Lowlife No 16 - The Secret Lemonade Drinker

The Secret Lemonade Drinker

I won’t be wearing a black armband in honour of Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday, but it was sad to hear of the demise of the esteemed and loved English character actor Richard Griffiths who died at Easter.   It was good to see that when Griffiths’s death was announced on Good Friday that St John’s Church, Halesowen flew their St George’s flag at half mast in honour of the great man.    I can’t think of any other reason why on Good Friday the flag would have been at half mast; I’m not that au fait with the world of Christian religion but surely nothing bad or untoward could have happened on Good Friday or they would have called it Bad Friday.    Good Fridays used to be bad though as the pubs shut early, the shops were shut altogether and there was no horse racing.  But at least it was a Bank Holiday, so on balance the description of the day as “Good” was justified.    There was a headline on BBC News 24 today reading, “THATCHER COFFIN” – I thought if they don’t sort that cough out, it will kill her.

I was reading an obituary of Richard Griffiths while eating my lunch of gruel style sausage casserole the other day.  The last batch of the casserole that I cooked yielded 10 portions and I only used 8 budget sausages (and I ate one of those during the cooking process) so on average that is 7/ 10ths  of a sausage per portion, which is a more meagre ration than would have been the case in war time Britain.  My financial situation is increasingly dire so cutbacks are somehow needed but if I cut my meat rations back any more I will basically be a vegetarian, which would at least please my veggie friend Miss C.  When they emptied the supermarket shelves on the back of the recent horse meat scandal they should have brought the produce around to my residence, Codger Mansions, as I would have eaten it without reservation or hesitation (but with a little English mustard.)

Despite the lack of pennies in my coffers I finally had to bite the bullet and buy new work shoes (see Lowlife No 1), so it was off to pay a little trip to the shoe shop I normally use, as their brand of shoes are always supremely comfortable, if a little pricey.   Despite the shoes feeling agreeable in the shop, once I started to wear them they felt about as comfortable as being in a lift with the Kray Twins.  Another doomed venture.  I put a brave face on the matter and decided to break the shoes in, which I foolish thought would not take long; it would be easier to break in the Bank of England. 

Being Monday morning I could not face the crippling shoes, so I am now wearing an old pair which are not suitable for the office and are unattractive all round, I cannot think what possessed me to buy them in the first place; they look like a pair of Cornish pasties, but at least they are comfortable.

On describing my shoe misery to Willy Mantitt he confided in me that due to an over ambitious lunch his slim-fit shirt was a little taut.  I predicted that after Mantitt reaches the shortly impending milestone of forty years of age that he will never purchase a slim-fit shirt again, consistently opting for comfort over style.   I forewarned Willy that one day he will catch himself sauntering around Marks & Spencers in a daze wondering how he got there. It comes to us all. Mark my words, I cautioned.

I never actually buy anything from M&S as I always find that for me the clothes are oddly cut and ill fitting and I question what I am doing there and covenant never to return - this is probably part of the rights of passage process to actually purchasing clothes from there.

M & S sell wonderful slippers though, a comment which in itself is a sign of getting older.

As the lovely Mrs Mantitt is to give birth in June Willy has rather rashly made the solemn promise to stop drinking at the end of May.  I predicted that if he is good to his word and ceases tippling at the close of May that given the stresses of the impending arrival of the infant he will begin drinking again at the beginning of June.   I counselled that the strains of having a baby will only be eased with a little swill of grog as the naïve Mantitt will need a tipple more than ever.  And having a week’s paternity leave will put Willy in holiday drinking mode anyway.

If Mantitt does genuinely comply with his undertaking to stop imbibing, he will more than likely end up being a secret lemonade drinker, which is the worst type of drunk. He will find all sorts of ridiculous excuses to pop down to the garden shed to have a quick snifter of a secretly secreted bottle of Limón cello, his favourite tipple.  

I know for a fact that Willy has a drinks fridge located in his garage and given the seclusion of the location he simply will not be able to help himself.  While Mrs Mantitt thinks Willy is fashioning a shelf out of surplus wood, he will actually be sampling Smirnoff whilst perching on the sit down lawnmower.  Apparently, Mantitt’s father-in-law, who often helps with loathsome DIY tasks while the Mantitts are out, knows the whereabouts of the vodka and greedily quaffs the lot.  I advocated that Willy create a sub-stash of booze in the garage, but that really would be going too deep into secret lemonade drinker territory to the point of no return.

