RICHARD PRICE almost choked on Inconvenient Facts (HIP 234) and urges you not to believe everything you read in the papers.

Tobacco smoking alarmism has reached fever pitch. I am fuming that the relentless propaganda has induced a state of fear in humankind. Not only do people believe that it is bad for their health, but they think that the smoke contains dangerous chemicals that pollute the air. They even claim that being around someone smoking can be injurious.

There is a lot of disinformation and propaganda around. I like to say the Earth’s climate has always changed, but more to the point, people have always smoked tobacco. Legislation only came about after well-funded lobbyists convinced the public that scientists know what they’re talking about.

The anti-tobacco legislation has made it harder to advertise and market cigarettes. That used to be a key factor driving global expansion. Nowadays, manufacturers are finding it hard to recruit new young smokers and are having to expand in India and Asia where the legalisation is different.

We positioned smoking. I mean, smoking was positioned, not as something deadly but as something that was aspirational. Now all these fearmongers are scaring people off. Why shouldn’t we make up our own minds?

Apparently, polar bears are thriving – which is direct evidence that man-made climate change is not happening. What? A similar train of thought should exist for smokers, many of whom are also thriving. The right message isn’t getting out there. Nobody thinks about the beneficial effects of smoking. For example, there’s bound to be a paper somewhere that says that while it may be established fact that it causes cancer and cardiovascular disease, it also has beneficial effects – helping people with hypertensive disorders or controlling vomiting when pregnant. Tobacco genuinely benefits people trying to lose weight. (So does eating tapeworm eggs but smoking is much less scary.) Also, speaking from personal experience, it helped my ulcers.

‘Scientific’ papers on climate change can be found on www.clintel.org (the source of information for Inconvenient Facts?) but if you look on desmog.com you will find that the site is funded by oil money. I really hope that no one believes that the tobacco industry has funded research which is used to lobby governments to block, amend and delay effective public health policy – including, most recently, standardised packaging.

Anyway, I appeal to the Hastings Independent: in the interests of balance, publish this article. We need journalism that shows the positive effects of tobacco smoking and counters the propaganda.

Coffey: I think I’ll start with: “As the secretary of State for the Environment it is my responsibility to ensure that the country’s rivers and beaches are free from sewage…”

SPAD:  Erm isn’t that a bit of a hostage to fortune? What happens if, as is quite likely, you can’t stop the water companies from dumping effluent in overspills?

Coffey:  “So I’m going to ensure that the heads of the water companies are personally held criminally responsible and financially liable for ANY sewage overspills. They’ll face fines up to, and if necessary, above, their annual bonuses.”

SPAD:  I see where you’re coming from… but the problem is that most of them are major donors to the Conservative party, and if they don’t have their multi-million-pound bonuses … well, then we’ll be bankrupt.

Coffey:  “But alongside this, I’m announcing today a major investment in Britain’s sewers and water treatment plants so there will be no need for any ‘emergency outfalls’ in future.”

SPAD:  Strewth … have you passed this by the Chancellor? You’re committing the treasury to billions of pounds of public expenditure. The reason we privatised the water companies in the first place was so that NO public money would have to be spent on them ever again!

Coffey:  Well, what do you think I should say then?

SPAD:  Well, start off with a positive phrase such as “gold standard for ecological status” then you could suggest that “to achieve that would mean taking us back to the natural state of our rivers from the year 1840”.

Coffee:  Were our rivers really cleaner in the middle of the industrial revolution?

SPAD:  That’s not the point, secretary. It’s just a long time ago. Thought of as a golden era when Britain ruled the world and really was Great.  But now comes the clincher. You need to say: “that’s just not achievable today”.

Coffee:  But why isn’t it?

SPAD:  Because you’d have to rip up half of Sheffield to let the River Don run free, but without that it would never be scored as ‘gold standard’. So, you say: “that would not be practical or desirable”.

Coffee:  But won’t people accuse me of a complete abdication of duty?

SPAD:  Well in that case put the blame on them… “a new ‘supersewer’ would put hundreds of pounds on people’s bills … and anyone who said otherwise would be either detached from reality or being definitively dishonest with the public.”

