With the nights now drawing in and rubbing themselves out, I was looking for something to fill my time. It’s too cold for swimming and not cold enough for ice sculpting yet so I decided to put an advert in the local paper offering my services as a handyman.The extra money would also come in handy what with the holidays coming up.

I phoned up the classified section and told them what I wanted the advert to say with the promise that it would appear in the following days edition. That night I couldn’t sleep for excitement and I was the solitary queue member when Sandy Patels 16 hour emporium opened in the morning. I picked up the top copy and rushed home, busily scanning the pages for the classified section. Then I saw it, in bold capitals- NO JOB TOO BIG OR SMALL- CONTACT RUSSEL AT THE ALLOTMENT NEAR THE PARK- SECOND SHED FROM THE END. I had decided to stipulate that it was the allotment near the park even though it was costing by the letter ,as the other allotments by the shops are notoriously frequented by whistle sniffers and men with immaginary dogs. I ran the rest of the way home, got changed out of my pyjamas and headed down to my shed in anticipation of the hoardes of people desperate for my services.

I waited all day but nobody came, except for a man who came to read the meter (it wasn’t until he had gone that i realised i didn’t have one). I trudged home feeling somewhat dejected but with the feeling that it was early days and it might take a little time for word to spread.

The next day I waited all morning but again the masses I expected to be beating a path to my door never arrived. Then at around noon, just as I had finished arranging my comics in order of funniness a loud knock rattled on my door, shaking the whole shed and nearly spilling a glass of fizzy pop all over my newly sorted comics. I put down my jam sandwich and made my way over to the door to see who it was. When I opened the door I was confronted by two very large gentlemen in dark suits. They looked me up and down for a moment before the slightly less ugly one asked “are you russel dust?” When I replied that i was, they grabbed me by both arms and marched me back into my shed and sat me down in a chair. I asked them if they had come about the newspaper advert but this just seemed to baffle them and they admitted that they had no idea what I was talking about.

They went on to explain that they were representing a group of freelance scientists and had heard of my reputation on the science vine. They told me that there was a rogue element in the periodic table and they wanted me to infiltrate it disguised as a gas. Apparently plutonium didn’t actually exist and had been sneaked in to the periodic table by Walt Disney back in the 1940′s as some kind of clever advertising. The element which scientists had been using as plutonium was simply a mixture of hair and bark supplied in large quantities by Disney employees. Nobody had ever thought to question it until now. This hairy bark concoction was threatening to make a mockery out of the entire scientific community and it had to be stopped. After careful deliberation and the promise of riches beyond my wildest dreams, i decided to accept and began to make preperations for my journey. I ran home and ran myself a bath which I promptly got in. I lay there for almost four hours until I was neither solid or liquid. I concluded that I must then be a gas and wafted myself towards my old chemistry book from school. I opened the page at the periodic table and simply dived in.

When I arrived there I I was surprised how much it looked like a hotel. I made my way through towards the swimming pool where I noticed hydrogen and oxygen playing water polo with chlorine. I knew that I didn’t have much time before I started to solidify again so I hurried past the pool to where I was sure I would find plutonium- the crazy golf course. Sure enough he was there, chasing his tail as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I lured him towards me with a nice big juicy bone then grabbed him. Being in a gaseous state, I didn’t have any pockets to keep my change in so I was forced to make a reverse charges call to the burly henchmen to come and collect me. Soon enough they appeared in a helicopter. Plutonium was bundled into the back of the chopper and humanely destroyed while I got to ride in the front. They asked me where I wanted dropped off and I told them to drop me back at my shed. As we flew over the allotment I noticed a large queue of elderly people and housewives outside my shed. Oh well back to work I sighed.

