A Power of Good!

Being the evil, scheming parents that we are, the Boss and me have successfully coerced our teenage boys into restoring their bedrooms from leprous cess-pits to clean and smell-free dens in two days. Some achievement, you might well say? Admittedly, mistress bribery had to be commandeered and our pain, from forking out vast sums of money has yet to ease.

Sky+ boxes and high-def flat screens are now in both boys’ bedrooms and, dare I say, not a single coke can, smelly sock or antique burger crust is anywhere to be seen. However, for both siblings, there came with the deal a sting in the tail – the flat-screens were financed via their own burgeoning, momentarily unlocked bank accounts and for their promised commitment to responsible ownership, we stumped up the cash for their satellite boxes and associated bits and pieces; a goodly amount once the dust had settled.

Astounded by the transformation, we now knock before entering their adult-style dens and have sworn never to touch their tellies. Amazing how possession through the use of personal finance can change a young man’s view of his now expanding world. A little taste of adult-angst evolved of cash investment seems to have done them both a power of good...

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An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa – just an excerpt...

... Mother, with her back pressed firmly against the kitchen wall, looked on; nerves steeled by double-strength drags on her cigarette. Dad had found himself a suitable piece of fencing wire and, after a few modifications, now brandished a long, hooking-out type instrument.

He went down on all fours; eyes level with the firebox and, with his breath held, worked his wire hook amongst a pile of old cinders.

‘Be careful it’s not a snake,’ mother warned him and moved another step further away from the stove. I tried to look inside and got shouted at; promised the ‘flat of my dad’s hand’ if I didn’t get out of the way.

‘Could be one of those spitters,’ mother proffered, ‘mind your eyes for God’s sake, one squirt of poison and you’ll never see again.’

‘Maybe we should just leave it where it is,’ said dad, not so brave anymore.

Can’t say I blamed him, running round the kitchen with a six foot length of spitting cobra wrapped around his head wouldn’t have gone down very well; with any of us.

‘Let me have a go.’ I held out my hand for the snagging wire, but once again, got glowered at.

‘In the glove box; there’s a torch. Bring it for me.’

I ran to the car and dug out an old Bulls-eye bicycle lamp.

‘The battery’s nearly flat,’ I told him, but he took it anyway and directed a beam of failing light into the dark throat of our Dover Stove.

‘Eyes,’ said dad, ‘two of them.’

‘How many eyes do snakes have?’ I asked in all innocence and got a slap round the legs from my mother...

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