Lowlife 63 – A Costly Hammer Blow

A Costly Hammer Blow

By Dominic Horton

I have noticed recently that it is becoming increasingly difficult to ponce a fag.  So many people have forsaken smoking in favour of electronic nicotine pipes that the circulation of cigarettes proper is becoming increasingly rare in pub life.   The former Australian cricket captain Allan Border once allegedly said that he smokes one fag a fortnight and I am in the Border camp, albeit that on average I have a puff much less than once every two weeks.  I can often go for months without smoking a cigarette but just occasionally I enjoy standing outside the Flagon & Gorses on Islington and watching the world go by, tab on.  But I am not going to take the extreme measure of buying my own fags when I have got this far in life poncing them off dedicated smokers so it is a little churlish of my fellow Flagoners protecting their health and wellbeing by switching to electronic pipes, to the detriment of my occasional, crafty pleasure.  

Cradley Town FC's Badge complete

 with hammers

So effectively I have given up smoking by default, though Fudgkins and Harry Gout might beg to differ and they remain pipeless and are still willing to crash a fag given their generous natures.  Even Mother Teresa (who has tried to become fagless a number of times in the past) has taken the fag pipe route but she has yet to file a report on her progress with the Lowlife news desk. 

The etiquette around electronic fag pipes is still developing and in terms of whether to use them indoors in public places people can often seem a little unsure of themselves, like Bambi unsteady on his feet emerging into the world.  I am not 100% sure what the rules are in the Flagon but fag pipe users seem to still pop outside to get their fix but that is probably accounted for by their desire to get away from me for five minutes or so.   All of the offices at my workplace are glass walled and I saw a bloke in another room across the way having a surreptitious toke on a fag pipe a couple of weeks ago and while he was not doing any harm to his colleagues that were in situ I instinctively thought that it didn't sit right as in the office environment it fell short of being professional.  That said I have no firm views on the matter either way.  In fact there are plenty of things that I do not have strong opinions on and sometimes I have no opinion at all. 

Allan Border showing how many fags he has

a fortnight

The prevalence of radio phone-ins, social media and television debate shows seems to have made us a very opinionated population indeed and people are often quick to tell you what they think of a particular issue even if you do not have the slightest interest in their views.  Sometimes when Flagoners are deliberating some point of order or other they will ask me, “what do you think?” and when I reply, “I have no opinion on the matter” they look at me with great puzzlement, as if I had just told them that I have turned teetotal and joined the Temperance Society. 

Becoming boozeless might not be such a bad idea as my judgement must have been clouded by something this week when I made the foolish and ultimately costly mistake of acting upon a plumbing tip from Willy Mantitt, of all people.  Taking advice from Mantitt on any subject is fraught with danger and enhances the chances of financial loss, or a mishap of some description occuring, and an expert on anything practical Willy is most assuredly not.  The matter at hand was my attempt to dislodge my mangled toilet seat, an act which was being severely hampered by the fact that the screws had rusted and refused to budge even once they were awash with WD40. Those of you that I am acquainted with will know that I am more of a brandy man than a handy man and that challenges of this nature are anathema to me but I was determined to liberate the injured seat from the karsi. 

I found myself corresponding with Mantitt by email to get an update on the Oscar Pistorius trial (which Willy has been following diligently) when I happened to mention the toilet seat conundrum.  Willy advised me to tap the screws with a hammer to cause vibrations which will in turn help to dislodge the screws.  Having no feasible alternatives, and being in a state of increasing desperation due to my dear son Kenteke's impending visit, I acted on Mantitt's suggestion and gingerly tapped the screws with a hammer.  No success.  I hit the screws a little harder with the hammer but still to no avail.   Rising frustration lead me to abandon the gingerly tack in favour of a more forceful approach and having previously worn the shirt of Cradley Town FC in my footballing days I heeded their motto of “Gi' it some 'ommer.”  Like most of the matches I played for Cradley the action ended up in defeat as to my horror a number of cracks emerged in the porcelain and the karsi sprang a leak when it was flushed, which was not the outcome that I had envisaged.   To add insult to injury I realised that I needed a number two and I couldn't even retreat to the Flagon to have a sit down given the earliness of the hour. 

