Photo Album XXII

MARY: "Where do you propose we eat?"
FRANK: "I propose it here. But we'll eat it there."

Behind Closed Doors by R. T. Paperson

Most homeowners are content keeping in with the in crowd, but not our interviewees. These pariahs have a different modus operandi. Namely, they get their jollies by recreating time periods in their homes. A bathroom from the seventies, a kitchen from the thirties, an 1880s airing cupboard. It takes all sorts, as they say. Or as our first couple the Thomases would say, waxing 1920s: "That's our weakness now."

🙥

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas own a terrace house in Lewisham. Their living room, a shrine to the roaring twenties, is littered with evocative paraphernalia ranging from a hand-cranked gramophone to vintage curling tongs.

I sat down with Mr. Thomas while Mrs. Thomas prepared tea in the kitchen. The man looked uncomfortable. He had encouraged me to take a seat, but when I planted myself in the Wassily Chair, he started to sweat.

Then Mrs. Thomas entered the room, dancing the Charleston with the tea tray in her hands.

"Sugar, Mr. Paperson?" she asked, in a sing-song voice. She hopped towards us and stumbled on the Persian rug. The teacups went flying and hit the floorboards with a smash. Mr. Thomas started. He was pale. My news sense screamed "human interest"!

"Mr. Thomas, are you concerned about the cost of all these antiques?" I asked.

"No, dear," he replied, by dint of habit, then snapped to: "Cost? Absolutely not. Hang the expense!"

He picked up a newspaper and marched out the door to the back garden.

"Where are you going?" I called.

He shouted back, "To see a man about a dog."

🙥

The next couple had recreated a child's bedroom, 1940s style. It looked run-of-the-mill until I spotted their prize antique: a genuine 1940s child. George was a bouncing 80-something and ostensibly spent his days in a rocker and napping.

George was a bouncing 80-something.

Mrs. Wilson smiled, shaking her head, and said, "They're cute at this age."

"Indeed," I returned, at a loss for words.

She then rattled a bag of boiled sweets at the old man, which woke him up. My news sense was screaming "human interest"!

I turned to George and asked him: "George, aren't you humiliated by all of this? Don't you feel that you're being infantilised?"

George sat in repose for a moment, seeming to mull over my questions. Then, hitting on an answer, he fell back to sleep.

Despite appearances, this meeting went better than my first foray into the 1940s. A reading room had been renovated in the style of World War Two by a German couple. I made a hasty exit after hearing the wall behind the bookcase sneeze.

🙥

My final encounter called me to a residence in the midlands. The owners sent us notice they were living in the '60s, lock, stock, and barrel. Not only the decor, but lifestyle and mores too. The door was answered by a bull-necked man in a tunic. He uttered some nonsense in old English (something about "thy" and "ere", or was it thigh and ear?). It hit me then: these people were not living in the 1960s. They were living in the 1060s.

The bull-necked man expressed apprehension at having visitors. The England of the eleventh century is far removed from its modern-day counterpart. He didn't think I'd understand. What I mostly didn't understand was his manner of speaking. His dialect was somewhere between Beowolf and a television adaptation of Shakespeare. What's more, he kept ending sentences with the phrase "and all that" and chuckling to himself.

I was led to a dungeon where a handless boy was eating a loaf of bread, rather precariously, by pinning it between his two stumpy appendages and tearing off chunks with his teeth.

"What on earth is this?" I asked my guide.

"That's my son," he answered, thankfully switching to his native dialect, so I could write a coherent article later.

"We caught him stealing a chicken from the coop a few months ago," he continued. "Justice is swift here. Off came his dannies."

"That's horrific."

"Well, he's a first-time offender. Next time, he'll be hanged."

My news sense screamed, "Go home, Paperson!"

So I did.

Photo Album XXI

"We raise to half-mast, making room for the invisible sock of death above."

Photo Album XX

"I much prefer Agassi's early, funny games."

The Hitler Moustache Explained

The Hitler Moustache or the Toothbrush Moustache… which was it first?

