...and 99% perspiration. Is that all?

Hello, and welcome to the seventh edition of The Autolycan.  They seem to be working out at about one a month, which I hope is fine because much more than that and I think I’d be going off with stress.  Which in a curious sort of way is really what this month’s edition is about.  You’ll see from the press cutting that ‘researchers’ have discovered that people – well, OK, men – tend to put jobs off if they’re – OK, we’re – not sure how to do them or just not very enthusiastic about them.  Sorry if this comes as a shock, particularly to The Autolycan’s women readers.  It does raise some important questions though, such as who are these researchers, how do they get contracts, who pays them and – most importantly of all – how can Master Autolycus get his fair share of money for what looks like extremely ancient rope?  Suggestions will be welcome, although I don’t suppose I’ll do anything about them for several months.

….AND 99% PERSPIRATION.  IS THAT ALL?

The typical man takes six months to get round to all the little jobs in the house, new research has revealed.  A lack of time, knowledge or enthusiasm is often the reason for the failure to carry out simple tasks.

                                                                           Daily Telegraph

The Writer stared at the piece of paper on the desk in front of him.  The piece of paper stared back.  He had been ‘getting round to writing an article for a blog’ for days now.  No, don’t kid yourself, he thought, not days, weeks, but have I got an article?  Have I …… 

The piece of paper did not display the  hoped-for sympathy.  Still less did it offer any positive suggestions.  The idea that the blog wouldn’t write itself flashed across the Writer’s mind, but even in his current anguish he doubted that the piece of paper had initiated the thought.

The paper was not, however, blank.  Far from it.  In fact it was only one of a number of pieces covered with doodles, pictures of smiley faces, pictures of cats (for some reason the Writer could do cats, if precious little else) and hopelessly unsuccessful attempts to make an anagram out of the name Luis Suàrez.  The Writer had got nowhere with that, so he tried ‘Luis Suàrez, biter’.  That was a bit more successful – ‘Sure, I brutalizes!’ was OK if ungrammatical, but then Suàrez wasn’t a native English speaker so did the inaccurate grammar perhaps confer some authenticity? 

‘It’s that bloody z’ he complained loudly to nobody in particular, ‘they’re as bad as j’s, z’s; if he’d been Garcia, well, if he’d been Rodrigo….’

The paper made no reply.

Get up.  Coffee.  Stare out of window.  Wander upstairs.  Stare out of different window.  Put jumper on.  Take jumper off again.  Examine bristles in mirror.  Shave.  And there’s blokes who get jobs done inside six months!  Back to desk. 

The Writer looked again at a story in the Telegraph he once thought might offer possibilities – Police officers report theft from own station after thief steals tin of biscuits.  Surely there had to be something there - the audacious raid on the station kitchen, the rage of the Superintendent forced to come clean following a Freedom of Information request, the…….. but wait!  The Writer read further into the article.  The very same force had also been victims of crime to the tune of a lace dress and a pair of hair tongs!  Could he plausibly link the three items?  Perhaps a thief who nicked the biscuits, wondered if he’d been spotted and felt the need to disguise his appearance? Or perhaps a thief with OCD who felt an odd compulsion to pinch things in alphabetical order – biscuits, curlers, dress?  The lads probably never even noticed that the first thing to go had been the air freshener from their loo; nor did they guess at the grave danger which now stalked the egg timer in their kitchen.  But worse was to come.  The coppers, according to the Telegraph, had been forced to own up to the theft of an unwritten parking ticket as well.

He was aiming for 1000 words or so, he reminded himself.  Was there enough there?  Probably not, and now he had to build in a bloody unwritten parking ticket.  How the hell can that be stolen?  He railed against the injustice of it all.

Turn on the telly.  Racing.  Not interested in racing.  Well, OK, perhaps it’s better than trying to find a witty and amusing link between biscuits, a dress, a parking ticket and so on.  Change channels.  Some bloke affecting astonishment that his house has been ripped apart and rebuilt while he was down the pub.  Panic rising.  Switch off.  Pick up sports section of paper.  Put down sports section of paper.  Coffee.  Again.

What about Richard III?  He’d wondered for some time about Richard III.  There must be some fun to be had out of him being buried in a car park for 500 and something years, unpromising though it sounded when put like that.  The Writer suddenly sat bolt upright.  The battle, the burial, the search, the discovery and the subsequent arguments - could he do it in the form of a Shakespearian play?

K. Richard.  A horse!  A horse!  My kingdom for a horse!

Catesby.  Withdraw, my lord; I’ll help you to a horse

Alarum.  Enter FINDUS, a supplier.

Findus.  Well, well, well!  Looks like your lucky day, squire!  I got just the very thing – lovely bit of prime beef, well, I say beef, just the thing to give the good burghers of Bosworth a good burger after the battle.

K. Richard.  Horsemeat???

Findus.  Well let’s not say horsemeat, no.  Not as such.  We’ll flog ‘em as Shergarburgers.

All groan.

Findus.  It’s that bloody Will Shakespeare, he never could resist a play on words.

Will Shakespeare.  ‘Sright.  Remember that bit about ‘the winter of discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York’ what I put right at the start, yeah?  See what I done there – sun/son? - he’s the son of the Duke of York, geddit?  Do you want to do the one about tomorrow finding you a grave man?

K. Richard.  I thought that was Romeo and Juliet.

Will Shakespeare.  Well, well!  So it is, but you can always go to the well a second time… see, I done it again.

The Writer sighed.  This was all very well but led nowhere much, and he couldn’t see how he was going to segue seamlessly into an obstreperous car park attendant who wouldn’t allow the burial of a corpse – even a royal one – on his field.  Jobsworth, he’d be called, and the altercation about burying Richard would go down in history as the Battle of Jobsworth’s Field. 

It was no good.  He had leads aplenty, but no conclusions.  Bloody Hilary Mantel and her sort, bloody Dan Brown, they made it all look such a doddle. 

At this point, the Writer’s wife took a hand. 

‘Look’, she said, not unkindly, ‘you’ve been struggling for ages, must be getting on for six months.  What about this story on Sky News about a giant inflatable Stonehenge in Hong Kong?  You could do that, couldn’t you?’

He looked up at her.

‘You can bounce on it’ she added, uncertainly. ‘What would your Aethelred Thwaite make of a bouncy Stonehenge?’

He smiled for the first time in weeks.

‘Do you think I could blow it up into something really big?’ he asked ‘Only if I couldn’t find a snappy ending it might be a bit of a let down.’

Momentarily she looked deflated. 

‘I wouldn’t want to puncture your confidence’ she murmured, ‘but a bouncy prehistoric monument has got to be a bit of a gift, hasn’t it?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll try to tie it into a series of minor thefts from a police station, Richard III and taking bloody ages to write anything.’

She smiled.  ‘Can you get a thousand words out of it?’

‘Easy’ he replied.

She looked relieved.

‘It’ll take a few weeks, mind’ he said.

ANAGRAM CORNER

When it comes to Silvio Berlusconi, many Italians – and others – have long felt the need of a choice.  So this month, Master Autolycus is happy to offer one with regard to the lovable old rogue.  Incidentally, the phrase ‘lovable old rogue’, is itself a moral tale which tells the Berlusconi story in a chronological and concise way – Rove; ‘ullo!’;  bed;  gaol.

I, SILVIO BERLUSCONI 

 

I SIN, 'COS I ROVE!  I BULL!

or

I CLUB SON, I SO VIRILE!