King George V (on the left) in 

"A Conversation Piece at Aintree" by

W R Sickert

It was a case of SOS t*rd alert and fortunately a sympathetic plumber scrambled his equivalent of Ghost Busters who sped to Codger Mansions, red lights flashing, in express fashion.  The plumber and his mate really were a crack squad and dealt with the job like a SWAT mission.  The plumber hastily surveyed the damage to the karsi and provided an expedient and concise expert assessment, “Your bog is f*cked mate.”  He went on to say that a whole new toilet was needed and I asked if he could not just replace the part that was broken but the plumber explained, “you are joking mate, this toilet is older than God's dog so there will be no chance in finding the part in question.” 

The plumber's mate set about ripping out the toilet while the plumber sped up to B&Q to acquire a new one; on his return the plumber had the new karsi fitted in 20 minutes flat and that was that.  If karsi fitting doubles was an Olympic sport these boys would undoubtedly be gold medal winners.   After I had crossed the plumber's palms with silver (in what turned out to be a very reasonably priced transaction) it was straight to the new addition to Codger Mansions to give it a much needed test run. 

I told Mantitt that his plumbing tip resulted in a disaster that lead to me in parting with a number of shekels but Willy is no stranger to litigation and is more slippery that a greased up eel and he quickly abdicated himself of all responsibility.  What comes around goes around as a few days later his boiler packed up which left him having to part with two large, which is a tidy sum but given all of the shadowy deals he has on the go it is mere small change to him.  

As well as a fully working karsi I am glad to report that my health has (more or less) been restored this week after my bout of suffering from mild-graines, tinnitus and generally being in a less than optimum state which for once was not an ailment caused by ingesting the wares of Mr Ping, the chef at the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway.  If fact my crony the Pirate, the frolicsome landlord at the Flagon & Gorses, told me that his health seems to be on the up after he has improved his dietary regime and kicked the habit of eating half a dozen cream cakes every day; the Pirate is naughty but not necessarily nice.  A healthier diet must have accounted for the Pirate’s lower blood pressure and cholesterol as it could not be explained by exercise given that he is more sedentary than a crippled mannequin.

Mind you, it might be wise for me to lay off abusing the Pirate (verbally that is) as after the recent keen trim of his beard and hair (such that is left of it) he was accused by The Coarse Whisperer and Harry Stottle of looking like King George V; if I am not careful the Pirate might get Chilli Willy to mince me up and add me to his swan pâté to be eaten unwittingly by Flagoners who try the regal foodstuff for novelty value.

Despite being a renown heavy smoker King George V was most likely never reduced to poncing fags in the bar room of a public house in the West Midlands but like the rest of high ranking royalty he did survive by sponging off the state whereas the Pirate is more likely to be sponging off the state of his sweatshirt after spilling his tea down it.  Besides, the Pirate is not a royalist but a republican.  And, of course, a publican.   He is lots of other things as well, but as aforementioned I had better refrain from defaming him too much at present so I will have to get back to it next week.

© Dominic Horton, March 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 62 – First Tango in Parish

First Tango in Parish

By Dominic Horton

The recent sad death of Tony Benn reminds me of my first political experiences under the tutelage of Arthur Von Rossi (Jonty's older brother) when I was 13 or 14 years of age. Arthur used to play to me on his cassette player long meandering speeches made by Benn, which he assured me were politically sound and made perfect sense, but being a wet behind the ears schoolboy the speeches sounded like double Dutch to me and I could not make head or tail of what Benn was banging on about. Fortunately for me Von Rossi the elder explained the content of the speeches in simple terms that I could understand and he also supplied me with copies of the socialist newspaper Militant to further add to my understanding of leftist ideas and ideology. Despite being open to argument and challenge and not being an expert in politics by any means, my views have remained left leaning over the years, which is often the case with people who are skint.

