A Senior Moment

I received this earlier today. It is absolutely brilliant. Enjoy.

An elderly lady actually wrote this letter to her bank. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in The Times and this newspaper thanks him most sincerely.

Dear Sir,
I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three 'nanoseconds' must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank. My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.

I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, re-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1-- To make an appointment to see me.
2-- To query a missing payment.
3-- To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4-- To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5-- To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6-- To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7-- To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required. A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorised Contact.)
8-- To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 8
9-- To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy anestablishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement. May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client,

Addendum from The Editor:

IMPORTANT to REMEMBER that this letter was written by a 98 year old woman.
DOESN'T SHE MAKE YOU PROUD!!!

Eid Mubarak

Went out for a spin along the Corniche early this morning, after being woken very early by an animated Imam who I think was heralding the start of Eid. So very hard to tell though because he sounded angry, not happy. Another example of things being lost in translation, perhaps.

As I pedalled along into a surprisingly stiff breeze, I could tell things were different. Walkers were carrying bottles of water and stopping for much needed swigs, a small group of workers were taking turns to fasten themselves to a water fountain, and a Filipino couple sharing a Mars bar sat nearby gazing out at the flamingoes on the mangrove side of the inlet.

Further on, the most bizarre and amusing sight of all. In one of the shaded picnic areas that are dotted along the length of the Corniche, a gathering of about ten fully abayad women were settling down to a breakfast of fizzy drinks and sandwiches, all of them giggling, some of them nervously looking over their shoulders, not quite believeing it seemed, that the month of fasting was over and they could relax.

Then, on the final stretch on the way home, a small fleet of huge 4 by 4s pulled up outside one of the local mansions. As they got out, dressed in their finest, whitest dishdashas, the visitors, all men, were greeted by the owner who was hailed with a chorus of Salaam Aleikums before shaking their hands and, no doubt, treating them to a garagantuan feast, the first of many today.

Not so fortunate, it seemed, was the lone roadsweeper standing at the traffic lights, awaiting the red signal that would stop the cars and afford him the opportunity to look imploringly into the stationary cars.

As I pulled up outside our apartment block, I looked back and waited for the lights to change. When they did, several cars stopped, their windows sliding open immediately to offer the traditional Eid gift to those less fortunate. When the lights changed and the cars had disappeared, the sweeper looked at his trawl, skipped delightedly, put the money in his pocket and turned to wait for the next signal change. He'll probably double his month's salary if he has a particularly lucky day.

Abu Dhabi

Having left the 'interesting experience' that was Jordan, we have moved to Abu Dhabi where we are working in an advisory capacity in local schools. Kath has the unenviable task of advising a Principal on how to run her school, while I have the easier job of guiding teachers of English. We work for a company that has looked after us well and have settled into a lovely apartment that we furnished for ourselves with a generous allowance. Most importantly, the boys have settled well into life at the new Nord Anglia school (BISAD) and are very happy too.

Having worked in Kuwait, I thought that I knew what to expect when I came here but I have been proved pleasantly wrong. Yes, there is bureaucracy but it is far less wieldy and the staff are more helpful. They even have a queueing system that works!

More impressive has been the standard of driving. The mad slalom driving on Kuwaiti roads that rendered many a journey experience a life-threatening experience is not so evident here. Motorists have more of an idea about how to use roundabouts and speed limits are viewed as acceptable maximums rather than minimum targets.

It's also easy to get around because the place has been thoughtfully and sensibly constructed. What makes it so is the city's Manhattan-like grid layout which is very easy to navigate. We worked out our way around within a couple of days of hiring a car. It just goes to show what can be achieved in a country that has shitloads of money and at least a little vision.

Best of all, we can buy booze here and it is less than half the price it was in exhorbitant Jordan. All in all, life's good.

Happy days!

The Adventures of Beeboo and Meeum!

No photo, just a claim to my wonderful idea. And it's all mine!!!!

Flash Fiction

Once a month, I meet up with a few other people who like to scribble a bit. When we meet, we share two pieces of writing, a 3,000 word short story with a common title (this month's was called IDOLS) and a 150 word piece, or flash-fiction. This month's was entitled Bricks and Mortar. Mine is below.

BRICKS AND MORTAR

It had been such a wonderful, God - blessed day. Sicily’s early spring sunshine, which could often prove overbearing by the middle of the day, was perfectly tempered by a timely cooling breeze from the north, and so all seemed set fair for the most wonderful of afternoons.

His ceremonial duties completed, the priest stepped aside, and the union of the two was lauded by the passionate singing of the couple’s fathers, a modern day Montague and a contemporary Capulet who had managed to put aside enmities for the sake of their mob interests.

They had not counted on the intervention of a third boss who had organised the devastating explosion that decimated the reception.

