Christmas - Feck!

What’s the definition of a good Christmas? No, this isn’t a joke, it’s a horror story.
The Big Day had passed off well: a bit of a jog, a couple of hours in the pub, glass or two of champers watching the Queen read from her autocue; Christmas dinner, and a bit of telly. I even got a couple of fairly usable presents. By 8.30, everyone at my host’s house was either playing on the wii, breaking their toys or had passed out. I had stopped eating on just about the right side of gluttony and alcohol had lost its appeal.
Left to my own devices, I found a 1945 production of Agatha Christie’s: "And Then There Were None". It began life as a stage play entitled: "Ten Little Niggers"; I know this because I played Blore, a pompous, overweight inept detective – good casting, I fear you may conclude – in the 1968 Mourne Grange Preparatory School production.
The film ended and I went upstairs for the night. For reasons more complex than a Woody Allen plot, I found that there was no room at the inn. I considered my options and decided to cycle back to my flat where I would be guaranteed a good night’s sleep. Boy was I ever wrong?
The five mile bike ride was invigorating; the temperature was well below zero and there was little traffic. Moonlight lit my way – which was just as well as I’d forgotten to turn my lights on.
Dickey, my temporary flatmate, visiting from Cyprus, was still out. I assumed that he had either been offered a bed elsewhere or had collapsed in a ditch on the way home, and so I left my bedroom door open.
I was in bed and asleep within minutes only to be pulled from a rare, deep slumber by noise coming from downstairs. I looked at my watch; it was 2.45am. A man - who I rapidly established as Dickey - appeared to be engaged in a dialogue with the front door whilst slamming it violently.
‘Are you going to lock or aren’t you?’ he asked. A pause, followed by another slam.
‘Right, I’m going to give you…one…last…chance!’ Another slam. ‘Suit your bloody self, then!’
If only I’d closed my bedroom door. How was I going to reveal my presence without getting involved in a 3am drinking session? I conducted a quick mental audit of the available booze in the flat: three bottles of wine and a bottle of brandy – not good.
In the event, there was no need. Dickey’s erratic attempt to conquer the north face of the staircase arrested outside my bedroom. For a moment I thought I was going to get away with it, but then he was in my room, main light on, swaying like a felled oak.
‘Woops, sorry mate’ he said and staggered off to his own bed, singing tunelessly. After an hour of unmelodious humming and whistling, there was peace. And then the snoring began. A couple of hours later, I could see a pattern emerging: the snoring would build to a vibrating nasal crescendo to be followed by a stertorous boom in the form of a Father Jack-like string of swearwords. This was repeated for several hours, until I abandoned all hope of sleep. Then suddenly I remembered that the Melbourne test match on telly; I made myself a cup of tea and sat down, expecting England to be all out for 6.
Instead, I watched a procession of Aussie batsmen trudge despondently back to the pavilion, collectively dismissed for less than a hundred.
Now, that’s what I call a good Christmas, I reflected, as I celebrated by vacuuming the flat at 7.30am by way of payback. To no avail; the snoring continues…Feck…Arse…Girls!

