Category: Razzamatazz

Atkins Down The Road sometimes joins me for my daily walk and last Friday was such a day. During our stroll we noticed at the side of a small cobbled road leading to a cottage a painted wooden sign which read ‘Children! 5 M.P.H.’ I remarked to Atkins that I had never in my life come across a five miles per hour child, all the children I’ve ever seen being quite motionless and gazing at a computer screen or tearing about at a speed in excess of 100 m.p.h. Atkins’ said that his experience in the matter of mobile children was similar to mine and we agreed that we would not rest until we had seen the phenomenon of 5 m.p.h. children. Were they walking? Were they on roller skates? Were they mechanically propelled in some way? We had to know.
We walked down the cobbled road, round the bend, and up to the house. On our way we didn’t see any 5 m.p.h. children, nor indeed any children travelling at any speed at all, so I knocked on the door. A man answered it.
“My friend and I would like to see the 5 m.p.h. children,” I said. “As advertised on your sign.”
He gave me an odd look. “What?”
“Your 5 m.p.h. children,” reiterated Atkins. “We’d like a view of them if it isn’t too much trouble. That’s if you’re open.”
The man looked at us sharply. “Is this a wind-up?” He started looking for TV cameras. He didn’t see any of course but that didn’t do anything to remove his suspicions. “It is, isn’t it,” he said. “It’s a bloody wind-up isn’t it.”
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s just that Atkins here and me have never seen a 5 m.p.h. child and we’d very much like to see one before we die.”
“Which could be imminent in my case,” said Atkins. “With my heart.” 
The man chose not to dwell on Atkins’ medical condition (entirely fictitious) and after bestowing on us a look of long-suffering that would have done credit to Oliver Hardy when Stan Laurel was being at his most frustrating he said: “The sign doesn’t mean that. It means that cars shouldn’t travel at over five miles an hour because I have children. And they might knock them over.”
My eyes widened in enlightenment. “Ah.”
“In that case,” said Atkins, a more pedantic man than I, and thus not as ready to accept the man’s explanation, “Wouldn’t it be better if your sign said ‘Speed limit 5 m.p.h.’ or something like that?”
“How would that be better?” said the man, obviously a person not to be swayed easily.
“Well for one thing it would stop people knocking on your door and asking to see your 5 m.p.h. children,” I said.
I passed the sign again today. It had been altered to read ‘Speed limit 5 m.p.h.

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

I answered the door. I didn’t like the look of the man stood there at all. He was wearing tinted glasses, and I’ve always been suspicious about people who adopt this affectation ever since I saw that planet-saving pop singer what’s-his-name, Bongo, Bonio, or something, wearing them. Plus the man was carrying a briefcase, which almost certainly meant that he would either be trying to sell me something or poke his nose into my business, both of which I can do without.
“Mr Ravenscroft?” he said, in a tone of voice that as well incorporating a question mark also contained a degree of arrogance.
I ignored the question mark and went to work on the arrogance by treating his statement as though it were an announcement. “Well what a coincidence! That’s my name too. We must be related. Tell me, are you one of the Cheshire Ravenscrofts or one of the Scottish branch of the family?”
When confronted by arrogant people it has always been my policy to try to disrupt them right at the outset, to try to get them off the front foot and firmly on the back foot. It appears I succeeded because for a few seconds the man just stood there looking at me open-mouthed. Then he managed to close his mouth and a second later and started forming words. “No. You misunderstand. I’m not Mr Ravenscroft.”
I affected surprise. “Then why did you say you were?”
“I didn’t. I was enquiring if you were Mr Ravenscroft.”
“Ah. I see. So then, now we’ve got that established (and that the arrogance has disappeared from your tone), what can I do for you?”
“It’s about your Electoral Roll form.”
“Yes, what about it?”
He referred to a notebook. “Apparently we’ve sent you three and three times you’ve failed to do the necessary.”
“Wrong. I returned all three of them.”
“Yes but you didn’t fill them in and sign them.”
“That’s right. That’s because neither my wife nor I want a role in the next Election, we’re both quite happy to let the politicians get on with it if it keeps them amused.”
He looked at me as if to say ‘You stupid bastard’. Unfortunately for him he isn’t allowed to call me a stupid bastard, so he said, a leer now on is face and the arrogance returning “The Electoral Roll is nothing to do with you having a role in the Election,  nor your desire to vote or otherwise.”
“Then why is it called the Electoral Roll? Electoral….elector…elections….seems to me it’s everything to do with voting.”
“It is to do with the Local Authority knowing who precisely resides at every address within the boundaries of that Local Authority,” he said, the voice of authority, or maybe the voice of local authority.
“You already know who lives here,” I said. “You printed our names on the Electoral Roll forms under ‘Names of People Living at this Address’.”
“We need you to confirm it.”
“Right, I confirm it. We live here.”
“By signing the Electoral Roll form.”
“Sorry, no can do. I sent them all back. All three of them.”
“I know.” He opened his briefcase and produced a form. He treated me to a supercilious smile. “I’ve brought along another one.”
I took it off him, glanced briefly at it then said: “Yes well it all seems to be in order, I’ll sign it then. Shan’t be a moment I’ll get my pen.”
I closed the door on him, put on a top coat and went out the back door for a walk. I don’t know how long the man waited on the doorstep but he wasn’t there when I returned about an hour later.
He’ll be back again I suppose, and I’ll probably sign next time. Donald Duck, I think. Or maybe Eric Cartman.