When the dust had cleared, bride and groom were found in each other’s arms, underneath the bricks that had been blasted over them by the mortar bomb planted by their fathers’ Nemesis.

IDOLS

He’d owned the shop for years, a ramshackle, dark old place that loitered at the end of the High Street just opposite the Lamb and Flag pub where he apparently spent most of his lunch hours and all of his evenings. He tended to open the place at about 10 in the morning, not because of his daily hangover –he’d long learned to live with those – but because he figured that his clientele would hardly ever be likely to be around at that time in the morning either; they were night owls just like him.

More of a lark was wannabe journalist Harry Thomas who finally plucked up the courage to go in there on one of those lousy British October days when it drizzles constantly, soaking you in that fine, penetrating rain that chills you to the bone, if you’ve been foolhardy enough to leave home without a coat. For about twenty minutes he stood opposite the shop staring at the posters in the windows, all of which had obviously been there for years.

The faded bulge of a male crotch occupied the central pane, the wording around it heralding the release of ‘The Rolling Stones’ new album ‘Sticky Fingers’, its original seediness made even more so by the patina of filth that had accumulated there over the years. In the spaces around it were other 70’s remnants including a yellowing advertisement for ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’, a torn and badly repaired ‘Long Live Rock and Roll’ poster and several others from the latter part of a decade that was clearly the proprietor’s era of choice.

It was one of those assignments that Harry had heard about and dreaded: the visit to a has-been rock musician who’d fallen on hard times and allowed himself to drift into decrepitude. An idol to some he’d been in his time, a throbbing pulse of testosterone, a tottering glitter ball of spandex who’d made the second division of Glam Rock, a stint as a supporting act at a David Bowie concert being the closest he’d got to anything like real fame. His two minor hits had earned him enough to buy the shop and it had thrived for a while when the furore from the scandal had died down, but the advent of bigger and better record shops and their ability to undercut him had severely reduced his income and seemingly left him struggling to make ends meet.

That week though marked the 35th anniversary of the bigger of his two hits, a song that was still played in the local pubs, not because it was a classic but because it provided a reminder of happier times when the town was safe to walk alone at nights and teenagers contented themselves with a night in front of the TV, rather than an evening of hoodied mischief and mayhem on street corners that they made permanently dark by vandalising the street lights. They also played it because of the collective guilt that they felt, the knowledge that they’d let down one of their own at a time when he could have done with their help. Harry’s editor, something of an ageing hippy himself, had sent him along ‘for old time’s sake’, thrusting 200 quid into his hand to pay the fallen man for his time.

‘It’ll see him through a few sessions in the pub,’ he’d said. ‘And here’s another 20 for lunch. Might be an idea to feed him when you go to the ‘Lamb’. I doubt if he’d spend any of that 200 on food.’

The gesture took Harry completely by surprise. Paying informants and sources was one thing but stumping up 220 quid for someone who would have probably done the interview for free was another. When he asked his editor about it, he’d just said:

‘His was the first concert I ever covered. Was superb in his day. Way over the top and camper than a row of pink tents - even had bits of circus acts thrown in, with him as an androgynous Ring Master and then some trapeze work and a spot of knife-throwing. A fantastic showman, much better than that wanker Gary Glitter and he didn’t fiddle with kids. He was too busy with the other members of his backing band for that. And I mean 'backing band' because all of them were gay, you know, and it was that which stopped them making it really big. Some homophobic from 'The Sun' got hold of the rumour and ran the story about them on its front page. Destroyed the band overnight. Things would have been so much different if they’d been performing now. They’d have been idols to a whole new generation.’

‘And that’s the angle you want me to take?’ Harry had asked. ‘Get the inside story on it? See if he’ll open up?’

‘That’s right,’ Paul had replied. ‘It would make a wonderful human interest story now; provide a telling commentary on the ways that things have changed. These days, George Michael gets caught cottaging and hardly anyone seems to care. Make sure you get round there in the next couple of days. Would like to run the story on Saturday.’

Pulling his jacket up and over his head, Harry scampered across the street and into the shop’s doorway. The ‘Closed’ sign was still in the window and so he pressed his face against the door pane and peered into the gloom beyond. No one was behind the counter but a sliver of light from beneath the door to the back of the shop told him that someone was there.

He gave the wooden edge of the door a few hefty blows and waited. After a gap of about a minute, he was about to do so again, when one of the lights inside the shop flickered reluctantly on, the inside door opened and the owner walked into the shop carrying a mug of tea. Placing the mug on the counter, he walked to the door, unbolted it from the inside and tugged it open.

‘Yes,’ he said gruffly. ‘What d'you want?’

‘H-hello, Mr. Tindall, my name is Harry Thomas and I work for The Chronicle and...’

‘Harry Potter more like,’ he countered. ‘Your mother know you’re out? The name’s Brian, no one calls me Mr. Tindall except the fuckin' tax man.’

