Tag Archives: comedy

The funny things kids say!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I’ve not been lucky enough to have kids but many years ago I remember watching TV with my girlfriend’s daughter, Wendy. I can’t remember the film we were watching but the star was Christopher Reeve, most famous perhaps for playing the part of Superman. Wendy was wondering why he wasn’t ducking into a phone booth to change into Superman and streaking up into the air at the drop of a hat. Well, I thought, it’s time for a serious talk with Wendy about the movie world.

I explained, pretty thoughtfully I thought, about how movies were made, about cameras, shooting, screenplays and actors. Wendy seemed to take it all in but after a while she looked at me, looked back at Christopher Reeve and asked;

“Right, so he’s lost his powers then?”

Here’s another one. One day Tania, Liz’s daughter was asking for a drink of juice. She was very young at the time, just learning to talk so Liz filled her cup with juice and handed Tania the drink. She was expecting a word of thanks but when it wasn’t forthcoming Liz held onto the cup. Tania tugged harder, Liz waited for a thank you. Eventually she said; “Tania, what’s the magic word?”

Tania thought for a moment and replied “Abra cadabra!”

Kids. What funny things have your kids said?

 

Sunday Lunch with My Arch Enemy.

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Sunday afternoon and my arch enemy is about to arrive. Zoe, Liz’s daughter has picked him up and I can hear them at the front door. I’ve lit the coal fire and done a quick tidy up and Zoe is showing him through. In the hallway he asks “Is the Mad Monk in?”

quotescover-JPG-43bThat’s me by the way, the Mad Monk.

“Bloody hell Zoe,” I say. “I had that door locked to keep the riff raff out!”

“Stephen,” he says using my Sunday name as he comes into the lounge. “We don’t mind slumming it with the riff-raff. Anyway, how lovely to see you!”

“Always a pleasure to see you, Harry,” I reply.

Harry is just approaching ninety years of age and all his faculties are in order although his memory is perhaps not as good as it used to be.

“Take a seat Harry,” I say. “What can I get you? A glass of water? Lemonade? A cup of tea perhaps?”

Harry turns to Zoe, a fake look of disdain on his face

“Pillock!” he murmurs.

Liz brings him a glass of French sherry..

“That’s more like it,” he says.

The women go off into the kitchen to sort the dinner and Harry and I chat about various things. Once Liz and Zoe come back though, we resume battle.

“Harry went for a brain operation the other day,” I announce, matter of factly. “It was free but they charged him £2000 search fees.”

“Dear me, I wish you’d try some new jokes Stephen,” comments Harry. “If you had a brain you’d be dangerous,”

Over seventy five years ago when war broke out Harry decided the army wasn’t for him so he went on a wireless operators course in Preston then signed up in the merchant navy as a ‘sparks’.

His first voyage took him down through the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and Iraq. One day while his ship was being refuelled he went for a walk and he heard a voice call his name. He turned to find one of his old schoolmates hailing him. Frank and Harry went to school together, both went to sea and bumped into each other in Basra, along the Shatt-Al-Arab river,  a place Harry called the ‘arsehole of the world.’

Harry had no money on him but his friend Frank treated him to a meal and a few beers and they didn’t see each other until again until Harry’s fiftieth birthday, many years later.

“That doesn’t surprise me Harry,” I say. “That poor fella, having to pay for everything. No wonder he didn’t want to see you again.”

“Stephen. What you don’t realise is how hurtful insinuations like that are to a sensitive man like me.”

“I’ve not noticed your sensitive side Harry.”

“Well, you will in a minute if you don’t top my wine up, garcon!”

The wine is topped up and Liz calls for a ‘skivvy’ to help in the kitchen.

“That’s a good word for you Stephen, skivvy. Off you go and if you do a good job there might be a tip in it for you!”

Atlantic convoys during World War 2 were a lifeline for the UK. Bringing in food and supplies and munitions as we fought alone against the Nazis after the fall of France. U boats were a deadly menace to our ships and Harry told me once how he lay on his bunk shivering with fear during an attack. If a ship went down there was no one to help. Other ships couldn’t stop for survivors as they too might be torpedoed. After a while though Harry told me you just got used to the threat and got on with your job. He told me of trips to the Middle East taking tanks and equipment for the Middle Eastern campaigns. A trip from Argentina to the UK with a cargo of rice. A visit to Rio and a trip to New York.

