200 All That Work for Nothing

This is the two-hundredth posting published on my blog.  I’ve actually posted 201 but I removed one of them after it had been here for more than three years.

I wrote the piece that was subsequently removed as a result of an uplifting experience I had while working two mornings a week as an unpaid classroom assistant in Savannah Primary School, Grand Cayman.  My responsibility was to help some of the less able children with their work. 

That was the plan but in reality, I spent most of my time dealing with Rozzard so that Ms Hunte, the class teacher, could concentrate on the educational advancement of the other 20 children who all actually wanted to learn – unlike Rozzard!

Mostly, I struggled to stop him from causing disruption and any learning that he achieved was a bonus.  But, as he demonstrated time and again, particularly in maths, Rozzard was very able.  (You can read about some of the things that Rozzard did in blogs 6, 12 and 23.) 

https://ramblingsandstories.blogspot.com/2010/02/sports-day.html  

https://ramblingsandstories.blogspot.com/2010/04/poetry-in-raw.html

https://ramblingsandstories.blogspot.com/2010/06/6h-and-fibonacci.html

One day, just before we left Cayman to return to the UK permanently in July 2010, Ms Hunte gave the class a homework assignment which was to set out the plot of a story they could possibly develop and write one day.  They didn’t have to write a story, just the outline of the plot.

The day when these plots were due in was one of my days in class.  Before she collected their exercise books, Ms Hunte asked if anyone would like to read theirs aloud to the class.

To my amazement, Rozzard’s hand shot up and even before he could be summoned, he had come to the front of the class and stood facing everyone, book in hand.  As soon as he was asked to proceed, Rozzard spoke to us all with a confidence and self-assurance that I could never have imagined he possessed.

The hero of Rozzard’s tale was of a dog named Walter and that dog had a problem: he farted a lot.  A sharp intake of breath could be heard from everyone as soon as that word was said.  Ms Hunte looked over to me enquiringly and I replied with a shrug and a nervous, half smile.  I don’t know if children in Cayman ever farted but I know that none of them would ever have talked about it.

Rozzard went on to tell us that Walter’s farts were magical in that whenever he farted, something good happened in as much as anything that was broken or needed fixing was repaired to be as good as new or something that was lost became found.  Rozzard told us that this gift first became when apparent when, still a very young puppy, Walter was aboard a cruise liner whose engine had broken down while moored off George Town, Cayman’s capital.  

It was going to take several days for the necessary spare parts to be delivered and Walter had gone out to the ship with his owner who was delivering necessary, emergency foodstuffs.  Almost immediately after he set paws on the ship, Walter farted and the engine was working again.

At first, Walter’s owner thought it was just coincidence but the next day, when a grandfather clock that hadn’t worked for 40 years started working immediately after another Walter fart, the penny dropped.  Throughout his entire life, a Walter-Fart brought good to the world.

I was gripped and wanted to hear more.  Ms Hunte led the rapturous applause and Rozzard revelled in it.  Rozzard had surprised and amazed us all.

I wrote about all of that in a post that I put up in July 2010.

About three years later, I decided that as he never would, I would write a children’s book based on Rozzard’s plot.  If it were ever published, I would try to contact Rozzard and share some of my earnings with him.  After all, I would never have thought about writing a book were it not for him.  He would deserve some reward.

My dog was called Rocky and mindful of prissy parents, it was his sneezes, not his farts that were charmed.  Whenever he sneezed, the magic happened and he sneezed straight after eating cheese.  Rocky loved cheese.

I had written about 40,000 words of this “delightful and charming story”, as I imagined the reviewers would be describing it, when Lucy, my daughter, rang me.

“You know that blog you wrote a few years ago about a dog that had magic farts?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that kid didn’t think up that story.  He got it from a book called ‘Walter the farting dog goes on a cruise’.  A friend told me about it.”

Crikey!  Had Rozzard divulged his plot to a writer or could he possibly have written he book himself?

“When was it published?”

“I don’t know.  Susan has just read it to her son.”

