Travels with my toolage

I have sprung a huge surprise on myself and organised a working holiday.

The next couple of weeks we’ll be spent administering to my travelling companion Mrs Belm (my wife) and touring the model-making heritage sites of Europe.

We will also be visiting a former client, Crown Prince Dimitri of all the Bulgars, who wishes to commissionise myself to complete a new piece for his family archiving purposes.

There will also be chance to spend time in some of the greatest fleshpots that Europe and cold, hard cash has to offer - a little treat for my wife (Mrs Belm).

We will be leaving Derek Belm & Sons in the capable trousers of my chief model-making Alfred Nemesis.

Alas, without the presence of an able deputy or suitable ally, I’ve taken the decision to shut down The Shouty Villager newspaper for the duration of my holiday. The newspaper’s blog will continue in its own sweet, randomised way as the guest bloggists seem to know what they’re doing and I’ve forgotten the technical stuff needed to block them from accessing the “web”site.

We will, of course, be taking the trusty new Avenger on our grand European tour:

Howsoeverasmuch, my driver Klippings has been excused wheelman duties on account of various commitments, appointments and legal problems in some of the countries we are due to visit.

I’ve used the excellent travel-related services of Major Journeyings in order to organise our trip and book the required ticketage, hotelage and other stuff.

Major Norman Journeyings (centre) is a former logistics expert with the US Airforces who set up his own travel and boxing promotion business - Fight or Flight - with two former collegues (Captain Hank “Hard” Standing, left, and General Ira Newsanse, right):

Obviously, given the fact I will be doing the overwhelming majority of the driving and everything else on our European grand tour, I will not be quite so active in cyber-related matters over the next 14-21 days (whichever comes first).

I will be writing an occasional travel-loggage blog and be doing some Twittering updates if anything excitable should occur, or my wife (Mrs Belm) gets herself arrested for treason again like she did last autumn whilst we travelled through Switzerland.

Derek Jnr will be left in the capable, wandering hands of my apprentice Sammy-Lou Westwinds whilst he recovers from his A-level examinising and prepares to go off to University to study fashion design.

Christopher the cat is spending the duration of our departedness with Mrs Divot, who lives down the lane and whom has been charged with helping him finish his family tree.

So, without much furthering of a do, bon voyage to us then!

Creating the newsroom of the future

I have not been resting on my laurels or any other part of my actual factual self since gaining upgradation to Editor-in-Chief of The Shouty Villager.

No, indeed not.

I immediately drafted in my regular architects, interior designers and shopfitters - the team responsible for creating the straight-off-the-cart, bespoke studio-cum-workshop at Derek Belm & Sons - in order to revolute The Shouty Villager’s offices and newsroom.

I am of the firmly handled belief that the newspaper for the early 20th century needs to look every inch like it has negotiated the industrial revolution and is hurtling headlong towards the television era.

So I am proudness personified to declare that after two days of hysterically hard graftage and grunting, the new-look base of The Shouty Villager can be unveiled.

Here is principal boy reporter Hugh Janus (right) trying to persuade socialite and trainee journalist Helena Hand-Cartte (left) to photocopy parts of her anatomy using some of the high-technical specificationed equipment I’ve got installed:

I’ve managed to get a job-lot of equipment via Thick John, landlord of the Bedknobs & Broomsticks, when he ventured to one of his regular car booting haunts last weekend.

We’ve got old computers, fax machines, a photocopyist that only occasionally works, second-hand cupboards refurbished from old kitchen units, old schoolhouse desks and some crap chairs off of a Swedish bloke.

And here is my wife (Mrs Belm, seated) showing Helena (right, stooping) her favourite middle-of-the-road, adult orientated websites on one of the new, old computerised terminals:

But the actual factual advancements do not come to a grinding end there.

No, indeed.

The progress continues at an actual factual space-race type pace.

The woman who acts as our receptionist, advertisement rep, chief nark and Editor’s PA - Gloria Hooley-Gann - also has a new(ish) desk and computerised(ish) equipment to keep her happy(ish).

Here’s Gloria, ringing her boundless friends to tell them all and typing out the menu for the evening meal she wants husband Oswald to cook for her:

There are other, invisible progressives and improvements that have been introduced to create the newsroom of the future for The Shouty Villager.

These include black-inked pens - so much more modern and sophisticated than blue-inked ones, don’t you think? Plus we now got scraps of paper tied together with twine for the reportage staff to use at noteage books when they’re actually factually about scooping up stories and the like.

Bob Bastud, our miserable and untalented photographer, has a new coffee machine which he can tell Helena to use when she makes him “a brew, darling”. I offered him a new darkroom and processing equipment, but he asked for a subscription to Nuts magazine instead.