The history books tell us Hitler derived his sub-olfactory style from a craze that was, surprisingly, American in origin. On the back of that piece of pub trivia, we might surmise the term toothbrush moustache was the pioneering one. But of equal merit is the following sequence, submitted for your approval:

***

The scene: Hitler's bunker in the final weeks of the war. Eva Braun was turning the place upside down in search of something.

Hitler: “Eva, for goodness' sake! You're making such a mess of my Führerbunker. My Führer-sheets were on the Führer-bed and now they're on the Führer-floor! What are you doing?”

Eva: “I've lost my toothbrush. This is a disaster. I never should have married power. Look at where we're living.”

Hitler: “But darling, many newly weds rough it a little at first. It's an inner-city bunker today, but tomorrow we'll find an Anderson by the sea.”

Eva: “My toothbrush is a family heirloom, Herr Hitler!”

Hitler: “Hair today, gone tomorrow.”

Eva: “What? Look, my toothbrush came from my father. And he got it from his father, and the same right on down the line, back ten generations. It's our family toothbrush. It's a Braun.”

With that crack, Hitler wondered if Eva wasn't pulling his leg. He looked down to check, but she wasn't there.

Goebbels entered. He looked around and noticed the mess.

Goebbels: “Trouble in paradise?”

Eva (agitated): “I've lost my toothbrush.”

Goebbels (deadly serious): “Why don't you use Adolf?”

Hitler: “Say, what?”

Goebbels: “I'll hold him sideways and march back and forth. We haven't had a good march since arriving here! It will be wonderful.”

Eva: “I fail to see how your marching back and forth while holding my doting Führer sideways will solve my problem.”

Goebbels: “Look, you daub a bit of toothpaste on his moustache and stand there. Stand proud and erect, so I don't battering-ram you down while I brush. Tits and teeth, as they say in the business. Your teggies will be brilliant, and if nothing else your chest will be minty fresh.”

Hitler: “I like that.”

Eva sighed, but resigned herself to Goebbels's flight of fancy, which, in the oxygen-deprived Führerbunker, seemed like genius.

***

From then on, the Hitler moustache was called the toothbrush moustache.

Shortly before the war ended, Hitler shaved. Eva was mortified.

“But, darling! I did it for you!” cried Adolf. “Now we can smooch without you breaking out in Führer-hives!”

“But, my dear,” said Eva. “What will I brush my teeth with now?”

Eva's dismay was justified. Her breath quickly became rancid.

In the end, this is actually what happened: Adolf Hitler did not commit suicide. He gave Eva a big kiss.

 

Goebbels demonstrates brushing with a toothbrush. An inferior method, he explains, compared with the Führer-brush.

L. P. Sim's Diary

Stuck for words today, trying to compliment H. on losing weight without saying "you were fat". I began, "Congratulations, H., you are now more cypress than oak, more pear than apple…"

When I was young, my parents came into an inheritance. Life did not change, only from then on mother would cut my hair with a silver bowl.

Today I remember my friend, Rev. Lloyd. He was a man of conviction. He believed in celibacy, but only in theory.

Checking In at Lupino's

"Were you calling me?" she asked, through gritted teeth. She spat out a few pebbles and tried again: "Were you calling me?"

"Was I calling you what?" I returned, smarting at the accusation.

"Very well. I'll return to my desk."

She ambled back to a maple desk, covered with papers, candy wrappers, and coffee rings, which she removed from her dress before arriving at the desk, and got to work.

"Good morning, Mister…?" she queried, looking me up and down. I nodded in unison with her looking-me-up-and-down, enabling her to focus, at which point she completed the question with recognition: "Mr. Fargus."

"Hello Miss…" I began bobbing my head in similar fashion, but she refused to cooperate, instead shaking her head profusely. You can't win them all. But then, would you want them all?

"Mr. Lupino will see you shortly. Take a seat," she said, motioning invitingly to the waiting room behind me.

"Thank you, Miss…" I said, resolutely, deciding this to be her name.

I moseyed to the waiting area and looked around to see if I had company. Not a peep, so I reclined full length, making use of the entire bench.

Miss… coughed, eh-heghm, as if to correct my behaviour by way of expelling the contents of her lungs into her throat.

"Cough drop?" I offered.

"No, cough went up, actually."