I googled “Walter the farting dog goes on a cruise”.

Published in 2006.

Rozzard, you monster.  You’ve caused me to waste weeks and weeks of my life.

172. What are the Chances?

In 2012, the Royal Statistical Society asked 97 MPs a question on the maths of probability.  I don’t know why but possibly it was in the hope that many of them would get it wrong and then we could all scoff and say that the average MP is rather dim.

I am not a mathematician but I suspect that the simplest question of all on probability would be something like, 

“If you spin a coin, what is the probability of getting heads?”

The answer is that there are two equally possible outcomes when a coin is spun; one is heads and the other is tails and so the answer is that the probability of getting heads is ‘one in two’ or, as mathematicians would say, ‘0.5’.

I would say the answer is ‘one in two’.  Surely, ‘one in two’ is a notion that is simpler to understand, than ‘0.5’?  Maybe, this is one reason why so many people are very happy to say, “Maths?  I’m useless at maths.”  

In a piece I posted here in 2013, I wrote that Gwyneth Paltrow, Mariella Frostrup and Ruby Wax all seemed to be quite proud of being “useless at maths”, whereas no one ever says they are useless at English.

Before MPs were asked the probability question, three quarters had said that they felt confident dealing with numbers.  I suppose that means that they felt they were reasonably good at maths and certainly not “useless”.

The question they were asked was, 

“If you spin two coins, what is the probability of them both being heads?”

Despite their apparent confidence, 47% of the Conservative MPs and 77% of Labour MPs  got it wrong.  Are Labour MPs dimmer than Tories?

That thought is not for me to comment upon, although I will say that David Lammy’s performance on the television quiz, Mastermind, makes me wonder.  

He answered “Antoinette” when asked for the married name of the scientist, Marie, who discovered radium.  Then, he told the question master that Henry the eighth was succeeded by Henry the seventh.

The answer to the question that was asked of the MPs is 0.25 or as I prefer to think of it, one in four, as only one of the four equally likely outcomes is two heads.

I had a haircut in the beginning of October which, because of Lockdown, was the first one since February.  

I had been told about Lena, a woman who has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that both she and her clients stay safe from the threat of Covid.  

Her business is 16 miles away but as it was a choice between having my hair cut by either her or Caroline, I chose the relaxing drive to Leighton Buzzard.

Caroline did cut my hair once when I was bedridden for several weeks in Cayman and she would be the first to admit that she made a quite dreadful job of it.  After it was over, she stood back, surveyed the scene of the carnage she had created and then, by way of both explanation and perhaps an apology, said to me,

“You know, cutting hair is a lot like playing golf.  They are both more difficult than they look.”

Lena is from Romania and as she cut my hair, she talked incessantly.  I mean, she never stopped!  

Like many (most?) people, I hate the tedious, mundane inconsequentialities of the strained haircut-conversation.  I want silence throughout it all and so, whenever a response from me was expected, I either grunted, “Yes” or “No”.

We were ten minutes in when, inevitably, Lena asked what my job had been before I retired.  

“Teacher.” I mumbled.

“So, you went to university.  Which one?”

“Durham.”

“My son is at Cambridge. What ages did you teach?”

“Eleven to eighteen,” I mumbled.

“Ah, to A’ level.  Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“What subject?”

I knew this was coming and so I was ready to tell a lie:

“Maths.”

From past experience, that would shut her up.  When I said I had taught maths, it should have brought the “I am useless at maths” response and conversation would abruptly stop.  It always works at a barber’s or hairdresser’s.

Not this time, it didn’t. 

“Oh, really?  What’s your favourite formula?”

My what?  My favourite what?  What the hell!  I didn’t know formulas had names or people had feelings about them.

“I haven’t got one,” I mumbled.  “They all have a purpose.”

“Well, yes, of course they do but mine is Oilers.”

“Yes, I find that’s a handy one when my car needs a service,” I said, hoping that was a stupid enough response to be amusing.

