Max Scratchmann's Blog, page 5

Second Hand Books

When our teacher breaks out a box of new books at the start of term there’s an almighty rush for Animal Farm – it’s the shortest book in the stack, after all. However, little swot that I am, of course I’ve dived on something hideously long and depressingly Russian instead.

It’s just that books and me are inseparable. I’ve read all my text books by the second week of term, even the truly awful “Modern Poetry for Schools” that is punctuated with blurry photographs of scowling men in duffle coats. I don’t care. I just love it.

The library in our town, is of course, completely useless. My aunty Bunty’s on the staff there and she scratches her head in wonderment at the book lists I bring her. “I’ve never even heard of half of these folk,” she says witheringly, “and I’m sure yon man Lawrence has had all his books banned anyway. Could you not just read a nice Georgette Heyer?”

Obviously, then, there’s nothing else for it but to buy books instead. Except that there isn’t really a proper Book shop – that’s with a capital B, by the way – anywhere in site. The university store is the best, of course, but if it’s not on the syllabus of this year’s English course you might as well forget it. And as for John Menzies, don’t make me laugh.

Undaunted, I try the town’s second hand book shop. It keeps mainly magazines but there’s also a huge stack of mouldering paperbacks at five and ten pence each. They’re mostly westerns and detective novels, of course, but I slowly unearth some old sixpenny Penguins and soon have a modest hoard in my clammy little fist when a drunk man lurches in.

“Have you ony books?” he slurs and the woman behind the counter looks about her cautiously.

“Whit aboot him?” she asks some unseen person, jerking her head in my direction.

“He’s OK,” says a voice, “just lock the door…”

They pull the shutter down and produce two brown-paper-packages. “Ten note each,” the woman says and the drunk man nods, palming a twenty.

“And what are you having?” the lady says to me as I hand over my fifty pence coin and scamper off with my stash.

It’s not until later that summer that I learn that you can just order anything you want from the proper book shop…

PYGMALIONATION

The artist stood on tippy-dippy toes, preening at his masterpiece. “I have not achieved such lifelike tones before,” he drooled, “and such colours, spectrum hues and more.”

“Then why not take a dip inside,” the naked lady invited, “you’ll like me better in the flesh, you’ll go not unrequited.”

He looked around then stepped inside, wincing as he felt the acid burn of his blood turning to turpentine. “It’s not what I expected when I stepped into your nation,” he gasped.

“Ah,” said the lady, “it’s not all pleasure, this exploration.”

The Death of Eric

This is the story of Eric de Vine,

A boy would only answer in rhyme,

It drove his mum scatty, it drove his dad mad,

And his Gran, she did say, You’re for it, me lad.

You’re going to your auntie who lives in Glen Carse,

With a flea in your ear and a boot up your arse.

So he arrived with his suitcase, his Aunt said, hello,

But Eric replied, fuck you, you old hoe.

So the Aunt said to Eric, oh dear, you’re a mess,

We’ll see how you fare in the wilds of Loch Ness,

And on the dead stroke of midnight he was thrown on the shore,

But he just lit a fire, said, this is a bore.

When a monster reared up its slimy old head,

Said, I’ll just eat this lad and then go to bed,

And he roared and he roared like a scalded old maid,

But Eric he said, oh, I’m really afraid.

And he roarèd right back, he had it verbatim,

Which pissed off the monster, who quite promptly ate him.

Date for Your Diary

Event: Demented Eloquence North #4

Starring: Mike Garry, Stephanie Dogfoot, Max Scratchmann, E-Jitz (tbc)

Hosts: Richie Brown and Kit Fryatt

Where: Cellar 35, Rosemount Viaduct, Aberdeen

Time: 8:30 – late

Price: £5 / £3 (conc.)

A Happy Event

This is the story of the Forsythe-Browns,

There are many people like them in all old England’s towns,

And they were waiting for the stork on a cold winter’s night,

But the bundle that he left them did cause them quite a fright.

For lying in the crib, where a baby, he should be,

Was a purple Egg-a-noggin-nog who gurgled out, Mummy,

Mum telephoned the doctor and she telephoned the stork,

But they both said that’s the parcel for Acacia Avenue, York.

But this is not a baby, said a frantic Mrs B,

He’s had tadpoles for his breakfast and banana-skins for tea,

And now his father’s taken him on the purple evening tide,

To catch a lonely crocodile that’s forty inches wide.

Just then the babe and father came and sat down in the lounge,

And hubby said, what ho, my dear, are there biscuits we can scrounge?

That thing is not my son, she cried, which wasn’t very nice,

But the egg-a-nog, it ate them both, and never did think twice.

So all you mums and dads out there, pray listen to my song,

Just love what you are given and you’ll never go far wrong.

Max performing at Soapbox, Edinburgh

British Summer Time

The daffodil peeks a cautious head,

Above the frosty flower bed,

Wonders, do I bloom chrome yellow,

To sway in sunlight warm and mellow.

But then it sees the flecks of snow,

Thinks it’s time for me to go,

And shrinks back down into the earth,

Quite postpones the Spring rebirth.

And in the parks and gardens bright,

Bulbs all follow Daffy’s plight,

And baron earth does greet our eye,

As we shuffle, moan and sigh,

To our bleak and daily toil,

Past the bare unbroken soil,

But smiling as we change our clocks,

Though wrapping up in gloves and socks.

Summer’s here, the Government says,

It’s official, longer days,

But the flowers shake their heads,

Stay beneath their frozen beds.

It’s not summer, you on high,

We’re staying put till next July.

But the men from Whitehall know,

It’s illegal now to snow.

So they tell the steely skies,

Please turn blue, but, big surprise,

Like Canute, their edicts spurned,

Their writs and sanctions duly burned,

As we mutter, what a bummer,

Another freezing British summer.

To A Mousse

Wee sleekit coorin’ timorous dessert,

Topped with cherries and a fresh cream squirt,

I see you tremble with anticipation,

As my spoon comes close to your sugar nation.

 

Oh, if ever a pudding could be blessed with legs,

Your fragile self but the whites of eggs,

And you cannot run as my spoon descends,

A lick, a lip-smack, and your life ends.

 

It is no longer a world of mousse and man,

But of empty bowl and whipped cream can,

So, pudding, reflect on the vagaries of fate,

While I lick my spoon and clean my plate.

The End of the World

Tonight is the end of the world, everything we know will be unfurled,

There will no longer be night or day, towns and cities swept away,

The evening sky will be torn with thunder, light and darkness ripped asunder,

And then?

Will we start again?

Will God build another Eden in the location once called Sweden?

Adam and Eve recast as platinum blonde, of herring and vodka fond,

But of a certain gloomy disposition,

perhaps God’s plan requires revision?

So let’s set Eden in the former USA, with the first family settled in the hay,

With a nuclear arsenal and bags of potato chips, an army, an airforce and a whole fleet of ships…

Or, maybe it’s better we just call the whole Armageddon thing off, and just leave life as it is

after twelve o’clock.

Nursery Crimes

Georgie Porgy, pudding and pie.

Felt so bad he wanted to die,

When a voice on the telephone said, My my,

Have you been mis-sold any PPI?