Lowlife 76 – Reelin' & Rockin'

Reelin' & Rockin'

By Dominic Horton

Since taking voluntary redundancy from work my shopping habits have changed for the better as I am now able to visit the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker instead of nipping over to Tesco Express in my lunch hour at work. The produce I buy from small businesses is tastier, cheaper and fresher than its Tesco equivalent and generally locally produced. I also have the satisfaction of my pennies not going into the sky rocket of Mr Tesco, though his firm seems to be ailing a bit at the moment, according to reports in the newspapers. Like a Tesco pork chop, the supermarket's Chief Executive Philip Clarke is expected to get a grilling from investors at their forthcoming annual meeting.

An ASDA "Whoops!" discount sticker

The explanation as to why big supermarkets are beginning to feel the pinch might lie in some out of date, marked down basil that I bought from Asda this week. Before you ask, the basil wasn't discounted because it was Fawlty. The yellow discount sticker read, “WHOOPS! Was 70p now 43p.” This left me puzzled as to the inclusion of the word “whoops” as it is usually used when a mistake has been made. I then realised that the “whoops” was an admission by the supermarket that they have made an error in setting their prices so high in recent years and they now regret it as a big slice of their business is increasingly being nicked by cheaper, smaller retailers such as Lidl and Aldi. Clarke will have to report to Tesco's bloodthirsty investors, “Our profits are decreasing as other, less expensive supermarkets are spreading like wildfire and Aldi goods they sell are cheaper so the dividends on your shares are likely to be Lidl. Boom boom.”

A trip to Worcester last week to attend the opening night of the Literary Festival reminded me that when I lived there as a university student in my early to mid-twenties shopping was not always a routine affair for me. In my second year of studies anxiety and depression had crept up and enveloped me to such a degree that I was virtually debilitated so shopping was an horrendous and terrifying experience where danger and threat used to seemingly lurk on every aisle and at every checkout. Food prices currently are such that the danger of visiting a supermarket these days is that you will come away with scant change from an Ayrton Senna despite only buying so few items that they do not even fill your basket.

Such was my fear of shopping as a second year student that I used to try and visit the supermarket as soon as it opened or just before it shut so it would be quiet but even then it was poisoned with shoppers. I would have loved to be able to shop in an empty store, so Supermarket Sweep would have been my idea of heaven, just without Dale Winton smirking at me with his gleaming teeth and Persian orange boat race. Sometimes the experience of shopping was too overwhelming and I left the supermarket without buying a thing, not even discounted basil.

The Plumber's Arms, Worcester by request of Toby In-Tents

My mental condition became progressively worse and demons moved in with me and they used to live in the shadows of the high corners of my room and swoop down like bats, hovering above my head, whispering to me in hushed, menacing tones. I called the demons the Lords and they used to control me. The Lords wore suits and their main function was to be the voices in my head. I didn't know I was suffering from extreme anxiety and depression at the time (amongst other things most probably) or even that I was ill but I knew that things were drastically bad and that I needed to seek help, from somewhere, from somebody.

The Lords and I decided to call an Emergency General Meeting to discuss the crisis but we only just managed to scrape together a quorum as a few of their number had nipped out to the local pub, the Plumber's Arms, to torture other mental illness suffers drinking there. The Lords had to do such bits of moonlighting on the side as apparently their remuneration for being voices in the head was not very good. When they popped out to the Plumber's they promised that they would be back soon and that they would not have a pint but they had been gone a while. All that malicious whispering in my ear must be thirsty work so I guessed that they had got stuck into the best bitter. The remainder of the Lords and I decided to plough on with the meeting without them.

The opening night of the Worcester Litfest with the back of
the author's head (my best side) in the bottom right of the picture

A motion was proposed that I should venture out into the daunting world beyond the house to obtain help. The motion was passed with a majority vote. It was not a unanimous vote as one dissenting Lord (there is always one as they say) protested as he was concerned that if I got better they would have to move on to be the voices in the head of another poor soul, which he did not want to do as he said that I didn't shout and scream at the Lords as much as other people that they have plagued over the years. I took his point and treated it as a back handed compliment but the other Lords at the meeting shouted him down and said that above all else they didn't want the union on their backs for negligence of a victim. They went on to explain that even the voices in the head game had become increasingly PC in recent years.

