Saturday 31 May 2008

There's none so blind as those that cannot see.....

So, there we were getting ready for the usual Friday night drinkathon at our local 17th century inn. It’s a ritual; it’s what us older folks get up to on a Friday evening because it doesn’t take much thought, it’s a three minute walk from home, (well three minutes there and fifteen back what with all that weaving from one side of the road to the other), and there are quite a few fences to cling to for support and to guide us back home after partaking of a sherry or two of an evening.

Now, on one or two occasions we have been known to drink enough between us to embalm the residents of a small care home whilst also living up to the term ‘blind drunk’. These are not times to be proud of, I can tell you. I hang my head in shame at some of our antics as we should know better at our age; frolics such as the time himself, my husband, thought it would be a right old laugh if he raced me back home in the pub wheelbarrow only for it to overturn and to tip me out at the bus stop where two of the village’s staunchly po faced residents tut tutted down their snooty noses at us. Or the time we tried to cycle back after stopping off for a ‘quick one’ and after several ‘quick one’s’, on the way home, careered out of control into a hedge. Luckily my ankles were hanging out so himself could get a good grip to heave me out of there. Or the other time I was getting home fine until someone stepped on my fingers....... The list goes on dear people, but I am too ashamed to divulge any more of our antics. But at other times, we have been fortunate enough to have had the foresight to stop for a drink after walking the dogs, whereupon, their sobriety has meant two superb guides with excellent homing instincts to get us back to the old homestead in one piece and all for the price of some water and a packet of pork scratchings.

So there we are, last night being Friday, we followed our usual ritual of showering, me buggering about with the menopausal hair until it looked less ‘mad old lady’, himself taking ages combing his hair which baffles the poop out of me as he doesn’t have any, and both of us finally donning our drinking boots for our skip, hop and a jump up the pub. Sure enough it was a typical ‘early doors’ selection of Chickenwing Pete, Bob the Belcher, Rudolph the red nosed barman and Maltese Mick who isn’t Maltese and isn’t called Mick......don't ask. Soon we were joined by our good neighbours and drinking buddies who pop in for a snifter or two on the way home to their country pile for the weekend; a jolly nice pair of good old eggs, and no mistake.

Around 0900pm himself is usually suffering from the munchies, i.e., starving hungry ravenous and could eat uncooked road-kill and expects loving wife and partner, whilst being fourteen sheets to the wind, to dish up a three course meal of Michelin star standards. Now, given that I cook from scratch this is quite a feat to achieve when both eyes are looking out of one socket and an accomplishment that has been known in the past to result in me almost losing one or more fingers whilst julienning his fecking carrots. Himself can be heard belly laughing all the way from the den as he is being mightily entertained by such gems as ‘Have I got news for you?’, whilst Moi lacerates my hands to hell and back whilst clinging to a work surface to stay upright. Oh how I love those evenings.......

........Not....So enough was enough and after one particularly harrowing cooking session and a near visit to casualty I left him in no doubt that Friday night munchathons were his department from now on. Suffice to say himself can cremate food and still say that it is underdone. Here is a man who is supremely talented in so many areas that he puts mere mortals to shame but ask him to cook a sausage and it could be used as a lethal weapon as it is as hard as anything similar fashioned out of steel. Realising that he could quite likely burn the house down when bladdered and attempting to cremate anything within reach, we reached a compromise. I cooked in bulk and froze his Friday night meals and all he had to do was learn how to drive the oven and the microwave.

So, having set the scene further let me continue last nights tale.........

At around himself’s usual ‘I could eat a scabby dog’ time, attempts to put one foot in front of the other and walk in a straightish line were made and we entered our humble abode without head injuries and the need for a stomach pump. Accustomed as he is now, he raided the freezer, unbeknown to me whacked on the oven at the highest temperature possible and disappeared to the study to surf the net for while. I on the other hand visited a few blogs to catch up on my favourite reads and before long, could smell burning. Given that we were rather shit faced, himself had forgotten to set the timer and the burning smell was an indicator that full scale cremation of his dinner was in full flight. Dashing to the cooker, I opened the oven door whereupon a volcanically hot wave of heat whooshed over my face, buggered up my fringe, melted my eyebrows and burnt the shit out of my eyelashes. Oh and as an added bonus my new fecking lenses are now welded to my eyeballs. Such a good look, first degree burns. Jamie Oliver eat yer heart out, you’ve got nothing on himself here when it comes to cooking the food and his wife all in one go. Talk about living the dream eh?

