Tale F: For Fig

                                                     BLIND DATE OBSERVER

      This week we sent another set of singletons out for dinner. How did they get on?

                                        PROFILES/ RELATIONSHIP STATUS?

Christine Bale, 29, Psycho-Analyst/ Bar Manager.

Well I’ve been a “Single lady” (whoop!!!!!) for one year now, so while not exactly looking for love, I’d definitely shake it’s hand if it came up and found me!!!!!! My last relationship lasted for one year and ended fantastically, though a bit sadly but we are still brilliant friends, thank God! I’m even friends with his new girlfriend on facebook!! And other than that, nothing else to report!!!!!!!! Oh! And Pisces.

Tim Feathers, 30, Retired Semi- Professional Cricket Player, Graphic Designer and DJ

Single. Leo.

                                                  FAVOURITE FOOD?

Christine:

Anything with sugar in it and you have me!!!! Can’t walk past Hummingbird Bakery without stealing a Black-Bottomed cup-cake. (Don’t ACTUALLY steal them, I DO pay! Ha!! ;-/)

Tim:

Thai/ Asian Fusion.

                                                  FAVOURITE FILM?

Christine:

Remains of The Day (Can I *cheekily* have two?) and (;-*) Star Wars (I know!! I’m such a GUY!!!!)

Tim:

Withnail and I.

                                                 FAVOURITE BOOK?

Christine:

Remains of the Day (Totes loved both the book and film!! Thompson sucker!) and Eat, Pray Love (two again, I know, cheeky! Eek! J)

Tim:

Girl With Dragon Tattoo 1, Girl With Dragon Tattoo 2 and Girl With Dragon Tattoo 3.

                                                        HOBBIES?

Christine:

I LOVE going for meals, going to the cinema, reading, watching films, shopping, chatting with friends, watching TV, going out dancing, watching comedy and I know this will sound a bit mental but I also sculpt using butter. I had a giant industrial fridge moved into my sitting room and I use lard and butter to make busts of people. It’s a really wonderful medium to use. For my latest project I’m sculpting busts of the thirteen victims of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972 and then when I take them out of the fridge, they begin to melt and it looks like they’re crying. Obviously I can’t leave them out for too long or they congeal a bit. Oh and I also LOVE music.

Tim:

I love cooking and gigs. (music, not footballer. ha.)

                                                BIGGEST TURN ON?

Christine:

Now THAT would be telling!! ;-)

Tim:

Ass/ Being comfortable in herself.

Christine:

Paying for things.

                                                  BIGGEST TURN OFF?

Christine:

Being racist or small minded (I’m massively not racist so would totally have to take it one day at a time with someone who wasn’t.) And beards. (Ouchville, Tenessee!!)

Tim:

Ugg boots, not making effort/ not shaving her muff.

                                              FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

Christine:

Tim was an absolute gentleman and we had LOADS to talk about. He was chatty and friendly and I LOVED the americanny, englishy radio accent. He looked quite handsome and even though he had sideburns, I was happy to see that he had no beard!!!! Though I did wonder about shorts on a first date. (sozzles Tim!)

Tim:

Bit fat.

                                       WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT?

Christine:

Well Tim was really interested in what I had to say about the Arab conflict in the middle East. It’s such a weird time for the world with everything that happened in Egypt and Libya! And he had a really funny quiz on his phone where he compared Gadaffi with Charlie Sheen and that was really funny, so we had a real laugh about that. He was also really interested in my family and all of my family stories (they are madmadmad :-{). He had some really funny jokes and I’m a real comedy nerd so I love jokes and I often find things funny and he really liked the joke I told as well, so yeah mainly politics and comedy and he loves sports too because of his jobs. And also he was really into his technology and that was impressive because I am useless! (technotard alert!)

Tim:

Story about her sister who’s a lawyer or teacher. Showed her Gadaffi/ Sheen Quiz- EXCELLENT. Look it up. She kept mentioning how bad she was at everything and that I'd have to help her. Also Africa, comedy, cricket, the Ashes, Strauss, what I was going to order.

                                                 TABLE MANNERS?

Christine:

The perfect gentleman- although he does hold his fork like a spear!! (tee hee- sorry Tim! Ah!)

Tim:

Normal. She went to loo a few times to fix her face. I got chatting to waiter (Portuguese dude. Right laugh. Mental bloke. Gave me free shots every time she went to loo). She did hold her knife like a pen and did say she was a vegetarian and had the chicken. Or maybe it was diabetic. I think she said she gets hyper if she has beef.

                                           ANY AWKWARD MOMENTS?

