Sunday, February 18, 2007

Wife in the Money

'My cousin has a child, a magic boy of seven whose eyes glow like fireflies. I had a headache from falling down stairs while carrying logs for the downstairs stove. A fine rain was falling on the moors. Magic Boy was sitting in the back seat of the Volvo. I had been arguing with the plumber about the guest bathroom and my husband about how long he was spending in London. I was ready to spontaneously combust when the Magic Boy suddenly cried, 'Look, Auntie, a double rainbow like the one that appeared at the birth of Kim Jong-Il!' Suddenly my head cleared and...'

No, sorry, I can't keep it up. Wife in the North can, however, and it's made her £70,000. I really must persist.

'....it all began to make perfect sense and I thought of my mother, a fastidious, ever-busy little body, neatly suited and booted with hair like the Queen. She had an affair with Kim Jong-Il's father, a sweet man who only wanted the best for his people and was looking for a country cottage just like the one I now have with its view over the moorland to the sparking sea beyond and, in the evenings, the most wonderful, colourful sunsets which we watch while drinking tequila slammers and smoking big fat, Cameroonish spliffs that my husband rolls using 36 separate Rizlas. He really is a good man. His joints - we just received some excellent ganja from our best friends in Chiswick - are wonderful for taking the edge off the day and, of course, the glooms that always afflict us once the crack wears off. I think it's time I had an affair and the new Aga comes tomorrow....'

16 comments:

  1. Bryan, you've made me cry with laughter. Thank you!

    I was just writing a post about my giving up blogging when I came here for inspiration. You've hit the nail on the head. At last somebody has said what I've been thinking these many weeks.

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  2. Bryan, Whilst in 'Mr Bs Emporium of Reading Delights' last Friday, I did pick up a John O'Farrell book, 'the best a man can get'.

    This from the 'blurb' on the back..

    'For Michael is living a double life - he escapes from the exhausting misery of babies by telling his wife he has to work through the night or travel up north. And while she is valiantly coping on her own, he is just a few miles in a secret flat, doing all the things that most men with small children can only dream about. He thinks he can have it all, until his deception is inevitably exposed..'...

    Hmmm...Now who does that remind you of eh ? Not sure if you move in the same circles as Mr O'Farrell, but perhaps you should work on a film script 'spoiler' called 'The best a hubby in the north can get...

    Or you could even film it in that annoying/edgy/artistic/timecode / 'split-screen' style so in vogue.

    All the best, Keep up the good work

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  3. Spliffin' hilarious, Bryan!

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  4. Didn't expect that. An odd post. An odd story. Grist to the Appleyard mill, I suppose. Wicked.

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  5. HA haha ha ha very good Brian and frankly the first thing in all your god awful output I can be bothered with.

    Its all very "my first day back at school" isn`t it. Dale like it bu then he is conformity on a stick

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  6. Ah, Newmania, what you give with one hand you take away with the other. 'First day back at school"? Not sure I get that.

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  7. Mr Appleyard, at least you don't 'censor' the posts like WITN.

    I had mine zapped this evening for having the audacity to suggest that 'Hunter' wellies are only worn by townies, or by boys needing to use the straps to secure the sheep's legs...Either that or I hit a nerve when I suggested she should have held out for a 'six-figure sum'. She is a bit of a fox though, wellies or not.

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  8. I googled for "Wife in the North" as he mentioned it on the Jeremy Vine Show.
    I think you've given me all I need to know about it!

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  9. I really am not being snippy, but is £70,0000 such a lot nowadays? I would hold out for much more than that.........

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  10. Good point, JJ, £70,000 is low for a chicklit/perils of domesticity book these days.

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  11. that poor girl's worth every penny I say! You can hardly get anything in Tuscany for that amount nowadays. You dreadful lot should walk a mile in her green wellies and then see how long you last. All you mockers should be ashamed of yourselves!

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  12. Okay - so I'm a female - and I read WIFN everyday - along with SITN - and I enjoy both of them a great deal. I don't believe it's because I'm female - I know it's because of the superb writing.

    Am I jealous she got offered a book deal? Not a bit! How many people who hope they are writers would die for that? Every single one of them!!

    The bashing and jealousy that goes on about WITN is petty. Strife in the North is so similar (albeit funnier) - yet it doesn't get the (strife) dished on it that WIFN does....

    Shame on the lot of you....you'd all be the first to congratulate her to her face if you were thrown together....and you all secretly wish you had her writing abilities......

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