Tuesday 25 September 2012

Plebgate...


Sodden Prickney Parish Council Offices.


Incident at side door, at last week’s Council Meeting.

  Dramatis Personae:

  Cynthia Molestrangler (Parish Clerk)
  Sid Nobbage: (Office cleaner)


Cynthia Molestrangler : - ”Good evening Sid, can I leave my shopping trolley here please?”

Sid Nobbage : - “Sorry to say, Miss Molestrangler, that there’s no room for it here, I’ll put it round in the kitchen for you, it’ll be nice and dry there! I’ll keep an eye on it for you, and bring it round for you after the meeting!”

Cynthia Molestrangler : - “P**s off, you f*****g jumped up b****y b*****d, s**tbag, uneducated little bald-headed c**t! I want to f*****g leave it here, and I’m f*****g well going to f*****g leave the f***er here, whether you f*****g well like it or f*****g not!”

(Pause)

Sid Nobbage : - “D’you want to come back to my place later, I love it when you talk dirty”!

(Pause)

Cynthia Molestrangler : - “Yeah, alright”!

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Total rubbish story...

So the Groily Moil has an article, which says that if you live in the country, you're more likely to get Alzheimers!

Which part of 'Planet' don't they understand!

Just because we don't have regular muggings outside our door, we don't have screaming yobs pissing in our garden, we don't have endless crowds of chavs bellowing obscenities at each other, and anyone else within earshot, we don't have ridiculous cars with red stripes and stupid fins and black wheels tearing past every five minutes, we don't get any shot policemen and policewomen, we don't get too many motorbikes without silencers tearing down the road, we don't get asked for a pound for a cup of tea, we don't have to watch the failing kids too often, even though they spend most of their time round at the worst pub in Kent, we don't have to worry if we get bitten by the yobs' idiot dogs, because JRT would slaughter them at the touch of a retractable lead button, we don't have to listen to their inane conversations on their mobiles, as the traffic drowns everything but the loudest 'Carrrrn eeear yaahs' when you have to get near enough to it!

We have several rods of allotments, we make loads of our own wine, we have great communication with all our neighbours when it's necessary, we buy cheaply, we drink a lot when we want, we talk quickly after a few tinctures, we have an excitable dog, which needs several walks a day, we have gorgeous countryside to walk in and admire, we have each other to bounce ideas off, we have more chats per hour than some idiotic mobile phone programme, we eat magnificently, we can be as smug as we want, but to claim that Alzheimers affects people like us, just because we live in the country, is just too stupid for words!

And we're supposed to be liable for Alzheimers...?

Just get out of my way, you inane, ridiculous writer of crap! You really are out of your depth on this one.

(To both subscribers, please just Google the story, I really can't be arsed to do a link here!)

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Expensive faggery...

Just today, Mrs Scrobs and I attended a subjective buy-in at Twongos, as we can get double points, and I get a two hour pass from BPs into the bargain.

While we bought several items of necessity, like corned beef, and also some 'three-for-ten notes' meat, we realised that we would also want to get some petrol for the journey home, and the lady on the till kindly obliged with a 5p discount per litre ticket, which was a generous gift from Mr Cohen's family, and much appreciated...

So, into the petrol station we went, and while proffering the dosh for a paltry mortgageable gallonage of motion-lotion, I vaguely scanned the cigarette shelves behind the tills.

Bloody Hellfire! Fags at £7.80 for twenty!

When I was a learning to be something or other back in the nineteen-sixties, they cost nothing like that, and the sum of four shillings and seven pence (23p) springs to mind for twenty Gold Leaf, or Embassy! Mrs Scrobs smoked Piccadilly, and they cost a penny more. I graduated onto Three Castles Tipped, and they were a couple of pennies more as well, but then, we were quids in as we were getting married, and the tax-man was going to see us right, wasn't he...?

£7.80 works out at about 39p per fag, which seems quite a lot to an ageing old ex-smoker like Scrobs, who used to ruin the various alcoholic places of iniquity by smoking a Falcon pipe for ages! Blimey, it was a huge stoppage when I gave up, it hurt like hell, and Mrs S supported me and gave up as well, and we immediately (well nearly), bought an early computer and paid for a holiday! Nowadays, just four packets of fags would pay for our entire food bill, and more!

