32. Cats Have Nine Lives?

aka The Cat Ghost

I've always been proud of what I consider to be my practical frame of mind.  I don’t believe in ghosts or supernatural occurrences, the first are figments of the imagination and the second always have a logical explanation, scientific or otherwise.  It’s funny how many people think their dreams have a special meaning when a touch of the screaming hab-dabs in the night followed by a mouth tasting like the bottom of a parrots cage when waking, is merely the result of too many keg bitters or shag fags the night before.

Spooks, banshees, werewolves and vampires live in books not in life, the only blood suckers I know are mosquitoes, leeches and money-lenders calling themselves finance companies.

If anything went bump in the night where I used to live in Paddington, it was the rats under the floorboards playing tag with the spuds they pinched from the larder, and the rats were there because the Irish family next door kept chickens which they seldom cleaned out.  When I asked Pat why he didn't clean his chickens he said it was natural for them to be like that, but he would make a trap to catch the rats. So he did, and he caught a rat in it too.  Trouble was, the trap he made was the size of a small tea chest, and when he dropped it in a tin bath of water the rat just swam on top of the water inside the cage.  So Pat tried poking it under with a stick but couldn't keep it down, so he decided to electrocute it. He fixed a length of twin flex to a bayonet cap plug, put it in a light plug and plunged the bared ends into the water. The next second there was a blinding flash and the rat was dead and Pat was thrown against the backyard wall with enough force to break his back.  He didn't, luckily, but I thought it would have been easier to clean out the chickens or leave the rats to our cat who, in between siring most of the kittens around and fighting any available tom, was a dedicated rat killer, and seemingly indestructible. 

Until one night he forgot his kerb drill and went to the old tom's Valhalla via the wheels of a passing motorist.

Two little boys knocked at the door and asked did I have a black cat with a white spot on his left ear, cos if I did, he was laying in the road, he'd been "runned over".

It was him alright, white spot and all, so I took him home, dug a hole in the garden, or should I say, backyard, and buried him with due respect for a departed warrior.

It was about an hour later when my wife and I were in the throes of a game of chess and I was in my usual position wondering how the hell can I be two moves from defeat when I’ve had her completely tied up since the start, when the silence was shattered by the deep yowling of a randy tom.

Our tom.  No mistake about it.  We'd heard it so often.

We looked at each other and she said fearfully "It's him". My wife appeared to have gone a delicate shade of green and I felt as if my tongue had been dipped in the budgie grit box.

Reason asserted itself, whoever heard of a cat ghost?  No such thing as ghosts.  Just an interloper who sensed the king was dead and was taking over his domain.  So I opened the door to shoo away the pretender and in walked our mog, as disreputable as ever, between my wife and I and straight to his feed tin. Ate his grub, gave himself his usual swift lick round the face and backside, and sallied forth past my wife and I into the night.

We hadn't moved or said a word.

Hadn't I just buried him two feet deep in the yard? We went to the grave to see and it was undisturbed.  Then I tumbled. As I said, there's a logical explanation for everything and what I'd done was to bury another cat exactly like ours. A coincidence no less, which more than likely accounts for half the so called ghosts.

Mind you, thinking back, I never did dig up the stranger to check that it was still there, and as we moved some years ago I will never know. Thats stupid thinking, ain't it?  After all, our old mog is still with us, a pretty solid ghost, but that old saying about a cat having nine lives must have originated from somewhere, mustn't it?

31. Treasured Possessions

I can't understand why people will take their treasured possessions and hide them away in cupboards and drawers where only dust and woodworm enjoy their beauty.

Homo sapiens have a peculiar twist in their make-up that compels them to hoard everything not required for immediate use. Squirrels and magpies have the same compulsion and I refuse to be put in the same class, having neither a bushy tail or a big beak.

The same attitude exists in the mentality of some of my neighbours who strive to attain perfection in their gardens and lawns. Especially the lawns. They feed them with chemicals, sand is sifted over through a fine sieve, and watered immediately it stops raining, which ain't often in our climate. Any weed rash enough to poke it's head above ground level is ruthlessly exterminated and all blades are cut to exact size and ordered to stand to attention or else!

But they never sit on it to have a picnic and should any of their kids set foot on the hallowed turf, instant thumps on the earhole are swiftly dealt out, as what do they think that notice, which is the only object allowed on the grass, is put there for? This always reads "Keep off the grass".

