Lowlife 89 – A Tour of Duty

A Tour of Duty

By Dominic Horton

My dear son Kenteke is growing up and getting older and he will be off to big school come September, so I visited a high school open day this week to have a mooch around. Kids don't just go to the closest school to their abode these days, oh no, like everything else schools have to sell themselves, have to compete for the affections of choosy parents. Nothing is simple in the world anymore, everything is up for sale and vying for our attention; energy companies, telephone providers, even water suppliers. Water being sold off was the most evil aspect of the privatisation drive and people making profits out of providing such a fundamental and essential human necessity is quite obscene. Mind you, returning to education, the high school that I attended was a poor excuse of a seat of learning and spat me out ill equipped to deal with the world of work, further education and life in general. Thankfully Kenteke's high school will be a great deal more accomplished than the one I went to.

A Nasa Microwave oven.

The school gaffer greeted us with an introductory speech but he does not command the title Headmaster or Head as he referred to himself as the Principal, which is another example of an unwanted Americanism that has infiltrated our institutions. The Principal was not a Yankee though as he had an ever so feint Geordie accent and I wondered if he had worked on ridding himself of his regional dialect as a move to further his career. Not that I am a cynic, as regular readers of this column will know. The genial Principal was a slightly pudgy man with a sober grey suit, a trimmed beard (which makes up for a lack of hair on his head) and black, polished Dr Marten shoes on his feet, all of which lead to him emitting a kindly and welcoming countenance. I thought to myself that in order to rise to such a lofty position he might have a streak of b*stard in him and there was an intimation of this when he cracked a joke about the teachers and they all laugh dutifully and nervously in union. The Principal has the same name as a greasy haired chronic drunk I used to play darts with, who couldn't even pick up a dart until he had sunk a few drinks but once he had steadied his nerves was an ace marksman. I doubt whether the head of the school needs to drink a heart starter to get him going in the morning and even if he needed one the Principal wouldn't do it on principle.

As our group of parents started the tour the first thing I noticed was that there were TVs everywhere (televisions that is, not transvestites) so the fashion of having flat screen tellies on walls, invading an otherwise peaceful walk up a corridor, has even spread to our schools. Other than people like me getting irritated by such televisions no one else seems to pay much notice too them, especially as the sound is usually turned down, so they are expensive and environmentally unfriendly follies, on account of the electricity they burn and the materials that are used to make them. Thank the Tooth Fairy that the Pirate has not had a few installed in the Flagon & Gorses to keep up with Jones's, or more accurately the Wetherspoons.

Bill Shakespeare, looking like a cross between
the Pirate and Dick the Hook in this daub.

We were guided on the tour by a teacher from the school and she was accompanied by what used to be known in old money as a prefect but a badge on the girl's jumper told us that she is a gold pupil. I am glad that I didn't have to wear such a badge when I was at school as it would have been a little bit embarrassing wearing a badge labelling me as a “rusty iron pupil”.

Last week a driver drove his car across mine to get into the school, cutting me up in the process and it is not that he did not see me it was more a case of his testosterone pushing him to nip daringly but dangerously in front of me. Although I had never seen the driver before I thought to myself at the time that I bet he is a PE teacher and as the tour took us into the school gym I could see that for once in my life I was right as the errant driver was conducting a basketball session, all full of his masculine self with his all powerful whistle.

Fortuitously the tour guide quickly called full time on the gym and we moved on to the science lab and the evocative smell of Bunsen burner gas. The young teacher was larking about with chemicals and he effected a semi-spectacular explosion, which I would like to think was not staged managed for the benefit of the parents. But in the week when OFSTED warned that low level persistent disruptive behaviour by school children is seriously effecting learning I noticed that none of the kids I had seen had been practicing what is commonly known as f*cking about. Whether this was due to our parental presence I do not know but the school did seem to run a tight ship.

Thomas Hardy, by request of Toby In -Tents.

