Monday 21 May 2007

‘now listen, lady’
is a northern prelude to
female violence.

Big Brother will be returning next week and I will be using this blog to chronicle events in the house as they unfold.
Talking of hooligans, I boarded the westbound Hammersmith and City Line yesterday at about 5pm and found myself surrounded by about ten fans of some unidentifiable sport, their faces painted with fluorescent crosses. They were, however, very friendly, if a little rowdy. Once I had sat down, one of them pointed at me and said ‘It’s Bill Oddie!’ at which the rest of them began to sing ‘He Looks Like Bill Oddie! He Looks Like Bill Oddie. Na Na Na Nah! Na Na Na Nah!’.
I don’t, in fact, look like Bill Oddie. I have been compared to John Peel in the past, and occasionally Derek Jacobi, though I don’t see it.
‘Actually,’ one of them then said, ‘He looks nothing like Bill Oddie.’
They continued their song, but with different lyrics, addressing the physical shortcomings of each other, and the one sitting next to me put his arm around me and rocked me as he sang, which I cannot say was a particularly unpleasant experience, since they were obviously all having a good time, and the comparison to Bill Oddie was not meant in a nasty way, although Bill Oddie himself may think differently.
I got home later than I thought and couldn’t be arsed cooking so I ordered us Chinese food and we watched ‘Coronation Street’.
Last week, Diedre, driven to despair by cheap fags and white wine, erupted into fury when Ken brought his ex-lover Denise into the pub. Diedre leapt to her feet, and almost before anyone could say ‘Now listen, lady!’ (although I’m almost certain one of them did) slapped Denise across her chops.
Ken, his lips trembling with indignation at the effrontery of someone using the phrase ‘Now listen, lady!’ in his presence, threw Denise’s fake-fur-collared coat across her shoulders and ushered her out.
By ‘eck!