Category: comedy blog

Nicknames can be a cruel thing. 

I wasn’t wonderfully grateful to Gerry or Sylvia Anderson introducing the British public to Joe 90 the moment I entered my second year at secondary school!   If only I’d had his magic glasses – I could have suddenly sworn in Russian to the boys in the playground who likened me to the string puppet!

But it was the school holidays which were the most ignominious. 

My mum would insist on dragging me the length and breadth of Balham High Street, introducing me to numerous shopkeepers as her “little Mickey Mouse”.  When you’re ten or eleven, and you’re first contemplating asserting your masculinity, you really don’t want your mum referring to you as a cartoon rodent!

As if being mistaken for her younger brother wasn’t embarrassing enough, mum was stunning; she couldn’t add up or spell but had certain assets which were seemingly very attractive to the male shopkeepers of SW12. 

We’d visit various butchers, where the staff were excellent examples of the fayre they were selling, as their arms looked like giant hams.  

Because we rarely had much money, juggling her housekeeping would involve me adding up various items of meat; this was rewarded with the question: “What shall we have this Sunday, chicken or beef?  What do you think, my little Mickey Mouse?”  My career as a butcher was instantaneously and metaphorically chopped off in its prime.  

What was advertising’s gain was a piece of scrag end’s loss.

Like me, my dad was in advertising.

His speciality was industrial advertising; most of his clients’ ads appeared in magazines like What’s New in Hydrocarbon Processing – he would read it for its gardening tips.

He would often bring these magazines home – they often had riveting articles about heating, ventilating and riveting promoted on the front covers.

So, when I found a copy of Playboy in a dark cupboard in our Balham flat, I was very confused.

Had my dad won a bra advertising account? Was this research? Was one of the “contributors” going to feature in one of my dad’s ads?

I’d never before seen an ad which featured a naked woman holding up a tunnel support. 

My next question was why this magazine was in the cupboard and not lying on our coffee table alongside the Radio Times or Woman’s Own? Or my Beano?

Because, as a ten-year-old, I wanted to follow my dad into advertising, I thought I’d do my own research.

I was researching away when my mum found me in the darkened cupboard.

“You really shouldn’t be looking at magazines featuring ladies’ bare breasts, Michael.”

“Bare breasts, mother,” I replied, “I’d not noticed; I was reading the very well-written in-depth articles.”

She took the magazine away, probably to be used as a rolling pin later that evening on my dad, muttering, “no bleedin’ wonder you’re always having to go to the opticians!”

I think my maternal nan had lodgers; I think they were The Borrowers.

Every Sunday I’d walk, with my parents, down one flight of stairs in our Balham flats, to lunch at my nan’s.

Everything was laid out on the table, the roast was brought in, then the condiments: salt, pepper and, and this is where my suspicions were alerted, a very small bowl, full of mustard, plus an even smaller, exceptionally tiny, tiny spoon!

All through lunch I’d be looking around looking at cracks in the skirting board for any evidence of stunted human life. 

I assumed The Borrowers didn’t have Sunday lunch.  Was this part of the rental agreement with my nan – you can live here, but we want your spoons every Sunday?  Did the size of the spoon affect the taste of the mustard?  Did The Borrowers insist, as part of this bartering system, on it being Colman’s own brand and not some muck from Dijon?

My nan had an old crimplene house coat she’d wear permanently.  It had two pockets: one would store the sprouts I’d not eaten, having deflected my parents’ attention before whipping them off my plate; the other might have The Borrowers’ bedroom?

My paternal nan also had tiny spoons.  Whenever I’d make the journey to Marylebone to see her, dessert was always served with a tiny spoon with “LCC” on it.  Perhaps another side of The Borrowers family lived there – a family of kleptomaniacs who stole from local council offices?

I associate vinyl records with not washing.

During the early ‘70s, I would buy a record a week.  After a while, I’d collected a lot of singles – all primed to be played on my Dansette record player.  

One evening, in 1976, in my south London bedroom, my mates and I were all set to listen to If you leave me now; Combine Harvester; Dancing Queen; I love to love and When a child is born (I consider it healthy to have eclectic musical tastes) when my dad burst into the room like Kramer in Seinfeld.

He held – at arm’s length – one of my shirts.

At first, I was expecting a musical request from him – anything by Stan Kenton – but, no, his visit was more laundry-related.

I was 19 at the time and washing wasn’t a priority.  This, in front of half a dozen mates, was about to be realised.

My dad read a lot, a consequence of which was that he had an extensive vocabulary; this was matched only by his prolific knowledge of swear words.

My father shouted at a level which made the Labrador next door’s ears bleed.  He asked how, at my age, I’d not learned to wash my neck yet?  In between his effing and blinding I would apologise (“you’re always bleedin’ sorry, Michael” would punctuate every confession).  My mates thought this hysterically funny – someone’s dad swearing so profusely – I didn’t, but discovered that the “F” word could be used as verb, noun and adjective – and all in one sentence!

I’ve never not washed since that fateful evening and always carry around a damp flannel, Lifebuoy and pumice stone – just in case.

There are clearly more small motorbikes on the road than there were fifty-years ago.  Without buying a back copy of Motorcycle News from 1972 to prove it, I just know.

Many of these motorbike owners gather outside various food establishments, like something out of The Birds, waiting for their order to take something in a polystyrene box to someone very hungry.  Or very lazy.  Or both.   You half expect Tippi Hendren to tentatively come out of the local KFC, only to be cajoled by waiting bike riders randomly shouting out items of fast food.

These riders are mounting the 2022 equivalent of the Honda 50 (a bike many of us probably had to enable us to pass the bike test or appear in a very poor sequel to Quadrophenia).

Fifty-years ago these riders weren’t leaving McDonalds or Burger King, together with their produce, they were learning ‘The Knowledge’.   As a kid, when I got my first moped, I’d pretend I was doing it too – memorizing every Balham street in case my plans of going into advertising failed.  I imagined being able to talk loudly to people behind me about “if Mrs. Thatcher were alive, we’d have never got into this mess”.

Nowadays, if you randomly stopped a bike rider, they’d not be able to tell you the quickest route to Charing Cross Station, but they would be able to hand over a bucket of Bang Bang Chicken and chips.

Before Red Bull was invented, I had a great aunt who would send me on my way to work fueled by toast – with the entire contents of the local Tate & Lyle factory sprinkled on top of it.  I think she was in league with the local dentist.

I look back to my family’s answers to Fanny Craddock with horror and think of the things they got me to eat. 

My nan would cook for me each morning – as my mum often had one of her “heads”. She wasn’t content with frying eggs, bacon and sausage, her next thoughts would be: why not soak up the fat with a slice of bread? Because making toast involved a giant fork, a one-bar fire and a weeks’ wait; I could understand her reticence.

On Sundays, my nan would cook giant Yorkshire puddings so my dad could have some cold, with jam on, the next day – was Angel Delight a banned substance in early ‘60s SW17?

So, before my family were sponsored by Statins (surprise, surprise), the thing I remember being adored, like some demi-god, was dripping. The thing sounds like a medieval torture. The evidence would sit in some old cup (the more chipped, the better) – these days it would have a hazard sign on it; there certainly wasn’t a sell-by date to be seen!

I’m still surprised I wasn’t, as a youngster, offered it – with sugar liberally dusted over it, obviously!

Another crisp sandwich, vicar?