Lowlife 93 – Careering into the Unknown

Careering into the Unknown

By Dominic Horton

Having taken redundancy in the summer from my long term job in banking I was always going to have to face up to finding another job sooner or later and now the time for for such a daunting quest is drawing near. As part of my redundancy package the bank have enlisted the services of a reputed firm of redeployment specialists to provide me with their expertise to help me in duping an unfortunate employer into giving me a job. So this week I resigned myself to attending a two day career transition workshop in Solihull so I could be enlightened about the rules of the highly complex game of job hunting.

Michael Douglas as William Foster in Falling Down.

After taking advice I travelled by train as apparently the traffic from Halesowen to Solihull is like a scene from Joel Schumacher's film Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas.  And I didn't want to fall down at the first hurdle and turn up late for the course. My destination after leaving Birmingham International train station was a business park a couple of miles down a nondescript A road and the directions seemed simple enough. Not being a fan of paying extortionate taxi fares I elected to walk and it was a beautifully clear and bright, yet crisp, autumn day and the sunshine enhanced my mood of optimism for what lay ahead.

The whole area seemed to be dominated by business parks and industrial sites of one sort or another and I thought that there would be little chance of finding a public house around there to nip out for a taste at lunchtime. But low and behold I soon found myself walking past what looked like a typical out-of-town A road boozer, the sort of place that usually has 2 for 1 workmanlike meals, poor quality real ale (if any), bland piped music and surly staff who are just marking time before their shifts end. But at least it is a pub, I thought, and it is better than nothing.

Half way through the walk down the A Road there was a path that appeared to go through some woods and a sign post informed me that it apparently lead to the business park where I was headed, so I gladly took the short cut to get off the tedious dual carriageway. After strolling down the path for ten minutes I came out onto a massive business park but nothing was sign posted, no one was around and I didn't have a clue where I was going. There was only five minutes until the start of the course and I sensed a hint of panic rising up in me. I calmed myself down and tried to find a distinctive landmark so I could call the office where I was headed for directions. I got to a man made pond that was besides an office block and called the redeployment firm and explained my predicament. “Where are you now?” the receptionist asked me, to which I replied, “By a pond.” “Oh, you could be anywhere,” she said to my dismay, “there are loads of those ponds dotted around here.”

The business park pond.

But as I ran around in a frenzy by sheer chance I spotted the relevant building and I arrived there in the nick of time. But I was a flustered mental and physical wreck. I had cooked a mushroom stroganoff the night before and the mixture of olive oil and sour cream had not agreed with me and had lead to a dicky stomach and I was sweating pure garlic, as I had used four bulbs in the recipe as opposed to the suggested two. All of a sudden going to the Flagon & Gorses the night before to settle the nerves seemed like a bad idea as I was a bit post-booze jittery. All in all not an ideal start to the day.

I scanned around the room to spy the other course attendees to suss them out; there were no other drinkers. I didn't need to ask them, you can just tell. The person leading the course was a highly professional and rather attractive woman in her mid-fifties and she told us that we are now products and we need to sell ourselves. I had visions of my product gathering dust on the shelf of a corner shop in Cradley Heath and remaining there until well after it's sell by date.

We were asked to introduce ourselves and say a bit about our situation. I informed the group that until the summer I had worked for a bank since the 1990's but that I would like to change career completely. The course leader stated that 80% of people looking to change career actually end up back in the same industry that they left as it is a comfort blanket to them. That's not going to be an option for me, I mused to myself, as the banking industry won't have me back.

Charles Bukowski, by request of Toby
In-Tents

Most of the people on the course, like me, had been in their last job for a long time and had been made redundant. We were told that these days longevity in employment is not regarded as a good thing as it is seen as stagnation and that the expectation is that by the time a person reaches forty five years old they have have had ten jobs. To reach the double figures milestone I will need to live like the late writer Charles Bukowski, the laureate of American lowlife, who in his book Factotum described bumming around from one dead end job to another, constantly getting drunk and being fired and living on skid row. I am sure that this is not quite what the course leader was driving at.

A grueling morning of information and exercises lead us towards lunch and the lifeless pint of badly kept bitter that I would no doubt be served in the A road boozer had never seemed so desirable. But we were informed that lunch was laid on and we were all corralled into a coffee room where sandwiches from an outside catering firm were waiting, and we were expected to talk to each other while we were eating. Despite most likely costing a fortune the sandwiches were a little dry, a far cry from Chilli Willy's fresh and buoyant cobs in the Flagon & Gorses, but the sandwiches were gratis and I will undoubtedly greatly appreciate a free lunch once I reach the state of unemployability. I had to settle for water to drink after failing to work the coffee machine. I pressed a button and instead of coffee pouring out, the front of the contraption sprang open, so fearing that I had broken it I thought I had better keep schtum and l made a sharp exit.

