Lowlife 98 – Cold Comfort

Cold Comfort

By Dominic Horton

The weather finally turned cold on Monday and as I was set to spend a couple of hours outside in the cold air at Villa Park it was time to engage in some old man behaviour; for the first time in my life I took a flask of hot cuppa-soup to the match. I bought the flask as an impulse purchase for £3 from ASDA a couple of months ago with the idea of taking it with me when I go on walks but I have yet to do that, so the flask debuted at Villa Park at what threatened to be a thoroughly miserable evening of football. Villa had not won in the preceding seven league games and were playing the high flying Southampton on a chilly evening, attended by a low crowd, with half the ground empty. So I was clinging on to the prospect of the hot soup at half-time as being the highlight of my evening.

Christopher Biggins as Luke Warm in Porridge.

The flask label assured me that the container would ensure that it would keep the liquid hot for at least five hours and as I had no reason to disbelieve the good people of ASDA, when I poured out the soup I was not in the slightest bit apprehensive about the heat of the liquid. Which turned out to be stone cold. Unlike Christopher Biggins in Porridge it wasn't even luke warm, which might have rendered the soup drinkable. I know that some fancy continental soups are meant to be served cold; you can call me an old fashioned Britisher but I like my soup piping hot thank you very much. And my tea for that matter. Dipping a digestive biscuit into iced tea doesn't quite cut the mustard, which should of course be English not French. Those of you that know me will (hopefully) know that I am not a small-minded, xenophobic philistine, far from it, but some things are sacrosanct.

My dear son Kenteke and I were disappointed at the damp (and cold) squib of the soup but luckily Villa were surprisingly winning 1-0 at half-time so at least the scoreline tempered the flask setback. And the word “tempered” transpired to be very fitting as I later learnt that I should have tempered the flask before use, which apparently means I should have acclimatised it with hot water before tipping in the soup. The label didn't mention tempering so how was I supposed to know? The only temper procedure that I enacted was counting to ten to try and calm myself down about the flask's failure and false claims.

On the way back to the car after the game (which for the record ended in a 1-1 draw) Kenteke, who is 10 years old, said to me, “Dad, you need to buy a Thermos.” Which of course is sound advice from one so young. I should not have been a miser in the first place by buying the competitively priced flask but of course one tries to minimise one's general expenditure in order to maximise one's beer buying potential in the Flagon & Gorses. But the soup disaster was soon forgotten on return to Codger Mansions and it was a case of who laughs last laughs loudest as I had left the central heating on a low heat, so when we walked through the front door the house was toasty.

Lao Tzu, after eating Ready Brek.

Also, having a car with a working radio and heater at long last has enhanced our football travelling experience no end. When I had my last car, Pat, being radio-less on the way home from the game I would moan about the football at Kenteke, who wisely wouldn't be listening as he would be curled up warm under his blanket and would be playing his video game. Now I have my new car (well, second hand but new to me) I listen to callers on the radio moan about the football so I don't have to moan personally anymore and the heater soon makes me warm, so it is an improvement. But the net result for Kenteke is effectively the same as he is still warm, with the heater replacing his blanket, and he still plays his video game and ignores someone moaning about the football.

I suppose a lot of life generally consists of adults moaning about one thing or another and children being oblivious to such rantings. In fact moaning, as opposed to constructive criticism, usually falls on deaf ears as if it was noted and acted upon there would be nothing to moan about. That said some people, and we all know who they are, would find something to moan about even in divine Utopia: “I say, it's nice enough here and all that and mostly idyllic and heavenly but I don't half dislike the name 'Utopia', it's horrible.”

In the office at the bank where I used to work there were world class moaners, whitterers and faffers and one colleague was a champion in all three disciplines. And he was more highly regarded by the company than all of the rest of us. But it was all a game you see and this fella used to be an expert at playing it. It didn't matter how good or bad you were at your job or how hard you worked at it, reward was granted on the basis of how well you played the game, if you were prepared to play it.

Ben Dyson, founder of Positive Money, doing a bit of
bingo calling on the side. 

Staff used to fall into one of three broad categories: those that knew the game and were prepared to demean and compromise themselves to play it in order to get on in the company; those that knew the game but were not prepared to play it or to demean and compromise themselves; and those who didn't know the game and therefore didn't play it. I was in the second category as I was not prepared to play the game as it clashed with my desire to try to be a decent human being.