Coffee:  And what if someone mentions the sea and the beaches? Sussex and Devon suffered 8,500 hours of sewage dumping last year.

SPAD:  Just say: “What do you want us to do? Drain the English Channel to clean it up? How much do you think that would cost? There’s no magic money tree you know. And anyway if we drained the channel there wouldn’t be anywhere for Suella’s floating asylum seeker barges would there? And as we all know…”

Coffee and SPAD together:  “You don’t want to upset the Braverman, do you?”

Hello dear readers! Welcome to my new advice column. With so many problems these days, I am only too happy to involve myself and offer wise counsel. Though I must say, riffling through this week’s ‘Toast Bag’ came as a great shock. I was quite taken aback by the levels of moral turpitude within the local community. Nonetheless, I soldiered through and herewith present three dilemmas for your consideration. 

A Soft Touch

Dear Teigh-Anne,

I would value your advice on a family matter that has arisen. My daughter is furious with me. It’s all because I took her new boyfriend down to the potting shed to show him my hairy greengage. I only wanted to ascertain his sensitivity toward soft fruit. It’s the mark of a man, in my view. Anyway, I’m happy to report that he handled my plums with great delicacy. However, my daughter thinks I could just as easily have shown him my cabbage. True, but the flesh is far less tender. I eagerly anticipate your thoughts!

Fond regards, Jezebel Coalmine, Old Town.

Dear Jezebel,

I see what’s happening here. You’re a woman who cares deeply for her family. Yet a mother’s love can go too far. Perhaps you should all visit his allotment together and offer to pull his turnips? Your daughter will soon see that you are willing to bend over backwards to accommodate her new love. What comes up will be very instructive.

Secret Drawers

Dear Miss Toast,

I’ve noticed that my husband has been secretly borrowing my bloomers. I wouldn’t mind so much, but he puts them back without washing them. This is obvious from a certain stiffening of the undercarriage. How can I stop him from rummaging in my drawers and helping himself to my unmentionables? 

Ever yours, Mrs Gertrude Prune, Guestling

Dear Mrs Prune,

I strongly suggest that you put your bloomers away for now and try wearing M&S tanga briefs in a size too small. This should immediately improve your situation. Or perhaps it will exacerbate matters considerably. In either event, good luck to you!

Deep Dive

Finally, Mr Reginald Ploppe of Rye has written to say that he is troubled by the use of so-called predictable texting on his so-called smartphone. Personally, I prefer a hand-written notelet since the demise of the telegram. However, my correspondent finds that often, the message he writes is not the one he intended. We’ve all been there, I’m sure. In Mr Ploppe’s case, he encounters this problem specifically when communicating with his aunty. And here we reach the crux of the matter. Indeed, I think we can well imagine exactly the kind of ‘aunty’ this lady styles herself as. Swaggering around in rubber pantaloons and a diving helmet. Running her enterprise from a basement on the Bexhill Road. Mr Ploppe, I implore you! You must release yourself from the clutches of this personage and find a healthier pastime. Do it now or you will forever be a slave to your lumbago!

Readers, if you would like to contact me for advice, you may email me at info@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk, with ‘Attention Miss Toast’ in the heading. No issue is too large or too small for my review. I look forward to hearing from you!

Aries March 21–April 19

You’ll lock horns with someone in February, Aries. Speaking of which, I nearly came to blows with Freddy Bunion the other day. His usual salon was shut so I suggested Herr Kutz in Silverhill. But Freddy shrieked that no one touches him outside the Delphinium. Fair enough, but he didn’t have to get shirty about it.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Now Taurus. I know you like nothing more than six hours in the bath followed by a deep tissue massage. But there’s a place for that kind of thing and it’s called Bexhill. Indulge yourself by all means. Just try to keep it civilised.

Gemini May 21–June 21

Our Gladys is a Gemini. I said, “Look in the mirror, Gladys. How many faces can you see? Exactly!”  Anyway, try to be open to romance this month, Gemini. If you play nicely with others, you won’t have to keep playing with yourself.