Mid-afternoon the course leader issued a light hearted threat for us not to nod off but by then I had cracked the coffee machine so I had caffeine coursing through my veins and besides there was no chance of resting one's eyes with the fast pace of the activities demanded of us.

Over the duration of two days all the complex rules of the sport of giz a job were explained in intricate detail and the thorough course leader left no stone upturned in furthering the group's understanding of the rule book. We learnt that these days interviews are worse than a grilling by a House of Lords select committee and that they come in several different varieties: panel interviews, round robin, one-to-one and even by means of Skype, which would be desirable as you could wear a shirt and tie on top but remain in your turd catchers and slippers below in order for a quick return to the sofa to watch Channel 4 racing once the interview is over.

Apparently the days when a fellow could walk into an interview and flash an RAF tie, be offered a cigarette and a brandy and be given the job after being deemed a thoroughly decent chap are long gone. Now the interviewer scrutinises you, cross questions you and is looking for evidence, as if you are being questioned by a detective inspector as part of a murder investigation. The chances are that if I am subjected to such a probing examination that I will crack under questioning.

By the end of the second day of the course I had taken in so much information that I was worried that my brain would be so full that other useful knowledge would be forced out, such as the PIN number to my ATM card or the line up of Coventry City's 1987 FA Cup winning team. I left the building and marched down the mundane dual carriageway back to the train station fully appraised of the formidable undertakings that one has to now complete in the crusade for employment; it appears that it is quicker to write a novella than to compile an acceptable CV. The sky was dark, overcast and forbidding and my spirit a little lacking in morale. It was time to head back home.

© Dominic Horton, October 2014.

* Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

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

Lowlife No 92 – Simple Pleasures

Simple Pleasures

By Dominic Horton

The first cup of coffee in the morning should be a simple pleasure, a minor indulgence almost, when one can sip at ease and let the caffeine flow into the body's system in order to gently stir it into action to start the day. I always sit and read a book with my coffee first thing but pretty much without fail just as I start to relax half way through the cup nature comes calling and I am summoned to a pressing sit down meeting in the toilet. I am then posed with a dilemma: I can either sit uncomfortably bottling things up, so to speak, until I finish my coffee or I can expediently attend the sit down meeting in the knowledge that my coffee with have lost its heat on my return.

The Walk Works Group on the Dudley No 2 Canal.

It's is a bit of an Hobson's choice. A classic case of “is your cup half full or half empty?” Not only is my cup half empty but the contents have gone cold as well. It was suggested to me that I could always re-heat my half finished coffee in the microwave but the drink does not taste quite the same after following that procedure, so I do not favour it. I could always re-heat the drink in a saucepan but that would be too much of a faff and would simply extend my irritability over the matter. In Damien O'Donnell's wonderful film East is East the character Zahir 'George' Kahn, played by Om Puri, famously requests “half a cup” when he is asked if he wants a cup of tea. This must be Khan's tactic to avoid the dilemma that my morning coffee confronts me with.

My whole morning routine seems to be getting increasingly longer and somewhat out of hand. Breakfast and coffee are followed by exercises for my bad back and stretching exercises for my legs, which over time seem to have increasingly stiffened up in the morning in direct proportion to a decreasing stiffening of another part of the body at that time of day. A bath or shower and a shave is followed by inhalers for asthma, cream for eczema and cod liver oil and vitamin C pills. My breathing exercise is next to slow down my anxious, racing heart to reduce my waking state of panic to mere fretfulness.

I am not moaning (for once) about my morning maneuverings as I know that we all have to do similar things to propel ourselves into the day ahead but it seems the older one gets the more bothersome the start of the day is. Lord only knows what morning time trials and tribulations a septuagenarian like my crony Harry Stottle has to go through; by the time he is ship-shape and Bristol fashion to start the day it is probably time for lunch.

The Abdul.

The inconveniences of my early morning routine did not dampen my spirits on Thursday when a triumvirate of cultural events made for a highly nourishing and fruitful day. First, I went off with fellow Flagoners the Abdul and Frank Henstein to a morning canal walk organised by Walk Works (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Walk-Works/189252334592080) whose fabulous well being walks not only encompass local history but also creative art. The enthusiastic Fran and Vicki of Walk Works throw ideas into the air and set little thought provoking tasks to summon the cogs of the mind into motion and they facilitate the members of the group in taking an alternative perspective on things.

