Peculiar History or Saved By The Bop or The Japanese Invasion of Ireland in 1942

History is quite often depicted by authors and historians as a horizontal line with the occasional sticky-uppy or droppy-downy line and a date which indicate important events.

Unless of course it's a vertical line, in which case there will be sticky-out-lefty or sicky-out-righty lines with dates.

In the case of Brian - an acquaintance (not through choice) who now and again, when least expected, turns up and attempts to 'explain' things - the 'line', with all it's stick-uppy (and downy) or sticky-out-righty (or sticky-out-lefty), has been well and truly scrunched up into a ball and left for the cat to play with.

I must stress that Brian is NOT a client!

He is the friend of a friend's cousin's next-door neighbours friend ... or something like that ... and is, contrary to popular belief, highly intelligent but, sadly, easily confused.

I bumped into him on Tuesday!

"'ere!" he shouted when he saw me. "You was the Army, weren't ya?"

I sighed! It was not going to be easy extracting myself from a conversation with Brian.

"Yes", I answered."But not all on my own."

"Yah! You got your arse kicked, didn't ya? Them Russians kicked your butt!"

It was going to be one of those conversations. I winced.

"What?"

"The Crimea ... " he continued. "When you nicked those Russian cannons to make them Victoria Cross's. They kicked your butt!"

My protestations, in which I denied all responsibility for any theft of cannon's at any point of my military career, fell on deaf ears.

"You British ..."

"You are British too, Brian"

"Na, mate. I ain't your kind o' British cos I never killed no Irishman to steal his potatoes. And then after you killed 'em, you made 'em join the British Army and fight your wars against the Chinese."

Confusing, isn't it?

"And all them Chinese and Japanese and ... and ... 'ere! I reckon I know why there are so many Japanese in Ireland!"

Sudden and unexplainable changes of conversational direction were commonplace with Brian.

"Why?" I asked, knowing full well I should be making my excuses and going home. What can I say? I'm curious!

"It was on the History channel!" he said. "They was looking to invade England in 1942  and they landed on the wrong island!"

I was not surprised.

"Anyway, why did you kill all the Irish then?"

At this point my phone began to belt out Cyndi Lauper's She Bop.

I was saved!

I took the call.

"Sorry Brian. Have to dash.  Emergency at work. See you again soon."

It was all I could do not to sprint away from him.

Saved by the Bop!

Behind me I could hear Brian begin another verbal assault on an innocent passer-by.

"'ere! Phil! Phil! Wassat what them Vietnamese did in Burma when the French ..."

The Waiting Room

The bus journey I took yesterday sparked some rather strange thoughts.

My 'companion' fell asleep on route so I was free to let my imagination run,as it so often does, riot.

My attention was first drawn to The Bucket Man.  He was in his fifties, I would guess, and carried a red plastic bucket with a white lid.

I couldn't help but imagine that bucket being used, in the absence of toilets on board, for 'personal' use.  I also imagined a queue of desperate, jogging-on-the-spot passengers forming behind him.

But my thoughts were hi-jacked when we encountered a broken down bus at the side of the road. The engine cowling had been raised and the driver stood shaking his head as he awaited recovery.

In my mind I saw the driver, a saddle thrown over his shoulder, saying his goodbye's to faithful friend before drawing his colt 45 and putting a bullet into the bus's radiator to end it's pain and suffering.

But then I saw an article (over the shoulder of the man in front of me) in the local paper.

This is the result of what I saw...

The Waiting Room was white walled without any apparent doors to facilitate entrance or exit.

Over thirty people, including Hitler (sitting next to Genghis Kahn and Julius Caesar), Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Andy Williams sat on chairs lining the walls.

They chatted amongst themselves until, as if by magic, a man dress in a white robe seemed to walk through the wall.

"Hello" he said. "My name is Desmond. I'm here to facilitate your transfer to your next plane of existence,be it Heaven or Hell."

Mother Theresa raised her hand.

"Yes?" Said Desmond."You have a question?"

"Isn't the Arch Angel Gabriel supposed to meet?" she asked.

"Well, normally, yes. But I'm afraid he's had to pop out and do a spot of smiting, so I'm standing in for him" answered Desmond.

"Smiting?" she said. "He's fighting the Devil?"

"Not exactly" said Desmond. "I believe it has something to to do with the Lady Gaga tickets he was sold and their, erm,legality. He's a big fan!"

He shuffled his feet for a moment then said "Shall we, erm, crack on, as it were?"

An iPad appeared in his hand.

"Don't you just love technology?" he said.

