Terry Ravenscroft's Blog: Stairlift to Heaven, page 2

April 4 2014. UNIVERSITY CHALLENGED.

I switched the TV over to BBC2. The Trouble and I settled back to watch University Challenge. I’m good at history, the sciences, art, anything to do with the periodic table, classical music, astronomy and microbiology. The Trouble is good at knitting. I generally get more questions right.

I jest of course. Actually I don’t know what subjects The Trouble is good at, apart from shopping. In fact she only half watches the programme, if she watches it at all, and only then because she thinks Jeremy Paxman is ‘dishy’: for me University Challenge is the opportunity to test my general knowledge against the best young brains currently studying at the country’s top seats of learning; for The Trouble it is the thirty minute interlude between the first part of Coronation Street and the second part of Coronation Street. To each his own.

I usually get about six questions right. Ten on a good night, three or four on a bad. But good night or bad night I always get more right than the contestant at the end farthest away from the captain, who nine times out of ten answers about as many questions as the team’s mascot. (For my money most of them are only there because they’re sleeping with the team’s captain.)

The Trouble doesn’t get any questions right, partly because questions on knitting or shopping rarely crop up, but chiefly because, unlike me, although she might know the answer she doesn’t call it out. Or so she claims. But, come on, anyone can say that can’t they. Anyway, whatever the reason – and notwithstanding the female University Challenge contestants who are not sat on the seat farthest from the captain, who are exceptions to the rule – it is my weekly opportunity to demonstrate man’s superior intelligence.

Tonight my opportunity was doubled when The Trouble and I were joined by Alice Harkness, one of The Trouble’s friends, who I know only vaguely. The story was that Alice’s television set had gone on the blink and, as she couldn’t bear missing Coronation Street, The Trouble had invited her to watch it on our set. I didn’t mind just so long as our visitor didn’t treat the gap between the two episodes of Coronation Street as an opportunity to have a natter with The Trouble and spoil my enjoyment of University Challenge. However when it started The Trouble left the room to make us all a cup of tea.

Jeremy Paxman asked the first starter for ten, something about an Antarctic treaty. I didn’t know the answer. The first set of bonuses was on economists.

“Essay on Population is an influential work by which political economist, born in Surrey in 1766?” asked Paxman.

“Malthus,” said one of the contestants.

“Correct,” said Paxman.

I didn’t know.

“Malthus’s views on population increase were used as a justification for the harshness of the reforms of 1834 to which law?”

“The Poor Law,” said Alice Harkness.

“The Corn Laws,” said one of the contestants.

“No it was the Poor Law,” said Paxman.

I shot a look at Alice Harkness. She gave me a sweet smile. I can’t remember what the third question on economics was but I didn’t know the answer. But neither did Alice Harkness.

“Ten points for this next starter,” continued Paxman. “A Danish play withdrawn two months before it was due to open in Copenhagen in January 2013 and a painting by the South African artist Marlene Dumas both have as their subject which British singer who died aged 27 in 2011?”

“Amy Winehouse,” said Alice Harkness.

“Amy Winehouse,” said one of the contestants.

“Correct,” said Jeremy Paxman.

“Do you mind if I switch it over?” I said to Alice Harkness. “There’s something I want to watch on one of the other channels?  I’ll switch it back for Coronation Street in good time.”

Alice gave me the same sweet smile. “Not at all.”

A moment or two later The Trouble returned with the teas. “Oh, you’ve switched over.”

I could have choked the pair of them.

 

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April 2 2014. SID’S DELIVERIES.

“Sid’s Deliveries,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

“I’d like to speak to Sid, please.”

“Sid speaking.”

“I saw your van pass this afternoon. It said on the side of it that you deliver ‘Anything, Anytime, Anywhere’.”

“That’s me.”

“Excellent. I’d like you to deliver me an elephant to Bulgaria.”

The line went silent for a few moments then Sid said. “Would that be an African elephant or an Indian elephant?”

It was my turn to be silent. Was he serious? Eventually I said, “What difference does it make?”

“Well African elephants are bigger than Indian. If it’s an Indian I can probably do it in my white van but if it’s African I’ll probably need the three tonner. I tell you what, I’ll pop round this afternoon and have a look at it. Where do you live?”