                                           

Now whats the use of it if you ain't going to use it? This annoys me intensely. Whats the good of a tail to a dog if he can't wag it?

When my parents were married, my mothers employers gave her a reference stating that she could cook good plain meals, was of a clean disposition, and had been to church twice every Sunday during her service with them. What they did not say was a) that she had worked some 15 hours a day doing this, b) that carbolic soap, which they supplied, certainly cleanses as it nearly takes your skin off and c) this was a condition of her employment. Anyway she couldn't afford to go anywhere else on the £5 per annum reward she got for these trifling efforts.

                                                  

But what they did give her, perhaps as a sop to their conscience for enslaving a young girl for so many years, was a very nice tea set, beautifully designed, and complete with milk jug and bread and butter dish. This was a most prized possession in a working-class home where tin mugs were the rule rather than the exception.

Throughout my parents life the old squirrel habit persisted, in this case the tea set being the nuts, hidden away in a sideboard where it remained in spite of all my pleas to fetch it out when I wanted to impress my girlfriend when she came to tea.

                                                 

Can you understand it? The winkles that we always had for tea on Sunday would have looked almost appetising laid on that lovely china. Not that I like them much, by the time you've dug them out and torn off their little black hats you've lost interest and you wish you had a plate of cockles. Think of the gastronomic joy in tilting one of those delicate plates and sipping the vinegar. Would have tasted like nectar. 

                                                            

                                                      


Still, it was used, with due reverence, when we were married.

After my parents died I did the usual clearing up and when we had got used to the idea of living without them, my wife and I were unanimous in our determination to enjoy the full beauty of our tea set by using it. This was what is was made for and for what my mother slaved all those years.

We washed it clean of the dust of hoarding and put it carefully in our sideboard, after all, you can't put a set like that in a kitchen dresser, can you?

My mum and dad have been gone now for fifteen years* and that is exactly the length of time the tea set has been in our sideboard. We haven't used it all that much, in fact we ain't used it at all. I'm not having a lovely thing like that desecrated with jam butties and cream doughnuts. Woolworth's stuff is good enough for them. You've got to take care of the few heirlooms you've got, haven't you?

Notes:

* dating this piece to 1973 

30. Street Vendors

aka Paddington Tradesmen

Seems to me that whatever impression one gets from reading about the modern youth and the rat race of today, homo sapiens hasn't changed much since he took over from the dinosaurs, and young Bill ain't much different from his Dad, however much environmental improvements affect our way of life, apart from square eyes from watching too much T.V. Turn out his pockets, and the same type of junk will appear, as did from Dads when he was a kid. With one sure exception. Fag-cards.

When I was a boy every lad had fag-cards somewhere on his person, they were a way of life that was deliberately put down by the tobacco barons when they discontinued them after the war.

One set of fifty that I remember in particular was called "Cries of London"*. It showed the colourful vendors who sold their wares on the Streets, and fascinated me as a lot of the people depicted still existed at that time and were part of our life, but have now disappeared. Well, almost.

Kids in Paddington where I lived, didn't awake to the sound of Radio One or bird-song, but to the dawn chorus of various tradesmen who made no bones about letting you know who they were. The firewood man pushing a costers barrow loaded with bundles of sticks hand chopped the night before, bellowing "Fire-woodo" A succession of milkmen from all the local dairies, Evans's, Jenkins’s, and Rose's who left cans of milk on the doorstep, all the time hollering who they worked for. Roses milky sang this ditty in a loud tenor - "I'm here with the babies beer, Roses round your door".

The former J Evan's Dairy Farmer, London W1

And many a lad was awoken by the sound of a hoarse voice grating"Serweep" and looked up to see a black faced, red eyed chimney sweep peering down the area (basement) window. He always came before seven in order to give you the rest of the day to clear up the mess of soot which inevitably settled over the whole room. None of your fancy vacuum cleaning then, just the brush up the chimney and down again, the bulk of soot caught in the sack held underneath the chimney stack and the rest billowing freely. Well what could you expect for l/3d.

Many and various were the vendors throughout the day. The cats meat man with his retinue of meowing moggies, tumbling and jumping round his feet, trying to get at the sticks of skewered horse meat carried on a tray on his head. The pong sent the cats frantic, I don't know how he stood it, but he seemed to be aware of it as his call sounded like "Yer meat shtink".

