Lowlife 85 – A Day Out

A Day Out

By Dominic Horton

It's good to wake up naturally and to not have to set an alarm, pure bliss. Wait a minute, it is 0934 hours, virtually half the day has gone already, what a waste. And I am supposed to be going out today, doing something wholesome and worthwhile and not doing what I did yesterday, idling the day away drinking in the Flagon & Gorses with my crony The Pirate, the vivacious landlord of the pub. But it was Bank Holiday and you are allowed to, or even supposed to, go to the pub on a holiday Monday, even if in reality few people seem to do so these days. Right, settle down, don't panic Mr Mainwaring, just get the things done you need to do: breakfast, get ready, pick somewhere to go and egress the house: it's quite simple.

The portrait of the poor soul who resembles

the Pirate from Harvington Hall.

I'd better take one of those slices of bread out of the toaster and just have the one, after all I am supposed to be shedding a few pounds and I won't get to exercise today if I am going out. One round of toast seems a bit of a sorry sight but thinking about it I do have a yoghurt in the fridge that needs to be eaten and it qualifies as a breakfast item, at least on the continent anyway. The yoghurt is six days out of date, should I eat it? It might give me Salmonella and I am supposed to have another internet date tomorrow night. What a pathetic individual she will think I am if I have to cry off as a result of eating an out of date economy Sainsbury's low fat yoghurt. Oh to hell with it, let's take a gamble and live life dangerously; if I tell my date about it she might actually find my reckless risk taking a turn on.

A bath or a shower? A tough decision. A bath seems a bit decadent on a Tuesday given the detrimental effect it will have on my fuel bill but if I have a shower I will most likely itch afterwards, like I normally do. I feel irritable enough already today without being all itchy, so a bath it is. And now for the luxury of drying myself down with my new luxurious black bath towel I have invested in. This won't do, I am covered all over in little black bits of fluff off the towel, like an errant slave who has been tarred and feathered in the American Deep South in the 18^th Century. I am going to have to go in the naffing shower now anyway. I should have paid the extra to get a towel from M&S instead of going for the budget option at Wilkos. At this rate it will be lunchtime before I get out of the house.

From Harvington Hall: the baby
torture contraption

It's lunchtime. I wish I wasn't such a ditherer, that last two hours spent trawling the net trying to decide where to go was such a waste of time. But at least my mind is made up now, Harvington Hall, a 16^th Century Manor house with priest holes, not too far away and there shouldn't be too many bothersome kids there either. I wonder if the youth of today get excited about priest holes? I doubt it very much. Prior to the restoration of the Catholic church, when the King's magistrates tried to find the priests in their holes it was like a grisly ecclesiastical game of ackee 1-2-3 but just with higher stakes.

Now, what shoes to wear. I had better not wear my red ones as there might be school children around as it is the summer holidays and I could be misconstrued as a paedophile. I'll plump for the brown brogues, they might make me look like Mr Bean but at least I have no fear of being harried by Operation Yew Tree. I should cut some sandwiches to save me from having to spend a fiver odd on one in the overpriced café but I should really skip lunch altogether in the spirit of dieting, especially as I am going to the football later and will mostly likely have a highly calorific burger. I'll take my own bottle of tap water though, I'm not getting stung for £1.50 buying a bottle of spring water at Harvington Hall. Watch the pennies and all that.

There's far less than a quarter of a tank of petrol in the car, should I stop and refuel or will that be enough? I'm later starting out than I wanted to be, so I think that I will risk it and I can use it during my date tomorrow as another example that I live life on the edge. Look, there's a Tesco Express. I'm famished, sod it I'm going to stop and get a sandwich, I'll just go for one of those tasteless low calorie ones, it is not even like eating really. That should do the job, Tesco Light Choice prawn mayonnaise. But wait, there is a discounted BLT there which is considerably cheaper. I can have a sandwich I want for well under a pound or one I don't particularly desire for nearly a quid more. It's got to be the BLT, sorry waistline, I'll just have to forego cheese on my burger later. Even when I resolutely start out with good intentions things often go pear shaped, which is exactly the way my body shape will end up if I don't change my dietary habits.

£8.50 seems a bit steep for entry to the Hall but I am here now so I might as well bite the bullet and pay it and it does include a free guided tour. But I can't be bothered with the tour as I have ostensibly come here to get away from other people. The well signposted set route round the house appeals to my logical and organised Virgo nature, not that I believe in astrology, I think people of my generation were put off it for life in the 1980's by Russell Grant and his ridiculously garish sweaters.