I had previously seen a poster in the University that said that they had a counselling service and I noticed that one of the counsellors was a lecturer of mine, named Ellie, so I plucked up the nerve to book an appointment with her as she seemed a bit less intimating than most other people in the world. The Lords decided to stay at home using the thin excuse that they had to listen to Gardener's Question Time on BBC Radio 4 as one bloke from down the Plumber's that they were filling with trepidation was a horticulturist and they needed relevant subject matter to torment him with.

I didn't know what to say at first when I sat in front of Ellie despite her kindness, empathy and humanity so I just decided to cry instead, blubbering out the odd word here and there. The seat was a comfortable one near a window ledge, which held a plant like an aspidistra with stiff, pointed leaves. The sharp leaves of the plant were digging into the back of my head but I was too helpless, timid and overwhelmed to ask if I could move the seat so I just put up with it. So to compound my mental cataclysm I was also being attacked by an irritating triffid.

On Ellie's suggestion I called my doctor who booked me in to see an NHS counsellor but I had to return to Halesowen to do this. The night before getting the train back I had just about as much as I could stomach of the Lords and to block out their sickly voices I guzzled down half a bottle of whisky and played Chuck Berry full blast on a loop on my headphones. When I saw the counsellor the following day she wasn't named Maybellene or Carol but I did tell her that I was Reelin' and Rockin'.

The counsellor found me too hot to handle so she referred the Lords and I onto a psychologist called Dolf, who was a cheerful middle aged, balding South African with a convivial countenance. Given the graveness of my situation my first appointment with Dolf seemed too light-hearted and I thought that if he was going to try to make me better by just being jolly that it was not going to work. After a string of sessions with Dolf he declared in his expert opinion that I was sufficiently recovered so like a dove of peace he released me back into the world. He summarised his thoughts with the brief advice, “remember that you are a good person and be brave.” “That's it?” I thought, as naïvely I expected Dolf to cure me. After periodic courses of therapy over the years, it finally dawned on me that I could not be cured, but that I could adequately manage my anxiety. It was only recently that I began to realise the wisdom and relevance of Dolf's concise words.

Despite my best efforts I have never been able to completely shake off the Lords and periodically they stop by to see me. But their visits have become less frequent over the years and they have gradually been replaced as the voices in my head by the utterances of the inmates in the public bar of the Flagon & Gorses. On return to Worcester I noticed that some of the city had changed. There were some new buildings, others that had changed use and some pubs had closed down or been re-named which is not a prudent move as we all know that changing the name of a ship or a public house brings with it an ill wind. But it was essentially the same old city and despite a bit of mental tinkering and fine tuning here and there equally I am still the same Dominic Horton. And despite all my flaws and shortcomings I wouldn't change who I am for the world.

© Dominic Horton, June 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 75 – Onward & Downward

Onward & Downward

By Dominic Horton

Since I took voluntary redundancy two weeks ago my ability to come up with nonsense for this column seems to be severely diminished, which is the opposite of what I expected as I envisaged that the new, exciting life that I would be leading would mean that I would have no end of things to write about. The reality thus far has been that my time has been filled with decorating and general home improvements, looking after my dear son Kenteke and watching the World Cup.

Nestor Pitana's comb over, by request of Toby In-Tents

In fact, occasionally in life proper I find myself having nothing to say and sometimes at the Flagon & Gorses I just sit and happily listen to the pub talk and balderdash of my fellow inmates without being able to add anything to the banter, mockery and small talk. Mind you, it has been said that an Englishman is happy with a pint in his hand and without a thought in his head and I certainly think that there is a grain of truth in that. Last week I sat through a whole two hour meeting of Cradley Heath Creative without virtually uttering a word as I had nothing to contribute. The other members of the group must have thought that I am either a mute or an imbecile, which is obviously not the case, well at least the former isn't anyway.

The irony is that when I used to play football I was very vocal on the pitch and one of my qualities (arguably my only quality) as a defender was to organise the back four and the team around me. Kenteke once asked me, “What were you good at when you played football Dad, were you a passer, a dribbler or were you fast or good in the air?” To much puzzlement on his part I replied, “I was good at shouting son.”

Carlos Valderrarma

To my mind listening is one of the most consistently underrated skills in life. A conversation is an amalgam of listening and talking but most people are keen to do the latter but not the former, some more noticeably than others. Occasionally you see two people on a bus or train chatting away to each other where neither party is listening and often they both talk at the same time. It is almost like a verbal duel to see who can get the most words out before the end of the journey.