I WISH IT COULD BE CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY…

I really don’t like Christmas, and the older I get, the less I like it.
There’s the build up which now starts before the clocks go back, the frantic week which precedes the big day, and the interminable siege which follows it. It’s impossible to go anywhere and there’s nothing you want to buy when you get there. It’s exciting for the children, of course; but by four o’clock on Christmas Day you’d pay Father Christmas almost anything to take them – along with all the broken toys – back to Lapland with him. You wouldn’t even bother asking to see his Enhanced Disclosure certificate.
And then there’s the wholly unjustified squandering of hard-earned cash on Christmas presents: did you know that twenty five per cent of Christmas presents are unwanted, and that 10am on Christmas morning is the peak time that the ungrateful beggars are engaged in trying to sell them on Ebay?
The trouble with Christmas is that it has got completely out of control. And last night, in my local, I launched my plan to mitigate it. It goes something like this: we can’t get rid of Christmas, because, somewhere, buried deep in the vortex of commerciality, it’s still a Christian festival. We could, however, reduce its impact by replacing it with three festivals. Those whose surname begins with the letters A-K will celebrate Christmas on 31st January, those with surnames commencing with the letters L-Z will sit down to Christmas dinner on 31st July. The third festival will be a one-day bank holiday on 25th December, available only to those who have a fully stamped-up church attendance card.
I have thought about this quite carefully. There are very few citizens of these islands whose surnames begin with the letters Q, U, X or Z; those who do are statistically as unlikely to want to celebrate the birth of our lord as most of the rest would want to celebrate the birth of Mohammed. I’m also convinced that my plan would be a stroke of commercial genius, allowing business’ who rely heavily on the festive season two bites of the cherry.
The importance of New Year will be significantly enhanced, with a stand-alone two day celebration/recovery holiday, so that will benefit the Scottish economy. You have to admire the Scots for internalising this landmark so efficiently and adopting it as their own; if only they’d managed to do that with North Sea oil.
The effects of splitting Christmas would revolutionise our ailing economy; half of the population would be on holiday for three days at the end of January while the other half continued to work, and the same would happen at the end of July. The annual shutdown, which generally lasts a fortnight, would be a thing of the past. The July celebrators would mingle with the annual summer holiday takers thus further diluting disruption in the workplace.
There may, I’ll admit, be problems with this scheme: there would be “Christmas frauds” in the same way as there are benefit frauds, so Liverpool will be on permanent holiday. And, of course, we would be subjected to two, instead of one, run-ups to Christmas.
But who could possibly object to my plan? Well, turkeys, the fat guy who works one night a year, and anyone who fails the church attendance criterion. Alternately, we could all have a four week holiday to celebrate Ramadan added to the calendar, but this will never happen because refraining form eating and drinking does not make sound commercial sense.
And sadly, sound commercial sense is what Christmas is all about.

ON WRITING: THE BAD, THE MAD AND THE WOBBLY TOP LIP.

