(SATIRE) Line manager's “downtown like Ruth Brown” threat proven to have no historical basis

Threats issued to employees at Wrenn's DIY & Hardware by line manager, Susan Handfield, have been proven to have no historical basis.

Work at the Pitsea branch of the troubled hardware chain slowed to a standstill following the discovery by staff that Handfield's oft-touted threat that she would take anyone who stepped out of line “downtown like Ruth Brown” had no grounding in fact.

“The Ruth Brown threat was the second thing that Susan said to me after I was mandated by the Jobcentre to work a 37 and a half hour week at Wrenn's as an unpaid apprentice,” said former bank manager, Clive Judd (54).

“In my mind Ruth Brown was an ogreish woman, possibly an Elizabethan tavern wench, who kept her unruly clientèle in line by bashing their heads together and thumping them with her enormous meaty fists.”

Claire Lee has worked at Wrenn's for 27 years, during which time she has watched it slowly transform from a family-run business into an asset-stripped chain of 127 outlets, operated by a skeleton staff.

A tearful Lee recalled:

“When I was young my priest, Father Pearson, warned me about St Jennifer's pet dragon who would descend from the heavens and cleanse my body and soul with holy fire if I was ever suspected by God of dabbling in Buddhism. Later I came to realise that the name of this dragon was Ruth Brown.”

Handfield's reign of terror was brought to an end after staff researched the mysterious historical figure of Ruth Brown and discovered that she had never existed:

“The closest person of significance we could find was a timid churchgoing spinster who turned down a damehood for her fears that she might faint in the presence of Queen Victoria,” said Judd.

In a hastily issued statement, Handfield has claimed that Ruth Brown is “more of a composite character comprising a number of historical figures who you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of.”

However, industry experts are already questioning whether she can continue as Manager of the Pitsea branch of Wrenn's without the ability to strike fear into the hearts of her workers.

“She's finished,” said Wall Street Analyst, David Blackshaw. “The lesson to be learned here is do your homework or somebody else will.”

Clive Liborbung of The United Kingdom Association of Ethical Businesses (UKAEB) said:

“Handfield's case highlights the dangers of citing historical precedent as a means of keeping rank and file workers in line.

“What managers must remember at all times is that nobody's historical reputation is unassailable. All that it takes is one televised documentary narrated by Lorraine Kelly revealing that Ivan the Terrible was kind to kittens and your notoriety as a cast-iron ball-breaker is on the line.”

This morning, staff at Wrenn's were celebrating their freedom:

“It was all lie. I feel like a crushing weight has been lifted from me,” said Judd.

“The nightmare is over,” added Lee. “Ruth Brown can't hurt me now. It turns out that she never really could.”

Gathering Autumn at South Henns

Gathering Autumn at South Henns

I

The hilltops mottle
and moult their
Summer pasture

The soil-shed July grass
- spent blades of an
army in scattered retreat -
is carried downwind
on erratic gusts
into the widening valley
greening the ravelled currents
of the Gribb

The river that now
surges with reaffirmed urgency
on its three-quarter mile
homestretch towards
an inundated coastline.

For a few days
the shingle beach
resembles a freshly cut lawn.

The North Sea floods the horizon.


II

The olive groves
that line both sides
of the B road
in and out
of South Henns
begin to ripen in June.

The smooth pale bark,
thin enough to be peeled
with a fingernail, exposing
damp fibrous green wood,
darkens with permanent shadow.

By August the swollen crop
has turned violet.

Bill Crane, who since
his stroke last March,
can no longer raise a
water glass to his lips
without spilling the
trembling contents
down his immaculate shirtfront,
coordinates the harvest
through his proxy
- 28 years married this October.

Most of the yield is
pressed to make oil,
bottled in slender
lilac-tinted glass
manufactured in Tuscany,
and straw-packed
in wooden crates.

In September the lorry
from the supermarket
inches between the
towering inclined hedgerows
that trench the lane.

The seventh pressing
is held in reserve
for the last week of October
- dutifully set ablaze
in ironstone burners
that date to the 1700s.

A ring of flickering beacons
circling Drew’s Spinney
radiates a lingering
blue-grey oil haze
that stills the trees
and calms the hives.

The spirit that dwells
within the heartwood
will not quiet itself
says local legend.

The PhD student
who visited in 2008
and camped for two months
in the divoted paddock
at the foot of the graveyard
claimed this rite of appeasement
contributes to a
derangement of the soil
and denigrates the natural order.

I saw him last
standing at the bar
of The Plough
(named for the constellation)
draughting home-brewed cider
in long gulps
- opaque clouds, the
colour of bruised pear flesh,
circulating with the
ponderous looming threat
of an impending stormfront
from behind the raised porthole
of a glass-bottomed pewter tankard.

For the duration of his visit
the dulled stein dangled by its
exaggerated ear-shaped handle
from a loose hook
pitched 45 degrees forward
in a worn-out nail hole
bored into 16th century timber.

