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Guardian All Ears 10th January

Shame we couldn't have put this nearer to Xmas - I'm sure everyody's forgotten about office parties et al by now...

I love the Kiss reference - they're hilarious - & (sshhh!) I know for a fact that they use dummy Marshall stacks on stage ie ones with no speakers inside. In a previous life I once spent an afternoon in Birmingham NEC setting the fake speaker cabinets up. How RAWK is that?

Article by Michael Holden

I was in a hostelry so dense with seasonal drunks it was actually easier to stay inside and put up with it than fight your way out. After a while the two people who had been standing within a centimetre of me were joined by a third who began by apologising for his late arrival.

Man 3: (acting like he’d been running) “Whoah, sorry about that, got held up at work.”

Man 2: (doubtful-not about to let him get off lightly) “Yeah? What happened then? We’ve been here nearly an hour.”

Man 1: (not to be ignored and suspicious of Man 1’s breathlessness) “I actually did run here, to try and be on time, to meet you.”

Man 3: “Well it was the office party, I couldn’t not go. I got away as fast as I could.”

Man 2: (forgiving) “You’ve done well in that case.”

Man 1: “How was it?”

Man 3: “Beyond belief. They cancelled the venue ‘cos of the budget cuts.”

Man 2: “So where was it?”

Man 1: (still amazed) “In the room where the vending machines are. It was just my department, but still. My boss came over and offered me a glass of wine, she’d put make up round her eye-sort of drawn a star-to mark the occasion.”

Man 2: “Like the bloke from Kiss?”

Man 1: “Exactly-the guitarist.”

Man 2: “Jesus.”

Man 1: The wine was bad too. In the end I just stuck some money in the machine and had a coffee.”

Man 3: (feeling comparatively well off enough to ignore the reality of their present surroundings, and the fact that he was standing on my foot) “Well, at least we’re here.”

Guardian All Ears 3rd January

A bit late posting this even though I drew it over 3 weeks ago

...don't librarians always look like this? Probably only in the Beano (a bit like park keepers & teachers with mortar boards)


(Article by Michael Holden)

Always a magnet for unorthodox characters the local library has lately seen an influx of new arrivals drawn in it seems by a combination of terrible weather and economic necessity. One such character was hovering around the computer section with a wild look in his eye, incensed it turned out at his failure to log onto the Internet and desperate for someone to blame.
Man: (waving a piece of paper at a passing librarian) “This doesn’t work. I can’t connect. It won’t allow me. I have to connect!”
Librarian: (calmly) “Have you used it before?”
Man: (irritated) “I use it all the time!”
Librarian: (less calm) “I don’t mean the Internet, I mean the computer.”
Man: (more irate) “I’ve used computers!”
Librarian: (stern) “Can I have that slip?”
Man: (handing it over with implied pessimism) “I’ve tried the key, it won’t work.”
Librarian: (typing it in) “It’s the wrong code. You don’t need the ‘p’”
Man: (ashamed suddenly) “I’ve…got two slips.”
The librarian gestured for the other slip like a border guard and the man gave it up as though he knew he’d been travelling on false papers all along.
Librarian: (after a dramatic pause) “One is for the printer.”
Man:  (broken now, ready to confess to anything) “I don’t need to do any printing.”
Librarian: (almost sinister) “I’ll hang onto that then, shall I?”
The librarian stood up and beckoned the man to sit down which he did.
Librarian: “I’ve logged you on, away you go.”
The man looked bashful and began half heartedly clicking at the mouse, perhaps looking for a site about shameful acts in public buildings, which I know from experience isn’t there.

All Ears 20th December

(thanks to Anthea for Geology based pun inspiration!)



Article by Michael Holden

Crossing the country again on another train I leant back my head and tried to imagine I was going somewhere new when I fell into earshot of the people behind me who seemed to be newly acquainted by occupation and in the process of discovering what else they might have in common.

Woman: “I was doing geology…”

Man: (interrupting, comically forceful) “Don’t talk to me!”

Woman: (laughing) “I know, one day you’re doing geology and the next thing you’re a physicist!”

Man: “So, you must have done the old ritual drink up when you were there?”

Woman (rueful, experienced): “It’s the second day that gets you…but I’ve had some good times on that pub crawl. You can get away without spending anything.”

Man: (conceding that not paying for drinks can make drinking seem more worthwhile): “Tell me about it! Pure carnage. But it was more geology the geophysics in the end. I was quite surprised.”

Woman: “Where did you end up?”

Man: “Outside Dublin, in a caravan.”

Woman: “You did well, we never went anywhere that far.”

Man: “Does the company fund trips?”

Woman: “ You’ve just missed out actually, we just did the Jurassic coast. At the other company we just used to stay in a hostel, but with the new one…well it wasn’t exactly luxury, but it’s posh, you had your own bathroom. Stuff like that doesn’t worry you at college but once you’re working you think, hang on, I wouldn’t mind my own bathroom. So, that was good.”

Man: “What were the people like?”

Woman: “A good mixture, Geo physics has a bigger spectrum of people than geology.”

Man: (as though affirming one of the great unassailable truths of existence) “Absolutely. Every time.”