Down Time

Welcome home

Andy Bullock

 Among the many emails awaiting await me on my return to the Bridge, let me share a couple with you.

Hi Tom. Just heard about 'change of plan': they don’t want me to start fieldwork on Mon as I'd hoped. Pity...I'm exhausted here!! Baby not sleeping, and boys having terrible troubles with homework.

I offered heartfelt sympathy. I am having terrible troubles working the grill, after two months of the international cuisine provided by Oasis Camps by the Nile. I managed not to burn M3’s potato waffles this morning, which is more than I can say for what the grill rack did to my foot.

Tom. Did I tell you about the tourist who breezed into town this week? He announced that he hadn't actually read your report yet but that he didn't agree with it. Then he looked at his watch, announced he had to get to the airport, and breezed out again.

In this context, I need to explain that a “tourist” is a consultant, official or politician who stays for an even shorter time in the field than a freelancer. In the old days, tourists conducted a “windshield survey” from the four-wheel drive, or even indulged in "over-fly research". Nowadays, the smart virtual tourist needs a memory stick at most. The tourist who actually lands and exchanges words with the local earthlings, or even with a freelancer, is to be applauded. And properly rewarded with a decent per diem.

I’m sure he’s quite right about my report. The trouble with us freelancers, you see, is methodology. We just don’t get it.There is a panoply of -ologies out there, of which the tourist is master. But with a freelancer, you're lucky to get any method at all, just a lifetime of experience of getting it wrong.

* * *

"What shall I do about supper?"asks my fragrant lady.

Perhaps either of my readers may be able to enlighten me on the methodology of rhetoric employed by Mrs M when I return from my travels. She sits bolt-upright several minutes before the alarm is due to go off, starts reciting lists, and continues this process while executing a neat sub-routine that involves selecting some of the animals for waking, and others for shooing out of the back door. Before I have had a chance to turn on Radio 4, she has delivered to my bedside tea from the blessed Teasmaid, may its name be praised.

She returns to bed long enough to take a sip from her own. "It'll have to be bangers and mash, I suppose... I'd better go and see if M3's shoes are dry." I hear her tripping daintily downstairs for the second or third time.

Friday Tex-Mex night at Oasis. The home-made nacho chips are much praised. And there's guacamole and sour cream to go with the fresh tortillas if you get to the trough before the Russians.

I manage to be-stir myself to take a large slurp from my cooling tea, before collapsing again onto the pocket-sprung mattress. May the name of John Lewis live for ever. My mind is completely blank about what I might offer instead of bangers and mash.


The L word may have risen momentarily to consciousness before I banished it.

There is just so much not to do during down-time. Currently I am enjoying one of these rare but happy occasions when there is another outing booked in the weeks ahead. This means that I can bask in the prospect of another cheque.

For a start, there is the condition of the garden. The Mandallay estate normally rivals the Augean Stables on my return, despite Mrs M's best efforts. (Ever since a particularly tricky moment when the children were as small as the puppy, she has sent me a series of bulletins about the achievements of various animals, starting the week before my return.) Also, the boys' lacrosse sticks need attention, and the boiler is bleating. The hoover's hose leaks, and the outside lights are, always, always, on the blink.

Yes, it all takes a lot of time not to attend to. Instead, I shall spend most of the morning, I am sure, trawling the internet, and consdisering the options for updating my lance. It's so twelfth century. They do them in alloys and even carbon fibre nowadays, collapsible, self-cleaning, even with a guidance GPS.

"Lasagne," I capitulate.


"I expect they'll be going out, but that would be perfect tomorrow."

I'll have to think of something else.

Saturday at Oasis. Barbecue night. The roasted goat is surprisingly good.

Cheshire Life

GO AWAY! 

Cheshire Cat by John Tenniel

The gestation period for an attack of Cheshiria may be anything up to six weeks. Sometimes, however, the innocent victim may instantly exhibit severe symptoms arising from even a fleeting encounter with a Range Rover emerging from the warm red embrace of a Cheshire farmhouse. One bite is enough.

