Hello
Well, I've finally got round to writing another edition of The Autolycan; the long awaited - if only by me - story about kettles. And other things. I'd like to dedicate this one to a dear friend in Chester who is struggling with cancer, not that I think you are or ever were guilty of the behaviour described here! Then again, somebody obviously is.........
Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might like it.
Well, I've finally got round to writing another edition of The Autolycan; the long awaited - if only by me - story about kettles. And other things. I'd like to dedicate this one to a dear friend in Chester who is struggling with cancer, not that I think you are or ever were guilty of the behaviour described here! Then again, somebody obviously is.........
Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might like it.
LANCING
THE BOIL
In an
odd sort of way you're reading this, if anyone actually is, because
of a small town called Goole in the East Riding of Yorkshire. If you
don't know Goole, you're in pretty good company. Described even by
the local tourist people as 'sleepy', it probably won't push the
likes of New York, the Taj Mahal or Uluru down your bucket list.
Nowhere that cites two water towers as its main attraction is likely
to. It's held a fascination for me though, ever since some hapless
junior reporter straight from university on our local paper was given
the job of finding small 'filler' items to fill the bottom inch or so
of a column. I guess the brief was to try to make this look
intentional - not as though the more experienced journalist who had
written the article above could no longer spin it out for yet another
sentence or two. I like to think of this raw young lad – let's
call him Trev, or Trainee Reporter Ex-Varsity – poised like a
coiled spring awaiting the call for, say, an inch and a bit at the
bottom of Page 7 Column 4, whereupon he would immediately put a call
in to Goole's hospital because he knew that there was a constant
stream of incautious or clumsy local residents who would be limping
through A and E. None of them though, had ever been incautious or
clumsy enough to be detained. Thus, under the headline 'Goole
Mishap', we learned that a Goole woman 'gashed her foot when she trod
on a broken teapot' and met another who had 'injured an ankle falling
over a low wall.' Several fell off bikes, and in one particularly
nasty incident an eight year old faller 'injured her finger.'
I don't
suppose I'll ever know if Trev's devotion to small misadventures
which didn't require hospital admission propelled him to be one half
of a new Woodward and Bernstein, but ever since he broke stories like
'Goole man in Lassa Fever Scare' (predictably, he didn't have it)
along with blockbusters like 'Bottle of Ketchup Thrown at Goole
Window' I have harboured a fascination for quirky items of this sort,
which is how I now come to inflict editions of The
Autolycan
on you every so often. Trev doesn't know it, but I have secretly
tracked his career ever since the heady Goole days. He did a stint
on the Kent and
Sussex Courier
where he was entrusted with bigger stories like 'Mayor is Too Fat to
Skydive', and cut his teeth on reporting local disasters.
'Whitstable Mum in Custard Shortage' would have been one of his. He
should, of course have collared the fat Mayor to see what he knew
about the missing custard, but instead chose to go with an
ill-advised jest about the Mum being dis-custard. This earned him a
rebuke from the editor, but he nevertheless made it to the national
press, starting with The
Guardian. We
now learnt that 'Kangaroo Flatulence Research Points to New Climate
Change Strategy for Farmers' – promising, but he again failed to
follow up properly. We all searched in vain for tips about exactly
how you research kangaroo flatulence – no, please don't speculate -
but worse was to come when he fell foul of his Guardian
bosses
for 'Was Margaret Thatcher Really the First Spice Girl?' Scary, I
should think.
But
Trev's career has really taken off since he joined The
Independent where
he now has free rein to run with pretty much anything he likes.
Recently he has given connoisseurs like me nuggets such as 'There Are
Too Many Studies, New Study Finds', 'Emergency Biscuits Flown in Due
to National Shortage' and the frankly bizarre 'Australian sheep
farmer faces complaint from PETA that he swore at his animals.'
('None of them actually told me they were offended' he is reported as
saying, presumably with expletives deleted.)
Coming
up to date though, Trev is no longer quite so hapless. Recently he
has unearthed a couple of real gems to take him to the pinnacle of
his curious trade. First we had 'Parrot refuses help from
firefighters with foul mouthed response'. Firefighters were
apparently called to rescue it from a roof where it was quite happy,
and after initially telling them 'I love you' it swore at them and
flapped off in disgust. Parrot 1, Firefighters 0.
But
he has now set the standard so high that others can only marvel in
his shadow and gaze up in awe at the master. If there is a national
award for these things, I want him to get it for 'Do Not Boil Your
Underwear in Hotel Kettles, Warns Expert.' And if that's not
mind-boggling enough, the said expert then goes on to warn that the
practice is 'super, super, super, super gross.'
I
like to think that the readership for this blog, whilst not large, is
refined and decorous. Quality rather than quantity. I do hope that
it's never occurred to you to run into a hotel room, strip off your
underpants or other gender-appropriate garment, pop them in the
kettle and bring them to a fast boil. I'm sorry if you now have an
image in your head of what the previous occupant of your room might
have been up to – it's probably one of those images that once seen
cannot be unseen. Tell yourself that the story might have been put
about by travel kettle manufactures eager for your business.
Convinced? Oh well, I'm afraid it's the best I can do.
In
the interests of scientific research I checked the capacity of the
kettle in the last hotel I stayed in – 0.8 litres, about enough for
two decent-sized mugs of tea. Of course, that capacity will be
significantly reduced by the time you've got your smalls in, so there
won't be much water in there at all. Even a little mini-washer uses
about eight gallons per wash, around 40 times as much as my hotel
kettle, so I can't see the wash being very effective, although I
guess our expert is not sounding the alarm because the unseemly
practice simply won't work very well. Or perhaps she's worried about
the temperature of the wash. If you were to strip off your underwear
now and hunt around for that crumpled little label packed with
incomprehensible symbols you'll find something which looks like a
bucket but is supposed to resemble a washing machine. (Oh, sorry,
perhaps I should have pointed out earlier that you shouldn't follow
this advice if you're reading this on the bus. Well, could you try
showing him this article and saying I told you to? Yes, I can see it
must be embarrassing to be thrown off the bus with next to nothing
on, but no doubt he's thrown your clothes out as well? No? Oh I am
sorry.) Anyway, the bucket-lookalike will have a number in it,
probably 40, telling you what temperature the garment likes to be
washed at. Any higher and your bits and pieces will presumably start
to disintegrate into a kind of soggy pulp, not the sort of thing you
want to be faced with when your other half decides it's your turn to
get out of bed and make the tea.
I
hope Trev has learnt from his mistakes and realises that this story
cries out for an in-depth follow up. I hope he's banging on the
Feature Editor's door every day until he gets his big break. I want
to know more about the expert and how she trained for her position.
Is there a Faculty of Hotel Kettles somewhere which offers a course
in Boiling Underwear? Or has she done a first degree in Boiling
Underwear in Kettles and then gone on to a Master's applying the
general principles to the unique circumstances of hotels? When I was
involved in careers guidance some years ago I wasn't aware of such a
career path but I suppose you do get a bit out of touch in
retirement. I also want to know more about the Boilers themselves –
who are they? Are they profiled by age, gender, ethnicity? Do they
think there's nothing to worry about, that it's all perfectly OK? Do
they have a collective voice to put forward counter arguments? A
Society of Underwear Boilers?
It
gets more intriguing. Does the SUB have an Annual Conference? Do
they meet in a hotel?
If
you've ever been suspicious of what goes on in hotel bedrooms after
the bar closes and conference delegates – temporarily free from the
constraints of home life and rapidly losing any inhibitions they may
have started the evening with – wend their slightly unsteady way
upstairs - well, now you know. You perhaps thought that there would
be steamy scenes after all manner of undergarments were removed and
it seems you may well be right. 'Experts' will then be close at hand
to wring the aforementioned hands while the boilers themselves wring
out bras, boxers and briefs. Don't just simmer with rage at this, but
instead rely on Trev – consummate professional that he now is - to
cover this seething potboiler of a story. Trev's grown up. Goole and its
grazed knees and flying ketchup bottles are now someone else's
domain. Trev's moved on. He's now a Top Reporter Exposing Vice.
He's lancing the boil.
_________________________________________________________________________
