📚 The Sotonians Lockdown & Beyond Diaries

Monkey Tennis
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The Toilet Humour Diaries of Paul Alan Taylor, aged 46 and 3/4

We Brits have a strange relationship with the word “toilet”. For Americans, it’s the thing you piss, shit or puke in. For us, the term means “any room that contains a toilet”.

Some of my neighbours have an even stranger relationship with the word. They’ve got two greyhounds and every time they whip them out the back yard for a shit, they say the word “toilet”. It’s their command for “open your bowels, dogs”, but it doesn’t sit right with me.

What The Red Baron, played by Ade Edmondson in Blackadder, says is “the basis for an entire culture” is reduced to a simple command for a pair of cooped up canines.

They spend hours barking and howling you know, and I can’t imagine that during all that time, neither of them needs a shit. I’d be entirely unsurprised if they had one room which was effectively a dedicated dog dirt dump.

Hosting a dinner party must be incredibly stressful for them. Guests coming round, don’t know whether your house smells of shit and you’re the proverbial sewer workers that can’t smell it.

Then there’s the added worry of a guest asking “where’s your toilet?” and two greyhounds, to order, dropping brown bombs on the filet mignons.

People say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words don’t really matter”. I say “toilet” will sometimes give you a very shitty platter.

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2114

For @pap and Gingora…

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Whoa…you saucy boy…I nearly clicked the like button. :rofl:

2116

The Paul against the racists diary

I don’t do much on Facebook these days. Wanderers to my profile would see footage of game capture, shit puns, pictures of my pets and memories that I posted years ago, like a band doing yet another greatest hits album from a limited amount of material. I’m probably slowing down. Facebook is not usually a place that can animate me.

Sometimes though, you see a comment which is so stupid that the argumentative bastard in me has to say something. So it was the other night.

A woman on my feed, who shares much in common with me, puts up a post about some relatives who travelled seven hours for a booking at the Grand Plaza at Speke only to be turned away on the day because the hotel was full of migrants. It was a fucking joke, apparently.

Now this lady was a fellow resident of the Flower Estates, and just like me, she moved to Liverpool around 20 years ago. I only found this out a couple of years go when my daughter started working in the same place as her. I can’t give her both barrels. She’s my uncle’s best mates sister.

So I gently point out that it’s fine to have a go at the hotel, but that she seemed more pissed off about the migrants (there were several comments about it) and that I wonder how two people with such similar backgrounds, both migrating from Southampton to Liverpool, could end up possessed with such different views.

She back-pedals, and I let it go. I’ve said my bit. It’s pretty eloquent and I consider the matter closed.

Until…

One of the trolls on the comments page addresses my posts, pointing out that it was a migrant that tried to blow up the Women’s Hospital and that she doesn’t trust any of them.

I point out that’s a form of collective punishment, swerving Godwin’s law entirely and simply asking how her attitude would play out in the courts.

You are found guilty of murder. You, and your entire ethnic group are sentenced to life

She didn’t really respond to that point particularly, but did follow up that her loyalty remained to British soil.

Amused, I asked her how her dirt worship manifested itself in real life. Was she, for example, purposefully nastier to anyone that fell out of a vagina NOT on British soil?

One last response from her, saying that I’d always be a troll to her. It’s a typical response and my cue to stop posting replies. It looks better when you don’t bite back.

The matter concluded yesterday in the real world. I had to nip over to the Penny Lane ASDA. Outside was a lady selling the Big Issue, obviously not native to these climes and obviously not in the best of fettle. She was very polite and despite this, I see tons of people swerving her - one bloke defining “politely rude”.

I didn’t have any cash on me as I entered the shop, but I did draw some out on my way out and paid way over the odds for a copy of the Big Issue that I never intend to read.

Donated in the racist’s dishonour.

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2117

The continuing capers of Paul Alan Taylor, aged 46 2/3rds

I robbed a Virgin Atlantic blanket last week and while Richard Branson has not been around with the near-space cops, it has all caused all kinds of bother.

As I think I may have mentioned before round these parts, I have re-purposed said blanket into a cape, one which I’ve worn about the house since Monday. Gingora is not impressed. Today, she denied me use of my new Star Wars Christmas jumper immediately after I said “that’ll go well with the cape”, citing concern over the jumper’s neck stretching once I’d attached said cape.

She says hurtful things, such as :-

  • It’s a blanket, not a cape
  • Fuck off, I’m working
  • There is something seriously wrong with you :exclamation:

:exclamation: This happened as I was doing Superman poses and “flying” in front of her Christmas movie marathon.

I have since added a Santa hat to proceedings, and got an involuntary smirk out of a passer by as I was putting my recycling out.

I claim I’m going outside with this get-up on. Gingora says “that’s why I’m never going out in public with you again”. I said there were too many coat-hangers about the place and she needed to make the place cape-safe for my needs.

The affair continues in this state of tension.

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2118

And this boys & girls is what happens to people when you cross the pond & drink Miller Lite

2119

Do you ever wonder that maybe, just maybe, she has a point?

:wink::joy:

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2120

The Christmas Diaries of Paul Taylor, aged 46 and 3/4

Well, apart from looking like a gigantic (e.g. more than usual freakazoid) I am having a lovely Christmas eve, with all potential forecasts of family Christmas storms looking like they’re going to deliver a calm Xmas day.

