion left from yesterday’s continuing-economic-crisis meal. This time I had scraped all the mouldering stuff from the back of the fridge into a large pot, added some sausages and a packet sauce mix left over from the days when I used packet sauce mixes (best before date: March 2005, which I guess dates it two or three years earlier).

I slop the leftovers into a carton and ponder a bit before taking a felt-tip pen, scribbling ‘Casserole of Last Resort’ on the lid and chucking the whole thing in the freezer.

Truth be told, I have found the last few days on my own to be immensely fun and relaxing. I worry that this makes me a Bad Person (even more so than murdering those children). But sometimes a man needs a bit of a break from responsibilities etc. etc., and it has good to be master of my own life for three days at least. It has recharged me; made me strong again.

Obviously now I need to tidy up, otherwise she will shout at me.

2007-10-05T12:29:00.000+01:00

Cop-out Friday Post

Boooooooo... I have a horrible cold and nobody in the world is feeling worse than me. Plus I am still totally broke, and our cleaner has had to go down to three hours a week. It is Dickensian. It is worse than being one of those complaining monks in Burma.

The 'About' and 'FAQ' sections on here are looking a bit tired. I have a plan to rewrite them!!! But what should I say/answer? Please leave suggestions in the comments box. I will be grateful.

2007-10-01T09:40:00.000+01:00

“Psssstitssasselebrity!!!” I hiss.

“What…?!?”

“Ssslebrity!!! Over there!!!” I whisper furiously.

“What celebrity?!?” replies the LTLP in a loud voice.

I make ‘keep your voice down’ gestures. Being quite at home in the world of celebrities, I am quite blasé by the famous people thing, whereas the LTLP, being a civilian, does not really know how to behave. I do not want her to embarrass herself. It would be like her, in her capacity as a renowned scientist, introducing me to one of her molecules or whatever. I would try not to be overly gushing.

TV’s Richard Park steps out of his car and gazes around the car park, no doubt looking for somebody to criticise.

I jerk my head everso gently towards TV’s Richard Park, but not so much as I look like an idiot who is impressed by meeting celebrities. Nobody approaches him, so he strides out towards the shops presumably in hope of some really bad customer service.

We do not follow him. He is just a person like you or I. I would not even bother writing about him if I did not know that you would be interested.

We wander off to buy chips. He is not in the chip shop. I expect he brought his own packed lunch. They do that sort of thing, you know.

2007-09-28T13:37:00.001+01:00

“I guess that’s what love really is,” I ponder.

Ice forms on the telephone wire.

“So,” replies the LTLP in the calm voice that she uses to kill the ants, “getting up at two ay em to come and comfort you because you’re sitting on the toilet crying; getting up at five ay em because the Toddler is wide awake and won’t go back to sleep; taking the morning off work to take the Toddler to nursery because you’re still too pissed to drive. That is what love really is?”

Under the surface I detect a small undercurrent that implies that I am in the Dogghouse. It is not a place that I have ever found particularly comfortable. I try to think of something to say.

“I guess that it would be tactful not to go to the Village Pub tonight?” I come up with.

There is a long pause. I am not sure whether it has yet ended.

2007-09-26T09:36:00.000+01:00

This economising is getting me down.

We are totally broke. “I’ve tried to cut out absolutely everything but the bare, bare essentials,” I explain to Short Tony in the Village Pub. “But it’s just not working.”

One problem is the unexpected things that happen each day. Example: I decided that I would make a nourishing risotto with all the manky things left in the fridge that would otherwise be thrown away. I created a stock from an old chicken carcass (net saving: one stock cube) and we had a delicious yet economical dinner. Unfortunately, at the same time, the LTLP managed to leave the cordless phone outside in a rain storm.

Daily saving: 1 stock cube – price of 1 new telephone = (insert negative amount in here).

I picked it up from the lawn. There is a convention in cartoons whereby if somebody falls into a river, they emerge onto the bank, take their shoes off and pour a gallon of water out. They then pluck a fish from their ear. The telephone was a bit like that. I tried to look on the bright side; our phone bill will be less next month. I did not shout at her much in case she suggested that I got a proper job.

Short Tony is sympathetic. His garden renovation plans have turned into a government IT project and I suspect that we are in the same boat, viz the third-class compartment of the one heading towards the iceberg carrying a cargo of live angry sharks and some industrial magnesium.

