13. Becod It Wad Dere

Remember the modest hero, who, when asked why he pushed a pea up the side of one of the Great Pyramids with his nose, replied, "I did it becod it wad dere"?

 

This attitude toward the strange achievements of mankind has aroused much discussion as to what makes them do it and made a fortune for the compilers of the Guinness Book Of Records.

 

The diagnosis of these impulses is a favourite topic of conversation around any gathering of Homo sapiens and a typical example is at the breakfast table of the drivers. The conversation here usually follows a set pattern. Sport, sex, last night's telly, sex, reflections on the doubtful parentage of some supervisors, sex, money, sex and thoughts on whether the sausages were dead when they hit the fat or did they die as a direct result of incineration. (Only joking, Cook!).

 

We have ardent followers of various pastimes among our members and while the universal subject of sex is discussed at odd moments, it's only talked about, whereas, other sports are actively participated in. We pride ourselves on being a serious debating group.

 

One member, an ardent angler*, who is highly proficient on the necessary ability of narrative (a must for the first class fisherman) was holding the attention of the company one morning with an enthralling account of the previous day's catch. Do not for one moment, imagine that his speech was a mere placing of the facts and figures before the assembled company. Such mundane efforts are for Hansard or the records of the minutes of any committee meeting. He laid before us a story, nay, a saga worthy of Dennis Wheatley** at his descriptive best. The pre-battle study of the haunts and environment of the prey, reports from outlying weather stations, the intensive research into the feeding habits of the species, the careful selection of suitable baits and methods of presentation, the all important decisions on the type of tackle and methods of angling to be made, the stalking of the prey in a manner that Tarzan could not have bettered, all told in great detail prior to the actual account of the final coup-de-grace. Then, with a great sense of timing, when interest was on the wane, the story of the strike, the bending of the rod the leaping, twisting, diving and fighting of the crafty, courageous monster of the deep, until that final ecstatic moment when it lay exhausted and defeated in the bank, a gallant adversary whose weight and size were statistics of incredulous disbelief. All garnished with the rolling up of the sleeves to show the bruising resultant from the muscle strain which was a natural hazard of the contest.

One of the golfing members, who had paused in the delicate operation of the mopping up the remains of his fried egg and bacon fat with a piece of toast, said "What did it taste like?"

 

Our piscatorial member looked puzzled. "Taste like?" He queried.

 

"S'right", said the golfer, "taste like, You eat 'em, don't you?"

 

Horrified understanding dawned on the face of the angler, and he stared at this heretic, who had suggested something tantamount to mugging one's grannie.

 

"Course I don't eat 'em", he gritted between his teeth.

 

"Well, what do you do with 'em?" asked the company in one voice.

 

"Put them back of course, what the hell do you think?"

 

An excited buzz of conversation flew round the table as the meeting realised that once again the unexplainable urges of mankind had manifested itself, and many future discussions could be foreseen as a result of this revelation of the angler which ranked on a level with the highest mysteries of mankind's irrational behaviour.

 

As duty called, and we all trooped out to perform the commonplace tasks of earning a crust, leaving behind the debris of the breakfast table, over which hung the faintly audible aura of those immortal words, which put the whole in perspective -

 

" I did it becod it was dere".

Notes:

* I can't help but wonder if this is a piece of autobiographical self-analysis

** Dennis Wheatley: once a massively popular author but now largely unread. By todays standards Wheatley's writing is pretty un-PC, and modern reissues subject to abridging. Notwithstanding that, Wheatley is still one of my favourite authors, I have a full set of his books on the shelf behind me as I type. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Wheatley

12. ISSADM

aka The Monkey's Paw

Have you ever read W.W. Jacobs' story, "The Monkey's Paw"* ? Very briefly, it's the tale of a couple who got three wishes granted and the unpleasant consequences that could happen to such folk as them, who seek to interfere with the ordained course of events, as laid down by you know who.

All of us are guilty, some time or other, of trying to shape our destiny by various means, and it's mostly by wishing. No amount of threats of eternal damnation from the clergy or the moralists put us off doing so. We all wish for something we ain't got, or somebody else has. The poor want money, the rich want more. The barren want kids, the poor unfortunate who can't unbutton his flies without his wife, clicks again, prays for a vasectomy.