I noticed a detailed diagram on the wall of the science classroom which was entitled “the journey of a cheese sandwich” and it demonstrated the complicated journey of the food stuff from consumption to sewer. To prepare the kids for later life they should have an accompanying poster headed, “The journey of a Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway” which would have an altogether simpler path: “Cooked in Mr Pings' NASA strength microwave at the Peking in 40 seconds flat – transported back to home on unsteady legs – greedily but unsatisfyingly consumed, spilling 25% down dressing gown – immediately deposited down the karsi.”

On the way to the English literature classroom I noticed on the dining hall menu that they have fallen in line with the fashionable extortion tactic of charging 20p for a sachet of ketchup, and I thought to myself that they have got some sauce. I wouldn't mind but you usually only get a thimble full of sauce in these sachets and most of it is used up on the dip of a single chip. If Kenteke ends up going to the school I will send him armed with a bottle of ketchup and he can sell handsome dollops of it at 10p a pop as a nice little earner. I gather that's how Alan Sugar started out.

On arrival at the English literature classroom I was disappointed to see that schools are still stoically plodding on teaching the crusty old works of Shakespeare. The people in the know about these things assure us that old Shakey's plays are quite brilliant but I have to take their word for it as I didn't understand any of them when I was at school, they were as baffling to me as the undecipherable algebra. When I arrived at high school the English teacher took an immediate dislike to me thinking I was going to be a tearaway like my older brother, the Albino, but at that time it was not the case. Her ill treatment of me eventually lead to a self fulfilling prophecy and I rebelled against the old hag and her teachings.

Her pride and joy was a leather bound collection of the complete works of Shakespeare which she kept in a locked glass cabinet. One day when the class room was empty she foolishly left the key in the cabinet so we quickly half inched them and threw them in a skip on the way home, a move that Shakespeare himself might have approved of given that it contained both comedy and tragedy. A steward's inquiry into the theft ensued but the crime was perfectly executed so there was no comedy of errors, the teacher replaced the books so it was much ado about nothing.

Predictably I failed my English literature exam but I did win a competition to see who could pinch the most copies of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, lifting seventeen copies of the book. The novel was the key text of the course but I didn't get past the first chapter at school, which explains my failure. On an idle day months later after leaving school I came across the books in a plastic bag in my wardrobe and I picked a copy up and started to read it and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. If only I had bothered to read the book at school, I thought, I might have passed the exam. Despite my best endeavours I have not grown out of doing such imprudent things in my life, in fact I have becoming very adept at such foolishness. The book did at least begin my love of literature, which is something that I didn't develop at school. If I had not read The Mayor of Casterbridge I may not have started to write this column, so at least something good, or at least average, came out of it.

Overall the prospective school was very impressive and streets ahead of the place where I suffered my high school education. Whatever school Kenteke goes to I hope that it adequately teaches him Shakespeare and algebra amongst other things and prepares him for the next step of his life after school, so unlike his father he doesn't end up living the lowlife.

© Dominic Horton, September 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 88 – A Sting in the Tail

A Sting in the Tail

By Dominic Horton

There have been strange occurrences this week in the ever thriving Codger Mansions insect community. I was sitting on the karsi leisurely reading the fascinating book Interesting & Extraordinary Football Facts by Anton Rippon and I spotted an ailing bug limping across the floor that I can only describe as half spider half woodlouse, which means that a spider and a woodlouse must have been sh*gging in a romantic corner of the Mansions in order to produce such an odd little creature. The product of this cross pollination was a pitiful creature who didn't have enough legs to carry his plump crustacean body, so dragged himself along slowly. This meant that the spide-louse would be a sitting duck for those awful people who use a rolled up newspaper to thoughtlessly batter all and any insects that have the temerity to enter their precious homes. Fortunately for spide-louse I am an insect pacifist and generally let them get on with their daily business, with the exception of wasps, who I escort forcefully but peacefully off the premises.

Donny Darkeye, by request of

Toby In-Tents.  

