A message from the departed

Bitching over a dead person's possessions is undignified. By chance, Billy Mann uncovered the perfect solution

The subject had turned to death. He wasn't sure how it happened, but there it was. And before he knew it A_ was telling him about one of the local guys who had recently met his maker, and the rumpus that followed his sad departure. His charred bones had barely cooled ready for the crusher before various junior members of his family were at each other's throats over who gets what. He said I could have his Mexico 70 World Cup stickers book. This was the commemorative pictorial album lovingly stocked and tended by children at the time. That one of Jairzinho was special. What a player!

The conversation continued precariously, and with detailed reminiscences of the 1970 World Cup, until a note of levity could be found. This arrived with a wistful smile and an explanation from A_ of how his own mother scotched the potential for such family strife. She had seen this kind of thing before and was buggered if she was going to see her children bitching over "a few knick-knacks". A_ raised his eyebrows at this point and described a gift he had bought for his mother while on holiday some years ago in Crete. It was a set of small vases or vessels finished with a rather expensive looking lustre glaze. They cost £500. He was quite flush at that time.

A_ began to wonder how much they might be worth today. "I had them valued about 10 years ago and he said one was worth £500". He had three. But the question was itching like mad. What was his mother's magic formula for stopping any arguments over the worldly goods of the deceased? The question continued to knaw, and as it did his thoughts drifted to other examples of this malaise he had known. A_ looked him in the eye as if the answer was too bloody obvious to state. It was. Each time one of her children had brought her a gift, once they had gone she place a small sticker on the item with the name of the gifted, so that when she passed on, whatever you bought her was returned in the spirit of 'What goes around comes around.

Hacked off by hackers

Having your Facebook account hacked is no laughing matter. Well, maybe, concludes Billy Mann

At a fireworks party in a friend's garden I was retelling the story (detailed elsewhere in this blog) in which a young girl, probably as a mischievous bet with friends, decided to tell me, a pitiful looking old codger tottering along the street, that the prime minister, David Cameron, had once inserted his penis into the mouth of a dead pig. 

   One of the group at the fireworks party took this as a signal to pitch in with another seemingly alarming story. She told us that her Facebook page had been taken over recently by people operating out of Beirut. 

    "They posted all kinds of things in Arabic. I had to send messages to everyone saying don't believe everything I was saying because it wasn't me. It was these people in Beirut, talking Arabic."

    "What did they say, these Beirut Facebook chancers?"

    "I don't fucking know. It was all this awful Arabic stuff."

    "How did you know it was awful if it was in Arabic?"

    "It just was."

    "So, you told everyone to ignore all the rubbish you had spoken in recent history because it wasn't you at all, it was these Lebanese Arabs impersonating a middle class, middle aged woman who lives somewhere in the southeast of Britain?"

    "Yes."

    "And what happened next?"

    "I told Facebook and they fixed it."

    "Just like that? Did they tell you what they did or what had happened? Did they contact anyone in authority?"

    "No."

   "Oh." 

Encounter: Dancing in the doorway

A brief conversation left Billy Mann lost for words

They bumped into one another in the doorway to the community centre. They were both visibly pleased by the accidental meeting. 

"I'm here for the folk dancing," one told the other. "Third floor." 

The other, from genuine interest rather than politeness, asked how he had been. 

"Not that good. I haven't been around much, to be honest." He stepped forward, drawing closer, and lowered his tone. "My mate Rita's got cancer." He stepped back and made a rapid swishing motion with the index finger of his right hand. "Had a mastectomy." 
The other felt inadequate, not knowing what the appropriate response was. The truth was he wasn't sure there even was one. They shook hands and went their separate ways.

Encounter: On Golden Lane

Children and animals - keep your distance from Billy Mann

I don't think I can be faulted for not spotting the approach of this particular missile. I was walking home one afternoon when I became aware of three children further down the road I was on. They were in high spirits, excited and laughing. As I neared them, two peeled off, leaving a girl, I guess around ten years old, standing in front of me. She spoke to me directly.

"Excuse me, mister, but did you know..." 
She stopped, looked slightly bashful, then returned her gaze to mine.
"Did you know that David Cameron..." she started to giggle and looked around for her friends. I thought it was time to say something, so I pulled off my glasses, dipped my head slightly and uttered, "I'm sorry, I don't hear very well..." I thought I was giving her the opportunity to make a quick exit from the encounter, but no, she ploughed on with renewed vigour.
"David Cameron. He's the prime minister." 
I nodded.
"He put his penis in a pig's mouth. I'm sorry, this is very rude." 
The giggles got the better of her and she covered her mouth with her hand. I feigned surprise, opening my eyes wide in mock shock.
"One of his ministers... One of his min... Someone who used to work for him spread it around. It's true. It's all over the internet."
"Was the pig alive?" I asked
"No, it was dead," she replied.
"A dead pig?!"
"Yes."
"Well, thankyou for telling me that. That is a very strange thing to do, isn't it?"
"Yes, bye."