‘My editor, Paul Matthews, sent me,’ Harry said. ‘Says you know him and that you won’t mind doing an interview.’

‘Matthews hey?’ Used to come to our gigs but never saw him again after what 'appened. Is that why you’re here now ?’

‘Partly,’ Harry answered. ‘I want to do a piece on your stuff from the 70s and on what happened to you all. I also want to...’

‘Compare it to now?’ was his astute reply, the first of many that afternoon. ‘What’s it worth?’

‘Paul gave me 200 quid,’ Harry said. ‘And he told me to take you to ‘The Lamb’ for lunch.’

‘That’s just about the best offer I’ve had for a few months,’ Brian said. ‘Tell you what though, you give me all the money that he gave you and we’ll do the interview 'ere. Got all me gear out back and that would make things much more interesting for you.’

After Harry had stepped inside, Brian locked the door and flipped the sign back to closed before leading the nervous young journalist into the back room. The difference between it and the shop could not have been more striking.

It was at least twice the size of the front of the shop and was neatly decorated, well-furnished and clean. One wall was completely dominated by a huge flat screen and all around the room were neatly framed newspaper cuttings and pictures of an outrageously flamboyant Brian in his prime. Of course, back then, he’d had a stage name and so the headlines that Harry looked at were things like, ‘Stevie Spangle Sizzles in Soho’, ‘Spangle’s Spectacular’ and ‘Stevie Spangle Superstar?’

‘It’s that Superstar one that gets me every time,’ he said handing Harry one of the two cold beers he’d taken from the fridge he kept in the living room for that purpose only. ‘It was right you know, we could’ve made it.’

‘So Paul told me,’ Harry replied. ‘And thanks for the offer of the drink but it’s a bit early for me.’

‘If I’m talkin’ you’re drinkin’,’ Brian said. ‘Be rude not to.’

Fearing the response he’d get from Paul, Harry gave in and sat down, placing the now opened beer can to his left. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘if you insist.’

‘I most certainly do. It’s not everyday that an 'andsome young man pays us a visit.’

‘Us?’ Harry asked trying to alleviate the sense of awkwardness that he now felt. ‘I thought you lived alone.’

‘Not at all,’ Brian replied. ‘My special friend from the band’s best days is here too. I’ll introduce you later. And don’t look so scared – you’re obviously straight and so not my type!’

Smiling, relieved, a red-faced Harry said, ‘It would be great to meet him too. Add an extra angle to the article. So, how did it all begin?’

As Brian began the narrative of how the band met, Harry struggled to imagine how this now decrepit looking individual could have ever thrilled anyone with what was by all accounts an incredibly energetic stage show. In the past the make-up that he wore perfectly complimented a lithe frame that would have looked feminine had it not been for an obscene bulge that protruded from beneath the spandex, the cloth being stretched to what looked like breaking point by whatever it was that had been thrust beneath. Not daring to ask about that, Harry focused on Brian’s pallid and deeply-wrinkled face, his matted grey hair and his bleary, blood-shot eyes.

‘Yes, hard to believe, isn’t it?’ asked Brian. ‘Time has not been kind. I blame that guy from 'The Sun' though. If he’d shut his mouth, things would have been very different. We'd have been worshipped.’

‘But how did he find out?’ Harry asked. ‘And how the hell did Glitter get away with it for so long?’

‘We were unlucky and he was just careful,’ said Brian. ‘Got carried away one night and invited people that we didn’t know along to one of our after-show parties. There were girls there too but they just provided cover. We’d have about thirty of them and leave them in a room with hacks and road crew before some of us would slope off for some real action in other hotel rooms. Somehow that journalist ended up following us and he listened outside the door. And that was it, careers over.’

‘But couldn’t you have just pointed out that he was at the party too? He must have been there for some extra fun himself,’ Harry replied.

‘Of course he was but he was with the girls. Nothing wrong with that, was there? Besides, no one was interested in that. A band of homos made for much better copy and we were on the front pages for about a month.’

‘And what happened to you all afterwards? Where are the rest of the band members now?’ Harry asked.

‘Well, as I said, one of them, my boy, my love, is here with me. He did leave for a while but I won him back. He’s been here ever since,’ Brian replied. ‘You’ll meet him later.’

‘That’ll be great,’ Harry said. ‘But what about the rest of them?’

‘Oh, Larry Light, the drummer, died a few years ago. The other two went to the States to work in Gay Revue bars. I’ve visited them a few times. They’ve made a good living.’

‘Didn’t that ever appeal to you?’ asked Harry.

‘Not after I got my boy back,’ said Brian. ‘He’s my idol you know, the reason for being here still.’

‘And is that why you’ve kept the shop? To remind you of better days?’

‘You didn’t take much of a look around when you came through, did you?’ asked Brian.

