Triplets alive and well

A little research shows that Stockport, not specifically Marple Bridge, has longstanding associations with Beziers and Heilbronn. I'm not sure about the latter, but Beziers sounds a handsome town with almost as many locks as Marple.

Here we are, all having a grand time together at a Masterchef competition between the three boroughs.

"The dessert competition saw a competition between, from left to right, Bastien Boudiaf from Beziers; the winner Carolin Haeussermann from Heilbronn; and Tom Curbishley from Stockport"

Well done, everybody!

So that's alright. Still, I think it makes the three boroughs triplets not twins. By which logic, Marple Bridge, as a small part of a small part of Stockport, is perhaps just a great nephew or niece.

 Enough!

* * *


The pudding club meets tonight at number 72. So I've been instructed to kick the shoes under the chesterfield, and put the dog out.

Mrs M has decreed that we shall have read Mrs Dalloway by Mrs Woolf, or was it the other way round? By any standards, this is a hard read.

Sitting in the suburban spare bedroom that looked on to the little patch of lilac-shaded grass passing for a garden, it was as doubtful to Thomas as to the few readers of his weekly scribble whether he could coax the clacking keys to a finale, even allow one half-formed hackneyed thought to pass; to contemplate the smallest act as entire and complete as that of the blackbird on the lawn collecting a worm for its nest, without the unbearable cost of reflection. No, he said to himself, for he knew his place was far from the extended sub-clause, and nicely nuanced semi-colon; from the conveyance of the nagging of a glove seam that will not yield to a clumsy mannish hand, through the ingenuity, incomprehensible to him, of a third person gerund.

I know my place. I've got a Dead Man's Leg and a Spotted Dick to make. With Bird's yellow Custard.

And the last 39 pages of Mrs D to read. If that doesn't sound much to you, try it.

Lost twins? Shock horror!

Approaching Marple Bridge from distant Glossop, and still a mile or more before reaching what I regard as my beat, I was surprised to see this sign in a remote lay-by:

We have a twin! Nay twins! Callooh Callay.

But where are they? Has anybody seen?

Hold the front page! I must find out more.

Fear not. I'll report back with a special late edition before Friday's out.

Your intrepid local scout,

Tom.

Country Matters

“I think,” said Mrs M – always a worrying start this – “I think,” said Mrs M on Tuesday night, “that it may be time to open up a new line of communication.”

We were watching our very own lib-dem MP, Andrew Stunell, on the TV news, seated at a wood-effect Round Table. He really is looking a bit thin: we should have him in for shepherd’s pie.

Not quite knight

“God’s Truth, Woman!” I was tempted to say. Why should anybody want to open up more communication, when there is clearly far too much already? Andrew and co. were already far too busy, nipping in and out of Millbank and Walworth Road. If they had to enter into discussions with Mrs M at number 72 as well, we would have no Government this side of Whitsun.

Mind you, Andrew’s battle-hardened for Westminster. All these years he’s been fending off Staffies on the Cherry Tree estate and bottled blondes in Marple. Yes, we’ve got a bit of most things in Hazel Grove constituency: a few vestigial mills making cardboard under contract for China; green hills to set off desirable dwellings; posh preps and bog standard high schools; air-conditioned executives waiting on Dan Bank for the A6 Relief Road. There are inter-war estates with privatised porches; dying pubs and late night clubs. We can even rise to an occasional gangland shooting.

You’d think that 13 years of listening to us all moaning on would be ideal training for Westminster. But I worry this coalition might be more interested in what make us the same than what makes us different. We’re now in the civil sinews of a con-dem embrace. Those who aren’t with us are... with us.

At least the election was good fun while it lasted. M3 was up all election night, or at least long enough to discover that the big blue numbers were not Labour seats after all. (He set his iPhone for 3 am, but we have been sabotaging their gadgets ever since Mrs M dropped M1’s bleeping Tamagotchi in the bath.) Our newspaper has a new section called a “viewspaper”, which its new owner feels conveys the mission to his intellectually challenged readers. However, I’ve been pleased to report that the “viewspaper” has been getting quite well buttered at breakfast over the last week.