A few days ago I was feeling pretty smug. I had written a couple of articles for my Masters’ assignments which had been very well received. Anne, the course leader had commended them and, all-in all, life felt pretty good; writing was easy, really. One of my short-term goals is to write a minimum of 500 words a day. Well, that’s nothing, is it, when you’re on a roll?
Then three things happened: first, I was handed back a travel article I had written. It had been severely (and quite fairly) criticised. It was a rant about crowded trains, people who use them, Network Rail, and anybody who chanced into my angry and vitriolic world on that particular day. At the time, I thought it was quite good, but I can now see that it was neither funny, focused nor entertaining. The problem was that I hadn’t bothered to read it back objectively; had I done so, I would have binned it. This is a lesson learned. There are times when even the likes of Clarkson, Gill or Catlin Moran have an off day. They very occasionally produce vacuous articles which look at odds with everything else they have written. So, the lesson is: when you are having an “off day” for whatever reason, it is important to be really hard on yourself and if you truly know that an article is substandard, rip it up and re-write it. Typewriters were a great help for this; if something didn’t feel right, the only course of action was to rip it out, screw it up and start all over again. No “darlings” retained there.
The second thing that happened was a case of writer’s block. I had been stuck on a scene in my novel “Who Needs Semtex?” (working title) which involves one of the main characters being abducted and then held in South Armagh by high-ranking republicans terrorists. Nothing funny there, is there? This is supposed to be a comic caper and I found myself in danger of losing my voice, the plot and the potential readership as they became confused and nervous of my narration. And then, in the middle of the night, I recalled something I had learned on an Arvon course: “the plot is like vapour trails which strong characters leave in their wake.” And thus, Mylo was born. Mylo is a chain-smoking, Jack Daniels drinking Filipino dwarf who wears a boiler suit, horn-rimmed glasses and what appears to be a Japanese Kamikaze helmet. How he arrived in Ireland is unknown; he was picked up by The Undertaker - the Provo 2nd in command of operations - who found him wandering around the lanes near Bessbrook carrying a semi-automatic Sterling rifle. He had shot his way out of the Royal Marine barracks, where he had been employed as a waiter in the officers’ mess, having slit the throats of a major and a captain who had made derogatory comments about his ancestry and appearance. Not hilarious, but it got me out of a hole and opened the door for where I wanted the scene to go.
And then yesterday in Writing and Editing class, we were instructed to write a piece entitled “My First Kitchen”. The class had been focused on memoir, and we were given twenty minutes to complete this assignment. At first my mind was a total blank, and then it was drawn back to an incident which happened when I was around five, and which, I think, was profoundly formative. I had crawled beneath the kitchen table into the dog’s basket and had been bitten on the face. Not savaged, but I can remember a lot of blood and pain. My mother took the side of the dog and castigated me for climbing into her basket. I was rebuked and received neither sympathy nor comfort. I wrote about this, and found myself in an emotional vortex; I had great difficulty in reading the short piece aloud and, to my acute embarrassment, had to leave the room when I had finished.
After the class, the tutor called me to one side.
‘Have you ever written anything like that before?’ she asked.
‘No’, I replied, wishing I hadn’t written it at all.
‘It was very brave of you’, she told me, ‘That’s a side of your writing we’ve not seen before. It was very poignant – you should persevere with it.’
On the way home, I reflected on this and realised that I had learned something valuable about how and why I write. I do not write for cathartic reasons, neither do I write to trawl through the past: I write because I enjoy writing and this morning had not been in the least enjoyable. I had found writing in a self-reflective autobiographical genre difficult and ultimately unproductive. No amount of self-analysis will alter one moment of an unhappy childhood, so it’s best left where it is.
At least Mylo puts a smile on my face and moves me to switch on my laptop.

A little bit of unashamed self-promotion...

Apologies if you were drawn to this blog by the promise of erotic fiction. I solemnly promise that it will feature; but not today.
This is my first proper blog; I confess that I still don’t fully understand either the purpose or the conventions of blogging. My main aim in writing this is undisguised self-promotion. I also hope that you will find these entertaining – if you do, you are more likely to buy my books.
The secondary aim of this blog is to practice writing. I am currently taking a Masters’ degree in Professional Writing at London Metropolitan Uni. I am told that the more I write, the better I will get, and the better I get, the more marketable I will become.
Although the course is brilliant, I can unreservedly endorse the Sunday Times’ rating of London Met as the third worst Uni in Britain. More on that to follow.
My aim is to make a living from writing, through selling freelance features and articles - or perhaps through more regular contractual employment. I also fancy having a go at ghost and script writing, and ultimately, as do all writers, hope to pen the best-seller. I’ll admit to being somewhat of a ‘one trick pony’: I only feel comfortable writing with a humorous, slightly satirical voice. I avoid pathos in the way that Nigel Havers avoided electric shocks (Celeb reference) and struggle with anything which requires a serious approach, with the possible exception of rugby reporting.
I love writing, and wish that I had set out on this road a long time ago. Each blank page is a new challenge which will result either publication or rejection. In the ‘90s, I was a member of a writing consortium: Quartet Multi Media (QMM) and have had features published in magazines such as South African Airlines in-flight magazine and the Porsche Owners’ Yearbook – heady stuff. I was also a fitness consultant for The Times, contributing to the “Fit to Play” Monday column. My first book, The Last Latrine, was published in 1996. This is an irreverent account of my journey through Nepal to the foot of Everest, and subsequent participation in the world’s highest marathon. Although currently out of print, a second much revised edition is scheduled to be self-published next year.
I am presently working on a novel about a dysfunctional preparatory school held siege by a renegade cell of Irish Republican terrorists. It is a fast moving comic caper involving a practical joking PE teacher, who unintentionally adds a hybrid panther, hostile bull and an ineptly led field trip party to the already explosive cocktail. The working title is: “Who Needs Semtex?”
Oh yes, one more thing: I really enjoy writing erotic fiction, and I’d be bold enough to say I’m not bad at it. Another project on the back burner is an erotic novel entitled “Seven Days”, a who-sh***ed-who murder mystery set in Switzerland. This one is really steamy, I can promise you.
That’s it for now; back to “Semtex” or even my coursework; thanks for reading this.

