Ratco's Goes Punk

Phil Garvey's Aunty Maureen said there was a Saturday job if he wanted it. At Ratco's, where his cousin Lisa had been working since she'd left school at 16 a year before.

‘This Saturday?’ said Phil. ‘I’ll be there, Aunty.’

Ratco’s was where Phil’s mum went when she just wanted the odd thing she’d forgotten. A tin of pease pudding for Phil’s dad, something like that. His mum normally went to Nicebury’s, a further ten minutes’ walk away. It was better stocked than Ratco’s and the meat wasn’t as rank.

***

Phil turned up at Ratco’s at 8.25 on the dot. Lisa was outside already, smoking a cigarette.

‘Here he is, my little cousin,’ she said, through a cloud of smoke.

‘I can’t wait to get my hands on those tins of pilchards,’ said Phil.

‘Sarcy,’ said Lisa. 'Ratco’s stock only the best pilchards. Pusscatlyck. They’re bloody gorgeous, Phil.'

Lisa smacked her lips against her fingertips.

‘Well I can’t wait to get my hands on ‘em. Stack ‘em. Price ‘em up.’

Phil wasn’t looking forward to the day. He’d never worked before and he never wanted to work in his life. Yes, he wanted to meet girls but he’d seen Lisa’s friends from Ratco’s and they weren’t his type. They were boring and normal, not intelligent. Phil prided himself on his intelligence. He wanted a girl he could listen to his music with, a prog rocker, not a soppy girl who was into sentimental pop songs. Phil was serious about his music and if a girl couldn’t appreciate Steve Milton’s fretwork she wasn’t the girl for Phil.

‘Lisa!’

‘Who the fuck is that?’ thought Phil. The girl was a punk. She had pink, spiky hair.

‘Watch out, Phil!’

Lisa’s warning was too late. The girl had spat a greenie into his hair. His freshly washed long hair.

‘What the fuck?’ said Phil, pulling at the grollie. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’

The girl who had come out of nowhere gave Phil a withering look.

‘I’m a punk. And you’re a boring old fart,’ she said. ‘A dinosaur. Part of the bloated establishment.’

‘You spat in my hair!’ said Phil.

‘Clever clogs,’ said the girl-punk.

‘This is Belinda,’ said Lisa. ‘She’s new at Ratco’s. Started on Wednesday.’

‘But she’s a punk. Punks are outside of society. Punk bands can’t play their instruments,’ said Phil.

‘I’m still ‘ere, you know,’ said Belinda, lighting a cigarette. ‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’

Phil wiped the mucus onto his handkerchief. It made him retch.

‘Ratco’s wouldn’t let you serve the public. Would they?’ said Phil.

‘Ratco’s are very forward-thinking and with-it,’ said Lisa. ‘It’s their new employment policy.’

‘That’s bollocks,’ said Phil. ‘Lord Reece wouldn’t allow it. He’s an old Tory.’

Lord Reece was the chairman of Ratco's. The firm had been founded by his grandfather.

‘But Lord Reece’s son is in a punk band. You’ve heard of The Knob Cheesers?’ said Lisa.

‘The band that got banned on the radio?’ said Phil.

‘They said the ‘c’ word on the Bill Munday Show,’ said Lisa.

‘Drunk old pervert,’ said Belinda. ‘I bet he wanks off to pictures of punk girls on the King’s Road.’

Two weeks previously The KCs, or Knob Cheesers as they were known by the kids who read the music papers, appeared on the Bill Munday Show along with a few of their girl-punk fans. Munday was obviously drunk and up for an argument. The Knob Cheesers’ guitarist was one Mickey Mucky, a skinny working-class urchin with a penchant for speed and fast chord changes. Phil had seen them on a late-night programme called In The Ear presented by ex-hippy now punk fan, Nigel Goodman. Phil thought they were a noise who had first picked up their instruments only recently.

‘Lord Reece’s son can’t be in The Knob Cheesers,’ said Phil. ‘He’s an accomplished session guitarist. He played on Brian Winsome’s Last of the New Borders.’

‘All I know is what we’ve been told by management,’ said Lisa. ‘Ratco’s has gone punk, a new punk ethos, they said. And it’s all down to Mickey Mucky being Lord Reece’s favourite son.’

‘I can’t believe Simon Reece is Mickey Mucky,’ said Phil.

‘He saw the light,’ said Belinda.

***

The store manager arrived and opened up. He was a 52 year old balding depressed-looking man by the name of Peter Durnley.

‘Hello, girls,' he said, then opened the door and went straight to his office.

‘Am I invisible?’ said Phil to the two others.

‘He’s been very within himself recently,’ said Lisa. ‘He's losing interest. He’s pissed off about the direction Ratco’s is going in. This punk thing is too much for him. Come on. I’ll introduce you.’

Lisa knocked on Peter’s door.

‘Come in!’ said Peter.

Phil followed Lisa in. Peter held his head in his hands, looking down at a ledger half the size of his desk. Behind him was a certificate awarded to Peter as Ratco’s Store Manager of the Year, 1972.

‘This is my cousin, Phil,’ said Lisa.

Peter looked up, looking at Phil with defeated eyes.

‘You’ll have to get your hair cut,’ he said. ‘The new punk ethos ‘n’ all.’

‘Lisa hasn’t cut her hair,’ said Phil.

‘I wear one of these,’ said Lisa, and produced a multi-coloured mohican wig from her bag.

‘Oh, no,’ said Phil. ‘You’re not getting me wearing one of them.’

‘What if I were to say to you your manager wears one,’ said Peter. He produced a mohican wig of his own from his desk drawer.

