Tales of Stomontski Prospekt – Part 1
Many many years ago now, when your humble correspondent’s stomach was still has flat as the earth, he lived in Battersea bachelor bliss, two other stout bulldogs. The house, as one visitor wryly commented, had “testosterone running down the walls” – the fridge was full of beer, the freezer groaned with meet & most evenings were spent in our local, quaffing pints of finest foaming. Green kit was piled high & the cellar was full of firearms. The bath had very little enamel on it after a chum had given a acid bath to his motorcycle’s engine block. If fact, during that exceptionally shabby phase of my life, motorcycles featured very large – both in terms of engine capacity & number of accidents. With a very large kitchen/diner, supper parties lasted longer than the siege of Leningrad & because of the layout of the house, it was possible to ride a motorcycle straight through it, generally naked – Jimmy the pig farmer’s standard after dinner trick.
With all this japery going on there was a general consensus that we needed a hand break upon our intemperate lifestyles & accordingly the forth member of the home time was always female – not that we in any shape or form craved the fair sexes company: but without a resident behaviour moderator, none of us would be alive today.
And so it came to pass that this highly sought after position became unexpectedly free, & it fell upon my broad shoulders to place an advertisement in The Times for a new housemate. Having sought inspiration that we know resides right at the bottom on a bottle of Famous Grouse, hungover all I had to phone though the agreed text that we best felt would attract the right sort, which was as follows …
“BATTERSEA, SW11 Wanted: Prof F army brat to share with three charming geezers. Catholic, big tits, no morals preferred.”
Whilst the girl at the newspaper accepted the text, it all fairness to her, she did say that I could expect as phone call from the sub-ed in reasonably short order as they might have some issues with our errrrrrrrrrrrrr drafting. & this is the reason that the following conversation took place …
Sub Ed “ Is that Mr FM?”
Mr FM “Errrrr, yes”
Sub Ed “About the flatshare advertisement that you have placed. We have a problem with your proposed text”
Mr FM “Oh”
Sub Ed “Whats an army brat? Do you mean a Sloane ranger?” (This conversation took place in the late 1980s)
Mr FM “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We mean army brat”
Sub Ed “What or who is that?”
Mr FM “An army brat will know exactly what we mean. That’s why we put it in” (Doh!)
Sub Ed “Oh …. Ok. Well I am afraid that you cant specify ‘catholic’ in an advertisement because that constitutes religious discrimination & as for ‘no morals’, (in a very snooty voice) this is The Times you know, not The Sun”
Mr FM “Well you are both owned by the same person” …. a brief pause & and then she said it ….
Sub Ed (humphing) “& I am afraid that ‘big tits’ is out”
Mr FM “HUZZZZZZZAH!”
Clearly we were never destined to agree on the correct use of the language of Shakespeare. Anyway, after a further few minutes of further negotiation, new emasculated text was agreed & it is a measure of how ‘lite’ that the advertisement had become that I can no longer recall how it read. In all fairness, the girl that I had originally dealt with did phone back at the end of the day to apologise for the fact that our carefully crafted advertisement had had to be so cruelly butchered & that it was the best text they ad that they had had for sometime. No doubt the sub-ed currently works for the ASA.
Postscript
Despite the watered down advertisement that finally appeared & after interviewing all two of the potential flatmates that actually replied, we ended up sharing a house with Lavinia (aka Vince) – six foot of the most beautiful Anglo-Indian bird you could ever imagine. Talk about a body of a stripped down racing whippet! It wasn’t for nothing that shortly after she moved in that the washing machine was renamed the thong zone – a name that she in all fairness to her, found very amusing. In fact, she even found it amusing when the third member of the house, Rupricht had raided the thong zone one night & she discovered us drunk (nothing new there), each sitting in a stupor in the kitchen floor, each wearing one of the aforementioned items of intimate apparel as a form of headdress.
Comments
Bahaha!
Posted by: JohnJo | May 4, 2006 10:26 AM
Mr FM,
Duly linked. That is the funniest thing I have read for a while. Marvellous.
PG
Posted by: The Pedant-General | May 4, 2006 10:34 AM
Excellent, Mr FM. It brought tears of laughter, and a few memories of similar house-share days as a young man in Sydney . . . the cockroach that died in between the glass of the microwave door . . . a frozen chicken exploding in the living room . . . drunkenly trying to fry an egg that never seemed to cook, only to give up, and wake to find an apricot in the pan . . . being robbed of some of our furniture and nobody noticing for a week because the place was an utter bomb-site.
It's what young men do.
Posted by: Anton the Irascible | May 4, 2006 12:35 PM
The thing about the motorcycle is that if you have one it's simply a given, like the thong headdress it will ultimately happen - dishwashing machines are also good for degreasing bike parts.
Posted by: -keith in silicon valley | May 4, 2006 4:19 PM