Terry Ravenscroft's Blog: Stairlift to Heaven, page 6

Jan 29 2014. PLAIN ENGLISH.

The headquarters of the Plain English Campaign is housed in my home town. However you can’t just walk in off the street and report greengrocers for putting in apostrophes where there shouldn’t be any – apple’s, pear’s, grape’s etc – because their front door has a keypad and you need to know the code. So I had to phone them when I wanted to know when they were going to stir themselves into doing something about the output of two of England’s most famous literary icons.

“What, if anything, do you intend doing about Jane Austen?” I asked the man who answered the phone.

“How do you mean?”

“Well according to your website your organisation claim to be trying to rid the English language of gobbledygook. So how about sorting out some of the stuff Miss Austen wrote? This sort of thing for example. It’s from Pride and Prejudice.  (It wasn’t, I made it up, but it could well have been.) I quote: ‘I would deem it a great honour, Miss Bennet, if you could find it within your heart to permit your good self and my humble person to attain a close proximity, the object of which would be to pursue that physical dalliance beloved of those who have become enamoured of each other.’ Now all that Darcy meant by that torrent of verbiage is ‘Do you fancy a shag?’, so why doesn’t Jane Austen just say that?”

The line went quiet for a moment or two then the man said, “Are you serious?”

“Well of course I’m serious,” I said, at my most serious.

“It was the manner in which people spoke in Austen’s time,” the man said.

“I know that, but shouldn’t you people be re-writing it and getting rid of all the gobbledygook in it, like you claim to be doing?  I admit there wouldn’t be much left of Pride and Prejudice, about three pages I should think, but well worth the effort I would have thought.”

Whilst I had been speaking the man had come up with a defence. “Besides, it isn’t strictly gobbledygook. Admittedly it’s a little on the verbose side for modern tastes, but the grammar is correct, and one can understand it.”

“So that’s all right then is it? That is the criteria which the Plain English Campaign applies when making its judgements? That the language should be understandable?”

“More or less.”

“So when are you going to sort Shakespeare out?”

“Pardon?”

“I quote again: ‘What’s in a name, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Now what Shakespeare meant by that is ‘Shit’s shit whatever you call it’ so why doesn’t he say that?

And how about this?  I recited a bit of Shakespeare I’d looked up that I didn’t understand, which didn’t took me long as I don’t understand any of it. “‘Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that l’ourd upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried?’ Now you’re not trying to tell me that one can understand that, are you? Because this one can’t for a start. I mean what does ‘l’ourd’ mean for goodness sake? Does he perhaps mean lard? Does the Bard mean lard?”

The line went quiet for ages. Eventually a woman spoke to me. “Mrs Jameson here. Can I help you?”

“Well you can if you can you tell me what ‘l’ourd upon our house’ means.”

After a moment Mrs Jameson said: “Well I’m more of a Dickens person, actually.”

“Don’t get me started on Charles Dickens!” I said.

After a couple of minutes pulling to bits the almost impenetrable prose of Bleak House I rang off and left them to it. However I don’t think they’ll be doing much about it, more is the pity, as I quite fancy being able to understand what Shakespeare is on about rather than pretend I know what he means, like the vast majority of people do. I’ll take a pass on Jane Austen though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Jan 29 2014. PLAIN ENGLISH. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Jan 27 2014 THE DARK DARK.

Jan 27 2014 THE DARK DARK.

I’m seriously thinking of starting to write fantasy novels instead of my usual comedy. Following is the beginning of a 2000 page trilogy I’m planning - The Dark Dark, Really Really Dark, and Even Darker Than That. I’ve never written fantasy before - although I once read ten pages of The Hobbit and two pages of one of the Harry Potter books, so I’d be interested in your comments, whether from fans of fantasy or fans of any other genre, to see if I’m on the right lines. This is as far as I’ve got, although I’ve only had five minutes to devote to it up to now.



THE DARK DARK

CHAPTER ONE

The Sacred Chalice of Goz



“Take this sacred chalice,” said the dark-robed Tunnbedlemere to his eldest son Draybweevil, brother to the herald Fortisblanga and his handmaiden sister Graymeela.

“It is the secret chalice of Goz!” gasped Draybweevil in awe, taking the sacrosanct solid gold receptacle in his hands.

Tunnbedlemere gave a solemn nod. “It will protect you throughout your perilous journey through the Netherworld and Etherworld and beyond to Zablon and the ends of Tronanonanon.”

“And my quest in Tronanonanon, father?”

“The most important quest that has ever been undertaken by a Krol, Draybweevil, brave seed of my loins and the womb of thy mother Meggymegmeg.”

“Which is?”

“Nothing less than to find out why everyone in fantasy novels has to have a silly name.”

A collective gasp came from the others present. From Bootyscoot, from Snotwangler, from Fartwurgler and his sister Cheespreada, from the troll Edtheboll, from the dwarf Asslow, from the do-gooder pixie Elfansafety, from Condom the Protector, from Tampon the Absorber and from the financial adviser Peesashite.

“Tunnbedlemere,” shouted Asslow, after Peesashite had kneed him in the head a couple of times to prompt him, “should Draybweevil manage to slay the four hundred-headed dragon of the Netherworld and the twenty 6 metre high giant cage fighters of the Etherworld, along with whatever wholly improbable enemies he meets on his way through the Discworld, Carpetworld, Slimmingworld, PCworld and all the other worlds he has to pass through if he is to arrive safely in Tronanonanon, and having made it that far finds out why we all have to have silly names and manages to do something about it....can I be called Brian?”

Jan 27 2014 THE DARK DARK.

I’m seriously thinking of starting to write fantasy novels instead of my usual comedy. Following is the beginning of a 2000 page trilogy I’m planning  - The Dark Dark, Really Really Dark, and Even Darker Than That. I’ve never written fantasy before – although I once read ten pages of The Hobbit and two pages of one of the Harry Potter books, so I’d be interested in your comments, whether from fans of fantasy or fans of any other genre,  to see if I’m on the right lines. This is as far as I’ve got, although I’ve only had five minutes to devote to it up to now.

 

THE DARK DARK

CHAPTER ONE

The Sacred Chalice of Goz

 

“Take this sacred chalice,” said the dark-robed Tunnbedlemere to his eldest son Draybweevil, brother to the herald Fortisblanga and his handmaiden sister Graymeela.

“It is the secret chalice of Goz!” gasped Draybweevil in awe, taking the sacrosanct solid gold receptacle in his hands.

Tunnbedlemere gave a solemn nod. “It will protect you throughout your perilous journey through the Netherworld and Etherworld and beyond to Zablon and the ends of Tronanonanon.”

“And my quest in Tronanonanon, father?”

“The most important quest that has ever been undertaken by a Krol, Draybweevil,  brave seed of my loins and the womb of thy mother Meggymegmeg.”

“Which is?”

“Nothing less than to find out why everyone in fantasy novels has to have a silly name.”

A collective gasp came from the others present. From Bootyscoot, from Snotwangler, from Fartwurgler and his sister Cheespreada, from the troll Edtheboll, from the dwarf Asslow, from the do-gooder pixie Elfansafety, from Condom the Protector, from Tampon the Absorber and from the financial adviser Peesashite.