Needless to say, the trainee Arsonist is completely humble today and can’t do enough for me but hell will freeze over before I let him back in that kitchen unsupervised........ The upside is that I now look like that gorgeous bit of stuff Hortense - see picture on the sidebar if you need a look. I’m off to the hozzie to get my lenses surgically removed.

"P.S. As ‘Herself' can’t see this it’s ‘Himself’ leaving a message saying Vote for Mob, Vote for MoB.....Do you think she might lift the death threat now? Please vote for her, it'll be over soon, midnight on the 1st of June, I promise and the more votes she gets the more likely she is to let me eat again....pleaaaaase, I'm wasting away....."

"Eejit, didn't I tell you to say Vote for me 'cause I can't see, Vote for me 'cause I can't see?. How the hell am I supposed to get the sympathy vote now, eh? So, err, what takeaway are we ordering tonight then?"

Wednesday 28 May 2008

After the date...

Want to read how it all started?

Emerging from the secret tunnel that led back into her high security cell, Hortense brushed the dirt from her clothes and turned to look for Mob. She wasn’t there and bugger she had so much to tell her about her date with that luuuurrrrve-God Simondo. Good God it had been hard for her to resist him on the date but resist him she did when he had turned uncontrollably passionate and clamped himself to her leg as she pole danced around the street lamp for him. On the upside, the three pounds twenty pence she had made in tips from the late night drinkers on their way to the curry house had been an unexpected bonus and she’d use it to buy back the cigars she had traded for the Brut cologne with Nutty Norah earlier that day.

Much as it had broken her heart to do it at the time, she’d had no choice but to wrench Simondo free of her shorter limb and end the date for if she hadn’t she’d have been gone, lost to lust and lurrrrvvve and just putty in his arms and who knows where that would have led to on their first date? She wasn’t ready to play hide the sausage, or hunt the one eyed trouser snake; this was much too serious for her dignity to be thrown away on a cheap one night stand fuelled by buckets of cut-price White Diamond cider nicked from ‘Pish Drinks R Us’ . No, she would wait; hold off until the moment was right to share her bodily fluids with him; she wanted it to be special. She was no old slapper, sleeping with a guy on the first date and besides she needed time to perfect her routine of pelvic floor exercises for she’d been somewhat ‘loose’ of late with a bit of leakage here and there. She promised herself that she’d make damn sure that at their ‘special moment’ he wouldn’t feel as though he was chucking a chipolata up Oxford Street. She allowed herself a little smile; “things were on the up, for her slippers weren’t half as soggy as they had been of late”, she thought, as she sat down to ‘squeeze and release and squeeze and release’ her old rat into shape whilst she waited for Mob to return from wherever she had gone to.

“Oh you’re back”, commented a surprised Mob just moments later as she entered the cell, stemming blood flow from her nose with the sleeve of her top.

“Where have you been? I’ve so much to tell you”, said a frustrated Hortense who stood up quickly and proceeded to remove her leather thong for it was cutting into her crack like a piece of cheese wire.

“I popped along to see Whacky Jacky, she was having a cheese and wine party to welcome that new girl in B wing, I told you about it yesterday”, she said in exasperation. I'd have been back sooner 'cept I got into a fist fight with that Camilla who nabbed the last canape before I got to it. Mob shook her head because it was useless telling Hortense anything these days such was the obsession she had with Simondo; it was “Simondo this and Simondo that”, since they had started texting each other; to tell the truth, she was envious and just a little jealous; she didn’t want to lose her friend and secretly she hoped the date had bombed but then she immediately felt guilty and mean for thinking that.

Hortense turned and gave Mob a look of puzzlement. “Whacky Jacky?, she asked.; the Whacky Jacky that you swore nicked my stash of Forerro Roche sweets last week? What the hell are you doing hanging out with her for after she went and did a thing like that to me?”, she asked her. Hortense’s heart sunk a little but she played along for she suspected that Whacky Jacky was MOB’s imaginary friend and her excuse for when she got the munchies, which was quite often given that she was a fat greedy old muntah on the take, and needed to hit Hortense’s stash of goodies like a swarm of locust.

Mob looked almost guilty and at the same time let out a highly audible and fairly impressive burp in Hortense’s face before heading to her bunk for a lie down. Oh for feck sake she cried as she steadied herself and clung to the padded cell wall and then heaved her guts a bit for you could easily gas badgers with Mob’s breath . “Christ what was it with these people?”, she asked herself, with disgust etched on her face; only hours earlier Simondo had almost taken the lining off her lungs with the world’s worst fart known to man. She’d no doubt that between them they were probably responsible for half of the hole in ozone layer. Completely oblivious to Hortense's gagging, Mob opened her mouth to speak.....”I, erm....”

