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Only In Real Life!

Maybe it's a local thing. When I was at school what most other people appear to call a 'wedgie' was known as a 'melvin'. (Melvins are funnier because anything that has the term 'melvin' associated with it is automatically funny.)
 
Well Melvin Brag is rhyming slang for a bit of how's yer father. :)
 
Now I'm wondering how that band The Melvins got their name.
 
Spookdaddy said:
Maybe it's a local thing. When I was at school what most other people appear to call a 'wedgie' was known as a 'melvin'. (Melvins are funnier because anything that has the term 'melvin' associated with it is automatically funny.)

Who was the original Melvin it was named after, I wonder?
 
I was slightly disconcerted to see this little bugger leering up at me from the pavement one night on the way home from the pub:

5ef79120-51ab-4507-b993-95fc5e9fc04b.jpg


It's a crushed takeaway food tray - but I'll admit I did a double-take when I first noticed it.
 
Looks like it's about to throw up which seems appropriate considering it's likely contents.
 
So, yesterday I was lopping branches off a laurel bush in my garden when I noticed this thing suspended by a thin thread from the branch of a fir tree, and bouncing around in the breeze. It kept catching the corner of my eye so without really thinking about it I took a swipe at the thread-like bit with my machete. Didn't work, so I tried again and the thing bounced away from me and then straight back into my face. Tried again, same thing happened. When I take a closer look turn out is was the arse end of an owl-bisected rat hanging from about 18 inches of viscera.

Fortunately I had my mouth closed at the time - however I have brushed my teeth several times more than I normally would have since then. I can also vouch for the elastic effects of rat gut, having fired the poor bugger a not inconsiderable distance into my neighbours garden.

I don't really get on with my neighbours.
 
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The Half Moon Pub's barred list on The Good Stuff Online thread got me thinking about pub nicknames.

It's a long list. Just a couple of examples:

I used to know a ‘Blueman', who had allegedly painted himself blue while drunk (yes – paint, not make-up) and knocked on his artist neighbour’s door in the middle of the night: "Look, I’m a work of fucking art – will you go out with me now?"

She didn’t.

Also ‘Pointy Neil’, who, when he got drunk (which was all the time) used to wander around the pub staring upwards, with a look of awe on his besozzled face, and pointing at the ceiling; poor sod - if he’d ever seen a UFO, or Father Christmas, no-one would have taken a blind bit of notice.

But, more importantly, the list also reminded me of one of my favourite pub stories:

On hearing that one of the regulars was known as ‘Black Bob’ a right-on type asked why anyone felt the need to refer to his skin colour.

Listen – said the landlord – there are six Bobs who drink regularly in this boozer: Fat Bob, Thin Bob (who is now also Dead Bob), Deaf Bob, Bob the Wanker and Bob the Perv. Believe me Black Bob is not fucking complaining.
 
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So, yesterday I was lopping branches off a laurel bush in my garden when I noticed this thing suspended by a thin thread from the branch of a fir tree, and bouncing around in the breeze. It kept catching the corner of my eye so without really thinking about it I took a swipe at the thread-like bit with my machete. Didn't work, so I tried again and the thing bounced away from me and then straight back into my face. Tried again, same thing happened. When I take a closer look turn out is was the arse end of an owl-bisected rat hanging from about 18 inches of viscera.

Fortunately I had my mouth closed at the time - however I have brushed my teeth several times more than I normally would have since then. I can also vouch for the elastic effects of rat gut, having fired the poor bugger a not inconsiderable distance into my neighbours garden.

I don't really get on with my neighbours.

We could do with your skills where I live to fire rotting rats at the Russians ...it would certainly make them trot back over to their own side of the border while simultaneously giving all the stray cats something to play with.
 
We could do with your skills where I live to fire rotting rats at the Russians ...it would certainly make them trot back over to their own side of the border while simultaneously giving all the stray cats something to play with.

Hope you are staying safe, XBergMann.
 
We could do with your skills where I live to fire rotting rats at the Russians ...it would certainly make them trot back over to their own side of the border while simultaneously giving all the stray cats something to play with.

Do take care.
 
Hope you are staying safe, XBergMann.

Kiev is lovely and safe ... the fighting is 1,000KMs away in fact I feel much safer in central Kiev than I ever did in London.

We are even hosting the Eurovision song contest in a few months so you will be able to see for yourself on tele how nice Kiev is - or here


... if you freeze frame at 10 seconds you can see my flat overlooking the river

Thanks for your concern though.
 
I once tripped over Desmond Tutu.



OK, it was his cope, and in my defense, his cope is WAY too long. He had a good sense of humor about it, as you'd expect.
 
I have a few days off and have been addressing some dodgy plasterwork at home. Two common defects that arise when using a filler on cracks and holes in plasterwork are known as flashing and grinning: the former being where shiny patches appear over areas of filler after paint is applied - the latter where colour from the original surface shows through the final paintwork.