Cancer June 22–July 22

I feel that a sideways move is on the cards this month, Cancer. This could be work-wise or leisure-wise. Whatever, trust your intuition, especially if you fancy taking a dip round here. Too many spills and thrills for my liking, but each to his own!

Leo July 23–August 22

Leo, Leo, you’re such a drama queen. No wonder this is Freddy’s sign. As I constantly remind him, “It’s not all about you!” But that’s Freddy. Some people just have to be the centre of their own universe. You know the sort, I’m sure.

Virgo August 23–September 22

You’re a perfectionist, Virgo, and very logical too. And much as I hate to go on about my own problems, I’ve just had my Camellia butchered. There was nothing logical about that, I can tell you! I only wanted a quick trim. 

Libra September 23–October 23

You’ll need to bring your sense of balance and equilibrium to matters of the heart this month, Libra. Or as I say to Gladys when she’s having a wobble, “It’s time for tea and a finger.” She’s devoted to Mr Kipling, you know.

Scorpio October 24–November 21

You’re often misunderstood, Scorpio. I get it. I mean, look at me. I’m the life and soul but I take great pleasure in my own company. You’ll often find me tossing something off in the kitchen after a quick rummage down the pantry. It’s bliss.

Sagittarius November 22–December 21

You’ll feel the urge to go on a new adventure this month, Sagittarius. Mother was a great traveller and she loved Spain. In fact, just last week, I walked into the front parlour and there she was, cradling her maracas. She doesn’t get out much these days.

Capricorn December 22–January 19

Love could be on the rocks this month, Capricorn. But guess what? Get over yourself. There was a time when Mother couldn’t look at a vegetable without wanting to humiliate it. But that’s all behind her now. 

Aquarius January 20–February 18

You’ll find yourself close to the beach this month, Aquarius. Look around, you’re on the south coast. So, pot, kettle, black? Am I right? Just ask yourself, is that sea spray in your eyes, or bitter tears of regret? 

Pisces February 19–March 20

This month you may feel like a fish out of water, Pisces. And that doesn’t surprise me. With Mars still retrograde in Uranus, you’re not exactly in your comfort zone. But hey ho. You win some, you lose some.

I suppose I should organise my thoughts. Quite an honour, after all. Don’t forget the small things. I remember ‘Players No 6’ and occasionally switching to ‘Dunhill Consulate Menthol’ in their cool, green and white packets, to impress Angie King. And having four buttons on my bags.

But you can’t underplay the tat and the grime and the smoke and the seedy, inky papers that smeared your hands, sort of rubbing your face in it. I remember that 1973 story. News of the World guy, hiding in a wardrobe in Maida Vale to catch some posh gent called Lord Lambton at it. And she, Norma something, said she voted Tory because they were her best clients. He went off in disgrace to live in a beautiful villa in Tuscany for the rest of his life. Lord Lambton that is. Not the photographer. Anyway, need some sort of structure.

It’s an odd thing when you realise you can comfortably look back on half a century. Seems like a heavy block of time. Too much time really. But it did set me thinking, as inaugural speaker, the ‘73 should promote itself a bit more. For a start, it was in 1973 that Britain joined what used to be called the Common Market. Part of what Conservative Central Office called something like – a better tomorrow. Yes, “A Better Tomorrow”. Emphasise that. And pause.

Let me see. Good evening, bla bla bla, er… The conventional wisdom is that the 1970s were pretty awful, sort of shoddy, tatty and tasteless. Typified by the design disaster of the Austin Allegro and all the wintery discontent and so on.

So, crap design, bla bla, bla…slides? But that’s not quite right, is it? Take the England shirts that October. No bloody tat on the kit. No Adidas ads. No bloody logos. No stupid lozenges or fade-outs or pyjama patterns. And no replica kits for fat blokes and their fat kids. God, can’t say that. Just plain white shirts. Navy shorts. Plain white socks. Classy. And Sir Alf. Most certainly. Most certainly. Most certainly, we will beat Poland. And all live on the telly. On ITV with the ads. “For Mash Get Smash”, interrupting the tragedy of Norman Hunter.