“Oh, never mind, just forget that for the moment”, interrupted Hortense as she came round from her dizzy spell. “Let’s talk about the date, the date, the date!”, she said excitedly, as she beamed a huge smile and hugged Simondo’s photo close to her heart. Before Mob could ask the question, Hortense launched into the details of the evening and waxed lyrical about Simondo until Mob no longer recognised the short-arsed toothless one eyed maimed dweeb that Simondo’s roommate Sy had told her about.

“This is Simondo that we’re talking about, right?”, asked Mob, with a baffled look on her face and deeply unsure as to whether Hortense had by accident pulled some hunk of a guy that had no sense of smell, was visually challenged and liked birds with a voice deeper than Orson Wells’ with a twelve o’clock shadow on their chin or if she’d met Simondo and somehow received a severe bump on the head on the way back through the tunnel and was now heavily concussed and hallucinatory.

“Oh Mob, I’m in love, I’m sure of it”, she answered with the dreamiest look softening her face. She did a little dance with an imaginary Simondo round the cell and giggled at the silliness of it all. For someone of 6'4" with one leg shorter than the other, she reminded Mob of a circus bear on dope but she was nevertheless surprisingly light on her mismatched feet.. She felt light hearted and happy and suddenly had the urge to do good deeds for all and sundry; she’d even stop ‘goosing’ the governor Shooie McPhee if it meant that she could feel like this forever.

Mob looked on horrified as her friend kissed and licked Simondo’s photograph before carefully placing it on her designated space on the shelf they shared. Hortense continued to undress and unhooked the leather pointy bra she’d been wearing and carefully placed it with her other clothes. “Holy shit, that bra had its work cut out”, Mob thought, as Hortense’s tits hit the deck and hung and swung like rats in socks. She couldn’t help notice that the hairs on Hortense’s nipples had grown rather long and made a mental note to remind her to ask Mad Madddie for a loan of her tweezers tomorrow.

Hortense pulled on her ‘chav size and over’ puce coloured Primark knitted nightdress and slipped her feet into the size 11 black fluffy slippers that she favoured when she wanted to feel elegant and desirable. “Oh if only Simondo could see me now, he wouldn’t or couldn’t resist me”, she trilled lightly to Mob.

“I wouldn’t be so sure on that, not after what I’ve just seen. He'd probably lose his lunch first”, thought Mob rather bitchily, as she smiled back at Hortense and said, “so what now, Hortie, will you see him again and how does he feel about you?”. Just as she was about to answer, an incoming text message beeped on her cell phone.

“I love you babe and I can’t live without you. Be mine forever gorgeous? We must never be apart again. The pole dance did it for me foxy lady”, was the declaration of love from Simondo.

Staring at the screen in disbelief Hortense sunk down into her bunk in shock. Noticing the colour drain from Hortense’s face, and being aware that she had been silent for longer than she could ever remember, Mob took the phone from her hand and looked at the screen. “Dear God in heaven, what the? ;what does his mean?, she burbled as she turned to look at her friend. Hortense sat quietly and serenely as she stared straight ahead, but she couldn’t hide her emotions for Mob caught the tears of joy that cascaded softly down her cheeks. “He wants me Mob. For the first time in my life someone wants me for who I am, lock stock and barrel and hang the consequences and do you know what?, she asked “I’m getting out of here, getting out to find a life worth living as soon as I can arrange it”.

Mob felt so deeply saddened, it was all happening too fast for her and soon she would lose the best friend she’d ever had but she knew in her heart this was Hortense’s last chance at happiness so she’d do everything in her power to help her be with the man she loved even if he did look like something out of feckinguglygit.com.

“Where will you go Hortie, who do you know on the outside that can help you get away, besides Simingdo?”, She’d taken to calling him that because she felt the name suited him more as clearly he was a bit of a minger in her eyes.

“My cousin Debs, that’s it, Debs, she’ll help us!”, Hortense said as she became more and more excited about escaping for a new life. "She’s scarpered to France with that posh husband of hers”, she carried on, “married good that one did in the end. First husband was a bit limp I gather but this new one’s a bit of a diamond geezer from what she’s told me. Got quite a mansion out there, glad to see she put all that money she made from fencing goods to good use. Better that than trying to launder it all back here; too risky and now that she’s almost legit I’m sure she won’t mind helping me".