It clearly wasn’t because Lena just carried on talking about irrational numbers and other things that I didn’t understand at all.  I sat in silence, grunting affirmatively and nodding wisely every now and then.

I tried to change the subject from maths to anything else but I couldn’t because Lena had found someone whom she thought to be a kindred spirit and she wanted to talk maths.

Eventually, she did stop talking about maths and then I heard about her life in Romania where she had been an actuarial analyst (???).   When she arrived in England 13 years ago, her English had been very poor and she had taken up her hobby of hairdressing.  Now, her English is perfect and I think she cuts hair fairly well too.

As soon as I got home, I asked Caroline (who really is a mathematician) to tell me about Oilers formula.  She was very surprised to be asked but told me that it was a formula devised by Leonard Euler (pronounced “oiler”) a Swiss mathematician and it was one of her favourites too. 

She tried to explain it to me but despite its apparent “beauty”, I lost track after about thirty seconds which was at about the same time I lost interest as well and I told her so.

Undeterred, she attempted to revive my interest in formulae by describing the intrinsic and inherent elegance of the formula for the surface area of a sphere but again, she failed.  I am certainly no mathematician.  

Now, I have a problem.  The next time I need a haircut, do I go back to Lena and run the risk of being exposed as the fraud that I am or, do I let Caroline loose on my hair again?   

 

79. Give me an 'L'

In January 2011, I wrote a piece titled “Discomfited?”.  In it I recalled the one or two times in my life when I have been embarrassed.  I’ve never been so embarrassed that I wished that I could just disappear.  Mostly, they have just been of the, “I didn’t really say/do/ that did I?” kind of thing.

Yesterday, however, something happened that could have been (and may still could be) unbelievably embarrassing.  I didn’t do anything and I certainly didn’t say anything.  Throughout the whole incident I was seated, still and silent.  But I blushed deeply and looked around feeling self-conscious and extremely uncomfortable.

Almost two years ago Caroline and I applied for Olympic tickets.  We knew it was a lottery and as neither of us have ever been successful in any kind of sweepstake, raffle or game of chance, and as we had heard that the demand for tickets was going to be huge compared with the supply available, we applied for as many as we were allowed.

On a Saturday morning many months ago we each sat with our laptops on our knees and went through the Olympic calendar making our application.  We both applied for two tickets for the same events.  

If we had been completely successful we would have become the lucky recipients of 80 tickets for twenty events and as we believed that we hadn’t the slightest chance of success, we applied for quite expensive seats too.  Why not?  We might just as well fail to get a £750 pound ticket as a £35 pound one.  After the application had been sent off I calculated that with a 100% success in our submission, we were looking at a bill for £24,000.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that we were not 100% successful but actually our rate was around 6%, which we thought was pretty good.

Yesterday we went to our first event – Beach Volleyball!

As I wrote in “Calm down!” in February this year, Caroline becomes wildly excited and enthusiastic very easily.  I can’t begin to imagine what she must have been like as a kid on Christmas Eve.  I doubt that she ever slept at all.  She could hardly sleep on Monday night and “We’re going to the Olympics tomorrow,” was the last thing I heard before I eventually got to sleep.

On Tuesday morning she was up very early and packing a rucksack with items that would cover every possible meteorological event.  No, not snowshoes but if it had been February and not July, they would be in there too (I’ve still got the shovel and coarse salt in the boot of my car from the very cold spell in December 2010).

We went to London by train and then got a cab from Euston to Horse Guards Parade where the competition is taking place.  On the train we sat in a ‘Quiet Zone’ carriage.  This means that using mobile/cell phones and personal stereos is prohibited and even though the carriage was almost full, nobody spoke and it was eerily quiet.

Quiet that is until Caroline’s bubbling excitement got the better of her and she suddenly blurted out, “We’re off to the Olympics.”  Forty people looked up from the books, newspapers and magazines they were reading and looked at her.  A lot of them smiled and Caroline beamed back happily.  I stared out of the window.