Those in the third category were the happiest as although they didn't get on in the company they had no tricky decision to make as they were ignorant. Those in the first category got on in the company and enjoyed the associated financial gain but they couldn't be truly happy as in order to play the game they had made concessions to being a virtuous person. Those in the second category had kept their integrity intact but missed out on recognition and monetary reward by the company as a consequence, so they were sour and demoralised.

The irony of the game was that generally it was the disagreeable characters who rose through the ranks and prospered, the bullsh*tters, bluffers and and banking brigands. Talking the talk was more important than walking the walk. The game encouraged individualism and self interest in the pursuit of a bigger bonus and/ or salary; staff that worked towards the collective good were those that were usually not valued or rewarded.

And this is a worrying considering that bankers, not politicians, are in control of issuing new money into the economy, so they have an incredible amount of power. Only 3% of all new money that is issued is in the form of bank notes and coins issued by the Bank of England – 97% of all new money that is created is in the form of loans that are created by banks. And the motivation of banks is to maximise profits and not to act in the best interests of the people of this country.

Dudley Winter Ales Fayre, by request of Toby In-Tents.

The good news is that due to the dedicated lobbying of Positive Money (www.positivemoney.org) the first debate on money creation in parliament for 170 years (yes, 170, it's not a typo), since the Bank Charter Act of 1844, was held on 20th November of this year. Over thirty five Members of Parliament attended and twenty one of those spoke throughout the debate. It was acknowledged that banks create new money when they make a loan and there was a consensus among most MPs present that this is a problem. As importantly there was cross-party support for a proposal to set up a monetary commission in order to explore money creation in detail. This is only a small step and we are far from legislation to reform the way new money is created but at least parliament has finally recognised that the banks are largely in control and not the Bank of England.

As Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And talking of which I had better get a shift on so I can make steps towards meeting Harry Stottle and the Coarse Whisperer in Dudley for the Winter Ales Fayre – I know Dudley is only a mere three miles from Halesowen but it seems like a thousand miles when you journey there on the 244 bus, I can tell you. But at least delightful real ales await me at journey's end. Here's to Miguel de Cervantes who said, "I drink when I have occasion and sometimes when I have no occasion.” Cheers.

© Dominic Horton, November 2014.

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Lowlife 97 – Indecent Proposal

Indecent Proposal

By Dominic Horton

Usually the only loveless or unromantic wedding proposals are those for arranged marriages or weddings of convenience. If the marriage proposal that I made on Sunday evening had run its full course I certainly would not have arranged the wedding and it would have been highly inconvenient. And Neddy Lachouffe is far from being my ideal life partner.

The author in Hamburg, by request
 of Toby In-Tents.

I only have the word of witnesses in the Flagon & Gorses that I proposed to him on returning from Willy Mantitt's beer junket in Hamburg on Sunday night, as before the flight home my person had been inundated with beer and my retentiveness on that evening was defective. I am just glad I didn't opt for the traditional approach and get down on one knee to propose to Neddy as it is more than likely I wouldn't have got up again.

I know not why I proposed to Neddy but on entering the Flagon I exuberantly declared, “Neddy I love you and I want to marry you.” My guess is that Neddy received the full terrifying brunt of my affections as he was the first person I saw when I walked through the door of the pub and I was so utterly relieved that the hellishness of the flight home was over and that I had returned to the cocooning comfort of the Flagon & Gorses.

I do remember talking briefly to Kinver Dave on Sunday evening and being the attentive fellow that he is he quickly assessed that I was a little tiddly. I reminded him that when I bumped into him at Nottingham Beer Festival a few years ago and I apologised to him for being a bit drunk that he advised me, “It's not a crime you know.” Although I had committed no misdemeanors on Sunday it was criminal that I had got myself into that condition and I knew I would be temporarily on death row come the morning.

On Monday the Pirate asked why I was so stewed the previous evening. I explained to the Pirate that I had drank too many German beers, stein after stein, to which he quick wittedly retorted, “Why, were you drinking with Cyndi Lauper?” Even though girls just want to have fun I don't think that Cyndi Lauper would have enjoyed the beer junket to Hamburg as she might get three sheets to the wind and disgrace herself by showing her true colours.