We have a short and hopeless conversation about where all the money went, before ordering another pint.

2007-09-21T13:18:00.001+01:00

I watch the Cricket Tournament.

Grudgingly, I admit that the new Ronald McDonald version of the game is very exciting. But mainly I am excited because I am sticking it to the man!!! Evil Rupert Murdoch has not noticed that it is being shown for free on the muslim Sky Channel 815 so you don’t need to pay him a penny!!!

Each day I watch the first game at 9am. Then I have a bit of a break before watching the second. By the time the third match is on, I am not just sticking it to the Man but I am pulling moonies at him and making fun of his cock.

They are the Sky pictures, but the commentary is in Urdu (I think), which makes it even more exciting. Admittedly the coverage is still branded all over the place with the station’s Evil Corporate Sponsor, but I do quite like Chicken Cottage although there are not many of them near the Village.

I sit in happiness in front of the TV. Imran Nazir from Pakistan misses his shot and gets hit in the knackers. I do not wish Imran Nazir any ill-will at all, but any cricketer will tell you that seeing somebody get hit in the knackers provides a huge internal conflict of horror and schoolboy joy. That is not just me being immature. I am not immature and anybody who says so is a poobum.

They show him being hit in the knackers in slow motion, then they show him being hit in the knackers from three or four other camera positions. I feel a bit sorry for the fielders. They know that they are on TV and have to remain poker-faced. ‘Hawkeye’ then demonstrates the path of the ball from the bowler’s hand into the batsman’s knackers. Imran Nazir decides to retire hurt and let another batsman have a go.

We cut to a commercial break. There are more images of fried chicken. I make myself a cup of tea.

2007-09-19T10:23:00.000+01:00

“Have you not seen them?!?” I enquire innocently.

Eddie follows my glance across to the saloon bar. His jaw drops, like Mr Bojangles’s dog. Beside him, Len the Fish looks up from his pint in astonishment.

“Bloody hell…” gasps Eddie.

“Quite – striking, I thought,” I say.

A couple of the other regulars notice and join in. The Well-Spoken Barman pushes past us to get to the gap in the bar. He has the leave-me-alone air of a man who has been defending haberdashery all day. We tactfully wait until he is serving other customers before resuming our discussion.

“There’s re-upholstery. And there’s re-upholstery.”

The glow from the fluorescent pink now seems to fill the room, transfixing and hypnotising all who behold it.

“It’s like… it’s like we’re in a Gay Bar…”

“No,” I correct him. “It’s like we’re in a heterosexual notion of what a gay bar might look like.”

They nod at my sage wisdom.

“Actually, most of the gay bars that I have ever been in have been horrible dives.”

“What we should do is get one of the barstools covered in that material. Then we can play forfeit games as to who has to sit on it.”

“Did you see the UFO the other day?”

“No. But I’m sure there are aliens out there somewhere,” insists Eddie. “Somewhere.”

The chairs are forgotten. We talk about extra-terrestrials for some time.

2007-09-17T08:58:00.000+01:00

I pot the straight pink.

My opponent graciously shakes my hand; his team mates point and jeer and roll around laughing at the somewhat unexpected result. I do what I have been dying to do for the entire frame – I rush for the toilet like a charging werbeniuk.

Throwing open the door to the main part of the club I am greeted by a startling sight.

We are being raided by the police!!!

Two policewomen stand in the hallway. I screech to a halt in shock. There is a short pause whilst I work out what to say.

“Hullo,” I decide upon. “I didn’t see you come in?”

“No,” replies one of the uniformed ladies. “We sneaked in through the back entrance.”

I am one of those people who only ever thinks of funny things to say after the event. Witty rejoinders just aren’t my thing. Unfortunately, my brain picks this time, this one time, to start experimenting with this particular talent. I wish it wouldn’t do things like this.

“Ah. I’m always trying that but my other half isn’t having any of it.”

There is a long and rather pointed silence, like I’ve just been introduced to the Lubbocks at a dinner party and absent-mindedly greeted them with a cheery ‘Awright!’

“Is the owner in, please?”

2007-09-13T20:33:00.000+01:00

“Let me show you round the offices.”

