Lowlife 102 – In the Dead of the Night

In the Dead of the Night

By Dominic Horton

Boxing Day dealt me a right hook as by the evening I felt like a zombie with little conversation or life left in me by the time that I shuffled into the Flagon & Gorses early evening. The afternoon was pleasant enough, a run over the woods followed by a trip to the social club with my dear son Kenteke to watch our beloved Aston Villa, who were playing away at Swansea: although Villa lost they played well and it was a good game, so we enjoyed it. There was thick snow at the club in Blackheath and it was very festive but back home, a mile down the hill in Halesowen, there was virtually no snow at all. It is amazing how each small area seems to have its own little micro climate. Furnace Hill, where my Codger Mansion dwelling is situated, is consistently colder than the Dudley Road around the corner and it can often be covered with a thick frost while adjoining roads have none. There is often a discernible change in temperature when you turn the corner at the bottom of Furnace Hill past the chippy and enter Dudley Road. Mind you that might just be the heat off the deep fat fryer.

Marley's Ghost, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Anyway, after getting home from the club I didn't want to linger around Codger Mansions so instead of killing time until later in the evening I had a quick bowl of home made soup (tomato and lentil) and made haste for the Flagon & Gorses. It was very quiet in the pub and there were only few people in there and most of those were day trippers in Christmas jumpers and not regular Flagon inmates. I spotted Clawdia sitting alone, and not working behind the bar for once, but enjoying a pint, looking like an impish garden gnome with her woolly hat on, so I joined her for a natter.

Poor Clawdia had to carry the conversation though, as I seemed to have nothing to say for myself, as I felt flatter than a witches t*t. All the eating and drinking and slothing about on Christmas Day had taken its toll and left me in a nullified and languid state and I was struggling to raise my game to drag myself back into the land of the living. I was hoping that a bustling and lively atmosphere in the Flagon would give me the fillip that I needed but as I had ventured out too early the atmosphere in the pub was on the sedate side; not even the Pirate was around to ruffle my feathers.

After half an hour or so even Clawdia bid me adieu and abandoned me, leaving me to sit and stew in my own fats. Every time the latch went on the pub door I thought that the likes of Neddy Lachouffe, Dick the Hook or Theo Atrical would pitch up to entertain me, but to no avail; mostly the people entering the pub were drinkers who had popped outside into the inclement weather for a fag. It is a rarity that there is no-one for me to talk to in the Flagon but that was the position I was in, on Boxing Day of all days. And I couldn't even have a read of the newspaper as I had forgotten my glasses.

An urban fox.

I knew that the cavalry would be arriving in an hour or so, in the form of Chrissy the Gent, but I couldn't hold out that long and in a fit of lugubriousness I decided to cut my losses and skulk back to Codger Mansions where at least I had a pork pie awaiting me with open arms. I complemented the pork pie with pickled onions and a film, The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke as an ageing professional wrestler who struggles on performing, despite suffering from ill health. I was delighted when I saw that the film was on as I had long wanted to see it. But once the film had started it dawned on me that I had actually seen it before and although it is a good movie my enthusiasm to watch it drained away. I was left with only one option for the rest of the evening – an early night. I joined Alfie the teddy and I quickly nodded off and fortunately I didn't have my reoccurring nightmare, so the phantasm who haunts my dreams must have secured some time off for Christmas. But like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, he'll be back.

I awoke in the middle of the night needing a trip to the little boy's room and it quickly became apparent on my return to bed that sleep had fled and wouldn't be back anytime soon. I lay in bed but I was wide awake and restless and it reminded me of a line spoken by Marley's Ghost in Dickens' A Christmas Carol: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.” After a while I had soon had enough of starring at the ceiling so I decided to do something useful. I got up and made a batch of soup with left over vegetables and meat from Christmas dinner that I had pilfered off my Mother. The soup turned out to be pretty decent, if not a little rich. But any soup containing roast potatoes and pigs in blankets is hardly going to be a light and airy number.