Christine:

Not really, though he did get a weeeeee bit tipsy and started cursing quite bit. Sorry Timmers! Maybe I’m just a prude but I hate the C word, but other than that the convo flowed like a river.

Tim:

No. She got a bit drunk and flirty with me towards the end. She kept looking at my crotch/ man-sword. Oh also she brought up her dead parent. I can’t remember which one, but it was awkward then.

                                            BEST THING ABOUT HIM?

Christine:

His laugh, amazing sense of humour, those (!) eyes, his jobs. He also told me some intimate things about his life and his past which I didn’t expect and that was really open and brave of him.

                                           BEST THING ABOUT HER?

Tim:

She pretended she didn’t want loads of her food so I got a lot of the end bits. Also her face got better every time she came back from the loo.

                                            WORST THING ABOUT HIM?

Christine:

Nothing! Can’t Say! Great Guy! Total Catch! WOOPWOOP X10.

                                           WORST THING ABOUT HER?

Tim:

Bit fat.

                                         DID YOU GO ON SOMEWHERE?

Christine:

Eek, sure did…we went on to a pub that Tim DJ’ed at once.

Tim:

Some of my mates were spinning the decks at a venue I gig at, so I brought her down there.

                                          MARKS OUT OF TEN?

Christine:

We both decided to give each other the same marks so here it is Tim! 11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xxxxxx

Tim:

6

                                         WOULD YOU MEET AGAIN?

Christine:

Honestly, I don’t think there was a relationship ‘spark’ but deffo for friendship and coffee. Tim is a great guy but toward the end of the evening I think that we both realised that we just weren’t suited for each other. He pushed me over onto the road as a joke and then made me pay for his Kebab but forgot to order me anything and then when I asked him if he would give me a bite, he wiped mayonnaise in my hair and ran down the street with my handbag. When he walked back up the street, he was crying about an illness that his cousin has had and he said that that was why he did it and then I felt sorry for him. He then shouted to everyone that I was his new girlfriend and he started singing Oasis’s Champagne Super nova with this tramp (can I say tramp??!!) who had a guitar. I really like music but I don’t really like Oasis (sorry Tim!!). He then walked me to the tube and as I was about to go he told me that if I didn’t give him my number he would run away with my hand bag again. I took his number as I had to go. I may call him in a few weeks to see if he wants to meet up for a cup of tea in town one day down the road. BIG LOVE!!XXX.

Tim:

Yes. We’re doing another date. She took my number. Why, what did she say about me? You gonna edit this?

Tale E: For Eggplant

A visual tale of Woah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTrf9c5AQsw


 Enjoy and Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Tale D: For Dragon Fruit

Larry was sure that, with all this snow, no one would notice one more frozen to death elderly woman.

Now don’t get him wrong, Larry LOVED Dilly. No doubt about it. They had been married for forty-five years. She was his life’s plus one. His first. Perhaps, if he didn’t lose a bit of weight, his last. But unfortunately for Dilly, none of this was going to stop Larry from murdering her dead. Indeed, unfortunately for Dilly, her death had come down to a numbers game. When Larry totted up the reasons for her to live and the reasons for her to die, there were simply more in the ‘KILL’ column and less in the ‘SAVE’.

SAVE #1: The Family

Larry was a retired window fitter, having left We See Through You last year at the ripe old age of 65. He had married Dilly at 22 and the window business had provided them with enough income for Dilly to stay at home and look after their two tall, if somewhat simple, children; Larry Junior and Ernest John.

There had been no need for Dilly to search for extra work, particularly once the double glazing craze took off. Larry Junior followed his father and also became a window fitter, working for the rival company Window of Opportunity. Although their tagline “God never closes a door without first giving us a call to make sure we’re available” had seen them alienate some of their non-Christian customers in the last ten years. Earnest John had sadly become a writer. To cover their embarrassment they just told everyone that he was on disability benefit.

SAVE # 2: Their History

Dilly had spent about 2,288 weeks of her entire life cleaning his home, washing his clothes, cooking his dinner and getting up at seven just to watch him eat his cornflakes. She had slept beside him almost every night since he was 22. She held his hand and wept with him as he buried his parents. She had sat with him in the cold hospital corridor as he waited to identify his brother’s body (It wasn’t him. Matthew had just gone on a spontaneous package holiday to Crete without telling anyone).

SAVE#3: Effort

Every week of 1983, she had saved money to buy him a Starsky tan leather jacket and had pretended that people had shouted ‘You there, look butch’ rather than ‘You with the hair, where the fuck is Hutch?’ as they walked down the road. Now that is true love.

SAVE#4: Dilly knew where everything was.