People commonly pursue and callously execute wasps, hornets and bees who they have condemned to crimes against humanity without so much as holding a kangaroo court. But there seems to be less wasps this year for people to mercilessly butcher and the other day BBC television news posed the question as to why this is the case. The reason for the shrinkage in the wasp population was put down to the old chestnut of climate change, which usually gets the blame by boffins these days as an easy scapegoat if they are struggling for an answer come 1655 hours on a Friday afternoon and want to get down the pub. I am no arachnologist but the explanation to my inexpert mind is seemingly the increase in the numbers of spiders, which appears to be in direct correlation to the decrease in wasps.

Spider webs have been spreading like wildfire in the garden and one such web on the kitchen window provided me with a breathtaking moment on Wednesday. As I was washing up dishes and pots produced by an unsatisfactory lunch of left over kippers on toast a wasp got caught in the web and struggled, but failed, to free himself and a stout and menacing spider speeded dexterously towards him across the ornate web. I fumbled for my mobile telephone to take a photograph of this astonishing natural phenomenon but the spider had woven imprisoning silk shackles around the wasp in the blink of an eye and I was too late. The spider made no haste in consuming his catch and by the way he greedily munched away it looks like he had a more satisfactory lunch than I did. The spider in question was a big old unit (even before his meal) and judging by his contemporaries in my garden obesity is as rife in the spider community as it is in their human counterparts. Before we know it podgy spiders will be guiltily nibbling on wasps' wings knowing that if they devour the whole creature it will take them over their allocated daily Weight Watchers points.

The awesome sight of the spider ensnaring the wasp was only surpassed this week by my absorbing study of Donny Darkeye's remarkable bar skills in the Flagon & Gorses. A punter ordered a pint of Stowford Press Cider and a pint of Weston's First Quality cider, the former drink being nitro-keg which is dispensed by the click of a switch and the latter being sucked up from its cask via a hand pull pump. Darkeye clicked the Stowford switch and left the drink pouring into the glass standing on top of the drip tray, proceeded down the bar to pull the pint of Weston's and timed his return perfectly just as the Stowford was nearing its pint mark. It was a world class display and if bar stewardship was an Olympic sport Darkeye would undoubtedly be in the medals.

A Codger Mansions spider at night

Returning to my creepy crawly friends. It appears that the bug community have started to use Codger Mansions as a hospice where they can serenely end their days. On Sunday a money spider who was crawling across the living room floor simply ran out of puff, curled up and expired there and then before he reached his intended destination. The following day a geriatric wasp was impotently buzzing around the kitchen and he landed on the work surface, seemingly to catch his breath. I went to get a small glass and a coaster to trap him in so as to liberate him back to the fresh air but moments later on my return he had tragically passed away, alone and unloved. I momentarily felt so sorry for the poor thing that I almost gave him a burial and conducted a brief (non-religious) ceremony but the moment passed and I lobbed him in the kitchen bin where he became entombed in a discarded Danone Oykos peach yoghurt pot (which I had purchased as a treat). Rest in peach dear wasp.

It is a picture of a bee and not a wasp that dominates the logo of Enville Ale and on my birthday recently I found myself in the privileged position of having a gallon mini-cask of the beer as my dear son Kenteke bought it for me as a gift. Little did I know that the imbibing of the drink would have a sting in its tale but more of that later.

The beer had to be drunk within two weeks of purchase and within two days of it being opened so the pressure was on to sup it and to empty the cask but I didn't want to sit in Codger Mansions and drink it on my lonesome, as that would be sad behaviour even by my lowly standards. The only occupants of Codger Mansions other than the insects are my dear son Kenteke, Alfie the teddy bear and the Phantasm that haunts by nightmares. Kenteke is obvious ruled out of beer drinking being a minor, Alfie claims to be a strict abstainer (though I do suspect him of nipping at my single malt at times when I am out) and the phantasm only likes spirits of course.

I decided to ask Hugh Queensbury if he wanted to imbibe the Enville Ale with me as he and his lovely wife Natasha often invite me to dinner through the kindness of their hearts. A man of course needs no second invitation to such an offer so the date of last Monday was set to quaff the ale and eat the lunch that the gifted culinarian Queensbury was to knock up.

