Spider Shaw

                                    Burlington Diary January 2007

Sat.06.01.07. I shall be departing for my winter break on the 11^th. Where possible I shall attempt in the next few days to leave enough in place so that Chris can continue the work. As requested another work schedule has been produced but how much of it will be followed is any ones guess. This is not a complaint, merely an observation based on the fact that every other programme of work has been ignored. I have become accustomed, contentedly to the meandering and repetitive nature of the ‘build’ as this has sensibly promoted a thoughtful, thorough approach. Three forward and two back. En avant. 

Lately, my eating habits have become completely out of control. My ravenous appetite is due to the fact that I have stopped smoking. I now concoct any trivial motive to visit the kitchen to snack upon biscuits, cheese, crisps, bread and left over food, slipping furtively to the lounge with a mouthful of nonsense grub. Jo has warned me repeatedly about this foolish habit but her observations have had very little effect, the result being I am rapidly piling on the weight, subsequently cultivating a giant kench. When Jo asks me to help her with some menial task, that I do not wish to complete, I have taken to threaten her with the response “I’ll go back into the kitchen and eat!”  This is a reference to “Spider Shaw”.  My old friend Ben, from Yorkshire, once spoke of a childhood schoolmate called Spider Shaw who when his mother called him in for tea refused to come in, always wanting to play outside for a little longer. His persuasive argument being that he would ‘pick his nose’ if she didn’t allow him to stay outside. Ramming a finger into his bugle and shouting back to his mother he would audaciously announce, “ast pick” (this roughly translates into, “mama, if you do not permit me to remain outside with my friends I have no option but to excavate my nose, what would you have me do, dearest mama?”). Not wanting her child to develop a pig’s nose she would always relinquish allowing him to stay with his friends. On another occasion the same Spider Shaw had to recite the poem “The jabberwocky” by Lewis Carol, to an assembled school audience. As preparation, reinforcing his confidence, he would continually reiterate silently to himself the title and the author “the jabberwocky by Lewis Carol, the jabberwocky by Lewis Carol”…etc..etc.. Come the hour, Spider eventually strode up to the footlights and proudly announced that he would perform “The Wobberjocky by Ronnie Carroll”. In an instant he had reinforced ‘spider is an arsehole’ bankrupting any chance of credibility within his peers. He continued throughout his entire school career to be the fool that he always had been. 

Chris has been in somewhat of a desperate mood recently, his inability to drive being the main cause of his demeanour. “You know, it used to be my life; I would just love to drive any where, all day, for work or pleasure; rallying, Karting, racetrack or mud road; it was everything. But I can’t do it anymore. Working on Bertie is all I can do now: taking her to bits and rebuilding here over and over again.” His apologetic remarks had the inference that the project was taking an inordinate amount of time because he “wanted and needed it” to be so. The entire exercise has been a therapeutic journey. This, for me also, is as valid a reason as any.