I’ve been a 700-a-week man for as long as I can remember

No it’s not because of my age, it is because Eddy Tor has shortened me.

And no he hasn’t hit me over the head with a shovel. We are on a word economy drive. The country is trying to save wherever it can and we are doing our bit by saving words.

I’ve been a 700-a-week man for as long as I can remember, but am trying to cut down to 500.

Who said, ‘Thank God’? That wasn’t very nice. It’s a dilemma, I tell you, trying to think how to use so few words. What can I do with them?

Maybe I could list the interesting things about myself. That would take two with only 498 to go.

You will notice I am using numbers in number form to save using words, but I don’t suppose I’ll get away with it. I thought that maybe I could make more lists.

Thank you, Bob and Betty Dudgeon for your kind comments on January 26 about my list of memories.

Like you, my parents were married longer than two life sentences, but I suppose once you’ve done one life sentence, another is plain sailing. I can’t stop my naughty side but thinking of prison and your surname Dudgeon. it does sound rather like a dungeon when you have a cold.

My surname, Nomates sounds like Mr Miserable even when in the rudest of health. By the way Bob and Betty, Ms Nomates regrettably is not my wife. She won’t walk down the aisle with me. She will, but only the aisle of a supermarket.

We both love food shopping. I know some men can’t understand how a man can enjoy the art of super marketing.

It is because I am a greedy pig. She hates being a miss and refuses to be a Mrs, so she is a Ms (pronounced Muzz).

Had we got married when I first asked her I would be celebrating seven years. I say ‘I’ because she might get the seven year itch.

I’m not going to let that happen so I’m having her sprayed next week just to be sure. Miss in college will be pleased that I have to use fewer words.

As she always teaches us, we need to ‘show don’t tell’. It is a technique writers use to use fewer words to paint a picture rather than reporting something. (ignore this if you happen to be a reporter).

Here is an example to illustrate what I mean. I could ‘tell’ and say. ‘Billy Nomates fancied Ms Nomates’. Boring. Now I’ll ‘show’. Billy drooled in to his now forgotten pint of creamy bitter, ignoring the pork scratchings on the table, his appetite stifled, drawn to the angelic vision with film star good lucks and flowing locks like straw on fir, drift past him in to the dimly lit room where hung the dart board. Oops, that was more words but see what you’ve started Eddy Tor?

Mills and Boon want me now.

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