Sunday supplement

I'm feeling my age: for the past four weeks I've been traipsing round in doubled-up socks and a body warmer. Here I am, trying to put over early George Saunders and I'm dressing like Norman Clegg. The snow has gone - huzzah! - except for the odd patches on the pavement where it got piled up. Usually by public-spirited people who cleared their driveways by shifting all the snow into three-foot-high walls either side, on the pavement. And fingers to the bloke who got cross because I kicked his walls down so that an old chap with a stick could get by. (Not an entirely selfless act as I was that old chap.)

This is a single male household, and I gave up on standards a while back, but even so I am distressed by the state of the hall. Again. I was so distressed by it last weekend that I steam-cleaned the floor. I could have saved my time, it's as bad again. Snow, salt and big heavy walking boots have done their worst: it looks like every pigeon in Christendom has roosted in the hall for the past two months. So I set to again, and the floor now looks merely grubby.

In the process I noticed that the radiator pipe needed resealing again. I've learnt from experience that this isn't one of those jobs for duct tape, it needs sealing within the nut of the valve, which requires the use of a silicone gun. That's me, with a silicone gun. Like all good DIY prats I work on the basis that more is better and by the time I'm finished I look like a five-year old pastry chef. But let's see some water leak out of that, eh?

The third time's the charm. I think.

Sundays used to be so different. Nothing to do all day except listen to the wireless and get thumped by my sister for pinching her 'Action Man' so that the goldfish had someone to talk to. We'd start off with Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart with Junior Choice, which always seemed, even in the 1970s, to choose the same variety of 1950s novelty records that Uncle Mac used to play before him. Then it would be Worldwide Family Favourites.

"What's the weather like over Cologne?"
"Well, Jean, it's a bit drizzly today."

"And here's a card from Sapper Loomis of BFPO 45 in British West Hartlepool saying love to mum, granny and the kids and to tell Mavis that the rash has nearly cleared up completely now."

Ah yes. Then it would be a comedy show. Sunday at 2pm on the Light Programme usually meant something from the North of England, usually from James Casey's stable. It wasn't always 'The Clitheroe Kid,' though it sometimes felt like it. 'The Clitheroe Kid' did have smashing opening and closing music, though. If it wasn't from the North of England it was 'The Navy Lark,' a series I have come to treasure as I realise the parallels between the cartoon world of H.M.S. Troutbridge and Naval Command Portsmouth on the one hand and my own working environment on the other. (I know that I'm not alone in noticing the parallel between 'The Navy Lark' and the public library sector.)

Hereonin it was downhill all the way. The fading daylight of winter and the damp from the washing-up of the Sunday meal signalled that it was time to start putting off the weekend's homework. Just to make the point that life can't be all fun, the BBC would give us two hours of Cheery Charlie Chester.

"And here's a letter from Mrs. Ailsa Mutterbucket from Chorley who tells me that her husband's poorly in hospital with a horrible disease he caught at work, that both her infant children have had to go out to work in the mill to pay for her medicine after being under the doctor for the past ten years and to cap it all, last Wednesday her beloved cat, Marmalade, was run over by a corporation steam roller. Mrs. Mutterbucket asks if I could play something by Mario Lanza as he was always such a comfort at Catterick Barracks. Thanks for your letter, Ailsa. And just for you here's The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, to sing 'Hey Little Hen.'"

And the homilies. Oh the homilies! All preceded by a 'jungle' chant jingle that was a bit iffy even in those days.

"Down in the jungle, working all the day, here's what the natives all say!"

Then he'd drift off into some dreary platitudinous drivel. Suffice it to say that the tag line for the programme was: "With a box full of records and a bag full of post, it's radio Soapbox and Charlie your host!"

Then things got worse. As you sucked the end of your pencil and wondered whether you could persuade your parents to buy a dog so that they could eat your maths jotter it started.

"Sing something simple..."

Yes, it was the Cliff Adams singers, with that bloody accordion, to bring a slough of despair into the merriest of households. Here's one of their more upbeat numbers.

So here I am, umpty-dump years later, still not doing my homework but at least not festooned by the miseries of radio. Another triumph for The Ascent Of Man.

STOP PRESS: Russell Grant's horoscope tells me that I should "invest in a computer to ease your workload." Well, good luck to the idiot.