2006-02-17

The Adventures of Mrs. Norah J. Postlethwaite

Hello, my name is Mrs. Norah J. Postlethwaite. I live on a housing estate highrise in Thamesmead in East London and I am 56 years old.

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This is my home. It was built in 1970 and has been described by some as being an example of "Brutalist Architecture". I live nearer to the bottom floor however - too many stairs gives me back pains and my arthritis plays up.

01

One day I was walking my dog. My dog's name is Beck, whom I named after the American musician, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Beck and I love going for walks and afterwards he goes to sleep on my lap while I have a cup of tea and watch ITV.

04

As per usual, those unemployed halfwits who live and breed in our housing estate use the courtyard for their rubbish tip. The shopping trolley had been there for a month, while the paint tin and other muck had been there since last Thursday (pension day). For some reason some git left his tellie there.

05

I was sick of those losers dumping stuff there, so I let Beck look for a place for him to do a wee wee.

06

I then heard a strange noise. I hoped no one knew that I was letting Beck do his business here.

09

Suddenly, an electric spark jumped from the tellie at Beck. I had no idea it was still plugged in. I couldn't see a power lead, so it must have had some battery inside I suppose.

11

Well, Beck got very angry and began barking at the tellie for electrocuting him.

15

Now my story begins to get very strange. While Beck was barking, this weird guy appeared on the screen. I hadn't seen anything so strange since The Quatermass Experiment was on the BBC. He started singing this stuff that I couldn't understand but my my it sounded evil.

16

"Oh my goodness gracious me, my dog's soul is being sucked into the tellie!"

19

Well after that I really needed a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Trying to cope with the vision of having Beck being eaten by a tellie meant that I had to use the nearest wall to lean against.

21

I walked around the corner and what did I see?

22

A bunch of kids with ponytails and beards staring at me!

23

Apart from the goatees and ponytails, these little kidlets were normal, playful little devils. They ran around the carpark under the housing estate in joyful abandon while I found myself a rusty seat to rest in.

26

Then what do you know? As they played around one of them picked up the malfunctioning tellie and ran around with it. I yelled at them to stop, saying how dangerous it was and that it could electrocute them or eat their souls, but they ignored me.

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Just at that point, Martin, the nice young man who lives in the flat next door walked out of the stairwell and started heading for his car. The young kiddies then began throwing rocks at him. Instead of confronting them, Martin decided to run away from the bunch of kids. Bad move.

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When he reached the car, one of the children ran up to the car window and smiled madly at him. Martin was terrified but couldn't seem to start the car.

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One of the kids then put the dangerous tellie on the bonnet of Martin's car...

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...and Martin screams as his soul is sucked into the small screen. At this point I was worried. Without Martin to take out my garbage bin, what could I do? I asked this of the bearded children who laughed at me and told me to follow them where they would take out the garbage for me.

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Skipping and playing innocently and happily, the young children led me to the place where the garbage bins were stored.

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Well obviously I was a little concerned about their health when they got there. Not only did they start throwing all the garbage everywhere but they also started fighting with one another. This old spinster's warnings did them no good however, and I was wondering if they had been innoculated against some of the more common preventable diseases. What parents let their kids do these days...

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Then one of them picked up the tellie and dropped it on the ground. While I was relieved that the tube didn't break, I was concerned when bright flashing lights began to shine everywhere.

55

And wouldn't you know it! Martin pops out of the tellie, except he's covered with some membrane that looked icky. It was as though the tellie had given birth to him, only there were no midwives around.

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I gawked as Martin stood up. There was something strange about his demeaner.

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Then he began screaming at me: "You boring old Cow! Don't you understand that I hate putting out your garbage? Don't you understand that you have old person smell? And why the heck did you name your dog Beck? Huh?" It was terrible, all the more so because of the gust of wind that came through the car park and ruined my hairdo.

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But Martin had a kind heart and immediately apologised for his harsh words, which was nice. "Come on back to my place!" I said "...and I'll fix you a roast beef dinner that'll put some meat on your bones!". And we all lived happily ever after.

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