OCCUPIED COUNTRY

This Must Be the Place

That's me and the shit machine having a slight disagreement about whether she should carry on sniffing the tree trunk, or whether it was time to move on.

I won.

It's one of the few areas of my life where I do. Take the past few weeks for example. It's been one long series of defeats in the war of the sexes. When it comes to the killer punch, Dearest's is Tyson-esque whereas mine is, well, more on a par with Mr Muscle.

As I have previously mentioned, the house has been chock full of joiners, plasterers and decorators recently. Naturally each one of these merry artisans has asked us questions relating to choice of decor. On all of these occasions Dearest has insisted on my opinion - although "insisted" doesn't quite describe the near death experiences I went through each time my view was canvassed.

To emasculate my insipid ego further, each of my suggestions was laughingly dismissed with a heavily emphasised rolling of the eyes along with the smirk of contempt.

This total disregard of the man of the house was perfectly demonstrated last Friday afternoon when I returned home early to watch the cricket. No sooner had messrs Flintoff et al started cheering my weary soul than I heard banging and knocking from the rear of Occupied Towers. "What the f....." I naturally thought as I raced into the kitchen to see two blokes climbing a ladder onto the kitchen roof. "Oi!" I said.

Turns out the two blokes had been engaged by Dearest to repair our kitchen roof. She'd "forgotten" to tell me. Yeah. Right.

The very next morning (Saturday I might add) we had a carpet-fitter coming at 8:00am - the bastard. Dearest was up at 7:15ish and pottering about downstairs. At 7:35 I figured that if I wanted a crap, now was the time to do it.

We always sleep au naturel so I slip out of bed and into the toilet. Starkers.

So, there I am, doing what a man's gotta do, when I hear the unmistakeable sounds of Dearest letting the carpet fitter in. He's early. "Yes, up the stairs" I hear her say. Next thing I know I'm stuck in the bog - devoid of clothing - with a hairy-arsed son of toil right outside the door.

What do I do? My dressing gown is in our bedroom, but I have to cross the landing past the bedroom we're having carpeted to get there. Do I risk it? I sneak a look as I open the door slightly and see that he's put his huge toolbox right in front of the bog door. I'll not be risking that then. I open the door an inch and bellow "Dearest!". No reply. "DEAREST!". No reply. "DEAREST!!!!" "Yes?." "Could you come here a minute?"

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A nice glass of red tonight as we watched the final episode of Messiah: The Harrowing. 20 minutes or so to go and the phone rings. It's Youngest's Darlin'. Youngest has gone to see the Pixies and she's at home, alone with her two greyhounds and a spider.

So - as I had had a glass more than Dearest, Dearest drove me down armed with my trusty pint pot and slim brochure to catch the offending article. 15 minutes later the job's done, Youngest's Darlin's shaking and sweating has subsided and we watch the final minutes of the three-parter.

Well, we found out who it was and why but not why the catalyst (the murderer's daughter committed suicide) occurred.

Baffled we drove home. Dearest parked the car and we got out. "What's that hissin' noise?" The rear nearside tyre. That's what.

Doh!

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We lost a friend and relative this weekend. Unexpected but not a surprise - if you catch my drift. Ahh well. Peace at last. Peace at last.

Karine Polwart. Via the BBC. Enjoy.

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Totally unrelated - Interview with Jimmy Webb.