Here is Bones!

I've always been a fan of programmes like Rising Damp and Steptoe and Son and even as a child, I resolved to have a skeleton in the corner of a room somewhere. Yes, I know. That is a very odd ambition!

As promised last week, here is Bones, my largest skeleton which I bought from someone at work who was moving house. The guy who sold him to me carried him back to Poplar Road and I followed with the stand. Although the stand had wheels, it was worse than the wonkiest shopping trolley ever, constantly veering off course hence the carrying. Have you ever tried to steer a skeleton up a High Street when he doesn't want to go? When we got to Poplar Road, the man got in the lift with me and we put Bones back on his stand. I tried to shut the door quickly once we were inside but a Social Worker pressed the button and the lift doors sprang open. You should have heard the shriek when she saw me, the man from Education and the skeleton! It was only a small lift, so she said she'd take the stairs. Poor woman. I never saw her again.

As soon as I got him home (the skeleton, not the man) I decided to put him on the upstairs landing outside the bathroom. The scarf I already had, bought from a shop in Princes Street in 1986 - on my first visit to Edinburgh aged 15 - and the hat came from a joke shop in Ayr a few years after. The eyeballs came from the Bodies Exhibition when it came to Birmingham Digbeth a couple of years ago. So there you are! I forget he's there now I'm so used to him. Mercifully, I don't get many visitors. I was balancing a couple of steps down the stairs taking that picture, trying not to fall, by the way!

This track is appropriately called Bones. It was one of the songs featured on the series True Blood. I lost interest in the series but the soundtrack album is quite good. Bones!