“What are you doing?”

Posted on by JonnyB

I look up from my lap top computer, which I have casually sneaked a peek at in the midst of emptying the dishwasher.

“Nothing!”

“You’re not doing nothing! You’re doing something!”

“I’m just footling,” I explain.

“Stop footling. You’re always footling.”

“I’m not footling,” I clarify.

“What are you doing then?”

I close the lap top screen. “Somebody sent me an email,” I explain. “Which I was – dealing with.”

“Footling.”

“It was an email!” I protest.

“Can’t you just save your footling until we’re not on holiday?” she demands.

“But when I’m on holiday is when I have time for footling!” I reprotest. “When I’m not on holiday, I’m busy doing… stuff. And stuff.”

The LTLP fixes me with a glare.

The Private Secret Diary remains closed for the Christmas and New Year Holidays. It will return next week, barring illness/travel problems on the route out of the Village towards where she works.

Posted on by JonnyB

The Private Secret Diary is currently closed for the festive holiday.

We shall be returning in the New Year for your continued entertainment.
In the meantime, archives are available for your amusement.

A very Merry Christmas to all readers, subscribers, commenters and lurkers.

John bares his teeth triumphantly.

Posted on by JonnyB

I step back from the bar in some alarm. At this point I am unaware of the situation, and all that I see is a balding man with bared teeth. He makes some ‘yes! Yes!’ noises, and orders a pint.

A scoresheet is thrust in my direction. I study it, intrigued.

We have won a snooker match!!! I blink at the figures.

We have won a snooker match!!! The scores are there in black and white, and do not lie. This is a crazy situation. We are possibly the worst snooker club that have ever picked up cues. This is a ludicrous situation.

It is typical. I drop out for one single match, and we only go and win it. Blimey. We’d have absolutely thrashed them had I been playing, surely.

Starting the snooker club this year was just one of those stupid things we did. None of us can remotely play snooker. But Colin had been reassuring, being the sole remaining link to the original Village snooker club that had existed years back.

“We were always crap,” he had promised. “Utterly crap. Renowned for it. In fact I can’t think that we ever won a match. Ever.”

It is a shame when such a long-established 100% record falls. Something has been lost that cannot be regained, like a horse’s virginity. The Chipper Barman disappears off to the back room to photocopy the result for mounting somewhere.

“Who were they?” I puzzle, referring to the opposition. It seems inconceivable that anybody else could be worse than us. Even the hard-nosed sports reporters at the local paper take pity on us, and only print the top eight in the league table.

There are nine teams in the league.

It is an odd way to end the year, and perhaps a good omen for the next. If we can achieve this win, then there’s no reason why the Arabs and Israelis can’t pull their finger out and achieve world peace, along with the climate problem and the whales.

The festive season approaches.

Posted on by JonnyB

Mal’s outside lights are the wonder of the region.

If people don’t understand where I live, I can always tell them ‘two doors down from the guy with the Christmas lights’ and they will know. He spends ages each year, cutting enormous wooden Christmas shapes, wiring up electrics and painting cartoon characters. It is amazing.

In a way, I feel a bit sorry for him – once nobody had these outside decorations except those who could create them themselves via a combination of hard, hard work and mad genius. Now any idiot with a retarded sense of taste can go to Homebase and buy twinkly outside illuminations for a tenner.

I go to Homebase.

The town is tense and busy. Nobody looks particularly happy. There is no festive air in TK Max, heads are down in Woolworth’s. And far across the ocean, deep in the bowels of the CIA building, anxious agents are frantically destroying video footage of Guantanamo detainees being sent to Christmas shop at Argos.

I hate installing outside lights. I am scared of heights and ladders or, more specifically, the hitting the ground bit that occurs when you plunge from the former off the latter. As it is, I do a magical and sinister Derren Brown trick on Short Tony, and he does them for me. I stand at the bottom, resting my foot reassuringly on the base of the ladder and shouting encouragement.

There is one window that is not covered, so I scoot indoors and fix indoor lights around the inside of the frame. This takes me ages and ages. By the time I have unwound them I am ready to kill somebody; by the time I have hit my finger with the hammer for the third time I am ready to revive them in order to play them Dido records. In the end I bang in some of those barbed galvanised things that you use to fix fence wire up, deciding to worry about removing them when the time comes. I step back to admire my work.

Short Tony’s figure looms at me – he is walking down the secret path that leads between our front gardens. I open the window to wish him well.

There is the dull crunch of cheap glass as I heave the window shut, crushing the bulbs between the frames as the hinges close. They do not even have the decency to shatter spectacularly.