I know a lady, who, apart from being a widow, has pretty nigh everything a woman could wish for. A nice house, paid for, a full social life, two sons in extremely good jobs, who think the world of her and see that she wants for nothing. Not long ago they shared in a large win on the pools, but does her cup runneth over ? Not so likely. She wants to be a granny, but as her lads have decided that the round of golf, cricket and world travel, enlivened with the occasional bit of crumpet to keep their complexions clear, is better than marital bliss, she can't see any way of hearing the patter of tiny feet around the house, unless they get mice. But she still keeps wishing, and you know who up there, probably clicks the tongue, and wonders why he bothered.

I have no desire to alter, in any way, my pre-destined path through life. Even when I win the pools, I won't let it change my way of living in any way. That's what all the winners say, isn't it ? But there's one thing that will be different, and that is the passage in our house. It will be enriched by the presence of a grandfather clock ! That's what I have always wished for. 

You can't turn a council house into a stately home, as a lot of tenants try, by putting up a wrought iron gate in the front, or by hanging a front door covered in iron nails and little windows like bottle bottoms. It's like sticking a diamond tiara on a clippie and calling her duchess. But you can give a touch of the old Woburn Abbeys with a ten foot grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs. Might be a bit dodgy getting past it to get up the stairs, especially if you're in a hurry to get to the throne room, but it would be compensated by hearing the sonorous tick-tock of the works and the resounding 'Boing-ng-ng' as it struck the hours, making the cups jump about on the saucers and the cat dive under the sideboard. There is something fascinating about a great clock, I can't explain what it is, perhaps it is the feeling of permanence and security that it seems to impart as it ticks away saying, 'take your time, take your time'. 

I did know a bloke who had one, and the first time I went into his place, it was the first thing that caught my eye. There it stood in the corner of the hallway, towering above the surrounding decor, a veritable interior Everest of a time piece, A wonderful enscrolled face surmounting an exquisitely panelled body, looked down at me as if to say, "Aren't I beautiful"?, as it spread its two golden hands in mute appeal. I felt if only I had this for my home to ease away the stress of the rat race, life would be fulfilled. Then I noticed that there was no tick, dead quiet, The owner must have sensed my unspoken question, as he said "I had the works taken out, couldn't stand the bloody row it made, banging away all night and tick-tocking above the telly, drove me round the twist". I said something about it being rather large to have as just an ornament, he said "Oh I dunno, comes in handy" and opened the door on the front of the clock. Do you know what he was using it for ? A broom cupboard. I realised then what the mute appeal of big grandad was. It was "Help"!

Goes to show that things are only what the mind of the onlooker sees, and what you might wish for, ain't everybody's pigeon, and could turn out to be unpleasant for yourself in the long run.

A fellow worker capitalised on this once, by taking a lump of polystyrene, burning bits out of it, until it assumed a peculiar shape, then after rolling it in wet cement, he stuck it on a frame and entered it into the Arts and Crafts section of the Harrow Show with the word 'ISSADM' printed on the background. The judges saw all sorts of hidden meanings in it, as a lot of people do when looking at Picasso's efforts or the pile of bricks whatsisname flogged to the Tate Gallery**, and awarded him  first prize and a quid prize money.

www.tate.org.uk

Afterwards, I asked him what the word 'ISSADM' meant, as the unknown name had a vaguely familiar sound about it, reminding me of Rudolph Valentino's romantic sheikh portrayals, and torrid passion in the Arabian desert, and this is what obviously influenced the judges in their choice. He said that was his feeling after he had made the shape, being a sensible bloke with creative genius just bursting to get out. He had been so elated with his creation that he had rushed round to a neighbour to show him and explain the mysteries that emanated from this distorted lump of cement coated polystyrene. After listening patiently to my mate's ravings about his Immaculate Conception, this chappie, who was a stolid, down to earth type who had been in a varied career, a gully cleaner and a copper, took him firmly into the kitchen, made him a strong cup of tea, and said "I Should See A Doctor, Mate".  It obviously had the desired effect, cos my pal saw immediately what he had to do. To gratify the wishes of the people who would be judging his entry, he had to add to that air of mystery his creation had. Give it a name that they didn't understand.

