Alternative Medicine. Is there a doctor on the phone?

One has to take one’s fun where one can find it, these days, amidst all the doom and gloom.

As that rightly celebrated (and much missed) columnist Cassandra of the Daily Mirror noted, telling of the time when he enjoyed (literally) a telephone number differing by one digit from the local railway goods yard, and how he answered the inevitable wrong numbers and directed everything from bales of wire netting to crates of pigeons hither and yon across the Metropolis. Hilarious. Especially the pipe organ dispatched to Hackney Gasworks.

[“Camden Goods” – September 24th 1956, quoted in his book “Cassandra At His Finest and Funniest” – please, please, pleas,e if you can find a copy, do yourself a favour and read it !]

We have a similar scenario – I hesitate to call it a problem – in that our telephone number differs only by the last digit (a 9 instead of an 8) from our neighbourhood Doctor’s Surgery. Consequently we are subjected to a steady trickle of people banging on about their insanitary and embarrassing complaints, plus the statutory few with attitude, who steadfastly refuse to believe that they have a wrong number.

“Are you sure you’re not the Surgery?”

“Certain. We’re a booksellers/”

“So why did you answer the phone, then?”

It would of course be easy to give people the right number and suggest they dial again, but there are three arguments against this simple remedy.

Firstly, they’d never get through to the surgery. You could die waiting for them to answer the phone, especially if you’re a bit under the weather to start with.

Secondly, eight out of ten callers have minimal English. Judging by my ad hoc telephone survey, the Children of Allah must be a fairly unhealthy lot, compared to the indigenous population. Or maybe there’s just more of them than there are of us.

Thirdly, where’s the fun in putting them right? Or, for that matter, where’s the point? Doctor will in any event be far too busy to see them for at least ten days, and all he’ll do when they do finally get past the receptionist and enter the hallowed halls is to prescribe a few pills. Doctors don’t do doctoring any more, they are merely overpaid sales reps for the international drug companies, when they’re not being pushers of Nanny-State propaganda for our Stasi-inspired Government. I know this, because I went in recently with a touch of tennis elbow, and after waiting the best part of an hour got given a diet sheet and a ten minute lecture on the evils of smoking. I tore up the first, stuck a metaphorical two fingers up to the second, and bought some Deep Heat from the Chemist, which sorted me out in no time.

Anything more serious than a boil on the bum and you’’ have to go to the Walk-in Centre, so-called because it’s located bang in the centre of the traffic gridlock known as Coventry, and is invariably a two mile walk from the nearest available extortion racket masquerading as a council car park. Once you get there you’ll be kept waiting, sitting on a extra hard chair, for five or six hours, before being given a cursory examination by a twelve year old doctor who has been on duty without a break since a week ago last Thursday, and an appointment to see a consultant in about six months time. If you haven’t died in the meanwhile from the Bubonic Plague you caught in the waiting room.

So I decided that the best course for all concerned would be for me to diagnose and treat the various ailments of my callers myself. Dr Phil, the telephone medic, that’s me. “What seems to be the trouble?” is the watchword.

I work on the assumption that for real emergencies folk will know enough to dial 999 without my help. So if they’re talking to me they’re not exactly at death’s door. For anything that sounds as if it might be complicated I cut out the various middlemedics and give them an appointment at the hospital at some point in the distant future. With instructions to telephone the hospital and confirm a couple of weeks beforehand, because they might be busy that day.

Other than that, I find that the bulk of the supplicants can, like Caesar’s Gaul, be divided into three parts.

A large percentage of callers turn out to be the indigent and indolent parasites and shirkers amongst us, trying to pull a sickie.. I’ve no time for them. I simply say “Sorry – we don’t issue sick notes any more – we gave out so many that the Benefit Office won’t accept them any longer. Suggest you go back to work.”

For anything girly, such as morning sickness, period pains, or of an obstetric or gynaecological nature generally, I prescribe Friars Balsam, to be diluted in a large bowl of boiling water and the fragrant steam so generated inhaled. I have good medical precedent for this; when I was first married in about 1962 our local GP prescribed this to my wife, who went to him because she thought she might be pregnant. He habitually prescribed Friars Balsam for everything from a fractured skull to Athlete’s Foot, however, so we weren’t really surprised. However, she gave birth to a perfectly heathy son, so presumably it’s effective.

Most of the rest can be assuaged with a sharp intake of breath and “There’s a lot of it about – take two soluble aspirins twice a day and telephone again in a week to confirm that you’re still alive, so that we can keep our computer records up to date.” “Antibiotics? We don’t prescribe antibiotics any more, I’m afraid . Not since the Credit Crunch. That skinflint Gordon Brown put a stop to it. “ You owe me bigtime, Cameron!

Otherwise, I tend towards the Revenge Option, and prescribe medicaments that I had inflicted on me as a child; Witch Hazel or Arnica for aches and pains, Iodine (ouch!), half-a-pint of Cod Liver Oil for anybody that phones when I’m in the shower or is otherwise mildly annoying, a double dose of Dr Collis Brown’s Chlorodyne for anybody that really pisses me off, and so on. Does anybody remember Dr Potter’s Pink Pills for Pale People? I bet my local Chemist does, by now. I wish I could recall the name of that purple ointment they used to use for such things as Impetigo.

The odd thing is, that in spite of sending monthly invoices to the Health Minister, I don’t seem to have received any payment for my services to date. Which seeing as how I must have saved the NHS a small fortune, is a damned bad show, I reckon. No wonder the country is in such a mess.

One final thought. The phone number situation presumably works both ways, so be careful; if they’re as fed up of taking my calls as I am of taking theirs, you’ll ring ‘em up to order some nineteenth century French erotica, and receive a 16 page booklet on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and a ten minute lecture on contraception.

.....for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

I wrote this little Christmas story some years ago - but it still bears telling again.




I awarded myself a rare (albeit well-deserved) half-day off, last Thursday. I’d been to Towcester - there’s a monthly drive-in antique fair at the racecourse there, where usually I do very well. However on this occasion the December weather was against any form of serious commercial intercourse, the venue was awash and ankle-deep in mud; and The Trade (except for the few early birds who’d squelched around, snacked on such worms as were going cheap, and gone home to roost) had mostly given up buying for the tag-end of the year; so that effectively by about ten o’clock the fair had tailed off to a miserable miry nothing, and I’d taken all I was going to take. Which was more than enough to pay exes and my wages for the day, so I wasn’t bothered.