Fran challenged the group to use two colours to draw what we saw canal side on the opposite bank – one colour for straight lines and another for things that are not straight. Then in another two separate colours we had to draw the reflection of the image on the canal's surface. Despite none of the group (to my knowledge) being keen artists people came up with the most alluring and fascinating pictures, all of them different, which shows the innate, often untapped, creativity that we all have within us. All the drawings were placed next to each other on the canal towpath in an impromptu exhibition and I was even half pleased with my amateur effort.

As we walked away from the canal I chatted to Joan, who is an interesting and genteel lady who is a canal enthusiast. We came across an odd sculpture of what appeared to be a goddess of some description, who had one bare breast exposed. I heard footsteps behind us only to find the Abdul had joined us to study the sculpture and I was suddenly filled with trepidation at the thought of the Adbul making a lewd but witty comment about the exposed breast, which is something that he is talented at doing. I quickly tried to usher the refined Joan away from the sculpture and out the earshot of the Abdul, due to the imminent threat of her being offended. But I underestimated the Abdul's level of tact and whatever mirthful smut filled his thoughts he kept it to himself. There is a first time for everything, they say.

Max Keen, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Back at my Codger Mansions bolt hole at lunchtime I reflected on what had been a wondrous experience on the walk. I remembered that I had my drawing in my bag and I took it out to study it. Looking at the picture in isolation, away from the other drawings, I realised that it was a sorry looking and dismal pile of sh*t. I dispatched the picture into the recycling, where it forlornly rested, fittingly, next to a discarded cardboard toilet roll tube.

After lunch I drove to the second of Thursday's events, a talk for Black History Week at Dudley Library entitled The Black History Football Project for by author John Hume. I hurriedly arrived at the library only a couple of minutes before the talk was due to start and a friendly librarian eagerly lead me up a flight of stairs to the room that was to host the event. I thought to myself that the escort by the librarian was very kind but beyond the call of duty as I could have easily found the room myself if she had provided me with directions. But on arrival I could see that the reason why the official was anxious to deliver me safely to the room: other than the author I was the only person there.

After exchanging pleasantries with John Hume I stated that if no one else turns up that he had need not proceed with the talk solely for my benefit. But in the spirit of “the show must go on” Hume was adamant that he would plough on with his talk anyway, which made me a little uncomfortable as the thought of him staring intently at me whilst delivering his address was not a pleasant one. Sensibly Hume gave it a minute or ten before making a start and thankfully three others joined us.

Sir Francis Drake.

Oddly, during the course of the hour long talk the librarian periodically ushered more people into the room to boost the crowd, with the last attendee turning up as late as forty five minutes into it. It stuck me that out of embarrassment the librarian could well have been drumming up support by bullying or bribing the library's normal punters into going to the talk: “It's up to you mate, you can either pay the £12.57 fine for your books being late or you can go and sit through the talk upstairs and I will wipe your slate clean.” Not only was the talk an entertaining and informative history of black footballers in Britain but also each attendee was generously given a copy The Black Heritage Football Book at the end of the talk, which like the Walk Works walk, was free to attend.

I had devoured the starter and main course of the three events of the day and after tea it was time for the welcoming dessert of one of Max Keen's riotous history talks, this time on Sir Francis Drake, for the Stourbridge Historical Society.  As ever Keen was on top form and not only informed the full-ish house all about the life and times of Drake but he theatrically brought the subject to life and he frequently filled the room with laughter.

All in all it was a day that I shall not forget. For at least a week. To round things off I decided to pop into the Flagon & Gorses on the way home to sup some of their magnificent ale and to ruminate of the events of the day. In the pub I was greeted by the sight of Neddy La Chouffe sporting a decidedly damp pair of trousers, which was the result of Toe-Knee Tulips behind the bar erroneously spilling beer on him. Neddy should count his blessings: at least he was not scolded by a the contents of a cup of hot coffee.

© Dominic Horton, October 2014.