Peter put the wig on his head. Lisa put hers on her head. Phil was the odd one out in a room of fake punks.

‘What Lord Reece says goes,’ said Peter. ‘You may not like it, I may not like it, but when he gets a bee in his bonnet, it don’t go away.’

‘And then there’s the uniform,’ said Lisa.

‘Not bondage gear?’ said Phil.

‘Lab coats,’ said Peter. He went to a cabinet and took out a coat for Phil. It was a long lab coat, dyed orange with a silver anarchy symbol in the middle of the back.

‘Lord Reece’s design,’ said Peter.

Ratco’s logo was silver on an orange background. It was designed by Lord Reece’s father when the company was re-invented in 1927. Bold colours for a bold, forward-thinking company. Ready for the space age. Phil thought it looked cheap and tacky and these anarchy coats looked like an experiment gone wrong. Why associate a successful retail business with a worldview that there should be no political structure in society? How could Ratco's exist in a world without rules? Lord Reece’s father was eccentric but lucky with his logo. He'd tripled turnover in the year after introducing it. But the current Lord Reece had lost all business sense, surely?

‘What do the customers think?’ said Phil. His mother hadn’t been to Ratco’s for a couple of weeks so wouldn’t have known about the changes.

‘What do you think?’ said Peter. ‘They hate it. They’re nervous of the outfits and the hair. You can see the fear in the eyes of some of these little old ladies. All they read about in the papers is how the youth of today have lost all respect for their elders. And they come in here and instead of getting service with a smile they’re getting bad attitude. Staff spitting in their blue rinses. It doesn’t make my job easy. I’m used to running a tight ship with staff who would bend over backwards for the customers. You know that saying ‘The customer is always right’? Lord Reece has us thinking the customer is a 'boring old fart'. A 'dinosaur'. There is 'no future'. What kind of a message are we sending out? How do we expect to hold onto our customers? We used to be a respected part of the community, somewhere where local people could buy cheap products and not feel guilty for their lack of status. Now we treat people like scum.’

‘Wow,’ thought Phil. This was the manager talking, the man who was supposed to instil a sense of discipline into his staff. What had he walked into? Surely Lisa would have told his Aunty Maureen what was going on. But she never mentioned the punk thing to his mother at all.

‘It’s time I opened up,’ said Peter. ‘Uniforms on, everyone.’

Peter walked out of his office and headed for the front door. Phil and Lisa put on their lab coats and mohicans.

‘I suppose we’re lucky really,’ said Lisa.

‘Lucky?’ said Phil.

‘Lord Reece is anti-drugs. Just imagine if we had to take something, too. Though it might make the day go quicker.’

‘Christ, what have I let myself in for?’ thought Phil.

The Crown Jools

"ATTENTION!"


Jools Holland is the new face of The Brennan JB7, the "revolutionary CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs" or "computer" as the technology-minded amongst us might say.

The advert in today's Guardian is as much a promotion for the talents of Mr Holland as it is for this revolutionary piece of kit.

"Jools Holland is a pianist, bandleader, composer, singer, television host, founder of Squeeze and the multi-million selling Rhythm and Blues Orchestra," we are informed.

As the advert is aimed at old people like me who don't understand that you can load your CDs onto your PC or Mac, I am grateful to now be aware of Mr Holland's talents so that I can now go out and buy all the CDs he has played on, sung on and composed for, load them onto my new Brennan JB7 and then throw them away.

Take All That (2)

SHARON: I don’t know what this world’s coming to. That furniture shop in Croydon. Those poor people. How are they going to rebuild their lives? That’s their livelihood gone up in flames. And the flames! The firemen didn’t have a chance of putting it out. Carly’s man’s a fireman. Gorgeous brown eyes. Lucky he don’t work in Croydon. Wouldn’t have wanted to be Carly watching that on telly, worried about her man.

DANNY: What Crouchy did was amazing. That’s how to act when you’re a star. I couldn’t believe it when he went for that haircut. Only a small shop ‘n’ all. Bet he had to crouch down to get in it, heh, heh. Then I bet the barber had to lower the chair, Crouchy being so tall. That’s what’s called giving something back to the community. I don’t know where he’s from, Crouchy, but he’s earned himself a place in the heart of every decent person in this country by his magnificent gesture. Imagine someone that big in the world going into a riot area and saying ‘I am one of you’! I’d like to think I’d do the same if ever I was to reach that height of fame. Give something back to the community. Say ‘I am still part of you, I will always be that little boy that grew up in a working class area amongst people that are the salt of the earth.’ They still are, most of ‘em. It’s only a minority who cause trouble. It’s the gangs ‘n’ that, gang culture. These young’uns aren’t like the gangs we used to have, your Krays and your Richardsons. Now they were real community-minded people, looked after their own, loved their mums. How can you love your mum if you go stealing from your own manor? Some of the mums were shopping their own kids, knowing they’d got to learn what’s right from what’s wrong. And then there’s that poor mum who’s getting kicked out of her home because of the actions of her stupid son. Where is the thought there? What was that idiot thinking? Didn’t he realise what he could be jeopardising? Bloody madness. It’s the lack of a father figure, that’s what it is. You ask any single mother what they really need and it’s a strong man in their life. Someone the boy knows to look up to. If I was a dad I’d be there for my family. Ok, I may actually be a dad, probable since I’ve knocked off more birds than Russell Brand. But if I decided to have kids, that’d be it for me. That would be a binding contract for life between me, the kids and the kids’ mother. I’m sorry but that’s the way I see it, black and white.

