I'm dreading
getting old. It's all that walking you have to do. Have you seen them? I don't
know what it's like where you live but where I live you can't stir without
bumping into a party of twenty or thirty pensioners out in an organised walking
party. They used to call it rambling. They should still call it that because
most of them still ramble. 'Nice here isn't it….not as nice as Turkey
though….although I prefer chicken myself....free range of course....but
then there's no such thing as a free chicken is there....' They're all there in
the gear - bob hat, waxed jacket, corduroy trousers, waterproof leg bindings,
map, compass, binoculars, haversack, one of them special walker's sticks with a
spike in the end, goggles, crampons, tampons, and enough equipment for a decent
assault on Everest - and they're only going for a walk along the canal. The
leader pauses and turns. You can tell he's the leader because he's got a beard
and more badges sewn on his waxed jacket than the others.
"Try to keep up
will you."
"It's
these new boots."
"Did you treat them with dubbin like I told you to?"
Hey, that brings back memories, dubbin.
When I was a kid we used to have to rub it into our football boots - when
football boots were football boots, not these carpet slippers they wear today.
'And Giggs is running down the wing with the ball seemingly stuck to his feet.'
If he'd had to rub about a pound of dubbin into each boot like we had to the
ball would be stuck to his feet. The problem wasn't getting the ball to
stick to your feet it was trying to get it off once it had stuck there. There
was no blasting it into the net from the edge of the penalty area in those
days, if you wanted to score you had to run into the goal net. (HE RUNS
PONDEROUSLY, DRAGGING ONE OF HIS LEGS, AND THROWS HIMSELF INTO AN IMAGINARY
GOAL. THEN DETACHES AN IMAGINARY BALL FROM HIS FOOT AS THOUGH IT WERE AS HEAVY
AS A CANNONBALL, TOSSES IT AWAY IN TRIUMPH BUT WITH A GOOD DEAL OF EFFORT) Well
footballs were heavy in those days. Bend it like Beckham? If he kicked one of
the footballs I used to have to play with the only thing that would bend would
be his foot.
"Well,
did you treat them with dubbin?
"Couldn't get any, they didn't know what
it was at Tescos."
"Did you think of going to a shoe shop?"
"They don't have loyalty cards at the shoe
shop."
"I'm tired,
can we stop for a rest?"
"No, we'll be late for our bar snack if we stop, it's booked for
twelve thirty and we're behind schedule already."
"I want to go to the
toilet."
"You
should have gone before we set off."
"I didn't want to go then."
"I went before we
set off and I want to go again."
And so it goes on. 'Try to keep up' 'Can
we stop for a rest' 'I want to go to the toilet' I reckon that once people
reach the age of forty that mentally they start to go back in years instead of
forward so that by the time they're in their seventies there mental age is
under ten. If a man is aged seventy nine it's like he's one year old again - no
teeth, very little hair and not in anything like full control of his bodily
functions. And once they get into their seventies they start behaving childish
again. Telling tales about each other, that sort of
thing.
"Her next
door is behind with the rent again. And Hitler was alive when she last paid her
poll tax."
"I
believe she's thick with the postman."
They say that in Bolton, 'thick' with
somebody when they mean friendly with them. You're not thin with them if you're
unfriendly with them though. You're being a twat with
them.
"Getting
thick with the postman? Well it doesn't take half-an-hour to deliver a letter
so can draw your own conclusions."
"She says he helps her out with replies to
her letters."
"He
helps her out with something, and it's nothing to do with letters, except if
they're French ones."
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