“Tunnbedlemere,” shouted Asslow, after Peesashite had kneed him in the head a couple of times to prompt him, “should Draybweevil manage to slay the four hundred-headed dragon of the Netherworld and the twenty 6 metre high giant cage fighters of the Etherworld, along with whatever wholly improbable enemies he meets on his way through the Discworld, Carpetworld, Slimmingworld, PCworld and all the other worlds he has to pass through if he is to arrive safely in Tronanonanon, and having made it that far finds out why we all have to have silly names and manages to do something about it….can I be called Brian?”

 

 

The post Jan 27 2014 THE DARK DARK. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Jan 26 2014. £696,600 PER HOUR.

£696,600 per hour. That’s what I’ve just been paid for some work I’ve done. In1982. Yes, you read it correctly, £696,600 per hour! Eat your heart out Wayne Rooney, on your pitiful £250,000 a WEEK. Turn green with envy Madonna, on whatever you’re being paid for showing most of your arse while singing shite but which will certainly not be as much £696,600 per hour!

There’s a snag though. Although I got paid at the rate of £696,600 per hour I only got paid it for one second. The following email explains all. It also explains why the BBC, despite how much they collect in TV licence fees, will always be pleading poverty. I mean if they’d asked me nicely I would have let them have it for nothing.

Dear Terry

 On behalf of BBC Comedy and Entertainment, I am writing to request your permission to use a 1 second extract from ‘The Funny Side of Christmas’ (Les Dawson as Cissy pulling a funny face) broadcast on 27/12/1982 to be included in the programme ‘Len Goodman’s Christmas’. This is a Christmas themed one-off special in which Len Goodman presents his favourite Christmas television highlights – a celebration of the very best and most memorable television moments from over the years. It will be broadcast on BBC1 prime-time over the holiday period this year and repeated on 27th December.

 For this use I can offer a fee of £90 per minute on standard BBC contractual terms with the repeat to be paid at 100% of the initial fee. This use would also attract an additional 15% payment of £13.50 for the public service rights (e.g. internet streaming and catch-up service on iPlayer).

 I look forward to hearing from you. Please do let me know if you have any questions.

 Best wishes

Laura Braslin

The post Jan 26 2014. £696,600 PER HOUR. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Jan 23 2014. PIGGY HIGGINBOTTOM

Here’s an extract from my new book, It’s Not Cricket! Availble from Amazon and no good bookshops. In fact no bookshops at all.

UK http://amzn.to/1dgaTUf

US http://amzn.to/1inMzjQ

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

The Piggy Higginbottom Affair

 

When they are children men with the surname Higginbottom are often given the nickname ‘Piggy’. It is easy to see how this is arrived at – Higginbottom – Higgy – Piggy. However this is not the case with Jason Higginbottom, the Piggy Higginbottom who plays cricket for Upper Medlock. Jason is known as Piggy because he once had sex with a pig.

At the age of fourteen young Piggy had two ambitions in life. The first was to play cricket for Upper Medlock, a goal he would achieve on the date of the first league fixture of the following season. The captain and star batsman of the fifteen-and-under side, he was already good enough for the senior team – everyone in the village who knew anything about cricket said so – but his father, Brian Higginbottom, who was the current captain of the team and protective towards his son, didn’t want to introduce him to the hurly-burly of senior cricket before his fifteenth birthday, which would pass during the coming winter.

The timing of the achievement of his second ambition was not so certain. Like most boys of his age Piggy was still a virgin and as such desperate to shed his virginity. Despite having invested all his weekly pocket money for the last two years on gifts of sweets and ice cream to all the girls of his age in the village he hadn’t even got near to having sex with a single one of them. The nearest he had come was a feel of one of Gina Jones’s bare breasts, and even that small victory was by no means certain as not having had the advantage of feeling a bare breast before he wasn’t even sure he had felt it; it had felt more like a bony shoulder and, in the dark of the cinema, could well have been. The breast certainly didn’t feel like he expected breasts to feel, didn’t feel how it explained they felt in one of his father’s paperbacks, like twin heavenly orbs, soft yet firm, round with stiff -standing nipples. As far as he was able to discern in the gloom of the back row of Studio 2 of the Middleham multiplex Gina’s breasts didn’t have any nipples, let alone stiff-standing ones.

Several of his friends had had sex, or claimed they had. Most of them would be lying, Piggy assumed, like he himself lied whenever anyone asked him. Troy Parkinson had had it – although everyone at school was unsure if it officially counted, as it was with his sister – but Piggy knew for certain that Tommy Boe had had it because he had paid him fifty pence to watch him having it, with the school bicycle, Honor Baxter (inevitably nicknamed ‘Honor and off her’). Piggy had asked, even implored Honor to let him have a ride on her too, for the going rate of a Mars Bar, but she had always turned him down, telling him he was too weedy and it would be a long time before she was in that much need of a Mars Bar.

It was in another of his father’s books, The Last Picture Show, by an American author named Larry McMurtry, that Piggy came across the notion of having sexual intercourse with farm animals. He thought at first it was a joke – he had heard of the expression sheep shagger but had never thought for a moment that people actually did shag sheep – but on reading further, and learning that it was boys who were not much older than he himself who were having sex with the animals, he could see why this might well be true, especially if the boys had been as desperate for sex as he was.

He wondered if having sex with a farm animal would be as good as having it with a girl, but even as he wondered knew he had no way of knowing since he’d never had sex with a girl and therefore had nothing to compare it to. So, his search for sex being no nearer to becoming a reality than the day he had set out on what was turning out to be a very long road to finding it, he decided to go down the farm animal route.

He suspected it would be much less of a problem finding a farm animal to have sex with than finding a girl to have it with; there were at least half-a-dozen farms within the boundaries of Upper and Lower Medlock and they all had cows. At a guess he would say there were at least a thousand. Whether one of them would consent to having sex with him with was another matter – there was nothing in Mr McMurtry’s book about the difficulty or otherwise of this – Piggy just hoped they weren’t as awkward about it as girls. There was also no indication by the author as to any enjoyment the cows might get from the act, the book concerning itself only with the pleasure the boys derived from the trysts with their bovine inamoratas.

Apart from wondering whether or not Mr McMurtry had written from personal experience or was just the possessor of a very vivid imagination the book had raised several questions in Piggy’s young mind. Would having your penis in a cow’s vagina, or any other farm animal for that matter, feel the same as having it in a girl? He very much hoped so. Tommy Boe said having it in a girl felt like liquid velvet. Troy Parkinson said the same and added the word ‘warm’ to an already mind-blowing description. Piggy didn’t know what liquid velvet felt like but it sounded very nice, warm or otherwise.

There was also the possibility that cows were as unwilling as girls to bestow their favours. And even if they weren’t, even if cows were up for it, what if there was the cow equivalent of Honor Baxter amongst their herd, a cow which would do it for a handful of grass and a few buttercups with anyone who was prepared to pay the price, but refused point blank to do it with Jason Higginbottom? And should he milk the cow first? Boys played with girls breasts as a prelude to having sex – although all it had led to the night he might have felt Gina Jones’s breasts was a request from her to move his head out of the bloody way because she couldn’t see the film – so might fondling a cow’s breasts be a sort of cow foreplay? And did cows have periods? Several girls had told him they would have been only too willing to have sex with him if only they hadn’t been having their period; would cows be the same? He didn’t know the answers to any of these questions and more. There was only one way to find out.