She stopped to take a breath and looked straight at Mob with a face so alive that she almost looked beautiful. "Y'know, I taught her everything I know about money laundering so I guess she owes me big time huh? Her husband goes back and forth between Blighty and France on a regular basis so he’d be an ideal ‘donkey’ to bring fake passports and travel documents. No one would suspect him because he’s such a flippin goody two shoes. It’s perfect Mob, I can see it all coming together now”.

“But surely you don’t want to live in France Hortie? They eat snails and frogs legs there and if you're not careful you’ll get a dobbin burger served up when all you wanted was a bit of beef”, she exclaimed, hoping still, in a last ditch attempt to convince her to stay.

“Oh don’t be such a daft bugger Mob!; you’re worried about what I’ll eat when I’ve lived on prison food with gob and snot in it for the last five years?!” Mob had to laugh at herself because it was true, you could never be sure if that white stringy stuff on the pizza was extra mozzarella or something more sinister from the prison cook's orifice. "And besides, I won’t miss prison food too much because as far as I remember, eating at Debs’ house is like eating at a bush tucker trial. Poor girl was much too interested in horses to ever learn to cook properly. You're more likely to get a nosebag hung around your neck than to get a decent meal out of the old gal".

“But you are right in one respect", Hortense agreed; "we’d stick out like a couple of sore thumbs in France; we’d be too easy to catch. Best we try and get to the Costa’s in Spain or Magaluf perhaps where the rest of the chav muntah gang hang out. I’ll get Simondo to have a look at cheap deals on lastminutecheapoholidaysforchavswithtattoosandontherun.com”, she said as she started to text Simondo with her plans.

It was easy getting out of prison as their tunnel showed, it was staying out that was the bigger challenge and that’s where her cousin Debs was worth her weight in gold. "We’ll go to France first off", she said, and then take it from there.

Mob sighed deeply but said a little prayer of thanks that at least she had Whacky Jacky to keep her company.. "Vote for Mob, vote for Mob ", shouted Whacky Jacky, as Hortense busied herself with her plans......


***** Want to read the hilarious Simondo's version? It's called the morning after the night before over here Wheels turning but the hamster is dead.

*****Want to visit Hortense's cousin Debs in France, click here!*****http://lehnersinfrance.blogspot.com/

*****Please also vote for AIMS at bigbluebarnwest. She is up for best inspirational blog and needs to stay in the lead because she is a worthy winner*****


Thanks everyone, your votes are really appreciated.

Saturday 24 May 2008

The perfect date....is definitely this one - Hortense's account of the date

Want to read how it all started?

If she’d had a mirror, Hortense would have been delighted at the result her hours of pampering and preening had achieved. Mirrors were a lethal weapon where she came from so she had to make do with checking out her appearance in the shop window on the way to her date. The new pink hair colour clashed a little with her rheumy bloodshot eyes but no matter, the inch thick rim of black Alice Cooper style eyeliner she’d applied detracted from it a little. “You look gorgeous, it’ll be lurrrrrvvve at first sight, just you wait and see”, her fellow inmate and friend MOB assured her before waving her off through the secret tunnel they had dug together from their high security cell.

The bright lime coloured coat she was wearing went a treat with the plaid yellow skirt she and Mob had fashioned out of prison sacks that they had purloined and dyed especially for the date. The pointy black leather Madonna like bra, size 54dddd, was holding up just fine and she chuckled at the nipple tassels as they swung from side to side. “Touch of class that”, she thought, as she sashayed her way down the street. She tended to favour walking with one leg on the road and her other much shorter one on the pavement. That way she could minimise the excessive limp that made her quite self conscious. It was hard getting decent shoes when your feet were a size 11 but she was delighted with the sparkly pink ‘feck me pumps’ that she was now wearing; the ones she had arm wrestled off Lilly Savage on a pub crawl some years ago.

She was both excited and nervous and she stopped to take a sniff of her armpits to make sure all was well. She smelled good; thank God for only this morning she’d been able to trade her last packet of extra large sized Cuban cigars for a bottle of Brut after shave. She hoped Simondo would like it; she’d dabbed it all over just in case she got lucky and they decided to exchange bodily fluids. She wasn’t a cheap girl, but these days getting a sniff of any kind of male bodily contact was a rarity so any action kicking off and she’d be in there big time.


