I did it Peapod
[For those of
you who know my dear friend Mark Rutter, I would like to make it clear than the
following was written prior to the events of the last week or so.]
This Monday morning finds me bloated and this on account of eating
a whole packet of Aldi’s own family size Frazzles-style crisps when I got home
from the Flagon & Gorses last night, which was pure gluttony as it was on
top of a curry that I had prepared for myself before going to the pub. I
bought the imitation Frazzles with other associated nibbles and beer for
tonight’s match as my son the Cannonball (now called Kenteke), Alfie C and Tom
Holliday are coming round to my Codger Mansions bolthole to watch the
football. Mind you, it is probably a good thing that I am bloated as I am
off to Rackhams at lunchtime to try on a pair of navy formal trousers that are
selling for half price in the sale – it’s like the old trick of having a big
meal prior to trying on a hired wedding suit as you need room to manoeuvre once
you have consumed the wedding breakfast.
Why is it that when I am making a rare personal call at work that the
office always goes deathly silent so everyone can hear my business? I had to call my mother to see how her dog
Thai is as he was taken into the vets this morning. Mom called me at 0630 hours asking if I could
help get poor old Thai down the stairs to take to the vet (as Mom lets him
sleep in her bedroom) as he is a Doberman roughly the size of a small
horse. Mom called me back to say the
vets are going to move him as it is a specialist job. As my colleagues can only hear me and not my
Mom they would have heard something like this:-
“How is he then?”
“Did you know he had arthritis before?”
“Have his legs completely packed in or can he walk?”
“Are they going to operate or are they going to put him down?”
My colleagues must have been thinking, “Blimey those Hortons don’t mess
about, the first sign of arthritis in their family and they put poor old uncle
down!”
In other news, after reading the last Edition of Lowlife fellow
Aston Villa sufferer Randy Bitchfield kindly told me that the column is
addictive reading. I sincerely hope that Randy does not get
addicted to Lowlife, as with it being relatively new there are no known
treatments or cures and there are no self help groups for Lowlife addiction.
Randy suspects that if a Lowlife self help group is formed that meetings
would be held in the Flagon & Gorses and this seems to make perfect
sense. Instead of the 12 step programme of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Lowlife Anonymous would follow a 3 step approach – 1. Go to
the bar and order a pint; 2. Drink the pint; 3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 several
times until you forget what you are addicted to.
Being a shrewd and sensible man Randy wisely buys a minimum of two pairs
of trousers when purchasing a suit, which highlights the difference between the
two of us; following such strategies has lead Randy to be comfortably off,
though it does also help him that he is an accountant.
The diminutive Towena Rallis told me, in that infectiously enthusiastic
way she has about things, that she is the first member of Lowlife’s fan
club, even though there is no fan club (to my knowledge). In
honour of this I have even made a membership card for her. Towena might
find the membership card more of a hindrance in life than a help, and it
certainly won’t get her into the Pensax Beer Festival for free, which is where
Sleepy Tom Parker and I (as well as other associates and Flagon dignitaries
will be headed in a few weeks.)
On the way to the Bell
Tom reassured me that we would soon be sampling the beery delights
at Pensax as he said he had a Sat Nav system which would guarantee our swift
passage to our desired location. Whilst I was wondering why the
hapless Tom had not used the Sat Nav in the first place I read out the post
code of the Bell to him only to be told that being an antiquated pre-war model
the Sat Nav does not work off postcodes. Neither did it recognise Pensax when
we typed it in. As a last desperate act Tom typed the Bell
We did finally reach Pensax (where later true to form Sleepy Tom nodded
off early doors, despite me insisting he stand up to stay awake – I will have
to prop him up on a broomstick this year like the film Weekend at Bernie’s) but not before Tom took us on an unscheduled
detour to a picture postcard mythical Worcestershire village, which was a
remarkably delightful sight but by then I was verging on desperation for a
drink. The name of the village was Tedstone.
Ted Stone is the name of an old school friend who played a small but
important part in a fiasco I was recently reminded of from my childhood.
When I was at high school at the age of 15 we had a once weekly lesson
called “Design for Living” in the theatre, which holds about 200 people and on
the day in question the theatre was packed. I can't remember a great deal about
actually what Design for Living was meant to be teaching us, other than it included
sex education. Anyway, I bet my mate Peapod (aka Podney Trotter) that during
the lesson that I would walk onto the stage in front of everyone and lie down
and would make the teachers forcibly remove me. When I lay down on the stage I
held up a poster I had made saying “I Did it Peapod” and Ted Stone took a snap
of it, having his camera on his person as I had tipped him off about the stunt.
Podney was horrified about the poster as he thought it would implicate him in
the errant act and he loudly and nervously proclaimed to the on looking
teachers, “It’s nothing to do with me!”
The teacher who was doing the talk on the stage, Billingham, at once
asked me to leave the stage and I refused saying he would have to carry me off.
Billingham had snow white hair and his face was red with rage so he looked like
a back-to-front, oversized Swan Vestas. He eventually reluctantly
dragged me off by the Farah’s and it was straight off to the Headmaster’s
office.
The bearded Welsh Headmaster, Howells, explained I was in deep trouble
and asked me if I was having problems at home and I explained that I had
undertook the act for a bet. I then went onto state that I had raised £17 for
charity and if he punished me I would not pay the money to Guide Dogs for the
Blind and further I would report his lack of charitable understanding to the
Halesowen News. Howells was unimpressed by my comments but equally didn’t want
his good name besmirched in the local newspaper for all the parish to see, so
he gave me a gentle ticking off and I walked out of his office scott free.
The £17 that I raised off the wager with Peapod and other side
bets never did find its way to Guide Dogs for the Blind or any other charity
and I chose to invest it by handing it over the bar to Barry, the landlord of
the Woodman, which is now a convenience store, ironic in many ways as on the
fateful day I have hitherto described Billingham and Howells were extremely
inconvenienced.
Postscript
I should make it clear at this juncture that I do not now, nor ever have
had, a history of withholding or pilfering monies from charity. The £17
raised from the "I Did it Peapod" venture was from personal bets and
I only claimed that the monies were raised for charity when I was in a
difficult spot sat in Headmaster Howell's office. I could have gone with
the idea of donating the monies to Guidedogs for the Blind but after the
excitement and pressure of the events of the day I needed a pint, which I am
sure you understand in the circumstances. And besides, the deception was
hardly on the widespread scale of the Phantom's Dragon Oil scandal, the least
said of which the better. My legal adviser has strongly suggested
to me to not to comment further on the sorry Dragon Oil business and I
have heeded his advice. Coincidentally, my legal adviser is the
Phantom.
Anyway, pledging the monies behind the bar in the
Woodman could be seen as a charitable act given the increasingly perilous
state of public houses - indeed the Woodman is no more and has now
been converted into a shop, as explained above.
Nonetheless, despite my desperate fiscal position, as a gesture of
goodwill I will donate the monies I make for this weeks column
to Guide Dogs for the Blind. Sadly, the chances are I will make less than
a penny cash or other consideration from this column, unless that is the Pirate
buys me a pint on the strict understanding that I immediately cease publishing
editions of this nonsense and placing them on the bar in the Flagon &
Gorses.
© Dominic Horton, 24th April,
2013.
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