For forty-five years Larry had not had to search for a single thing, even answers. Dilly was all over where stuff was.

Dilly?

What?

Comb and Dax?

In the kitchen.

Dilly?

What?

Glasses?

On your head.

Dilly?

What?

Probiotic Yoghurt Drink?

By the door.

Dilly?

What?

One Down- Species of flowering tree, mulberry family, native to Malay Peninsula.

Breadfruit.

Dilly?

What?

That racist article I was reading last week about something?

Page 18, it’s cut out, highlighted and in your pile.

Indeed he did wonder what/how he would find stuff once/ if she was gone.

SAVE #5: The Initial Future

Dilly and Larry were excited about his retirement. It would open up a new chapter in their lives. They would be like childhood sweethearts again. Long evening walks up the Wetherspoons on the Holloway Road. Making love during the afternoon with Loose Women on in the background. Larry would finally have time to focus on all those things that he had always wanted to do but had never had time. He would learn to play the ukelele, write his crime novel; A Cleaner Criminal, trade his van in for a moped and grow an Italian looking goatee. He would get a ‘Facebook’ account to keep up with the lads from work. Maybe even try out for the over 25s in the X-Factor and become next year’s Wagner.

KILL #1: The Disappointment

But four months into retirement, it began to dawn on Larry that the life pony he was riding was not, as he had previously thought, on a gallop to the saloon in Fun Town. It was rather on a slow trot to the horse butchers where Dilly was wielding a knife ready to make a kebab of him.

Now did he love her? Yes, he did. That could not be denied. He loved her like a monkey loved swinging from trees. But when Larry’s world changed course last year, Dilly’s didn’t. At All. And finally seeing the world that Dilly had lived in for the last four decades while he had been at work, was a complete and utter revelation.

KILL #2: The Dawn of Reality.

Larry came to see a side to Dilly that he had never known existed. Daytime Dilly. Weekday Dilly. Nine to five Dilly. What Dilly does during the day when Larry is at work Dilly. The last year had proved to be an eye opener. Larry had worked Monday to Friday 9 to 5 for the last 48 years. He left Dilly at 8.30am every morning and arrived back at 5.30 where he would be greeted by her adorable toothy grin, some kind of meat, one type of vegetable, an un-intimidating type of starch and an evening of shouting at the television.

It had never really crossed his mind what Dilly got up to during the daytime while he was at work. It had never really crossed his mind to consider that his wife had continued to live in those hours while he was away. It had never really occurred to him what sort of person develops over what must have roughly been 112,000 hours marriage where he had not been present.

It had never really crossed his mind that retirement would not just be like the evenings, but all day long.

No.

Retirement had been like taking Pandora’s box to Iraq.

KILL #2: Lack of Dementia to justify her personality.

At the start it had been like watching a silent episode of National Geographic. She was fascinating. But in the same way that Big Brother became less of a social experiment and more a vehicle for people from the Midlands to get on telly, watching Dilly became less about observing and getting to know her better, and more about collecting a series of small things that were now ultimately going to lead to her death.

Dilly was sixty-six and did not have dementia. She had just been left unmonitored for forty odd years and now had a stack of ridiculous unmovable life habits as a result.

KILL #3: Gate-gate.

His first realisation of this was three weeks into retirement. In Larry’s line of work, you spent a lot of time in other people’s homes. The golden rules were: never leave footprints on the carpet, a mess in the toilet or….the gate open. A closed gate made the house look tidy and un-robbed. A house with a swinging gate was like a teenager with an open mouth; it looked st upid.

Larry had never noticed his own gate before. Why would he have? He had left home every day, walked out the door of their Semi-D and closed the gate behind him. When he came back every evening, it would be open. But that was alright. He was coming home anyways and he would close it behind him before searching for his keys.

Nowadays, as he sat at the kitchen table looking out the window, it was a different ball game. Dilly treated the gate in the same manner as a jockey and racehorse do the stall: leave and never look back. She would head out to ‘the shops’ (which meant two to four hours of various activities) and would leave the gate swinging open with wild abandon. He would stare out the window watching it flail back and forth in the wind like it was trying to mate with the attached wall. The creak of the un-oiled hinges tore at his ears.

He wanted, nay, NEEDED to go out and close it with every fibre of his body, but that would involve him getting up from the kitchen table where he was ‘reading’ The Daily Mail and doing it. He tried to mention it to her and she laughed as if he had just asked her to make him an invisible sandwich. What gate? Grrrr! ‘WHAT GATE?’. Even the Asian student who delivered their junk mail for various pizza promoting reasons closed the gate on his way out. God he could KILL her.

