Guardian All Ears 26th July

A PROPER Oompa Loompa (with added eye poke!)



I was about to overtake a man who was walking along the pavement in front of me when I caught wind of his mobile phone conversation and reduced speed to try and hear more of what he was saying. I made a swift diagnosis of what was going down and came to the assumption that he was talking to the mother of his kid, a woman he no longer lived with, and who had called him to ask why their daughter was in a bad mood.

Man: (wearily) "Well she got home from school and she was all upset, there doing Charlie and the Chocolate factory as the school play, they've cast her as an Oompa Loompa, she isn't happy…no of course not…she wanted to be a human."

He was silent for a minute while he listened to her response.

Man: "Yeah but it's more than that. She says the same kids that got the lead parts before have got the lead parts again…exactly…so I said well if you don't like something you have to speak up in life, I want her to know that this is how things are in life and this is what you do, you gotta speak up…she wasn't keen, she said they're teachers, you can't argue with the teachers…"

He listened for a moment and then his tone changed became harsher.

Man: "If there's a reason she doesn't know the difference between asking a question and having an argument, whose fault is that?"

There was evidently an emphatic response from the other end.

Man: "Ok, I'm sorry…well in the end I said to her, who do people remember from the story? It's Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Oompa Loompas, it's a big part…no, she wasn't buying it. She just wants to be a human."

Article by Michael Holden
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Fight!

"Don't be soft...have a fight!"

Threatening geezers

Having a general muckabout with some nice textures etc. - we call this research not procrastination!

Guardian All Ears 19th July

I like a floral dress me!

Mostly elevators are spaces where conversation ceases. In very tall buildings though where you can be in them for several minutes no such rules apply, as I discovered as I descended slowly from work one Friday night with an elderly couple who's weekend planning had gone awry.

Woman: (coyly)"How would you feel about…"

Man: (sensing danger)"C'mon, I'm holding my breath here."

Woman: "Andy coming to the house on Saturday?"

Man: "Andy who?"

Woman: "Andy, you know Andy. He just turned 65 and I haven't even acknowledged it."

Man: (scowling) "What do you mean' acknowledged it?' Who is this guy?"

Woman: "I mean I didn't even send him a card or call him up. I have to do something."

Man: (looking at the ceiling of the elevator as though it were the sky) "Well the weather doesn't look very congenial."

Woman: "He won't care about the weather. He's a very outdoors person."

Man :"Who is he again?"

Woman: (angry now sensing subterfuge) "Andy! My friend with the horses."

Man : "What horses?"

Woman "He used to run the polo stables in Uruguay, now he lives here."

Man: "Andy! Christ, he drinks, right?"

Woman: "He's an expert on wine."

Man: "He can come."

Woman: "I didn't say he was going to bring wine."

Man: "He can bring what he wants, I'm not going to be around."

Woman: "Where are you going?"

Man "There's a thing at the university."

Woman "Maybe we can all come?"

Man (staring hard at his reflection in the polished door) "Maybe."

Article by Michael Holden

Things I hate Pt 7

The devil's vegetable! Horrible big green lump of fuck all...& don't get me started on beetroot...

Things I hate Pt 6

What IS the point??!?

Guardian All Ears 28th June

The temptation to draw a 'Sting' prophylactic was very strong with this one!

I was having a haircut, feeling quite pleased that fortune had provided me with a barber who wasn’t inclined towards small talk when the customer in the next chair suddenly emerged from a hot towel treatment with all kinds of things he wanted to say.

Customer: (nodding towards the radio) “This is The Police, innit?”

Barber: “It is.”

Customer: “Roxanne?”

Barber: “Yup.”

Customer: “Don’t talk to me about this record!”

Barber: (declining to point out that he hadn’t been) “Oh?”

Customer: (animated by his sense of the imminent anecdote’s hilarity) “Fella at work, right? He’s made this Doris on a park bench, at lunch time, and he’s started going out on like, dates with her!”

Barber: Yeah?

Customer: “She called Roxanne! Or that’s what she told him anyway. So to wind him up we start playing this record-Roxanne-over and over again in the office. I tell you, by the end of it he was going nuts. Almost crying he was.”