I am thrown by this. I have psyched myself up like a hungry tiger, albeit a hungry tiger that is resigned to having to put together a short pitch and credentials demonstration in order to be awarded some freshly-dead gazelle. But my psyching-peak has arrived too soon!!! I have to look at some offices first.

Things have gone a bit pear-shaped on the money front recently, according to the LTLP who looks after those sorts of things. This has entailed some economising. She arrived home yesterday with some supermarket own-brand Weetabix, and if that is not Hogarthian degradation then I don’t know what is. Therefore I have made the reluctant decision that I should try to get a bit more work, ie some work.

I have not been into the capital city for a while. The last time, I had to go to Goodge Street, the BBC3 of underground stations, then on to Camden Town which put me off somewhat as it is full of the most awful people that there can possibly be, viz people who think that they have a sense of humour and have set up a business creating t-shirts with witty slogans. There is no justice when the good people of Basra are being exploded to death whereas the people who create ‘Adidhash’ t-shirts are left to ply their trade unmolested. But there is no oil in Camden Town eh, George?

I am shown an office. I always used to show people the offices when I had an office to show people (my private secret office in the garden shed does not count). It seemed like the polite thing to do. I had no idea that it was so intimidating an act. I examine the office, carefully.

“It’s very nice,” I comment.

My host whisks me through to another office. “Here is another office,” she announces. “And here are some people!”

I give a weak wave to the people, who are almost exclusively foxy-looking girls, although it does not seem appropriate to mention this at the time just in case it is some kind of honey trap arranged by the LTLP with all the money I thought we had. There is an everso short pause.

“Hullo,” I say, brightly.

We stand in the office, with the people. I look round, trying to think of what else to add. There are some shelves on the wall. They are good shelves, all level and not bowing in the middle. I wonder whether I should compliment them on their shelves but I decide against it. They would not have put the shelves up themselves. Their hands are too dainty.

Just as I am wondering whether to pipe up a conversation about photocopying, we move on to the next room. “And here,” I am told very proudly, “is my desk. Where I sit.”

It is a smashing desk, and there is indeed a chair planted underneath it, which backs up her story.

“Right – shall we get on then?” asks my host. I realise that my tigerness has all but dissipated. It is a trick of an Evil Corporation to do this; I have forgotten all the things that I meant to say and all my initial suave and go-getting impact has been lost.

I emerge later, with no gazelle.

2007-09-11T12:14:00.000+01:00

I lay some turf.

Short Tony has over-ordered; I had promised to buy the extra rolls from him. In the end there are just six. He gives them to me cheerfully.

“I’ll do that if you want,” offers the Industrious Builder. I turn him down politely. I am currently as broke as broke could possibly be and anyway it is always good to learn new skills. Having watched him turfing away, it seems a fairly simple task.

The LTLP returns just as I am finishing. Her eyes boggle as she sees the front lawn, and I can see that she is trying not to laugh. I give her a ‘this isn’t as easy as it looks’ look and she wisely shuts up.

When she has disappeared indoors, I take a step back and try to be honest with myself.

It is true that I am no stranger to performing jobs with ineptitude. I am inept at many things, and have occasionally made an art form out of it. In fact, I was briefly a consultant to the National Inept Society – they used to write to me for professional advice occasionally but unfortunately their communications never arrived (apparently they had the wrong email address). This particular job, I have to reluctantly admit, is near the top of the scale. It is truly inept. Fabulously inept.

The cuts are wonky and amateurish. There are still huge bare patches. The turfs meander up and down and up again, and whilst you could not quite drive a combine harvester through the gaps between them, a John Deere 8330 225-horsepower tractor would just about fit. I snarl at the grass in frustration, before turning the hose on it.

Booooooooo, I am useless at everything. Everything that there is, I am useless at. I gaze across the front garden one last time, open to the mockery of the Village, then stomp inside to make myself a cup of tea. It has brown scum on it.

2007-09-07T10:11:00.000+01:00

Continued from Tuesday

The crowd appears to have grown larger. I suspect that people are reproducing at the back. That is what they do at festivals, after all. Big A is there with his family, and Eddie & Eddie – big fans of Eric’s from the previous year, and Medium-sized John, Len the Fish and the LTLP, along with loads of faces that I recognise from the Village Pub, Fish Shop etc. We weave to a sparser area, where I am introduced to a Man with a Moustache, who plays the keyboards, and a set list.