It is an unfortunate but undeniable fact that the last line on Mandallay’s Post Office address is Cheshire. That County Palatine is surely a lovely place, but we do not live there. Mandallay rests in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, and before that was invented, Derbyshire reached West to the River Goyt to include Marple Bridge, all of which apart from the Bridge itself arguably lies on the East bank.

Nevertheless, the contagion of Cheshire has swept up from the lowlands, a soft wind of sweet pastures warmed by dairy herds and Agas, bearing bling and blondes to the Bridge.

Even the briefest contact with Cheshire can bring me out in a rash. I now know that Mandallay goes on full alert some days before my return from a tour of duty. The household has tried many techniques to forestall or mitigate attacks of Cheshiria. Tactics include house-cleaning, laying in dark chocolate, moving furniture to hide evidence of animals, and scattering handfuls of the “Excellent Work” postcards mass-produced by the boys’ Specialist Exaggeration College for teachers to hand out when students arrive in school before the bell.

Years of exposure have made Mrs M, and me too, to some extent, better at managing Cheshiria. Just as a resident of Freetown or Juba immediately recognises the symptoms of malaria, and knows just what to do before they sink into delirium, I know that the only thing to do when Cheshiria strikes is to dive for cover in a darkened room before everyone else catches it.

Even so, I wasn’t expecting an outbreak in John Lewis at Cheadle Royal. I should have known. After all, Cheadle Royal Hospital is well known to the Mandall ancestors as a refuge for the spiritually challenged.

All I was doing was trying to buy a suitcase. Now that Mrs M is a student of Contemporary Literature and Culture at Manchester's greatest seat of learning, I thought she might recognise a post-metrosexual irony in my patronage of the Samsonite brand. She didn’t doubt it. M3 explained to M2 that Samsonite is for five stone weaklings with nothing else to boast about.

The Partners at John Lewis were of course as obliging as ever, but they were out of stock of the particular contraption I sought, and had to summon one up from their online chums. By the time their till had connected to the internet, and the internet had connected to my bank, and my bank had connected to something else that wanted the passcode to the security code to my password to the freelance credit card, and I had connected my phone to Mandallay to find out what said passcode was, I was so late for my next appointment that, well, yes, I snapped. Not quite that bad. Let's say I was a little dyspeptic. I'm not proud of it.

I left in a hail of patent leather handbags amidst the stench of hair lightener. Then I got stuck in the car park because a man in a bad pin-striped suit was having a stand-off with the Scouser who was washing his Jag.

On the A538, a herd of Fresians blocked a squadron of yellow minis emerging from a Garden Centre where their drivers had been lunching.

Once I finally got to The Priory in Hale Barns, I was so very late for my appointment that I took a small risk. Instead of parking off-off-Rappax Road, I charged over the bumps along the long sweeping drive to the car park, knocking a couple more Range Rovers into the roses, and found myself, like Mr Bean, doing a four-wheel drift followed by twenty-nine point turn between a BMW and an Audi to get into the last space.

By now, my Cheshiria was full-blown. Hives had erupted all over the Fiesta too. I dashed into see the doctor, who was mercifully running late too.

I am happy to report that the shaman appears to have had a very pleasant holiday, and has lost a few pounds, so he’s doing very well. His bill will be along shortly. I always find it good value, because it helps me wave away all doubts whenever I issue my own. In fact, this is one more good reason why a quarterly visit to a consultant psychiatrist is the secret of success, or at least survival, for many modern freelancers.

There are days when I like to delight or bore you with the varied pleasures of home on the Bridge. In truth, there are more days when I find it easier to not to dwell on the people, so I blather on instead about a soft mist on the Goyt, or rainwater blasting rocks out of its course as hurtles down Linnet Clough.

There are also days when I’m grateful to be somewhere else. On days like that I find myself saying I come from Marple, or even Stockport, instead of Marple Bridge or Mellor. Its pretty little hamlets like Moor End and Brookbottom can go hang. On those days, what was once magic and warmth is just mud and mither.

