Singing the Asterisked Verses

In the nineteen fifties, my grandmother Atkinson got herself into a state of wretched cowment because neighbours up to three doors down on either side might hear her at her business in her new indoorsy toilet.

She explained, 'The council took it upon themselves to send round what looked like a chain gang, except not in the stripy flannelette pyjamas they do have - or the bed hats - who did damage my nerves with their banging. And there it was. A toilet. Indoors. Looking very bright and new. And I immediately settled it in with some Jeyes Fluid, of course. Standards. But I've also got my pride, so I'll be sticking with the privy. Not to be overheard...'

'Why not sing hymns like the rest of us, Nancy?' the neighbours asked.

Fair question.

But how to admit that adequately drowning out the effects of Nancy's ever-upflaring bit of bowel would take all the verses, including the asterisked ones, of "Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah"?

Nancy eventually moved to a detached property, saying, 'It's a bungalow, but with upstairs...'

Comments

Me Featuring in The Sunday Times, Nicely...

This happened. The editor thinks it's a book of dog sitter stories waiting to happen. I am scribbling away at same... I first house-sat by accident. I was originally at Haven House, Lembton, as a live-in safety net for Lady Olive Simmonds, a seventy-nine year-old Bostonian with a lilac afro, a Temazepam habit and leg ulcers. Haven House was by the sea. Eighteenth century, elegant, comfortable. But there was Olive... Always in pain; either drunk, hungover or both; barely educated. She had married a man who was knighted, and believed this gave her a licence to be a twat. According to Olive, her fellow Lembtonians were all dull academics - this group having reading ages older than hers, which was thirteen - or failed schizophrenics. She had serious monophobia, with staff working (unnecessarily) every day apart from weekends. At weekends, first thing, anxious, she would ring round the Lembtonians that were still speaking to her - six in number - inviting them for coffee, ...

In The Times again...

The Marine Says I Must Re-queer...

Being camp in Camp Basra... Stacks, ex-Royal Marines Commando, recently watched my Tutu Went AWOL! show on Zoom. He had notes. I was shifting from foot to foot, he said, and gesturing too much. 'And you must put back the stuff about the Brigadier and your fellow comedian being homophobic...' The Brigadier had been sneering about my act, saying it would be more suited to Butlins. But, more importantly, he believed I was an 'inappropriate influence on 42 Commando'. Stacks, deadpan, commented, 'Sir, before Iestyn started hanging out with us, sir, it had never occurred to him to play Tiddlywinks with anything other than his thumb, sir.' My fellow comedian, who I'll call Mark, because that's his name, asked Reg, Garrison Sergeant Major, in front of ...

Iestyn Edwards is...what?

Search This Blog