On these weekend beer trips things always start out promising but without fail they end in debacle. Or in de loo, or both, usually. Well, they do for me at any rate. The night before we departed for Hamburg I soberly remained in my Codger Mansions dwelling watching the darts and I suppressed my holiday mood urge to pop up the Flagon to tickle the tonsils with a couple. Not that I have any tonsils as they were removed when I was a boy, even though it is not evident to all medical practitioners.

The drinking party in Hamburg minus
Willy Mantitt (who was either taking the photo
or was in the karsi.)

A few years ago I had chronic ear ache on a weekend so I visited the out of hours doctor who looked down my throat and quickly diagnosed the ailment. “Ahh, yes, I can see exactly what the problem is Mr Horton,” explained the doctor, “your tonsils are clearly inflamed.” To the doctor's great embarrassment I replied, “I doubt that Doc, I had them removed in 1979.”

When I was in hospital in '79 I remember that The Buggles Video Killed the Radio Star was number one in the charts, which was an annoying song to say the least but not as annoying as the behaviour of the nurses: when I was admitted I took with me a bag of sweets and chocolates but a nurse found them and confiscated them stating that I was not allowed to eat until after the operation. She told me that she would put the bag of goodies in storage and return them to me when I leave. When I was discharged I asked the nurse for my sweets back (in a faint and croaky post-op voice) but she denied ever having taken them, so I never got them back. The glutinous and thieving nurses must have scoffed my confectionery in the staff room chortling at my boyish naivety in thinking that I was going to get them back.

Anyway, on Saturday morning I was in chipper condition for the 0730 hours flight to Hamburg and I only had one solitary pint in the airport bar in order to maintain a disciplined approach. Mind you, that was only because they sold no real ale so I had to improvise with an undelectable pint of Guinness. Boozing on the flight was a write off as it was an Hobson's choice between overpriced small cans of Stella Artois and Fuller's London Pride, so I had a bottle of water and sweated it out. So even though we immediately proceeded to the Hofbrauhaus beer hall on arrival in Hamburg and were drinking litre steins of Lowenbrau at 1030 hours in the morning (and carried on in that vein all day) come bedtime later in the evening I was not in too bad a shape, not that I can remember. But my fair to middling condition on Sunday morning told its own story.

The magnificent Hamburg Rathaus

A stout breakfast followed by a morning stroll around the streets of Hamburg with Toby In-Tents further improved my physical well-being. I say “stroll” but In-Tents walks like he plays football, aggressively, so it turned into a bit of a work out. The whole of Hamburg seems to be shut on a Sunday morning, save the odd café, but we did get to see the magnificent Hamburg Rathaus (town hall) and we went in the church of Sankt Jacobi, where a service was being held, but I had the booze terrors in there and was soon keen to get out for fear of the priest condemning me to the depths of burning hell, or even worse, trying to convert me to christianity.

At lunchtime In-Tents and I joined the rest of the party (who had by now risen from their graves) in the beer hall and I remember smugly congratulating myself for having cheated the grim reaper of hangovers for a change. That turned out to be my downfall. The beers slipped down quicker than oysters at the Henley Regatta. Consequently I declined faster than the Wall Street stock market in 1929. The next thing I recall is drinking Old Feckah's scrumpy cider in the Flagon & Gorses public bar, starring glassy-eyed at Neddy Lachouffe, neither of which was a good idea.

It doesn't take Inspector Clouseau to work out that this week has been somewhat of a challenge as the older one gets the more testing it is to recover one's full physical and mental health after a heavy weekend of relaxing. Monday was pretty much a write off where all requests were greeted by me with, “Not now Cato.” But Tuesday it was back to business as normal as first thing I had an appointment at the doctor's for a 'flu jab followed by attending the shared reading group. Before injecting me the nurse asked me, “have you had the 'flu recently? Hot and cold flushes? Headache? Lack of energy?” I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had endured a sleepless and fearful night suffering from those very symptoms but not due to influenza but to alcohol withdrawal.

On retreating back to Codger Mansions from the doc's I tried to perk myself up with a cup of coffee. But the drink tasted a bit harsh and made me feel a little bilious and a flashback to Hamburg on Sunday made me realise that was because someone had given me a strong coffee before the flight to sober me up. I have never really understood the rationale behind that tactic: "he's been drinking heavily for two days solid but give him a cup of Nescafe and he'll be as right as rain in a minute." It's like saying, “yes, I know he's trying to kick a crack cocaine habit, brew him up a nice cup of tea and once he's had that he'll be over the worst of it.”