The Indian Toffee men were always sad looking turbanned Indians who carried a metal box in which were little sticks of the original candy floss, and all sang the same song;

 "Indian toffee, good for belly,

Go ask mummy for a penny"

No wonder they looked sad as Mummy very seldom had a penny to spare. How they existed on the sales they made is a mystery to me. 

Gypsys often came round selling pegs and lavender, genuine Romanies who sang very tunefully their song of "Sweet lavender"** which, if I remember rightly went like this:

"Won't you buy my sweet pretty lavender,

Two bunches for a penny.

You buy it once, smell it twice.

It makes your clothes smell very nice."

Many others with their peculiar calls and appliances came and went, The muffin man with his hand bell, the toffee-apple man who was the earlier firewood man, now with his standby trade; the cockle and whelk man (straight from Sahfend, lady): the rag-bone man who gave a penny for a rabbit skin; basket chair weavers who sat on the curbside; knife and scissor grinders with a large water wheel which they pushed as a wheel -barrow, and the buskers.

Blokes dressed as women dancing to a barrel organ (drag is nothing new). Escapologists laying in straight jackets; strong men bending nails and snapping chains; bird whistle men; three packet men who always got you to buy the one with the farthing inside; and the singers. The one I remember most vividly was a chap who came round at ten at night. It always seemed to be raining and his plaintive song was "Where is my wandering boy tonight"***. As a boy I often wondered if he ever found him.

All great characters who have gone forever as things ain't wot they used to be, but like I said, young Bill isn't much different from his dad.

I was up the Lane the other Sunday when standing in the middle of the road I saw a tall, lugubrious gent, holding aloft on strings, balloons about six feet long. His song of sale, if not melodious, was direct and utterly to the point. It was "BLOODY GREAT BALLOONS"

No, homo sapiens ain't changed, only the environment.


Notes:

* Players Cries of London - Series 1 (25 cards) 1913, Series 2 (25 cards) 1916

** 'Won't You Buy My Sweet Blooming Lavender'.  As with folk songs different versions exist. The one included above was recorded in Battersea in 1958. Grandad remembered the lyric pretty well :
                     

"Won't you buy my sweet blooming lavender,

 There are sixteen blue branches, one penny, all in full bloom,

 You buy them once, you buy them twice

 It makes your clothes smell sweet and nice"

              

*** "Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight" written by Rev Robert Lowry, 1877. Various recorded versions exist.

Odds And Sods - The Pun Appeal 2

Sign of the Times

In periods of high unemployment the state of the economy is often reflected in the struggle of many small shopkeepers to keep going when people haven't got the money to spend.

A most poignant remark on the adverse effect of that general trend of affairs was having on his business, was shown in the window of a shop in one of the more depressed areas of London.

In the middle of a bare window which displayed absolutely nothing at all, hung a sign which simply stated:

"Customers Wanted . No Experience Necessary"

DIY

Must tell you about the bloke who sang so off key that he couldn't get anybody to sing with him.

Went out and bought himself a duet yourself kit.

Now Here's A Funny Thing

Recently an American dealer acquired a small painting at an auction at Sothebys for a world record price of $2.5million. All dealers have their own method of bidding. Some raise their eyebrows, some make a slight movement of the fore-finger, others a barely noticeable wave of their catalogue. The American made the successful bid with nods of his head. 

Which goes to show that when at an auction, even though the goods are valuable you can get something for nodding

Encore

Have you heard of the new entrant who thought that rebate was putting another worm on the hook?

Datsun Cogs

'Arry got a job as a cleaner at the Datsun Car Assembly Plant and was told to sweep up the yard around the loading bay. 

He was busy sweeping when a fork lift truck, stacking crates of flywheels, dropped one which burst open, scattering its contents dangerously near him.

Going back to the foreman he asked to be given another job.

"Finished that already?" asked the gaffer "That was quick"

"No I ain't" said 'Arry "but I'm not working out there anymore. Its raining Datsun cogs"

Don't Panic

Heard a yarn from Dave Bywater about a friend of his mother's which you would like to hear.

The lady packed some salmon sandwiches late one evening for her husband to take to work next day. Having some salmon left over, she put it down for her cat, to eat for it's supper, who, as is the nature of cats, ate it up with great relish.

Next morning, fairly late-ish, she went out front to bring in the milk, and found one dead cat on the doorstep.

