risking your life to save the free world. Now it means dispensing with your under-wear.
Cyd came back and stared at me. I pressed quit and the cheerleaders were instantly gone. My wife folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb.
‘Interesting?’ she said.
‘Not really,’ I said. Then we both looked at the child monitor as Joni began to call out in her sleep.
‘I’ll get her,’ my wife said. ‘Don’t worry, Harry. You just carry on with what you’re doing.’
When she was gone I typed ‘Beach Parties’ into thesearch engine. I was offered just over 30,000 sites featuring people with no pants.
And soon I could hear the sound of my wife soothing our daughter on the child monitor, the little green lights rising and falling with the sound of their voices.
But long after their voices had faded to silence, and the house was still, I sat in the kitchen, looking for the ghost of my father.
‘We love edgy,’ Blunt said, speaking for the station, for the corporation, for the entire BBC. He gave Marty a professional smile. ‘We love controversial. We love danger. We love all those things.’ Another smile that glittered with frosty familiarity. Then he looked down with some distaste at the newspapers spread across his desk. ‘But we don’t like trouble. We don’t like anti-BBC leaders in national newspapers. We don’t like the media ripping out our liver and feeding it to the dogs.’
Sid from Surbiton had taken Marty’s advice. He had attempted to solve the parking dispute with his neighbour by shooting him in the face with a starting pistol.
Sid blamed Marty. SHOOT THY NEIGHBOUR, SHOCK JOCK TOLD ME, a tabloid screamed. The papers blamed Marty. The broadsheets had debates about the licence fee being used to promote gun crime. The tabloids just went bananas, absolutely ape-shit with righteous rage, choosing us as this week’s telling vignette from badly mangled Britain.
Pictures of Sid being hauled off to the cells shared front pages with Marty photos from the archives. He picked up a copy of the Daily Mirror that had a picture of him arriving at some forgotten premiere. He shook his head and looked at me with desperation in his eyes.
‘Am I losing my hair?’ he asked. ‘Have I put on a few pounds?’
I ignored him.
‘How bad is it?’ I said to Blunt.
‘The neighbour has a damaged retina,’ Blunt said. ‘It getsworse if he loses the eye. If he keeps the eye – that would be helpful. So we want him to keep the eye.’
I placed my hands on the pile of papers, fighting the rising tide of panic. The car was still parked across Sid’s driveway. So a fat lot of good shooting his neighbour had done.
‘Some of these reporters talked to other residents,’ I said. ‘Nobody liked this guy. The guy that got shot. They call him a neighbour from hell.’ There was a photograph of a front yard with a refrigerator dumped on a shabby lawn, and a pack of unwashed, unsupervised, sugar-crazed children clambering all over it. ‘Inconsiderate parking was just the start. He has kids running wild. One of those amusing signs saying, Beware of the Children, which is never funny if you actually live next door to the little bastards. Music turned up to eleven. A dog that had apparently been trained to pee through your letterbox.’
‘The usual,’ Marty said, making no attempt to stifle a yawn. ‘Chav scum.’
‘Popular opinion is definitely with Sid from Surbiton,’ Blunt conceded. ‘But I am not sure the response was commensurate with the crime. After all, the show is called A Clip Round the Ear. Not A Gun Blast to the Face.’
‘It’s a – what do you call it?’ Marty said. ‘An aphorism. A maxim. If you want to start getting all literal-minded then we could call it Hanging’s too Good for the Chav Scum.’
We both ignored him.
‘So it doesn’t help us,’ I said to Blunt. ‘It doesn’t help us that everyone hated this guy.’
‘It doesn’t help you,’ he corrected.
And we stared at
Cyd came back and stared at me. I pressed quit and the cheerleaders were instantly gone. My wife folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb.
‘Interesting?’ she said.
‘Not really,’ I said. Then we both looked at the child monitor as Joni began to call out in her sleep.
‘I’ll get her,’ my wife said. ‘Don’t worry, Harry. You just carry on with what you’re doing.’
When she was gone I typed ‘Beach Parties’ into thesearch engine. I was offered just over 30,000 sites featuring people with no pants.
And soon I could hear the sound of my wife soothing our daughter on the child monitor, the little green lights rising and falling with the sound of their voices.
But long after their voices had faded to silence, and the house was still, I sat in the kitchen, looking for the ghost of my father.
‘We love edgy,’ Blunt said, speaking for the station, for the corporation, for the entire BBC. He gave Marty a professional smile. ‘We love controversial. We love danger. We love all those things.’ Another smile that glittered with frosty familiarity. Then he looked down with some distaste at the newspapers spread across his desk. ‘But we don’t like trouble. We don’t like anti-BBC leaders in national newspapers. We don’t like the media ripping out our liver and feeding it to the dogs.’
Sid from Surbiton had taken Marty’s advice. He had attempted to solve the parking dispute with his neighbour by shooting him in the face with a starting pistol.
Sid blamed Marty. SHOOT THY NEIGHBOUR, SHOCK JOCK TOLD ME, a tabloid screamed. The papers blamed Marty. The broadsheets had debates about the licence fee being used to promote gun crime. The tabloids just went bananas, absolutely ape-shit with righteous rage, choosing us as this week’s telling vignette from badly mangled Britain.
Pictures of Sid being hauled off to the cells shared front pages with Marty photos from the archives. He picked up a copy of the Daily Mirror that had a picture of him arriving at some forgotten premiere. He shook his head and looked at me with desperation in his eyes.
‘Am I losing my hair?’ he asked. ‘Have I put on a few pounds?’
I ignored him.
‘How bad is it?’ I said to Blunt.
‘The neighbour has a damaged retina,’ Blunt said. ‘It getsworse if he loses the eye. If he keeps the eye – that would be helpful. So we want him to keep the eye.’
I placed my hands on the pile of papers, fighting the rising tide of panic. The car was still parked across Sid’s driveway. So a fat lot of good shooting his neighbour had done.
‘Some of these reporters talked to other residents,’ I said. ‘Nobody liked this guy. The guy that got shot. They call him a neighbour from hell.’ There was a photograph of a front yard with a refrigerator dumped on a shabby lawn, and a pack of unwashed, unsupervised, sugar-crazed children clambering all over it. ‘Inconsiderate parking was just the start. He has kids running wild. One of those amusing signs saying, Beware of the Children, which is never funny if you actually live next door to the little bastards. Music turned up to eleven. A dog that had apparently been trained to pee through your letterbox.’
‘The usual,’ Marty said, making no attempt to stifle a yawn. ‘Chav scum.’
‘Popular opinion is definitely with Sid from Surbiton,’ Blunt conceded. ‘But I am not sure the response was commensurate with the crime. After all, the show is called A Clip Round the Ear. Not A Gun Blast to the Face.’
‘It’s a – what do you call it?’ Marty said. ‘An aphorism. A maxim. If you want to start getting all literal-minded then we could call it Hanging’s too Good for the Chav Scum.’
We both ignored him.
‘So it doesn’t help us,’ I said to Blunt. ‘It doesn’t help us that everyone hated this guy.’
‘It doesn’t help you,’ he corrected.
And we stared at
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