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“Listen Bob, I have a head cold, I have a man down the street making chainsaw noises, and I’m running out of time. So don’t make me add you to this list of complaints at the next meeting.”
“Yes sir. Okay… Um the figures for this week are looking… Sir, I have to ask…”
“What?”
“Is he just making the chainsaw noises with his mouth or ..?”
“Bob…”
“Sir, it’s just on my mind now and I’m not sure I’ll be able to fully concentrate on this presentation until this is all, you know, cleared up.”
“Hmmm.”
“So?”
“Well okay.”
“Great Sir. You’re not going to regret this.”
“I didn’t know how the sound was being produced. I could just hear a sound. It could have been a motorcycle revving for all I know so I simply said that somebody was making the same sound as a chainsaw so in case it wasn’t a chainsaw I would still be covered.”
“What? You mean you don’t know? You couldn’t look out of the window to check?”
“I did look but it was out of sight from that window.”
“Out of sight of the window? Sir, with all due respect, there are other windows.”
“Bob! You’re now on my list.”
“Yes sir, okay… Ummm… The number for this week look very promising… sir?”
“What?”
“I noticed that the guy with the chainsaw noises wasn’t names in your list. Is that general policy or..?”
“I didn’t know who he was Bob.”
“I see. Maybe we should get back to these numbers?”
“Yes. Maybe we should.”

“Tony is sitting there, no… by the bar. He’s got that coat on. And he’s got two drinks. A pint and a measure of something clear.”
“Oh yea,” Stephen says, “I see him.”
“Well,” says Sarah – regretting the subject ever came up, “we used to go out… I guess.”
“You guess?” replies Steve, “what does that mean?”
“Well, we went on a few exploratory dates. I was never sure if we were going out or not.”
“You went out. If you go out, then surely, you’re going out?”
“No way.”
“Well then. Explain it to me.”
“Well let me ask you this. Are we going out?”
“Hmmm. Well…”
“Well exactly.”
“But we just met.”
“So? By your definition we’re out, therefore we’re going out.”
“But. There should be an amendment.”
“Amendment?”
“Yeah. You know. A sub-clause.”
“Of what?”
“Well, if you’re on a first date it shouldn’t count.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“But what about this then?”
“What?”
“Well be quiet for a sec while I explain.”

Stephen suddenly realised he like the way that Sarah had said “sec”. He was quiet. She went on.

“Well what about if you met for something else? Say like just something, but not a party, and then you decided to just go on to dinner?”
“Hmmm. You met ‘out’.”
“But then you stay out. You don’t ever go out.”
“That’s a puzzler.”
“Well. Yes.”
“So it that what happened between you and Tony?”
“Yeah. Sorta.”
“So…”
“Okay. We met in the car park picking up our kids and we got chatting. A common friend who hadn’t revealed that she knew both of us showed up and started chatting too. We got her to take our kids with her and we went to dinner.”
“Oh.”

There was suddenly a lot of silence at the table.”

“What? What’s up.”
“Oh. I just didn’t realise you had kids.”

“Look…”
“What?”
“I’m not sure we should see each other anymore.”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“You know that’s the same thing you said when we split up.”
“Yeah I know.”
“So?”
“Well… I know this sounds harsh but I know of meant it. Why are we still seeing each other when I said that the main problem we had was that I wasn’t sure if we should see each other anymore?”
“You’re right.”
“Really?” He looks hopeful. As if he’s got away with something.
“Yes you’re right, that is harsh.” She looks crushed, but she keeps talking, “I thought we could be friends.”
“Well yeah. So did I but, it just didn’t… I mean I’m not sure if it can… you know… work.”
“But… but…”
“Look, I’m moving on. It’s something I’m going to have to do. I have to take this time. You know. For myself.”
“I can’t?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“No. You’re probably right. I’m not.”

“My bedroom had a chandelier in it,” the old man announce all of a sudden, as though it made a point.
“Why is that relevant?”
“It just is.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve earned the right to say my peace.”
“But it’s so annoying.”
“What?”
“You are just incredibly annoying.”
“If only you listened to me perhaps you’d learn something.”
“Granddad, Honestly, we do nothing but listen to you day in and day out.”
“You don’t listen to me. You hear me, as a drone or something but you are able to completely ignore you.”
“We don’t.”
“You do! This is the first time in years that we’ve actually spoken ‘to’ each other rather than ‘at’ each other.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.”
“It is. You won’t listen. And usually I think that I deserve to be listened to. But today I thought of something.”
“What?”
“I never listened to my grandfather either, so I don’t see why I should expect you to do something I never did.”