The sour alcoholic fruit fug
that loitered around the place
overpowering the smell of beer
recalling its local origins
as a cascade of rust-tinged windfalls
lock-stepped in creeping ferment,
shoring-up one corner
of the wood store
at Lingard’s Farm.

Gathering punch drunk wasps
around the rotten keyhole
that staggered in mid-flight
weighted down in
the cloying miasma.

Carried with the
bucket din of the
hourly church bell and the
endlessly wheeling birdsong
on the sweet ash of dusk
that dims the heads of corn
and unifies the tarnished crop
in silhouette

- a solid swaying mass
harbouring a sound
equivalent in volume
to its acreage.
The surface hiss grounded
to a deeper earthbound rumble
of root and stem,
flattening under its own weight,
pressed into two dimensions
like turbid water
running on the spot.
The steady low roar
of an approaching wave
that never breaks.

One Sunday in London

One Sunday in London

by Mark Sadler

In the doldrums of

a June weekend

I spied through the

stretched-out dregs

of a foamy lace-work

clinging to the interior of a pint glass,

the remnants of a Sunday carvery -

a slender side of beef

too narrow to stand upright,

it's rough-hewn upturned face

a sunburned pink

with the texture of abraded rope.

The landlord, who had a

predilection for fanciful re-tellings

of London history,

that elbow-nudged his establishment

towards the centre of things,

was idly boasting

to a foreign tourist

drinking at the bar:

“This is the oldest pub in the city.”

(This happens concurrently at multiple locations across the capital)

Miles away,

unnoticed by the endless footfall

on the Charing Cross Road,

a tarred shadow, infused with the totality

of night that has steeped for hours

in its own fermenting darkness,

was leaking from the black-washed walls

of a guitar shop

out through the open doorway

where it obliterated

the pale mid-afternoon shade

that laid delicate, faint overlapping patterns

of roving legs and static street furniture

onto the paving slabs.

In the square mile

the mirror glass of the tall buildings

captured blurry fragments of the surrounding skyline

as indistinct as the outline of a distant

hedgerow draped in morning fog

and the open columned steeple

of a city church put stone bars

across a rectangle of blue sky

and on the cornice stones of bridges

small trees slanted towards

the nearest unobstructed source of light;

scouted out small speculative territories;

poised to reclaim the city.

Far away

at the Southernmost

extremities of the Northern Line

a man reached from his

hospice bed to brush

the white-washed wallpaper

of an unfamiliar room

with his finger tips

as if the embossed pattern

were Braille

The randomness of

the bumpy texture

matched perfectly

the shifting patterns

of small wavelets

on the choppy surface

of the river Thames.

Poem written after listening to 'Coming Up' – the third album by Suede and some other songs by Suede

 

A half-empty packet

of smoky bacon

flavoured crisps

flutters from the window

of a high rise block of flats,

raining greasy crumbs

of fried potato

over Suede world,

where the pigs don't fly

And where a man called Terry,

silhouetted in soft focus

behind flimsy 
flesh-coloured curtains,

sits alone in his one-bedroom flat,

naked but for a

synthetic feather boa

purchased from the Pound Shop,

eating cold Happy Shopper

baked beans

straight from the tin.

Down in the forecourt

Jane sells the Ford Focus

where her boyfriend died

on the back seat

from auto-erotic asphyxiation

after wrapping himself

in cellophane that

he purchased from

an all-night garage

beside a motorway

in Suede World,

where everyone is frankly

a bit tired and sore

from all the rough sex

they are having,

and the street drugs

they are constantly taking,

and the looming threat of

impending nuclear war,

that weighs heavy

on their minds

like a Monday morning hangover

from the early 1980s.

Far away

in leafy North London

Brett Anderson

stands before his Argos

flat-pack wardrobe,

selects from the rail

the shirt with the most

man-made fibres,

pulls it on

but leaves it half-unbuttoned,

steps out into the feral darkness
of Hampstead. 

Product review: Lush 'Big Blue' bathbomb

If Big Blue were a planet it would be an ocean world, capped with ice at its northernmost pole.

When introduced to actual water the reaction of this crumbling, spherical cake of blue and white bath crystals is impressively volatile: The lively 360 degree fizz propelling the fast-disintegrating, cratering nugget from one end of the bath to other, ejecting in its wake what appears to be a trail of fat grass cuttings and opaque, powdery blue clouds that resemble the ink jet defence of a fleeing cephalopod. Clearly this is the James Dean of the bath bomb world, hell-bent on living fast, dying young and leaving behind a tub of warm, sapphire-blue water that gives off a strong antiseptic bouquet, reminiscent of dental surgery mouthwash.

The grass cuttings (actually seaweed clippings) strewn across the bottom of the tub momentarily take on the approximate shape of a dragon's head, provoking a dash across the corridor to the nearest computer to consult a website on tea leaf reading. Here we are informed that the appearance of a dragon signifies “great and sudden changes about which there is an element of danger.” I privately resolve to take great care when getting in and out the bath.