Immediately she thought the obvious. The salmon she had fed it had been off and had poisoned the cat. Then, horrified thought of her husbands sandwiches.

She phoned his work to warn him not to eat them, but he already had. They rushed him to hospital, where he was put under treatment for food poisoning, and kept in for observation.

Returning home, the lady was making a cuppa to calm her shattered nerves when the doorbell rang. Opening the door she was confronted by the milkman who said "I've been trying to see you but you must have gone out. I've called to see how your cat is"

"The cat" said the lady "it's dead. But how did you know about it?"

"Well I didn't know it was dead, and I'm sorry about that" said Milky "but when I delivered the milk this morning it got under my feet and tripped me up, and I dropped the crate of milk on him"!!!

Hubby's comments after being told are not available for print.

Leak Before You Loop

The young pilot was about to take his test in aerobatics. To bolster up his confidence he had imbibed a few jar of wallop and had forgotten his instructors strict order to go to the toilet before diving all over the sky.

"Keep a clear head and an empty bladder, my lad" had been his repeated advice.

All went well until he performed a figure of eight, when he felt the beer exiting and spreading over his uniform. On landing, he clambered out of the plane and stood to attention as the inspector strolled up, took one look at his sodden trousers and roared-

"If you don't want to break your bloody neck in future, you'll learn to leak before you loop"

Mind Shrinker

The psychologist made his patient comfortable on the couch and said "What I propose to do, to help you understand what is worrying you, is to show you some pictures. Immediately I show you one, I want you to tell me the first thing that comes into your mind"

He held up a photo of the Taj Mahal and the patient said "frilly knickers"

He held up a photo of Buckingham Palace and the patient said "black silk stockings"

He held up a photo of Windsor Castle. The patient said "see-through nighties"

The psychologist said "The answer is fairly obvious. You're trouble is that you're a sex maniac, although you don't realise it".

The patient sat up and said "I'm a sex maniac? Looks who's talking. Who's been showing me all those dirty photos then?"

The Things We Take For Granted 

We don't realise our blessings until we get something go wrong. For instance, until you get a bit of dirt in your eye you don't appreciate what a marvellous thing sight is.

I was talking to Ernie Negus, one of our one-armed lads, soon after he resumed duty from a long spell off sick recovering from his unfortunate fall when he broke his existing arm. 

I said that it must have been a relief to be able to do all the things that he normally does, like handling tools etc (he's a great mechanic), and he said yes, it was, but the thing he was most happy to be able to do was being able to wipe his own backside again. Most embarrassing, he said.

True, its the little things that count.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

An invaluable hint for motorists on how to get home in an emergency an be learned from PS Terry Savage when his radiator sprang a leak miles from anywhere t'other day. Stopping near a pond he ensured a continual supply of topping-up water by filling up his wellies which he happened to have aboard. Full marks for ingenuity, Terry, but a word of warning to other travelers in a like situation. Be very careful how you word your reply should a member of the fuzz stop you and ask what you've got in the boot.

Poetic Justice?

In our job there's always the bod who craftily works the mail for awkward delivery points on to the day mail officer. Like top flats, long driveways, etc etc, and the man on the double wonders how come he always gets all this stuff on his walk.

Heated words were heard the other morning between the night mail officer and the day mail officer of the walk which delivers to the Harrow Football Club, which is one of these points

Apparently DMO accused NMA of deliberately leaving this stuff for him, whereas NMO insisted that it was an agreement between the rotates that is should be worked this way.

After many uncomplimentary references to each others parentages and dire threats as to the eventual fate of either officer, NMO backed down and agreed to take any mail that turned up in time for the first delivery. Which he did the very next day and got bitten three times on the arm by the caretakers dog.

DMO was heard to remark that it was bound to happen and NMO was a stranger to the dog, but it took no notice of the DMO cos he was always bloody well going up there, wasn't he?!

29. The Barbershop

aka Old Fashioned Barbers

The conservationists are continually on about preserving England's heritage and blow their tops whenever anybody threatens to chop down a tree or pull down a tumbledown old building.

No matter whether the tree is rotten and liable to be blown over with the next gust of wind, or the house will collapse if the tenant slams the bog door a bit too hard, somebody will plead that Bonny Prince Charlie hid in it's branches or Liz the One once kipped in the front bedroom.

