16 November 2007
Notes From The Cold Turkey.
I don’t know whether this really qualifies as a bona fide Guardian Arts and Entertainments Blog – in which case – like Alan Sugar, I’ll be donating my fee to the…actually, send it to me, I’ll decide where to fritter it.
Last week, having announced that I was dumping the anti-depressants which have kept me on an even keel for so long, I have received so many great messages of support that I thought it might be worth a follow up…anybody suggesting fiduciary motives can….well you know, but only if you want to.
Firstly, I was worried about seeming irresponsible, and flying in the face of far more educated medical advice. So far, it seems I have succeeded in getting over the withdrawal symptoms. I had three bedridden days – nothing new to me, excruciatingly fearful nightmares – I fully expected the police to arrive after I’d screamed for help at four in the morning – then I remembered, this is London, they’ll probably come next week.
It is probably unlawful for a newspaper to recommend its readers to abandon their prescriptions, so don’t do anything without consulting your quack first…I’ve written mine a letter, thanking him for his help, but mostly for his brilliant advice to take more exercise – and observe those around me… “We’re all miserable”.
Having had something of a pop/degenerate career, when I was finally of a mind to kick the Effexors, I was under no illusions, I’ve seen people kick heroin and even been there with a cold flannel and bowl of soup to minister to the sweaty emerging human beings.
The problem with prescription drugs is that the lifestyle they advocate does not include the horrendous comedowns. If you look on the web, there are countless self-help websites about kicking anti-depressants, which are rather heartbreaking. Because these pills are an unknown quantity, generally prescribed to innocent people at their lowest ebb, they have no clue about coming off them. Think Keith Richard, Ray Charles and `Michael Caine in the Ipcress File.
Having been away from home one time and running out of pills, I felt that my head would cave in, and that suicide was the best/quickest form of pain relief. I panicked, my family panicked, and subsequently, I vowed never to be without them again.
This time, I made sure that I had enough – should the worst come to the worst, then halved, quartered and ultimately stopped the dose. I told friends what I was doing, so even had some pretty nurses to help…which took my mind off things delightfully.
I got electric brain flashes – I still get them very mildly, nausea and the kind of feelings associated with a bad hangover. I tricked my body by drinking a lot of wine, to have a real hangover as well. Brains aren’t that bright you know – they can’t tell the difference.
An old friend – whom I’d never thought to call about this, is a clinical psychiatrist. He explained the brain flashes in laymans’s terms.
“ Imagine if you’d had an old car in the garage for years and you tried to start it up….that’s just the ignition firing up the engine”. This made perfect sense. The brain is like an old circuit board made of grey meat. You can shut it down, but once you crank it up again, be prepared for a headache. And for the depression to return.
Apart from the brain stuff, the only recognizable symptoms I suffered were an evening of crying jags. Tears while compiling a CD for my Brother-in-law’s funeral, My Death by Jacques Brel ( sung by Scot Walker ) set me off – which I thought could have happened anyway. Blubbing during a Nick Nolte film, where he plays a bank robber who rescues a little girl from an orphanage…unlikely to be natural. The killer psychotic symptom happened the next day. I got up really early, picked up my daughter and took her to Parliament Square to see Nelson Mandela unveil his statue. I am a cynical, lazy man- this was the drugs for sure. Mind you, it was wonderful.
If you’re one of the millions of people on anti-depressants, don’t kick them without medical help…but good luck x
16 November 2007
Do you remember the film Manhunter – the first and best of the Thomas Hariss Red Dragon adaptations? The detective – Will Peterson is wracking his brains to work out how the Killer – the Tooth Fairy could have known the precise layout of his victims’ home, to the extent that he even brought bolt cutters to remove the recent addition of a padlock on the patio doors. To a fanfare of Jan Hammer DX7s, the penny finally drops. “ You’ve seen them my man, you’ve seen them.”
He phones the evidence room to ask if there are tins of home movie footage from the victims’ homes. There are some but the lab labels don’t match.
‘They’re local labs. They send them out. Peel them off and tell me what’s underneath” he says. Bingo, all films developed by at the same place, and the killer is banged to rights.
I am having a Will Peterson moment. I would gamble my taxidermy collection that somewhere, somehow, Amy Winehouse has listened to Little Annie. If it is true, rather than charter a CIA jet to shoot her down, I’d rather give her a hug and compliment her on immaculate taste. At the very least, she has completely understood it, and produced something equally fine…and had the good fortune to invest in a Bull market.
