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
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