From Harvington Hall: hog slaughter

(there must have been a more humane

and efficient method than tw*tting the 

poor hog on the head with a large mallet), 

by request of Toby In-Tents. 

I'm in the third room of the house, taking my time looking at the artefacts and reading all of the interesting information, and other than the cashier on the way in I have not come across another human being, this is brilliant, almost like a private viewing of the house. What's that horrid noise? Oh no, it's the bellowing voice of the tour guide and the sound of the collected feet of his brethren on the wooden floor and they are moving menacingly towards me. I have been so engrossed that the tour has almost caught me up. Now I am going to have to rush to get away from them and move on before they get to this room, which I have barely surveyed and it is the brewery as well. This is like some bizarre fox hunt and I am the vulnerable fox, ready to to be ripped apart and devoured. Well, we are in the countryside I suppose and that is exactly the kind of thing they like to get up to. Take a deep breath, have a sip of water and calm down, they are only people. Oh, sh*t I have ran out of water, I'm going to have to fork out for a bottle in the café now anyway as one must remember that dehydration is a soldier’s worst enemy and life of course is one long battle. If you enter a café at an historic house as a minimum you have to buy a cup of tea and a buttered scone otherwise the cashier takes a dim view and condemns you as a cheapskate with a look of disapproving derision.

I am valiantly trying to stay away from the pub but reminders of the Pirate seem to be everywhere. In a room called Mr. Dodd's Library I hazarded across a book entitled The Pirate by Sir Walter Scott and now in the very next room a portrait of a person who looks uncannily like the Pirate is inescapably starring at me; I can't evade The Pirate even when I try to. In a room called the Nursery (named as such for obvious reasons) there is a Tudor contraption that was used to force babies to walk but it looks more like an implement of torture. The child was put into a seat with their legs dangling and they could walk along a confined walkway of about three feet, supported as they go. It wouldn't surprise me if the Pirate's forebears worked in the Nursery in the house in Tudor times and that they devised the invention so that they could wedge babies into it, before sneaking off to the brewery to get sozzled on mead.

Harvington Hall: The Brewery

Café time. The waitress has told me to sit down and she will come over and serve me. There's only one free table as the room is packed with tea-supping coffin dodgers and they are all gawking at me. I feel more like a hunted fox than ever. I need to get out of here, I'm going to take my tray of refreshments outside to the deserted garden. The good news is that the water was only £1.20 but what I saved on the water I lost on the scone. It has suddenly become infeasibly windy but there is no turning back now. The scone is enormous and I know if I eat it I shouldn't have a burger later. But I can't not eat it, given how much I paid for the damn thing. And the final indignity is that my cup is half full and the coffee is only lukewarm. But I can't raise the enthusiasm to take the drink back as frankly I just want to get out of here as quickly as I can and anyway complaining simply isn't the British way, we'll leave that to the brash Americans.

There is something extremely comforting about the voice of Dr Mark Porter on BBC Radio 4's Inside Health on the car stereo as I drive homeward. If I uncharacteristically push the car to the speed limit I might just have time before going to the football to hear the even more comforting sound of a pint being poured in the Flagon & Gorses.

© Dominic Horton, August 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 84 – The High Life

The High Life

By Dominic Horton

This week Lowlife uncharacteristically had a bit of the high life as my dear son Kenteke and I had a short break in a four star hotel in Nottingham after I secured a more than favourable deal on lastminute.com. As the name of the website suggests the holiday was a bit of an off the cuff affair which is unusual for me as being a worrier spontaneousness is not something that I usually get involved in. That said I do sometimes order a picked egg in the Flagon & Gorses on a whim if the mood takes me. I am normally overly cautious, so I surprised myself (and all of my work colleagues) a great deal recently when I took voluntary redundancy.

Kenteke on the beach at Old Market Square, Nottingham.

It was all a bit eleventh hour as applications for VR had to be in at 1700 hours on deadline day and come 1645 hours my mind was not 100% made up. I decided to toss a coin, heads I leave, tails I stay in the job. But then I thought, “what happens if the coin lands on tails, how will I feel?” I would feel crushed I thought, so that was that and I applied for VR and luckily they couldn't wait to get rid of me. It was no secret that Mex had applied for VR as he had told everyone, but I had not disclosed my application to a soul other than Mex. On the day the bank told Mex and I that we could naff off he gathered our departmental colleges around and told them that he was off into the sunset. Then I took great delight in informing the gathering, “and I am off too.” There was a bit of nervous laughter before everyone realised that I was being serious. All hands congratulated the Mex and I while privately thinking, “b*ollocks, there was only ten in the department to start with so now we are down to eight we are going to have to work like navvies.”