What could I do? I hadn’t got a clue where to get hold of an elephant at such short notice, or any notice come to that. “Actually it’s not very convenient this afternoon,” I said.

“I know it isn’t,” said Sid. “Because you haven’t got a bloody elephant. You’re Terry Ravenscroft. I recognise your voice; you go in The Grim Jogger. Which I do now and then.  You wrote Stairlift to Heaven. There were wind ups just like this in it.”

My fame has spread. Before my nose joined it I mounted a damage limitation exercise. “You’ve read it then?”

“The wife has. I haven’t the time; I’m too busy answering the phone to wankers like you asking me if I can deliver them an elephant to Bulgaria.”

It was clear I hadn’t limited a great deal of damage. I was about to try again, along the lines of offering his wife a complimentary signed copy of Stairlift to Heaven 2, but before I could Sid said, “Have you ever heard of the expression ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep.’?”

I admitted I had.

“So I shouldn’t have to tell you you’re shitting on yours.”

“No.”

“Don’t.”

“Right.”

“Good,” said Sid, and put down the phone.

I can see I shall have to be more careful in future.

 

 

 

 

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March 31. DUCK

Here’s another extract from the forthcoming audiobook of Stairlift to Heaven.

DUCK

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March 28 2014. MINDLESS EATING.

After ten minutes Atkins’s eleven-year-old grandson Orlando had shown no interest in the plate of chopped carrots and apples balanced on the chair arm; his eyes had remained firmly fixed on the violent video game he had brought along with him and was now playing on Atkins’s TV.

Unbeknown to Orlando, or Olly * as Atkins calls him, he was taking part in an experiment.

Yesterday I had read a magazine article about ‘Mindless eating habits’, which the writer of the piece, a woman dietician, had defined as “when you eat food without really registering it, munching unthinkingly on what’s in front of you regardless of what it is, the portion size, or even if you’re hungry”. She went on to say that it was the reason children overeat, but if properly controlled parents could make good use of it.

“When your kids are watching TV slip a bowl of chopped apple or carrots in front of them”, she advised. “Be casual about it, the trick is to get them to eat without realising what they’re doing. If they eat carrots in front of the TV one day, put them on their dinner plate the next, they can’t argue that they don’t like them.”

Knowing that Atkins has been more than a little concerned about his grandson’s weight for some time I showed him the article. He dismissed it as a load of old bollocks.

“Oh I don’t know about that,” I said. “I think she could well be right.”

Atkins shrugged. “Well, it’s just about possible with a following wind I suppose.”

Atkins claims that he has yet to see Orlando without a bag of sweets in his hand, or toting a bag of potato crisps or whatever other junk food manufacturers put into bags. Aware of this I saw his grandson as a suitable subject to either prove or disprove the contention of the article. Despite Atkins’s reservations I talked him into it. Hence Orlando taking part in the experiment, or rather not taking part in it if his total disregard of the plate of chopped carrot and apple was anything to go by.

“He’s not going to go for it,” said Atkins. “Like I said.”

“Perhaps you should try him with the peas?” I suggested. The article had also recommended peas as a suitable snacking food for weaning obese children off sweets and crisps and onto fruit and vegetables, as peas could “easily be popped into the mouth rather like Smarties.”

“Olly isn’t the brightest star in the galaxy but even he isn’t going to mistake a pea for a Smartie,” said Atkins loftily.

“He won’t be looking. That’s the whole idea. When they’re absorbed in TV and eating at the same time people don’t look at what they’re eating. Olly isn’t eating the carrots and apple because he saw you put them there. Replace them with a plate of peas while he’s not looking and he could well go for it.”

“You reckon?” said Atkins, still very sceptical.

“Better still, replace the carrots and apple with a bag of crisps, make sure he sees you doing it, and then when he’s totally immersed in his video game again replace them with a bag of peas.”

Atkins did this. In fact he improved on it. First he replaced the plate of carrots and apple with a plate of crisps. When Olly had wolfed them all down, he took away the empty plate, then, making sure Olly saw him, replaced it with another plate of crisps. Then, when Olly wasn’t looking, he deftly replaced the plate of crisps with a plate of peas.

Olly’s hand now wandered to the plate and scooped up some peas. He popped them into his mouth like Smarties. A couple of seconds later, preceded by gargling, choking noises, they came out like bullets. All over Atkins’s carpet.

