Lowlife 58 – Flesh, Bone & Fragility

Flesh, Bone & Fragility

By Dominic Horton

On emerging into consciousness on Monday morning I found to my delight that the wheels of the world were still turning and I was plunged into the new week, a day closer to my ultimate demise.  Or an impending little victory.  Or something.  But whatever, I was still alive, flesh, bone and fragility and once the fug of Sunday’s tipples started to clear the challenges of the week came into focus.  Fug clearing at the moment is aided in the morning by a hike up Gorsty Hill, the Black Country equivalent of the Khyber Pass, to get to the train station as my deceased car Pat was towed away by a scrap metal merchant from Darlaston on Saturday.   

My beloved car looked undignified on the back of the transport vehicle, held aloft for all to see that he was off to meet his end after being stripped of anything of value.  When I go they are welcome to take what they want of me if anything is in decent working order, though it would be good to be laid to rest with my meat and two veg still intact and attached to my person, though I haven’t stipulated this on my donor card: an addendum is needed post haste.  

While the paperwork was being completed the scrap merchant invited me into the cab of his truck and he proceeded to chain smoke, blatantly flouting the law on such matters, but his delinquency was most welcome and it seemed to be a fitting end for Pat, who had more than a touch of the Lowlife’s about him.   The grime encrusted scrap man is not legally allowed to have a fag in the cab when another is present but perversely parents are not currently breaking the law by smoking in a car when their children are also travelling with them.  It appears that finally the authorities are going to act to clear up this ridiculous anomaly in the law but I do not know why it was not done when the work place smoking ban came into force in 2007.  But Simon Clark, director of smokers' lobby group Forest (which is primarily funded by the tobacco industry) tried to defend the indefensible last week by stating that smoking in cars with children was "inconsiderate", but there was "a line the state shouldn't cross when it comes to dictating how people behave in private places".   Clark’s comment is effectively blowing smoke in the face of innocent, defenceless children and it just goes to show the vulgar immorality that is produced by the pursuit of profit.

Dear old Pat clocked up 99,226 miles falling short of the fabled 100,000 miles mark, a milestone (no pun intended) he deserved to achieve as a lasting legacy.  The MOT report (which I received after the last edition of Lowlife was published) was damning: Pat failed on eight counts and there were an additional sixteen advisory items so the cost of patching him up was prohibitive, being an amount equal to the Pirate’s weekly beer expenditure, which is a tidy sum indeed.

The Pirate has reason to have a commiserative drink though after the happenings at the Flagon & Gorses since my last despatch.  The Pirate explained to me that mid-evening on Tuesday last while he was dozing in the living room on the first floor of the Flagon & Gorses, dreaming of profits, he was abruptly disturbed from his slumber and confronted by a large, strange man with Ung Pirat (the Pirate’s son) trailing after him, who had been alerted to the intruder’s presence seconds earlier.  The Pirate brusquely invited the stranger to leave and eventually he did, taking his egress via the kitchen window.   The robber liberated a number of bank notes from the premises, which the Pirate can ill afford to lose.    

On climbing into the Pirate’s apocalyptical kitchen the thief must have thought that he had happened upon a scene of biblical disaster and I am astonished that he delved deeper into the Pirate’s and Ung Pirat’s living quarters thereafter.  Entering the window of the disarranged kitchen the robber must have felt like he was in a scene from The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and the fact that he didn’t do a U-turn and that he proceeded to explore where angels fear to tread means that he doesn’t have a faint heart, indeed if he has a heart at all being a callous, cold blooded thief. It is a shame Chilli Willy was not present in the pub at the time of the intrusion as given he has the look and size of the fictional mafia henchman Luca Brasi he could have made the burglar sleep with the fishes or even worse sleep with the dishes (in the Pirate’s festering sink.)   If there is any justice in this world hopefully the crook will catch an exotic disease from one of the many hitherto undiscovered bacteria that lounge in the Pirate’s kitchen sink, the sight of which would give Nanette Newman a coronary.

Unlike the Pirate’s allegedly disarrayed kitchen the counterpart at the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway must be spotlessly clean given that it has to meet the standards laid down by the local authority, or so one would like to think.   Not wanting to have a game of hunt the meat in my beef fried rice and curry sauce last week I asked the Baby Faced Assassin if he could put in a request to the chef, Mr Ping, to furnish the dish with extra beef for which I offered to pay an additional sum but the grinning Assassin informed me, “for you, no extra charge.”  For once I felt the warm glow of customer satisfaction in the establishment but all that occurred in reality is that enough extra meat was added to the meal to bring it up to the industry standard but I was hoodwinking into thinking I got something for nothing.  It just goes to show that us consumers are easily pleased which makes me wonder why businesses often make such a calamitous hash of things. 

Hopefully calamity won’t be the order of the day on Thursday when I will find myself in the dubious company of the Pirate, Harry Stottle, Fudgkins and Windy McDisco on what will appear to be a geriatric’s trip to Derby Winter Beer Festival.  Not satisfied with leading me astray on the Sabbath Aldente McCheffrey is also making an appearance, which will bring the average age down a few notches.  I always think that the word “festival” is a bit too grand to what amounts to a load of middle aged and elderly men in a hall supping ale – it’s hardly the Rio Street Carnival.  I very much enjoy going to beer festivals but I have the good fortunate of being able to taste a multitude of fine beers all year round, served from the numerous hand pulls in the Pirate’s Pleasure Palace being the congenial Flagon & Gorses.   