There is still time to enter my film title quiz The Last Resort posted on 18^th Feb. The first prize is a copy of my book Dear Air 2000, which makes an ideal Christmas present for people you don’t like.

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

According to the television news this morning fifty per cent of women are said to be unhappy with their bodies. It’s a good job they didn’t ask men because if they had I wouldn’t mind betting that about ninety nine per cent of them would have said they’re unhappy with women’s bodies. I know I am. Because for every woman I see who has a gorgeous figure with magnificent tits that point in front of them, long lovely legs and a pert little bottom, there at least ninety nine who either have enormous pendulous tits that point at the floor or no tits at all, legs like sparrows, or bottoms that droop down lower than a horse’s nosebag, and very often all three.
Leaving aside the fifty per cent of women who are unhappy with their bodies this leaves forty nine per cent who presumably couldn’t give a shit about having vast pendulous tits that point at the floor or no tits at all, legs like sparrows, or bottoms that droop down lower than a horse’s nosebag, and very often all three of them.
Fortunately I am not married to one of them. I am married to a woman who, though one of the fifty per cent of women unhappy with their body, it being sixty six years old for one thing, does give a shit about it. Unfortunately this means that both our bathroom cabinets, one of which is as big as small wardrobe, are filled to overflowing with cosmetic lotions, potions, creams, oils and unguents of a bewildering and never-ending variety. When she eventually pops her clogs Avon will probably go into receivership because they don’t just call at our house they camp out here.
I have to put my sole aids to keeping myself presentable, namely my shaving tackle, toothbrush, hairbrush and deodorant on top of one of the cabinets, where it vies for space, frequently losing it, with even more of The Trouble’s beauty aids. I often wish she’d settle for being one of the forty nine per cent.

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 

I am reading Kirk Douglas’s autobiography ‘The Ragman’s Son’ at the moment, and very good it is too.
I quote from the book –

…I went to Mexico to film ‘The Last Sunset’, a film about incest…The Last Sunset is another example of how a studio operates. Universal insisted on controlling the production. The publicity department sent pages and pages of suggestions for alternative titles for the film, most of them atrocious:

The Magnificent Two
The Majestic Brutes
The Tragic Brutes
Seething Guns
The Fuel and the Fire
Thunderblast
Two to Make Hate
Lion in  My Path
Back Against the Wall
Trigger Talk
Death Is My Middle Name
Appointment with a Dead Sun
A Commotion at Sunset
Shoe the Wild Sea-Mare
Long Day, Short Sunset
All Girls Wear Yellow Dresses
A Primrose from O’Malley
My Gun, My Life!

My favourites from this list are The Majestic Brutes, Back Against the Wall and the quite wonderful Shoe the Wild Sea-Mare. Naturally I started making up more titles myself. The best I came up with – the film is about incest remember – were, ‘A Game the Whole Family Can Play’, ‘Move Over, It’s Only Daddy’ and ‘Fuck Me O’Malley’. I’m sure there must be better titles than this though and I therefore invite further suggestions. The first prize for the best received via my Comments facility by Friday the 23^rd Feb will be a copy of my book Dear Air 2000. The second prize will of course be two copies of my book Dear Air 2000.

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