Happy Birthday?

9th March 2007It is my birthday today. I’m viagra usa sixty nine. I don’t feel a day older than when I was sixty eight an

d three hundred and sixty four days. Well perhaps one day older. And my jokes aren’t getting any funnier.
For my birthday present I received, through the post, an invitation from Stockport NHS Foundation Trust to stay with them a week on Monday, when they will operate on my groin area to repair a rupture. Happy Birthday! I will of course be reporting back on my stay in hospital, that’s if I get back – the hospital I will be attending is Stepping Hill, and the locals don’t call it Step In Ill Step Out Dead for nothing. The ‘helpful pamphlet’ they sent advises me that I will be order my own meals from a large selection. I can’t wait. I’m going to ask for an MRSA sandwich. 
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
  

English Language Test

8th March 2007

In yesterday’s newspaper I read the following – ‘The ability to speak English should be a prerequisite for Asian women wanting to settle in Britain, Leader of the Commons Jack Straw said yesterday’. All I can say to this is that it’s a good job that the ability to be able to speak our mother tongue correctly doesn’t extend to people who already live here.
The entire cast of EastEnders would be deported immediately, I should have fought, what you fink guv? And with them a good half of the population of the rest of London and all Essex.
Ian Wright would be a cert to leave the country, along with out television screens, thank Christ.
Any Geordie who regularly ‘gans yam’ instead of going home would likewise be asked to depart our shores.
Residents of Birmingham with their ‘Do yow cum frum Brum?’ and Liverpudlians with their indecipherable utterances which sound like they are coughing up phlegm with every word would be told to hoppit for some other land, preferably far away, although some would say (not me I hasten to add) that there is an excellent argument that all scousers, regardless of their accent, should be jettisoned from the country for no other reason that they are scousers.
Cornishmen, Devonians, ee bah gum Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians, would have to join them, and as for Scots, especially Glaswegians, they would be the first out along with the Welsh, who might also qualify for deportation twice over for the same reason as scousers.
As far as Asian women having to pass an English test before being allowed into the country is concerned however I think there will be little chance of any of them failing test, not if the tests are as dumbed-down as the GCSE A levels our schoolchildren are now being asked to sit by our excuse for a Government. I wouldn’t mind betting that a typical question will be, multi-choice of course –

Which of the following is correct?
(a) I are going to the corner shop to buy some rice for our evening meal.
(b) I am going to the corner shop to sell some rice for our evening meal.
(c) I am going to the corner shop to buy some rice for our evening meal.
(d) I are going to the corner shop to sell some rice for our evening meal. 
(e) Fuck the rice, we’ll have chips instead.

Underline the correct answer. Best of five attempts to count.

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

Shit Garden Of The Year Two

7th March 2007

Fortunately I’m feeling a lot better today so was able to take in the culmination of Plan B of Shit Garden Of The Year. The plan was put into operation two weeks ago when I phoned the owner of the aforementioned Shit Garden. The call was answered by the title holder’s wife.
“Hello?”
“This is the High Peak Borough Council, Mr Lloyd, Public Affairs and Events speaking,” I lied. “Could I speak to your husband?”
“What for? Only he’s doing his pigeons and he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s doing his pigeons.”
“Well whatever he’s doing to this pigeons, legal or otherwise, I can assure you that it will be worth his while to tear himself away from them for a short while.”
“I’ll see what he says.”
“It will probably be ‘Coo’ “ I said, but I think she’d gone. Half a minute later the man of the house came on the line. “What do you want?” This said in a tone more suspicious than a milk bill.
“Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, is visiting the Borough two weeks hence and she has expressed the desire to visit a typical house within the borough. We held a raffle and your house came out of the hat.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Hello? Are you still there.”
I heard the woman’s voice in the background. “What is it? What’s the matter Gerald?”
“Two fucking princesses are going to visit our house!”
I saw where he had gone wrong and put him right. “No, it’s only one princess. Princess Anne and The Princess Royal are one and the same. And I don’t think she’ll be doing any fucking either, this isn’t Fergie we’re talking about here.”
“No.” A pause, then, “What do we have to do?”
“Not a thing. Her Royal Highness has expressed a wish that you shouldn’t go to any special trouble. I believe it’s usual to offer her a cup of tea. And maybe a cucumber sandwich. ”
“Get a cucumber Deidre.”
“Perhaps she could partake of the refreshment in the garden if the weather is clement?”
“Right, in the garden.”
“Now you’re not to go to any special trouble, Princess Anne wouldn’t like that.”
“No. No special trouble.”
“And keep it to yourself.“
“Right.”
“I’ll confirm the arrangements to you by letter.”
Atkins Down The Road and I went round to the house in question at the appointed hour this afternoon. The garden, of course, was immaculate. The exterior of the house had been cleaned up and newly painted as well. Red, white and blue bunting decorated the façade. It looked a real picture. A small crowd, maybe about a hundred and fifty, many with small union flags, had gathered. The former owner of the Shit Garden of the Year and his wife were waiting, all smiles, at the open doorway, awaiting the arrival of Princess Anne. I don’t know how long they waited for, Atkins and I gave it five minutes then left, happier campers.
 

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
   

 

Good News

6th March 2007

Memories of my camel injuries weren’t the only thing I brought back with me from Lanzarote, as I have been struck down by a virus and order generic viagra have been feeling worse that death warmed up for the past couple of days, in fact death warmed up would be a luxury.
However I have had good news to temper the bad, for while I have been away on holiday a book publisher has emailed me, wishing to know if I am interested in his firm re-publishing my book Dear Air 2000 and publishing its follow up, Dear Coca-Cola. Am I interested? Is a man just released from a ten year jail sentence interested in getting a shag. Is a man dying from thirst in the desert interested in a drink of water? Do bears shit on The Pope?
However, not wishing to appear too eager I waited for two minutes before emailing back that I would be delighted if he were to publish my books. (Dear Air 2000 is at the moment a self-published book. Self-publishing is all very well and it gets you into print for not much money but it is the Devil’s own job to get a self-published book into retail outlets like Waterstone’s and W H Smith, which it of course needs to be to get decent sales and make the whole business worthwhile, if profit is the motive).
The upshot of it is that I am meeting the publisher for lunch in London next Tuesday.  I’ll get the most expensive bottle of wine on the wine list out of him if nothing else. Actually he has already offered me a handsome advance which I am not about to turn down.
Since relating my good fortune to friends and family I have been inundated with well-meaning good advice, particularly in regard to the contract I will eventually have to commit myself to. Apparently most publishers’ contracts can be likened only to minefields when it comes to possible dangers, and always drawn up in such a way as to obtain the greatest reward possible for the publisher and the least possible reward for the writer. In fact one friend warned that contracts can be so biased in favour of the publisher that it is quite possible that the writer ends up paying (I) them. Therefore I will be eyeing any contract offered to me with suitable suspicion. And if anyone out there has any tips on publishing contract negotiations please feel free to pass them on, they would be most appreciated.
Getting back to my friends, they are of course delighted for me. Especially Atkins Down The Road, who sees my success as encouragement to his own literary ambitions, having almost completed his crime/mystery novel Lady Don’t Look Backwards. Actually I’ve read it and the only crime will be if it ever gets published and the only mystery is why Atkins thinks it has any merit, but try telling him that.

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