Sawyer the Lawyer

Merry Christmas! As I have no one to cook for me and have been unable to get a Christmas dinner for love nor money I decided to kill two birds with one stone by checking up on the other six Chinese chippies in our area to see if any of them are any better at frying fish than the Crispy Cod, the object to get my fortnightly fish supper back on track if Mother and Father ever deign to come back from Hartlepool. I’ve just got back. I thought at first that the Chinese chippies might be shut for Christmas but then realised that this was very unlikely as the Chinese are heathens so far as Christianity is considered. Then again you don’t get too many Chinese businessmen turning down the chance to make a pound or two, Christmas or no Christmas, and so it proved to be.
The first chipshop I tried was named the Happy Chippy. The ‘Happy’ must refer to the chipshop’s owners, not the customers, as there is nothing for their customers to be happy about if their fish and chips are anything to go by. The fish, it must be admitted, was no worse than the fish to be had from Crispy Cod, but it certainly wasn’t any better; however the chips were even worse.

I decided to eat my meal ithere and then as I am aware that fish and chips don’t travel well and I wanted to sample the food at its best, so I ate it outside the shop. Having sampled the fish and thrown the rest of it in the rubbish bin, wisely placed there by the chipshop’s owner I should imagine, I attempted to pick up a chip. Quite impossible. I could pick up about six chips, consisting of the chip I’d picked up plus another five chips stuck to it, and this I did. If I’d had another hand I might then have been able to hold the bag of chips whilst prising one of the chips from the other six but as I haven’t I had no alternative but to hold the bunch of six chips in the air and take an inelegant bite out of it. The fact that the chips were congealed together should have told me that this might not be a rewarding experience, and so it proved.

They were undoubtedly the worse chips I have ever tasted. I’ve never bitten into one of those balls of fat that people hang up for birds but it couldn’t be any worse. The chips quickly followed the fish into the rubbish bin.
Still hungry, after having had only a bite of a fish and maybe a couple of chips I had to buy a kebab from the Greek place next door (also heathens apparently). Including the fish and chips it cost me £9.20. I’d knock it out of next week’s board if I paid any.

Merry Christmas?

Sawyer the Lawyer
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I spent the entire morning phoning up pubs trying to book myself in for Christmas lunch. The first person I spoke to asked me if I was joking, they’d been fully booked since the beginning of December. I phoned eleven altogether, all of which were fully booked. Surely you can squeeze another one in, I asked one of them. It wasn’t easy squeezing one in, I was told, it wasn’t just a matter of space, people tended to book in parties of two and upwards and you couldn’t just put an interloper – his word – in with another party as they might not like him.

I could see his point of course, imagine you and two or three friends booking a table somewhere and when you arrived you found that an extra place had been set for Russell Brand or Ben Elton or somebody like that. Not that I imagine those two worthies ever eating anything other than babies.

I got the same story from another pub I rang. The woman explained that if I was a couple she might be able to do something for me as she’d then be able to replace a table for two with a table for four and fit me in with another couple. I considered telling her I was a couple, then turning up tomorrow claiming that my partner had suddenly fallen ill, but that would have meant I’d have to pay for two meals, ninety quid, so that was definitely out. So I don’t know what I’ll do. I could murder Mother.

Sawyer the Lawyer


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Disaster! This morning Mother informed me that she and Father are going away tomorrow for Christmas and New Year! ‘What about me?’ I said. ‘Oh you’ll be all right I’m sure’ my mother replied. ‘All right? What about my Christmas dinner?’ I asked.

She said I could have it at a pub, that she’d noticed nearly all the local pubs advertising Christmas Dinners in the local freebie newspaper. So have I. At about fifty quid a throw.
I asked Mother where she and Father were slinking off to. Hartlepool, apparently. Staying with her sister, my Auntie Joyce. I could go with them if I wanted but I should take into account that the last time Auntie Joyce had visited us (when I was twelve) I’d kicked her and called her an old cow when she’d trod on my Action Man. And that I’d have to sleep on the sofa but the dog usually slept there, and she thought I wouldn’t like that so she hadn’t bothered to ask me as she knew I’d say no. ‘I’ll be the one to decide whether or not I want to go to Auntie Joyce’s’ I said. ‘Well do you?’ she said. ‘To spend Christmas and New Year at Hartlepool on a dog’s settee with an Auntie who’s got it in for me? No I don’t’, I said. ‘I have better fish to fry. But not Chinese ones’.
I asked them why they hadn’t told me sooner. Mother said that it was because they knew I’d make a fuss. Well she’s not wrong there. She’s going to get fuss right up until the minute they leave, and with knobs on.

I’m between girlfriends at the moment – never a bad thing at Christmastime as then you don’t have to buy them a present – but in this instance it’s certainly not a good thing as if I had a girl I might be able to talk her into cooking my Christmas dinner.

This afternoon I went back to the shop where I bought Mother’s handbag to see if they would give me my money back, I wasn’t about to spend forty pounds on a Christmas present for somebody who was forcing me to fork out upwards of fifty quid for my Christmas dinner, provided I could get in anywhere, but they said they couldn’t because it was in a sale.

I’ve a bloody good mind to go to Hartlepool with them.

Sawyer the Lawyer

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I went Christmas shopping this morning. I bought Mother a cookery book. Well I thought I better had because I left one of her other cookery books at the Crispy Cod and I never got round to asking for it back, what with the owner threatening me with a cleaver. I also bought her a new leather handbag, which set me back forty pounds. I knew she wanted one because she’s been dropping hints for the last month.
I got father a pair of slippers, as usual. Buying him slippers every year has become sort of a standing joke, with him feeling the parcel before opening it on Christmas morning and saying: ‘Now I wonder what could be in here? Slippers is my guess’, before ripping open the wrapping and saying ‘Right again!’ So I almost bought him a pullover instead as I’d love to see his face when he said: ‘Now I wonder what could be in here? Slippers is my guess’ and pulled out a pullover. However the cheapest pullover was a lot dearer than the dearest slippers so I settled for the cheapest slippers. No I didn’t, they were midway priced.
I got my grandad the new Killers CD. At seventy he must be their oldest fan by some stretch. When he was sixty two he went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. During the gig the sixteen-year-old sat next to him asked if him if he’d ever been there before and he told her he had, just the once, forty years previously when George Formby was there. I’d love to have seen her face.
And I got Nana some perfume. And that was it. I stopped buying presents for Aunts and Uncles when they stopped buying presents for me, when I was about twenty, and stopped buying them for my Auntie Joyce long before that.

Lots of other people were shopping and I really got into the Christmas spirit for the first time so after I’d finished shopping I had a mince pie and a coffee in Asda. This got me thinking about Christmas dinner. Mother really goes to town on this and makes a special effort, not that there’s anything wrong with her normal efforts. We just have the traditional stuff, turkey, stuffing, and all the trimmings, but Mother somehow makes it taste nicer than any other Christmas dinner I’ve ever had. I can hardly wait for it.

Sawyer the Lawyer


Divorce – Conveyancing – Probate – Insurance – Mortgage – Malpractice – Fraud – Wills – Litigation – Personal Injury – Rent and Debt Collection

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