I usually associate the point of no return and drinking with the stage of the day after a heavy session where you need to start drinking again before you start to slide into the abyss.  I tend to think of 1600 hours as generally the point of no return, but it can of course be dependent on the variables of the drinking session in question (length and time of session/ amount of alcohol drunk/ type of alcohol drunk/ quantity of food consumed etc.)

Mantitt is a Cockney (or more adequately described as a Mockney) and I had the great pleasure in attending a concert performed by fellow Tottenham Hotspur supporters of Willy’s in the guise of the loveable Chas ‘n’ Dave.  I am indebted to my good friend Alexander Sutcliffe for generously donating me ticket to the concert at Birmingham Town Hall.  Although the ticket was free the performance was priceless. 

In the first half of the set the duo rocked their way through songs that they played in London pubs in the 1970’s before they became famous, including numbers by Piano Red, Harry Champion, Jerry Lee Lewis and Clarence Frogman Henry.  Chas was leisurely dressed in an Hawaiian shirt, turd catchers and Crocs sandals and it was highly impressive stuff (the music that is, not Chas’s clothing combo).  After the break Chas re-appeared in smart frock coat, trousers, shirt and shoes and the band banged out their 1980’s foot-tapping hits to the delight of the audience.   Both Alexander and I agree that it was a show straight out of the top drawer.

I noted the band’s drummer was new and I imagined how the advertisement for the position read in the London Evening Standard, “Chas ‘n’ Dave require a drummer – must be able to play Cockney pub classics.”   The drummer turned out to be the son of the original drummer Mick Burt.

In the highly unlikely event that I get married again it would be wonderful to have the dynamite duo playing at the reception in the Flaggon & Gorses but it is more likely that I will win the lottery than get married and I don’t even buy a lottery ticket.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my friend Willy Mantitt for his ongoing entertaining correspondence, which is a great help to me in the writing of this column.

I am blessed with the most wonderful friends (in addition to a number of less desirable associates.)   Society generally values marriage and romantic bonds above friendship, but generally friendship lasts for life and often romantic unions do not.  With this in mind, I would urge all my close friends, or at least some of them, to change the terms of their Last Will and Testaments to leave me some of their assets and chattels.  At the very least I would be eternally grateful if someone could bequeath me a decent vacuum cleaner; it does not even have to be a Dyson.  My vacuum cleaner is less than adequate as it actually spits out more dust and debris than it sucks up, so I have to finish the job with a dustpan and brush; I am exceedingly thankful that I have got laminate flooring in Codger Mansions and not a carpet.   And remember dear friends, the gift of the vacuum cleaner is contingent on you dying, so why should you give a sh*t. 

© Dominic Horton, 18^th March, 2013.

Lowlife No 15 - Grab a Granny

Grab a Granny

What a start to the week.  It can only get better.  

I was having a very pleasant time watching Goodnight Sweetheart on UK Gold whilst breakfasting but had to cut the episode short to undertake the inconvenience of going to work.  I had no desire to watch the programme, starring the gangly Nicholas Lindhurst, while it was running but viewing it by accident this morning I quite enjoyed it. 

The nanas were so bad on the train once I got to the Jewellery Quarter station that I had to get off the choo choo for fear of being sick and hot foot the rest of the journey into work through the snow.  It turned out to be a lovely walk encountering a number of young beauties walking up Livery Street and looking at the long icicles hanging enchantingly off the viaduct arches. 

I finally got to work only to find the computer was up the swanny and a stream of irritants then set about busting my balls to such a degree that I had to hide in the toilets for 5 minutes just to get a breathe of air.   Two people were on the blower before 10 asking if I had dealt with their emails that they sent to me after close of business on Friday.  No sir, I have not read your email.  I have been attending to the much more important business of visiting a cheese and cider festival on Saturday with the Still-in-Fjords and the Noog and spending the day in the good ship the Waggon yesterday discussing religion, amongst other things, with the Pirate and Lario Manza. The Pirate concluded the discussion with the unanswerable statement about god, “if he’s such a good bloke why does he want to f*ck me up.” 