So he did, and they still didn't. But you and I do, I hope.

Notes:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw

** Equivalent VIII by Carl Andre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_VIII

11. Cheesy

I had a mate who was one of these types who have an inbuilt compulsion to take things apart, to see what makes them tick.

We called him 'Cheesy’, but I can't recall why, unless it was because he had a pair of feet which so upset his socks, that he could stand them up in a corner like a pair of wellies when be took them off. Anyway, he had a very enquiring mind, and while the rest of us were content with mundane hobbies like football, boxing, weight lifting, cycling and darts, he filled in his leisure moments by totting round the dustbins and rubbish tips for old radios, clocks, watches or anything that he could dismantle and put back together again to see if it worked. This was mostly done when everybody else was asleep, as he worked in the kitchen of a Soho restaurant and seldom got home before midnight. 

He had a room in a house occupied by the family of another of our fraternity where we gathered on nights spent indoors to play cards or argue, or just idle away the time, and he often returned home from work and settled down at a table to fiddle around with a dismembered electric iron or whatever was under construction at the time. He was able to ignore any card school that happened to be under way or any of the boys who were sleeping on the sofa or bed because they couldn't be bothered to go home that night. He'd fiddle about with bits of wire, minute nuts and bolts, springs, valves, old speakers, cogs and wheels, filling the air with horrible pongs of solder, burning wax, paint or whatever was needed to arrive at the end product. Whatever it happened to be was always offered for sale to the nearest person, and I was often disturbed in the wee small hours, when sleeping there, with, "Ed, you wanna buy an electric kettle?" or "I've finished this alarm clock, let you have it for two bob". Muttered advice on what he could do with his bloody kettle at this cursed hour of the morning by no means abashed him, and he never got annoyed at any threats. He just put the offending article on the mantle piece, went to kip and hawked it around next day until he found a buyer.

We got our own back by sticking the flea-bitten old mongrel of the house in bed with him when we left for work in the morning. This canine queer always got turned on by the smell of Cheesy’s feet, and our jaded spirits got a tremendous uplift from the shouts of "Gerrout you mangy sod you", as he booted at doggie, who was making a frenzied effort to seduce his toes.  

As I said before, he just couldn't resist experimenting with things, and this compulsion intruded into his cooking, which, in all fairness, was extremely good.

Four of us went camping one weekend by the Welsh Harp. Not a very glamorous outing by todays' standards, but we only had bikes as cars were strictly for rich men in those days, and we were limited as to distance when it came to humping our tent and things around. Cheesy said he would do the cooking for breakfast, so we left that side of the venture to him.

 

In the morning, after a fairly comfortable night, considering there wasn't much room in a small pup tent for four hefty blokes, nineteen years of age*, and the fact that we insisted on Cheesy sleeping with his feet outside the door flap. We awoke to the mouth watering smell of rabbit stew and coffee brewing over a wood fire right outside the tent flap, It was a brisk, chilly morn, just after six, and that stew and coffee went down a treat, and after sating our appetites to the full, we said "Smashing, where'd you get the rabbit, Cheesy?"

We should have thought about his innate curiosity as to finding out about things, either before we ate the stew or before we asked about it. He told us how he had heard that it was practically impossible to tell the difference between rabbit and cat meat, so as his boss’s cat had a litter of kittens the day before, and they had drowned the unwanted females, he thought he'd try out the theory on us, and what did we think. As I was bent over double trying to control my stomach from climbing into my neck, I remembered thinking that it was funny he had bread and cheese for breakfast. He too was bent over double, laughing his head off, and we never knew whether he was having us on or not. It tasted like rabbit, but if there was something in the theory he'd heard, ugh!!  I've never been able to face rabbit again.

There's a sequel to this story. I was hiking home from work one evening after the war, when I met up with one of the lads of those carefree days, whom I hadn't seen since we all drifted apart into marriage, removal from the district, or various other causes, and we hied ourselves to the nearest pub for a drink and natter about old times. Eventually, the talk got round to Cheesy, and his insatiable curiosity. I said I wonder what happened to him, my mate said he knew a bloke who served in the same mob with him in Germany. Apparently he was the same old Cheesy, always trying to find out how things worked. This bod said a few of his mob, including Cheesy, were going through a village recently evacuated by Jerry, when they came across a German pistol lying in the road. Naturally, they'd been warned about booby traps that Jerry was kindly leaving around, so the sergeant wanted to shoot it, just in case. However, Cheesy talked him into letting him have a go at it. He said he wanted to examine, had it been dropped he'd have a good souvenir. While the others got well up the road, Cheesy carefully tied a length of string to the handle which was clear of the road and carefully paid it out to a shell hole a few yards away. He clambered into the hole and pulled the pistol towards him. The shell hole exploded, and blew him to bits.