And there are days too, when even grimy old “Stockport” sounds too colourful. As though a bit too much of Lowry got snagged on it, even in black-and-white.

Old Steps, Stockport

 L S Lowry

On those days, I find it best to say I live in Manchester, which is technically true as Stockport is in Greater Manchester. At least it’s somewhere they’ve heard of. And whatever they think of, it won’t be anything to do with me.

I do not, however, live in Cheshire.

This is a work of fiction. No cats, counties or hair products have been harmed in the making of this column.

Cry Freedom

I return to the theme of waving flags.

Here I am, right up to the minute. It’s only five days since the final whistle and I’ve just taken in Wavin’ Flag, the official Coca-Cola anthem of the FIFA World Cup.

I hate football.

Wavin’ Flag was on the radio again. M3 had imbibed the lyric and was singing along to it. So I got him to tell me the words. Loud and slow, as to a foreigner, which I am.

Once upon a time, I may have imagined, like the song’s author, K’naan, that “When I get older, I will be stronger.” But I certainly I will not admit that I ever fancied that “They’ll call me Freedom, just like a Wavin’ Flag.”

So why is it that I feel a small flutter in the breast, a tear behind the visor? Drat! Yet again, Coca-Cola is teaching the world to sing, and yet again I’m a sweet sucker for it.

I find it helps me to apply the concept of freedom generously, and then I find it in plenty. Once upon a time, for instance, I had the freedom to stare at any one of the four walls of my empty cell, or even at the TV. Today I have the freedom to decide whether or not to attempt to evict M3 from the Mandall marital bedroom, where he is demonstrating remarkable skills in multi-tasking: channel-hopping, reviewing Facebook, conducting a stretch-test on the laptop cable, complaining that his phone hasn’t got internet, and demanding that I (that’s right: me) that I fetch his phone from the Fiesta, because I offered to get it fixed, so I must retrieve it. (He found the wretched thing in the creatures formerly known as his jeans.)

Such freedom! Happiness is mine.

At this moment, I am claiming the freedom to shut myself in the L-shaped cupboard, laughingly called Daddy’s Study.

“Give me freedom, give me fire, give me reason, take me higher”, sings K’naan. Perhaps it’s the big Zulu thump on the beat. Or perhaps it’s just that damned F word: I can’t help it.

Cry Freedom! The word, especially in a South African context, makes this freelancer weak. The chains of the profit-and-loss and the logical framework, the environmental appraisal and the Executive Summary all fall to the floor.

* * *

It’s Sunday 1^st May 1994, and I’m flying into Jan Smuts Airport, Johannesburg for a small joust at the expense of the tax payers of the European Community. (Do you remember those halcyon days, when we were still a Community and the whiff of Ludwig Van’s Eau de Joy still lingered over the Brandenburg Gates? Ah, Freedom!)

The polling stations for the first free South African elections have just closed. From the 747 window, I see a new South African Y-Front flag flying over the police hut by the runway. Later that night, Uncle Percy stops the car in an empty white suburban street. He steals me an election poster off a lamp post. He holds it at arms’ length and stands quite still, beaming back into the smiling face of Nelson Mandela. Madiba (as we came to know him) got a bit bent in my suitcase, but it’s still here in the cellar at Mandallay, in amongst the Mandall family’s abandoned instruments of music, sport and torture.

* * *

K’naan didn’t start out with the Coca-Cola FIFA version of Wavin’ Flag. This version of Wavin' Flag, on t'internet as northern wags like to call it, seems to be about waiting and wanting in Mogadishu.

Born to a throne, stronger than Rome 
But Violent prone, poor people zone
But it’s my home, all I have known 
Where I got grown, streets we would roam 
But out of the darkness, I came the farthest 
Among the hardest survival 
Learn from these streets, it can be bleak 
Except no defeat, surrender retreat

* * *

My job is to make you smile but it’s hard today. Trinny has died, beloved sister of Susannah, our friendly little two-year old cat who has kept us all company and made us laugh on dark nights and sunny days.