SOMETHING QUITE AMAZING

SOMETHING QUITE AMAZING

About two months ago, quite by chance, I made an amazing discovery. By coincidence, I was searching for something amazing to help a nine-year old complete a piece of creative writing entitled: ‘Something Quite Amazing’.
My discovery – sadly unusable for her homework - was this: that it you use a really good quality toilet paper, it is possible to fold it over – carefully - and use the other half, thus reducing waste and providing a smooth finish with minimal ecological damage.
I made this discovery, not when I was in a relatively relaxed mode, chilling out on the toilet with The Times crossword, but when I was in a state of considerable urgency.
And quite often, it has to be said, this is exactly how the human race advances itself. Progress is made, not because it can be, but because it has to be. Take war, for example: either you come up with something better than the enemy, or you lose. This is why the first World War lasted a good four years when it could have been all done and dusted in a couple of hours, and why an entire generation died gradually and horribly when it could have been vaporised in one fell swoop. And that is why the Atomic Bomb put an unceremonious end to proceedings in the Second World War.
Fashion is another thing; trends tend to go in cycles; progress – if there is such a thing in fashion – is non-linear. Flares, turn-ups and even tank tops re-appear with monotonous regularity, foisted upon us by the kind of people who thought that ‘going over the top’ was actually going to change anything. And this brings me to the point: there is very little you encounter in this life that is either original or amazing; even ‘Old Spice’ is making a comeback.
I doubt very much if I shall be around in 2050, but if I am, I would envisage that there will only be three songs in the charts; each will be sampled, re-mixed, re-sampled, covered, re-cyclo-mixed and re-covered hybrids of everything else that has preceded them in the last fifty years. After all, that’s pretty much what the charts are now. With luck, none of them will have originally been written by Bono.
And unless we have another World War, that, I predict, is the way that technology is going to ‘progress’: Wombling along aimlessly with glitched-up new generations of icrap and countless reincarnations of Playstation, and Windows 150,000, none of which ever work properly.
But hang on a minute. There is something, however, which I came across recently, which I actually did find quite amazing; so amazing it actually made me gasp. All right, it’s unlikely to speed up the resolution of war, cure cancer or make either poverty or Bono a thing of the past, but at least it makes the cinema visit a damned sight more interesting than it has been since the days of the Key Stone Cops. And what is this amazing revelation? Why 3D of course.
One Saturday afternoon, a couple of weeks ago, I accompanied a friend to the cinema with a posse of cyclonic four-year-olds fuelled up on the over-priced and over-sugared bounty on offer in the foyer.
Having paid about £237.98 for tickets, 3D glasses, popcorn and a tiny but heavy and therefore expensive bag of ‘Pick & Mix’ we arrived at our seats to find the had film started. This was due to some mis-information regarding the start time from the appropriately name-badged ‘Badger’, a hairy mono-celled drongo , whose job was clearly to inspect everyone’s ticket so officiously that we all missed the start of the film, and had absolutely no idea where to sit.
The film in question was Shrek 4, and I must confess that I had been looking forward to catching up with some sleep considerably more than catching up with what old Shrek had been up to since I last watched the first film in about 1982.
I was just about to conclude that this was precisely what I had expected from a modern day cinema experience, when we were ushered to an empty row of seats and I put on my 3D glasses.
Within thirty seconds, I was hooked. Leaving aside the plot, which was actually quite good, I had the strange and fascinating experience that things were flying at me from all angles; they were! I wasn’t watching the film – I was in it.
Now, if you’ve experienced 3D before – and I suspect that most of you have, then you will know exactly what I mean. Simply put, it takes the cinema experience to a whole new dimension. By the time Old Shrek had got his life back, I was ready to watch the whole thing over again, whereas the 4 year-olds, who were largely unimpressed by the experience, were ready to resume World War 3 in the back of the car.
I’m told that there will even be 3D televisions available to us well before a cure for cancer is discovered or Bono shuts up.
As you have probably deduced, I know very little about state-of-the-art technology; but I would suspect that we are not far off the arrival of the first all-singing, all-dancing 3 dimensional hologram. And when that day comes, like the toilet paper, let’s pray that it is of a good quality; and not a pale projection of Bono.