When I worked for the bank they once dispatched me on a mission to a branch in Nottingham but on arrival in the city on Monday I found that the branch in Old Market Square is now a pub, imaginatively named The Bank but we didn't go in the place as it is a bit like a JD Wetherspoon's house but with more expensive prices. But Old Market Square had other treasures on offer and we hunted for them in the fairground Pirate ship, which is a contraption of torture that swings violently from stern to bow, high into the air, so you end up looking directly down at the ground. It was an awful experience. It was not the kind of activity for a queasy stomached drinker to partake in and on more than one occasion when we were high in the air I felt decidedly bilious and thought that I was going to vomit on my fellow shipmates directly below me at the bow end. Fortunately my lunch stayed where it was meant to be and it was a great relief when the horrors of the ride were over and I could return to dry land.

We got off the ship and went to the beach. Nottingham City Council have deposited 250 tonnes of sand on Old Market Square to make a beach for the kiddies to play on. Kenteke took great delight in spending the afternoon building sand castles and making streams and tunnels in the sand while I sat on a deck chair reading The Good Beer Guide to research where to go for tea (or dinner if you prefer). I was enjoying things so much that I didn't even sneak off to the beach bar for a livener. Going somewhere to eat with Kenteke would at least give me the opportunity to undertake a reconnaissance mission to one of the city's decent boozers.

The Clock Inn, Shell Corner, by request of Toby In-Tents. 

But Kenteke had other ideas as he spotted a Pizza Express on the way back to the hotel and he wanted to go there but I studied the menu outside and thought it was a bit pricey, especially as beer-wise they only sold bottled Peroni lager which was ludicrously priced at effectively £6.60 a pint. But then I remembered that the Codger had given me a voucher for Pizza Express, buy one main meal get one free. Given that I used to scrutinise the minutiae of legal documents in my previous profession I have a habit of reading all terms and conditions and the small print on vouchers to avoid them being rejected come payment time and the voucher in question seemed to be watertight, all we had to do was avoid ordering calzone and we were quids in. But when the bill arrived and I presented the voucher the waiter said, “you can only used this voucher in September mate.” I queried this and asked where it said that in the small print. The waiter pointed to the top of the voucher where it read in large font “SEPTEMBER OFFER.” The devil is not always in the detail.

Ronan the Accuser, from the film Guardians of the Galaxy

I have long contended that the attention spans of people have generally significantly decreased in the last twenty odd years and this was in evidence when we went on a fascinating guided tour of the tunnels under Nottingham Castle. After ten minutes I looked around at the others on the tour and I realised that I was the only person actually listening to the interesting stories and facts being orated by the tour guide. I felt a bit sorry for the bloke, especially as he had a kindly countenance and was probably working for nothing as a volunteer. Some of the people were even rude enough to be playing on their mobile telephones.

The guide told a wonderful but grisly story of the execution of the traitor Roger Mortimer, 1^st Earl of March, by Edward II and his body being taken through the tunnels. Later I bumped into the guide in the gents and he told me that historians have now disproved the story but he has left it in the tour as it is a good yarn. This made me question all of what the guide told me on the tour; you can tell people any old b*llocks and they will believe it, as is proved on a daily basis by readers of the tabloid newspapers.

Despite the reduction in the populous' concentration spans people are still able to sit through throw away, unchallenging Hollywood movies as I discovered when Kenteke and I went to watch Guardians of the Galaxy at Nottingham Cineworld. Despite the film being ostensibly a kid's movie Kenteke was the only kid proper that I could see in the packed auditorium and it partly answers a question much asked in the Flagon & Gorses – if young adults of today no longer go to pubs what do they do in their spare time? They are all in Cineworld Nottingham and similar places sporting silly beards (not the ladies) and drinking latte coffee.