On the way home this evening, we saw a schoolgirl gawping at a mobile phone, and sporting a very long and expensive cigarette. Jail bait I'm afraid. We carried on, and just crossing the road, we both felt particularly old, until I saw a 20p piece on the pavement outside the pub, and being a generous-hearted sort of bloke, picked it up and pocketed it.

It only took a few seconds to realise that back in the olden days, that 20p coin would have bought 20 Number 6 plain ciggies, in the familiar small brown packet...

They cost 4 shillings (20p) back then...

Thursday 6 September 2012

Don't fly, there's too much to do yet...

I've slurped loads of tinctures in this place and even marvelled at the greenery there, and the ambiance, and the glass etc etc. I've tripped over the odd door frame, and listened to lots of the sort of tosh which architects get rich and sexy on, spoken to gorgeous women about nothing in particular, but enjoyed the process immensely and also fiddled about with a funny tapas creation, but I don't understand why people jump from the edge and upset the people several storeys below, who are wandering about on the street seeing to their own business, or want to get home to their loved ones. 

There is a well-marked lift to reach the cafe after all, and yes, it is a pretty good place to celebrate a huge deal, or a big wedding, or just to get smashed, but jumping off the garden wall at seven storeys is not what I feel is correct - or is it...?

One of my chums had therapy to stop him throwing himself off escalators! Funny? Maybe, but he was in Guangzhou airport once, and had this uncontrollable urge to fling himself over the edge of a huge escalator! I suppose, if I was a money man, making huge bucks for all and sundry, and that if I'd made made a cobblers/horlicks of a deal, I may feel pretty bad, but, I'd go and talk it through with my boss, or my chums, so that he/she/they could share the blame or otherwise.

No 1, Poultry is a reasonably pretty building, not entirely attractive, but definitely a place to see and wonder (in my case), how much the fee was to design the place, and how much the stone cost, because it is incredibly well put together, thanks to a damn good builder.

I shelter from the winter cold there sometimes, occasionally wander down to Cannon Street Station therefrom, but, I still wonder if a roof garden, in this volatile section of The City, is not the platform from hell.

Sunday 2 September 2012

Bath yarn...

It's been all of several hours since he last spent some time and a few pounds discussing the state of play with his good friend Elias Sagtrouser, but, Scrobs was returning home after a hard day's graft, and had to pass 'The Bells' (it is a village pub after all). Elias has a hermit crab existence there, although he does the opposite to that noble crustacean and he jumps out on unsuspecting passers-by like the shambling Scrobs, and lures them into a haven of rest to partake of several pints of  'Old Standfast' - ABV 5.5%, (and that is a misnomer in any red-blooded male's books, I can tell you)!

So, Elias is in his usual station closest to the bar, and his ever-loving-wife, Gloriette, is sitting on a bar stool next to him, and showing a  huge acreage of stunning legs. To make matters worse, Meccano (their stupid son), and Toniatteliene, (Meccano's squeeze), are playing bar billiards, and every time the rather gorgeous lady leans over the table, there are several embolisms in waiting with some of the assembled older men, and the same number of similar-sounding experiences from some of the younger ones!

"Scrobs, I want to tell you a story"! says Elias, adjusting his hat.

Now this is a sign that I will be in the same location for at least three pints more, as Elias has a habit of being very generous with his hard-earned (occasionally-tax-free) notes at the best of times, and while I always try to intervene and pay my corner, Elias pronounces the values of Trilbyism, and has a tenner outstretched towards Sharonetta behind the bar, at every twitch of the said Trilby. He really is a generous man to a fault, and I really like him tremendously - even without the beer ticket!

"Scrobs, I want to tell you about my recent visit to Ashford!" He intones gravely.

"Elias, I know Ashford extremely well, having started my career there a squillion light-years ago, when I fancied a girl who was clearly still at school, another girl who clearly had graduated in the bloke section, and another whom I clearly loved eternally, until I met Mrs Scrobs!"

"Scrobs, Scrobs! I need to know that you are not intending to give me your historical love-life story, before I continue"! says Elias.

