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
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