Category: Razzamatazz

11^th February 2007

I took the piece of Troika pottery out of the Tesco shopping bag I’d brought it in and passed it over to my favourite Flog It presenter Adam Partridge.
“Ah. Another example of our old friend Troika,” he said.
“Right.”
“Don’t tell me.

You bought it for a few pounds in the seventies while you were on holiday in Cornwall?”
“Right again,” I smiled.
“And now you’ve brought it along to Flog It to cash in on it.”
“Right a third time.”
I wondered what the little vase that I’d paid just four pounds for all those years ago was now worth as Adam expertly gave it the once over. He now looked from the Troika vase to me and said: “It’s worth fuck all.”
No he didn’t. That was me running the worse case scenario through my mind as I sat waiting in the Pavilion Gardens, Buxton, this afternoon. Flog It had come to town and I, along with several other people, had bought along our valuable antiques to be valued, and possibly featured on the show at a later date.
In the early seventies The Trouble and I had a holiday in Cornwall and while we were there we bought three items of Troika, a type of pottery quite inexpensive then, but which has increased greatly in value over the past few years and is now highly sought after. Unfortunately The Trouble broke two of the items in the period between our buying them and us making a fortune with them – she says it was me who broke them, one on a night that I was drunk and one on a night when I wasn’t but acting as though I was, but then she would, wouldn’t she – so we were left with just the one piece, a nice-looking vase about twelve inches high.
In the event I wasn’t lucky enough to get Adam Partridge or another of my favourites, James Lewis – although both were in attendance – I got someone I’d never seen on the programme before, Robert something or other.
“So what have you brought along this afternoon,” said Robert, pleasantly.
I held up the Tesco shopping bag. “This Tesco bag,” I said.
“A Tesco bag?” he said, somewhat bemused.
“Now I suppose you’ll want to know how I came by it, how much I paid for it and how long I’ve had it. Well as far as I can remember I got it at Tesco, I paid exactly nothing for it, would you believe, and I’ve had it for about twelve months. I’ve been using it as a freezer bag to keep out lamb’s liver in.”
“A freezer bag?”
“Yes. It’s in perfect condition though, apart from a bit of staining, no doubt caused by the liver, so I’ve brought it along and I want to flog it.”
Robert looked at me as though I was quite mad. I looked back at him as though I was deadly serious. Then I cracked up. A moment later he joined my laughter.
He said the Troika vase should bring about a hundred and fifty pounds when it’s auctioned off at Matlock in a couple of weeks time. I threw in the Tescos bag  for nothing.

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

9^th February 2007

My eldest grandson has been in trouble with the police. It was a football spectator thing, nothing bad or serious, no one was hurt, it was as much the exuberance of youth as anything.
Part of the dossier the police compiled in bringing a case against him read – ‘He was observed entering a fish and chip shop and five minutes later he was seen leaving carrying a package’. Well there’s a surprise!

canada pharmacy

I don’t know about anyone else but personally I have never yet entered a fish and chip shop without leaving with a package, usually one containing fish and chips, or sometimes steak pudding and chips, often with mushy peas.
I wonder what the Old Bill suspected might be in the package? Semtex? Crack cocaine? Kiddie porn? Or perhaps it was none of these, perhaps it was something far worse …..

POLICEMAN: Oy! Yes, you Sunshine. What’s in that suspicious-looking package?

SUSPECT: This? Well it’s…..

POLICEMAN: Save the lies. Open it up.
THE SUSPECT OPENS THE PACKAGE
POLICEMAN: Just as I expected – fish and chips!
SUSPECT: Well….yes.
POLICEMAN: And just what do you intend doing with this…. fish and chips?
SUSPECT: Well I had thought I might eat them.
POLICEMAN: Eat them? Get rid of the evidence you mean? Yes, I should think you might, given the chance.
SUSPECT: Evidence? What are you talking about. Evidence against what?
POLICEMAN: Carrying a lethal weapon for starters.
SUSPECT: A lethal weapon?
POLICEMAN: Are you trying to deny that that ten inch long piece of battered haddock wouldn’t cause a fatal injury if you were to bring it down on somebody’s head?
SUSPECT: I’m not going to bring it down on somebody’s head.
POLICEMAN: So you say. Get in the car, you’re nicked.

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

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