Email: Lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Lowlife 91 – A Cruel Mistress

A Cruel Mistress

By Dominic Horton

Sleep can be a cruel mistress. She often fails to come when she is coveted but then tries to keep you in her firm grip when you need to wriggle free of her to start the day. Sleep wooed me into her lair on Monday night but when I returned from one of my many night time toilet trips not too long after midnight I found that she had fled abruptly and she failed to return. So a night time of writhing and fretting took place but at least I had an idea for a short one act play and I made a few notes in that regard. But as ever I couldn't make out most of the illegible notes come Tuesday. At 0500 hours (which I consider to be officially the start of the morning) I gave up the ghost and started to cook a beef and shallot broth as sleep had effectively said to me hours earlier “sorry pal, that's shallot.”  Cutting the shallots stung my weary eyes but it at least it sharpened my senses a bit and the broth came in handy as I gave Tomacheski a helping, as he is currently housebound with the gout, and used two further portions in a trade with Pat Debilder that saw pots of sagwala aloo curry coming my way. I had the better end of the bargain as the sagwala aloo was the best I have ever tasted whereas my beef broth was workmanlike at best.

The Elephant & Castle Pub, Netherton

I could have done with a siesta on Tuesday but I am not much for napping in the day as it makes me coose* and besides there was business to attend to as my presence was required at a meeting with Fran, Vicki and Dave, who are fellow committee members of the arts group that I belong to, Cradley Heath Creative. We met at the Elephant & Castle pub in Netherton which sells decent coffee for a quid and more than adequate pub grub lunches at two for £6, which was just the ticket.

The matter at hand was to complete an application form for funding for a day long arts festival that we plan to arrange; the maximum amount of the grant, if we are successful, is £500. Wearing my business hat (which is admittedly ill fitting, worn and uncomfortable), that I procured working for a bank for a number of years, I thought that the meeting would be brief given the small amount of cash involved. But I hadn't accounted for the fact that I was dealing with creative types who cascade ideas, go off at tangents and gush flights of fancy. But for that I love them. As the judicious Harry Stottle said later in the day in the Flagon & Gorses, “that's what makes them artists.” And the world is a richer, more vibrant and stimulating place because of the likes of Fran, Vicki and Dave.

Business meetings with driven, self-centred, fiscally ambitious people was effectively the essence of why I recently took voluntary redundancy as I was keen to get out of banking and the world of corporate enterprise, with all its ills. So give me a meeting with creative types any day of the week and I am slowly learning their way of thinking about things and their modus operandi. If it was left to me it would be a struggle as although I have my uses, when it comes to ideas my mind is usually as blank the untouched canvas that I saw on Wednesday in the studio of the talented artist Louise Blakeway (http://www.loubeeart.co.uk/). Lou's studio was full of paints, brushes and other artist's materials and miscellany in what appeared to be a random and arbitrary fashion.  The studio is wonderful, full of character, warmth and creativity, just like Lou herself. Although in my own dwelling I like things to be neat and orderly I paradoxically take comfort in other people's homes and workplaces which are the very opposite.

A balti pie, by request of Toby In-Tents

In the Elephant & Castle both Vicki and Fran had balti pie and I mentioned that I had never eaten one. I did buy one at Villa Park a couple of years ago on a freezing cold winter's night but I couldn't eat it immediately as it was too hot, so I left it to cool. I was about to take my first bite of the pie but Villa's opponents QPR scored an equalising goal and in a fit of petulant disgust I slammed the pie into the floor, rendering it splattered and inedible. I am not generally prone to violent acts towards foodstuffs but football must bring out the worse in me in this regard as there was a similar incident the season before when Villa travelled to the mighty Manchester City in the FA Challenge Cup 5th round.

It was a midweek away game that was to be broadcast live on ITV and my dear son Kenteke and I were excited by the fixture. I popped Kenteke in the bath before the game and I put the shopping away in the kitchen. My bathroom is on the ground floor behind the kitchen and as long as the doors to both rooms remain unshut you can see through to the kitchen whilst lying in the bath. They announced the teams for the game on BBC Radio 5 Live and I could simply not believe that the then Villa Manager, Gerard Houllier, had picked what was effectively a reserve team for a game of such import. In a fit of apoplectic rage I threw the packet of egg custards that I was holding to the floor and started to uncontrollably stamp on them. I was brought back to my senses by Kenteke's shout from the bathroom, “Dad, what ARE you doing?!” It was a moment Basil Fawlty would have been proud of. Predictably, Villa lost.

We discussed paying for heating for the proposed arts festival setting, the Hollybush pub venue that Dave owns and runs (http://realhollybushale.tripod.com/). It is often said by drinkers that there is nothing worse than a cold pub. The starving in Africa might beg to differ. Or would they? I can just picture the scene in the Red Lion, Mogadishu:

Drinker: “Landlord, have you got any cobs, pork pies, anything, I'm absolutely famished?”

Owen Jones

Landlord: “Sorry mate, we've got literally sod all in terms of grub, my apologies, but we have a cracking stout on at the moment.”

Drinker: “I'll have a pint of that then please. Although I am starving I suppose I should look on the bright side, at least it's nice and toasty in here, after all there is nothing worse than a cold pub.”

I didn't sleep much better on Tuesday night so I on Wednesday evening I was worried that I might fall asleep in Birmingham Cathedral, where together with Auntie Bernie I was attending a talk by the left wing political writer Owen Jones as part of the Birmingham Literature Festival. Bernie isn't my real Auntie, she's is effectively my unofficial Auntie-in-Law, otherwise known as a friend. The talk was her gift to me for my birthday a few weeks ago. I was highly conscious that if I fall asleep when I am very tired I often immediately have a nightmare and shout out and I wanted to avoid the embarrassment of that occurring in the packed cathedral.

But it transpired that the test of endurance I had in the cathedral was not resisting sleep but resisting farting. Before the talk Bernie had treated me to a pub meal and I ordered chicken and chips. I don't eat chips very often but I have become increasingly aware that those cooked in pubs seem to react with my digestive system unfavourably and lead to flatulence. When we got to the cathedral the house was full and we ended up sitting on hard settles to the side and any school boy that has ever guffed on a hard wooden seat with tell you that it maximises the volume to the full. So I had to sit and painfully hold in my wind in what turned out to be a very inspiring talk by the young author. Restraining my natural gasses became too much after a while so I nipped off to the Gents. It is the only time I can remember ever visiting the toilet specifically to fart.

Owen Jones orated a wonderful talk and he is in some ways the antithesis of me: confident, competent and full of the youthful optimism of trying to change the world. Maybe by the time he reaches my age he will be like me, similarly cynical and world weary and sitting in his local with a pint of best on the go to drown his disillusionment with the world. In fact, I suspect Jones may well go on to be an influential and charismatic politician. Whatever becomes of him I hope for his sake that sleep visits him for lengthy stays and is not a cruel mistress.

* coose - a black country word meaning surly or ill-tempered; grumpy, irritable.

© Dominic Horton, October 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

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

Lowlife 90 – Knock Three Times

Knock Three Times

By Dominic Horton

There was a strange occurrence at the Flagon & Gorses this week and no, before you ask, the Pirate didn't denounce the benefits of beer and join the Temperance Society. On Monday evening after eating our scrumptious steaks Pat Debilder, Mother Teresa and I repaired to the bar from the Barbara Cartland lounge to stretch out and relax to let our internal organs undertake the arduous task of starting to digest the various cheeses that we had for dessert. If you eat an excess of cheese the heart (the foreman of the organs) tells the pancreas, spleen and stomach that overtime is compulsory and all leave is cancelled for a fortnight, which in my experience is about the length of time it takes the body to process a decent amount of fromage. There is a standard joke in such circumstances in the internal organ game whereby the spleen quips to the heart, “sorry boss I am going to stay off work, I am sick to the stomach,” the rectum pipes up, “yes it's the stomach's fault, he hasn't got the guts for the job” and the stomach retorts back to the rectum, “put a sock in it, you are talking out of your ars*.”

Neddy La Chouffe making a one-off

appearance behind the bar in the Flagon,

accompanied by the Pirate.  

So I was sitting there in my gluttonous state, contemplating how I was going to cram my pint of stout into my bursting stomach when my cogitations were abruptly interrupted by three clearly audible and distinct knocks which appeared to emanate from the room above us in the pub: “KNOCK – KNOCK – KNOCK.” The landlord, my crony the Pirate, was drinking with us in the bar so he was not the Phantom Knocker. Chilli Willy quickly scaled the stairs to investigate the matter, which was a good idea because Willy has the looks and frame of the fictional mafia hitman Luca Brasi so any self respecting burglar or ghoul would flee at the sight of him before they ended up sleeping with the fishes. In the Dudley No. 2 canal.

Willy found no human or spiritual being upstairs so the only knockers in the pub were being kept safely under wraps in the confines of ladies' braziers and Willy was not about to go investigating there for fear of a slap round the face. So the matter remained a mystery, especially as Tony Orlando wasn't in the house singing “knock three times on the ceiling if you want me.” 

Despite the menacing threat of the Phantom Knocker we all stoically drank on with a Dunkirk spirit and I paid no more mind to the incident. That is until I sat down to write this edition of Lowlife and I read through my scribbled notes. Three words that I jotted down a couple of weeks ago caught my eye as they eerily read, “Knock three times.” The note refers to a nightmare that I had, which was a one-off as it didn't follow the usual pattern of my enduring reoccurring nightmare, which goes something like this: the Phantasm slowly ascends the stairs with me getting increasingly terrified – the Phantasm approaches me in bed and I am powerless to defend myself – he then either taps my shoulder or sits on my chest whence I wake up in a flustered panic – after a few seconds I realise it was just my old friend the Phantasm and I have a little titter to myself and try to go back to sleep.

The “Knock 3 Times” note in my barely legible handwriting.

But this nightmare was different as it simply consisted of three foreboding knocks that jolted me from my slumber and I quickly realised that the knocks were not real but I had dreamt them. I mused at the time that the Phantasm must have forgotten his key and that if I give it a minute he will be throwing stones at the window to get me to let him in. I made a brief note of the nightmare but overlooked it when I wrote last week's edition as I had other material to work with. And I thought no more about the nightmare until I read my notes today.

Now I am trying to make sense of the two connected knocking incidents and the first thing that springs to mind is that it could be a warning to me from the sinister Serial Killer that he is coming to get me. The Serial Killer is a stony faced man who sometimes frequents the Flagon & Gorses, who sits down alone or stands at the bar in silence, with a cold, expressionless countenance and steel toecaps on his feet. As our nickname for him suggests he has the appearance of a stereotypical serial killer but it is more than likely the case than in actuality he is a thorough decent and friendly chap.

Tony Orlando, by request of Toby In-Tents.  

For a little while Neddy La Chouffe has theorised that the Serial Killer is after me as not only has he given me some icy stares but he has also popped up in other pubs that I have taken refuge in. La Chouffe's seedling of an idea has grown to such an extent in my mind that if the Serial Killer is in the Flagon I won't go to the toilet alone for fear of never returning. So I now not only have to live with the metaphysical threat of the Phantasm but also the material threat of the Serial Killer. I probably need to try and strike up a conversation with the Serial Killer to dispel my fears about him but it might make matters worse if it turns out that he is an undertaker or even worse a grave digger.

The knock three times occurrences was not the only coincidence (if it was a coincidence) that happened this week. For my birthday a few weeks ago the lovely Ms C gave me a new poetry anthology by Liz Berry entitled Black Country, which includes wonderfully written and evocative pieces that earned the author the Forward Prize for Poetry – Best First Collection. I started to read the book on Wednesday and shortly after I checked my emails only to learn from a mailshot from Dudley Libraries that the author was holding a poetry reading at Gornal Library the very next day as part of National Poetry Day.

I finally found Gornal Library and on entrance into the small, L-shaped building I thought to myself that there appeared to be no obvious space suitable enough for the event. There was half a dozen middle aged to elderly women sitting around a table, knitting and chatting. There was a number of seats laid out immediately adjacent to the knitters and then it dawned on me that oddly the poetry reading was to be held there. On surveying the room I was relieved to find that the Serial Killer was not in attendance.

The late Barbara Cartland.

Liz Berry started the reading but sadly she could not be heard above the din of the knitters who rudely persisted with their incessant chattering. After a couple of poems the librarian was forced to ask the knitters to quieten down but disappointingly she didn't take the opportunity to to use the librarians' stock and cliched rebuke of “Ssssshhhhh!!!!!” Soon after being chided the knitters regressed back to their naughty schoolgirl behaviour and once more started to tattle but even more loudly than before. The librarian would have been within her rights to kick the knitters out but instead she suggested we move the session to the more peaceful childrens' area, which we did.

After the delightful and enriching reading Liz instigated a discussion and it was interesting to hear people's views, thoughts and reminiscences. It got me thinking about the identity of the Black Country and its people today, now that the heavy industry has long since disappeared. The stereotypical Black Country man is seen as a hard working, tough, strong, manful character who could lift heavy sacks of pig iron and withstand the burning heat of working in a furnace or the hardships of a pit. I make no effort to disguise the fact that among other things that I have a teddy bear, I suffer from anxiety and I am often scared of my own shadow and that I have the physical strength of an ailing and decrepit pygmy. Does this make me any less a Black Country man? I am not entirely certain of the answer to that question but one thing is for sure it does make me a potential defenceless victim for the Phantom Knocker or the Serial Killer. I'll see you next week dear readers. Hopefully.

© Dominic Horton, October 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

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