The mysterious spide-louse.

As I had lunch planned on Tuesday with an old friend (who was visiting the Midlands for the day) I was conscious that I needed to take things easy alcohol-wise on Monday but I figured that a few afternoon pints with Hugh would not do too much harm. As it was the Enville ale seemed to wash down Hugh's delicious steak sandwiches all too quickly leaving Queensbury and I with time on our hands and many Bob Dylan records to listen to. Being the genial host that he is Queensbury bought out a couple of bottles of Batham's bitter and normal service was resumed. If you stick to beer, I thought, you can't go far wrong. The Batham's of course didn't last long and as we were discussing the books of Ian Fleming Hugh asked me if I wanted a cocktail called a vespa, which I learnt is one of James Bond's favourite tipples, and given that I had never tried one I gladly agreed. The vespas somewhat upped the ante as the drink consists of gin, vodka and Kina Lillet but dangerously they taste quite light and not too strong.

The vespas saw us through to tea time and started to work their magic but I remember thinking to myself at that point that I wasn't too tiddled, it was still early and I would be in tip top condition come lunchtime the following day after I have a good night's sleep. Things got a little hazy after that but I did feign to take my leave only for Hugh and Natasha, who had returned from work, insisting I stay for dinner. We had drinks, dinner, more drinks, music, drinks, chatter, drinks and I read young Ellie a string of bedtime stories which much have all sounded all the same to her on account of them being read by a stewed and slurring man. More drinks followed and eventually Natasha went to bed, so I gathered it must be getting late but by then the gloves were off, the drinks were still flowing and Queensbury and I were full of bonhomie and good cheer. Cut to many hours later and I was roused from my sleep on the sofa by Hugh, who for some inexplicable reason was not sporting any trousers. I stumbled the two miles home zombie-like in the dead of the night and entered into the oblivion of sleep.

Tuesday morning brought with it a most unwelcome hangover which bordered on fatal. I'll be fine by lunchtime I thought, a stout breakfast and strong coffee will see me through and the lunch will go fine. I couldn't have been more wrong. I decided that cancelling the lunch would be a cowardly act so I gritted my teeth and ploughed on with it. In light of a couple of sudden disappearances to the gents and my profuse sweating I quickly came clean and disclosed the reason for my state to my friend. Fortunately she saw the funny side and she displayed a Mother Teresa level of humanity towards me, which I was eternally grateful for. I should have known that an innocent gallon of Enville Ale would have a nasty sting in the tail.

© Dominic Horton, September 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

* Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

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Lowlife 87 – A Cavalier Approach

A Cavalier Approach

By Dominic Horton

I have recently learnt from the murky and mostly unsatisfactory worlds of online dating and social media that women are increasingly referring to their best friend with the annoying colloquialism of “bestie.” I don't think that this would work for men as it could be misconstrued that your closest friend is George Best. And that would not do given his chronic alcoholism. And also due to the fact that he is dead. Given his prowess with the women Bestie would not have had to subject himself to the indignities of online dating but as I do not have the charms of the late flawed genius I have recently been floundering around in cyberspace trying to strike up a connection with an unsuspecting lady.

Bestie, unusually sporting a moustache

in pre-Movember days.  

My experience of internet dating has generally been frustrating and grim. I am not being unrealistic and aiming for a brand new Ferrari but I am not prepared to settle for a clapped out Austin Allegro either. A well maintained Vauxhall Cavalier would be fine, even if it had a little bit of rust on the bodywork and the tyres are worn close to the legal limit. But in all honesty as long as the model gets through the MOT unscathed I don't really care. It would be good to eventually get my Roundhead in a Cavalier, even if it lead to civil war breaking out. Or uncivil war, as would more likely be the case.

But the Vauxhall Cavaliers of the dating world are generally uncommunicative and lukewarm to my advances, which are always polite and thoughtful. It is not that the Cavaliers have delusions of grandeur and think they are Ferraris, it is more a case of men being more likely to contact women on online dating, leaving women with a number of men fighting for their affections. This means that women can be relative choosy in whose messages they reply to, so an oddity like me gets cast out in the garbage with the left overs of last night's chilli con carne. In my experience it is rare for a woman on internet dating to make the first move and contact me, but if a woman does then she is usually of the clapped out Austin Allegro variety.

An Austin Allegro.

Barty Hook, Lowlife's London correspondent, informed me that things are radically different in the Smoke. Barty told me that when he was using online dating a whole plethora of women would contact him asking for dates and he had as much trouble fighting them off as the British Army did fending off the Zulus at Rorke's Drift. And Barty is no Michael Caine in the looks department. But alas, I live in Halesowen not cosmopolitan London and women are generally a little more conservative in the West Midlands and expect men to make the first move.

In the old world you might meet a woman in a pub or at a disco and get chatting and if you liked each other it might lead to you seeing each other again and both parties would be happy with their lot. But online dating breeds a “the grass is always greener” attitude because as good as a person's profile looks on a dating site (or as well as you get on if you actually meet) it is always in the back of your mind that a more appealing suitor could be a mere mouse click away.

To assess the propriety of a potential date, after looking at her photographs I scrutinise her vital statistics like it is the “tale of the tape” of the challenger in a WBC world welterweight title fight. You have to be careful and read the small print as just one small word can make a difference in a woman's dating profile, such as the inclusion of the word "the" here:-

"I enjoy going out to club with my friends"

"I enjoy going out to the club with my friends."

A disturbing picture of Barty Hook

 looking like an IRA terrorist

 from the 1970's.

The former sentence conjures up images of a fun, outgoing party girl who loves a boogie on a Saturday night and the latter alludes to an overweight woman with tattoos and greasy hair who likes to sit in the social club all day supping cider and smoking fags while her kids run riot in the function room.

Often I see an attractive photograph so delve deeper and read a woman's profile and all seems fine and dandy and I end up thinking to myself, “she seems wonderful, perfect for me almost, we seem so compatible, what's the catch?” Then I read the killer blow on the profile, being “I do not drink.” All of a sudden our compatibility goes from 60 to 0 in a mere nanosecond. If I ended up dating a member of the “I do not drink” brigade I can just imagine how telephone conversations between us would go regarding an evening out:-

Me: “Shall we go to the pub?”

Woman: “I was thinking we should go to the cinema.”

Me: “Ok, let's pop to the pub for a bit then we'll go to the cinema.”

Woman: “I don't want to go to the pub before the cinema if you don't mind.”

Me: “Right you are, let's go to the cinema then go to the pub afterwards.”

Woman: “Can't we just go to the cinema?”

At which point, to the woman's surprise and disgust, the line goes dead and by the time she rings back I will have already grabbed my coat and be making haste to the Flagon & Gorses having taken the precaution of switching my mobile telephone off.

There are others who are not strict abstainers but are not far from it. One woman's profile read, “I'm not a massive drinker but I love a cheeky spiced rum every so often.” Maybe I should change my profile comments to, “I'm not a massive drinker but I love a cheeky seven or eight pints with the Pirate in the Flagon & Gorses every so often.” Not that I am advocating drinking, as that is not something I have ever done in this column. Moderate drinking is a good modus operandi if you know how to do it but I have no talent at it and I even struggle with the rules so for me it is purely a spectator sport.

If you want to guarantee that a potential partner is not an abstainer then realalelovers.com* seems to be the dating site to use. Though I am not sure that dating and real ale generally mix that well. If you got on particularly well with a date in a pub you might both get carried away and have a skin full leading to a diary entry the following morning that reads, “Had a wonderful first date with Jane last night but I can't remember a thing that she told me though I do recall drinking a pint of Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild and eating a Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi in the curry house.”

Kinver Half Centurion,

by request of Toby In-Tents.  

I wonder whether Mills & Boon have ever published a book where the main characters met in a real ale setting? It could be a winner: “At the beer festival our eyes met across a crowded town hall which had a haze of beer farts in the air and I knew it was love at first sight. He slowly approached me and offered me half of a pork pie, which had been in his coat pocket all day and was a big sweaty and on the turn. Little did I know it at the time but that pork pie was to cement our love as it gave me botulism but he tenderly nursed me back to health by giving me small teaspoons of Bathams Best Bitter. When I was fully recovered he made the Earth move for me before nipping out to buy some Kinver Half Centurion (5% ABV - bottle conditioned) to refresh us with."

With any luck I might not have to suffer the rigours of online dating for much longer as incredulously the woman that I met in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago that I was semi-stalking (see last week's Lowlife) unexpectedly contacted me out of the blue. She has apparently been on holiday in Italy which explains her lack of contact with me hitherto and it transpires that I did write my telephone number down correctly after all so my stalker-like behaviour was not warranted. Anyway, the problem with realalelovers.com is that you have to pay to use the site and 6 months membership costs £99, the equivalent of 34.137 pints in the Flagon & Gorses and I know how I prefer to spend my money. Talking of which it must be time for a pint. Adios for now amigos, I'm off to see the Pirate.

(* realalelovers.com has changed it's name to loveinn.co.uk. )

© Dominic Horton, September 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 86 – A Barber Shop Quartet

A Barber Shop Quartet

By Dominic Horton

On Tuesday I asked myself the question, “what does a person have to do to get a haircut in Halesowen?” When I worked in Birmingham city centre I used to get my haircut at a barber's shop close to the office but far enough away from the city centre inner circle to not charge an arm and a leg for a snip. The barbers there always did a more than satisfying job but when the owner cut my hair I often felt a little uncomfortable in the chair as there was always a mild undercurrent of racism in the conversation, talk of immigrants, that type of thing, but nothing overt enough to warrant a direct challenge. And besides, getting into a confrontation with the bloke cutting your barnet is never a wise idea as if you are not careful you could end up with a haircut that is worse than Boris Johnson's, which is a 'mare for a Mayor, if you will.

The London Mayor Boris Johnson having a bad hair day, as usual.

I ventured out first thing Tuesday morning assuming the barbers shops in Halesowen would be quiet at that time of day but I couldn't be more wrong. The first barbers I went to was full with waiting customers and I have not got the patience to sit and listen to the drivel that is usually talked in a barber shop so I moved on to the next one, which turned out to be equally busy. In barber shop number three there were only two people waiting, so I sat down to peruse the only reading matter, being the Halesowen Chronicle, which for a free newspaper is is vastly over priced. I didn't have a lot of faith in the barber, who seemed to be barely out of his teens and surly in nature but I thought I would risk it and give him a try. If the haircut turned out to be a disaster I could always revert to the fall back position of having my head shaved, which is a damage limitation option generally not favoured by women, other than Sinead O'Connor.

Patricia Routledge as Hetty Wainthropp,

poking her nose into other people's business.

A young child was in the barber's chair and he was not taken with the idea of having a haircut and resultantly he screamed the place down and repeatedly shouted to his mother, who stood next to him holding his hand, “Mom, he's hurting me!”, which was not the case in the slightest. The mother adopted a policy with the child that is softer than the government's stance on executive bankers' bonuses as she comforted him and said, “never mind dear it will soon be over my love and you can have some sweets.” The mother must have mistakenly thought that her son was having a tooth extracted without an anaesthetic. It was the barber who deserved the confectionery for his patience, especially as he lost my custom because after five minutes I could put up with the commotion no longer and fled the shop for a bit of peace and quiet.

Eventually at barbers number four, which was not busy, I finally received a hair cut and the lady barber did a thoroughly decent job too. But the experience was not without difficulty as I had to sit interminably through the barber's incessant psycho babble, which she delivered at such a pace that I was amazed that she managed to breathe. She periodically paused to conversationally ask me something but before I could articulate the answer to her question she had once more launched herself into her machine gun of words. I have to say that I do admire people who can talk inconsequential prattle at great length by effectively verbalising the stream of consciousness in their heads and it is a desirable quality for a barber to possess. After all, there is only one thing worse than suffering a lingual battery from a barber and that is having your haircut in an awkward silence.

Freshly clipped, my next task for the day was to undertake a bit of amateur detective work, Hetty Wainthropp style. The preceding Friday I was in the big city on a rare excursion from the Flagon with the Pirate, Harry Stottle, the Coarse Whisperer and Neddy La Chouffe when I bumped into an acquaintance’s ex-girlfriend in the pub. We got chatting and after a while it was established that we are both singletons so I asked her out for a drink and she seemed keenly receptive to the idea. I wrote down my mobile telephone number on a scrap of paper forgetting that I had my card in my wallet containing my contact details. I fully expected to receive a text message from the lady in question in the near future but after a day no such message was forthcoming. I then convinced myself that I had written down my telephone number either incorrectly or illegibly; my handwriting is not great at the best of times and we had drunk a few by the time I scrawled my number down.

Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw in the Mel Gibson

 film Apocalypto, by request of Toby In-Tents.

I decided that I must post my correct phone number to the lady to put the matter beyond doubt but although I know the street that she lives on I did not know her house number or even her surname. After investigation I discovered her surname and after providing her details to the information bureau that is Willy Mantitt a house number was produced. As I drove to her house I had sudden reservations about the exercise thinking that it was a bit stalker-ish and I remembered that there are now specific laws regarding such matters. But I decided that I had nothing to lose (except my liberty and my dignity I suppose) so I proceeded with the mission.

Being a Tuesday daytime I thought that she would not be in so I could secretly slip the envelope through her door without a hiccup, which turned out to be the case. Satisfied at my work I sat back and waited for her text message to come through. And waited. And waited some more. But I had no such luck. Clearly the lady had no intention of meeting me for a drink in the first place and the scrap of paper with my number on it probably ended up with the empty crisp packets and fag ends in the pub's rubbish bin. So unlike Hetty Wainthropp's cases there was no happy ending to this one. There was no happy ending either for poor 82 year old Palmira Silva of Edmonton this week as she was brutally murdered by a barbaric assailant who savagely beheaded her in her own back garden, which was a dreadful business all round.

Michael Caine as Lieutenant
Gonville Bromhead in Zulu.

I'm not too sure about the current fad of lobbing people's heads off. It all seems a bit barbaric and medieval to me. The head is a useful thing and without it there are all sorts of activities one cannot do; you would struggle to go for a pint in the Flagon & Gorses for a start.  I know the Mayans of old were partial to the odd beheading (as depicted in Mel Gibson's wonderful but harrowing film Apocalypto) but it is something us modern day Britons have generally grown out of so we now take a dim view of it.   When I heard reports of someone being headless in Islington I thought the Flagon's landlord, the Pirate, had lost the plot again [for non-Flagoners, the road up the side of the Flagon is called Islington - I am aware that gags lose their shine if you have to explain them, especially when the gag is a weak one in the first place.]   Talking of the Pirate he has temporarily defected to Belgium for the weekend with Windy McDisco and the RAT's beer supping crew on a junket which will involve quaffing hearty strength beer, eating savoury food stuffs, upsetting the locals and farting.  No change there then, as that is exactly what he generally does in the Flagon & Gorses. 

The Zulu warrior tribe are often thought of as being barbaric too but they were a highly organised and efficient army of trained, professional soldiers. Alexander Sutcliffe and I learnt this on Thursday, the occasion of my 43^rd birthday, at an entertaining and informative talk entitled The Anglo Zulu War of 1879 by Max Keen at Dudley Archive Centre. As you can see, as far as birthday celebrations are concerned I certainly know how to rock. Keen has the look of Ken Dodd and he bought his talk to life with the same energetic verve of his look-a-like, so he had all attendees in thrall and it only cost £1.50, effectively the price of half a pint of best bitter.

The talk didn't drag on too long and Keen quickly put an end to the questions from coffin dodgers in the audience, so there was still plenty of time to enjoy a trip to the Flagon & Gorses, which no birthday would be complete without, so in the end I am glad to report that I got my happy ending after all.

© Dominic Horton, September 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.