“Eric can’t make it,” informs Glen. “So we’re going to have to make do.”

“Fg?!?” I reply, with characteristic understatement.

“Probably best to just follow me on the bass.”

Ten seconds later I have him in a head lock and am smashing his face against some paving slabs screaming “other guitarists!!! There must be other guitarists here!!!”

There are no other guitarists. Nor, it transpires, is there a bloke from the Archers, player of banjos or no.

From the stage, onto which I have sleepwalked, I look out upon faces. There are faces everywhere. Faces. Faces. Some people seem to have at least eight or nine of them, all looking at me personally. There is an awful hush.

“What shall we start with, then?” says a voice.

The thing that people do not realise about guitar playing is that there is guitar playing and guitar playing, and the sort of guitar playing that I do is not the sort of guitar playing that is called for by the set list, which is full of guitar players’ songs. I would be quite happy to do some Leonard Cohen or Jake Thackray, or ‘I Will Walk 500 Miles’ or the complete works of Fairport Convention or whatever, but screaming rock soloing is just Not My Thing.

I suggest that I play some Leonard Cohen. There is dissent within the band.

“This one,” suggests the Chipper Barman, pointing out a screaming rock soloing thing. “It’s in G.”

I point out that if he’d handed me a clarinet and asked me to perform the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major then the helpful key-hint that Mozart dropped into the title of his piece would still not give me much of a head start in its performance.

Sometimes people talk about a dream in which they find themselves naked on a theatre stage in front of an audience of 2000 people. The current moment is very much like this, aside from the fact that there are 6000 people in this dream’s auditorium, and I am not entirely naked as I am sporting a bra and women’s shoes.

Behind me, giant video screens have been erected to project secretly-obtained footage of me frowning in concentration as I very carefully and methodically masturbate a hen.

My mother sits stony-faced in the front row.

2007-09-04T13:54:00.000+01:00

Ray holds a music festival every year.

It is a barbecue really, although it is a bit like a music festival as there is a band, most of the Village turn up and there is only one toilet. I have not actually been before, due to prior engagements, but he is keen for me to be part of it as we sit and chat in the Village Pub.

The concept is simple. Ray is friends with a guitar player who is extremely well-renowned in the world of guitar playing. Knowing every song that has ever been written, ever, Eric (as I will call him (although his name is not really Eric (although this could be an elaborate double-bluff))) plays whatever people want to hear with incredible virtuosity, holding the whole thing together whilst other people who can play an instrument join in with whatever they can. It has worked really well for the past few years – you regularly hear people talking about when they saw Eric play.

I am always a bit doubtful about playing in public, even though I did once play a gig supporting the Sultans of Ping FC, so I have seen a slice of the big time in the past. But I am keen to play with Eric, and there will be beer there, and food supplied by Len the Fish. An additional attraction of this year’s event will be a bloke from the Archers who plays the banjo.

“I’ve not really played for ages and ages,” I explain cautiously.

Ray waves away my fears and buys me another pint of Woodfordes Doubtremover. I am comforted by this, and the next one, and the ones after that and soon we are going into a detailed plan of what we are going to do musically: mainly throw in a few odd notes and let Eric do the rest. Perhaps we will also incorporate some anecdotes from the man from the Archers who plays the banjo. Our options are endless.

Some weeks later, I am looking at a big crowd of people.

From the side, I can see my guitar propped up amongst lots of other gear in the makeshift stage/gazebo arrangement. At the back, the drummer of a major-label-signed band is fiddling with his snare. There is a sort of joyous air of expectation amongst the crowd.

Ray taps me on the shoulder.

“I need a quick word?” he says.

To be continued…

2007-09-03T10:36:00.000+01:00

The mothership settles over Roger’s house.

I stagger sweatily into the bedroom, and hiss furiously at the LTLP. She raises her head from under the duvet, groggily.

“What time is it?!?” she whispers.

“There is a UFO!!!” I tell her. “Over Roger’s house!!!”

I rush to the window and open the curtains a tiny crack, beckoning her over. She gives me a look, as if I have just returned from a fishing expedition, pulled out a wet canvas bag, and started flinging perch.