A dreaded fairground Pirate Ship

Kenteke enjoyed the picture and I had a power nap, waking up just in time to see the action packed conclusion to the film. I awoke to see the evil Ronan the Accuser telling anyone who cared to listen what a powerful fiend he was and that he was going to rule the galaxy whether they liked it or not. Ronan was dressed in a Darth Vader type get up and he had black make up all over his face which was badly applied in the fashion of an old transvestite lush. It struck me that baddies are more often than not poorly dressed but just because you are evil there is no reason why you can't dress stylishly in say a decent sports jacket, a well cut shirt and chinos and a dapper pair of brogues. They would all have to be black of course as that is the colour of choice of baddies but that might lead to confusion as the viewers might think that the character is in fact Johnny Cash, who was generally seen as a goodie, especially after he found God and laid off the amphetamines. There is always exceptions to the rule of course and despite their dreadful fascist ideology it has to be said that rakish Nazi officers did rather cut a dash in their flashy uniforms. But it is better to be a poorly dressed goodie than a dashing baddie I suppose.

It was back to the lowlife on Saturday drinking with Tom Holliday, El Pistolero and the Woodcutter in the earthy Clock Inn on Shell Corner where they served us Scotch in half pint Carling Black Label glasses and the pick of the cuisine on offer was packets of Golden Cross Spicy Rings. It is pleasant to get away for a while but it is equally good to return to the reassuring surroundings of home.

© Dominic Horton, August 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 83 - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

By Dominic Horton

A couple of nights of insomnia and fretful sleep was not an ideal way to start the week and anxiety in the wee small hours meant I have all but worn out the carpet that goes from the bedroom to the bathroom to use the toilet. The urge to go to the toilet is supposed to be linked to the flight part of the “flight or fight” response to fear and some experts believe that the desire to relieve oneself is with a view to making your person lighter in order to run faster. I am not wholly convinced by this theory as if you are running away from a violent pursuer you can hardly stop and say to him, “hold on a minute mate, let's just suspend the chase for a few minutes, I am desperate for a sh*t.”

The Codger with the antiquated sun bed/

instrument of torture.  

Some advisers on insomnia suggest that if you wake up in the middle of the night and need to use the toilet to not switch the lights on in a bid to remain snoozy. That is all well and good but to access the downstairs toilet in Codger Mansions you have to pass through the dining room (now the games room after a pool table replaced the dining table) and the kitchen so when I tried the lightless approach I banged my head in the darkness, so any sleepiness that I retained was quickly knocked out of my system.

Regardless of how well I sleep I always wake up in the morning in a highly anxious state. There used to be a television commercial (I forget the product – obviously not an effective advertisement) that used Lionel Ritchie's Easy Like a Sunday Morning as the soundtrack and the character in the advert had a relaxing start to the day having breakfast and reading the newspapers in bed before taking a leisurely stroll in a sunny local park, walking the dog. My start to the day is the antithesis of that and it is generally a world class display of mithering. I awake wired and uptight like an exhausted solider in a battle who has dozed off in a dug out with shells dropping all around. But the only explosions that occur on my reintroduction into consciousness are those caused by the excessive consumption of jalapeño peppers the night before.

Going to the toilet in the middle of the night can be fraught with danger, comedy and embarrassment. The Phantom used to live with me in Codger Mansions and after a while he started to go out with the lovely Mrs Phantom, who I had never met. One Friday night I awoke and I was desperate for the toilet at about 0200 hours after consuming a lot of fluids in the Flagon & Gorses. In a semi conscious state I grabbed what I thought was my dressing gown to cover my naked body and ascended the stairs to gain admittance to the toilet but as I approached the kitchen I heard laughter and I slowly started to come back to the land of the living. I saw the Phantom and Mrs Phantom standing there and I introduced myself to the latter and said, “Pleased to meet you.” I had a sudden dawning that I was in fact clothed in my dear son Kenteke's dressing gown, which fell short of the waist so my meat and two veg were fully on show unashamedly swinging away. Undeterred I proceeded to the toilet with my bare bum cheeks trailing behind me. First impressions can't count for everything as Mrs Phantom has remained friendly with me to this day.

The brick outhouse at Codger Mansions 

by request of Toby In-Tents.

Anyway if I bang on any more about this insomnia lark ironically I will send you to sleep. After finally reaching the land of nod the other day I was rudely awoken by a loud band and my first thought was that the dilapidated shed in the Codger Mansions garden had given up the ghost and had finally collapsed. But I quickly realised that was not the case as the Codger and I had dismantled the shed the day before. The shed has been clinging on for grim death for a few years now and was riddled with more leaks than a corrupt Italian government so it had to go as there was less than no hope that it could withstand the rigours of another English winter.

