Annoyances

Considering Mister Shooter

by Enormous on June 3, 2009

‘Well, as I keep telling you, it’s very inconvenient and annoying, to say the least. Please make sure it doesn’t happen again. Thank you.’

That was me on the telephone this morning speaking to a nice woman called Velma at the local Post Office depot.

Velma is the latest in a long lone of Post Office employees who have been hearing my complaints about a certain item of mail that is delivered on a regular basis to my address. She is the latest of a dozen various officials who have told me: ‘Yes, sorry about that, Mr Lawrence. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

Despite her and her colleagues’ well-meaning assurances, I am happily confident that it will, in fact, happen again.

About six times every year, an large envelope addressed to a Mr P. Shooter – a previous tenant, I have ascertained – is stuffed through my letterbox. Inside this envelope is a glossy catalogue displaying in full-colour and highly graphic detail a large range of sexual toys and various rubbery implements from a company called Up Yours.

Whilst I am not totally averse to quickly flicking through its pages before depositing said catalogue in the bin, I have noticed that the range of products available is almost always entirely the same; Up Yours’ range of wobbly vibrators and pink, blow-up dolls has, over the years, remained pretty constant. Thus, I do not need to see any more. Neither, I suspect, if he were in receipt of his catalogue, would Mr Shooter.

It seems that the Post Office has been ignoring my requests, however. And I do not have any intention of personally contacting Up Yours; goodness knows what else they might send me once they have my details. I do not want my actual name on further envelopes full of offers to buy embarrassing ‘real-feel’ contraptions at knock-down prices.

Not being listened to seems to be the story of my life – well, the main chapters, at least.

I am feeling slightly anxious and uncomfortable for another reason this morning, also. I had a lurid dream last night in which I was engaging in rampant sex action with the pretty wife of a Hammond organ-playing friend of mine. I still feel very guilty about it – she’s a happily married woman, after all. That dream was immediately followed by another in which I was on trial at Nuremberg.

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Bo Selected

by Enormous on April 14, 2009

I am so glad the Obama kids have decided to call their new dog Bo.

Bo was my Irish great-grandfather’s nickname. He was a hero in World War One. He received the Victoria Cross for valour “in the face of the enemy” which probably meant he told some devastatingly bad jokes to a few Germans and forced them to surrender.

He was infamous as an incorrigible teller of egregiously unfunny gags, rendering mute anyone who encountered him – not from trying to breathe through tears of laughter, but from confusion and tedium. It has been said by certain family members that I take after him in this regard but – and I am not joking when I say this – it is a complete fallacy.

Something else that endears the new Obama dog to me is the fact that he looks a lot like Audrey, what with his glorious abundance of black hair and his sad eyes. He does not have a long white beard like she does, however, something that holds him back slightly in the canine perfection stakes. (Audrey just told me that.)

In fact, when I pointed out to her the fact that he resembled her quite a lot, she remained unimpressed and looked at me stoically as if to say: ‘Whatever.’

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Vent

by Enormous on January 14, 2009

All petrol driven remote-controlled model cars should be banned.

All noisy toys should be banned. In fact, let’s go the whole hog and ban children, too.

Or, more specifically, let’s ban children – and adults, as it happens – from using these infernal contraptions on the rec’ outside the studio window, or anywhere within a ten mile radius of Davy Lawrence and his dog.

I’m at my wits’ end, darling readers, I really am: one could hang a coat on my frustration.

Every time I have tried to record some vocals today, some adolescent simpleton – who should, incidentally, be at school – and his cretinous father begin pressing a small hand-held controller which sends the child’s model-car-Christmas-present noisily zooming up and down the paths just over the wall at the end of our back garden. Audrey cannot stand the disruption, either. ‘Woof! Woof! Woof!’ she barks every time the hellish noise invades our privacy – and then, ‘WOOF!’ again.

Aagghhrrr! PISS OFF, MORONS!

Why buy kids such things in the first place? They only add to the pollution we have to suffer around here.

‘When we have children,’ I told Audrey, ‘I’m going to buy them wooden hoops for Christmas.’

She ignored me and went to lie under the bed.

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I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost

by Enormous on October 12, 2008

When I got back from London yesterday tired and weary, I picked the hairy one up from her grandma’s and drove home in heavy traffic trying hard not to fall asleep at the wheel.

‘I know it’s rather early, Audrey,’ I told her, ‘but I think I’m going to have to go to bed as soon as we get in.’