I realised this morning that in checking my facts on the internet, I entered the words:

HOW DO I STOP GRINNING AND FLASHING?

I expect a call from the local constabulary - or, at the very least, a sudden change in the nature of the advertised products that google deems me to be interested in.
 
A couple of years ago MrsF and I were in the car about to leave our drive. It's awkward to see because of all the parked cars on the street. A car went past going left to right. I heard a slight bang and then a car came from the right, and stopped in the road opposite us. A woman driver in her 60s. She then put her hazard lights on and very slowly drove past us, came to a stop just to the left of the drive and got out of her car. Having still not moved an inch at this point, I opened the door, put one foot on the ground and leaned out to ask her if she was alright. "No" she said, "did you not just hear that bang when you knocked my wing mirror off?" I replied "What on earth are you on about- I'm just trying to get off my drive!" She mumbled something and then at this point, the guy who had knocked her mirror off had turned around and come back down the street and got out to talk to the woman. We finally, set off. How on earth this woman thought that I had knocked her mirror off, turned around, overtaken her (on a road only wide enough for single file traffic), parked on our drive and changed the make, model and colour of our car (in about 30 seconds), I'll never know.
 
A couple of years ago MrsF and I were in the car about to leave our drive. It's awkward to see because of all the parked cars on the street. A car went past going left to right. I heard a slight bang and then a car came from the right, and stopped in the road opposite us. A woman driver in her 60s. She then put her hazard lights on and very slowly drove past us, came to a stop just to the left of the drive and got out of her car. Having still not moved an inch at this point, I opened the door, put one foot on the ground and leaned out to ask her if she was alright. "No" she said, "did you not just hear that bang when you knocked my wing mirror off?" I replied "What on earth are you on about- I'm just trying to get off my drive!" She mumbled something and then at this point, the guy who had knocked her mirror off had turned around and come back down the street and got out to talk to the woman. We finally, set off. How on earth this woman thought that I had knocked her mirror off, turned around, overtaken her (on a road only wide enough for single file traffic), parked on our drive and changed the make, model and colour of our car (in about 30 seconds), I'll never know.
We have passed your claim to CharlieFort Insurance for a claim but unless you ended up with a glovebox full of fish or the radiator is now full of Star Jelly, there’s little that can be done at this time.
 
You asked for it.. it's a lengthy ramble, but all true (if slightly hyperbolic at times)..

The tree.

.....nothing at all wrong with the old one, lovely artificial thing bought a few years ago, could only tell it was fake from about two feet away, didn't shed needles and on twelfth night could be folded up and re-consigned to the attic for an eleven month hibernation.

On Sunday, I braved the loft, avoided putting my foot between rafters this time, retrieved the box and depoisited same in the living room: box opened, I eagerly (relative term, that) started to tease the fused joints apart, twig by twig, branch by branch recreating the authentic look of..

"Throw it away. We're getting a real one this year."

"Eh?"

"Throw it away. It looks awful. Go and buy a tree." (this last delivered with an alarming finality).

Nearest shop selling trees? End of my road. About 150 yards. Nearest shop selling real trees? A mile further on. Run by a chap called Roy. Ambled along, assayed the selection cunningly blocking the pavement outside the shop (great selling tactic, BTW, Roy: physically impede the progress of potential customers so they're forced to look at your wares), and made my selection. A six foot pine, deep jade in colour, scented like a Swedish forest in Autumn. £16.00.

"That one's taken." said Roy.

"Ah." said me. "Got another one, same sort of size?"

"Stacks of them mate. Follow me." he replied, giving no indication that this was the first of many inaccurate or indeed downright mendacious statements he was to make in the next five minutes.

"Can you deliver?" I asked.

"Oh yes." said Roy.

I emerged with an eight foot pine, lovingly wrapped in a big white fishnet stocking and £18.00 down on the deal.

"When will you bring it round?" I asked.

"Can't." said Roy. "Not that one, anyway. Too big. Now if you'd have bought a six foot tree..."

"But you didn't have any left!"

"Should have come earlier."

My fault then. This left me with something of a brain teaser: being splendidly ecological and carless, how to transport an eight foot tree a mile along an urban pavement?

*****

It's remarkable, when stood at a bus stop with a large conifer, in December, how many people will actually ask you whether it's a Christmas tree. After a while, and lots of scope for experimentation, decided on "No, it's lost", which seemed to oddly satisfy most curiosities.

"Not with that, you can't." said the bus driver.

"Why not?" I asked, eyeing the empty bus bar two schoolkids shagging at the back.

"Safety hazard. What would happen in a crash?" he asked.

"Doubt if it would get hurt." Well, I thought that was a fair point.

*****

I watched the departing bus diminish into the gloom. OK, I thought, I walk this twice a day on average and a whole lot more, the tree isn't that heavy...