Atkins turned to me. “I want you to write a letter to that bloody woman who wrote that article! After you’ve picked all the peas up.”

* On discovering this I suggested to Atkins that as his name was Orlando his shortened name should by rights be Orly. Atkins said he’d tried that but it made him sound like an airport. I could have said that this was nothing less than appropriate as he was almost as big as an airport but Atkins is already disappointed enough in his grandson as it is.

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March 26. THE CLEANING LADY.

One morning about a couple of weeks ago I was awakened by sounds coming from somewhere in the house. When I went to investigate I found The Trouble cleaning the bathroom, a bottle of Cif in one hand and a sponge in the other. It was twenty minutes to eight.

“What’s going on?” I said. “Why on earth are you cleaning the bathroom at this time in the morning?”

“I’m just tickling it up,” she said. ‘Tickling it up’ is The Trouble’s expression for making something a bit more presentable.

“Why?”

“The cleaning lady is due at nine, isn’t she?” she said, in the tone of voice that said it should be perfectly clear to everyone but the village idiot.

“So?” said the village idiot.

“Well I’m not going to give her the chance to tell people I have a dirty house, am I?”

“It is dirty. That’s why the cleaning lady is coming at nine-o-clock. To clean it.”

The Trouble and I are in our seventies and over the past two or three years both of us have had problems with our health. Consequently housework has become much more of a chore; so a week previously we had taken the decision to rid ourselves of some of it by employing a cleaning lady.

The Trouble re-rolled her sleeves up and set about the bath again with vim (and Cif.) This was not tickling up she was doing, this was a full-scale ninety-nine per cent of household germs killing,  porcelain gleaming blitz. After giving the bath a final wipe she inspected her handiwork with more attention than that Aggie woman in How Clean is Your House would give to the inside of a bachelor’s fridge.

Apparently satisfied that the bath would pass muster, The Trouble turned her attention to her enormous bathroom cabinet of almost totally unnecessary toiletries. Before she set about it she set about me. “Either go back to bed or move out of the way, I shall be wanting to do the floor next.”

After she had finished in the bathroom she hoovered the living room and hall carpets and dusted everything dustable. She had already cleaned the kitchen and tidied the pantry before she cleaned the bathroom so God knows what time she got up. By the time the cleaning lady arrived at nine-o-clock the whole house was spotless. There was nothing left for her to clean. She went through the motions of cleaning what she had been hired to clean, which was everything The Trouble had cleaned, but it must have been the easiest ten pounds an hour she had earned in her life. She didn’t even have to clean our bedroom because The Trouble was so knackered from all the cleaning she had to go back to bed for the rest of the morning and didn’t want to be disturbed.

I will never understand the way a woman’s mind works as long as I live. The scenario: you are not up to cleaning the house yourself, you hire someone to clean it for you, but before they have the chance to clean it you clean it yourself. You work it out, I can’t. Einstein couldn’t.

Thinking about it later it dawned on me that if a man was unfortunate enough have married a woman who was a bit lax when it comes to keeping a clean and tidy house, and he wanted her to pay a little more attention to her cleaning duties, then all he had to do to bring he up to speed was inform her that he had employed a cleaning lady, who would be taking up her duties the following day, and the problem would disappear.

I mentioned this theory a couple of nights later in The Grim Jogger. Everyone said it was an excellent idea. Ted Crawley, perhaps because his wife’s slovenly nature had contributed greatly to the break-up of his marriage, remarked that if nothing else it would teach the lazy idle cow a lesson. (His words, not mine; I’d have been quite happy with slovenly.)

After he’d had time to think about it Atkins said it would be an even better idea if you didn’t actually employ a cleaning lady but simply told your wife you had employed a cleaning lady, thus still getting the house cleaned whilst at the same time saving yourself a bob or two. I wished I’d thought of it myself.

Jerrold Baker said he was going to try it out, as he had a wife who was not exactly eager when it came to making with the Cif and the hoover. Wisely, however, he said that he wouldn’t be going so far as to follow Atkins’s suggestion, for the understandable reason that Mrs Baker was a bit of a tartar and if he’d told her he had employed a cleaning lady and a cleaning lady failed to appear after she’d done the cleaning his life wouldn’t be worth living.

