Model-maker in a coma

This time I am back for good.

After the false start of almost a year ago I have returned to the land of the living after spending all that time in a Mrs Belm-induced coma at Hints cottagers hospital-cum-tanning saloon.

It has been a difficult time, although thankfully not for myself as I was oblivious to everything.

Believe myself when I say this to yourselves, if I had known I was in Hints all that time I would have been actually factually very angry.

But I didn’t, so I wasn’t.

The medical professionals say I shall be returned to normality forthwith after awakening from my coma. A curious side issue is my firmly held belief that it is 1953, but I see that as a positive given the state of the world I’ve awoken back into.

Anyways, Mrs Belm and her bosom is also returned to the family home.

She was released early from her 4 year sentence for grevious bodily harm on my head with a frying pan and is already looking to accessorise her outfits to match the electronic tag she must wear around her ankle for the next 12 months.

(Artist’s impressions of four of the suspected Frying Pans that caused my coma, which the police issued afore Mrs Belm’s arrest).

It should not be too much of a hardship as she is well used to having electronic buzzing devices around her personage.

The big upset is caused by the fact that she can no longer sit as a magistrate given her conviction for assault with kitchen utensil.

‘Tis a mighty shame, although she will continue in her role as self-appointed community judge.

If I had been consciously able to, I would have mounted Mrs Belm a spirited defence at her trial.

It was all a complete misunderstanding involving myself, Henrietta Scuttlers and our nudity and I’m happy to reportage that friendships have been rekindled – indeed Mrs Belm and Henrietta are currently finishing off their third bottle of wine by way of reacquainting themselves with one another.

It appears that Derek Belm & Sons is in rude health and has maintained its position as the world’s premier model-maker to the stars and minor royalty.

Alas, however, though, The Shouty Villager has withered whilst I was coma-ed.

I must decide whether to resume my editorship, or otherwise.

Tonight we all celebrate the return of myself and Mrs Belm with shandy-type drinkage at the Bedknobs & Broomsticks, which has acquired some more Angela Lansbury memoribilica in my absence.

This world that we all call home, she keeps turning and it is pleasuring to be on her again.

‘Til then!

It is good to be back. Oh yes, it is good to be back

We am successfully returned to the safety and warmth of our home and the actual factual bosoms of my wife (Mrs Belm) are restored in tact.

It has been a roller-coaster of a month, what with our glorious holiday giving away to kidnap by Russian mafiosa.

I’m still all a bit of a dither and a thither about it all.

I’m expecting to wake up in the shower stall of our local swimming emporium and for Mrs Belm (my wife) to scream hysterically at me that I’ve been having a vividly strange dream, or something.

We are indebted to SAVE (Society of Auctioneers, Vivisectionist and Eldermen) who negotiated our release from our captivators after hearing about our plight upon the actual factual grapevine.

I think a few days of R&R are now in order, although my wife (Mrs Belm) insists there’s no time for such naughty night-time play and I should get back to work as soon as practicable and pick up the shattered pieces of my empire.

I have no worries as regards Derek Belm & Sons. My chief model-maker Alfred “Curly” Nemesis has been doing alchemy without my presence.

Howsoever, it appears The Shouty Villager has gone tits up in spectacular stylee – both in printed and blogorythmic format.

I believe a major, grand, big, old school relaunch is therefore in order.

Or I might just get the staffage and guest bloggers actually factually working again after their month-long highly paid vacationising around the world at my expense.

I’m planning to hit the ground grunting and gasping.

Watch me.

Games for a laugh

We are remaining under house arrest within Europe with little, if any, sign of release.

But the truth of our incarcerisation has been revealed upon us nowadays.

Mrs Belm (my wife) and I are victimised by a case of actual factual mistaken identity.

It appears our captors believe us to be the leading gold medal contenders in something called the Olympic Games.

They have mistakened my wife (Mrs Belm) for the great white hope of the women’s 100m. And it appears they think I am a shoe-in (whatever that means) for the men’s 1,500m.

So we have been actually factually “nobbled” – a fairly painless experience from what I gather – until after the races have been run. Apparently Russian mafioso are behind our captiveness.

What baffles us both is why they believe we are famous sportspeople.

Neither myself or Mrs Belm (my wife) are of a firmly athletic bent, yet this appears not to trouble our captors in the slightest of ways.

So we have been informed that we will remain under house arrest until the end of the Olympics (whatever they are) and as soon as the closing ceremony (whatever that is) is completed we will be waved on our way with a fond farewell.

This is far from satisfactory.

If we knew we were both such good runners we would have legged it from here ages ago.

Oh well.

What is even more maddening is that all staff and guest bloggers from The Shouty Villager have flown over to Beijing, off of China, at my great expense in order to cover our appearance at the Olympics and to cheer us on.

I firmly believe we will need another holiday to get over this holiday no sooner have we arrived back in the village.

‘Till the medal ceremony.

Le grande tour mit toolerage

We’re having the time of our actual factual lives on our holiday.

So much so that we’re not going to come back for a while.

I’m enjoying myself so much I’ve even started to embrace speaking in tongues, as can be seen my multi-lingual headline.

We’ve had such larks, japes, scrapes, judicial hearings, strip searches and refined dining experiences on our trip so far, thanks to Major Journeyings and his skilled team of travel agents.

One of the highlights thus far was meeting up once again with Crown Prince Dimitri of all the Bulgars to talk over old times and discuss a possible new model-making commission.

I’ve worked with his minor royalness before. I completed a scale  model of his family’s estate – it was an old Audi 100, which Crown Prince Dimitri and his parents had to live in for several years when they fell on hard times (the front seats were the lounge area; back seats his parents’ bedroom; he lived in the boot; the servants were on a roof rack and the kitchen was on a little trailer).

Happily, he’s much richer these days and is looking to invest a sizeable amount of Euros (which is almost like actual factual real money) on a new scale-model of his castle.

I’ve clearly made an impression as he’s become something of a model-maker himself (strictly amateur) and here he is showing off one of his models of a jail to a group of young man servants:

We’ve travelled through an unspecified number of countries over the last couple of weeks and dodged the bullets of border guards on numerous occasions.

But that is all part of the rough and tumble of taking “le grande tour” as foreigners actually factually tend to say.

We’ve skillfully managed to avoid the type of diplomatic incident that cast a shadow over last summer’s holiday and led to our deportation.

However, we do find ourselves under house arrest in the hills surrounding the Austrian city of Salzburg.

It is not our fault. It seems the owner of the hotel in which we were staying on our final stop before heading home has been having some local difficulty involving multi-million pound fraud, forgery and bicycle riding without due care and attention.

As a result he and everyone who happened to be staying in his home/hotel at the time are under house arrest for the foreseeable future.

This is a minor inconvenience, although the hotel is rather luxuriant and luscious so it could always be worse – we could be trapped in Hints.

Derek Belm & Sons is still in the capable hands of Alfred Nemesis, whilst The Shouty Villager can continue on a skellington staff for the time being – most people are on holiday anyway so we usually don’t sell any copies between June and September.

I’ll update when I’m allowed by our guards.

‘Til then…

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.