I had a dream about Jack Nicholson. He was an extra in a film we were both in. I was one half of a Siamese twin if you please. My first thought when I woke up was, ''Jesus, he hasn't died has he?'' The dream involved a scene that was in a London mews house, with a smokey atmosphere, opium and cigarettes and 1920's decor. Just glorious. I even remember the name of the street. Langston Mews. In the dream I thought it rhymed with Langston Hughes, the writer. Nicholson played a character that would never join the rest of the guests in this house and would sit alone drinking tea, dressed like Dirk Bogarde in Death in Venice. Why Nicholson? What has he done to deserve to be in my dream? There are realms written on why we dream of staircases, eagles, intruders. The appearance of a famous person is said to symbolise qualities the person has that you wish you had, or that you admire or envy them. I rack my brain and remember something. I am pretty sure our friend Vicky saw him in a nightclub and kept asking him to dance with her. Then another friend, Claire, saw him in the street, shouted, ''Jack Nicholson!!'', and did a stupendous high kick with her lovely long leg. 

It's all go here. Managed to survive the tapas and wine competition and am now deciding whether my Christmas tree lights are on a ''slow fade'', or perhaps a ''steady on!

So many people trying to convince the rest of us they are paragons of virtue. Yet still we forgive. What goodness and patience we have, but there are limits. Doesn't do any harm to tell them to f#ck off once in a while. God they are trying. 

It's quite difficult to comprehend that Philip Sallon the beautiful socialite was an influential figure in my so called formative years, wait for it....40 years ago!!! Happy belated to him wherever he is. Hope to bump into him on my next visit to the motherland!!

Laura Kuenssberg is on the TV and she is saying it's not all doom and gloom and that according to NASA we could be living on the moon by the end of the decade and that you wouldn't be blamed for wanting to get away. Speak for yourself Kuenssberg!! I'm happy here, you lot can fuck right off into space! 

If I have to capitalise on the unacceptable face of capitalism, I will make sure that the victims of that capitalism will capitalise on my winnings. WATCH THIS SPACE....

IGNORANCE IS BLISS

I don't really know any of Kanye West's songs but then I don't know anything about Girls Aloud or Ed Sheeran or Jay Z or Drake or Bruno Mars or pretty much anything about 21st century contemporary music good or bad. I watch Graham Norton and listen to the artists he gets on the show and I think out of the hundreds who have performed I only liked Stormzy. You probably think I live a monastic life or that maybe I have been high on drugs in prison, or maybe on another planet. It can get embarrassing, mainly for the other person. Not me. I have no shame when it comes to ignorance of popular culture. I watched a programme called Saturday Night Take Away with someone called Ant and Dec earlier this year which had lots of pranks and so on and it ended with some kind of party with a lot of familiar famous faces. Everyone seemed to be having a lovely time and it all looked like it had been a great success. I turned to my sister and asked her ''do you think they will do this again, it seems like it might catch on''. Turns out the show has been going since 2002. 

DOGS ARE THE BEST

Those close to me, those who really know me know I am solid as a rock. An unbending tree. Devoted and faithful. Loving. Adoring. If pushed I will be at the front of the crowd leading like a warrior defending the right to have a good life for why else are we here if not to be alive and loving. On that note I believe I should have been born a dog.

Since being ill I have felt rather tired, washed out even. Not all the time but especially when I have been out and about on my bike. I've been finding it more and more difficult to cycle up anything remotely resembling a slope or inclination. Today I noticed the back wheel was making a funny noise so I took it into the local bike shop so the bloke there could have a butcher's. Turns out I haven't got long Covid I just needed my tyres pumped!

As some of you know, we were ill recently with something akin to or maybe affiliated with Covid. One of those old school viruses or bugs that leave you with a throat full of broken glass and no strength. One of the other  symptoms was weird dreams. Mr van de Ven assures me all my dreams are weird and he should know but these were characterised by a fever rather than the usual nervous excitement nonsense. I had a week of dreaming about famous people. People I am not remotely interested in kept popping up. Isabella Rosellini offering me her coat as I felt cold. Sir Ian McKellen insisting I was talented at something and shouting, ''well when are you going to do something about it?!'' Playing some game of words with Rowan Atkinson and Paloma Picasso. Random shite. On and on they went until I found myself in an old pub one night with Oliver Reed. The pub could easily exist somewhere like the New Forest, all old beams and layers of history. I was given some task to do which involved writing out Christmas cards to more well known people with instructions from Reed that I had to be, ''active aggressive''. A kind of reverse, ''well that's him/her off my Christmas list'' threat. More a, ''Dear Jacob, what's your f#cking problem?'' kind of style. Mentioning things like, ''money is your God'', and, ''want want want, that's you all over''. Not very Christmassy at all. And then, the best bit. I signed them, ''yours, Mick Lynch.'' 