My friends and I left the pub that night mutually agreed on one thing.  That our old mate Cheesy wouldn't let St. Peter rest until he found out how that one worked.

* Note - which dates the camping trip to 1935. The Welsh Harp must have been a regular haunt, having already been mentioned in People Are Funny 10 - Autograph Albums

10. Autograph Albums

aka Pompous Verbal Gems

As I remarked in a previous yarn, sooner or later most people have a go at keeping a diary. The same applies, in a rather lesser degree, to an autograph album. I still have mine but I'm afraid that apart from the usual banal entries as:

"By hook or by crook

I'll be last in this book"

Auntie Nell

written on the last page, and:

"For better or worst

I'm sure to be first"

Dad 

 

written on to top of the first page, there are no world famous entries like:

"To Ed from his friend, Johnny Weissmuller".

 

The Walter Mitty in all of us makes most kids try to get the signatures of those they can see in themselves, and Tarzan was the hero of hordes of young fellows at who the Charles Atlas adverts were aimed, me and my mates included. We knew that we would never get a body like his, but we admired somebody who had. Even to the extent of dashing about the fields by the Welsh Harp*,

Pottinger

Weissmuller

dressed in the briefest of loin cloths, or in the nuddy if we felt like it, and attempting to swing on the branches of trees, there being a shortage of thick jungle vines at the Welsh Harp. We also discovered how Tarzan made his famous call. You try leaping about trees with nowt on, them snags catch you in some very dodgy places. 

The best imitation of Tarzan yodel I heard was when my mate Sam swung on a rotten branch which broke, and dropped him astride a quickthorn hedge beneath. His backside was the best advert for shredded wheat you could wish to see, and for weeks he walked about like Cheetah than Tarzan.

However, to come back to the album, no names which are a legend of their lifetime adorn it's pages. After all, who else but me, ever heard of Kipper Jonto, who wrote the verse about the young lad from Ealing on the middle page the filthy swine. I had to glue it to the page facing it in case my old man saw it. Or if Wicker Dean, so called, not because he had sticky fingers, but because the only trousers he ever had to wear were a pair of knickerbockers his old man discarded when he got the sack from the stable he worked at for a while. He was the author of the engaging poem on page two, which ran:

 "What a lovely little fish

The Sole is,

What lovely little fish

Are soles."

and so on for several lines, in the same vein.

My albums can be likened to a graveyard, full of names unknown to everyone, except the people who put them there. But there is one entry which in its 'profundity' could match any of the statements of Chairman Mao. It reads:

"Il ne fait rien remettre au lendemain"

and for all of you unfortunates who never got beyond 'La plume de ma tante' it means in English, as she is spoke:

 

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today"

It was written by one of our French teachers, who rejoiced in the nickname of Puncher Lac, owing to his habit of belting the inattentive on top of the bonce with a full bunch of fives, and I was very proud of what I considered to be a literary rose flourishing in the dungheap of banalities and lavatory graffiti that filled the rest of the album.

Some time later I realized he didn't intend that I should look at it every so often in later life, and resolve to be more industrious and enterprising than nature made me, but was knocking me about not doing the French homework he kept dishing out, and never got - anyway, not on time.

The average person has a few of these deep sayings tucked away in the back of his mind, and trots one out every so often when he wants to sound intelligent, and his cronies nod their little old nuts, and say "True, that's true", while all the time, at the back of their mind, they're thinking, "Bighead". And these old saws are quoted at you when they suit the quotee's requirements. I worked with a chap who was fond of saying , "Many hands make light work" when he wanted a digout, but when asked to give a hand, always said, "Too many cooks spoil the broth".

