Terry Ravenscroft's Blog: Stairlift to Heaven, page 7

Oct 2 2013. LIFE IN THE PREMIERSHIP

People think the life of a Premiership footballer is cushy but it just isn’t so. Take it from me. People think that apart from match days we just, like, you know, train every morning and then have the rest of the day off. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Well obviously.We’re a bit like teachers, you know, in that respect. Like people think teachers just start work at nine in the morning, you know, and work till three in the afternoon and that’s, like, it. They forget that teachers have to spend hours and hours doing all the marking and that, you know, and planning the kids’ lessons. Well obviously.And it’s like,like, that with footballers. People think that apart from training every morning we don’t have any other responsibilities, you know, there isn’t like nothing else we have to do. They conveniently forget we have to go shopping every afternoon. Well obviously.Weekends as well if we haven’t got a game or we’re on the injury list. In fact most Premiership footballers have to spend more time shopping than they do training, I know I do. And it’s bloody hard work too – you try getting through a hundred grand every week, it isn’t easy, mate, I can tell you. All right, I suppose you could, like, take the easy way out and buy a car every week that costs a hundred grand, which wouldn’t take up too much of your time, granted, well obviously, but even if you filled your four-car garage then filled up the extensive grounds of your mansion with cars it wouldn’t be very long before you couldn’t move for bleeding cars, I know mate because I’ve done it, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Buying a hundred grand car every week only lasts about twenty weeks before you’re up to the arse in cars then you have to think of other things you can spend your wonga on. I mean, like, we’ve already got a swimming pool, well obviously, so I can’t spend anything on a swimming pool, you know, unless I was to make the one we’ve already got bigger or have another one built for the kids, but I can’t do that as we haven’t got any more room because of all the bloody cars. Keeping another couple of cars in the swimming pool would get rid of another two hundred grand I suppose but two weeks later I’d have the same problem, innit. I learned that when I put the first two cars in the swimming pool. That just leaves buying things for the house and designer clobber for me and the wife. But how many Agas can you have? We’ve already got five, six when we’ve had one put on the landing next week, I mean there just isn’t room for any more and at eight grand a pop that’s only forty eight grand which isn’t even half a week’s wage. Well obviously. And we’ve already got, like, wood panelled walls throughout, you know, six chandeliers in every room and more settees than The Land of fucking Leather. And how much clobber can you buy? I’m luckier than most because Tracey Michelle Sharon can spend for England, you know, but even Tracey Michelle Sharon finds it hard to get through more than twenty grand a week, but even if she could there’s nowhere to put it because our bedroom, the billiards room, the conservatory, the greenhouse, the potting shed and the gazebo are already full to overflowing with her and my bling and clobber stuff and we can’t put any in the walk-in wardrobe because there’s a car in there. No, as I say, the life of a Premiership footballer is a lot harder than people think. You know. Well obviously.

 

Extracted from The Razzamatazz Fun ebook.

 

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Sept 30 2013. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CAT

I usually get up early, around 6 a.m. unless I’ve had a night on the tiles. There’s no breakfast to be had until my mistress gets up at eight so it’s a quick paw wash then out through the cat-flap to shit on our next door neighbour’s lawn. I used to shit in one of his flowerbeds but a couple of weeks ago the bastard saw me and threw a brick at me. He now has fourteen places on his lawn which are a much lighter colour grass than the rest of the lawn, thanks to the chlorophyll in it being bleached out by the deadly cocktail that is cat poo. He hasn’t twigged on yet but the lighter bits will eventually spell out ‘Twat’ in dot to dot. After that it’s a quick wail under his bedroom window to wake him up then it’s off to the park to practice my walk for an hour. You are all no doubt familiar with the way cats walk and probably think that it’s natural, but nothing is further from the truth. To be able to walk in a proud and aloof manner when your tail is in the air and your arsehole is on view for all the world to see takes a lot of practice, believe me; it takes a fashion model years of training to learn how to walk on the catwalk in the same proud and aloof manner adopted by cats. But then they haven’t got the same incentive as cats as their arseholes aren’t on view to all and sundry – although that won’t be the case for much longer if the skimpy dresses worn by the models I saw at the Milan show on telly recently are anything to go by.