After my spell of drinking only halves in the Flagon I now find that when I order a full pint that subconsciously it feels like a sinful, shameful act, even though I am not a Catholic.  It is almost as if I am telling myself that I am asking for twice as much beer as I need, like it is an admittance that I am not a moderate drinker after all (not that anyone has accused me of being that.)  But the benefit of the situation is that I fully appreciate each fulsome pint after denying myself such an indulgence for months, so it feels like a guilty pleasure.  Such was the case when my long time crony Still-in-Fjord reverted back to carnivorous habits after being a vegetarian for many years; he now relishes and enjoys the consumption of meat every time he scoffs it.  

If I was a Catholic I suppose I could partake in the denials of Lent and revert back to half pints for the duration of the religious observance period but six weeks is a long time and given the financial hardships described above the Pirate needs the pennies in his coffers.   One thing is for sure, when I am in a position to buy Pat #3 I will fully welcome the convenience of driving again after getting a few soakings in the recent wet weather traipsing to and from the train station.  I do enjoy walking though and as long as it is dry, an half an hour ramble provides a wholesome and invigorating start to the day.   The only thing with all this walking is that I get a terrible thirst on, so that being the case, barman, mine is most definitely a pint.  

© Dominic Horton, February 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 57 - Somewhere over the Rainbow

Somewhere over the Rainbow

By Dominic Horton

Based on the recent content of this column, on Sunday Chompa Babbee accused me or suffering from Season Affective Disorder (known as SAD).  Chompa has known me long enough to realise that I am a miserable soul all year round and not just in the dark and gloomy winter months.    In fact as a season winter is second only to autumn as my favourite with summer being the bottom of my list; I’m generally not one for sunshine and the heat and this year will be even worse as since I recently started to suffer from mildgraines my weary eyes seem to have developed an aversion to bright lights and glaring sunshine.   Recently though I have a longing feeling that I want to go to sleep.  I do not mean that I want to end my life but just get a bit of restful, peaceful sleep.  I have plenty of chance to sleep, and I am more fortunate than most in that regard but try as I may I never feel properly rested.  So maybe Chompa is onto something after all and that I subconsciously want to hibernate to see out the cold, dark winter.  If I could hibernate in the Flagon & Gorses it might not altogether be a bad thing especially as mostly that’s where my nuts tend to be anyway.

Poor old Willy Mantitt has two small children who like tag wrestlers take it in turn to keep him awake every evening and as a consequence he gets about as much shut eye as a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay being tortured by sleep deprivation.   I simply do not know how Willy copes or others in his position.  He has taken to nipping out of the office on the rouse of doing some business (which is usually shady in his world) and having a nap in his motor on ASDA car park. 

I had to coax myself out of a deep sleep on Monday morning which was the product of the tonic or two that I was administered at the Flagon & Gorses the preceding day.   I must have looked a pitiful sight sitting in my living room eating my unappetising breakfast, contemplating the week ahead.  Life outside of my Codger Mansions home seemed harsh, noisy and foreboding, with traffic clattering and banging at great speed up and down Furnace HIll.   I didn’t want to leave the quiet comfort of the house and step outside into the frosty, unwelcoming world.   But of course it had to be done as work beckoned and besides the living room still smells of the fetid odour from last week’s electrical fire, despite all my efforts to freshen things up.   I will have to invite Windy McDisco and the Pirate round to shift the smell by imparting their own special aromas.  It is debatable which stench is worse.

I could try to make work un-beckon itself as together with everyone else in the office I have been given the chance to apply for voluntary redundancy and it is a matter to which I have given a great deal of thought and procrastination.   There are many pros and cons but it was the thought of sitting with the Pirate all day in the Flagon & Gorses that finally sealed my decision.  I haven’t applied.  Having a few grand in my sky rocket with empty days stretched out before me like a Roman road will doubtless lead to my ruination and lead me swiftly to the gutter, at least I am headed there at a slow, steady crawl at the moment.   Anyway, there is no guarantee that my employers will accept my application to let me go, so vital am I to the structure of the large organisation, so important in fact that people barely know I am there half of the time; I am sure if I slipped out of the office quietly and retreated to the Flagon, no one would notice I had gone.  My name has never graced a structure chart and in the food chain of the company I am merely a krill, at the mercy of bigger fish.

Having a mundane existence employed as a small cog in the wheels of a big corporate business I have to take pleasure in life where I can get it.  However, according to the Guardian the government are having a new crackdown on legal highs but I hope this means that they are not going to ban Pat Debilder’s legendary pies, that have found their way to me recently, or the another warming and hearty treat in the form of Angel Brewery’s Pirate 63 stout.  It would be a bitter pill to swallow if the pies and stout are outlawed and my addiction to them would mean that I would have to go through a testing period of cold turkey, which would only be assuaged slightly by a drop of mild and a pork pie from the Flagon & Gorses.  

Mind you, I could do with steering clear of rich food stuffs as I felt a stirring of gout in the ball of my left foot on Tuesday and I had to flush it out by drinking copious amounts of water, which meant spending an increasing amount of time visiting the lavvy.  Talking of the karsi, I did something on the weekend that I have not done for quite a while, which is going for a poo but forgetting to do a wee, so having to pay a swift return visit to do the urination bit.  This only normally happens when I am in a state of desperation to do the No 2 and it is generally a rare occurrence.   Luckily this happened at home as it might be a source of embarrassment if the scene of the crime was a public lavatory.

On the subject of going down the pan my hitherto trusty (take away the letter “t” from trusty you end up with rusty, which is very fitting) and stoic motor vehicle Pat has seemingly reached the end of his days after failing his MOT this week in spectacular fashion.   When I took him in for his yearly inspection the mechanic was amazed that the dilapidated Pat had made it through another year and this little victory gave me the blind faith and deluded belief that he would pass the MOT after a few minor repairs.  But sadly it was not to be.   It is off to the knackers yard and I am crushed that Pat will be crushed.  He has served me well and he at least deserves a mournful Last Post to be played as he shuffles off his mortal ignition coil.  At least I know that he won’t have to suffer the indignities of being stripped for useful parts as he hasn’t got any.  Pat will defiantly meet his end whole without any of his bits being stripped for vehicular science. 

