20.09.05
Dear Agnes
You know the drill! You’ve been round the circuit a few times! You could advise me!
Agony Aunt
Agnes oiled and in heat!
Dear Agnes,
My mother should have prepared me better for the onset of this menopause! ‘Every time you ‘go warm’, she suggested, ‘is worth a guinea!’ What on earth did she mean? I’ll be ready for the 2,000
I feel like a Bunny ‘in heat’.
Open letter to Charles from Agnes
Now that it’s all over, let me be the first (you mean, I’m NOT??) to congratulate you, the Prince of Wales on your marriage to your very own Cinderella.
It’s been a busy week for you, what with socialising with President Mugabe, attending the Pope’s funeral in
Agnes on Water Rates
Dearest Agnes,
Being the soul of discretion and much to be admired, perhaps you could tell me what will happen when the Bolshi Council in that wonderful City of
Will the populace pay the bill or will they resort to withholding payment or even to striking as they have done in the past. Would it be too much to hope for, that responsible Councillors might get kicked in the ‘cooley kickem’s?
What about a separate vote on this one?
Regards
Water Tight.
Agnes: Poverty Ended
Dear Agnes,
You are doubtless aware of the so-called Poverty Report published today that alleges some 8% of children in Northern Ireland live in poverty.
Have you ever heard such rubbish? Everybody knows there is no poverty any more! My goodness, it’s all some want to talk about at our Coffee Mornings and Candlelit Dinners!
It goes on that a quarter of them live in houses without gas or electricity! Well, that really lets the cat out of the bag, doesn’t it? Are we supposed to believe they’ve all got AGAs, for heaven’s sake?!
And it says one in seven don’t eat three square meals a day!! Well, I ask you, who does?? I never could get our only boy Cyril to eat his greens before he went up to Cambridge! Since I took up aerobics, poor Tristan, my husband cannot even remember when last he got a five-course meal!
I read on teletext (what would we do without it?) that this so-called Save The Children outfit estimate 32,000 children here live in ‘severe charity’. Well, I’d like to ask them, who do you think collects all that charity money at our Coffee Mornings?
Of course there’s a few people who don’t have a second car or a little pad in the country. But that’s life, isn’t it, Agnes? We’re quite comfortable, thanks to Tristan’s hard work, and many are much better off than us, but do you hear me complain?
Even Jesus said, ‘the poor are always with us’.
Tell the truth, Agnes, don’t all these ‘bleeding hearts’ just get on your goat?
Yours truly,
Charity Bigginsere
Dear Charity,
I’ve tried hard, God knows, to think of one redeeming feature of you, but the best I can say is that your mother clearly had a sense of humour that you unfortunately did not inherit!
I don’t own a goat.. nor much else besides. I’m concerned for poor Tristan who must be wasting away deprived of his 5 Course Candlelit Dinners!
I am prepared to accept an invitation to your next Coffee Morning.
I am certain that your social circle would benefit enormously from a radical dose of harsh reality!
Agnes Dayee
Agnes: Computer Woes
Dear Agnes,
I know you are a computer expert and perhaps the very person to help me. I’ve had a lot of trouble with mine!
The man said I could fax with the machine so I held the paper up to the TV (or is that the monitor?) and hit ‘Send’ but it didn’t. I can’t find the ‘ANY’ key that it keeps telling me to Press.
Then it started to tell me I was ‘bad’ and an ‘invalid’. Isn’t that just rude?
I tried printing but the machine said it couldn’t find the printer. I turned the TV thing round to face the printer, but it still couldn’t find it. I called the helpline but the fellow just wanted to know if I was operating under windows. I told him the light was fine, I could see well what I was doing! He told me to type ‘P’ to bring up the Programme Manager. I told him I couldn’t find the ‘P’.
‘P on your keyboard’, he roared. Now, I wasn’t going to do that!
Then my coffee-cup holder broke! You know that drawer that keeps popping in and out. Well, no sooner did I rest the full cup of coffee on it that didn’t it pop in again and spilled the hot liquid all through that big tower box. I filled the bath-tub with soap and water to clean it all out. But it did no good!
Agnes, do you think he was taking the p*** outa me?
Yours truly,
Henry Pratt
Dear Henry,
Box it up and send it back.
You’re too stupid to own a computer.
Agnes Dayee
Agnes: Toilet Etiquette
Dear Agnes,
Please don’t laugh at my problem like everyone else does!
It’s to do with the correct way to hang the toilet roll in its holder.
I recognise that there may be more weighty affairs in the world (indeed, I missed an episode of Coronation Street this week!) but this thing is beginning to threaten our marriage.
You see, I am left-handed and the roll-holder is screwed to the toilet wall to my right when I’m sitting there. If I try to tear off a strip of appropriate length when my wife has hung it loose end out, the whole roll unravels onto the floor.
I cannot re-position it one-handed and it’s most indecorous to be mooning about in that position to do the job.
I’m getting on in years and sometimes forget to close or lock the bathroom door and one time, our neighbour Mrs Patton screamed to see me as she walked down the hall to join my wife in the sun-lounge.
No matter how often I reverse them, my wife has the toilet rolls in all three bathrooms hung trailing end out in a jiffy.
What is the correct etiquette here?
I’m relying on you.
Godfrey Browning
Dear Godfrey,
Your underlying problem is that you’re a cornaptious, ignorant oul’ git and your wife would be well shot of you should the marriage end over this (t)issue.
My sympathy goes out not just to your long-suffering angelic wife but also to the unfortunate Mrs Patton who had to suffer the spectacle of an ageing Lothario with his trousers round his ankles doing pirouettes in the bathroom.
So you have three bathrooms and a sun-lounge!! And how subtly you inserted that gem of information!!
Get a life, you dirty old man!!
Agnes Dayee
P.S. Your wife was right, of course, as are women inevitably when it comes to matters of fashion, etiquette and style – three things, doubtless, you know nothing of!!
Agnes: Sleeplessness
Dear Agnes,
I must write to ask how you go about getting a good night’s sleep.
I have tried everything from counting sheep to decorating the house. I even transformed the garden but despite these strenuous activities I cannot find sleep.
I am under the attention of my G.P. who diagnosed me as an insomniac. Flattered as I am that she thinks me so intelligent, it doesn’t help my rest.
Now as I lie awake when all around me are snoring their heads off, marvelling at how clever I am, I wonder will I ever again need to sleep at all? Or is this just a phase I’m going through?
Yours desperately
Drooping Eyelids.
__
Dear Sir or Madam (your nom-de-plume doesn’t determine which!)
I’m not confident that Drooping anything is the real problem here! Indeed I was slightly alarmed to read that ‘in the middle of the night, all around you were snoring their heads off!’. Just how many people are you sleeping with at the one time?? Is this a harem of yours that you refer to as ‘sheep’?
And in the night hours you still find time to decorate the house and transform the garden? You want to take yourself in hand!
No, on second thoughts, that’s not a good idea! Perhaps you can get someone else to do just that!
I was glad to learn you were under the doctor! I advise you to stay right there. She may provide the physical exercise required to induce sweet slumber.
That’s what works for oul’ Dayee and me! Not the doctor, of course, but the bedroom exercises. Despite his name – like the Tory leader Michael Howard – he has ‘something of the night’ in him. And thank heavens for it!
Agnes
Agnes: Legal Aid Required
Dear Agnes,
I’m hoping you are an expert in the law as in so much else.
My problem is I don’t know who to sue for injuries I sustained a week ago while stripping unwanted lead piping and wood furnishing from an abandoned mansion in the Windsor Hill area of Newry.
I know you will be familiar with the house in question – next to McManus Court – as it has featured in one of your articles on Newry Journal.
In fact there is another ‘preserved’ building recently wrecked in Sugar House Quay and my friends and I would be interested to investigate the possibilities there too, but we need to know where we stand.. you know what I mean?
Yours truly,
Jemmy Crowbar
Dear Jemmy,
It’s an interesting question but I don’t have an answer.
Provided you fulfil the criteria, you may be entitled to legal aid on the matter. The town’s full of solicitors offering legal aid. The worst that can happen is that the public will become aware of just who is responsible for leaving unguarded that eyesore and death-trap.
You are a very public-spirited gentleman!
You may wish to forewarn the ambulance authorities before your next venture, just to ensure your early delivery to hospital should you sustain a second accident.
(Agony) Agnes Dayee