Noticing the time on the town hall clock, she saw she was running late and put a spurt on – she was always amazed at how the road cleared before her when she lurched ahead at speed. At 6’4” she was used to people throwing themselves in the path of traffic when they saw her hurtling towards them. “Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to take the extra time to sew the tassels to the leather bra that Mob had made from the leather restraints that she had chewed through earlier this morning”, she worried, whilst praying that Simondo would wait for her.

Walking into the ‘Best Kebab place in town’ Hortense stopped to scan the room to find her paramour. In an instant their eyes met and she almost recognised him from the picture he had sent to her but dear God, where there had been hair before now looked like some comb-over crop-circle kind of hairdo happening. “Jesus Christ”, she thought, “that photo he sent was definitely a sepia coloured archive, he’d clearly tried to knock ten years off himself, by the look of things”. Simondo beamed an almost toothless smile and waved at Hortense before standing up to greet her. “Oh for feck sake, he’s a fecking midget that must weigh all of 8 stone with teeth like a bloody bar-chart. Just wait till I get my hands on that git Sy”, she promised herself; “tall dark and handsome, my arse”. Wide eyed with shock, she wanted to bolt but it was too late and you don’t get far wearing “feck me pumps” with one leg shorter than the other. “Oh well it’s a night out”, she reasoned,” may as well be nice to the wee geezer. At least he turned up but I needn’t have worn my lucky leather thong after all", she sighed philosophically.

Simondo walked forward to ‘air kiss’ Hortense but at 5’4” with lifts in his shoes, he had to stretch mightily high just to reach her neck. She bent down to engulf him in a huge bear hug. “Aw shite”, he cried as something landed and rolled along the floor. Hortense drew back for she realised her pointy bra had poked Simondo right in the eye. “But what eye?”, she asked herself, as she stared into a blank socket where his eye had been only seconds before. In an instant Simondo dropped to the floor to retrieve his glass eye; a task made more onerous due to the missing thumb and index finger on his right hand.

Dropping his guts in a rip roarer of the loudest fart ever heard, Simondo stopped his search for his eye to use his good hand to waft away the overpowering pong that was filling the immediate area. “Sorry”, he said, turning his head around and grinning toothlessly at her. Hortense retched violently and made to sit down lest she fainted. “For the love of God, Simondo, you must be a bloody vegetarian because nothing smells worse than a vegetarian’s fart and that’s the worst vegetarian’s fart I’ve ever chewed on”, she said, as she sat licking what tasted like raw sewage from her teeth. "Err, yeah sorry, that'll be the cabbage soup that I had at lunch time", replied Simondo, who was busy busting a gut laughing at her reaction as he resumed his search for his glass eye.

After knocking back a double scotch to disinfect her mouth and recovering her equilibrium somewhat, Hortense relaxed and watched Simondo grapple for his eye. It hadn’t helped that the hoodie sitting at the next table surreptitiously kicked the eye just out of reach of Simondo’s good hand at which point he winked at Hortense for he was enjoying the show. Hortense winked back in thanks for whilst Simondo was on all fours, she was admiring the generous builders bum cleavage he was showing. She almost shrieked with joy for she could clearly see a tattoo of Ted Bundy on his right arse cheek. “Oh, could this man be any more perfect for me?”, she asked herself, as her heart soared to new heights and she forgave his other short comings. Perhaps he wasn’t last prize in the 2008 ugly contest after all. Finding his eye, Simondo gave it a quick lick and popped it back in his socket and stood up. Feeling that the fart had broken the ice he was less self conscious about his eye popping out. He unconsciously scratched his nuts and feeling at one with himself sat down at the table to schmooze this lovely lady he was so lucky to be having dinner with.

In Hortense’s view, the evening was a success. How he made her laugh with his stories about farting on the girls in the office; “his favourite trick”, he told her, "was pumping out a silent but violent fart only to walk away unseen then watch as several screeching girls got stuck in the doorway together trying to evacuate the area at speed". Man, they roared their heads off in laughter at that one. Slowly but surely, Hortense was falling for him and whilst the alcohol took its toll and the beer goggles did their work, she saw a knight in shining armour sit before her. She even found it endearing that he had a permanent nasal drip and a snarly that hung from one nostril like a drop pearl earring only to slip back up into his nostril when he breathed in, then drop back down again as he breathed out..

Sighing deeply and with regret, Hortense knew that she had to leave for a change of shift soon meant alert warders and more chance of being caught breaking back into the secure unit. She didn’t want to risk losing her privileges and she was so looking forward to receiving her new pair of incontinence pants that the governor had promised her for good behaviour.