No World Cup - No Cry

NO WORLD CUP, NO CRY.

Did you enjoy the World Cup Final? A very un-English affair wasn’t it, referee apart? Of course we didn’t have a team in it - but the idea of Spanish and Dutch supporters mingling good-naturedly, sipping skinny Lattés, seated side-by-side at Boulevard cafes is the sort of thing that gives football a bad name. Not a union-jack tattooed, drunken yob, nor a riot policeman in sight.
I particularly enjoyed it as I didn’t watch it, at least until the last few minutes of extra time. I found something much better to do, and something that the English are actually rather good at: musical exhibitionism.
Pete the Plumber had invited my girlfriend and I - I’m much too old to have a girlfriend, but partner makes us sound like a couple of raddled old gays - to watch a band at his local pub, the Guzzling Goose in Ashton.
Getting there was interesting; Pete picks us up in his adapted Nissan Micra so that we can have a drink. He had suffered a severe stroke a few years back and has little use of his right arm. This doesn’t impair his ability to drive like a complete maniac. My girlfriend, seated in the back, asks - in all innocence - which arm he had lost control of?
By way of diversionary therapy, I ask Pete what his rehabilitation exercise programme was like.
‘Don’t do any mate,’ he replies.
‘Not even swim? I ask.
He thinks about this for a moment. ‘Nah, I’d only end up going round in circles.’
One benefit of Pete’s condition is that he can park where he wants, which in this instance is on double yellows right outside the Guzzling Goose.
On stepping out of the car I immediately feel a tad overdressed in Armani jeans, tan cowboy boots and pink Superdry T shirt. Why, in the name of Zeus, did I wear the pink one? My girlfriend blends in better in Doc Martins’ and bi-curious combat trousers.
We sidle through the congregation of smoking hairy-arsed leather-clad bikers and their molls, latter-day punks and a sprinkling of Goths and find a pew at the back. The room is about the size of my girlfriend’s kitchen and the stage takes up a good third of it. Instantly I am transported back to a time before bottled water, mobile phones and ponsey coffee. It just needs a haze of cigarette smoke curling upwards towards the terracotta stained aertex ceiling and we are in a set from Life on Mars. No Botox, fake boobs and false tans in here then; just timeless fashion disasters such as middle-aged men who still think it looks good to tuck their black T shirts into their trousers, particularly if their belts have more studs than a pit-bull’s collar.
Tuning up completed, we get underway. On stage we have the lead guitarist, compare, and, thankfully, part-time comedian. He is shaven-headed with a long beard, so let’s call him “Beardie No1” Next to him is the bassist who is slightly smaller but otherwise identical in every way, so we’ll call him “Beardie No2”. Beside him is the rhythm guitarist. He must be seventy-five if he’s a day; what’s left of his hair is restrained in a ponytail and with white beard and bulbous nose, he could easily pass for Asterix the Gaul. The drummer looks like a computer analyst, and he probably is.
Beardie No1 is in a foul mood. He announces that it is too effing’ early for this sort of thing and he won’t be happy ‘til he’s had a load more beer and played some tunes.
The band grinds out a few of their own rock numbers which are loud, competently performed, although fairly forgettable. Mid-way through the third number, Beardie No2 – the bassist - clearly the most capable member of the band, moves back to the drummer and has a word. I imagine it goes along the lines of: ‘…you speed up any more, mate, and I’ll skewer your prostate with those effin’ drumsticks”.
I would like to think, that, at his audition, he was asked the question: ‘What do you consider to be the most important attribute of a drummer? Is it: A) an ability to keep time? B) The ability to bash the drums as hard as you possibly can? Or, C) to look good. B was clearly the correct answer.
Beardie No1 then opens the floor to anyone who wants to play. These slots have been pre-booked so that the band has some idea of what to expect.
First up is Sean Wilson, aka Martin Platt, formerly of ‘Corrie’. I believe he’s into cheese production now; a bit like his performance, then.