Last night in The Grim Jogger Jerrold provided evidence of this when he turned up with a fat lip. Which had apparently been given to him by his wife a split second after he told her he had employed a lady cleaner. And he didn’t even get the benefit of a clean house because when the lady cleaner turned up his wife told her to bugger off.

As I said earlier, I will never understand women as long as I live.

 

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March 30. DUCK

 

Here’s another extract from the forthcoming Stairlift to Heaven audio book.

DUCK

 

 

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March 25. ELECTORAL ROLL

 

Here’s another extract from the forthcoming Stairlift to Heaven audio book.

ELECTORAL ROLL

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March 21 2014. COPING WITH YOUR PROSTATE GLAND.

One of the few good things about being old is that you can give the benefit of your experience to those who have yet to reach old age. In no area can this advice be more useful than that of the prostate gland. Almost forty per cent of men will suffer with this most troublesome of gland sooner or later. It would be to their advantage to take note of these words. Women readers too would do well to heed my advice; although they will never have to suffer the agonies of a malevolent prostate gland their partner might, and they will be in a position to sympathise with him and offer succour.

The problem a faulty prostate gland brings with it is of course a much-increased need to urinate. I have already dealt with this at some length in my book Stairlift to Heaven. However the advice given there is about what to do to manage the problem whilst indoors, in the privacy of one’s own bathroom. This further advice covers what to do when you are outdoors and suddenly need to pee, which you will be doing on more occasions than you will care to remember. Been there, done that. Eventually.

The advice comes in three parts. Urban, Suburban and Countryside.

 

URBAN

If you are on foot.

Don’t waste time looking for a public convenience as nowadays you have more chance of finding Joanna Southgate’s Box. Instead, look for a pub. When you have finally found one – not quite are rare as public conveniences nowadays but getting there – go in. As landlords don’t like people going in their pubs just for a pee make for the bar and order a drink. If you intend to drink it, order a short, a whisky or something, because if you down a pint of bitter you’ll soon be in need of another pee and looking for another pub in next to no time.

If you remain in urban surroundings for very long the continual ordering of drinks can turn out to be quite expensive.  What I do in these circumstances is order a drink at the bar, tell the landlord I’m just going to the toilet, then when I’ve had a pee sneak out while he’s not looking. However the very best advice I can offer if you happen to be an urban area when the affliction strikes is to get yourself into the countryside as soon as possible.

 

If you are driving a car

Always carry a bottle in the boot. It can be either plastic or glass. Plastic is safer, as it won’t break, but glass is more aesthetically pleasing. The chosen bottle should be of a capacity large enough to comfortably contain your day’s peeing. I prefer a demi-john, of the type used by home-brewed wine enthusiasts. This has the advantage of holding a gallon – sufficient volume for the most troublesome of prostate glands – and is thick enough to withstand a bit of rolling about in the boot without getting broken.

The procedure when the need for a pee suddenly strikes is to pull in to the side of the road, go to the boot, open it, and using the lid of the boot as a shield from prying eyes, pee into the bottle. Whilst you are doing this – and given the fact that although prostate sufferers are very often in need of a pee a pee isn’t going to arrive with undue haste – you will need to keep glancing over your shoulder to check if anyone is coming. If they are, and you have started peeing, you are in trouble, since although it may be difficult to start peeing it is a lot more difficult to stop peeing once you have started.

The thing to do here is to brazen it out and hope that anyone approaching from behind doesn’t see what you are up to. A nonchalant whistle can help. I recommend something jolly by Gilbert and Sullivan. To do anything else would mean that you’d probably end up with a boot full of urine, either because the distraction of seeing someone approaching causes you to miss the bottle, or in your panic on seeing them coming you drop it. Or, if you are very unlucky, both.

 

SUBURBAN

If you are on foot

Always carry an empty bottle with you. Not a demi-john this time, especially if you have partially filled it, or people might think you’re selling lemonade. Don’t sell them any unless they are financial advisers or solicitors. If you opt for a fairly small bottle, say half a litre, you won’t look at all out of place. (Although the fad of carrying a bottle of mineral water everywhere you go is not as prevalent as it once was it is still fairly common.)