Some of you will know Little Annie http://brainwashed.com/anxiety/
She lived in England throughout the eighties, recorded for On U Sound with Adrian Sherwood and had one of the greatest bands available to mankind – Doug Wimbush, Skip Macdonald, Bim Sherman, and even once – when they were unavailable, and out of charity I suspect, yours truly.
Annie Anxiety Bandez was born and raised in New York…which to Winehouse dissenters, could makes her properly authentic. She appeared at the tail end of the Warhol superstar era and is photographed in various books with many of today’s dead icons enjoying a refreshing cocktail at that shrine to healthy living - the Chelsea Hotel. Her first band Annie and the Asexuals – she was about sixteen at the time, were such stalwarts of Max’s Kansas City that in 1980, Frank Zappa cited them as his reason for coming to New York.
In 1981, she came to England and became involved with the wonderful, truly subversive, national irritants - Crass. – which was when I first saw her – Reading Town Hall with Crass and The Poison Girls. Amongst the black flag wavers and skinheads looking for a fight, a four foot ten silver lame clad diva - with enormous hair, singing Weimar jazz and Motown over electronic loops was quite a surprise.
I am slightly hazy as to how we became friends several years later - a drug squat in Stockwell at four in the morning rings some bells…anyway.
Like her spiritual daughter, she enjoyed herself to Olympian levels, sported tattoos – mostly done by herself, and was not averse….no no…loved a bit of fighting. But what she wrote and recorded through the mid-eighties and early nineties for On U Sounds is truly magnificent. Check out Short and Sweet.
A word of comfort to certain none-too-media savvy, furrowed-browed, hand-wringing In-Laws, is that Little Annie is still very much with us. She returned to New York at the end of the nineties, re-habbed, continued recording, did cabaret, acted, and after 9/11, spent months as a volunteer tea-lady for the emergency workers at Ground Zero.
She has recently recorded a new album, produced by Anthony of The Johnsons fame.
If by chance, the similarity really is just a coincidence of good genes and superb instincts, Miss Winehouse herself might like to have a listen…and do a cover or two. Little Annie deserves…
16 November 2007
Cold Turkey
One of the positive benefits of life’s momentous tragedies is the kick up the arse they give you. On the day my ex-wife, and now extremely good friend gave me the sack, I sat down and began to write a novel – the fact that it has yet to meet a printing press is neither here nor there. Without the rug being pulled from beneath my size nines, I’d never have got round to it. Likewise, the untimely toe up-turning of my dear brother-in-law has given me something else to think about. Perhaps you already detect a certain befuddlement of sentence construction, syntactical vagueness or clumsiness of idea imparting. Fact is – I’ve decided to go Cold Turkey from the Anti-Depressants I’ve been taking for the past seven years. It’s time to rediscover my inner arsehole.
I have been taking a magical little potion called Effexor Venlaflaxine, designed to keep me on an even keel – which to a certain extent it has done. Unfortunately it has also eroded all track of time. It would be incredibly disingenuous to blame these magic little pills in any way shape or form for my complete lack of success, drive or ambition during this time – I was always a lazy bastard and have never required help in this department. However, having faced the mortality of another, and considered their unfulfilled destiny, I have decided to kick mother’s little helpers into touch and see what happens.
Not being entirely ignorant of hard drugs, I have been expecting some unpleasantness, and so far I have not been disappointed. Nausea, dizziness and strange electrical sensations behind the eyes, which sound like a sword cutting the mark of Zorro have occurred for the last two days. I think this might be the little neurological areas made off limits by the drugs rebooting themselves – like trying to start a Hillman Minx which has been standing for years.
The Effexor Withdrawal websites make frightening reading – many say it is nigh-on impossible. The cynic in me says A. These are written by Americans, who have forgotten the meaning of suffering, and all that’s required is a bit of stiff upper lip ( I just watched a man die of cancer for God sake – who never complained about anything – even a tracheotomy without general anaesthetic.) B. These posts are by the press department of the drugs company themselves.
I’ve got a kill or cure mentality at present – If I’m not better by Thursday…funeral, and some form of oration by yours truly, I’ll relapse, but only temporarily.
I tried to explain what I was up to to my mother.
“I’m stripping away all the soft furnishings, taking up the carpet, and intend to get back to the bare boards once again.”
She took it literally and thinks I have gone doolally and am destroying my flat.
“ But you’re only renting the place – what will your landlord say?”
Fear not mother. My inner arsehole, the non-drugged, non-tranquilized, awful little fella of old will soon be returning to the fold. Mop out a stable and see who turns up.
16 November 2007
At the time of writing – at least, my brother-in-law is still with us. Quite an astonishing feat for a man handed a three-day sentence a month ago. If there was ever a concrete example of mind over matter, this is it. The oncologists are flummoxed, the nurses delighted, and the finance committee considering commissioning Norman Foster to build a new wing from the proceeds of our family’s car park fees…which I shall rant about at a later date.
Of course, it can’t last. The phoney war will soon be over, and the daily routine – which now feels entirely normal, will come crashing down – barring of course, rushed through legislation for full body transplants, or, as in the film A Matter Of Life And Death, there has actually been a cock-up in the records department.
Having lived ‘in sin’ for twenty-six years, seventeen of those as proud parents, he finally made an honest woman of my sister…honest-ish I’d have to say. As has been featured in the news recently, the whole partners/spouses issue remains a horribly grey area – although I do think love came into their decision to splice, somewhere along the line.
Anyway, before much longer, the likes of ebay and Amazon may well crash. The market for rare books about Francis Bacon having written the Shakespeare plays will nosedive, and Mojo magazine will notice a dip in circulation. Should the Gauloise tobacco company, Rizla or Stella Artois wish to send floral tributes for the untimely departure of a fine customer, they can be sent to The Guardian, Blogs Department, Sub-Basement Twenty-Three.
16 November 2007
Put it down to sunstroke, over exertion in the helping my sister move department, or a bottle of wine quaffed throughout the evening, but I awoke today at 5.17 – Post bloody meridian. This is shocking even by my standards, and a disaster in the making as it gives me sixteen hours to put my sleep patterns in order before the arrival of my daughter, for a week of summer holiday frolics.
It is not uncommon for me to sleep late – I function best at night, and rarely turn-in before the still of darkness gives way to the first traffic hum of morning – but really – a thirteen hour kip – even I’m disgusted.
My guilt is somewhat assuaged by the fact that I actually wrote something last night – two somethings in fact – comedy sketches. I read one to a friend over the phone. He was in stitches, which was quite flattering, until he announced that his laughter was at how bad it was – still, laughter is laughter.
I also had a bright idea today, and have sent an email to the Ginsters Cornish Pasty factory, advising them to produce a Great White Shark shaped special edition sharpish. If it comes off, I’ll expect them to reimburse me handsomely, then this day, rather than being a write off, will be seen in years to come as a triumph.
If I worked in advertising, I would be fabulously rewarded for stirring from my slumbers occasionally and jotting down fabulous slogans, such as ‘Go To Work On An Egg’ or ‘Let The Train Take The Strain’.
As an utterly lazy, clinically depressed, middle-aged hermit, I feel that I might be missing out on a great opportunity…and advertisers are missing out on one too. It was after all, precisely this laconic approach to life which lead to the Absinthe revival – that spawned a whole new strata of drinks industry, lined many pockets, and dissolved even more livers.
I have an idea for a new website which I shan’t go into just yet, suffice to say, it could make me the richest man in the cemetery. I’ve also toyed with the idea of advertising myself on ebay as a rented house-guest. Obviously there would be conditions barring improper behaviour – such as expecting me to do anything at all – I’d be more living statue than gigolo. Dietary demands would have to be met, as would a strict list of do’s and don’ts, although I haven’t thought what they are yet, but I expect kidnapping and torture would be in there. Return travel would be a minimum of a business class round fare, and of course, half the rent and an indemnity deposit would be paid up front. Crap idea maybe, but the book of it would be a bestseller and the film would almost certainly star Matt Damon – what higher praise could there be?
Anyway it’s dark again – it must be lunchtime.
16 November 2007
Spamsville.
All the characters in this story are invented– Only the names are real. They are all people who have spammed me today. As all my spam seems to emanate from the Deep South of the United States, I have decided to write a southern gothic short story.
The granite-faced trooper pulled off his mirror shades to reveal a worried, expression.
“ Whatchu wanna go da Spamsville for Sir? I wouldn’t reckommen it. There’s stuff goes on up there thas damn strange.”
Having extracted directions from the spooked lawman, I threw the Chevy 57 Smart Ka into cruise, and hauled ass and burnt not much gas along Information Super Highway 2.0. The afternoon heat brought the road up in sticky welts that threatened to grip the tyres and melt me in its tarry slop, until some hungry alligator could be energized enough to crawl out of the cool swamp water and finish me off. The moss covered cypresses hung still and low on either side, with not a hint of breeze to rustle their funereal blossoms. Somewhere up ahead, the town of Spamsville beckoned, and I gunned it at a steady fifty-five.
As I reached into the dash compartment for a nicorette gum to take the edge of my cigarette craving, I spied a figure standing in the middle of the road up ahead. Stamping on the brakes, I brought the old Ka to a squelching halt with only inches to spare. Amazingly, the old biddy didn’t flinch. She was a wild looking woman aged somewhere between sixty and two thousand, wearing a silver lame cocktail dress and a pucci patterned cloak.
“ Hey Mr, can you tek me ta Spamsville?”
Although not the usual sort of woman I’d wish for a travelling companion, I felt obliged to assist. With great effort, I pulled her clear of the tar she’d sunk in, and helped her into the passenger seat.
“ Medusa Tuttle’s the name. Ah’m the Queen of Spamsville. We don’t normally like strangers, but honey – I like you. I got Viagra in case you can’t giddit up, Di –agra – in case you can’t giddit down ,Shy-agra – in case you’re too shy ta ask, Niagra – to make you cum like a waterfall, Dryagra – to make you stop, and Hi-Agra if you jus wanna say hello to a purdy lady?”
As delicately as possible, I explained to her that I was a freelance journalist who had – on discovering that all the spam emails he received came from her town, decided to visit the place to see it for himself. To my surprise, rather than being defensive, she seemed delighted.
“ Yep, thass us – ain’t nobody sens out more spams than we do.”
We motored on without further conversation, the silence broken only by the throaty hum of our hybrid engine, the lonesome call of whippoorwills, and the tap tap tapping of Medusa Tuttle’s ancient fingers against the keypad of a palm-pilot, as she fired out a million spam emails across the globe.
At last, having turned off the information super-highway and headed for several miles down a backwoods dirt track, which seemed unlikely to be heading anywhere but into the swamp, we came to the edge of a town.
As if to confirm Medusa Tuttle’s enthusiasm, a large brightly painted billboard by the roadside bade:
“Welcome to Spamsville Mississippi. Home of Spam.”
“If you tek it slow along the main drag, I’ll introduce you to folk” said Medusa.
The main drag was as far as I could tell, the only drag in Spamsville. Its low houses and shop fronts seemed typical of much of the Deep South. Folks sat out in porches on rocking chairs or on swings, wearing dungarees or white cotton ball gowns, sipping sarsaparillas, or home made lemonade fortified with moonshine, and chewing tobacco. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I knew about the South, its legends, its relaxed habits, its particular way of doing things, its veneer of serenity and underbelly of strangeness. Spamsville looked no different to any other small Southern town off the beaten track in the back of beyond that hadn’t seen a stranger in twenty years, but then a thought struck me. Nobody was playing a guitar or banjo, or blowing a harmonica; no farmhands or sharecroppers were dancing to the blues; instead, every single person was busily working on a PC. Stranger still, on closer inspection, I could see that the houses were all made from Styrofoam and polystyrene.
“ Hey Lula Ledbetter – this is John Moore – he’s from Engerland” called Medusa.
“ Sure I know him,” shouted back a rather large raven-haired lady from her porch.
“ Hey John, when you gonna mail me back? I got some beautiful fake Rolex watches for you baby”.
I smiled politely and me sped on.
“ This is Brandi Hatfield’s place – you need some o dat Photoshop soff-ware…she got it all, and at a guuud price”.
“ Er, no thanks, but if I ever do, I’ll certainly purchase it from her.” I said.
“ Oh my…don’t know I should show yer this place. It’s my competitor.”
We were level with a storefront, emblazoned with the name ‘Wondercum’.
“ This is my sister’s place – Missy Lavonne Myles. We fell out over Viagra spam. She’s doin OK, but ain’t nobody spamming more than Lil Ol’ Medusa. Over there yer see – that’s Willy Burgers place – he’s the software king o Spamsville…AINCHU WILLIE?”
The elderly black man looked up from his PC and waved.
“ Sho am Miss Tuttle, Sho am. That John Moore you got witchu? Hi Mr Moore, when you wans software, you be sho to come see ol Willy Burger.”
“ Sure will.” I replied, rather embarrassingly lapsing into the Southern American lingo.”