That night, as soon as darkness had fallen, Piggy made his way to a field belonging to Farmer Johnson, the owner of the nearest farm to his home. He made the sortie under cover of darkness, fearful that someone might see him – it was one thing having sex with a cow but another to be seen having it.

Since reading the sex with farm animals passage in The Last Picture Show he had wondered which breed of cow might offer up the best sex – the book didn’t give any advice on this – or whether having sex with one cow was very much like having it with another. However, having observed that boys and men tended to gravitate more towards the pretty ones at the expense of the plain ones, and that there must be a good reason for this, with the possibility that it was because the quality of sex was better, he opted for a Jersey as they were a nicer colour than the others and had big limpid eyes and even longer eyelashes than Kylie Waterhouse.

Farmer Johnson had several Jerseys in his field along with the Friesians and Ayrshires but unfortunately when it came to picking out one of them the cover of darkness ploy worked against him as it was so dark he couldn’t distinguish one breed from another. This being the case he settled for the nearest one that was standing up, took up a position behind it, undid his belt and dropped his trousers. He had thought, when contemplating what he was now about to do, that he might have trouble getting an erection, since unlike a girl’s vagina a cow’s sexual organ usually has the off-putting sight of a load of dried shit encircling it. However, although he could certainly smell the shit, he couldn’t see it, and was able to dismiss it from his mind by thinking of Christina Aguilera in her red knickers. Giving his penis a few brisk wanks he was erect in seconds. Thus primed he took hold of the cow’s tail, for something to hang on to in case it got a bit too frisky, and snuggled up to its bottom.

He realised more or less straight away that things might not be as straightforward as he had thought. In addition to being of slight build Piggy was small for a fourteen-year-old, not much over five feet, and even though he had more than his fair share in the penis department – the third biggest in the class when they’d all measured them behind the bike sheds last month, one up from fourth place when they’d last compared them – it was immediately apparent that the business end of it was still some way from the cow’s vagina. He jumped up in the air to see if he could leap high enough to reach the cherished target. On the third attempt he felt the end of his penis make contact, but in doing so realised that he would have to jump a good deal higher if he were to obtain penetration. Could cows be persuaded to bend down a bit? If he could persuade the cow to drop down on its front legs, like they did prior to lying down, then that would be just about right. He paused in thought for a moment. Was it cows that dropped to their knees before lying down, or was it camels? He couldn’t remember. But even if they did, how do you get them to do it? Was there a command that cowherds used when they wanted a cow to drop to its knees? He tried a commanding “Bend down” in one the cow’s ears but its only response was a non-committal “Moo”. He tried jumping up again to see if he could manage to jump a bit higher – even the end of his penis in would be nice, and if he could leap high enough to get it in he might be able to haul himself up on its tail and with any luck get the rest of it in. He tried again and failed again. Defeated, exasperated, and wishing he’d tried harder when the games teacher was instructing his class on how to do the high jump last week, he went home to give the problem some thought.

The following night, again under cover of darkness, the benefit of the night skies being even more important than it had been the night before as he was now carrying a mop and a bucket of soapy water and didn’t want to risk anyone asking him what he was doing walking about thus armed at nine-o-clock at night. On arriving home the previous evening he had discovered that the light blue shirt, dark blue pullover and grey trousers he was wearing were now a sort of khaki-coloured shirt and pullover and trousers, thanks to their being covered in cow shit, deposited there by his coming into contact with the cow’s bottom. His intention in providing himself with mop and bucket was twofold; one, to give the cow’s bottom a good swabbing before attempting to have sex with it; and two, to then turn the bucket upside down and stand on it so he was at the correct height to have sex with it.

The first of these ambitions was accomplished, so far as he knew – so far as he knew because due to working in the dark of night he couldn’t see the cow properly, and even if he’d been able to it wouldn’t keep still, possibly because it objected to having its bottom mopped at a quarter past nine at night. There was no doubt about the success or otherwise of the second of his ambitions; it ended in abject failure when he stood on the bucket, discovered that his penis was still a little shy of the target, jumped up a bit in order to reach it and put his feet through the bottom of the bucket when he came down. It took him the next ten minutes to extricate his feet, one of which he thought might have sustained a broken ankle, and at that point he called off the attempt for the second time and limped his way home.

Fortunately the ankle was only badly bruised and four days later he made another attempt at cow heaven. This time he had abandoned the idea of cleaning the cow’s bottom in favour of wearing his mother’s plastic pakamac over his clothes. The bucket was dispensed with in favour of a stepladder. That afternoon on getting home from school he had set up the stepladder in the backyard and climbed to the top step to check if it would bring him up to the required height. It confirmed to him that along with a cow there would be an excellent chance of being able to fuck a giraffe as well, should he so desire. It was all systems go.

Piggy felt the cover of darkness to be just as necessary as it had been before, as although walking through a field of cows with a stepladder was slightly less suspicious-looking than when armed with a mop and bucket it was still fairly suspicious-looking.

Using the stepladder to stand on to have intercourse with a cow turned out to be an excellent idea insofar as it brought Piggy up to the required height concomitant with executing the act, but a bad idea inasmuch as when he was standing on the step that brought him up to the right height the end of his penis was about a foot away, on the other side of the stepladder from the cow’s vagina. Not a boy to give up easily Piggy’s next strategy was to employ the stepladder as an ordinary ladder, lean it against the cow’s rear end, climb up it and enter the cow by that method. In attempting to achieve this he mounted the makeshift ladder successfully, but not the cow, as every time he started to walk up the ladder the weight of him pressing against the cow’s behind caused it to move forward, with the result that the ladder crashed to the ground, taking Piggy with it. The third time it happened he trapped his already sore foot between one of the steps and the ground and was forced to retire hurt.

 

September 8, 2003.

 

Upper Medlock v Lower Medlock. Wickets pitched 2pm. Umpires R Montmorency, M Wilks.

 

Upper Medlock.

 

J Hopkins b de la Mare 10

J Hopkins jnr c & b Sneed 35

A Warnock b Sneed 20

G Green run out 17

A Watkins lbw b de la Mare 14

B Higginbottom (C) b Springfield 2

M Coffey c Spragg b Taylforth 22

O Whittaker st Swann b Sneed 0

J Jennison not out 10

B Swindells lbw b Cliff 3

K Gee b de la Mare 0

 Extras 14

  Total 147

 

Lower Medlock 145 for 2

 

V Chambers b Jennison 47

R Roderick not out 70

W Colon c Whittaker b Swindells 18

J Penberthy not out 0

 Extras 10

  Total 145

 

Match abandoned

 

Whilst he was waiting for his wounded foot to heal in readiness for another attempt on a cow it occurred to Piggy that a smaller farm animal, one with which he could have sex without the aid of something to stand on, might better serve his purpose. A hen was discounted as being too small and too noisy; a duck, with which to figuratively break his duck, was rejected for the same reason. A local farmer had two pet llamas in his field and although Piggy judged them to be about the right height he wasn’t convinced that just because they lived on a farm they could be counted as farm animals. Besides, the only time he had ever got close to one of them it had spat at him. Sheep too, which were about the right height for purpose if you bent down a bit, were also a non-starter, the Medlock villages being dairy farming country and there not being any sheep to be had and had. There was, however, at least one pig; in fact a conveniently located pig, housed as it was in a corner of the farmer’s field adjoining the Upper Medlock cricket ground, a spot Piggy passed most evenings during the cricket season when he was returning home following batting and bowling practice. A pig would be just about the right height; he might have to squat down a little to achieve penetration but he certainly wouldn’t have to jump up and down. Furthermore he couldn’t foresee any other problems; when he’d looked at the pig with the eyes of a prospective suitor for the first time, rather than with the disinterested glance he occasionally gave it as he passed by, the pig had looked quite placid and accommodating.