“I wonder what my brother thinks,” says my lady. It is now Wednesday evening. On the TV, Nick ‘n’ Dave are in matching grey suits, but sport coloured ties, so you can tell them apart.

Ah, that’s it, then: The Brother.

“Do you think it’s a good time to ring him?” It’s too late for golf, and there are no Rugby Union fixtures that I know of. So the worst risk is a police drama on Sky HD.

Mrs M goes in search of a telephone, saying something about a “constitutional”. That would be nice: a pleasant stroll over the hill to Knowle Farm perhaps, exchanging greetings with sundry canines and ladies in riding boots.

“I wonder what he thinks about it all”.

At this point, it is important to state plainly that The Brother has nothing in common with Gordon’s opinion of Gillian Duffy. No one would accuse The Brother of being other than forthright in his opinion, and of backing it up on the stump and in the bar.

I don’t care whether he’s with the Levellers or the Luddites, the Monday Club or the Moonies. At least he knows they’re all different.

By Thursday, a third young man has taken to the podium. This one has a red tie. That’ll be nice then: Dave ‘n’ Nick ‘n’ Dave Miliband too.

Were we at school together?

Is that how it’s going to be now? All the same except for the colour of our ties?

Not here we’re not.

Keep the Red Flag Flying

Don’t be so miserable, Les

At the end of the day, I plump for the reds.

I only discovered this recently, when I was pinned in front of the telly by a squad of Ms. It was another Derby between Manchester City and Manchester United. The boys have long since despaired of trying to interest me in the game, take them to a game, or even to the big screen at the Spring Gardens. But I am obliged to put in the occasional appearance on the chesterfield.

So I was a little surprised to discover, that when the game stood 1-1, I had a surge of desire (everything is a surge, nowadays) for Man U to go one up. In fact, I think they did. And won.

To what do I attribute my surge (there’s another) of satisfaction? Maybe it’s because I had the pictures of the nineteen sixty six squad on my bedroom wall, and could even name most of them. Or because of a boy called Edwards seemed to know everything there was to know about them, such as Denis Law’s opinion about being put on the transfer list.

Nope: it’s just the colour. For me, blue is not the colour. Would I side with Everton or Liverpool? Spurs or Arsenal? It’s not difficult. We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

I’m not going to nail my political colours to the mast. Though M1 did suggest that a certain blue tie would be just the job to hang a parliament with, only he didn’t put it so politely.

I am happy to report that there has been a small outbreak of political activism at number 72. Someone in the household felt so passionate that they wanted something “new” (or was it something “fair”, or was it just “change”) that a very polite man in a grubby panama planted a flag on the front wall. At least it isn’t blue.

M3 is planning to stay up all night I think. He says that I should be pleased he’s so interested in politics. I’m delighted, I say. Though of course the chance of learning anything about politics in the course of a general election is remote.

Still, I wouldn’t have minded staying up with the neighbours, if I didn’t have work on. We could have baked a ham for the wake.

It might have been a chance for a rant, but I am no better at talking politics than football. However, as you’ve waited so patiently, here is my up-to-the-millennium analysis.

We are really a nation of pillagers, adventurers, freelancers. We’re happiest when we’re sacking London, painting the world pink, saving it from tyranny, or cornering the market in markets. But when we don’t have any special tournament on, we freelancers just to go to pieces.

So here we are, leaning on the old lance, and wondering why it’s all gone wrong. Every few years we bundle ourselves up, and clank over from the Blue Queen’s court to the Red King’s court, or back again. Until someone stumbles across something brilliant, or an invention, or something they've nicked from a foreigner – like the periodic table, printing, boy scouts, or selling euro-bonds.

In the absence of brilliance, give me a nag and a contract.

We’re off!

That’s more like it, children.