Santa In Need

Track of the day - Nice Work If You Can Get It - Bud Powell Trio.



Iris suddenly noticed that Santa was in need of a blowjob.

Trouble In Reception

Please listen to - Today's Gloomy Weather Forecast - Channel 5's Weather Lady.

Our scene is set in a small town situated 114 miles from London, 5 miles from Birmghm and even closer to Dudley.

"I hear you've been causing trouble in Reception," she said from somewhere above and behind me. "It's not our fault. It's the National Health Service that insists on you filling in the form every time you visit us."
I didn't argue. My small but amazingly powerful Chinese dentist lady had me pinned down on my back and was probing my oral cavity with a pointy steel object. My right shoulder was trapped beneath her small but amazingly powerful left breast. I decided it was best not to move.

The receptionist had told me the form I'd handed her was incomplete.
"What about your health?" she'd said.
"It's fine," I told her.
"No. You've got to check the entries. Are there any changes that we need to make there?"
"No. No changes," I told her and then, as an afterthought, I added,
"Still manage a pee and a bowel movement every morning. I just wish I could wake up first."
The receptionist is a very attractive young lady but humourless.
I'd hate to read my latest personal health entry.

Joshua Redman

Every time I get to watch Joshua Redman play I find myself wondering, "How on earth does he do that?"
Last night I finally found something he does that I can do.
Then he stood up and started blowing again.

Joshua Redman on NPR

Stripping

The DIY expert from the end of the road came along this morning to borrow my axe. I'm not sure what he wanted it for. He didn't say and I didn't like to ask. As he was wandering off with the axe over his shoulder, he stopped.
"What are you up to at the moment?"
"Nothing," I said. "Absolutely nothing at all."
At that point I felt a sudden and dark cloud of guilt descend on me. Which is how I came to spend the day stripping in the little room under the stairs.
The guy who lived in the house before us called it 'the telephone room'. Delusions of grandeur I guess.
We put a WC and a washbasin in there and some lousy wallpaper and called the room the downstairs WC. There's still a telephone in there just in case someone calls mid bowel movement.
Nothing is allowed to interrupt the call of nature in Bogsville Heights.
I was in that little room stripping away merrily from 10.00am until about 3.00pm which is much longer than I'd intended.
I'd reckoned on an hour to strip the wallpaper, an hour for lunch, an hour to slap some paint on the walls and half an hour to clear up.
In the event I got most of the paper off the walls but it just seemed to get stuck to the oak floor.



When Mrs B. came home it took her two hours to notice that I'd been doing anything. Just goes to show what a state the wallpaper was in.
I don't think she'd have noticed at all if she hadn't changed her shoes and found bits of paper stuck all over them.
If she'd come home an hour earlier she'd have gone for the axe from the end of the road.

A Leaf

Clarissa suddenly noticed that Giles had a leaf on the toe of his right shoe.

Batlike In Bogsville

Track of the day - Boom Boom Boom - The Animals.

I've been keeping my head down and my feet up recently.
I spend hours every week hanging batlike, upside down, suspended from my latest waste of money purchase, an inversion table.
I've wanted one since I boggered my back at work twenty five years ago.

"You can't leave that box on the floor Mr Bogs. Move it."
I should have ignored him. But in a fit of bogsian pique, I waited until he'd gone then heaved the box up onto a table, put a chair on top of the table and dragged everything over to the wall. Standing on the chair on top of the table I could just about reach an overhead cupboard.

Just as I got the box level with the cupboard, it began to split. I twisted to get the contents in through the open door.
There was a loud crack like a pistol shot and excruciating pain at the base of my spine.
I had a sudden and compelling desire to hang upside down but there wasn't a tree branch handy.

The Doctor was a complete waste of time.
He suggested "Bed rest and aspirin."
No surprise there because that's his remedy for just about everything.
A kindly physiotherapist wired me up to an electrical device that caused everything to twitch uncontrollably. That was fun and strangely erotic and it got rid of the pain until the next time I forgot I had a back problem and tried to lift something.
Every time my back was bad I knew that if I could just hang upside down the pain would go away.