Some people find it impossible to keep their trap shut and most of these types call up radio talk shows and commandeer your eardrums for an unrelenting battering of ill thought out rhetoric and opinionated poppycock. Five minutes of exposure to such radio phone-ins would be enough for any prisoner of war to break with the name, rank and number routine and to volunteer all and any military secrets to the enemy. One assumes the interrogator would be a good listener and would not be too busy telling the prisoner his opinion as to who will win the World Cup to actually hear what the prisoner said.

I have even questioned whether I should carry on writing this drivel at all and whether it has simply run its course but then two things happened to stiffen my resolve and to fire my enthusiasm. Firstly, on Sunday in the Flagon & Gorses Arthur Chedeurvalie lavished great praise on Lowlife and thanked me at length for writing it, which I greatly appreciated. Secondly, a man speaking on the radio, who writes a blog about teaching, stated that in his view blogs have a fairly short life cycle. I thought, “I'll show you pal” and I determined to keep Lowlife going for years and in this impassioned state I immediately dashed to the PC but after a few minutes of staring at a blank screen no words came. I revised my thought to, “I'll show you Pal …....... tomorrow or the day after that, just not today.”

Carry On's Kenneth Connor

Italy coach Prandelli

Despite being a keen football fan I usually resist from writing about the subject in these pages as I can think of few things more tiresome than me banging on about the benefits of the diamond formation or whether Christiano Ronaldo is better than Lionel Messi. But due to my wordlessness (which ironically according to my spell-checker is not a proper word) out of desperation I am going to have to write a few words about the World Cup, which hopefully will be less irritating that ITV's coverage of the competition, though I can't promise that.

ITV's chief irritant of course is the blundering buffoon Adrian Chiles, who is as about as suited to sports broadcasting as my crony and landlord of the Flagon & Gorses, the Pirate, is to being head of public relations of the Temperance Society. Contrary to reports, the various protests that have been held by the Brazilians have not been a reaction to social conditions in the flavelas and poor areas of Brazil but have been organised as a reaction to Chiles being in their country and in the hope that the authorities will see sense and unceremoniously send him packing.

My view is that it has long been ITV's mistake of trying to replicate the superlative football coverage of their BBC counterparts instead of following the approach of Sky Sports with their no nonsense broadcasts. Ed Chamberlain, Martin Tyler and Alan Smith are not going to whip anyone into a heightened state of excitement but their treatment at least lets the football speak for itself. Despite trying to be stylish Chiles and ITV's football broadcasts are as cheap and tacky as a gift purchased from a souvenir shop on Blackpool seafront. And the sight of Chiles wearing a Kiss-Me-Quick hat would be enough to clear the Copacobana beach in five minutes flat.

Even more ludicrous than ITV's coverage of the World Cup was the sight of the Iran coach Carlos Queiroz wearing a scarf in the sunshine and heat of Curitiba during his team's dire goalless draw with Nigeria, where his star player, Fulham's Ashkan Dejagah, was bold enough to mask his thinning hair by crafting it around his head to hide the bald patches. By hovering above Dejagah's head prior to kick off the TV Cameras did him no favours as they exposed the desert areas of his barnet for the watching billions to see.

Dejagah seems to have started a fashion as during the Russia Vs South Korea game Argentinian referee Nestor Pitana entered the arena shamelessly sporting an out-and-out comb-over. My guess is that he had entered a World Cup sweep stake with the other officials where the winner was compelled to referee a match with the hairstyle of a former World Cup star of the losers' choosing. Unfortunately for Pitana, the officials chose Bobby Charlton and not Carlos Valderrama.

Of course all England fans were disappointed at losing to Italy in the opening group match but I found it hard to take the game seriously as the Italy coach Cesare Prandelli is a dead ringer for the English comedy Actor Kenneth Connor, famed for his roles in the Carry On films. I half expected the BBC's Gabby Logan to pop up on the Italian bench and say, “ooh you are saucy” to Prandelli before her brazier snapped to reveal her bouncing breasts.

To add to the comic tone of the evening England's physiotherapist Gary Lewin, in a great act of irony, dislocated his ankle in the frenzied celebrations that followed Daniel Sturridge's equalising goal. Some thought that as Lewin is a physio he shouldn't have needed any medical assistance. Mind you, if someone had suggested to Lewin that he should treat himself he would most probably have hobbled straight to the players' lounge for a few pints and medicinal brandies on the house.

