One of the potential drawbacks of being Reading’s Premier Humourist
TM is that occasionally I am expected to actually write about Reading. I say “expected to” as if I had been given the title by somebody instead of, as actually happened, arbitrarily awarding it to myself.
It’s a place of contradictions. Above the shop fronts the buildings are gorgeous, all Victorian brick in beautiful patterns. Underneath, an array of grotty shops tries to sell plastic shoes to a bunch of sweaty and out of breath characters who wear plenty of sportswear but whose idea of physical exercise is shambling to the nearest of the four branches of Burger King that inexplicably grace us with their presence.
Anyway, despite all that I love my little town. I have however discovered something recently that makes me think about it slightly differently.
Like everyone who lives in parochial Britain, unnoticed by the national media, there’s a certain degree of London envy that goes on. They get all manner of cuisines, areas full of vibrant communities, a proper melting pot of sights and sounds. We get about eighteen different Italian restaurants, all chains, sporting practically the same menu. To meet our craving for diversity, we also get “Tutu’s Ethiopian Kitchen” in the Global Café. Yes, I’ve eaten there. And yes, no wonder those people were starving.
Actually I did write to them suggesting the slogan
Eat At The Ethiopian Kitchen – No Flies On Us. The ungrateful bastards didn’t even reply.
Then there’s the culture. Smug Londoners get every indie band under the sun playing small intimate venues. You can be a stone’s throw from one of your idols on any given day. It’s magical. What does Reading get? Kevin “Bloody” Wilson at the Hexagon. Every single frigging year.
But what I really notice about how Reading Is Not London is how we all roll our eyes at the permissive nature of what goes on in the capital. One of my North London friends (who shall remain nameless) contracted chlamydia a couple of years back. She caught it off the guy who lived upstairs from her friend. Some time before that, her friend had also slept with the guy upstairs which is how it got passed on. She in turn had caught it from some other guy. None of these guys was her boyfriend. When she gave it to her boyfriend, and he found out, she then accused him of giving it to her. He was so lily-livered that he believed her even though he hadn’t been cheating on her.
Meanwhile chlamydia went through the whole social circle like a shit meme. Soon they were all queuing outside the clap clinic.
And what did I say when I heard this tale of promiscuity, infidelity and partner-swapping? “Oh, you crazy North London types.” (probably with an indulgent shrug).
My closest equivalent was receiving the most incompetent chlamydia swab of all time from my then GP Doctor Jacobs, who looked like Gene Wilder with Alzheimers. “But I’m married” I feebly protested as he bore down on me, holding his cotton bud like a fencing epee. It was to no avail. He may have held it like a foil but he practically chucked it like a javelin. It was weeks before the humiliation and the pain went away.
Worst New Year’s Eve ever.
It’s hardly the same is it? In North London they’re living it up in Bacchanalian orgies like the last days of ancient Rome, in Reading I get my most precious possession speared by an incompetent quack and I didn’t even get to screw anyone. That sums up the difference in a nutshell.
Or I thought it did. But events this month have changed my mind, because it turns out that Reading too has a seamy underbelly. It all began with Sausagegate.
As very long standing readers might dimly recall, I occasionally like to read the organ of local news that is the Reading Post. All human - and really rather a lot of subhuman - life is here, even if they still haven’t yet done a feature on me and my brilliant outpourings (I keep telling myself it’s only a matter of time). The story on canine sex back in May was particularly shocking, but with Sausagegate I think they might have hit a new low.
The facts of the story are relatively straightforward. Under the headline
Naked neighbour ‘put me off men’ the paper reveals the eye-watering exposé that a concerned Reading resident spotted her “oddball” neighbour “pleasuring himself” in his back garden and going about his chores naked (except, oddly, for a pair of boots). The poor lady has now gone off both men and sausages, doesn’t work and is now on anti-depressants. Which I find odd – a penis can be many things, but depressing? Did its single eye have a gloomy twinkle in it? Unfortunately, the Post didn’t reveal this kind of crucial information. Which is odd, because the victim had clearly given the subject a great deal of thought.
“He looks younger than he is and is well-endowed and really hairy.” she told the newspaper.
Hmm. It sounds to me like she got a really good look in the split second before she turned away in disgust. Despite being scarred for life by the horrendous experience of being forced to watch a Yeti wanking in the garden next door every day, she was game enough to pose for a sensitive photo op for the paper which reveals the scale of her suffering.
Good, isn’t it? And best of all, her surname is Woodage, which just sounds for a euphemism for multiple erections.
Having found out that Reading has its fair share of exhibitionists, I thought nothing could further gast my flabber. Then came the story of the policewoman cum hooker (I did briefly think about rephrasing that, but thought better of it). I think it was Iain who first spotted the story on the Reading Post website under the catchy headline
Police officer turned prostitute speaks out. It turns out that a Reading policewoman on maternity leave had been rumbled going on the game dressed in her uniform.
If nothing else, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “Can you feel the force?”.