The ESSO petrol station, Bromsgrove Road, Halesowen.

Once I had made the soup it was still only just past 0300 hours and as I felt a bit on the dolorous side I decided to go for a long walk. In her harrowing but ultimately heart warming book Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression Sally Brampton cites walking as one of the key factors that helps her combat the illness and getting your walking boots on to improve well being is a very useful tool indeed.

Tramping around the streets of Halesowen in the middle of the night it was surprising just how many vehicles were on the road and not just commercial lorries and ambulances etc. but regular cars too. Some households had lights on and I wondered if the occupants were still up watching television and enjoying Christmas cheer or had they got out of bed in the middle of the night to make soup out of the Christmas dinner left overs?

I spotted a fox, who was ferreting around someone's front garden trying to get his fangs on a few scraps of food from the rubbish bins. The fox spotted me and briefly went back to his savaging but then thought better of it and he bolted off into the night, pausing briefly after a hundred yards or so to look back at me. I love to see a fox as they are synonymous with the night, the dark, the secret, secluded world that they inhabit. Foxes allude to other mythical creatures, goblins, trolls, werewolves and shadow people. The fox knows the way to other magical worlds and universes and he could lead you to the devil himself if you ever needed to find him.

Sally Brampton

The one magical world that the fox didn't lead me to was the 24 hour petrol station on the Bromsgrove Road. As ESSO have recently taken over the petrol station it is all shiny, gleaming and new and when I walked past it it looked like a glistening, bright oasis of life in the dead of the night, like a mini Las Vegas glowing out from the dark. But without the Elvis impersonators. I thought about popping in to buy a Scotch egg, just to make contact with another human being, even if it would have been through a glass partition, but I decided that I had eaten enough rich food over the last two days so I carried on walking.

With it being nippy outside I was glad to get back into the warmth of Codger Mansions at the end of the walk and as it was past 0500 hours morning had officially started so it was time for a restorative coffee and a banana for sustenance. I am glad that I didn't have the Scotch egg as I felt the stirrings of the beginning of gout in the ball of my left toe, so I flushed it out with pints of water before it had time to settle and do it's evil work. And talking of evil work I thought that I might as well get to work on this week's edition of Lowlife before apathy set in to replace the gout. And above is the result; in terms of a result you would probably classify this week's offering as a 0-0 draw – fairly boring but at least there is a point (if you look hard enough.)

© Dominic Horton, December 2014.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 101 – Market Forces

Market Forces

By Dominic Horton

On Thursday I popped to the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham to see the Phantom, the Mexican and other ex-work colleagues. It was only my second visit to have a drink at the market this Christmas and on the last visit (with the Stottles two weeks ago) we only had one pint before retreating to the warming comforts of the Post Office Vaults pub. When I visit the market I only ever go for a drink, I never actually do any Christmas shopping as I see no appeal in buying gifts that people mostly do not want for twice the price of their normal mark up. In fact I haven't visited any stores to do Christmas shopping this year as I have done the entirety of my purchasing online as in the words of any self-respecting Punch & Judy man, “that's the way to do it.”

Sleepy Tom Parker, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Why in this internet age people want to suffer the aggravation of fighting their way around bustling stores to suffer Christmas shopping is beyond me; it only leads to the panic buying of naff and inappropriate gifts for Auntie Doris that she won't thank you for. I wouldn't accept all the tea in China to be tasked with enduring Christmas Shopping at Merry Hill on a Saturday afternoon whilst suffering from booze terrors. It would be my worst nightmare. Just imagine. It would drive one to drink. But some odd individuals actually enjoy Christmas shopping. “Let's go Christmas shopping for the day at Merry Hill dear, then afterwards we can put our feet up at home and watch X-Factor will a cold can of Carling Black label.” No thank you, on all fronts. I am having cold sweats just thinking about it.