Generally speaking, they do a good job for if the developers had their way we'd all be living in concrete jungles like the Chalkhill Estate in Wembley, and Mothercare would be flogging cement mixers to young parents instead of prams.

So I would like to bring to the notice of the people who are so concerned about retaining parts of Merrie Old England's heritage, of a fast disappearing trade, and it's environment, that is as dear as the British pub to the hearts of all true Britishers, no matter what part of the globe they happen to hail

from originally. 

I'm talking about the good old fashioned short back and sides barber and his barber shop, which should be in the back room behind a confectioner and tobacconist, if it is the genuine article.

They are few and far between and have been swamped by the malignant growth of Unisex salons and His 'n Hers parlours, which grew from long hair, the burning of the bra, and equal rights.

All democratic men are agreed that women's place is not solely in the home, but wherever it is, it certainly ain't in the barber shop. They are as out of place there as a monk in a nunnery.

The days when a chap could be happy in the thought that should he feel the need to escape from female tantrums, there existed a haven where he could claim sanctuary, over the threshold of which no woman would dare to cross, are almost gone. The most exclusive man's club in the world is practically non-existent.

The barbershop I went to many years ago, was not behind a sweet shop, as were most barbers, but was on the ground floor of a tenement house. People lived above and underneath but it was completely isolated from them as it had it's own steps outside leading to the shop door, over which a barber's pole stuck out, and a sign stating that Alf Mantel, barber, cut Gents hair, trimmed moustaches, and shaved with the finest honed razors.

Alf had three blokes working with him and a lather boy. The lather boy is an extinct species now but was as inevitable in a barber shop as eggs are to bacon. His job was to apply a thick layer of shaving soap to the chins of customers wanting a shave, ready for the barber to shave off. As it only cost tuppence most gents had a shave, especially on Saturday afternoon in readiness for the evenings activities, and he was kept on the go all the time, lathering, working the green solidified brilliantine in the hair of finished customers for the barber to comb, sweeping up the piles of cut hair and being a general dogsbody.

Alf's boy was named Reggie and he always wore a cloth cap with his ears tucked under the sides, even while he was working. 

He was unmercifully bullied by the barbers and teased by the herbs who pinched his cap and threw it to each other when he tried to get it back. He got very upset and tearful which made the lads tease all the more until Alf got fed up with the noise and scuffling and finished the joking by snatching the cap

from whoever had it saying "Pack it up. If you want to sod about, do it outside" and tossing it back to Reggie, always said "If your earoles ain't back in bed and this bloody floor swept up in two minutes, you're sacked " As this happened several times a week it was purely a ritual, but Reggie never got used to it and was haunted by fear of getting his cards.

I felt sorry for him, as he lived down my street and I knew he lived alone with his mum as his old man had scarpered when he was at school, and he had to give her the 10/6d a week he earned there.

The only money he got for himself was the odd penny tip he got, and they were few and far between, as the crafty barbers did the final brush up of the coat to make sure they got any dropsy going, and

who could blame 'em ? They was only on a couple of quid a week.

Funny enough, it wasn't until his dad hopped it that Reggie started tucking his ears under his cap. Wonder what the mind shrinkers would make of that ?

Anyway, did a roaring trade, did Alf, what with all the kids during the week, and there were thousands of 'em, there being no telly in them days and folk had to do something to pass away the time; and all the herbs on Sats who came in for the three S’s in readiness for the evening festivities like taking a bride up the pictures, going to the local dance hall, having a few jars round the boozer, or simply having a roll round the town in the hopes of having a bit of luck where the birds were concerned. Leastways, a lot of them did that, as Alf sold a hell of a lot of the old packets of three which hung on cards next to the mirrors in front of the chairs. The three S's, by the way, were what you asked for if you wanted a complete going over, being literally interpreted as a s---, shave and shampoo.

Like a beehive it was with all the yatter of blokes arguing the merits of their local teams, favourite fighters, or fancied horses. Every topic under the sun came up in discussion but no aggro occurred as Alf, with one of his finest honed razors in his mitt, could have sliced an earole on any troublemaker before he shaped up. And would have, and all, cos many a lad went out with plaster stuck on his earlobe and Alf's stock apology of "Sorry mate, but what do you expect if you don't keep your loaf still" after having said something that he hadn't liked.

It was always a bit dodgy sitting in Alf's chair after you'd been chatting football with someone. If you'd been taking the mick out of Millwall, who he supported, it was odds on that he'd have heard you, and you got yourself a bloody collar. But it never stopped blokes going there as in the room behind the shop were a couple of tables where you could sit and get a cup of tea and a saveloy or have a go on the pin tables and one-armed bandits round the walls, after your trim up.

Another of Reggie's jobs that was, dishing out the char and serving the savs, which he had to stop in a hurry when one of the barbers hollered through the door "Lather up " or "Brill on." or Alf shouted "Get the hair off this bloody floor, it's up round our knees"

Like I said, there ain't many of the good old S.B.& S's shops around, which is more the pity, and the conservationists should fight tooth and nail to preserve those that still exist.

When a chap wants his hair cut, if he wants a shampoo to follow he'll tell the barber so. He don't want some scissor-wrangler to tell him "I couldn't possibly cut your hair without washing it first, darling" 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti long, hair style fanatic. Everyone is entitled to wear his loaf the way he likes it, and if he desires to let it spread all over his boat race, that's up to him. I don't exactly agree with my brother, who once said to me "Can't understand why young fellows today, go to such pains and expense to grow on their face what grows in profusion and for nothing round their backside".

But I know what he felt.

And I plead for the preservation of some the places where old fashioned blokes as us can still be asked "how would you like it, sir ?" and no matter what you say, you still get a short back and sides.

The barbers I go to is one of these peaceful backwaters behind a Tob. and Con. shop, where you're as likely to see a female as you are a Rabbi at a Catholic jumble sale.

The chap who runs it calls it "The last of the Summer Wine" I'm not sure whether he means the shop or the piles of grey hair which is over the floor. Or the customers. But I don't think anything could be more aptly named.

28. Rubik's Cube

I'm waiting to read of the youngster who has been put into care for smashing his parents home to pieces with a sledgehammer and attempting to murder the cat by putting it into the spindryer.

          

His parents will be reported as saying that they have no idea what came over him, as up to date he had been a good boy of high intelligence and a happy disposition, and so far as they knew had no vices. Not even the odd bit of glue sniffing which some of his mates were known to indulge in behind the school bog.

They will be honestly mystified as to their son's lapse from civilised behavior, although will recall, at the court inquiry, that he had recently had a few nightmares from which he had awoke screaming "Left, Right, Left"

I haven't actually read of such a case but, like the riots that have recently plagued Liverpool, Brixton and other British areas, it is inevitable that it will occur when you study the contributary factors which spark such events. This case will have nothing to do with ethnic minority suppression, three million unemployed, lead poisoning or the envy of folk who could only afford a registry office wedding and a honeymoon at Southend after having a recent more expensive do shoved down their gullets until they got sick of it. This case will be due to parental indulgence and pride.

As the average Mum and Dad quite naturally thinks that their pride and joy is the only one that's been cast from the mould and should have no less than any other kid, and is far more capable of succeeding with it than the rest, they got him one.

You must know what I'm on about by now.

Rubik's Cube of course.

This bloke Rubik has a lot to answer for and it's quite possible that his diabolical invention will be the final straw that breaks the finely balanced mind of Homo Sapiens and we shall all do a lemming type Hari-Kari and leave the dolphins to take over planet Earth. 

And the epitaph of Man will not be the mushroom shape of nuclear explosion, but the six sided figure of Rubik's Cube. 

This puzzle can be done, of course, and they sell a book of instructions telling you how. What they don't tell you is how to understand it. They naturally assume you have the qualifications to be able to do so. Like a degree in in higher maths or chess movements of the world masters. The trouble with this puzzle is that it is compulsive, like eating peanuts.

You just can't stop once you've started. 

After a while of twisting and turning the sections and getting nowhere, you put it aside, take some aspirins and turn on the telly. Then as you get up to go for a pee you pick it up and have another go in there. Half a dozen more tries and a couple of dozen aspirins later you sling it aside promising yourself that you'll really settle down and solve it later when you've got time. Anyway, there's no point in wasting time doing something that don't achieve anything, is there ?

Better let sonny have a go. After all you bought it for him and it'll improve his mind and his concentration, which is a good thing ain't it? 

You know that you could do it if you really tried. Just that you ain't got the time right now.

So - sonny cops it. Poor little sod.