Day seven or maybe nine of being ill and bored. ...Mr van de Ven has this habit of not remembering famous people's names correctly. This is how it has been forever and now it's affecting me. For example tonight I was trying to remember the name of the bloke who thought the queen was a lizard and the first thing to pop into my mind was David Lynch not Icke. Then we were talking about Dame Edna and how she would invite 'guests' onto her chat show, introduce them stage right, and then abort proceedings by opening a trap door, with said 'guest' never making it to their chair. Typically, we couldn't remember the name of the Austrian who Dame Edna got rid of just as he started to walk along the podium, the one who also had some kind of memory loss. But there is a big difference between the ex secretary general of the UN, aide-de-camp with the Nazis, and us not remembering his feckin' name.  
-You remember, Klaus Wunderlich.
- That's not him, he was a German easy listening organist.
-Klaus Barbie? 

-Nope. 

-It's on the tip of my tongue, Klaus Kinski....

-Just stop it, he wasn't called Klaus.

-Nomi?

-It began with a K.
-Klaus Waldheim?
-No! Kurt for f#cks' sake!

To everyone who asks me how I'm feeling about the Queen and all that.....

H is watching something called My House. He has just asked me, "who is this bloke? Isn't he from the Hairy Mondays?" I have a butcher's and I'm guessing the bald bloke in question is Shaun Ryder.

Let's just say we got quite emotional at the Killer Tomato Festival, what with all the delicious food and the presence of the local mayor et al. We decided to refrain from the tomatoes as I have enough growing on the huerto and decided to buy some lovely goat's cheese, which goat we are not sure, some tinned tuna, not any old, plus some local type of bread that we carried round swinging in the air, proudly displaying the origin via the bag they put it in. Then onto a couple of taverns and finally dinner resulted in us leaving said bag of delicatessen behind on a chair but not to worry!! One of the waiters located us still going strong, outside some other bar and politely informed us that said goods were now languishing in the restaurant fridge and we could pick them up tomorrow. I love having faith in the human race!

If you ever visit us you will notice there are plenty of books lying around plus lots of notebooks and pieces of paper with ideas, jokes, schemes, half finished film scripts and novels and so on. On top of this I write letters to people. I sometimes send them but they often end up being burnt in a dramatic manner thanks to some advice my mother gave me years ago regarding cleansing your soul from other's bad vibes and protecting yourself from psychic vampires. Good ol' mum! However, it is not a nice thing to come home to said pieces of paper before they are consigned to the funeral pyre and thinking that maybe, just maybe they are directed at you.  I got a phone call while chilling out down the huerto from none other than Mr van de Ven. His voice was faint and not his usual exuberant self. ''Is this addressed to me?'' he asked. ''Dear arsehole, YOU SUCK ALL THE JOY OUT OF EVERYTHING, have you ever asked or wondered why your life is like this? You know, one shitty drama after another, and then you have the nerve to say to me.....(indecipherable)...who are you all of a sudden? F#cking Buddha?'' He thought, mistakenly, that he had found a so called Dear John letter. You know, a letter writtten to a man by his wife to inform him their relationship is over. Suffice to say it was not directed at him. If it were I would be long gone. Who was it directed at? Well, all will be revealed. If you wanted me to write something nice about you then you should have been less of a c#nt. 