Usually under such circumstances, so as not to waste the day or the petrol, I’d probably go buying, but I too was infected with ‘end-of-term-itis’. I’d only one more fair before the New Year, and more than enough stock to cover it. So I thought soddit, packed and loaded the worldly goods, and drove the 30-odd miles south down the A5 to Dunstable with a view to spending some quality time with the most important people in my life, Robbie and Kirsty, my grandchildren. And of course Sara, my daughter and their mother.

As it happens, I got lucky. I’d no sooner breezed in the door than Sara informed me that I couldn’t have picked a better day - it was to be Robbie’s School Play that afternoon.
“And it’s been a long time since you’ve been to one of those” she reminded me archly. And rightly - it must have been a good 25 years since I’d proudly watched her doing an impression of a rather coy angel (as inapt a casting job as one could hope to find, believe me!) at her own Primary School’s annual thespian bash.

“Great!” I said, and meant it. “What sort of a play is it? The statutory Nativity job? So what’s Robbie playing? Joseph? A Wise Man? The Innkeeper?”

“Nah” said Sara, deadpan. “A burglar. He’s dead chuffed because it’s not a speaking part, and so he doesn’t have to learn any lines.”

I couldn’t decide whether to be concerned at Robbie’s apparent lack of ambition (uncharacteristic, in our family) or delighted at his innate distaste for honest toil. (That’sa Ma Boy!) But then it occurred to me that in any account of the Nativity that I’d ever read, including those of Ss Matthew, Mark, Luke and the other bloke, the burgling classes didn’t exactly figure in the dramatis personae. What was he going to do? Grab the Gold? Filch the Frankincense? Mug the Magi for the Myrrh? Weird. This was obviously going to be one of those avante garde productions. Committee of trendy primary school pedagogues rewrites the Gospels ‘to make them more accessible to underprivileged minorities’ - you know the sort of thing.
What I couldn’t know was that this was to turn out (whether by design or default I’m not sure, but it makes little difference) to be The Nativity Story as Low Comedy. Carry On and Follow That Star. Wise Men Behaving Badly. Have it Away In A Manger.

But we’ll come to that in a bit. First things first. In The Beginning, there was The Cake.

And it came to pass that Phil the junkdealer journeyeth a days journey to the Land of Beds (which ain’t anything like as interesting as it sounds, O ye Scribes and Pharisees, perverts) and findeth himself even unto the firmament of a crowded School Hall, overheated like as to the domain of Lucifer the Prince of Darkness himself. Yea, I say unto you, even unto the front stalls did he journey, where he plonketh him on a chair several sizes too small, and which accommodateth not both of his capacious buttocks at once. And Phil the Junkdealer did cry unto the Lord, saying thus: O Lord God of junkdealers help this thy servant to bear this pain with which in thy wisdom thou hast scourged him due to this pathetic little chair, and more to the point help thy servant to get the fuck up again when the time cometh, so that his poor old back seizeth not up. And then Phil the Junkdealer did wax philosophical, as is the manner of his kind, and did think unto himself, “Do we not these days pamper something rotten the children of our loins that we have begatted - we never had central heating at school when I was a lad, and in the winter, O ye children of Israel, we froze our very cods off, for we were arrayed only in T shirts and short trousers, I kid ye not! And Brethren, verily I say unto you - heed the words of Phil the junkdealer - it did us no bloody harm! But it surpriseth me not in hindsight that our schoolmasters did look oft upon the wine when it was red. Thus keepeth they the cold out of their ancient bones.”

Here endeth the first lesson.

So I’m sitting there, minding my own business, chatting to Sara and to Claire, her young baby-sitter, waiting for the off. Suddenly I’m aware of this strident faux-gentille Lynda Snell kind of voice, coming from behind me, getting gradually closer, slicing through the crowd’s conversational white-noise like a surgeon’s knife parting compliant flesh.

“Do you want to guess the weight of the cake? Would anybody like to guess the weight of the cake? Are you going to have a go at guessing.............” and so on, approaching ever nearer. Eventually she reaches us. “Would you like to guess the weight of this cake?”

I should confess at this point that I’d had a couple of large liquid Winter Warmers when I got to Sara’s, and was by now feeling no pain. And bossy wannabee-county-set women with loud voices get right up my nose, even stone cold sober. So. Let’s have a laugh, I thought, and (with some difficulty) stood up. In my experience the only way to deal with that type of person is from a great height. Sitting in a kid-size chair with her towering over me would have been a fatal handicap in the witty repartee stakes.

“Surely by now you must have a fair idea of the weight of that cake. “ Coming the innocent.

“Of course we know the weight of the cake.” Tetchy. Suddenly wary. She scents danger. Reacts like an alarmed Meerkat. And looks a bit like one, come to think, but without all that built-in cutesy stuff.

“So why are you going around asking everybody, then?" Butter wouldn’t melt.

Her face freezes into a mask. She’s fairly sure I’m taking the piss something rotten, but has this vague niggle at the back of her mind that I might just be mentally retarded, and thus to be heavily indulged as a matter of trendy political correctness. Besides, all her peers are watching. Not the time or place to take chances. She decides to play it straight. And patronise, patronise, patronise.

“It’s a competition, dear. You have to guess the weight of this lovely cake, you see.”

Metaphorically patting me on the head.

“Oh goody! I Love competitions.” Thinking ‘ Ooops, James! You’ve picked the only person in the whole of Bedfordshire who’s had a humourectomy.’ Never mind. n too deep now. Carry on. “How do you tell who wins?”

“ThePersonWhoGuessesTheCorrectWeightOfTheCakeWins!!” Teeth clenched. Words gabbled. Expletives deleted. Eyes desperately hunting around the hall for a quick escape route. Voice rising in pitch. “ItsFiftyPeeAGuess!!!”

I unsheath my secret weapon; my trusty Gateau-blaster; and let her have it, right between the eyes.

“So what’s the prize, then, luv? What do I win?”

Panic. You can see it in her eyes. Omigod, I’ve got a weirdo. (She’s the one shoving unsolicited patisserie under the noses of innocent strangers, demanding that they deduce the avoirdupois thereof, and she reckons that I’m a weirdo.)

Cool was rapidly going out of the window. “YOU WIN THE CAKE !!!” Pejoratives (fool! idiot! arsehole! dickhead!) while physically left unexpressed, couldn’t have been clearer if she’d shouted them.

