“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” Jean-Paul Sartre
Tales From The Scruffy
Our new resident Tim’s first experience of Sunday Prayers at The Scruffy was full of the usual quirks of small town life.
Uncle Andy had been on the lash the day before, turning up with a craving for full-fat coke, a bag of peanuts and over-heating like a middle-aged woman.
Our Kiwi observer looked on curiously at the portly, red-faced gent sat alongside him in his seventies cheesecloth check.
“Our sheep farmers love shirts like that mate!” he offered as Uncle Andy sipped his sugar load.
Serial entrepreneur Patch was resplendent in his Raymond Town menswear comfortable fit range as usual, keen to promote the virtues of small business and big customers.
Happy to have registered his first of twenty-two refusals to Chiz, Chair of Selectors at the Villas – aka Anybody In My Phone Will Do On A Friday Night Bar Linda – he was sat smugly in the corner recounting slogs of yesteryear.
Four Pints was under instructions from Mission Control to restrict himself to four pints; any number of pints was still the order of the day for Big Al who got the conversational flow off swimmingly with a discussion on death.
Tim looked on curiously, almost two weeks into his stay, not yet having played a game of cricket having flown halfway around the globe and surrounded by middle-aged drunks discussing death. Where was that airport?
It seemed Big Al had been considering organ donation, at which point we all convulsed.
“They don’t take them in giant pickled jars!” said Patch.
“They won’t take them glowing either!” I offered.
Big Al explained that he had a fear that he might not actually be dead unless the NHS scoured his remains for any living and usable parts, uncontaminated by almost five decades of alcohol abuse and a diet of curry.
We assured him that the Pearly Gates would hardly block his entry as Alcoholics Anonymous would be thriving up there on the holy wine. Pacified by this he wandered off for another “slider”.
Uncle Andy had also been discussing the same subject with his missus who had taken umbrage with his choice of final song.
“I’ve asked for ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap you’re hands!'” he said to nods of appreciation.
“I will always love you” seemed to have escaped his list. We all hoped that we would be around to clap and hold the missus back.
On cue in came Young Geoffrey leading The Fishermen’s weekly assault on the pension busting jackpot and the chance of a week off the old folk’s meals at the local hostel. Perhaps Charlie The Rod had at last actually caught a real fish over the weekend in the toxic murky dark waters of the canal to relieve the pressure?
Tim looked at the free food on offer – Sarah’s Super Supper – and considered his mortality based on English food to date as Big Al inspected each sandwich on the platter he had brought back.
Opening each one up, he checked the contents as if searching for contaminated organs, before deciding whether to cram it down his gaping mouth. We all looked on bewildered and decided that crisps were the better option.
The night rolled on as our Kiwi guest assessed the gravity of his situation, glad that work called the following Sunday and any talk of death might be deferred at least a night out dining with Joe Lawrence.
More PC Madness
When you are about to spend anywhere from £6m upwards on a cricket ground few will have access to to serve a minority sport with a shrinking base, why not throw in a bit of gender inequality too?
We were asked to promote this amongst our very youngest.
Perhaps I yearn for simpler days when kids – in this case 5 to 8 year olds – were allowed just to be kids without crap like this? Maybe we could teach them to climb a tree, catch a ball and run a mile before choosing which sex they want to be?
Reader’s Corner
One Hundred Years Ago
Cricket rained off in April? Surely not! More stories from a bygone age here.
Note the hopeful request that football – now almost all-year round – might shift the start of it’s season. Not for the first time this brilliant archive demonstrates that many issues remain beyond the wit of man.
Words
Anybody sniff an election in the offing? With his usual impeccable timing my MP took the time to fill a few columns of the local rag recently, grandstanding about continuing issues with unruly kids locally.
Mr Hussain said he has raised the issues with West Yorkshire Police and said the force has given assurances that the matter is being taken seriously.
“I urge anyone who has witnessed or experienced anti-social behaviour to contact the police and not leave it unreported.
Well thanks a bundle mate now toddle off; well worth your salary that bit! I bet the kids are positively bricking it.
There was some other similarly hopeless guff from Plod but the bare facts are known by normal folk blighted for too long by the feral, spotty halfwits.
The long arm of the law has been depleted for years and the punishments available are laughable. Decades of soft, liberal policies and now we reap what the idiots have sown.
Fine for MPs and Ministers living in secure communities behind large gates, not so for the rest of us.
Just A Thought?
A passing comment from Tim on first sight of one of our junior training nights. In NZ they have nothing like this because kids learn all they need re sport at school.
Teaching kids almost at teenager stage how to throw a ball would be considered ridiculous. So it is that a nation with a population smaller than London regularly produces sporting excellence.
I wept quietly…
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