“Look!!!”

She makes the three-foot journey from bed to window, using up all the adjectives that are synonymous with ‘grumpily’ and ‘sceptically’ in the process.

“Look!!!”

It might have been Nigel who first spotted the mothership, or perhaps Mrs Big A. Either way, we had watched from the Village Pub in wonder and amazement. Rotating over towards the Estate, it was circular, several metres across, and glowed against the clouds exactly like one of those projecting circular rotating spotlights that they use to illuminate the sky at events. The fact that it was so well disguised as one of these was vaguely terrifying, but we were happy to watch whilst it was in the distance.

A couple of pints later and I had left suddenly. Not having had any dinner, there was a certain amount of nausea building up, and I felt like a walk home. But the mothership had moved!!! It seemed to be the other side of the church now. I bravely took a detour onto the pitch-black playing field in order to try to see more, but retreated quickly for fear of alien anal probe.

“Yes,” she says. “I wonder where that’s coming from?”

“WasoverestatemovedtobehindchurchanalprobenowatRoger’s,” I gibber, getting worked up again. She pats my back to calm me. “Come to bed?”

“Wait,” I order, taking control of the situation once more. I scoot down the stairs and lock the front door, trying the handle several times to ensure that the five-lever lock will keep out anything but the most advanced technology. I check the sleeping Toddler – she is still there. I retreat to bed, and pull the duvet up around me.

2007-08-29T10:38:00.000+01:00

“No,” I insist. “Absolutely not.”

If one is going to spend one’s Bank Holiday at the Village Children’s Sports Day rather than, say, to pick somewhere completely and utterly at random, the Pub, it would seem reasonable to have some right of veto over the Parents’ Race. As it is, people are urging me to participate. I have built a successful and fulfilling life on the basis of not participating in anything, and I have no wish to start now.

Fortunately I grew out of being susceptible to peer-pressure some years ago.

“Watch it... it can get quite competitive out there,” calls Mrs Short Tony as I trudge sulkily to the starting line. She is perceptive. There has certainly been a smattering of shouting and adrenaline-fuelled dads on the sidelines during the ‘4-7 year old’ category. I resolve that I will stand my ground and not be intimidated by these people. I even make a couple of humorous remarks to a couple of the other competitors as the starter lines us up.

Three minutes later, I am being helped off the floor by the Chipper Barman. “I’m ok,” I assure him. “I'm ok.” Dizziness swirls around my head as I wander back towards who I assume might be the LTLP.

“No, I think you’ll find that it’s pretty bad,” he replies, trotting after me anxiously. “You’d better get something to put on that eye.”

“Oh.”

It is a well-known neurological fact that whenever a male sustains any form of minor injury, the brain’s first reaction is ‘how can I milk this?’. As it is, I am just about to adopt my ‘brave soldier’ voice when the LTLP gives me a look of horror and I realise that there is blood and stuff and no need for any milking whatsoever. My legs sit down for me.

“What happened there?!?” asks Mrs Short Tony.

It takes me a minute to collect what remains of my thoughts. I can’t feel my right wrist, and there are grazes down my leg.

“It got a bit crowded,” I begin, “and... I think they call it ‘doing a Mary Decker.’”

The under-fours potato race begins. Somebody hands me a tissue to hold against my eye. I am consoled by the fact that despite the eye thing, the sprained wrist, the bruising and the grazes, at least I went down just on the finishing line and so retained my dignity.

Much later, I discover grass stains down the entire length of my underpants and on to my thigh, indicating that at some point during the incident my trousers were not present.

2007-08-24T13:22:00.000+01:00

CAMPAIGN WEEK ON JBPSD

“If I were in charge of A&E, I would put Charlie Chaplin films on a continuous loop. It wouldn’t matter about the sound and it would cheer everybody up.”

I wrote this only last week, and Mousie leapt into action. She is an A&E nurse, and is going to raise the issue at her next team meeting!!! (NB I am making a sexist assumption that Mousie is a female whereas this is a 21st century non-sexist world and it is quite fine for men to be nurses as well if they are unable to become doctors).

Kudos to Mousie. She is a doer.

This journal has a number of readers who work in the medical professions. Will YOU follow suit and press for Charlie Chaplin films to be shown on a continuous loop in your A&E Department? Will you? If there is some resistance you can allow Buster Keaton as well.