And sooner or later the result imagined at the top of the page will almost certainly happen, cos little pride and joy hasn't got Dad's ability to  convince himself that he can do something which his inner self knows he bloody well can't. Not in a month of Sundays.

I suppose Rubik can't be wholly blamed for lumbering the world with such a diabolical toy. Kids toys are so advanced these days that there isn't much joy in any of them, and he just jumped on the bandwagon.

Parents are slightly bewildered when Junior mopes around looking bored and saying he don't know what to do. 

Course he's bored. He's surrounded by masses of electronic equipment designed to make him think and to instruct him. No fun at all. 

He don't have to take off his socks when he wants to count over ten. He just presses buttons on his calculator.

He wants toys he can play with, not instructional manuals designed to make him a genius, which is what most of todays toys aim to do. 

We had none of this problem when I was a kid.

We weren't expected to be adult minded, at least not until we could earn some money by doing a paper round when we had to be knowledgeable enough to realise that any income thus come by was to help out with the family income and not to be frittered away on toys But I don't think that the kids of yesteryear were any the worse for that.

We kept ourselves busy with games that were primitive compared with todays and reading material that was designed to be enjoyed, not to instruct.

Most homes could boast a pack of cards which were in continual use in games of Old Maid, Beat your Neighbour, Chase the Ace, Sliding Donkey, Cheat, Rummy, Banker and Pairs. To name just a few.

If you wanted to gamble it was Pontoon or Brag for buttons.

Games that were easy to understand, but what's more important, games that did not leave you with an inferiority complex or uncontrollable frustrations.

If your brother or your mate beat you at Ludo or Draughts you could always punch him on the nose (if he was smaller than you), or accuse him of cheating (again if he was smaller). If he wasn't then you kept your mouth shut and tried to cheat him, but whatever the outcome of any game, kids weren't left with homicidal thoughts towards other peoples property or the first O.A.P. who happened to cross their path.

The trouble is that you just can't cheat most modern toys. Some of them have even got printed circuits which tell you, through an amplifier, when you've boobed at spelling or doing a sum or whatever, and if all a nipper gets when he wants to enjoy playing with his toy is – “ You are wrong. Do it again. " he's quickly going to learn the satisfaction of saying the first word of Colonel Bogey and jumping on his birthday present.

He don't want to be a genius when he's playing or reading, and he'll mature intro a responsible citizen if he reads The Beano in bed instead of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

I suggest that Rubik be entombed in a pyramid of his blasted cubes and be left to figure his way out of that one.

figure his way out of that one. Without aspirins.

You may have gathered that I've been having a go at it and you'd be right.

It nearly sent me round the twist and that's why I'm worried about the effect it may have on nippers. Well I was until the other day,but now I'm not so sure.

My little grandson, aged eight*, came up to me and handed me a cube with all the colours on their correct sides and said " Mess it up Grandad. Get all the colours mixed up"

I thought he'd done the old trick of taking the squares out and putting them back in correct order instead of turning complete sections as you're supposed to do.

So I twisted and turned the sections  until it was completely jumbled and said "Here you are then. Now lets see you do it", getting ready to calm him with sweets when he went berserk with trying.

He did it in just under five minutes right in front of me, and I'll take anyone who don't believe me round to him and let him do it. 

Well, it's understandable really. He don't stuff his bonce with all this electronic facts and figures rubbish and has inherited some of his Grandad's brains by reading the Beano in bed.

I only ever read about Billy Bunter when I was a kid.


Notes:
* Which helpfully dates this piece to 1981.

Special thanks to Paul Rose for the slight cheat on the photo of said grandson.

If games, retro or otherwise, are your thing, check out Paul's work here Digitiser 2000 You Tube and here https://www.digitiser2000.com/

27. The Greenhouse

I beg to report that my greenhouse is still standing and has successfully withstood all the buffetting of the torrential rains with which we have been blessed since March.

Even the automatic opening window in the roof has decided to live up to makers advert and open up when the inside temperature reaches the degree to which it has been set. 

For a while it was obstinate and refused to open at all, but after some persuasion with a hammer and a few choice four letter adjectives, felt that it might as well cooperate and started to open at 40F which would have given any plants therein a touch of frostbite of the stalk. However a few more whacks of the old persuader stopped it being bloody minded and it has since behaved as per guarantee.

