11th January 2007
Despite The Trouble saying that I wouldn’t have any trouble being a shithouse as I was already well on the way to being one I now know for sure that I could never be a shithouse. This was brought home to me in no uncertain manner in an incident which happened this morning on
Market Street
, the main shopping street of our little town.
About two weeks ago I was driving along this street looking for a parking place and for once was lucky for about thirty yards ahead I spotted a space on the other side. I couldn’t drive straight into it as there was traffic coming in the opposite direction so I pulled up just short of the parking space and indicated that I was going to turn right. The oncoming cars continued to pass me then fuck me if the driver of the final one didn’t pass me but, spotting the parking space, quickly indicated that he was turning left and turned into it.
I was livid, for he had clearly seen that I was waiting to park in the same space.
As he got out of the car, taking care not to look at me, as the guilty do, I wound down the window and shouted; “What did you do that for? You could see I was waiting!†He simply ignored me and walked off.
I can’t remember exactly what I thought at the time but if it wasn’t something like ‘What an absolute shithouse†I would be very surprised.
This morning the opportunity presented itself for me to do exactly the same dirty deed that had been visited on me. This time the scenario was that a car was waiting adjacent to a parking space with its right indicator flashing and I was driving in the opposite direction. I must have been in this sort of situation a thousand times before, and a thousand times I have driven on, but this time, probably prompted by what had happened a couple of weeks ago and my desire to be a shithouse, I quickly indicated that I was going to pull in and drove into the parking spot.
The driver of the other car was as livid as I had been. I got out of my car, the driver of the other car got out of his car and said something along the lines of what I had said when in his position two weeks previously, except that the words ‘twat’ and ‘fucking’ were included.
I immediately began to feel bad about it. In fact so bad that I knew I couldn’t go through with it. So I just said: “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you there,†got back in the car, reversed out and drove on. Thus proving that I couldn’t be a shithouse even if I wanted to.
So I shall just have to go on being the kind, generous, considerate, lovely, fellow who will do anything for you and hasn’t got a bad word to say about anybody, for the rest of my life. (And the fact that the driver of the other car in the incident, although maybe not a shithouse, was built like a brick variety of that convenience, had nothing to do with it).
Ignore this if you have already read it. My books Dear Air 2000 and Football Crazy are now in print. They are priced at £8.99 each and are available from Amazon, but readers of my blog can buy them direct from me for £7.50 including p & p. Just send me a cheque and I will send the book/books by return.
You can write to me at –
Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL
You can write to me at –
Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL
Dear Air 2000
Football Crazy
Published by
Razzamatazz
Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.)
This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000….
My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas.
A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road.
I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.
Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.)
This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000….
My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas.
A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road.
I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.
View all posts by Razzamatazz
I was once cut up on the way to Sainsburys – I was in a very (unusually) bad mood already. At the next lights I continued to flash and hoot the guilty driver in front and give him the finger. The wife said “You should stop that”. Eventually his drivers door opened and I sprang out of my car. He continued to emerge from his van. A few minutes later his vast bulk finally stood before me. 6 feet 5″? 18 stone? tattoos everwhere and a mouth in a permanent snarl.
“And let that be a lesson to you” I said waving a finger at him before sliding back into my car and locking the doors.
“That showed him” said the wife.
I’ve never been very good at spotting sarcasm….