KILL #3: News

Larry suspected strongly that Dilly did not know a war in Iraq had happened when she asked him if they were still ‘hunting for Obama’ at the breakfast table. Most of her opinions were formed from watching Judge Judy episodes circa 1998. GOD he could KILL her.

KILL#4: The Mouth.

Despite being what people in the industry called ‘fat’, Dilly ate more air than she did food. Her quota of oxygen to cereal was about 3:1. This, matched with teeth, suction and two cheeks, meant that the sound of her eating was akin to a memory of being stuck with a loud cow in a silent field. GOD he could KILL her.

KILL #5: For inside not for outside.

Dilly’s reward for a hard day’s cleaning was to sit on the couch braless in her wedding dress with the zip open at the back (she was no longer the slim cricket she was on the day of her nuptials). Larry felt that the act spat in the face of every framed photo in the house. Dilly said that it gave her an idea of what it must be like for The Lost Boys in Peter Pan. GOD he could KILL her.

KILL#6: Dozy Bird.

Every morning she left stale bread in the back garden for Doxy the pigeon to eat. Of course Doxy the pigeon had long died and was now replaced by a hungry young rat family, meaning the family back garden was now a no-go area. Like a Disney movie on acid. ‘Fantasia’, in fact. GOD he could KILL her.

KILL#7: Technology

There was a large dusty circle of carpet around his PC, which she had been avoiding hoovering for two years in case she “broke the internet”- which she didn’t believe existed in the first place. She used the phrase “do an email”. She kept her phone turned off “in case anyone rang” and had only ever sent one text message by accident with the word ‘foot’ in it. He knew because, being the only number in her phone, he had received it. When he told her about the text she cried, apologised for what she had done and stayed in bed for the evening sobbing. He did not even gingerly attempt to explain the term ‘Windows’ to her lest she think he had started working inside the computer itself. GOD he could KILL her.

KILL#8: Music.

Larry considered himself to be the Fonzie of his window cleaning crew; older, but down with the kids, with the ability to give something a kick and make it work again. He enjoyed staying up to date with the lingo and the music. He had been known to head bob to The Artic Monkeys. He had printed out and learned Jay-Z lyrics. He would email funny forwarded emails to people at work in the evenings and would then ring them all up to make sure they had got them and read his favourite bits of them out over the phone. Dilly listened to literally absolutely NOTHING but Neil Not So Young. If he heard The Needle and The Damage Done one more time he would harvest himself. No one even did heroin anymore. He was so irrelevant. Dilly knew nothing. She didn’t know what was going on with the young people like he did. She was so stupid not knowing! Why didn’t she know? She was so old. GOD he could KILL her!

KILL #9: She was old and reminded him that he was too.

KILL #10: She was old and reminded him that he was too.

KILL #11: She was old and reminded him that he was too.

KILL #12: She was old and reminded him that he was too.

KILL #13: She was old and reminded him that he was too.

KILL #14: She was old and reminded him that he was too.

KILL #15: She was old and reminded him that he was also...old.

So there you had it. Fifteen solid reasons to kill his beloved wife Dilly and only five tenuous ones to save her.

He knew, that if he pushed her well known weak lower back with just enough force, that with very little effort, she would land head first on tonight’s dark icy side street behind their house. She would fall to a metaphorical icy grave, which would later lead to a literal one. He was going to miss the old girl. The cold would make her a beautifully preserved corpse. He would have to make sure that she wore her best outfit for when she was found. It’s what she would have wanted.

It was a pity for Larry that Fabricio, Dilly’s 32 year old Spanish lover, had been told about Larry’s well known weak knees.

It meant that when he pushed Larry from behind, that with very little effort, he had landed face forward on the dark icy side street behind their house. He had fallen to a metaphorical icy grave, which later led to a literal one.

She was going to miss the old boy.

The cold made him a beautifully preserved corpse. She had made sure that he had worn his best clothes that day. Not only so that Fabricio could recognise him, but it’s what he would have wanted.

Larry was old and reminded her that she was too. And to be honest, since he had retired she had lost interest in the man and had suspected that he didn’t really like her anymore. She supposed that, after all those years working in windows, she could just see through him….

Tale C: For Carrot

John and Mary had a magical evening planned.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lYGfBsDHNQ


............but then so had Dave.

Tale B for Banana

Between Tania Xavier and You.

Tania Xavier 8 April at 17:19

Dear Ed,

Could you please stop sending me messages to sponsor you in the London Marathon. I do not know you and have already sponsored four friends running. I don’t even know how I am part of your group. If you don’t stop inundating my inbox with requests and updates, I am going to have to lodge a complaint with facebook.