A young, talented saxophonist pitched up at the market on Thursday and started to play popular tunes. Although his music added to the ambiance he was quickly moved on by security guards as he didn't have an official permit to busk. When I was walking down New Street later in the afternoon there was a bloke dressed in a sort of Star Wars character costume standing on a box, purporting to be a street entertainer. This fella must have a council permit as he was not moved on and I have seen him there on a few occasions previously. There is no doubt he is on the street but I am not sure where the “entertainment” bit comes in – he doesn't even stand perfectly still like some statuesque entertainers you see. In fact I think he has circulation problems as he was stamping his feet and waving his arms when I walked past him and he wasn't even doing it to music.  Needless to say I didn't donate any of my pennies to his coffers. So how council officials decide what applicants to bless with a street entertainment permit gawd only knows; it could well be the case that you need to be a relative or associate of the official who wields the relevant stamp to get the thumbs up.

It is a shame that busking is so tightly controlled in Birmingham city centre as it could be seen as a basic human right for those who are down on their luck but have a musical, oratory or visual talent to share, however basic. If all else fails one can dig out a guitar and play Lola by the Kinks on the street in the hope of gaining a few shillings. Busking of course is not like begging, the busker is working, providing an entertainment and you don't have to pay the busker if you do not want to. Buskers are passive and do not implore you to give them money but rather subtly invite you to do so by drawing you in with their entertainment. And buskers make the city more colourful and vibrant.

Punch & Judy Man Professor Clive Chandler

 (tiptoppuppets.co.uk). 

But the council might argue that if they do not regulate busking and street entertainment that the city centre would be swamped with buskers, who would get in the way of shoppers wanting to spend money. But this point seems contradictory as the council have allowed the city centre streets to become awash with nagging charity fundraisers (known as 'chuggers'), who block your path every few yards that you take. To get up New Street these days you have to be more fleet footed that a rugby union winger in order to negotiate your way past the obstructing chuggers.

The allure of drinking at the Frankfurt market has worn off these days and I have little desire to go there. On Thursday I again only had a single pint as I was driving but a few years ago, when I used to work at a bank in the city centre, I used to frequently drink at the market and often give the German pilsners and weissbiers a bashing, usually with the Iceman. We would think nothing of standing in sub-zero temperatures for hours after work quaffing pint after pint of cold pilsner interspersed with the odd bratwurst and hits of schnapps to keep out the cold. The coldness of our feet and the tipsiness of our persons would progress at roughly the same rate so by the time our trotters were frozen we hardly noticed it at all. We only withdrew to thaw out at the pub after the market had shut at 2100 hours and the hour being early we continued with more of the same but just in a more temperate setting (temperate in relation to climate, not drink consumption, that is.)

The routine at the time dictated that we would end up in the short order 'restaurant' McDonalds in a desperate attempt for nourishment and I would always order four cheeseburgers to nibble on the train on the homeward journey. While waiting for our food we would amuse ourselves by dropping 10 pence pieces into a twirly thing whereby the coin would slowly spiral downward in the fashion of a motorcyclist on the wall of death whose engine has failed. It was a simple enough form of recreation but as we were three sheets to the wind it was more transfixing that a sober man watching the Northern Lights, so we used to stare goggle-eyed, in a state of complete engrossment, at the coin spinning downward. And it was for charity after all and it was infinitely more pleasing than being accosted by a chugger.

Birmingham's Frankfurt Christmas Market

A number of years ago, one Friday lunchtime near Christmas the Iceman and I decided to nip to the Frankfurt market for refreshment after a stressful morning at work studying the English and Scottish football league tables ahead of the hectic Yuletide programme of fixtures. Sleepy Tom Parker contacted me and declared that he would be located in Birmingham at lunchtime and he suggested we meet at the market for a festive drink or two. There was a great deal of bonhomie and japing, which must have made us thirsty as before we knew it four pints of pilsner each had gone down, one each for the four English professional leagues. As we didn't want to leave the Scottish leagues out we followed it with four rounds of schnapps interspersed with a few toasts of “Prost! - Zum Wohl!”