The temporary stadium at Horse Guards is a wonderful thing.  There is comfortable seating for 15,000 people and there are four lifts or elevators to get people like me, with mobility problems, to their places.  The soldiers on security duty were charming, funny and helpful while the uniformed volunteer helpers were desperate to be of assistance.

At 2:30 pm we were ready for the first game, which was between two men from Venezuela and two Latvians.

“Who do you want to win?” Caroline wanted to know.

“I’m not bothered.”

“I’m supporting Latvia because that nice waitress at the Cracked Conch in Cayman was Latvian,” Caroline told me.

You will almost certainly never have been to a Beach Volleyball event but let me tell you, it is different.  I suppose that according to my personal definition of a sport – if it can be done while smoking, drinking or sitting on a chair and it isn’t possible to work up a sweat, it’s not a sport - then beach volleyball is a sport.  But it is absolutely nothing like any sporting experience that you have ever been to.

The crowd is encouraged to be noisy and rowdy and if they ever go quiet they are yelled at and cajoled to shout, stamp their feet or clap in unison.  At certain points in the procedure the crowd is ordered (not asked) to stand up – and unbelievably they all do! 

Caroline joined in everything.  She clapped and she yelled.  She shouted, ”Olé,” after the trumpet call and she stamped her feet and hammered on the advertising board in front of our seats and at set point she stood up and did everything at once.

The television cameras were at Horse Guards yesterday and for all I know there was live coverage at the very time I became seriously embarrassed.

The crowd’s rendition of, “We will rock you,” had fizzled out.  A Latvian was about to serve.  Before the MC could exhort us to yell again like maniacs there was a fleeting moment of peace, quiet and calm.

That was the moment that Caroline chose, in front of 15,000 people and the world’s press, to yell at the top of her voice those three little words that I am sure she had never previously even thought of saying and I am fairly certain she will never say again, let alone bellow at full volume.  Those three words that were heard all round Whitehall and could possibly have also been heard in China, Lesotho, Bhutan and Russia:

“COME ON LATVIAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”

44. Sleepless Nights

Cricket: The Test Series started on Thursday.   Australia play England at the Gabba in Brisbane for five days with four more matches to follow over the next three months.   

With typical Aussie bloody mindedness and lack of consideration, they decided that play should start at midnight, UK time.   Consequently, for the last week I’ve been rescheduling my body clock to turn myself from a diurnal into a nocturnal being – a creature of the night.   

On Thursday I got up from my afternoon slumber at eight o’clock in the evening, had a light breakfast/supper and got everything ready for the marathon ahead.   I lasted until teatime there, which was half past four in the morning here. 

I remember that some years ago when I was working, I looked forward to one day being able to stay up all night watching the Ashes series from Australia with no need to be up at any particular time on the following day.   But I was younger then!  I had stamina.   Maybe tonight I will make it right through until the close of play.

It was very different not so long ago.   I remember in the middle of the night in the early morning of New Years Day, January 1995 watching on Ceefax the changing score from Adelaide.  I watched as Mike Gatting’s score went up digit-by-digit, putting together big partnerships with Gooch and Atherton.

Two years ago, when the Ashes series was played in England, I was in Cayman watching the cricket there on Cayman TV.  I paid an extra $25 a month on my subscription for the channel that promised to show “every ball of every game.”

Cayman in August is six hours behind British Summer Time and the start of play was at 11:00 a.m. in the UK.  I set my alarm for 4:45 in the morning.   “Why don’t you sleep in the other bedroom?” Caroline whinged.

The decisive and eagerly awaited fifth test match started on a Thursday and I saw every ball bowled over the first two days.   But on the Saturday morning at 8:59, just after Jimmy Anderson had bowled the third ball of his over, the TV screen went blank for a second or two.   When the picture was restored we were at the City of Manchester Stadium just moments before the kick off between Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Not a word of explanation; no voiceover; no elucidation and certainly no apology.  Bloody football in August!

I was straight on the phone to Weststar TV, my cable supplier.   All the lines to customer services were busy and a robot informed me that I was eighth in the queue to be answered.

