OUR amateur dramatic society's version of Hamlet was so bad the audience booed.
It was all too much for Mrs Mortimer who yelled at the hecklers: "Don't blame us - we didn't write this rubbish."
I USED to be addicted to deep-frying things in batter. Food, even clothes and shoes...I'd boil them all in oil.
In the end, I went to a psychiatrist.
He said I was frittering my life away.
COLIN’S been rocked by news his eldest, Donna, is pregnant.
"Have you and Shane been using any kind of protection during sex?" he asked the teenager.
"Yes," she assured him, "a bus shelter."
ANOTHER day, another crisis at Chateau Lockley.
This time delinquent cat ‘Mifsud’ got stuck up a tree. Not our tree, either.
I would've called the fire brigade, but it's too much of a cliche. Like having an affair with a milkman.
Our Pauline ran off with the milkman. Left a curt note for her husband, stating: "The bad news is I'm leaving you for Barry the milkman. The good news is he's not charging you for Thursday's extra pint of stera."
They made the mistake of eloping in his float. They travelled for three days and only got as far as Stratford before the battery went dead. And she came out with a nasty rash after gorging herself on 'fruits of the forest' yogurt and pots of double cream.
Once Pauline discovered she was allergic to dairy products, the magic slipped from the relationship.
A crowd gathered to watch the Lockley clan try to tempt wild-eyed Mifsud down.
"Look, the poor thing's terrified," cooed one pensioner as I gingerly tried to scale the low branches.
"How can you tell?" I wheezed.
"Your left leg's trembling."
"If you must shake the tree," I bellowed at our 16-year-old, "wait until I've climbed out of it."
"Throw something at the cat," I shouted, a good five feet from the ground and clinging to the slimy trunk as if it were a long lost lover.
I was struck by a battery of rogue horse chestnuts, plucked from the ground by the swelling throng. I wouldn't mind, but some were still in their spikey casing. I only thank God that they managed to talk Mr Casey's son, Nathan, into putting the javelin down.
"I meant throw something like Mifsud’s favourite toy."
Seconds later a multi-coloured, knitted mouse bounced off my head.
"That's a first," shouted Colin, as I tried to move ever upwards.
"Seeing me up a tree?" I yelled, my voice horse with abject terror.
"No. Seeing you up a tree in lemon fluffy slippers." The left one fell off, bringing a gasp, as if a circus acrobat had slipped on the high wire, from the crowd.
"He'll come down when he's hungry," remarked Mr Preston.
"We've waved his bowl at him," Julie told the pensioner.
"I was talking about your husband," corrected Mr Preston.
"No - that'll be pub opening time," Julie told him.
After 20 minutes, I was within touching distance of the cat. "Can you bloody believe it," I shouted. "The thing's purring." That bought a heartfelt 'aaaah' from the assembled pensioners on terra firma.
"That's great - she's not frightened," trilled the wife. "And what about you?"
"I'm absolutely bloody terrified," I whimpered. "And my left foot has gone to sleep."
"Dad," yelled our concerned son, "I'll get the circulation flowing."
There was a dull thud as a heavy log struck my unprotected heel.
Eventually bored with the sideshow, Mifsud stretched and, using my head as a stepping stone, moved onto stronger branches before gliding effortlessly to the ground.
Funny what goes through your mind when you’re stuck in a tree. Crazy thoughts such as, 'I don't know how long I can grip this bark' or 'if I slide down, how can I protect my groin?'.
I tried to focus on other things, but the unfolding disaster would ultimately push itself again to the fore. "Julie," I'd shout in a shallow, false display of calm and control. "looking at it, I'm pretty sure the double glazing in our bathroom doesn't work.
“And, by the way, I've lost the feeling in both arms."
I also shouted: "I can see Kenilworth Castle from here," before adding urgently: "There's a twig in my groin."
"Don't worry," assured Mr Preston, "the council has called a tree surgeon."
"When's he coming?"
"February, maybe - but definitely before the sap starts to rise."
A couple of kindly old dears actually got a blanket for me to jump into - red it was, with 'I've been to Burnham On Sea Donkey Sanctuary' emblazoned on it. But they couldn't guarantee their new hips wouldn't buckle when I plunged into the fabric. So they decided to lay it on the floor.
Then they discovered the blanket was still plugged in.
I eventually plucked up the courage to descend gingerly down the tree to a point where I felt it safe to leap to the ground.
The crowd applauded as I collapsed on the floor, followed by a shower of horse chestnuts, leaves, twigs - and the other lemon slipper.
A BUSINESS seminar I attended last week on 'team building' was briefly halted because of the 'over-powering smell of cats' in the cramped conference room.
The bloke doing the PowerPoint presentation reckoned a puss must've sneaked in the room and relieved itself by the potted plants.
As a theory, it was riddled with holes. We were on the 12th floor and the offending cat would've had to 'punch in' a security number to get through reception, then use the lift. If it was that intelligent, it would've spent a penny in the wc, surely? And washed and blow-dried its paws afterwards.
"I can still smell cats," said a colleague as we drove home. I told him it was subliminal: the 'cat urine' thought had been planted in his brain.
It was planted in my brain, too. The smell of ammonia in the Ford Focus was so great, it made my eyes water and I had to wind down windows.
"Were you wearing your best trousers?" asked She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, when I related the moggie stench story.
I was.
"That'd be it, then," she reasoned. "Our cat's been sleeping on them for the last month."
Julie added cruelly: "Emptying the building because you smelt of cat wee aside, do you think they saw you as management material?"
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