Stop Startin' And Start Stoppin'!

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Oy, you!” Ronnie Bludgeon shouted to his younger brother across the allotment in a ridiculously high-pitched voice, rolling up his sleeves up and running clumsily across the freshly dug plot, his wellies making embarrassing farting noises. “'Ow many times do I 'ave to tell you, Ricky? You plant spuddatoes and other vegetables in straight rows a certain distance apart, depending on the species and its spatial requirements, not in random bunches like flowers in an old lady's cottage garden. An' you do not plant 'em three foot deep, you complete nincompoop - the shoots will never see the light of day! According to most gardening textbooks main-crop spuddatoes should be planted twelve inches apart with two to three feet between rows, but I've learned from experience that eighteen inches is ample in well composted and manured soil. I've told you those details a billion times, laddie. I don't know, I can't concentrate on what I'm doin' without checkin' up on your blunders every five minutes - bloody ridiculous, it is.”

“Stop startin', you!” Rick replied in a slightly less high-pitched voice. “You told me no such thing, you jack-booted, fascist Bakewell tart, and you know it. I don't know what's got into you just lately - any excuse to lose your temper an' pick a fight, any excuse at all. You need to attend anger management classes, you do.”

“You stop startin', you smarmy little turd! 'As your name got a silent 'p', or what? Ricky the pricky. Ha! You started startin' by plantin' the spuddatoes in entirely the wrong way after I told you 'ow to plant 'em right, and you know very well that I gave you specific instructions in triplicate, you utter willy. What do you want me to do, write the information on your forehead in reverse so that you can read it every time you look in the bathroom mirror?”

“I'd either 'ave to 'ave a very big forehead like that geordie twit out of Ant an' Dec – I don't think anybody knows which is which - and then my noggin wouldn't fit through the bathroom door, or you'd 'ave to write in minuscule, teensy-weensy writin', 'cos your instructions are never endin', you total twannock, and, to be frank, they're usually totally bafflin'.”

“What do you mean, totally bafflin'? My instructions make perfect sense. You'd better start stoppin' this daft business, Ricky. An' don't call me a twannock, I don't bloody well like it.”

“I will not start stoppin', Ronnie, until you start stoppin'! An' if you don't want me to call you a twannock kindly refrain from callin' me a willy and a nincompoop, it's not nice.”

“Fair enough, I won't call you a willy or a nincompoop ever again, you flamin' cretin.”

“Don't start startin' again you!”

“Sorry, little bro, only kiddin'.”

As the day wore on the Bludgeon brothers planted all of the seed spuddatoes. Ronnie marked out the rows with string so that he knew exactly where they were, because he intended to plant rows of lettuce and carrots and radishes between them, which would be harvested before the spuddatoes needed earthing up. He found it tremendously difficult to work accurately, though, because as usual Ricky found it hard to follow what Ronnie thought of as simple instructions.

“No! No, Ricky, no - that's not how it's done. I repeat, no. That string you've put between these two rows of spuddatoes is skewiff, it's wibbly-wobbly, it's like a deformed dachshund’s hind leg.”

“No it isn't, it's perfectly straight!”

“It is not straight, you, you willy! The line is almost smack bang in the middle at this end and almost an inch out at t'other, I checked it with me tape measure.”

“It's not fair, Ronnie, you're always pickin' flies, pick, pick, pick, all bloody day whatever we're doin' - an' you revel in your fly pickin', it's all you live for. If you'd buy me a tape measure or let me use your spare one I'd be able to measure the rows accurately, but you won't do that because then you'd 'ave nothin' to grumble about. And you called me a willy again, I thought you'd agreed to stop startin' and start stoppin'.”

“I did agree to stop startin' and start stoppin', but you made me lose my temper with your infinite stupidity. I'll 'ave you know that tape measures are very delicate, expensive things, Ricky, an' it's not just the expense that stops me from buyin' you a tape measure of your very own or allowin' you to use my beloved spare one, it's the principle. If I bought you a tape measure and allowed you to use it during our vegetable plantin' sessions you'd forget to check the correct measurements and still get it wrong. Or you might break my spare tape measure during your shenanigans, which is actually my favourite one, and I can't 'ave that, can I?”

“Well if it's your favourite one why don't you use it all the time? You could use that one and I could use the other.”

“Oh no! I can't use my favourite tape measure because I might wear it out, and I want it to last forever because it's pretty an' shiny an' bright yellow, it 'as metric measurements on one side in a lovely bright red an' imperial ones in black on the other.”

“You're just bein' awkward and evasive, Ronnie, you're just bein' a dick. An' you're not exactly stoppin' startin' as you promised, and folk that are dicks an' fail to honour their promises and unnecessarily pick bloody flies all the time get cursed by God, I know that because mum told me.”

“I am not a dick – you take it back! And even if I was being awkward and evasive an' pickin' flies unnecessarily an' not stoppin' startin' and startin' stoppin' - which I wasn't, of course - 'ow would God know? Answer me that, smarty-pants.”

“Because that little robin over there or some other passing dicky-bird would tell Him.”

“Are you sure, you great, hairy dangly-donger?”

“Yes, of course I'm sure, it's in the soddin' Bible.”

“Where in the Bible exactly? And don't let me hear you calling it the sodding Bible ever again, you naughty boy, or you're the one who'll be cursed!”

“Erm..... Phillipians chapter six verse nineteen, I think.”

“Right, I'll 'ave to concentrate very 'ard on stoppin' startin' an' startin' stoppin', then.”

“You do that, Ronnie, you do that.”