By this time, we had quite an audience. The parents in the seats around us were agog. Sara was studiously looking the other way, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. She’s been out with her Dad before, and knows what I’m like. Young Claire, who I learned later indulges in a touch of babysitting for the Cake-Peddler’s kids as well as for Sara’s two, was shrinking into her seat and trying to hide under her own right armpit. Nothing to do with me, missus, honest. Never seen ‘im before. True. Prior to that day, she hadn’t.

What neither of them know is that things could have gotten a lot worse. But at this point it occurred to me that Lady Cake was only trying to do her bit towards raising money, presumably for the children, and that perhaps I was being a little unkind. Besides, I’d only meant to have a joke with her, not to start WW3. I decided to let the silly humourless cow off the hook. Had I realised then what I learned from Sara later, that she was the local Gauleiter/busybody/do-gooder/into-everything/takes herself veddy veddy seriously/control freak, I wouldn’t have. It was a damned close-run thing, regardless. What I came within a micron of saying was:
“But I don’t actually eat cake! Tellyerwhat - I don’t s’pose you’ve got a leg of lamb about your person that I could guess the weight of instead? Or a chicken or two? Some Stilton maybe? A couple of pounds of mince? Nah - silly me -there wouldn’t be a lot of point your going around saying ‘can you guess the weight of this two pounds of mince?’ It’d be like Alice’s caucus race - everybody would win a prize except the Irish couple in the back row, and we’d end up with one small meatball each. Oh - and by the way - where do all the fifty pees go? To pay for the cake, or what.................?”

.........But all this merry badinage died still-born. I relented, confirmed with her that the requisite weight specifications included the box and the cakestand, (necessary information for proper evaluation of the project, I’d have thought, but delivered to me in a gravel-voiced venomous monosyllable as if I had no right to ask) hefted the confection, dropped the half-a-quid into her outstretched hand, refrained from thanking her for a lovely weekend (coward), told her the weight, and to deliver the cake to Sara when I won it, (I haven’t heard anything yet - I must get my secretary to ring her secretary) and let her go on her way, mightily relieved, and with her amour propre only slightly shattered into a mere million pieces. She’ll never know how lucky she was.

By this time the main event was due, and the players were under starters orders. The Chorus, assorted pre-pubescents of either gender, filed in wearing their best uniforms and sat down on benches beside the empty stage. The music-teacher started to give the piano some wellie. The lights dimmed. The Headmistress, (at least I presume it was she) entered centre stage in the guise (or so I thought until she started to speak) of Prologue. But no - her role was that of Apologia, Muse of Cockup. She coyly pointed out that they’d had a lot of problems lately, half the kids had been ill, some of the teachers likewise, most of them had had no time to learn their lines in between their normal schoolwork, and that the Prompter would thus be running red-hot. And so on, etcetera, blahdiblah. But that she was sure that we’d enjoy the play anyway, although would we kindly not get carried away, and please to hold back on the clapping until the end. This edict presumably aimed at specific parents who might go noisily bananas at the first sight of their own little treasures in Thespian mode, thus interfering with the overall artistic flow.

Such a resigned and contrite soft-sell rather set the tone for the afternoon, as far as I was concerned. What with her speech and the cake-saga, I was in no mood to take things seriously. There sprung to mind unbidden a picture of Terry Hands emerging onto the stage at the National before the first night of King Lear, apologising that the RSC hadn’t been able to learn its lines properly in between visits to the dole office to collect its Giros, that the scenery wasn’t finished because the stagehands had been on the piss all week, that the Assistant Director was out of it on illegal substances, that the actors who’d contracted to play Lear and Gloucester had fallen in lerve and had gorn orf to a villa in Tuscany holding hands, and that their understudies, having been given a mere ten minutes to learn their parts, could only be expected to do their best. Warning us, in effect, that the play would probably turn out to be unmitigated crap. But that he felt sure we’d love it regardless, because the writing was quite good, although would we kindly refrain from breaking up the theatre in our enthusiasm, at least until the Luvvies had had time to scarper at the end of the performance.

We gave Apologia the clap she so richly deserved, and the show got under way. I’m sure you know the story. Chippy meets girl/ Girl meets angel/ Girl pudding club/ Says angel’s fault/ Likely story/ King Herod skint, stamps foot/ All shekels to Inland Revenue PDQ/ Exeunt omnes Bethlehemwards where tax office/ Girl about to drop baby/ Chippy buys donkey for journey/ Hit Bethlehem/ Travelodge full/ No room at wossname/ Don’t care if she carrying sodding Messiah no rooms round here Christmas Week dickhead/ Pssst Wanna renta stable cheap?/ Only one cow sitting tenant/ Any port in storm/ Girl has baby boy/ 9lb 7oz inc. VAT, delivery, number plates and halo/ Dead ringer for 1950s Chad Valley dolly/ Name Jesus after nice waiter parents met Benidorm/ Three Wise men pitch up from points east/ Follow that star, cabbie/ Herod’s? Sorry guv, thought you said Harrods/ Where new King?/ Prezzies for same/ Herod no prezzies, right pissed off/ Shepherds watched their flocks/ Let’s start a religion, guys/ O Come All Ye Faithful/ Order Popemobile, sharpish.

Something like that.

The kids, let me tell you, were brilliant. But every single one of them was a comedian manque, from the ones who couldn’t wait to get their bit done, to gabble their allotted portion and so to escape back into safe obscurity, to the real stars of the show, the Innkeeper and the Camel, who were probably with hindsight meant to be funny. But consciously or subconsciously, they were all playing it for laughs. So that after about ten minutes I was in quiet hysterics. Which is when they had the marketplace scene, where Joseph buys the donkey. The transaction, according to the innocents of Lark Rise Junior School, Dunstable, went something like this:-

“I’d like to buy your donkey. How much is it?”

“A tenner, sir”

“Fine - here’s the money” (hands over some coin and leads beast of burden away)

Now you should know that in a real-life transaction of this importance between a Jewish Carpenter and an equally Jewish market trader and Donkey-Dealer, the commercial process wouldn’t have been quite so neat and tidy. For openers, Joseph would never have been allowed to buy the donkey on his own. This would have been Family Business, and his entire extended family would have gone with him. There’d have been his Bubbeh, his Grandmother, who saw donkeys not so much as transport as pot-roast - many a time in the old days had they had to sacrifice a donkey or two to feed the kids when things got a bit iffy in the Wilderness and they couldn’t face any more Manna. “Not Kosher, such a donkey, but in times of famine - feh! who cares!” She’d have spent hours poking the poor beast in the brisket, checking for quality, mumbling recipes and wondering if the Nazareth Tescos were giving extra loyalty points on carrots and onions. His mother would also have come along - in her younger unmarried days she’d been on a couple of dates with the donkey-salesman; she might even have married him if she thought he could have held down a proper job, but by now she knew him for what he was; she didn’t take any nonsense from him then, and wasn’t going to now. He stood no chance, poor sod.

