Posted on by JonnyB

I visited London.

This was very exciting for me, as I had not been in the big metropolis for many months. It also meant that I had twenty-four hours without having to make up baby milks. This, for me, is freedom. Freedom!!! I skipped down the road like the ladies in the tampon ads, heading for a late-afternoon drink.

I chose one of my old regular haunts. A traditional yet pleasingly vibrant place, it is known for selling very good beer. This is generally my criterion for pub choice, as opposed to Sky TV or £1.99 meals for pensioners on Thursdays. Besides, I was meeting a lady who I was keen to look cool in front of. (Don’t worry about the LTLP etc, it was nothing untoward and had nothing to do with sex, plus I had to leave at 7pm.)

“I’ll have a cider,” requested my hot date.

At the bar, a chap was polishing glasses methodically. I asked him for a cider. He stared at me, as if I had requested a battered penguin.

He put down his tea towel. “Aah erm sorry,” he replied in a French accent that would have French people denouncing him for being overly French. “Wee duh not seurve cider.”

I didn’t quite understand.

“There eez nuh cider,” he explained. “My beurse deurse not like tuh steurke eet.”

A stern-looking boss-type figure watched us from the end of the bar, carefully taking note of potential cider-drinking hooligans. I had a short conversation with the barman about the usual availables in a public house, the traditional nature of the drink both in England and in Northern France, and the renaissance of cider as a choice of well-behaved young professionals with high disposable incomes.

“There eez nuh cider,” I explained to Lady I Was Keen to Look Cool in Front Of, my sociological argument with the staff having tailed off lamely. She radiated piqued disappointment in her thwarted ciderlessness.

“A lager then. A nice one.”

I plodded to the bar. “Aah erm sorry,” replied the barman. “Wee duh neurrrt sell laager eether.”

“You don’t sell lager.”

“Neuuuu.”

“This is a lager pump. Here. This one. It says so.”

He gave me a shrug that was almost Asterixian in its Gallicness.

“Eet izz nurtt on today.”

I returned to our table. “There eez nuh lager either,” I explained. Lady Who I Was Doing A Bad Job of Looking Cool in Front Of blinked rapidly, with a ‘you are an idiot and this is an idiot pub’ air.

“There is no lager?”

“There is no lager.”

“Er – I guess I’ll have a white wine then.”

I felt my shoes wearing out as I returned to the bar once more. Very slowly and patiently, I addressed the barman.

“Do you sell white wine?”

“We duuuh.”

“I’ll have one of those then.”

I was careful not to specify a particular grape variety or level of dryness or wetness. He poured it happily. My beer was too warm.

Posted on by JonnyB

I search for a laptop.

This is not normally what I do, but I wonder if anybody could help me? I am not really a laptop expert and am floundering around totally out of my depth like some Patrick Kielty of portable technology. The last laptop I had was called an Osborne 1, but it didn’t have any USB sockets and they don’t make them any more and besides I need something with a bigger screen.

The problem seems to be that I don’t seem to want what other people think I should have. All I need is something that is small and light and that I can write things on using Microsoft Word (a word-processing package, it is quite popular) and access the Internet. I require neither my processors dualled nor my graphics accelerated, and on principle I’d shy away from something that wants to offer me ‘xclusiv ultim8 gaming action’ or the like.

The main thing is that it needs a nice keyboard. You can’t tell on the internet sites whether keyboards are tappity-tappy and robust, or something that Clive Sinclair would have laughed out of the factory as being too plasticky. I can only judge keyboards by going into somewhere like PC World and physically trying them, and I do not want to go into somewhere like PC World, as I do not want to get cross. For my purposes (writing things quickly) they keys need to go down when they’re pressed and make a satisfying thwacky noise that tells me that the character that I have just typed is definitely typed and will stay typed, even if I decide that I need to delete it at a later date.

Does anybody have any recommendations? I would be most grateful.

Posted on by JonnyB

“I’d never work again,” repeats Short Tony, leaning heavily on the bar. “I would never work again.”

Short Tony works in a sphere in which it is important to come across as sensible and sober. It’s difficult for me to judge, as I’m a bit close to it, but I am not sure if that comes across or not in this piece of writing. I reassure him that I have no intention of progressing the offer.

“‘From reading your blog, you and your cast of friends and neighbours sound perfect’. That’s what the email said,” I explain.

“I’d never work again,” he mutters. We wave at the Well-Spoken Barman, who refills pints of Nethergate.

“The idea is,” I continue, “that they would set up a camera somewhere, and just film us going about our daily lives. Then if the pilot was any good it would be shown on Channel 4.”

“I would never, ever work again.”

“I have to say the LTLP is not enthusiastic.”

Television, like the Sirens from old mythology and early Genesis songs, lures people to their doom. I have never been on television before if you do not count an inadvertent and unwanted appearance on Play School, but I know enough about it to know that it can make perfectly normal people look like a bit of an idiot. Plus apparently it puts pounds on you (makes you appear fat) and exaggerates the size of your head.

I rereassure Short Tony that nothing is going to come of it. I could not possibly swap my simple life of playing bowls and the occasional pint for modern trendy clubs and coke-fuelled bunk ups with Trinny and Susannah and the 3am Girls. We turn back to our handled glasses, and the topic is closed.

Posted on by JonnyB

I engaged a cleaner.

I had not employed a cleaner since the previous debacle, and had not intended to until we moved back into the cottage.

When you have a new baby it is sometimes necessary to economise, especially what with the rent money I am having to pay Evil Slumlord Landlord Narcoleptic Dave. That was until I realised how much child support we get from Mr Brown. Honestly it is loads!!! I give her no weekly pocket money at all, and get to keep about seventeen quid a week. No wonder single mothers are always having babies at the expense of the hard-working family community (i.e. me).

Not having a dishwasher has caused mess in the kitchen to accumulate, and I am spending a fortune on paper plates, so it did seem like good economics to get cleaning help. I telephoned the number I’d found.

“What’s the house like?” she asked.

This was shortly after our dose of food poisoning that turned out not to be food poisoning after all. It was a mysterious winter projectile vomiting bug!!! Both my in-laws subsequently caught it off me. Before the heating was fixed.

“Oh, it shouldn’t be too much work,” I replied. I did not mention that the last two people who had used our bathroom had subsequently contracted dysentery. It did not seem like a fact that would aid me in my negotiations.

So I have a clean house again, and what’s more I’ve become an employer in the local economy again!!! Granted I am not quite in the Alan Sugar league despite all the work I do for Great Ormond Street Hospital which I don’t like to mention at all or take any credit for. But it is a start, and my toilet is much nicer as well.