Judging a book by its cover

LOCKDOWN – or Grandad Not At Large, as I like to call it – has led to a weekly family challenge.

It is set during our regular Sunday Zoom meetings, when we all get together for a video catch-up. We then have until the following week to submit our entries, and a friend acts as an independent judge.

Week One involved recreating a famous work of art. Unbelievably, I didn’t win despite posing in a bowler hat, and with an apple on my nose, to bring Magritte’s ‘Son of Man’ to life.

For Week Two, we had to recreate a famous album cover. I painted the Stars and Stripes on my thumb with meticulous care to replicate Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ but, again, I was denied victory.

Week Three had us recreating a famous book cover, and finally, I had an opportunity to make full use of my method acting skills. I opted for Mr Grumpy.

A large cardboard box was painted blue, complete with eyes and an ill-tempered mouth. Holes were cut in the sides for my arms, and a top hat completed the look. The title – Mr Grumpy, by Roger Hargreaves – was copied onto a piece of paper, so it could be stuck to the wall above the hat, and I was ready for the photo-shoot.

There were two key factors I forgot to take into consideration: my wife’s inability to work the camera on my phone; and my claustrophobia.

The claustrophobia is a relatively recent affliction. I can no longer cope with lifts, or MRI scanners. If I need to go to the toilet on a train, I have to wedge the door open with my foot. This makes ‘aiming’ more difficult than ever, especially if it’s a bumpy track, but I’ve become quite skilled at it. That said, if it happens to be one of those more modern trains, with an electric sliding door, I’m scuppered.

Anyway, back to Mr Grumpy. I squeezed inside my cardboard box for the photo-shoot, and the seconds passed as I heard my wife saying: “Oh, this isn’t working – you’ll have to hang on while I work it out.”

I was starting to panic, with beads of sweat forming on my brow, and my heartbeat quickening. Just as I thought I could stand it no more, she finally managed to take a picture, and I escaped from the box.

“Sorry, you’ll need to do it again,” she said, inspecting the photograph. “Your legs are too long – you’ll need to kneel down.”

Once again, I entered the blue box from hell and gritted my teeth while she again tried to master the camera. This time, I was sweating buckets, swamped with nightmarish visions of being trapped underground in a coffin.

“The title’s too high now – we’ll need to unstick it and bring it further down the wall,” she declared.

By this time, it was a real life Mr Grumpy inside the box, but I had to bite my tongue because I had no one else to take the picture.

It had to endure five takes in the cramped darkness before we eventually had a satisfactory picture and, by then, I was ready to check into The Priory for counselling.

After all that, I was beaten by my youngest son, recreating Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by shoving on a pair of specs and throwing a red blanket over his bass drum to make it look vaguely like the Hogwarts Express.

Never mind ‘Mr Grumpy’ – I was ‘Mr Bloody Incandescent’.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

BEFORE the lockdown, my granddaughter, Chloe, aged three, popped round with a present.

“I got you a Curly Wurly, Grandad,” she said. “You like it?”

“Oh, yes, it’s my favourite, Chloe,” I replied.

“You want to share it?” she asked.

CHLOE was in big trouble the other day because she’d bitten her Mummy.