Barber “Right”

Customer: (changing subject effortlessly) “You ever been to Muay Thai?”

Barber: “No. What is it?”

Customer: The old Thai boxing innit.”

Barber: “Right.”

Customer: “Blood all over the shop.”

Barber: “I’m gonna put another towel over you, ok?”

And like a caged bird, that proved sufficient to silence him.

Article by Michael Holden

Guardian All Ears 14th July

Whoops! Managed to scoop myself by publishing this weeks article with last week's image last week (if that makes sense!?!?!) - here's the article again with the correct image!

Of the many things to admire about New York City its inhabitant's
uninhibited facility for loud public conversations naturally falls
near the top of my list. The simplest excursion will likely lead you
though the edges of endless dramas. Why anybody watches television
here is beyond me. I was eating breakfast when the people across from
me launched into a complex business/wildlife analogy.
Man 1: "It's a tough organization, there are sharks on the bottom, and
Huck is like a great white-he'll eat a rubber tire, and he'll keep
coming at you- not so smart but he'll do anything."
Man 2: "Edna's like the good shark.
The other man pulled a face that said "What do you mean by 'good shark?'"
Man 2: (Trying to bail out) "I mean, the kind of shark that, you
know…not like a great white, the one that floats around. Helping
people…"
Man 1: (Frowning and laughing) "What kind of animal, is this? Where
did you hear about it?"
Man 2: "You know, I mean she's good, Edna."
Waitress (pouring coffee) "You want more coffee?"
Man 2 "What's that, a rhetorical question?"
Waitress: "Ooh, 'rhetorical question.' I'm impressed.'
Man 1: "You should be, he's trying to impress you."
Man 2: (staring into some form of hand held device and considering his
professional existence) "You know I won't even take my blackberry home
with me."
Man 1: "You've drawn a line in the sand."
Man 2 " I'm saying, 'this is where it stops.'"

Man 1 (looking past his friend toward the waitress)"I have so much
admiration for that."

Article by Michael Holden

'Support Your Local Butcher'

Meat! ...just do it!

I love those pictures of really enthusiastic animals who are about to be eaten - there's something extremely disturbing & wrong about that 'pig butcher' on the pork scratchings packet

Guardian All Ears 5th July

If the Guardian can do 'Organic Vegetable' wallcharts for kids with biblical names I figure the Telegraph readers might go a bundle on my Fox Hunting wallchart concept - or am I stereotyping?

I took a seat on a train and was struck by the aristocratic tone of the accents behind me-a rare sound in the modern phonetic landscape, and one that often merits closer investigation. I turned round to see a girl of around 16 sitting with her father, who must have been in his late fifties.

Girl: “You know Rachel?”

Father: (Peering over the top Britain’s only remaining broadsheet) “Hmmm?”

Girl: “She faints, all the time, she doesn’t mean to, but she can’t help it.”

Father: “Yes, I know the kind of thing.”

Girl: (Tugging at the armrest) “Does the seat move?”

Father: “I imagine so.”

Girl: (Struggling with the mechanism) “How though? How?”

Father: “Backwards and forwards, like a car.”

She tipped the seat back and spilt coffee on her jumper

Girl: “It’s stained!”

Father: “How many of those jumpers do you have?”

Girl: (As though this would never be sufficient) “Three.”

Father: (Perhaps considering this excessive) “Hmm”

Girl :(Dabbing at the stain) “I can’t tell what color it should be now, or whether it’s just damp.”

Father: “Well stop rubbing it, or you might find you lose the color completely.”

Girl: (Recovering) “Thanks for coming with me on the train.”

Father: (Animated by her gratitude “Well, we were quite fortunate. Your mother dropped me off at the station last week and I noticed they had some special offers. It worked out about £20m one way.”

Girl: “Is that good?”

Father “It is good.”

‘That’s better than good’, I thought to myself. ‘ It’s cost me three times that amount, you organized bastard.’ I was angry with myself really, but for the next few minutes it was all about them.

Article by Michael Holden