Bye Bye Nobby
Stiles
What a diabolical pastime gardening is. It is a
sport with no winners or losers, just victims. We have this idealised image of
an elderly gent wearing half moon glasses and a fedora quietly pruning his rose
bush with secateurs in his quaint Home Counties garden, tranquilly enjoying
himself in what is seen to be a therapeutic, relaxing hobby. My experience of
gardening seems mostly to involve cat sh*t, slugs and stingers. And to make
matters worse there are all sorts of devil weeds growing in the garden at Codger
Mansions, the likes of which are not seen anywhere else on the planet. The over
excitable Antipodean botanist David Bellamy would have a field day. I would
happily go up the Flagon & Gorses and leave him to it. It is only the
broadcast of Test Match Special that is getting me through this awful
gardening episode; hopefully my green fingers will be wrapped around a pint in
the Flagon in the not too distant future and it is only the thought of that
which is driving me on through the ailing flora and fauna of Codger Mansions.
Talking of the Flagon we have all had that awful
feeling of sitting in a pub having a fine, leisurely time but it being hampered
by the nagging thought that one has to leave soon against one's wishes to
attend some function or fulfil a prior obligation. Poor Tim Shack was in this
very position in the Flagon on Saturday lunchtime, as he was due to meet a
newish suitor later that evening and he didn't want to pitch up to meet the
lady in question three parts to the wind. I suggested that after Tim’s disciplined lunch
time booze cap it would he hilarious if on meeting his lady friend he finds her
completely blotto. Tim assured me that
this would not happen as the lady was spending the afternoon at the
hairdressers but the Pirate ventured that there was no guarantee that she would
be sober as he visited a barber shop in the Czech Republic Czech
Republic
When I described last week (in Lowlife No 19) what charitable acts
friends had recently bestowed upon me I completely forgot Fudgkins’s donation
to the cause, being a bottle of Dalwhinne 18 year old malt whisky, which as you
can imagine I received with great excitement. The only slight issue was that Fudgey
had consumed 70% of the contents of the bottle prior to giving it to me. Nonetheless, the Scotch represented a
thoughtful and welcome gift and I should get a few large ones out of the
bottle. Fudgey also brought his wind up,
rifle toting, one legged musical army doll, named Ten Minute Max, to the Flagon
to cheer me up and I have to say that Max did the job, but not as much as the
Scotch did.
On the theme of charitable donations, compared to
my old vacuum cleaner the one that Tom Holliday kind-heartedly donated to me is
a revelation. It picks up dust and
debris. It has suction. I no longer have to bellow whilst vacuuming,
“pick up the dust you f*cking thing, do your job! If I didn’t do my job I would
be sacked.” I would rather use the words
“vacuum cleaner” and “vacuuming” as opposed to the popular colloquialisms of
“hoover” and “hoovering” as I am not a great fan of using a producers name to
describe the type of product in question.
For example, Guinness almost has a monopoly on stout sales in this country
and many consumers would not even know that Guinness is stout, they just know
it as Guinness. This is to the detriment
of all other stouts and porters, such as the award winning Elland 1872 Porter,
which ironically is one of my favourite drinks (I say “ironically” as the
Elland Porter is rich, complex and dark whereas I am poor, simple and
fair.) Anyway, I digress. Saving minor mishaps my dustpan and brush are
redundant and vacuuming has all of a sudden become a mildly pleasurable sport
and Codger Mansions a cleaner environment. Unlike Bridgnorth, which holds dirty, dark
secrets ……………..
Last week I described that my frivolous
cohort Gusty Monsoon had an impromptu out of body and spirit encountering
experience in Still-in-Fjord’s holiday home in Bridgnorth (see Lowlife 19). The road in question in Bridgnorth used to
be close to the old port area and I am informed that all of the houses on the
road used to either be public houses or brothels; indeed Still-in-Fjord’s house
still has the cellar doors at the front of the property. After research I have discovered that a
ghost of a lady, known as the Black Lady, roams the road and some long time
residents are still nervous about walking in this area alone at night. So this adds new found credence to Monsoon’s
encounter with the spirit, whereas we all thought he had just consumed too much
Old Rosie Cider.
I recommended Old
Rosie Cider to Willy Mantitt as a cure for his Nobby Stiles but he said he
can’t stomach the stuff, so seeking an alternative remedy he took a flier and
visited his doctor Jean Claude, who braved Mantitt’s aris in order to give a
diagnosis. I explained to the ink-less
Mantitt that pile cream is what tattoo artists recommend you put on new tattoos
as it’s sterile and anti-inflammatory but the downside is that it has a
distinctive smell so people ask you if you have got the Nobbies. I suggested to Mantitt that he could inform
individuals enquiring about the odour of the pile cream that he didn’t have the
Nobby Stiles but has had a new tattoo on his ars*. If Mantitt had got his doctor to also cure
his problematic hamstrings and back he could have henceforth called him Jean
Claude Grand Slam.
Mantitt celebrated his new found pile-less state by having a long, boozy
Spanish tapas lunch with a working associate that included pigs’ cheeks and
peppers stuffed with black pudding, five pints, a bottle of Rioja then two
large mojito’s washed down with four sambuccas.
Pigs’ cheeks stuffed with black pudding sounds more like a Black Country
delicacy than a Catalan one and would be more at home in the Bull & Bladder
in Brierley Hill. A long, boozy lunch for me usually means 8 pints with the
Pirate with a cob or pork pie about tea time out of desperation followed by a
curry on return to Codger Mansions, which I usually spill down my dressing
gown. At least I have the discipline to put the dressing gown on these days,
which prevents the needless ruination of clothes.
Willy then
confided in me a terrible phenomenon, the thought of which stopped me in my
tracks and filled me with stone cold terror: he has no booze whatsoever in the
house. There would be blind panic at
Codger Mansions if the cupboard were completely dry, even if I had no intention
of drinking. I just need the comfort of
having it there. What if an emergency arises? It’s not so bad these days as
there is always a 24 hour shop or supermarket to visit but in the old days the
thought of no booze and no access to booze could be debilitating to such an
extent it could lead to sudden death.
Death would
necessitate a funeral and that got me to thinking who I would bequeath the
honour of being my pallbearers when (if – let’s hope!) the inevitable happens. All the usual runners and riders came to mind
but then I thought such persons being of a similar or advanced age to me may
well predecease me, so I thought that younger persons are needed. On account of her youthfulness one of the
obvious candidates could be Valentina Chassis but the only problem is that she is so
diminutive that she would struggle to reach the coffin, given all the other
pallbearers would be significantly taller.
The solution of course is for Valentina to wear massive Slade style
platform boots to the funeral but I realise to facilitate this I would have to
nominate a glam rock track as one of the songs for the service but it might not
go down too well with my family me signing out to Blockbuster by the Sweet, especially as given my skint state and
lack of assets there are likely to be bitter.
© Dominic Horton, 29th May,
2013.
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