Trying to make sense of it, I venture to suggest that the seventies was a complex sort of mess of a decade. “Venture to suggest?” Maybe not. Take Edward Heath, the Prime Minister ‘70 to ‘74. Widely distrusted because he preferred pianos to women. Not a proper bloke and all that. But here is an odd fact. Heath came under machine gun fire in Barcelona when he went to help out the Spanish Republicans against the Fascists. Obviously, as a much younger man. In his twenties. Heath, who took on the miners in 1973, fought on the side of the people in 1937. He lost. And therein, lies some of the peculiarities of the Heath era. He wanted to modernise Britain and the European market seemed to offer that. And now, we sit on the other side of that broken dream. Nobody really remembers lonely old Heath.

But must avoid pure nostalgia, a pretty useless sort of emotion. But the strange thing about the 70s was that it was itself nostalgic. Take Elton John. He hit the big time because he remembered when rock was young. And Suzie left him, or something. Maybe because he was gay? Jeepers, don’t say that. And Karen Carpenter, with that heartbreaking voice, told us it was yesterday once more. Where did you go Joe DiMaggio… and that song, Angie, by the Stones. Angie.

And 1973 saw the first of the Last of the Summer Wine. On telly… the first of the Last of the Summer Wine. That awful snob, Allan Clarke, on his return from the Tory conference, back in his bloody castle, commented in his diary that Blackpool was “loathsome, dirty, squalid… with primitives loitering.” Even Tony Benn talked about “morons ruled by crooks.” But they weren’t primitives or morons really. They were the lads. The likely lads. Where am I going with this? Where am I going?

Spring

At the beginning of the year, I opened my doors as a newly anointed seaside landlady. A young man, Signore Benito Falabella, was the first guest to arrive, tottering behind two gigantic suitcases. This pocket princeling had more clothes than English vocabulary. After two weeks in Hastings, Benito went native and came home from school with both sides of his head shaved. He said he was “too scarred” (sic) to show off the new barnet to his family. Wise fellow. When he spent a day in London with his best friend, Silvio, I asked him what they had seen. “Shopping!” he declared with pride. Weeks passed until the sad day when Benito had to leave. Lacrimoso! His monogrammed bags and jangling bottles of face perfume vacated the house forever. Sometimes, I look fondly at the stepladder in the kitchen. Remembering Benito’s little legs clambering up to reach the sink…

Next to stay was Valentina. She was mesmerised by so many of our strange English customs. Boiling the kettle. Amazing! Recycling yoghurt pots. Funny! Some aspects of life foxed her entirely, such as the use of locks on external doors. She insisted on peeling chickpeas one by one because the skins contain evil spirits. Which later escape as farts. Valentina embraced the cultural highlights of Hastings with gusto and made frequent trips to Primark and Superdrug. Also, the doughnut place where you can buy 5 for £1.

In between catering to these young folks, I did my best to maintain physical fitness. I tried a thing called ‘yogabolics’. Which is a fusion of yoga and cardiobolics, if you can believe that. Two points on this. Firstly, if an exercise cannot be undertaken whilst wearing a kaftan and bloomers, then I’ve no use for it. Secondly, all that bending over. I couldn’t take the risk.

Summer

July brought Rhapsody and Fantasia (aka The Silent Twins) to the house for a brief stay. They communicated with each other using eye movements and sonic pulses. In the mornings, they would apparate in the kitchen doorway and chirrup in unison, “we are not hungry for the breakfast today but we are very hungry for the ice cream can we have the ice cream…” Otherwise, they were no bother.

I also played host to my old friend, Muriel, who dropped by from the Antipodes. She loves shopping and she loves vigorous exercise. Though Muriel’s idea of a workout is spending the night in a sex dungeon. Luckily for her, I live but a sparrow’s hop from Bexhill. We visited the retail emporia of St Leonards where our life savings were siphoned from our purses. But silly old us. In urgent need of gin, we made a foolhardy dash to The Salty Codger. Therein, I was pressured by the landlord to fumble in his tombola. And all for charity…!