Saying goodbye outside the restaurant, she was careful not to poke Simondo in the eye again as they hugged – he’d no chance of finding that bloody eye out here amongst the piles of litter that so defined the sink estate they were next to. Simondo pleaded with her not to go but it was useless and they both knew it. “Next time my pretty", she reassured him. To placate him and remind him of what he would be missing she wrapped herself round the nearest lamppost where she performed her own specially choreographed rendition of ‘don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’, just for him. Clinging to her leg like a dog in heat, Hortense wrenched him off and turned to leave. As she lurched along the road, she knew she had met ‘The One’ and her heart broke as every step took her further and further away from him. She knew he wasn’t bright, God knows his father must have left half of him down his leg, given the extent of his arrested development; she knew he had some special challenges to overcome in his life, “but with her love and help, they would make it together", she resolved.

“Perhaps Simindo's roomate Sy had been right all along”, she thought smiling, wondering what kind of gift he would like by way of a thanks.......


*****"Vote for MOB, Vote for MOB", Hortense called out to Simondo as she entered the tunnel that took her back inside...

*****To get Simodo's account of the date visit the hilarious Wheel turning, hamster dead blog********

*****To visit our excellent best of blogs funniest blog award campaign manager, visit the fabulously witty Debs of The Lehners in France. You won't be sorry***** .

Wednesday 21 May 2008

'The One'

Simondo woke with a screaming headache and wondered what had interrupted his slumber. Lying half awake in a room that was dimly lit from the emerging dawn outside, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his balled fists and could just make out last night’s discarded metallic curry dishes strewn on the cluttered and battered old piece of car-boot quality furniture that his slum-landlord laughingly called a ‘coffee table’.

The beep of his cell phone brought him quickly to a new level of consciousness. He rolled over and checked out the alarm clock; bright red digital numbers showing 05.30am burned through the half dark at him. Reaching out to the side table he groped around for the phone to see who the hell was texting him at this time of the morning. .

“Bugger it”, he said in exasperation as he realised it wasn’t there and that he’d have to get out of bed to locate it. He badly wanted to roll over and slip back into his alcohol binge induced coma, but there was no chance of getting back to sleep with all that intermittent beeping going on. Lying there for a moment he scratched his permanently itchy nether regions before letting out a fart that made the windows of his room rattle. He chuckled because he regularly enjoyed a good scratch and never more so when followed by a rip roaring fart in front of the girls in the office; “it made the slow days of being a computer operator pass more enjoyably”, he thought.

“God what a bloody awful hangover”, he groaned as he lay there allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the multitude of shadows that the early dawn light cast into his room through the single thickly woven burgundy curtain, that when pulled to its limits, only just managed to cover the grimy sash window. Pulling the covers back, he shivered as the cold air hit his body. Quickly locating his discarded once white but now grimy gray underpants on the floor, he pulled them on in an attempt to clothe himself against the icy draft coming in through the decaying wooden window frames. In theory this might have worked but for the huge hole in the rear of his pants that completely negated any benefit he might have gleaned from his action. Johnny Fartpants had nothing on this guy.

Lurching through the debris of abandoned odd socks, worn underwear, beer cans and old pizza boxes, he searched furiously for the perpetrator of the hugely annoying beep that had forced him out of his pit. Its incessant intrusion into his hung-over consciousness was beginning to irritate him and he swore loudly as he stubbed his toe blindly and hard against the coffee table. Holding his toe and falling back onto the old black leatherette sofa, a relic from the 1970’s, he let out a huge groan and swore further as he caught his right butt cheek on the protruding spring that had broken loose through the non fireproof foam and the broken leatherette covering.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph”, he called out in agony, “if that spring’s damaged my tattoo of Ted Bundy then I’ll swing for that bloody landlord”, he promised with a malevolent sneer on his face. It had been a bone of contention between them that the old miser refused to shell out for something that you could safely sit on without injuring your back passage. Standing up, his toe hurt and throbbed, but his butt cheek was more in need of attention given how much he revered his tattoo and what it had cost him – five weekends of double shift overtime before he could complete the whole work; that and not to mention not being able to sit down for three days when the tattoo artist had done his thing. Furthermore, it had been annoying having to think up excuses as to why he needed to stand for eight hours a day when those silly giggling girls in the office made fun of him – all those references to him having piles and needing a rubber ring to sit down wore thin. But that was nothing compared to this, Christ this was a travesty, all that money and agony and for what?; a bloody spring to scar his butt cheek and make a total mockery of all that he’d gone through to have his hero permanently etched on his bum cheek. He rubbed his butt hard and winced as pain shot down the back of his leg. Just as he was about to examine the damage in the cracked dusty mirror perched on top of a table, the beep of the phone reminded him of his original purpose for being out of bed.