Anthony Andrews as The Scarlet Pimpernel

Although it was Christmas time the Iceman and I knew that the goodwill of our boss would run out if we did not get back to the office soon as we were late getting back from our allocated lunch hour. But as we hastily made our way through the market back to the office we passed El Scrumpo's cider emporium and it was one of those rare mystical moments in life when you look at another person and no words are needed to communicate as telepathy takes over and you both know what the other is thinking – the devilish look in the Iceman's eyes told me that a quick pint of 6% still scrumpy was in the offing. Scrumpy in hand we had a dawning moment of paranoia as we didn't want any tell-tale colleagues who might be roaming around the market to spot us, so we quickly ducked around the back of the cider hut and hid from view among the generators and electric cables that serve the market stalls. We stood there like naughty school boys gulping the cider, enjoying our illicit drink, which is of course the best drink of all.

We snuck back into the office in the style of the Scarlet Pimpernel and expertly enacted the charade of looking busy without actually doing anything, counting down the clock by drinking coffee and eating Mini Cheddars until it was knocking off time, when we could once more return to the market for a drink to perk us back up. All in all in was probably the best day of my working life and that lunch time was one banker's bonus that I shall never forget.  

© Dominic Horton, December 2014.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 100 – All Played Out

All Played Out

By Dominic Horton

Curries from an Indian takeaway are evil as they are so full of fat that they bloat you up and provide you with your recommended weekly calorie intake in one hit. It's the ghee that does it. An ex-colleague at work used to eat loads of curries and he developed a sizeable belly; we used to call him the Ghee Lord. You might as well eat a pound of melted lard as eat a takeaway curry. And beer is pretty bad for putting on weight too. Especially as it makes you eat curry.

Hatchet Harry Stottle, by request of Toby In-Tents

And don't get me started on Chinese takeaways. But to my credit for many weeks now I have managed to avoid my nemesis, the Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway, and I feel better for it. I find it helps leaving the Flagon & Gorses as late as possible in the evening to make sure that the Rhareli Peking is shut. I've always said that leaving the boozer before last knockings can be fraught with hazards; if you leave at kicking out time you'll not end up with an unpalatable and emblubbering beef fried rice and curry sauce from the Rhareli Peking and you have less chance of being robbed on the Stourbridge Road by Mexican bandits.

I tend to cook my own low fat curries to eat after the pub as I have only got to look at a samosa these days and I seem to put weight on, which is what appears to happen when you get older. When I was a teenager I could drink a skin full of beer and eat a curry, rice, a big naan bread and chips as well and the calories would burn off quicker than an egg frying on a car bonnet in the Mojave Desert. But not anymore. So now I eat soup, lots of it. I cook the soups myself, they are so easy to make that I bet even the undomesticated Willy Mantitt could make one. But then again maybe not.

So no longer being a big eater I was surprised with myself on Monday because I made an Herculean effort and ate all of my humongous Christmas dinner at the Flagon & Gorses (actually, I did leave two roast chestnuts on the plate. I am lead to believe that the Cambodians think it is rude to not leave a little bit of food on your plate at the end of a meal. I was not being polite, I was simply fuller than Mr Creosote in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. I could not even manage a wafer thin mint. Apparently Elvis Presley was a keen Monty Python fan, which seems a bit odd. Maybe when he died on the karsi he was laughing so much at The Dead Parrot Sketch that it gave him a Connery. It's a credible theory.)

Al Whispering Death Stottle

Chef Chilli Willy had put enough food on the plate to feed a small gathering of Japanese Elvis impersonators but the food was so good, and I was that famished, that I polished it off. And I put the Christmas pudding and custard away too, which was washed down with a fine Hungarian Dessert wine from the Pirate's personal collection. I was joined for dinner by the Pirate, the Pianist and Leigh D'Stray as my regular dining partners of Tomacheski, Pat Debilder and Mother Teresa were absent without leave. Not being a cultured type I had never had dessert wine before but I would imagine that the Pianist and Leigh have, as they are more refined. And I am sure that the Pirate has as he is a p*sshead.