Tania x

Ed Chamberlain 8 April at 18:01

Dear Tania,

Wow, thank you for letting me know, thank you. You have really managed to ruin my day. Thank you. I’m so sorry that you felt ‘inundated’ and I apologise that you had to strain your fingers to click ‘delete’ and then press the button AGAIN to ‘confirm’ that you wanted to delete it. Maybe I should run for YOU instead of my charity? We could use the money to send you on a cruise to help you get over the stress from the whole episode. I strongly believe in Karma and I hope that someone ruins your day and your belief in human kind the way you have done for me. Ed.

Tania Xavier 9 April at 18:45

Dear Ed,

What an emotional angry tirade. Pull your knickers up! I was trying to be polite and business like, but you had to insult me and drag me down into your guttural sarcasm. I just received another email from your running group, which I’m sure was intended, thank you. I do not know you, but I have every right to send the POLITE, ADULT message that I sent to you and feel no need to sponsor you or the ‘Rehouse Betty the Donkey’ charity. Thank you for ruining MY day. Tania x

Ed Chamberlain 9 April at 19:44

Dear Tania,

You are right about one thing, I did just send another message to annoy you. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that it did. I have been training for the last six months, four evenings a week to run for a cause that I truly believe in. If you even knew half of what Betty has been through. I presume from your photos that you are some Upper Middle class media type who is too busy snorting cocaine and topping up her blonde roots to realise that the world does not revolve around you.

Ed.

Ed Chamberlain 9 April at 19:45

Yo Giles,

Look at the message that I just got off some cunt about our Run to Rehouse Betty The Donkey Campaign. What a total cunt, didn’t think they made cunts this big, but there she was in my inbox, gaping open. What a total cunt. “Dear Ed, Can you please stop sending me messages to sponsor you in the London Marathon. I do not know you and have already sponsored four friends running. I don’t even know how I am still part of your group. If you don’t stop inundating my facebook inbox, I am going to have to lodge a complaint. Tania x”

Cunt. Pints tomorrow?

Tania Xavier 9 April at 19:49

Dear Ed,

You sent that to me.

Tania x

Ed Chamberlain 9 April at 20:21

Dear Tania,

I actually feel bad about that. Not that you deserve my pity. I am still so angry at you for having the bare faced audacity to send a message like the one you did. The world is a worse off place because of uncharitable, intolerant people like you. I was still brought up right however and I apologise for my language but not my sentiment. It was my passion for my cause and a real belief in the project that motivated my tirade. I wonder if you can understand that? Doubtful. Ed.

Tania Xavier 9 April at 20:25

Dear Ed,

I do understand. Takes one to know one.

Tania x

Ed Chamberlain 8 April at 20:40

Dear Tania,

Are you calling me a c%”*? That is so typical. I was trying to be nice in my last message but you take the bloody nice biscuit! You are totally soulless. Do you have a job? Because I hear that they are casting a sequel to iRobot. Answer me this: (a)Why haven’t you left the group if we annoy you so bloody much? (b)If you hate me, (a man GIVING HIS TIME AND ENERGY FOR SOMEONE ELSE, something you would clearly know nothing about) then WHY do you end each message with a kiss. You cliché.

Ed, - x.

Tania Xavier 10 April at 18:46

Dear Ed,

Heaven help your girlfriend or any other women in your life, if that was you trying to be nice. You wouldn’t know compassion if it came up to you in the street and smacked you in the face with a live mackerel. How can you take the moral high ground? You are a disrespectful, probably wealthy squatter, with more free time and ideals than intelligence.

How is your poem/painting/book/acting career going? Out of 37,000 people running in the London Marathon, the odds of one of them being a c%”*, as you so nicely put it the second time around, were high, and now here you are proving the laws of probability correct.

In relation to your questions. (a) I don’t know how to leave a group. I, unlike you, given the speed of your replies, do not spend all of my time on facebook. I have a life. I spend very little time on social networking sites. So when I am on them I like to spend that time getting in touch with family and old friends not answering stupid donkey emails from people whose profile picture is them pissing into the sea while on a “finding yourself in Guatemala" holiday. And: (b) If you were clever enough to look above each message, you will see that my surname is Xavier, hence the ‘x’. Feel safe again, I was in no way trying to kiss you.

Tania x.

Tania Xavier 10 April 18:48

And by the way “- x” Minus x?...really hilarious...not.

