T. S. Grimshaw

I am sharing my attic with a Puffin. Not a real one I hasten to add before the RSPB send the heavies round but a large carved wooden piece of ethnic art and I swear it is giving me a funny look.

For once it wasn’t him downstairs that bought it as one of he’s antiques of the future. No this is a Christmas present for Tristan and Glenda their trendy neighbours. 

They moved in a year or so ago.  He’s in marketing and she’s a financial consultant.  Not that I’ve got anything against them but they did refer to my tree as ‘wonderfully retro’. Of course their Christmas decorations are straight out of an interior design magazine or so their spirit of Christmas tells me.  Twinkleberry that’s his name, the stuck up sod.  All he has to do is sit there knocking back the Baileys as they’ve jetted off to some exotic location for Christmas.  While I’m handling a situation that makes the middle east look like a palace garden party.

So what’s this got to do with the puffin? You may ask.  Well last year they gave my lot an exotic Etruscan Peace Fern and they gave them a box of Quality Street. Which was very post modern apparently until a toffee pulled out one of Tristan’s fillings out at which point it all became a bit embarrassing. Serves them right if you want my opinion.  The peace fern thing was defective anyway because she threw it at him during the traditional Boxing Day row.

So this year she was determined to get Tristan and Glenda something trendy.  Well as chance would have it they went to Iceland as a birthday treat for him downstairs.  At this point I would like to state out they went to the country not the supermarket, as he thought when she first told him.  They went whale watching, saw the hot springs and apparently had some wonderful views of the Northern Lights.  Though I doubt they’d be that impressed with them if I told them Northern Lights are really a bunch of drunken pixies trying to write rude words on the sky with a glow stick.

So she bought back this piece of ethnic art as a present for Tristan and Glenda and he brought back a souvenir mug from the Penis Museum for his aunty Ethel. Not that he’ll be allowed to give it to her; no she’s getting the Quality Street this year.

But it’s a sign that the time is nearly here for me to descend to the front room and try and bring a little joy and harmony to this house over the Christmas period.  Soon she’ll drag him out to the shops to buy all those important little gifts making sure he keeps the receipt so that she can return them for something more appropriate.   He’ll come back loaded with wrapping paper and enough tape to wrap up an elephant which he’ll promptly forget where he put it and go out and buy even more.

Right they have gone out so I am able to sneak downstairs and use their computer rather than the piece of rubbish that’s in the loft.  I mean how someone is supposed to leave a lasting legacy when the ‘w’ key keeps sticking.  I know that spilling that mango liquor he bought on his last foreign trip, over the keyboard wasn’t the best of ideas but you wouldn’t think that it would make that much difference would you?  After all it was supposed to be organic and it took the varnish off the plant pot holder his auntie Edith gave him last Christmas no problem.

As I said in a former post the tooth fairy department was undergoing a period of reorganisation and revitalisation according to the management or mucking about with things according to the staff.

Now old Flimsy who had been foreman for the last 150 years had been forced to retire after he decided to pop into to the services on the M2 for a quick bacon roll and a cup of tea after finishing his   round and while flying low along slip road to the services was hit by a lorry carrying 5000 goats cheeses, closing the service station to be closed for several hours and causing people to report suspected gas leaks as far as Maidstone. I had heard that there were going to be some changes in the department and I thought my managerial potential had been finally recognised when I was summoned to the junior manager’s office.

He invited me to sit down, which was a good idea because what happened next could have knocked me straight over.

“Now Grimshaw as you know the department has been undertaking an in depth analysis of its structures with the view to enhance the efficiency in our customer delivery systems and I’m sorry to say that your individual skill set no longer meets the requirements of the new structure and with a view to maximising our customer levels of satisfaction while maintaining a low cost base it has been decided that it would be better if they were deployed in a more suitable environment away from this department.”

For a moment I sat in stunned silence amazed that someone could say all that without strangling themselves with their own tongue.  Then it registered what had been said.  “Did you just say I was sacked?” I asked.

The spotty little oik looked a little surprised at that.  “We don’t call it that these days” he told me “We consider it giving you an opportunity to pursue your career in another direction.”

“You can’t sack me” I have to admit that I did raise my voice slightly at this moment “I always fill my quotas.”

“Ah, yes, your quota. “ He said snootily “There was a problem with that.”

“What problem?  I carry out my work to the highest professional standards.  I’m a craftsman.”  I tell him

“The incident with the false teeth.” He says smugly

“That was not my fault.” I protest “I reached under the pillow and there was a set of teeth lying there.  I thought the kid had been in a punch up or something.  It was a rough area you know.”

He looked at a folder in front of him “Henley on Thames, yes that’s well known for its gang culture” he replied “You are supposed to check the bed before removing teeth”

“It was dark” I tell him “and I had a quick peek and got on with the job.  You and your quotas don’t give a person a chance to hang about.”