My walking practice leaves me quite hungry so after I’m finished it’s back home for breakfast. I’m on Pal at the moment. Yes, I know that Pal is a dog food, but it’s half the price of my usual nosh, and if it’s getting near the end of the month and my mistress is a bit hard up my Posh Cat is one of the first things to go. I don’t mind really, it doesn’t taste all that much different, and anyway I quite enjoy getting my own back by bringing up fur balls in her box of Maltesers. The boxes she’s thrown away because she thinks they’ve gone off are nobody’s business. You see cats are like that. Sly, mischievous, devious. Some would say malicious. Especially the man next door when I wail outside his bedroom window with my Whitney Houston impression.

After brekky it’s a catnap then I’m off out again. A cat is never short of something to do. You can run out in the road in front of cars and cause the driver to jam on the brakes and maybe crack his head on the windscreen. (My granddad told me that before seat belts this happened nearly every time, the lucky sod.) You can climb up a tree and pretend to be stuck until the local fire brigade is called out and then scratch the fireman when he tries to grab hold of you. You can catch a mouse and keep letting it go before hauling it back with your paw until eventually the little bastard dies of fright. Yes, life is full of such pleasures if you are a cat. My favourite game is to chew some of my mistress’s toothpaste until I’m foaming at the mouth and stagger into the local playschool and pretend I’ve got rabies.

Every so often I pretend to get lost. Usually when Pal turns upon my diet. I always turn up a few days later, none the worse for wear, but not until my mistress has spent a fortune putting adverts in the newspapers and ‘Lost cat’ postcards in newsagent’s windows. Then once I’m safely back home I can look forward to a few days cosseting until her feelings of guilt are assuaged. Nice. It makes me feel like a cat that’s got the cream. I am the cat that’s got the cream, and lots of it.

Every afternoon I meet up with my mates. We always head for the vet who neutered us. His motor car has a sort of grill on the bonnet for ventilation purposes, but it is also perfect for pissing through, which we all take a great delight in doing. The upshot is that the vet can’t understand why all his cars smell of cat piss and he has to service his car himself as there’s not a garage for miles around will touch it. Serve the bastard right. Then it’s back home for dinner, then out again for more fun and games, which are even better at night when it’s dark. I think my favourite game of all is ‘Catastrophe!’ which is a game I invented myself. What I do is stick a glass marble in my anus, find an ‘S’ bend on a lonely road, wait at the side of the road until I hear a car approaching then get out into the middle of the road amongst the cats eyes. When the car comes round the corner I start to walk backwards towards it and when the car’s headlights pick up the glass marble in my bum the driver doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. Many’s the car I’ve wrapped round a tree. Wonderful! Yes, it’s not a bad life being a cat. And I’ve got another eight of them!

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Sept 28 2013. MASTERMIND.

I had another of my dreams about Kristin Scott Thomas last night. It went something like this.

I sat down in the famous Mastermind black leather chair and made myself comfortable.

JOHN HUMPHRIES: “And your name?”

ME: “Terry Ravenscroft.”

JH: “And your specialist subject?”

ME: “Two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas.”

JH: “Your time starts….now. How long is it since you first fancied two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas?”

ME: “Ever since I first set eyes on her.”

JH: “Wrong. When you first set eyes on Kristin Scott Thomas you fancied a night with her. It is only now, now that you are in your seventies, that you have modified your ambitions to a more realistic two minutes.

How many times have you seen the film The English Patient?”

ME: “Twenty seven.”

JH: “Wrong. The correct answer is ‘Too many times for your own good’.

When you saw Kristin Scott Thomas naked in The English Patient what did you say to yourself?”

ME: “What a simply delightful, nubile body that young woman has.”

JH: “Wrong, you said ‘Bloody hell, look at the beaver on that!’

How often, when viewing that particular part of the film on video, have you used the freeze frame or slow motion facility?”

ME: “Er….well, every time, actually.”

JH: “Wrong, the answer is every time but one; the only occasion you didn’t use either the freeze frame or slow motion facility was when your wife The Trouble unexpectedly came  into the room and you quickly changed channels before she saw that you were watching it yet again.

Given that you were granted two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas, and while you were halfway through your two minutes she asked you to….”

BUZZER

“….I’ve started so I’ll finish – she asked you to stop, what would be your reply?”

ME: “I’ve started so I’ll finish.”

JH: “Wrong. You would say ‘Thank Christ for that, two minutes of this and I’d have a heart attack’.

And at the end of your two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas, Terry, you have failed to score, which would probably be the case if you we were ever given the opportunity of having two minutes on Kristin Scott Thomas. There were no passes, apart from the ones you would have made if you’d ever got anywhere near Kristin Scott Thomas.”

ME. “I think I might do better in the general knowledge round.”

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