My old retired chippy, who lived next door, used to pass away the time by watching me work, whenever I did anything in the garden. Being a short-arse, he had to stand on a stool to look over the fence and was continually clicking his tongue and saying "Don't spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar", whenever I took a short cut to finish a job. One day I was fixing the roof of the dog kennel, I was making for our cat, who was on the big side, by banging in some nails, and this superannuated coffin maker was shaking his old grey loaf and muttering about doing the job properly with screws and the hoary old boat and tar cliché. When I said why didn't he come round and do it, he promptly got off his perch and came round. And do you know what he did? He brought a handful of screws, which he proceeded to slam in with an Irish screwdriver - a bloody great hammer. Still, the laugh was on him cos when he went back and clambered up on his stool again, it collapsed, and he fell on a tomato plant by the fence and broke it. When I looked over to see if he was alright, I noticed the leg of the stool, which had broken, had been fixed before. S'right, with a screw through the seat. No doubt by the old do the job properly and don't spoil the ship method.

But then we all come out with these corny sayings, which are fit only for autograph albums and Xmas crackers. Not long ago, when I had been giving my son a driving lesson and had been ranting on about keeping at thirty in built up areas, he said, "How come you always do fifty then?" Before I knew it I replied, "Don't do as I do, do as I tell you".

It just happens to suit the occasion, as all these pompous verbal gems do, and the dirty look I got for saying it, was all I deserved. 

* Note:  for The Welsh Harp see

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Reservoir

















9. The Chicken And The Eggs

aka The Egg And I

One of the funniest books I have read is Betty Macdonald's "The Egg and I". This is a true story of her life as a newly wedded young wife, suddenly uprooted from the warmth and security of a large family, living in a busy town and dumped on a derelict farm in the mountains of a remote North West state of America, where she and her husband settled down to raise chickens.

Her narrative of life among these feathered idiots is hilarious, and her opinions of the chicken certainly coincide with my own, as I too, when a young married man, kept a flock in our back garden. This was partly to provide nourishment for my family, food rationing being in force, but mainly to satisfy that urge to be self sufficient which is in the make up of most of us. I too, found that the idyllic vision of gathering fresh warm eggs from the nest boxes while the busy clucking hens pecked in the clean sweet- smelling litter for corn, at my feet, was only the gift wrapping around a long period of hard work and frustration from day old chicks to seven month old layers. The day olds, which we kept in a box in the airing cupboard with a hundred watt bulb for warmth, vied with each other to see who could crap the fastest in the nice clean food put down for them. No matter how warm and free from draught you kept them, when they decided to die, they'd stand and droop and die, helped on their way by the other fluffy members of the Mafia who trod all over each other in their eagerness to peck the eyes out of suicide sister, and hasten another 3/6d down the drain. We felt that they knew how much we paid for them and were determined to double their value, as half of them always died off, not from any known ailment but through sheer bloody mindedness. And as for mess, the only creatures equal to the chicken when it comes to converting the Garden of Eden into an overflowing sewerage are the hippo and the duck. If you've seen the hippo pool in any zoo and Mr. Hippo cruising about with his gaping maw, shovelling in everything that's floating, then you'll know what I mean, and Donald Duck, aided by his family, will turn any garden into a morass that would make Verdun look like the Chelsea flower show, if let loose in it for more than a day.

I once conned my brother into helping me clean out the chicken house, and as we shovelled and scraped the soggy, smelly layer of droppings from under the perches and off the house floor, he paused from filling his bucket, straightened his back, looked disdainfully at the dripping shovel and said, "I bet these birds hate your guts, it takes them all week to lay this nice comfortable layer of tom-tit, and you come along rake it all up and shove down a load of straw and disinfectant and make 'em start all over again". I said, "All week ? you must be joking, I cleaned 'em all out three days ago". "Three days", looking disbelievingly at the heap of manure, "I thought they were supposed to lay eggs, they don't have much time for that, do they ?". I assured him that they did indeed lay eggs but I presumed they didn't know when as something was always going on behind, as apart from all this food recycling effort, the randy old cockerel who ran with them, was forever trying to better his previous days' conquests and while they did lay their eggs in the nest boxes, they probably thought that they were a kind of indoor toilet created especially for constipation days.

