An American Tale

I visited America for the first time recently. I didn’t go to one of he usual holiday haunts such as Florida or New York City but to the northern part of New York State. This used to be Red Indian Country and many of the names of the towns and villages have Indian names; Ithaca, Wanuka, Fukoffpaleface, names like that.
Thanks to my being exposed to American films and TV ever since I was a child nothing came as a surprise to me while I was over there. It was exactly as I had expected it would be. The clothes were loud, the trucks were big, the cars were big, the highways were wide, the people were wide.
I came into contact with many wide people at breakfast every morning at the local diner. I can honestly say without exaggeration that I was always at least ten stones lighter than anyone else breakfasting there.
You could eat as much as you liked for five dollars as long as you didn’t choose anything healthy. One dish was rashers of bacon smothered in honey served on a pile of pancake. You could have it just as it was or with a side order of extra cholesterol.
The waitress I had was brilliant and typical of all the waitresses who served me while I was over there, unlike the harpies who masquerade as waitress in this country. Cheerful, pleasant, efficient, she couldn’t have done more for me. Well she could have let me play with her tits I suppose but she did quite enough to earn the obligatory ten per cent tip you have to pay over there without resorting to that.
The first time I went to the diner I demonstrated my knowledge of U.S. English by ordering eggs sunny side up. The following day, to test the waitress, who I had been assured by an American friend would remember how I liked my eggs, I just ordered eggs.
The waitress said with a flashing smile that showed about fifty brilliant white teeth, “That would be sunny side up sir?”
I smiled showing the ten grey teeth I have left and said, “I think I’ll have them over easy today thank you.”
On the third day I ordered eggs again. She gave me the all-American tooth show again. “Sunny side up or over easy?”
I said. “I think I’ll have them over hard today.”
This threw her completely. Apparently they don’t do eggs over hard in America. Just sunny side up and over easy. I could have explained to her that all the griddle chef had to do was cook my eggs over easy and do them a bit longer but I didn’t want to risk provoking an international incident so I settled for my eggs sunny side up again.
The name of the diner, one of a countrywide chain, was Friendly’s. I believe there’s another chain called Unfriendly’s which is exactly the same as Friendly’s except that when you give them your order they tell you to fuck off, but I didn’t come across one.

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

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Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

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