Trinny was victim of a hit-and-run driver outside Mandallay. In the daytime, we Bridgers are the most considerate of drivers, waving each other through, smiling and greeting on our way to the station or the church. But when night seizes the Bridge, we like nothing better than to clip a carousing teenager, or crush a crazy kitten – then scarper.

Trinny sometimes denied that she lived on the edge, but usually owned up.

Looking out of an attic window one day, I observed parallel wobbly white scratches on the slates of the West Wing. A few days later, Mrs M brought Trinny in, confused, panting, and bleeding. We kept a vigil all night, and by morning Trinny was fine. She professed not to know anything about it, and said that her cat food must have been spiked. In any case, she promised Polly, our old bitch* retriever, not to do it again.

But there was no stopping her. The roof of the West Wing has more stripes than Trinny’s tartan top.

I remonstrated with Trinny about the risks of base-jumping. Of course, there’s nothing you can do.

“Freedom!” she miaoued, and skipped off across the road, wavin’ her bag.

So long Trinny

*Polly is the old bitch formerly known as Bruno in this column. Polly told me she doesn't do butch, and didn't want to keep up the pretence any longer. I do appreciate, incidentally, my continuity editors who check my column for errors. Thanks to you, Mandallay is settling down to a standard location and orthography on Longhurst Lane. Your corrections give this old freelancer that rare and lovely feeling that he is being listened to. 

NOTICES

Deaths 

HADDOCK Fannie, nee Mae, and Johnny found capsized in their tank on 14th July. Married only for one week, Fannie and Johnny have gone to re-join their beloved Freddie, who departed this life on the 7th of this month.

WOODALL Trinny suddenly on Longhurst Lane on Monday. Missed by her sister Susannah, by all the Mandalls, and possibly by the bitch, Polly. Laid to rest ‘neath the Leylandii. Free to roam without fetters. No fish please.

Just a thought

It’s just a thought, one of those bats that flits through the empty belfry of the freelancer’s cranium.

(I’ve heard it said that one of the reasons that we freelancers spend so much time fettling up the lance between campaigns is that we have a short attention span. Bad habits from an early age. Hence, it’s just the one thought. Invoice in the post.)

This particular thought is a thought about a - never mind.

 
The point is: the following notice has appeared on Stockport Road in Marple.

Can you see that? It says:

Young drivers THINK

There’s a thought. One would like to think that this thought is founded on observation, but I haven’t found any evidence to back it up. However, I expect that it’s the considered view of our friends over at Traffic Services in the Stockport Communities, Regeneration and Environment Directorate, CRED for short. (I mustn’t knock CRED. By this time next year, I fear the Big Society will just be a Big Hole, and that our liberal democrat council will have lost its street CRED altogether.)

Mrs M and M1 rage against this sign every time they pass it. It’s making a terrible mess of the Fiesta.

Mrs M is a great defender of modern youth. Returning recently from one of our family outings to Pizza Hut and the Royal Exchange in Manchester, for instance, Mrs M observed that the younger Ms ahead of us were having difficulty persuading a G4S security operative (who has replaced the ticket inspector) at Piccadilly Station to let them board the Marple Express.

The boys’ rational arguments appeared to be having little impact on Mr G4S: mere boyish reason was nothing to him. I don’t know whether it was the force of Mrs M’s reason, or the end of the rounders bat poking out of her capacious handbag, but, at her appearance, Mr G4S quickly waved the Mandalls and the rest of middle-aged, middle-class rabble onto the Marplestar.
 
“They always try it on with the kids,” she said, poking the handle back in her bag.