“Let’s stop by the Creative Suite an I’ll introduce you to Miss Hilario Lynn…she sure is sweet, and she sure is creative. Then I’ll tek you by Art Putnam’s place – he ain’t arty like Lord Putnam, but he can help you to ‘not be just an average guy any more’, then when you’re not, we’ll go find old Manuela Corcorcan – she can make you ejaculate five times more than you usually do….aint that a blast?”
I felt that my patience had been pushed far enough with all this disgusting talk of erectile dysfunction, sperm ejaculation, software, postcards from an old school friend and imitation watches.
“ Madam, I came here with the intention of putting an end to all your spamming. It clogs up my computer and annoys me. I have no interest in improving my sexual performance, as this is something that has never been put to the test. I am Plymouth Brethren. I am unsmited, untainted by the wotsit of womankind. I have no need for your pills and potions as I have never ejaculated – either by accident or design, and shan’t even attempt to do so until my marital bed contains a virtuous lass who I’ve known since we were bairns, that I’ve just made my wife in an austere ceremony lasting several months – do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Of course, anybody with half a brain whose ever watched the television or visited a moving picture house will know, that no stranger ever gets out of a small southern town ( an American one that is ) – or Scottish island – especially if he’s claiming never to have had his end away…or does he?
The second instalment of this tawdry tall tale will follow next week on the Guardian Blogs, so stay tuned.
16 November 2007
These aren’t the best of times for the old family Moore. We are – barring miracles, about to lose a member. Perhaps my pro-smoking blog was a rage against the dying of the light. If truth be told, my brother in law is to be another victim of the relentless big C – or as Peter Cook so succinctly put it “ God’s fucking gift of cancer”…at fifty bloody three.
Many of you will have experienced this, and know that it’s a time for being practical, getting things done while racing against the clock, and keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of impending awfulness. However, the Moore’s have decided to spice things up a bit – by moving house…in Berkshire, home of the floods. A stiff upper back is also required, as are strong arms, several removal lorries, a rowing boat…and possibly a Geiger counter, as the local Nuclear Weapons Research facility is reportedly under water. Ho hum.
There are at least seventy boxes of books, thousands of records ( I’m beginning to like the Mp3 after all), magazines, guitars, amplifiers and a double bass to shift. This accounts for my scant communications of late. My brother in law is a musician – very much of the analogue and print age, and evidently very much of the never throwing anything away age.
So, I’ve been staying in the old dark empty house all alone. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but I comfort myself with the thought that I’d be scarier to ghosts or roaming psychopaths than they would be to me…please say nothing to dispel this idea. I’ve chosen to be there so I can make a hell of a racket on the guitars long into the night, read Pan paperbacks about the Occult, by candlelight, and load CDs onto my laptop. Mind you, the haunted, doomed voice of Patsy Cline at four in the morning did send shivers down my spine, and I swear the candles flickered.
16 November 2007
Next time you convey your velocipede along Walton Street, in the city of dreaming spires, spare a thought for the poor souls suffering behind its elegant facades. I am not referring to the mortal coil shufflers at The John Radcliffe, but to the researchers at the Oxford University Press, charged with the life-sapping task of monitoring the use of English in weblogs.
Last weekend they reported their findings to the electronic press – and their results were hardly spectacular. The fifteen most frequently used words in the blogoshere are:
blogger, blog, stupid, me, myself, my, oh, yeah, ok, post, stuff, lovely, update, nice and shit. As E L Whisty might have said – That’s interesting.
But what did they expect to find, centrifuge, bazookas, frottage, trifle, antidisestablishmentarianism? What was the point, and what will they do with the information? Will it be sold to the commercial sector for product branding or will David Cameron use it to construct the next Tory manifesto?
Blogging is - with the exception of the excellent writers on this site, and all my friends, a poor form of articulation. The word itself is virtually onomatopoeic, sounding like a lower intestinal function to expel a blockage caused by words. Perhaps the send key on computers should feature a picture of a toilet chain on it and a little flushing noise when you press it - Mr Gates – you can contact me through the Guardian should you wish to licence this idea.
Unlike private diaries, which can contain every filthy detail of your life, from adulterous liaisons, bodily leakage and what you’d really like to do to the boss, that can be lapped up after you’re too dead to care, blogs are immediately in the public domain. Imagine if Alan Clarke or Kenneth Tynan had been electronic?
