The Way You Talk, The Things You've Done

Part 58 of “A Couple of Tenors Short”. I keep rattling away at this. Amazing really, I suppose at some stage I should consider what I should do with it once it is complete. I have already started to cast the TV mini-series in my head, but I am rather stuck over who should play Smithy.

You will be pleased to know that life in the real world continues to outshine anything I can dream up for “A Couple of Tenors Short”. All I can say is that dominoes in the Rat & Ferret is nothing compared to how they play it in China.

More severe doubts over the quiz question, at least in part due to me not being sure I have a picture of the right band. The answer suggests that it should be easy to people of my generation, but I suspect it’s not.

OK, the quiz question out of the way, here is my mantra. This is a serial. Any new-joiners should start with the opener known as Part One.   

The troublesome recap has now settled into its new home. You can find the recap here!

Now read on...

Inside the Zephyr, Smithy, Johnson and Brown considered Jones’s question over the oddness of the world. The three of them looked at Jones and then each other.

After one of the exchanges of glances, Smithy had to brake hard to avoid knocking over a particularly little old lady who was riding a large dog across the pedestrian crossing. The little old lady pulled up her steed and glared at Smithy from under a bright orange parasol.

“What do you mean odd?” Smithy asked turning around quickly to avoid the irate lady’s withering look.

“OK, look.” Jones clasped his hands together, interlocking his fingers. “We are four policemen, driving through London in a bright pink Ford Zephyr Mark III with no flashing blue light or sirens...”

“Oh yes, flashing Lights, but perhaps we should go for lavender lights?” The Sat-Nav cut in.

“... and with a Sat-Nav that thinks it is some kind of camp style advisor.” Jones voice took on an edge in response to the interruption. “We’ve just nearly knocked over an old lady riding an Irish Wolfhound side-saddle while wearing crinolines, numerous petticoats and carrying a parasol. Don’t you consider that the slightest bit odd?”

“Camp? I’m not camp!” the Sat-Nav squealed. “Just for that you can find your own way to... to wherever it is your going!”

As the detectives considered Jones’s question, the old lady grew bored with glaring at the car and moved across the crossing. Smithy crunched the Zephyr into gear and moved off.

“Well, it is London, guv.” Brown was the first to respond. “This is a city that is a zany melting pot of style and fashion. Where London leads, the world follows.”

“Did you have those funny pains before you gave that answer, Brown?” Jones asked gently.

“No, not at all..” Brown spoke slowly, “it seemed the right answer.”

“When was the last time you saw a little old lady riding side-saddle on a dog in a busy city street?” Jones pressed.

The other three in the car consulted before admitting that this was the first time they could remember. Jones relaxed slightly, sitting back in his seat, a half-smile playing on his lips.

“Mind you, we ARE having memory problems.” Smithy reminded Jones, which caused the half-smile to vanish. “And London is known for its eclectic mix and variety of loveable eccentrics. Doesn’t mean we would have come across them all.”

“OK, let’s try and explain the moustaches.” Jones stroked the ginger monstrosity that flamed on his top lip. “How come we all grew moustaches? Not over a few days, but suddenly, all at once on a drive across London.”

The three detectives fell silent.  Johnson twisted the ends of his handlebar moustache.

“Is it some kind of virus?” Brown offered.

“Hurrumph. Is that the best you can come up with?” Jones asked dismissively. “Besides, why just a moustache and how come they grow ready styled?”

“Guv, this is giving me a headache.” Smithy complained.

Jones looked at his three companions. They all looked pale, their lips tinged with blue.

“I don’t feel so good either, guv” Brown admitted.

Smithy suddenly turned the Zephyr into a side street and parked. Smithy, Brown and Johnson all wound their windows down.

“I’m sorry, guv. I’ll feel better in a minute.” Smithy stuck his head out of the window and gulped in air. “I feel a bit dodgy.”

“In what way?” Jones looked at his companions who all had their eyes closed and their heads out of their windows.

“I dunno really. It’s a bit like I’ve been working a really long shift and now the adrenaline has run out.” Smithy spoke quietly, between deep breaths.

Brown and Johnson said nothing, but nodded their heads weakly. Jones stroked his moustache and stayed silent.

“I hope I’m not coming down with something.” Brown moaned. “I would hate to miss the Light Entertainment Championships.”