One detects a nautical theme buried in the list of ingredients: Coarse sea salt and two different types of seaweed - Arame (Elsenia Aborea) and something called Seaweed Absolute (Fucus Vesiculosus) which I desperately want to be seaweed vodka. This coupled with the strong medicinal scent gives the false impression of Big Blue as a tonic aimed at addressing lingering health concerns, as opposed to being an aid to relaxation. If you told me that the dual purpose of this clear azure water was as a delousing agent and stimulant, mitigating the effects of scurvy on sailors following long sea voyages, then I would probably believe you.

You will emerge from the bath infusion smelling like you have recently been intimate with a dentist. A suitable gift then for the kinky, erotically-inclined oral hygienist in your life. 

 

Product review: Lush 'Golden Egg' bathbomb

What manner of animal might hatch from this glittering, somewhat elongated, golden egg?

In the search for an answer one naturally consults with those younger members of the family and their friends, who are willing to humour such a question with a serious and thoughtful response.

Suggestions range from the prosaic (a golden goose) to the fanciful (a unicorn - a patently ridiculous suggestion; anyone with a basic knowledge of Linnaean taxonomy knows that unicorns are mammals from the Equidae family and give birth to live young). The most promising and plausible hypothesis is also the most disturbing: “A Crocodile and when it hatches it says “Kill me,”” (apparently in the voice of a dying sheep).

The disconcerting prospect of some reptilian organism, hitherto unknown to science, hatching in the bath, baring a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth and, in the voice of the aforementioned dying sheep, demanding that an entire block of cheddar cheese be grated onto the surface of the water to satiate its enormous appetite, turns out to be unfounded:

The bath bomb placidly dissolves in a fuzzy white cloud of its own gentle effervescence. This rather tame dissolution is accompanied by a steamy understated scent informed by notes of the olive oil, sweet wild orange and gardenia extract that I am, at this precise moment, reading about in the accompanying list of ingredients.

Unfortunately the pleasant olfactory appeal of the bath bomb is undermined by the visual transformation taking place beneath the gentle pummeling of the hot tap. The egg slowly uncoils leaving in its wake a translucent yellow trail, that is disturbingly reminiscent of a toddler weeing in a swimming pool. A minute or so later and one is confronted by what, at a glance, resembles a bath tub brimming with unusually fragrant piss, with the melting kernel of the bath bomb floating at the far end – a brilliant saffron-coloured emulsion, like an egg yolk, fringed with white foam.

Thankfully by the time the egg has completely dissolved the water has changed hue from bright yellow to a vibrant lime green that is enhanced by a pleasant twinkling effect caused by the suspended particles of glitter.

One emerges from this garish perfumed soup in the manner of a camp male stripper, smelling somewhat more pleasant than usual and liberally speckled with gold body glitter.

Laying aside my initial reservations about the colour of the water, this is the most interesting of the Lush bath bombs that I have tried so far.

The Unusual And Inspiring Quality Of The Light

This is a poem that I wrote about the eclipse this morning.

 

The Unusual And Inspiring Quality Of The Light

A man from the BBC -

a reporter from a

regional news program -

called at our place of work

with small film crew

in tow.

With one eye downcast

upon the makeshift pinhole cameras,

fashioned from teabag boxes,

that bobbed like shipwrecks

atop an overflowing

waste paper basket

in our lobby,

he enquired as to

our impressions

of the recent semi-eclipse.

We each thought back

to the muted gloom

of 9:30am. 

 

An overcast sky

like the inside

of a cataract

that revealed nothing.

And silently we pondered

and searched for the words

that would not mark us as liars

nor as failures, unable to find

anything profound in the

in the understated

magnificence of creation.

Sheila, as always, spoke first:

“It was,” she said,

“a bit like last Wednesday.”

Then Daniel, who

does watercolours,

remarked upon the unusual

and inspiring quality of the light.

But later he confided

that the light was poor

and he would never

have painted in it.

Agatha said that there

had been a cold wind.

While I, standing

behind and to one side of

the young researcher,

watched her write down

'cold wind?' in a notebook

as if awaiting confirmation

of this detail

from other sources,

possibly next door

at Abigail's Tearooms.

As the film crew

were getting ready to leave

Colin told them that,

on the way into work,

he had seen on the back

of a flat-bed lorry

an escalator

“like the ones you get in department stores”

wrapped-up in plastic

The young researcher dutifully wrote

the word “escalator?” in her notebook

and they politely thanked us

and went on their way

and we never 

saw them again 

or our faces on

the local news.

But a few days later

in the free local paper

I saw a photograph

of an escalator

rampant on the

back of a truck

The picture taken

from a crouched position

at the foot of the

frozen metal stairs

with the camera pointed upward

towards the mid-morning dimness

where the sun

should have been.

They had captioned it

'Stairway to heaven'.