‘But what about my evening walk, father?’ she barked. ‘You are not thinking of excluding it from today’s schedule, surely?’

We managed a hasty ten-minute trudge around the rec’ and headed for home. Then weirdness happened.

As we reached our front door we were approached by a young man with the face of a moustached gerbil, and a gaunt old woman in a handsome trouser suit who was pushing a wheelchair containing a beautiful child. ‘Good day to you,’ said the man. ‘We are Aleph. We can see you are busy, sir, but we are collecting for our church and we were just wondering if – ‘

‘Let me stop you there,’ I told him, searching for something succinct to say that would explain with accurate precision my lack of sympathy for his mission. I found something quite unambiguous in ‘F*ck off.’ I was too worn-out to say anything else.

As I was closing the door I heard the woman chiding me. ‘There are people in this world who are dying in agony because of men like you,’ she hissed. ‘Dying in agony.’

I dare say she had a valid point.

Before shutting the door completely I waited a beat while I calculated an apposite reply. Satisfied I had found something appropriate, I continued with: ‘Drop dead.’

I checked that the door was securely locked, and while Audrey settled in her favourite spot upstairs beneath the mixing desk I went into the kitchen to prepare a light supper of green tea and cold pizza. Reaching for the kettle, I was taken aback when it suddenly moved three inches to the left as if propelled by an invisible hand.

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How The Grouch Stole Thursday

by Enormous on September 25, 2008

Ouch! I hate oversleeping in the mornings but that’s exactly what happened today.

Audrey usually wakes me with a gentle nudge at 6am, but she too was fast asleep this morning for some reason until eight o’clock. I cannot afford to get up late; there is so much to do.

And now I am in such a bad mood I have decided to adjust my plans for the day slightly and go and beat up some Italian Post-Expressionists.

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Beware of the Flowers

by Enormous on August 18, 2008

The Forces of Evil that control the village have gone health-and-safety crazy.

The park that Audrey and I usually stroll around for our morning exercise has been recently fenced-off from the outside world. It is now heavily defended against drunken toddlers or Romany invaders, but today, the big iron gates at the Princess Avenue entrance that are usually left open twenty-four hours, seven days-a-week, were closed. They had been secured with a colossal metal chain and padlock, barring our egress on to the bowling greens and flowerbeds of Audrey’s favourite recreational space.

The reason? The district council were cutting the grass and pruning the roses.

Some bureaucratic imbecile at the Town Hall had apparently deemed it too dangerous for visitors fearing they may wander into the path of one of the big red-and-green lawnmowers and lose a limb, or puncture a major artery on a dead-headed rosebush and bleed to death or trip on a fuchsia and snap their spine.

The look on my puzzled little dog’s face was one of cheerless frustration and disappointment; the look on my face was slightly less resigned.

To make it up to her, we walked via the school playing-fields to the shops where I treated her to a colourful packet of chews made from pigs’ nerves.

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Meanwhile, Back at the Ponderosa

by Enormous on August 14, 2008

I should have known it was going to be one of those days. This morning began very poorly.

I received bad news in an email first thing which depressed me; then, in attempting to pick up the freshly excreted contents of Audrey’s bowels on the rec’, the poo-bag broke and I got the stuff all over my hand; finally, outside the Co-op in the village, I tripped and twisted my ankle. Swearing, I stumbled forward awkwardly into a pretty girl on her way to work and, in an effort to steady myself, placed my stinking hand on her left breast. I apologised profusely but it was not a thing of any grace.

‘It’s okay,’ she said softly. But as she spoke I saw the overlapping terror and disgust in her face.

Then everything changed: As we returned home, the rain stopped and a warm sun rose in the east. A strange man was on a ladder doing something to the upstairs windows of the house. It transpired that he was not in fact a Jehovah’s Burglar as was my immediate assumption but a window cleaner who was attending to the wrong address. ‘Lovely morning,’ he commented. ‘Sorry for the mix-up – I won’t charge you a penny.’

Best of all was when I sat down to enjoy my ten o’clock latte. A severely mini-skirted Danni Minogue was being interviewed on the television and she was sitting on a tiny stool that forced her into revealing about eight feet of antipodean upper-thigh.

Marvellous.

I might even put on my treasured recording of Morecambe and Wise singing Bring Me Sunshine a little later and give the little Fantastic Fireman a vigorous workout after I have finished writing this.

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