There’d have been Poppa, tagging reluctantly along behind her, under orders. He was a shepherd by trade, and thus knew all there was to know about donkeys. “Neh, our lad - tha don’t want yon ass - clapped out, is yon ass - when tha’s been around beasts and sooch so long as I ‘ave tha knows a booggered ass when tha sees un!” His sister, Joseph’s Aunt Sadie, would be there as of right, to give him moral support, “so who’d vant a donkey thet colour already - it von’t go mit anytink” along with her husband Leonard, who had once seriously considered buying the Galilee Fatted Calf Ribs-U-Like franchise in partnership with his brother Morrie (before Morrie’s wife Miriam put the mockers on the deal by blowing the money on a new swimming pool) and was thus considered by all to be an expert both in matters of commerce and of livestock.

Mary’s family would also have expected to be consulted. All of ‘em. They’d have turned up in droves. Her mother, for starters, who didn’t for one moment fall for all that Angel-of-the-Lord folderol and reckoned that that schnorrer Joseph had been in pre-marital legover mode with her little girl; and while she was resigned to the realities, (after weeks of hysterics, meaningful silences, threatened suicides, and enough emotional blackmail to garner her a stock of prime scoring-points which would last her the rest of her days) she still felt that a mere carpenter and his family were beneath her. After all - her Uncle Solly may-his-dear-soul-rest-in-peace had been an Articled Scribe and a sidesman at the local synagogue, so they were Professional People, not In Trade like those common Carpenters. Consequently, she was going to contradict on principle every utterance, and countermand every decision, especially those of Joseph’s mother, who she both hated (for bringing her daughter’s seducer into the world) and was jealous of (because she’d had to shell out fortunes to some cowboy Lebanese builders for her new kitchen, whereas Joseph had built his mother a far more stylish one the following month for free.) She’d have also roped in her smartass brother, Uncle Hymie the fixer, who had a friend whose cousin knew a bloke whose wife’s uncle’s boss used to drink with a chap who was knocking off this girl who worked as a part time abacus operator for an outfit whose Sales Manager played golf with the Chief Executive of the firm that was the market leader, donkeywise, (then called Asses’R’Us but now known as Virgin Beasts of Burden, although it’s unclear whether or not this is in honour of the Madonna) and who could almost certainly “get wholesale if thet putz of a son-in-law of mine can vait a couple veeks....”

And so on. What with all this internecine interference, debate, argument, heated discussion and open warfare, allowing time for the asking price to have been chiselled down, sestercius by agonising sestercius, and allowing for time out during the negotiations to ‘let that momser of an ass-peddler sweat,’ it would have taken for ever to buy that beast! Before shekels and donkey changed hands the bloody animal would have died of old age, Mary would have been on HRT, and Jesus would have been shaving and going out with girls. But back to the play.

The story proceeded as per; King Herod was borne on, proudly ensconced on his throne, surrounded by his attendants (and carrying for some unexplained reason what looked like a dish of sprouts); the Nazareans were ordered to Bethlehem; the Three Kings were introduced; (and I betcha Robbie’s is the only primary school within 50 miles of the metropolis, who when faced with the need for a kid to play an African potentate, couldn’t find an ethnically suitable candidate and had to make do with a white one with a Bedfordshire accent. “Ay’m Melchier an’ Ay come from Afrik’er wiv gold ferder noo King” as opposed to “Ah’m Melchior, and Ah komm from Effreekah wid’ de Gold for de niew Kung”).

It was at this point that things started to get seeeriously surreal.

While I’m happy to accept the theory that the Welsh are the Lost Tribe of Israel, I’ve hunted through the King James Bible (the only one that I find readable; all the modern translations sound like they were cobbled together by the same linguistic hooligan who churned out the Customs & Excise guide to VAT) and can’t find, in the Nativity story or anywhere else, mention of a little Welsh girl called Megan. Or for that matter, her camel, known to his intimates (the staff and pupils of Lark Rise School) as Meredith. But maybe Lark Rise School is using a later interpretation of the Holy Scriptures than I have access to, so let’s not carp or cavil. Either way - these two voyagers from the Valleys seemed to have become a pivotal part of the Nativity Story.
Young Megan was a pretty child, sort of a cross between Shirley Temple and Alice in Wonderland, with a pleasant voice, and a good delivery. No gabbling here. And (her relevance to the storyline apart) no controversy, either - it was Meredith the Camel that was remarkable, not Megan.

Whoever made Meredith’s costume must have once heard someone describe a camel, but had patently never seen one. Or even a picture of one. Because, given acres of vaguely camel-coloured fabric and hours of painstaking stitchery, when the end product emerged, it didn’t turn out as a camel at all. It was a Brontosaurus. And as if this wasn’t hilarious enough, design dictated that it should be a two-seater Brontosaurus, in the manner of a pantomime horse; they’d cast a kid at each end, as it were. The trouble was that the drivers of this dun dinosaur had developed a major communications problem. Somehow the Back Legs didn’t seem to be interfacing with the Front Legs, and each end was acting independently of the other. So the hapless creature was staggering around the stage like it was pissed out of its pea-sized brain, audibly arguing with itself, and the puzzled audience was presented not with an indigenous and benignly stupid camel that the traditional story might reasonably have demanded, but with a ratarsed Welsh Brontosaurus with Attitude.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the beast’s head, due to a minor design fault, kept coming unput, falling forwards and closing up the small but vital spyhole in the creature’s neck; with the result that Front Legs couldn’t see where he was going; worse, his arms were hidden and restrained inside his costume and he had nothing to push his drooping bonce back up with; the bodily contortions he essayed in order to achieve some form of comfortable stasis headwise had to be seen to be believed. Meanwhile Back Legs, who was bent double, in the dark, and with such a view as he enjoyed limited by and to the bum belonging to Front Legs, not a vista normally reckoned to enhance one’s sense of direction, had by now no idea at all where he was at. His solution to this disorientation problem was to follow exactly what Front Legs was doing, or rather what he guessed Front Legs was doing; which would have been fine, except that his guesses weren’t always accurate, (unsurprisingly, considering Front Leg’s impromptu unrehearsed head-straightening convolutions) and his reactions weren’t exactly fast, so it was a bit like one of those satellite phone calls to New Zealand or wherever where there is both interference on the line and a time delay between transmission and reception; so that the Party of the First Part finds the Party of the Second Part answering the question before last, and vice versa, and if they’re going to make any sense at all out of the proceedings they both have to remember what happened ten minutes ago, assuming they heard it correctly in the first place what with the static. Tricky.