So next week things can only get better (which of course was used by the Labour party as their anthem during their successful 1997 election campaign) and the slogan has never been more fitting as UKIP have gained another parliamentary seat after their candidate Mark Reckless won the Rochester and Strood by-election. I for one am voting with my feet; I'm off up the Flagon & Gorses for a pint of the Pirate's finest.

© Dominic Horton, November 2014.

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Lowlife 96 – Herr Today, Gone Tomorrow

Herr Today, Gone Tomorrow

By Dominic Horton

On the horizon this weekend is a whistle-stop beer junket to Hamburg to celebrate Willy Mantitt having survived 40 years on this Earth. Mantitt was also responsible the last time I went to Germany a few years ago, to Munich, and that all ended with Toby In-Tents and I coming within a hair's breadth of missing the flight home, p*ssing off the German police in the process. But that's a story for another day. It is odd to think that I had a mohican hair style in those days (the word “style” not being very appropriate given the state of my barnet) which was a product of my second mid-life crisis. I'll never forget the expressions on my colleagues' faces the day that I walked into the office proudly sporting my new mohican; people's jaws dropped so low that you could have fitted a medicine ball in their cake holes.

The author on a bad hair day talking to Harry
Gout

As I worked for a supposedly reputable high street bank I anticipated my boss telling me that the hair style was unacceptable and that I had to rid myself of it immediately. I fully expected such an order so if it had been given I would have resigned myself to acting upon it. But the officialdom at the bank said nothing about my hair, not on that first day or the others that followed. After a couple of months I got fed up with the mohican, especially as it needed time consuming attention to keep it fully erect and I have never really been one for hair gel or associated hair products. Also it was a pain in the aris if I sat on the sofa and rested my head as it would flatten the back of the mohican, meaning that it needed to be re-gelled before I set off for the Flagon & Gorses.

As I was on the verge of banishing the mohican to history out of the blue my supervisor told me that I had to sort it out as there had been some disparaging comments from certain persons in the office. I asked who the colleagues in question were so I could discuss the matter with them but the names could not apparently be revealed to me; the cowardly guttersnipes didn't have the backbone to tell me to my face what they thought. And I would have gladly listened to their views as I am nothing if not reasonable. Unless I am uncontrollably screaming at the referee at Villa Park. My poor old supervisor was caught in the middle as managers always chose to delegate such matters, 'delegate' being a euphemism for 'avoid' of course. So I dug my heels in and against my wishes I decided to keep the mohican to antagonise the faceless guttersnipes and to indulge in a dose of good old bloody-mindedness.

After a few weeks things seemed to settle down in the office so I had my head shaved and it was a great relief to not have to waste time faffing about with hair gel and going through fiddly hair procedures in the manner of a boy band member. After my trip to the barbers I walked in the Flagon & Gorses and Carla von Trow-Hell behind the bar exclaimed, “where has it gone?!!” as if I had kept a squirrel on my head that I had put in a rodentery so I could go on holiday.

Chompa Babbee in Munich wearing his leather travel cap,
looking like a member of the Village People on his uppers

The mohican was not the first time that I have got into trouble over a hair style. As a rebellious schoolboy I grew my hair long but it backfired on me one day when I was leaning back in my chair in an English class. The irksome boy behind, who was equally bored as I was, succumbed to temptation and pulled my hair to break the monotony and to rile me up: it worked and I turned around and gave him a dry slap in retribution. I was generally pacifistic as a schoolboy but as the bothersome squirt had tampered with my hair (that I had been growing for months in a desperate effort to look like Jim Morrison) I considered violence to be fully warranted.

As my battleaxe English teacher Old Bag Lloyd had a loathing for me she immediately laid all the blame for the incident at my door despite my protestations that my mane had been pulled but she stated that it was my own fault for having slovenly long hair. Lloyd continued that it was expressly against the school rules to have hair below one's collar and she ordered me to have it cut. I expediently complied with Lloyd's instructions and the next time I walked into her class I revealed to her that my hair had been shorn to a menacing grade one shave all over, to her great disgust and horror. Aghast, Lloyd told me that it was also against school regulations for a boy to have his head shaved to the quick to which I replied, “sorry missus but you can't have it both ways!”

My hair today is an altogether more conservative affair and the best abuse they can come up with at the Flagon & Gorses is to call me a Luftwaffe fighter pilot (when I've just had it clipped and shaved at the sides) or Clare Balding when it is a little longer. I am not sure what Clare Balding thinks of the matter but I bet she is not best pleased about being compared to me.

Toby In-Tents around the time of the trip to
Munich looking like a Mafia henchman, not by
request of Toby In-Tents.

I am looking forward to going to Hamburg but the trouble with beer junkets, stag do's and the like, is that the only places you get to see of the city or town in question is the inside of pubs as you get swept up in an unstoppable vortex of booze that you are powerless to resist. You can't stop drinking even if you want to, it's simply not allowed. And going to places other than licensed premises is strictly prohibited. 

I was on one such outing in York and as I had never been to the city before I snuck out of the pub that we were in to have a look at York Minster. It would not have been prudent to disclose my plan to anyone else in the party as I wouldn't have been allowed to leave the boisterous bar. As I sat on a bench reveling at the sight of the awesome York Minster my mobile telephone rang and a concerned voice asked me my whereabouts. “I'm at York Minister” I revealed. “What's that?” came the confused reply. I later found out that the caller thought it was a boozer.

You could go on a beer jolly up to Uttar Pradesh without seeing the Taj Mahal or Rome and not visit the Colosseum. There would be good intentions for sure; the party would set out for the Colosseum but would go for a heart starter in a skid row pub just down the road and that would be that, settled in for the day. And the only Taj Mahal that would be visited would be a curry house once all hands become peckish. On beery jolly ups you could be in any town in any country in the world, the location doesn't matter, the form is always the same.

Munich is a good case in point. Sleepy Tom Parker, who organised the trip, undertook meticulous research and discovered that the Marienplatz, with all its charms and historic beer halls, was only a short stroll from where we were staying, the Hotel Moderno in the red light district (branded by one disgruntled reviewer as “one of the worst hotels in Europe”, for the record I disagree as I appreciated the great effort that the hotel had gone to in creating the 1970's theme). But within seconds of leaving the Moderno a dive sports bar was spotted, Chompa Babbee was insistent on a refreshment and we ended up spending the lion's share of the day in there.

Clare Balding.

Trying to mobilise a dozen men who are busy drinking in a bar is a fruitless task that is doomed to failure. It was only by meeting a Munich resident by chance, an Englishman from Manchester, that we managed to get out of the sports bar. He could see that we were wasting our weekend away and not seeing the joys of the city so he prudently ordered a few taxis and took us to the Augustiner Keller. And everyone grudgingly admitted that it was marvelous, especially the impressive sight of the busty Bavarian serving wenches carrying half a dozen full beer steins in each hand across the beer garden.

So think again if you expect next week's edition to be full of tall tales and adventures as my experience of Hamburg will just be beer, bratwurst and boozers. And it is only a short trip anyway, so it will be a case of Herr today, gone tomorrow. 

© Dominic Horton, November 2014.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall
Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 95 – A Book at Lunchtime

A Book at Lunchtime

By Dominic Horton

I haven't read aloud in front of a others since I was a schoolboy (except that is for reading bedtime stories to my dear son Kenteke, the occasional speech at a wedding or funeral and a brief poem at the recent Flagon & Gorses' First World War night) but I found myself doing exactly that this week at a shared reading group run by The Shared Reading Company (http://thesharedreadingcompany.org.uk/). It was all a bit last minute as I had intended spending the whole day at my desk working on a non-Lowlife writing project but cabin fever got the better of me at lunchtime and I knew that I needed to get out otherwise I would start to talk to myself. Again. And it always ends in an argument.

Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry.

I remember Auntie Bernie telling me about The Shared Reading Company's groups a few weeks ago and I discovered that they were meeting that very afternoon at Quinborne Community Centre, a couple of miles up the road, so I revved up Helen (my diminutive car) and off I went. It wasn't until I parked up that I started to feel nervous about the thought of reading in front of others and I was a little worried that I would make a t*t of myself.   The community centre was a veritable hive of activity and it housed a Café so I thought that I had better buy myself a bottle of water in case my throat dried up whilst reading. But my growing nervousness had already made my throat a little dusty and as a consequence I struggled to get the words, “a bottle of water please” out when I was asked what I wanted by the assistant. Not a great start to proceedings.

I entered the room where the group was meeting but found only one other there, who turned out to be Nuala, the person who runs the group (otherwise known as a shared reading facilitator.) I feared that if there was to be only the two of us that I would have to do an awful lot of reading aloud and that I should have bought two bottles of water. But others soon joined us and there was six of us in all and after introductions we started to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, a book which won the Whitbread prize for fiction a few years ago.

Nuala read the first couple of chapters, and as you would expect she is a skilled, experienced reader and charmingly her Birmingham accent was pronounced on occasion. Once Nuala had finished she asked if anyone else would like to continue the reading and I immediately volunteered so as to get my turn out of the way. Years of reading Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss and the like to Kenteke transpired to be good preparation and I read well enough, despite my thoughts drifting off on a couple of occasions deciding whether to have tarka dal or beef broth for tea. For the record the beef broth won the day.

The Pirate, doing what he does best.

I cooked the tarka dal last Friday after having a nightmare the night before in which a sinister voice had insistently told me that if I do not cook the dish first thing the following day something seriously bad was going to happen. I attended the Birmingham Beer Festival on Friday afternoon and I feared that if I didn't make the tarka dal and they ran out of beer the blame would be put squarely on me and that I would be hounded out of the city. Charlie Chaplin once said “a day without laughter is a day wasted” but in the case of my co-drinker the Pirate you can substitute the word “laughter” for “beer”. So if the festival had run dry it would have been an immensely grave matter.

So in the limited time that I had on Friday morning I cooked the tarka dal in a Challenge Anneka style frenzy and if only Roy Castle and Norris McWhirter were still alive by now I would have an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. I put the tarka dal in my slow cooker smug in the knowledge that it would be perfectly cooked and ready to eat on my return from the beer festival. When I opened the front door to Codger Mansions in the evening in a starving and merry state I expected to be greeted by the agreeable aroma of the Punjab but instead I got a caustic whiff of charred food. I had made the schoolboy error of not remembering that lentils need a great deal of hydration and I had underestimated the amount of water required in the dish, resulting in the dall being incinerated.

Although I assessed the tarka dal and decided that it could be rescued I didn't have the enthusiasm to do it at the time so I decided to order a pizza off just-eat.co.uk from Antonios, which permanently has a buy one get one free offer on all pizzas. I must have been more trigger happy than Dirty Harry because when the delivery driver turned up he had four pizzas for me. I must have erroneously double clicked on my order. Resultantly my diet last weekend consisted almost entirely of pizza, which I ploughed through stoically as I hate to waste food. This did nothing for my waist line and so this week I have been on a soup and banana diet in an effort to again make the wearing of trousers a comfortable experience. I did eventually resurrect the tarka dal and when I ate it on Wednesday it represented a refreshing change from soup and bananas.

Charlie Chaplin, by request of Toby In-Tents.

The foodstuff at break time at the reading group was chocolate digestive biscuits and everyone deserved a little treat with their cuppa after reading admirably. John read with a rich and deep Irish accent, Heather with a more received pronunciation; Neville orated with an appealing Caribbean lilt. Farah is from Iran and part of her motivation to attend the group is to improve her grasp of English and at times she admitted to struggling to follow the text when others read. But when it was Farah's turn she read wonderfully well in a beguiling Arabic voice.

Overall I had a very enjoyable experience with the reading group and I later reflected on why that was. It was good to read aloud and listen to others reading as it seemed to focus one's attention more on the words and it had a calming effect. The periodic informal discussions that we had about the story seem to bring the book to life and it was interesting to hear others interpretations of what the text meant. It highlighted the point that books leave a lot to the imagination, which is why reading is so much more enriching than watching a film, for example. The variety of styles and accents of the readers also celebrated difference and therefore it breeds an acceptance of others, a tolerance. Finally, and importantly, there was free tea and biscuits.

Talking of biscuits I think that I will stick to buying them from Sainsburys after an unsatisfying trip to one of their rivals last week. I had long read about and listened to shoppers championing smaller budget supermarkets, so I decided to give one a go. My shopping list consisted of a leak, some shallots, wholemeal bread, bananas, margarine and some cheap yogurts. The shop was busy and I struggled to find a space on the car park despite it being midweek and it was a little bit too chaotic for me in the fruit and veg aisle.

Norris McWhirter.

I was disappointed to find that they only sold leeks in packets of four, which is three more than I needed. There were no shallots to be seen and a surly assistant confirmed that they had run out. The bread turned out to be like cardboard, even after being hydrated by margarine, which was a task in itself as despite me not storing the marg in the fridge it was so hard that it was virtually unspreadable. I ended up giving the bread to the ducks down Leasowes park but even they turned their beaks up at it citing, “If you think I am lowering myself to eat that cheap bread then you are quackers.” The bananas has an acidic aftertaste and I condemned them to be inedible. The yogurts were fine.

The woman at the checkout scanned the goods and slid them down the counter with terrifying speed and had her hand held out to receive my cash before I was even a quarter of the way through packing. I was left in no doubt that it was unacceptable to remain at the till beyond a couple of seconds after your purchases were scanned. It was almost as if you were being told that a contractual stipulation of you buying cheap food in the store is that you have to pack up and f*ck off immediately so that the cashier can attend to antagonising the next customer.

A more disturbing thought than a return trip to the budget supermarket is that of a reading group using this column as material. Half the group would be asleep and the other half would walk out in disgust, leaving the shared reading facilitator thinking, “If I see that Horton in the Flagon & Gorses I will be sure to buy him a pint as even though Lowlife turned out to not be a popular choice at least I can go home now.” Toodle pip.

© Dominic Horton, November 2014.

* Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

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

Lowlife 94 - Taking the Peace

Taking the Peace

By Dominic Horton

Rajagopal is an Indian peace activist who follows the Gandhian tradition of non-violent protest, especially mass marches, to highlight injustices and to pressure for change. He is the President and founding member of Ekta Parishad, a federation of approximately 11,000 community based organisations, and it campaigns for land rights for India's tribal people by dialoguing with government at national level and mobilising villagers at the grassroots level. Rajagopal is known by his first name only so as not to be associated with a caste (the Indian system of social stratification.) I might start to go by my first name only so as not to be associated with myself.

Fran Wilde looks on as Rajagopal meets

the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Shafique Shah

In 2012 Rajagopal joined 50,000 landless Indian farmers on a march that Ekta Parishad called Jan Stayagraha (which means “Keenness to Truth”) but on Monday he found himself on a peace walk in Birmingham city centre with a somewhat smaller gathering including yours truly, a little hungover – I was a little hungover that is, not Rajagopal; I would imagine that he is either teetotal or at best a moderate imbiber. My slightly tainted state was accounted for by the Flagon & Gorses selling off the remnants of the weekend's beer festival ales cheap on Sunday which were complemented by Fudgkins and Alexander Sutcliffe getting everyone to drink large sloe gins again (see Lowlife 60, Life in the Sloe Gin Lane.)

Fran, who organised the walk, introduced me to Rajagopal and others as a writer, the first time I had been introduced to anybody as such. I felt quite proud of the writer tag but it backfired a bit later when one of the walkers quizzed me and asked if I was a novelist or a journalist but I had to admit to just writing this blog, which sounds a bit naff and lightweight and made me feel a bit fraudulent being labelled as a writer. I suppose the form of a writer's work is not the defining issue though but the quality of it but I suppose that even that is questionable in my case.

Rajagopal stood up to greet me and physically he is quite diminutive but what he lacks in height he certainly makes up for in presence; he has dedicated his life to nonviolently improving the lives of the disadvantaged in Indian and he radiates a kind of calming peace. It was an honour to meet him. They say that you can judge a man by his shoes so I cocked a sneak at Rajagopal's. He wore a comfortable but hardy pair of brown lace-ups which in my expert opinion were purchased from Clarks, exactly the right choice of footwear for an internationally renown peace walker but of course I would praise his shoes as they were not too dissimilar to my Hush Puppies.

Rajagopal, by request of Toby In-Tents.

On the walk Fran treated us to her usual approach of pointing out things of interest, putting her own enlightening spin on them and asking for the group's thoughts. As it was a peace walk the things that Fran pointed out and told us were linked to the theme of peace and at one point Fran asked us to think about what peace means to us. As a sufferer of anxiety I wanted to talk about my pursuit of peace in relation to that but ironically I was too anxious.

Normally a walk in the city centre would mean a pub crawl around the usual haunts but I am not sure that would have gone down well with Rajagopal as I can't imagine that The Good Beer Guide is the preferred reading material for the average Gandhian peace activist. He might be missing a trick there as most Good Beer Guide pubs are fairly peaceful places and my regular retreat, the Flagon & Gorses, is no exception as there is no invasive music and I have not seen what you would call a fight in there (although a few of the Flagon's inmates regularly grapple with the consciences.)