One balmy evening in August, Crystalle de Canta took me to an art exhibition on the seafront. But I barely survived an encounter with the infamous woodworker and libertine, Roger Bundle. I’m sorry. Holding a cucumber in a darkened room is not my idea of cultural intercourse. I didn’t move to St Leonards for that!

Autumn

During a session of the Book Club at The Tipsy Turbot, I thought my maidenhood was about to be claimed by yet another rogue, Mr Jack Driftwood. This time, however, the lustful scrutiny of my innocent being was, in fact, harmless. And merely the result of his quaffing the local ale. Which is, apparently, fermented embalming fluid, if you’re interested.

A highlight of the season for me was The Hastings Boozy Fish Festival. This great event combined a Rabbelasian MC, with a pescetarian food fight on top of a backstage riot between rival ukulele gangs. I mean groups. It was bourgeois-mageddon and quite delicious. Crystalle and I drank it all in.

I also had a lovely visit to Ireland to see my brothers, Siegfried and Rodolpho. Chugging back to the family homestead on the Shamrock Charabanc, this trip raised some old memories. Mostly of slum landlords and their obsession with teen underwear. If only they’d looked under our beds. They’d have seen exactly what art students did with their knickers. But I’ll spare you the details…

Winter

As autumn turned to winter, I welcomed a new guest to my home. Greta came from one of the former Soviet Republics and transformed my cooking. It’s true. Never have I been more alive to the creative possibilities of the potato! During her stay, Greta experienced three Prime Ministers and two monarchs. You can’t say it wasn’t an interesting end to the year.

Into 2023…

Thinking ahead, I do feel that the world should enjoy the gift of my versatile, uplifting falsetto. So, joining a local choir could be on the cards. And I like to give back.

Healthwise, I will increase my cardiovascular exercise this year. Though I’ve yet to decide how. Perhaps I’ll try that walking group run by Miss Emerald Spaffington-Horsebox? I told Crystalle about it and all she could say was, “What a silly, made-up name!” Well, it takes one to know one. Meanwhile, Muriel can’t understand why I’m not in Bexhill every weekend. But I’d hardly have the time. And again, so much bending over…

On that note, dear reader, I’d like to wish you a very Happy New Year. May you keep your wits about you, your bloomers held high, and your spirits intact. I intend to.

By The Spider

A cleaner, emptying a wastepaper basket at a prominent address in Westminster, came across the following list of New Year’s resolutions:

1 Get more sleep!  

I mean.  How can I possibly be expected to remain on top of my game when I’ve got two mewling sprogs under 20 months old keeping me up all night?  I suppose I could ask C if she’d move with them into the apartment next door … but I know she’d insist it needed redecorating first.  Hmm. Perhaps best to put that one on hold for the moment!

2 Get Covid done!  

It has a good ring to it don’t you think? I mean, ipso factor, quod erat demonstrandum and all that.  But perhaps easier said than achieved?  Feel I’m the piggy in the middle here… stuck between the rock of those public health doomsters, and the hard place of my own backbenchers.  I mean, really!  Some of them would walk naked into an arena of starving lions rather than have anyone tell them they can’t go and breathe their fetid germs on everyone around them.  And worse than that.  They simply don’t believe the story we’re putting about the NHS crumbling at the seams.  Trouble is they’ve all got BUPA.  

3 Make new friends!  

When I look in the mirror, what I see is an affable ‘hail fellow well met’ sort of guy.  A tad portly perhaps. And despite all the stylists’ advice, not necessarily at the cutting edge of sartorial elegance.  But basically, a good bloke.  Salt of the earth and all that.  But I’m not sure that many people actually like me.  A couple of years ago they all wanted to pick me for their team – and they made me captain.  Now somehow I feel like the unpopular kid who’s always left until last to be chosen.  And just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me… you just watch.