More than anything else MOT day acts as a crystallisation of a hand to mouth existence which involves constantly clinging onto the edge of a cliff with fingernails slowly slipping away from the precipice.  Somewhere over the rainbow I might have enough shekels in the war chest to not worry about the car going in for its MOT, but it is unlikely.  There does seem to be a lot of money around though for a lot of people though and I am not talking about those near the top of food chains but relatively ordinary persons.  These are people who must know how to play the game and how to win at it.  I do not know what the game is, let alone the rules and I doubt whether I would be cut out for it anyway.  The game I play is one of survival but it is not one that Ray Mears would be able to offer any advice on. 

The alternative to surviving is not an appealing one and I have no choice but to keep my head above water as I cannot swim.  Given the frequent downpours we have had recently I have had to wear armbands when walking through the yard area to the toilets at the Flagon & Gorses but at least the good chaps at the Environment Agency undertook work on the River Stour on Furnace Hill, so us residents have not had to drive through floods at the bottom of the slope this year with a Stour taste in our mouths.  I would love to drive through that flood water one more time with Pat, gleefully rolling through the water together, but is not to be. I have little alternative but to undertake another favourite pastime instead, which is decamping to the Flagon & Gorses to raise a glass in memory of Pat and to cook up a scheme to acquire another cheap, antiquated motor so I can travel freely around the parish once more.

© Dominic Horton, February 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com 

Lowlife 56 – Pies, Pints & Power Cuts

Pies, Pints & Power Cuts

By Dominic Horton

They say you should never tempt fate but this is exactly what I must have done by writing about power cuts a couple of weeks ago as I was afflicted by one first thing on Monday.   The morning of the first day of the working week is usually a sombre time as it is but losing power while I was in the shower (a powerless shower) took proceedings to a whole new level of anguish. 

The lights started flickering on and off when I was showering making it like a scene from the classic thriller Psycho but given my aching back I would rather have been playing the part of a patient in the unreleased and little known Hitchcock film Physio.  Fortunately the stab in the back was only metaphorical in the form of the power cut.   True to form the shower and the lights went off just as I had lathered up the shampoo in my hair meaning that I had to wash it off in the dark with freezing water in the bath, which was a rude awakening and it certainly blew the cob webs away.

I dashed into the living room only to find it full of an acrid smelling smoke with a burning smell emanating from the fuse box.  I immediately called my long-time associate Harry Gout as he knows a thing or two about electrics and he’s generally a man for a crisis.  Being the good egg that he is Gout pitched up pronto style.  After poking around in the cupboard that houses the meter and fuse box Gout swiftly arrived at his concise and damning verdict: “It’s f*cked, you had better call an electrician.”  The electrician turned up briskly and looked at the meter and advised, “It’s f*cked, you had better call Npower.”

Ahhh, my dear friends at Npower.  The matter, I thought, is now in the lap of the gods.  I had such difficulty in getting through to speak to an actual human being at Npower (or their equivalent) that anyone would have thought that I was trying to speak to the Queen at Buck House.  Eventually I got through to Ashley at Npower and she explained in her attractive Scottish accent that an electrician would be out to see me within the next three to four hours.  Realising that this would mean that I would be confined to my cold and powerless barracks I asked Ashley if she would kindly ask the electrician to call me when he was fifteen minutes away from my Codger Mansions dwelling so I could pop up the Flagon & Gorses whilst waiting.  Ashley joylessly explained that this would not be possible so I had to sweat it out in the house, which was very difficult given that it was freezing as I had no heating.

Having just read an article by the ever thoughtful and insightful Will Hutton in the Observer about the forthcoming Scottish independence referendum I asked Ashley how she would vote.  “I haven’t thought about it,” she explained.  It seems that Npower employees are not encouraged to think.

Undeterred by the crisis and my cold and dark home I put my dressing gown on over my clothes, like Halesowen’s version of playboy Hugh Hefner. It is doubtful though that Hefner wore two pairs of socks under his slippers and a Marks & Spencers thermal under vest, on account of them being sure fire passion killers.

I thought about putting a notice on Facebook via my mobile telephone to ask if any local ladies would be game enough to pop round and warm me up a bit but I thought better of it as knowing my luck one would misunderstand my intentions and turn up with a steaming plate of stew.

There was no sign of the Npower electrician come lunchtime so there was only one thing for it and I dug out my trusty Coleman Duel Fuel camping stove from the back of the cupboard and used the last sachet of beef and tomato cuppa soup, which I had been saving for a special occasion.  The soup starter was followed by a main of Super Noodles which fell sadly short of living up to their name.

By the time the Npower man arrived in the late afternoon I was chilled and demoralised and I had been too benumbed by cold to read even, so I had resorted to listening to my battery operated radio.   “You are lucky, the house could have easily burnt down” commented the man.  Once he had finished his business, which only took twenty minutes or so, I decided that it was my duty to drink to the fact that Codger Mansions is still standing and that I am still alive, so it was off up the Flagon & Gorses to see the Pirate & Harry Stottle, who were both comfortably dug in by the time I reported for duty.

As I was in a round of drinks with the over ripe duo of the Pirate and Stottle I thought it would simplify matters if I abandoned my usual half pint approach in favour of fulsome pints, which could be a dangerous road for me to go down if it becomes the norm again.  I need to develop a strategic drinking management policy for the immediate future as if I don’t have a structured and meticulous alcohol plan all hell could be let loose.  The only problem with half pints is that the perfect synchronisation between a beer pump and pint glass cannot be matched by its half measure counterpart.  I need to develop the policy and ensure that it complies with the constraints of the department’s limited monetary budget whilst maximising effectiveness and long term impact.  I’ll run the white paper past myself when the content of my in tray reduces a little.  