There's three ways of carrying an eight foot tree (believe me, there are just three, having tested this to exhaustion). On your shoulder, Lumberjack style; under your arm, Mafiosi violin case style; or in a sort of diagonal bear hug. The first two have the disadvantage of having people's eyes out, snagging wing mirrors and aerials and jousting old ladies with Ben Hur tartan trolleys into the gutter; however, it makes carrying easy.

The third way is much more other-pedestrian friendly, but from the POV of the carrier not only obstructs an entire half of the field of vision (further bad news for the Ben Hur tartan shopping trolley brigade), but also brings a lot of tree into close proximity with your body. Most of the latter was fortunately clothed (not a given, necessarily, but that's another story) but my lower forearms, and the right hand side of my neck and face were pressed against a needly tree, albeit wrapped as earlier mentioned in a big white fishnet stocking. Needly and resiny. Resiny allergicy, as I discovered after about 800 yards (on inspection en route in a shop window I looked uncomfortably like Two Face from the Batman movies).

There is also a third disadvantage to this method of carriage. The aforementioned big white fishnet stocking starts to slip off. Wouldn't be a problem if you carry your eight foot pine trees in a diagonal bear hug upside down: however, my renowned lack of forethought had prevailed once more. Now I had branches sticking into my right thigh every second step, plus a rather neat grappling hook effect every time I passed a lamp-post (or indeed. elderly lady with Ben Hur style tartan shopping trolley - oh, the points I accrued yesterday...)

As I turned the corner into my road, within sight of my house, by now sobbing gently to myself, my neighbour drew up alongside me in his Renault Fertility wagon. With a tree strapped to the roof rack.

"Alright Stu, want a lift along the road with that?"

*******
...of course, once you've got an eight foot conifer home, it's large white fishnet stocking by now covering the uppermost branches only and trailing down like an enormous bed-cap, then the most potentially lethal problem faces you.

Or faced me at least: some elementary geography. My front door isn't as wide as a tree. Also, owing to a wall mounted coat rack just behind it, the front door itself will only open to about 80 degrees. The front hall is quite small, only about 6 by 6 feet, and is cluttered with radiator, pictures, meter cupboard, coats, skateboards (will feature later, not in the manner you predict) and so on. Once inside, there is a stark choice: immediate 90 degree left turn to get into the living room, or go upstairs. As close as the tree and I had now become, I felt it was too early in our relationship to take it upstairs so opted for the living room.

Mentally opted for the living room. Physically was still stood outside, tree with nearly all branches now akimbo, rain gently cooling my semi-leprous complexion. Would clearly have to reverse into house and perform a complicated pirouette manoeuvre - nothing ventured, and all that, grabbed the needly trunk and tugged in the manner of the children’s tale involving a large turnip and assorted yokels. Fortunately the tree co-operated, and the small hallway now contained, in addition to the previous list, me in overcoat and hives, and an eight foot tree. And a small drift of needles (“Won’t shed!” said Roy, the mendacious tree-grocer not half an hour before).

Reached round tree, opened living room door – there was furniture between me and the destination spot, a patch of suspiciously clean carpet in the far corner, previously occupied by an armchair (now languishing in the bedroom, in the way). Of course between me and the furniture was the doorway, also cunningly smaller than the tree. In fact, between the doorway and me was the sodding tree. A swift semi-waltz and I backed into the living room: the tree attempted to follow me, having perhaps duckling like identified me as it’s mother but was thankfully impeded by the doorway – so it stood, leaning in and balefully shedding needles into the living room.

It’s quite a large lounge, but to compensate have a lot of furniture. Most of which was now in the way: the sofa, bigger than me (fortunate considering the amount of time I spend on it), would have to be upended, and another armchair transported into the kitchen through another narrow doorway: joy! skinned knuckles too!! just what I needed!

This done, having now removed my coat (stupid: reason hoving into view in a second) pulled the tree through the living room doorway (cue more needles), held the tree in close to me…and realised that my coat, heavy overthing that it is, had afforded at least part of me some protection from the thing. Now, in a sweat shirt and jeans, my entire body was vulnerable to it’s prickly intentions. I felt not unlike that bit in Tommy where the Acid Queen puts him in an iron maiden and the syringes all go in at the same time. Calamine Lotion shares would rise by the end of trading.

I’d already located the base, a manhole cover sized lump of cast iron in the spot where I intended to put the tree (or Bernard, as I’d deliriously begun to address it) and now attempted to tango with him that a-way, a sharp green carpet magically appearing in our wake, and we reached the spot, the base with it’s gaping maw awaiting the trunk…and it was too big. The trunk was too wide, owing to knots and stumps at the bottom where branches had been removed (“That’ll fit! Don’t worry! Simple job to trim it down if needs be!” – Roy, you’d better have a good lawyer).

So, there I am. Attempting to cue lever a tree upright from the bottom whilst trying to guide said tree into an immovable object too small to accommodate it. On my chest, arms and thighs, the collected works of Tolstoy in vivid red Braille was rapidly materialising, and I was so far gone I had named a frigging tree “Bernard”. Bernard, perhaps sensing his intended fate, made a last, desperate bid for freedom, I leapt to my feet, as he fell onto me, and, needles falling down my back and in my hair I heroically wrestled him back to the vertical…

“That’s not a six foot tree. I asked for a six foot tree. That’s not a six foot tree.”