Dave's Wake-Up Call

Cameron this morning:-

"Do we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse(1) that has taken place in parts of our country(2) these past few generations(3)?

Irresponsibility, selfishness, behaving as if your choices have no consequences, children without fathers, schools without discipline, reward without effort, crime without punishment, rights without responsibilities, communities without control.(4)"

1. Sorry, Dave. Can't visualise a moral collapse. Unless it's like this.

2. Oh, the poorer areas. I see.

3. The Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron years?

4. These are just in "parts of our country"? Or everywhere? Are you saying we get away with too much? We have money and things we don't deserve? We couldn't give a shit about anybody else? We're looking after number one? We dismiss the idea of society? How on earth could this have happened, Dave? Please, can you explain how?

Take All That (1)

DANNY: I’m Robbie Williams. I’m not really Robbie Williams. I just sound like him. I know I don’t sound like him when I talk but when I sing you can’t tell the difference. I’m in a Take That tribute band. We’re called Take All That. Brian, he’s Gary Barlow. Darren, he’s Orange. Lee, he’s Little Mark. And Ian, he’s the other one. I’ve been a big Robbie Williams man on the circuit for a few years now. I’ve done loads of work in the area being Robbie Williams. I was very popular at karaokes. They came to see me, the four lads, one night down at the King’s Head. I was really getting into being Robbie, and it was Brian, come up to me, and said ‘Here, we’ve got a Take That tribute act, and now Robbie Williams has rejoined Take That, we think you’ll be ideal fronting us with all your songs.’ I was a bit suspicious at first. But the lads invited me along to a rehearsal a couple of days later at the local church hall. I must say I was very impressed by the set-up. They were very professional. Being no spring chickens themselves they weren’t throwing themselves around onstage like the early Take That but were more sophisticated and mature and I knew straight away I was going to fit in with them. It didn’t harm things that we’re all good-looking chaps, if I say so myself.

SHARON: I love Take That. I didn’t get to see them at Wembley but seeing Take All That was the next best thing. Lee is beautiful, same shape as Little Mark, but with lovely twinkling blue eyes. I wouldn’t say ‘no’ though I usually go for taller men. I haven’t had a boyfriend under 6 foot except when I was 15 and going out with Gary the footballer who had a trial for Charlton. But Lee, I’d make an exception for Lee. He looks at you as if you’re the only woman in the room, his eyes burn right through you. Look, he signed this picture of his eyes. Aren’t they gorgeous?

DEAN: I saw Take All That in some cunting corporate do organised by the pricks at work. It was horrendous. I mean, you couldn’t pay me to even go and see the original Take That as they are shit, obviously. Hormonal women’s music. But this, this was an abomination. A total and utter z-list load of bollocks. I spent the whole night at the bar, drink after drink, drowning my sorrows, watching all those women waving their fucking arms, singing along with those talentless bellends.

DANNY: We got on like a house on fire and I was soon gigging with them, driving the women wild. I tell you what, being on board with these lads has certainly perked up the old pecker. I used to get lucky about once a month as solo Robbie but it’s every night with these boys. It’s funny how Brian gets the best-looking birds as Gary’s the least sexually attractive member of Take That. But Brian’s got a lovely voice and he’s not as boss-eyed as Gary. But he can do the eyes if requested. It’s a gift he’s got.

SHARON: I had my feet done today at the precinct. We’ve thought about it for some time, Carly and me. We’d just had a coffee at Starbuck’s and thought sod it, why not? You only live once. So we got up there on those seats and plonked our feet into the tanks. God, those little fish were onto us quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. It’s, I dunno, it’s not ticklish like you’d think it would be. They don’t make you laugh. But it is pleasant being nibbled. One of the little buggers was going at it hammer and tongs as though he hadn’t eaten in a week. That was a bit disturbing as I’m sure I saw a glint in his eye. I could imagine him turning into a piranha and actually start eating the flesh. I must admit I did start to panic for a while but Carly saw the change in me and held my hand and calmed me down. Carly knows how to calm me down when I’m having one of my turns.

DEAN: Those little shits should be strung up. And their parents, some of those kids were almost children. It’s the something for nothing generation. Think they can have everything given to them on a plate. When we were young we made do. My parents and grandparents were poor but you never saw them rioting. If my dad, when he was young, had done anything against the law, my grandad would have come down on him like a ton of bricks. You just didn’t. You don’t piss on your own doorstep. You don’t piss on anybody’s doorstep but if you have to piss on a doorstep you don’t piss on your own doorstep. They’re different nowadays. Living on hand-outs, hard-working people paying so they can laze around all day then have the effrontery to nick tellies and trainers us hard-working people work bloody hard to buy. If you want nice things you should earn the money to pay for them and you can only earn the money to pay for them by getting a job. Why don’t they get off their lazy backsides and get a job? It makes me sick that our brave boys are out there in Afghanistan getting blown up while these scumbags take our taxes and slouch around all day then play the big hard man by burning down a pub or a furniture shop. If you think you’re so hard, why don’t you take your hard attitude to Afghanistan and fight the Taliban like real men do. That’s a real man. They should have set the water cannons on them. Set the water cannons on them then thrown the book at them then locked them up and thrown away the key.

Aimless (3)

We found our dream house. A three bedroom semi. Large garden for me to run around in. 1966, a year of affordable housing for an ordinary single-income working family.

I started school again. Even though it was a small school I was uncomfortable being with all those children. But the teachers were nice.

The alphabet was drilled into us. The times table was, too. We started to read about those lovely children, Peter and Jane. Peter and Jane loved each other like only brothers and sisters can. I wonder where they are now? Do they still keep in touch?