Listening more intently now that he was fully awake, his eyes scanned the room and rested on his black leather jacket draped over the back of a dining chair. “Oh bollocks, it’s probably still in there after getting home from doing that eight hour pub crawl with Sy last night”, he spat bad temperedly, as he limped over to check his jacket pockets.

Pulling the phone from his pocket, he squinted to see who’d woken him and been the cause of so much injury in the space of five minutes. Just at that moment, the phone sprang into action and an unknown number flashed up on the screen. He jumped back at the suddenness of the phone playing the Nolan Sisters ‘I’m in the mood for dancing’ theme that he’d especially chosen as his ring tone. What was merely seconds but felt like an age he stood motionless wondering what the emergency was for someone to be so bloody rude to wake him so early. With a flick of the thumb he pressed answer and barked “Who the bloody hell is this then?”, trying to sound menacing whilst stretching his five foot four frame as tall as he could possibly get.

“Hello, It’s me, Hortense, calling about our date”, said a voice that sounded more like a deep menacing baritone voice from a film trailer for an American horror movie.

He felt a warm glow engulf him as recognition set in. “So this was the babe that Sy had told him about, boy was he excited to meet her and the sooner the better. Who cared if she had woken him at such an ungodly hour, from what Sy had said, she could be ‘the one’” he thought excitedly, as he limped back to lie on his bed..

“Well hello there babe”, he drawled back at her with a strong and suddenly acquired mid-Atlantic accent. “When are you free babe?; what day suits you best?", he asked, whilst unconsciously scratching an area he ought not to.

“Free?”, she asked rhetorically; “probably in about five years what with good behaviour thrown in, but for you darlin’, my pretty, I’ll give up my weekends with Mob”.

Thrilled at the prospect of meeting ‘the one’, knowing that she too had a tattoo of Jeffrey Dahmer on her left arse cheek and hearing what he thought might just be the sound of a whip cracking in the background, he capitulated and offered her every weekend she wanted for the rest of his life....All she had to do was accept............. His heart beat with wild anticipation as Barry White's Love's theme coursed through his mind.

He couldn’t wait to surprise her with a gift of his very own favourite Argos’s own brand cologne that he had bought on impulse for her only the day before. Who cared if those imbecilic girls in the office said it smelled of fly-spray, on her it would smell devine..........

"Let me check my social diary and I'll get back to you", she rasped huskily at him. "But first, you have to come over to the dark side, have to promise me you'll vote for MOB, vote for MOB", she repeated as she let out a deep mwahahahahahahahahaha type laugh before hanging up the line...

****Readers please note - Simondo is a fictional character and doesn't relate to anyone alive, barely alive, dead, about to be exhumed, or contacted as part of a seance. As for Hortense............****

Saturday 17 May 2008

Well the cheek of it!

You know, there I was taking a wee stroll through the Best of Blogs awards web site – did I mention I’ve been nominated for funniest blog? Probably not, given how shy and retiring I am................................

VOTE FOR ME, VOTE FOR ME”.

..................................“Feck off Hortense. I’m trying to say something here will you just bog off and leave me to it?”

VOTE FOR ME, VOTE FOR ME”.

“Oh dear god Hortense – away and stick yer heed in a mincer, I’m trying to communicate with the three people that read my blog. Now just piddle off somewhere and sharpen that knife you like to stick into people’s backs or summat” ..........................

............................Thank God, silence at last. Any flippin political opportunity and that Hortense comes out placards waving, doing door to door canvassing and such like. Crikey, if I don’t keep her at bay she’ll be popping up photo’s onto the blog of me slobbering over snotty nosed babies with poop filled, damp and minging nappies, (that’s diapers to our American cousins), just to gain any kind of advantage over my competitors – so just feck off Hortense and stay away, I’m busy.

Sorry for the interruption and now that Hortense has backed off into her dark place to continue claiming all sorts of expenses such as a second telly and new rugs allowances for her second home near Westminster, along with sorting out that salary of 32k per annum for her nepotistic son who does ‘research’ for her but is in fact at a university up north and couldn’t find his way to Westminster without a chauffeur driven car, I can carry on with my original missive. There I was marvelling over the fact that I got into the top ten at all when I thought, I’ll pop along and have a wee look at the comments. Well blow-me-down, there were two lovely comments from the divinely talented Carolyn and the wonderfully entertaining and gifted Debs Lehner who had taken time out to leave very nice, warm and fuzzy kind of comments. Shored up by such terribly nice words I carried on reading down the list of comments in the hope that I might, just might, come across perhaps another heart-warming string of words that related to me – head swelling by the moment and feeling kinda smug- like I came across someone called Simondo, and a little missive he had penned and feck me, here’s part of what he had to say:

“However, to all of you bloggers listed here – you should get out more!”