4 Make more money!  

Who’d have thought that it would be so difficult to make ends meet on my salary?  Somewhere I read that my £160k puts me in the top 1% of earners in the UK. So I really don’t know how the other 99% survive at all. Trouble is that everyone around me seems to be so much less brassic.  That little squirt Rees Mogg is worth over £100 million and Rishi Sunak is even Rich-er (geddit!) with at least a couple of hundred mil to splash around.  Not to mention a filthy rich wife. I mean, old Carrie, bless her cotton socks, hasn’t even got 500K to rub together.  What I need is a second job … trouble is they seem to frown on that these days.  Not like when I was the Mayor …

5 Work out what ‘levelling up’ actually means! 

That’s the great thing about words. As someone (Peppa Pig?) once said ‘when I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean. Neither more nor less’.   What’s great is you can make words up: Funkapolitan for instance. And then there are the portentous Churchillian-type phrases: ‘there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters’. Hmm. Perhaps best to gloss over that one!
But Levelling up? Just hope I won’t have to level too far down in 2022.

compiled by Patrick Carabine

An occasional series in which we randomly browse the recollections of an anonymous diarist.

DECEMBER/JANUARY SATURDAY 24TH DEC

I can’t say I’ll be sad to see the back of this “holiday”. My eldest son Tarquin arrives with a case of Lindesfarne Mead, and insists we host an impromptu Christmas Eve party, something I have never heard of. The inevitable result is that Celia Badwig, Tarquin and myself stagger off to midnight mass, led by Twollet at his inebriated worst. After an embarrassing incident at the baptismal font – Twollet claimed later that he was on heavy medication for gout and was wearing the wrong spectacles – I am unable to prevent Mrs O’Brien the usher’s wife from becoming hysterical. Father Grindr helps us to get Twollet’s trousers back on before the police arrive.

SUNDAY 25th

Christmas Day is the usual alcoholic collision of relatives, acquaintances and the exchange of farcical gifts. Tarquin has bought me something called a onesie in an adult size decorated with dog footprints. He then insists that I photograph myself in it using a long stick with a telephone on the end. What is the world coming to?

BOXING DAY

As I struggle through a cloud of thick, existential mead-fog, Celia Badwig calls. Somehow Twollet has persuaded her to buy tickets for the local Pantomime, Its  Behind You ! by the  South Downs Repertory Company, based on an Ingmar Bergman screenplay called The Seventh Seal. I go along thinking it will be a Disneyesque romp about a group of aquatic mammals. How wrong can you be? Twollet, a keen amateur ham, whose enthusiasm has always exceeded his technique by some distance, plays the part of Death – (for which he feels it necessary to drink an entire bottle of vodka in order to “find his motivation”) – in a Father Christmas costume! The unsuitability of this escapes him, and during the scene where he plays chess with the knight, he compounds this by dropping his trousers and singing a filthy version of  Molly Malone at every opportunity. Needless to say, many parents, fed up with blocking their children’s eyes and ears every five minutes, head for the exit.

FRIDAY 30TH

My New Year Resolution; spend less time with Twollet, who is becoming a bore. Tomorrow will be no exception as he has promised to bring some friends of his from the snooker club – which is nothing more than an after hours drinking den – who are going to perform something called “The last chicken in the shop”. No doubt it will be the usual childish nonsense, full of pointless jokes. When I tell Tarquin about this he just sniggers.

NEW YEARS EVE

Celia Badwig and Mrs Gallbladder come for drinks at nine, and they, myself and Tarquin spend a pleasant hour or two playing Monopoly, and tells me is all the rage in London, but not really to my taste, as it is rather physical. The front doorbell rings at five to midnight, and when I open it, Twollet and three other drunks fall in. They disappear with Tarquin into the drawing room, and as the clock strikes 12, they burst out with a cry of “last chicken in the shop!” I cannot even begin to describe the horrendous scene which followed. Suffice it to say that I have never seen two ladies faint in unison before. I throw my fiercest glare at Tarquin, Twollet and his inebriated friends, whose idea of an explanation is to blow raspberries and collapse in helpless laughter. Happy New Year indeed.

An occasional series in which we randomly browse the recollections of an anonymous diarist.