This time, to give himself the absolute best chance of success, he decided to eschew the cover of darkness. His reasoning, apart from it being the first time he would be able to see what he was doing ,which he thought must increase his chances by a fair number of per cent, was that it was very unlikely anyone would see him as he planned to do the deed in the covered part of the pig’s sty. As a further insurance against being spotted he opted to do it on Saturday afternoon, when it was unlikely there would be anyone about – many of the women in the village would be busy doing the weekly shopping and those who weren’t would be with their husbands and children at the annual cricket match against Lower Medlock.

Cometh the hour and Piggy arrived at the pig’s sty without incident. Fortunately the pig was in the covered part of its quarters, which saved Piggy the trouble of coaxing it in there with the bag of apples he had brought with him for that purpose, leaving nothing to chance. It didn’t even look up when he stepped into the sty, being much more interested in the pile of potato peelings it was noisily munching its way through.

Piggy saw a snag almost immediately. Whereas cows have a long tail the pig had a curly little excuse of a tail, hardly a tail at all, and certainly not tail enough to hang on to. As luck would have it help was at hand in the shape of a short length of rope hanging from a nail on the wall of the sty. Piggy wasted no time in putting it to good use by fashioning it into a halter. Pleased with himself he slipped the halter over the pig’s neck, pulled it tight, hooked his thumbs under it to ensure he had a good grip on it, and was ready to go.

All the time Piggy had been doing this the pig had remained singularly uninterested. It ceased to be uninterested and became very interested the moment Piggy dropped his trousers and entered it. In fact it was fortunate – or perhaps unfortunate in view of what was to follow – that Piggy was hanging onto the halter, otherwise the intercourse might have stopped from the moment the pig suddenly took off at a rate of knots Piggy had previously not thought possible in a pig.

Whether having one’s penis in a pig’s vagina is an enjoyable experience Piggy was never to know – it could have felt like liquid velvet or liquid nitrogen or liquid anything as far as he was concerned – when the pig shot out of the sty and into the field he was far too busy trying to disengage himself from it in his efforts to preserve life and limb to concern himself with such matters.

If Piggy had closed the gate behind him when he had entered the farmer’s field instead, in his haste to have sex with the pig, leaving it open, the terrible events that followed would not have happened. They still might not have happened had the pig, on passing through the gate, turned left and ran up the lane that led to the farmhouse. But instead, for reasons best known to itself, it chose to turn right, and that way led only to the cricket ground.

Piggy’s father Brian, bowling his off-cutters from the end facing the farm, was the first to see the pig with his son aboard (although at that distance he did not at the time know it was his son). The match was at a critical stage, with Lower Medlock requiring only two more runs for victory. This being the case Roger Taylor, the batsman to whom Higginbottom was bowling, thought he was the victim of yet another example of Upper Medlock gamesmanship when Higginbottom suddenly came to a dead stop in his run up, looked agog, and pointed straight ahead. (Only two years previously one of the Upper Medlock bowlers had done precisely the same thing and when the Lower Medlock batsman turned round to look the bowler had continued his run up and bowled him out.) Taylor, wise to this, wasn’t having any of it thank you very much, and remained unmoved and unmoving.

“It’s a pig, there’s a pig heading straight for you at about a hundred miles an hour!” Higginbottom shouted, waving his arms desperately and pointing in the direction of the pig again.

“Pig my arse, Higginbottom,” said Taylor, and stood his ground.

It was the last words he spoke for some time as two seconds later the pig ran into him, knocking him unconscious to the ground and demolishing all three wickets in the process, before continuing on its way. The bails were never seen again. When smelling salts failed to revive Taylor, and the offer from Hopkins of a smell of his jockstrap as a stronger alternative had been rejected by umpire Montmorency, he was despatched without further ado to the cottage hospital. Seizing on the situation as a golden opportunity to avoid defeat Higginbottom suggested to the umpires that as a mark of respect the match should be called off. The Lower Medlock captain Jacobs would have none of it and proposed that the umpires should do no such thing, as in all probability Piggy, on seeing the state of the match and certain defeat for his father’s side, had done what he’d done on purpose. Higginbottom countered this by saying that it was far more likely that his son was an entirely innocent party and had merely been trying to stop a runaway pig. To which Jacobs said that if that was the case why was he fucking it with his trousers round his ankles? In the end, more to stop a potential fight than anything, the umpires abandoned the match as a draw.

Whilst all this was going on the pig had come to an abrupt halt when it ran full tilt into the sightscreen at the bowlers end, rendering itself as unconscious as it had rendered Taylor. Whereupon Piggy withdrew from both the pig and the scene, before awkward questions could be asked.

 

 

 

The post Jan 23 2014. PIGGY HIGGINBOTTOM appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Jan 6 2014. FOUR MORE NURSES.

When I remarked to Bertice and Winifred, the two big, bonny black nurses who were on night duty, that where they had made their big mistake was by leaving The Supremes, it was meant as a joke. After giving me an odd look and realising from my expression that I was just having a bit of fun with them, they took it as such and smiled broadly.

“Right Mr Terence,” said Winifred, nodding her head perceptively.

“We sure slipped up there and no mistake,” added Bertice.

“I mean there’s Diana Ross, still coining it in, still making a fortune,” I went on, “And here are you two on the night shift at Stepping Hill Hospital working for a pittance. I mean you could be singing at the Copacabana, right this very minute. All right, you’ve got the satisfaction of caring and comforting people and nursing them back to health, but what’s that compared to a life of luxury and the chance to sing Endless Love with Lionel Ritchie? Giving Mr Hargreaves an enema is never going to compare with that now, is it?”

“Well that’s true enough,” said Bertice, crinkling her nose up at the thought.

“I tell you what, just for old time’s sake, how about we do a quick blast of one of your hits?  I’ll be Diana and you can be my oo-ers.”

“Whores?” said Winifred, her eyes widening in surprise in a fair impression of Mammy in Gone with the Wind.

I corrected her in a fair impression of Rhett Butler. “No, oo-ers. You know, I sing the first line then you two come in with oo….oo….”

We never actually got the chance to sing together because at that moment the only other nurse on duty, well in fact she was a healthcare assistant, suddenly appeared on the scene and said to me in a mean, thin voice, “I’m going to report you for racism.”

I could hardly believe it. I gaped at her and said, “It’s only a bit of fun.”

“You’re a white man making fun of black people,” she said. “That’s racist.”

I wouldn’t have minded so much if she herself had been black but she was white. I appealed to Bertice and Winifred. “Are you offended, girls?”

“It’s just a bit of fun, Roz,” said Bertice.

“I’m going to report him anyway,” said the healthcare assistant. “Put a stop to him doing it again. Another black nurse might be offended. I know I would be.”

And with that she turned on her heel and walked up the ward, no doubt looking for other signs of racialism, possibly a white patient snoring to the tune of Ol’ Man River.

