**NEWSFLASH** Monkeymother Nearly Drowns, But Is Saved By A Frenchman

Monkeymother telephones from France. She is with the great love of one of my dearest friends, a handsome French architect called Eric (also a dear friend). He is making a part of the monkeyparents' house in France nicer than the rest, so they have gone to the France for a few days to look at concrete floors.

I assume she has called to say they have arrived safely, but no! Anything but!

"Have you heard what happened?"

"No, Monkeymother."

"One minute I was reversing, and the next minute we were upside down in a river."

Before I start, I should say that everyone in my family is an excellent driver apart from me. If accidents happen, which they never do, they are to do with the foolishness of horses bolting out of Hyde Park and rolling across the roof of my father's Triumph Herald some time in the late 70s, not spazzy driving. This simple fact makes the following story all the more remarkable.

It seems that MM had been to view a concrete floor in a house in France, with Eric, in the pouring rain, in the dark. In a fugged up rental car with poor visibility (due to Internal Fug created by a combination of breathing and heating and Torrential Rain), MM reverses a millimetre too far and suddenly finds herself (and Eric) sliding down a bank in a rental car which FLIPS OVER and lands ON ITS ROOF in the river. Eric and MM are dangling from the sky in their seatbelts. Water is pouring in. MM cannot open her door, for it is crushed! Will they live? Will MM meet her maker hanging upside down in a seatbelt? Will Eric live to design great houses for the rich and famous?

YES! For Eric's door opens! MM is afraid that the water will run in and drown them, but Eric valiantly FORCES his door open, releases himself from his seatbelt, wades through the cascading torrents and releases MM from her seatbelttrap. They then stand in the river and laugh.

They scramble up the bank. MM realises her bag is still in the car. Eric valiantly wades back through the cascading torrents, and salvages MM's bag and their suitcases. As they stagger through the pouring rain to the owner of the concrete floor, MM's waterlogged skirt falls off.

They get to the front door of the owner of the concrete floor. MM has pulled her skirts up. But what is this? MM has realised that the key to her house in France is still in the car! How will they get in? Will they ever be dry again?

YES! For the owner of the concrete floor dons a pair of Wellington boots and makes his way down the bank and to the car, where - strangely - the key and some Euros are floating mysteriously in a plastic bag on the surface of the raging rivière. They are SAVED!

MM reports that she and Eric are now in clean clothes (Eric is wearing Monkeyfather's, poor dear). They are sitting by the fire eating foie gras, and will soon be drinking the wine. Eric's shoes are stuffed with newspaper, and MM's computer is drying out by the radiator. They are safe!

The car, meanwhile, is still upside down in the river and will be there until morning.

Bon dieu!

Day 130: I Have My Drains Cleared

I do not exaggerate when I say I have never seen such rods in my life. A fourteen year old came round and stuffed twelve metres of them (with a spear on the end), down next door's drain (pictured here). Silt came out, and maybe some charcoal and a cat or two.

Now, next door's drain is Thames Water's drain. One of my drains is Thames Water's; the other one isn't. But there was a Blockage, mainly made of Twatboy's enormous poos (he eats mainly ready meals from Iceland, as he still has no oven after two months). And the blockage in "my" drain (i.e. me, Twatboy's, his flatmate's, and the two houses on the other side), should have cost me £65 to clear. But it did not cost me £65, for the fourteen year old rodded my drains, got out his plunger, had a go on Twatboy's poo and refused to even take a tenner for a drink. Whattaguy.

If that's made you feel a bit sick, here's a picture of Jane Russell in the bath to cheer you up, particularly if you've eaten too much cake this weekend:






















Miss Russell weren't no size 00. Know what I'm saying? Blessings to you too, Miss Russell!

Right, I'm off to the gym then I'm going to do a bit of low-level time travel back to 1950, to get me a New Look frock. Then I shall come home and flush my lavatory repeatedly and marvel at its efficiency.

Day 129: I Come Across A Strange Dog

To Oxford, to see Great Uncle Fred on the occasion of his 99th birthday. He will last until he is 115, at least: "I've never been to Shanghai; I must go." He looked at his two year old great-grandson, sighed, and said "Don't let that child near a Hoover. He has a mania for Hoovers." And finally - in a moment that reminded me that he is the Only Person Who Can Say Terrible Things to me - he said: "Married yet? No? Hurry up!" As I was leaving, he muttered "And less slacking. Come on now, back to work!" (I should point out that he is a Yorkshireman and used to be a headmaster.)