We went into breakfast and for some peculiar reason, brother seemed to have lost his appetite after all that hard graft in the fresh air and turned down a lovely plate of eggs and bacon for a couple of slices of dry toast. He always had a delicate stomach, right from childhood.

The chicken can bring out the basic instincts of the nicest folk quicker than any other of God's creatures, great and small. I was horribly alarmed one day when I heard my wife shouting and screaming in the garden. What I saw and heard on dashing outside, shook me rigid. There was this delicate young Goddess, at whose feet I worshipped, this gentle and innocent creature who had to have the mildest of jokes explained to her over and over again because she didn't know the meaning of the swear words, chasing the cockerel round the garden, taking terrific swipes at him with a lump of wood, and calling him words I didn't think she'd heard.

David, me & Nanny and, err, not a chicken.  Best I could do. Sorry. c1975. 



When he'd finally taken refuge up a tree and she'd thrown the timber after him, I said "What's all that about?". "I just fed him and went to pick an egg out of the nest box, and he rushed in and pecked a bloody great lump out of my hand" she fumed, "just you get out there tonight and wring that sod's neck" and stomped indoors for elastoplast and aspirin. See what I mean about chickens ? Not only had he shattered some of the beautiful illusions I treasured, but looked like destroying the great big he-man image that I fondly hoped I presented to my wife, as I was now committed to wringing his damn neck and I'd never done that before. What's more, I was dead Chicken about doing it (what a terrible pun !). So, with nightfall, after making supper last for two hours, and mustering my rapidly shrinking courage, with an effort that made my throat feel like it had swallowed half a yard of sandy ballast, said "Well, better nip out and kill the cockerel for tomorrow's dinner", in a voice several times higher than normal, and strode out looking like a cave man off to supply a dinosaur for lunch. I think I had an idea that I could wring his neck while he was asleep, as I eased the door open quietly and carefully shone the torch along the perch and met the flare of his eyes looking straight at me. He must have known I hadn't come to tuck him in comfortably for the night, as he came off that perch like a rocket with a screech that made me drop the torch and slam the door hard as I could, and then lean against it while my stomach slowly descended from my neck back to it's normal position. His enraged squawks gradually died and when I picked up the torch, I saw he wasn't hollering in anger, but agony as he'd caught his stupid neck between the door and the jamb and had choked to death. I mentally crossed hit-man off my list of talents, tied his legs together and hung him in the shed for plucking in the morning. 

Going back into the house with the nonchalant manner of the trained poultry slaughterer I answered my wife's unspoken question with "No bother, he won't peck you no more", and retired to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a fag. 

Still, one ought not to make out that you are what you ain't, as the whole thing rebounded on me, cos, great big fearless he-man image now re-established in the eyes of Goddess on a pinnacle, made her tell everyone who kept chickens up our road, that I'd kill their birds off at Christmas as I could do it alright, no trouble at all. And I had to as none of the blokes fancied doing it either, and jumped at the chance to get it done for a packet of fags. 

Often wondered if she heard the cup rattling on the saucer when I drank that tea, cos I couldn't stop my hand shaking. Shouldn't think so, but as I said, that chicken does bring out the basic instincts in the nicest folk. 

 

       

8. Fear Of Heights 2

I have mentioned before about the fear of heights that is in most of us. I'm not talking about steeplejacks, scaffolders or similar types, who seem to have feathers instead of hair, but people as you and I, who feel undressed if they have to ascend a six rung ladder without a parachute.

This fear, I beg to report, is not lessened by meeting it face to face and going up places where you expect to meet angels.

No way!



 

That old feeling of panic and butterflies as big as bats in the tum still occurs, no matter how often you get yourself any higher than eyeball position. And no matter how self assured you sound when describing the wonderful view after you've got safely down again, to people who've got a darn sight more sense than you and refuse point-blank to go up and see for themselves, you know you ain't kidding no-one. Especially yourself.

 

You're in the same position as the bloke who, when standing on the edge of a river on a cold day, testing the temperature with his toe which has gone numb, accidentally slips in just as he's made up his mind to go home, get dressed and have a cup of hot coffee.

 

After he's got his breath back and frantically splashes about to stop rigor mortis from setting in, hollers to his mates who are laughing their stupid heads off from the comparative warmth of the bank side, "Come on in, the water's lovely".