The Peter and Jane books were published by Ladybird. A different Ladybird made children's clothes. That really fucked my mind, man.

I was co-erced into playing with the girl next door as my mum and hers watched on.

Eventually I made some real friends. Or, rather, they made friends with me. The twins were nine months younger than me and in the class below. They were cousins of my second cousins so I guess that's how we ended up together. I was a spoilt only-child and had modern toys which they liked to play with, boisterously.

I was already a West Ham fan as West Ham had won the World Cup for England. Bobby Moore was my favourite player as he was blond, handsome and he was the world's best player. My choice of football team wasn't based on geography or tradition. My dad had been a Charlton supporter, the nearest club to Bexley. I was a glory hunter, just like those Surrey Reds. All I could see in front of my eyes was a future of trophies and winning heroes, crying with joy. A lifetime of success.

In my second year of school, my mum fell pregnant. School had already obliterated our previous suffocatingly comfortable relationship and here was someone else to make us that little bit more independent of each other. My sister arrived in November 1968 and from reports of the time you'd think I was absolutely besotted with the girl. Of course I loved her straight away but I didn't have then nor have I since had a paternal bone in my body. She was my sister, not my daughter, right? It didn't mean I would love other babies or ache for Tiny Tears dolls to bounce on my knee. It just wasn't in me. Yes, I might have looked like a natural father at six years old but that was just me being a natural older brother.

Though I had the twins outside of school, breaking my toys, in school I made friends one at a time, just as my dad had. There was a boy with the surname King. My dad said I should never trust anyone with the surname King. Were these my dad's republican tendencies coming to the fore? He was right, though, the King boy was not to be trusted. But not because he was called King, Dad.

Thankfully I was never bullied by any of the boys. No, not me. I was bullied by one of the girls! She gave me a Chinese burn! I told my mum, showed her my wrist and one afternoon by the school gates my mum got hold of her and shook the living daylights out of her. She wouldn't touch me again.

Apart from that incident I didn't have any dealings with the girls. I didn't play kiss chase like some of those young studs.

In the year of the clackers we crowded into the shelter out of the rain at playtime and made a cacophonous noise. Knuckles were hurt and eyes were dislodged. I was very nervous of clackers as anybody in their right mind would be. But I didn't want to show it. I closed my eyes and clacked for England. Then England banned clackers and parents and kids like me breathed a sigh of relief.

More hand pain came with the conker season. Clackers were out but conkers remained as part of the playtime curriculum. I went to the park with the twins and we'd throw branches up at the massive horse chestnut trees, bringing down conkers in their thousands. Conkers were either put in the freezer section of the fridge along with the ice pops or pickled in large jars alongside the onions. You had to prepare your conker for battle or you'd be at a disadvantage.

My literary life was gathering pace, too. I soon grew out of Peter and Jane and moved onto comics. None of those namby pamby children's books for me. I read Whizzer & Chips from cover to cover but never considered myself a Whizz-kid or a Chip-ite. I was my own man.

I read other comics, too. But never the super-hero type or that prat Roy of the Rovers. Mine were more down-to-earth, prototype Viz comics. My favourite character was a boy who played football in his unwashed bare feet. You'd see the skinny white urchin in the bath, his feet on the rim, nice and dirty.

We listened to Peter and the Wolf at school which was meant to scare us and Sparky's Magic Piano which actually did. We went on visits to the Commonwealth Institute to see how the rest of our monarch's people lived and we went to the swimming baths once a week. I was scared of the water but luckily I had verrucas which kept me out of it. I watched from the gallery. On every coach trip we took I seem to remember eating my mum's cheese and piccalilli sandwiches. The sickliness of coach travel and piccalilli complemented each other perfectly.

We rehearsed for the school concert. The word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was painted onto sheets of paper and hung up round the school hall. I didn't want to play the recorder. I fancied the Indian bells which I was given to tinkle every now and then. Why on earth would I not want to play the recorder? The recorder kick-started many a musical career. Satchmo himself started with this fine instrument before moving onto the trumpet.

In my last year of primary school I was given the responsibility of captaining the school football team, presumably to make me a bit more assertive, a leader of men. I never really enjoyed playing in organised matches the way I did in kickabouts. Kickabouts were more random, you got more involved, exciting things happened like running girls being felled by wayward shots. Silly girls shouldn't have been running, should have kept to their skipping.

In one match the cleverest boy in the school ran after a ball and ran straight into the air-raid shelter's iron bar. God knows why the air-raid shelter was still there, somthing to do with the cold war, maybe. So the boy's head was split open and there was blood everywhere. It didn't seem to do him any harm though, quite the opposite as he seemed to become super-intelligent after this incident.

I had no interest in playing games other than football. What's The Time, Mr Wolf? was fucking stupid. Kiss Chase was for the girls.

I remember just one fight from my primary school. And the fight was over music. Kid A thought Gary Glitter was the greatest artist who ever existed. Kid B thought that that accolade went to Marc Bolan. I was not fussed at the time and I'm not fussed now. There's room for all tastes in music listeners' worlds.

The build-up was more exciting than the fight itself. The argument and the anticipation had been ongoing for some time, at least a week, and a time and a place were agreed. The time: dinner time. The place: the playground. Children crowded around the two protagonists and a high-pitched chant chilled the air.

"Bundle! Bundle!"

The fighters went for each other.

Of course it was over in seconds as a playground attendant or "dinner lady" as we used to call any woman other than the teachers broke it up with little fuss. There was no blood, no black eyes. It was not conclusive who was the greater artist. Bolan went to his grave not knowing.