We eat our Sunday dinner with little let up in the banter. Later when it’s time to go Harry turns to Liz and says “Lovely meal darling.” Then with a wink he says, “pity about the company though.”

So, let me wish you a super ninetieth birthday Harry, and let me give you the toast that you so often give to me,

“May your shadow never grow less.”

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What would life be like without your mobile?

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s funny how mobile phones have literally changed the world. In fact It’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t have them. Off the top of my head I really don’t know what the last mobile free year was and to find out I’ve had to do a google search. The first mobile phone service started in 1983 in, well, where else? The USA. It wasn’t until 1992 that the UK had consumer mobile phones on sale. I remember buying one of the very first ones round about then, it was a motorola personal phone which was a pretty big device and seemed to use its charge up pretty quickly.

The first text message was sent in 1992 and the first camera phone appeared in 2000 with picture messaging available from 2002.

MobileI love my mobile. It isn’t a smart phone but it does everything I need it to do. It has wi-fi which I hardly ever use. It has a camera which is a must on any phone that I buy but when it comes down to it, I don’t really take many snapshots with it. Certain things about mobiles are annoying though and here are a couple of the main ones.

Queuing up at a supermarket till and the woman in front is just about to pay then she decides to answer the mobile phone ringing in her pocket. Is it a vital call? Is it of major importance? No, it’s her mate calling up for a chit chat but all of us in the queue have to wait while she carries on chatting as if she has all the time in the world. I’m at the point of saying “We’re all wanting to pay and get off home!” when someone behind me shouts “We’re all wanting to pay and get off home! Put that f***ing phone down!” The lady appears shocked to hear this but we are all highly fed up of her, including the supermarket till lady.

Why is it that when a vital call is required in a TV soap, the soap star in question has left their mobile behind or is out of battery or even just doesn’t bother to answer? Soap writers just can’t get their heads round mobiles! They are just a plot busting device so what do they do? Characters leave them behind, run out of battery or just plain ignore their phones. Sorry, that just doesn’t happen in real life. Take a look around you in any public place. People are glued to their mobiles!

Anyway, just to finish, here’s my favourite mobile story. Many years ago when I was working as a bus driver in Warrington, I was at the wheel of my bus but had got stuck in a queue of traffic just as we were approaching Warrington bus station. I picked up one of my fellow drivers who had nipped out on his break and popped into the shops. We were talking about a nutter who travelled on our buses and chatted to all the drivers. Now some nutters are pretty nice people when you get to know them but some are the bane of a bus driver’s life! I didn’t really care for this particular guy so I tended not to let him on my bus if I could help it. By coincidence we saw the same guy just then, walking along towards the bus station and my friend said, “go on, pick him up.” Well we were stuck in a traffic queue going nowhere so I opened the doors and let him on. I don’t quite remember how this nutter looked but he did have a kind of Lara Croft thing strapped to his leg.

“What is that?” I asked him.

“That’s me mobile phone,” he said and pulled out a big 1990’s style mobile.

“I love it,” he said. “You can have loads of fun with it.”

“Fun? In what way?”

“Well,” he said, “watch this.”

Now in the next lane there was a tatty old builders van with a mobile number painted on the rear doors and behind it was a very smart Jaguar driven by a very posh chap wearing a suit and tie.

The nutter dialled the builders number and when the call was answered said something like this;

“That bloody van of yours is a disgrace! I’m sat behind you in the traffic and your engine fumes are bloody choking me! Get that great heap off the bloody road!” Then he cut the builder off.

Nothing happened for a moment then the builder, a man with a physique not unlike that of the incredible hulk, squeezed himself out of his van and walked back to the Jaguar.

Just then the lights changed and we drove off. I’ve always wondered what happened next but if you ever get a phone call like that in Warrington check that there isn’t a guy with a mobile phone strapped to his leg in something like Lara Croft’s dagger sheath nearby!

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Flying, Technology, and British Summer Time.

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I really don’t like flying. I’ll tell you that straight out. The actual flying isn’t too bad, in fact some years ago I took some flying lessons so you can see that deep down I actually like flying but the thing I don’t like is, well, everything else:! Here’s a quick list: The airport is full of people. Crowds. The constant queuing. The checking in, the passport control. The boarding. When you finally get aboard the aircraft the small, cramped seats are even worse when you happen to be a big lump, like me. The pathetic microwaved ‘meals’ that are foisted upon us, and the scrum to leave the aircraft when you finally land. Yes, I think I’ve made myself clear on flying.