Now, thanks to my inversion table, I just lock my feet under a padded bar, raise my arms in the air and hurtle backwards until I'm hanging upside down.

Has it cured my back problem?
In a word, no.
But it's good fun once you get used to the blood pounding in your ears and it keeps me out of the way.
Perhaps my legs will get longer.

Incidentally my new Left and Right socks are a great success. I'll have to take them for a walk.

Lap Dancing Lesbians And Socks

Track of the day - Dead End Street - The Kinks.

Mrs B has gone out for the evening so I'm trying to find something to do.
There's plenty on offer but as I'm neither gay nor lesbian I may be ruled out of the bridge and lap dancing.
Scoffing edible handbags sounds promising but as I've already had a pork chop a handbag on top would be pure piggery.
Sleeping with mummies might be dead easy and far less taxing. No on second thoughts...
Looks like I'll have to join the lesbians for the evening.

I ventured out into the vast metropolis earlier today to replace the contents of my sock drawer.
Mine were holey enough for a pope or an archbishop.
I am now the proud owner of seven brand new pairs of dark blue socks.
When I ripped them out of the packaging I discovered that two pairs are clearly marked left and right, L and R.



God only knows what discomfort I'll suffer when the lettering wears off and I grab two odd socks.

FCUK

Track of the day - Donald Where's Your Trousers? - Andy Stewart.

"Hello, FCUK Oxford Street?
Donald Featherstonehaugh, pronounced Fanshaw, here.
Could you check the changing rooms for a rather sordid pair of black Marks & Sparks trousers? I seem to have left the store without them.
You've already found them. That's great.
Do you think someone could bring them down to me at St Pancras?
Yes I know you're very busy but it is really really urgent. You see I'm feeling a trifle vulnerable at the moment.
Exactly. So you'll appreciate why I don't feel I can move from where I am now.
Yes well I'm standing behind a large suitcase so I don't think anyone's noticed yet...
but I fear it's only a matter of time..."

A Nawk & An Howl

Track of the day - I am a pig & you are a cow - Prince Edward Island.

Just in case you're not a bird expert, this is a nawk. Well that's what most people round here call them.
I was nawk admiring this morning when a lady wearing a very smart bird watching hat and bird watching body warmer examined it through her very expensive bird watching binoculars and told me the nawk was actually a kestrel.
Just after she'd finished putting me straight, an old guy came along with his dog and told me it was a nawk.
I told him it was little but definitely a nawk and he agreed.
The bird watching lady walked off in disgust.



Up in his oak tree the owl, or howl if you prefer to add an haitch, was fast asleep. The nawk wasn't big enough to bother him.
The park ranger says he calls the howl Rocky.

For anyone who prefers beatles to nawks and howls here's a link to Baby's In Black from the Shea Stadium concert. I love the shot of Mum handing out tissues to her daughter.

Messages From The Spirit World

Track of the day - Somewhere - Dave Brubeck.



Aunt Nellie was my maternal grandmother's sister and she was watching a budgerigar when I took this photograph about fifty years ago.
For some inexplicable reason I've been trying to find Aunt Nellie's grave for the last two years.

Then three days ago I found some papers in a box that came from my father's house when he died. The papers indicated that my mother had purchased a cemetery plot in October 1960.
This worried me somewhat because when Ma died she was cremated, not buried. Not much chance of sorting that one out, I decided.
Then it dawned on me that Ma had bought the plot for Aunt Nellie. So I went looking for her grave again. I'd been looking in the wrong cemetery so it's not surprising that I hadn't been able to find it.

The cemetery manager found the grave for me easily enough.



It was the only one in the row that had an unsafe tag attached to it.

I don't know whether my mother's side of the family believed in messages from the spirit world but my father's parents certainly did. He was a dab hand with a ouija board and held regular family séances that terrified my father. Somewhere there's a notebook in which Grandfather Bogs kept a record of the happenings. There are also some highly dubious photographs of people surrounded by ectoplasm. I'll have to find them.
Anyway, whichever spirit it was that sent me off in search of great aunt Nellie's grave, you can relax now because I got the message loud and clear and the headstone will be made safe.