I don't want to fall out with the family, but I think Traffic Services have got a point. There is plenty of evidence that young people think, and I am not aware of any research that young drivers are an exception. Young people conceivably employ thought in choosing whether to protest against a war or join the army. Some may use thought in the course of their research into the relationship between prime numbers and the Neanderthal genome. Others weigh up the economics of having a baby at 15, while yet others discourse on whether Mumford and sons are arrivistes, and whether their bumbling onto the stage at summer festivals to coincide with their surprise hit single, is not quite as haphazard is it appears. ("Dad," I hear the chorus. "Stop trying to be Down With The Kids." I'm not, I retort. I heard about them on Radio 4. So there.)

The strongest evidence that young people think, however, is Facebook: young people spend a great deal of time thinking about each other, about themselves, and about hair products.

I suspect that Peter Jenner, the vicar up in Mellor, might agree with Traffic Services. Peter says that he hopes his parish is a place for “seekers” at least as much as for “finders”. We think, we seek, we hope.

If Peter is right, perhaps Marple is a bit different from, say, Alderley Edge, whose portals sport following the message:

Children please drive slowly

This, one feels, is addressed to under-aged footballers who have already found themselves in possession of everything that they ever wanted, and have therefore already wrapped their first Lamborghinis around my Zimmer frame.

* * *

Back in Marple, and a little further along Stockport Road, Traffic Services – or whoever – exhorts us as follows:

That's right:

Don't become a Statistic

One thing we are never short of is a statistic. 56,817 drivers and riders aged 30 to 39 were involved in recorded UK road collisions in 2008, nearly as many as the 58,846 under-24s. (That's approximate: Mrs M wasn't available to check the figure-work.) What is more, the alcohol level in the blood of thirty-something drivers involved in crashes is much more likely to be over the legal limit (39%), than that of 16-19 year-olds (23%).

Anyway, all I was thinking was that young drivers might like to know this too, before they are crashed into by a drunken git in a bloody Range Rover.

M3 has just come back from an extended Graffiti workshop at our local Specialist Youth-Wise Communication College. I have suggested that he add a rider (so to speak) to the road sign.

Young drivers THINK

Thirty-somethings DRINK

It was just a thought.

* * *

NOTICES

Deaths

MAC our dear goldfish Freddie Mac, on 7^th July at Mandallay, of a bloated bladder, bravely borne.  He leaves his beloved Fannie Mae, and their young friend from Brabyns Fair, John. Freddie is re-united with the Dreamers on high.  Donations to Lehman Brothers. No weed please.

Marriages

HADDOCK Fannie Mae to Johnny on 7^th July, after a long engagement.  The Bride’s Maids wore salmon, and the periwinkle bouquet was caught by Ann Chovy. Fannie and Johnny plan to honeymoon in Wales, before returning to found a Cordon Bleu School in Mandallay.

Every Little Helps

Mrs M advises me that the key to enjoying a holiday is anticipation. In bed, she reads me extracts of her guide to Majorca. 

It is but a small step, barely worth donning the slippers for, to a shopping expedition.  

I mustn’t moan. It is true that a holiday is a good excuse to stock up on swimwear, but a forthcoming tour of duty makes the old Barclaycard quiver with anticipation. I can feel its chip gently sizzling in my back pocket. There is no getting away from it: a freelance loves to shop.  

Of course, I would like to shop locally. Viv and Alf’s Post Office in Moor End used to be the place to buy a coal scuttle, a wedge of cheese, and an airmail stamp for Mongolia. Alas, no more. Down on Town Street, butcher bank and booze shop have all gone too - though you can still buy a second-hand book to enjoy at the Royal Scot next door.

Marple Bridge Post Office thrives too, and Town Street Stores does a great line in Bacardi Breezers and Haribo sweets. 

I can’t understand what the kids see in Haribos: they would make a tube of green Fruit Gums taste like heaven. 

Forget the Haribos, mum. There's not much here for the freelance either. 

Fear not: we still have a clutch of corner shops. On the corner of the M60, down in the valley that is forever Stockport.

Ray the Taxi recalls when the valley was all factories and engine sheds. Now just the viaduct and a few mills remain to remind us of past glories.