I spent the course of the meal with serious concerns that the Barbara Cartland Suite, where we were seated, was going to explode as the Pirate was sitting next to the fire and he is infamous for the amount of flatulence he permeates. With the Pirate having a Christmas meal, which included sprouts and stuffing, his wind was off the Sphincter Scale. I took the precaution of putting Red Adair's number in my mobile telephone but fortunately in the end I didn't have to call him.

Al 'Whispering Death' Stottle (aka the Coarse Whisperer) had arranged the Stottle Gang's Christmas junket for Wednesday and I knew that I dare not back out as our leader Hatchet Harry Stottle would not have been best pleased. But by then I was all played out as I had already attended two boozy Christmas functions on the weekend in addition to the Flagon meal on Monday, so I ducked out early of the Stottle do, after only six hours of drinking, and headed back to Codger Mansions for an aforementioned homemade curry.

Pete the Heat Stottle, The Stottle With No Name & Wild Bobby Stottle (aka

The Pirate) looking like the three unwise men at the Flagon & Gorses Christmas 

dinner.

Because I was tucked up in bed early on Wednesday evening with Alfie the teddy, by 0500 hours on Thursday morning I was up and about and as fresh as a daisy that has been trampled on by a dog in the park but survived the experience. So I decided to make a batch of soup in the slow cooker, a simple vegetable. The soup that is, not the cook. The only problem I had was that I thought I had better not use my hand held liquidiser as it makes a terrible din and it might wake up the neighbours. But I had the bright idea of taking the saucepan of carrots, onions and celery (for the soup's base) and the liquidiser to the bathroom as the neighbours would not hear the noise from there – the bathroom is at the bottom of the extension on the ground floor and for the record (with regards to hygiene) it does not house the toilet, which is in a separate room. Which is a shame as I could have sat on the karsi while I enacted the liquidising operation and killed two birds with one stone.

My neighbour told me a while ago that a previous owner of Codger Mansions killed himself in the bathroom by slashing his wrists. But it occurred to me that it might have been accidental death when he cut his wrists after his hand held liquidiser slipped during a routine souping procedure at five in the morning. Mindful of this possibility I proceeded with great care and due diligence.

Hugh Queensbury

I took less care and due diligence on Saturday night when I recited poetry at the Queensbury's Christmas dinner party, the reason being that by the time the other diners allowed me to read the poems I was three sheets to the wind. I thought a few festive poems might be a pleasant idea so I did some research earlier in the day and finally settled on three pieces of verse: A Christmas Carol by GK Chesterton, Minstrels by Wordsworth and Mistletoe by Walter de la Mare. But when I suggested at the dinner table, early in the evening, that I recite some poetry it was met with such a mixture of hilarity and derision that anyone would have thought that I had proposed to run naked around the streets with a piece of mistletoe sticking out of my a*se.    Queensbury was laughing so much that I thought he was going to have a seizure, which he would have been able to deal with as he is a paramedic. By the time I recited the poetry later in the evening he was more like a paralytic than a paramedic and I wasn't far off either.

So my recital was not as good as it ought to have been and to compound matters the whole sorry performance ended up on social media. But when I watched the video clip the one thing that struck me was not how tipsy I was but how pronounced my accent is, which sounded like an odd mix of Black Country and Brummie – this comes in the week that a poll conducted by market research firm YouGov found that the Brummie accent is the most unattractive of all accents in the British Isles.

A gathering of Japanese Elvis impersonators

Whoever devised the YouGov poll should be hung out to dry because to describe it as being fundamentally flawed is an understatement. As far as YouGov are concerned all of the residents of the West Midlands speak with a Brummie accent, which is patently not the case: clearly accents from around the Black Country, where I live, are different from accents from Birmingham or accents from other parts of the county, such as Coventry. Additionally many inhabitants of the West Midlands speak with a non-English or non-Midlands accent and some speak no English at all. Other regions are treated the same: for example, ludicrously all Welsh accents are lumped into one generic group.