 

There's no way he's going to kid them, cos they can see the goose pimples coming up like a rash of chicken pox all over him. He justs wants other people to suffer the same as him. He knows it, they know it, and he ain't kidding nobody.

 

I've been telling everybody who'll listen to me about the wonderful view that can be seen from the top viewing platform of the CN Tower in Toronto, and I know that while I'm talking to them, they're feeding a no-go programme into the memory bank of their brain telling them to avoid this structure like it was a dose of rabies. They can see the goose pimples that still come up when I think of it.

 

 

This architectural monstrosity is the tallest free standing structure in the world*, being 1815 feet tall, and looks like Cleopatra's Needle gone berserk, we said to our son, Mike, who possibly had thoughts on getting some own back for all the disciplinary injustices of youth, and had told us that we just couldn't come all the way from England and not go up it - what, up that! Where's the top?

 

Fact was, from where we stood at the bottom you just couldn't see it as it seemed to disappear in to the blue like it was trying to dig a hole in the sky.  He laughed and said "Come on, it's not so bad as it seems" and led the way to the lift.

 

The sadists who designed the lift must have bent over their drawing boards and muttered "This'll scare the hell outta any Limeys who go up". It was made of glass and shot up the outside of Tower like a vertical express, reaching the first viewing stage in 50 seconds.

 

This is around 1200 feet up and the girl attendant said "Don't worry about your stomachs, folks, you can collect them when we get down again. Ha-ha!" As my stomach felt like it was draped around my shoes  like a pair of saggy jeans waiting to be pulled up, I didn't think it was funny.

 

My wife and daughter-in-law made a bee-line for the bar to get a gin and lime which they obviously felt would be protective wall to peer over before daring to look out of the windows at the void below, and my son, recognising that this was the end of the line so far as they were concerned, said to me as I leaned nonchalantly against the bar, as far away from the windows as I could get, "Well we're going up to the top platform ain't we? Its only another thirty three stories up."

 

"Why bother" I said "the view's great here, the bar's open and the restaurants got some good grub and -"

 

"Come on" laughed old iron nerves, who I felt had missed his vocation as  test bed engineer and would have done better as a Spanish Inquisitor, "can't go home without going to the top".

 

So up we go again, this time in a coffin that belted up the middle of the building like a rocket out of a bottomless launching pad.

 

My stomach, which had been shakily clambering up to normal position, flopped like a dropped jelly back to the floor where it seemed to resign itself with an air of "If you're going to keep doing that , I'll stay here and wait for you to come down".

Worlds tallest postcard

 

 

We got out on the top viewing platform and began to circle the inside partition which was the furthest we could get away from the windows. That wasn't far, as it was like walking round an enclosed pin head.

 

I thought that so long as I'd got this high I might as well take a peek out of the windows , so edged over and took a tentative look.

 

The view was indeed something, as being a clear day you could see for miles in all directions, especially down. Or it seemed so.

 

I turned to say so to my son and he wasn't there, where was this carefree lad who'd conned his aged parent into ascending into the domain of eagles and angels?

 

Leaning against the inner wall with a sickly grin on his face as he said "I always get jelly legs if I get any height".

 

I thought "Great. You get me up this bloody monstrosity knowing what it does to you, and make out I'm missing something if I don't go up".

 

Should have know better. The same old case of the bloke in the drink trying to kid his mates into suffering with him.

 

Still, the view was terrific, but not if I sprout wings will I ever get used to looking down on skyscrapers and watching planes fly beneath me when I ain't in one.

 

However, if you're in Toronto, you really must go up the CN Tower. It's an experience you'll never forget, as the man said when he fell in the drink.

 

Come on in, the water's lovely. Brrrr.



* Not any more  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_Tower 

 



7. My Lady Nicotine

aka Giving Up Smoking

We've all met him, the character, who, when asked how he did it and didn't it ever worry him, looks at you as if you were a little bit of a feeble minded excreta that the cat had just dragged in and says in the bloody toffee nosed tone, no, he's never felt the slightest inclination to have another one and stopped no bother at all, let's see, seven years ago.

