Not the
type of shock like finding your wife in bed with your brother, or
finding out that the beautiful woman you have been having a
passionate affair with was once a butch ruby player called Keith! But
it was a shock, because I found myself missing having an outlet for my
rantings.
This
will also be a shock to people who know me and claim that all I ever
seem to do is rant. But when I write it down, it seems to make more
sense to me for some strange reason! And I also have two new books
out, so you decide my reasons for writing the blog again.
It's a
funny thing, lying, most people claim they never lie. My wife, Carol
is one of these people. I would say that on the whole this is true,
she doesn't make any grand claims or or invent fictitious friends.
She doesn't need to, she's married to me! I do enough of that for the
both of us.
But she
does lie, she lies all the time we all do. When your twenty-four
stone wife tries on a size fourteen dress and her ample acreage of
flesh is screaming for mercy to be released from what looks like a
garment of torture, then she turns to you with a mixture of pain and
hope in her eyes and asks the question.. you know the question, lads?
Do you,
in all honesty, knowing that she has been dieting for three weeks,
well, eating lettuce in front of you and chips behind your back... do
you say, “How in the name of Jesus H. Christ have you managed to get
into that? You look like a whale in a girdle!” Or do you say "It
looks lovely my love, but I think you would look even more beautiful
in this”, then give her a more appropriate garment.
Having
walked around the seaside resort of Blackpool, it seems there are lots
of men that don't have the balls to say this to their over-indulgent
lumps of loveliness. I have seen women there dressed in a way that
would make Gok Wan cry. They either have no mirrors in their houses
or their eyes have completely failed.
I have
the opposite problem with my wife, she is small and slim but insists
she's bigger than she really is!
If my
wife thought that her reply to a question would upset the enquirer,
she would not give a totally honest response.
I, on
the other hand, could lie for Europe, I love it, It's fun! Yes, it gets
me into trouble and yes, people get angry with me, but in some weird
perverse way I'm more honest than most people, I own up to lying. I'm
a writer I'm a professional liar, I have to sell myself and my work.
I can't go on the radio or the TV to plug me and my work then claim
my life is no different and just as boring as the next person, even
though it is!
Can you
imagine the interview, “Now then Gez what have you been up to this
week?” “Well nothing really, I had a pie for my dinner on
Wednesday and I managed to watch all series four of QI on Dave on
Thursday, and get this for breaking news, I think we might be going
of for a pub lunch with some friends this Sunday.”
See,
that is probably a brief snapshot of my hedonistic lifestyle, but it's
not really for public consumption. I cherry pick the best bits of my
weeks, wrap them in a touch of believable fantasy and sell it as one
hundred percent unquestionable truth.
Although strange things do happen to me, honest! I was once charged by a rhino, in England!
I know
what you're thinking, you're thinking "I bet this guy is a lot of fun,
and probably very handsome" - which is true, honest, but you probably
think I'm also about to spin you a lie, but no, what I'm about to reveal is
the truth, the whole truth, and a bit of exaggeration!
I once
took my sister's two oldest children to Chester zoo. This was many
years ago, as they now have children of their own. Anna
was a lovely little girl of about four years old, while her brother
James was a six-year-old thing of nightmares.
He had
been trying to get his younger sister to walk on the "nice green
grass" which he knew full well was algae covering deep water in the
chimp enclosure. We had all sat down on a wall to enjoy a well-
deserved ice cream when I heard lots of people screaming and
shouting. I turned, and to my horror saw that James had jumped into
the rhino enclosure behind us and was standing in front of one and a
half tons of muscle and horn, while dancing and offering it out for a
fight!
I had
no option but to jump into the enclosure and grab him and throw him
up to my wife, who was by now quite hysterical with fear.
Once he
was safely out of the enclosure and in my wife's arms I heard more
screams coming from the now large crowd that had gathered to watch
in horror and fascination at the halfwit bloke in the rhino
enclosure.
On
turning around, I saw that the rhino had taken James up on his offer
of a fight and, being short-sighted, decided it would beat me up first!
I can tell you now the sight of one and a half tons of rhino charging
at you can cure the most problematic of bodily functions, it makes
them all work together in perfect harmony.
I
managed to scramble up over the wall, just missing out on what surely
would have been a life-threatening beating by the beast. The
rangers of the park had turned up with guns to shoot the rhino if
need be, at least I hope it was the rhino they were planning on shooting!
I was
promptly frog-marched off the premises and told not to darken their
doorsteps again. I did go back a couple of years ago, though, so I guess all
has been forgiven.
So,
there you have it: sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction,
if it is the truth - it's hard to say, after so many years. Your
mind has ways of papering over the nasty cracks of your failings and
adding a touch of gloss. Most of our memories will be one third a
lie. You know that love affair you had with the most beautiful and
understanding person ever, when you were only sixteen. Remember it
was a long hot summer, all you did was laugh and love? If you live in
Britain that summer lasted two days and how come you split up if
he/she was so perfect?
But
one thing I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty is that I
have two new books out, Great Aunt Fanny's Moustache and The
Meeting Room.
Well, actually, The Meeting Room has been out before, as an e book
so that's not one hundred percent true...
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