Oh crap, she’s been watching Taxi Driver again…

“I know, They didn’t have any six foot trees left” (or rather, by the time it had penetrated the foliage, “mwah mmungle mwuh monng”)

“Where did you go? B&Q?”

“ No, Roy’s Vegetation and Fraud emporium”

“Oh, yes, always what’s easiest with you, isn’t it?”

easiest?

“Well, I’m not helping you.” Exit stage left. And then, from the hall way “And do something about these needles.” Front door closed.

I looked at Bernard, and for a delirious second he looked at me. A real tree/man bonding moment. I leaned him to the side, and fetched my saw. A brief amputation later, involving lots of sawdust, needles, and colourful language, finally Bernard took pride of place, snugly in his stand.

*****

…. Having unravelled the lights with due care and attention, having screwed them up into a ball without any care or attention about eleven months ago and entombed them in an empty shortbread tin like a kidnap victim, for some reason they now just didn’t work. Flicked switch on and off, changed sockets, peered at wiring, pushed bulbs further in. Nada. Opened the shortbread tin to see if I’d kept the instruction leaflet – miraculously (and I use the word advisedly) it was there (I usually take a match to any set of instructions as soon as I open the box, just to dispel any later lingering doubts as to whether I saved them or not. Besides, it adds a splendid frisson to assembling flat pack furniture).

The instructions read (and I quote) – flying start there then –…okay….…no no, wire not faulty too..…oh good…gee, thanks. My fault (would be anyway) for allowing the Scot in me to inform the purchase. £10 in Debenhams? Pah! Humbug! Give me £3.00 from…should have remembered, Roy’s Vegetation and Fraud Emporium (qv).

Sat on floor, flex coiled around me like a python, and took the spare bulb (despite having no realistic way of knowing whether it worked or not) and one by one removed each bulb in sequence, replaced it with the spare, flicked the switch, when nothing happened (as if it would) then moved on to the next one, having replaced the original suspect into it’s little green socket. As I approached the last bulb, the utter fatuousness of this activity had already made itself abundantly clear: these lights were not going to work. They were Kamikaze lights, like the WW2 Zeros, built just light and fast enough to go one way faster than the defending squadrons. Besides, who on Earth is cheap enough to believe that if you put a £3.00 string of lights of unidentified Far Eastern provenance into a cold loft for eleven months that they’ll work again upon retrieval?

Me. So I continued with the bulb replacement farrago to the bitter end, just out of spite.

Nothing. What about the fuse? Ah. Fuse. Changed fuse. Flicked switch.

Light!!

For a nano-second, accompanied by a bang, and all the electrical equipment in the room juddering into abrupt silence and darkness.

Ah.

After brief sojourn in meter cupboard (remember the skateboard I mentioned earlier? Coming up shortly, in case you were concerned :)) returned to tree and gentle consideration of my next move, accompanied by rabid scratching and swearing. Decided lights could wait. Baubles!

Opened bauble box. Two remained unbroken. Why so many casualties? The skateboard (you’re all intelligent people. You can fill in the gaps. Suffice to say the back of my head was now developing a lump too).

Tinsel? About three feet of it. Tatty. Assorted kitsch ornaments, ditto.

Right. Assayed self in mirror: scarlet and lumpy face, left hand appearing to swell alarmingly – briefly considered putting bag on head, big mitten and oversized cap on and seeing if I could get chased round St Pancras in black and white ( “I’m not an animal! I’m in adult education!”). Decided instead to brave crowds sans bag etc, and headed into town.

My local bus is one of those - timetable says every twenty minutes, reality says when it bloody wants to, and in the last full shopping week before Christmas, when the local constabulary are telling everyone not to drive into town as there are too many cars there already, said buses tend to be fairly full (or utterly empty, bar two schoolkids in flagrante delicto, as they are two minutes behind a bus packed with people, and will refuse boarding rights to people carrying such trifles as eight foot pine trees). So there I stood, in the drizzle behind a squadron of Ben Hur Tartan Shopping trolleys, waiting for the omnibus equivalent of the Flying Dutchman, whilst my co-queuees tried not to look directly at my complexion, lest they a) contract it or indeed b) turn to salt. Some may have been victims of my earlier joustings, but TBH they all look the same to me without foliage in the very immediate foreground.

For once that day (and it was just the once at that) God smiled upon me. I could get on the bus. Standing room only, short ride, so Walkman on, stare manfully into middle distance like those chaps who stand together in catalogues wearing underpants and vests, and behaving as if this was entirely normal. The walkman did to a degree mask the frequent juvenile comments along the lines of “Mummy, why has that man got a Halloween mask on?” and so on, and I eventually alighted, long coat swishing, like Dark Man into the crowding throng.