We've all probably looked at this super graduate of 'Know thyself' and wondered how the hell anyone can be so strong minded when you yourself have only given it up since yesterday morning and can think of nothing else but the utter ecstasy of having another fag and to blazes with the Government warning on the cigarette packet. I've always had a sneaking feeling that there's something odd about these blokes who are bursting with health and increased prosperity since giving up having a crafty spit and a drag in the bog during working hours, and can run up a flight of stairs like a gazelle, when the average bod with a good healthy smokers cough can't walk down them without getting out of breath. Something like a eunuch telling you that sex don't bother him, and he can't understand why your eyes stick out like organ stops when looking through the latest edition of 'Playboy'.

Mind you, I must say I have found it easy enough to give up smoking, so easy I once gave it up six times in one week, but I realised after the first attempt that it was not withdrawal from the weed which was the main obstacle one had to overcome. Far from it, there's the wife to start with.

She says she ain't going to influence you one way or the other, it's entirely up to you, but you must admit you have not been the same since you gave it up, have you? This always amazes, as you've been your normal cheery self and more than usually tolerant and loving towards your spouse and offspring, and immediately ask her what the hell she is talking about.

Well, says she, you have been a bit touchy, haven't you? This treachery from the one who has sworn to be your helpmate and comfort in moments of stress generally results in your slamming the door on the verbal battle that ensues, because you don't stand a chance of coming in a good second there and when the house has stopped vibrating her parting words of  "See what I mean" follow you down the garden to the shed, where you cool off by chain smoking the fags you left there when turning it in.

1970's ciggies

Perhaps there's something in what she has said as life settles down peacefully enough afterwards, you return to your hearty coughing on rising in the morning and she returns to her "You want to given up that filthy habit", and the circle is once more complete.

Then there is the question of what on earth to do with your hands when not rolling a fag or holding one between the fingers. Solve that and you are home and dry. When other blokes are tapping the ash into tea cups or flicking their dog-ends at the blind eye of the passing cat, you are aimlessly finger tapping on the table top or sitting on your hands.

I know a chap, who in sheer desperation to find something for his hands to do, learnt to crochet and became very adept at it. His home became full of beautiful crocheted chair backs, side board mats and table cloths, which his wife proudly showed to all her mates, who in turn got at their husbands quoting him as a kind of Guru of the crochet hook. It was only after she has entered a shawl he'd made for his old mother, in the homecraft section of the local show which took first prize, and he had to step up and receive it in the company of two ladies aged eighty and eighty-seven, who took second and third place, that he saw the vulnerable position his hobby had placed him in, and decided he'd be better off with a few tobacco stains on his fingers than crochet callouses.

And of course, the curse of substitution. All sorts of queer objects have been bunged into mouths deprived of the habitual occupant, the fag. Chewing gum, excessive food, match sticks, gobstoppers, you name it, and I'll bet it's been there.

I was taken back to my childhood the other day when a mate of mine, who was into the second week of self-imposed torture, turned up at work with what looked like a large stick insect between his lips. He said, when asked if he had gone weak and started on cigars, no, it was Spanish wood. Hadn't heard that name since I was a nipper and was cast back to the days of tiger nuts and locust beans.

Tiger nuts were identical to rabbit droppings except some were as hard as iron and apt to break off lumps of teeth while others were bad inside the skin and tasted like they looked, but most appealed to the taste buds of kids. Locust beans were like small flat bananas, mahogany coloured and just as hard, but lasted for hours even when you could bite bits off them, which was the reason for their popularity when income was counted in farthings.

And coming back to Spanish wood, it was a kind of edible bush sold in small sticks, which you sucked in the same way as cigarettes and the sap had a flavour reminiscent of weak lemon tea brewed in a Georgian chamber pot. While not a favourite buy of kids of yesteryear it was not without appeal mainly, as I said because it was cheap. It's main drawback was the soggy, splayed condition the end in your mouth got into, bits of soft wet splinters getting in between the teeth and stuck under the tongue.

Anyway, I did notice that after removing this repulsive titbit from his mouth a few times during the morning and gazing reflectively at the messy butt, he quietly tossed it into the gash-bin and lit up an old dog-end he had tucked away in his pocket.

My Lady Nicotine had once again triumphed as she mostly does, but it's nice to do battle with her now and again, if only for the same reason that having a row with ones beloveds has it's compensation. It's so nice when you make it up.