“That would be awful, what with the world record and the overtime and all.” Johnson added, never moving his head from the window.

The conversation about the Light Entertainment Championships continued. As it did, the colour returned to the faces of Smithy, Johnson and Brown and they became more animated. In his back seat, Jones said nothing, just observed, while stroking his moustache. After about 10 minutes, the conversation had got quite animated over who were the favourites for the competition.

When the conversation died down, Smithy announced he felt much better, started the engine on the Zephyr and pulled away. While the three of them argued over costume choices with the Sat-Nav, Jones sat quietly in the back, staring out of the window.

 

The Sun Shone In, The Glint In Your Eye.

Part 57 of “A Couple of Tenors Short”. Nothing much to add today, I just wanted to post the next episode.

 I’m not sure about today’s quiz question. The  answer seems somehow familiar, but I don’t know if that makes it any easier. Mind you, I think the name is ace.

OK, the quiz question out of the way, here is my mantra. This is a serial. Any new-joiners should start with the opener known as Part One.   

The troublesome recap has now settled into its new home. You can find the recap here!

Now read on...

In a break from normal practice, Jones sat in the back of the Zephyr with Johnson while Brown sat in the front with Smithy who drove.

After fastening his seat belt, Jones positioned himself so he could easily glare at Johnson. Johnson shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Good morning, luvvies!” The Sat-Nav greeted them as Smithy gunned the engine into life. “Where to, my little bundles of angel fluff?”

“Turn that bloody thing off!” Jones shouted from the back seat without ever losing the intensity of the glare at Johnson.

“Temper, temper!” The Sat-Nav responded as Brown poked around it. “Oooo, you have cold hands and that tickles!”

Brown admitted defeat, turned to Jones and gave a shrug. Jones swore under his breath.

Gunning the engine in the Zephyr, Smithy accelerated between a llama carriage and a group of elderly men with a small handcart laden with cauliflowers. A chimney sweep on bicycle, with his brushes slung over his shoulder briefly blocked Smithy’s path. The sweeps eyes opened wide before violently swerving onto the pavement, scattering pedestrians. The bicycle collided with post box, sending the sweep over the handlebars and into the white canvas awning of a butcher’s shop. The sweep bounced from the awing, performed a passable somersault before deftly landing on his feet on the pavement.

Looking in his wing mirror, Smithy gave a chuckle at the comedic sweep-shaped sooty splodge on the butcher’s awning.

During the entire incident, Jones’s gaze never left Johnson.

“Guv, I’m sorry.” Johnson shook his head and looked down into his lap. “I know what I did was wrong, but.... well... at the time it seemed right.”

“Seemed right?” Jones spoke quietly, yet his eyes flashed.

“It’s difficult to explain.” Johnson scratched his head without lifting his gaze. “Everything you said in the briefing, I know that is right and proper. I’ve always known, I wouldn’t have joined the police if I didn’t believe that.”

“It’s like those memory problems, Guv.” Smithy cut in from the front. “You know, like we talked about yesterday.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is kind of.” Johnson looked up at the back of Smithy’s head. “You sort of find yourself puzzled by something, you try to work out why, but it sort of... hurts.”

“I know what he means.” Brown spun round from the front passenger seat.  “You suddenly find yourself confronted with something, you try to remember what to do, then things pop into your head that don’t seem right, but if you try and question it, it kind of hurts until you accept it.”

“Exactly!” Johnson sat up and waved a hand towards Brown. “When I got that report, I wanted to jump up and shout, but something held me back. I got confused and then the foreigner thing cut in.”

Jones stroked his moustache and considered the conversation for a moment.

“Would you look at that? There’s a sale on at Embroidery World!” the Sat-Nav cut in, but was ignored.

“Just like the Garden Gnomes.” Smithy muttered from the front seat, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter.

“Garden Gnomes?” Jones blurted out before realising his mistake, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

“It was my wife’s idea. Let’s turn the front garden into a Gnome Sanctuary she said.” Smithy leaned forward in the driver’s seat, his knuckles starting to turn white as he gripped the wheel. “I hate the bloody things and wanted to say no, but for some reason, I couldn’t. It hurt. So I agreed. Now I seem to spend all my free time installing rockeries and ponds in the front garden. I can’t go near a garden centre anymore because when I do, I end up buying another bloody gnome!”