This will make us a leaner, cleaner, dreamier, shinier, drearier and above all flouncier and bouncier operation to take The Shouty Villager sideways to another dimension.

The owners of the newspaper - a shadowy groupage of East Anglian energy oligarchs - have asked me who is paying for all this innovation and locomotion.

Why they’re asking me when they own the actual factual thing is beyond my comprehensive knowledge base.

Anywhere, we’re all off down the Bedknobs & Broomsticks for a celebratory booze-fest.

Cheer for us.

The new Avenger in my midst

I have new car.

The Austin Allegro Equipe proved too much of a babe magnet and incurred the considerable and voluptuous wrath of my wife (Mrs Belm).

My new wheels is a Hillman Avenger, a far more solid and pensionable vehicle which Mrs Belm (my wife) says “wouldn’t attract a blind trollop, so its safe for you to use”.

It looks quite racy to me and I find the interior a little garish.

So I’m thinking of asking friend, blogger and artist Henrietta Scuttlers to redesign it in more muted tones.

My driver Klippings had threatened to move on if I got rid of the Allegro.

Such a great wheelman is difficult to come by so I’ve been working very hard to appease his stroppiness.

As a compensation, I’ve bought him and his life partner Tough Timmy their own little race car.

It needs an awful lot of work doing on it, but it will give them something else to do in their large shed-cum-garage. Here they were, yesterday, wondering why I’ve bought them it:

Excitable news

My current starring role as Acting Editor of The Shouty Villager is to be upgraded.

I’m going to become full-on actual factual Editor-in-Chief of this august title and its floundering blogs.

The offer was made and accepted after current head hunchback Cyril Foulds-Stretching IV announced that he and his wife would never be returning from the round-the-world cruise they are taking to celebrate their 58th wedding anniversary.

It transpires Cyril and his wife (Mrs Foulds-Stretching IV) have become big chums with Jocelyn Blackbeard, a descendent of the legendary bandit of the oceans, whilst on the South Seas leg of their cruise. The three of them have decided to jump cruise ship and become actual factual pirates, using Jocelyn’s illustrious ancestor as their inspirationaliser.

I have bigger plans for The Shouty Villager than even I can imagine at the moment.

I will be maintaining my role as big cheesy type at Derek Belm & Sons, although my chief model-maker Alfred “Curly” Nemesis will be taking on more of the day-to-day admin stuff and everything.

So that’s nice, then.

The streets where I actually factually live

People are often asking myself about where I actually factually reside.

Folk seem genuinely interested in where I am from and the place I like to call home.

They say: “You’re living on a different planet, Belm, you’re an idiot!”

Or: “Get back to the Loony Bin, Belm.”

Clearly, I’m not from another planet - although I have done some space travelling - and I live in the actual factual village, not this place called Loony Bin.

So I thought I’d give you a small, but perfectly formed pictorial tour off of hereabouts.

This will give you a flavour of the bustling, cosmopolitanised, multi-faceted community I like to call mine and some of the villagists who inhabitise hereabouts.

The early morning “school run” always sees the village full of traffic - this is when the teachers chase children through the streets, it can cause congestion but it is such a spectacle that is worth the inconvenience: 

The main shopping hub of the village revolves around the central square. Always a buzz of excited chatter, the square is the village’s 24-hour heart and soul - shopping by day, creeping and crawling by nightfall.

We try to discourage too much motoring around the village square, but we are enthusiastic about car parking:

We hold regular farmers’ markets, when the countryfolk from off of the hills come into the village and try and sell themselves.

Here’s a couple of countryfolk arriving in the village on their favoured weekend mode of transport:

The village’s Belgian Quarter - formed in the 1950s during the Great Flemish Exodus - is a particularly popular destination with villagists and outsiders alike.

On the weekend, the chocolate fairs held in the Belgian Quarter can actually factually attract thousands:

Most activities revolve around the village green.

During the summer months, especially, you’ll find the villagists gathered on the green for some event of other. Here’s last weekend’s Village Fun Run and Badger Cull getting into full swing:

There are those unfamiliar with the actual factual location of the village.

As this pictorial representation of the one road in and out of the village shows, we are nestled in a quiet valley hereabouts:

The hills surrounding the village are largely quite a bleak and barren land.

Although we are but a quick skateboarding distance away of larger Midlands towns - and Birmingham itself is barely 20 of the minutes away by faster transportation - the windswept inhospitableness of the surrounding hills often puts off people from visiting (which we don’t mind as we can be very anti-social):

In fact, our comparative remoteness makes us naturally shy people. However, when strangers are in our midst, we do try and make them feel as welcome as possible - if we don’t chase them away with flaming torches first, obviously.

But this ingrained shyness and reclusivity is best represented by our local farming community, which likes to camouflage itself at every opportunity:

Clearly this provides just the briefest of glimpses of the villagists’ life and ways.

