Foot in Mouth #3: “So sharp you’ll cut yourself”

First posted July 2008 - names have been changed to protect the guilty

My late mother was blessed with a very quick wit, and cursed with (and sometimes by) children who inherited it.  On the rare occasions when one of us came back with something she had no answer to her final word (and Mother always had the final word) would be “Watch out, one day you’ll be so sharp you’ll cut yourself.”

She was right.

The prim and easily shocked should read no further.

Although as my Oldestbestfriend's mother used to say "All is pure to the pure."

Our Guitarman has Multiple Sclerosis, and is now in a wheelchair. So when Tyne Bridge danced outside the Cumberland Arms last summer with Hexham Morrismen Madam Fifi asked for permission to collect for a MS charity. As I have no shame, I went around with the bucket.  Half way around the crowd I came across a young man making a big show of trying to get his hand in his trouser pocket for some change.  This is an old ploy to get out of giving – they hope you’ll get fed up of waiting and move on.  I was prepared to wait and stood there for some moments, rattling the bucket in time to the music, then said conversationally; -

“You know by law I shouldn’t really be shaking this – it’s called soliciting”

“Yes” he replied “and it really should be an enclosed receptacle.”

“Ah well, at my age pet” I said “I haven’t got an enclosed receptacle.”

It was only after he’d dropped the pound in the bucket and I walked away that I realised quite how filthy it sounded.

Sometimes however the brain and mouth work together in perfect, swift and satisfying synchronicity.

At Morpeth Gathering I bumbed in Beardsley, an aged rapper dancer who I hadn't seen since the previous St George's Day.  He was out of kit and wearing motorbike leathers.  Since I'd last seen him his beard had shortened and his moustache grown to almost handlebar proportions.

"Gosh Beardsley" I said "I very nearly didn't recognise you with that, that ..."

Being lost for words I waved at his upper lip.

"You mean the thigh tickler" he twinkled roguishly.

"Only if you're going to grow it that long." 

This and all previous, and future, Foot in Mouth blogs are dedicated to the memory of the late great Humphrey Lyttleton and the writers of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

This blog is also dedicated to the memory of Guitarman Fred Mowbray who sadly succumbed to MS in April 2015.