I PROMOTED MYSELF from columnist to blogger last week but couldn’t tell the difference. Next thing, a fellow in Boston emailed to say my brother Joe’s tennis friend “Puss” Rudder had passed away. And then added that he was looking for “a good Valentine’s editorial” from me.
Brother Lucombe, only heavies get to write editorials. And they remain forever nameless. You just watch yourself with all that snow over there.
But the blog was an overwhelming success. One reader actually liked it. Eight “young, attractive” Russian women want a relationship with me. Others want to give me millions. And the Sandy Lane playboy sent a picture of last Saturday night’s topless squash female foursome in battle gear. Looking good! No wonder one of his members, Cliff Nolan, plays in his underwear with the “pecker slit” stitched up. Down, boy!
I did, however, get warm lashes and demands for a retraction from two daughters who feel employees should be free to adorn themselves as they see fit. They pointed out that girls with unstraightened African-type hair are held to different standards at school. I agree that is nonsense.
Things have been rough lately. We had to put an engine in our old 1990 pickup and rent a van for the duration. Nuff thousands. Milk cooler giving trouble. Stray dogs killed a good milking goat and caused another to abort. All round licks.
Yet it was alarming to read on the Nation website a comment regretting that the police had caught someone for a recent armed bank robbery. The writer apparently has full sympathy for the robber: “He ain’t kill nobody. He rob the bank and for me that is okay. Poor people suffering . . .”
Strange logic, maybe. But no different from when a lawyer who allegedly held on to a client’s money for several years gets sympathy in high places on the grounds that “he is an honourable man . . . He just had a difference with a client”.
Anyway, enough of all that. This is Valentine’s Day and a time for mating and love. Betsy Salkind says: “Men are like linoleum floors. Lay ’em right and you can walk all over them for 30 years.” That’s about as true as it gets. They lay you right, and often, in the courting days. Once you’re properly laid, it’s walk over time from thence forward.
By the way, there’s been a lot of recent research showing that sleeping naked with your partner is good for your health. Pluses range from reducing belly fat to “airing your private parts”. Sounds like a plan!
My wife was upset over an ad about “you and your boo”. She thought they were mispronouncing “beau”. We had to show her “boo” nowadays means a sweetheart; also the sound made by a ghost.
The boo and I have no special plans for Valentine’s as far as I know. Unless she wants to try the sleep-naked thing. I never wear more than a shirt in bed anyway.
Lately I’ve been seeing marriage as a progression. You start out, the loving is plentiful, the food barely edible. You stomach the latter because you want the former. Then the tables turn. She becomes for you the best cook in the world but won’t give you a look-in.
Yet that’s not the end of the world. Grandchildren are the real reward in marriage. I’ve got four of the best. The last one Dom, four years old, has taken over my life. He shaves me every morning, tells me when to rest, feeds me raisins when I’m writing. Lately he’s been coaching me in cricket. When I missed three balls in succession, he snorted his digust: “Grandad, yuh swiping, man!”
One last thing. I see in Dear Christine lots of women are horning their husbands. This is nothing to worry about. Maybe it’s just “a little difference” in size or something. I was hearing about a parliamentary speaker in Malta or somewhere who brought home a colleague unexpectedly. And sounds from the bedroom indicated his wife was deeply canoodling with the well built neighbour.
“Aiee, aiee, aiee, no, no, aiee, aiee, no, aiee, aiee . . . !” came her cries fast and furious. The speaker listened impassively till it was over. Then, turning to his friend, he declared with consummate professionalism: “Methinks the ‘aiees’ have it!”
Way to go!
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator. Email porkhoad@gmail.com