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or the wit and wisdom of Dennis Rookard What Ho folks. I really didn't want to waste my time banging this rubbish out… Better things to do really, So welcome to my world and much good may it do you… First off you're wondering just who this grumpy boring old fart is, aren't you? Well as an answer to that question, I can do no more then repeat a few words that would have formed the opening chapter of my Biography 'A Study of Genius' which unfortunately was never published due to a number of technical problems. My ghost writer getting a better offer not the least of them, and certain criminal elements worried I might have revealed the whereabouts of their loot. The fire that destroyed the manuscript is still unexplained to this day.. But from the ashes, I have found part of the first draft.. It reads as follows… Born at an early age, Dennis Rookard spent his miss-spent youth at a highly regarded approved school whilst in intensive training to become a professional free style pipe smoker, with a optional degree in the black art of caging other peoples fags. This together with his doctorate in advanced Alcoholism - his paper on the time taken to fall over, following the intake of quantities of Greene King IPA as opposed to the time taken for John Smiths IPA to have the same effect is still quoted as the seminal work on the subject. Admits to have been around in the sixties, and maintains his proudest moment was his presence at the Grosvenor Square 1968 riots. Not in the thick of it you understand. But right at the back, and leaving well before the end so as not to get blood on his nice new duffel coat. In his more sober moments, admits to have been a broadcast journalist with BBC, LBC and BFBS plus a number of local rags. Is also much give to regaling any fool that will listen to such comments as "You bloody kids with your computer driven studios don't know the half of it. Before boring them stiff with his endless tales of how back in nineteen hundred and frozen to death practitioners of his craft used Typewriters and used various ancient examples of audio kit that make use of long spools of brown stuff known as tape and which required razor blades and sticky white tape to assemble into a programme. Also much given to yelling "you weren't a real radio journo until you could edit up on a Uher in the back of a Taxi on the way back to the studio." However does admit to helping to invent the infamous LBC method of reportage from a location by vandalising a near by telephone box by unscrewing the mouthpiece to croc clip the output of their recorders down the line. Now admits to loving his computer based studio which he uses to produce various programming for Phoenix FM. as well as in part to produce drama productions for Hospital radio nation-wide, and in the magic of Photo-shop to provide contest prints for the Brentwood Photographic Club. Is there no end to Rookard talents we hear you cry. No is the short answer for he acts as the studio manager for the studio he helped design under Brentwood's town hall for the local talking newspaper for the blind.. Now alleged to be in semi-retirement he says "I'm getting to that stage in life known as the boring old fart age. A time when you collect your bus pass and take an unhealthy interest in the local newspaper death list." However on the plus side he maintains, " around Brentwood it's rather like being in the last of the summer wine country around here. Growing old disgustingly and giving the merry two fingers to all those bloody boring grey suits who bang on about teamwork, merits of working 24/7 , no job being for life and why every body must welcome re-training to stack Tescos shelves and how you should really start thinking about a pension when your 18. Right now you know all about , lets get on with my first Rant ! Now as is well known, (at least according to the Sunday supplements,) Essex Men and Women like nothing more then a good dinner party. So should you be invited to one, and there's a lull in the conversation, may I suggest throwing in this tit bit of totally useless information, to wit, your average salt water Australian Crocodile just hates the smell of cigarette smoke. In fact it sends the poor darlings ballistic. Mind you what it does to their fresh water friends is anybody's guess, but rumour has it they're not over keen on the smell of fish and chips, so don't offer them any of yours. This information came to me whilst having nothing better to do, I was watching one of those boring nature films featuring the transporting of Crocodiles by air in the Australian out-back, and please don't ask why any self respecting Crocodile should want to fly when he could swim. But there he was, stretched out having forty winks in that aircraft high over the out-back when the pilot, as one does on these occasions felt the need of a fag coming on. Oh dear a bad move on the part of the pilot, for the said beast acting like a born again non smoker took umbrage and began to act like a drunken hooligan, smashing the aircraft up. At which point the aircraft made a forced landing and the animal made for the nearest river. Now want concerns me, is just how did this Crocodile and his mates come to hate the smell of cigarettes in the first place. I mean did some kindly Australian hunter, corks swinging from his hat, offer his quarry a final cigarette before he shot him. And did the rest of that Crocodile tribe, safe in the river figured that accepting free fags from passing hunters was a bad career move. But there's always one, isn't there, who leads the rest astray. So right now I suspect there's a pack of crocodiles laying around under some Australian bush flashing the ash, and being from that nation, no doubt swigging back the old 4X Fosters as well. Now I just hope they discover the joys of football supporting and have some local teams logo tattooed on their flanks, then they'd be a right menace. Now there's a thought. For what better way of dealing with our home grown soccer hooligans then by nipping out and importing a few of these belligerent beast 's back here, and set them onto any passing gang of louts. And cigarette hating Crocodiles could have another use as well for the anti smoking brigade - these kill joys against those of us who enjoy this little vice, could chain one up outside the back doors of all those offices, where fellow addicts of the weed gather in fellowship. That should get their nanny state message over. As would their use on the midnight vomit express out of Liverpool Street on which our young blades insist on ignoring the no smoking signs.