I strode, Moses like, parting the masses into Debenhams, found a hapless assistant in santa hat and lost expression and asked her where the tree decorations were, in my best, no-nonsense, don’t-look-at-my-face-in-pity-I-mean-business-and-am-in-a-hurry manner. I was not to be trifled with. I was the man in form, the man who got things done.

They were behind me.

I mumbled my gratitude and examined the vast range. I didn’t want blinking lights. I didn’t want lights that played music. I didn’t want lights that were every shade of hair colour Molly Sugden ever sported. I wanted lights that were small and white, and stayed on. In truth, I’d have robbed Blackpool Illuminations by now, but someone else wanted white lights that stayed on, and following my outrageous faux pas of buying a tree two feet too tall (Oh the shame of it! And the neighbours saw me!) I had to make amends somehow. I relocated my Santa-hatted oracle and beseeched of her the whereabouts of white lights that stayed on.

They too were right behind me. In a box, which was labelled “A box of Debenhams Small White Lights that Stay On, Stuart.” Alright then, I made that last bit up. £10. Excellent. Big box of baubles. Some candy canes. Various ornaments. Paid. Left. Got bus home (prosaic, this bit, but utterly uninteresting so keeping it simple).

Walked in to house, following momentary panic that had lost keys (always in the other pocket).

Tree no longer vertical. Tree now at twenty five degrees, roughly (sorry can’t be more precise than that, but theodolite is in hock again). Needles now infested every inch of carpet and sofa upon which it had capsized - the sofa being the only obstacle to it being supine upon the floor. The manhole-sized lump of cast iron was no match for Bernard.

I cunningly used existing picture hooks in the wall behind his intended location, and arranged guy-ropes to keep the wayward bugger in place - now festooned with lights and tinsel and red-foil wrapped confectionary and fragile splinter grenades sprayed silver, it stood like a sentry, in the corner, resolutely going nowhere. Almost worth the all the hassle.

Almost.

Reckoned without cat at 3.00 am. Not even our cat, but friend's cat, as he'd sensibly gone to the Black Forest for Christmas, with lots of trees all around where they belong, ie outside and in the ground.

If a tree falls in a room with no-one around, will it still make a sound?

Yes, particularly if there's a cat clinging to it like the giant kitten in The Goodies, and the resultant collapse takes a lump of plaster from the lounge wall with it, too.

The next year, I bought a good synthetic tree, just like the old one.

And the lights didn't work.
Was this the guy who sold you the tree?;
 

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A couple of years ago MrsF and I were in the car about to leave our drive. It's awkward to see because of all the parked cars on the street. A car went past going left to right. I heard a slight bang and then a car came from the right, and stopped in the road opposite us. A woman driver in her 60s. She then put her hazard lights on and very slowly drove past us, came to a stop just to the left of the drive and got out of her car. Having still not moved an inch at this point, I opened the door, put one foot on the ground and leaned out to ask her if she was alright. "No" she said, "did you not just hear that bang when you knocked my wing mirror off?" I replied "What on earth are you on about- I'm just trying to get off my drive!" She mumbled something and then at this point, the guy who had knocked her mirror off had turned around and come back down the street and got out to talk to the woman. We finally, set off. How on earth this woman thought that I had knocked her mirror off, turned around, overtaken her (on a road only wide enough for single file traffic), parked on our drive and changed the make, model and colour of our car (in about 30 seconds), I'll never know.
I once drove a Transit van slowly along a tightly-parked, narrow street where there was a car illegally plonked on a corner. Tried hard to squeeze past but did hear a thud, oh dear.

A woman jumped out of the car and chased me, screeching and pointing back at the wing mirror that I'd apparently scraped off.
I was fully prepared to screech back about her poor parking, but a man then left the car and confronted her saying 'Leave it, leave it!'
They went off together back to the car, arguing furiously.

At the time I thought he'd told her they'd get nowhere with a claim because of the parking, but I've wondered since if they were up to something well dodgy and he didn't want to draw attention. ;)
 
I have no idea how people in other countries renew their driver’s license, but here locally one can stand in line for a long time at a small office, or one can renew on line.

In the past, one just entered a driver’s license number, address, and credit card and it was done in 5 minutes.

Today, obviously, is a different world since it took me about 30 minutes to renew on line.

Personal information had to be entered in two different places, then reading about being a donor, and after that if one needs to update their voter’s information.

Then one had to swear the information is factual.

This is the world we live in, craziness !

Too be fair, one can send a check with a form through the mail, but lately our mail service is not what it was.

It seems there is a “fill in” mail person about twice a week now.
 
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You asked for it.. it's a lengthy ramble, but all true (if slightly hyperbolic at times)..

The tree.

.....nothing at all wrong with the old one, lovely artificial thing bought a few years ago, could only tell it was fake from about two feet away, didn't shed needles and on twelfth night could be folded up and re-consigned to the attic for an eleven month hibernation.