When there is no one about, pee in the bottle. Choose a spot outside a house that has a large hedge so you can pretend you’re admiring it, especially if it has been subjected to topiary. You could also pretend you’re looking for a bird’s nest. If you can do bird impressions this will help. (I do a very good flamingo but you don’t get many flamingos in privet hedges so I’ve never used it.) To give yourself sufficient peeing time, choose a long stretch of straight road – there is nothing worse than someone coming round the corner when you are in mid-pee, which brings with it the spilled urine problem outlined in ‘URBAN If you are driving a car’. A good tip, especially if houses with suitable hedges are in short supply, is to actually stand at a corner whilst urinating. This will allow you to see who is coming in both directions, thus giving you time to take appropriate action. You could of course be spotted from above, say if the owner of the house happens to look out through the bedroom window. If this happens you can tell them that you are builder and you’re examining the pointing with a view to giving them a quotation. If they ask what the bottle is for tell them it’s thirsty work.

 

If you are in a car

Same method as for Urban.

 

COUNTRYSIDE

If you are on foot

This presents few problems. The carrying of a bottle can be dispensed with, unless of course you’ve grown to like peeing in a bottle. (Some men do, as it is the nearest they ever get to having sex). The best method is to locate the nearest tree and go behind it for a pee. Be careful where you put your feet. I once heard the question: ‘How can you tell which is the front of a tree and which is the back?’ The answer is that if there is no shit on the ground you are at the front of the tree, since everyone goes round the back of a tree to have a shit. You have been warned.

 

If you are in a car

Pull in at an empty lay-by and do it behind the car. This shouldn’t present a problem in the day time but caution needs to be exercised during the hours of darkness. I once pulled into what I thought was an empty lay-by and no sooner had I got my tackle out than the male half of a courting couple got out of a car in front of me and accused me of flashing.

Happy peeing.

 

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March 20 2014. A PLEASANT GENTLEMAN.

I am seriously thinking about moving to India. Why this sudden desire to up sticks for the subcontinent? Read on.

On June 21 last year I wrote in this blog that I had become nice. Not only had I become nice, I had proof of it in black and white, in the shape of a letter from consultant cardiologist Dr Ahmed to my GP (copy to me), in which he referred to me as ‘a very nice gentleman.’ Today I received further evidence of my niceness, in another letter from a consultant physician to my GP (copy to me), in which the writer of the letter, Dr Sharma, refers to me as ‘this pleasant gentleman’. As Oscar Wilde might have said: ‘To be called nice once might be an accident but to be called it twice can only be confirmation of its veracity’.

I must admit that I had doubts about my being nice following Dr Ahmad’s diagnosis of my character – despite his diagnosis of the condition of my heart being spot on – when the day after I received the  letter a young man called me a moaning old twat when I took exception to his riding his bike on the pavement, following which I called Mr Hibbard down the road a moaning old twat when he took exception to my dropping the wrapper of my Werner’s Original wrapper in his wheely bin.

Since then there have been other occasions when people have accused me of being less than nice. (In particular the time I was watching the film Walkabout on TV and a man canvassing for the Lib Dems knocked on my front door during the part when Jenny Agutter was swimming buck naked in a billabong.)

Today, however, it dawned on me why. I am only perceived to be nice by Indians. For not only have all the people who have been less than nice to me, and me to them, been non-Indian, but I have never, ever, been treated with anything but courtesy and respect by Indians. Granted, ninety nine per cent of the Indians I come into contact with are waiters in restaurants, and they have a vested interest in being nice to me, but by the same token not one of them has ever given me reason to believe they wouldn’t be any less nice to me even if they weren’t serving me with poppadums and Rogan Josh.

And both Dr Ahmed and Dr Sharma are Indians. Or they could be Pakistanis I suppose, as indeed could all the waiters serving me poppadums and Rogan Josh; Indians and Pakistanis all look the same to me and I have no way of knowing which is which without asking them and I’m not going to do that as I believe they’re not too keen on each other and might see it as an insult

I have just read back the above to myself and it occurs to me that it could be seen as racist, especially by people looking for mischief. It isn’t; I can’t tell English people from Scottish people either, until they start speaking.

Anyway a move to India is very much on the cards. The Trouble should look very nice in a sari, her big brown eyes peeping seductively at me over the top of her veil.

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March18 2014. POTTERING ABOUT

Here’s another extract from the forthcoming audiobook of Stairlift to Heaven.

POTTERING ABOUT

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