“Itsa all abouta da flavour, ya know?”
I went for a walk in the country last weekend, just to clear my mind and get things in perspective. It had been a strange few months…
Getting a job at the local parmesan cheese facility as a cheesegrader had always been an ambition of mine. Sifting the cheese into granules of different sizes – then grading the grains into different strengths of smell is even more rewarding than I could possibly have imagined!
The week after that I had finally got my name into print in the local rag, writing a column about the oddities of relative probability. This had started off as a short piece about the odds of winning the jackpot in the National Lottery. I said that you had more chance of going to bed with Pamela Anderson off Babewatch, or Trevor Macdonald, depending on your preference, than getting all six numbers. I then printed my prediction of what I thought the winning numbers would be. I also put on my Mystic Meg wig, and managed to convince Richard and Judy that I was actually her.
You might have seen me a few weeks back making some vague predictions about who I thought might win. I said “The .. winnerrr .. works .. innn .. aaa .. paaaarmesan .. cheeeese .. faaaactorrrry .. “. Richard put down his glass of wine and said “Yes, very good, Meg..” but I hadn’t finished! I’d just been speaking very clearly .. and .. slowly, mainly to annoy everyone watching, but more subtly so my mind control technique would work! He apologised, flicked his silly fringe to one smug side, and let me continue.
“What the fack are you lookin’ at, cant?”
Rather than continue – I put on a very high, mithering cockney voice – like Rodney, off Fools and Horses, only much higher. I said, “Dahn’t chu fackin’ stawt, chu tossa! Ahl cat cha nats off, yoo nonce, jas see if I effin dahn’t! Jas shat it, awright, or ahl av ya!”.
He went to speak again, so I smashed his face in with a baseball bat – and turned to the camera, gesturing at the producer to turn the lights down, for atmospheric effect.
“The .. winnerrrr .. looks .. totally .. unlike .. Carol Vorderrmannn ..”
I hope you get the picture I am trying to paint. It was mostly blue – with a surreal black hillock in the middle that soared up very high, but was very thin – and had a tiny motorised oyston running up it, (sorry, I meant oyster – this stuff comes from my subconscious, you know! You should try it, sometime!)
After I left the studios, I tossed my black wig into a bin, and headed down to Camelot – where the National Lottery is run.
I distracted the guard, put on some white gloves and ate the bloke that was wearing them. After this, I stole into the strongroom where they keep all the gubbins to do with the number selection, and interfered with Arthur’s balls.
I headed off home and resumed my job at El Diablo’s (The Devil’s) Italian Foodstuffs, and waited for my plan to come into fruition.
“Yes, that’s cubic inches. I couldn’t sit down for a week!”
Anyway, after all that, I didn’t win the Lottery, but guess who turned up on my doorstep and stuffed my head up her jumper, yes that’s right, Carol Vorderrmann!
The week after that, I spent the whole fortnight as Sean Connery. It was fun, my disguise was good!
“Time for shome new underpaantsh!”
I nipped down the post office to try it out – as the people there are quite short sighted – and I needed to perfect my voice.
“Hellooo!” I said, “Could I haave shome shtaamps pleash?” Ask a policeman if you don’t believe me… Hey I’m good! Anyway, the lady in the Post Office was so convinced, she rang the Police! When they came – I raised my left eyebrow (It has to be your left, or it just doesn’t work!) and looked them in their eyes – which is difficult when there is more than one of them!
I said, “Loook, dammit! I only came to getch shome bloody shtaamps – what’sh the crime in thaat? D’you knoow who I aam? Anyone want a game of golf?”
They apologised and left me be, scratching my chest wig in confusion!
Two weeks later, I sank into my bed, exhausted after a fortnight of unrelenting feats of sexual athleticism with various elderly ladies who were convinced that I was the great Connery.
Pheww! Never again.
I couldn’t believe all these strange things that were going on – not a single talking inanimate object in sight – I needed to get back to my backwater of reality.
What was Office Head?
Put simply, Office Head was a column I wrote in the staff magazine when I was employed by Reebok in the mid 90s.
It was a fictional journal, set in an alternate reality where inanimate objects talk, and things are never as they seem.
You can read the story of Office Head here.
The Dave Price Blog 