Terry Ravenscroft's Blog: Stairlift to Heaven, page 3

I must say that Atkins, in the guise of the man from the local council’s environmental health department, looked just the ticket. In fact I’d had my doubts about asking him to fulfil the role, aware as I am of his penchant for making a meal of things at slightest opportunity (he is after all a man who was thrown out of the local amateur dramatic society for over-acting, which takes a bit of doing), but if his appearance – sober suit (his funeral attire apparently), black homburg hat (borrowed from our charity shop) horn-rimmed spectacles, black brogues and brief case was an indication of how he would be conducting the interview all would be hunky dory.

As we stood outside the Pollitts I thanked my lucky stars he hadn’t been to Turkey yet and found it to be devoid of ducks, or he would no doubt have been upset at me and turned down my request for help.

The music from within the house was as loud as ever.

“Ready, Mr Snelgrove?” I enquired.

Atkins adjusted the knot of his tie, brushed a speck of dust off the sleeve of his funeral suit and gave me the nod.

I rang the doorbell. Liz answered the door. Surprisingly – it was only three-o-clock in the afternoon after all – she wasn’t in her nightie. Today her choice of daytime attire was a bright pink velour leisure suit accompanied by the bassett hound slippers again. Her hair, on this occasion, was unfettered by curlers. On balance I think I preferred the nightie and the curlers.

She glared at us belligerently. “Yeh?”

“I’m Mr Snelgrove from Environmental Health,” said Atkins. He indicated me. “This gentleman has made a complaint about the music.”

“And?”

“And you are required by the borough council to keep it at an acceptable level.”

“Or?”

I’ll give Liz her due, she made her point with the minimum of words. So politician is off the list of possibilities if she is considering a career move.

“Or,” said Atkins often a man of few words himself, but not when he wants to do justice to playing the role of a council official, “under the power vested in me under the Local Government Act 1963, Sub Section 4, I will have no alternative but to….”

Liz held up the flat of her hand, stopping Atkins in his tracks. “Hold it.” She turned and hollered indoors at the top of her voice, “Wes!”

Moments later the biggest black man I have ever seen in my life appeared in the doorway. Liz had to step outside otherwise there wouldn’t have been room for him. When I said earlier that Liz glared at us belligerently I didn’t know what I was talking about. Compared to the look Wes was giving us Liz’s look had been a mother looking at her new born baby for the first time.

“Yo?” Wes said.

“Fuck me!” said Atkins.

Whether Wes would have accepted Atkins’s invitation I will never know as a split second after he’d said it Atkins, having switched from the role of a council official to that of a craven coward, a role that demanded no overacting from him, was off down the garden path at a speed I didn’t think possible in a seventy-three year old man.

When he had finished laughing, Mr Pargeter, the owner of the house between my house and the Pollitts, who had witnessed the incident, informed me that Wes is Liz’s new man. Apparently he is also the father of both chocolate toddlers.

I took myself home to think up a Plan B.

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Published on March 06, 2014 11:36

March 5 2014. A VISIT FROM THE COUNCIL.

I must say that Atkins, in the guise of the man from the local council’s environmental health department, looked just the ticket. In fact I’d had my doubts about asking him to fulfil the role, aware as I am of his penchant for making a meal of things at slightest opportunity (he is after all a man who was thrown out of the local amateur dramatic society for over-acting, which takes a bit of doing), but if his appearance – sober suit (his funeral attire apparently), black homburg hat (borrowed from our charity shop) horn-rimmed spectacles, black brogues and brief case was an indication of how he would be conducting the interview all would be hunky dory.

As we stood outside the Pollitts I thanked my lucky stars he hadn’t been to Turkey yet and found it to be devoid of ducks, or he would no doubt have been upset at me and turned down my request for help.

The music from within the house was as loud as ever.

“Ready, Mr Snelgrove?” I enquired.

Atkins adjusted the knot of his tie, brushed a speck of dust off the sleeve of his funeral suit and gave me the nod.

I rang the doorbell. Liz answered the door. Surprisingly – it was only three-o-clock in the afternoon after all – she wasn’t in her nightie. Today her choice of daytime attire was a bright pink velour leisure suit accompanied by the bassett hound slippers again. Her hair, on this occasion, was unfettered by curlers. On balance I think I preferred the nightie and the curlers.