Picture courtesy wikipedia

Picture courtesy wikipedia

It’s a pity really about all the negatives because the invention of flying is something that is really wonderful and has enabled many people to travel the globe and see places they would otherwise never have even dreamt of seeing. Technology can bring great benefits. Take time for instance. The recording and controlling of time is so important in the modern world and it’s something we probably don’t even think about. Time is important in flying too. Flying schedules and timetables. Timings at busy airports; returning to Manchester last Sunday from Portugal, the airport was so busy we spent ten minutes circling around the sky while waiting for a spot to actually land. You could just imagine the poor guy in the control tower with a stack of aircraft wanting to land and him trying to time it all to perfection.

Here’s another thing about time: Greenwich Mean Time. Great, a world-wide standard for time but here’s another thing that sort of messes with that, it’s British Summer Time. Now, maybe you’ve started to see what I’m getting at, that bi-annual messing with our clocks and the hour going forward and then backward. I don’t get it, OK it means that we don’t have to go to work in the dark or come home in the dark or whatever but personally I’m willing to put up with that if it means not messing about with the time!

It just so happened that flying back from Portugal on Sunday to the UK coincided with the hour going back. Now, I know we’re mad enough to do this in the UK but as Sunday approached I started thinking, what about Portugal? Does the hour go back there? Yes it does actually. So, it’s stressful enough situation anyway but now we had to deal with another issue, putting the clocks back! Anyway, what time did we need to get up? First of all, we have to factor all the various problems in:

(1) Breakfast.

(2) Getting washed and dressed.

(3) Driving to the airport.

(4) Handing over the hire car and dealing with the actual people in the car hire place, and we know that this is not easy because it was pretty hard work getting the car in the first place.

(5) Checking in, finding our gate and going through security and all that stuff.

Now setting my alarm becomes a much bigger issue than it was before; do I put my phone back an hour and set the time I actually need to get up at, or do I leave the time on the phone and set the time an hour later? Now this is where technology tries to fox us. My mobile phone has a gimmick on it which automatically changes the time when the hour goes back! Great -but is it? Would it work? Could I trust this new technology? No, was the answer and so I disabled it, after all, I wasn’t going to chance missing my flight home.

The next morning when I awoke Liz’s alarm was going off but mine wasn’t. It all seemed kind of early and when I checked my phone to see what the problem was I saw that the time had gone back an hour -even though that option was supposed to be disabled! I checked with my Blackberry playbook and it had gone back an hour automatically also. Wait a minute! Had they both gone back automatically or was I an hour early? What time was it? I hated to admit it but Liz’s ancient old slider phone had actually woken us up at the correct time! Anyway, the good thing is that we made it to the airport pretty early and the people at the car hire place seemed to be pretty much on the ball, perhaps because I was bringing their car back safely despite all their horror stories of crashing and uninsured drivers and me not having enough insurance cover and so on. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting efficient service at that time in the morning so consequently we were even earlier than expected at the check in.

Pity about that extra-long wait in the packed departure lounge though! Personally I blame the car hire people.

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Sex and The City -What was your favourite season?

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I do love Sex and the City. It’s one of my favourite shows and I’ve got the whole lot on DVD so when I come home after a late shift and fancy a glass of something and a DVD, Sex and the City invariably gets slipped onto the DVD player.

51WNVUght3LI have my favourites like everyone, particularly Mister Big, the coolest guy ever and my personal hero but I like all the characters, especially Carrie. What a life; living in New York City and working as a journalist and not in a nine to five way either; working from home writing about her friends and her life. Why can’t I get a job like that?

Recently I worked my way through the whole of season four, the very best season. Mr Big was involved with a movie superstar, Carrie had got back with Aiden whom I have probably more in common with than the super cool Mr Big. There was the whole Trey and Bunny saga involving Charlotte which was so good. Personally I thought Trey was great for Charlotte. He was quirky and interesting, if only they could have worked out their problems.

What else was there? Miranda’s Mum died; what a great episode, and later Steve, her ex gets testicular cancer so she sleeps with him to cheer him up and gets pregnant. Anyway, loads of good episodes but I loved it when Big and Aiden met and Big came down to Aiden’s country cabin for a chat with Carrie. Aiden, naturally I thought, was not happy so eventually he and Big have a fight and later become friends, of a sort.