On the way down, I was surprised to see that my parents - already owners of two terriers, one of which spent some of the morning under the duvet with his head on my foot, and the other bouncing up and down on the bed sticking her face in my mouth - seem to have acquired another dog, that lives mainly in their car.
















And here is a closeup. Not a breed I recognise but still, he looked cheerful enough and seemed to enjoy nodding his head to the rhythm of our journey down the A40.











I asked them where they got him. They didn't say much, but I don't think it was Battersea Dogs' Home.

Day 128: I Am Forced To Touch Twatboy's Poo

When I'm feeling gloomy, there is nothing that cheers me up more than a quick sit down with a video of my drains and a cup of tea. The way the camera swoops through the murky effluent! The strange hooks and corners that exist in the Edwardian gloom! The fact that my drain is designed in a way that Drain Experts do not Believe, despite video evidence!

Oh, the conversations I've had with Lambeth Council and Thames Water. "Don't be stupid, love, drains don't work like that." "Would you like to see Documentary Evidence, love?" "Don't patronise me, love." The phone calls, the pumping machines, the feet upon feet of high-power jet running through my flat!

There was a first Inkling that all is not well in the Edwardian depths on Thursday. Next door's front garden smelt of plop, and flushing was not all it should be. I looked at it, the loo, and went to bed hoping, in a Pollyannaish way, that in the morning the Poo Fairies would have been and cleared the drain out. But no. For this morning - two days of Hope and small sacrifices to the Poo Fairies later - it is Backing Up, and that means only one thing: I must get my rods out.

Let me explain. I live in the middle of a terrace. The poo from 3 houses down and upstairs joins the Main Drain in my garden, but has to go through a Mysterious Bend first. The Victorians did not get through a roll of loo roll a day; nor did they eat rice and pasta that was shoved down their kitchen sink if it fell out of a sieve. They did not use 'sanitary protection' (other than a rolled up copy of the London Times) and, as they were smaller than us, I suspect their poos were smaller. Likewise, the Edwardians (whose drains were built to join in with the big Victorian one), did not take it upon themselves to throw Flash wipes down the lav. I suspect they also chewed their peas properly, rather than inhaling them whole and then pooing them out into my drain.

I had no choice. I have - for reasons I do not remember - got some long bendy drain rods in my garden. If I rod the Effluent, it usually clears and there is no reason to call the Emergency Poo Services. But today all is not well. There is a new and very heavy manhole cover on the drain, which I finally lifted with the aid of a fork. And more poo (including rice and peas) floating on the surface than I have ever seen before. But rod it I must, and did. Nothing happened, apart from me inserting the full 8ft length of rod into the hole and twiddling it about for a full ten minutes.

And then, of course, I had to TOUCH IT, the rod. I touched Twatboy-Upstairs poo, with my hands. And all to no avail. Now I am going to bath in bleach and scrub myself with sandpaper.

Holy shit, indeed.

Day 127: I Am Watching Children In Need

And I rather wish I wasn't. Daniiiiiiiiiii Minogue (brave Kylie!) is doing a too-fast version of "The Greatest Dancer" by Sister Sledge (Do Not Fuck With The Sledge), and now they are playing James Cunt over some footage of some children, who are in need.

However, thanks to Children In Need, I realised something about my new haircut, which is in fact sort of old and was applied by stealth by Clever Dylan, stand up comedian, ex-student of philosophy, designer of t-shirts, inventer of jokes and cutter of hair ("Dylan! Is that a fringe? Is it SHORT? Damn you!"). I rejected it two years ago in favour of some sort of strange semi-curly bob thing that only ever looked OK for a day and got in my eyes, and caused my fashionable friends to tut for it made me look messy, and ill-defined.

I didn't want to believe that I had found the only haircut that will ever suit me at 32. But I have very, very fine (some would say 'thin') hair, and a face that is not fat when the rest of me mostly is, and I fiddle with it. And there is a haircut that looks splendid, according to my fashionable friends ("Very Strong Look", "Strangely, you look MORE feminine with short hair", "It's very Definite, Pats"), despite being that of a 50s schoolboy.

And it exactly the same as the haircut of Dan Gillespie-Sells, lead singer of popular beat combo The Feeling. Here it is. What do you think? Dan Gillespie-Sells is the first one. I do not wear the same kind of clothes as him and cannot sing, but we both have big square faces like horses and identical hairdos, so we must be related. Heavens!