Remember the benefits:

- It will make people happy who are unhappy due to their medical circumstances;
- It will make people happy who are unhappy due to the fact that placing a television in the corner of a room, tuning it to a spoken-word station and then turning the sound off is beyond a fatuous use of valuable NHS funds and approaching the provocation to riot;
- The staff on the ward will all naturally work a lot faster as they are inspired by the pace of the movie;
- If there is a fight or aggravation by drunks, people will know how to avoid being hit by running round the room five times and then doing a head-over-heels through the aggressor’s legs before turning round to kick them in the bottom.

But, above all, for an infinitesimally tiny outlay in the big scheme of things, it will make the world a very slightly sunnier place.

So, if you work in the NHS, are on speaking terms with your MP, know how to set up these Facebook groups or have ever used that petition thing on the 10 Downing Street site - do something.

The ill will thank you for it.

Thus ends Campaign Week on JBPSD. It has been interesting, doing something different over the summer. Next week we shall return to stories about the Village and my exciting life in it. Enjoy your Bank Holiday weekends.

2007-08-22T12:58:00.000+01:00

CAMPAIGN WEEK ON JBPSD

As a sort of full stop on Post Office matters, the animation and song have now been uploaded onto the You Tube.

You can leave a comment there if you want. Clare’s original hosted version is better quality, and has the words, if you are planning to use it at a karaoke party.

When the song was originally recorded, I think most people twigged that essentially it’s less to do with Post Offices and more a silly little satire on the way that when people try to communicate with the ‘yoof’ in their own language, something genuinely risible usually results. But shorn of the original context and with the addition of Clare’s superb bunny video, I’ve seen it archived in the Centre for Political Song, (alongside Bragg, Dylan, Public Enemy et al), shown at a community film festival, linked to by militant Royal Mail staff sites and presented to the Post Office management by strategic design consultants.

And, yes, cited by an anti-Post Office closure campaign as a great example of how to get the kids involved. No link, as I’m genuinely touched by this and don’t want them to think that I’m taking the mick.

So there you go. As one campaign opens, another closes. The campaign is laid to rest; I shall wander up the road to weigh my parcels secure in the knowledge that, however unwittingly, I have Done My Bit. I need a new project to work on now. I wonder what it could be…?

2007-08-20T09:41:00.000+01:00

CAMPAIGN WEEK on JBPSD

Needing to recover from the Village UFO incident, and rocking from side to side still as I try to write my report of the Village Music Festival, I shall be branching out this week. It is Campaign Week!!! Here, I shall fearlessly campaign.

We shall start with Iraq. Iraq has many of the problems of this part of Norfolk, with outsiders coming in and putting a strain on the local infrastructure.

So a while back, our recruiting chap out there had a conversation with some locals. Essentially, people were trying to explode our soldiers and, whatever you think about the actual warry bit, I think it’s generally accepted that we would rather our soldiers were not exploded.

“You couldn’t give us a bit of a hand?” asked the recruiting chap.

Iraqis #1 and #2 drew deep breaths. “I’d like to help,” said Iraqi #1 finally. “The economy’s frankly gone a bit tits up here. And to be honest, being an educated human being, I would also like a situation where people didn’t explode other people all the time. I’m not really into that. Just because we are Arabs and live in this war-torn country does not mean that we conform to your simple Western stereotypes.” He turned to Iraqi#2. “Does it, Abdul?”

“No, Mohammed,” replies his friend.

“The thing is,” continued #1, “We’d be risking our lives. There are death squads. By helping you catch murderers some would consider us traitors. If we help and they catch up with us then…” he tailed off.

“Oh – don’t worry,” we British replied. “I think you’ll find that the war won’t last that long. We’ll win quite easily and then Iraq will be a lovely place. A bit like Switzerland – that is the plan.”

“But with hotter weather,” chipped in his assistant.

“After all, we’ve got loads of experience in this sort of thing,” we continued. “I really can’t envisage anything going wrong, ever.”

Iraqi #2 thought deeply. “Yes, we will help,” he concludes. “Our multilingual skills and local knowledge will be very useful to you, and will help stop your soldiers being exploded. You have convinced us. Switzerland, you say? Will there be Toblerone?”