Her story was first revealed in the Sun, possibly our funniest national newspaper (though not usually intentionally) under the headline
Maternity leave cop is hooker. In the story, the paper reveals that Ruth Carter, the lady in question, has up to seven bookings a day through Top Hat Escorts of Bracknell. My first thoughts were
This could only happen in Bracknell followed quickly by
Fred Astaire must be spinning in his grave. Top hat? If you work as an escort in Bracknell the only black tie events you’re going to see are funerals. Probably ones resulting from gangland stabbings at the cashpoint outside the petrol station.
The Sun reporter met Ms Carter in a budget hotel where she proudly boasted that she would “do anything”, a claim which seems a little unnecessary if you’re prepared to go into a budget hotel near Bracknell. Surely no act would be degrading enough to trump that. To be honest he could have taken a big reeking dump over her face and it still might have upped the dignity of the occasion. At that point, in time honoured fashion, the reporter “made his excuses” and brought proceedings to a close.
That journalistic cliche has bugged me for years. Why do they always do this? That’s not news. Just once I’d like the article to instead say “Readers, I shagged her. And claimed it on expenses. I’ll level with you, it was fairly substandard with a disappointingly toothy blow job. For £140 I would suggest you go instead to the Thai lady who was the subject of last month’s expose. She knows her onions, let me tell you.”
Obviously when Iain and I read this story our first instinct was identical. He turned to me and said “This is all very well, but is she attractive?”. It’s the stupidest question of all time if you stop to think about it. She works in the police force, lives near Bracknell, is registered to a Bracknell escort agency and even the journalist didn’t want to shag her. Of course she’s a munter. Here she is, doing something glamorous:
Her career clearly even more vigorously screwed than she was, she gave a tearful interview to the Evening Post saying that she had taken to sex with strangers for money because she was no longer able to make ends meet. And at that point I am almost tempted to walk away from this story because the punchlines are just too easy.
Debate about Copper-hooker-gate (on reflection, putting “gate” after every scandal doesn’t necessarily work) was still raging as I settled into my usual seat on the funbus after a hard day at the coalface. Mikey was back after a long weekend in the Isle of Wight, Donald Pleasence was at the helm after an inexplicable absence from this blog and real life and Cornish Rob was in the seat on the other side of the aisle. The classic lineup.
“Fucking hell that prostitute was ropy.” said Cornish Rob. “One hundred and forty quid to lose your muck up that? You have got to be kidding me. I’d sooner have had a wank while she made me a sandwich.”
“She’s not going to get a good writeup on Punternet with a face like that.” nodded Mikey sagely.
“Punternet?” I said.
“Yeh, Punternet.” said Mikey. “It’s this website where you can write up reviews of prostitutes you’ve slept with.”
I thought he was kidding. Then he showed me. Good grief, it’s Tripadvisor for prostitutes.
I don’t even want to know how Mikey knows about this (he said something about an internet forum he posts on) but the best thing is the negative reviews. How can you argue with verdicts like “She had a face like a painter’s radio by the time I’d finished with her” or, my personal favourite, “She was wider than Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s tie knot.”
I know that will only be funny to about ten per cent of my readers but I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to pass out.
My personal favourite, which I’m going to quote verbatim, was this one:
“After a brief period, Shirley decided it was time to mount. Having applied her lube, this she did. Actually, that's pretty much all she did - mounted and then remained pretty motionless (other than keeping her arms tight in to limit any touching on my part). Having apparently frozen in time, it occurred to me that I was the one who should be doing the mounting, so we switched to what is probably a far more natural and comfortable position for her, lying motionless on her back.
Bizarre to relate, screwing a corpse has long been one of my fantasies. Sadly, in reality, it was nowhere near as good as expected. Unable to come (despite Shirley's requests that I do so), I finished by hand - finished myself, of course. The only other event of note was Shirley almost cowering in a ball and shouting 'no kissing' as I apparently moved towards her.
This was truly a waste of time, money and effort. If all other parlours closed down, all independents retired and if I broke both of my wrists and arms, became completely bald and lost all my teeth and sense of smell, and if I became blind, then I might consider returning. In the absence of all of that, I will stay well clear of this establishment.”
Endless hours of fun. I swear all the other passengers were looking at the three of us very strangely by the end of the journey which is probably not completely unconnected to the fact that I spent the last ten minutes howling with laughter like a banshee.
One final thing to tell you about our uniformed prostitute before I wrap up this lengthy post. A week or so back I was rushing to Bus Stop Sierra Quebec, cappuccino in hand, and I saw a sandwich board advertising the latest front page news in the Reading Chronicle. I stopped in my tracks. I read it. I read it again. It still said the same thing. Dumbfounded, I rushed off to catch my funbus. Later in the day I assumed I must have been imagining things. There was no way it could have actually said what I thought I read.
Then, at the weekend, I spotted this in the window of a local newsagent. My eyes, after all, had not been deceiving me.
This headline melted my brain. What search terms do you put into eBay exactly to furnish a dungeon? Presumably “iron maiden” will just bring up a bunch of metal records. What’s the going rate for a cat o’ nine tails? Are there special harnesses or something? Even with my whole world thrown into turmoil, there was still one reassuring fact of which I could be certain: Ruth Carter must have paid an absolute fortune in postage and packing for her paraphernalia of perversion.
Because, of course, we don’t have that kind of stuff round here. Not in my little town.
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