I am not sure what point the YouGov poll is trying to prove or what its purpose is. The introduction to the poll on the YouGov website states that there are as many dialects in the British Isles as there are in the whole of the vastly more populous North America (including Canada, Bermuda and Native American dialects). That being the case surely it would be better to celebrate the richness of Britain's linguistic diversity (including languages other than English) than to be divisive about the matter.

The accent (forgive the pun) should be on inclusivity and diversity, not on belittling or marginalising people because of their accent or dialect – if we did that in the Flagon & Gorses The Pirate, with his soft Hampshire drawl, would be ostracised, drinking and f*rting on his own by the fire in the Barbara Cartland Suite. And the only possible person to benefit from that inflammatory situation would be the legendary fire fighter Red Adair. 

© Dominic Horton, December 2014

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 99 – Time Flies When you are Having Rum

Time Flies When you are Having Rum

By Dominic Horton

On Black Friday I wasn't much interested in having a punch up with someone over a discount 50” flat screen plasma television at Merry Hell, so I opted for retreating from the freneticism of shopping by going to the far more pleasant Dudley Winter Ales Fayre with Harry Stottle and the Coarse Whisperer. The Pirate was absent without leave and the Whisperer told me that the Pirate had hatched a cunning escape plan from his landlordly duties at the Flagon & Gorses to go and see Peter Gabriel, but due to the chattering throng of drinkers at the Fayre I misheard this as, “he's gone to see Peter and Gabriel.” For a second I thought that the Pirate had finally turned up his toes and journeyed to Heaven.

Chilli Willy (with Neddy Lachouffe

appearing to be growing as a large boil out

of Willy's neck).

Talking of the Pirate's toes, he has recently been wearing carpet slippers whilst he sits in the bar at the Flagon, which is a worrying development. We have all heard drinkers in pubs say, “I'm getting comfy” (meaning they are getting settled into a long drinking session) but taking this a step further and wearing carpet slippers is a bridge too far. What next? Will the Pirate appear in the public bar wearing his dressing gown, like an ignoble Hugh Heffner? But like the Pirate said, it's his house and he can do what he pleases, which is fair enough.

Whether the Pirate is wearing his unstylish carpet slippers or otherwise, when he does arrive at Heaven (which hopefully won't be until after the Flagon Christmas party on Monday) St Peter will most likely send him packing and guide him down the escalators to the place where it's bonfire night all the time. The Pirate probably won't want to step into Heaven anyway, unless they have got Oakham Green Devil IPA on draft (6% ABV), then he might be persuaded. But a beer of that name is unlikely to find it's way into the celestial cellar of the Dead Lion in Heaven.

There would be a good chance of the Pirate being turned away from Hell of the Damned as well as the Devil and his fellow committee members would be concerned about him drinking all the grog and about his perpetual flatulence, which would pose a health and safety issue with all the naked flames around. So more than likely the Pirate would end up in Limbo. As he likes a gag I can just picture the Pirate trying to dance under a low metal pole, wearing an Hawaiian shirt, to Caribbean steel drum music whilst the Limbo Steward declares, “you can p*ss off out of here you fool - we are not that type of limbo.”

St Peter with the keys to Heaven.

Not fancying his only other option of Purgatory the Pirate would doubtless return to Earth as a Zombie but he would quickly get fed up of being turned away from the Flagon & Gorses and he would slip into post-fatal depression. And it would be a grim state to be in as he would not even be able to do himself in on account of him already being brown bread. Businesses are always looking for new ways to expand and attract customers, so with any luck the Gravitas clinic in Switzerland would develop a service to reverse their normal procedure to satisfy punters who have used the clinic but are in hindsight disgruntled about the outcome.