Blogs are – so far at least, a harmless outlet for little rants, solipsism and general information. Artists and musicians write them to generate interest in records, or remain in the public eye long past their sell-by date …and yes I do include myself in this category – although I’d welcome dissenters…on the sell-by date, not the artist/musician bit. Politicians write them – or have them written to save themselves the bother of answering constituents’ letters, while still appearing to be in-touch, while most other people just write them to prove they exist. The popularity of Myspace and Facebook show just how keen most of us are to let the world know this – but god, imagine working for OUP and having to monitor all that bloggage? Yuk.
Of course, the likeliest explanation for this important research is that it gave the summer holiday work experience bods something to do to keep them quiet. It’s slightly more creative than conducting a time trial on making cups of tea I suppose – or composing a Haiku.
Stuff me stupid blogger,
Ok my lovely,
blog update -shit myself - nice
Do have a go at home.
16 November 2007
I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe….and the smell of cabbage.
I’ve just endured a smokeless evening in the Smoke and have to report that it was rather lacking in atmosphere – unless you count the newly pre-eminent fug of boiled potatoes, old cabbage, body odour and smugness, which clung to the air as tenaciously as anything our dear departed nicotine could have wafted across. These are the default stenches that bided their time – waiting their turn to assault our olfactory senses, held at bay by the unifying blanket of curling, swirling tobacco smoke. Not that dissimilar to Iraq perhaps? A bad situation held in check by a tyrant, swept away by outside forces in the belief that it would improve things…An unforgivably trivializing metaphor of course – I’m good at those, but, how is boozers smelling of cabbage, onions and Eternity by Calvin Clein a liberation? Didn’t they send inspectors in to assess what pongs might rise up once the old guard was toppled?
It feels very unnatural to walk past a pub – I could stop this sentence here – to see in through the windows, a crystal clear high definition picture of germfree adolescents quaffing sports lager by the teaspoon full, while outside, middle ages roue’s and life’s other charming detritus fight for pavements space with baby buggies, ninety-four geared mountain bikes and defecating dogs.
Mind you, the shiny happy people might eventually be bred out of existence due to losing the best chat-up line in existence. Never for them, the flirtatious possibilities ignited by the sentence ‘Excuse me, may I trouble you for a light my dear?’ I suppose, if the spark of attraction is already there, then ‘ Doesn’t the cabbage smell wonderful?’ could conceivably work.
Anyway, I realize that I’m ranting now – I am trying to stop smoking, but less enthusiastically than before July 1st. I’d imagined that the ban would make it easier, but it’s had the opposite effect. The cabbage-slop fag-ash odour replacement has made me angry. Now I want to stand outside pubs, chain-smoking with the other poor souls, making rude faces at those inside, while leafing through undertakers’ catalogues.
16 November 2007
John Moore’s Guide To Good Parenting.
Is it wrong to frighten one’s children into obedience by creating a world of monsters, freaks and ghouls who’ll seek them out if they don’t play ball? How wrong exactly, and what if any, are the humane alternatives?
My ‘these days’ quite sceptical daughter firmly believes that if she goes to sleep too late, she might incur the displeasure of a giant called Bad-Tempered Bob whose job it is to put out all the lights in the world at night. Physically, he is somewhere between Bluto from Popeye and Giant Haystacks, about fifty feet tall, never in the best of moods - because he wants to knock off early, and if he hears a naughty child still awake after bedtime hours, will put his bristly old face against the window and give them a piece of his mind. He shares a cottage in the forest with his brother Angry Harold – a ginger headed ogre, whose job it is to sweep up the world at night – once the kids are asleep. Interestingly, Angry Harold doesn’t like children to wake up until his work is finished – which takes especially long at weekends. Of course the brothers aren’t all bad, and once a year they bake cakes and biscuits for the children to apologize for being bad-tempered.
I was similarly alarmed as a child by The Pins and Needles Lady, who my father warned might come to the house to prick us all with pins ( He’d probably been reading Kraft-Ebbing’s Psychopathia Sexualis ), and we were to hide in the bathroom and not make a sound if anybody knocked at the door. In later years, he admitted that during the 1970 general election, as the local Liberal Party agent, he’d made some rather rude comments about his Conservative counterpart in the paper, and was terrified she’d come round and confront him – Dads eh?
I know that I am not the only parent to indulge in this form of phantasmagorical manipulation. I have a friend who tells her son that if he doesn’t put his toys away, Daddy will be kidnapped by the scarecrows from Dr Who.
So, when they won’t go to bed / at least help to clear up their horrible messes, or threaten to use scatological words in front of granny, what demons do you conjure up?
