The Diary

13 September 2004: Bob Geldof, Eat Your Heart Out!

Want to know something? Me and Mondays are now officially divorced, the reason being that just like Bob Geldof and his Boomtown Rats (and the homicidal 16 year-old that inspired the song in the first place), I simply don?t like ?em. Never have done, don?t now, and never will, ever, although it would take an extreme affront to my dignity on that day to make me want to go out into the middle of Bearwood High Street with a Uzi machine-pistol or something and calmly proceed to blow everyone away. Unless they were Dingles, of course, and only the more than usually antisocial of the species should that prove to be the case. No, my antipathy towards that day in particular stems from the fact that every so often, strange things start happening to me come the official start of the working week, and just to keep up the tradition, today?s been an absolute lulu. Could it be the thirteenth of the month putting its oar in as well, I wonder? It not being Friday, perhaps the poor thing felt it was getting out of touch and needed to brush up its technique on me? Well, I ask you, I turn on my TV for the news, and there?s a bloke dressed as Batman hanging for dear life off the brickwork of Buck House. I bet ?Er Indoors is Not Amused. Not to mention career-stopping for the security staff concerned.

But that?s not been the half of it; a shame, really, as the day started so well, when I attended my usual ?torture session?, got put through my paces by my part-time sadist physio (who needs Meggo when you?ve got this particular lady cracking the metaphorical whip over you?), and was told I?d done so well these last few weeks, I didn?t need her services any longer. Wow. I can only assume she?s been consumed with ennui through succeeding in making me a nervous and muscularly-enfeebled wreck, and has now found a weaker victim to pick on instead. Any road up, that?s at least one early-morning call I don?t have to undertake any more.

It was when I returned home that things began to acquire a certain bizarre (that?s The Fart?s fave word right now, so I?ve decided to chuck it in especially for him, nice Baggie that I am!) aspect about them. It all started when I was on the receiving end of a phone call from a local journo asking me my thoughts on what had allegedly happened on the team coach after the Anfield loss. Not exactly possessing ?bosom pal? status with our leader, what could I say? All I know is that the two protagonists are thought to be Tommy G and a member of the backroom staff believed to be Adie Stovell, the cause of the altercation was believed to be one of the two squirting water over the other, and that I gleaned from the local rags myself. Whether or not it did develop into one of those comedy ?pub brawl? thingies, I honestly don?t know; one rag says one thing, the other says quite different. Megson didn?t witness it; he was probably halfway down the M62 and heading towards Yorkshire at the time, so was well out of it. It?s one embarrassment rapidly heaped upon another, just like the last time we went up ? Semper Te Fallant? And no, it?s not exactly the right way of showing unified team spirit in the face of adversity, now, is it?

So, what to do? Humour ?em, that?s what, with a few pertinent words. And that?s when my scribing chum had another brainwave ? taking a pic of me in connection with the presentation of the GD cheque to the Dovedale Day Care Centre this Thursday. No, they couldn?t send anyone themselves on the day, but they would like to cover it, actually. In the end, I fixed things for late afternoon, with a promise to take a pic of the presentation myself ? The Fart doesn?t know it yet, but he?s going to be the one handing over the cheque! - then send it to ?em via the miracle of the Net. Sorted. On, swiftly, to the next item on the agenda, which happened to be a Dick delivery to West Brom Market, for which I needed to catch a bus ? which didn?t turn up. See, I told you Mondays had it in for me!

Finally managing to hail a 450 that hadn?t been captured by rampaging Sioux on the warpath, or flattened by a freak hurricane (well, over the years, I reckon I?ve heard just about every excuse in the book from Travel WM, and those are about the only ones they haven?t furnished me with, as yet) I reached the front of what used to be the Howard Johnson Hotel in the middle of town ? and the traffic completely and utterly ground to a halt. All to do with the rotten phasing of the two sets of traffic lights around those parts; some twit of a road planner still hasn?t realised the utter chaos he (or she) left behind when the one-way system was changed a couple of years back, consequently it took a good ten minutes to proceed the mere 400 yards remaining to the bus station. Fortunately, from there on in, the actual dumping of the Dicks on our genial stallholder Steino was the proverbial chunk of urine: all that remained was the journey back, normally uneventful.

Not this time, though, oh dearie me no. Rushing to catch the bus before it departed and left my carcass fuming impotently at the stop, I failed to notice I?d taken a seat just in front of some poor sod, who, had there been a prize going for ?Care In The Community Customer Of The Year 2004?, would have won it hands down. Quite an interesting conversation he was having, mind, and quite rational, too ? trouble was, there was no bosom companion hanging on every subtle nuance of his tones, and every single word he said was simply being thrust into the empty void of the lower deck, nowhere else. Oh well, at least he was being reasonable with his voices; had he been angry or frightened because of them, it might have been a totally different matter. Even so, I wasn?t at all sorry to see my final destination haul into sight some 15 minutes later.

Into GD Towers, once more, and yet another attempt to try and get some sense out of Virgin Trains. (Remember, the ongoing but sad saga I related just a couple of days ago?) Let me update you; yesterday (we?re taking it in turns to phone, now), ?Im Indoors had a go and drew a blank, now it was down to me, so I dutifully dialled, got a human being, finally (I?ve since discovered the trick is to override the voice-activated system by screaming ?HELP!!? loudly into the mouthpiece, fervently hoping no neighbours overhear and think I?m being ravished, or something), stated my needs, the nice lady tapped a few keys on her PC (coo, a result, finally?), a pregnant pause, then, brightly, ?They?ve released the tickets for the return journey, but they haven?t for the outward one. You?ll have to ring tomorrow?..? AARGH!

