Full House.. Empty Pocket

In honour of both Father’s day and my parents’ sticking at “it” for 36 years, or as my mother calls it “two life sentences”, my brother and I decided that we could all manage an evening’s entertainment.

A big lover of fairground bingo, we wandered into the Mecca bingo hall in Bolton. With bingo being a great leveller, we were all excited and hopeful that the stars may shine in the Saunders household that night.

The only thing ultimately twinkling was my eyes to see if they could still see as Mark and I had to play twice as many games, those of my Dad, who could not keep up with the bingo caller. My brother and I were stamping and dabbing and blotting out numbers so fast, we could have got a job in the Post Office.

When she was not expressing her disbelief at the £19 entrance fee, the £1 charge for pens, the cigarette smoke, my mum had a great time and my dad did what he does best…. sit there. The General Manager told them off for asking too many questions, scolded me and my bro for tearing my Dad’s game into two manageable parts (“we can’t pay out if you rip the books!!!”) and then uttered his shock that we were able to cope with 12 games every 3 seconds. Call me Lewis Hamilton now. My parents left with no cash prizes but they were elated. As for me, my pupils were dilated. They had seen so many coloured balls, symbols and numbers, they could crack the bloody Da Vinci Code.

I woke up this morning with solutions to algebra problems I was set 20 years ago. I think the movies were invented for families like us.

And that is where we will stick.

Flash Gordon is here and well

A senior judge has been let off for flashing twice at a tube traveller whilst standing close to her on a train.

The young female passenger on the Waterloo-bound train was “shocked” when she got to the bottom of the page of her newspaper and saw his “flaccid penis right there”.

If it was flaccid, maybe he’s impotent, which would explain his need to indulge in perverse behaviour. Or even if he was going commando on a hot day AND his zip came undone, there can be no excuse for holding it in two hands and for the incident to happen twice, with the SAME woman.

I think is she had stayed calm and gone 5 out of ten, “what do you think love?” and turned to the women in the carriage. Then she would have more evidence and witnesses.

My friend often wondered what would happen if more women struck the offending “member”. Surely flashers would think twice about doing it if the standard response was a good thwack, preferably with a rolled up newspaper. But then I suppose masochists would start getting in on the act.

The Police have warned that the rise in temperatures and rise in perverts are connected. Don’t you just love these value-added press releases by them Bobbies.

I love my wife so I bludgeoned her, stabbed her and the cat

An 88-year old man was freed from jail pleading diminished responsibility.He said he killed his wife to end the arthiritic suffering in her knee.

He hit her in bed with a rolling pin before stabbing her in the heart and then killing her cat. Mmm.

What’s so wrong with taking pills? What did the cat do to deserve that? Wandering in the kitchen for a snack and ends up being gutted like a fish.

And not only did he kill the cat, he put it next to her too.

His son said his dad had a “vicious temper.”

The court heard he was “part of a loving couple.”

The judge was “unclear”

If that’s love, shove it.

Stuff Big Brother, there is racism in my house.. .

The rural folks of my thoroughly friendly and upbeat Aussie flatmate from a small town near Brisbane rocked into town last night. I say near Brisbane. It is still probably 400 miles to their local newsagents, Give or take. They are travelling around the UK in a camper van for a month and with us for three days. 

Within 5 minutes of arriving, they were drinking wine and Fosters in the back garden and farting. That was just his sweet mother. I was prepared for that. I was less prepped for some off-the-cuff remarks by his dad, who proceeded to express his relief at hearing a “pommie voice” with all the “nig nogs” at Heathrow. Golders Green was undoubtedly a bigger surprise since “he had only met two Jews in his life” and then he showed me, rather entertainingly, with his hands how we dress! The rest of the people he had met in his town of 120,000 were “Itis, spics, you name it”. After a couple more beers, there were, I learned, a lot of “bloody cants”, which from what I gather, come from Cantonia. I did not ask. I wondered what he would have thought to his son living with a gay bloke. His wife sat there smiling. Kath and Kim had landed in my back yard with much less class. After all the delightful jokes about Princess Diana, which I had heard 10 years ago and did not find them that amusing then, he went to show how at one with nature he is. “Just gonna have a leek over there mite,” pointing to our bushes, or worse still, our recently repaired fence. The last time I looked, I am sure that we had an upstairs bathroom.  

This is not about Australia at all. Has anyone ever not fallen in love with that country’s way of life and its people? It is just small town ignorance. We know it is there but it never fails to baffle me when it appears. We have the urban version here in astonishingly multi-cultural London. It was recently highlighted by Emily in another Big Brother debacle. I am the last person on the planet to defend the social phenomenon that is Big Brother but I have to congratulate the show for doing what I failed to do. They reminded us that we are often flawed and imperfect and actually spoke out. They got a second chance after Shettygate. I’m sure, and I hope I will.

In the meantime, my room is locked. My window is bolted. We have the fire service on speed dial. I hope the house is still standing tonight. And that the toilet has somebody in it.