Steve Shaw sat on a sea saw. He was waiting for something to happen. The swing moved slowly in the light breeze.

One of the movable pieces of plastic on a spoke on his bike slid down and startled him.

He needed to be calm. He consciously thought about lowering his heart rate.

A big boy came into the playground. He looked angry and cross.

“Forget being cool” said every sinew. But he wasn’t that kid anymore. He was Steve Shaw. He couldn’t forget to be cool. He just was cool.

The kid came over to him.

“What you got?”
“Nuffin.”
“What? You? Got?”

“This!” said Steve. And with that he ran up the length of the sea saw. As he reached the other side it tilted and the big kid was clocked right in the chin with the rising seat.

“Right,” said Steve, “that’s sorted that”. And with that he walked to his bike and, you guessed it, rode off into the sunset.

Today more scenes from our intrepid debonair man that epitomises cool and dashing derring-do, last seen riding off into the sunset on his bicycle: (Apparently it tested well in a focus group).

He changed up a gear. He knew he was being followed. He could sense it.

He looked in his specially fitted wing mirrors and he could see him. His potential captor was riding a chopper. And it was fully loaded. It even had the bits of tinsel coming out of the handlebars.

He was gaining on him. He took evasive measures and changed gears again, but it was quite hard work on his thighs so he changed back.

Suddenly as if from nowhere the chopper overtook him and everything went quiet once again. Peace reined and Rule Britannia was playing on his inner monologue.

A tear leaked out of his eye, rolled off his nose and hit the title page of the book. That just made things worse so he placed the book back on the side table and looked forward and blinked a lot.

He took a sip of the wine and realised that it tasted salty. He wondered why, but then he felt another tear hit his top lip and he knew. He never usually cried, in fact he hadn’t for years, in fact he knew the exact date, or rather the last time he had cried. He started thinking about it, and then he stopped. He consciously thought, loud enough in his head as though he’d said it, “no point raking over old coals.” So he thought about other things. Like how lovely his setting was. He’d arranged it all so that he could be found properly. So somebody would walk in from the hallway and see this kindly old gentleman (which is how he viewed himself and was actually accurate) reclined in an armchair by the fireplace, with a glass of wine, a bottle and fresh glasses within reach. But they never did come in, they hung around in the hallway and in the kitchen and in the dining room. Blast them, blast them and their continuous music and standing up.

And anyway, he thought, who would talk to him now he’d been blubbing. He probably looked really drunk. And anyway he had this theory that young people thought he was dead most of the time. Why did he have to go and find that book? Out of all of the ones on the shelves. There were so many to choose from, but it was his memory. It was starting to confuse things. Why hadn’t he realised it was that book? The book with the missing first page?

Even now he hated that boy. It was a blank page of a book. Why should it have mattered so much? But it did. Now every time he reached for his wine glass he saw it again.

He contrived a move of his body in the chair that would absolutely ensure the book fell on the floor. And it did. But it fell open right in front of him, displaying its wound. Celebrating it almost.

It had been almost seventy years since it had been ripped out. But the scar was just as severe today as it had ever been. That boy had forced him to give up everything. His tuck, his magazines, a slingshot and a Dan Dare badge. It seemed like nothing now, but then those were all the things that were his, and he took them all. The boy had taken everything that defined him. And all he had saved was the rest of this book. It was the only thing the boy had allowed him to keep, and he hadn’t dared show it to anybody. Because the scar revealed far to much of him.

On a weekend away in the countryside Una Guardian discovers the problems of being made to feel like a single mother while your husband stands idly by.

