I went with My Mate Bill to see Chuck Berry. He played at the Hackney Empire: one of those sumptious old theatres clearly in need of some TLC. It is kind of like an inside-out wedding cake painted by a three year old. In fact I spent a lot of time, come to think of it, trying to work who was the older, Chuck Berry or The Hackney Empire. The Empire’s upholstery is definitely in worse shape, but then it is easier to park round the back of Chuck Berry.
© Andy Daly 2010
I give this to you as an example of the surreal world I currently inhabit.
The gas suppliers are updating and replacing pipework to houses in the area. The builders are all in the kitchen incidentally. A few seconds ago I am sitting here at the pc (from which you can see the understairs cupboard – this houses the meter, supplied by the pipe which enters the property, running beneath the front door )
Without a word of introduction, tap on the door or ring of the bell, a young, slightly porky superviser (he obviously hasn’t seen me) has entered the house and bent down to inspect the pipe – giving me a front row view of his hairy muckspreader!… God give me strength!
Oh Fuck! Now the electrician and ‘Clumsy Tony’ have arrived… Must dash and get anything breakable out of his path.
© Andy Daly 2009
Because of this blessed extension we’re having built: trees, cards, decorations, presents, Yuletide glow (whatever that is) Peace and Goodwill to all men – in fact all things Christmas were last on our minds. Hence the presents: my two sons a tyre pressure gauge and 1½ litres of Castrol GTX and my wife, 8 kilos of barbeque briquettes respectively were all I could find in the last shop open at 12:45am Christmas morning: the local filling station.
After weeks of feeling like unwelcome visitors in our own home as troops of Irish brickies, plasterers, Polish and Lithuanian labourers, hyperactive roofers and plumbers with Tourette’s wandered around clutching endless cups of tea, looking quizzically at us when we cast disapproving eyes over unnecessary dirty foot and hand prints, breaking our mugs and their wind, Christmas, however brief, meant a bit of respite.
I was dreading their return!
Today the kitchen is being fitted: so far casualties include the fridge door handle (Tony: “I hardly touched it “) The new hob (cracked) and my son, at home too ill to go to school, and who is now in addition bordering on hypothermia – why don’t they ever shut the fucking doors?
Then there’s “Foxy”, Tony’s alter ego who has spent the last 40 minutes looking for his glasses. (I found them in a bucket of filthy water in the old kitchen!) and the hyperactive plumber with Tourette’s (“Where’s me fuckin’ spanner?”) He has just (thankfully) had it pointed out to him that he has connected the cold to hot and vice versa on the kitchen sink.
God give me strength.
© Andy Daly 2009
All I can say is that together, if you assemble the following in almost any order, they will give you the flavour of yesterday’s final game:
Rain-soaked, dismal, hopeless, nil, toss, half, waterlogged, commitment, baked, six, coach, wrist, substitute, final, finished, slash, could, a, psychiatric ward, give, then, and, was, if , he, they, we, hadn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, ever, ever, ever again…….
© Andy Daly 2010.
The builders are very much alive and cussing. Today they tore down our neighbour’s fence (to the right) and ripped out her prized Clematis.
“I…. er donnaeow wherrriis gone” said the Polish labourer when she came round to ask what had happened to it. As if he had any idea what a Clematis was!
Thinking about it, it’s a good job his command of English wasn’t sufficiently good to confuse it for a similar word used to describe a certain part of the body common to people of the female persuasion. I imagined the scene…
“Your ….. er Clitoris? Vell I allways taught it vas here! or iz zat der G-Spot? I never sure…”
© Andy Daly 2008
Sitting Comfortably? 