Given the time of the kick-off (0200 hours) of the Ivory Coast Vs Japan game the cheapskates at ITV thought that no one would be watching so they could not be bothered to employ a co-commentator, not even Clarke Carlisle. I found myself nodding off during the match and this reminded me of Saturday nights as a schoolboy at my Grandad Tom and Nanny Edna's house, desperately fighting to stay awake to watch Match of the Day. In those days before Match of the Day we watched The Benny Hill Show and when Hill used to do his set piece of chasing scantily clad women around to saucy saxophone based music my older brother, the Albino, and I would run round and round Nan and Grandad's sofa like headless chickens, which is reminiscent of the way Spain played against Holland in their opening World Cup game.

Spain's unexpected capitulation in the competition shows that all good things come to an end and maybe that is the key to why this column will endure as it is far from good but generally a load of disjointed bunkum. So for now at least dear friends I will soldier on, onward and downward as ever.

© Dominic Horton, June 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 74 – Screw it Yourself

Screw it Yourself

By Dominic Horton

To say that my DIY skills are not the greatest would be an understatement akin to comparing the forthright Pirate to Coronation Street's dithering Mavis Riley. So my challenge this week of assembling a flat pack desk and office chair was a daunting and arduous one for me to say the least.

Flatpack Assembly, by request of Toby In-Tents

Things started badly on Monday night when a burst of enthusiasm lead me to finally open the flat pack boxes only to find that both a flat-head and a Phillips screwdriver are required for the procedure, neither of which I have in my “tool box” which is an old ash tray sparsely populated by a tape measure that the Mexican gave me, a hammer that I acquired somewhere along the line and a few screws and old batteries. Prior to me intrepidly delving into the boxes they had been sitting in the corner of the room full of latent menace, with me starring at them at length hoping the self assembly fairy would pop by and do the business.

I went on a quest to procure screwdrivers but as DIY is not high on my list of priorities in life (unlike relaxing in the Flagon & Gorses) I didn't want to part with too many shekels, so it was off to the pound shop. I got a bit side tracked looking at the goods in the shop, especially as I found that they now sell groceries but I realised that a lot of the food items were more expensive than they are in the supermarket, so don't be lured folks by the deceiving line of, “it's only a pound”.

The recent Queen's Speech informed us that the government are to soon introduce a 5p charge on plastic bags but I am not sure how this will go down in Halesowen whose shopkeepers and cashiers are keen plastic bag enthusiasts; they have a plastic bag ready before you can even begin to say, “I don't need a bag thank you” and after you have uttered such astonishing words they become aggrieved at having to remove the items that you have purchased from the bag. Sometimes items are placed in a small bag before being put into a secondary larger bag, like a plastic bag version of a Russian doll.

The Mastermind Chair

When the 5p levy becomes statute and people refuse to pay up it will cause chaos in the shops of Halesowen as shopkeepers will not be able to stop their instantaneous reflex action of bagging items. The time spent un-bagging goods will cause unprecedented delays and queues at checkouts the town wide. The love of plastic bags must stretch outside of Halesowen and be borough wide as although Dudley Council recently issued the residents of Furnace Hill with a black wheelie bin each for general waste, the accompanying booklet suggests that waste should first be put into a bin liner or plastic bag before being deposited in the bin. Which makes one wonder what was the point of issuing the plastic wheelie bins in the first place.

The 5p surcharge on plastic bags could spell disaster for many of the poorest people in Britain as given that plastic bags are currently free they are the only thing that some people can afford to eat. This week Inequality Briefing (www.inequalitybriefing.org) reported that the number of people receiving three days or more of emergency food from Trussell Trust food banks has risen from 26,000 in 2008/9 to 913,000 in 2013/14, which I am sure you agree makes worrying reading.

The wonderful stained glass windows in
the chancel at St Martin's church, Birmingham

The queen of the plastic baggers was a woman on the checkout in Blackheath's pound shop who was so quick on the draw in bagging items that if she was involved in a wild west shoot out duel with Wild Bill Hickok he would stand no chance. She would shoot off his hat and the edges of his drooping moustache before he had even got his finger on the trigger. When I used to visit the pound shop in Blackheath I used to mischievously ask the bag queen how much a certain item is and she would always instantaneously reply, without any sign of irritability, “pound aye it.”

