Let
Them Eat Steak
By
Dominic Horton
This week
has seen the latest chapter in my sorry mild-graines illness odyssey
as I visited the consulting rooms of an ear, nose and throat
specialist, Mr R. On the night before my appointment Fudgkins was
in a typically frivolous mood in the Flagon & Gorses and he
explained that if he were the consultant he would quickly cure my
illness by saying to me, “please look at the ceiling Mr Horton”
and while I unsuspectingly stood there awaiting further doctoral
instruction he would swiftly administer a forceful right hook to my
chin (Fudgkins – “bosher!!!!!!”) and after that I would be
right as rain. The Fudgey remedy is akin to giving a smack to an old
fashioned black and white television set in order to correct an
errant rolling picture. Fudgkins followed the description of his
recalibration method with hysterical and lengthy cackling. Like
Queen Victoria I was not amused.
 |
| Mr R, by request of Toby In-Tents |
My work
colleague the Mexican previewed my consultant appointment by stating
that when he visited a specialist in relation to a similar complaint
many years ago the doctor instructed him to stand up straight and to
extend his hands out in front of him and to march up and down on the
spot with his eyes closed. This seemed like a very antiquated (and
capering) way of diagnosing any illness and the image of Mex
lumbering blindly around the consulting room bumping into the doc’s
skeleton, like a novice zombie, made me chuckle.
The ENT
man, Mr R, greeted me warmly when he invited me into his spacious and
airy surgery and I instantly took to him and his affable nature,
noting that he is a dead ringer for BBC News 24’s Chris Eakin.
Mind you, disappointingly I spotted that Mr R was wearing a light
beige trouser accompanied by a black belt; surely a man in his
position, which boasts such a handsome remuneration, could afford to
acquire a tan belt in order to be dressed properly. After a detailed
interrogation Mr R chirped, “right, it’s time for a few tests.
First off I want you to stand up straight and to extend your hands
out in front of you and march up and down on the spot with your eyes
closed.” It was reassuring to find that like Banks’s beer the
ear, nose and throat game is unspoilt by progress.
After
prodding various implements up my nose and down my ears Mr R then put
one of those rounded, cardboard nail file type thingies on my tongue
and asked me to say “arrrggh”, which hitherto I did not think was
a bona fide medical procedure but one only used when a character in a
1970’s sitcom is examined by a doctor (for example, the first
episode of series 1 of Porridge [entitled New Faces, Old
Hands]). Following this I was asked to step inside a glass
booth so I thought we were going to have an impromptu game of Mr &
Mrs and I half expected Derek Batey to appear from stage left.
But Mr R explained that the booth is intended to cut out all
background noise for my impending ear test.
 |
| BBC News 24's Chris Eakin,. |
At the end
of the appointment Mr R explained that all seemed normal with my
ears, nose and throat and that the only thing left to examine was my
brain, so he booked me in for an MRI scan on my loaf stating that he
had no reason to be alarmed but we’d best be on the safe side. I
fully expect the doc to give me a call after the test to tell me
that, “You have a perfectly normal brain Mr Horton …………….
for a field mouse.”
I have
been concerned by my illness this week but a news headline that I
came across was even more disturbing as it read, “Ping wins
Masterchef title”. I thought to myself, how on earth can the
workmanlike chef of the undistinguished Rhareli Peking Chinese
takeaway win such a prestigious award? To my great relief I learnt
that the headline was not referring to Mr Ping but to a certain Ping
Coombes who sealed the award with a delicious Malaysian pork and
liver soup. The Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli could do worse
than invite Coombes along to tutor Mr Ping in the art of making curry
sauce that actually has a liquescent quality and is not just a
homogeneous gelatinous lump.