The Codger had blagged an arsenal of tools to assist us in our demolition quest and as we stood before the shed contemplating the task at hand Codger the bodger menacing wielded a lump hammer and declared, “right let's f*ck this baby over.” I cautioned the Codger to halt his stride and I suggested that we needed to take a more considered approach and devise a logical deconstruction plan, which would begin with the roof being removed. After ten minutes of following the plan I got bored and I said to the Codger, “pass that f*cking hammer” before proceeding to smack the living sh*t out of the fragile wooden structure.

Whilst basking in the glow of the violent deconstruction of the defenceless shed we decided to ride the crest of the wave and while we were in the mood so we cleared out the assorted historic debris and rubbish from the brick outhouse. The contents of the outhouse were reminiscent of Steptoe's yard and the highlight was an original wooden sun bed which looked like an instrument of torture from Ceausescu's Romania. We replaced the battered fence panels and generally tidied up the garden, cutting back the firs and the ivy. All that was left to do the following day was to pluck out a few weeds and add the finishing touch of cleaning up trails of cat sh*t left by neighbouring moggies. You never see that on Ground Force.

The deceased former Romanian dictator Ceausescu

after a session on his sun bed.

If I had a woman like the bra-less Charlie Dimmock then I wouldn't have to suffer the indignities of internet dating. I have had a sustained campaign of dating in the last few weeks in the deluded belief that someone will be foolish enough to want to be with me and that being with a woman will drag me away from pub life and lead me to blissful happiness. I have dated all sorts of women with minimal success and I have encountered the good, the bad and the ugly. But it has been less like a spaghetti western and more like a cross between a soap opera and a sit com. There was an excessive babbler, another who barely said a word and a woman who must have posted an old photograph on the dating site as she looked significantly more haggard and bulky in the flesh. I should have guessed that her picture was out of date as in the background of the photograph there was an Austin Maxi.

Many of the women on dating sights tell petty lies about themselves and I am sure most of the men do too. Not only are a few years shaved off ages but some also miraculously lose weight by re-classifying their body shape to a more attractive category. I have learnt that generally persons who classify themselves as athletic are actually of an average body type, the averages are usually carry a few extra pounds and the ones listed as having a few extra pounds are in fact out and out obese. You have to apply the same rationale of the rule of thumb that is used by doctors who ask boozers how much they drink, i.e. take their answer and double it.

I did meet one lovely lady a couple of weeks ago who hailed from North of the Border and we got along pretty well and under intense questioning I told her that I suffered from anxiety disorder and she said that she occasionally did as well. After a while I started to experience of my dreaded mild-graines, which meant effectively that I could not see and I was barely in touch with reality (even less so than is normal for me.) I decided not to tell my date about the mild-graine episode as after the anxiety disclosure she would have me down as a chronic hypochondriac so I just sat there and sweated it out nodding my head at her barely able to hear what she was saying. After she left I had to sit in the pub on my own for half an hour waiting for the mild-graine to pass as I was not fit to drive. She later contacted me to say that due to difficulties with her daughter she has to suspend all dating operations so it was a case of me going back to the drawing board with my tail between my legs.

So it is onward and downward, back to the Flagon & Gorses and more fretful nights are to follow on my own in my Codger Mansions bed. Thank goodness for Alfie the teddy and the phantasm who haunts my nightmares as at least between the two of them they provide a bit of night time company.

© Dominic Horton, August 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 82 - A Herculean Effort

A Herculean Effort

By Dominic Horton

School holidays, a rainy day. The cinema it was then for my son Kenteke and I and his friend Smiley Nially to watch the action adventure film Hercules. I gave Kenteke a tenner and told him to go and get popcorn and pop for him and Smiley and some H2o for me and I'll sort out the tickets. I didn't expect a bank note in the change from the Aryton Senna but I at least expected a few nuggets of gold. The lad dolefully doling out the tickets couldn't have been any older than twenty but he was losing his hair and had a comb over. It's wasn't a traditional Ralph Coates job, it was a bit more carefully sculptured but it was a comb over nonetheless.

Ralph Coates, by request of Toby In-Tents

It's one thing losing the battle against baldness in your 30's or 40's when you care about it less, or not at all, but having a desert of bare flesh in the middle of your barnet at such a tender age is a bit cruel to say the least. And he was no looker either. My crony the Frymaster General told me that he likes being bald as he just shaves off the remaining bits of hair so he doesn't need to bother combing or washing it or any of that malarkey. And with the Frymaster being the way he is I wholeheartedly believe him and he lives in Stoke-on-Trent anyway and they are not big on vanity or fashion in the Potteries.

