My Name Is Legion

Some people with peculiar names want to be my friends on Facething. There's a Mrs Hosting Click, a Mr Plumbing Register, Mr Chester Blinds (who I am convinced is a stand-up comedian, unless I am mixing him up with Mr Nosmo King, whose promotional signs are simply EVERYWHERE..), and the rather compelling Ms Tic Llandudno, to name but several.Now you may think I am being mauve about this, as any fool would realise that these monickers belong to ruthless thrusting businesses, rather than unusually-named punters. But the thing is I actually DO have friends with strange names. Many of them are cabaret and Burlesque performers, and although I know that they do have ordinary names; I always think of them as Dina Mite and Sheree Trifle, because I have e-mails (and invoices) from them using those very titles.

I have always been a fan of the silly name. There was a girl at my school called Frances Tambourine, and at University, I knew a Charles Lovitt-Standing. When I was infanticipating, I felt a strong tug towards naming the innocent babe Original Bug, or Praise-God Barebones, genuine names recorded in  parish registers, albeit a wee while ago. He got off lightly, really,did my Zarububl. If you want your child to stand out from the herd of Kai's,and to develop quick reflexes, why not look in the Bible? It is full of tremendous names;  Abishag, Uriah, Neginah, Semiramis..Zut.

Although the British do seem to exhibit a kind of wayward genius for  hilarious names without recourse to the Good Book. A few of my favourites include Zilpher Spittle,Strangeways Pigg Strangeways, and the divinely-named Miss Horsey de Horsey. She was the mistress of Lord Cardigan, who was once discovered banging on her bedroom door, bellowing, "My dearest, she's dead!", (referring to her late Ladyship), "Let's get married at once!" She declined, no doubt wishing to preserve her magnificent appellation.

America has a few impressive entries in the whacky catalogue. They can boast Gaston J. Feeblebunny, (a perfect Groucho Marx character name if I ever I heard of one), exotic-yet-homely Mary Malouf Teabaggy, and the glorious Mary Louse Pantzeroff. Well done you,ess-ay.But the winner,for my money, is the son of our own Brit, the Parliamentarian Praisegod Barebones. He was named If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebones. I would have loved to have been party to the conversation between Praisegod and MRS Barebones,on the night before the christening. The infant survived, against heavy odds, to be a man, and to establish the first fire insurance office in Britain, after briskly changing his name to Nicholas Barbon. He was the Carolingian Zowie Bowie, poor child. Parents really ought to think twice before saddling the fruit of their loins (do women have loins? I don't know where mine are.They do sound like a boy thing,don't they?) with a name which will cause future generations to double up in churchyards.Unseemly mirth when inspecting tombstones is socially ungracious. In my own family, where, as regular readers may have noticed, eccentricity is positively encouraged, were two cousins of my Grandmother Sweetman. One was called Trafalgar, and the other Valentine,as they were born on those celebratory days. I cannot tell you how I have regretted the non-existent Sweetman who should have popped out on Shrove Tuesday, and would have been christened,with a terrible inevitability, Pancake. So I may reconsider my position, and welcome Ms Heavenly Baths and Mr Kevin Keen-Deals, to my "Friends" list. They may simply be the blameless victims of parental whimsy,and have suffered enough.

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"It's Not Fear Of Flying;It's Fear Of Crashing" Dept.

How very interesting!  Four people in China are reading this.It says so on the section of Blogthing that reveals to the writer the whereabouts of the reader. So, a cordial good morning/afternoon/evening to all four of you,and may I say what an excellent,if rather peculiar, choice of reading material you have made. I like to think of all four of you sharing a screen,and poking each other in the ribs. You may of course not be Chinese.You may be Liverpolitans who, as we have a tendency to do, have gone to seek your fortune. Or you may have gone for the Olympics, and been unable to find your way back. Don't worry, I'm sure it will be educational. I should love to visit China. I am not fishing for an invite by the way, the plane journey would deter me. I am not keen on flying. I am very very frightened of flying. Oh, let's face it, I am a drivelling wretch when I have to do it. I didn't realise I was going to find it terrifying until I was actually strapped in and taking off, so I hadn't read any of those books about how safe it is. What  I had done,though,  was to spend the previous evening drinking brandy in Crosby with a friend of mine who had been an air hostess. She had been on that plane that had its engines stopped by volcanic ash over Tenerife or somewhere. This was an excellent story; and she told it with the all dramatic verve and brio of someone who has had the narrowest and squeakiest of narrow squeaks and wishes to chill the blood of the listener in recompense. She also regaled me with tales of how pilots spent their pre-flight time in carousing of the most extreme nature, and how they were still drunk, as a rule, when turning up for a long-haul to Jakarta next day. How we laughed! So this was all fresh in my mind, and may have contributed to the urgent desire I felt to leave the plane,as we were reaching 30,000 feet. I DO wish they wouldn't tell you that, by the way.Nor is it helpful to display the diagram thing with the moving cartoon plane, as in my imagination at least, a cartoon flock of birds is soon going to wing in from the left and be sucked into the engine.

