07 July 2012

SHEAR CARELESSNESS

Terribly funny.

Long boozy pre-frater lunch yesterday with pals on whom I will not afflict him.

Much faithful chatter by them on how they want to grill him on the 'Filch' and the disgrace of still not finding the jewels after five years.

They being 'gardeners' with pathetic postage-stamp squares of brown to tend, I give them the run of the left-hand bookshelf and tell how annoyed I am that I wasnt quicker off the mark ripping up books as a release from mum's dementia yakety blah.

I espy some shears and pick them up to shove down in the apothiki lest there be any doubt over maman's hobby being dead and gone.

They slip from my inebriated fingers and crash onto a precious plate, one of a set of remaining six, now five, that my Yorkshire gran gave in 1951.

Whoops but how fitting, how prescient of the days to come.

4 comments :

sibadd said...

This is all wrong. *I'm* Charles Pooter... having this
morning picked up at a bookstall for fivepence a capital little book, in good condition, on Gardening_. I procured and sowed some half hardy annuals in what I fancy will be a warm, sunny border. I thought of a joke, and called out Carrie. Carrie came out rather testy, I thought. I said: “I have just discovered we have got a lodging-house.” She replied:“How do you mean?” I said: “Look at the boarders” Carrie said: “Is that all you wanted me for?” I said: “Any other time you would have laughed at my little pleasantry.” Carrie said: “Certainly - at any other
time - but not when I am busy in the house.” The stairs looked very nice. Gowing called, and said the stairs looked all right, but ...

Corfucius said...

very very good. i keep re-reading it. i once worked on an updated pooter (matthew someone, around '73) and it was rubbish. there is a danger i will want more of this - you catch the tone and vocab exactly. i mean spot on!

sibadd said...

Sorru, Weedon - I just cut and pasted. Carrie says she will endeavour to mend your plate as she is not sure you can find anyone on a Greek island who knows about mending English china. I said I was sure she was wrong about the Greeks but I thought it was a kind gesture...

Corfucius said...

pls thank Carrie but no need. the 2 pieces of the plate have been ceremonially dumped and they represent hundreds of smashings that i should have carried out over the 51/2 years, as will slashings and rentings of books to come represent catchup and pay back time for hundreds of hours on the treadmill of futility. i have no sentimentality over anything here. there is a lot of score-evening to do and breakages like this are a perfect avenue to get started on. but thanks a lot to Carrie who is of course thinking like a sane person. also, my brother is here and things are a bit abrasive. i left the broken plate to drop into the sack in front of him. he said nothing. he senses a deep well of ruthlessness drip-drip filled over the years.
cut n pasted eh?