Ed Chamberlain 10 April at 19:03

Dear Tania,

“Not”? Really? I thought that ‘not’ jokes died in 1997 with the popularity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s McDonald’s Happy Meals. Was Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime your autobiography? Because you are clearly autistic and devoid of normal human emotion. It is the artists of the world who give meaning and substance to our otherwise meaningless existence. It is my honour to be attempting to contribute to that with my writing. Your cynicism is that of a lonely old woman.

What age are you? What I write actually makes people feel something other than hate which is what you write makes me feel. The only part of me that you could put an x anywhere near is my ass, and I don’t mean Betty the Donkey. Though for your information, she has already been hideously branded with Xs over the last two years before she was rescued by the Donkey Sanctuary. If you were as clever as you make out, you would have put a capital X after Tania. Ed.

Tania Xavier 10 April at 19:09

Oh but Ed, if I had put a capital ‘x’, then you might have thought that I was giving you a BIG kiss and I would hate to lead you on or for your ass to get over excited.

Tania small x because you are not worth my time pressing the shift button to do a big x.

Tania Xavier 10 April at 19: 10

Also I’m sure that your writing does make people feel something; that their taxes are being wasted.

Ed Chamberlain 10 April at 19:40

Dear Tania,

I cannot even comprehend how you have survived this long without someone putting a bullet in your evil head. How do you have 367 friends? Are they all your coke dealers or the rest of the extras from Mean Girls? What is it that you do that is so beneficial to the world that you feel in a position to talk to me about moral high grounds you animal hating, cold hearted, loveless wench?

Ed.

Tania Xavier 10 April at 19:45

Dear Ed, I am a relief worker for the Red Cross. Tania x.

Ed Chamberlain 10 April at 19:46

Seriously?

Tania Xavier 10 April at 19:49

Dear Ed, Yes. Tania x.

Ed Chamberlain 10 April at 20:35

Dear Tania, I cannot understand then ho

Ed Chamberlain 10 April at 20:39

Dear Tania,

I pushed reply by accident there. I cannot understand how you, as an aid worker, would ever send a message like the one you did. Given that you have full working knowledge of the hard work that people like me put into training and fund-raising. How you could want to scupper someone aiming to make the maximum amount to help a charity that he believes in. Especially when my efforts are hurting no one, only benefitting. I looked through your photos again and there are ones of you in the desert entitled “African Adventure”, did you enjoy your holiday? Did the children miss the medication that payed for it?

Ed

Tania Xavier 10 April at 20:50

Dear Ed,

I, as an aid worker, might know a little something about hard work. The title of the album ‘African Adventure’, was given by my good friend Adroa, who runs that Ugandan branch of our Red Cross office. We used the title with the orphans that we were ferrying through the war zones so as not to panic them and to try to put smiles on their hopeless, devastated faces. When you have walked ten miles for water and back again with only enough for a child that will probably die in your arms before nightfall, believe me, you understand hard work.

So yes, you could say that it does aggrieve me to get your updates on how your one donkey charity is going. And not only because I know for a fact that Rehouse Betty the Donkey is the only charity without it’s full quota of runners. Perfect for those who left it too late and fancied jumping on the bandwagon.

Now I’m sure that Betty is a wonderful animal but I wonder how much clout you give her with your regular 'updates'. Please excuse my directly quoting you:

“Dudes, training going well, the laydees in the parks digging the charity hole. Making sure to wear my donkey teeshirt when out running, EEeAw! Donate so that we look good dudes! LOL! Thinking of working on a cover of Baby Got Back. “I like big asses and I cannot lie” Also what are opinions on doing it drunk in donkey costumes?ROFL www.justgiving/EddyCRehousebettythedonkey.com.”

Or a later jewel:

“Those Children in Africa bitches won’t know what has hit them once we give them a taste of our donkey running medicine, did ten miles in an hour today! We will run so fast that we will get Betty the Donkey a house in Primrose Hill with Kate Moss cleaning her horse shoes and the Virgin Mary coming back to ride her to Bethlehem. Eat our dust Christian Aid!”. I cannot wait to read your books. Will the crayons be provided? Your messages pull into disrepute the fundraising aims of genuine dedicated philanthropists.

Tania x

Ed Chamberlain 12 April at 08:14

Dear Tania,

Okay. So from the way that you have been reading my updates, I may have come across as slightly jerkish. My friend, Christian is running for Christian Aid and my friend Dave is running with a group from work for Children in Africa. So, the comments were intended for them, which I’m sure was lost on you, especially if you don’t know me or my sense of humour. The tone of it was jovially intended when written and was to entice younger friends on facebook to donate. Just because I’m a writer, it doesn’t mean that I have to be on form every hour of the day. I sometimes need a break and a chance to rake my brainsoil, so I try to leave work behind when I’m on facebook. I’d like to consider what I do just as important as what you do. The penis mightier than the sword.