Pear Mill Stockport

by James Photo Dyson 

The new sheds are retail - much more fun! Here is everything a freelance needs. Just a stone’s throw from the Bridge – provided Dan Bank’s open and you pick the right time of day (or night). 

B&Q’s got just the thing to touch up my breastplate. 

Then there's Decathlon for the collapsible canoe.

And Tesco’s got everything else. Especially phones.

 Just what we need! As they say at Tesco's, "Every little helps".

** *

On the way home, Dan Bank is closed again. Do you remember those days before the M6 Midlands Link, when traffic jams in Wednesbury lasted until Thursbury? 

What a moment to relive the glory days when the Singing Kettle saved the Mandall dynasty from Pulp Fiction. 

“Let’s play Keep the Kettle Boiling.” I offer. 

“I don’t know any songs: let’s play the shopping game." 

M3 starts: "I went to Tesco’s and I bought an apple – ”  

“Was it an Air Book?” interrupts M2. 

“No, it was a green one.”  

“I went to Tesco’s and I bought a Burger Bun and an Apple Air Book” insists M2. 

“I went to Tesco’s and I bought a Hannah Montana Celebration Cake –”  

“Girlie. You should have got a Man U cake.”  

“Crap. Hate U. Alright a City Celeb Cake, a burger bun and an Air Book”. 

“City begins with an S”.  

“Stupid. Crap begins with C.” 

Enough!

M3 has brought along his Quentin Tarantino boxed set. Peace at last.

I'll play the supermarket game all by myself. 

I went to Tesco’s and I bought:

a zapper 
Ya-yas in Bloom 
an X-Box
a Wii 
a vile violet vase 
Ultimate cheese-cake 
Tsingtsao beer
sliced smoked salmon
recycling bin  
The Qu’ran  
phish food (ice cream) and three phree 3G phones for the boys ...

... olive oil  
nobby’s nuts  
more mobile phones ... 

... a large lamb leg  
kinky knickers  
jelly babies  
insurance for iPods, and just about everything  
a house  
gravy granules  
fish food for Fannie and Freddie – alright, free fones for the fish too ...

... England World Cup Razor (special purchase)  
DVD players for the back of the Fiesta (buy one get one free) 

 “Shut up, dad." M1 this time.

 “Why?” 

“You’re annoying me even more than usual.” 

“Every little helps.” 

“Shh. I’m trying to watch this DVD. The screen’s rubbish. Don’t you care about the people in China, dad?"

“Yeah." M2 joins in. "What's the point? Why didn’t you get some decent ones?” 

“They were on Bogof. Eat up your phone. It’s getting cold.”

 

Every little helps

The Spirit of Austerity

... in which we look forward to the London Olympics of 2012

At least the Word Cup will provide an original reason for the boys to ignore anything I make or do. My shepherd’s pie was spurned by all three of them, on grounds of vegetarianism (M1), Facebook (M2) and preening (M3).

I have been been receiving intelligence from my fellow freelancers, for whom UMzantsi Afrika holds many attractions. A few years ago, Uncle Percival in Gauteng told me he had decided to invest in cement because of all the football grounds to be built across South Africa. He now tells me that the rebuild of Soccer City in Soweto is a billion Rand overspent, so I hope that next time I stay, the former “maid’s quarters” will have been rehabilitated.

As every freelance knoweth, there is nothing like unto a contract for over-spending it. Neither South Africa’s new stadia, nor my neighbour’s extension works, are exceptions. Plus ça change.

Workers fix a giant vuvuzela soccer horn on top of Cape Town's famous unfinished highway bridge (REUTERS/Mark Wessels)

I like the new addition. Is its creator hinting at an uncertainty in the national psyche, in this outsized plastic horn?

Closer to Mandall Mansions, my tax adviser Isolde tells me that the bill for constructing the Olympic facilities in London will make the South African over-hang look puny. She fears that even Sir Bors will not be able to prevent Dave’n’Nick from reducing the number of Olympic Rings from five to three.