Reflecting on my half pint drink reduction plan, that I began a few months ago now, I feel that it has been a resounding success, without actually having any evidence to back this up and it could be the case that I am simply looking at the matter through rose tinted beer goggles.   The Abdul shed light on the matter on New Year’s Eve when he commented that I had drunk three halves in the time it had took him to sup his pint.   I rebuffed the Abdul’s comment on the basis that he probably drank his pint slowly simply to make his point and that it was New Year’s Eve after all and I was most probably drinking uncharacteristically at pace.   I need to collect hard data so I will have to mark the amount of drinks that I have on a beer mat but the only problem with this is once I have had a few I will forget to do it.  There are lies, damn lies and statistics and then there are figures that are collected when p*ssed that mostly prove to be unintelligible and always wholly unreliable.

Another thing that I need to be wary of in the Flagon & Gorses is pies. Pat Debilder has been supplying me with a steady supply of his homemade, world class pies and I have naïvely been accepting them gratis and gorging myself on them with such satisfaction that shortly after each hit I am left craving for more.  I now have the dawning realisation that Debilder has been employing the classic pie peddler’s tactic of handing out his delicious wares for free until the helpless victim becomes hopelessly addicted and thereafter the unscrupulous Debilder starts to charge exorbitant prices for the pies.  I have gullibly fallen into Pat’s trap and I will be injecting liquidised steak and kidney before I know it.   I have been powerless in my home this week, now I am powerless to the lure of pies.

I am delighted and relieved to report that my temporarily absent phantasm, who inhabits my regular, recurring nightmares, returned this week and I think it was the promise of one of Debilder’s pies that tempted him back.    The phantasm dramatically announced his restoration to Codger Mansions by scaring me sh*tless in my sleep before customarily drifting off into the night when I awoke screaming.  Once I had calmed myself down and brought myself back to reality I began to heartily chuckle at the unexpected and unannounced reappearance of my old demonic friend.  He’s pretty harmless really, he pops round in the dead of night, gives me a little fright and he quietly slips off again on his way.   In an odd way the phantasm gives me comfort that someone (or something more like) is there in the night, he is a familiar reassuring presence in a similar way to the ever present landlord, the Pirate, at the Flagon & Gorses and to mark the return of the ghoul it is time to join the Pirate for a celebratory pint.  Or half.

© Dominic Horton, February 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 55 – The Phantasm & Mr Fox

The Phantasm & Mr Fox

By Dominic Horton

In the last edition of this column I wrote about my incompetence regarding romantic relationships and my general apathy towards them, which has consequently left me in a state of tolerable solitude.  Things have taken a turn for the worse this week as even the phantasm that regularly used to visit me in a recurring nightmare has abandoned me without so much as leaving a Dear John letter.  I do not know what I have done to upset my old friend the phantasm but he has not invaded my dreams this calendar year after stopping by at least once a week for the last few decades.   Instead of inducing nightmares maybe the pre-Christmas cheese night in the Flagon & Gorses acted as an antidote resultantly chasing the phantasm out of the windmills of my mind.   Whatever the reason, he’s gone and by the looks of it he’s not coming back.  This leaves just me and my long suffering teddy Alfie in Codger Mansions in addition to my friends the woodlice and spiders. 

Come to think of it the Furnace Lane foxes have not crossed my path for a while so it looks like they have deserted me also and foxed off back to their burrows.   I used to see a fox and occasionally a badger on Furnace Lane pretty much every Sunday night on the way back from the Flagon & Gorses and not being able to fund a trip to the Serengeti it was the closest I have ever got to being on safari.  I have an affinity with foxes with them being creatures of the night and I find the sight of one quite a magical experience which I always find uplifting.  One Sunday in the summertime a fox stood motionless on Furnace Lane in the moonlight looking suspiciously at me and I carefully edged my way towards the wary beast and to my surprise I got within yards of the fox with him remaining still, his gaze resting on me.  For what was no more than a couple of seconds the fox and I stood there, him looking at me and me returning his stare until suddenly he bolted and fled off into the night.  It was quite simply a mesmerising moment, one I will cherish forever.

I will need the cunning of a fox to get through the next couple of months with my war chest being empty, especially with Pat’s MOT being due soon, which fills me with fear due to his decrepit condition.  The problem with working as an underling in banking is that it is like the line in Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink, water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink” as the industry is awash with money, both in terms of the cash flowing through the institution and the bonuses and salaries of my superiors, but none of it is mine.  I can look but I can’t touch.  It was heartening though to read about the sacking of rich Singapore based banker Anton Casey who put the following message on Facebook after he had to suffer the indignities of public transport when his Porsche was in the garage, "Ahhhh reunited with my baby. Normal service can resume, once I have washed the stench of public transport off me."  He also put a picture of his son on the train on Facebook with the following caption: "Daddy, where is your car and who are all these poor people?"  Tw*t.  In my book arrogance is a vulgar characteristic and I am glad that in this instance the demeaning Casey got his rightful comeuppance.

One banker who has had a better week than Casey is Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and Chief Executive of JP Morgan, who has found out that he will be remunerated to the tune of $20m for last year’s work.   I doubt whether Dimon will be trying to fashion a soup out of the contents of his sparsely populated fridge, which is what I will be doing this evening.   The fridge contains sprouts and bacon so it could be a new culinary low in Codger Mansions.  That said sometimes such concoctions exceed all expectations and turn out to be an award winning dish.  If you start out with a base of onion, celery and carrot (which I usually have knocking about) with a soup, in my experience you can’t go far wrong and there have been more high points than low in my kitchen.    Last night the Pirate and Ung Pirat were describing the state of their kitchen in the Flagon & Gorses living quarters, which is apparently piled high with washing up and the like and I said, “that sounds horrendous” and the Pirate retorted, “I would be happy if the kitchen was just horrendous, it is much worse than that.” 