The weekend was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish and it was one which had started with such promise. Adrian, or the insipid one as I like to call him, tried to disturb my plans for a successful weekend away right from the offset. Earlier in the week St. John and Matilda had called me up, well Matilda had called me, St. John is lovely and all but he’s more of a doer not a thinker, Matilda is the one who plans their lives. St. John and Matilda are so parochial it’s unbelievable they live only three hours outside London but you’d think they had chosen a compulsory wilderness. I mean they don’t even have a dishwasher for God’s sake. My mother has been on at me for weeks now to stop “taking the lord’s name in vain” in my column, she doesn’t understand what it is like for a career girl in London these days. People like me have to swear just to be noticed. She doesn’t understand me in the same way Matilda doesn’t, Matilda doesn’t understand that it would be impossible to be a proper career girl in London without a dishwasher. And the way she went on about having to arrange the Bed and Breakfast for the nanny? God (there I go again) you’d think she was about to suggest that the nanny sleep in the same house as us. I mean really? Considering what the insipid one did to the last one!

Our first argument surfaced when we stopped for my first smoking break. Yes folks I’ve started again. I blame Adrian, he suggested the other day that I’ve “piled on a few pounds” – I haven’t – and that was all it took. So considering we have a policy of not smoking on our children we stopped by the road to smoke and Adrian suggested that we change over driving duties. He really just doesn’t understand does he? I mean how am I supposed to look after the kids and drive at the same time? He certainly won’t look after them will he? And we can’t have the nanny with us she has to take the train to stop Adrian from looking at her all the time and not concentrating on the road. Anyway I get my way eventually, he’s grumbling that if I’ve got so much on my plate then I should delegate more to the nanny. Well she can’t do my smoking for me can she Adrian? I can’t order her to go down to the gym and work off the pounds for me can I Adrian? Although I do order her down to the gym to work off her own blubber, I can’t abide fat people raising children, goodness knows what kind of impression it would give them.

So to keep up with what I had been saying to Adrian I examine the kids and check to see how they are enjoying their educational toys that were given to us by those lovely people at www.toysrus.com I’m not sure that they are impressed with them to be honest. I think that’s the problem with education it doesn’t interest the kids at all. But there was no way I was going to let Jeremy, or Bronwin as I’ve increasingly taken to calling him – what were we thinking when Adrian named our children, play with his Nintendo Gameboy Advance – I mean St. John and Matilda would think we were common.

After we arrived we spent an afternoon running around different shops in the village including one which sold antique doors. Matilda announced that for dinner we would also be joined by some of their neighbours, Sebastian and Nelly. These guests were an absolute disaster. They have a new baby and you know what that can be like. They never stop talking about the poor child, and I think they’ve trained it to cry at key points when other people are telling interesting stories about life in London, Guilford and the surrounding environs. I mean who brings a child to dinner anyway? We sent Jeremy and Lucy off with the nanny like any decent human being would do. Apparently Sebastian and Nelly think it’s acceptable to bring up a child without a nanny. Well maybe it would be if you didn’t move in certain circles but really one has started to believe that Sebastian and Nelly might be seriously downwardly mobile.

The following morning at breakfast we discovered another quirky feature of the countryside life, Sebastian and Nelly returned for breakfast with their baby. Apparently all dinner invites to neighbours now come with an invite for breakfast the following morning so despite having gone home after dinner they were coming back for more. Just as we were discussing this strange custom and the possibility of it taking off in London, Lucy came into the room complaining of a pain in her shoulder. Both of the kids had been sleeping on the floor on airbeds and Lucy’s hadn’t been inflated properly by St. John and now her shoulder was hurting. To her credit the nanny found the number for a 24-hour-call-out osteopath in the area and we were instantly hurtling off to seek his advice. Despite us being the only patients he was going to see on a Sunday we still had to wait 15 minutes. Although initially I was thinking this unfortunate it was in fact quite the opposite. Bronwin, or Jeremy as the insipid one likes to call him, noticed that this osteopath didn’t have as many certificates on his wall as the one back home in Guilford did. And when Bronwin, my little 10-year-old wunderkind, quizzed the call-out osteopath about this he agreed that he didn’t have as many qualifications as our usual osteopath and that in fact he could do some harm to my poor little Lucy. Thinking back on it now I should have never trusted somebody that a nanny could find in a book for goodness sake. As my mother always said, “By recommendation or not at all, and a book is not a recommendation”. It’s a saying that has always stuck with me and perhaps it will stick with you?