“Hi Mr Terry.  This is Cindy.  I recognise your voice.”   

Cindy and I were old friends and after a twenty-minute wait on hold, we were renewing our acquaintanceship.   She is an American from Alabama, married to a Caymanian businessman and is employed to placate stroppy customers like me.  She seemed now to be an old friend.   We go back three years.

The first time that we ‘met’ was when I phoned to make the observation that on BBC America that evening, the entire time from 7:00 p.m. until half past one the following morning, was taken up with showings of Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen” programmes, one after the other.   “I do not pay an additional subscription for that kind of rubbish,” I told her.

“He’s very popular in the UK,” she assured me.  “The English here on island like him.”

“Do they really?” I asked incredulously.  “I think that you and your bosses should know that my scientific survey has come up with the result that 100% of the English people in this house, don’t like him.” 

“And anyway,” I continued, “The language is so heavily censored that all you ever hear is a succession of bleeps.”

“Yes, he does seem to swear a lot,” agreed Cindy.

“On top of all that,” I said, putting on my best English upper crust accent and trying to sound like Prince Charles attempting to be posh, “He’s a poor chef.  Have you eaten at Claridges recently?”

“Yes, last Easter,” Cindy said “and we both rather enjoyed it.”

Cindy had calmed and soothed me in the past when I had phoned in to complain that the England v Italy rugby match was not, despite trails that it would be, shown live.  At other times she had tried to explain why neither Wimbledon nor the Ryder Cup was not of sufficient interest to be shown on Cayman television.

“I’ll look into it.   I’ll just put you on hold,” she said after I had told her that the cricket had just disappeared without warning or justification.   After a few minutes she was back.

“I’ve got some good news for you,” she said, minutes later.  “There’s another cricket game coming on at eleven o’clock.”

“It’s the same match,” I said, grumpily.

“No, it’s a different game,” she said, “and it starts at eleven.”

“No, it’s the same game,” I said, wearily, dreading where this conversation was likely to go. 

“No,” Cindy said patiently, “The game that you were watching that finished at nine, started at five o’clock and the next game starts at eleven.”

“It started on Thursday.”

Cindy’s laugh was genuine and infectious.  It quite cheered me up.

“Oh Mr Terry, you’re so funny.  And I suppose that it finishes tomorrow?”

“Well it could do but it’s more likely to end on Monday,” I said.

“Oh, don’t be silly.  Look, I’ve got a lot of calls waiting.  Anything else I can help you with?”

At eleven o’clock, as Cindy had promised, the cricket was back.   Jimmy Anderson bowled the fourth ball of the over he had started two hours ago.   There was no justification or explanation from Weststar.   Anyone switching on then would have assumed that this was live cricket.   I resisted the temptation to go to the BBC website to see the current state of play but instead I sat back and imagined that I was on a far distant planet, where radio signals take two hours to travel from the Earth and watched the rest of the day’s play ‘as live’.

As they promised they would, Weststar had shown, “ every ball of every game.”

Manchester City 1 (Adebayor 18’)  – Wolverhampton Wanderers 0, in case you’re interested and I bet you’re not. Hardly anyone ever was. 

36. Not Funny

I’m sitting in the passenger seat travelling south down the M6 toll road while Caroline drives.  It’s 9:15 on Saturday morning and as it costs £4.50 to use this bit of motorway, the road is fairly empty.  The speedometer needle is hovering on 120 mph. and the engine is purring quietly.  There is no tyre noise and I am listening to Capriccio Italien by Tchaikovsky, on Classic FM.  I can see for more than a mile ahead and there is only one vehicle in sight.  Despite the speed, I feel perfectly safe.

“According to the book, the top speed of this car is a hundred and fifty five,” I say.

“Don’t be silly,” says Caroline, “Even though it’s a toll road, there’s still a seventy miles an hour speed limit.” 

Then she glanced down at the speedometer.

********

On January 24^th in ‘Life’s Ironies’ I told you about a fabulous put-down I received from Sandra, the cashier in the Cayman bank I used.  Yesterday I received another, much better one.  It was superb and especially so because it was spontaneous.  It was not calculated to offend or upset me but it did and I’m still brooding on it.  