Sprouts are the favourite food stuff of the Abdul, a dear crony from the Flagon & Gorses.   On the weekend I heard the dreadful news from Frank Henstein in the Flagon that the Abdul has had a stroke whilst holidaying in Goa, India, a favoured haunt of his.   The poor Abdul has been looking forward to the trip after having an annus horribilis last year.  Luckily one of his travelling companions is a nurse and she realised what was happening straight away and got him to the hospital pronto.  The doctors are hopeful that Abdul will make a full recovery and he should return to these shores shortly.   Despite concern for Abdul being at the forefront of the thoughts of all Flagoners inevitably such news leads to ponderings on one’s mortality and it made me feel fortunate to have my own physical health.   As the Scottish coach John McSeveney used to say with great zeal and vigour to my old footballing pal Fred E Mercury and unenthusiastic players at Sheffield United on cold and wet mornings at the training ground in the 1970’s, “aye, it’s good to be alive!”

I felt less than alive on Monday morning as despite not being in too bad a condition, and having had a relatively early night the day before, the booze terrors were working their evil.  I had the odd sensation when I walked into work that I was in a place that I wasn’t meant to be, like sitting unwelcome in a stranger’s front room with all the family staring at me asking themselves, “who on Earth is that man and what is he doing here?”  The booze terrors have no bounds in how distinctly uncomfortable they can make a person feel and once you are afflicted by the condition there is no escape without being treated with more alcohol and occasionally even that does not work.  You have to take the terror demons on the chin and laugh in their face but you know that they will laugh back at you with a wrathful, devilish cackle. 

One organisation who is effectively laughing in my face is Npower (NincompoopPower) as they have offered me a paltry £75 as a “goodwill gesture” for illegally breaking into my Codger Mansions home in order to inspect the gas meter.   To make things worse like a stubborn schoolboy in a playground argument NincompoopPower are refusing to accept they are in the wrong despite damning, irrefutable evidence that I have presented to them to show that I made every effort to arrange appointments to allow access to the property.    I have dismissed NincompoopPower’s unreasonable offer out of hand and made them a counter offer but they have failed to reply so now it is off to the Ombudsman.  I wouldn’t mind but like everyone else I have to pay a fortune for my power, with bills spiralling out of control in the last few years.  The BBC reported last week that Poor NincompoopPower claimed in a recent report they make little profit and that higher energy distribution costs will lead to further price rises but the energy regulator Ofgem has deemed the report, “misleading” as the figures quoted in the report were wrong.  Naughty NincompoopPower. 

Next up, according to the Telegraph the Chief Executive of NincompoopPower Paul Massara claims that energy prices are higher in the UK due to the country’s “old and draughty” houses.  I live in the same old and draughty house that I was in five years ago yet in that time my combined gas and electricity bill has increased by a whopping 33% despite my usage not increasing.   I can take an educated guess that Massara does not live in a cold and draughty house and have to heat his living room with a cheap halogen heater from Wilkos.

Talking of cold and draughty, having again populated this column with a disjointed collection of words I am off up the Flagon & Gorses for a well-earned tipple.  The adjectives cold and draughty are not in relation to the pub itself but in reference to the landlord, my comrade the Pirate, bless the bearded skipper and all who sail in him.

© Dominic Horton, January 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 54 - A Lone Ranger

A Lone Ranger

By Dominic Horton

Following my latest romantic calamity I am slowly coming around to the creeping realisation that being on my own is actually my natural modus operandi.  Burdening a potential partner with my habits, quirks and shortcomings (of which there are many) would be an unfair imposition on someone that I liked and if I didn’t like them then there would be no point in being with them in the first place.   Fundamentally I am a creature that prefers to lurk alone in Codger Mansions and in the bar of the Flagon & Gorses, fraternising with the other inmates who loiter there. 

There are of course pros and cons to being on one’s own.  I can stumble up the Flagon & Gorses when I want to (finances permitting) and I do not have to sit through anything on television that is not to my taste such as Coronation Street, a snippet of which I recently had to suffer at someone’s house and I was horrified at how truly awful it was.  Complete and utter dross.  The acting of one of the cast (who has been on the show for many years but I do not know his name or character’s name [he is Mancunian but I know that is hardly much of a clue]) was shallower than the shallow end in a flea’s swimming pool.   

The main drawback of solo living is usually perceived to be loneliness and in my case there is an element of that but I think I would still feel lonely, or more accurately desolate, if I lived with a woman, even if I was head over heels in love with the poor soul, so that in itself is no reason for me to seek a companion.  “Sharing” things seems to be one of the main reasons why people like to be in a relationship but I can easily share the miseries of life with my fellow internees at the Flagon & Gorses any day of the week.  To my mind the biggest disbenefit of living alone is a fiscal one as I have to pay the rent and the bills with only my insubstantial income.  Like most things in life it usually boils down to pounds, shillings and pence in the end. 

The inimitable Colly Coren explained to me a few years ago that he is so set in his ways and used to his own routines that he would find it almost impossible to live with a woman and he then enlightened me with the comment that at our ages (he’s 10 years older than me the cheeky b*stard) men are only seeking women for companionship as reasonably, procreation is out of the question.  Fair enough I thought.  But then he condemned me by saying that I am as crotchety, stubborn and inflexible as him and would not last five minutes living with a woman.  I immediately disputed Coren’s assessment of me but on reflection later I realised that he was actually on the money.  It is a case of others knowing you better than you know yourself.    One of the reasons why periodically I have tenuously tried to find a suitable partner is that subconsciously I want prove Coren wrong but his wisdoms have won the day. 