I took a twenty spot out of my wallet to pay for the tickets but I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find out that the twenty didn't cover the bill which was over twenty one quid, which I thought was a bit of a liberty as two of our trio were kids. Then Kenteke ran over to me waving the tenner saying that he needs another two quid for the popcorn and drinks. Thinking this must be wrong I march over to the snacks counter. Bless the kids they'd only ordered small drinks and popcorn but the bill turned out to be right. I joked to the young cashier that you need a second mortgage to go to the cinema these days, which was a lazy and time-worn comment on my part, but in my defence I was in throes of shock. The cashier didn't crack her face at my quip but looked at me with disdain as if to say, “Look mate don't blame me, I am not profiting from this extortion as they only pay me the minimum wage, it's not a workers' co-operative you know.”

To the film. The house was virtually empty which suited me as the rustling of sweet wrappers was kept to a minimum and it was not too clammy with body heat, which was good as if the truth be known I was still suffering from the after effects of the impromptu cocktail evening in the Flagon & Gorses two days earlier, when I got involved in drinking the improbable but winning mix of Cherry B and stout. There was plenty of body heat in the film though, which starred Dwayne Johnson, better known as the Rock, an almost superhuman man of rippling muscle and testosterone and at 42 years old he's the same age as me. If Johnson is the Rock that makes me the Bibble (for readers not from the Black Country a bibble is a pebble or a rounded stone. Yes I know a gag loses effect when you have to explain it but what am I to do?)

Hercules had to complete twelve labours, a dozen difficult tasks, in order to be granted immortality by the Gods. The labours included tasks such as slaying the monstrous nine-headed Lernaen Hydra and capturing the maundering and terrifying Cretan Bull. The ease with which the indestructible Hercules completed the tasks means that if he was ever to appear on I'm a Greek Demi-God get me Out of Here he would undoubtedly win it at a canter. All that said, one of the assignments that the Gods prescribed was to steal the apples of Hesperides; if the simple act of scrumping offers the key to immortality then every youth from my Shell Corner childhood will live forever. Which will at least please the landlord of the Clock Inn.

Cherry B

But the Gods did not lay down a really challenging test to Hercules such as having to spend the day looking after two lively kids trying not to sh*t oneself having eaten too many jalapeños the night before after the pub. Or painting fiddly pipework in my Codger Mansions bathroom (which is eerie and strangely cold on account of a grisly suicide conducted there many years ago) whilst suffering from the filthy post-booze terrors.

As his final and most arduous test the Gods should have made Hercules attend and endure a whole season of Aston Villa home games, which would have most likely been too much for the poor lad. The great Hercules would have stared down into his bovril at half-time Vs Crystal Palace on a freezing January day, Villa losing 3-0 and down to ten men, and proclaimed, “Sod immortality, I want to die. Now.”

All the heroes in action films such as Hercules are lionhearted warriors that officially have no fear. As regular readers of Lowlife will know, I have plenty of fear as I am a sufferer of anxiety disorder so most days I am afraid of my own shadow. Hercules should trying having to brave the terrors of Tesco Express to buy a loaf on a particularly nervy and anxious day when the chatty cashier with the screw loose is lurking behind the till. Such a daunting undertaking takes real gallantry, I can tell you. I know that action films are merely fantasy but they would give a more balanced view of life if they included less warriors and more worriers.

So what else has been going in the weeks that The Seadog's Magic Winkle saga has dragged on in these pages? Alexander Sutcliffe and I embarked on a foreboding journey to England's frantic capital to undertake a long overdue inspection of Lowlife's London office, which is manned by the blithesome Barty Hook. Hook explained that on the Sunday of our arrival that he would be working until 1900 hours but we landed in London at lunchtime so we could partake in our usual sacred Sabbath activity of beer worship in the pub. Hook instructed us to drop off our bags in his flat once we got there and we were greeted by his new Italian girlfriend Angelica, who turned out to be delightfulness personified in every way.

Hercules, as portrayed by Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson

After a quick drink Angelica offered to show us around the locality. We chatted as we ambled down the road at Angelica's leisurely Mediterranean pace but Sutcliffe and I were like springed coils, keen to get to the boozer. The first pub we came across happened to be a Fullers' house so I told Angelica that Sutcliffe and I were going in there and although we invited her for a drink she had things to do, so she bade us farewell.