LISTEN CAREFULLY

There is a spider who lives in our bathroom. He or she has lived there or rather successive generations have lived there for about twenty years. This morning I thought, ''I haven't seen that spider or its descendants for a while''. I haven't seen it since before the pandemic. It used to hide in the towels and make me leap with fright every time I went to dry my hair. I'm not really scared of them but don't exactly want them getting rubbed into my head. I am not one of those people who has to kill a creature just because it has decided to move in. I have a lot of respect for those tiny so called beasts that live mostly out of sight. Spiders are supposed to be a sign of creativity, of feminine power but can also be seen as a sign you have been deceived and caught up in a web of lies and deceipt which I have recently. So it should come as no surprise that just now I saw it just above the towel rail. 

SWIM SWAM SWUM...

Is it too late to become a bee keeper? An entomologist? Learn to drive? There's so much I haven't done. Like what? Well, I have never been up the London Eye. I have never been to the Westfield shopping centre. Swum with dolphins. Leapt from a great height with a piece of rope attached to my neck. Put sugar in my tea. You know. The usual. Plant a tree or a bomb and so on. I never really had a so called bucket list. It never occurred to me to write one. The bee keeping bit is starting to bother me. I imagine I will have a near death experience and meet the ancestors looming out from the shadows dramatically telling me to, 'go back, it's not your time. You still haven't seen the Vagina Monologues''.

IT

Hello friends. How are you all?  Well I have been been looking for it everywhere. ''It?'' What do you mean ''it''? Well in this case, ''it'' is my other name. Or should I say names. Most people call me Ann Marie because that is my name but I am also called Anna, Ana, Ana Maria, Ann, Anne, Maria, and so on and so forth, you know, the same name as Santa Ana the one who will bend over backwards if you are in need of a special favour. Yet not a lot of people know that I have these other names. What names? Those other names that are reserved for those dumbass, public nuisance dunces who call me up during my siesta and want to know who they are talking to. Yes that siesta, the one I am or was having now 'cos it's stinking hot outside and everything and everyone is on fooking fire as we speak. Those numbskulls who call me wondering if I would like to participate in a survey on some shit I will never buy cos I have no money to spare on account of the cost of living being sky bloody high and all that. Things like bottled water. Bottled water!! Did you ever think you would drink the stuff? I always give them a piece of my wayward mind I can tell you. So I found them...what a relief. Here they are. Written on the back of a beer mat I was gifted in Tossa de Mar. The names I use when the cold callers call and ask who they are speaking to. Remember, I always tell them they are speaking to me, the owner of the brothel, AKA Adolfa Bonifacio Ecolastica Homobona Buenaventura just before they hang up. 

Spain calling. Everyone's favourite renegade here. Well, it's exhausting and boring when it's stinking hot and you are stuck in town. All I can do is loll about in my smalls while H watches TV or looks at real estate in the other room. Loll about as in lying down spending my time idly and not laughing out loud literally. From time to time H will shout something from the salon, which only reminds me that we have finally integrated. For years if we had anything to say to each other when not in the same room we would stand up and walk a few feet to voice in hushed tones. Now we just bellow out for all to hear. Stuff like, ''well you wanted to live in the tropics'' from him to, ''no I wouldn't like to live in a gated community in Andalucia thank you very much'', from me. Heat and boredom. I've spent hours, years probably, staring into space drifting between a Zen like state and unmitigated anxiety.  I am, and I quote a frame of reference friends and I would say way back in our salad days, ''still not Prime Minister''. This was an ill-suited phrase we flippantly remarked, to gauge whether we were any nearer the goals we had in life while still in our twenties. We knew we were never going to be PM but nevertheless had ambitions to succeed in some great way that might make it all worthwhile. Most of us from that generation are now at the peak of our abilities, but entering our cake and cava days and can't imagine wanting to become the leader of a nation. And yet looking at the latest bunch of contenders in the UK I am now convinced we should have gone for the job. I don't need to be mean but the departing one should have stuck to the day job of being a journalist, instead of thinking it was all going to be as easy as being London mayor. Let's face it, he was only in it for the sex and biscuits. As far as I'm concerned, I can't stand the bastard. He was totally unfit for office but it's obvious where he was coming from. He thought it was all going to be a barrel of laughs at everyone else's expense and he might have got away with it if there hadn't been a pandemic. He now escapes the chaos of an aimless domestic drama taking place on an island stuck out in the Atlantic with a clump of contestants ripping each other apart to become the next British PM. Possessed, maniacal, self pollinating half wits. It won't last. Further developments are expected. More later. 

