My tooth fell out in the shower. There was blood in the bathroom sink. I\u2019m now missing several teeth on the right side, from essential extractions and general wear and tear. When I grin or laugh out loud, you can see the gap. It\u2019s a crone-like vista. Hag City, Arizona. I might have to stop grinning and laughing out loud, for vanity reasons. Or I might have to get an implant. I don\u2019t know which would be more painful. <\/p>\n
I can\u2019t imagine a life without grinning or laughing out loud though. My friends are too funny, many of them men. (I\u2019ve never believed those people who say men can\u2019t be funny. That they are biologically incapable.) I had lost touch with a friend of the female variety but met her again recently, the two of us sharing the famous pear-and-bacon sandwich in the Pepper Pot Cafe and a slice of cake. She made me laugh until my tummy ached and even after she was gone, I sat there grinning remembering the things she had said.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t stop laughing. Or grinning. Teeth or no teeth. It\u2019s impossible. Especially since being introduced to my new favourite comedian Graham Fellows. He\u2019s been around for a long time, so apologies to all of you going, \u201cGraham Fellows? Sure he\u2019s been around for decades, you absolute dose.\u201d Yes I know. I know that now.<\/p>\n
[\u00a0\u2018It was quiet. Too quiet\u2019: A trial run at the empty nestOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Fellows, who is 66, invented his John Shuttleworth persona in 1985. Before that, some readers with implants and missing teeth might remember Fellows from his song Jilted John which reached number four in the British charts in 1978. But it\u2019s John Shuttleworth he\u2019s been inhabiting for more than 40 years. The fictional radio presenter is an aspiring singer-songwriter from Sheffield. I love Steve Coogan\u2019s<\/a> Alan Partridge<\/a> but I might love Fellows\u2019s John Shuttleworth even more. He lives on a housing estate with his wife Mary and their children, Darren and Karen. He plays a Yamaha keyboard and writes songs about domestic dilemmas. One such song is Two Margarines. <\/p>\n It tells the tragic, stressful tale of the time when Mary cracked open a new tub of margarine while there was already an open tub in the fridge. This causes Shuttleworth much distress. \u201cTwo margarines, on the go, it\u2019s a nightmare scenario,\u201d he sings jauntily, at which point I start to cackle, hag-like, my mouth opening wide, the dark place where my teeth should be clearly visible to anyone who glances in my direction.<\/p>\n My friend Gerry introduced me to John Shuttleworth during Scrabble night. He put on a classic Shuttleworth number called I Can\u2019t Go Back to Savoury Now and that was me gone. This song is about another household conundrum whereby John has enjoyed his wife Mary\u2019s stunning shepherd\u2019s pie and started her dessert of treacle sponge pudding when it becomes apparent daughter Karen isn\u2019t going to finish her plate of shepherd\u2019s pie. <\/p>\n He is now faced with a domestic dilemma of Shuttleworthian proportions. He contemplates abandoning the treacle pudding to help himself to his daughter\u2019s savoury leftovers. But, as the song explains, he can\u2019t go back to savoury now: \u201cThat shepherd\u2019s pie was stunning but I\u2019m halfway through me pudding.\u201d <\/p>\n He points out that were he to return to his main having started dessert, his taste buds would go crazy. \u201cI can\u2019t go back. I won\u2019t go back. Obviously, I\u2019d love to go back. But I mustn\u2019t do that.\u201d I\u2019m cracking up as I write this. \u201cTake this plate from me, oh Lord,\u201d he sings. It\u2019s comedy perfection.<\/p>\n