Many hours later Barty pitched up with Angelica in tow and we were in the very same pub where she had left us. Angelica asked us what we had been up to for the last few hours and I stated that we had sat in pubs all afternoon drinking. She looked at Barty in disbelief as she thought we were kidding but he confirmed that is exactly what we had done. A puzzled Angelica explained that sitting in a pub all day drinking beer is foreign to Italian culture, where a couple of hours in a bar might be taken up by playing chess and drinking espressos. “Don't you get bored just drinking beer for hours on end?” Angelica asked. Now it was the turn of Sutcliffe and I to look baffled as in our world supping pints in a boozer all day is premium fun and the antithesis of the state of boredom.

A Bibble

The follow day Barty took us into central London where we had to tolerate the frenetic crowds, extreme heat and pollution infused humidity. After hot trotting past Westminster Palace and the Cenotaph we stopped for a relaxant in the first pub we came to, again a Fullers' house. That set the tone for the day and thereafter we crawled around various boozers, most of which were agreeable. While we were in a pub called the Spanish bar in the evening Barty took a call from Angelica and he explained under questioning that we were in London central. “Oh good, you've taken them sightseeing” Angelica enthused. “No, not exactly” replied Barty, “we have spent all of the day in boozers.” If we lived in the Med we might have gone to a café and sipped cold coffee whilst moving rooks and bishops and the like around a chequered board. But as we are English we stuck to a tried and tested winning formula and to drag ourselves away from the pub would have taken a Herculean effort.

© Dominic Horton, August 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com..

Lowlife 81 – The Seadog's Magic Winkle - Part 4

The Seadog's Magic Winkle - Part 4

By Dominic Horton

In the last three episodes of Lowlife I have illuminated you about the secret, inner life of working in a petrol station (called PMG Forecourts) in the West Midlands when I was a teenager in the 1980's. This week the story concludes ...............

On Saturdays in the summertime I would start work at 0700 hours and work right through until the place shut at 2100 hours, so it was a long and tedious old day. The Seadog used to work until 1130 hours (oddly) for a bit of overtime and after that a part-timer would replace him for the duration of the shift. So after the Seadog had toddled off home I was in charge and it was a case of 'what I say goes' but I was never dictatorial or Draconian in my approach to the part-time staff, on the contrary, I adopted a very laissez faire philosophy, or to put it more crudely I didn't give a fiddler's fart. My relaxed attitude meant that the part-time staff were content to work with me and as they are all of a similar age to me, friendships developed with all of them that have lasted to this day, nearly a quarter of a century later.

A picnic set, not dissimilar to the one I describe in this edition.

On Saturdays my partner in crime was Still-in-Fjord, who was a bit alternative in appearance at the time and he sported peroxide blond hair that was long on one side and shaved on the other. It soon became clear that Still-in-Fjord was not exactly a stickler for the rules and regulations of PMG Forecourts so in order to facilitate the passage of the long hours in a more convivial fashion I suggested that a little drinkie poops might be a good idea. Still-in-Fjord had no objections to my proposal so he set off up the road to purchase some tinnies from Global Wines, which was close to his parents' house.

As I was not totally reckless and oblivious to my responsibilities as a Forecourt Cashier I suggested that we stick to a beer that is not too strong so we opted for Tennent's Talon Lager, which only weighted in at a negligible 2% ABV. Still-in-Fjord decided to buy a crate of Talon to give us an ample stock of the stuff but as he sauntered back to the forecourt with the slab resting on his shoulder he bumped into his Mother, who queried what he was doing with a crate of beer when he was supposed to be at work. “Oh, it's not for me Mom, it's for Dom who I work with,” Still-in-Fjord's hastily blurted out, which must have created a shoddy impression of me to his Mother, which has most likely endured over the years. First impressions and all that.

A can of Aston Manor lager

 by request of Toby In-Tents.

The Talon lager was so insubstantial in terms of alcohol content that we were only effectively drinking it for moral worth as it was impossible to drink enough of the stuff to even get tipsy, as after a few cans it would make you so bloated that it was impossible to force any more of the insipid liquid down your gullet. A switch in drinking tactics was needed and quick. The failure of the Talon experiment lead to me panicking and devising a stratagem, which in hindsight was frankly ridiculous. The following Saturday I asked Still-in-Fjord to get eight cans of Guinness and a bottle of Bulgarian Country Wine, which I knew was the cheapest bottle in stock at the off licence and it tasted even worse that the price alluded to. For reasons that I cannot begin to explain my judgement was that clouded that I decided to mix the Guinness with the bottle of wine to form a kind of dark and unappetising punch.

