| Hip Priest |
05.14.2007 05:57 PM |
When I left school I worked in one of those discount stores just doing bits and bobs, which was very boring indeed, and after that I had a brief spell in a bed showroom. It was through talking to a customer there that I then got a job in a tomato factory; you may not be aware that an estimated 92% of all tomatoes are not grown at all, but are made in factories from a by-product of petrol. That tomato making business became a bit tedious, especially having to paint all the tomatoes red - I experimented and sent out some tomatoes painted turqouise and purple and stuff, but no-one wanted them. As chance would have it though, the world's leading expert on the colour turquoise ("SHADE, Sebastian, SHADE - turquoise is not a bloody color at all!" she would cry) liked my ideas, and so I ended up working with her on the PR front. That was quite good, as I got to travel all over the world telling everyone how useful and pretty turquoise is (the Phillipinos became especially fond; I like to think that I'm responsible for a fair share of turquoise use in that part of the world, especially on fruit packaging), but I have to admit that my heart wasn't really in it, and eventually the woman I was working for got bought out in a hostile takeover. The new owners did a total makeover on her, replacing her legs with a newer stramlined model and upgrading her head, but they didn't like turquoise and so she was forced to become an expert on lime green instead. Lime green is a nice colour too, but that takeover was my cue to move on, and I soon found a position as assistant to Tony Bennett (yes - the Tony Bennett). Tony's a lovely chap, but after about 20 years doing that it had become increasingly obvious that no matter how good I was at being assistant to Tony Bennett, I was never going to be offered the actual position of being Tony Bennett himself (it went to a snide, sneering chap from Colchester, as I recall) and so I departed and returned to England. Once back on these friendly shores, I messed around for a bit doing things like cheese sculpture, freelance strawberry eating and writing a column on tractor seats for a national newspaper. For a week or so I was the Queen, whilst she was in hospital. The food and diplomats were cool enough, but that job could be hard. The sharing a bedroom with Prince Phillip bit I could cope with, but it's not easy being Prince Charles' mum, I can tell you. Lovely lad and all, you understand, but very keen on Jimmy Hendrix as I recall. It was whilst carrying out that job, however, opening a new public toilet in Buxton, that I was spotted by a representative of the National Museum of Milk Churns (I think he liked my scarf a lot, which reminds me of my top job-getting tip - always wear the best scarf that you can afford. You'd be surprised how important scarves are in life, and the purchase of a scarf should be dealt with with the utmost seriousness). Anyway, the National Museum of Milk Churns was building a new multi-million pound extension to house its collection of late 19th-century lead-lined churns - the finest such collection outside of Latvia - and so I happily spent the next 65 years sitting in the museum reading the newspaper and doing conducted tours of the churns. I also instigated the 'Chumbleby-Bonewaldstone Award' for excellence in writing on the subject of milk churns and secured a large bursary from one of our regular visitors to allow for a £25,000 annual prize. Im pleased to say that I won the thing the first year, with an article about the 17th-century ambassador and vandal Richard Harkshaw and his failed attemps to create an indestructible milk churn made from rhino skin. I'm sorry to say that some people questioned how I, as sole judge, could reasonably give myself the prize, especially since Mr Henrick Frobisher's manuscript An Analysis of the Circumference Variations of Early Saxon Milk Churns was so well thougt of that year. I explained that any other entries must have got lost in the post, but the milk churn world is a vindictive one, my friends, where people are quick to wrath, and I'm sorry to say that foes made are foes kept, so I was forced to resign from that job and accept a seat on the British Weedkiller Marketing Board, whose offices I razed to the ground within a fortnight. After that I rested for a bit until one day I wandered into a little shop and community centre close to where I now live, and offered to do some voluntary work. I'm still there, except it turned into a proper paid job, and it's very nice. We sell a mixture of Fairtrade and donated items, and the money allows the payment of two wages and keeps the rooms open for community use. We also provide many opportunities for volunteers of all ages. We even do outreach work and stalls and all that kind of thing. It's lovely.
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