12pm

I knew that I had no one important to whom I could boast about my trip to the highly prestigious event in New York City but there were plenty of proles (who didn’t matter one iota or jot) who would be doubtless impressed by my trans-continental mission. They are simple folk who are impressed by balls of string or shiny objects so my good news would bring sunlight into their drab little lives. Oddly enough, the people at the “bus stop” didn’t seem to agree with the above sentiments and bundled me into a nearby ditch. I can only assume my use of long words confused them into thinking I was a foreigner. Nevertheless, I had a great many things to arrange before my departure and I felt this afforded me an excellent opportunity to give everyone the good news.

“Yes, I won’t be visiting your store for several days as I am attending an international conference in New York…” I said to Mrs Biatch in the wool shop.

“Who are you?” she asked. What a richly comic sense of humour these ordinary folks have when they put their minds to it. I didn’t answer her as I became momentarily fascinated by a row of woollen b-a-l-l-s which reminded me of Tom Baker’s scarf. She wandered off to attend to a less important customer and I took that as my cue to depart (but not after taking several snaps of the woollen arrangement to use in my book on “Doctor Who in Unusual Places” book).

“Yes, I will be abroad for several days and so will essentially be incommunicado for the duration” I explained to Mrs Turddd in the Post Office.

“Am I to continue keeping the discretely wrapped items under the counter until you call after hours to collect them?” she asked, needlessly broadcasting the message of the office’s public address system.

“Yes please” I said weakly and tried to shuffle inconspicuously out of the shop. Unfortunately I collided with a display of first and second class stamps and was buried for several minutes. A stock take would later reveal that I had swallowed enough postage to have travelled to New York by airmail <G>. More good news was that they didn’t change me for the ingested stamps and I was able to recover enough from my lavatory bowl to correspond freely for the next eight months.

Ian Devine was having more success. The manager of “Pies R Squared” broke down in tears, the owner of “Buy the Pie” grabbed hold of Ian Devine’s foot and had to be prised off by a group of passing Scouts, the manageress of “The Pie Who Loved Me” offered him s-e-x-u-a-l favours not to leave the country and dear old Mr Wetfinger of “Wetfinger’s International Pie Shop” asked Ian Devine to consider the effects of his vacation on his daughter’s education. She was at an expensive Swiss finishing school paid for entirely out of Ian Devine’s pocket. But Ian Devine was made of sterner stuff. He was coming with me to the Colonies and no one was going to stop him. Not even the manger of McPie’s who trapped him in a tiger cage and said he wouldn’t unlock the door until Ian Devine handed over his first class tickets. Luckily, Ian Devine didn’t yet have his tickets and was able to hold out on this premise for several minutes. Then the smell coming from the McPie’s oven so overcame him that he forced the bars apart and accidentally trampled the manager in his one man stampede for pastry.

I wasn’t going to be upstaged by Ian Devine. People were going to envy me, people were going to beg me to stay. Having been threatened with a charge of wasting police time I changed tactics and went to inform Reverend Headwig that I would be out of the country. This would render me unable to sing in his choir on Sunday morning and I felt he should know. I had actually resigned from the choir at the age of eight following what the Church would call a schism. I was deeply unimpressed by Reverend Devile’s explanation that the parish records were incomplete due to the Black Death making it difficult to compile accurate files. I told him this was a pathetically stupid excuse and that I had never let a head cold stop me from maintaining accurate data. I found it difficult from this point to have any respect for organised religion (though I am an honorary member of DWAS <g>) and I resigned from his choir. However, further poor record keeping meant that my name was never formally struck from the choir register and so my membership was maintained. In 2002 I was officially recognised by the British Academy of Churches as Britain’s Most Unreliable Choirboy. I keep the small trophy in my lavatory as an act of rebellion. An expanded photograph hangs on the wall in my drawing room with the exact nature of the award skilfully airbrushed out.

“I am going to the United States of America to address a gathering of pre-eminent telehistorians on subjects which would be difficult for you to appreciate as I deal with facts while you waste your time talking and singing to an imaginary cloud man” I said once the Reverend Headwig had obviously concluded the difficult portion of his business and was now in the rather more straightforward territory of wiping. “Frankly I am baffled at how you can put all your faith in such palpable nonsense. If the meek do inherit the earth then surely the assertive will simply take it off them again. It has no logic, no facts, no memoranda, no specific dates. In short, it is about time you realised that joy cannot come from abstract belief but only from minute detail.”

The Reverend Headwig emerged from his cubicle and smiled forgivingly (which is his job after all). He suggested calmly that I might like to make a donation to the church’s roofing fund and when I refused he indicated that the alternative was the burly verger giving me a religious experience with the Book of Common Prayer and a mallet. What is the matter with people today? All I expect from them is envy and they react like it’s some kind of sin. I decided to give up on making people jealous of my mission. I had far more important things to do before the taxi arrived to take us to the railway station.