It's in the genes!

A happy new year to you all! And a merry Christmas to boot!

Now I’m going to start the New Year with an apology; I’m sorry there hasn’t been a new blog for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been ill. Sad times. If I was to ever use one of those silly emoticons, now would be the time. You know the one; the colon followed by the open bracket.

Pathetic I know.

I like to think that my blog is a witty sometimes witty perspective on my own little degree of self indulgence. But let me assure you, if I had written one over the past couple of weeks, it would had the usual level of self indulgence (probably a bit more even): It definitely wouldn’t have been witty. And I reckon it would have had more than its fair share of wretched uselessness. Nonetheless if you had wanted to hear about the time I ran out of tissues after a particularly explosive sneezing fit, I could have spun a fantastic yarn. Although I did discover that I actually had a couple of spares so that story might have fallen a bit flat.

But, I’m not here to talk about me (well not this time anyway). No, I’m going to shed some light on the family tree that has spawned my now well perfected idiocy. Obviously feeling withdrawal symptoms after I properly flew the nest last summer, it wasn’t long before the parentals were looking for further entertainment. And the solution I hear you ask? Simple; relocate my elderly Grandparents from their homestead in Cheltenham to the fresher country air of rural Shropshire. Obviously unsatisfied with the lack of humour provided by yours truly, surely the logical step would be to explore the other end of the spectrum; from youngest to oldest, the talent for causing distractions is present in every generation.

Now, before I continue, I would like to point out that I really like my grandparents, both of them. I really do. But when they come up with absolute comedy gold, my fingers get twitchy and I get the urge to blog.

To get you in the picture, my granddad is now 91 and still sharp as anything. He drinks copious amounts of whiskey and smokes a pipe, which he once asked me to get ‘some of that marijuana stuff’ to have a puff on. My nanna (aged 88, although don’t tell her I told you) then chimed in with ‘yes dear, I’ve heard it works wonders in brownies.’ Ironically when she asked me on my 21^st  birthday if I took drugs (as you do) and I said only the good ones, I then had to phone and apologise.

Pure. Unadulterated. Madness. It’s in the genes, I’ll tell you that!

Anyway, seeing as the grandparents had recently moved to the shire, the parentals decided to have them over for Christmas dinner. That’s nice. Family spending time together. Three generations around the same table. Perfect.

But then, as the first course was being cleared away from the table I head.

‘Just slip it in Roy, no one will notice,’ said my nanna.

‘Well it’s not very stiff,’ responded my granddad.

WTF?!

‘It’s gone in fine before so just slide it in,’ she said followed by some deep breaths from my granddad.

As my mum handed me a plate of food to take to the table, it was with trepidation that I returned to the dining room.

‘Jack’s back now, perhaps he will help,’ said my nanna, passing me the shoulder pad that had fallen out of her jacket, leaving her looking like a lopsided Hilary Devey.

I must say I was quite relieved as it all suddenly started to make sense.

But the comedy didn’t stop there.

A few days later, they insisted on taking us all out for lunch which can be a bit of a drama in itself in as much as my granddad doesn’t have a hip, and the other one is a replacement so he’s a tad shaky to say the least. And that’s without the whiskey!

Rather surprisingly, the meal itself was actually pretty good and both of the grandies were on fine form. Until the bill arrived.

‘If you wouldn’t mind putting in your pin-code madam and then press the green button to confirm?’ said the manager.

Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Her finger very deliberately hitting each key in turn.

‘I’m afraid your pin had been declined madam. Could you enter it again?’

‘It is correct. I assure you,’ she said, enunciating each syllable with perfect Received Pronunciation. My granddad at this point took another sip swig of his whiskey.

The plunking followed, and was proceeded with the tell tale beep when the number was declined again.

‘I’m afraid you have only got one try left and then your card will be blocked,’ said the manager.

The look said it all. No words were needed. When she gets that look, no one can stop her. And believe me you wouldn’t want to either! But then again why would you, when you just know something brilliant is about to happen?!

It was with baited breath that the much anticipated finger plunked the key pad that final time.

‘What do you mean it’s not accepted?’ she said with genuine surprise. It would appear that there is something that can withstand the look.  

I was on removing the card and checking it carefully for any malfunction (she still fiercely maintained that the machine was wrong, as the so often are!) that we realised the error of her ways; it wasn’t her card. As it transpired, she had borrowed my granddads card to withdraw some money and forgotten to give it back, but the main thing she focused on was that she wasn’t wrong.

My granddad’s look said it all. But it was the swig of whiskey that told the story.

Definitely not a dildo!

“What is that?” he said in his thick Brummie accent.

“What is that?” I repeated, with my now trademark eyebrow raise.

“Yea, what is it?” he said again raising the phallic shaped object in his hand as if to get a closer look.