“It was the child’s 84 year grandfather in the bed.  How do you mistake him for a 7 year old boy?”  He asked.

“He’d been using moisturiser.” I told him “That stuff that makes you look years younger.”

He sagged at my brilliant riposte.  “I’m sorry Grimshaw the decision has been made.  We can offer you counselling though.”

Of course I suggested what he could be with his counselling, which might have been impossible even for an ethereal spirit, and left the office.

Finally I got this thing working again.  It’s not easy trying to leave the world a lasting legacy of your life’s work when you’re writing it on something that frankly belongs on the Antique Roadshow. I could try as sneak downstairs and use his computer but I the youngest boy is sitting up all night playing Call of the Battlefield Assassin Monsters World Cup 4 or something like that.

Things have moved on from when I was a young tooth fairy.  In those days if a young man wanted to shoot foreigners he had to join the army and travel the world, now he can do it from the comfort of his parent’s living room at 2am in the morning. Well it keeps him off the street.

Of course things like video games, television, computers, changing the name of marathon to snickers have all played there part in the decline in work for us ethereal spirits.  I think that the rot really set in when they let them tell jokes on Thought For The Day on Radio 4.  No one ever was spiritually uplifted while enjoying themselves.  Whoever thought adding guitars and bongos to Songs of Praise would raise the moral tone of the country was sadly mistaken. Britain became great through not enjoying religion.  Now look at it the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be selected by Simon Cowell at this rate.

How did those up stairs respond?  Earthquakes, thunderstorms, hurricanes, the occasional plague of frogs even.  No, they called in the management consultants.

So instead of the human race cowering in their caves like the good old days while we get on with our work, we get time management and quotas and consultation on the restructuring of the service.  Of course people like me, those doing the work were never asked.  It’s all very well sitting behind a desk, looking at a map and deciding how many teeth a single fairy can collect in a night.

They don’t have to cope with kids these days. You go into a house where the little darling has spent the last fifteen hours playing killer zombies 7 and their room is a death-trap.  You dodge mousetraps, tripwires  the odd sock that UN weapon inspectors would confiscate as a weapon of mass destruction only to find the little sod has a chip and pin machine next to tooth as they expect you to cough up the cash for killer zombies 8. Someone should try factoring that into a flow chart.  They wouldn’t have enough coloured pens.

Then there were the team meetings after work.  Half an hour of some fairy in a shiny suit telling you that we are all in this together, how  we should be more ‘customer’ orientated  and that they really value our feedback.  Of course when you give them feedback they would just glaze over and nod like that dog on the insurance adverts.

Thinking about it that might have been the reason for my downfall.  I should have just skipped the meetings and gone straight to the pub like my mate Malevolence but if I had one fault it is that I am always ready to accept change with an open mind and am willing to do whatever is necessary to help.

Well I am finally starting this blog thing.  Too long has the world been deprived of my thoughts and insights into the world of men and the fascinating memories of my life amongst them.

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Tiberius Scrofula Grimshaw former tooth fairy forced by cruel twists of fate to take work as the Spirit of Christmas in this miserable little hovel that him downstairs calls home.

And what’s wrong with being a Spirit of Christmas you ask.  Responsible for bring the joy of the festive season to those who share a home with you  Well  would you be happy to spend eleven months of the year stuck in a dingy attic with whatever rubbish he’s bought and his wife has the good taste to refuse to have in the house? Then to be dragged downstairs to spend a  month dishing out love and good cheer with a fake Scots pine stuck in a place where the sun doesn’t shine.

The salary is not bad. Of course most of it goes on haemorrhoid cream and since they’ve let us call ourselves the Spirit of Christmas rather than the Fairy on the top of the tree the job does sound a lot better but it’s not the same as being a Tooth Fairy.

I do confess that I miss the life.  Have pliers will travel that was our motto.  Soaring through  the night sky with nothing more than a bag to carry the teeth in, a small purse of shiny coins for the child to find the next morning and a number 4 combi-grip with the full extraction attachment in your hand.  That was the life.

Then it all changed.  Management consultants that’s what they called them.  I know what I called them but I’m far too polite to mention it here.  Following people round with a clipboard and a stopwatch, it’s not what I would call a proper job but the powers that be had spent a lot of money on them.  Money I would point out that could have been used to improve the service.  I could have had a decent pay rise for a start.  So in came the time management and the quotas.   It’s all very well saying how long an extraction should take but they’ve never been chased round a bedroom by a randy ginger tom that can’t decide whether he wants to eat you or mate with you.  Neither of which appeals much to yours truly.

Oh and by the way an extraction is what we Tooth Fairies call the replacing of the tooth with a coin.  Normally we don’t pull out teeth unless the little bugger has done something to really annoy us or we are behind on one of those dam quotas the management are so fond of.