If there is such a thing as a ‘Put-Down Hall of Fame,’ then this should go straight in.  What makes it so brilliant is that my own wife said it and although it was deeply hurtful, it was said with sincerity and was not meant to upset me.  Indeed, remove two little words, just five letters, and it would have been a wonderful compliment.

We have been staying at Caroline’s parents’ house in Wilmslow, Cheshire.  Five years ago, just before we left for the Cayman Islands, we put three boxes of personal items into their loft for safe keeping.  Yesterday we were going through them and came across photographs taken during our holiday in Cyprus in 2002.

As you do, we were commenting on every photo - comments like, “Why did you wear that hat?” and “Do you remember how hot it was there?”

We came to one of me on the beach.  Caroline stared at it for several seconds.

“My God,” she said wistfully, “No wonder I used to fancy you.”

Take away, “used to,” and I’d have been flying down the M6!

********

We’ve been having dreadful problems with our Internet and telephone ever since we moved back into our house here in Winchmore Hill.  We decided to go with the package offered by Virgin but we have never been able to get a proper wireless connection.  We have been very lucky that our neighbours at number 27 have allowed us access via their wireless router.

Yesterday, we realised that we were not receiving incoming phone calls either.  Sandy rang me on my cell phone and told me that she had given up trying to reach us on our landline.  I phoned Virgin.

“Who have you been unable to receive calls from?” a nice young man from the call centre in Mumbai asked.

I thought for a moment.  “Well, David Cameron hasn’t rung today,” I said,  “but he’s probably been very busy with his new baby.  Neither has Naomi Campbell or Gandhi but he’s been dead for 60 years and so that probably explains why he hasn’t rung.”

Smart-arse remarks like that got me into trouble once in Cayman.

The “Strata” administer Prospect Reef, the complex of about 20 dwellings where we lived in Cayman.  Every homeowner pays a monthly Strata fee of $500 and this money is used to pay for the buildings’ insurance, the maintenance of the grounds and the upkeep of the swimming pool and the tennis court.  

Our Strata fee was one of the lowest on the island.  Most other Strata on the island employ a professional administrator.  We didn’t.  We did everything ourselves and my duty was to take the 25 cent coins from the washing machines in the communal laundry to the bank. 

The last time that I visited the bank was to deposit exactly $500 into the Strata account.  On the same visit I also put $5800 in cash into my personal account which I had received as payment for a car I sold. 

I had the kind of experience that just couldn’t happen in England.  I rather brought it upon myself I suppose and so I probably deserved the aggravation I received.

I had to stand in line for nearly 20 minutes until a clerk became available.  When I arrived in the bank I counted and saw that I was fourteenth in the line to be served.  There were no chairs.  I had to stand while I waited.  

There were eight booths to deal with customers but four were closed.  I suppose that as it was 12:45 the clerks were out for lunch!  

At last I approached the counter and lifted the extremely heavy bag on to the top and took the bags out, one at a time, counting them as I did.  “Five hundred dollars,” I said to the girl.  In the past, that would have been the end of the transaction.  She would have written out a receipt and off I’d go.  Not that day.

She took one bag containing 100, 25c pieces ($25), emptied them, spread them out, studied each one and then, counting them one at a time, put them back into the plastic bag that they had come from.  Then she took a second bag and repeated the process.  When she had investigated three bags I asked her what she was doing.  

“I’m checking the amount and looking for American quarters,” she said.  

“Why, are they valuable?“ I asked.  “The amounts have already been checked,” I said. “Why don’t you just weigh them?”

She ignored me and reached for the fourth bag.  I had already been standing for over 30 minutes by now, my knee was very painful and there were still 17 bags to go.

I’d had enough.  Time to bluff!

“I’m a mathematician,” I said, “and I can tell you that a 20% sample gives a result statistically significant to four decimal places.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

“Well, if four bags taken at random from the sample show no differential variation in the Gaussian context and content, you can be certain, to one part in ten thousand, that none of the others will either and if it does, it’s very easy to put right, simply by reversing the polarity of the terminal condenser.”

She looked at me blankly.

“That is if you accept the validity of Fermat’s last theorem, which I am sure you do,” I added helpfully.

She looked doubtful.  Then she gave me a look that was almost of pity and reached for the next bag.  Half an hour later she had finished and she handed me a receipt for CI$500.

All the time this had been going on I had been holding an envelope containing my $5800.  I put that on to the counter top.  The cashier was staring at her computer screen.  I took the money out of the envelope and it sat there - a beautiful thick pile of banknotes.

“I haven’t finished,” I said.  She looked up.  “I would like to deposit this please.”

“From where that come?” she asked.

“That envelope,” I answered, pointing at it.

“No.  Where from it come?”

“From my pocket,” I said, smiling brightly, trying to be helpful.

“Where you get the money from?” she said again, beginning to lose patience with me.

“Nowhere.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s just my money,” I said.

She just sat there and glared at me, stony faced.

“All right,” I said, “I robbed a bank a couple of months ago and this is what I haven’t managed to spend yet.”

Her glare became more intense and her face became even stonier.

“OK, sorry,” I said, realising that I might have gone a little too far, “I sold a car yesterday and this is the money I got for it.”

She picked up the pile of notes and walked to the back of the room where a man in a suit was sitting at a desk.  They entered into earnest conversation and every few seconds he looked over at me.  After a couple of minutes he got up and ushered me into a side room.

“From where this money is? He demanded.

“From the sale of a car,” I muttered meekly.

“Huh!  You say that now but earlier you say you rob a bank.  Which it is?”

I was getting pissed off.  “Guess,” I said.

“We not here for fun, you know.  We have work to do.”

“Do you want my money or not?” I asked him.

“What bank you rob?  You know we have you on CCTV here.”

“I am not a bank robber!”  I sighed.  “Look at me.  I can hardly walk.  I’ve got an arthritic knee and an artificial hip.  I was trying to be funny.  I’m sorry that it wasn’t funny but I was getting very fed up standing for an hour watching your clerk counting out five hundred dollars, twenty-five cents at a time.  I won’t do it again.  Promise.” 

“Hmmph,” he said.  “You not funny, man.”

Two days later that branch was held up and robbed.  

It wasn’t me!

34. Knock Knock

Caroline has been looking for a job.  She hasn’t worked since her contract with the Cayman Islands government ended on the last day of June.  For the last ten weeks, she’s brought in no money at all and we have been living off my meagre pension.

“I think I’ll have a gap year,” she announced a couple of months ago.

“Will you, buggery,” I said (I’m renowned for my repartee).

Today she was looking through the online adverts.  She was very quiet for a few minutes.

“Do you know what?” she said looking up at me for the first time in twenty minutes, 

“It’s the words ‘full time’ and ‘permanent’ that are putting me off.”

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One of our neighbours has a son called Charlie.  Charlie is 5 and yesterday he told me a joke.  It was more of a riddle than a joke but it resonated because it was exactly the same ‘joke’ that my Dad had told me some 58 years ago. 

“When is a door not a door?”.... pause…. 
“When it’s ajar.”

When Dad told it to me I didn’t get it.  I didn’t know what “ajar” meant and so it hardly seemed funny or clever.  I asked Charlie what “ajar” means and he didn’t know either because he could only tell me that it was something that jam comes in. 

Some months later, my Dad tried me with another one: “What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?”  Answer: “You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo

When I was about six he told me a rude joke.  It wasn’t a rude joke in the conventional way but it was bad enough to shock my aunt who was staying with us and I remember her crying out, “Ralph!  That’s too much!”  I found her reaction much funnier than the joke:

Three patient’s germs were eavesdropping in the doctor’s surgery and they heard the doctor ask the patient if he was regular.  “Oh yes, doctor.  Twenty past eight every morning.”  “OK,” said the doctor,  “I’m going to give you some penicillin.  That should make you better.”