She glared at us belligerently. “Yeh?”

“I’m Mr Snelgrove from Environmental Health,” said Atkins. He indicated me. “This gentleman has made a complaint about the music.”

“And?”

“And you are required by the borough council to keep it at an acceptable level.”

“Or?”

I’ll give Liz her due, she made her point with the minimum of words. So politician is off the list of possibilities if she is considering a career move.

“Or,” said Atkins often a man of few words himself, but not when he wants to do justice to playing the role of a council official, “under the power vested in me under the Local Government Act 1963, Sub Section 4, I will have no alternative but to….”

Liz held up the flat of her hand, stopping Atkins in his tracks. “Hold it.” She turned and hollered indoors at the top of her voice, “Wes!”

Moments later the biggest black man I have ever seen in my life appeared in the doorway. Liz had to step outside otherwise there wouldn’t have been room for him. When I said earlier that Liz glared at us belligerently I didn’t know what I was talking about. Compared to the look Wes was giving us Liz’s look had been a mother looking at her new born baby for the first time.

“Yo?” Wes said.

“Fuck me!” said Atkins.

Whether Wes would have accepted Atkins’s invitation I will never know as a split second after he’d said it Atkins, having switched from the role of a council official to that of a craven coward, a role that demanded no overacting from him, was off down the garden path at a speed I didn’t think possible in a seventy-three year old man.

When he had finished laughing, Mr Pargeter, the owner of the house between my house and the Pollitts, who had witnessed the incident, informed me that Wes is Liz’s new man. Apparently he is also the father of both chocolate toddlers.

I took myself home to think up a Plan B.

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Published on March 05, 2014 03:50

March 4 2014. OVERLOOKED.

There has been much in the news lately about black footballer Sol Campbell’s contention that he would have been captain of the England team for ten years but for the colour of his skin. For the same reason he has also never been selected to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest nor been chosen as Woman of the Year. On hearing about this people with mischief on their minds wasted no time in pointing out that it’s the first time Sol has ever thought to mention it and isn’t it a coincidence that he has chosen to mention it at the very moment he has brought out his autobiography, whose sales won’t come to any harm following such an announcement. I am not one of these mischief makers. In fact I have a great deal of sympathy for Sol, having for years being overlooked for the England captain’s job myself, due to the oldness of my age.

Of course I was never in the England team to begin with, or any other team for that matter, if you discount the time I played for The Grim Jogger when we entered a team in the local pub league only to withdraw three weeks later when we realised it bit too much into the drinking time. But that too was because I was discriminated against because of the oldness of my age, the FA cruelly ignoring the genuine claims of a sixty-odd year old with dodgy knees and a hernia in favour of supremely fit young twenty-five year olds with hormones to spare. (They may also have taken into account my prostate problem, which necessitated me leaving the pitch for a pee every fifteen minutes or so, and which might have had a bearing on the result if it had been my job to mark Maradonna.)

The oldness of my age has no doubt precluded me from being chosen as captain of the England cricket team too, along with our rugby union and rugby league teams, our Ryder Cup team and probably the driver of our Olympic four man bob team.

However it can’t possibly be the oldness of my age that is the reason for my never being considered for the job of Pope. In fact being old is a prerequisite for someone who aspires to be Pope, the College of Cardinals apparently being loath to pick someone who is likely to last very long in case he turns out to be shite and they’re stuck with him for a few years. No, the reason I haven’t been asked can only be because I’m an atheist as otherwise my qualifications are impeccable: I am as good as they come at standing on a balcony waving; I’ve got several pairs of red socks; and although I have never actually given anyone an audience I’m pretty sure I could manage a few ‘Bless you my childs’ to anyone daft enough to think it’s going to make any difference to their life. I must admit, however, that I would have a bit of difficulty turning a blind eye to anyone from a priest upwards rogering the choirboys with impunity, so perhaps that’s the reason I’ve always been shunned.

I won’t even mention not being considered for the job of the new Monarch in 1952 just because I was a commoner, after King George the sixth had breathed his last,

I’m pretty sure Sol didn’t come under starter’s orders either.

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Published on March 04, 2014 01:54

March 3 2014. RETURN OF THE POLLITS

My worst nightmare returned to haunt me a couple of days ago in the shape of the Pollitts, the Neighbours from Hell who moved into the house next-door-but one in June 2010. The good news is that they will only be here for a week.

