Or it could have been a Daewoo Pinky-Ponk, or a Fiat Molecule. I am not sure. I had a bag over my head.

The thing is, I am not much interested in cars. That is to say, I am not much interested in cars that a) I can afford, and/or b) that do not come from the classic era in car making (ie from the invention of the car until about the Ford Sierra, after which all cars started to look the same.) (Although thinking about it, the Ford Sierra looked fucking futuristic when it first came out, and I’m sure was cited as such by leading opinion-formers, eg John Craven).

So actually, I have nothing against getting a Kia Ninky-Nonk, or a Suzuki Pootle, or a Daihatsu Chihuahua © or whatever, as millions of people drive around in these every day and they are perfectly happy and I would not like to look down on them. Except I am a very very shallow person and I worry that people would point and laugh and think that I am less of a man.

“Are you all right in the back?” asks the LTLP, who is in the driving seat, next to the man from the garage.

I consider this. “It is surprisingly roomy,” I reply honestly.

“That is because of the upright driving position,” assures the salesman. “There is a lot more room than you think. Although the boot is a bit on the small side,” he admits. The car climbs the hill to the dual-carriageway like somebody has forgotten to untie the big elastic that holds it to the showroom.

When we are a few miles on we stop, and the LTLP and I swap places. I turn the key to re-start the engine. There is an alarming noise!!!

“Er, the engine is already running,” explains the salesman. “I didn’t turn it off,” confirms the LTLP.

I apologise. “It’s – erm – a very quiet engine,” I report.

I drive around for a bit. The salesman has lots of impressive facts. Basically it will do about a grillion miles per gallon, or, if you don’t have any petrol, will run on cress. The driving is not too bad when you are not on fast roads, but it is time to be getting back.

“Where’s the clock on this thing?” I ask.

“Aha!” replies the salesman. “There is a clock as standard on the de luxe LX model.”

I check my watch.

Later on, I confess to the LTLP that I am not sure that I am ready to buy a car like this. It is nothing really to do with any machismo or false male sense of dignity, image etc. It is just that I do not think that sort of car really suits the manner of driving that we do or the type of roads that we do it on.

The following day, I mention to one of the fit milf mothers that we have test-driven a Kia Ninky-Nonk, as we pull up together at the nursery in our standard issue nursery-attending black middle-class sporting estate cars.

A pool of wee forms underneath her as she collapses in gleeful mirth, pointing at me and laughing and covering her mouth with her hand.

I go through this every year.

The thing is, that I do try to make a bit of an effort. I walk through the town, staring hard at each shop. It is an extra-special one this time, as it is ten years – and so I want to get something doubly magnificent to mark our decade together.

I realise that this might be a bit of a shock for some people, as I do sometimes tend to play on the fact that I am a bit hopeless at things for a cheap comic effect. But in reality I am a bit more switched on than I might come across, and I do take my responsibilities seriously, especially where it comes to the LTLP.

I am a bit stuck, so I ring my mum. “I can’t decide what to get the LTLP for our ten year anniversary,” I tell her.

“That was last year,” she replies. “It is eleven this year.”

I return to my search.

In the end I am a bit stuck, so I get her a new trowel. Eleven years is ’steel’ according to the tradition (or ‘fashion jewellery’ if you are using the modern lists, which I suspect might have been put together by interested parties). And the trowel is made of steel, apart from the handle which is wood, so it is an appropriate present. She is very lucky.

I return home to wrap up my gift.

As I go to bed after her, I leave it as a surprise on top of the kettle. The next morning, I pretend that I am not feeling well, so that she will go downstairs to get me a cup of tea first thing, and will find her secret surprise trowel. This will make it extra-special for her, plus I will get a cup of tea made for me.

“Thank you for my present,” she says, accidentally spilling my tea as she bashes the mug down beside me.

“You are welcome,” I reply.

“I have a present for you as well,” she says. “I have arranged a little something for today.”

I am agog, and blink the sleep out of my eyes. We will be going to a nice restaurant or having some sort of surprise day trip. Or, actually, maybe what she has in mind is something more of a special man/woman nature. I recline back into the sheets in interest.

We test drive a Kia Ninky-Nonk.

A bit of a departure for me here – but I get asked questions about chickens more often than anything else. And I always try to reply to people, and these replies often duplicate each other because people ask me the same thing… so here it is, distilled into one post – my top 5 beginners’ tips for keeping chickens. There are lots more than five, but things would get too long. So I’ll write another post if enough people read this one.

Print this out and share it with your potentially chicken-keeping friends. They will thank you for it, and give you eggs.

(more…)

I am addicted to the library.

I had forgotten how great libraries are. Ever since the Toddler joined, we have been going pretty well every week. She looks for her Toddler books, whilst I get out piano music and books about space. It is brilliant. So far this month alone I have learnt to play ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ badly, and read one and a half books about space. For free.

As we are in the big town, going to the market, I decide that a special treat is in order.

“Guess what?” I tell the Toddler. “I have a special surprise treat for you!”

“What is it, daddy?” she asks, her Toddler face agog, like when I take the chickens out some spaghetti.

“As we’re here, instead of the normal library, we’ll go to the big library instead!” I announce.

Her face falls a bit. But it is just as good as the zoo, sweets etc.; she just has to come to terms with it.

We go to the big library. I have never been to the big library before, and am full of anticipation. I shoo the Toddler off to the children’s section and go to find some books about space. We meet up ten minutes later, beside Crime, and go to check out our books.

There is no helpful lady at the book check-out place. This is disconcerting. I hover for a bit, waiting for a helpful lady, like they have in libraries.

A man passes me with a couple of books. He walks up to a machine, puts in his card, and starts waving the books at it. There are beeping noises. With a sinking feeling I realise that I am in the presence of an automatic library machine.

“Where’s the lady?” asks the Toddler.

“She is not here,” I reply. “There is an automatic library machine. Give me your books, and we will do it this way.”

I add her books to mine, and insert my card. The machine instructs me to wave the books at it. I open the books one by one, bending them back at the spine to expose the bar code. There is a sort of open drawer, with a laser. I wave the books at it.

“Error!!! Error!!!” the machine says. I wave the books around again.

“This is bizarre,” I tell the Toddler. “I know I like books about space, but this is like being in the future. Except it’s not the future. It’s like what they thought the future would be like in 1962.”

“You what, daddy?” says the Toddler.

“Error!!! Error!!! Could not parse book!!!” says the machine.

I wave the books again, getting quite cross. “Error!!! Error!!! Seek humanoid assistance!!!” yells the machine.

I find a library lady, who patiently scans the books in with her personal barcode reading device, in the traditional way like libraries have always done. It is very quick and simple. Automatic library machines are shit, and whoever installed them should be made to read ‘On the Road’ repeatedly whilst strapped to a shelf of Catherine Cooksons and pelted with tins of globe artichokes.

We are both disappointed in our big treat day out. I will take her to the normal library next time.

There is nothing worse than having nagging doubts.

I pace the lawn outside the venue. It is typical. This morning, when I woke up, the speech was perfect. Nothing could improve it. It was hilariously funny, wise, perceptive and affectionate in one burst of literary and oratory genius, plus it included a very very funny anecdote that resulted from the groom performing a lewd act at a bus-stop.

If you were to come to me for advice about how to write a best man speech, the first thing that I would tell you is that you have to have a core dead-cert story like this to work around. I have been a best man once before, for a groom who had never performed any form of lewd act at a bus-stop, or any other municipal installation. And to be honest, I fucking struggled. A story like this is a banker. (nb that is not an attempt at a pun.)

The dilemma with which I am grappling is simple. I have been presented with a number of instructions for the day – do not forget ring, get legitimate taxi for bride’s mother etc etc, and there is only one that pertains to the speech, viz on no account to mention the bus stop thing.

And whilst this all seemed very unduly negative and over-conservative earlier on, the wedding venue is filling up with elderly aunts, grandparents etc and suddenly I am seized with the inexorable realisation that I have horribly misjudged the mood and tone of the situation.

I bow to my conscience and good sense. It pains me, but it is the right thing to do.

One of the problems has been that I have spent all day dealing with the big issues. I have just had no time to think. It has just been one major responsibility after another.

“Can you make sure people avoid that dog shit?” asks the photographer.

I stand beside the dog shit. “Dog shit! Watch out – dog shit! Mind the dog shit,” I advise, as everybody heads towards the group photograph.

By the time that I have kept everybody away from the dog shit, I just manage to get in the photo at the back. Later on, as a multitude of smiling and laughing faces morph into an expression of slowly dawning horror, I realise that my conscience and good sense are not necessarily reliable organs.

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There are lots to choose from, and the sheer variety makes things confusing.

“What are our criteria?” I ask.

(NB note I have used the correct ‘are’ and not the common ‘is’, as ‘criteria’ is a plural word. That is why I am such a good writer.)

I regret my question immediately. Apparently our criteria are that it should be cheap and should get from A to B without using any petrol to speak of, or breaking down. Furthermore it transpires that I am not allowed to come up with any criteria myself, as I was in the Village Pub with Short Tony and my mobile switched off whilst she was being towed from the A148 to the garage on Friday night.

“Oh,” I say.

We do some detailed research. After our detailed research, we have come up with a shortlist of suitable cars to investigate further.

Her list:

• Suzuki Pootle
• Kia Ninky-nonk
• Daewoo Pinky-ponk
• Fiat Molecule

My list:

• Jensen Interceptor

“What the fuck is that?” she barks, when I show her the picture on the website.

I explain that it is a Jensen Interceptor, and that it was basically the best car ever made, and that I always wanted one when I was a kid.

“It looks like a stretched Ford Escort,” she says. “Is it economical?”

“Yes,” I lie. Small flames start licking up painfully from the area of my pants.

“We are not getting a Jensen Interceptor,” she says.

“But that one is unbelievable value!” I argue. “For six grand, wouldn’t you surely rather have something like that? Or some sort of Daihatsu Twinkle?”

We browse the Daihatsu Twinkle web pages.

I have a resigned feeling about all this. It does not help that Mrs Short Tony has just taken delivery of a new small car. And whilst it doesn’t go very fast, and the back seats would only really be useful for storing priests in should there be a repetition in the Village of the 16th-century enthusiasm for persecuting Catholics, it is the sort of thing that the LTLP is after. I suspect they are in it together. There is a hidden agendum somewhere, and I am not fooled.

Brochures are ordered from the major tiny-car manufacturers. I am not going to win this one.