On Sunday, I braved the loft, avoided putting my foot between rafters this time, retrieved the box and depoisited same in the living room: box opened, I eagerly (relative term, that) started to tease the fused joints apart, twig by twig, branch by branch recreating the authentic look of..

"Throw it away. We're getting a real one this year."

"Eh?"

"Throw it away. It looks awful. Go and buy a tree." (this last delivered with an alarming finality).

Nearest shop selling trees? End of my road. About 150 yards. Nearest shop selling real trees? A mile further on. Run by a chap called Roy. Ambled along, assayed the selection cunningly blocking the pavement outside the shop (great selling tactic, BTW, Roy: physically impede the progress of potential customers so they're forced to look at your wares), and made my selection. A six foot pine, deep jade in colour, scented like a Swedish forest in Autumn. £16.00.

"That one's taken." said Roy.

"Ah." said me. "Got another one, same sort of size?"

"Stacks of them mate. Follow me." he replied, giving no indication that this was the first of many inaccurate or indeed downright mendacious statements he was to make in the next five minutes.

"Can you deliver?" I asked.

"Oh yes." said Roy.

I emerged with an eight foot pine, lovingly wrapped in a big white fishnet stocking and £18.00 down on the deal.

"When will you bring it round?" I asked.

"Can't." said Roy. "Not that one, anyway. Too big. Now if you'd have bought a six foot tree..."

"But you didn't have any left!"

"Should have come earlier."

My fault then. This left me with something of a brain teaser: being splendidly ecological and carless, how to transport an eight foot tree a mile along an urban pavement?

*****

It's remarkable, when stood at a bus stop with a large conifer, in December, how many people will actually ask you whether it's a Christmas tree. After a while, and lots of scope for experimentation, decided on "No, it's lost", which seemed to oddly satisfy most curiosities.

"Not with that, you can't." said the bus driver.

"Why not?" I asked, eyeing the empty bus bar two schoolkids shagging at the back.

"Safety hazard. What would happen in a crash?" he asked.

"Doubt if it would get hurt." Well, I thought that was a fair point.

*****

I watched the departing bus diminish into the gloom. OK, I thought, I walk this twice a day on average and a whole lot more, the tree isn't that heavy...

There's three ways of carrying an eight foot tree (believe me, there are just three, having tested this to exhaustion). On your shoulder, Lumberjack style; under your arm, Mafiosi violin case style; or in a sort of diagonal bear hug. The first two have the disadvantage of having people's eyes out, snagging wing mirrors and aerials and jousting old ladies with Ben Hur tartan trolleys into the gutter; however, it makes carrying easy.

The third way is much more other-pedestrian friendly, but from the POV of the carrier not only obstructs an entire half of the field of vision (further bad news for the Ben Hur tartan shopping trolley brigade), but also brings a lot of tree into close proximity with your body. Most of the latter was fortunately clothed (not a given, necessarily, but that's another story) but my lower forearms, and the right hand side of my neck and face were pressed against a needly tree, albeit wrapped as earlier mentioned in a big white fishnet stocking. Needly and resiny. Resiny allergicy, as I discovered after about 800 yards (on inspection en route in a shop window I looked uncomfortably like Two Face from the Batman movies).

There is also a third disadvantage to this method of carriage. The aforementioned big white fishnet stocking starts to slip off. Wouldn't be a problem if you carry your eight foot pine trees in a diagonal bear hug upside down: however, my renowned lack of forethought had prevailed once more. Now I had branches sticking into my right thigh every second step, plus a rather neat grappling hook effect every time I passed a lamp-post (or indeed. elderly lady with Ben Hur style tartan shopping trolley - oh, the points I accrued yesterday...)

As I turned the corner into my road, within sight of my house, by now sobbing gently to myself, my neighbour drew up alongside me in his Renault Fertility wagon. With a tree strapped to the roof rack.

"Alright Stu, want a lift along the road with that?"

*******
...of course, once you've got an eight foot conifer home, it's large white fishnet stocking by now covering the uppermost branches only and trailing down like an enormous bed-cap, then the most potentially lethal problem faces you.

Or faced me at least: some elementary geography. My front door isn't as wide as a tree. Also, owing to a wall mounted coat rack just behind it, the front door itself will only open to about 80 degrees. The front hall is quite small, only about 6 by 6 feet, and is cluttered with radiator, pictures, meter cupboard, coats, skateboards (will feature later, not in the manner you predict) and so on. Once inside, there is a stark choice: immediate 90 degree left turn to get into the living room, or go upstairs. As close as the tree and I had now become, I felt it was too early in our relationship to take it upstairs so opted for the living room.

Mentally opted for the living room. Physically was still stood outside, tree with nearly all branches now akimbo, rain gently cooling my semi-leprous complexion. Would clearly have to reverse into house and perform a complicated pirouette manoeuvre - nothing ventured, and all that, grabbed the needly trunk and tugged in the manner of the children’s tale involving a large turnip and assorted yokels. Fortunately the tree co-operated, and the small hallway now contained, in addition to the previous list, me in overcoat and hives, and an eight foot tree. And a small drift of needles (“Won’t shed!” said Roy, the mendacious tree-grocer not half an hour before).