I have just sat through an episode of PMQs so you don't have to. It seems the greased piglet, Boris ''the cock''Johnson, AKA the dirty ol' hobgoblin aint going anywhere. How unchivalrous of anyone to think he would. As for the others. Look at them, the rotten stinking lot of 'em, trying to sell themselves as Paragons of Virtue. I haven't forgotten any of it!! Keep watching for more of the bullshit merchant extraordinaire. 

Haven't been on here so much. Too much going on and then there are the malaprops...Husband has mentioned in passing that he is ''gender fluent''. This is from a man who said he didn't care what people got up to sexually, as long as it was between ''condescending adults''!!

I dreamt about the singer Tom Waits. I am going to write about it ASAP. I take it as a sign. A creative sign judging from what happened in the dream. Copies of the dream will be available on paper.

Let's watch the Power of the Dog he said. So that we could have an opinion at least he wised. About thirty minutes in I wondered if it was me. 'Is it me or do you feel like you are waiting for a train?' He said he wasn't sure where it was going to be honest. The film or my train. About ten minutes later I started to have weird feelings. Psychopathic even. A strange mix of wanting to kill but anchored by the only sane part, urging me to keep going for the sake of humanity. Watch it so that they don't have to kind of thing. Without giving too much away, at one point a woman starts to play Strauss's Radetzky Waltz on the piano. I say play but she stop starts as she is a bit rusty. I start to identify with one of the male characters who looks like he could kill someone and remarks that her playing sets the teeth on edge. I start mimicking the waltz. Vocally, we don't have a piano. Stop start. Start stop. Mr van de Ven gives me a worried look mainly because telepathically we both know that this is what I will do from now on to wind him up if needs be. If you don't know the waltz it is the kind of music that makes you feel like going out and conquering the world. After listening to my version you will need therapy. We reach the end, not of our relationship but are relieved and happy to talk about how it all made sense but was quite painful getting there. The end of the film, not us. I read a review today which said that it requires several viewings to understand the characters better. Again, I mean the film, not me and him. Don't say you were not warned. 

The other day a class of teenage girls were reading an article on food and the word 'average' came up. ''What's this word 'average'?'' one of them asks me and to save time I translated it into Spanish. There was a sea of blank looks as one by one they all told me this word doesn't exist. I looked it up in the dictionary thinking that I'd got it wrong but they still weren't convinced. Then I realised. There is no average in Spain. There is no average man, woman, child, situation, day and so on. Everything is one extreme or the other. Almost always the opposite amount or degree beyond what is normal or reasonable. Nothing is ever a dull moment. I tried to give examples of 'average' and this kicked off a discussion that anyone new to the scene would think was a riot what with the whole class shouting to be heard. This can be very draining to an outsider or invigorating if you join in and try to drown out everyone else's opinion with your own. Whatever it is, it is life affirming and nothing average about it. In the end I drew an imaginary line and chose intelligence as the word we would use to get an understanding of it all. I started to say that above the line was highly intelligent, genius etc but was stopped short by one girl who interrupted and said 'oh I get it, and below that line is what most people are, 'stupid!'  ( Thank God for punctuation!)

I have read that some people think that we shouldn't be mean to Russians just because their leader is a bit of a c#nt. I quite agree. That would be mean and just out of order especially if said Russian is not a stinking rich c#nt who works for Putin. I know this kind of hostility as I have been bashed for being British countless times. Too numerous to mention. Americans get it in the neck anytime their leader decides to invade somewhere else and kill loads of innocent people. Americans can always plead that they are Canadian and traditionally people back off. I have been on occasions refused service in a shop on account of the Iraq war for example. I've been held personally responsible for all the world's ills thanks to being born in the UK. I was once thrown out of dinner because a rancid, fascist decided I was the root of all evil due to the British empire and being a holder of a British passport. Without giving his nationality away the only retort I could think of was, ''you are just envious because ours ( ours!) was more of a success''. So, while sympathising with the Russian's plight, I can't help thinking that like the Americans and British before, the Russians can all go and fuck themselves. 

Beware the Ides of March.

This is how it's been and how it is and how it will be.

I am not a fan of Country and Western music...However.

There is one I guess

What's his name? 

(pause...for about a minute)

Rogers, definitely something Rogers

Ginger.