Mind you if we could only train them to eat up all those peasants who also insist on munching their way though Big Mack's before rolling over and throwing up on
this train, I for one would be very happy. It doesn't take to long before those wonderful urban myths start flying around does it. You know of course what an urban myth is don't you. It's that story you hear from a friend, who swears blind he or she got it from a friend of theirs who told them they heard it from a friend, who knew someone it happened too. Like that story of the granny who whilst out on a picnic with her daughter, her husband and kids, either popped her clogs with a fatal heart attack or in some way died and departed this mortal coil. Now at this stage you cynical lot might be wondering why the family didn't call an ambulance have done with it.. But remember this is an urban myth, so lets assume they did and the ambulance crew told them they were not on the business of carting dead grannies around. So what to do. Easy thinks the family. Bung the body in the boot and take her down the local funeral directors. Look I told you this is an urban myth - so a little less of those tears for poor granny, because it gets worse. For halfway home, the family, in need of a little comfort halt, parked up and trotted off at high speed, leaving Granny in the boot. It's at this stage that your local friendly car thief steps in to smartly nick the car and granny, disappearing up the road, never to be seen again.. And do you know from that day to this, says the teller of this tall tale, neither the car or granny has been found. Well now here's a new urban myth for you, and it's absolutely true. I know because my mate Andy told me, and he found it posted on the Internet. It seems, so he told me, that one fine day recently a family were getting ready to pop down the local supermarket (insert your own favourite supermarket name here.) to do their weekly shop. But hold on there, says dad, a computer nerd of long standing, why wander around that vast hanger of a store, when we can order our goodies up via the net. So computer switched on and (your favourite superstores) web page on line, they start to order the weekly shopping list. But a little problem appears when dad tries to enter his credit card details, as the store fails to accept it. Now dads no fool, so the family enter all the information again, only to find the store still refuse's to accept their order. Oh bother (insert you own swear words here ) says dad, and saying the car could do with a run out away, suggests going on the supermarket run. This they do and a few hours latter return to the happy home with their car heavy with shopping bags. Its as they are unloading this pile of goodies that disaster strikes, for around the corner comes the supermarket van. With guess what. Not one but two piles of shopping, for it seems that both Internet orders have in fact been accepted and the family have ended up with three piles of shopping and a huge bill to pay. Now the moral, and you just knew there had to be one. Is be very careful when shopping over the Internet. Or don't bother as the machines are out to get you. But like I say, this is just an urban myth. On the other hand you wont catch me ordering stuff up from the net…. Just in case ! Talking about the dreaded Internet, I'm still in the stone age with only a dial up connection. But not for long. As I'm about to go on the waiting list for Talk Talks new deal of connection, free calls and line rental for all of £20 or so a month. Must be a hidden cost somewhere, but I've yet to find it recently however, whilst surfing the dreaded net in dial up mode, I came across an American Rookard family history page. Interested that a branch of the family were now, god forbid 'Yanks' (not a thing one would normally admit too.) I keyed into it asking for more information. Now here's the interesting bit. One of them came back with the information that they had traced the family back to late fourteenth century Italy, where a certain Mrs and Mrs Angelo adopted a stray child called Michael Rookard. A lad of artistic bent. (oh come on, keep up). Now I don't believe a word of this, basically because an American told me, But it could be an answer to one of histories great mysteries, to wit why did Michelangelo go over the top in taking so long with his painting of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, when as is well known the Pope just wanted a cheep whitewash job. Typical of us Rookards that was, four years laying on his back, stretching what should have been a week long job. I'm just surprised they left his graffiti where it was. Finally there's always one isn't there. Especially when there's someone around to bring new meaning to the words "social embarrassment." For most of us, it's the loony on the bus, But why oh why do they always sit next to me. Is it a kindred spirit they see in me ? The thing to do of course is to say something along the lines of "push off mate," but you don't of course, you just sit there tight lipped, hopping against hope the next bus stop will be theirs. Of course, it never is, and your stuck with them. It happened to me the other as I flashed my Bus pass for a ride into town. Yes I know walking is good for you but you try walking up bloody Primrose Hill. In retrospect I should have given myself a heart attack by attacking that hill as then I would not have met that shaggy looking character who dumped himself along side me at the back of the bus. Again in retrospect my big mistake was to nod at him as he sat down. For this he took as the invitation he'd been waiting for, launching into a long and involved story concerning Southend Landladies and their nocturnal habits activities some forty years back and the fact he never trusted barmen who removed empty glasses- believe me you don't want to hear it. Suffice it to say, I have a list of Southend flop houses where not to visit.. But it's nice to know I'm not the only one. Take that group of monks for example who had their Christmas ruined. There they were, happy as only Monks can be in their monastery on this Island off the coast of Wales. All was quiet and peaceful, Quiet because they were of an order that took a twelve hour vow of silence. And peaceful because, lets face it, living on their own island, they could at least escape a visit from a double glassing salesman. But not as it turned out a visit from a rival friend of God. For with a heavy knocking of the door, there stood a vicar wondering if he could stay the night, Well you can't go wrong with a vicar they thought, so by the aid of sign language, (they were halfway through their daily 12 hours of silence remember,) he was shown to his room, where thought the monks he'd have a good nights kip. But it was not to be, for this passing vicar had a little secret. His love of the hard stuff, indeed in his bag he had a few bottles to see him though the long night hours ahead. The only snag was seeing as it was Christmas eve, and him being a vicar, and having had more then a few. The idea of holding his own midnight carol service, complete with the lusty out of tune singing of carols seemed like a good idea. What could the monks, still in their vow of silence do about it. Not a lot it seemed as banging on his door had no effect,. In the end they just had to cover their ears, roll over in bed and wait for their vow of silence to end, so they could give our passing vicar a bit of their mind, and hand him over the local police who had him up in court, and a fine of £50. As I say, theirs always one isn't there.
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