But that wasn?t the best of it. Just a few minutes after I?d enquired, one Norman Bartlam, local historian and GD contributor extraordinaire, set our telephone bell a-ringing once more. Not to torment me with yet another excruciating pun ? he?s an acknowledged expert and don?t I bloody well know it! ? but to enquire, yes, you?ve guessed it, whether I?d got anywhere with Virgins yet. Trains, that is. Apparently, Norm?s also in the business of letting the train take the strain to The Toon when we play them, and had encountered similar booking difficulties to this column. The best of it was, when he rung to enquire, the nice people at Virgin told him they?d released cheapo tickets for a departure at some ridiculous hour, and at a different price to the one we?d expected, but not the particular ones he wanted (the same departure as we Dick Eds, I think), and no, they couldn?t say when they?d be on sale. Yep, yet another different version of the story; come on, chaps and chapesses, if you?re going to obfuscate, get your bloody story straight first!

Talk of things ?railway? then prompted our friend to tell us yet another horror story about the current farce that is the British rail system, and this one concerned his trip to last Saturday?s game. Before I begin, though, let me ask you a question. How many carriages would you expect the rail company concerned to lay on for a trip from Birmingham New Street to Liverpool Lime Street, some 90 miles as the Scouse flies, as I reckon it? Eight? Ten? A dozen? Wrong, wrong, and dead wrong. For a journey of that length, on a busy Saturday in late summer, there were but TWO at the disposal of passengers! My mate Norm was lucky getting a seat, but lots, less athletic than he, were unlucky, and had to stand for the entire journey, which isn?t very funny at all, especially when you take into account the sheer cost of rail travel these days.

There was some light relief, though. Halfway through the journey, a little man with what was laughingly called a ?buffet trolley? tried to ply his wares through the train, but the sheer weight of numbers forced him to give up ? the last time Norm clapped eyes on him, there he was, on the platform at Lime Street, clutching a trolley full of very stale sarnies (cue for joke: what?s new there, then?), and looking very sorry for himself indeed! All together, now? ? WHAT A WAY TO RUN A BLOODY RAILWAY??.! Oh, and just to name and shame the guilty, it?s Central Railways, so if you need to go to Liverpool by rail in the near future, I thoroughly recommend you take your custom elsewhere. Assuming that?s possible, of course, because it sure seems to me the one thing you don?t get in this brave new privatised world is genuine CHOICE!

So far, so bad. A quick tool up the stairs later, and I was perusing our mails on the old PC, and trying to make some sense out of what had reputedly gone down on the team coach on Saturday evening. A long pause to send out some personal replies to correspondents, and then it was downstairs once more to grab a quick look at the old Grauniad?s sports section. And that?s when the phone went yet again. This time, it was The Fart, to tell me he?d drawn a complete blank on getting a dummy cheque from the building society holding the account. ?OK,? said I, wearily, ?I?ll get some card from the stationers tomorrow and design a dummy one of my own.? Just as well I?d done precisely that on a previous occasion and it had passed muster, then. But of that particular tale, more to come.

In the meantime, there was a knock on the door, and there was our tame lensman all ready to endanger the integrity of one highly expensive piece of camera equipment by letting it loose on my ugly mush. It was while I was doing my ?model? bit for Queen and Country, I happened to mention El Tel?s cheque dilemma, and he suggested The Fart ring a certain chappie, the press and publicity officer of the building society concerned, who might be able to help, so after he?d taken his leave of GD Towers, I rang our tame centenarian back with the info, leaving him to sort out the details. Given the rest of the day had been a disaster, more or less, I can?t say I was all that surprised when he rang me back a matter of minutes later to say he?d drawn yet another blank; it transpired that the gentleman in question had told him they didn?t make dummy cheques available these days, according to him, Press photographers ?didn?t want them any more?. Funny, that; when El Tel had contacted yet another person (with Albion connections) at that building society about a week back, he?d been told, yes, they could give him one, but there was a 4-6 week wait to do one especially! Oh, well, I?ll just have to make a dummy as planned, then, and serve the buggers right; it?s them that?s missing out on all that free publicity. Not me.

Almost the day, gone, now, but Monday, somewhat reluctant to relinquish the hold it?s firmly established, exerts its malevolent influence upon me still. How come? Easy. First off, I?ve just discovered that Charlton drew a blank with Southampton tonight, which means we?re still well and truly stuck in the bottom three (according to ?Im Indoors, Charlton were very ragged and totally different from the disciplined outfit they were last season; had they won, we?d have moved out of the drop-zone, and The Saints would have well and truly marched in). Bugger. The second bit of ?glass-empty? tidings? ?Im Indoors, the love of my life, the joy of my joy, has now gone down wid ad almighty code in de dose, gushing gungy bodily fluids from both nostrils like the clappers, not to mention sneezing something rotten, about every minute, by my reckoning. I?m not saying he?s at death?s door, but thus far, he?s on a second dose of my strong analgesics to try and reduce the temperature and in our bedroom emitting loud variations on a theme of ?OOOOOOH!? every now and again. Even the cats have deserted him.

Hang on a minute: wasn?t there an item in the news tonight about some old codger who?d accidentally left a hand-grenade stuffed down the back of their sofa? I realise all I normally find under our tatty old cushions is fluff, the remains of an old boiled sweet or two, plus the odd coin here and there, but you don?t suppose??? How does it go, again, Mr. Geldof? Oh yeah: ?I wanna shoot, shoot, shoot, the whole day - DOWN!?

 - Glynis Wright

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