“Oh definitely,” we replied. “Sign there. I have to pop over to Afghanistan now, where Kenneth Williams and Bernard Bresslaw are causing no end of a nuisance.”

*

A few months later and, unfortunately, the Swissification of Iraq has hit a few delays. In fact, it’s not going well at all. Iraqi #2’s association with us means that he is now desperate for our protection. Iraqi #1 isn’t that bothered any more – he was tortured and murdered by the death squads a couple of weeks back.

It strikes me that if you’re going to have a system of giving asylum to people who face terror and horror in their own country, then it would be a reasonable idea to start with people who face terror and horror as a consequence of helping you out. This doesn't seem to be happening. So do we address this, or do we forget the whole thing?

You can find out a bit more about this at Dan Hardie’s weblog, here.

2007-08-17T11:00:00.000+01:00

JonnyB’s Holiday Report - #3 of 3

We go to the zoo.

I have not been to a zoo since a particularly ill-thought out double date around twenty years ago. Toddler Servalan screams with excitement at the first sight of a zebra.

Personally I am looking forward to the elephants. It strikes me that most other zoo animals are just larger or differently-coloured versions of things that you see all the time, apart from elephants, which are unusual and thus very worth making the effort for. I expect they came from space originally.

We pass the lemur enclosure. The Toddler screams with excitement. A seagull then lands in front of us. The Toddler screams with excitement and I realise that I could have saved £19 and just sat on the beach for the day watching free wildlife.

It is a paradox, but I find the look of absolute, utter delight on her face desperately sad. That condition of total happiness and wonder is something that is so fleeting; a few nanoseconds later you are an adult and you will never, ever feel like that again.

The closest thing that I can remember as an adult to that unconditional delight was a few years back on Saffron Hill, in London. A builders’ cradle and hoist had gone terribly wrong, upending a trade canister of white emulsion over a passing businessman, below. He was rooted there, totally white, paint dripping off his suit and briefcase, gesticulating furiously and shouting until the police arrived. It was, by a long chalk, the most brilliant thing that I have ever witnessed in my life. But she can get all that from a passing seagull.

We trot round the rest of the zoo. I know zoos are good at all that conservation stuff and all that, but it seems to me that there are a high proportion of non-endangered small South American mammals that are presumably quite easy to feed and house. The LTLP feeds a parrot.

There are no elephants. I am crushed and disappointed at this. We return to the chalet, pack, and drive home. Some mysterious cucumbers are leaning against the front door.

2007-08-15T14:50:00.000+01:00

JonnyB’s Holiday Report - #2 of 3.

I can think of only two advantages to driving through the night to get to Cornwall. Firstly, there is very little traffic on the road, and secondly it is dark as you go through Northamptonshire.

We spend the first part of the journey working out what we’ve forgotten to pack after the unscheduled fiasco at the hospital. The answer seems to be: ‘any form of thing to entertain us, whatever’.

As a child, I remember trips to Cornwall being relaxed, ambling affairs along picturesque minor roads. Pub lunches on the way; stopping on the moors to play with the sheep etc. These days the infrastructure has improved, and the A30 cuts through the county like a newly-sharpened cleaver through a small child’s pet.

Mile after mile, junction after junction. The LTLP and Toddler doze in the back. At one point I stop for a rest at some Motorway Services, but everything is pretty well closed apart from the horrible coffee place and the arcade driving simulation machines. I buy a horrible coffee and drink it, blinking at the distinctive fluorescent lighting that is always employed in Areas of Minimum Wage.

Somebody once said that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. They are an idiot. We draw into the holiday park just after five a.m., and I pull up outside the tiny, tiny chalet that we are to share for a week. My mother and father in law greet us at the door with a warm, comforting cup of tea.

2007-08-13T11:58:00.000+01:00

JonnyB’s Holiday Report - #1 of 3.

Accident and Emergency is a bleak and joyless place.

As far as I can see, it works like this. You walk into the department with, say, an axe sticking out of your head. A lady greets you from behind bullet proof glass and leaps into action to establish your ethnic group, address and date of birth. You are then given some notes, which say something like ‘axe sticking out of head’ and record your address and date of birth. These notes are to be put in a tray.