For all of you still trying to guess, the answer is not a dildo, you filthy minded individuals! Who am I kidding? You’re in good company here!

“That,” I said, “is a courgette.”

The man working on the till at Tesco looked at me bemused.

“Is that like a cucumber?” he asked.

Of course it isn’t you cretin. Surely to work at Tesco you should at least be able to identify your produce, shouldn’t you? Then I noticed the Trainee badge that he sported proudly on his nylon uniform.

“Yes,” I say, taking the easy way out and avoiding any further conversation. I even gave him the smile that I save for the terminally stupid. Now if that isn’t sympathetic then I don’t know what is?

“Innit?” he replied, nodding his head in approval before putting it into my bag. Goodness knows what he would make of the aubergine that was still to come!

Why is it that every time I go to this particular superstore that I end up having such ridiculous conversations?

I was chided by my work colleagues recently after a trip to Britain’s favourite supermarket where I had an altercation with the check out worker. On placing my Twilight DVD on the conveyor, the attendant examined it carefully.

“You like Twilight?” he said with a sneer.

Don’t. Even. Get. Me. Started.

And then before I realised what I was saying:

“You like working at Tesco?”

I know, that was a pretty low blow and he did look (quite deservedly) downcast. But hang on, this was one of those few occasions when I actually thought of a witty retort and managed to use it. Yet I still felt like a dick.

Oh God, then there was that awkward silence. That LONG and ever increasing silence. How do I escape this? Being vaguely aware of the fact that I was reddening through a combination of embarrassment and exhilaration (at the fact that I actually managed to say what I wanted to, when I wanted to, not some perverted excitement at terrorising Tesco’s uneducated employees!) I plumped for the customary glare. Never fails! Scared into a frantic exaggerated frenzy by the sharp tongued, glaring southerner, I would like to point out that following my outburst I did receive exemplary customer service! Silent! The best kind!

It’s not all one sided though. Oh no! After turning 25 a couple of weeks ago and revelling in the plethora of cards highlighting the fact that I am now officially old, or as one more sympathetic friend’s card denoted; dangerously close to being old, Tesco decided to kick me whilst I was down. On one of my standard trips to the local Express store near my apartment to buy the customary bottle of red after another gruelling day, the Caribbean lady working on the till asked to see my ID. Feeling almost smug as I look up to show her my driving licence she saw my face and responded;

“Oh no, definitely over 25,” she said in lilting Jamaican tones and waved my driving license aside.

Bitch!

Oh well. It’s still Jack: 2, Tesco: 1.

Lost in Translation

Have you wondered where I was?

Of course you have!

(Well you probably haven’t but I’m gonna tell you anyway!)

Italy! That’s where! For the last few weeks I have been inflicting my idiocy on the continent, and believe me I’ve lived up to expectations. In a similar way to when the new settlers in America gave the natives syphilis, I offered myself up to the Italian education system in the vain hope that I might be able to impart some of my limited knowledge of Italy’s next generation. As if I haven’t done enough lasting damage to British youths, the Italians seemed more than happy to welcome me into their country (and for particularly unsuspecting families) their homes in order to enrich their understanding of English.

Whilst I’m pretty sure the families were expecting some dictionary toting English boy, drinking tea and fawning over the monarchy. Instead they were faced with me; a pseudo-Brummie, binge drinking, potty-mouthed 24 year old with a penchant for insulting small children, large children, parents, Catholics, the Pope and pretty much everything in between.

And this year I’ve even learnt enough Italian to do it in their own language! Score!

I learnt very quickly that with Italians they find certain English words particularly difficult to differentiate; ear and eye, angry and hungry, (although it would seem that most words are prefixed with an elongated “h” sound as they don’t have it in their silly 21 letter alphabet!)  as well as the much more frequently used No! and everybody run around, hit each other, cry and generally cause as much chaos as possible. Do you get my drift?

Well as it happens there are some Italian words that sound pretty damn similar too, and with my shamefully limited intellect this was just another disaster waiting to happen.

To get you in the picture, every week whilst in Italy, I decamp on a new family who take me into their lives, feed me, water me, and engulf me into the ample bosom of every Italian nonna. It’s a pleasure, it really is. I guess that’s why I feel like such a shit for offending them quite so often. Like when I went to my boss’s house and noticed the pictures around her apartment with a bearded Italian man.

“Wow, you’ve met Pavarotti loads of times,” I said trying to make polite conversation.

“What?” she said.

“You and Pavarotti,” I repeated, gesturing to the closest picture.

“That’s my husband,” she relied in a tone tempered with annoyance, pity and possibly even a bit of loathing.

You’d think that once is enough to embed in my mind? Y’think?

My repeat performance at a latter host family: “When did you meet the Pope?” Turned out to be her husband. Right.