Often society views living alone as not a natural state but people are increasingly doing it.  CBS reported that 17% of Americans lived alone in 1970 but by 2012 the figure had increased to 27%.   In Britain it is reported that 34% of people currently live alone.   There often seems to be an assumption that people would rather not live on their own and that all singletons are relentlessly pursuing potential partners like Captain Ahab obsessively hunting his nemesis, the great white whale, in Moby Dick.  We all know what grisly fate befell Ahab after he ignored Starbuck’s voice of reason to cease his chase for the whale.  My voice of reason tells me that my status quo of living in a solitary fashion is the way it is meant to be for me.    Anyway, a dim view is taken of whaling in this day and age so my harpoon sits idle in the shed acting only as a reminder of former glories.

One thing is for sure I can ill afford to have a girlfriend at the moment at the pennies are few and the creditors many.   (Incidentally, “Girlfriend” and “boyfriend” seem awkward words to apply to people in their 40’s or older and if I had a “partner” it would make it sound like we ran a window cleaning business together.)   Although I know full well that I am over my overdraft limit (which was inevitable after Christmas) the Bank keep sending me letters to remind me of the fact just to rub my nose in it which doesn’t put me in the best of moods, especially as it brings to the forefront of my consciousness that all I have managed to muster for myself in life is a hand to mouth existence that constantly teeters perilously on the brink of oblivion, both in a financial and emotional sense, like the van balanced on the cliff at the end of The Italian Job – maybe that image should be printed on the front of the envelopes of the bank’s letters to me to indicate their content so that I could throw them away without even having to open them.

The charity Shelter recently reported that as many as one in nine people put unopened bills straight in the bin unable to face up to their financial predicament.   There are an awful lot of people in the country worse of that me in these difficult times as the Shelter report stated that last year approximately a fifth of the adult population of the country had to borrow money to pay their rent or mortgage.   The Mexican at work questioned why there has been no revolution given the state of the country and we agreed that a revolution might not be a bad idea to shake things up.  But we thought we would have a cup of tea before we hatched plans to storm parliament. It would have to wait until later as we had more pressing matters to attend to such as discussing the weekend’s football results, which was a shame as I can just envisage after the revolution Mex triumphantly parading around Trafalgar Square on a horse like Pancho Villa.

If I could earn a few quid from this writing lark it might ease the pecuniary pressure but I am not holding my breath for any success.  Apparently the successful Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid, whose last book is entitled How to Get Rich in Rising Asia, divides his time between  Lahore, New York, London, and Mediterranean countries including Italy and Greece.  Being a penniless writer of significantly less talent and resource than Hamid I divide my time between my Codger Mansions bolt hole and my retreat of choice the Flagon & Gorses.  The Flagon is not a tax haven but more like a haven from a taxing life.

A safe haven for everyone is the toilet but I have been having increasing difficulties in the karsi this week as the toilet seat, which has been broken for some time, has taken a turn for the worse and is in a terminal condition.   I will have to wait until payday to buy a new seat so in the meantime visits to the toilet for a number two are fraught with danger.   Mind you things are not as bad as a few years ago when there was a crack down the front of the toilet seat, which didn’t cause much of a problem until one day when I unwittingly got my foreskin caught in it, which needless to say was not pleasant and it bought tears to my eyes.

The sight that greeted me Tuesday last in the Flagon & Gorses also bought tears to my eyes but fortunately on that occasion they were tears of laughter.   The Pirate and Harry Stottle were muddling through the crossword but given that they had been indulging in a bit of overage drinking for the preceding few hours the whole thing was a farcical fiasco.   The pair were making such a hash of the crossword that yours truly had to step in and provide a couple of answers and I am generally as bad at word puzzles as the Pirate is at running the marathon. 

But in fairness to the Pirate and Stottle despite their tipsiness and advancing years they got there in the end and completed the crossword, in a fashion.   We get by in life by managing such little achievements and I have just about achieved writing another 1,500 words of nonsense for this edition, so until next time adios amigos.

© Dominic Horton, 2014.

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 53 – Waiting for Something to Happen

Waiting for Something to Happen

By Dominic Horton

I found myself having a Mini Cheddar crisis on Monday morning as there was none to be seen in the vending machine on our floor of the office.  The Cheddars were an absolute necessity to ease the slight biliousness caused by Sunday’s drinking and the sorry offering from the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway; the chef Mr Ping graced the dish with so little meat that it could have almost as qualified as vegetarian.  Ping must think that he is the kindly butcher Mr Jones from Dad’s Army rationing his meat in such a way but it was more a case of “I’ve been done” that Clive Dunn.   I might be taking my life in my own hands buying supper from the Peking as the BBC reported this week that despite last year’s horse meat scandal there has been a worrying lack of food standards inspections with some restaurants and takeaways not having been inspected for over a year.   I doubt that Ping’s kitchen has got cockroaches though as any discerning bug would give the place a wide berth which means that I am lower than an insect in the order of things.

In search of Cheddars I scaled the stairs at work to the floor above and I was relieved to find that there were some in the vending machine with the yellow wrapper shining like a warm and welcoming sun.  But to my horror I found the machine to be out of order, which was, well, out of order.   I trudged Cheddarless and despondent back to my desk to assess my options, which were few. 

I told my work colleague the Mexican my tale of Cheddar woe and being a reader of these pages he immediately asked me, accusingly, if I was hung over.   “Hung over” was a far too severe and damning word to describe my state so I answered in the negative but it does beg the question what constitutes being hung over and for that matter when can one be said to be drunk. These deep philosophical questions demand much difficult theorising at the best of times but even more so on a Monday morning when one is despondent about the working week ahead and the senses are dulled through Sabbath supping.