Finally, Carrie splits with Aiden in a really bitter sweet episode and Mr Big moves to Napa in California. Like Charlotte and Trey I wished Aiden and Carrie could have worked things out. In a lot of ways they were more suited than Carrie and Mister Big. Anyway, you can see how much involvement I have tied up in this show. I really felt that in season four the show came of age. Serious relationships, serious problems, some fabulous characters, some humour and some moving stuff especially right at the very end when Carrie is too late to meet up with Mister Big. He has gone to California but left behind his Moon River album for Carrie. Great stuff.

Pity about those Sex and the City movies! Sometimes you just have to step away, and I guess that’s the same even for TV production companies! You made a great TV show but now it’s over! Step away!

So,what was your favourite season?

 

When your mind is just a blank . .

Posted on by Steve Higgins

snap3I’ve been a bit busy this week, hence the distinct lack of new blogs on my web site. I’ve also been experiencing that blank paper syndrome; you know what I mean, you stare at the paper, nothing comes to mind, and the paper stays like that, blank.

I’ve been on a training course this week, a pretty interesting one but unfortunately not one I can talk about much as it relates to the data protection act and the computer misuse act and all sorts of legal stuff.

Still, the training, which was interesting and enjoyable, reminded me of a fairly funny training story that happened nearly ten years ago. It was when I had just started at the Highways Agency and in fact I was one of the first batch of operators to be recruited for the North West, a fact that I regularly bore my colleagues with. The HA sent us to some establishment in Salford for an induction course and I have to say, as much as I like my job, that course was pretty dull! It was fun meeting some new people and doing some interesting team building exercises but after a while, they started to get a little boring and we were all thinking when will we be able to start learning the nuts and bolts of our jobs?

One of the exercises, and to this day I don’t know the point of it, was for us to split into twos and one member of the duo went into another room where they thought of a holiday story to tell, and the other was asked to completely ignore their partner when they began to relate their story. In this instance my colleague was the storyteller and I was the ignorer! So she came back in and began her story. I polished my nails, yawned in her face, checked my watch, hummed a little tune to myself and so on. After a while some inner instinct made me turn to take a quick look at her, and it was lucky I did so because later on I reckoned I had been only a split second away from taking a hefty punch to the nose, however I was able to calm her down and explain it was all part of the exercise!

Later, towards the end of the course, boredom had truly set in. I remember one hot afternoon in this stuffy office cum training room and the lecturer going on and on about the chain of command and how issues had to be escalated to one’s line manager and one’s line manager would escalate things further if need be. I feel rather embarrassed to admit this now but I nodded serenely off into a private world of slumber. Later, and whether it was minutes or even hours later I really don’t know but I was jolted sharply back to reality by the voice of  our instructor;

“Steve! What would you do?”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Steve, you’re asked to work with a homosexual, what would you do?”

“Well, I’d . .” A sea of blank faces were looking at me so I tried to think back: What was the last thing we were talking about? Oh yes, I remember now:

“I’d escalate that to my team manager.”

“Refer that to your team manager? Why?”

“Well, er. . .”

“We embrace diversity at the Highways Agency so why refer that to your team manager?”

“In case he, er tried it on with me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly . .”

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced that feeling of digging a deep hole and then gradually digging it even deeper but that’s what was happening. Apparently we’d moved on to the subject of diversity while I had slept. I glanced over to my left, perhaps hoping for some help, but one of my new colleagues, actually the lady from the storytelling incident earlier, was looking at me as if I was a fully paid up member of the Nazi party. Over to my right two other colleagues were in a strange sort of state. One had gone almost purple in the face as he tried to hold in a tumult of suppressed laughter and another was covering his face and making strange noises as his shoulders pumped up and down hysterically.

Finally the lecturer, looking at me with contempt, observed that it might be better for me if I paid attention more and moved on.

Not the finest training course but not my finest hour, either!

 

My Favourite Movie Director (Part 1)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I’ll come straight to the point; my favourite movie director? Well, it’s complicated because I’ve got more than one; hence the part 1 in the title, but anyway, Woody Allen is probably my very favourite. Now why a working class guy like me brought up in a suburban council estate in Manchester would relate to the Jewish intellectual New York humour of Woody, well, I don’t know but I just love this guy’s films.