Reached round tree, opened living room door – there was furniture between me and the destination spot, a patch of suspiciously clean carpet in the far corner, previously occupied by an armchair (now languishing in the bedroom, in the way). Of course between me and the furniture was the doorway, also cunningly smaller than the tree. In fact, between the doorway and me was the sodding tree. A swift semi-waltz and I backed into the living room: the tree attempted to follow me, having perhaps duckling like identified me as it’s mother but was thankfully impeded by the doorway – so it stood, leaning in and balefully shedding needles into the living room.

It’s quite a large lounge, but to compensate have a lot of furniture. Most of which was now in the way: the sofa, bigger than me (fortunate considering the amount of time I spend on it), would have to be upended, and another armchair transported into the kitchen through another narrow doorway: joy! skinned knuckles too!! just what I needed!

This done, having now removed my coat (stupid: reason hoving into view in a second) pulled the tree through the living room doorway (cue more needles), held the tree in close to me…and realised that my coat, heavy overthing that it is, had afforded at least part of me some protection from the thing. Now, in a sweat shirt and jeans, my entire body was vulnerable to it’s prickly intentions. I felt not unlike that bit in Tommy where the Acid Queen puts him in an iron maiden and the syringes all go in at the same time. Calamine Lotion shares would rise by the end of trading.

I’d already located the base, a manhole cover sized lump of cast iron in the spot where I intended to put the tree (or Bernard, as I’d deliriously begun to address it) and now attempted to tango with him that a-way, a sharp green carpet magically appearing in our wake, and we reached the spot, the base with it’s gaping maw awaiting the trunk…and it was too big. The trunk was too wide, owing to knots and stumps at the bottom where branches had been removed (“That’ll fit! Don’t worry! Simple job to trim it down if needs be!” – Roy, you’d better have a good lawyer).

So, there I am. Attempting to cue lever a tree upright from the bottom whilst trying to guide said tree into an immovable object too small to accommodate it. On my chest, arms and thighs, the collected works of Tolstoy in vivid red Braille was rapidly materialising, and I was so far gone I had named a frigging tree “Bernard”. Bernard, perhaps sensing his intended fate, made a last, desperate bid for freedom, I leapt to my feet, as he fell onto me, and, needles falling down my back and in my hair I heroically wrestled him back to the vertical…

“That’s not a six foot tree. I asked for a six foot tree. That’s not a six foot tree.”

Oh crap, she’s been watching Taxi Driver again…

“I know, They didn’t have any six foot trees left” (or rather, by the time it had penetrated the foliage, “mwah mmungle mwuh monng”)

“Where did you go? B&Q?”

“ No, Roy’s Vegetation and Fraud emporium”

“Oh, yes, always what’s easiest with you, isn’t it?”

easiest?

“Well, I’m not helping you.” Exit stage left. And then, from the hall way “And do something about these needles.” Front door closed.

I looked at Bernard, and for a delirious second he looked at me. A real tree/man bonding moment. I leaned him to the side, and fetched my saw. A brief amputation later, involving lots of sawdust, needles, and colourful language, finally Bernard took pride of place, snugly in his stand.

*****

…. Having unravelled the lights with due care and attention, having screwed them up into a ball without any care or attention about eleven months ago and entombed them in an empty shortbread tin like a kidnap victim, for some reason they now just didn’t work. Flicked switch on and off, changed sockets, peered at wiring, pushed bulbs further in. Nada. Opened the shortbread tin to see if I’d kept the instruction leaflet – miraculously (and I use the word advisedly) it was there (I usually take a match to any set of instructions as soon as I open the box, just to dispel any later lingering doubts as to whether I saved them or not. Besides, it adds a splendid frisson to assembling flat pack furniture).

The instructions read (and I quote) – flying start there then –…okay….…no no, wire not faulty too..…oh good…gee, thanks. My fault (would be anyway) for allowing the Scot in me to inform the purchase. £10 in Debenhams? Pah! Humbug! Give me £3.00 from…should have remembered, Roy’s Vegetation and Fraud Emporium (qv).

Sat on floor, flex coiled around me like a python, and took the spare bulb (despite having no realistic way of knowing whether it worked or not) and one by one removed each bulb in sequence, replaced it with the spare, flicked the switch, when nothing happened (as if it would) then moved on to the next one, having replaced the original suspect into it’s little green socket. As I approached the last bulb, the utter fatuousness of this activity had already made itself abundantly clear: these lights were not going to work. They were Kamikaze lights, like the WW2 Zeros, built just light and fast enough to go one way faster than the defending squadrons. Besides, who on Earth is cheap enough to believe that if you put a £3.00 string of lights of unidentified Far Eastern provenance into a cold loft for eleven months that they’ll work again upon retrieval?