Arthur did not keep his political activities covert despite strongly believing he was on MI5's 'people to keep a weather eye on' list and although I thought this to be paranoid poppycock at the time things that I have learnt in the intervening years do make Von Rossi's claim seem not so incredulous after all. Arthur had some strange practices in life at the time, most of which would be indiscreet of me to go into, but my most vivid experience with him back then was when he urged me to take a good sniff of some unidentified, murky liquid he had stored in an old Mellow Birds coffee jar; I inhaled the liquid fumes heartily (as you do when you are young and foolish) and I was unfortunate enough to smell what turned out to be the most putrid, foul odour that I have ever had the displeasure of sniffing, much to the amusement of Arthur. One of the Pirate's worst bottom burps does not even come close to the malodorous contents of the festering jar. I could not be 100% sure what was in the jar but I had a good idea after a brief discussion with Von Rossi the younger, who I suspected Arthur had subjected to his Mellow Birds torture in the past.

I was reminded of Arthur's unorthodox dentistry methods recently as I popped into the Olde Swan in Netherton (affectionately known to all as Ma Pardoe's of course) with Fudgkins, the lovely Mrs Fudgkins and Harry Stottle prior to attending a production of the Noel Coward play Brief Encounter at Netherton Arts Centre. Many years ago whilst in Pardoe's one Sunday evening with the Von Rossi brothers and the Frymaster General, Arthur explained to us that a filling had dislodged itself from his mouth and he had erroneously swallowed it but instead of visiting his dentist, and parting with his hard earned shekels, he had waited for nature to take its course before cleaning the filling and restoring it back to its proper place with some industrial strength glue he had procured from his place of work. Now that's something for you to chew on.

All hands enjoyed Brief Encounter and the shine was only taken off the evening for me by me not feeling tip top, due to my ongoing illness, and subsequently suffering a mild-graine in Pardoes after the show, even though I was drinking bitter (teasingly only the one as I was driving). Mind you the evening might be better described not as Brief Encounter but as Close Encounters of the Third Kind as it is relatively alien for me to be outside of my usual haunt of the Flagon & Gorses. To entertain us in Pardoe's Harry Stottle recited a steady stream of anecdotes to us from his Thespian days in the theatre, the highlight of which he informed us, was playing a spare part in a lavish production of My Fair Ladyboy.

Returning back to my schoolboy days of my political awakening with the Von Rossi's. At the time we used to play football over the cemetery, which is not as bad form as it sounds as there were vast fields of open ground, which are quickly filling up these days due to the inconsiderateness of people who have failed to cheat mortality. Incidentally, I have always found it odd that we refer to expired persons as “the late …..” as it must be terribly difficult to be punctual if you are deceased and tardiness (which I normally abhor) can be excused in the circumstances. That said, the phantasm that visits me in my nightmares on a Monday night never fails to appear on cue, so I am possibly cutting the lifeless too much slack and they are most likely spending too much time pushing up daisies instead of getting to appointments on time.

Anyway, we were always glad when Philly Idol came to the cemetery kick-abouts as he was the first person in the parish to own an Adidas Tango football, the type that were used in World Cups, and given that we were used to playing with the workmanlike Mitre Multiplex football (which dominated the market at the time) the lighter and more exquisite Tango was a very exotic and sort after treasure indeed. The games of football were always inconveniently punctuated by the cemetery keeper chasing us off (to shouts of “Parky!”) and he turned up even out of opening hours, which I thought was pretty Draconian of him. I used to be terrified of being caught by the mysterious Parky but none of us ever were but looking back I am not sure what exactly he would have done if he had caught up with us anyway; it would mostly likely have been the case that on sight of the alluring Adidas Tango that he would have asked if he could have joined in with the game but being a newcomer he would have of course had to have gone in goal to start with.

At the back of the cemetery was a wooded stream and hilly meadows and we used to explore them Huckleberry Finn style and climb trees and do other typical things that schoolboys get up to. One night we decided to camp in the fields, each of us telling our mothers that we were staying over at one of the other's houses. Such was the general nonchalance of parent's towards their children at the time that none of the mothers could be bothered to check our stories. The success of the camping adventure lead us to do it again a few weeks later, but that time camping on the sports field at the demolished Greenhill School. Once we had pitched the tent it was pitch black but being boys we wanted to partake in a sporting contest and decided on a game of cricket. A makeshift bat was found, a ball appeared from somewhere and a dustbin was utilised for the wickets. We swiped a load of flashing yellow warning lamps that you used to see at roadworks and used them to illuminate the boundary, which I thought was an act of genius, but would have lead passers by in the adjacent gulley to think that a strange Druidic procedure was being practised. Given the flashing lights and loud shouts of “Howzat!” we were clearly drawing attention to ourselves, in what was a residential area but we paid no mind to it, being vacant brained boys.