At least
the Rhareli Peking has overcome its past sanitary difficulties and it
no longer has a zero rating for food hygiene which is not something
that can be said about Marco Pierre White’s expensive four star
Steakhouse restaurant in Birmingham which was condemned by
environmental
health officers, it was disclosed this week. Buying beef fried
rice and curry sauce from an undistinguished local takeaway after a
gallon of beer in the Flagon is one thing but when you are paying £50
for a steak in a top notch restaurant you at least expect the kitchen
to be cleaner than Cliff Richard’s underpants. The news of White’s
restaurant’s indiscretions came a week after it was revealed that
Jamie Oliver’s upmarket butcher, Barbecoa, in the City of London,
was forced to close after failing a health inspection. Mouldy cow
carcasses were found in addition to out of date steaks and mouse
droppings: at least the droppings indicated that the mice, unlike the
cows, were fresh.
 |
| Derek Batey |
There were
no issues with the food on Monday evening in the Flagon & Gorses
where Tomachezki, Pat Debilder, Mother Teresa and I gathered for
steak cooked by Chilli Willy’s unfair hand to celebrate
Tomachezki’s 72nd birthday; we all had a jolly pleasant
time, enhanced by Willy’s world class gravy. Unbeknown to each
other, Pat and Teresa, Chilli and I had all procured birthday cake
for the occasion so it was a case of Marie Antoinette, “let them
eat cake” but given the main course of the evening it would have
been equally suitable for Chilli Willy to declare, “let them eat
steak.” We all scoffed the steak with relish. Well, actually we
ate the steak with vegetables and gravy but we enjoyed it
nonetheless.
Earlier in
the week Pat Debilder, Fudgkins and I were lining our stomachs not
with steak and cake but with with the delectable house beer in Ma
Pardoe’s in Netherton prior to a visit to the Arts Centre to see
the Dudley Little Theatre’s (DLT – unfortunate acronym)
satisfying production of Blackadder, which they put on to mark
the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War
in 1914.
Given the
fiascos of trying to get tickets for previous performances we turned
up at the theatre on the hop this time hoping there was room in the
house and luckily there was. Usually DLT states that tickets are
available at the local butchers but when you make an enquiry there
they always say, “we don’t know anything about any theatre
tickets mate but while you are here do you want to buy a pound of
pork sausages?” The butcher directs you to Netherton Arts Centre
box office which is always ticketless so they re-direct you to Dudley
Council. When you call the Council the member of staff who answers
the call is temporarily thrown by your query as he was expecting you
to lodge a complaint that your dustbins have not been emptied on the
due date again. The confused council official denies any knowledge
of theatre tickets and refuses thereafter to tell you anything other
than his name, rank and serial number in line with the dictate of the
Geneva Convention. So all in all it is no wonder that DLT rarely get
a full house. The whispers are that due to local authority cuts
that Netherton Arts Centre is under threat so if you can make it to a
show there please do because of course the more people that use the
place the more chance it has of remaining open
(http://www.dudleylittletheatre.org/).
One place
that is definitely still open is the Aston Hotel pub on Witton Lane
in Aston, which cropped up in conversation the other day with Willy
Mantitt as his firm is trying to flog it off. This gave me chance
to relay the following story to Willy.
When my my
elder brother, Albino Duxbury, and I were boys our Uncle Albert used
to take us to watch Aston Villa and we used to go in the Aston Hotel
for the pre-match drinks but as they wouldn’t let kids in the pub
we used to stand in the entrance hall, which was fine as it was
enclosed and heated. Uncle Albert use to have a pint with his
friend, so as it was in the days before hand held video games the
Albino and I had to make our own fun so we developed a game whereby
we would throw pennies into a glass lampshade hanging from the
ceiling. The lampshade had a glass bottom to it and was only open on
the top, so it would collect the pennies that were on target.
Anyway, we did this for a couple of seasons but of course it started
to get full of pennies. One pre-match we threw a penny into the
lampshade but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back; the
lampshade finally gave way and smashed releasing hundreds of pennies
onto the floor of the entrance hall. Sensing the impending
commotion Uncle Alb said, “quick, neck your drinks we’re off”
and we swiftly hot trotted it, laughing our socks off all the way to
Villa Park.
©
Dominic Horton, May 2014.
*
EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.
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