No.

Ted? 

Buck!

Ginger Baker.

For f#ck's sake!!!

Kenny Rogers!!!!!

When someone is talking about a famous person or a TV programme that I really ought to know about I often just say I was in prison when so and so was all the rage. For example, I really don't know what Ed Sheeran's music is like. He popped up in the news today so I thought I ought to give him the benefit of the doubt and well, what can I say? To me he seems like the personification of someone who thinks he is suffering from Imposter's Syndrome but has finally been rumbled. 

On the subject of evil, pure evil, I've just seen an old video of Vladimir Putin crooning 'I've Found my Thrill on Blueberry Hill' doing the rounds. Swingalong with Vlad. Kind of Springtime for Hitler without the Pizzazz. 

A question came up in the class which asked if the world would be a better place if it were run by women and all I could think of was, ''yes, so long as it doesn't involve Priti Patel, Julie Heartless Brewer or that evil cow down the Spanish immigartion office''. 

Farage must have been the cheapest asset. That's why he is reduced to doing birthday greetings and Republican conferences. After him Johnson. He will do anything for sex and biscuits.

So where are Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore? I remember when friends called me a traitor because I was against Brexit. Where are these traitors now, these assets? Why are politicians deleting their Twitter posts and accounts?

I'm sitting here by the window that looks out onto the land opposite where the old military hospital/pharmacy used to be. Where the council has threatened to put up flats for the last fifteen years. I look up from time to time and see a group of men in those overalls or suits that forensics wear and it obviously catches my attention being a nosy neighbour and all that. What now? Chemical warfare? Somebody chuck some Novochok over the wall that was erected to keep us all out? Gradually the scenario reveals itself. The mask starts to slip. They are all wearing the hoods up and masks on but one by one the masks come off and they all start smoking fags. One of them isn't wearing an overall. He seems to be a bit older and he starts having a bit of a friendly, son and dad scuffle with another bloke. Mainly they are standing around watching another guy start digging the earth with a pickaxe. Digging up or digging down. Who knows. The older guy chucks a can of something to one of them and he is laughing and making out he will open it and spray the others with its contents. More join in and one has been instructed to sieve the earth and chuck it into a wheel barrow. Geology students? Inmates on day release? There is a fat guy who is bossing the others around and now he is on the blower and the others stop working and wait for the next instruction. He passes the blower to the 'boss', looks down and starts dragging his foot back and forth through the earth as if he has done something wrong. All of them look concerned. Now not guilty. Now worried. The emotions are changing by the second. Now they are all furiously digging. A bunker by the looks of it. Maybe its the three minute warning. Watch this space....

A reporter on BBC World just said something about 'getting inside Putin's head' and all I can think is that is the last feckin' place I want to be.

Morning campers! I have just got an advert on my Facebook. It was for something called the European Conservative. I am just wondering why? Would it be something I'd be interested in? They look like potential grooming agents. Maybe it is because I once read an article from the Telegraph for free. Besides, that dunce in number 10 Clowning Street is hardly a good role model for the conservatives these days is he? More like the EDL by the looks of it, but without the heart. 

Good news folks. My order of one jacket from the UK has been liberated!!! There hasn't been this much consternation since a certain Mr Gonzalez was witholding my smalls, my ropa interior, yes, my Marks and Sparks lingerie which were languishing in a customs unit somewhere in the Basque country. Said garments could not be released until I provided proof of payment, proof of source of material, identification of myself and so on and so forth. Similar thing has happened but this time stuck in customs in Barajas airport in Madrid, but worse, as this time I have had to cough up 55 euros to pay for customs duties and fill out more forms and wasted my valuable time doing so. This is the final nail, the last straw I can tell you. Dozens of British companies that I love are now impossible to buy from. They either no longer sell to European countries or customs charges etc need to be paid. Governments answer to small businesses is to look for trade in the Pacific regions. Oh yes, 'cos they are crying out for tweed and Stilton in the Southern hemisphere! Other answer was to open a warehouse in the Netherlands and employ the Dutch.  If only there were some system to get round this, you know like a Customs Union or single market. I suppose it is only a matter of time before the UK has to sign up to one or the other or both. God knows how as that means paying a load of money or adopting the Euro or any of the other things that people didn't vote for. Perhaps that was the plan all along. Well done clever dicks!