Me. So I continued with the bulb replacement farrago to the bitter end, just out of spite.

Nothing. What about the fuse? Ah. Fuse. Changed fuse. Flicked switch.

Light!!

For a nano-second, accompanied by a bang, and all the electrical equipment in the room juddering into abrupt silence and darkness.

Ah.

After brief sojourn in meter cupboard (remember the skateboard I mentioned earlier? Coming up shortly, in case you were concerned :)) returned to tree and gentle consideration of my next move, accompanied by rabid scratching and swearing. Decided lights could wait. Baubles!

Opened bauble box. Two remained unbroken. Why so many casualties? The skateboard (you’re all intelligent people. You can fill in the gaps. Suffice to say the back of my head was now developing a lump too).

Tinsel? About three feet of it. Tatty. Assorted kitsch ornaments, ditto.

Right. Assayed self in mirror: scarlet and lumpy face, left hand appearing to swell alarmingly – briefly considered putting bag on head, big mitten and oversized cap on and seeing if I could get chased round St Pancras in black and white ( “I’m not an animal! I’m in adult education!”). Decided instead to brave crowds sans bag etc, and headed into town.

My local bus is one of those - timetable says every twenty minutes, reality says when it bloody wants to, and in the last full shopping week before Christmas, when the local constabulary are telling everyone not to drive into town as there are too many cars there already, said buses tend to be fairly full (or utterly empty, bar two schoolkids in flagrante delicto, as they are two minutes behind a bus packed with people, and will refuse boarding rights to people carrying such trifles as eight foot pine trees). So there I stood, in the drizzle behind a squadron of Ben Hur Tartan Shopping trolleys, waiting for the omnibus equivalent of the Flying Dutchman, whilst my co-queuees tried not to look directly at my complexion, lest they a) contract it or indeed b) turn to salt. Some may have been victims of my earlier joustings, but TBH they all look the same to me without foliage in the very immediate foreground.

For once that day (and it was just the once at that) God smiled upon me. I could get on the bus. Standing room only, short ride, so Walkman on, stare manfully into middle distance like those chaps who stand together in catalogues wearing underpants and vests, and behaving as if this was entirely normal. The walkman did to a degree mask the frequent juvenile comments along the lines of “Mummy, why has that man got a Halloween mask on?” and so on, and I eventually alighted, long coat swishing, like Dark Man into the crowding throng.

I strode, Moses like, parting the masses into Debenhams, found a hapless assistant in santa hat and lost expression and asked her where the tree decorations were, in my best, no-nonsense, don’t-look-at-my-face-in-pity-I-mean-business-and-am-in-a-hurry manner. I was not to be trifled with. I was the man in form, the man who got things done.

They were behind me.

I mumbled my gratitude and examined the vast range. I didn’t want blinking lights. I didn’t want lights that played music. I didn’t want lights that were every shade of hair colour Molly Sugden ever sported. I wanted lights that were small and white, and stayed on. In truth, I’d have robbed Blackpool Illuminations by now, but someone else wanted white lights that stayed on, and following my outrageous faux pas of buying a tree two feet too tall (Oh the shame of it! And the neighbours saw me!) I had to make amends somehow. I relocated my Santa-hatted oracle and beseeched of her the whereabouts of white lights that stayed on.

They too were right behind me. In a box, which was labelled “A box of Debenhams Small White Lights that Stay On, Stuart.” Alright then, I made that last bit up. £10. Excellent. Big box of baubles. Some candy canes. Various ornaments. Paid. Left. Got bus home (prosaic, this bit, but utterly uninteresting so keeping it simple).

Walked in to house, following momentary panic that had lost keys (always in the other pocket).

Tree no longer vertical. Tree now at twenty five degrees, roughly (sorry can’t be more precise than that, but theodolite is in hock again). Needles now infested every inch of carpet and sofa upon which it had capsized - the sofa being the only obstacle to it being supine upon the floor. The manhole-sized lump of cast iron was no match for Bernard.

I cunningly used existing picture hooks in the wall behind his intended location, and arranged guy-ropes to keep the wayward bugger in place - now festooned with lights and tinsel and red-foil wrapped confectionary and fragile splinter grenades sprayed silver, it stood like a sentry, in the corner, resolutely going nowhere. Almost worth the all the hassle.

Almost.

Reckoned without cat at 3.00 am. Not even our cat, but friend's cat, as he'd sensibly gone to the Black Forest for Christmas, with lots of trees all around where they belong, ie outside and in the ground.

If a tree falls in a room with no-one around, will it still make a sound?

Yes, particularly if there's a cat clinging to it like the giant kitten in The Goodies, and the resultant collapse takes a lump of plaster from the lounge wall with it, too.

The next year, I bought a good synthetic tree, just like the old one.

And the lights didn't work.
I know it's almost 20 years ago since that was posted. It's still is brilliant all this time later. A wonderful read.
 
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