Conversation: Ball breaker

Billy Mann was not expecting this particular slice of life...

He came and sat down beside me. The large room was virtually empty, so anything spoken in confidence had a good chance of staying that way. 
"The doctor wants to whip off one of my bollocks."
I was not totally blindsided by this statement. He had told me before of the difficulties he experiences in that area. Chief among them was persistent though sporadic testicular pain, the result, he says, of a digestive disease he suffered some years earlier. "That's where all the poison ends up, in your bollocks."
The pain, he said, only arrived following exertion and was controlled easily with generic painkillers.

"If I was in constant pain, I wouldn't hesitate. Straight under the knife, but as it is I can live with it. The doctor still wants it chopped off, though."

I held both hands between my legs, pulled a tortured face and quietly squealed, "Oooo!"
He went on: "He's determined, but I told him I was quite attached to it."

I wanted to ask, "Left or right?" but bottled it, and took a pathetic stab at levity instead.

"Didn't Hitler only have one plum?"

"Nah, that's a myth."

"So, if they lop one off, do you get some kind of falsie to fill the space? A gobstopper thing?""Yes. It's like a ballbearing, same size, same weight. They just make a little slice, pop out the bad ball and put the ballbearing in."

I wanted to ask if he thought a man's attachment to his scrotum can be compared with a woman's feelings about her breasts, but the question seemed unnecessarily stupid and the answer seemed selfevident, so I bottled it, made some excuse, and scuttled out of the room, walking as if I had just dismounted a horse. 

Men's Shed: Ally Pally Garden Centre

Billy Mann joins St Luke's Community Centre Men's Shed on a plant-buying mission north of Old Street

Ally Pally garden centre is a regular destination for St Luke's Men's Shed. It has the twin advantages of being on home turf (or thereabouts) for St Luke's gardening guru Heather, who imparts valuable purchasing advice before each visit, and it is on a route that is permanently etched into our driver's mind. Kishoor, CEO of Kishoor Tours, knows the route like the back of his hand and is not slow to fill us in on the most interesting landmarks that pepper our route.

The outward journey is normally a quiet crawl through north London, but today Graham got the banter off to a speedy start, and by the time we reached Highbury Corner subjects as diverse as FGM, the price of wildflower seeds and a family connection with the Sultan of Brunei had already been tackled. With Magic 105.4fm on the radio (Sister Sledge, Seal), a gentle mood quickly took over, and as we neared the garden centre, climbing the hill behind a sluggish W3 bus, the leaves of autumn were wide awake and flashing their golden glory for all to see.

As we emptied out of the van in the usual spot (next to the pot displays), a light drizzle had started. We had a mission (of sorts). The small plot in King Square garden (kindly donated and supported by Islington Council) that has become the focus of the St Luke's Men's Shed ambitious growing activities is in need of some deep-soil crops to overwinter. So we all scattered in search of potential candidates, leeks being an early favourite. 

The Men's Shed patch in King Square garden

In the past, Ally Pally garden centre has offered so many sightings of celebrities that photographers from Heat magazine, or Closer, or Sleb Cellulite would not look out of place. Today, however, not a jot. Not a bad hair day in sight. Even inside, where row upon row of gardening delights are laid out for casual browsing, not a famous face could be found amid the Hunter wellies and watering cans. The closest we came to excitement arrived just after Kishoor wrenched himself from the cafe to ponce a quick squirt from the lavender hand cream on display. Meanwhile, Graham had a bee in his bonnet about finding a Venus Flytrap to go with the growing collection of carnivorous plants he keeps on his windowsill.

Just in case you are thinking that a laugh and giggle for a bunch of blokes is the sole purpose of these adventures, here is a list of the stuff we bought with cash kindly donated by Islington Council: leeks, wildflowers, green manure, broad beans, red cabbage, green cabbage, spring onion, French beans, pansies, sweet peas, sunflowers, beetroot, onion, carrot and, no we didn't forget, COMPOST. 

It was raining proper as we bundled back into the van, and as we motored south back to St Luke's HQ in Central Street for a cuppa, we all studied our dirty fingernails with pride. Magic 105.4fm got our toes tapping with Come On Eileen and the van reverberated to the sound of multiple reminiscences of childhoods spent hop picking in Kent. All in all, a very productive outing.