After the cricket we returned to the tent but in no time at all we heard sinister footsteps approaching, that were being made by a person wielding a torch. We all looked at each other, as if to say “what the f*ck do we do?” and in our silence we all acquiesced to stay put and remain still. The beat of our hearts quickened in direct proportion to the increasing closeness of the footsteps and fearing a knife wielding madman we retreated to the back of the tent, not a wise move given that a thin piece of canvas would hardly protect us from a sharp, murderous blade.

The footsteps stopped outside the door of the tent. There was a pause which seemed to last longer than the Oscar Pistorius trial, then slowly, agonisingly, the hand of the foreign body slowly unzipped the door to the tent, all of us contemplating a grisly end. A torched poked into the tent and shone in our eyes, blinding us, like the subjects of an interrogation and our collective fear peaked but right at that moment, not being lost for words like the rest of us, Ollie Leaver shouted, “we do not want your sort round here mate, so f*ck off.” The torch bearer replied, “this is the police, get outside of the tent, now.” I had never been so relieved to be apprehended by the law in my life. The officers (turns out there were two of them) ordered us to return to our homes immediately but we pleaded in unison that our mothers would kill us, so they showed us clemency and allowed us to remain for the night as long as we remained quietly in the tent.

After we had struck camp in the early morning I sauntered home in the sunshine and acquired a bottle of orange juice that was conveniently sitting on someone's doorstep and while I sipped it I pondered on what had been another colourful and memorable, yet pretty harmless, jolly jape.

© Dominic Horton, March 2014.

* Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 61 – Fast Food, Slow Cooker

Fast Food, Slow Cooker

By Dominic Horton

You have to question your sanity when you continue to do things that on balance are not beneficial to you and all the evidence is weighted in favour of it not being sensible to undertake the activity in question. The Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway had his evil way after I left the Flagon & Gorses on Sunday evening and as a consequence of the oriental supper I had so much salt and Monosodium glutamate coursing through my veins on Monday morning that I had a Ready Brek style radiation glow. Despite the chill in the air I had to remove my coat walking up Furnace Hill for fear of overheating; I had no fear of overeating on Sunday night and shoveled all of the Szechuan beef and fried rice down my gullet to placate my dissenting stomach. I once again requested extra beef to boost the meal’s vegetable/ meat ratio and Mr Ping the chef fulfilled my wishes without the Assassin requiring any extra expenditure on my part, which was gentlemanly of him.

I ended up in the Peking in a desperate late night scramble for sustenance as earlier in the evening I intended to stop off for a nibble on the way to pick up Harry Gout as I thought I deserved a treat after completing a grueling run; instead of a treat I popped into McDonalds, the only available food stop by Gout’s house. The fast food “restaurant” was so unexpectedly busy, with customers frenziedly clamouring around the counter, that it looked like the scene of a food drop from the back of a United Nations truck to desperate, starving persons in a disaster zone, so I gave it a skip. I fully intended to have a pork pie in the Flagon & Gorses to compensate for my burger-less state but the events of the evening overtook me and the thought of the pie of pork became lost in the wilderness of beer and bonhomie.

After a couple of hours of taking root in the bar with Gout and Chompa Babbee, who was making a cameo appearance, in strolled a folk duo who brazenly asked Carla Von Trow-Hell behind the bar if they could get their instruments out: Carla was getting excited until she saw that the men were referring to their fiddle and banjo respectively, that were resting dormant in their cases. Carla acceded to the musicians' request and once they had satisfied their priority of getting a drink they struck up in no time at all, launching into a pleasant enough rendition of the age old folk tune Marie's Wedding. Within seconds I found my foot voluntarily tapping and it wasn't just to get my blood circulating to ward off the onset of gout in the ball of the toe on my right foot. I even sang along to a few lines of the song until a disturbed Harry bade me to cease such discordant crooning with a pleading look of disgust.

