My Funny Valentine

14th February 2007

Every time Valentine’s Day comes around with it comes messages of undying love from couples so besotted with each other that they seemingly don’t mindcalling their partner, and being called by their partner, the most ludicrous names.
A brief look through the columns of just one of the three pages my newspaper devoted to these missives of love revealed all the usual suspects. Honeypots and Honeybuns abounded, as did Sweetpeas and Cheekychops.
Gladiator, Spartacus and Hercules represented both the historical and film worlds. Popeye, Goofy and Cartman the world of cartoons.

The Animal Kingdom fetched up with a Squirrel Nutkins, seven Tigers, two Piggywiggies, a Lion, a Wilderbeast (sic), a Slimy Slug (sick), a Dobbin, a Mr Toad, the twosome of Mr Leghorn & Broodyboos and an Eager Beaver (although as this was a woman it could of course have referred not to an animal but something else). We also had, unfathomably, a Mr Sock, and a Huggy Buggy, The Perminator (must be a hairdresser), a Tubbyblubbyhubby, and
the inspired pairing of Janey Fatbum & Spanker, which sounds to me like a match made in heaven. I’ll draw a veil over the homosexual fraternity, other than to say that they were well represented, and I thought that the partnership of Jimmy Tightbum and Dyna Rod to be almost as well-matched as that of Janey Fatbum and Spanker.
Why do people call each other names like this? More to the point, how can they call each other names like this? And is it only in the privacy of their own love nests, or do they refer to each other in this manner when they’re out, and in company? ‘So that’s a pint of bitter for me, a gin and tonic for Squidgypots, a pint of lager for Toddy Tiddler, a bacardi breezer for Minxy Moo, a scotch for Bunny Wunny Wabbit and a slimline tonic for Fatarse’. It all reminds me of a sketch I once wrote for my radio series Star Terk Two, in the eighties.

 

A NEWSAGENTS SHOP. DAVE WALKS UP TO THE COUNTER WHERE THE NEWSAGENT IS SERVING.

 

DAVE: Could you put me a Valentine’s message in next week’s Advertiser, please?

 

NEWSAGENT: Of course. What would you like to say?

 

DAVE: ‘To my darling Jenny, lots of love, Dave.

 

NEWSAGENT: (WRITES IT DOWN) ‘To my darling Jennypoos, lots……..

 

DAVE: Jenny.

 

NEWSAGENT: What?

 

DAVE: Just ‘Jenny’, thank you.

 

NEWSAGENT: No ‘poos’?

 

DAVE: No.

 
 

NEWSAGENT: It isn’t any extra.

 

DAVE: I don’t want a ‘poos’, if it’s all the same to you.

 

NEWSAGENT: Right, suit yourself. (HE WRITES IT DOWN) ‘To my darling Jenny, lots of love, Davey Wavey.

 

DAVE: Dave.

 

NEWSAGENT: Dave?

 

DAVE: Yes. And another thing, you don’t spell ‘lots of love’  like that either.

 

NEWSAGENT: You do. (SPELLS IT OUT) L..O..T..Z..A..L..U..V. Lotzaluv.

 

DAVE: Yes well when I went to school it was three separate words, ‘Lots’, ‘of’ and ‘love’. So I’d like it like that, please.

 

NEWSAGENT: Well you’re the one who’s paying for it I suppose. So that’s ‘To my darling Jenny, megasqidgeons of love, Dave.

 

DAVE: ‘Lots’ of love.

 

NEWSAGENTS: ‘Megasquidgeons’ is another way of saying ‘lots’.

 

DAVE: Not on my Valentine’s Day message it isn’t.

 

NEWSAGENT: ‘Oodles of squidgeons of love’?

 

DAVE: ‘Lots of love.’

 

NEWSAGENT: ‘Lots of squidgeons of….?

 

DAVE: Just ‘Lots of love’!

 

NEWSAGENT: Right. ‘To my darling Jenny, lots of love, Dave…. (UNDER HIS BREATH)…ey diddle dum doos.’

 

DAVE: What?

 

NEWSAGENT: (COVERS IT UP WITH HIS HAND) Nothing.

 

DAVE: What have you written down?

 

NEWSAGENT: What you told me to write down.

 

DAVE REMOVES THE NEWSAGENT’S HAND FROM THE PAPER.

 

DAVE: My name is not Davey diddle dum doos!

 

NEWSAGENT: Oh come on, this is a Valentine’s Day message, people always use silly names for Valentine messages.

 

DAVE: Well I don’t.

 

NEWSAGENT: Oh lighten up will you, it’s only a bit of fun.

 

DAVE: No it isn’t, using silly names is stupid and childish, so I’ll just thank you to put ‘To my darling Jenny, lots of love, Dave’, if you don’t mind.

 

NEWSAGENT: Very well then, if you insist. (WRITES IT DOWN) ‘To
my darling Jenny, lots of love, Dave.’

 

DAVE: Thank you.

 

NEWSAGENT: And your full name and address please?

 

DAVE: Mr Dave Droopydrawers, 22…..

 

THE NEWSAGENT BURST OUT LAUGHING.

 

DAVE: Oh get lost!  

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

Published by

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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