There are times though when you can say to yourself without reservation that you are without doubt hung over and if you have to carry out any trying tasks in such a condition it can be challenging.  At such times I console myself with the thought that at least I have not got to go in a skydiving simulator, as did my brother the Codger in his drinking days when he was in woeful post-booze condition.  It would be harrowing enough being in the skydiving machine in such a state but the misery would be doubled if you were sick as presumably the sick would splash back into your face.

I would venture that one person who was in a hung over state on Sunday morning was the Pirate, the inimitable landlord of the Flagon & Gorses, as it was his birthday party on Saturday night to celebrate the start of his 64^th year on this planet.   To compound matters the Pirate had to work behind the bar from Noon until 1900 hours as for some reason Lario Manza was in absentia and this was especially painful for the Pirate as I was sitting the right side of the bar quaffing the sumptuous Pirate 63 stout (brewed by the Angel Brewery to compensate humankind for having to put up with the Pirate for 63 years), which was sitting a little awkwardly in my stomach on top of the pilchards on toast that I had for lunch. 

The enchanting Penelope Keith recently revealed on BBC Radio Five Live that she had to eat pilchards on toast for Christmas Dinner after suffering a power cut on the day.  Being a child of the 70’s I would like to think that I am not fazed by a power cut and when one happens I can manage and improvise as needed.   I haven’t had a power cut in Codger Mansions for a few years but the last one literally drove me to drink.  It was a Monday and I had made a solemn promise to myself that I would not go up the Flagon & Gorses due to on-going funding difficulties and I was unflinchingly determined in my resolve.  Within an hour of being back in the house the power went off but I was undeterred and made myself a sandwich for tea by the light of a torch and I decided to retire to bed with a good book and a candle.  Within minutes a deafening drilling noise started to sound right outside the house which shook the Mansions to its core.   Needless to say I couldn’t concentrate on the book and sleep was completely out of the question.  I popped outside in my dressing gown to talk to the workman to ask how long the drilling of the pavement was likely to go on for to which he answered, “At least until after midnight mate.”   I was left with little option but to get dressed and seek sanctuary in the Flagon and have a drink or two.  It was a genuine Hamlet moment and not the first time that I have ended up in the pub drinking through no fault of my own.

The pub called Tuesday last and I dutifully answered to its enticing cry.  I found Windy McDisco blowing a putrid anal gale, true to form, that would have earned him a at least a silver medal if trumping was a discipline in the Commonwealth Games.   Fortunately the Pirate did not enter into competition with him and I was mightily relieved that Windy and the Pirate refrained from duelling banjos on this occasion.  Anyway, to join into the spirit of things I explained that earlier in the day I had done the gentlemanly thing and f*rted before I had got into the lift at work so as not to offend the nostrils on the other occupants of the elevator.  However, to my dismay like a loyal dog the f*rt followed me into the lift.  The Pirate, who was on form for once, quipped, “that was wrong on many levels.” 

The Pirate must have finally found his funny bone as he came out with more drollery shortly after; I bought a round of drinks but left the Pirate’s in the pump as he had not finished his pint.  When the Pirate was strolling to the toilet Chilli Willy behind the bar in reference to Bob’s pint said in all innocence, “do you want me to pull it for you?”  Looking down at his private parts the Pirate retorted, “No, I will pull my own thank you.”

Despite the Pirate trying to ruin things by having his birthday party the normal hum drum quietude of the Flagon has more or less been restored following the frightful Christmas and New Year period and that is fine by me.  It is now back to being a case of “We all sat round or lounged at the bar waiting for something to happen” as Christopher Isherwood put it in reference to his regular watering hole in the book Goodbye to Berlin.  The peace needs to be shattered occasionally though by an influx of customers to keep the Flagon machinery rolling so it is highly disconcerting that the dry January disease has reached epidemic proportions and sufferers are upholding their sobriety like a badge of honour.  If you are suffering from this affliction the Pirate has many remedies that can cure you and they are a damn sight cheaper than a prescription.  

There is bound to be an example of a dry January saint arriving at his local on 1^st February for a pint only to find it shut down with the doleful landlord explaining, “We have had to shut down as trade was so poor in January all because of w*nkers like you.  Thanks a million.”   I am the first to admit that drinking, its culture and its people are far from glamorous and in fact the whole business is often not far short of the exact opposite and I encourage no one to drink more or for teetotallers to take up booze.  But a mass boycott of public houses in the New Year at the time landlords need customers most is at best thoughtless and at worst disdainfully selfish.   So if you are suffering from dry January disease, or you feel it coming on, do yourself and your landlord a favour and take some suitable medicine.  After all, even the thought of sobriety seems better after a pint.

© Dominic Horton, January 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 52 – Drink and be Merry and Have a Dry Sherry

Drink and be Merry and Have a Dry Sherry

By Dominic Horton

On Monday the Daily Mail reported that according to a study conducted by the drinks company Upbeat the day was “Blue Monday”, reputedly the glummest day of the year, with the Christmas merrymaking being at an end the populous is wallowing in a deep pit of despair having to face once more the reality of life, which was temporarily suspended over the festive period.    In such circumstances reading the Daily Mail is ill advised as it could push one over the edge.   Apparently on Blue Monday the British compulsion of complaining about the weather peaks and the divorce rate soars, with twice as many people petitioning for divorce in the month of January than in the second most popular month of September. 

I would imagine that disgruntled spouses intending to get rid of their other halves leave it until after Christmas in order to profit from cunning gift tactics; that is, knowing that they are going to end the marriage in the new year the discontented party cynically buys their spouse a cheap second hand Showaddywaddy CD knowing full well that they are going to receive in return the complete box set of The World at War, the latest edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack and a 92 piece set of socket spanners.   Once the gift booty is in the bag it is a case of thank you and good night.