We walked to the new Peace Hub on Bull Street which is run by the Quakers and a personable young Quaker named Peter gave us in interesting pep talk about the hub and about Quakerism, explaining that the four key principles of the religion are peace, equality, integrity and simplicity. I should have guessed the last of the principles as I enjoy eating the spin-off Quaker Oats product Oats so Simple.  Like Oats so Simple Peter seemed like a warm and nourishing character. Later in the week I was telling someone how impressed I was with the concise neatness of the four key principles of Quakerism but when I was asked to recite what they are I couldn't remember any of them beyond peace, which I could hardly forget given the theme of the walk. I must have a selective memory that only remembers the things that matter in life such as the directions to the Flagon & Gorses. Unfortunately I didn't remember that drinking sloe gins on top of beer is not a wise idea.

During the walk Fran was insistent that we had to ensure that we arrived at the Council House on Victoria Square at 1515 hours sharp and when we got there it was apparent why we must be punctual as none other than the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Shafique Shah, was waiting to greet us dressed in his Mayoral regalia. The Mayor was accompanied by a small posse of cronies who must act as security and to generally fuss around him. One of the Mayor's entourage must have been the head of security as he stood a few yars away from the rest of the group and constantly looked shiftily and warily around in order to identify any clear and present danger. But the poor chap limped and walked slowly with a walking stick so if there had been a threat to the Mayor's life I am not sure what use he would have been unless he was able to fire poison darts out of the bottom of his stick like a Bond villain. The Mayor might want to revise his security arrangements as Monday also happened to be the day that the Prime Minister David Cameron was allegedly attacked by a runner in Leeds.

Rajagopal addresses a crowd of 25,000 people in 2007.

Fortunately I have no need for a security guard but I could do with the services of a private detective as I found myself investigating a mysterious Lowlife related incident this week. On Monday I received an email from my old Friend Lolly relating to a discovery by a work colleague of Mrs Lolly, who is a bra fitter at Marks & Spencer's in Merry Hill. The email read as follows:-

“On Thursday last week, one of Bev's [Mr's Lolly] colleagues came running out of the fitting  rooms with a handful of papers that had been left behind by a customer. The papers included various receipts and work related information but no personal details were evident. However, much to Bev's surprise, one of the A4 sheets was in fact - wait for it - an issue of Lowlife. Now, either your literary appeal has reached new heights within the social echelons, or you are spending your redundancy money on a succession of transgender ops! Either way I'm sure you will continue to receive great support.”

I have started a full blown investigation into the matter and I conducted a series of interviews and inquiries in the Flagon & Gorses on Wednesday evening. The purchaser of the brazier must be a Flagoner as I publish paper copies of this column and put them on the bar in the pub as many of the Luddite inmates there are not conversant with the ways of the internet. A number of women have been eliminated as possible suspects but no one can be ruled out and I have widened the net to include the Flagon's menfolk as who knows what they get up to once they retreat back to their respective dwellings.

Only Philly the Gent can be absolutely disregarded as a suspect as he was away sunning himself in the Canaries and besides he's one of the few Flagoners sensible enough to not read this piffle. If anyone has any information on the matter you can speak to me in confidence at the investigation's head quarters of the public bar, the Flagon & Gorses. It would not surprise me if the suspect is a man who is too embarrassed to come forward, not about wearing a brazier but about admitting to reading Lowlife.  The case continues.

If the thought of a gentleman drinker in the Flagon wearing a bra isn't scary enough Friday saw Halloween descend upon us. As I knew I would be spending Friday with the ghoulish characters of the Pirate, Harry Stottle and The Coarse Whisperer at Birmingham Beer Festival I thought I would mark Halloween on Thursday night with my dear son Kenteke, so I decided to read him a series of children's ghost stories by candlelight in the living room at Codger Mansions. At the end of the eerie stories I put Kenteke to bed and I asked him if he was ok as I didn't want him being too scared at bedtime but he said he was fine. But afterwards as I was sitting alone in the living room I realised that it was in fact me who was scared stiff and I was sh*tting myself. The ghost stories were good and Kenteke and I had both thoroughly enjoyed them but foolishly I had not anticipated them taking the peace. 

© Dominic Horton, November 2014.

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall