The hills are alive with the sound of Dennis

Well hello again, sadly due to work committments and other chores I have recently had to ignore Dennis. However, this week I was pleased to see him back and on top form. You see Dennis hates anything and anyone official. Too many times he has had to deal with a jobs worth beaurocrat and this week he had to take on Her Majestys Revenue & Customs. Now, Dennis has had several battles in the past with HMRC. Notably several years ago whilst in the middle of, what he likes to call, his dark times, not because things were so bleak, but because for two months thank to an administrative error on his part, his electricity supplier saw fit to turn off his electric supply. This meant every evening he found himself leaning out of the window of his first floor flat straining to see next doors TV. All was fine until he realised that not only could he see Coronation Street for the deaf but he could also see into the flat directly below where a certain Mr and Mrs Ziomber lived with their 17 year old daughter Ania. Sadly for Dennis her room was in his eyeline. Accordingly one Saturday night whilst watching Match of the Day he excitedly called out 'let's see what you've got' unfortunately Ania was just going to bed. With something lost in translation Dennis found himself first in casualty and then in the local police station trying to explain he was calling at the TV hoping to see his favourite team show some backbone and not at young Ania hoping to see what she had.

Anyway, I digress. Dennis has a very low opinion of HMRC. Once before he found himself arguing with a faceless voice from the Revenue because they had written to Dennis tellling him they owed him £410 for a tax overpayment. Sadly for Dennis they had also discovered that the following year Dennis had underpaid tax to the tune of £143.16. With the Revenue being the Revenue they wanted their money first before they would pay Dennis. Despite his protestations they insisted they could not offset one amount against the other and Dennis had to pay the underpayment. Of course the Revenue then took two months to pay Dennis during which he entered his 'dark times'.

This time Dennis knew he was right. He was owed money by the taxman and he wanted it. He had already spent it several times and now he needed what was his. However, when ringing the tax refund hotline he was treated to the full soundtrack to Sound of Music, twice, before someone called PJ answered. It soon became apparent that PJ had no idea what was happening and passed Dennis onto a colleague. After a further round of the Sound of Music and man who was Mr. came on the phone. Surely if he is called Mr then he must know what was going on with Dennis's claim. But no, he claimed it was nothing to do with this department and rather hurriedly put him back to the switchboard where he renewed his relationship with PJ, who this time sticking to his story that he knew nothing put Dennis through to a technical expert. By now Dennis had lost the will to live and was filling in his organ donor card when he was stopped in his tracks, because the new Mr. actually did seem to know about his circumstances. Dennis felt a smile coming across his face as Mr Technical expert said all the right things, but then came the double whammy, he couldn't help but felt Dennis needed to speak with a 'colleague', the line went quiet for a moment and then back came...........Julie Andrews and the hills are alive, Dennis closed his eyes, took a deep breath and was transported to the Austrian Tyrrol.......again.

The wedding

Poor Dennis, he really doesn’t like weddings, especially on a Saturday night when he likes nothing more than ordering a take away Indian, which he eats while overdosing on trashy reality TV shows like celebrity roller skating on ice. He always buys a bottle of wine from the supermarket, not any old bottle, always a good one, he even bought one once for £4.99, unfortunately this fruity little red turned out to be a little acidic for Dennis and he spent the next three days staring into the bottom of his toilet, still it did make him go and buy some bleach, which just happened to be on special offer, so he now has a bathroom that is not only cleaner than a hospital but smells like one too.

Dennis stared at the wedding invitation, ‘Mr and Mrs Terry Hall request the pleasure of’. He wasn’t even sure he knew a Mr and Mrs Hall, but on investigation he discovered they were the prospective in laws of Karen from Accounts. To his horror the invite went on to invite not only Dennis but partner as well.  Partner, now they were taking the piss. Dennis hadn’t had a partner since the training course incident several years ago. It’s alright falling back onto the arms of your ‘partner’ but as Dennis had discovered, key to this exercise in trust is, to be there for your partner. Unfortunately for Dennis he hadn’t heard the trainer call a break in the proceedings and had fallen back expecting to be caught, but as he fell backwards his partner was having a well earned cup of tea and iced ring doughnut, by the time Dennis came round all the doughnuts were gone and only the plain biscuits were left.