NOVEMBER

MONDAY 14th

I have decided to write a novel, and start to consider some interesting themes. Excited, I telephone Celia Badwig, who thinks it is a great idea. She calls and gives me a lined notepad and something called a “fineliner pen”. It writes in a thin spidery way and am sure it will break as soon as the ideas start to flow. I thank her of course, but resolve to return to my biro as soon as she is gone. Today’s new word: Polymath

TUESDAY 15th

Wake up screaming, after being pursued by giant rabbits with huge claws and sharp pointed teeth. One of them is driving a Volvo with a sort of spike protruding from the grill. It is just a dream of course, and I remind myself I should be thinking about themes for my novel. Make cup of tea (Darjeeling), and try to put it to the back of my mind. New word: Avuncular

WEDNESDAY 16th

Feeling slightly depressed as not having much luck with ideas this morning. I am having lunch (asparagus and eel with cumquat sauce), when Twollet the greengrocer calls and expresses great interest in my venture. He persuades me, against my better judgement, to go with him to the new wine bar in town, The Laundered Banknote. It is full of thin women and men with suspicious beards. As a stimulus for my projected novel, I decide to try some absinthe. Today’s new word: Laudanum

THURSDAY 17th

Awake after terrible series of nightmares. In one I am the reviled inventor of a new type of trouser which causes the wearer to burst into flames. In another, I am the owner of a basketball team from a distant planet, called The Nebula 37 Wolverines, who eat children. After unsuccessfully attempting to recall events of the previous evening, I resolve to ignore any future advice from Twollet. Consider abandoning novel
for lack of ideas. New word: Amnesiation

FRIDAY 18th

Celia Badwig calls, and is barely able to conceal her disappointment at my continuing non-novelist status. She leaves in a huff, taking her spindly pen and still-blank notepad. Deciding that reading is more useful and less stressful than writing, I go to library and take out When Girls Collide by E.A. Parsnip, and How to Rewire a Submarine by Karl Glusche. Word of the day: Stereoisomers.

The column that doesn’t shrink when you put it in the tumble dryer.

MYSELF: Why the long face?

READER: I’m not happy with all this Brexit mullarkey.

MYSELF: Well, you’ve got what you wanted. Sure, we’ll all have to get visas and new passports and spend even longer waiting to cross our newly-reclaimed borders, but so be it, you know. The “people” have spoken.

READER: I’ve no idea what you mean. I voted Brexit to bring back proper British kippers like we used to have. Kippers from Craster in Northumberland, not these sissy French ones with olive oil and garlic and God knows what else. And bendy bananas with slippery skins you can drop in the path of pursuing clowns. Not your whey-faced French clowns with normal sized feet trying to get out of glass cases – proper clowns with red eyes and scary teeth who drive cars that fall to bits and eat goldfish.

MYSELF: There’s the rub.

Altered states

Following the surprise win in the US election of Donald Trump, host of NBC ‘s nightly reality show Pussygrab, Ant and Dec, from their tree house on the set of  I’m an Unemployed Actor – Get Me an Agent, announced they would be jointly standing for Prime Minister at the next election. “If Donald can do it so can we”, said Ant (or was it Dec?), “I think we would make a great PM”.

“Totes”, added Dec or Ant,  “We would be tough on crime for starters”.

“Absolutely”, agreed the other one, “The courts are no longer a successful deterrent. We would get tough. Imagine having to eat kangaroo bollocks or worms if you were found guilty of sleeping rough or being mental”. At this point we were hastily ushered away by the producer of the show, who could be seen, red faced and angry, shouting at the two diminutive Geordies, eventually punching both of them in the face. Meanwhile, Trump has engaged David Ike to be his unofficial ambassador to Britain. “He’s a tremendous guy”, he said of the track-suited guru of the gullible, “tremendous. If only he were a US citizen. We could use guys like him in Washington, which has been heavily infiltrated by Mexican lizards working for the Illuminati”.

A spokesman for Mr. Ike told us: “David has provoked a lot of controversy in the past, particularly concerning the
upper echelons of society, including the Royal Family, whom we now know to be lizards working for the New World Order. I would like to point out that
he has softened his stance considerably since being approached by the president
elect, and he now no longer
wishes to deport all amphibians – only lizards and some types
of newt”.

WORDFACT: The word guacamole comes from the Aztec phrase
Holy Guacamole!, a cry often heard in pre-Columbian times whenever the testicles of slaves became accidentally trapped between two of the heavy stones used to construct pyramids.