A couple of days later, despite the bit of bother I got myself in with The Supremes, I was still on the lookout for ways of having a bit of fun to break the tedium of life in a hospital ward, which is almost as boring as having to watch back-to-back episodes of Coronation Street followed by a party political broadcast and a John Lewis Christmas commercial starring Ant and Dec. So I smiled at the student nurse taking my blood pressure, who I had previously learned was called Nurse Nightingale, and said, “I bet you get ribbed about your name a lot?”

I had anticipated what would happen next, had played it out in my mind. I imagined it might go something like this -

“People calling me Florence, you mean?”

“Right.  I expect you know all about Florence Nightingale?”

“Well quite a bit, obviously.”

“Did you know she had a club foot?”

Nurse Nightingale looked surprised. “A club foot? No I never knew that.”

“Oh yes. That’s why she was known as The Lady with the Limp.”

“The Lady with the Limp? She was known as The Lady with the Lamp.”

“Yes, that as well.”

In the event when I said “I bet you get ribbed about your name a lot” she replied. “Why?”

“Well, you know, Florence Nightingale.”

“Who’s that?”

She wasn’t joking either. The girl, a third year student nurse for God’s sake, had not the slightest inkling who Florence Nightingale was. I don’t know who her role model was when she decided to enter the nursing profession, probably Hattie Jacques in Carry on Nurse judging from the size of her (for she was a pretty representative example of the overweight nurses I mentioned in my previous post).

I gave up and got on with the Telegraph crossword.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post Jan 6 2014. FOUR MORE NURSES. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Jan 3 2014. NURSES.

I was in hospital for fairly lengthy spells during November and December waiting for, having, and recovering from a triple coronary heart bypass. It was the first time I had been in hospital for any length of time and whilst I was there I learned a few things. One of them is that there are many different types of nurse. Apart from your common or garden nurse, now known for reasons that aren’t clear as staff nurses – thankfully it isn’t because they carry a staff with which to beat the more awkward patients, which I feared might be the case – there are sisters, student nurses, nurse practitioners, research nurses, physiotherapy nurses, occupational therapy nurses and quite a few other types of nurse that I can’t recall at the moment. There are also people who look and dress like nurses but aren’t nurses. These are known as healthcare assistants. Healthcare assistants are always addressed by patients as ‘Nurse’, probably because when one of them accidently strays past one’s sick bed within hailing distance it sounds ridiculous to call out “Healthcare Assistant, Healthcare Assistant” in the way one hopefully calls out “Nurse, Nurse.”  Presumably because one feels daft calling out “Healthcare Assistant, Healthcare Assistant”. Try it, I did. She looked at me as though I should be in the psychiatric wing.

Amongst the various types of nurses there are tall nurses and short nurses, blonde, brunette and redhead nurses, black, brown, white and yellow nurses and all shades in between, and thin and fat nurses. It is the fat nurses I would like to dwell on. Figuratively speaking.

It is often claimed, especially by nurses, that there is a shortage of nurses in the National Health Service. After spending six weeks in Stepping Hill and Wythenshawe hospitals I would add my name to their numbers. I estimate the shortage to be in the order of thirty-three per cent. But here’s a thing. I can solve this nurse shortage problem. Or at least I can demonstrate why and how the shortage has come about, so that people more clever than I can solve it.

I don’t know how many nurses it takes to run Stepping Hill hospital – which I will use as an example (and I have no reason to believe that the situation is any different in other hospitals throughout the country, it’s certainly the case at Wythenshawe) – but for the sake of argument let’s say it is 1500 and that this is the  number of nurses currently employed there. The problem is that although there are 1500 nurses they are in 1000 bodies – the other 500 nurses being in the overweight bodies of the 1000 – leaving a shortage of 500 nurses. It would be difficult to mount an argument against this contention: while I was there I saw quite a few nurses who would tip the scales, if that’s the right expression (a more apt phrase might be break the scales) at twenty stones plus, and many who were between one stone to ten stones overweight. (I didn’t try it but I would lay odds that if you were to throw open the door of the staff canteen at lunchtime and shout “Lardarse” at least fifty heads would snap round.

Bearing the above in mind all that needs to happen is for the surplus weight, all this fat being dragged around by these overweight nurses, to be made into additional nurses – this is highly trained three-years -at-college fat we are talking of here, and it seems quite obvious to me that if a nurse weighing ten stones can perform her nursing duties adequately then a fifteen stones nurse has five stones of trained nurse not doing anything. This five stones already has all the required nursing skills in place – the ability to take patients’ blood pressure, temperature, make their beds, empty their bedpans and chat pretty much non-stop to other nurses about what they did last night and what they intend doing tonight, at the tops of their voices, either in person or on the phone, to nurses in other wards. The excess weight just needs to be harnessed. The two lots of five stones of excess nursing skills currently residing in two fifteen stones nurses could create one more much-needed ten stone nurse. Repeat this with all the fat nurses and your understaffed hospital of 1000 nurses will quickly become an adequately staffed hospital of 1500 nurses.

Sorted.

The post Jan 3 2014. NURSES. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Oct 29 2013.CABBAGE.

I’m in Stepping Hill hospital at the moment waiting to be transferred to Wythenshawe hospital for a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, known to the hospital staff by the acronym CABG, familiarly known as a cabbage. I told them I’d be quite happy to have just a sprout but apparently this isn’t an option.

The post Oct 29 2013.CABBAGE. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Oct 16 2013. THE DR HODGKINSON AFFAIR.

I’ve just finished writing my latest novel, Its Not Cricket! Just the proof-reading to go. In the meantime here’s an extract from it.

Back in 1968, if The Reverend Hartley had remained in the church clock tower until everyone had left the vicinity, The Church Clock Affair might have been attributed to an act of God. In the event he was spotted leaving the tower by one of the Upper Medlock team and in next to no time, the Medlock villages’ grapevines being amongst the most fruitful around, everyone knew it was an act of The Reverend Hartley. Shawcross, the Upper Medlock captain, complained bitterly and sought to claim the match by default. Wilks, the Lower Medlock captain, batted this demand aside with the excuse that the vicar must have had a brainstorm. Shawcross countered this by saying that in order to have a brainstorm one must first have a brain, an organ that The Reverend Hartley was clearly lacking; hadn’t the man already proved he was completely off his rocker by booking both a funeral and a marriage into the St Matthew’s calendar for the same day just because he’d had an altercation with the groom over a game of dominoes? Wilks claimed this was a one off. Shawcross said it was at least a two off because to his certain knowledge he’d done the same thing two months previously following a quarrel with a deceased man’s wife.

Wilks had no alternative but to accept the vicar’s culpability in the affair. He was not, however, prepared to hand victory to Upper Medlock, and suggested that the match be declared null and void. Shawcross accepted this but only on the understanding that The Reverend Hartley be banned from turning out for Lower Medlock in perpetuity. When the reverend was informed of the decision he said that if he was not allowed to play then nobody else would be allowed to play as he would make it his business to see that the church withdrew its permission for Lower Medlock to use the ground. After further negotiations between the two clubs it was agreed that The Reverend Hartley would be allowed to play but that any runs he scored would be ignored.

In the event the reverend had played his last game for Lower Medlock as on hearing about the incident his Bishop, probably having realised that a man who had the sort of mind that could come up with such a devious idea was wasted in a small village like Lower Medlock, promoted him to a more prestigious church within the diocese.