So it came to pass that the following story unfolded.

"I was born in that town, and grew up there", starts my good friend.

"I recently had to go back there to retrieve some money owed by a customer who lived near a certain address on Beaver Lane"!

Now I know Beaver Lane particularly well, because when I was a squalid, jumped-up spotty little junior rent collector in 1965, I had two cottages to collect from there, and they paid fourteen shillings a week (70p)!

"Elias, that place has changed from the good old railway days now, and business is difficult isn't it"?

"Scrobs, this is so, and I try and help anyone who is even approaching their 'uppers', but my new bank manager says I must do such things; so I do; and while I want to beat him to pulp with one of Meccano's largest spanners, I will retain some decorum on my financial position!"

Now this is the financial realism being experienced by most experienced businessmen, so I immediately cotton on to my friend's new analysis, and also his new story.

"I parked my new car in a public bay there, and locked it securely"! Said Elias. "There is no knowing who might want to enter the car and take whatever they can, but I don't believe anyone really wants an AA map book from 1967, and a bit of old carpet for the dog"! He nods sagely, and so do I, at the same time as Gloriette picks up her Iphone, and calls her manicurist, nodding at some conversation, so there is a certain amount of nodding going on at that particular moment.

(Just as an aside, one needs to focus one's eyes carefully when one looks at Gloriette, as so many parts require short-sight, because they're much closer than you think, others require long-sight, because they're so long and I suppose, there's always the lingering wish of the blessing of hindsight in that one might have got there before Elias, but I digress.)

"Scrobs, will you please pay attention!" says Elias, proffering another large denomination note in a circular motion to indicate refills all round. I take my gaze from Gloriette's amazing fingernails, and focus again, slightly mistily I might add, on my be-trilbyed chum.

"I'm all ears old chap!" I replied, and he continued his story.

"Just as I'd locked up the motor, and checked that there were no small nearby urchins who might attempt to clean it with a wire brush, I glanced across the road, and there was my brother, just standing there staring at me and the car, and looking decidedly down at heel!"

Now it has never occurred to me that Elias had a brother, or a sister, or in fact, any previous family at all. I suppose I've always thought that when Elias was created, there had been some sort of flash of light from the heavens and a 'whoosh', then, after a sullen clunk and a whistle a trilby hat suddenly appeared from the ether, and then, after a short wait, the grey suited body of Elias just metamorphosed from the brim downwards to his shoes, and the resulting body immediately sold three tons of bricks and a pipe wrench to a man walking his dog nearby.

"Your brother, eh!" was all I could say.

"Yes, my brother Stanley! He is not a great person to have around, as he was apprehended several times by Sergeant Shepherd and his mates with bits of metal he'd taken from somewhere or other, and which he hoped to sell to the merchants down the road. In fact there were also periods in his life when he was unable to undertake this pastime, as he was sewing mail bags in Brixton, and became quite good at it after several more terms in that academy! So we never really got on at all, and frankly, I'd forgotten all about him!"

"This must have been a bit of a shock to your system then?" I asked him.

"Oh, I know how to deal with people like him, but he did look pretty lost, and I took a certain amount of pity on him!" said Elias, swirling his beer around in his glass, and beginning to look thoughtful.

"So what happened next then?" I asked him.

"Well, he looked across at me, then at the car, then back a me again, and said "Blimey, you've come up in the world Bro, this is a surprise, but then you always did know how to succeed, you had the best chances too!"

"Now that wasn't true actually," Elias said. "Sid Bucket, my old partner, and I grafted for years to get going, but I still felt sorry for him standing there in a grubby old coat and three day's shaving adrift". He swirled his beer again thoughtfully.

"So presumably, you dropped him a few quid did you?" I said.

"Well, after he had walked across the road, looking like he was going to ask for some help, he said "Elias, I'm a bit short at the moment, I'm also a bit down on my luck, could you give me a couple of quid for a bath?"

"Oh, that's nice Elias, he was probably grateful for some cash to get cleaned up and presentable again! So did you drop him a few notes then?" I said.

"Naaah, I just told him to bring it round to the yard the next day, and I'd have a look at it!"