My very favourite moment from one of Woody’s film is probably the one from take the Money and Run when he goes into the bank to rob it and hands a note through the window. The note says “Give me the money, I have a gub!”

“Does that say gub?” asks the bank teller.

picture courtesy wikipedia

picture courtesy wikipedia

“No that’s gun! I have a gun!” replies Woody and soon all the staff are discussing the spelling and the robbery is forgotten.  That movie was right at the very start of Woody’s career when he was a stand up funny man turned movie maker and as his movies got gradually more serious and more thoughtful, well, I probably loved them even more.

I love the opening of Manhattan where Woody narrates over the opening sequence;

“Chapter One. He adored New York City. To him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams in… no, it’s gonna be too preachy, I mean, you know, let’s face it, I wanna sell some books here. Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.”

Another Allen movie that opens with a monologue is Annie Hall. His character, Alvy Singer, says: “There’s an old joke. Two elderly women are at a Catskill restaurant. One of them says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is just terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah I know. And such small portions.’ Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of misery, loneliness and suffering and unhappiness – and it’s all over much too quickly.”

Apart from Woody himself and his casual comedy chatter I’ve always like the look of Woody’s films from the black and white of Annie Hall, Manhattan and Broadway Danny Rose to the full colour Hannah and her Sisters and the jump cuts of Deconstructing Harry. I like the way the camera moves, or really doesn’t move. In Hannah and her Sisters Woody doesn’t follow Michael Caine when he goes into the bedroom and continues a conversation. Why should we? We all carry on long distance conversations with our partners in the bathroom or dining room when we are in the kitchen. We don’t need to see the other person, just hear them.

Woody’s films have a natural unobtrusive style which enables you to sit back and enjoy his humour and his observations. Another great Allen movie is Crimes and Misdemeanours. It’s a movie with a dark side but with the same flashes of Allen humour to keep you smiling. Martin Landau stars in the film and gives a wonderful performance. No longer the rather wooden actor from the TV series Mission Impossible or that Hitchcock movie North By Northwest. Here, Landau delivers a thoughtful and human performance and there are lots of the usual Woody Allen touches like returning to old homes and discussing morality then flipping to the next scene where Allen and Mia deliver some more comedy as a counterpoint.

I can’t write a blog about Woody Allen without mentioning Bananas. If I need to cheer myself up, this movie works every time, especially the bit at the end where Woody and Louise Lasser’s wedding night becomes a TV sports event with commentators and interviewers.

It’s almost an ‘in’ joke with Woody about how his older movies are funny and the later ones are not but all his movies have a certain something; not always laugh out loud humour, but some well observed human element. I love Woody himself in his movies which is why it’s a little odd that one movie I can watch over and over again is Radio Days. Like it says in the title, the movie is set in those days before TV when people had their ears glued to the great shows and performers of the time. Woody narrates the movie and we see him as a little boy entranced by a crime show, so much so that his parents take him to see the Rabbi. ‘You speak the truth, my faithful Indian companion’ quotes the young Woody much to the dismay of his parents, not to mention the Rabbi. In some ways I can see myself as a young lad, obsessed with the TV shows of my day and this is the crux of Woody’s films because in many ways he is turning the camera round, and the camera is pointing at us, the viewer.

My love affair with the movies encompasses many genres but when I want to smile it’s usually the Woody Allen DVD I pull down from the shelf.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Click the links at the top of the page to find out more about my novel ‘Floating In Space.’

 

Quiz night, Frank Ifield and a very Tricky Customer

Posted on by Steve Higgins

quotescover-JPG-60Years ago a very tricky customer on my one man bus gave me seventy pence in penny coins for his bus fare. He thought this was pretty funny at first but I can be just as tricky so I gave him seventy penny tickets in return. He wasn’t amused.

I was tempted to save that gem to the end of the blog to finish with something of a bang, but what the heck, using it at the beginning enables me to link one tricky customer to another and to explain further, I’m referring to Mike, our very tricky pub quizmaster.

Mike runs the quiz night at the Lord Derby in St Annes. Liz and I are not accomplished quiz people but between us we have a fair knowledge of most things and when it comes to music we both have our ‘specialist’ areas. Mine is the 1980s and Liz is pretty good with the 1970s. Neither of us are that great with the sixties though (we’re both far too young) but it’s even harder when you have a tricky quiz master to contend with.