The folk duo continued to entertain the inmates that were present within the bar and they even played Fisherman's Blues by the Waterboys, a favourite of mine that reminds me of my Fairfield Drive days living with El Pistolero, when we would listen to the song after having a sherry or two, bottles that is. Into the pub ambled Drew Monkey, as he has a habit of doing on a Sunday evening, and he parked himself down next to the folkies and was pally with them, which is no surprise as Drew is a bit of a musician himself, having more strings to his bow that Glen Campbell's twelve string guitar. Being unable to resist the temptation, after a gargle of beer to water his vocal chords, Drew started to warble with the duo and his singing of The Wild Rover lead to pints being quickly downed and punters heading for the exit and in no time at all he had the pub cleared. Standing at the bar, Frank Henstein decided to gallantly stick it out but at every opportunity he made the excuse of going in the back room to collect glasses for the bar staff just to get away from the din.

As the evening wore on the performers played the tender and sentimental Irish folk standard, Carrickfergus, and with me being adequately refreshed it made me maudlin, so it was with a tear in the eye that I departed for the Rhareli Peking, humming the doleful song, much to the bemusement of the permanently grinning Baby Faced Assassin.

Not only did the Peking's finest enhance the abhorrent and wholly unwelcome drink terrors on Monday morning but it also sucked the majority of fluids out of my body leaving me drier the Tutankhamen’s mummy. It was in this distinctly disagreeable state that I was faced with a pigeon flying directly at my head whilst completing the short stumble from the train station to my workplace. Fortunately, the pigeon ascended just in the nick of time and flew inches over me, which was just as well as it would have been embarrassing walking into the Flagon & Gorses with the pigeon's beak firmly implanted in my forehead, with me asking for a pint of bitter for me and another one for the pigeon.

This week has been characterised by trips to the doctors but they were not in connection with the effects of the Sunday night supper from the Rhareli Peking. First, it was off to the surgery Friday last to start the ball rolling to get a bit of physiotherapy to ease the back pain which is the product of stiffness caused by sitting immovable at a desk for the last sixteen years of my working life. It is odd to think that such a sedentary activity has lead to the troublesome injury. I was assessed by a new, fresh faced doctor and he began his deliberations, “well, at your age ….......”. Although I had considered myself to be a relatively young man on entering the surgery I felt ancient and infirm all of a sudden and it was a watershed moment if ever there was one.

Second, it was back to the doctor's on Wednesday as since I suffered from the mild-graines before Christmas (see Lowlife No 49, Lord of the Mild-graines) I have never properly recovered from it and things took a turn for the worse this week with the spots in front of my eyes becoming more prominent, the tinnitus in my ears becoming louder and me generally feeling crook, as the Aussies say. The doc was unsure about my condition so referred me for blood tests.

I just wanted to read my book in the surgery waiting room but I kept getting distracted by the bothersome television in the corner that produced an unrelenting flow of medical information and health advice. Television pictures seem to be piped into everywhere nowadays, like some nightmare vision from Orwell's 1984 and it is rare you get a minute's quietude anywhere, which is why the Flagon & Gorses is such a welcome haven of tranquillity with its absence of music (notwithstanding the above), gaming machines and televisions (save a rare broadcast in the back room). One's toilet is also a serene sanctuary but there was disaster at my Codger Mansions bolt hole this week when the unruly toilet seat finally gave up the ghost and re-classified itself as broke proper. I hastily purchased a new seat (aqua coloured for a change) but the screws on the old seat have rusted so I can't get it off, meaning that now each trip to the karsi is so fraught with peril that I have to put the life guard on standby when I go for a Tom Tit.

To add to my tribulations my new (second hand) car Helen started to rapidly lose power on the way back from the doctors and I decided to see if I could get her to the garage before she came to a grinding halt but as the garage is up Gorsty Hill, which is steeper than the North side of the Himalayan mountain K2, it was not my brightest idea and in her enfeebled condition Helen declined making the ascent, spluttering before her wheels ceased to roll. The cost of a new alternator was partially offset by me picking up a slow cooker for a bargain £19.99 (reduced from £54) on an emergency trip to buy some tomato sausages, which reminded me of the downfall of my vegetarian days when I was living at Fairfield Drive.