‘Not really, why?’

‘Well, it’s not much of a shop at all. I just use it as a front. There's stock there but I haven’t sold anything for ages. I use it to fool the taxman. And please none of that is to go in your report.’

‘Of course, it’s all off the record. Not a word. But how do you make a living then?’ asked Harry.

‘Oh, I have various ways and means. Even after a few years in the trade, you pick up useful connections and you meet the right kind of wrong people,’ Brian whispered conspiratorially. ‘Let’s just say that I’m a man of - substance.’

Now uneasy again, Harry turned the conversation back to the scandal and the fallout from it, concentrating on its emotional impact and the ways in which Brian had coped afterwards. It had been, Brian freely admitted, an awful time because of the intolerance that was endemic back then. For about two years afterwards, he was verbally abused in the streets every time that he went out, and on one occasion had been hospitalised after a gang of skinheads had ‘kicked the shit’ out of him.

Five beers and half a bottle of whiskey later, however, the two were laughing and joking, the atmosphere between them now devoid of the uneasiness that Harry had felt at first. When he next looked at his watch, it was 5 in the evening and he began to make his excuses.

‘Thanks for everything,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll get a great piece out of this. It’s just incredible and, for what it’s worth, I think you must be one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. It’s taken real guts to do what you’ve done.’

‘That’s very nice of you to say so,’ said Brian. ‘But before you go, don’t you want to meet my better half?’

‘Of course, is he coming back soon then?’ asked Harry.

‘He’s been here all along,’ said Brian. ‘He’s not been well and is upstairs in bed. I have to see to him now though. Pop up and have a word?’

Leading the way up the stairs, Brian took Harry into a large, empty bedroom.

‘But there’s no-one here,’ Harry said.

‘Just sit down there for a moment,’ Brian replied. ‘He’s in the bathroom.

As he walked around the other side of the bed, Brian smiled at Harry, opened the door to what Harry presumed was an en-suite and said, ‘There you are, you naughty boy, out you come.’ Backing out of that room, Brian strained as he pulled in a large glass case containing the perfectly preserved body of the spandex clothed ex-band member and Brian’s former lover, Terry Tinsel. At Tinsel’s feet lay another corpse, this one dressed in a shirt and tie, his head turned sideways beneath Tinsel’s platform boot. It was the reporter from The Sun.

Standing open-mouthed, Harry tried to back away from the sight, consciously forcing his limbs to shake off the fear that threatened to paralyse them. Before he could do so, Brian took a knife from the belt underneath his shirt and hurled it at his next victim, the blade embedding itself perfectly between Harry’s ribs, and straight through his heart.

As Harry breathed his last, Brian removed the knife, wiped it on his trousers, and walked towards the door.

‘Fuckin' journalists!’ he said.

The Assassin

He’d been lying there for half an hour, his cold, piercing blue eyes staring intently down at the isolated house. His black clothes rendered him invisible on that dark, squally night, not that they were necessary this far from town. Serpent-like, he writhed his way closer to the edge of the hill, his eyes still fixed on the house below. Not even the lights of the occasional passing car diverted his attention, as they sped past in the downpour. Still he stared, as he drew the gun from the holdall at his side, and raised its sight to his eye. He was ready.

From where he lay, he could make out the rough outline of the house, but through the adjusted cross-hairs everything became clear. He’d chosen a derelict building for the fake meeting, an old farmhouse abandoned after the owner had lost his land to the government. Years of neglect had taken its toll on every part of it. The front door hung precariously on a rusty hinge; its windows had been smashed, threatening shards of glass the only remnants of its panes; on the veranda, discarded children’s toys lay scattered, the decapitated head of a doll seemingly staring back at him through the telescopic sight. He smiled.

The distant sound of an approaching car made him tilt his head westwards. As it neared, he could make out the faint outline of its driver, a woman - her. She turned onto the rutted driveway, edged towards the house and killed the headlights. The car she’d come in had been chosen carefully. Its broken tail light, faulty windscreen wiper and badly scratched bumper made it look like most of the cars driven around this mid-west backwater. She was too well known and wanted to avoid any attention. The plan was working perfectly.

She waited for a few minutes before getting out and lit a cigarette to calm her nerves. He let her savour it, granted her that last chance of pleasure, like a sadistic prison guard allowing an inmate that one final, bittersweet moment of pleasure. When she got out, she crept towards the front door, calling out the name of the invented contact he had given her. Sensing danger, she turned back to the car, losing one of her shoes in the thick mud as she did so. She bent to pick it up but slumped on it instead as the high velocity bullet exploded through her temple, shattering her skull and splattering her brain all over the veranda behind her.

Smiling, satisfied, he picked up the empty shell casing, ruffled the grass on which he had been lying and walked back over the hill. He had to get home quickly. It was his night to read to the children.