I hate to mention it, but there’s another vote coming up…

Hello again.
Nice to see you.
Oh sorry – I really didn’t mean to do that in a Bruce Forsyth voice.
I’m not good at impressions.
What?
You’d noticed.
Thanks.
Anyway, how are things with you?
Really?
Oh dear.
They’re protruding by how much!?
Surely you can get some cream for that?
I should ask the chemist.
Pardon?
How am I?
Well funny you should ask.

It’s like this, remember the…

What did you say?
Look, I know you were only asking out of politeness and didn’t really want an answer, but I thought that seeing as you brought it up…

Remember the play wot I wrote…

No, now you mention it, I know I can’t ‘do‘ Ernie Wise either, but this play thing…

Not the one I did for the radio, no. It turns out that the BBC don’t know a good thing when it’s staring them in the face – bastards!

I was talking about pm. com, the one that I wrote for the stage.
Yes, it was a few years ago, I’m glad you remember.
Well I only got someone to go and do it!

Yeah!
How about that then?
Honestly – I’ve never seen anyone so underwhelmed.
I thought you might be pleased.

Sorry, you thought what?
That it would just be,’something else for me to keep banging on about.‘

There’s no need!

But let me finish telling you, ‘cos you’ll never guess what.
I’m in it!
Cool or what?
In a purely am-dramish sort of way.
So I’m line learning.

I knew you’d say that!
Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean that I know it off by heart, no.
I have to practice my art.
Now I’m a thespian.
Getting used to the smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd.
Of course I couldn’t compare myself to Burton or Gielud, well not yet anyway.

Arise Sir Dave, I can picture it now.
Me and Madge.
Her with a sword in her hand.
What do you mean, ‘you wish you had a sword right now‘?
I’ll take that to mean that you don’t want a ticket then.

They’re only three pounds.
I know – cheap as chips!
I’ve got friends on Facebook see.
Surprising as that sounds, yes I have.
And I was thinking that if any of them, in say Oz or Trumpton, fancied popping across for the evening that the low price of entry may be of benefit.
Help out with the air fare.
And the airport taxes.
See how thoughtful I am?

Now there was no call for name calling, ‘one act short of a scene!’
Honestly, some people.

Afraid that we can’t put them up though.
My mate Nige is coming over from Ludlow and he’s already claimed the couch. Perhaps you could help by…

Oh! I see. They can **** right off to where?

Isn’t that the chain Lenny Henry advertises?

Anyway, it’s a political drama – of a sort.
About the ‘Countrywide Reform Alliance Party.’
Well in these days of uncertainty and surprise after Brexit, Trump and Leicester City, I thought it best to concentrate on the issues that concern us all.
The cost of beer and football admission prices for example – that sort of thing. Hard hitting and factual.

Pardon?

It spells what!

Perhaps I’d better have a rethink then, eh?

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Something is happening…

Things are happening.

Apart from in the country which should and probably shall forevermore be known as Trumpton, that is.

I thought you might like to know.

Oh really? It makes a pleasant change to hear that you’re so keen to know what’s going on in my life, may I say?

Sick of elections and referendums eh! Can’t say I blame you. Anyway, this has nothing to do with politics.

No, honest! I mean it! Not much anyway.

‘Cos like I said, things are happening.

DOGNAPPED! as I told you a few weeks back is in the final of The People’s Book Prize next year.

Sorry, I know I keep ‘banging on about it,’ as you put it, but someone has to publicise it and if it ain’t me then…

Pardon?

Yes, thanks for sharing, reblogging and retweeting it. I do appreciate it honest.

Anyway. I just wanted to say that the next book, IN THE DOGHOU|SE! is shortly due for release.

Yay!

You will review it won’t you?

Thanks.

Here’s a picture of Rascal just to whet your appetite.Yes, Ian’s done a fantastic job illustrating again hasn’t he?

And there’s more.

Yes there is.

In the great tradition of Ernie Wise I have wrote a play. Two in fact.

One for radio – just giving a heads up if anyone from the BBC is looking in. No, I can’t tell you what it’s about – I’d have to shoot you! But it is very good, I’ve read it as well as written it!

The other is a stage play for The Comedy Theatre Group, a local amateur band I joined up with recently. It’s meant to be a political satire, but judging by recent real life events you might not recognise it as such!

If I had released it a few months back you’d have said it was totally unrealistic. In the light of what’s been going on you might now think that it’s not mad enough!