But now back to that language point that I seem to have got a bit distracted from, but trust me it’s worth the wait. So it’s a Saturday and yet again I arrived looking dishevelled at a new host family to the usual hearty welcome and this time I’ve properly lucked out; this family were awesome. And I mean every different kind of awesome with a few extras thrown in for good measure. After a night in their guest suite and air conditioned to the point that I was actually cold (which is a pretty steep challenge in Italy, in August!) I stumbled out of bed in time for the usual breakfast of coffee before by embarking on my busy schedule of lounging by the pool, sunbathing, and drinking copious amounts of the legendary Spritz. It’s a hard life, what can I say!

Now at this stage I had been in Italy for several weeks and was feeling pretty confident about my growing language skills. (Although ironically, the night before I had sidled up to an extremely attractive bar tender and asked her for a tortoise, to which she responded, “You’re English aren’t you?” What gave me away I will never know!) So to get back to the situation in hand, I was revelling in the general perfection whilst waiting to be fed more of quiet possibly the best food I had ever had. The sun was shining, the barbecue was sizzling, and most importantly the wine/spritz/beer/limoncello (at lunchtime?!) was flowing.

On seeing the family’s four year old daughter positively throwing herself into the swimming pool and demonstrating levels of bravery that Evil Kenevil would be proud of, I decided to test out my still developing language skills and tell them their daughter was crazy.

“Cazza,” I point and smile feeling pretty smug that I have used the correct inflexion to denote a female subject (clever innit?) Well that got their attention.

“Cazza?” said the host mum looking perturbed.

“Cazza?” said the host dad looking angry.

“Cazza?” I said with growing concern.

“Do you know what that means?” they asked.

“She’s crazy,” I say cautiously.

Then they smile, and then they laugh, and then they laugh some more.

“Cazzo, means head-of-dick,” the host mum said, enunciating each syllable with a hand gesture to match the beat, “Pazzo means crazy.”

So in return for the hospitality I was receiving, I’d just called their daughter a dickhead. How do you recover from that? I’ll tell you how; you retreat to your deckchair, alcohol of some description in hand, only to spectacularly capsize it, throw your drink all over yourself, and take out the now laden barbecue in the process.

Subtlety was never my strong point.

“Cazzo,” said the voice of the four year old.

(Of course she didn’t actually say that, but wouldn’t that have been brilliant?!)

Do I look like a parking warden?

“Can I park here?”

A perfectly reasonable question you might say? Of course. So reasonable in fact that I didn’t think this question was destined for me! Yet as I walked across the village car park whilst back home in the ‘shire I hear this question repeated once again.

“Excuse me? Can I park here?”

I glance around. Nope, no one else within ear shot so this disembodied voice must be talking to me. It was way too early in the day to be having auditory hallucinations so I start looking around for where this question is coming from and notice the man in the blue car. He is staring at me intently even though I am wearing my usual neutral slash uninterested slash I haven’t had my morning coffee yet so you can fuck right off expression, yet his questioning persists.

“Well can I?” he says again with added gravitas.

“Er... yes?” I say uncertainly, as it does seem to be a pretty silly conversation to be having... in a car park. Come on, it’s not exactly cryptic.

“Yes I know that,” he says, “but do I have to pay?”

As I have already established, yes this is a car park and, to elucidate further, yes, it is pay and display. Still with me? I know it’s complicated but I’m sure you can keep up.

“Well it is pay and display. Has been since the start of May,” I say before yet again discussing the 10p for four hours parking charge debacle that has been, well, quite possibly the most controversial thing that has happened in Ellesmere in pretty much forever. Or at least since the last murder, sex scandal or the like. I’m kidding. No, that all happens in the next village along. It’s all go in Shropshire, that’s for sure!

“Can you make an exception?” he then asks, looking at me earnestly.

This is getting ridiculous I’m thinking, looking down to check that I haven’t by some miraculous coincidence somehow acquired a parking attendant uniform or even the appearance of someone who gives a shit.

My bemused silence is obviously not what he was hoping for.

“I only need a piss,” he says as if that will somehow validate this whole conversation, “Do you want me to just do it down my leg?”

If we are talking about stuff that I want him to do, urinating in front of me is not exactly high on my list, in fact it doesn’t even feature within the top ten.  I could quite easily provide him with a range of ideas of things that I would like him to do, starting with this; leave me alone, you weirdo!

“I’m disabled,” he continues.

Mentally? I want to ask yet think better of it. By this time my patience is wearing thin and I now have only 3 hours and 55 minutes of my own parking time left in which to buy the newspaper so I’m sure you can appreciate the urgency of my predicament.

“It would appear that you have already made the decision that you are not going to pay the 10 pence, so I think that regardless of what I say it will make very little difference to your final action,” I retaliate, flashing a winning smile at the same time to diffuse the mounting venom.