But hopefully it also helps to increase wider understanding of our community.

The best way to get to know us betterer is to come and actually factually visit. But let us know when you’re coming, just in case we’ve popped out.

So, we is what we is and nothing more or less.

This is how we rolls.

Sexy motoring comes to the village

I seem to have created an unexpected and unrequited stir with my choice of new car.

My esteemable driver, Klippings, first mentioned it after he had been actually factually driving around in the Austin Allegro for a few days.

I thought he was probably exaggeratising to begin with, but now I’ve had first-handled experience of this phenomenon. Suffices it to say I’m shocked, quite alarmed, a little confused, somewhat moist and very pleased with the impact my exotic, Continental-style Allegro Equipe is having on the villagists.

My wife (Mrs Belm) is less pleased. She believes the way my Allegro is attracting attention of the female kind is both unseemly and unbecoming of a happily married individual such as myself.

But it isn’t my fault or anything. The Allegro Equipe is an out-and-out babe magnet, whether I’m sat inside of it or not, as you can see from this shot (taken yesterday) of my curvaceous and enticing new car parked in the reception area of The Shouty Villager:

That’s Daphne Flucker, sister of the Rev Tim, who is visiting for a few days and was jogging through the village when she felt a compulsion to drape herself provocatively across the Allegro.

Bob Bastud, the newspaper’s photographer, was there for an hour taking shots of Daphne until her sister-in-law (Shouty Villager blogger and local pharmacist Oona Flucker) dragged her away under a blanket. Oona seemed immune to the Allegro’s charms, although she did fondle the wing mirrors in a way a vicar’s wife probably shouldn’t do.

So, should I keep the Allegro and risk further sexualised encounters?

Or, should I ditch it in favour of something less sexually alluring?

‘Tis a conundrum and no mistaking. Klippings is vehement in his assertions that I should keep the Allegro and you don’t want to upset one of the best wheelmen in the business.

But then Mrs Belm (my wife) has threatened all sorts of retribution - both in her role as my wife (Mrs Belm) and as a magistrate - if I don’t sell the Allegro and replace it with something more boring.

Plus, as she pointed out, Christopher the cat hates the colour silver on cars and much prefers more muted tones.

I had planned some actual factual model-making today.

But it seems my day will be dominated by cars and scantily clad ladies instead.

Speech cancelled

My big moment has gone astray.

The W.O.R.D.S.C.A.M.Pers have voted unanimously in favour of going to Alton Towers today instead of carrying on with the seminar as the weather isn’t too bad.

I can’t say I’m surprised and it probably is for the best.

The general mood of the gathering has been actually factually ugly.

The overwhelming and less than silent majority decided that electricity is not for them after all and computers are the work of dark shadowy forces.

As my speech was all about how lush technology is, I was becoming actually factually fearful that I wouldn’t get out of Sheepy Magna with my dignity still in tact.

So, a bit of an anti-climactic way to end a ground-breaking seminar.

But us model-makers loves our roller-coasters and just about anything that makes us scream like girls.

Live blogging from W.O.R.D.S.C.A.M.P.

I won’t be doing any live blogging or Twitter updates from W.O.R.D.S.C.A.M.P. over at Sheepy Magna.

The great and good and gormless of the professional model-making world, gathered in the Midlands for this glimpse at the digital revolution, have voted that they don’t want any computers, mobile telephonic devices or anything remotely technologicalised to disturb them over the next few days.

I argued vociferously and viciously against this narrow-minded point of view, but was shouted down and pinched quite hard on the upper arm by Norm Da Pluhm (to think we opened ourselves up to stay at our house an’ all).

Alas, the groupage decided on a “one step at a time” approach.

That first step is to be talking about the use of electricity and computers.

Actual factual computers and stuff might be allowed into next year’s W.O.R.D.S.C.A.M.P, but only if there is such an event - the model-makers might vote against electricity and computers this year.

The Shouty Villager’s photographer Bob Bastud did manage to take this shot of one of the first workshops - led by Dr Horace Hardenffasst, it looked at how secret radioactive waves are given off and fry your brains when you switch a plug socket on:

But then Bob was chased out of Sheepy Magna by a dozen angry model-makers, upset that he was trying to capture their very souls with his devil’s flashbox (his camera, to you and me).

I’ve never considered myself to be actually factually normal, but some of my fellow model-makers are even more backwards than those off of the Black Country and everything.

So I’ve popped down to The Furrowed Brow in order to write this blog post - they’ve got a rather delicious wi-fi facility to complement the excellent cheese flan and chips.

But I’ll be silent for the next few days, apart from publishing my marvellous speech on Sunday ahead of my keynote address that brings the house down - not in an actual factual sense - on Sunday afternoon.

There’s an Aussie loose about my house

We are horrified to provide a bed for several nights to the Honorary President of the Australian Model-Makers’ Organisation (AMMO), who is here for W.O.R.D.S.C.A.M.P.

He is not here in official AMMO capacity, rather he has just got electricity supplied to his workshop and is wondering whether to buy a computer.

He’s got himself a wireless which he’s already plugged into his studio to listen to hateful music, so I’ve been trying to tell him how that can help speed up his Internet connection to the w.w.w. (but I’m not sure he gets it).

My wife (Mrs Belm) has already been playing hostess with the moistness, providing a regular supply of her voluptuous finger foods.

Norm Da Pluhm is a thick-necked Aussie with exceptionally large spectacles and a very short temper. He’s brought an old woman with who he originally claimed was his wife, but when she protested her innocence he admitted he had picked up at Darwin airport because he liked her cardigan and he thought she was dressed appropriately for an English summer:

Norm’s sense of humour is hard to locate. He laughs like a donkey at the most curious things, then when I told him the old joke about quimquacks and Goose Jam he looked at me like I was speaking in foreign tongues and said: “You’re a bit of a tw*t, Belm?”

I’ve put a question mark because although it clearly wasn’t an actual factual question, more like an actual factual statement of actual factualness, the way he talks everything sounds like a question. With his silly voice, every sentence he utters rises towards the end to sound like a question.

It can cause a bit of confusion and consternation.

When he said “Nice nibbles?” to my wife (Mrs Belm) as he tucked into her generously curvy finger food, he was actually stating an actual factual fact - he liked what he was fingering into his mouth.

But it sounded like he was questioning the quality of her nibbles and needled to say Mrs Belm (my wife) took slight umbrage and punched Norm on the nose.

When the confusion was resolved and my wife (Mrs Belm) had kissed it better and stuff, Norm turned to me and said “She’s a feisty one” - which I took to be an actual factual statement, but was an actual factual question.

‘Tis all enough to make my head swim with dolphins and porpoises.

I’ll be glad when he leaves and takes the mysterious old woman with him.

Apart from the speaking confusion, he’s managing to upset all my neighbours - even Hugh G Leigh-Pithie, who is one of the most offensive people I know (and I know loads).

Norm has also managed to upset my staffage at Derek Belm & Sons, calling Maurice “uglier than a Dingo’s a-hole?”.

That was an actual factual statement of fact too, as Maurice is uglier than the ugliest thing you can think of - but we try hard not to draw attention to his facially challenged state of being. Maurice was so upsetted that his girlfriend, Gravel, is driving over from her home in Ysbyty Ystwyth tonight to give Norm a piece of her fist.

Alas, Norm will be with us until Thursday morning when I’ll take him over to Sheepy Magna for W.O.R.D.S.C.A.M.P. Thankfully, the seminar is a slumber party, so he’ll stay over there for the duration then he heads straight over to Ireland to annoy some distant relatively types.

I’ve decided to ask my head of security - ex-SAS eunuch Ianto ap Phhhhew - to chaperon Norm de Pluhn for the remainder of his stay to protect him from violent retribution.

I sometimes think I’m far too hospitable for my own liking.

Is this the end of the Maxi?

Troublesome news on a day of most irritating pronouncements.

On top of playing host to a thick-necked boorish Aussie for a few days and enduring a visit off of my brother’s ill-judged eldest daughter, I have received broken wind of some actual factual imposterisation.

It seems someone on a big boys’ newspaper believes me to be someone I’m actually factually not. A good name has been bismirched and stuff, so lawyers have been summoned and much stamping of feet has taken place.

Now I’m told by Klippings, my bestest wheelman, that following our recent sojourn down to meet up with the Norse worshippers, the trusty old rusty Maxi might have caused its final pile up.

The car that has been with myself and my wife (Mrs Belm) since our oldest of childs, Fennel, was but a smallish creature, is either in need of a radical overhaul or should be dispatched to the scrappers yard forthwith.

This photographic representation was taken on the day we took actual factual deliverage of the Maxi and went out for a bit of fire-raising as a celebration. There’s me unloading stuff whilst Mrs Belm (my wife) hands the accelerant to Fennel:

I am now seeking suggestions for a replacement vehicle and at the behesting of Sammy-Lou, my apprentice, will be looking for a more environmentally friendly form of transportation.

Klippings has already come up with a shortlist of 1 which he maintains actually factually tickles each and every box and he assures myself that despite the name - Hummer - it has nothing to do with music.

He is off to get sales brochure of the vehicle, which he also assures me is ideal for travailing down country lanes and is greener than a lush grassy field of frogs.

Maybe the Hummer will be the silver lineage of the cloudy day I’m harbouring underneath?