Never mind: we islanders know how to put a brave face on things. As Mrs M puts it, we must look beyond the misery of cheese-paring, and embrace the Spirit of Austerity. What finer example for us than the famous 1948 London “Austerity” Olympics!

Informal soundings around here have shown that the spirit that gave us the Spam Fritter and the Bouncing Bomb lives on in our community. We have raised our eyes above the wobbly wheels of the paper mills and Winchester disks down in the lowlands. We have raised our eyes unto the hills.

Some readers may be aware that the harmless sport of cheese-rolling has fallen victim to the national shortage of neck braces. We were therefore especially pleased to receive the WI’s proposal to introduce Olympic Sponge Cake Rolling in Moor End. Former Moor End post mistress, Mrs Vivian Ayres, is to be approached to provide the official sponges, at a regulation unfilled weight of 1lb 3½ oz. Vivian’s cakes have long been prized at Mellor church fete and other events for their compression strength and high tensility, making them perfect for fantastic birthday constructions. A number of cake-rolling sites are being assessed for safety. Personally I favour the meadow that descends from the south face of the church down to Knowle Farm. I’m sure that John will be more than happy to keep the cattle out of harm's way for the day.

We have received several submissions in relation to the archery contest. Mrs M feels that the Devonshire’s garden-feature pergola offers more scope than the Royal Oak, even though the Oak would just about have room for a darts board if it rains.

There has been one disappointment. We have had to advise Chris Mann and the bell-ringing team that Teddy Bear Bunjee-jumping from the church tower is unlikely to be accredited as an Olympic Sport in time for 2012.

Great sporting events are so often marred by bad weather. We wish the South Africans well: the Johannesburg winter can be vicious. The winter of 1997, when I was playing my small part, ahem, in the preparations for the coming spectacle, was especially bitter. A hard July frost having cracked the yellow crust on top of the mine dumps, the Highveld wind mixed it with the sulphurous smoke from a million coal braziers, before blasting a fine, frozen, and toxic grit through my host's leaking office window, 100 foot above ground level in Soccer City. It was so cold I had to wear long-johns and a balaclava under my armour, even in my freezing Holiday Inn bed.

Our local contributors have considered every meteorological eventuality for the 2012 Austerity Games. For instance, if drought dries out the route for the canoe slalom in the River Goyt, we will build a bob-sleigh run down Moor End Road. M1 has been test-running this in the Fiesta.

He says he’s minded to compete. I say he’s off his head.

Come on, England!

People Like Us

I can’t say that I shared the outrage of our nation’s press when our Prime Minister referred to Mrs Gillian Duffy from Rochdale as “some sort of bigoted woman”.

It is not something I would say of Mrs M. And, as far as I am aware, none of the forms of the word bigot is in the approved lexicon of the boys’ Specialist Language College; nor of the various associations of youth to which they belong or aspire.

I always try to distinguish politics from bigotry, but I find the task gets harder. So I can’t be quite clear where Mr B felt that Mrs D crossed the line from political insight to bigotry. She was reported as saying “you can’t say anything about the immigrants because you’re saying that you’re ... but all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?”

(“So, what am I missing here?” interjects Mrs M. Don’t they flock from Eastern Europe?”)

If the Duffy family and the Mandall family have different ranges of views on this topic, it is perhaps less a reflection of bigotry than of geography. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Rochdale.

Here in the Bridge, we had a fine batch of immigrant au pairs from the Slavic region a few years back. I didn’t hear too many complaints in the Devvy. Nor when the Oak opened a Thai restaurant. But perhaps it feels different a few miles down the road in Hyde, which boasts a thriving Bangladeshi population, a huge pork sausage factory, an impressive portfolio of boxers and serial killers, and lots of restaurants.

The more I think about it, the more I am astonished by the number of things I don’t know about being foreign in Britain. For instance, if the Queen married Philip today, would he be British? Would he have to pass a test about which side of the road to drive a cricket bat, or how many gills there are in a pint of brown trout? And what would happen to him if we decided to deport him?

As it happens, M3 was born offshore, so to speak, while I was freelancing on behalf of our European friends. We were advised that our son would be British-By-Descent, which means that his heirs would not have a Right-of-Abode if they were also born abroad.

Now, for all that I love Foreign Parts, I also love our own Little Sod. So I was less-than-impressed that a Mandall might not be welcome here.

I thought of writing to my MP about it. But I don’t like to bother him if I can help it. He works so hard, and looks as though he’s been wearing the same wool-rich sports jacket and polyester trousers since the election before last. I may be in a small minority here, but I’m not aware that MPs have taken a vow of misery. Just give them a decent wage, or at least a few John Lewis vouchers.

MPs Andrew Stunell and Mark Hunter in action

It all turned out OK for M3. This particular extended trip was generously financed by the European Community. The British High Commission kindly gave us a pamphlet which explained that, the European Commission being merely an adjunct of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, M3 is British-Other-Than-By-Descent. And his seed for ever.

At least, until they change the law, which no doubt they will soon enough. One man’s bigotry is another man’s vote.

An alien world on our planet

“Beeping’s never good.” Professor Brian Cox is sitting inside a rather tatty submarine called Alvin, and is descending into what he calls the “deepest depths of the ocean”. It is the only time I’ve seen Brian worried.

I can’t quite get used to young Brian being a prof. He looks more an M-Nought, big brother to our M1, M2 and M3. I have to check to see if he is wearing long trousers.

Still, once he gets onto his Wonders of the Solar System, Professor Brian Cox is unstoppable. One moment he stands inches from the edge of the Grand Canyon, hands in pockets. The next, he's flying us through rocks of ice that make up the rings of Saturn, or he’s driving a Rover across Mars. And we all thought Rover had gone bust.

It’s all a bit like No 72 on a Thursday evening. Here am I, innocently trying to write my column, when asteroids start slamming around the kitchen. M1’s iPod is bust. He’s convinced it’s M2’s fault, so he’s just taken it out on a toasted sandwich that just happened to be M3’s, not M2’s.

My phone beeps. It’s Mrs M. How did we manage to communicate before Mrs M could send me 50 texts a day? “Micro wave smoking” the text reads. I am tempted to reply “too young”, but it’s usually better to draw a few deep breaths, and wait for the next text or two to announce their arrival. Then I can safely anwer "OK" or "yes" without either of us knowing which text I am replying to.

Then the electricity conks out. I make my way downstairs, which is in darkness apart from a beep which sounds as though it is coming from one of the piles of shoes and sports kit. The tomb of the unknown beeper.

As Brian says, beeping’s never good.

M3 is our expert at re-setting the circuit-breaker thingey. The answering machine is the first to break into life: my mother re-reminds me that we haven’t spoken for Some Time. Then it’s the dishwasher, and the digital radio that always starts up at full volume after a power cut. Finally, the microwave buzzes into life – its fan roars – it gives two beeps – and the lights go out all over again.

On board Das Boot

One kilometre down inside the Puerto Rico trench, Professor Brian Cox has overcome his nerves and is admiring tube worms and fish, all quite unconcerned that they are living in an atmospheric pressure a hundred times that at sea level.

From upstairs, the faint bleep of an uninterruptible computer power supply turns into a continuous wail, then dies, along, I fear, with my script. I sit in the dark, illuminated only by the phone of M2 who is holding its glowing screen in the direction of the fuse box.

Stop engines. 1000 metres beneath the surface of the River Goyt, I listen to the plates of my submarine creak, feel the water dripping off overhead pipes onto my neck. The propellor of the plucky Royal Navy corvette above is silent. Its Asdic pings off my hull.

Flower class corvette HMS Arbutus. Sunk 1942

I wait for the next depth charge from my dear family.

“This has got to be the closest thing on earth to going into space,” says Brian. I suppose he's right.

Next week’s column will be coming from further afield than usual, contract permitting. The column – or, come to think of it, the contract – may be late, but I’m sure both will be worth waiting for. I’ll keep you posted.