I Knew Him Back When

With apologies to Paul, who might not find this blog to be quite what he was expecting.

Take a look at this You Tube video.  This – boy? young man? lad? What do I call him?  He’s of a similar age to Tory Boy but obviously we are not on similar terms. I’ll call him ‘person’ and make him sound like a bad smell under my nose…you mothers out there: did you find, like me, that the smell of a dirty nappy lingered long after it had been disposed of?  That sweet smell of success – Clever boy!  You did a big, sloppy poo for Mummy! – which meant your child was developing normally.  No?  It was just me?  Maybe I should have washed more often. 

Where was I?  Oh yes, the person in the above video is a young person in my creative writing class.  He is one of about ten hard-core persons left at what is almost the end of a twenty-week course.  When it started there were about thirty persons; some never came back after the first week; a few dropped off as the course progressed, one after the other, like synchronised swimmers in a 1930s’ water musical, until there was just me and nine others who liked writing more than they disliked my annoying presence.  This person, who (whom?  This is a day for questions, isn’t it?) I shall call ‘Paul Usher’, because that is his name, is one of the younger persons who has stayed the course of the course (I’m sorry, dear reader; I have my frivolous head on this morning) and I eventually overcame the age gap enough to occasionally talk to him. 

He’s a lovely lad and I learned that he writes and sings his own songs.  I checked out his website at www.paulusher.net – not because I’m stalking him: why would I do that when I haven’t finished with Brad Pitt yet? But because he shared his details with the class (a better class of persons you could not hope to find).  I was impressed.  I am doing a little bit of promoting as a result, and I hope my three regular readers will spread the word on his behalf.

Here’s the weird part* – Tory Boy knows him. Paul is the cousin of a very good friend of  TB’s.  It was the Hub who made the connection: surname-music-age-da-dah!  When I shared the information with Paul, he was only a little frightened, bless him.  We had been talking about stalking in class, however, and he might have mistaken my intense staring into the back of his head for something other than a motherly desire to check for nits.  We have only ever had one case of nits in this house, I’m happy to report; discovered in a certain head – naming no names or the boy will be embarrassed – on the first day of the Christmas holidays, 2000.  I bought an industrial strength de-lousing shampoo and treated the whole family.  Once our hair grew back we never had another case.

*Okay, it’s not that weird; Stockport is a small town.  I know this because the Queen refused to give us city status in the year of her Golden Jubilee.  Maybe we should buy a second-hand cathedral.

To sum up: itch that scratch; talk that stalk; stay away from Stockport if you’re a royalist; and check out my main man No-Drugs P.Usher.**

**There is a permanent link on the right-hand side under I Know An Artist… so that you don’t have to read through this again if you want to find him.

Remember – you read it here first!  And if you got this far, I don’t think Paul will mind if you don’t become a fan.  Seriously.  Stay away, you nutter.