15 Movie Questions

Taking the baton from Tim, Annie and Rol, here are my choices. Feel free to do your own!

1. Movie you love with a passion.

Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.


2. Movie you vow to never watch.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or any of that new American indie bollocks.


3. Movie that literally left you speechless.

The Vanishing (1988). Speechless and breathless.


4. Movie you always recommend.

Atlantic City.


5. Actor/actress you always watch, no matter how crappy the movie.

Bette Davis.


6. Actor/actress you don’t get the appeal for.

Audrey Hepburn.


7. Actor/actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet.

Groucho Marx, though I'd be shit scared.


8. Sexiest actor/actress you’ve seen. (Picture required!)

Irene Jacob.



9. Dream cast.

The Once Upon a Time in America cast.


10. Favorite actor pairing.

Was going to say Michael Redgrave and dummy in Dead of Night but one of them isn't made of flesh and blood. So, Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City.


11. Favorite movie setting.

12. Favorite decade for movies.

1940s.


13. Chick flick or action movie?

A specific action movie: Clouzot's The Wages of Fear.


14. Hero, villain or anti-hero?

Anti-hero.


15. Black and white or color?

Colour. Especially the brilliant colours of the Powell/Pressburger films in the 40s.

Non-Stop Noel

"What's this shit?" said Maud to Kate,
"Deal or No Deal. See that state?"
"Fucking hell, how old is she?"
"Younger than both you and me."
"Greed for money puts on years."
"Look at those two sad old dears."
"Can't they put on BBC?"
"They'd have to pay the license fee."
"So all we get is non-stop Noel?"
"It's not like being on the dole,
They can watch all kinds of shite,
They've all got fucking satellites."
"You're telling me that this is it,
Noel Edmonds, Smarmy Git?"
"He may look like a fucking gnome,
But he owns this fucking shitting home."

Life on the Dole - A Part-Fantasy

Well, Geoff. How are you getting on on the old king cole?

Well, it's been six weeks now. I am dutifully applying for at least six jobs a fortnight as the Job Centre Plus demands, whether I want them or not. I don't want any of them but I don't want some more than I don't want others.

No fucker gets back to you. I say no fucker but actually one fucker did get back to me and I went for an interview yesterday.

The life was sucked out of the room. I was told the shit parts of the job which were many, I was told they had between 600 and 1,000 clients and I was thinking there's a fucking big difference between 600 and 1,000. I would be spending a lot of my time chasing up these clients to get their paperwork in on time then I would spend a lot of my time contacting clients to try to get them to take their paperwork back.

So I decided against this job and trotted along to the Job Centre Plus in the afternoon for my third fortnightly appointment.

"Since you haven't got any accountancy qualifications, what about this job?" said the woman seeing to me.

I said, that's in Orpington, a town an hour away by bus, an hour away by train, it would take me an hour and a half to get to work.

She said I was obliged to travel up to an hour and a half to work. Orpington was OK.

I said it was a 40 hour week for £7 an hour.

She said I was obliged to work a maximum of 40 hours for a minimum of the minimum wage, £5.93 per hour. She said the object was to get the jobseeker off jobseeker's allowance and into a job. She said if I'm low-paid I may be able to get other benefits.

I said you're only giving me £68 per week for 26 weeks. I've paid tax and national insurance for the past 29 years. I said I'm doing this so I get my full pension.

She said have you checked how much pension you'll be getting? Go onto the internet, type in "Google" and type in "pension forecast".

I said can you write that down because I don't think I'll be able to remember that. Do I have to turn on the computer first?

She said yes, maybe you could go on an IT course. A lot of our older customers have trouble with computers, how to turn them on, how to turn them off, etc.

I said that would be good because though I've got a computer at home I haven't got any qualifications in using a computer and a course showing me how to use a computer would be very useful especially since I bought it seven years ago and still haven't worked out how to turn the fucking thing on. And I have spent the past 29 years in accountancy blagging my way as I don't know the first thing about it so maybe I can go on a course to, I don't know, I don't know what's done nowadays with all these new fangled machines, did you know when I was made redundant some cunt nicked my favourite abacus?

"So what about we go for this job in Orpington?" she said.

Aimless (2)

I apologise if you were reading this blog a couple of years ago when a lot of the next few sections of the story were told. But this is the new, improved version!

Also, I am putting my podcasts on a new blog, latest one here.

Anyway, enough of that. The story continues...

My mum and dad met at the Embassy Court in Welling. This was the local place to see and dance to the bands of the day. This was my dad’s music, The Ted Heath Orchestra, big band shit like that. My mum was a big Sinatra fan.

My dad and his friend would stand at the front, close to the band, their necks jerking back and forth like pigeons’ necks, in time to the music. The equivalent of our later headbanging except there were plenty of women around in the dance halls of the day to admire their smart head moves and smarter Tony Curtis haircuts.

My dad was still doing National Service, in the Air Force, when my mum and dad got married. They lived for five years in my dad's parents' home. No room to swing a cat but it was the only way they could save up enough money to get a deposit on a house. In the end, my dad was lent most of the deposit by a man whose gardening he did. They were on the housing ladder and moved to Welling.

When she was pregnant with me, my mum worked at the Atomic Energy. Her best friend at the Atomic was carrying at the same time. A girl. We were the children of the future.

I was born in the cold December of 1961. A Wednesday's woeful child, full of tears.

I've still got the mark where they put the needle in. Antibiotics straight into my chubby little leg.

The first thing I can recall is riding my tricycle, legs pumping away like manic sausages, heading along the pavement to greet my dad as he came home from work, a packet of Murraymints for me in his jacket pocket.