Anyway - Megan and Meredith did their statutory little song-and-dance number; I presume it was meant to be in unison, or at least in time, but what with one thing and another it came out as a sort of disharmonious trinity, with each participant employing a different beat and a different script. I’ve never seen anything quite so funny in my life. I hope it was intentional.

Anyhow - back to the story. Their dancing done, M and M were then firmly put in their place by the Reigning Classes when they mooted a joint Star-Following expedition, and so opted to Follow the aforesaid Heavenly Body off their own bats.

Who (the bats, I mean) bring us neatly to the next bit. Night. O celebrated and eponymous Night. Silent same; Holy same. That Night. The Night the Shepherds Washed Their Socks by. They (the shepherds) were All Seated On The Ground as the song and the script dictates; the Star had conveniently stopped zooming around the firmament so that everybody could stop Following it and get some much-needed kip in, the Angel of the Lord Came Down, pulled rank, and woke everybody up again, and Glory Shone Around for a bit. These things are traditional, they tell me. Which presumably means that by next year Lord Protector Blair and his New Meddle Army will have banned them outright. New Labour, New Liturgy. God rest ye merry, Mandelson.

Meanwhile Megan was sleeping with her camelosaurus, (funny people, the Welsh) the three kings were sleeping with each other, (Orientals - nuff said) Mary was sleeping with her baby, Joseph presumably got lucky with the donkey, and we were presented with A Tableau.

Which was obviously designed, or at least intended, to represent the aforementioned Night. But what I couldn’t work out, apart from the granting of some gainful employment to some of the kids that weren’t otherwise engaged in the drama, was why they needed it, for it had absolutely no relevance to the story. It was clearly aimed to represent a forest (the Judaean desert is after all renowned worldwide for its lush forestry) so a dozen or so kids came in dressed up as trees, which involved a certain amount of foliage draped round their persons, footwear like oversized wellies covered in bark, and outstretched arms. Once they’d got set up, there appeared divers others, kitted out as badgers, foxes, owls, rabbits, bats, deer, various assorted rodents, and other typically indigenous Levantine nocturnal fauna. It looked more like a wood somewhere vaguely Dorking way, or a traditionally-minded Shakespearean Director’s conception of the Forest of Arden, than an Eastern Mediterranean oasis. Maybe we’ve swopped plays in mid stream, I thought. Maybe Titania, Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Bottom, Snout, Quince & Co. are going to come on any minute and do their thing. But no such luck. Or such Puck. This wasn’t Midsummer Night, but Silent Ditto.

So, moving right along, the next participants to appear were a trio of Burglars. I’d been rather waiting for them, because as I said earlier, one was played by my grandson Robbie, who was only on stage for ten seconds, but let me tell you - he was brilliant. Stole the show, he did. definitely deserves an Oscar, the lad..... [ continues interminably in Proud Grandfather mode until everybody’s eyes glaze over...........] How could one tell that they were burglars? They wore masks, that’s how. Although not the statutory striped jerseys and the sacks marked ‘SWAG’, unfortunately. Fire the director, say I, and blame this significant departure from tradition on the Government’s education cuts. Neither did they commit any noticeable burgling; they were just there, it seemed, as typical ‘creatures of the night,’ along with the badgers etcetera. For all the relevance they had to the proceedings, the scriptwriters might as well have slung a few rapists, serial killers and parkers on double yellow lines into the melting-pot (although as I’m not sure of the correct symbolic uniform for any of these offenders, for all I know they may well have done.) Anyway - they all stood there for a minute or so being a Night, and then called it a night and legged it into the wings. The lights came up, and Lo! Morning has Broken. Christmas Day in the Morning, even. Time for The Presents.

Cut to the Stable. Joseph’s busy grooming the donkey. (Another kid-each-end job this, but better behaved and better co-ordinated than the camel.) Mary’s busy giving the baby Jesus a gobful of - well, she should have been, but this particular BVM couldn’t be more than about nine years old, and hadn’t grown any yet, so use your imagination. Jesus looks singularly unconcerned at this lack of mammary nourishment, but then why should he care - he’s a plastic dolly.

The Three Kings tip up. Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh are formally transferred to their new owners. Mary thanks them profusely, but the look on her face says “This is all well and good, but I’d far rather have a couple of Baby-Gros and some Pampers.” Enter the shepherds, stage right. Their gifts consist of a carpet (secondhand), a coat (Oxfam) and a lamb (newborn). Which presumably will need bottle-feeding shortly, along with the baby. Let’s hope somebody pitches up soon with the bottle, some formula, some Milton, and a few spare teats.

Megan arrives, with Meredith staggering along amiably drunk in her wake. “What have I, a poor orphan, got that I can give the Newborn King” she asks, half to herself, half to us. Sure and what indeed? the Irish couple in the back row are thinking. The brontosaurus, who’s seen the script, desperately tries to look invisible. And fails, miserably. It’s the long trek back to Nazareth for you, boyo.

Megan, having finally got shot of her familiar, turns into Goody-Twoshoes. And turns to the audience.

“And what would You give the Baby Jesus”, she trills.

This is the cue for the rest of the school to file up onto the stage, each bearing his or her gift (or rather a pictorial representation of same - for practical reasons the real things might have been a tad awkward to handle.)

“I’ll give him my rabbits.”
“I’ll give him my hamster.
“I’ll give him some goldfish.”
“He’d love my pony.”
“I’ve got a white rat.”
“Here’s my dog?
“My cat’s just had kittens”
“How about a jerbil or nine..............”

and so on etcetera, through about thirty of the little dears, each with his own particular species. You’ll notice that none of them was parting with anything significant, like a Spice Girls poster or a Nintendo game.