The germs heard this and were very alarmed.  “I’m going to hide behind the liver,” said one.  “I’m going to go to hide in the heart,” said another.  “You two can hide where you like,” said the third, “but I’m going to catch the eight twenty in the morning.”

It was about this time that I first read ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’.  I remember enjoying it very much but there were two words that I had never come across before.  When Alice was talking to her kittens, Snowdrop and Kitty, she told them something and it seemed that they couldn’t “dennie” it and at some later point she was “mizzled” by something or other.

It was some years later that I realised that those two words were “deny” and “misled.”

On October 6th 1965, I first met Ian Sharp who, at around midnight on that memorable day – our second at Durham University - told me a joke as we stood side by side at the urinals at the bottom of E Stairs. 

Most people, meeting someone for the first time at that location might have  mumbled something like, “Hello,” but Sharpy, ignoring usual social conventions, launched straight into a joke.  He’s a natural storyteller who tells jokes very well and I found it very funny.  
A couple of months ago, I met a man at a party who told me exactly the same joke almost word for word except in his version, Keith Miller, the Australian test cricketer who had been in the RAAF was addressing a group of women on ANZAC Day.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that to my certain knowledge the joke was at least 45 years old.

This is it in summary:

It’s a ‘This is Your Life’ TV programme and one of the guests is recounting an aerial dogfight that the star guest had taken part in during the Battle of Britain.

“There were two fuckers above him,’ he said, “and another fucker below him.  He shot down one of the fuckers and then two more of the fuckers appeared from out of the sun.”

Eamonn Andrews, the host, was very embarrassed as this was live television.  He turned to the camera.  “I must explain that the aircraft that Squadron Leader Robins is referring to were, “Focke-Wulf”, a fighter plane used by the Germans.”

“No they weren’t,” protested the Squadron Leader, immediately and loudly.  “Those fuckers were Messerschmitts.”

Despite that rocky start, we are still friends.

I wonder if five particular children in Cayman will remember the first joke that they ever heard and that they heard it from me.  
I must preface this by telling you that although all Caymanians speak English as their first language, they use a different word order from other English speaking countries, especially when asking questions. I am no linguist but the word order sometimes seems French to me. 

For instance, every child who ever asked me how old I am (and most of them did) said, "What age have you?" When they asked me my name they said, "What your name is?" 

I was helping during a literacy lesson. The children were aged six and I was sitting at a table with five of them. They were bright kids who hadn't really needed assistance from me. They had all finished their task and so I decided to fill in the remaining time by introducing them to the knock-knock joke, the concept of which none of them had any idea.

I gave them a couple of examples. The first one was, of course,

"Knock knock"

'Who's there?"

"Amos"

"Amos who?”

"Amos quito."

They loved this one:

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Lucy”

“Lucy who?”

“Lucy lastic makes your pants fall down.”

They didn’t get this:

“Knock knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Sam and Janet”

“Sam and Janet who?”

“Sam and Janet evening” (Sung to the tune of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’)

It fell flat even after I had sung them the punch line a couple of times. Either they didn’t think it was funny or were distressed by my singing.

After one or two more, they definitely knew what to expect and certainly understood the format. I began with the girl who was clearly the brightest in the group:

Me     “Knock knock”

Her    “Who's there?”

Me     “Boo”

Her    “Who Boo is?”

Me    “ Never mind, you plonker.”

Later, I asked if they could think of one to ask me.

Two of them immediately said they would. That really impressed me as I have never thought up an original knock knock joke in my life and here were two six year olds who had. “Go on then,” I said to a boy.

Him     “Knock knock”

Me      “Who's there?”

Him     “Picture”

Me      (after some thought and really, very impressed)   “Picture who?”

Him     “Picture frame”

The other boy said, "George" followed by, "Town" the capital of Cayman, which was a very good try.

Two of them knew what a buffalo is but none of them had ever heard of a bison and so they never got to hear me ask them the difference between them.