And so the fixture continued, although now with an ever-present undercurrent of distrust. Six years on this distrust, still simmering after The Church Clock Affair, boiled over.

 

September 2 1974.

 

Upper Medlock v Lower Medlock. Wickets pitched 2pm. Umpires, J Rawlinson and T Meakin.

 

Lower Medlock 189 all out.

 

Upper Medlock

 

J Barnes b Shippon 12

A J Chester c & b Southfield 24

L Peebles c Francis b Cheyney 17

A Emley run out 15

T Waters (C) b Shippon 11

L Smith b Doyle-Davidson 13

F Clunes run out 0

E Peebles c Cheyney b Whittaker 2

A Jones b Whittaker 4

A Jennison not out 0

Dr V Hodgkinson not out 76

Extras 16

 

Total 190 for 9

 

Lower Medlock won by 1 wicket.

 

In what was turning out to be a very one-sided fixture Lower Medlock were seemingly coasting to an easy victory. With nine Upper Medlock wickets down, all the Lower Medlock bowlers in fine form, the side’s catching and fielding leaving nothing to be desired, the home team had struggled to a score of 55. Then fate put in an appearance; a welcome appearance so far as Upper Medlock was concerned, not so welcome for Lower Medlock. At that point Dr Hodgkinson, who had arrived at the crease at the fall of the wicket of Jones, faced his first ball from fast swing bowler Andy Whittaker, who was on a hat trick. Never having achieved this notable feat, and obviously eager to do so, Whittaker put everything he had into the ball. It was an excellent one. Dead on a length, fast, and swinging viciously from leg to off. It was just the sort of delivery that Dr Hodgkinson didn’t like. In fact the doctor wasn’t all that keen on any kind of delivery. He was a batsman, to use the term loosely, who failed to trouble the scorer more often than not, and whose method of batting was to wait until he saw the ball coming then close his eyes and take a wild swipe at it, having found from experience that he scored more runs this way than he did with his previous method of leaving his eyes open and trying to play stoically with a straight bat. On average he connected with one in five of his uncultivated clouts. When he didn’t connect it was followed, sooner or later, but usually sooner, by the sound of falling timber behind him. When he did manage to connect the result was almost always a four, and occasionally a six. However he didn’t connect very often and his highest score, in a career spanning twenty three years, was nine. Occasionally he connected with the ball with only a thick or thin edge of his bat and when that occurred anything could happen. If the ball kept low he might be caught by the wicketkeeper or in the slips, if it went high a fielder in the outfield might claim him as a victim, and on the occasions when the ball was neither caught nor fielded immediately he would scamper down the wicket for a run, maybe two. On the occasion in question he caught the ball with a thick edge whereupon it ballooned high into the air, soaring over leg slip, before coming to rest first bounce no more than a yard from the long leg boundary in the middle of a large, ripe, freshly shat cowpat. (Although the land was now a cricket pitch, as opposed to the field it had been until 1953, the cows in the adjoining field had not been informed of this, or if they had they ignored it, and quite often wandered onto the pitch to do their business, or maybe just for a stroll round, the ways cows do.)

First on the scene was Alan Southfield, who had raced over from his position at third man, his eye on the ball every step of the way, intent on taking a spectacular catch and sealing a memorable victory for his team. Disappointment clouded his face as the ball fell to earth when he was still a couple of yards away. He was not, however, downhearted. He was downhearted when he saw it bounce off the ground and land in the cowpat. It had almost disappeared, only a small circle of red visible in the deep khaki of the cowpat, looking for all the world as though a very small cardinal had almost completely disappeared in it. It was immediately obvious to Southfield that extracting the ball from its faecal grave would be a far from straightforward task; at least not for him, a fastidious man who didn’t even like to get his hands dirty, let alone get them dirty by using them to pick up a cowpat-encrusted cricket ball. He paused to consider the matter, hand under chin in the archetypical manner of thought.

“What’s the matter?” Richard Doyle-Davidson called out, trotting over from his position at deep square leg.

“The ball’s landed in this cowpat,” said Southfield, pointing at it.

“Well get it out and throw it back.”

Southfield considered this suggestion only briefly then said, shamefaced. “Would you mind doing it, Richard?”

On the pitch, arriving at the bowler’s end, Dr Hodgkinson said to umpire Rawlinson, “I hope you’re counting these, Umpire?”

“I most certainly am, Doctor” said Rawlinson, “That makes you five.”

In the meantime the captain, George Shippon, had trotted over to Southfield. “What’s the holdup, Alan?” He glanced around, puzzled. “Where’s the ball?”

With a nod of his head Southfield indicated the cowpat. “You can just see the top of it, see.”

“Well fish it out man, they’re still running.”

“Richard’s going to get it out,” said Southfield,

“I bloody well am not,” said Doyle-Davidson angrily. “Why should I get it out? You get it out; you were the nearest fielder to it.”

Southfield shook his head. “Well actually I wasn’t. I think you’ll find that the man fielding at leg slip was nearer than I was.”

“Eddie Priestley?” said Shippon. “Are you joking? You can’t expect Eddie to chase after the ball, with his back. He can barely walk let alone chase after a ball, that’s why he fields at leg slip, because nobody ever hits it there; plus if he gets tired he can have a rest behind the stumper.”

Southfield shrugged. “Well I’m not getting my hands covered in cow muck, and that’s for certain.”

“And I most certainly aren’t,” said Doyle-Davidson.

Shippon had a brainwave. “We’ll claim a ‘dead ball’.”

“Good idea,” said Southfield, “Claim a dead ball, skipper.”

“Nip over to the square leg umpire and tell him then.”

“It isn’t dead, it’s in a cowpat, if what you say is correct,” said umpire Meakin, when Southfield filled him in with what had happened.

“It’s as good as dead,” claimed Southfield.

“Not good enough,” said Meakin. “Law 23, Dead ball. 2. Ball finally settled. The ball has to be finally settled.”

“It can’t be more finally settled than stuck in the middle of a bloody great cowpat,” said Southfield, a little narked. “I would have thought that it was very settled.”

“Whether the ball is finally settled or not is a matter for the umpire alone to decide,” said Meakin. “And I say it hasn’t settled. Seventeen.”

“What?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen what?”

“Runs. I’m counting the runs Dr Hodgkinson is notching up. Eighteen.”

Southfield bit his tongue and before he was tempted to commit violence on the umpire reported back to Shippon with the bad news. In the meantime Ted Francis appeared on the scene from deep-mid wicket. “What’s going on?” he enquired.

Shippon put him in the picture.

“Perhaps you can kick it out,” he suggested after a moment’s thought. “Sort of work the toe of your boot under it and hoof it out.”

“Excellent idea, Ted” said Shippon, and turned to Southfield. “Kick it out.”

Southfield’s eyes widened in horror. “What? You must be joking. I’m not putting my boots in there, they’re brand new, I’ve only just got them.”

Shippon glared at him. “You won’t pick it out, you won’t kick it out, you can’t instruct the umpire that it’s a dead ball, just what the hell can you do?”

“Get out of the bloody way, I’ll do it,” said Francis, stepping forward before Southfield could reply.

“Well it was you who suggested it,” said Southfield airily.

“You just shut it,” said Shippon. “You’ve played your last game for Upper Medlock.”

Southfield was aghast. “What? Just because I refuse to get cowshit on my new cricket boots?”