At this, I decide this is a logical point to stop this conversation before it turns into a whole to-do. Judging by the fact that following my last comment he then drove off to park his car, in the car park, so did he.

On my return to the car park a few minutes later, I see the man once again, this time at the ticket machine. He must have heeded my advice, I think and feel a momentary swell of triumph. As I carry on walking I smile at the lady passing by only to hear this from behind me as she reaches the machine a few seconds later:

“Do I have to pay for parking? I’m disabled!”

And so the cycle continues.

V is for Vagina

There are certain things that you just shouldn’t talk about, and others that are best kept to yourself. Like when you’re out with your mates on a Monday night and you glance at your watch to realise, “Rubbish, I’m missing Glee! I mean... football... and porn... and Die Hard,” and then quickly down your pint and put your hand down your trousers to check that you haven’t in fact grown a vagina. Or that no matter what everyone else thinks, you reckon Susan Boyle would be wild in the bedroom and that you’ve actually added her to your freebie list. Stuff like that should be kept quiet, or maybe shared with a psychiatrist in a secure environment.

Now, during my lunch-break at work, my colleagues and I whittle away the hours discussing the various tribulations of the day, moaning about that particularly annoying child or two... or 47 to be more precise, and generally entering such a vegetative state in order to allow what remains of our sanity to be nursed back to health in time for the next tirade in a matter of minutes. God help any child brave enough to knock on the door and disrupt our moment of calm; trust me, it’s not worth it. As it happened, on that particular lunch time we were having an especially enthralling conversation about a rather impressive lunchbox sported by one of the members of staff (it had a built in ice pack; how cool is that?! Get it; cool? Well I’m laughing.)

Anyway, my usual semi-comatose lunchtime state was disturbed by the comfy middle aged lady who chaperones and mollifies the community’s old folks on their weekly visit to be entertained. Cheerfully called “Wednesday Club” this is an opportunity for us teachers to talk to the crumblies about things that are young, and fun, and alive in an although-this-is-optional-you-really-should-do-it-or-else, kind of way. I already spend twenty hours a week educating wayward youths so I think I’ll spend that hour polishing my halo thank you very much. So imagine how perturbed I was when I heard this gem pop out whilst I was tucking into my lunch:

“Well last week we had a rather fascinating talk about contraception. It did cause quite a stir you know; one of our most controversial sessions.”

Y’don’t say?

Whilst I am usually pretty happy to partake in conversations of a sexual nature and am quite open-minded, the thought of a group of over 70s putting condom’s on wilting bananas (make of that what you will) is enough to turn my stomach: definitely not a conversation to be having over lunch.

Nope. Nu-uh. Not happening.

But I was not going to escape that easily. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the woman glance around the check the coast was clear, then in a stage whisper (the sort that is favoured by my Nanna when asking whether we think the two nice men over there are life partners, and pretending to be ok with it although secretly cringing) she cheerfully announced:

“It was very informative, we learnt all about vaginal dams.”

Well that got people listening. In fact her razor sharp enunciation pretty much silenced the staff room. Almost. For it was at that exact moment that, quite overcome by this sudden announcement, I lost all ability to chew and my sandwich decided that my wind pipe was a pretty good place to take up residence. Way to play it cool Jack; one mention of a vagina in an unexpected context and I’m actually choking.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of the vaginal dam, this is a piece of later rubber used when administering oral sex in order to not have the taste the various juices secreted. Well that was the definition that I offered my various stunned colleagues. Apparently I’m a dark horse. Pah! I think it was probably for the best in that case that I chose to neglect to mention that these implements are also used when rimming. Yes that’s right. Rimming.

Thinking Hoping Praying this discourse is reaching its natural end (and if not thinking that it is probably time to commit conversational euthanasia) none of us were prepared for the final, earth shattering blow.

“They come in all sorts of flavours too, just so you can tell the difference between that and licking a piece of cling film. Strawberry, chocolate and lemon!”

As if standard minge flavour wasn’t acceptable? Or perhaps a more authentic fish flavour would be suitable? Just imagine the old dears sitting there with their knitting needles and a selection of contraception in those otherwise useless china dishes, turning into latex connoisseurs, lightly licking and commenting of the construction of the bouquet.

Did I go too far?

“Quite a selection, although the lemon one wasn’t too well received. Imagine the zing on your hoochie!” which was followed by the knowing look that Miss Marple gets when the final piece of the mystery has just dropped into place: Poor Mrs Wainwright, I did warn her that the lemon flavoured vaginal dam had a bit of a kick to it and look what came of it.

So now I leave you on this slightly disturbing thought; next time you are having afternoon tea with granny don’t be tempted to go rummaging through her draws, you never know what you might find. You can still learn a thing or two from the old folks; they’re the real dark horses!