Next up, is a very fat black guy with a very large guitar and an even fatter white guy with a very small guitar. My girlfriend wonders if this could be symbolic. They are Blues’ specialists and are very good, although the trouble with the Blues is that it starts to get a bit samey after half an hour. My girlfriend, whose musical interests don’t really stretch far beyond Joni Mitchell, Elbow and Van Morrison, looks bored. She leans over and tells me that she finds the Blues about as stimulating as any cricket match which lasts for more than one ball. However, as she leans over, we notice a rucksack which appears to belong to no one, which drags us back into the post-911 paranoia of the 21st century. It transpires that it belongs a couple standing behind our booth. He is shaven-headed, slim, and wears a T shirt with the words ‘Beaver King’ sandwiched between two halves of a roll.
‘Is he?’ my girlfriend asks his girlfriend. She is smartly dressed, has dark hair stylishly cut in a bob, and looks as out of place as me. She smiles demurely, but gives nothing away.
‘Is there a bomb in there?’ Persists my girlfriend.
Her bloke laughs, opens the bag and produces what appears to be some kind of UPVC bondage mask, for which he gets a scowl from his moll. I peer into the rucksack and clock what looks like a pair of hand-cuffs and a something resembling a whip. Strewth!
Next on stage is a bird from Macclesfield who is wearing what appears to be a wedding dress. She strangles the life out of ‘Hey Joe’, not bothering with any lyrics after the first verse, but improves and bangs out a presentable version of ‘Voodoo Chile’. Midway through her set, Big Steve comes in. I know it’s Big Steve because Pete tells us, and Pete knows everyone. Big Steve is a cross between Obelix and Sebastian Chabal, with a beard and straight, sandy hair which almost touches his studded belt. He is a good 6’8”, has arms like girders and a girth the size of the Mersey tunnel. Sadly for him, he too tucks his T shirt into his jeans.
The Macclesfield bride finishes and sits down amid hearty applause next to her mum, on the opposite side of our table. They are both drinking pints of Stella (aka ‘Wife-Beater’) mixed with Coke. I am intrigued and offered a sip; it is all I can do not to vomit.
‘Discovered it in Belgium, she did,’ mum announces proudly, as if the discovery of something guaranteed to made you heave is a good thing.
‘Another reason not to visit Belgium, then’, I reply, my words clearly drowned out by Neil from the Young Ones, bashing out something depressing by Paul Weller on his Les Paul. His set finishes with No Woman, No Cry, which almost makes me want to.
The last act before we take an intermission and re-fuel in the curry house down the street, was easily the best. Now, they say that to play like Hendrix, you have to play like Hendrix, and that is precisely what the young skinhead with excessive body piercing is now doing. This is as good a version of All Along the Watch Tower as I have witnessed, played, of course, left-handed on a right-handed guitar. When he sat down, I just had to ask him, 'why?’
‘Simple’, he tells me, swallowing half a pint of coke-free ‘Wife Beater’ in one gulp, ‘I started to learn on a right-handed guitar. By the time I could play anything half-decent, I’d have had to completely re-learn on a left-handed one’. Obvious.
By the time we return from our curry, it is all a bit after the lord major’s show; the band has packed up and gone, as have most of the crowd; those bleary-eyed half-deafened souls who remain have half an eye on the World Cup Final in the other bar. We sit down beside Asterix and his bird. Dressed in what appears to be a leopard-skin leotard, she is a good forty years his junior and three times his size. Neil from The Young Ones accompanies the landlady as she belts out You Are So Beautiful to no one in particular. Time to go, I say, fearful the Lady in Red may be next.
We are vaguely aware that Spain has scored the winning goal as we leave the Guzzling Goose. But, as I’ve already mentioned, unlike the Great British feast of unashamed exhibitionism we had just enjoyed, the soccer was a very un-British affair.
But then I, for one, would rather live in a country peopled by eccentric exhibitionists rather than a country that is good at soccer.

