Category: Razzamatazz

18^th January 2007

Please, sit down,” I said to Martin Kemp as we entered my living room.
“Cheers,” said Martin. He took a seat on our three-seater settee and gave one of the cushions an appreciative pat.
“Can I get you a coffee or something?” I said.
“Coffee would be lovely, thank you.” Then he got to his feet and went to our two-seater settee and plopped himself down on it in an exaggerated manner. “Hmm, very comfy,” he said.
“A biscuit perhaps?” I suggested to my guest. “We have chocolate digestive and Hobnobs.
“Have you got another settee?” said Martin?
“Just the chocolate digestives and HobNobs I’m afraid.
“No, I mean another settee to sit on?”
“Sorry, not down here. There’s the easy chair.” I pointed to the easy chair in the corner. Martin got up, walked over to it, patted the seat to test for springiness, then sat down on it, crossing his legs. He expelled his breath in appreciation. Aah.”
I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and put tea in the teapot. When I returned there was no sign of Martin. “Martin!” I called. “Martin!”
“Up here in the bedroom, on your uncut moquette settee,” Martin called back. “You rather gave the game away when I asked you if you had another settee and you said ‘Not down here.”
“Silly me.”
“Have you any more settees?”
“Only an old one in the garage covered in oil one with the springs sticking out that we threw out years ago.”
I heard his footsteps coming down the stairs and then the front door opening and closing. As soon as he had entered the garage I locked it and sent for the men in white coats.

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
ilable 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

17^th January 2007

I have cost Atkins Down The Road a hundred pounds.
It was last week that he proudly told me about the new Sat Nav system he’d had fitted to his car. He’d drove the car the fifty or so yards from his house to mine so that I could inspect its fine design and desirability for myself, then offered me a ride in his car so that he could demonstrate the wonders of the Sat Nav. I accepted and we got in the car.
“I’ll just tell it where I want to go,” he said, punching in this information on his new toy.
“Where are we going then?” I asked.
“Disley,” he replied, naming a village about a couple of miles away.
“You already know how to get to Disley,” I felt obliged to point out.
He looked at me with the sort of bemused tolerance look that teachers use when dealing with retarded members of their class. “Yes but the Sat Nav doesn’t know that I know does it? I could be a one-legged Latvian banjo player on his first visit to England for all the Sat Nav knows.”
“Then again it might want to take us via Hardnott Pass in the Lake District and a track ending up in a farmer’s field,” I suggested.
“Do I detect a note of jealousy?” said Atkins, meanly.
I ignored the taunt. We set off. We’d travelled only a few yards before a voice said: “In fifty yards take a left turn.”
Atkins smiled at me and nodded towards the Sat Nav box perched atop the car’s dashboard. “Smart eh?”
“It’s a woman,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a woman,” I repeated. “Bloody hell Atkins, you of all people. I mean it’s bad enough having a woman sat at the side of you telling you what to do, now you’ve got another woman in the car telling you what to do.”
The smile left his face faster than shit off a shovel. (Does shit depart a shovel particularly quickly? I’d have thought it would stick to it. I must shit on a shovel one day and put it to the test). “I never realised that,” Atkins said, crestfallen.
Anyway he took the Sat Nav back to shop where he got it from and asked for one with a male voice. They didn’t do them in that model. They had two with male voices in other makes, but they were dearer. Atkins bought the cheaper of them, which was a hundred pounds more than the one he’d bought with the woman’s voice. He told me he would gladly have paid two hundred pounds more. Who wouldn’t

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 

16th January 2007While I was out walking yesterday a van passed me. It was white, my least favourite colour of van. Written on the side of it were the words ‘Sid’s Removals. Anytime, Anywhere’. It had disappeared into the distance before I could get Sid’s telephone number but fortunately it was in the local telephone directory. I phone this morning.

SID: Hello.ME: Sid’s Removals?

SID: Yes.ME: Anytime, Anywhere?

SID: Yes.ME: I want you to take an elephant to the Isle of Man for me.

Silence for several seconds.ME: Hello?

SID: Did you say elephant?ME: Yes. To the Isle of Man. You see I have two private zoos, one here and one in Douglas, and I want to transfer the elephant from one zoo to the other. And there’ll be a sabre-toothed tiger to bring back. So I was wondering if you’d be interested? Only Pickfords won’t do it.

More silence.ME: Hello?

SID: You see I only usually do small house removals and stuff.ME: Well an elephant is nowhere near as big as a small house so there shouldn’t be a problem. Even so Psycho is – don’t worry about his name by the way, I think that’s what put Pickfords off, but he’s nowhere near as violent as he was when we christened him – even so Psycho is a pretty large elephant.

More silence.ME: Hello?

SID: I don’t think I can help you.ME: What?

SID: In this instance.ME: In which instance can you help me get my elephant to the Isle of Man then?

SID: Well not in any instance I suppose.ME: You realise you’re in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act, Section 2, subsection 3B do you?

SID: What?ME: ‘Anytime, Anywhere’. That’s what it says on you van.

SID: Yeh but……ME: And you can save the Vicky Pollard impression. I expect you to accept this commission; failing that the next time I see your van I will expect you to have either painted out the false claim  ‘Anytime, Anywhere’ or added to it the words ‘Except Elephants To The Isle of Man’. Is that understood?

SID: Silence.ME: I said is that understood?

SID: This is a wind up, isn’t it?  ME: Fail to do as I have just instructed you and you will find out if it’s a wind up or not my good man! I put the phone down. In the meantime The Trouble had come in from the kitchen and had been eavesdropping. THE TROUBLE: It’s a pity you’ve nothing better to do.ME: I have. I’ve got two zoos to run, but these people must be put in their place.
Have you seen the stiff brush anywhere, I need it to muck out the llamas?

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

15^th January 2007

Well I did the radio interview on LBC this morning. Thank God it’s out of the way. I’ve done quite a few radio and TV interviews in the past so you might think I’d be used to them by now, but no, I still hate doing them. I like to think I can write a bit but if I have any other talents one of them is not a talent for talking, especially about myself. I don’t know what I sounded like but from my end it seemed about as coherent as John Prescott discussing Homer’s Odyssey while chewing treacle toffee.

personal philosophy of nursing

Aware that I will never be an accomplished broadcaster I had prepared myself. (I’d stuffed sage and onion stuffing up my bottom and rubbed my chest with butter). I’d also asked myself the questions that LBC’s Nick Ferrari might ask me and written down my answers on a piece of paper. In fact he asked me a couple of the questions I had supposed he might but when I answered them it sounded to me like I was reading them off a piece of paper, which is exactly what I was doing, so I dispensed with the paper and decided to ad lib.
“Which are your favourite letters in the book?’ Nick asked. Well I knew the answer to that. I’ve answered it many times before. But my mind went completely blank. I quickly abandoned my ad lib strategy and went back to reading off the list of prepared answers. Where was it now? My finger ran down the list of answers. My opinions on publishers -  they only want to publish books by so called celebrities – ‘My Rabbit by Jade Goody’ or maybe ‘Hoovering the house with Chantelle, titles like that – How I got the idea for the book? – Who designed the cover? – ah, here it is – Which are your favourite letters? “Yes Nick, that would be the Cyprus Airways letters when I pretended that I was very Turkish- looking and was a bit dubious about going on holiday to the Greek part of Cyprus in case the locals took exception to me.
And then the ordeal was over. I just hope it’s sold me a few books. Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They ar e 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 4LLDear Air 2000

Football Crazy