While on the subject of things not going right first time of asking, do you suffer likewise? I feel that I can't be peculiar in this respect. It seems that there must be an inbuilt perversity in the scheme of things which states that no ways in anybody going to get a smooth ride by having things go right first time out.

Everybody must suffer from it. Or is it only me?

All you want is a quiet life. Just do the job, get it over with as quick as possible, get your plates up in front of the box and take it easy with a fag and a pint.

How come there's always this hassle with fate even with the simplest of jobs such as bunging a nail in a lump of wood? It never goes in like it should do straight away. Either bends over or splits the wood, which means getting it out again, straightening it and glueing the split before attempting to whack it in again.

Point is, it always goes right the second time of asking, so why no the first time?

I remember once having to replace a faulty rote arm on the motor. Now what can be easier than that? Just remove the distributor head, take off the old arm and put on the replacement. 

Simple. 

So I did just that, but when putting on the new one, dropped it.

You know what? I never did find that bloody rote arm. It wasn't under the car and I searched every nook and cranny I could find on the car. Nowhere. I figure it must have sprouted legs and run like hell on hitting the deck or disguised itself as a nut and dropped off after I got another one on and got the car going.

Now why couldn't it go right first time? No bother. After all can't be me all the time, can it?

Anyway, about this greenhouse I got. 

Apart one one flesh wound and a stiff neck got through working in a cold wind, everything was all systems go, and I thought that at last I'd done something right first time. It was windproof, watertight and as cosy as Uncle Tom's cabin.

Great!

Well, apart from one little item which caused a slight doubt in my mind. It wasn't the knowledge that I'm no gardener, I'm well aware that what I know about gardening could be put in a thimble and still leave plenty of room for my thumb.

Also the title of Little Green Fingers don't apply either, Doctor Death could have picked up a tip or two from my hands when it comes to plant life, I've seen poison ivy struggle to get into next doors garden after starting in to mine when I've come along.

No problems there as my wife was appointed O.I.C. Greenhouse with full vested authority to direct and supervise any labouring that would be required to be done by me. So why the misgiving when everything was covered with a fully comprehensive insurance?

Well. I gather that the main function of a greenhouse is to raise plants, from seeds preferably, in order to save the expense of buying them from a retailer who will charge 45p for each little plant when you can expect to raise perhaps fifty from each packet of seed you've bought for 30p.

Right? OK.

We got all our seed boxes, soil, packets of seed etc and sowed according to instructions, carefully spraying with sun-warmed water at nights. Visions of unlimited supplies of tomatoes, cucumbers, marrows and flowers kept my wife and I nursing those boxes of earth like they were triplets, and we were all set for the good life.

This is where the doubt came in. About me doing something right first time.

After some time we felt the gestation period should now be over and little plants should be thrusting their little bonces through the surface, anxious to grow big and bear fruits, as is their destiny. And what have we got?

Several miniature deserts of earth looking as fruitful as an octogenarian spinster. 

So we decided to do a bit of investigation. Maybe we'd put the seeds in too deeply or upside down. We started with the tomatoes. 

Result of investigation - nowt. Not a seed to be found.

The marrows?  - likewise

We moved to the cucumbers - ditto.

Flowers? No hope. Either vanished completely or as dormant as they were in the packets. 

So we started again. With fresh seed but this time with carefree abandon. Each seed box was blessed with the benediction of the true gardener -

"Right, you got two chances, you sods, live or die and see if we care"

And with the true perversity of nature they all did - live. Each seed booming upwards, elbowing their mates aside in an effort to get more growing space. 

Now why couldn't they have done that in the first time of asking? Beats me.

Anyway, time has progressed, as have the seedlings. They've grown in to plants and have been potted out, hardened off and bedded out to permanent sites, and we felt that at last we'd done a good job with the greenhouse and its functions.

Well, maybe. There's still some doubt, cos this thing about nothing going right first time is continuous, and while we got the greenhouse to perform its function after successful erection, we forgot that there's many phases between the first bite of the fruit from the sowing of the seed. All prone to the rule of the first time failure.

This year, which is known as the Year of the Disabled*, is a misnomer.

All this rain we've had has raised an army and it should now be called the Year of the Slug. 

We've been invaded by millions of the ugly back slimy abortions and are now involved in a battle of extermination armed with salt and pellets to try and save a few of our cherished plants which they're gobbling up like a plague of locusts. 

I've got a feeling I should have a bought a shed.

* which helps us date this piece to 1981.