The journey back home was not a pleasant one as it was very hot in the car and the air conditioning unit had broken down. Adrian kept shouting at me that I was supposed to have fixed it by taking the car to the service station but he doesn’t seem to understand that it would have been impossible for me to get back to the house. What does he expect me to do take a bus? Only Adrian would have bought a car from a company with a service station south of the river, not even taxi drivers go there.

Once we got home, and Lucy had spent an hour at a London osteopath that she didn’t like because the man smelt of sherry, I decided that the poor kiddiewinks had had quite a horrendous weekend and that I would spend some quality time with them myself. So for a break I sent the nanny back to Guilford to clean the house. I always feel guilty when we go away for weekends because we don’t go and vist the Guilford house, but knowing that the nanny had been in and spring cleaned the place would make me feel a little better about it. Adrian has snivelled off to his club, and with any luck won’t be back until after I’ve gone to sleep. I’m sure he won’t mind me telling you all of this as he takes another sort of newspaper that I don’t care to mention here. So as I write this I’m doing the motherly bit of looking after the kids, I plonked them in front of a Disney Classic which are now available 2 for the price of 1 from our lovely friends at www.amazon.co.uk and am enjoying a glass of the old vino while I write up this account of my weekend for all you lovely people. And my message for you all this week is this: Looking after children isn’t that difficult, because if my nanny can do it then anyone can.

A man on the train was pointing at an advertisement with his umbrella and a drop of water fell from it onto Simon’s neck.
“If I shot him with the gun I have in my pocket,” Simon thought, “would anybody notice? Would anybody care?”

He thought about this for a moment and decided that about seventy percent of the people in the carriage would notice and about twenty percent would care. He would probably be the only person who would think it was reasonable.

He wished that he had an umbrella so that he could pretend to accidentally prod this man as he left the train and then say “Oh, I’m sorry.” This phrase generally allows you to get away with anything. The phrase, in Simon’s opinion, was not quite strong enough to let him get away with murder though, so Simon didn’t shoot him.

The man with the umbrella stood up as the train pulled into Vauxhall Station, Simon remained seated. Revenge would be worth being a couple of seconds late at getting off of the train. As the man moved past Simon’s seat, Simon extended his leg and the man tripped over it.

Afterwards Simon would always have problems convincing people that if he had been wanting to kill the man he would have just used his gun, after all there was no way that Simon could have hoped that the man’s umbrella would stab him in that way. But there was something in the smile that Simon couldn’t hide from his face that always made people doubt that he was telling the truth.

Steve called over from the shore.
“Why are we here again?”
“I just like it okay?” He was talking to his girlfriend. He didn’t mean to be critical. But that was just his conversational style. Most of the time she didn’t mind. But when something was important to her or when she was in a bad mood it bore right thought her.

But today was not like that. It was important but it was also his day. She’d been plotting it for months. A day of sex on the beach. It was a day that was all about him.

It had all started with his diary. So she had a vice. Was that so bad? Everyone had something. And so what if hers was reading other people’s diaries? She walked closer to him.

“So, isn’t this romantic?”
“Well. It is getting dark, I think twilight is romantic.” She said with an effort, when he really meant, “are you freaking kidding me? There’s sand, and ticks, maybe even some moths, disease and probably used condoms from all the losers who think it’s romantic to have sex on the beach.”

If her unconscious had been able to hear that she would have mentioned that people who have sex on the beach probably don’t stop to have safe sex and that any condoms there are probably washed on shore and are most likely the direct result of the water board, which he works for, not having put the pipes out far enough. But she wasn’t so she didn’t. Instead, she said, “come and lie next to me.”

They both lay down after Steve carefully checked the sand.

“Wow,” Steve thought, “this is uncomfortable.”
“This,” though Louise, “is less comfortable than I thought.”
“Look,” said Steve, “Why are we doing this? Because if it’s your fantasy then I’ll go through with it but otherwise I’d rather not.”
“What?”
“No, look, I’m sorry, I’ll do it.”

Steve started some of his incredibly predictable moves. Louise pushed him away.

“What? I thought you wanted this? I thought you loved sex on the beach?”
“Well the drink.” “Oh.” “Anyway? How did you know that?”
“You must have mentioned it.”
“No. I never did my friend would have laughed at me.”
“Oh.”
“So? How did you know?”