The quiz starts off as usual with the picture round. Twenty five pictures of famous and not so famous people and always portrayed in the picture sheet at their very worst so as to make it so much harder to guess who they are. I have to say we are pretty good at this round but there are always the problem faces and sometimes we have to barter with other teams (tell me number four and I’ll tell you number fifteen!)

On one occasion I was foxed by a picture of a football manager but I was pretty certain he was an Italian. I texted my friend Andy ‘Tell me some Italian football managers who manage a UK team!’ Andy gave me various options, none sounded right but I chose one. The guy turned out to be Jose Mourinho, a football manager from Portugal! Sometimes, no knowledge at all is better than a little! Oh well, another point lost.

The next part is the music quiz. Ten decades and two tracks for each decade. Our quiz master will usually give us a bit of a clue so he’ll throw in two numbers to help us with the years. Now on the particular occasion I want to talk about he gave us 1 and 7 so the first year would be 1961, the next 1967 then 1971 and so on. Now, and this is pretty important, Mike mentioned that as usual, the year he is after is the year of highest chart placing. Starting to get a hint of his trickiness? I thought so!.

We quickly identified the two sixties tracks, Del Shannon and the hit single ‘Runaway’ and the Kinks with ‘Waterloo Sunset.’

So, all the sixties tracks out of the way so we could concentrate on the others and in this endeavour we usually invite John and Kurt, two young guys in their twenties to our table for their up to date music knowledge. (You can see how ruthless we are!)

Frank Ifield

Frank Ifield

However, our wily quiz master had set a trap because the final track he played was another sixties release, Frank Ifield and the yodelling song! We should have been ready for it really because, as I’ve said, Mike made much of the importance of the year of highest chart placing, however, we were snookered. I personally thought Runaway had been a re-release and we changed our answers but the sad truth is that Frank Ifield’s single ‘She taught me how to Yodel’ was re-released in 1991 and was a bigger seller then than in the sixties.

Oh well, no barrel of ale on that occasion. We’ll be back next Thursday for another shot.

If you liked this post why not try my book! Click the links at the top of the page for more information.

The CIA and Life through a Purple Lens.

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Photographic_lenses_front_viewMany years ago when I was a bus conductor it was pretty easy to spot the fare fiddlers. They would never look directly at you. As I strolled down the bus asking for ‘any more fares please’ I knew who had paid and who hadn’t, after all, I had usually just watched them get on the bus. One scruffy guy got on one day and went straight down the bus, sat down and set a fixed gaze out of the window. Ok, I was chatting to other passengers at the time but I still knew he was new to the bus and I wanted his money.

“Fares please”, I called. Nothing. So then I turned directly to him and asked “I don’t think I’ve had your fare mate?” He finally turned away from the window.

“Where are you going to?”

“Levenshulme” he said.

“Thirty five pence please.” The guy thought for a minute, reached into his pocket and pulled out a can of soup.

“Can I pay with this?” He asked. The answer was no. He was asked to leave. After all it was pea and ham soup, tomato might have been another matter.

Here’s an extract from my book ‘Floating In Space’ that deals with another odd ball passenger;

A harassed looking girl boarded in Stockport. There was something about her that I couldn’t put my finger on. She asked for a single to Manchester and did I require identification?

“Identification?” I asked.

“Only I don’t have my credentials on me at the moment. I’ve got to be careful.”

“Careful of what?”

“Well my boyfriend’s a nuclear arms salesman. I’m being watched by the CIA and God knows who else. MI5 have probably got the scent by now.”

“Right, we’ll keep a low profile then.”

“Probably best if you know what I mean.”

She was a Nutter.

“What was that all about?” asked Milligan, my driver, when I went back up to the front of the bus.

“Nutter” was all I had to say.

“That’s the 189 you see Stu. Used to be a hell of a lot of them on this route. Quietened down a lot lately, oh yes.”

The rest of the trip was pretty unremarkable. When we finally reached Albert Square in the city centre the nutter came storming towards me down the centre aisle and yelled at the top of her voice “If my boyfriend’s not a nuclear arms salesman then how did I get CIA Clearance?”

She charged through the open door and on into Manchester. An old chap behind her departing at a much slower and more sensible pace said, “Answer that one then!”

You can read more about life on the buses in Manchester in my book Floating In Space.