Having your casket
and heating it

The Pope has issued an edict about cremation in the Brave New Roman Catholic World. It’s OK as long as you don’t scatter the ashes or keep them in a jar on the mantelpiece. Personally, I thought being allowed to eat meat on a Friday was a liberal step too far, but this… I mean ….. next thing there’ll be a ban on the kissing of the mummified fingers of dead saints.

Is there an idiot
in the audience?

Psychic Doris, the Hastings mystic, has announced a price rise. From next Friday you can chat to her about the hereafter live online for £7.50 per minute, or dead for £11.75 per minute +VAT. “We apologise for the increase”, her agent Ron Hoax told us, “it’s all down to the plummeting value of sterling following the Brexit vote, which, lets face it, none of us saw coming”.

Dictionary corner

Rabid (n) a bunny with a cold.

Lattice (n) The basis of a
green salud.

Football headlines

The Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) has announced that in future, referees will no longer be beheaded at the end of the game. “It’s an old Saudi tradition, which has fallen out of step with current mores”, said SAFF’s president Wacka Jawacka. “If we are to be taken seriously as respected actors on the world soccer stage, we must make efforts to modernise. Starting from the 2017/18 season, at the final whistle the referee will be subject to 500 lashes and have his head shaved.”

Sausage Life!

With this is mind I attended an event presented jointly by the Root 1066 festival and the Arts Fund, bearing the intriguing title ‘The Battle of Hastings, as the Bayeux Tapestry tells it – Whoever rules, life is hard for the underclasses’ featuring guest speaker, distinguished academic Professor Gale Owen-Crocker,(Professor Emerita of the University of Manchester), an expert on Anglo-Saxon literature, medieval textiles and particularly the Bayeux tapestry. Professor Owen-Crocker’s books include King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry (2005); a series of papers (a dozen and counting on the Bayeux Tapestry) and she is currently writing The Design of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The professor took us through the tapestry in a no-nonsense fashion, discarding the fanciful, and sticking to the facts, or at least observations supported by her wide ranging academic and cultural reference of the period and beyond. Under her expert eye we were given insights into how the seamstresses wove into the tapestry well known pictorial ‘memes’, that might be lost on us, but would have had resonance to either a learned and/or the general audience of the time, making at least critical observations of the characters of the tapestry subtly without outright detectable sedition, and its consequences. The designers/and or producers of the tapestry lifted liberally from previous art and depictions of biblical and other themes, rather like sampling in today’s rap and electronic music culture, or well-known guitar riffs, sometimes as an easy template, but often to make a subtle point or comparison, (Trajan’s column in Rome is a particularly handy ‘riff’). The professor showed how sideways commentary, in-jokes and surreptitious satire were perhaps a built into the tapestry, often in marginal / border asides, parallel to and reflecting on the main events, that varied between producer.

Perhaps the professor’s most intriguing theory, is that the tapestry was designed not to run as we see it today as a continuous, but may have been mounted around the walls of a square Norman keep, with the Norman/Saxon parts of the story an opposing symmetry, key scenes mirroring each other in parallel, marginal commentary and masked memes perhaps providing a subtext to the trained observer.

If I had a minor quibble and with this fascinating presentation it is that its subtitle slightly belied the content in so far, as the focus was primarily on the tapestry and what it told us about the story and what the makers thought of their subject/rulers, rather than providing an overall survey of how life for the non-ruling class was at the time. That said the professor illuminated a rye undertone, that the producers saw this as a contest between proud peacocks of only marginal consequence to the overall lot of the common folk.

In a post talk Q&A the professor did expand suggesting that life in general was hard for the ordinary people, but that underclass perhaps had better basic rights under Saxon rule, and that William, while at first trying to treat his new subjects with some basic respect, faced with real resistance from some quarters, soon resorted to a more cruel approach, to stamp his authority, although this may have hit the Saxon nobility harder than the poor.

A fascinating insight into a subject that has perhaps become over familiar through popular exposure, revealing a more nuanced narrative than face value would suggest. Well worth the attending, enlightening and entertaining in equal measure.