I managed to go to Menorca on my own.Blind drunk on brandy at 8am, I marched onto the plane, reeking of the Fabreeze I had sprayed all over myself in the loo.I was sitting next to a fresh and fragrant  mum with a small child.  Realising through an alcoholic miasma that I was not going to be allowed to sit in the mum's lap and scream, (my preferred take-off position) , I offered to draw a "Princess" for the little girl. The first two attempts looked like Princess May Of Teck (a shapeless dowager), and Princess Fiona from Shrek, but nevertheless,it caught on. All the other girl children on the plane (and it was lousy with them) ,demanded the same service.So I spent two hours drawing mermaids, fairies, and other positive female role models,passing them back down the aisles,and continuing to knock back the duty-free.By the time we were landing, I was dashing off "Hooker Barbies" in under two minutes, and totally pixied.

The only flight I actively enjoyed was the one to Jersey that I won in a game of "Trivial Pursuit",many years ago. It was on an old-style propeller plane, flown by two elderly madmen. I said to the Mrs Overall hostie,"I am a nervous flyer". This often gets you more booze faster, and if not, at least gives the crew the nod that there is a pest on board. She said "Right!", and shot me off to the cockpit, where I was handed a headset and placed on a little blue seat between the pilot and the co-pilot. I was then given a large gin, then  they talked at me in circa 1943 RAF-speak for an hour; "Bally Jerry, jolly wizard prang, ooops,nearly  threw a wobbler in the Briney..." , even giving me a lever to pull, at one stage. They said it was for the landing wheels, but I think it put the light on in the toilet.

I considered  this  to be  awfully good fun, and ,evidently, so did they.We  flew back to London together on Sunday evening. They didn't even let me sit in my seat, but whizzed me instantly into the pointy front end,and handed me the headset.It was night time, and so I had the exhilarating experience of following the lights of London down the ribbon of the Thames, and pretending to land the blighter.

You wouldn't be allowed now, would you? Three cheers for those two barmy old chaps with outre moustaches.With a laudably reckless disregard for Health and Safety,they gave me a thrilling couple of hours. I would love to say that I am now quite comfortable about flying. Sadly, I remain  the craven, lily-livered wretch I ever was. From this I deduce that I can only fly if they let me sit in the cockpit. Oddly, few airlines are now keen to allow a wild-eyed pallid creature smelling of strong drink and muttering about mermaids,to sit with the pilot and pull things.I shall try RyanAir next, I think. If you slipped them a tenner I bet they would let you do ANYTHING.

Jeux Sans Frontieres

Only a year to the Olympics, and I haven't a THING to wear...I was briefly involved with some "planning discussions" about the Cultural Olympiad.My suggestions that throwing paintbrushes long distance , and sculpture-tossing ought to be featured resulted in looks of a stoniness not seen since Medusa had a bad hair day.  Oh dear, we are all going to have to be jolly enthusiastic about this, aren't we? Tessa Jowls is already sounding more and more like our Sports Mistress at Queen Mary High School. We are going to have to play up and play the game, show team spirit, and quite possibly, take one for the Gipper,or up the Khyber or one of those baffling expressions. I am going to need a note from my Mum for the whole of 2012.
I have sporty people in my family. My Mother, when not tapdancing and terrorising Fazackerley on a bicycle, was a superb tennis player. Ferociously competetive ,she was all set to train as a sports teacher ,when Hitler got wind of this and war broke out. Alongside the plastic toucan clocks and revolving  Babycham lamps that Dad was given by brewery sales reps (he was Social Secretary of the local British Legion),the sideboard dipped under the weight of Mum's cups and statuettes. It seemed that she had beaten seven shades out of everyone in the North West at something or other. My Dad's sole darts trophy sat forlornly in the middle. They tried to make a big thing out of my swimming certificate, but no-one was convinced.
Tall, hideously clumsy,and wearing specs like pub ashtrays, I was never an asset to a team. At school,long negotiations would take place; "If you have HER, you can have two of our good ones". At Queen Mary, in an obscure nod to the Celtic origins of most of the students, we played "Shinty", a form of hockey so savage as to be outlawed the second that people stopped playing football with human heads. Clue given in the name ;  the objective was to take a large curved stick and rush, hollering, at the shins of one's opponent.I don't know what happened after that because I had my eyes shut. Girls regularly had their noses broken. Especially if they wouldn't play. Me and a girl called Fat Eileen (I don't suppose she was christened that but you never know, she is probably a supermodel now..) were desperately in love with the cloakrooms. We would burrow  under the coats and hug the radiators, me trying to read with a torch.She would root through coat pockets, looking for a stray Spangle, and practice her recorder in the toilets.
When I left school, I did much the same thing at parties, trying to avoid sex. Too much like P.E for me , I thought, with the same insistence that it was good for everyone..As it was the Seventies, you couldn't even just mark the opposite team , you had to play with your own side as well.
At least at University there was drink to take the edges off. I might have been great at the Shinty, had I been allowed to go on raving drunk. I bet that was how it was originally played.
So it worried me when we all started talking about "Arts, Culture and SPORT",as if they were part of the same thing. I thought the idea of the first two was to provide an alternative to the latter.  But I wish it all well, in a vaguely benevolent fashion. I can afford to now,as I doubt anyone will be keen for me to take part.  I hope they remember to include a nice fusty cloakroom at the Stadium, for the reluctants dragged along by sporty spouses and parents.With a very hot radiator and a dispenser for (pre-dusted) Spangles .

Stark Raving Nude

I live, as I have mentioned, with my son.He is a committed nudist.This is due to general teenage indolence, and possibly , I think, his half-Frenchness. The South of France, from whence his father derives, goes in for nakedness quite a bit. Cap D'Agde,where we used to spend summers, had some fairly nervewracking beaches devoted to the nudies. As a pale-skinned, red-haired Celt, raised in a swamp, I tend to keep out of the sun. If you have ever playfully set fire to one of those tissue paper Italian biscuit wrappers when off your head on Sambucca, you will have an exact template for what goes on with my skin when exposed to sunlight. My nickname at school (one of the more repeatable,come to think of it), was "Morticia". At night, you can read by me.So parading about in my pelt surrounded by giggling French nudists pointing at me and going " Regardez, elle est vachement blanche! (cowingly white)"wasn't really on.  The Giant Boy, though, is a horse of another colour. He played rugby for years, until he contracted laziness, but the musculature remains, and he is now seven foot tall and rising. Sharing living space with Michaelangelo's David is trying, I can tell you, and led me to considering my own upbringing in this regard.
I have indicated that my parents had widely differing attitudes to..well..everything, really. Match.com would have been appalled at the notion of them even sharing a country. Fortunately for me, there were no such considerations in 1952, when they were firmly soldered together in the eyes of God and two sets of mutually opposed relatives. My Mother looked like Grace Kelly.My father resembled Eric Morecambe, with Philip Larkin rising. A man fond of order, reticence, dignity, and circumspect to the point of lunacy, he had married a woman who detested cooking, filled the house with dogs, dressed like Zsa Zsa Gabor, and could not resist climbing trees on her way to pick us up from school.Dad  was also possessed of an uncertain temper, red hair, and a terrifying blue stare. He often reminded my brother and I that he had "Been Trained To Kill".I think we were respectively three and eight years old when he first started to say this.
So yes, we grew up with ..er.."Mixed Messages" when it came to self-exposure. My father banned us from watching my mother ironing his undergarments. There was very little on television in those days, so any diversion was welcome. He contended that the sight of his vast white Y-Fronts might provoke questions which he was unprepared to answer. He kept his "unseemly" books from Fazackerly library in a box under his bed. Of course, I spent my entire late childhood reading them in secret, lying with  the dust kittens handed down to me by Mum. They were disappointingly decorous, John O' Hara, Isaac Asimov, Raymond Chandler, but considered "unsuitable" and therefore total catnip to me.
Mum, on the other hand, was at ease with her admirable body, and would trot about in her pants and pointy bra, tapdancing on the landing lino if the mood took her.
So I now oscillate wildly between appearing on stage in corsets,  wearing Restoration Comedy necklines, and swathing myself in  a tarpaulin on the beach.
I am hoping to get the Boy in pants in time for Year 11.Perhaps I should  sew him into them in September? By Christmas he will have burst out of them like the Hulk,anyway.

Growing Middle-Aged Disgracefully

Apparently middle age is now pegged at sixty.Fine by me, I was planning to live to a hundred-and-twenty anyway. I would like to know how we are all going to stay employed for all those years,though.As the retirement age creeps up to eighty,as it surely must ,what on earth will we all do? I have a darling friend, a mere babe-in-arms at forty, and a babe in all other respects too, who has encountered an attitude injurious to her self-esteem. Namely, that all women over twenty-five or so ought to be culled,or failing that, knit themselves a burkha from steel wool and spend rest of their their lives cleaning the kitchen.This was the prevailing view amongst the other women with whom she worked, and the workplace in question was a grim Government "service provider", not a strip club.
Speaking of which, I was working for a company not so long ago, who rejected a very attractive woman  I know,sight unseen, because she was considered (at forty-five) too old to serve drinks to the general public. I can only suppose that the mere sight of this frightful crone, dragging herself along behind the bar,kicking aside the shrivelled bits of flesh that would fall off her if she picked up speed, would put the sensitive chaps off their eleventh pint. And again, this dismal attitude was loudly expressed by a  woman of a similar age.As she was doing the interviewing, this was no mere toothless prejudice.So yes, I am rather cross about this,and I think we all have to resist. I myself am growing middle-aged disgracefully, and refusing to go gently into that pair of elasticised slacks. If you are ever feeling excessively jaunty, and fancy a come-down, do go and look at the clothes which are recommended for ladies past thirty-five. We see pleated skirts, suicide-provoking knitwear, and terrible print frocks.We see shoes like Cornish pasties, and vile synthetic fabrics.We see dead people.
Unfortunately, my son thinks this is just grand. When I am dressed to go out, he follows me around,doing up buttons and growling at my high heels. It's rejuvenating in that it is just like living with my Dad again. My father was a stern gentleman of Scottish origin.Had he not been an office manager, he would have made a very effective hellfire preacher. His idea of suitable attire for a young lady was an outfit based upon those habitually worn by the late Margaret Rutherford.He would  have considered the burkha dangerously revealing. I would totter forth for a restricted evening out,wearing ,you know, Seventies stuff,it wasn't exactly a Slut Walk. He would stand in the hall and inspect my kit. There would be WORDS. My Mother, a bohemian Celt of the Irish Romantic school, often had to referee. But her decision was final,and my Dad would then retire, muttering and sulking, to read the Liverpool Echo in front of "Panorama". And now it's all happening again, with the Giant Boy. I have had to promise him not to befriend any of his pals on Facebook;"Because they will SEE you".
I used to try and buy clothes in the South of France,you know.If you were six months old or an extremely aged housekeeper, you were laughing. Baby clothes and aprons with cicadas printed on them, that was your lot.Oh, and underwear.Even the tiniest town boasted lingerie shops that made Coco De Mer look like Millets.
So, at whatever age, and wherever you are, there will always be some frightful bossyboots telling you off. Ignore them.Wear what you like, think what you like, and for God's sake don't take any notice of  that poem about eventually being old and wearing purple;it's a very good colour for people without tans. Now I am off to skateboard around Lime St Station, and see if I can get my luggage "Destroyed or Damaged By the Staff", like they say you can.

Baby Envy

A Baby is visiting me today. His mother is coming with him, as at ten months he might not manage Merseytravel on his own. His name is Frank, and he is effortlessly charming. However, I have a soporific effect upon babies. They seem to like me to wear them over my shoulder, and after ten minutes of conversation, they fall into a profound sleep.I have pondered upon this. Many a sleepless mite, on introduction, is handed to me. "Oh" say the shattered parents "It won't SLEEP.Not ever..we walk around rooms with it, sing the entire lullaby catalogue, dim lights,  and then take it for rides in the car. The lot.But it won't sleep". I hold it.We chat. Conversation with babies is a tad awkward; the usual light party chat "Hello, darling, are you working?" "I love what you've done with your hair,  takes YEARS off you", and so forth, doesn't seem right. But, starved of other topics, I give it a go. "That little babygro , divine! So you..is it Westwood? " "Chewed biscuit in your eyebrows, I see. Really suits you.." I look down.It is unconscious. Every single time.

There must be some way of making this gift pay, no? I could set myself up as a Baby-Borer. Didn't work with my one, by the way. He used to give me a cynical look, and continue with his repetoire of nerve-shredding squeals, or doing the frightening yelling they do when they go all purple and you think they are going to stay that colour.  I have always been suspicious of babies, and consequently steered clear of them for most of my life. I don't know what to do with people who neither drink nor smoke, and who haven't read anything.Toddlers strange too, they just behave as though they WERE roaring drunk. Knocking things over, falling over, fighting their own feet, staggering, dribbling,repetitious..
I am a bit jealous, actually. I fancy being tiny, cute, and helpless, for a change. Centre of attention, and everything done for one. I think, if there is re-incarnation, I should like to come back as a baby.

Working On A Fish Farm

It is no secret that I am seeking paid work.To this end,I have signed up to any number of Jobgoblins and Headhunters, who kindly send me e-mails most days.Despite my diligent attention to their tick boxes and "Search Refiners"; they continue to insist that I am a railway engineer who lives in Milton Keynes,and send vacancies to suit. Some of these agencies seem to have an impish sense of humour. "Liz!" they carol,"We know you have what it takes to be a Driving Instructor!" I don't know where they got this from. I had forty-three driving lessons and was considered a danger to all life forms. When I lived in London I decided to try again,perhaps thinking that my impressive array of disadvantages had worn off. But alas.I was still myopic, couldn't tell left from right without thinking long and hard about it, still had no hand-eye co-ordination, no sense of direction, and a tendency to gibber and cover my eyes when approaching even a mini-roundabout. I used to try and hide my car from other cars. One day a man from the British School Of Motoring drew the short straw. "Ha ha,you ladies!" he said cheerfully, as we drove into the grounds of Middlesex University Trent Park. "You just need confidence...OH JESUS CHRIST!" I had confidently accelerated us into a ditch. It was all very embarrassing.Try making light conversation with a driving instructor who is lint white and palpitating, until the rescue vehicle arrives. Had I not been six months pregnant I think he might have been crosser. So all the driving instructors in Britain got together and made me promise never to try and drive anything again. I am like one of those people who manage to  get themselves banned from every pub in the UK.I can only imagine that it is one of them, nursing a grudge, who has shopped me to "JobsULike" ,who are even now recklessly calling me to be a Driving Instructor.Other opportunities which have come my way this week have been   "Personal Trainer" and "Lecturer In Fish Management. I was tempted to ring up the latter and ask what the scale was. Actually,I would make a good Fish Manager, I think. Might start with goldfish. I would be kind but firm with them. I would introduce performance-related ant eggs, and audit their training needs.I would also sack that smug and insufferable mermaid who seems to be in some sort of middle-management position in most fishbowls. She sits about watching them,as they whirl around their bowls seeking to meet deadlines and targets. She probably got the job due to some Equal Opportunities drive, anyway. "We positively welcome applications from people who are fish from the waist down, and are Working Towards employing people who are fish from the waist up, who are currently under-represented".  That's because they are all working driving buses in Maghull.
I like the more frivolous e-mail offers better, really. My favourite so far has been "Would YOU like Lager Breasts?"  I would, you know,imagine how popular I would be ... I could change my name to Party Seven, like a baby Beckham.

The Wrong Sett

Badgers much on my mind this morning.This happens when you put the radio on and wander in and out of the room it is in,providing an aural cut-up worthy of William Burroughs at his most oblique. So I now have a vague impression  that badgers are threatening the Euro and having trouble getting into Russell Group Universities. You would think they would just dig under the fence.
I saw a baby badger once;it was divine and looked like Alistair Darling only prettier.
Lord Arran, stating his objectives in life, said "To stop people buggering badgers, and badgering buggers". I consider this laudable.However, history is silent as to how far he succeeded.

Meanwhile, at Gambier Towers, we lurch roughly towards the end of term.  I have mixed feelings about this.On the one hand, there will be a blessed cessation of the morning ritual that begins with me cooing softly at the Giant Boy;"Come along darling, get out of bed and eat your chocolate-flavoured filth",and culminates in  me shrieking and Boy sulkily treading unwillingly to the bus stop.However, six weeks of tripping over languid giants hoves into view, as he and his enormous friends loll about in the living room, killing zombies and eating with the determined regularity of threshing machines.I can see why cougar mothers occasionally stock up the fridge and head off to the Gambia. Less explicable to me is why one would wish to collect a toyboy while there. Surely another youth, however pliant, would be a Busman's Holiday?

Please Mr Postman

I am wildly excited by my postman. Not erotically, although I am sure he too has his "Followers".No, I have become a funny old lady,who peers out into Gambier Terrace in the hope of seeing his little red bag bob - bob - bobbing-along like the Robin so correctly celebrated in song. With an optimism bordering on the unhinged, I run down the stairs to trap him, before that "Sorry,You Were Not Quick Enough" card appears through the letterbox. Sometimes, alas, I do not make it, and after tapping softly on the front door with the sponge supplied by Royal Mail, he bolts away.I then stare in dismay at the card. It used to invite me to trot down the hill to Mount Pleasant, and try my luck at avoiding deadly red mail vans hurtling round corners and on to the pavement. This was always bracing, although the less nimble were ruthlessly culled.The surge of adrenaline generally carried me through to the sepia-tinted office,which boasted a cage.This, presumably, was for the punters who could not or did not read the notice which stated firmly that we , the public, must not hit the staff. The staff did not strike me as hittable;being polite, yet evidently disillusioned, in that marvellously sanguine way that Liverpolitans do better than anyone else. It was possible to exchange a wry comment with them on the subject of the hopelessness of ever trying to do or achieve anything, ever. Samuel Beckett would have loved working there.
But Kafka has now become the prevailing style.I am now requested to go to somewhere quite inaccessible and possibly non-existent near the River,to get my package. It's a big river, and I have but a small boat.

Sad really.Even when I do get mail,it is usually impertinent demands from Power Suppliers, or the joyful news that I can now go and get my breasts screened. Martin Amis once said that all letters should be about sex or money,so I suppose they vaguely fit that description. Even The Reader's Digest have given up on me.Perhaps I should start writing to THEM, telling them that they have been chosen from a select group of companies in their area, to receive a Mystery Cash Prize. After all, you have to work at relationships...

Gathering Gloom

Why am I doing this, I wonder? Is to avoid bothering my friends with over-long and over-frequent e-mails? To fill in that bit of the evening from when Radio 4 goes gloomily serious, and it's too light to go to bed without that "I am seven and have been sent there" feeling?
We shall see. I don't think I will get any "Followers" though..and I find the idea faintly unnerving.Would they swoop down on me in the Supermarket,or dog me, muttering, through St John's Market? I get enough of that in Life.  Or is it more of a disciple relationship, and I will be required to utter aphorisms and wise saws? Like "Thought For The Day",only useful. I shall start off with "Many A Mickle Makes A Muckle", and see how that goes. It's certainly very difficult to disprove.

Great Balls Of Fluff

In an attempt to slenderise  my utterly ludicrous wardrobe, and replenish equally laughable bank account, I am selling off a shopsworth of clothes. My son ,who, to preserve his anonymity, will henceforth be known as Boy,is mildly interested in this.I expect he sees it as a revenue stream to support his endless lust for XBox games and Polo shirts.And trainers. Trainers I find inexplicable, by the way.I find myself being asked to comment upon photographs of huge canvas shoes, differing only slightly from each other by the addition of a shiny trim here, or a tiny logo there. I am of an era which called them "Pumps".They came in white or black, were laced or had a gusset,and were purchased fromWoolworth's by one's mother for Ninteenandeleven. Anyway, I alerted Boy to the possibility of various Burlesque performers, sultry chanteuses, and other floozies of my aquaintance popping round to shimmy into frocks in my bedroom. "And so, you will HAVE to put some pants on". He is an enthusiastic nudist. This was cute when he was tiny.He is not tiny now. He is fourteen, and built on the general lines of the Anglican Cathedral, complete with flying buttresses. "Will THEY keep theirs on, though?" he enquired,with the practised leer of a moustachioed Victorian roue. I shall have to lock him in a cupboard.
I began clothes-wrangling, and  pulled a few suitcases out from under my bed. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that I have dust kittens. A thriving litter, in fact. I was so alarmed I had to put the cases back.
It is so true that, as St Quentin Of Crisp stated "After six years, the dust does not get any worse.It is simply a question of not losing one's nerve"