Month: February 2007

February 7th 2007

“Piss off,” I said.
Nothing.
“Piss off,” I repeated.
Again nothing.

“Piss off,” I said again, for about the fiftieth time.
The parrot, as it did on the other forty nine occasions, just looked at me dumbly.
We are looking after the parrot for the Parsley-Heys over he road while they’re on holiday. Usually when they go away The Trouble looks after the parrot by simply calling in at their house every day and topping up its water and millet or whatever it is that parrots eat, but this time she and Jill Parsley-Hey decided it should stay with us for the two weeks that the Parsley-Heys will be away, ‘to give it a change of scenery’. I pointed out that the scenery it would be seeing, i.e. our living room through the bars of its cage, would be more or less the same as the scenery it normally saw, i.e. the Parsley-Heys’ living room living room through the bars of its cage, unless of course she planned to take it on a tour round the house every now and then or open its little door and let it fly around free, but she told me not to be so pedantic.
I wouldn’t normally waste my time on trying to teach a parrot to say piss off but the weather has been so cold just recently that it’s hard to get out and I’ve been struggling for something to do. Plus the fact that when I tried to break a small piece off the parrot’s cuttlefish to see if I could use it as a substitute for French chalk it tried to bite me.
The parrot can definitely talk. It can say “Have a nice day.” and “Hilary Clinton for President.” (Jill Parsely-Hey is an American) And it is obviously still capable of learning new words, because until very recently it only said “Have a nice day“ and “Clinton for President,” Jill only having taught it to add a ‘Hilary’ to the latter phrase since Hilary Clinton entered the Presidential race a short while ago. But it can’t say piss off yet. I tried again.
“Piss off.”
Nothing.
“Piss off.” Nothing.
“Piss off”
“Hilary Clinton for President. Squawk.”
“Piss off.”
That last “Piss off” was me telling the parrot to piss off, not me trying to get the parrot to say piss off.
Just then I heard The Trouble coming downstairs and quickly sat down with the newspaper. The Trouble came into the room.
“Who were you just telling to piss off?” she asked.
“Tony Blair,” I said. I tapped the newspaper. “Lying through his teeth again.”
“Well try not to say it in front of the parrot, will you,” she admonished me. “It might start repeating it.”
“Piss off,” I said, under my breath.

Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They are priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.

You can write to me at –

Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL

Dear Air 2000

Football Crazy

6^th February 2007

It is in the nature of man, when stood at the urinal in the gents toilet of a pub, to gaze up at the wall in front of him. Occasionally there is a window set in the wall through which he can look out of, but to do this is seldom rewarding as it is invariably glazed with frosted glass, rendering the view outside murky if not non-existent. He might just as well look at the wall. However the wall invariably offers a no more rewarding aspect, being tiled, as it usually is, in the better establishments, or simply painted or whitewashed in the more humble. The man looks at it nevertheless.
What the man expects to see on the wall no one can say with any certainty. An amusing example of graffiti perhaps? Possibly, although men were in the habit of looking up at the wall when urinating long before someone first had the idea of informing the world that Kilroy had once visited the establishment.
One might be led to think, in view of what he was doing at the time, that it might be somewhat advantageous to look down, but urinating is a comparatively simple matter and a man would have to be especially dim-witted, or a member of the aristocracy, in order to piss on his shoes.
Some say it is an attempt to find a distraction, urinating being a boring business at the best of times.
Or perhaps there are hopes of seeing a pair of flies copulating, anything being more interesting than urinating.
Some men eschew the wall above and the chances of seeing a bit of fly fucking and find their entertainment in directing their flow of urine at the disinfectant block nestling in the bottom of the urinal – an obvious target for the sporty, but not a rewarding experience for the majority of men as most if not all of the entertainment value is nullified by the consequent acrid smell of disinfectant mixed with urine emanating from below.
Therefore the majority of men end up looking at the wall above the urinal.

Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They are priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.

You can write to me at –

Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL

Dear Air 2000

Football Crazy

2^nd February 2007

The other day I saw a variation of the ubiquitous ‘Baby On Board’ stickers that some people find it necessary to have displayed in the rear window of their cars. It read: ‘Small Person On Board’. I thought at first that it meant the car was being driven by a dwarf, and was a variation on the Long Vehicle/Short Vehicle sticker joke, but on looking in the car saw that the small person referred to was a toddler.
Since then, and with time always on my hands, a benefit or curse, depending upon your disposition, that comes with retirement, I have spent quite a bit of time looking at cars to see if I could spot any more ‘Small Person On Board’ stickers. I found several. I also found two or three ‘Cheeky Little Monkey On Board’ stickers. I did not however, as might be expected, all children by no means being little angels, see any ‘Little Twat On Board’ stickers. Nor any “Whingeing Little Git On Board’ stickers.
There is obviously a gap in the market here, and after having a talk with Atkins Down The Road my good friend and I intend to fill it. We are already looking at the economics of bringing out ‘Little Twat On Board’ and “Whingeing Little Git On Board’ stickers, plus a ‘Little Fucking Mardarse On Board’ and we are of the opinion that we should be able to put them on the market for under two pounds.
Suggestions for other obnoxious children stickers are most welcome.

Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They are priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.

You can write to me at –

Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL

Dear Air 2000

Football Crazy

1^st February 2007

Someone stopped to ask me directions the other day and this never happens to me without it reminding me off my Dad, bless him.
After he had retired he used to spend at least an hour a day, when the weather was fine, on the bench at the end of the street on which he lived. This street formed a T junction with the main road into town, about half a mile distant.  Very often lorry drivers, aware that they were about to come into town, would stop, wind down their windows and ask my dad if he knew where such and such a factory or such and such a place was. No matter what the question was, Dad’s reply was always the same. “You’re miles out of your way. Turn round, go back up to the traffic lights, turn left, carry on, turn right again at the White Lion, next on the left and you’re there. If you’ve gone for a mile and you haven’t seen the White Lion you’ve passed it.”
Now I’ve know why of knowing how many times the lorry drivers turned their lorries round looking for the White Hart or how long they spent looking for it, but they could still be looking to this day without finding it because there isn’t a pub called the White Lion on that road. There’s a Red Lion, and, a hundred yards farther on, a White Rose, but no White Lion.
Probably the lorry driver would think that my dad, being old, was probably a bit confused and had meant the Red Lion or the White Rose, and had tried them both. Turning right at the Red Lion would have brought them to a dead end three miles up the road, which would have got them cursing, but not as much as when they had turned right at the White Rose, which would have eventually led them, after about six miles of a gradually narrowing road, eventually becoming a track, to a pig farm.
By the time someone had put the driver right and he again passed the spot where my dad gave them directions my dad would be long gone. According to him, when I once asked him about this, only one driver had found him still sat on the bench when he had passed for the second time. The conversation had gone like this –
DRIVER: I thought you told me that Birch Vale Printworks was back the way I came and right at the White Lion!”
DAD: “Is that Birch Vale with a B?”
DRIVER: “Yes.”
DAD: Oh, I thought you meant Birch Vale with a Z. Birch Vale with a B is straight on. You can’t miss it.”

Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They are priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.

You can write to me at –

Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL

Dear Air 2000

Football Crazy