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About Me

Church Organist by Profession

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Saturday 23 September 5:00pm


I am going to have to make my own tea, although it is actually mum’s turn, but she can’t fulfil her obligations because she and Mrs Ramsbotham are being held hostage in church by the Flower Ladies.  Mrs R managed to slip off to the awful vestry loo for a moment to phone the police before the battery in her mobile ran out, and the first I knew of this alteration in our domestic arrangements was when my friend from the Daily Mail telephoned for the Inside Story, having had a tip-off from a disgruntled nark in the Police call-centre.  It was all a complete surprise to me, of course, and my first thought was that he was phoning to arrange an interview for that feature about me that he had promised.  But no.  He was very excited.  “That can wait, Barry,” he said.  “Don’t your realise that your mum is being held hostage by a gang of armed Flower Ladies?  There’s massive human interest here, Barry, what with police brutality and little old ladies, and our readers will love it.”

He promised me another £25 cheque if I visit the scene and phone him back with a first-hand report, and I agreed.

I suppose it will have to be boiled egg and soldiers to sustain me through what could prove a long and trying ordeal.  Luckily there are two eggs left, and after my tea I will make all speed up to church, for mum might be in danger.


Friday, January 29, 2010

Saturday 23 September 12:00 noon


A breakthrough.  After less than an hour exploring the contents of the laptop I discovered something called Inbox, and when I looked inside there was this:
 
 
From: barry.acne@gmail.com
To: barry.acne@gmail.com
Subject: My First E-mail
Date: Fri 22 September 21:30:47 +0000

Hello Barry


It is possible that I was a little premature in blaming the postman for the non-delivery of my e-mail.  Apparently e-mails do not require the intervention of human postmen – or postladies, I assume – because they are delivered by means of Electronic Communication through the frictionless medium of The Ether.



Saturday 23 September 9:15am


Saved!  Mum had a phone call from Mrs Ramsbotham and has had to rush out to church.  Apparently the flower ladies are rioting in the graveyard because somebody has removed all their Oasis records, without which they say they will be unable to meet their legal obligation to fill the ecclesiastical urns with large white lilies in readiness for tomorrow’s services.

So now for an exciting session with my laptop...



Saturday 23 September 8:30am


No post.  I saw the postman go past on his bike five minutes ago.  It is a great disappointment, I must say, and I am inclined to agree with Mr Grudge, who regards all forms of communication since the invention of the Carrier Pigeon as unnecessary and undesirable. “The Quill and the Pigeon”, Mr Grudge regularly intones.  “Mark my words: The Quill and the Pigeon.”  Garnham once asked Mr Grudge if The Quill and Pigeon was the name of his favourite public house, and got a double detention for impertinence.

I would like to be at my laptop learning even more about IT, but mum beat me to it, and has been up and firing off e-mails in all directions since 7:00am.

I could tell her that our machine is evidently faulty, for the e-mails are not being delivered, but she will just have to find out the hard way.  I shall therefore boil myself an egg to keep my strength up and then wait until she goes shopping, when I will have the laptop all to myself.


Saturday, January 23, 2010

Friday 22 September 10:30pm



My Mum is amazing! I wish she had taken my IT exam instead of me, for she would have got a Grade A-star-plus.  As soon as we’d finished the Chinese take-away she had summoned she was off, connecting plugs here and plugs there, and suddenly we were on the Internet!  In our house!  On my laptop!

But the best thing is that I can now use my e-mail!  Mum helped me write a message to myself.  I couldn’t think of anything to say that I didn’t know already, so I just typed ‘Hello Barry’.

It is wonderful!  I am really getting a grasp of it now.  Mum’s gone to bed and I’ve only just switched the laptop off.  It is indeed a New World to be explored.

I can’t wait for the postman to arrive tomorrow with my e-mail to myself.



Friday 22 September 16:50pm


Simon is very patient.  He took a long time explaining to me the difference between a router and a router, and the thing I have brought home is a little black box with a sticky-up bit like a dog’s tail.  Simon says that it is an abroad banned modem as well, which is what I really need.  No doubt Mother will be au fait with all this gobbledegook, which I do not understand at all.  I don’t know why I bothered attending all those IT classes.  I am not surprised that I don’t get fed properly if Mum is out learning all about e-mails and abroad banned with her cronies at the Women’s Group all the time.

I will try to put it out of my mind and have ten minutes with the Raindrop Prelude and a few Custard Cream biscuits to restore inner calm before mum comes home and starts blaming me for something.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Thursday 21 September 9:30pm


I didn’t know school had written to Mum with advice on parental supervision for pupils with school laptops. The reason there wasn’t any post today was that Mum had met the postman as she was going to Mrs Ramsbotham’s for a PCC Caucus Strategy Meeting and had stuffed the letter in her handbag.  So when she got home and said “Well, where is then, Barry? This new lappie of yours? Have you broken it yet?”  It was a bit of a shock, and I had to pretend that I had completely forgotten about it in my desire to cook Mum a sumptuous meal of microwaved toad-in-the-hole (Sainsburys, £3.49, sell-by 21-09, use-by 24-09).

It seems that Mum has hidden talents, no doubt acquired at her Women’s Group, for within seconds of my retrieving* it she had it going and she was playing a card game called Solitaire.

I was genuinely impressed, for after all Mum is but a woman.  “How did you do that?” I inquired (well, gasped, really).

“I plugged it into the mains”, she replied somewhat tartly. “It is a convenient and widely understood method of making laptops work when some half-baked incompetent has drained the battery.”

Then she started rummaging about in the bag.  “Where’s the router?” she inquired.  “Surely you haven’t lost it already?”

She explained impatiently that without a router thing we wouldn’t be able to Serf the World-Wide Web, and school should have given me one if I am to send in my homework by Electronic Means.  I haven’t a clue what she is on about, but I’ll ask Simon tomorrow.  I’m sure I’ve seen a cupboard in the Woodwork Lab with a label saying “Chisels and Routers.”


*those gerunds again! What a fruitful lesson with Mr Grudge it was!




















Thursday 21 September 5:30pm


I think Simon has given me a dud. I turned it on, just as Simon had explained, but just when a picture came onto the screen it went beep-beep-beep and a message came up saying “battery 10%.  Save your work and Exit.  Oh for heaven’s sake, come on, hurry up. You stoopid er sump’n?  Have a nice day.” then it went whirr-whirr and died while I was trying to work out what to do.

I’ve put it back in its bag and shoved it under the bed with my collection of things I hide from Mum, such as my diary and James Bond books. Mum is due any minute and it is my turn to microwave our dinner.




Thursday 21 September 5:00pm


A very exciting day!  I now have a laptop computer!  Simon summoned me after our secular assembly where we hang little flags on totem poles and sing Unicorn songs, and explained how to turn it on.  At last I am going to be able to Serf the World-Wide Web!  I said “Don’t you mean Surf, Simon?”, and he said “No, I mean Serf, because that’s what you’ll become if you’re not careful – a slave to the Internet, like all the other kids.”

He said a lot more, being a teacher and a bit pompous, but I was too excited to listen.

I’m going to turn it on now, before Mum gets home, then I can surprise and impress her with my in-depth understanding of IT, and introduce her to the world of Instant Electronic Communication.




Thursday, January 14, 2010

Wednesday 20 September

A quick breakfast this morning – just my favourite cereal, Sugar Puffs (with honey goodness, and no added salt!) when my eye was caught by the advertisement for a free gift – the Complete Organ Works of Dietrich Buxtehude.

sugar-puffs-ad

I mentioned it to Garnham at break, but he laughed and said I was imagining it. “They wouldn’t fit inside the packet”, he sniggered. Really, sometimes Garnham can be a pain in the neck. I think I will opt for the pedals edition, because by the time I have saved up the requisite 1,000 tokens I will probably be quite expert, being 53 ½, or thereabouts. Mind you, by that age I will be probably be incapacitated by RSI or BSE or some other affliction so horrible that no-one dares give it a proper name, or else I will be suffering from terminal arthritis from a lifetime of playing the organ in unheated churches.


Still, it's worth asking mum if she could have a word at next PCC, or, even better, asking Gwen if she could preach about the life-affirming properties of Sugar Puffs, and just happen to mention that at the back of church there will be a collecting box for tokens - in aid of the Choir Fund, of course.


Monday, January 4, 2010

Tuesday 19 September


Remedial English was cancelled today because Mr Grudge is off sick with a sore neck, and the class was dispersed to various alternative locations. It was perhaps not a good idea to send Garnham to the new Department of Sub-Atomic Physics, for his eyesight was not really up the job of controlling Miss Smith’s new Small-to-Medium Hadron Collider, which will now have to be replaced at enormous cost, along with two classrooms and a large arc of the school playing field which were vaporised, though luckily without human casualties.

I myself was obviously directed to the Music Lab, and was blissfully unaware of the mayhem in the science block because the Music Lab appeared to be having its own mayhem party. The noise was indescribable. The Music Lab is full of giant speakers and computers and rank after rank of black boxes with flashing lights and levers and knobs, and I made the mistake of asking a pimply young person where the piano was.

He looked at me in an incredulous manner. “Hey, man, dem tings gone out wid de ark. Where you bin? Evertin’ done on de ’pooter now, savin’ a whole heapa hassle bodderin’ wid dem liddle black notey-thingies.” Then he looked at me more closely. “O golly gosh! You’re Barry, aren’t you? Don’t you play the organ in a church? And I took you for an A-Level student! Mea culpa. No offence meant, old chap. Hope none’s taken. I’m Julian, by the way. Head of Music, for my sins.”

He shook my hand, and I felt obliged to enquire why he had first spoken to me in such a curious manner. “O, it’s the kids”, he said. “They all talk like that, and you have to learn or they think you’re hot, I mean uncool. But hey, Barry, can you really read music? That is so, like, pants!” A wistful look crept into his eyes. “ Wish I could, though.”

I survived the lesson with a thumping headache and without heaving learned anything at all, but I have resolved to be more polite in future to my old music teacher, Miss Abricote (she who advised me after my first seven failures at Grade I Piano to take up carpentry or budgie-breeding), even though every time I encounter her in her buggy in the village she pulls the blinds down and zooms off at 7mph in the opposite direction.

It was because of dear Miss Abricote that I can now read music, provided it has no more than three sharps or flats (or two in the minor keys), and in my school that probably qualifies me for a Doctorate.

Baked beans for tea, on soggy toast. Mum is too busy to cook properly, because it’s her Women’s Group tonight so she has to get her make-up off and her boiler suit on, which takes hours.


Tuesday 19 September

Remedial English was cancelled today because Mr Grudge is off sick with a sore neck, and the class was dispersed to various alternative locations. It was perhaps not a good idea to send Garnham to the new Department of Sub-Atomic Physics, for his eyesight was not really up the job of controlling Miss Smith’s new Small-to-Medium Hadron Collider, which will now have to be replaced at enormous cost, along with two classrooms and a large arc of the school playing field which were vaporised, though luckily without human casualties. I myself was obviously directed to the Music Lab, and was blissfully unaware of the mayhem in the science block because the Music Lab appeared to be having its own mayhem party. The noise was indescribable. The Music Lab is full of giant speakers and computers and rank after rank of black boxes with flashing lights and levers and knobs, and I made the mistake of asking a pimply young person where the piano was. He looked at me in an incredulous manner. “Hey, man, dem tings gone out wid de ark. Where you bin? Evertin’ done on de ’pooter now, savin’ a whole heapa hassle bodderin’ wid dem liddle black notey-thingies.” Then he looked at me more closely. “O golly gosh! You’re Barry, aren’t you? Don’t you play the organ in a church? And I took you for an A-Level student! Mea culpa. No offence meant, old chap. Hope none’s taken. I’m Julian, by the way. Head of Music, for my sins.”

He shook my hand, and I felt obliged to enquire why he had first spoken to me in such a curious manner. “O, it’s the kids”, he said. “They all talk like that, and you have to learn or they think you’re hot, I mean uncool. But hey, Barry, can you really read music? That is so, like, pants!” A wistful look crept into his eyes. “ Wish I could, though.”

I survived the lesson with a thumping headache and without heaving learned anything at all, but I have resolved to be more polite in future to my old music teacher, Miss Abricote (she who advised me after my first seven failures at Grade I Piano to take up carpentry or budgie-breeding), even though every time I encounter her in her buggy in the village she pulls the blinds down and zooms off at 7mph in the opposite direction.

It was because of dear Miss Abricote that I can now read music, provided it has no more than three sharps or flats (or two in the minor keys), and in my school that probably qualifies me for a Doctorate.

Baked beans for tea, on soggy toast. Mum is too busy to cook properly, because it’s her Women’s Group tonight so she has to take her make-up off, which takes hours.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Monday 18 September


Garnham was waiting outside the school gates at 8:55am this morning, bursting with excitement. “I say, Acne,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Have you heard about Antony? His girl-friend went potty because he’s had a letter from Another Woman and she ran over him with her bike. Antony had to go to hospital and the bike’s a write-off.”

It must be my assiduous study of the works of Ian Fleming that has given me such a clear insight into the mysterious workings of human psychology, for it was immediately obvious to me that that was the reason Antony wasn’t in church yesterday.

Our conversation was interrupted by the school hooter. We used to have a bell, but the mafia of the Lower Sixth stole it last year and sold it to a scrap metal merchant to augment their beer and fags fund. It is thought, but it hasn’t been proved yet, despite a thorough investigation by Matron and the Caretaker, to be the same mafia that discovered the box of Victorian ink powder when they were clearing out a disused store-room in the old block, and tipped the lot into the cold water tank that serves the cisterns in the girls’ lavatory. The health centre people were really excited because they thought there was an epidemic of an hitherto unknown tropical disease – Spotty Blue Bottom Fever – until the lab reports came back.

But as I say, our conversation was interrupted and we had to line up for Assembly.

It seems that both strikes are over. The reasons are complex, but apparently our school is now owned and managed by the American company that funded the new Science and Armaments Block. The teaching staff were threatened with loss of pension and holiday rights and took fright, some of them having already invested heavily in retirement caravans in Pontypridd, but more funding is to be provided by a famous beefburger chain for a new Psychology, Sociology and Media Studies department to secure an adequate supply of future graduates to staff its expanding portfolio of alimentary gratification facilities.

This was all explained to us in Assembly by the Headmaster, who arrived in a silver Cadillac that brought admiring glances from the junior forms until its chaffeur locked it away in the old stable block, no doubt having heard of the reputation of the Lower Sixth. The Headmaster spoke for ten minutes about Posterity and Glowing Futures, said we were wunnerful kids and great teachers, then had to leave because of his incredibly busy skejjle, being CEO of just about every mult-eye-national corporation in the world, including (and I did not know this until this morning, even though I am on the Staff) the Church of England. I must write to my Boss, the Archbishop of Canterbury, about it, for I suspect he might not know either.