Oh Bête Noire, I’ve
gone Too Far
I have little knowledge about the majority of things and on some
subjects I have less than no knowledge, which is a difficult thing to achieve
when you think about it. I often wonder
if people who are the opposite of me and who are good at pub quizzes just have
a lot more general education and expertise or whether they just have better
memories and the ability to instantly recall information. The knowledge of the average taxi driver
these days seems to be appalling and on several occasions when jumping in a cab
in Birmingham city centre the cabbie has no idea where Halesowen is, let alone
the Flagon & Gorses. It always
amazes me that London cabbies are a different breed altogether and know even
the most obscure places and how to get to them.
One thing I know a little bit about is drink and drinking, which is nothing
to shout about and it is ultimately often a boring subject. After foolishly drinking too much in the last
week or so (due to an unfortunate and partly unforeseen set of circumstances) I
am the second day into the hideous and diabolical process of drying out, with
all its horrors and physical and mental creaking and jittering. In the middle of the night my pancreas became
very angry and demanded booze and when I denied it its desires it persistently
nagged me to such a degree that I had to haul myself out of bed to take
painkillers, which fortunately took the edge off the situation. In its astringent state the pancreas tried to
agitate the liver into niggling me also but the latter organ is a more kindly
and forgiving soul and it fortunately let me be.
Drinking to ward off the inherent sadness and loneliness of the world is
not an astute thing to do and eventually it always adversely compounds things
but at least little bête noires appear to keep one company. During a recent counselling session the
therapist asked me why I sometimes drink on my own at home. I replied something along the lines of if you
are accompanied by a drink that you are no longer alone, there is more than one
presence in the room. Maybe the second
presence is the dreadful Diablo himself, who is only topped as a personal
nemesis of mine by the Baby Faced Assassin at the Rharely Peking. I
thought I had finally outfoxed the Assassin last week as I simply ordered curry
sauce and chips, thinking that surely such a simple dish must be
inoffensive. How wrong I was; the chips
turned out to be like little bits of cardboard and the curry sauce looked like
an extra from the cult Irving Yeaworth film The
Blob. As ever, the Baby Faced
Assassin won again.
Although my boozing is generally contained, in order to ensure that I
suffer the indignities of alcohol retreat on a less frequent basis, I have
employed the Aquarius Five Step Process drink reduction plan. (Incidentally, Chompa Babbee has been
undertaking the Bobby Sands waist reduction plan and has eaten virtually
nothing for three weeks.) As part of
the Five Step plan you have to set clear, achievable targets to reduce drinking
and of course stick to them. If you fail
to meet the targets you can either chide yourself severely or buy a bottle of
Tippex and cheat. I would guess that
some of the more desperate cases who are on the plan might even drink the
Tippex.
The literature contained in the plan suggests such things as telling
your pub landlord to not serve you after you have had a set amount of drinks
but as the Pirate in the Flagon & Gorses is usually as p*ssed as me such a
plan is doomed to failure. It is also
suggested that when one is a good boy and meets the targets that a reward or
treat is in order but as in my case that would mean a skin full in the Flagon
it would be somewhat self-defeating.
One good thing about not being able to sleep last night was that the
frenzied activity in my mind at least generated a germ of an idea as to what I
was going to write in this nonsensical column this week, as for the first time
since I started writing it I had no idea what I was going to bang on
about. I was so devoid of any ideas that
I was seriously starting to think that I would produce no column at all; I can
already sense my readers thinking that they had wished I hadn’t bothered and
given them a week off for good behaviour.
But it is vitally important that I plough on with the column otherwise I
will not have the excuse of having a soiree when I reach the fiftieth
episode.
All writers are
fearful of a blank piece of paper and most are equally afraid of an empty
glass. Often filling the glass leads to
filling the page and in my case that is true to a degree as (as regular readers
know) a large slice of this column is sometimes based around the whimsical
happenings at the Flagon & Gorses.
In my defence though when I write I am sober, but sometimes hung over,
which is state that I often leads to writing productivity. If the Five Point
Plan is successful (and I am determined that it will be) it might resultantly
destroy the little bit of creativity that I have if I cease to have mornings
where I operate in a less than optimum state, which will make it a very pyrrhic
victory indeed.
Matters relative to literature could have been better this week. Firstly, I had the dawning realisation that
the book that I have been writing about my pub life in the Flagon is, not to
put too fine a point in it, rubbish and it would be better served as being used
as toilet paper as opposed to being read.
The fundamental problem is that pub life (and the utterances of the
pub’s regular brethren) is by nature repetitious and although us inmates love
it, looking in from the outside it can be very boring. Barroom punters often repeat stories, some of
which were not even funny or entertaining in the first place; I am sure that I
have certainly been guilty of it on a number of occasions. Additionally, my heart has not been in the
book for some time and consequently I have not dedicated the requisite amount
of time to it. And if you don’t put in
the time you won’t earn the dime. I know
that I am going to have to start the book again with more enthusiasm and vigour
if I want it to be a worthwhile venture.
Secondly, the literary agent that my brother, Albino Duxbury, recommended
I contact has not got back to me despite me contacting him some three weeks
ago. It transpires that the agent is
going through a messy divorce and that he has also acrimoniously split up with
his long time business partner and he is basically having a mid-life crisis and
nervous breakdown. He sounds like the
perfect literary agent for Lowlife.
The last agent of any
description that I had was a pools agent who looked like Charles Manson and
given his uncanny likeness to the infamous murderer I distrusted him to such a
degree that I packed in the pools and took up the National Lottery. I am unlikely to win the Lottery now as I no
longer buy a ticket but if I did I would not be best pleased about the price
rise from £1 to £2 for a ticket, that was announced today. This price rise is in accordance with the
current practice of retailers of anything and everything of putting up goods
and services by a ridiculous amount instead of a few mere pence. If the Pirate follows suit and puts up the
beer in the Flagon by a pound a pint the Five Point plan will be superfluous to
my requirements as I won’t be able to afford to drink anyway.
Day one of the Five
Point plan, being yesterday, was successful as I met my target of zero alcohol
and today I am also on track for sobriety; I am confident tomorrow can be dry
as I am looking after my dear son Kenteke in the evening. On Saturday it is Hugh Queensbury’s 40th
birthday party and I have set myself an upper limit of five pints of beer but
if I breach that I can always blame Lowlife’s
London correspondent Barty Hook who is travelling up from the Smoke. You know what they say, when things go wrong
if in doubt blame someone else.
© Dominic Horton,
October 2013.
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