The only heartening thing so far today is that I have managed to foreclose on a deal to purchase a rather fetching light check Italian sports jacket for the bargain price of £9.99, an absolute steal in anyones estimation.   I won’t be able to wear the jacket in the Beech Tree in Blackheath though (known in Blackheath as The Big Beech, given the smaller Banks’s house also called The Beech Tree down the road), as it as been shut for some while.    The subject of the Beech Tree arose, as my valuer and auctioneer associate Willy Mantitt asked me about the pub.

The Beech Tree was the socialising home of Birchley Football Club when I was manager and the venue where the Frymaster General used to burn his chest hair for a whip round of £1 each.  Great value entertainment.    The burnt chest hair smelt like marijuana, so Rose the landlady accused us of smoking dope, which was ironic as we were the only people in there not on drugs.

Two killer lines were delivered in that pub.  The landlady Rose (a depressive type from Liverpool) had a daughter, Pip, who worked there, who had a certain attraction but who had a little excess baggage, so to speak.  Rose apologised for the post-football chips being late and justified it by stating, “I only have one little fat fryer.”  To which Taffy famously replied, “Please don’t talk about Pip like that.”

The other line was delivered by the formidable Liam Jelly Jinkins, my favoured central defensive partner, second only to Sleepy Tom Parker.  We used to have a themed fancy dress day the game before Christmas and one year we had a grannies day.   Everyone was true to form.  Harry Gout dressed as a down at heal scumbag granny (and his dedication to authenticity was such that he even stank of p*ss) and the Frymaster as a Burlington Bertie slag granny in full ball gown.   Mine was a shoddy effort and given the freezing weather I desperately needed tights.  The Imp and Lolly went to town with their outfits and the former looked like an archetypal granny and the latter looked actually quite attractive.

On the Sunday morning of the match, to my great relief as boss of BFC the opposition manager called me while my bunch of 9 desperado players (which is all we could scrape together) were assembled on Toys ‘r’ Us car park to say the game was postponed due to a frozen pitch.  We repaired to Sainsbury’s café for porky breakfast goodness, so I took the opportunity to remedy the lack of tights while we were there.  I mistook a shopper for a Sainsbury’s shop assistant and asked her what size tights she thinks I needed, to which she replied in a straight faced fashion, “you will be a large love.”  Given her lack of humour she must have thought I was a genuine but albeit inferior transvestite. 

Once the breakfast had settled, showing a distinct lack of patience we sauntered to the Beech Tree and knocked persistently on the door to alert Rose the landlady that we required entrance, given it was only 1030 hrs.  The front door bolt was drawn back and in we shambled.  As skipper, Jelly took the initiative and approached the bar and came out with the fabled line, “nine sweet sherries please.”

Being impoverished at BFC we had to train on a cheap concrete pitch on Thursday evenings at Somers’ Club in Halesowen and Jelly is the only man I know who would slide tackle on the concrete, which sums up his committed character.  He should indeed be committed.  

We trained from 2000 hrs until 2100 hours so once we had showered and changed it did not leave too much time to relax in the bar and as a consequence the Frymaster, Taffy and I invariably ended up in the Stag & Three Horse Shoes as they served late.  One week there was a sign behind the bar saying “bottles of wine £3.”   The Frymaster ordered a bottle of red and a bottle of white for himself and when the barmaid asked him how many glasses he wanted he replied, “none.”  He proceeded to stand there with the bottle of rouge in his right hand and the blanco in his left, swigging from the bottles.   Needless to say, the following morning the Frymaster woke in a less than optimum state and it was only the charity of his staff at the bookmakers where he worked, taking him for a livener at opening time, that saved him.

Back to the grannies day and we foolishly migrated into Birmingham city centre and trawled around various bars to the bemusement of their brethren.   In the Walkabouts bar I met my future sister-in-law for the first time and what an impression I must have made being three sheets to the wind and dressed as a discreditable grandmother.   