I don't remember our dog. Dino was named after the Flintstones' pet dinosaur and his favourite meal of the day was a packet of my mum's cigarettes. The cigarettes were essentials. The dog wasn’t. The dog had to go.

Dino went to a good home and I was allowed my own space. I soon learned to play alone, happy in the company of Baby and Daddy Mugger, my two pandas. My mum often brings up Baby Mugger, even today. Baby Mugger was the child I never had.

My mum and dad were very close to their respective sisters and parents so there was quite a bit of visiting. I didn't enjoy the company of people outside my immediate family. They were friendly and they gave me nice things to eat and drink but I would rather have been home with Baby and Daddy Mugger and my toy cars. I loved the shapes and colours and feel of the cars and they would tootle along at a nice slow pace under my gentle guidance. I had no truck with those boys who hurtled their cars along as if they were machines of destruction. Those crashing, smashing little bastards were all around but not destroying my toys. Not yet.

When I was four my dad got a job as an engraver on the south coast and we upped sticks for Christchurch.

I loved Christchurch. My dad went to work and I had nobody but my mum for company. We'd go out for walks to the shops, get the bus to the seaside. My white body went brown in the sun and I felt more comfortable exposing the upper half of my body than I have since. I had a Batman outfit in which I ran down Bournemouth High Street, oblivious to the crowds.

My dad loved it there, too. He enjoyed the job and was settled in the house and town.
But my mum hated it. She wasn't making friends. She missed her parents and sisters. As entertaining as I was, I was not adult company. I wasn't due to go to school for over a year so there were no young mothers for my mum to chat to. She was lonely.

Two incidents stick out in my mind from then. I was scared shitless by the steam and whistle of a steam train going under a bridge we were standing on. And I was scared shitless when I was left alone in the house with my cousin one day. She got it into her head that there was an intruder in the house. Silly girl.

Despite those couple of frights I remember it as year of comfort and security. With my mum I was safe, happy playing by myself in the living room, listening to the sounds of food being prepared, rooms being vacuumed and the quiet druggy sound of the radio.

I had no friends and I couldn't have been happier. But my mum was going mad with loneliness. So we moved back home.

We weren't able to get our own place straight away. We spent the next several months at my dad's parents' council house. Yes, back there again for my parents. Even more crowded now and not good for anybody's nerves, especially since my parents had now had a taste of independence.

I went to the chip shop on a Saturday with my dad, watched the wrestling and checked the pools with my grandad. But my happy days with my mum, just the two of us, were gone. I remember being ill most of the time, lying in bed, afraid of the wallpaper.

Shapes moved. They became three-dimensional. They throbbed, heaved, backwards and forwards, side to side, span and spiralled.

I started school, a tiny school around the corner. I immediately contracted measles.

The wallpaper had a field day and the bastard measles perforated my eardrum. As my mum and dad argued, my grandparents argued, the one unifying force was the sick, weak child in the box bedroom. Come on, Dad. Hurry up and get a deposit on that dream house!

Staycation

As part of an all-out assault on your patience I have decided to produce some podcasts perfectly unsuitable for BBC Radio. I was going to do videos but couldn't bear to look at myself. It's bad enough having to listen to my own voice!

Don't worry, I haven't given up on the memoirs. The next installment will be along soon. Anyway, turn the lights down low, close your eyes and prepare for the sexiest voice on the internet.

Aimless (1)

My mum was born in 1931, in Cornwall. My grandad had his own coffin-making business. My nan was a housewife.

My grandad had been in the Great War. He’d been gassed in the trenches. He never talked about it.

My mum had an older brother and two younger sisters. Her brother used to catch rabbits and keep ferrets on his person, under his clothes. All four children were given 'opening' medicine by my nan. They’d get caught short in the fields and have to use dock leaves to wipe their arses.

My nan didn't think much of life. Her most common saying was ‘Life is hell on earth'. As her family were always pretty well-off in the scheme of things, there must have been a depressive streak running through her. She was certainly not one to think of the deprivations of others less fortunate living lives that could truly be called 'hell'.

During the Second World War, my grandad joined the army but was discharged quite quickly. They didn't want old'uns like him. He moved to Welling in south-east London where he lodged and worked locally as a clerk of works.

My mum, meanwhile, was living the idyllic Cornish life, far away from the action. I have an image of my mum running on Marazion beach as a German bomber flies overhead. Jerry looks down and waves.

My dad was born in Bexley in 1932. Born in the same council house he grew up in, the one his mum eventually died in. My dad’s dad was a labourer for the council. He could have been a footballer. Arsenal wanted him but he chose the security of a steady council job.

My dad used to say my grandad was as fast as a whippet and, being small, would run with the ball between big centre halves’ legs. Centre halves were giants back then.

My dad’s mum, like my mum’s, was a housewife. She was more cheerful than my mum’s mum.

My dad’s childhood was idyllic, too. He loved the countryside. A teacher once addressed him in front of the class and said he knew that all my dad wanted was to be in a field, alone, miles from anyone and anywhere.

My dad was evacuated to Derbyshire during the war. Bexley was close enough to London to be bombed. My dad loved Derbyshire. I never knew a place with beautiful countryside that my dad went to that he didn’t love, that he didn’t want to move to.

The war ended and my mum’s dad sold his coffin-making business in Cornwall and bought the house he was staying in, in Welling. The family moved from Cornwall for good. My grandparents knew there was nothing in Cornwall for young women. My mum would have had to marry a farmer, muck out for the rest of her life. The girls wanted more than that. They wanted work, glamour, lights and life. Life, not the slow death of the countryside. Not the sort of place my dad dreamt of.

