Thursday, September 14
Glenn has come home from school with a homework project about third world poverty. I took him to the library on the estate on a search for information. Unfortunately, it was closed due to "staff shortages". I rang my mother and she brought round some statistics she'd found on the internet. I was shocked to realise that me and my boys have been living in third world poverty for the past two years.
Glenn is relieved: he was planning to do his project on Bangladesh, but now, as he says, "All I have to do is go walkin' round the streets talkin' to people, Dad."
Bringing the Montego to Mohammed
Thursday, September 14, Arthur Askey Walk, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
So much for a lifelong friendship! Mohammed refused to sell me any petrol today, even though I had pushed the Montego to his garage to save what little fuel I had. I reminded him that I had stuck up for him in the playground at Neil Armstrong Comprehensive when Barry Kent went on a bullying rampage after eating too many Walker's crisps. "I don't remember you stickin' up for me, Moley," Mohammed said as he directed a midwife towards a pump.
I pointed out that I had advised Barry to go on a bullying-awareness course at the Off The Streets youth club. "That didn't stop me from gettin' my fingers bent back," he said sadly.
My mother drove up on the forecourt and joined the queue of essential users. "On what grounds are you an essential user?" I asked. "Have you joined one of the emergency services since I saw you last?"
"As a matter of fact, I have, in a way," she said. "I promised to take some of my unwanted vases to Laing ward at Ivan's mental hospital. They've got nothing to put the visitors' flowers in."
I wondered how she would convince Mohammed that her need of fuel was legitimate, and was infuriated when she was allowed to go to the front of the queue and was served by Mohammed himself!
I made another attempt to procure some petrol for myself. Citing the time I directed Mohammed in the Nativity play, Jesus Christ Almighty!, and gave him the starring role. "Yeah, yeah, and I'm still in trouble with some of the community elders 15 years later," he said. "I said I'd be in trouble if I played Jesus as a heroin addict."
"You had free will, Mohammed," I pointed out.
"No, I didn't," he said. "You was going through a bad time. Your parents were splittin' up, so I dun it to help you out."
As I pushed my car back home, I puzzled over how a man could hold a grudge for so long. A grudge so powerful that it influenced his judgment when it came to petrol distribution.
Saturday, September 16
Pandora is thinking of buying a house in the Suffolk countryside so she can escape from her constituents. It is called Oakley Park, in Hoxne village. I looked the property up on the net, and was alarmed to discover that it was the scene of a macabre double murder in 1777, when Sir Frederick Brownlow discovered his wife Felicity in bed with Fergus Bellington, a young groom.
When I say «bed», I am using the term loosely — the lovers were actually participating in a sexual act behind the clock over the arched entranceway. As midnight struck, Sir Frederick, tormented by jealousy, chopped them into bite-sized pieces with his sword. ("It was manayee times sharpen-ed beinge much blunted be ye bones.") The pieces were then fed to the pigs. I warned Pandora that there was a curse on the house, and that anybody with the initials FB came to a bad end if they so much as stepped foot into the courtyard.
"For God's sake," she said, "what are you drivelling on about? My initials are PLEB." She then went into a tirade saying that idiots were clogging up the internet with uninteresting and unnecessary information.
Sunday, September 17
Battle of Britain Day: Radio 4 was dominated this morning by a dreary church service commemorating this important historical occasion. Why does the C of E allow such very terrible music to be played in its name? And why do church officials speak in such unnatural voices like aliens?
Radio 4 should have played the soundtrack of that Douglas Bader Story. It would have given joy to many.
Buying panic
Monday, September 18, Arthur Askey Walk, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Life is dull after the excitement of the petrol crisis. I have been out and about doing a little panic buying of bottled water, granulated sugar, bread mix and tinned pilchards. But nothing can compare with last week's frenzy, when, for a few moments, I truly believed that civilisation was at an end and that we would be back to driving a pony and trap.
I have been called to the Job Centre on Friday to explain why I filled in a form recently stating that I am not available for work and that I would like to continue to claim benefits. I have spent all day today preparing my case. I have written a manifesto. Its main thrust is that society should support its artists. Its concluding paragraph states: "How tragic would be the loss to the nation if a great work of mine were to remain unwritten due to the banal necessity of clocking on as an assistant warehouseman, eg."
Tuesday, September 19
At 1pm, I was contacted on my mobile by my mother, who screamed, "Drop whatever you're doing and start queueing for petrol now!" As I scrambled into my car, I shouted the news to the neighbours in the street. A convoy, stretching 30 cars long, soon formed behind me. By the time we got to Mohammed's garage, we were more than 100 strong and had a police escort. Mohammed's jaw dropped when he saw me leading the convoy on to the forecourt. He was just about to take his wife panic buying in Iceland — she had heard that toddler-sized disposable Pampers were in short supply.
I now feel slightly ashamed of myself for getting caught up in the hysteria, but I need my car. I'm too sensitive to be a full-time pedestrian. The non-car-owning public are unpredictable, their voices are loud and their tempers are uncertain. I feel safer in my car with my Abba tapes and Radio 4.
Friday, September 22
I presented myself at the Job Centre at the appointed time, 10.30am, and was surprised to be taken immediately through to an interview suite by a personable young woman called Jane Doxy. She was neatly turned out in a navy skirt suit and a white shirt. The outfit would, in my opinion, have benefited from high heels, but no doubt Jane enjoyed the comfort of her Gucci-copy loafers. I'd had the foresight to take a copy of the Guardian with me, to impress on Jane that I was an intelligent and literate person. Though, when I saw the Daily Mail in her bag, I wondered if I had done the right thing.
She had read my manifesto with great interest, she said. However, she (and the department) felt that my writing was "only a hobby" and that "the government was not in the game of subsidising my leisure interests". She gave me two telephone numbers to ring. The first was that of Eddie's Tea Bar. Eddie himself answered. The job was assistant caterer in Eddie's cafe, which was a trailer parked in a lay-by next to the cement works. I asked what my duties would be. Eddie growled, "You'd be doin' all sorts, fryin' burgers, changin' the Calor Gas bottle, 'n' stuff like that, for £3.60 an hour." Under the watchful eye of Jane Doxy, I then rang the second number. A gentle pensioner called Mrs Banbury-Pryce answered, and said that she needed somebody to take her six dogs out twice a day for a walk. I start at Eddie's on Monday. I just knew that, with my soft heart, I'd end up helping Mrs Banbury-Pryce with the fastenings on her corset and cutting her toenails.