I am told that today is world toilet day, and appropriately I will be relaying a story regarding a toilet matter later in this blog.

I have always been fond of the odd practical joke. Down through the years I have been the perpetrator, and on the receiving end of many. Providing no one gets hurt, or humiliated, a good gut wrenching laugh is what most of us need to deal with the more serious aspects of life. Of course some people simply don’t have a sense of humour. It’s no different to being blind or deaf, it’s simply a disability. I’m not sure if it should qualify you for a disabled car sticker, or indeed incapacity benefit, but I’m sure it must be a struggle trying to get through life without it. Nuns don’t appear to have much of a sense of humour as I found to my cost during my 11 years spent at the convent in Liverpool. They certainly did not appreciate the time I dressed up a life size statue of St. Dominic in his Sunday best and stood him next to the snooker table with a cue in his hand and a fag sticking out of his mouth. Mind you, thinking back I guess the nuns must have some kind of humour, otherwise what the hell was a snooker table doing in the play room of a blind school. They also were not amused the time I filled the back of the piano with snow in the assembly hall.

My friends and family have always known that I am something of a radio buff. They would often drop by so that they could listen to ships, aircraft or whatever else I could find for them. One day the milkman called. I had just turned on the radio and was listening to a play on radio four. The play was about an aircraft where the pilot had taken a heart attack and one of the passengers had taken over the controls and was being talked down by the control tower. The milkman knowing I tuned into ships and aircraft on my VHF radio, sat down and was going nowhere until the drama ended. He sat on our sofa hardly able to believe what he was hearing. Unfortunately some 45 minutes later I did not get my hand to the off switch quickly enough, and a BBC announcer blabbed out my secret. The milkman slammed out of the front door almost smashing the window in the door, cursing and swearing and late with his deliveries. On another occasion I was listening to a comic play on the same radio station. The play was about horse racing. As I listened my Auntie Marie turned up and plonked herself down. “So, listening to the horse racing are we,” she said. At the end of the play the commentator describing the end of the race announced that, Black Magic won the 3.30 at Chester, but then carried on galloping, and went on to win the 5.30 at Haydock. I can still hear my Auntie Marie’s gasps of disbelief. “Some flaming horse that one” she yelled as she made her way to the kettle. As far as I know she still believes that Black Magic is the only horse ever to win two races on two different race courses in the same day.

Now at the beginning I told you that today is national world toilet day. Well according to 5 live at any rate. So, I close today with a toilet story.

My dear friend and neighbour George was a simple man. He emptied coal boats with my father and worked on building sites in between times. He gave most of his wages away. He was kindness itself. One day on the building site George fell in need of a poo. So, he took himself off behind a hedge and pulled his trousers down. One of his workmates observing George from a distance decided to have a bit of fun, and so as George took the strain his workmate held a shovel under George’s backside and removed the poo. When George had finished, he pulled up his trousers and could not believe his eyes, he knew he’d done one, yet there was no sign of it what so-ever. George slinked his way back to work and completed the rest of his day a worried man. As soon as 5o’clock came round George took himself off to the doctors. He explained to the doctor that he could feel his poo coming, and he was certain to all extent and purposes he had done it yet there was absolutely nothing to show for it. I won’t go into the treatment dished out by the doctor for George. Let’s just say that George spent a considerable part of the following day on the toilet.

Well tomorrow I will have more practical joke stories for you. In the meantime if you have any practical joke stories for me, email them to tomglassey@manx.net

This is Tom Glassey on the banks of the Silverburn River.