First there was a soft click as my male staff switched on his laptop, then a gentle hum as it warmed up, accompanied by the usual under the breath cursing.
"Come on, come on! Hurry up you f#*@ing piece of s@#t." Nothing unusual in that. It's a kind of morning chorus in my staff's house. Then "Hoo-bloody-ray, about time." as the thing connected. Then tap tap tap "BUGGER!" tap tap tap tap "DAMN!" tap tap as he typed in his commands with the usual typing errors. Then finally "GASP!" and crash! This was my male staff passing out as he read the scoreline. Liverpool 0 West Ham 3. A few moments later he regained consciousness and stood up, banging his head on the desk as he did. With blood running into his eyes he sat in front of the computer again. The scoreline was still there, and still the same. Liverpool 0 West Ham 3. It had to be a mistake, he was sure. This sort of thing never happens except in his wildest dreams, and some of his dreams can be very wild indeed. Believe me, I know. As a supernatural guinea pig I have access to all the dreams that are spinning around inside his head. For example there was that one involving Amanda Holden, a hamster, a watermelon and the theme tune to East Enders. I'll tell you about it now if you like. You see my male staff was laying on deck chair in a mankini. He was cuddling a pet hamster and feeding it chunks of watermelon. Then suddenly the hamster turned into Amanda Holden and she started humming the East Enders theme tune, and my male staff knew, as you do in dreams, that the moment she stopped singing she would............................ Oh bugger! My male staff has just come into the room. I'll have to continue this story another time.
Now where was I? Oh yes, the computer still said Liverpool 0 West Ham 3. My male staff blinked. He didn't believe the website, it was the BBC after all, a broadcaster known for their unreliability. So tap tap tap tap....s#@t tap tap tap....dammit!......tap tap again. This time he found a more reliable source of news - The Sun newspaper website. Everyone knows that Rupert Murdoch would never tell a fib. He found the soccer results. Liverpool 0 West Ham 3 it said. It even listed the goal scorers and they were all West Ham players. Finally reality sank in. "Whooooo Hoooooo!" he yelled, stood up, pulled his shirt over his head and ran around the room with his arms stretched out like an inebriated pelican, sweeping ornaments from sideboards and vases from tables. Eventually he ran into a wall, but even that didn't dampen his buoyant mood. Paolo the budgie was given a large piece of millet and the Guinea pigs where each handed a fistful of the greenest, freshest basil leaves. Even my female staff was kissed much to her disgust.
"1963!" he ranted. "The last time this happened was on 14th September 1963. Do you realise how long ago that is?" he demanded of my female staff, who wisely remained silent. "It was ore than half a century." he said. "The second world war had only been over for eighteen years. The Beatles were number one in the charts in the UK with "She Loves You." John F Kennedy was the US President and was making plans with Jackie for a nice quiet trip to Texas in November. "Come on dearest." Said JFK. "Dallas is lovely in November. It'll be a blast." Poor old William Hartnell was Doctor Who - the very first one, and even back then he looked too old to be chasing daleks around the place." By this time my female staff was starting to feel a little drowsy, so she made herself a cup of coffee and flopped down on the sofa.
My male staff continued. "Martin Luther King had a dream." (I bet it was nothing like the one my male staff had about Amanda Holden.) "Harold Macillan was British Prime Minister, but he was so ill that he was to resign in October and allow Alec Douglas-Home to take his place. Here in Australia, Robert Menzies was the Prime Minister with his Liberal/Country Party coalition, but aboriginal people were still not able to become citizens of a country they had inhabited form tens of thousands of years. That was not to be permitted for almost another fourteen years." My female staff yawned, but my male staff continued unperturbed. "Of course with Tony Abbott in charge it's still only 1953 in Australia, never mind 1963. There was a race riot in Birmingham, Alabama. Nice to see that some things haven't changed in the USA. Paul McCartney was fined seventeen pounds for speeding. later that year he was fined again for the same offence - 31 pounds, and this time his licence was suspended for a year. The biggest movie of the year was Cleopatra. I was five years old and was given a toy James Bond gold Aston Martin for Christmas, which was actually the last white Christmas I ever remember having. And listen to this. Here's the scariest thing of all. The world population in 1963 was just over 3.2 billion. Do you know what it is now?" My female staff opened her mouth but didn't get chance to say anything. "7.3 billion. Yes," he repeated. "7.3 billion! No wonder I can never find a bloody parking space outside the post office."
My female staff sighed. "Did West Ham win?" she asked.
"Yes." replied my male staff.
"Thank God it doesn't happen very often." said my female staff and took a long slurp of her coffee.
BACI'S BALONEY
1963! That's like ten ginny pig lifethymes ago. I wunda wot my annsesters were doing in them days. I bet nun of them were alfa mails like wot I am and I bet nun of them were like as edjookayted like wot I am eetha, oar as suffistacated as me. Yoo'd never beleeve that I am toadly self edjookayted wood yoo?
Sounds quite the experience!
ReplyDeleteA rare experience indeed Lauranne.
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