I was a fairly shoddy and indisciplined veggie but the dedicatedly carnivorous Frymaster General had made it his business to get me back to eating meat, so knowing I was at cracking point he cooked eight tomato sausages, ate four and a half and pushed the plate across the table towards me, beckoning me to sample them with by raising his eyebrows and nodding his head. I succumbed to the porky temptation and the sausages tasted like pure heaven, which is a lot more than can be said for the wares of a certain local takeaway, which will remain nameless, but which I am sure you can work out for yourself even if you lack the powers of deduction of Inspector Poirot.

© Dominic Horton, March 2014.

* Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 60 - Life in the Sloe Gin Lane

Life in the Sloe Gin Lane

By Dominic Horton

Being greeted by a hangover at the start of the week is nothing new to me but I have had fewer pleasant ones than the variety that I had on Monday morning and the pleasantness was due in large part to the sloe gin that I was drinking with Fudgkins in the Flagon & Gorses the preceding evening.  Fudgkins had been drinking sloe gin with Alexander Sutcliffe two weeks prior so I had Sutcliffe to blame for my consumption of the drink even though he was in absentia, which was criminal on his part given the barrelhouse atmosphere that developed during the course of the evening.  Washing the sloe gin down with pints of the moreish Elland 1872 Porter (at a heavyweight 6.5%) was a winning combination but it was acting as too strong a relaxant, so I stepped down the ante and downgraded to taking the porter in black and tans instead.  I used to drink black and tans with Sutcliffe when we used to loiter in the Royal Oak as teenagers and it was a tactic we developed to make the best that we could out of poor quality mild and Guinness and it at least made things bearable.  

I always associate drinking pints of black and tans with snow as when I used to work at Patrick Motors petrol station (which is a whole other story) heavy snowfall befell the earth on a lonesome winter Saturday and under severe pressure from my colleague, the Wild Man of Brummio, the gaffer shut the station mid-afternoon on account of us having no customers.  I called Sutcliffe post haste and arranged to meet him in the Royal Oak to have a little taste of beer and to shelter from the inclement weather.  Having a 4 X 4 (rare in those days) the Wild Man offered me a lift and as he wanted to have a drink himself at his club he put his foot down and we skidded off the forecourt, heading down the road.  

We found ourselves at the island by the Oak but our progress was halted by a little old dear who was driving at two miles an hour in a Metro.  Panicking that his eight hours drinking time was dwindling away the Wild Man took the drastic action of driving right over the island to the other side, leaving tyre tracks in the grass, and after booting me out of his motor he took the same root back directly over the island shouting expletives at the crawling Granny as he went.  Sutcliffe and I then proceeded to drink black and tans until it came out of our earholes, as young men are prone to do, and a blues duo struck up in the bar and it felt like Christmas. 

On arrival at the Flagon, early Sunday evening, it was clear that some of the inmates had drank a few and that they were in the mood for a few more.   Although Frank Henstein carries his drink well I could tell he was full of mild as he was starting to communicate less by speaking and more by hand gestures; his daughter-in-law Toe-Knee Tulips was making a rare appearance at the drinking side of the bar and was in a very relaxed state and seeing that Agent Fudgkins and I were enjoying the sloe gin so much she elected to join us.  Frank Henstein accused the long suffering barmaid Carla Von Trow-Hell of having a nice ar*e and Neddy La Chouffe was so taken with the whole bonhomie of the evening that he decided to ditch the car and he reappeared from stage left and got involved with the black and tans.   Neddy’s is a professional motor car tinkerer and in his expert opinion the “Helen” style number plate on my new car could be worth a couple of hundred quid.  With pound signs in my eyes I ordered another round of sloe gins.

All hands clamoured round the L shaped bar like whelks on a rock face.  Fudgey gave me a book, The Little Grey Men, by BB and Carla immediately nicked it and Toe-Knee claimed second dibs on it, so by the time I read the children’s book to my dear boy Kenteke he will be a fully grown adult.   Philly the Gent compensated for my loss of the book by lending me a DVD, Captain Phillips, a film about pirates, and such a piratical infusion was needed as the Pirate himself was AWOL, resting upstairs in his quarters. 