There is still time for that to change.

We have firstborn up from London, without the boyf until just after Boxing Day. and I have set her up in the mancave. We have both the Xboxen set up in the room and I’ve been afflcted with Hades shame. Hades is a game I introduced to my daughter which she is currently trouncing me on. She looks at me as if I’m the ape at the beginning of 2001 murderously fumbling about with my first attempt at tools. It is quite embarrassing.

Lastborn is the usual chill self, despite one of her big presents, a box visit at Liverpool FC being postponed because the bin dippers have all decided to become Omicron rats. I have bought her boyf a critically acclaimed PS5 game, because his PS5 looks like it was only designed to play FIFA or F1 2021. I want to expand his horizons to a third game.

Gingora is on surprisingly good form too. Perhaps not uncoincidentally, I have stuck a load of old time Christmas tunes on which have had the effect of calming her down. So far.

And that’s Christmas for most people, isn’t it? Alright so far but it’s the same potential fucking tinderbox it always has been. Especially if you’re playing Mario Party, as we are tonight :smiley:

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2121

I divorced all that. :+1:

The ex-wife had a massive family, all of whom traditionally converged on Christmas day to reopen old wounds and remember ancient grudges. This process would be liberally aided by copious food and drink, it was an annual nightmare that can still occasionally wake me up in the small hours, trembling and sweating. She would engage enthusiastically in this satanic ritual, invariably trying her utmost to involve me in it like some frightened fox cub being thrown into the pack of hounds.

Fast forward to now. The bird and I have done what little shopping we need, the two of us at our own leisure over the last few weeks. The remaining Christmas shopping was achieved during our break in the Cotswolds last week. The house is moderately tidy, awaiting my mother, plus sister and family. They are coming over for a couple of hours in the morning, then heading off for their lunch. Bird and I booked in at the Clump for lunch, after which I shall introduce the bird to her Christmas gift which I collected today, (ably abetted by that top gentleman LITSL, I might add.)

And that’s it. New Bond film on bluray is sitting in the motor, out of sight just in case she’s already bought me a copy for Christmas. Plenty of booze in for her, and plenty of my infant formula/alcohol free in the garage. The sildenafil is discreetly to hand for that special moment, (pm me if anyone needs any of this surplus the doctor keeps prescribing, don’t be embarrassed, I don’t judge.)

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2122

So, what’s his latest side-scam? :wink:

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You’re in no danger I only Scam the gullible, not the cynical. :stuck_out_tongue:

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2124

The Secret Diaries of Paul Taylor, aged 47 and 1 day.

I’m only a day into my 47th year and I’ve already had three games of “Shit or Sock”, the game for partially sighted people with incontinent aging pets.

Is it a shit? Is it a sock?

Well, twice it was a sock. Once it was not. Grim.

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2125

That would be particularly grim in our house on account of my tendency to flick up a sock with my foot to catch it and then put it in the laundry bin

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2126

The Secret Diary of Paul Taylor, aged 47 and 2 days

I woke up this morning believing I was the victim of a brutal April fools joke. Going downstairs for my usual morning micturation, I noticed that my cock was missing.

After many accusations flung in Gingora’s direction about pinking shears and such-like, we eventually found the bugger hiding under a pube.

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2127

The Secret Diary of Paul Taylor, aged 47 and 18 days

So it’s Easter Sunday and I realise I need vital supplies. With the working from home and all that it’s a fucking ask for me to have clothes on in the first place, let alone have all the necessities needed for life, such as house keys, etc.

So I say to Gingora on my way out “are you going to listen out for me or shall I get my house keys”.

“No”, she says. “I’m going to laugh at you through the windows.”

“I’ll get my house keys”, I say, adding “I believe you”.

So I nip to the shop, get back and have a tremendously industrious Easter Sunday. Kitchen done, back yard done and lastborn saying I’ve inspired her to clean elsewhere.

Gingora helps out too, taking recycling and rubbish out to our wheelie bins, which are right outside our front door.

I’ve got the back door open, and a little gust of wind slams the front door while she’s out there bunging stuff into bins.

The doorbell goes. I know exactly what has happened, but lastborn is in the lead to answer it.

“Hold on babes”, I say to lastborn. “Don’t answer that just yet”.

I jostle past and scoot up to the frosted glass. I then do my most affected Dr Evil “mu-ha-ha” laugh through the window, then open the door.

Karma ain’t instant around here, but it’s generally Amazon Prime standard.

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2128

Maybe you should just put your socks in the wash once they’ve been used. Should make the game easier…

2129

Or better still, turn the socks inside out and wear them for another week.

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2130

When Lady Slowlane notes my lack of sartorial elegance or personal hygiene my stock answer is, “Who am I likely to impress at my age”

She grudgingly agrees. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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This is the thing about the upper classes Lord Slowlane, they understand these things. The Plebs will never understand these things of course. Probably just as well.

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I’ve been running the same line tbh.
But Mrs P_F’s BFF has scared the shit out of her by arriving for Easter lunch & drinks in full make up, a year’s supply of Salt & Vinegar crisps, FIVE bars of Crunchie and amazingly 2 packs of Golden Virginia.

Shocked her out of her lockdown slumber without a doubt
:flushed::roll_eyes::innocent:

1 Like