After dancing on the Walkabouts stage with the band Broken Spokes (which I have no recollection of but was informed of later) it was out sloshed into the night alone to organise transport home.   I had a little treat in store for myself for the homeward journey as I remembered that I had earlier hidden half a kebab in a bush close to the bus stop.  In the time honoured fashion of my associate Sleepy Tom Parker I nodded off on the bus and was relieved that the kindly Jamaican bus driver, who recognised me, woke me up shouting the words, “Hey granny, wake up, it’s time to get off the bus.”   And for a poor old pensioner like me, there ended a long and tiring day.

© Dominic Horton, 26^th March, 2013. 

Lowlife No 14 - The Lights Have Gone Out

The Lights Have Gone Out

Apparently on Saturday my employers are generously going to switch off all the lights in its offices between the hours of 2030 and 2130 hours in order to benefit the environment as part of what’s known as Earth Hour.  That is very honourable of the Bank given that the vast majority of its offices are shut between those hours anyway and will subsequently be in darkness.  

I hope they don’t turn the lights off at the Coven Cheese and Cider festival that I am to attend as the band will be playing at that time and it will be an awful mess on the dance floor, especially as Mr Still-in-Fjord is likely to be gracing it.  In addition to that I will have had a few drinks by that stage and I will not be able to find my way to the bar in the gloom, which would be disastrous. 

Talking of dance floors, while having an impromptu midday drink the other Wednesday, the Phantom, the Man from Planet Bjazz and I invented the idea of having a lunchtime disco for office workers in Birmingham (more like Earth, Wind & Fire Hour, as opposed to Earth Hour.)  “Invented” might be too stronger a word as I am sure various landlords must have come up with the idea in the past.  After the Phantom conducted brief research the only reference he could find to a lunchtime disco was at a pub in Cowdenbeath, which looked like the kind of place where you might get your disco balls crushed if you looked at someone the wrong way.  

The benefit of the lunchtime disco would be of particular importance to youthful married people with children who struggle to get out on the weekend but like a boogie and a drink.  If such revellers worked quickly, in an hour they could have at least three pints, followed by awful “shooters”, French kiss someone on the dance floor, eat a kebab on the way back to work before being sick in the office toilets.   I can envisage wives across the country with the look of suspicion in their eyes when their loves leave for work on a Friday morning wearing platform boots, an open neck shirt with fly away collar and a gold medallion, with their chins slavered in Brut. 

Anyway getting back to the thread (if there ever was one), given my drinking habits on the Sabbath, if my employers want to switch off all the lights, computers and telephones for an hour first thing on Monday morning it would be most welcome.  But if they did that my sober minded, bushy tailed colleagues would soon get bored and bother me to “chat”, which in the first hour of the working week is plain rude, or worse malicious.  On second thoughts, the Bank had better leave the lights, computers and telephones on to protect my fragile sanity.

After spending the lion’s share of the day at the Pirate’s Pleasure Palace (better known as the Flagon & Gorses) on Sunday with Jolly D, Fudkins and others, I wanted, and fortunately got for once, a peaceful opening period to the working week.

I felt desperately sorry for Jolly D on Sunday.  We had a rip snorting afternoon/ tea time in the Flagon where everybody was in top form and it was a laugh a minute.  You could tell that D was in no mood to leave the pub but he appeared to have promised his missus that he would be back by a specified time.  He went through the “just one more” routine twice before he finally realised the game was up and he headed off into the sunset.  And I thought to myself, rather him than me.  

Before strolling up to the Flagon I really should have done my pile of ironing, or at least reduced it, but as ironing is a horrible spirit sapping sport I decided to ignore it hoping that it would go away.   Consequently, I was scrambling around for a shirt to wear and all I could find was the one work shirt that I had ironed for Monday morning.  I couldn’t be bothered ironing a leisure shirt, so I went out in the work shirt.  The knock on effect of that was that I had to iron a work shirt on Monday morning, which with the shakes was a precarious task. If I had the dough I would hire a cleaning lady to do all of my housework without a shadow of doubt.