Red Tape

This morning I was informed by a monumental stone mason that I can't just pay for the repair. I have to apply for official transfer of the plot to my name and get the documentation signed by a Justice of the Peace before the mason can touch the headstone.
I was about to contact the City Council to complain about all this red tape tripe when I discovered the following words, hidden away on a council web page.
"The council will arrange for and fund the cost of the repair of the headstone, without relatives having to get involved."
So they should. They damaged the headstone in the first place.

My spirit sources will be keeping a close eye on future events.

I'm now off to visit Prince Edward Island.

The Lady With The Wheeze

Track of the day - Deep Purple - Duke Ellington.

We're definitely into the season of mists minus the mellow fruitfulness here in Bogsville.
I tune in religiously to the TV weather reports to discover what tomorrow will bring.
If I'm honest I tune in because I have a thing about weather ladies.
I'm currently worried about the health of Carol Kirkwood, the BBC lady with the wheeze. I'm sure the sound crew could mic her up more sympathetically. She's a desperately shallow breather.
Judge for yourself from this recently recorded breathless clip.

She ought to pop over to Prince Edward Island.

St Pancras

Track of the day - Whirly-Bird - Count Basie.



It's very handy for the train if you can bring yourself to mix with the peasants.
There's probably a helipad.
How will they get the mail delivered if there's no pedestrian access?

I'd rather have my own little piece of Prince Edward Island.

Buy One Get One Free

Track of the day - Temptation - Arctic Monkeys.


It seemed like an offer that was too good to miss so I nipped inside to see what was available.
Turned out that the 'buy one get one free senior citizens' had proved far more popular than anticipated and they were clean out of stock.
The guy was apologetic and said he was expecting another container load from the docks as soon as his mate could sort out the paperwork.
Next door they were filling the bargain window with their current two for one offer.
I was tempted but they looked a bit skimpily clad for Bogsville weather conditions and pretty lifeless too, probably fallen off the back of a lorry somewhere in Kent.

Bob's Bombs

Track of the day - Rudy's Rock - Bill Haley.



The local Hells Angels staged their annual firework display last night.
Their displays used to be put together by a biker named Bob whose air bombs shook the foundations and shattered the windows of local houses. Bob's Bogsville bomb blasts must have registered on earthquake measuring devices round the world.
Bob died a couple of years ago, not, I hasten to add, while mixing up pyrotechnical piledrivers.
As yet no one locally has managed to recreate Bob's eardrum rupturing recipes.
The originals were bequeathed to the military.

The deadline for purchasing your own little piece of Prince Edward Island has been extended.

Caught Short

Track of the day - Right Place Wrong Time - Dr. John.



Caught short in the woods, I was urinating against the trunk of an old oak tree when, "Toowit-toowoo", I realised that my efforts were being observed by this tawny owl. Luckily the owl had no camera.
When I proudly reported my sighting to a ranger, he was singularly unimpressed.
"Yeah. It must be the most photographed bird in South Staffordshire, that one."

I spent yesterday listening to news items on radio and tv about drinking alcohol and cancer, eating red meat and cancer. The end result was that last night after three months of total abstinence from alcohol, apart from a couple of pints of beer in Yorkshire and another two in London, I suddenly felt the urge to revisit the Hole in the Ground bar.
I really wish I hadn't.
The place was so empty that I couldn't help wondering whether it was related to the quality of red meat and beer on offer there.
Eventually I wandered outside into the back yard where they've put tables and space heaters to accommodate smokers.
One lone smoker stood by the glass door watching the soccer on a big screen that was the only sign of life in the bar.
He finished smoking, dropped what was left of the cigarette on the ground behind him, went back inside and closed the door.
I decided to follow him but found that he'd locked the door. I rattled the door for a while but there was no one to open it so I climbed out over the wall and went home.
P.S. If the current owner of the bar reads this, a stile would help.