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
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
In the first half of the set the duo rocked their way through songs that
they played in London
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, 18th March,
2013.
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