“I would just love to give you directions to a garden centre.” The Sat-Nav chimed happily.

“SHUT UP!” The four detectives shouted in unison.

“Doesn’t it happen to you, Guv?” Brown asked.

“Well...” Jones took a deep breath and let it out slowly and noisily. “I seem to have gaps in my memory, but not the pains. I find that with a little self control I can handle...”

Jones let the sentence drift off, before running a hand through is hair and swearing under his breath.

“What the hell is going on here, lads?” Jones implored. “Why is everything so... odd?”

 

A Bewildering Air of Unmatched Non-conformance

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It seems that I have picked up some kind of strange ailment. It is one of those horrible illnesses where you feel bad, ache, get tired quickly and feel a little ‘odd’. (see Note 1)

This has been made worse by somehow tweaking a rib muscle in my sleep. For those of you who have never managed to tug an intercostal, I can testify that it is a particularly painful affliction whenever you twist your torso. (see Note 2)

This second problem is probably best fixed by getting plenty of rest and maybe a trip to the ‘Rat & Ferret’. Sid always has a couple of bottles of Ethaniel Nightswerve’s Thoracic Embrocation under the counter for such emergencies. Had I not felt quite so ‘odd’, I might have even paid the premium to have Mattress Madge and her amazing manipulating digits apply it, but, at the moment, I’m not quite sure that I would get the most from the occasion.

I know my cognitive yeomen will suggest I should go visit my doctor’s surgery.

This is probably good advice, but sadly my past experiences tend to suggest otherwise.

My last visit was on a balmy sunny day. The surgery was hermetically sealed from the outside world with the heating turned up to full (see Note 3). As I walked in, a neighbour with her sick child waved at me and I felt obliged to sit between her and on old man with a complexion of a medieval manuscript.

While I was treated to the latest gossip, her son coughed, sneezed and wheezed. Then in apparent contradiction to his mother’s assertion that he was an angel, wiped his nose on my arm. The old man was replaced by a woman who seemed to have an angle grinder in her chest cavity.

When my neighbour was called, I was left to contemplate a geriatric copy of Reader’s Digest while a man with a face not unlike an over-ripe Victoria plum, coughed into my left ear threatening hearing loss.

Eventually my name was called over the crackly PA and I got to see the doctor. Ignoring my detailed description of my symptoms, he shone lights into every orifice, poked planks of wood around my mouth and stuck his stethoscope places I’d forgotten I had.

Ignoring my obvious discomfort and weakened state, he snapped on a latex glove with far too much glee for my liking and then decided an impromptu prostrate exam would be fun. It wasn’t.

After having me climb on the scales and him give that long intake of breath normally the preserve of car mechanics, I expected him to reach for the prescription pad. He didn’t.

Instead, he told me I had a virus (see Note 4). What I needed to do was to lose weight, drink less, take more exercise and rest and drink plenty of liquids – which seemed the most contrary and contradicting diagnosis.

So, I sit here feeling ‘odd’, but not odd enough to visit the quack. I think I can guess what he would say should I pay him a visit. I have an idiosyncratic virus. I should rest, sit quietly at my keyboard and regale the world with my feeling of ‘odd’ while drinking copious amounts of liquids in the form of beer.

You know what? I think I’m beginning to feel better already.

Note 1: I realise that there is a fair proportion of the population scratching their heads at this. It is generally accepted that ‘they’ have already observed my behaviour, produced their clipboard and written ‘odd’ against my name in green biro. However, I still stand by my claim of feeling ‘odd’. To try and make this odd state off affairs easier to explain, I decided to consult an on-line thesaurus to see if I could find the correct state. There are a huge range of words there. I particularly liked wacky, weird and screwy. I did consider kinky for a while, but as I said, I’m getting tired quickly so it was discounted. In the end, I decided that the best I could come up was odd, but decided to add a pair of quotation marks so you realised that I am in an odder state of odd. 

Note 2: Which is another reason why the word kinky was discounted.

Note 3: I’m undecided whether this is a marketing ploy by the medical profession to ensure that all the happy germs floating around the waiting room have a chance to find a new host to guarantee future income or if it is to make sure that people don’t start to feel better and wander off before their turn to see the doctor.

Note 4: It is absolutely impossible that a single virus could have caused me to be that ill. At the very least it was a whole army of the little bleeders all behaving like they were on a stag weekend in Blackpool.