Ed.

Tania Xavier 12 April at 18: 46

I presume that you meant “pen is” ?

Ed Chamberlain 12 April at 18: 49

Yes. Though I’ve often been told both.

Tania Xavier 12 April at 19:15

Are you sure that you wouldn’t like to re-read what you just wrote aloud, listen to yourself, go away and have a look in the mirror, have a think about it and come back and take that statement back out of shame?

Ed Chamberlain 12 April at 19:23

Okay Tania. This has gone on long enough. You have been the first woman to make me feel such a wide range of emotions in such a short space of time since I got separated from my mother in the supermarket when I was three. I was hugged and beaten within the space of 25 seconds. I’ll put it out there, if you will accept the olive branch. I’d like to take you for a charitable drink to signal the end of this war.

Ed.

Ed Chamberlain 13 April at 19:27

Way to make a guy wait, would have been polite to at least reply.

Ed Chamberlain 14 April 01:37

I’ll take that as a no then. Fine, see you at the pearly gates.

Tania Xavier 14 April 18:56

Hi Ed,

My internet was down and we are not allowed check facebook at work. I also had to think about it. I don’t know what you get up to with your weekends, but I don’t tend to spend mine with strangers that I meet online. I also don’t tend to go for drinks with men who have called me heartless, soulless, wench c*&%s. But a lot of things were said in the heat of the moment. So yes, I finish work at Moorfield at five tomorrow and there is a pub called The Rack and Tenter. It’s my local and they know me there. Just in case you are a mad rapist.

Tania x

Ed Chamberlain 14 April at 19: 23

Wonderful, I can’t wait to call you a heartless, soulless wench c*&% to your face. X

Ed Chamberlain 15 April at 15:09

Hi Tania, I should probably get your number in case I don’t find you this evening? Mine is 07834487654. I will be the one that looks like a branded donkey. Betty x

Ed Chamberlain 15 April at 17:07

Shit, I’m running late, hope you get this and are still there? Tubes are a nightmare!

Sent via Facebook Mobile

Ed Chamberlain 15 April 17:20

Seriously nightmarish traffic! Ah!

Sent via Facebook Mobile

Ed Chamberlain 15 April at 17:39

Are you still here? So sorry I’m late. If so give me a buzz! I’m by the bar in the red jacket. Sent via Facebook Mobile.

Ed Chamberlain 15 April at 18:22

Okay, so I’m going to head, this has been a disaster! Should we try again tomorrow evening? Sent via Facebook Mobile

Tania Xavier 15 April 19:23

It depends. Would you turn up on time this time, or would you leave me sitting there flirting with the Spanish barman again?

Ed Chamberlain 15 April 19:30

I’ll set up camp there now, flirt with the barman until he falls for me, then break his heart so that he has to run back to his mother in Spain to recover. Your gin full and Hispanic free evening awaits….

Tania Xavier 15 April 19:45

The gin is the first thing that you’ve gotten right this week. There is hope for you yet. You can have my number when you turn up in time.

Yours sincerely, Tania Xavier x

Ed Chamberlain 15 April 19:45

So can we call this an up’date’? I apologise for that joke.

See you tomorrow,

Edward Chamberlain. x

Ed Chamberlain 16 April 9:20

You left your scarf in my kitchen. X

Tale A for Apple

Jane was adamant that she was going to avoid her ex-boyfriend today. The fact that he was in bed wrapped around her, was going to make this difficult. She was not one to give up on a good idea though and so this plan was going to take some..well...planning.

She had wasted ten quite average months of her life on this bearded mess who was currently out for the count and breathing heavily into her left ear. The effort of having bought her two drinks once he realised it was going to be worth his while and then splitting the taxi back, had clearly taken it out of him. And of course he must have been just knackered after carrying her up the three steps to the door before having to put her down because his back was sore and “you get the picture babes”.

Not to mention all of the physical exertion required in watching her make them toast at 3am. He’d taken off her top and bra and then decided it was probably best to get some food in ‘beforehand’. “I miss us eating together Babes. You love bread”. The man had been right. She did love bread. She loved bread very much. It’s a pity bread hadn’t arrived into the Harmington Arms at 10.45pm on ‘Gin Friday’, pinched her drunken arse and brought her home two hours later for seven minutes of activity which didn’t even burn off the calories from the toast. Indeed it would have taken some pretty mouldy baguettes to give her the same shameful flashbacks she was currently enjoying. Lord knows she might have even ENJOYED goddamn bread and it certainly would have tasted better… But then bread would never have thought of ending such a sparkling evening by reading out its hilarious facebook banter between itself and ‘Crichley’ questioning the sexual orientation of ‘Hamish’ from accounts.

But the bread metaphors had gone stale. Jane was caught in a 5ft 11 trap. She was in a naked cage. They were a pair of dessert spoons stuck together from the heat of a malfunctioning dishwasher. He had his left arm wrapped around her neck, pinning her head to the pillow. His left leg was doing something similar around her waist. She presumed that his right leg had wandered off towards the far wall and must have been involved with the duvet because she certainly had none of it. His right arm had arched itself over his own head like a lampshade and his hand was for some reason gripping her fringe and pulling it backwards from the front of her face. She must look like Jedward. Well one of them. Perhaps whichever one was naked and drunk at 6am and had the lowest self esteem. The one on the right.

It had also been quite a clammy affair, so there was going to be some bare-skin-on-a-barstool-in-summer-peeling afoot, once she got moving. She wasn’t going to lie. This would be difficult. She was still quite drunk. Though she hoped that this would give her a flexibility that she would only realise later she didn’t actually have.

Time to go for it. Rigor mortis was beginning to set in. If she didn’t act soon she would be forced to stay with him like a wheelchair bound James Caan with Kathy Bates in ‘Misery’. But there was no recognisable background piano music here and it was time to make her move. If she didn’t act fast this pothole of existence would wake up and beg her to stay with him. And she bloody well would as well. Especially if he gave her the ‘jigsaw’ speech again. “You might not like the picture babes, but you can’t deny that the pieces fit”. He knew her too well. Putty.

Right. She would begin with the feet. Currently her only soldiers not POWs. She latched them onto the end of the bed like hooks and used sheer drunken determination to slide her body down the bed. It had been a successful enough first attempt for a climb down human mountain. Her head was almost out of the clinch and her hair had slipped quite easily from his right hand grab. But her feet could only pull so far and the bed end was now pressing sorely on her calves. She had slid down just far enough that the monster’s arm was now pressed like raw sausage meat over her eyes and left ear.

Still, she could breath. That would help. It had been quite an energetic twenty seconds there. She had come quite a way. But the physical escapade had reminded her of how much more ‘g’ than ‘t’ she had consumed in the last eight hours.

Time for a pitstop. She would use this little break to think about where her clothes might be. She knew that her shoes were definitely in her handbag. She had taken them off in the kebab shop. Her tights were in a sanitary bin in the pub toilet and her knickers were in some lucky taxi man’s drinks holder and her bra was definitely near the toaster that had inspired the tea break. But now where, oh where were the big staples? The Primark shirt-dress, the ironically big cardigan, the pleather bomber jacket, the scarf that was ingeniously also a hood? At what point of the evening’s entertainment did they get folded up neatly and hidden in a tree by the invisible night squirrel? She was assured that the kitchen would probably account for a huge amount.

Time for round two. This next episode would heavily feature the character of ‘her right arm’. It was already pointing upwards as if she had been doing an impression of superman flying. Using it to push off against the wall, and helped by some knee pumping, she forced the rest of her body downwards slowly. She had slid herself so successfully down the man ladder with movement number two, that from her shoulders down, she was free as Nelson Mandela. But alas her neck was now trapped underneath his bloody thigh and she decided not to consider what might be sticking into the back of her head. Her noggin and neck were Northern Ireland; not technically belonging to his body but certainly not comfortably her own. But dear god, she was hardly going to find her iPhone without them. She twisted her body anti clockwise slowly so that she was now on her back with his leg casually traversing her oesophagus like a pork pashmina. The aerial view was impressive. Placing her two hands on either side of her shoulder, she wedged her fingers underneath his leg and bench pressed it up and over her head and quietly back onto the bed.

She then continued to slide down the bed using her feet which were now planted firmly on the ground. Using a foot action indicative of a Flintstone driving his car, she dragged the remnants of herself from the bed and forward rolled into a squat.

Slowly rising to her feet, like a Russian Gymnast post pole vault, she turned around and surveyed the unlove of her life. He sort of looked quite cute, all pink and hairy like a guerilla with alopecia. And still sound asleep! Ha! She was a genius! A veritable James slutty Bond! She could have worked for MI6 with her crafty slithering. Indeed she was too good for him, she was a queen of tact and discretion. An homage to the female sexual liberation movement. Yes, you could have your cake and eat it too girls! She mentally high fived herself and looked around.

“Now that’s a bit of a pity” she thought. “We’ve come back to mine”.