The punch packed a far greater punch than the Talon lager so on that basis alone we deemed it a success and it started a routine that we adopted for the Saturdays to follow. We used to mix the punch in the picnic set, which was an item of stock that was for sale in the shop. The plates and cups etc. that constituted the set were housed in a large plastic container that was ideal (or at least adequate) as a punch bowl. But the picnic set had other more conventional uses as we used it when we treated ourselves to a Chinese takeaway. We would clean the set after use and put it back on the shelf in the shop but over time its condition deteriorated and it became worn and dog eared. The picnic set would also usually contain encrusted remnants of Singapore Chow Mein as we didn't employ a high level of diligence when washing up the plates. We didn't even have any washing up liquid.

One day the unthinkable happened and a customer actually wanted to purchase the picnic set. Realising the dilapidated state of the product and it's strategic importance to ongoing operations at the forecourt I tried in vain to discourage the punter from purchasing it, stating that he could pick one up for half of the price at B&Q down the road. Sorry, I meant he was adamant, and he bought the set and as we had no other suitable vessel to use the days of the vile but potent stout and vino punch were at an end. After that we switched to just drinking the cheap red wine as it came.

One day I got wind of the fact that the Seadog had found out that we had been drinking on site and that he was displeased about the matter. I was not looking forward to seeing the Seadog on the Sunday, when we were to work together for the day, as I thought I was in for the chop. The Seadog confronted me about the drinking rumour and I thought that there was no point in denying it so I admitted that it was true. The Seadog let me know his thoughts in no uncertain terms: “We have worked all these hours together and you have never once mentioned anything about boozing. I have to say that I am extremely disappointed.” I thought the Seadog's next words would be the punchline of me getting the sack, but he continued, “We have wasted all these Sundays together not drinking, if only you had suggested it earlier. Pop up the offie will you and get three litres of Aston Manor lager and three litres of their bitter as well. That should keep us going until closing time.” So thereafter every Sunday the Seadog and I grimaced our way through bottles of the cheap and less than delectable Aston Manor beer in the name of leisure.

The site where PMG Forecourts used to be as it is now

 (the petrol station was housed in the building on the right).

Once the football season started I didn't want to work Saturdays as I wanted to play my part in destroying the beautiful game on the playing fields of the West Midlands and bordering counties. To start with the Seadog used to cover my Saturday shifts but a message came from Head Office stating that I had to work them if I wanted to stay in the job as they didn't want to incur the expense of paying the Seadog overtime. I still steadfastly refused Saturday shifts so word came through that the besuited big boss Walker had been despatched from Head Office to have a meeting with me. This was most irregular as we didn't have meetings at PMG as we just used to go about our business. There is a lot to be said for just getting on with things and to my mind a lot of workplaces would benefit from banning meetings altogether.

Walker seemed nervous and he treated me with kid gloves and in the back room he explained to me in soft tones that unless I agreed to work Saturdays they would regrettably have to “let me go.” “Fine” I replied. A surprised and relieved Walker said, “Oh, you have taken that better than I expected, I thought that you would hit me” which I found mildly insulting being a devout pacifist. I was paid two weeks wages and my tenure at PMG was at an abrupt but relatively dignified end. Walker explained that they were not obliged to pay me anything as I had refused to work my contracted hours but the payment was a goodwill gesture for being a decent employee. If only he had known the half of it.

Because of an increasing lack of custom the petrol station itself didn't last too long after I left and it shut down for good. They kept the Seadog on for a week after closure for him to tie up loose ends so I popped to see him to pay my respects. I found him sitting dolefully on his stool smoking a fag like Hitler in his bunker waiting for Berlin to fall.

I stayed in touch with the Seadog for quite a while and we would occasionally go for a pint but eventually we lost contact. A couple of Christmases ago I decided to try and re-establish connection with the Seadog so I visited his house. I rang the doorbell and through the frosted glass in the front door I saw a child bolt up the stairs but no one answered the door, so I surmised that the kid was home alone and that as the Seadog has no young children he must have moved house. There is no chance of tracking the Seadog down on Facebook as he is not the type to use social media so I am left to hope and dream that he has returned to his beloved Lyme Bay to sail the high seas once again.

© Dominic Horton, July 2014.

*EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.