I have just returned from a very odd fortnight peddling my wares at the Banff fashion week. Granted it’s not quite in the same league as Paris or Milan but the organisers are very keen to put it onto the fashion map. I received a phone call a couple of months ago from Jeff Banks and George from Asda almost begging me to help out. This was a huge honour for me as i have, over the years taken more than a passing interest in the catwalks of the world .Naturally i couldn’t refuse two of the twentieth centuries greatest style icons and so i set to work without a moment to lose to create my collection. I spent many a sleepless night and many a thoughtless day deliberating about a theme for the show, when suddenly it hit me like a literal bolt from the sky. Thunder and lightning.
The next few weeks, in the run up to the launch party were spent mostly nude and drunk as i tried on almost every different combination of rainmacs, sowesters and wellington boots that i could think of, all emblazoned with lightning flashes of various intensity. Nothing was left to chance and my attention to detail frightened me at times. If any one outfit was not quite right i would simply rip it up and burn it using old copies of the clothes show magazine as kindling. This seemed to encourage the inner ponce in me and soon i was ready to give my collection its first test viewing. I called George and Jeff round, sat them down in my converted loft studio and gave the signal for my assistant Tim Vincent to dim the lights.
I went round to the back of the makeshift curtain and hastily got changed into my first design. When i was certain that everything was just right, I gave the nod, the curtain went up and the thunderstorm sound effects started to rumble out from the speakers.I had never felt so alive. There i was standing in front of the two people who had almost single handedly given the ordinary person in the street the chance to buy designer clothes at high street prices, wearing a see through pac-a-mac, a helmet with a lightning flash on a spring and two small upturned umbrellas as shoes. If it hadn’t been for the thunder music you could have heard a pin drop. George an Jeff looked me up and down for what seemed like an eternity and at that moment i swear that i saw a tear trickle down Jeffs face. It was a moment i don’t think any of us will forget for as long as we shall live.
Naturally they loved it. They told me i had already revolutionised the fashion world as we knew it and placed an order for one million of the outfits before the fashion week had even begun. They even said that they didn’t even need to see the rest of the collection because the first outfit was so good. I breathed a huge sigh of relief because i had burnt the rest of it in a fit of artistic rage and all that i had left round the back was a bucket of water and an electric wetsuit that hadn’t been tested.

Its that time of year again when my lip starts to quiver and my eyes start to burn. The festive season has never been one which sets my heart ablaze. This could be down to one of many reasons. Firstly I was born at christmas time, on christmas day in fact in a hillman imp, speeding through the swiss alps with my then parents. (A journey which to this day has left me with a completely rational fear of motor vehicles). Obviously I was too young to remember all the details but found them later in a book which chronicled my early development. The story goes that my travelling companions(my parents) that fateful day had been refused entry to a boney-m concert at the base of the mountain and had retreated in haste upwards in order to get a better vantage point and therefore see the gig for free. A combination of rough terrain and a badly maintained suspension system had been too much for my poor mother to bear and just as the last verse of ‘brown girl in the ring’ started I was thrust into the alpine chill. The fact that they had missed a large part of the concert was something that they never forgave me for and every year they were reminded of their disappointment by the incessant playing of ‘marys boy child’ by commercial radio stations. Their anger grew and grew until one christmas when they couldn’t take it anymore and i was turfed onto the streets to fend for myself.

As you can imagine, this left me with a very unpleasant taste in my mouth around this time of year and in more ways than one. For my sixteenth birthday the orphanage organised a trip to the local zoo and as a special treat i was given a ride on a camel. Unfortunately as i was attempting to mount it, the beast backfired and i was right in the line of fire. I can still taste it to this day.

As i grew up I tried to forget about all the negative things that had happened to me at christmas and during the nineties i was even employed in a large department store as santa claus. I threw myself into the job and was even made employee of the day on two occasions. One year after the shop had closed down on christmas eve, a couple of the elves and I decided to go for a few drinks to wind down after the hectic month that we’d had. The drink started flowing and as it did my memory got hazier. Nothing was ever proved but cctv footage clearly showed me and Steve the elf playing next to the old canal. Steve didn’t make it home that night and it was a bleak christmas in the elf house. I too spent an uncomfortable week in the cells but with the absence of a body it was always going to be hard for them to prove anything and I was acquitted. He turned up last year in debenhams in Wick.

I’m going to make a real effort this year though. I’ve hired a real reindeer to give kids from the youth club rides round the block and Steves coming round for christmas dinner so hopefully it will be a merry christmas after all. He says he’s going to get me a new bike but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Heres me I woke up this morning to find myself booked in to the local community centre to perform saxophone solos for under priveleged yobbos. I had no idea who had booked me in but i had my suspicions that foul play was afoot as firstly i can’t play saxophone and secondly my relationship with the under priveleged is strained at the best of times. I decided that my best course of action was to find out who had signed me up and then concentrate on either cancelling the show or learning to play the saxophone, both of which would be tricky at such short notice.

My first port of call was “Hairy” Harry Legge, the janitor and the eyes and ears of the community centre. Deaf as a bat and blind as a post but he knew what made that place tick. He went on holiday once in the mid eighties and the building exploded. Some say it was because Harry wasn’t there to look after it but the official report suggested that he’d left the gas on.

When I explained my problem to him Harry looked terribly confused and pointed out that i had actually booked the hall myself the previous afternoon. He showed me the signature on the booking form and it certainly did look like my handwriting but i couldn’t remember being there yesterday afternoon. I went back inside my mind and retraced my steps. i scratched my head as i thought and noticed something unusual. I was wearing a beany hat. Then it hit me. What an idiot. Courtney Pine had been round at my house yesterday morning and i had promised to swap jobs with him for a day for comic relief. I’ll have the last laugh though. Courtney doesn’t know that I’ve just started a new job as a shepherd. He hates sheep!!!