“For exactly that.”

The ball proved to be more difficult to extract than Shippon had imagined and a good three minutes passed before it popped out, during which time several kicks had demolished most of the cowpat, quite a bit of it landing on Southfield’s whites, to his great displeasure.

“Now wipe the cowshit off it on the grass,” urged Shippon, “and chuck it back.”

“There might not be time, George,” warned Doyle-Davidson, flinging an arm in the direction of the still-scampering Dr Hodgkinson and Jennison. “God knows how many they’ve run up by now.”

Whether God might have known or not is a question for believers and non-believers to debate, however Hodgkinson knew as he’d just checked with Umpire Rawlinson; sixty-six, leaving his side needing ten more runs for victory. Had Shippon been aware of this he would have realised that there was ample time to convey the ball back to the pitch and break the wicket, thus running out either Hodgkinson or Jennison and therefore winning the match. He could have walked the ball back to the wicket, even at a leisurely pace, maybe stopping for a chat with Eddie Priestley about his bad back on the way. But he didn’t. Instead he picked up the still cowpat-soiled ball and threw it in as hard as he could. However in his hurry to get it back he threw it not to the wicketkeeper, whose gloves would have prevented his hands from coming into contact with the cow dung-coated missile, but to the bowler Whittaker, whose hands weren’t protected by gloves. Which was unfortunate, because if any member of the Upper Medlock side was more fastidious than Southfield, and therefore not at all keen to get his hands soiled with cow dung, it was Whittaker. This being the case, when he saw the ball heading directly his way he chose not to catch it but to step to one side with the idea of allowing it to drop to the ground, whereupon  he would pick it up, gingerly, and break the wicket with it, thus bringing the Upper Medlock innings to a close. However he had failed to note that Umpire Rawlinson was standing directly behind him, and therefore in the path of the ball once he had stepped aside, with the result that the ball hit Rawlinson on the temple and knocked him unconscious to the ground.

“Fuck me!” exclaimed Cheyney, who was standing nearby. He bent over and looked at the prostrate umpire. “I hope you haven’t killed him.”

“Me?” said an aggrieved Whittaker. “It wasn’t me who threw the ball.” He looked around. “Anyway where is the ball?”

Cheyney couldn’t see the ball either. “He must have fallen on it,” he concluded. “He must be lying on it.”

“I’ll roll him over,” said Whittaker, and bent down to do just that.

At that moment Hodgkinson, completing his sixty-sixth run, came skidding to a halt beside them. “I’m a doctor!” he cried melodramatically.

Whittaker looked up.”Yes I know you’re a doctor. It’s Andy Whittaker, I saw you about my waterworks last week.”

On his dash down the pitch Hodgkinson had had an excellent view of the incident and had come to the same conclusion as Cheyney as to the whereabouts of the ball. “Don’t move him,” he ordered.

“What?” said Whittaker.

“The umpire,” said Hodgkinson, and continued in his stern doctor voice. “On no account must he be moved.”

“But he’s lying on the ball,” protested Cheyney.

Hodgkinson was unmoved. “He could swallow his tongue.”

“But he’s lying on the fucking ball,” argued Whittaker.

The addition of an expletive to Whittaker’s plea made not a scrap of difference to the doctor’s opinion. “You don’t want him choking, do you?” he said. “Surely you don’t want to be responsible for the poor man’s death?”

“Well….no. But….”

“Then leave him as he lies and call for an ambulance at once,” said Hodgkinson, and with that set off back down the pitch for another run.

“Hey where are you going?” shouted Whittaker after him. To glory thought Hodgkinson. The doctor, although keen as mustard, only just scraped into the Upper Medlock side when other players were on holiday or otherwise indisposed; this was the only chance he would ever have of making a name for himself on the cricket field and it was not a chance he was about to turn down.

Three minutes later Umpire Meakin called out, “That makes you seventy-six now, Dr Hodgkinson.”

Hodgkinson stopped running, beamed, and he and Jennison walked triumphantly side by side back to the pavilion, to be welcomed into the open arms of their overjoyed team mates.

 

The post Oct 16 2013. THE DR HODGKINSON AFFAIR. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.

Oct 11 2013. I’TS NOT CRICKET.

Tilly Turner, clutching her ankle, a look of pain creasing her pretty face, hobbled up The Olde Mill Cottage drive; if Jonny Pickering happened to be looking out of the window the last thing she wanted was for him to see her walking normally, not when she was about to tell him she feared she had sprained her ankle and could he possibly offer assistance? She imagined that her cry for help would be all it would take to achieve her object; it certainly would with all the other men she’d come across in her short but very full life.

In her mind’s eye, as she made her way slowly to the front door, she saw herself seated on one of Pickering’s easy chairs, a chintz one probably, cottages always seemed to have chintz furniture. She was leaning back, her long blonde hair cascading around her shoulders, an arm shielding her eyes as he ministered to her, as if fearing the worst. Pickering was on his knees, the better to examine her ankle and, even better, where he could get a good look up the very short skirt she had chosen for the occasion. If, by some miracle, once he’d had an eyeful of the sexual heaven to be found up there, it hadn’t led to them heading for the bedroom as though there were no tomorrow, she would tell him she thought she might have strained her thigh too, and could he please massage it, which might  rub it better? If that were to happen they wouldn’t even get as far as the bedroom, she was sure, they’d be at it right there and then on the living room carpet. She hoped he had a sheepskin rug, she liked having sex on a sheepskin rug; it seemed to bring the out animal in her, maybe because she was being made love to on an animal.

She reached the front door of the cottage and glanced down at her tanned breasts, unfettered by a bra and fighting to break free from her skimpy white top like two bald-headed escapologists. She undid another button, composed herself, took a deep breath to pump up her breasts and rang the bell.

Although Tilly Turner had only ever had one job, and only then for a very short time, and her only income, apart from her job seeker’s allowance, was money given to her by her many boyfriends, she did not see herself as a prostitute. Indeed, if anyone had accused her of being a prostitute, or even suggested it, they would have got a slap round the face for their pains at the very least. Tilly did not have clients, she had boyfriends. Lots of boyfriends. They came initially from the villages of Upper and Lower Medlock but, when she had exhausted the supply of local suitors (and in the process exhausted most of the suitors), from the half dozen nearby villages and the town of Middleham. Young boyfriends, old boyfriends, married boyfriends, single boyfriends, fat boyfriends, thin boyfriends, fit boyfriends, invalid boyfriends, Tilly took on all comers. (She had once had sex with a man in a wheelchair which had been a hundred per cent satisfactory for both of them, once he’d remembered to put the brake on, and had even accommodated a man with a zimmer frame, stood up in a bus shelter whilst he was waiting for his bus. The man and the bus came at the same time.) However she only ever dated one man at a time and never for more than a day or two. The only thing she demanded of her boyfriends was that they were well-heeled, or at least heeled well enough to be in a position to buy her a nice present, or gave her money to buy one.