Well bugger me, the flippin cheek of him/her/it! I wasn’t about to take that lying down or even on the chin without letting the great Simondo know a thing or two so here’s what I said:

“Simondo, I do get out, a lot, very often in fact for every weekend I am allowed home as part of my care in the community scheme. But it’s the getting me back in that’s the problem – I’ve been known to dole out the old ‘Glasgow Kiss or a Dandruff Salad’ headbutt when being cuffed and dragged back into Broadmoor where I spend my weekdays. So there, I probably get out more than you do! Hah!

“Did you tell him you know where he lives? That if he wants a face to face I can come round and ‘canvass’ him?”

“No I didn’t Hortense, now will you just bugger off and carry on defrauding the electorate while I try and get my readership up to four at least?” Crikey, a sniff of a vote somewhere and I can’t get rid of her... Just wait till I tell the warders on Monday what she’s been up to – she won’t be allowed out with me next weekend! Hah!

Do you think Simondo might want a new friend to take out at the weekends?...............

Thursday 15 May 2008

I made the final ten...........

.......How cool is that then? Crikey, I go away to Scotland for ten days, get back and it’s all kicked off – I made it to the final top 10 of the Funniest Blog Award. I am happier than a pig in shit at such an accolade. Come to think of it, what with me being a bit of a lardy arse sitting here melting in this heat we have been getting lately, I’m starting to smell like one too. Better get out and run myself through the sheep dip in the field at the back – I can de-flea and de-tick myself at the same time. I need to be in tip top condition if I am to meet my public – queue a pedicure and manicure to get my crusty old trotters into ship shape condition; queue a 10k liposuction procedure to remove the cellulite from my cellulite from my cellulite; queue an intensive hair treatment from a hairdresser who performs miracles on menopausaloldbags who have hair like a burst couch that constantly traps combs in it that have to be surgically removed and finally, queue some geezer with a trowel, pollyfilla and a sander to prepare the old fisog for at least three inches of slap to try in a vain attempt to knock ten years off myself. Alternatively maybe I could kill two birds with one stone and get my hair scraped right back into the tightest of pony tails, thus achieving that sink-estate face lift look, I could save a fortune. Either way, looking like a munta is not a good look.

But wait....what am I talking about? Why the panic? We’re anonymous! Ha ha! No need to change out of my stained and grubby housecoat that I’ve been knocking about in for two days; no need to run myself through that sheep dip after all, although come to think of it, my hunkymanthing has been sitting here with a mask on for two days or so – I thought he was spray painting our old garden furniture – perhaps I am minging more than normal. Oh well can’t do any harm to have a quick run through – at least I can rid myself of that swarm of flies that have been hovering around my bonce. So, how fab is that then? No need to pull out all the stops for no one but my dogs and the hubby can see me. But dear god, really, when I look in the mirror I realise just how far I have morphed into Waynetta Slob , she of the face like a greasy pizza, so perhaps an overhaul is long overdue. So, dear peeps, I shall make the effort for if you look good, you feel good and who cares if it’s only the spilled and congealed egg yolk on my housecoat that is keeping it together, darn it, I’ll bite the bullet, have it surgically removed from my pasty white frame and wash it.

So, now that I have my personal hygiene and grooming plan in place I want to mention two other bloggers that are nominated for glory in their own categories; the delightful AIMS of bigbluebarnwest; a prolific writer who is in the Most Inspirational blog top 10. She truly is an inspiration and deserves to win this. Please pop along and read her blog and vote for her. The other gem I wish to mention is Carolyn of Laughingaloneithedark. She is in the best Mommy blog top 10 and so very deserves to be there. She is a bright new thing who is a tremendous writer with pathos and humour. Watch out for her as I believe she is a real talent on the up.

So dear peeps, I am really excited about this development so if you feel it in your heart to make an old bag’s day then please pop along and vote for me. A whole bunch of Mwah, Mwah type air kisses to all and sundry who support me. Do a kind act, you’ll feel better for it and the universe will repay you with even more kindness!

And we can all do with just that little bit more kindness and luck in our lives. MWAH!