You should remember, this is a fairly small stable. Ensconced in it by now are two new parents, one new baby, three kings, their attendants, a coachload of shepherds with (presumably) their flocks; thirty-odd schoolchildren from 2000 years in the future, a two-part donkey, a lamb, a litter of kittens, a prodigious quantity of other assorted household pets and farm animals of all shapes and sizes, a pony, the cow whose nice peaceful pad this was before it got hijacked and turned into a refugee camp; the Innkeeper, who’s popped in to see what all the noise is about, his family, who have no intention of missing out on anything, a few chickens, Megan the Cambrian Pollyanna, a brontosaurus from Tiger Bay with a drink problem, two turtle-doves, and a Partridge in a pear tree. It must have been quite a party.

That was about it, really. They all took their bows, we applauded vociferously, an ovation which they all truly deserved, and we went home. An entertainment that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. I haven’t laughed so much in years. And if this has sounded like I’m knocking what must have taken considerable dedication, time and planning, just to be clever-clever, I’m not. I loved every minute of it.

It was only later that I got to thinking (the Theatre does this to me - I get lost in the magic and start confusing it with reality) of what poor old Joe might have said to his wife when everybody had left. and he’d finished mucking out the stable and feeding the livestock.
“Listen, darlin. By you this little bugger may be a king, but that don’t mean we’ve won the Lottery an’ we’re made a’ money. ‘Erod’s already nicked the gold - sent ‘is enforcer round afore you can say knife, ‘e did. Name of Gordon. Weaselly little shit. Unearned income, ‘e said. Taxed at 100 pee in the Shekel, innit. Payin’ for a Carin’ Society or some such bollocks. Sumberdy, probly that foreign bird, ‘as ‘alf-inched yer noo perfume; the bloody donkey’s eaten the Myrrh, give itself a narsty case of the squits, we’ve got enough bleedin’ livestock to start a zoo, ‘cep we can’t afford to feed the buggers, let alone find the money for the soddin’ vet’s bills or to get ‘em all back ‘ome, and most of the sods ain’t even edible in emergencies. The goldfishes’ polythene bag’s leakin all over the poxy gerbils, the rabbits are at it already, the cow’s drivin’ itself mad cause it reckons it’s got BSE, and the camel’s got the ‘ump, got ‘imself pissed as a fart and is doin’ dinosaur impressions. An’ I’m fed up to the back teef wiv shovellin’ shit. So do us a favour, willya. Next time you run inter an angel, keep yer bleedin’ legs shut, there ‘s a good girl!
Mindjew - one bitter good news - that newspaper geezer. Murdoch? Maxwell? Summink like that. Matthew, thassit. Sed ‘e might call round termorrer. Might buy our story, ‘e sez. The Noo Testament, ‘e reckons ‘e works for. Neverrerdovit. Must be one of them arty-farty Sundy papers..................

Marketing Revisited



There is, out there, a whole Industry-full of Marketing Zombies who have programmed into their victims the assumption that the rest of the population (you and me, folks) are gibbering morons, totally incapable of thinking for themselves, and that everything and anything, if they are to stand any chance at all of flogging it to us. has to be served as a pre-digested pap. Add to this a succession of Governmental nannies who are determined to legislate all the risk out of everything for everybody, and the simplest transaction ends up wrapped in more verbiage than a VAT guide, and festooned with more caveats than a Trade Union policy document.

Take packaging. Brushing aside the more obvious annoyances in that (for instance) if you have something that needs a battery, you won’t be able to buy a pack of less than two, but if it takes two, or worse, four, you’ll find that in that size they only come in threes. There’s also the physical problem, in that if the movers and shakers in the packaging industry really had our interests at heart, they’d design their product so that we don’t need a JCB to force our way into it.

But why should they address these genuine annoyances, when they’re on a far more vital mission. The main function of packaging is not to protect the product, or even, as often appears, to drive the consumer doolally. It is to act as the carrier of a comprehensive Manufacturers Cover-Your-Arse document, usually including:

· A list of ingredients (often, and rightly, a legal requirement, but you’d need to be a Regius Professor of Chemistry to grasp the finer (and thus the more salient) points.) And why can’t they call water “water” rather than the bland faux-impressive “aqua”?

· A chart, in the case of comestibles, giving details of calories and stuff (ditto Professor – but Physics.)

· Various disclaimers covering recycled materials. ‘All our packaging is made from secondhand loo paper’ ‘This can was made from replenishable trees.’ ‘Our bottles are 100% biodegradable.’

· More disclaimers, mostly concerning animal testing, and touching on Whales, Dolphins and other denizens of the deep perceived to be either cute or intelligent. And Pandas, for some reason. But if Medical Research found a use for, say, cockroaches, you wouldn’t hear a peep out of the Animal Rights nutters. Maybe I ought to set up a Leech Liberation Fund. Bloodsuckers Anonymous.

· Genetic purity or the lack of same. But isn’t the familiar hybrid Tomato a genetically modified food?

· Peanuts. (I’ve forgotten – am I supposed to be for or against peanuts?)

· Disposal of the used product and/or packaging. If it’s any shape other than flat, and any part of it is made of metal, don’t sling it on the fire. If it’s shaped like a pineapple and made of metal, just pull the little pin out. That’ll dispose of it nicely. And of course eschewing the local Bottle Bank, or worse, putting the wrong colour bottles into the wrong compartment thereof, is a black cap long drop sharp jerk and into the quicklime job.

· A use-by date (understandable for perishable foods, but can somebody out there tell me why I need a use-by date on a bottle of blue-black ink or a packet of aspirin?)

· A hot line, in case you have a problem. And if you try to ring it, you sure will have a problem. It’ll take you three hours to get through while your call is held in a queue and some snotty voice reminds you of that fact every thirty seconds whilst begging you not to hang up because they value your custom; half-an-hour punching digits, star buttons and hashes into your handset at the behest of a disembodied vaguely female recording; and then you’ll then be kept hanging on at a premium rate quid-a-minute listening to the most expensive and least accomplished performance of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik you’ve ever heard, while the tracey on the other end of the phone files her nails and rabbits to her girlfriend, before informing you that she can’t possibly help you with your problem, no matter what it is, and that you should ring Head Office in Manchester (and thus go through the whole rigmarole again.) Enjoy.

· Pronouncements from Brussels on the subject of how bad for you the product you’re buying is. Does being admonished with every packet that Smoking Is A Short Cut To Hell really inhibit the sale of one single solitary fag? Of course it doesn’t!

· And last but not least, a List Of Instructions. In seven languages, more often than not.

I can understand anyone needing a manual to operate a computer, or a video, or a Hi-fi system – I occasionally need one myself, which is why I get so infuriated when I find that the aide-toi for the appliance in question has been written by a robot, and a Japanese robot, at that, and thus is totally incomprehensible. One knows what each individual word ought to mean, but they don’t seem to be strung together in any recognisable pattern.

But forget the techno-goodies for a moment. Let’s take the most simple household products. In fact, let’s do just that. I’ll go round the house and pick a few real examples at random. Bear with me.

Right. Aerosol can of Sainsbury’s Shaving Foam. Regular, if that makes any difference. ‘Directions’, it says on the back.

‘Wash face and leave skin wet.’ Believe it or not, girls, us blokes just don’t need to be told that a shave is more effective and more comfortable if one starts with a wet phizog.

‘Shake can before use’. Valid enough, except can you honestly say that you know anybody who doesn’t shake an aerosol before pressing the tit?

‘Hold container upright’. Puhleeeze!

‘Press button gently to release a small amount of foam onto fingertips’ They’re slipping up, here. They forgot to tell us to locate said fingertips (presumably those attached to the hand that isn’t grimly holding the container upright as per) within foam-squirting distance of the nozzle. You could be in trouble, here. So could the cat, if he’s anything like mine – rubbing himself around my ankles when I’m shaving of a morning.

‘Smooth evenly onto face’ (they obviously haven’t seen my face – evenly is impossible) ’and shave.’ I’m surprised that they don’t tell me at this point to be sure and use a blade rather than an electric razor.

Rinse with water. As I tend not to keep the gin in the bathroom, water is exactly what I normally use for rinsing purposes. Am I alone in this?

Example 2. The other extreme. A thing of Araldite Rapid. Here, and rightly, they give simple advice re children, skin, eyes, and other damageable and non-replaceable elements. So far, so good, although they don’t actually warn you against spreading the stuff on the loo seat.

But then they go into orbit.

WARNING. Reaction product. Bisphenol A (epichlorhydrin); epoxy resin (number average molecular weight s700. 1, 4-butanedial diglycidyl ether N(3-dimethylaminopropy)0-1, 3-propylenediamine. (The Author will not be held responsible for any errors or omissions in the above transcript.)

Warning? Who are they warning? And against what? Like the poor old judge on the wrong end of F.E. Smith’s celebrated witticism, I’m none the wiser. (….but far better informed, m’lud….) But it sounds all high-tech and impressive. And it’s a well-known fact that gloop with an average molecular weight of s700 is inclined to be a bit iffy. Add a dollop of that hooligan 3-propylenediamine to the stew, and you could be in deep doodoo.

Example 3: A box of cotton buds. “Never insert into inner ear or nose.” But what else does anyone buy the buggers for? They might as well put a warning on a Black and Decker – “Do not use for de-waxing lugholes.”

Example 4: A bar of NEW Mint Aero. (Question – is it still “NEW” when it’s past its sell-by date?) The usual parade of e-numbers, and a list of chemicals which sound exactly the same to me as those used in the Araldite. A note from the ever-caring Nestle Consumer Services Department to inform us that ‘they welcome comments or questions,’ and a PO box number to address same to. At least you don’t have to ring the sods up. And then, proudly emblazoned in a fancy border. “The light minty bubbles are part of Nestle’s proud Chocolate Heritage”.

Wot? Come again? Shall we dissect and discuss? The ‘light minty bubbles’ are, by and large, air. This tends to be the norm, with bubbles. The substance surrounding and thus containing said air is green, not chocolate. It sure is minty, though. The outer carapace of this confection is chocolate, but they don’t mention that component – so can we presume that it isn’t ‘part of Nestle’s proud Chocolate Heritage’?

So have I gotta question for you, Nestle Consumer Services! Is this chockie Grade 1 listed, or what ? May I eat (sorry – ‘consume’ – let’s get the jargon right) it without ending up with an English Heritage halberd up my backside? Should I throw it open to the public on alternate summer Saturday afternoons? Give us a clue. And give us a break – do you really think that anybody falls for such prolix bullshit?

Even the stalwart jar of Marmite is guilty. “Spread thinly on toast,” it says on the back. Surely – anybody who didn’t know that, (Americans, notably) wouldn’t be buying the stuff anyway. “Shucks, Mizz Ellie – Ah jest done gotten me dis heyah thanga Marmite. Muddah come all de way from LunnonEngerlayund. You de one wid de eddicashun an de glayusses – y’all look on de back dere and tellus what it foah.”


I also loved the example quoted in (I think) the Sunday Times, which concerned a chap who had bought a deodorant stick. The instructions thereon read:

“Remove lid, and holding container firmly, push up bottom”

To my mind, this raises several questions:

1 Are you supposed to (a) leave it in situ, or (b) will a momentary application suffice?

2 If (a) , how do you perform natural bodily functions (or for that matter, arcane sexual practices?)

3 Do you need to buy a new stick every day, or

4 Can you just take the old one out and wash it?

5 If (3) how do you tell when the deodorant has run out ? Or must you wait for your best friend to tell you?

6 Does it come in different sizes?

7 Does it work for household pets?

8 Should one buy a separate stick for armpits?


Stop Press: My TV is on in the background as I write, and I’ve just heard a woman, vaguely famous, from her accent transatlantic, but not unnattractive for all that, extolling the virtues of [trying to flog] some nostrum, no doubt expensive, which is, she tells us, shit-hot at de-wrinkling ladies of a certain age. Not that she put it quite like that. She described this cosmetic Philosopher’s Stone as being, and I quote, “A Fresh Sensation in Moisturising Power.”

Madam – please – I beg of you - learn to speak English. Because You’re Worth It.

Back to basics


It’s Uncle Phil’s morning for a whinge. It’s my turn. I’ve earned it, I deserve it, and nobody ain’t going to stop me. So there.

It’s not going to be my usual grumpyoldbugger moan about control-freak politicans, council jobsworths, the growing feeling that we’re virtually being forced to live in a sort of open prison, anarchic amoral youth, or any of the other petty annoyances I tend to get my hair off about.

It’s not even really going to be about books, except as ballast.

The problem is, you see, that a couple of days ago I did my back in. It’s not a new phenomenon; I’ve done it before many times; after nearly 40 years in the antique trade, heaving bloody great lumps of furniture and pianos and such in and out of houses, vans and shops, it’s more of a chronic condition, which most of the time I can live with. But sometimes it seriously flares up, and when it does, it throws my life into tedious limbo. Not only that, it’s bloody painful, costs me a fortune in osteopaths and ibuprofen, and buggers up my love life.

A friend of mine, who's into these things, once told me that the Orientals have the best cure. Three little Japanese virgins tippy-toeing up and down my spine in their bare feet would sort the problem out nicely. They said.

And there’s the rub. Where do you find three young Japanese virgins in Coventry? (Or three young virgins of any nationality, come to that? )

Meanwhile, we’ve got about two dozen crates of books, all nicely catalogued and photographed, ready to go over to the warehouse to be shelved, and I can’t lift the buggers.

And we’re running out of space in our little house.

I’ve got a carload of fresh stock to unload ready for processing, and nowhere to put it even if I could lift it out of the car, which I cant, the garden’s a tip, it takes me half-an-hour to crawl up- or down- stairs, and Susie’s giving me grief bigtime because she can’t do the housework for boxes, heaps and piles of assorted literature.

Maybe I should blame my parents – if they’d had me later I’d have been younger, and better able to cope. But as Marvell put it:

At my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near……….

Maybe he had a bad back, too.

Pressing the right buttons

I get worse, in my old age.

The phone rings, right – I’m packing up some books, and at the same time trying to watch the news out of the corner of my eye, so I need to turn the volume down before I answer it.

Point TV thingy at TV, press button. No result. Realise I’d picked up mobile phone instead of TV thingy. Think – Silly old Sod! Put down mobile. Pick up thingy. Press button as before. No result, as before. Realise I’m holding pocket calculator. Throw same at wall, with torrent of fluent Anglo-Saxon commentary.

Meanwhile, phone has stopped ringing.

Dial 1471. Get strange noise. Realise I’m holding mobile instead of landline phone.

Screw’em. I didn’t want to speak to ‘em anyway. Whoever it was.

Some days one just shouldn’t get outta bed.

All That Glisters


While in my local charity shop some weeks ago, looking at such incunabula and 16th and 17th century works as they’d had in that week, I chanced upon a volume in a somewhat garish dust wrapper, emblazoned upon the front of which was a banner bearing the rubric “World’s Number One Best Seller.”

‘Well’, I reasoned – ‘This ought to be a good little earner’ – if it’s that good, everybody will want one’.

So I bought the volume, and then chased around all the other charity shops in the area, and a couple of car boots for good measure, thus managing to acquire another 27 copies. Fair enough, some of them were so-called “Book Club” editions, but for a World’s Number One Best Seller this shouldn’t matter too much, I’d have thought. People like clubs. It’s a security thing.

I duly prepared my new purchases for listing online, with my usual accurate and informative descriptions, pitching the prices fairly high to both create and control demand, and carefully photographed each one – no ‘stock’ photos for me, thank you – then uploaded both words and images, and waited for the orders to roll in.

But, do you know – I haven’t sold a single one. Something, somewhere is very wrong, as my so-called ‘best sellers’ have turned out in fact to be non-sellers.

Worse, I have since tried to read the book – I say ‘tried’ because I found it unreadable – a mere concatenation of scenes involving imaginative and potentially harmful sexual permutations, egregious violence, and shopping, with various plugs for overpriced branded products.


My question is – who can I sue?

The website for not doing their job properly and selling my books in the prescribed manner?
The publishers, for misleading point-of-sale advertising?
The charity shop, under the Trades Descriptions Act?
The author, for turning out such rubbish? or
The local Trading Standards department, for allowing such blatant chicanery?

[later]

All is not lost, my friends. I’ve just had an email from a very nice man in farthest Nigeria, offering to buy all my books, offering to pay me for express shipping, and happy to send me an international money order, even trusting me to send him any change after having worked out the shipping cost.

Herald of the morn.

So it's the early bird that catches the worm, right?

So they try to tell us. But the logical projection of this pious taradiddle makes a complete nonsense, so any metaphorical inference drawn from it is quite valueless. It's not Holy Writ, just blatant anthropomorphism hard-sold as a basic truth by a dour Puritan minority as a step up to that moral high ground they seem to crave as their right. while denying it to the rest of us foolish virgins. But the control freaks have got it wrong. Logic module malfunction. Abort. Cancel. Retry.

After all, what about the early worm ? Leaping virtuously out of bed at the crack, full of rich nourishing compost and good intentions, didn't exactly do that poor creature any favours, did it. Had it stayed in its comfortable pit of a morning like a sensible worm oughter, idly dozing, making slithery love to its comely wormwife, or as is often the way with hermaphroditic wrigglies, itself, (hence, I suppose, the proliferation of blindworms,) hacking into the wormish equivalent of Earl Grey and Weetypops, and snuggling under its loamy duvet doing its lazy vermiform thing, instead of dancing shamelessly about on the lawn wiggling its bum in virtuoso linguine impressions and generally showing out to passing fowls, it wouldn't have ended up as a blackbird's brekkie.

If you're a worm, matitudinal misjudgment can seriously endanger your health. And blunt your sense of humus something permanent, I shouldn't wonder. Tardiness should be next to Godliness, in Wormworld. As the vermicular versifier, Williworm Wormsworth, has it:

Early to rise, and early to bed
makes a worm healthy and wealthy and dead.

So before you set the alarm tonight, undress, turn around, and take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Any evidence of feathers, bills or talons, and you're onto a hot date with Aurora. 4AM will do nicely. And don't activate the snooze button, Woody. Get up, get out there and get the vocals going full blast. It's all you're good for, let's face it.

But otherwise, my old son, if you're feather-free, downless as an egg rather than descended from one, not a beak to see you through the week, you ain't a Woodpecker, you're a Worm.

So sling the timepiece out of the window, take the phone off the hook, snuggle up, and allow yourself a nice long lie-in. You'll feel better for it, I promise. And when, overcome by exhaustion due to lack of sleep and all that singing on an empty stomach, the early bird falls off his perch slap bang onto your front doorstep, that's the time to rise and shine. Bye-bye Blackbird, hello Brunch. That's the watchword, wormwise. While birds have their set of laws, worms must live under a completely different code. And not one concocted for them "for their own good" by nest-featherers masquerading as do-gooders.