There was never any shortage of boyfriends. Before embarking on her chosen career she was quite sure there wouldn’t be. By the age of thirteen she had already noticed the way men looked at her, and that the older she got the more they looked. So it was no surprise to her when, three years previously, having left school at the age of sixteen and taken a job as a barmaid at The Shorn Sheep, that all the male customers looked at her in a way that they didn’t look at the landlord, or looked at his wife for that matter, even though the landlady was by no means unattractive. The difference now was that in addition to looking at her the men often made suggestive remarks to her, and about her, usually couched in a light-hearted manner and cloaked in double entendres, but no less serious in their intent for all that. Therefore it came as no surprise, certainly not to Tilly, that in a matter of weeks she decided that perhaps a more agreeable way of making a living would be to stop hand-pumping their pints of bitter in favour of hand-pumping their sexual organs, along with the rest of the business that inevitably followed.

So all that the Upper Medlock cricketers had had to do, once they had decided that the gift of Tilly was the absolute best thing they could do to help persuade Jonny Pickering to join their ranks, was to mention to her that the famous cricketer had come to live in The Olde Mill Cottage, and that not only was he a very well set up gentleman but he had a reputation for being the most generous of men. Any doubts that the idea might not appeal to Tilly were dispelled completely when Duckworth showed her a photograph of Pickering and she realised that his handsome face was the same face that had been smiling at her from her daily bag of Quigley’s Quavers for the last four years. It was an assignation made in heaven.

The door of The Olde Mill Cottage swung open smoothly and silently on hinges newly-oiled by one the member of the Upper Medlock team who had been deputed to do all the odd jobs that needed doing around the cottage. Two minutes later, having tearfully explained her problem, Tilly was seated on one of Jonny Pickering’s easy chairs and Pickering himself was on his knees in front of her, just as she had imagined, except that the chair was antique leather, not chintz, and the famous cricketer was much more handsome in the flesh than the picture of him on packets of Quigley’s Quavers, despite his having two black eyes. In fact she wasn’t sure that the black eyes didn’t make him even more attractive, sort of all cuddly like a panda.

“Let’s take a look at it then,” Pickering smiled reassuringly, reaching out to take her ankle in his hand. “See if you’ve done any permanent damage.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” said Tilly, deftly swinging her leg to one side and putting Plan B into action.

About halfway through the two minutes she had spent in Pickering’s company she had decided to dispense with Plan A. On setting eyes on her quarry she had taken a real shine to him and didn’t want to take even the slightest chance of not finishing up in his bed, which might just possibly be the case if she stuck to her original plan. Who knew? He might be such a gentleman – and those men who played cricket for Upper Medlock had assured her that not only was he a gentleman but a gentleman who was by no means short of a bob or two – that he wouldn’t want to make love to someone who was injured, no matter how slight the injury, for fear of making it worse. (Should Pickering’s black eyes have put Tilly off him Duckworth had explained to her that he had received them while protecting the honour of a lady, which despite her way of making a living she had found ever so romantic.)

“Nothing wrong with it?” said Pickering, confused.

Tilly looked apologetic. “Please, don’t be angry with me. It….it’s just that I wanted to meet you, ever so much.”

Pickering smiled. “You should simply have rung my doorbell.”

“I didn’t want to be a bother.”

“You wouldn’t have been, I assure you. Believe me, I’m used to it by now; I’ve already had three of the villager’s ringing my bell this morning.” He explained. “They wanted my autograph.”

“I want your cock.”

Five minutes later she was getting Pickering’s cock in his big double bed. Ten minutes later, when it was over and they were lying side by side, Pickering said, “Are you always so….direct, Tilly?”

Tilly shrugged. “If you are attracted to somebody why mess about?”

Pickering smiled. “Why indeed?” Under normal circumstances he would have been surprised at his words; he was a man who rarely slept with a girl on the same day they had met; however Tilly was something else, and the something else was not something that any man who still had a pulse would be likely to turn down.

“Did you enjoy it?” Tilly turned to face him as she said this. “I did.”

“Very much so, Tilly.”

Tilly smiled a coy smile. “I know you did.” After a moment she said, “Would you like to do it again?” I mean after the commercial, she thought, but said, “In a bit, like. No rush.”

When the cricketers had approached Tilly they had been adamant that during the time she was with Pickering she should try to get him to play for their team. Even though she had promised then that she would she had remained undecided about it  – a promise to a man had never counted for much in Tilly’s world ever since she had discovered that most of their promises were just so many words. Besides, how would they know whether she had asked Pickering to play for them or she hadn’t? However she had really enjoyed herself and was certain that there would be a nice present heading her way, so why not?

“They tell me you’re a cricketer,” she said artfully.

“I used to play a bit, yes.”

She pushed him playfully in the ribs with her elbow and smiled. “Don’t be so modest. You must be dead famous to get your picture on packets of Quigley’s Quavers.”

Pickering shrugged. “Well quite famous, I suppose.”

“And much better looking, even with two black eyes, than that footballer whose picture is on potato crisp packets, that Gary what’s-is-name, him with the ears?”

“Why thank you.”

Tilly was silent for a second or so then suddenly said, “Wait a minute! Oh my God!” Then, as though the idea had come to her completely out of the blue, “Why don’t you play for my team?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you play for Upper Medlock? Oh please say you will, Jonny; I’m their biggest fan.”

“Really?”

“I’ll say; I watch them every week, home and away, rain or shine, thick or thin, never miss. It would be just great if you could play for us.”

Pickering gave a rueful shake of his head. “Well, I’m not so sure that I can, Tilly.”

“Oh please, Jonny.” Tilly sat up abruptly in bed and clasped her hands together in a gesture of prayer. “Please! It would mean ever so much to me. Please say you’ll play for Upper Medlock even if it’s only just the game against those stuck-up snotgobbling buggers from Lower Medlock.”

On hearing Tilly’s words Pickering raised an eyebrow and for the first time began to feel there was something about the situation that was not quite right. One of the men doing The Olde Mill Cottage’s garden and the man who was at that very moment thatching its roof had used exactly the same words to him, with the exception of ‘buggers’, which had been ‘twats’ and ‘arseholes’.

“Oh please, Jonny?” Tilly implored him again. By way of an incentive she pushed the duvet to one side, took his penis in her hand and stroked it, a promise of what would inevitably follow if he went along with her request.

Despite his suspicions Pickering was unwilling to turn Tilly down out of hand as he quite fancied another session of the fabulous sex he’d had just minutes before, so he said, “Well, Tilly, I shall have to think about that.”

Tilly leaned over, gave the end of his rapidly swelling penis a big kiss, licked it a couple of times and said, “Oh thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jonny.”

Pickering held up a finger of warning. “I’m not promising anything mind.”

Tilly, feeling his penis now completely hard in her hand, said, “I am, let’s fuck,” and without further ado cocked her leg over him and sat astride him. “And then you can buy me a nice present.”

Pickering looked sharply at her. “What?”

“Then you can buy me a nice present.” She noticed his less than pleased look. “What’s the matter? All my boyfriends buy me nice presents. Or give me some money to buy myself a nice present.”

Pickering gave the resigned sigh of someone who realises he has been taken for a sucker. “So you’re a prostitute then.”

“What?”

If Pickering had been looking at Tilly when she said this, had seen the anger in her eyes, he might have kept his mouth shut. But he didn’t. “You’re a prostitute,” he reiterated.

He looked up at her just in time to see her fist heading for his nose, but not in enough time to take avoiding action before it smashed into it with a sickening thud and the sound of breaking bones.

The above is an extract from my new book It’s Not Cricket! which will be out in about two weeks time.

The post Oct 11 2013. I’TS NOT CRICKET. appeared first on Stairlift To Heaven.