Arriving at the reception he caught the tale end of the Grooms speech, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad a night as he thought. He looked round the room and all the usual wedding caricatures were there, he studied the room and his eyes fell on a group of women all of whom had seen better days. Why, he wondered, do these women, who all know the way to the pie shop insist on wearing extremely short dresses with bare legs which, due to the ravages of time (and pies) look like a lunar landscape. They also wear heavy high heeled shoes that look like something Frankenstein’s monster would have worn to go dancing.

Talking of which, is there anything sadder than watching the dance floor at a wedding when it is full of the old folk all trying to recapture their lost youth, where once they danced round their handbags, they now dance round their zimmer frames. The dance floor is normally full of middle aged wedding guests still in their best suits, for they wont remove their jackets all, desperately trying to look like they are enjoying the experience, yet you can feel their pain as they try to move in time with the beat. Dennis meanwhile had found himself dragged onto the floor by young Debbie from the post room and while she was rubbing herself up against him in a mildly erotic manner Dennis was desperately reciting the 7 times table to himself to try and avoid the blood rushing to a rather under used part of his body. However, the inevitable happened and Dennis had to endure an erection the like of which he had not known since 2003 when he was watching an old Carry On film and caught a glimpse of Barbara Windsor in a bikini. On that occasion the erection rather crept up on him, this time, however, it rather crept up on young Debbie, who one moment was dancing the Lambada and the next was pole dancing albeit on a small pole. Dennis got a slap round the cheek for his trouble and young Debbie ran off to tell all her colleagues. Dennis trooped off the dance floor and shuffled awkwardly to the toilets from where he emerged 5 minutes later feeling somewhat more relaxed. He looked closely into the mirror and sighed a resigned sigh because he knew he would never live this down.  Dennis looked into the mirror again and thought how much he hated going out.

Say Hello to Dennis

This is my new blog. I am a man of a certain age and I have an alter ego. His name is Dennis. I don’t know why he is called Dennis, but he is, and for some reason it seems to suit him. We live in a politically correct world and all of us have to mind our P’s and Q’s. One wrong word in the wrong ear and you will bring down a world of pain upon yourself. However, Dennis doesn’t care what he says. He doesn’t care because he isn’t real. He does have a history though, I invented it one day whist lying in bed suffering from a severe bout of diarrhoea. I couldn’t go far from the haven of the bathroom so between visits Dennis came to visit and has never left.

Dennis is somewhat older than me and therefore even less tolerant. He is like an older dog who endures a puppy climbing all over him until he snaps and admonishes the puppy, who retreats for a moment, but then starts all over again. He has had several jobs and hated them all. He was once in the forces, but unfortunately due to an incident with a rather angry verucca and an over sharpened bayonet he was medically discharged and to this day he winces when he walks by the Butchers window. Dennis has had many jobs and been unsuccessful in them all. He thinks it is down to attention deficit syndrome, his employers have always put it down to Dennis being incompetent.

Dennis is unlucky in love too. He was married once, to his childhood sweetheart. Lisa. However, after 3 children, 4 dogs and a mortgage, his wife developed an unhealthy interest in her Gym instructor and after Lisa started to put herself through three hard sessions a week Dennis came home early to find that the gym had relocated to his bedroom and discovered that it was not only Lisa who was finding the sessions hard. He has never been able to eat sausages since that night.

Dennis is now an armchair philosopher and shares all his inner thoughts using me as his mouthpiece. I am sure Dennis will make you mad, make you laugh and make you ask questions.  I am also sure you will soon find you have your own Dennis.