The house is owned by the council, who have been using it for the last few years as a sort of transit camp for homeless families, a place to stay until they can be allotted more permanent accommodation. At the moment it is being used to house ten families whose council houses are being refurbished – not all at once than God – and the Pollitts are one such family.

The composition of the Pollitt family has changed since they were last here. It originally comprised of the father, Wayne, his wife Liz, their children Keanu 14, Catherine-Zeta 13, a baby, Honey Nectarine and the dog You Twat (possibly not the animal’s real name but the only name I ever heard them call it by). Since they were last here Wayne has disappeared, possibly having flown the coop, or, more likely, is in gaol. Keanu too has departed for pastures new; probably a young offenders home. There are two new children. Both of them are chocolate-coloured, or maybe they’re covered in chocolate, I can’t be sure, and both are about two years old. One of them, a boy, is named Dizzee Gangsta. The other, a girl, goes by the name of Beyoncé’s Child. Mercifully You Twat has fallen by the wayside – or more probably has been abandoned by the wayside – so this time there isn’t the barking of a dog emanating from their backyard at about ninety decibels for most of the day and into the night. Instead there is the sound of music emanating from the house at a hundred decibels for most of the day and into the night. Well I say music. It is rap; what apparently passes for music nowadays. (When I heard someone from America called Tyler the Creator defining rap music, on the radio, I thought at first he’d missed a ‘c’ off the front and was talking about crap music.)

“You could try complaining about it to the environmental health people,” suggested The Trouble.

“Huh. A fat lot of good that would do,” I replied. Nowadays before people can be turfed out they have to be given a verbal warning followed by a written warning followed by a final written warning. The only thing that surprises me is that the final warning doesn’t have to be in the form of an illuminated address on the finest calfskin vellum.

The Trouble looked on the bright side. “Well they’ll only be here for a week.”

The bright side wasn’t bright enough. I gave it a day in the hope it was a one off. However the following morning it proved to be at the very least a two off when it started up again at nine. As it had showed no sign of letting up at two in the afternoon I went round there to complain.

Liz answered the door, still in her nightdress. I don’t know if the nightdress was supposed to be see-through or whether it was transparent because the thin material was stretched so tautly over her enormous breasts, but you could certainly see through it. For footwear Liz had chosen two small basset hounds, which on closer inspection, but not too close, turned out to be novelty slippers. The ensemble was completed by hair curlers. A fag drooped from the corner of her mouth.

She took a deep drag on the fag. A dollop of ash fell off the end and landed on one of the bassett hounds. Eyeing me balefully and with a curl of her bottom lip she said, “Oh it’s you. The dog molester.”

I resisted the temptation to tell her that she looked very much like she was molesting a couple of dogs herself and, trying not to look at her breasts – not easy as they almost filled the doorway – I said, “It’s about the music.”

“What music?”

I could see the sense in her words as in my book rap isn’t music at all but someone chanting unintelligible rubbish to the accompaniment of the biggest drum in the world played by someone determined to prove it, and is as much like music as shit is akin to sugar, however I didn’t think she meant that. “That unholy racket,” I said. “I hope you’re not going to play it as loud as that all the time.”

“Tell him to fuck off, Mum,” said Catherine Zeta, joining her mother. Liz’s daughter was breast feeding one of the chocolate-coloured toddlers. I couldn’t say if it was Dizzee Gangsta or Beyonce’s Child as it was naked but for a nappy, but probably the boy if it was still on the tit at that age.

“Your mother can tell me to fuck off all she likes but I’m not leaving here until she promises to turn down that infernal music,” I said.

Catherine Zeta deftly switched the toddler from one breast to the other before answering. “It makes no difference what she says ‘cos it’s me what’s playing it.”

I could now see three and a half breasts, Liz’s two giant orbs, the not insubstantial one of Catherine Zeta’s that she hadn’t bothered herself to put away when she switched the chocolate-coloured toddler to her other breast, and the half of the other breast that wasn’t obscured by the chocolate-coloured toddler’s head.

Now I’m a man who likes looking at female breasts but there’s a time and a place. (And, it must be said, there are more attractive breasts.) So averting my eyes I said, “Very well young lady, we’ll see what the council has to say about this,” and turned sharply on my heel and left.

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Published on March 03, 2014 06:04