After having a whip round in the Flagon we'd send the Pirate off to Switzerland to be restored to the land of the living (or the Flagon & Gorses equivalent, which shouldn't be as expensive) so he could once more sit in the comfort of the Public Bar. In his tawdry slippers. The Pirate told me on Sunday that the three main causes of pensioners having a fall are backless slippers, rugs and cats. So if a pensioner who is wearing backless slippers walks across a rug on which a cat is sleeping he's 99% guaranteed to hit the canvas. And if he's been out and had a few beforehand that figure will rise to 100%. So bear this in mind when you are deciding what Christmas presents to purchase for your elderly relatives. Only buy them backless slippers, a rug or a cat if you don't like them very much.

It did turn out to be a black Friday at any rate as I mostly drank stout at the Winter Ales Fayre, as I am partial to a drop of the black stuff, especially in the autumn and the winter. BBC Radio 5 Live informed me that Black Friday was to be followed by Cyber Monday, when shoppers are glued to their computers and similar devices, where they are quick to pick their Christmas shopping with a click. I decided that Cider Monday would be a better idea so I popped up the Flagon for a drop of the Old Feckah's scrumpy and I was summarily told off for being “late” by Dapper Tony, who demanded a note from my Mother. I hadn't arranged to meet Dapper Tony, or anyone else for that matter, but pub inmates are usually creatures of habit and Tony being a Monday night regular he had noticed the deviance of my routine.

The Angel Gabriel (who must

have been on the Red Bull again).

My routine deviated on Wednesday as well as I don't as a rule nip up the Flagon on that night, but I am glad that I did as Chilli Willy was adorning all rooms of the pub with fetching Christmas trimmings. There is something very cathartic about watching someone decorate a quiet pub whilst you are sitting there leisurely drinking. The trade for the night had died off and it left just yours truly, Jolly D, Frank Henstein and Richie Ramone to hold the fort, with Toe-Knee Tulips supplying refreshments to the troops from behind the bar. Admirably Jolly D has decided to persevere with his Movember moustache despite December now having crept upon us.

Those are always my favourite times in the Flagon, when it is later in the evening and the numbers have dwindled down to a few regular inmates who huddle together in the corner of the bar to quip, banter and put the world to rights. All seems at peace in those moments, with the world outside being at arms length until kicking-out time. Invariably those caught up in the bonhomie and the conducive atmosphere of such intimate gatherings are having such a good time that they usually have at least one more drink, even if they did not plan to do so.

The Pirate, by request of Toby In-Tents.

There is almost a haunting quality to the pub when only a few are in at night, it is not unsettling but an enchanting atmosphere. The odd car can be heard breaking the quietude of the Stourbridge Road and when an ambulances passes its flashing blue lights illuminate the mirrors at the back of the bar, rebounding the lights back across the room. We are temporarily unborn babes in the security of the womb, cocooned and protected from the dangers and threats of what lies outside.

When the place is nearly empty and someone laughs the laugh is amplified, it is clearer as it doesn't get lost like it would in the din of a busy pub, but it grows in value and enriches the few ears that hear it. Everyone chips into the chatter and it is a team game now, not an individual sport, all players are in good form inspiring each other to come out with quick witted lines and titillating whimsy. Funnily enough when Frank Henstein leaves the pub he usually says, “Goodnight team” and I've only just realised as I write this how fitting those words are.

As the handful of drinkers and the bar staff know each other a tranquil and affable mood permeates the gathering, there are no cliques and the conversation and jocular exchanges are no longer a personal preserve, they are in the ownership of the group. Guards are dropped, tongues loosened, funny bones tickled. It is life affirming and reinvigorating and the problems and difficulties that you had when you walked in the pub will still remain when you leave, but they seem less onerous, more manageable, solvable even.

The night crept on towards last orders. You could almost hear people thinking, “I know I shouldn't but sod it I'm going to have another one. Or two.” Jolly D and I decided to accompany our beer with a drop of Gosling's Black Seal to celebrate the beginning of Christmas in the Flagon but the decorating spectacular was soon over and it was time to head off home. You know what they say, time flies when you are having rum.  

© Dominic Horton, December 2014.

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall