I am working through emails. This first one is from a friend who follows the weather forecast here.
dear mrs f.a.
i am writing to enquire after the fate of one of my much cherished friends, who was cruelly subjected to the possibility of being blown up by a mean-spirited computer in conspiracy with the electrical utilities of catalonia. i was wondering whether you had enough green-shield stamps left in your collection to hire a private detective to look into this very mysterious case.
alternatively, you could use your stamp credits to put an advertisement in the paper on behalf of ivor paine, requesting a soul mate with whom to make lace doileys for celia's calendar-girl sale, and it is possible that our recalcitrant mutual friend may come out of her incognito hiding to take up her rightful place in life.
yours sincerely,
Aha! You surmised correctly. I have been without phone and internet for ages as has the whole town. Today a very small and frightfully polite south american showed up and fixed it in five minutes and the most spectacular thing of all is that everybody is talking about "DID YOU HEAR THE BANG OF THUNDER ON CALLE SORIA?"I did actually, because as it happens, I had just come in from the garden having unplugged the drain by the gate...standing in a foot of water. So I took off my sandals went back inside and said "Crikey, it's absolutely bucketing but I cleared the drain" I hadn't noticed that I was standing on the telephone cable...and peering through the shutters Anita style...when...BANG...and this mammoth white flash fills the room and knocks me over, fries the caja de prueba, goes sizzling through me, head to toe and leaves my middle toe wondering if it had fallen off (luckily not).
So as it happens I have another fifty emails waiting in the in box so I promise I will give you an update on my exciting yet agrophobic life soon. In fact I think I'll just copy and paste this everywhere so I don't have to explain my unoticed silence.
Talk to you soon. Mrs Floyd Ackworth.
P.S. Have you ever googled Mrs Floyd Ackworth? There's no mention of her anywhere. She must be really clever.
Was that the Mrs Floyd Ackworth that ran off with my wife?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't put it past her but she means well.
ReplyDeleteIt’s funny how you just get into someone’s blog and they disappear because the net is down. Must be a nightmare in places like Asia and the such.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a short story about not having the internet: http://eternalworrier.blogspot.com/2010/02/curb-crawling.html
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf, to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. ‘What! No soap?’ So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyalies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.
ReplyDeleteI trust that makes everything perfectly clear.
I used to have a record by Freda Payne. I expect she was related and had just had a leg off.
ReplyDeletetew:So it's you sitting outside in the car in the dark.
ReplyDeleteTim: Took me an hour and a half to find the refererence to that text, ha, ha. Better than a crossword. It actually sounds pretty good if you sing to "We all went to heaven in a little row boat".
Rog: It's possible Ivor Payne has a singing sister.