Anyway, hopefully we can get it staged sometime around Easter.
See, I’m not just a pretty face.

Oh thanks, you never thought that I was! There’s no need! Why do you think I don’t post selfies on here!?

And then…

Yes, there is more.

You’re getting bored now? I’ll be quick then.

I’ve got a couple of speaking slots at the Wolverhampton Literature Festival at the end of January next year. I’ll tell you more a bit nearer the date, but if you can’t wait then take a look at http://wolvesliteraturefestival.co.uk

I’m on Black Country Radio on Friday at 2p.m. That’s Dave Homer’s show and I’m going to tell him all I’ve just written down here – plus a bit more that I holding back for now.

So you’ll have to listen now won’t you, I know you don’t like to miss anything.

It’s 102.5 FM – see you there!

Asylum Seekers…

Well it’s getting close to the vote.
In or out of the asylum?

Now I know that in my recent blog, EU – the Hokey Cokey (it’s on this site somewhere) I did make the assertion that anyone who told you whether we were better off either in or out of the aforementioned institution was an idiot, because no one knows for sure. And I still hold to that view, none of us has a crystal ball after all, otherwise the bankers would be loading what’s left of our pension pots into the financial markets to make a quick buck whilst they thought we weren’t looking.

But, and I stress but, it is worth a snigger at some of the absurdity’s which have arisen while the lunatics have been running the show.

Mostly it can be summed up in one word.

Strasbourg.

O.k., not a word I grant you.

A name.

A name which ought to be writ large and illuminated in garish neon lights to highlight the shame that it heaps upon us all.

Strasbourg.

It was worth repeating.

Yes, the ignoble club formerly known as the EEC feels the need to up sticks from its spiritual home in Brussels to go and vote once a month in a different country.

Why?

Because France says so.

Those who say that we should stay because ‘we can change things from the inside,‘ should mark this well!

Now as everyone else knows, France is the biggest looney of the lot. If it can’t get it’s own way the default setting is to have a bit of a tantrum.

A hissy fit.

At least with Germany you know you’re in the same arena as the playground bully.

But France is different. It’s a bit sneaky. ‘Those little Englanders,‘ it whispers in the ear of anyone whose skirts it wants to hide behind – usually the Germans – ‘always causing trouble! If they want to leave why don’t they just bugger off and leave us to cuddle each other?‘ Although when Germany gets a bit too belligerent they hide behind our skirts and let us do the fighting – funny that!

And yet, here they are ripping us off with bloody Strasbourg. Do they think we haven’t noticed? According to which side you believe the figure is somewhere around £100 million per year. Perhaps a bit more, perhaps a bit less. Hey, it’s only loose change, eh? Or between 5-6% of the entire administrative budget to put it another way. And I thought that I was being extravagant getting in the car to go to the corner shop if it was raining!

Yes, as soon as the circus rumbles out of sight of the Belgian suburbs those crafty hoteliers from Europe’s second capital reverse their tariff boards hung by a piece of string next to the ‘VACANCY’ sign. Prices double immediately as do those in the surrounding shops, restaurants and brothels (well we all know politicians are partial to a good spanking by a dominatrix – not so much smugly superior as ugly posterior!)
‘Very nice for the economy, merci very much,‘ they shout from the Paris treasury as our taxpayer funded dosh piles up in the funny Monopoly money they invented a few years back.

By the way, we did well stopping out of that one. The Euro! Remember decimalisation and how we got ripped off in the early seventies? Prices more than doubled overnight while we were still counting on our fingers trying to work out how many new pence were in a shilling. Imagine that on a continental scale! Just ask the Greeks. Anyway I digress.

Europe prides itself on its empathy with the environment and is rightly concerned about the size of its carbon jackboot – sorry, footprint. I assume that means that the buildings in Brussels have not yet been fitted with the latest energy saving light bulbs, but those in Strasbourg have, which is why it makes so much more sense to pump all that Co2 into the atmosphere as they transfer operations. Although if that is the case it makes you wonder why they bother to go back again only a few days later.
A case of having ones cake and eating it, perhaps? Marie Antoinette would have been so proud!

All a bit tongue in cheek that.

Hey!

Only kidding, rest of Europe.

You know we can’t be serious when the majority party we’ve elected to your parliament is one we wouldn’t scrape off our shoe with a pointy stick over here.

Yes, you shafted us with straight cucumbers if you’ll pardon the expression, we gave you UKIP!

Seems like a fair trade agreement to me, how about you?