When supplying us with a steady flow of drinks Chilli Willy took the unfamiliar tack of being nice to us and the general consensus was that we didn’t like it and all internees agreed that he should return to his usual sullen, curt demeanour.  Being cunning though Willy stayed in the game by changing tactics and he informed us of the fascinating life and times of one of his distant forebears, the eminently colourful Chalkley Beeson who was a businessman, lawman, and cattleman and owner of the famous Long Branch Saloon, Dodge City during the wild west era.  Beeson was Sheriff of Dodge City.  Get that Sheriff of Dodge f*cking City; imagine that on your CV – I can see a smarmy, marble smooth suit asking in an interview “what makes you think you are qualified for the job Mr Horton?”.  “I was the Sheriff of Dodge City, now if you don’t give me the job I am going to blow your f*cking head off.”  Beeson drove noted gunman Clay Allison out of town.  Beeson knew Wyatt Earp.  Beeson had a big moustache.  Beeson was without a shadow of doubt a right rough and tumble character.  “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us” tough.  Two lumps of grit in his coffee.   The Milky bars were not on me but I did order another round of sloe gins.

The Chalkley Beeson story was Chilli Willy’s finest moment since he cooked the deluxe and luscious food on the Jewish food night and he can live off the story well into his dotage.   Meanwhile, in strolled the inimitable Colly Coren and surveying the Wild West Midlands sight around the bar he must have thought he had walked into the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City in the 19^th century.   Coren fell short of greeting us with “howdy” but despite his sobriety he did have enough sport in his bones to join in with the general carousing and high spirited horseplay.   Willy and Carla did not slide our sloe gins down the long bar top as they would have got stuck on the beer towels and there is a ledge half way up the bar anyway:  if they had so, it would have been to my detriment as Fudgkins would have been quick on the draw and had my drink down his throat quicker than you can say Wild Bill Hickok.  The rest of the evening was hazier than the early morning mist over Tombstone but it ended with Willy and Carla giving me a lift back to Codger Mansions and Carla generously shoving an unwanted bottle of wine in my hands that was clanging around the motor.

Back to Monday morning.  Someone must have broken in during the night and cooked a curry and left all the dishes strewn across the kitchen, it couldn’t have been me as I can remember it.  A small piece of green chilli wedged between my teeth gave the game away though – not an unpleasant reminder in morsel form of the night before.  If I see a morsel of food on the kitchen surface I always instinctively eat it even if I don’t know what it is, a bit of bonus food; I have fallen foul of it a few times when it was not food at all but a foreign body that tasted acrid.  Unwashed dishes, poor form, not like me at all, I always manage to tidy up no matter what condition I am in post Flagon, hang my trousers up etc. 

Sundry bits of paper were strewn over the table, potential dates Carla had given me for a Flagon beer junket, notes for this column, a reminder that I need to look into buying a mattress.  Despite everything I am a shining beacon of organisation.  I need a new mattress because of a bad back; my existing one must pre-date the three day week and is less supportive than a parent whose child has just said that they are running off to the circus.   Have you seen the price of mattresses? I was aghast when I looked, it will have to wait.  Willy Mantitt, who admittedly has a few quid (not all of which has been acquired in a condign fashion), said that he spent three and a half grand on a top of the range mattress stating that you spend a third of your life in bed and that it was the best money he ever spent.  I suppose you wouldn’t hesitate to lay out three and a half large on a motor if you had the cash knocking about, so for once Mantitt is onto something.

I dragged my hangover onto the train to get to work and out of a dark corner of my eye I saw a headline on the inner pages of the Metro that a passenger was reading, which read, “Why does anything exist at all?”  Such a poser was too much to handle in the circumstances so I just thought to myself that if in the final reckoning I fail to evade the clutches of the sinister devil I hope at least that they stock black and tans and sloe gin in hell.

© Dominic Horton, 2014.

* Email: lordhofr@gmail.com.