the importance of looking happy...

My name is Jane Elizabeth Thomson. I am eight and three quarter years old. I have a dog called Amber, a cat named Bono, and a mum that I wish was someone else’s.
We are standing in the car park outside Morrisons ‘cos mum just got thrown out by the security guards. This sort of thing happens quite a lot.
It’s Friday afternoon and mum had just picked me up from school. We were in the car and her friend Tracey phoned and said she should get her arse down to Morrisons – something about cheap champagne. I hate Tracey ‘cos my mum says she fancies my dad. She sells posh underwear and my mum says she’s a slut from Moss Side.
When we got there, they told us that champagne was all sold and my mum went mental until the woman told her there was some other stuff they were selling for half price. We got to the checkout with everyone looking at us ‘cos all we had was bottles in the trolley. It took ages to put them all on the belt. All the people who work in Morrisons are white and fat and old and look as if they have special knees, or whatever it’s called when you’re not right. Mum calls them ‘Timmys’ and says they only work there ‘cos no one else would work in Morrisons, even in a recession.
The woman on the checkout looked sad and I felt sorry for her. She said something and pressed a buzzer and a more important woman came over and said to my mum she could only have three bottles.
My mum asked why, and the important woman told her it was a special offer, and it was Morrisons’ policy that everybody had to have a chance to buy it. Mum said it was Morrisons’ policy to stop the bloody Scousers buying it and flogging it at car boots, more like. The important woman didn’t think my mum was funny. I noticed she had an enormous mole on her neck and there were lots of hairs growing out of it. It looked a bit like a coconut.
We put the champagne in the car and mum remembered she’d not had lunch, so we went back into the café. Mum had two sandwiches and a bowl of tomato soup and I had a toasted tea-cake and a yoghurt. Mum said she was ravenous ‘cos she’d not eaten since she’d been to the gym. Dad says when mum goes to the gym she just parks her arse on a bike and yaps to Maxine who has fake tits and lives in Wilmslow. He says the only part of her that gets any exercise is her tongue. When we got to the checkout mum asked the woman if it was ok to have two sandwiches or should she just have one so everybody else could have the chance to buy one? She didn’t think mum was funny either.
We sat down and a fat man who looked as if he was walking on a tightrope brought the soup. It was cold, so mum complained and when he brought it back she burned her mouth on it. The fat man looked happy as he walked away.
On the way out of the shop mum had an idea. She said that there was nothing to stop her coming back in and buying three more bottles, and as long as we didn’t bump into the woman with the coconut on her neck, no one would know. I tried to stop her ‘cos I knew she’d get done but she went to two different check-outs and got six more bottles and she looked happy. That doesn’t happen very often.
Then she had one more go. She tried to be clever by using the self-checkout thing, but because she was buying alcohol she had to ring a bell so someone could check that she was over eighteen. Like anyone would actually think she was under eighteen! We had to wait ages for someone to come.
There was a huge security man on either side of the woman with the coconut. They were walking towards us.
None of them looked happy.