Preface to 'Aimless'

You know what? I've done over 16,000 words now but I'm missing getting a response from you lot. Writing is a lonely business when you're just writing for yourself. I like to communicate. Oh, how I miss work and its cut and thrust. How I wish I were there now, stressed up to the eyeballs, listening to bullshit.

So I'm going to serialise my life story on here. Right from the very beginning. I hope you'll have the patience to see it through and not desert me as the going gets tough. When I've finished I'll probably self-publish it, something to show the nurse in the old people's home. She or he will say, 'Geoff. At least nobody can say you didn't live a life. Of sorts. No, really, it's very interesting. Honest, it is.'

My Life Story - Excerpt

MJ kindly requested an excerpt from my ongoing autobiography which I am currently doing instead of getting off my arse and finding a job like the benefit scrounger I am. So here is a bit I wrote yesterday, a taster for the best-seller it is sure to be, giving a glimpse of the tragedy to come which would divide our happy nuclear family forever, oh spare me the violins!

80s pop was beginning to break out of its gloomy shell and bright young things were getting more and more outlandishly dressed and fresh-faced. At about the same time in the NME there were articles on two new bands, ABC and Haircut 100. I thought ABC’s cycling outfits were ridiculous and the Haircuts had nice jumpers and sensibly high-slung guitars and were more becoming of the modern pop star. Michael was of the opposite opinion. So I chose Haircut 100 as my prediction to be the next big thing and he chose ABC. This was before either of us had heard a note of their music.

If we’d been kids, ten years younger and more boisterous, maybe we’d have had a fight to decide it like the Gary Glitter boy and the Marc Bolan boy. But we didn’t even have a bet as we knew pop music was to be enjoyed, not to get into arguments about. I have never judged someone by their musical tastes, maybe some light teasing about Cliff Richard or Wet Wet Wet, but as with your football team, I don’t mind who you support as long as you don’t force me to experience them.

So who won between the two bands? ABC were the more popular, I’d say, and made more money. But Martin Fry is still doing those chicken-in-a-basket 80s nostalgia tours whereas Nick Heyward is known as one of the greatest thinkers of his generation and is always being asked for quotes on a whole myriad of subjects.

I was totally bored with my course by now. I’d chosen the wrong subject for the second year in Econometrics with its particularly pointless equations. But I was still there, hanging on, not wanting a job. I needed something to tip me over the edge and make me give up.

It was the day I bought the 12 inch single of ABC’s Poison Arrow. I’d cycled to Cloud 9, all the way to heaven, and back and played it and added it to my growing collection of pretentious early 80s 12 inchers. It was a Saturday evening. I’d had my chips and was settled down in front of Match of the Day. My mum and sister were in bed and me and my dad were watching the football, him shouting out the usual ‘It’s “one-all”, not “one-one!”’ at the blasphemous commentators and ‘Don’t tickle it, it won’t laugh!’ at the hapless “fanny” players. My dad was quite sober that night. A usual night would involve me leaving him downstairs at 11 p.m. so he could eat his one meal of the day in peace, his boiled hearts or kidneys or other muck straight out of the saucepan he’d cooked them in. I’d wake up a couple of hours later to the sound of the television’s high pitched tone, I’d come downstairs, see the red dot in the middle of the screen and turn off the TV. He’d be slumped in his armchair, mouth open, snoring like a good’un and I’d shake him awake with difficulty and coax him to go to bed. Once I came downstairs after being woken up by the TV and found him drowsily pissing into the kitchen sink. When I told him he was disgusting he said his dad used to regularly spit in the sink and spitting in the sink was much more unhygienic than pissing in the sink. I begged to differ but I wasn’t going to make a scene.

His pissing wasn’t confined to the toilet and the sink, however. Once he had a slash out of the bedroom window and woke my mum up. I don’t know if he told her that his dad used to spit out of the bedroom window and pissing out of it was more hygienic, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

So, there we were, father and son watching the football, a happy picture of family male bonding. And the phone rang. He got up so quickly I guessed he had been expecting the call. And he was sober. I heard the mufflings of a short conversation coming from the hallway and he came back in and told me he had to go out.

My Life Story

It doesn't get much cooler than this



This is the life. I am spending my days lazing around and writing my life story. It's a dull life I've had but why would anyone want to read about an exciting life? They'd only get jealous.

I've done 10,000 words so far and I've got to my mid-teens. So 30,000 words to go and 35 years. Can I write that much? I'm going to need an awful lot of padding, going off on tangents, making up lots of dialogue. But now I've got a bit of time to myself I actually believe I can do it.

And where I used to think whatever I'd written in the past had been the finished product, I know this is only the first draft, to be played around with, fiddled with until I've got something to show the world.

Of course next week I'll probably be rolling on the floor in despair.

The Power Of Positive Thinking

So there we have it. 25 years in the same office, many happy years, though recently unhappy, I've been luckier than most.

25 years ago we had six full-time staff in our department. Now, we get a lot more work done with one full-timer and two part-timers. From next week, apparently, optimistically, that full-timer will be replaced by a part-timer. And that's me gone.

Computerisation is great. I wouldn't be able to do this without it, find new friends and show off in front of them. But it's replaced so many jobs over the years. Good, honest hard work is out and creativity is in. I don't mean traditional creativity like making music or art or literature, a much more modern kind of creativity, a knowing look, a bright spark in the eye, a brain trained in business becomes a brain that is so open to so many opportunities it can hardly contain itself within the brittle skull surrounding it. Why don't we do it this way? Have you thought of doing it this way? What about this, what about this, what about this? So many creative ideas flooding from the business brain, spreading over the boardroom table it's difficult to keep them apart. But do you want to? Maybe the ideas all interlink and organically grow into one big idea and we can see the big picture and we look up to the sky and look and look and realise just what a gigantic wonderful world this is and we're so lucky to be a part of it especially in this day and age when creative people are at the hub of a future that can only be sunshine and flowers and positive thinking is going to make it that way and this PowerPoint presentation is going to prove it, you bet it will.

Here Comes The Summer

Now I've got some time at home, thinking what I want from a holiday, a nice walk by the sea and, er, whatever else people do on holidays, so I go to the travel agents and say I want to go somewhere where you can have a nice walk by the sea, thinking somewhere with a long prom like Brighton. She says she likes Puerto Pollensa in Majorca, yes it's very nice there, or maybe Benalmadena on the Costa Del Sol from where you can walk by the sea all the way to Torremolinos if you so wish and I'm thinking do I really want to walk by the sea seven days in a row and I'm thinking, no, I don't really.

And I've seen my fill of cathedrals and ruins and mounds and ancient drawings and mosaics and fuck me, do I really want to go to a monastery at my time of life and I don't really want to taste alcohol I want to guzzle it down with gusto.

But I do want to walk by the sea and I will, on a nice day, get the train to Brighton and walk along the prom to Hove, turn around and walk back again and get the train back home in time to have something nice to eat and to guzzle down some alcohol and watch the bleeding telly cos that's what I like to do, OK?

Climbing Up on Hampton Hill

I have been feeling a little heavy recently, too much comfort eating, possibly comfort drinking, too.

So I was at my mum's last Sunday and I mentioned this to her.

"There's some scales in the bathroom, underneath the thing. You're better off bringing them downstairs and putting them on a hard surface. The kitchen's best."

So I went to the bathroom and got the scales from under the thing, took them into the kitchen and stepped on them. Thirteen stone!

"I'm a couple of stone overweight, too," said my mum.

So I've cut out a lot of wheat. Two slices of bread a day in my lunchtime sandwich. Then I started on the Ryvita. Ryvita, Ryvita, Ryvita. I mentioned my new health kick on Twitter. Beverley replied to me. Bev's alright...

@RyvitaCrunch Beverley at Ryvita @geoffwetblanket have you had a look at our website? Might help inspire you x www.ryvita.co.uk :-)

I suppose if I were a musician or an artist, inspiration would be easy to find. But being a dieter, looking at pictures of cardboard with white stuff on them doesn't get my creative juices flowing.

A week into my diet and I'm off the Ryvita and into Oatibix. The view from the top of Hampton Hill is superb.

1066 Country

Yesterday we took the train to the coast. I used to drive to the coast but I get too tired nowadays on longer journeys than a few miles.

The train to Hastings was air conditioned. The air conditioning smelt of sweat but what do you expect in standard class?

Our nostrils were not given a rest all day. Toilets, fish, chips, fish 'n' chips, fish 'n' piss, barbecued meat, the wonderful smells of our seaside resorts.

As usual in Hastings, I decided to head for the cliffs. Except this time I couldn't find the way up. My memory's not what it was. So we turned back from the full car park and headed for St Leonards.

Past the burnt down pier, the people's pier, we walked along the prom prom prom, past sunbathers, lone young men with guitars, a group of people singing Tainted Love, big men cooking meat on barbecues and many lager drinkers. It was St George's Day and your racist little Englander would have been disgusted by the ethnic diversity on show, families from differing backgrounds brazenly enjoying themselves on a beautiful day on a relaxed not-too-crowded beach. Of course the pictures in the papers always show young blondes on Brighton or Bournemouth beaches on work days with unseasonally hot weather or a sea of bodies on the same two beaches on weekends or bank holidays.

Brighton and Bournemouth, young blondes splashing with joy.

What's wrong with a tattooed drunk with 9% lager and a pitbull snarling at the camera, UK Subs and The Vibrators at the local pub and chips gorged in their thousands?

Show us as we are.

1976

1976 was a pivotal year in the history of pop music. Top of the Pops didn't speak to the kids, it was full of acts yer gran liked. Our Kid! The Old Grey Whistle Test was all West Coast hippy nonsense. Noodle noodle noodle. The kids' older brothers' music. There was nothing for the kids. Nothing I tell you.

Britain was ready for an explosion, a revolution, a movement the kids could really get excited by. It was about getting back to basics, the roots of rock 'n' roll, "here's a chord, here's another chord, now go and form a band."

Punk took the nation by storm. The kids were united and they would never be divided. They spat, they pogoed, they took drugs that made them spit and pogo, they called Bill Grundy a dirty old man, the kids were public enemy numbers one to a million and adults didn't know what to do, they were running scared, they were holed up with their James Last and Judge Dread albums, throwing their car keys into the middle of the room, hoping to God for some middle aged thrills with Brenda from number 7 as Brenda's children played their Damned single and threw up out of their bedroom window.

So a time of adult promiscuity and teenage anarchy was raging as Brotherhood of Man took the number one spot with a song about snogging a three year old and God you felt your whole world was on a knife edge as you taped Yes off the radio and snuggled in the corner of the room, big headphones hiding your waxy ears and your dad said "Have you heard about this thing called Punk? Apparently they can't play their instruments."

And you thought what a big deal it all wasn't and 35 years later you can't believe just what a load of shit the media comes out with about nineteen bloody seventy-six.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone