ANGRY EGGS

Fame

Have you seen an angry egg? I have seen one that was pretty close to being annoyed and decided to rather let things be, just in case it started fuming and trouble brewed. But this is a tale for another day.

You probably know me, seeing that I famous, at least in my own tea time - fame needs be put into perspective but also has its moments, though.

Just the other day a couple visited my wife’s guesthouse and mistook me for an orthinologist (not Salim Ali seeing that he is based in India and I am neither Indian nor Italian). I am a renowned botanist just short of the fame David Attenborough achieved — I don’t have a television show or a website. But my wife has a guesthouse and I have lots of books about trees and other boring plants. One day, I will make the breakthrough. Once people realize that trees are out there I will be the man to count on. I will speak in a hushed tone whilst ambushing a nervous tree, television cameras and crew at my beck and call (and behest). Some say stars even get girls thrown in among the trees. I have never been lucky so I don’t count any stars.

I need to make one thing clear. I will not want any personal lodgings like the movie stars get to have including Davie Attenborough. I am happy with my little tarpaulin tent, nifty diode (or whatever it is called) headlamp and some salty crackers, rank cheese and lots of wine. Word has it that the lots-of-wine-thing has stood between me and fame. Ill-founded rumours never go as far as that one did. But the less said the better, and anyway I thought it was because I did not have a GPS or whatever you call that tinned voice in your car that tells you to turn left when you don’t feel like it.

It seems as if the younger generation has nothing to do other than to report filth, dirt and grime. I have little time for reporters these days — I am not being interviewed anyway.

Now this may seem to be no mean feat, the books and the guesthouse at least. Not having the show and the website is another thing. Nothing is ever that simple, not even clipping your toe nails, especially if you cannot, despite your fame afford a beauty parlour, and have back trouble. I once had to dental floss a piece of nail that got stuck between my front teeth, mysteriously. But then again I am sure you have no desire to listen to my bowel movements — let’s stick to angry eggs and trees.

There I sat in my study. I sit a lot these days as I am getting on. A lifetime of prosecuting and defending criminals has taken its toll. In front of me is my desk, believe it or not. It has a leather inlay of about a half an inch. There are some notes on the leather which I made in the inadvertent belief that I was jotting down details in the guestbook — which is made of real leather I will let you know before you start reaching all sorts of conclusions. Needless to say, those guests either arrived unannounced or perhaps not at all. I am not good with guests. Guests don’t seem to like me anyway which is fine by me but not that it seems as if my wife, Maggie, gets the drift. We actually need a receptionist but, then again, we also need a bellboy, and a porter, for that matter. In the meantime I am put to “good use” as she says hence I have to help everywhere which is not good for my back or my peace, forget my arboreal aspirations. I feel like a slop bucket. At least at the rate I have to produce social saliva. Bottoms up, you can’t have your egg and eat it.

Proper Sludge

My study is damp. Lots of old unused leather bound books are stacked everywhere. The books don’t smell, I suspect, as no one backs away from them in horror, as they do with me. Not that I get to see anyone anymore. At the rate that I knock wine bottles and glasses over it is actually not really surprising that the place smells. I sit, as usual, on an ancient leather swivel chair. It swivels right round. It can even tip backwards so you can put your feet on the table whilst having a snort, staring at the wooden beams. The house is prehistoric and staring at the ceiling is not always advisable as sand may come sifting through the cracks and crevices in the ceiling. I was once, in pursuit of a fifth glass of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon, I forget the name and vintage, blinded by an avalanche of red sand (and spider and bat shit, I suppose). It turned out that Dick, the gardener and supposed handyman, was stumbling around in the attic trying to locate something or the other.

Now if there has ever been someone aptly christened it was old Dick. What an unhandy prick he is. And he was christened, not named. Dick comes from an old and serious Presbyterian family of losers, infamous for their convenient amnesia. Thus, there is no need to go politically correct on me. Save that for later. Next thing I will be Noddied.

Anyway, the short and the long of the matter was that I stumbled, at least more than usually, around the house as blind as a bat for two days. But, as usual, no matter what I said Maggie insisted that Dick stays, “he’s like family”, she’d always say. By that same token I had to eat yellow jelly for two days. Why being blind is equated with illness and jelly is beyond me. But then again, many of the things she does are beyond my fallible grasp. Asking her for some Vodka in the jelly, for a proper sludge, was like asking a Rottweiler to hand a steak back. Thank God though, for two days I could not see Dick even though I could hear him falling around fixing stuff. I have, in the event, a shotgun in my study. Dick is aware of that shotgun meaning that nothing was broken in the study except the central heating that gave way some time ago. But that was even before my father died — i.e. Dick did not dick-it. But it is highly likely his father did. Old Tom, that is: same kettle of fish. Also, I did not like central heating; nothing drives the cold away like a good old bottle of fine stuff. Besides anything else I would do anything to keep away from Dick, and this is more than just personal revulsion; he was always trailed by a bulldog, a bulldog that did not particular took to me and, even worse, was a snot factory. It left a slimy trail of mucus and spit wherever it went. The fact that it looked like it was about, protruding pink penis and all, to mate with anything that looked remotely alive helped matters not. Its names was Frog which, I suppose, says it all.

I needed to go out, though. Some trees needed visiting some shrubs patting. And off I toddled, well I never thought I would toddle but it does come with age. I have an aphid spray gun and half a jack of gin in my sock the latter being there to ward other pests off. My granddaughter gave me a digital camera with which I have managed, whilst trying to take pictures of my favourite woody friends, to do the odd 70 or so self-portraits. I have noticed in the process that my nose hair have become somewhat unruly and tangled. The disgust on the face of the delightfully pretty girl at SuperPhoto fortified my conclusion.

This caused me to somewhat embarrassingly dawdle into Safeways to get a nose-hair-remover (sold under the nifty trade mark “Rover rooter”. Delightful thing though, works with batteries (something I understand), has a switch (something that is familiar) and best of all has nifty blades that make a purring noise whilst removing the hair and other matter. After a few tries I realised one needs help to clip your ear hair as I stuck the Rover countless a time into my sideburns or so deep into my ears that I could not hear for hours on end — unfortunately not for much longer which would have provided much relief.

The Rover tends to get stuck when over burdened by something like facial hair and promptly goes into rip mode — taking hold of anything it can gets its blades on, grabbing, swirling like a food processor and then jerking whatever it has grabbed without due deference right out of whatever follicle that particular hair was secured within. Take a few hairs, gamble on a number of follicles, let the Rover go about its ways and you have the pain equivalent to a root canal.

You will probably have to bear with my ramblings as I am getting on, in life that is. I have even planted tree ferns and horsetails (of the later sort) lately. I am going botanical big time. I am going to forest my garden. I am going to be the King of all botanists, even if I fall over in the process; which happens more and more though I have not yet been crowned. Maggie is shouting from the kitchen something about tea and soufflés. Tea is an important event, even if you only manage to sneak a bit of whisky into a pot of earl grey. Soufflés are serious. According to the Concise Oxford dictionary (I use the many volumes of the 2nd edition as handy steps for my library) a soufflé is supposed to be “light and frothy”. Maggie has just not quite got the hang of that yet. Dark and heavy appear to be more appropriate, the sort of thing that could only add to your arsenal in times of war. Could have been handy when I saw she invited the two American guests for tea. These were the same guests that upset the egg that morning. Anyway, none of this is really important. I staggered down the steps as niftily as I could and pronounced myself ill. I needed to get into my study without having been soufflé’d, tea’ed or having to speak to those people. Much more important things were occupying my mind, like some port and the ceiling. Soufflés and I had not a happy history.