One person who was not suffering a Blue Monday was the multi-millionaire businessman and art dealer Charles Saatchi who consoled himself over his split with TV culinarian Nigella Lawson by swanning off on his £25m “love boat”, smoking fags whilst cavorting in the company of toff fashion designer Trinny Woodhall, made famous by her television show What Not to Wear; Saatchi should have no worries on that front as he always plays it safe by wearing a dark suit and a white shirt with a tab on the end of his lip.  Mind you, if his relationship with Woodhall goes the same way as his marriage to Lawson he might be wearing spicy beef with green peppers in black bean sauce if they have a bust up at the dinner table.

The New Orleans Rhythm and Blues legend Fats Domino immortalised the phrase “Blue Monday” in his song of the same title and latterly so did the pop band New Order, which reminds me of my brief encounter with New Order bass player Peter Hook, whose autobiography is called How Not to Run a Club, in reference to the financially ill feted Hacienda club in Manchester, which Hook part owned.  The Phantom, Ms C and I went to see Hook at an evening at the Glee Club in Birmingham where he was interviewed by the writer and former notorious drug runner Howard Marks.  At the end of an entertaining show we approached the affable Hook to say hello and to take our photographs with him.  When it was my turn to have my photo taken I handed the camera to the Phantom, a Grimbarian, who proceeded to have difficulties with it so Hook exclaimed, “Can’t you work a f*cking camera?!” only for the quick witted Phantom to devilishly reply, “Can’t you run a f*cking nightclub?!!!”  Grimsby 1 Manchester 0.

Devilish is not a word that will be associated with Christenings in the future as it has been reported this week that the Anglican church are to remove reference to the devil from their baptism services. Currently godparents are asked to “reject the devil.”   Debate has ensued as to perceptions of the devil and evil and as to whether the devil actually exists or if evil is just present is human behaviour.  I decided to look evil right in the eye on New Year’s day and it was off to the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway to face up to the Baby Faced Assassin and to sample his less than agreeable foodstuffs. 

I realised that as an opening New Year’s gambit it was no use denouncing the Assassin and Mr Ping so after visiting the Flagon & Gorses I decided it was best to get it over with and suffer one of their beef fried rice and curry sauces to prevent me from thinking that I could avoid their villainous lair this year.  The Assassin at least had the good grace to sugar coat the pill by providing me with complimentary spring rolls in a bag marked, “thank you for your custom” and so my return to the Peking after my Christmas break was thus sealed.   I was temporarily spooked out the following day when Ian Payne on BBC Radio Five Live Sport started the broadcast by announcing, “The Baby Faced Assassin is back!”  To my relief I realised that Payne was referring to the fresh faced Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who has just been appointed manager of Cardiff City FC. 

I could have satisfied my hunger on New Year’s Day with infinitely more nourishing and appetising fayre than the monosodium glutamate laden dish from the Peking as in the Flagon Pat Debilder donated to me two portions of meat and vegetable pie but the tucker was too precious to be hastily scoffed post-pub.  The world class pie graced the plates of my dear son Kenteke and I the following evening and we dined like kings as we were also given cheesecake that had fallen from heaven by the free baking Selena, so all in all we had a hearty meal which helped to sooth the awfulness of the day in which I had been plagued by the horrid alcohol terrors, bought on by accumulative festive tippling leaving me as booze soaked as a Christmas pudding.  

The terrors were so bad that on the train on the way back from work I had a bad case of the dreaded gargoyles whereby everyone appears to look grotesque and hideous and I couldn't look anyone in the eye and I just kept my head down until it was time to get off the train.  Of course to other onlookers the people were all of normal appearance with varying degrees of attractiveness (except for one woman who actually looked like a gargoyle [and a particularly ugly one at that]) but it is a trick of the ghastly terrors which distorts the perception of people so they look like (as my Grandad Charlie used to put it) a Friday night’s faggot trod on.   A quick dose of the beastly gargoyles would act as an effective deterrent to any prospective teenage boozer who might otherwise think that drinking is glamorous.   I feel like Marley’s Ghost in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol when I am burdened with the terrors: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.”  I most probably look like Marley’s Ghost as well.

So all in all I think a couple of nights of sobriety are in order ahead of the Pirate’s 63^rd birthday party next week and I haven’t got much choice in the matter anyway given that all I have left in the war chest is two buttons and an old peseta.  Christmas chews you up and spits you out, skint and demoralised.   As is my custom every January I will be raiding my pennies jar Tom Good style to get me through the month in once piece.  I am hoping for a plentiful bounty this year as instead of collecting just pennies, tuppences and five penny pieces I have added ten and twenty pence pieces to the mix so not only might I be able to keep the wolf from the door but in addition to the beer money there might be a bit of cash left over for food as well. 

Despite my resolution to not make any resolutions I have made a resolution, which is to drink more sherry.   Sherry is a much maligned drink so I will show it my support after payday when I will acquire a suitable bottle.  It seems as good a resolution as any and at least it will be something that I will enjoy and it is a positive action as opposed to one in the negative.   All these people virtuously covenanting to give up this and that remind me of the zealous DUP politician the Reverend Ian Paisley bellowing, “Ulster says no!” on the 6 o’clock news in the 1980’s while I was trying to eat my tea.  It put me right off.   Luckily like the Man from Del Monte at the Flagon & Gorses the Pirate says yes, he says please feel free to drink and rollick in my pleasure palace and see the New Year in during January with a pint in your hand and a smile on your face.

Money Week reported that the killjoys at employee benefits company JLT have recommended that instead of spending money on booze to invest it in your pension and it could be enhanced by £20,000 but employing that tactic would mean that life would hardly be worth living, so my advice is stuff the pension and drink and be merry and have a dry sherry.

© Dominic Horton, January 2014.