Posted on by JonnyB

My new ladder has arrived!!!

I have not been able to get into the loft for a few weeks due to the Replacement Carpenter taking home the Original Carpenter’s ladder before being replaced by the Replacement Replacement Carpenter. Seeing as loads of my stuff is in the loft, I decided that I needed to get my own ladder, so I shopped around for about 56 nanoseconds before getting one off the ebay.

It is telescopic!!! I had no idea that such things existed. It is black, and as sexy as a ladder can possibly be, especially as it is new and clean and unsullied by eg dirt or sperm. I wait for the Postman to disappear next door before ripping open the packaging.

It is telescopic!!! I telescop the first rung up. It clicks into place with a clicky click. As does the second rung. Click. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click (nb note to self check number of rungs before posting and paste in correct number of clicks.) My ladder is up!!! I shall definitely leave positive feedback for this.

It is telescopic!!! I detelescop the top rung, which slides back down with an indescribable slidey noise. As does the next rung, and all the rest. My ladder is de-extended!!! It truly is a remarkable product.

I put the ladder up once more and take it down again. I am still enthusiastic, but if I am honest a bit bored with it already. All it does is go up and down (which is still more than a non-telescopic ladder). I do not need to get anything from the loft at this particular moment.

It is a shame. I have that post-Christmas feeling with my ladder. I carefully store it under the bed, so that I can get hold of it at a moment’s notice should I require an emergency trip to the loft.

I now want somebody to visit (male or female) so that I can show it off to them.

Posted on by JonnyB

“So what are your new year’s resolutions then?” I ask Short Tony over breakfast.

(nb he has popped round for breakfast, it is not that we have slept together the night before in an embarrassing ‘things happen on new year’s eve’ type way thus confirming in a horrific fashion the subtext some enthusiastic academic might read into the relationship between Short Tony and I, JonnyB, a bit like Frodo and Sam or Pooh and Piglet can be perfectly good friends with no funny stuff so there no we didn’t and there is evidence and proof of that fact.)

He pats his stomach mournfully. “It has to be this, really.” Short Tony’s waistline has been expanding so rapidly and uncontrollably that it has recently admitted Romania and Bulgaria and is currently in negotiations with Turkey.

I glance round the glasshouse, sympathetically.

“Yours?” he asks, helping himself to an extra sausage.

I think for a bit. There are a million things that I really should try to do in 2007, such as being a bit nicer to the LTLP, starting working again rather than just poncing about with the baby, changing the light bulb in the lounge, etc. But none of these seem to address the vague bigpictureness that hangs over me.

“Mine is probably ‘don’t.’ I conclude. Just ‘don’t.’“

He nods. It will do.

Posted on by JonnyB

“Like a vurgin,” croons Mrs Short Tony. “Touched for the very first time.”

I realise through a swamp of beer that if I am to be part of the new youth web 2.0 generation, I ought to be recording such behaviour on my mobile phone.

I have never done this before. I look at the buttons on the phone. There is no button that is specifically for making recordings of singing next-door neighbours. I frown.

“Like a vur-ur-ur-urrrrr-gin…”

If I am not able to work this out quickly then I will miss the performance. What’s more, Mrs Big A and her fit cousin are now doing a little dance. There is no point whatsoever in having movie making apparatus to hand on one’s phone if one is not going to make a film of Mrs Big A and her fit cousin doing a little dance whilst Mrs Short Tony sings ‘Like a Vurgin’.

“When your heart beeeats. Next. To mine.”

I look around for Narcoleptic Dave in order to ask him, but he went to bed after the New Year bongs. There is a menu system on the phone. I scroll through the options one by one. Short Tony looks on in a kind of horrified fascination.

“Like a vur-gin.”

I locate the appropriate option on the menu. I then find a sub-menu which asks me what sort of picture I want to take.

“Touched for the very first time.”

The image on the screen is rubbish. Mrs Short Tony is standing right in front of some lights. All I can see is a Mrs Short Tony-shaped silhouette waving a karaoke microphone around in semi-darkness. Mrs Big A and her fit cousin-shaped silhouettes drift in and out of the picture. It is like the opening credits to a James Bond film.

I press ‘record’ anyway. I will make it available to Albert R Broccoli for his next production if required (nb to Albert R Broccoli, if you are finding this via Google it would make sense to call the next film ‘Like a Vurgin’ as it would save on the sound overdub and you could spend the money on more explosions (nb I noticed you couldn’t afford many in the new film and had to put in loads of talking instead so please do consider it)).

Posted on by JonnyB

I find myself in charge!!!

The LTLP is laid up with a broken leg following an unfortunate incident with an old lady brandishing a Renault Megane. The day-to-day practicalities have sort of fallen into place (she tells me to do things and points her crutches a lot; I do them). Christmas dinner is another matter and I am starting to feel the pressure.

In the lounge are my mother, my father, the LTLPs mother and the LTLPs father. Unaccountably, we have failed to invite the Bin Ladens or James Blunt. Pleasant hubbubs of conversation occur in 3-minute bursts between the 2398572-hour periods of black-hole-deep silence.

The turkey looks dolefully at me as I hump it into a tin. I have no sympathy for it. If turkeys are not going to vote then they have no business complaining when things dont turn out as they would like. It is a magnificent Norfolk Black from Jason the Duck Man, and seems to be labelled best before the 24th December.

If Jason the Duck Man is having a laugh at my expense then I will have strong words the next time we meet.

I can feel the Baby staring. She has picked up on my insecurity from within her Guantanamo playpen. I try to radiate personal authority as the oven heats up. She stares. Stares.

And now the hams are misbehaving. We accidentally have twice the number of hams envisaged, due to me having too much to drink in the Village Pub a month or so back, ordering one from Len the Fish, and then forgetting all about it until said ham turned up like an unexpected Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (but ham). The LTLP has also, with a superhuman effort and lots of telling and crutch-pointing, roasted a ham. The hams do not get on. They glower at each other across the worktop.

It is too much for me. Truculent hams, prematurely-aged turkeys, suspicious Babies and politely-conversing relatives. Christmas was never meant to be about this. Whither the Baby Jesus, Cliff Richard, Raymond Briggs et al? I lob the turkey into the inferno and get myself a pint.