My late father continues to haunt me. I can hear his voice. Around the time of Stephen Lawrence's murder. It was about Sir Paul Condon ( Head of the Met )

'I don't know what you think of that Paul Condon'. ( Marked pause waiting to see what I said)

No answer, so proceeds, 'seems like an amicable bloke'.

Still no answer.

No answer gives him carte blanche which I guess is my intended wish and possibly his. 

'Actually, he seems like a bit of an arsehole'

Glances over to see my reaction and continues.....

'Look, to be perfectly frank I can't stand the bastard'.

And so it goes. We have come full circle. We don't need to watch Line of Duty to know that when I say to Mr van de Ven that I do not like Cressida Dick and I can't stand her and I can't quite put my finger on it and he says 'of course you can't. She's a copper, what do you expect?' 

And here we are. Again. ACAB. Nothing, as Theresa May would say, has changed.  

If Johnson gets away with it, like he has so many times before, the depressing thing will be that he will see it as a victory. It will be just another demoralising moment where he is getting one over the rest of us. You can just see him smirking and muttering, 'phew, got away with that one too, what's to stop me now?' 

When the Tories told Boris Johnson he was going to be Prime Minister and he said, ''I am not sure, I don't think I'm up to it'', in that modest way of his, they then said, ''don't be ridiculous! A five year old could do it. That's why we thought of you!''

The state of it! Who? Boris 'The Cock' Johnson that's who. PM of the UK. Where? Photo in El Pais of him in a face mask that looks like he took it off to wipe his mouth clean of food and put it back on again. A feckin' disgrace! A man who looks like he wipes his arse with his towel. A man who needs to be told when to change his underwear. Gives true meaning to the expressions 'swivel eyed loon' and 'Turnip Taliban'. Words out that he had to be blocked in his office with chairs like a puppy or a toddler when he had Covid so when he bulldozed his way through, without said mask on may I add, staff could hear him, so had full warning he was on his way. How anyone in their right mind thought this guy could ever realistically be a PM only confirms how empty headed, celebrity obsessed and gullible folk can be. Except his family, his colleagues and so on. They all knew but did nothing to stop him and they complain when youngsters run off to join cults! A grown man, unhinged and proud of it left to run the country and during a pandemic. Well done the lot of you I say. Keep up the good work. Who next? Rishi Sunak? Liz Truss probably. They will put a woman in and sell the idea that it is always a woman who has to clean up the mess. Six months down the line it will be the same but without the alcohol. I could go on but am just getting over my third vaccine and I can just about stomach the news these days. Sack the bleedin' lot of 'em!!

Here he is....

https://elpais.com/internacional/2022-01-16/los-escandalos-de-johnson-y-de-la-familia-real-hunden-al-reino-unido-en-una-crisis-institucional.html

DINNER PARTIES FROM HELL PART ONE ...

That time I was sandwiched between Andy Murray and Nigel Farage, head to the left, then to the right, all under the beady eye of ball boy Novak Djocovic. 

It was a wet afternoon. One of those interminable rainy days. Water that finds its way into everything. The smell of damp woollen duffle coats and flannel uniforms. Mr Hosker the headmaster had important things on his mind. So did I. As we single filed along the corridor, I decided his name sounded like 'Hot Dog'. I was the kind of kid that could make anything sound familiar or have a loose connection and people would fall for it. Everyone agreed as I passed this new piece of information along the line and so ''Hot Dog'' he became.

Today he was waiting for us as we all filed into the assembly hall to attend what he called 'Forum'. It was called Forum he had told us because that's what the Romans did and because, well, when in Rome, the rest is history and all that. We had to meet every Friday afternoon after classes to find out what had been going on in our  school that week and what we might be planning for the future. In my impressionable mind I imagined gladiatoral matches, criminal trials, cavalcades and many acts of triumph but in the end it was always a mixture of highs and lows. What dreadful acts some pupils had committed. One boy had murdered a cat. He had kicked it to death and on hearing this I was never the same. I understood that there were people capable of doing unimaginable things. What heroic ones the others had managed. One day a girl showed us she could play the guitar and sing. This too blew me away. I had no idea our school had such talent.