As early Sunday evening descended Toby-in-Tents popped into the Flagon for half an hour with his buoyant dog Sauvey, who was unusually calm during the visit.  On the basis of that brief stay Toby now claims that Sauvey is boozer familias (see Lowlife edition 10) but that is akin to saying that my beloved Aston Villa are a great team simply because we beat QPR on Saturday – Sauvey will need to produce a run of consistent form to have me suitably convinced that he can placidly dwell in the pub for any length of time.

Talking to Fudgkins, the concept of boozer familias again cropped up as Sunday wore on.  We discussed the scenario that all drinkers know that if you are faced with having to visit an earthly (i.e. dog rough and threatening) public house if you simply enter and buy a pint and front it out, things normally turn out favourably.    “After all,” Fudgey commented, “the worst thing that could happen is that you could be stabbed to death.”  Comforting words indeed.

In other news, my spirits crisis is over – Philly the Gent agreed to sell me 3 bottles of Martell  Brandy for £30, which is an absolute steal.   The Gent has a touch of the old gout again and is not supposed to drink on the tablets that he has been prescribed, so he ordered a coke on my round in the Flagon the other night and I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would ever have to ask him the question, “do you want diet or normal.” The brandy was just the pick me up I needed after the disappointment of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which I haven’t forgiven the Frymaster General for, given his appalling tip.  After Saturday evening’s trip to see the Stranglers with the Frymaster and Jonty Von Rossi, I mused that the last three times I’ve been out with the Frymaster he has behaved himself and it’s giving me cause for concern because I can foresee all his suppressed roguishness exploding spectacularly like a dormant volcano, such as happened with the Elton John fiasco at Belbrougton last year.

A few of us were camping at Belbroughton Beer Festival last summer, except for Sleepy Tom Parker and his entourage as his long suffering girlfriend Struth refuses to camp and I  don’t blame her given that she would have to share a tent with Sleepy Tom.   After the beer festival the Frymaster invited me to have a nightcap with him outside his tent, which turned out to be rank, warm scrumpy which had been festering in his motor all day, which was the last thing I needed after a dozen odd pints of real ale.  

The Frymaster decided to put some music on his car stereo to add to the general ambience and within no time at all Elton John’s Rocket Man was blaring out, which always gets me but that’s another story.    Within no time at all a woman popped out of her tent and urged us to turn the volume down a little as her young daughter was trying to get to sleep.   Just as I was about to say, “of course my love, apologies” the Frymaster got there before me and told her where to go in no uncertain terms.   The woman was less than pleased about the Frymaster’s unwitty retort and things were getting slightly heated but I managed to get Tez turn Elton down to an acceptable volume level.

When I went to water the bushes the Frymaster sneakily turned the volume up loud again and the whole palaver was repeated with the woman getting more aggressive, much to the Frymaster’s amusement.   On that note I took my bow and retired to my pop up tent.

When I awoke in the morning there was a breeze blowing in through a gaping hole in my tent.  I remembered that I had got up to wee in the night but in my befuddled state I couldn’t get out of the tent so for fear of swamping myself I had to rip my way out like the Incredible Hulk.

After Alexander Sutcliffe supplied digestive biscuits and cheese and onion crisps for breakfast it was time to depart but poor old Barty Hook was in a less than optimum state so he plumped for a lie in.  He was rudely awoken at lunchtime by the security staff who told him to strike camp and f*ck off.  

When the bleary eyed Barty finally emerged from his tent, looking like Papillion after a spell of solitary in a French Guiana gaol, he saw that only one other tent remained in the field, being the tent that I had left behind given the significant rip in it.   Being tainted and confused, the puzzled Barty thought that I had been abducted by aliens in the night, so it was to his great disappointment when he contacted me later only to find I was recovering in the tranquilizing environment of the Flagon & Gorses.

Postscript

My thoughts and warm wishes are wholeheartedly with my dear friend Mark Rutter (Lowlife’s the Imp) and his family as he has Leukaemia again and is currently being treated in hospital for the condition. 

Mark has proved on a number of occasions beyond reproach that he has the heart of a lion and a relentlessly stoic and positive outlook towards adversity and these immense qualities will stand him in good stead in the testing times ahead.  I will be there with you my friend. 

© Dominic Horton, 20 ^th March, 2013.