A while later, a nurse emerges and collects your notes from the tray. Frowning, he or she studies these before calling your name. You follow the call into an ante-chamber, being careful to mind your axe on the top of the doorframe.

“What seems to be the matter?” you are asked.

You go through the axe business again, and the nurse carefully writes ‘axe sticking out of head’ on a new page in the notes. They then enquire as to your address and date of birth, before leaving you back in the main area for a bit to make contact with the axe-removal department.

The axe is probably beginning to smart a bit by now, so you amuse yourself by watching the television that’s screwed to the wall, high up in the corner. The BBC News is on. Of course, as it is a hospital, the sound is turned down completely. They have paid for a television in the corner to entertain people, but they have tuned it to a station that generally features programmes that require sound, and have turned the sound off.

Another while later, your name is called once more. It is the axe specialist, who looks at your head-addition with interest. Opening your notes at a new page, he asks you for your date of birth and address, which he records importantly. He then asks you what the matter is. You explain the business with the axe once more, and he writes ‘axe sticking out of head’ on his new page in your notes.

“Mmmm,” he says, sitting back at the end of the consultation. “You have an axe sticking out of your head.”

“I think,” he continues, “we will need to admit you to have a look at that.”

You wait for a while for a porter to arrive, so that you can follow him to the axe ward. The porter is friendly and cheerful, and follows the clearly signposted directions competently. In the axe ward, you are shown to a room with a bed and told to wait.

An auxiliary nurse arrives with your notes, in order to ask you your date of birth and address. She writes this down on a new page in your notes, so that they know where you live and how old you are. The consultant will be round in due course, and is sure to find out what’s wrong with you.

We sit in the A&E reception area, waiting to be seen. Looking on the bright side, I do not have an axe sticking out of my head, but I am otherwise pissed off at the general direction of the beginning of our holiday.

If I were in charge of A&E, I would put Charlie Chaplin films on a continuous loop. It wouldn’t matter about the sound and it would cheer everybody up. There is nothing like a Charlie Chaplin film to make the world seem sunnier, and it would be better than a mouthing Huw Edwards.

2007-08-01T21:08:00.001+01:00

I have gone to Cornwall!!!

It will be nice to see some out-of-the-way rural countryside, and have a relaxing holiday with no disasters whatsoever. I shall tell you about my relaxing holiday with no disasters whatsoever on my return.

Au revoir (nb that is French for laters)

JonnyB

2007-07-31T10:28:00.000+01:00

We went to a tourist attraction.

One of the things that I have found with being the father of a demanding Toddler is that you have to go to tourist attractions at the weekend. People without children just lie in bed on Saturdays reading the newspaper and being brought coffee and having sixty niners. I envy them all, with their relaxing and unpressured lifestyles.

This time, however, I was looking forward to the trip as we were going to see the man who has built a proper miniature railway in his garden.

It is brilliant!!! I had not been there before – it is open only a couple of times a year. We walked up his drive and across the level crossing. ‘Toot toot’ went the train as it zooshed past laden with children.

The LTLP narrowed her eyes at me. “I can tell what you’re thinking,” she warned.

I shrugged off her silliness. Besides, I would have to scrap the chicken idea if I were to have one.

It being the first sunny day since the initial episode of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’, we queued for about 3 days for our go. There were children everywhere. I explained the minutiae of railway operation and history to the Toddler as the LTLP clutched her and I carried the satchel of child things and a flask of drink.

“Room for two more!!!” hollered a railway official.

We pushed our way to the front. Unfortunately when we got there the two seats weren’t together, so I had to go on my own in a wagon with another bloke and a young boy. I gave them a broad smile as I sat opposite, the satchel and drink on my lap. He pulled his child closer to him and muttered something.

The train set off. It is incredible!!! He has tunnels and viaducts and everything. I will have to knock through the wall into Short Tony’s if I am ever to do anything like it.

There are people who would say that building a railway in your garden is typical of an English Eccentric. It seems perfectly normal to me, although if you ask me it is fucking eccentric to then invite the general public in to spoil it. If/when I have one I would keep it all to myself, apart from maybe letting a few people from the Village Pub have a go on it after closing time.

I try to explain this to the LTLP on the way down the hill. She just rolls her eyes. If she is not careful she will end up being tied to the tracks.