"So! Hitler ..." said Desmond as he scrolled down the iPad list. "Oh dear! It doesn't look as if there is anything you have never done! Bad, bad, bad!"

"I've never worn a women's underwear!" blurted Hitler.

"Erm, 14th of February 1932, I believe. Oh dear! You ... you ... What on earth did you think you were doing with that carrot? Definitely Hell for you!"

"Hell?  What have I ever done ..." protested Hitler as he faded away to nothing and departed for Hades.

"Next ..." 

Desmond called out name after name, declared them good or bad, saint's or sinner's, and despatched them to their destination.

"And now we come to ... Oh dear! Tooth Fairy?"

"'ry"

"Speak up!" ordered Desmond.

"'orry!"

"Oh my word.What have you done?"

"'m innocent!"

"Innocent? You stopped collecting children's teeth"

"'orry!"

"Instead you concentrated on removing the gold teeth of the American Rapper community! Where are those teeth, may I ask?"

"I ain't saying nuth'n!"

"Well you leave me no choice, Tooth Fairy! I hereby sentence you to 1 year rehabilitation and re-training. Hurry along to the Training wing! Mr. Disney will be waiting for you!"

The Tooth Fairy faded.

"And that just leaves you, Mr. Williams. Oh,I see you were a singer and entertainer. Oh well, no problem there then. Yes! Yes! An exemplary life. You seem to have handled yourself at all times as a gentleman and all round nice guy."

"Why, thank you!" said Andy Williams. "That's very kind of you to say so."

"Yes" continued Desmond. "It seems to be a foregone conclusion that you are destined for Heav... Oh my word! Oh dear!"

"What? What is it? What have you found?" said Andy as he began to sweat.

"Well, erm, this puts .... erm, oh dear! I thought Ed Sullivan was to blame for that! But it was YOU!!!"

"What? Am I going to Hell? What?" screamed Andy.

"Two words, Mr.Williams ...

THE  ...

OSMOND'S!!!!"

"Oh shit!" exclaimed Andy as he faded. "I'd forgotten about them!!!


I grew up watching the Andy Williams Show and much preferred his kind of entertainment over that of other singers and entertainers more appropriate to my generation. He was a much admired man and talented man who will be sorely missed.

I hope no one deems this post disrespectful! That is not how it was intended!
   

My Dream

I have made no bones about missing my dogs Sym and Sox.

In fact, I may have bored you all rigid with my tales of their exploits over the last few weeks. There is more to tell, but I'm going to wait for a little while before renewing my trip down doggy memory lane.

After this...

Last night I had a dream.

It was a strange dream but it was very vivid and seemed very real. I remembered it all, which is very unusual as normally I only remember fragments that leave me sometimes frustrated, but mostly curious.

This dream took place in a grassy area, which I took to be the fields of Hailey Park where I often took the dogs for their walks.

I was surrounded by a wall of fog some twenty yards away from me in every direction.

I heard no sounds.

As I stood there, the fog began to swirl and two dark figures walked out of it into the clearing carrying something between them..

One, obviously male, was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie. The other, obviously female, wore a dark waist length jacket, white blouse, dark gaucho-style trousers and black knee length boots.

Nothing particularly strange there, until I realised that both figures had dog's heads.

As they drew nearer I say that the male had the head of Sym and the female the head of Sox. 

They stopped directly in front of me and I then saw that the object they carried was a babies carry-cot.
They put it on the ground and stepped forward and began to hug me and lick my face, all the time making 'wrowowow' and whining sounds.  

As they made those sounds ... and this bit is weird ... white subtitles appeared before my eyes.

"We have missed you so much!" they said. "We are doing well and taking care of each other. And we've been watching you".

I told  them how much I was missing them too and as I did so, the subtitles changed to series or written growls, yelps and barks.

They turned away from me and pick up the carry-cot indicating as they did so that I should look inside.

The Sym figure pulled back a small blue blanket and the Sox figure said "This is Leo".

I looked inside the carry-cot and saw a black, grey and white dappled puppy lying fast asleep on his back. 

"He is going to be yours one day and you are to look after him as you looked after us" the Sox figure said.

When I asked when that would be, they just said "You will know when 'Leo' comes alone, but you won't have to wait very long."

With that they said their goodbye's, there were more hugs and lick, and the took the carry-cot with the sleeping Leo back into the fog.

I woke up just after 5am.

Everything was fresh in my mind and my face was wet.

I'm not a great believer in dreams as pre-cursors for coming events, and the wet face ... well, I sweat at nights ... but to be able to remember the entire dream? That is strange.

I know one day I will have another dog!

I think I know he'll be called Leo.

But will he resemble the puppy of my dream?