''So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go'' . 

Apart from a hall the room doubled up as a gym. All the equipment, ropes, bars, climbing frames were somehow folded into the walls. Pommel horses, vaults and springboards were magically whisked away after every PE class. It was also the room where Miss Hugo the drama teacher would get us to act out our emotions to Holst's the Planets. It was quite a big ask thinking about it now. Asking a class of primary school kids to bring war, peace and jollity. Act out winged messengers and Neptune the Mystic in our gym knickers, white vests and black plimsolls. Quiet ahead of its time I suppose. 

All the same, Hot Dog informed us that day that we would no longer be allowed to bring umbrellas that possessed a pointed tip to school. Nobody knew why and many began to wonder if their umbrellas had said end on their brollies. You could see this by the worried looks and feeling of disquiet back and forth across the lines of children. Who, if any had brought one into the school? Was someone going to get into trouble?  I didn't have an umbrella, so I knew it wasn't me but it didn't stop me from acquiring a sense of consternation. I wouldn't have an umbrella until I was an adult. My unpretentious parents, particularly my father, saw an umbrella as a form of indulgence. We used to walk to school in the dark in the lashing wind and rain. An umbrella in my dad's mind wouldn't last five minutes and would just be more expense so we went without and never thought anymore of it. Anyway, back to the chilling tale our headmaster was about to tell us. There had been a girl he said. Not unlike a girl from our school. A simple, modest, unassuming girl. A little girl who had decided to take her mother's elegant umbrella to school one rainy day. That despite her humbleness had decided to show off. A day not unlike today he had said. Incessant, diluvial. The umbrella in question was beautiful. Violet with some kind of trim. A tassel of some sort. I began to suspect that this girl's mother was a Victorian woman but there was some contemporary feel to keep us rooted in the here and now. He detailed her journey to school. How she stopped off at the sweet shop on the way and had to close her umbrella, shake it just before entering the shop. Sticking it in the stand on her way in. Putting it up on leaving, pointing it to the heavens in a bouncy perky way. How it had briefly stopped raining and she was seen spinning it around. Twirling it like a drum majorette. On she went splashing around in the puddles full of the joys of spring as happy as she could be. He gave the impression the little girl was Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain with no care in the world. When she arrived at the school there was a boy who wanted to borrow the bloody thing and play with it and twirl it around too. By now several hundred school children were transfixed and wondering where all this was going when the story took a turn. The boy had grabbed the umbrella and there had been a tussle. A fight over who would get possession. Toing and froing without making any progress.  Suddenly the boy had total control but then he had accidentally stumbled and managed to poke the sharp point into the girl's eye. It pierced her brain and killed her instantly. ''And that's why children, you must never, EVER, bring a pointy umbrella to school. Ever again. EVER''. 

A stunned school took a while to collect its thoughts and then after news of which teams had won the most points that week Hot Dog did what he always did. He took out a record player and placed it on the stage. Then he took out a record and played it while we did what we always did after Forum. This record signalled that we now filed or rather marched out, one by one, year by year till the older kids were the last to leave. What was the record? It was the Liberty Bell but we knew it as the theme tune to Monty Python's Flying Circus. This is how it was in those days. Sociopaths and Psychopaths. Next week Mr Carruthers the PE teacher and his funny degenerate ways. 

Some mothers do 'ave em..

It's difficult for some parents to get their kids to school. You hear them shouting ''hurry up! What are you  doing in there?'' Their kid shouts back ''I'm just combing my hair in the shape of a swan.'' Mum bursts in to find kid covered in daddie's hair gel or worse and has well what? What would you do in this situation? The Prime Minister Johnson's aides if he actually has any, must be caught in the same groundhog situation only with less creativity ...''hurry up PM what are you doing in there?''  ''Oh I'm just coming my hair in the shape of a haystack that's been sat on by my big bum''.  

I wouldnt be surprised if he does a Reggie Perrin....clothes on a beach to make it look like he has drowned. Didn't the Prime Minster of Australia do this? Johnson will be found years later, in Muscat. He will have changed his name by deed poll, had a sex change and died his hair orange. 

I heard that when Doris gets bored, which he often does, he goes and eats or has sex. They didnt say who or what with or if he does it alone.