One final nutter to finish with; There used to be a guy who never boarded our bus but spent his time hurtling through the traffic on his bike cutting up cars and buses alike. How he was never ran over I do not know. My colleagues had dubbed him simply ‘the Levenshulme Nutter.’

One day, years later when I made been promoted from bus conducting to the lofty heights of bus driver, I was driving through Levenshulme on the 192 service when the Levenshulme nutter cut across me and I nearly ran him over. I stopped next to him at the traffic lights, opened my window to give him some abuse then, noticing his outsize spectacles with their purple lenses said, instead “I like your glasses!”

He popped the glasses up on his head and said “Yes, but it’s the man behind that counts!” And cycled away. I never saw him again.

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Buses, Nicknames, and the Scaremonger!

Posted on by Steve Higgins

quotescover-JPG-28My current job is a safety critical one. I work in an emergency control room and many of the decisions me and my colleagues take have highly serious implications. It can be stressful work and sometimes I look back to a much easier control room job I had years ago. I once worked in the GM Buses Control room in Manchester.

Back then in the mid nineties the buses in Manchester had radio communication so the driver could advise control of late running or breakdowns, and even call for help in an emergency. I worked in a team in the enquiry section and we took queries from the bus travelling public of Greater Manchester.

In many ways it was a good job, lots of fun, good workmates and plenty of practical joking. Everyone had a nickname and one fellow I worked with, Paul, was known as ‘Mister Nasty’. He was the guy to deal with abusive callers and when a caller turned unpleasant we would put him on hold with a cheery ‘hold the line please!’ and shout across to Paul who would take the call and give back as much abuse as the caller would be giving.

One day ‘Nasty’ realised he had perhaps overstepped the line and the caller demanded to speak with his manager. The call was sent through to the duty Inspector who on that particular day was a nice guy called Alan who had the nickname ‘Leave it wi’ me’. Paul ran from his desk in the enquiry section, through the control room to where Alan sat on a raised dais where he could survey the whole room. Paul wanted to get his version of events in first and knew that with our antiquated telephone system the call would take its time to ping across the room. However, just as he reached the Inspectors desk the phone rang and Alan stopped Paul in mid sentence. ‘Just a minute Paul, I’d better take this call.’

Alan took the call, listened for a moment and said ‘Someone in enquiries called you a bastard? Leave it with me!’ and put the phone down. He turned to Paul and asked him to carry on. Paul thought for a moment then said, ‘Actually Alan, it doesn’t matter . .’ and went back to his desk.

Another staff member had the nickname ‘Norm’ which I think was based on a character from the TV comedy ‘Cheers’ but anyway, Norm had a particular dislike of the identity badge we had to wear in the control room. When it was time for a break, Norm would pull off his badge, slap it down on his desk and go off to the canteen. One day, some of the guys decided to cut out a shapely pair of breasts from that day’s newspaper page three model and insert the picture into Norm’s badge. I personally could not stop laughing and everyone was calling me to shut up and be quiet but I couldn’t help it. Thirty minutes later Norm returned, sat down at his desk, put on his headset, switched on his phone and clipped on his badge. I must have looked ready to burst and after stifling my laughter for about five minutes Norm looked over at me and asked what was wrong. He eventually found the offending picture and removed it convinced that I was the offending culprit.

GN BusesYes, that wasn’t the best job I have ever had but we did have some fun with fake calls and wind ups. We used to get calls from the Police and they would ask our radio staff to broadcast radio messages to our drivers. ‘Please be on the look out for a red Ford Fiesta registration number . .’ and so on. One day Norm called our radio man, an old chap called ‘Stoddy’ and pretending to be the Police asked him to put out information about a stolen Ford Camper van with a registration number of . . and gave out the registration of Stoddy’s beloved camper van. Stoddy had a near hysterical reaction and rushed out to the car park where of course his camper van was still parked. When he returned fuming to the control room we were still laughing.

Finally, I must tell you about Mr Scrimingeour who was one of the top bosses at GM buses and in charge of our fraud team. His rather unwieldy name was pronounced  SKRIM- IN- JUR- and many calls  came through the switchboard asking for him as anyone caught fiddling their bus fare received a letter demanding a five-pound fine which was signed by him. We had a list on the wall of the many mispronunciations of his name but the best, the very best came in a call taken by our very own Mr Nasty.

A caller had asked to speak to a Mr Scaremonger!

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