Before I entered the pound shop on Wednesday I fortified myself by popping into the Wetherspoons with the Phantom but as it was first thing in the morning the fortification came in the form of a hearty breakfast and not a pint, though I confess to having been tempted with the latter, especially as Thornbridge Jiapur was being served. I resisted the lure of the beer pumps but as ever there were plenty of people enjoying a morning drink. The morning drinkers were exclusively coffin dodgers or late middle aged and as none of them had the look of degenerative drinkers I mused on what their routines are after leaving the pub. After a pint or two their motivation levels for the remainder of the day must not be at their highest so I assume that it is a case of back off home for a nap before Bargain Hunt comes on BBC One at lunchtime.

The trip to the pound shop was successful in terms of screwdriver procurement and for £1 there was a handy little pack containing both types of screwdrivers that I needed, so at 50 New Pence each I thought that they were a bargain. Back at Codger Mansions, armed with the screwdrivers I set about assembling the desk only to find that the instructions were effectively in pigeon English; they must have been written by the Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway as a side line to supplement his income, in between serving customers. The instructions read like a script from the third rate BBC 1970's sitcom Mind Your Language but the manufacturers of the desk did not offer a thousand apologies in this regard.

Eventually like the code breakers of Bletchley Park I began to decipher the instructions but I was dismayed to learn that the next part of the operation was a two person job, so being on my own there was only one thing for it and I had to drag Alfie the teddy bear out of bed to assist and he was less than HP as he usually likes to spend 24 hours a day in the sack. Through determination, guesswork and sheer luck Alfie and I got to within two small screws of completing the job when the inevitable happened and the pound shop Phillips screwdriver started to wither. The wear and tear to the highly malleable metal at the head of the implement rendered it useless. I tried to complete the job with the flat-head screwdriver but it was useless so I decided that the two little screws could not be that important and consigned them to my ash tray tool box. So the chances are that by the time I finish writing this column the desk will have collapsed like a house of cards and I will be off down the pound shop again for another shoddy screwdriver.

Thankfully, compared to the desk the chair was easy to assemble and it was all done within a matter of minutes as the makers had the decency to include an alum key so the annihilated Philips screwdriver was not required. The mock leather desk chair looks like the one used in Mastermind so I keep expecting Magnus Magnusson to pop into the room from the kitchen and ask if I would like a cup of tea, to which I would answer, “no thank you ….... in fact on second thoughts, go on then.” Magnus would be obliged to reply, “Sorry I have to accept your first answer.”

The trauma of the flat pack assembly was offset by a visit with the Mexican the previous day to St Philip's and St. Chad's cathedrals and St. Paul's and St. Martin's churches in Birmingham, an odd day out for two self professed atheists, you might think. Having done some prior research the night before, Mex explained to me that St Martin's church contained William De Bermingham's effigy, which is the oldest monument in Birmingham, dating back to 1325. But when we arrived we found the effigy in a dark, dank part of the church, covered in dust looking a little unloved. The magnificent stained glass windows in the chancel showing some of Jesus's miracles more than made up for the disappointment of the De Bermingham effigy.

Talking of miracles, the World Cup has now kicked off of course and inevitably people are asking whether England can win it for the first time since our victory at Wembley in 1966. Well, if I can put up a flat pack desk unaided using a substandard pound shop screwdriver then anything is possible. You think this week's column is all over? It is now.

© Dominic Horton, June 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 73 – Scrapheap Challenge

Scrapheap Challenge

By Dominic Horton

Having taken voluntary redundancy my career of many years at Barclays Bank is finally over and its end was timely given that it was stuttering more than the tight-fisted shopkeeper Arkwright at the sight of Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the ever popular sitcom Open All Hours. But I didn't have to fetch me cloth to wipe away any tears when I walked away from the office for the final time last Friday as I was delighted to be departing as an egg is an egg, or an oeuf is an oeuf as our French cousins say and it felt good to leave the greedy world of banking behind.

The cow at Waseley Hills

So after a long lunch with the Mexican (who has also taken voluntary redundancy) off I trotted with my bags containing gifts that had been kindly bequeathed to me by colleagues and the contents of my desk, the latter of which did not amount to anything of a great deal of use really; sundry stationery (a souvenir to remind me that I spent most of my career sitting stationary); a half eaten bag of unsalted fruit and nuts, a tin of powdered milk (for emergencies), some tiny nail-clippers that I procured from a Christmas cracker in the 1980's and a set of MRI scan test results for an injury to my knee from a few years ago, which marked the beginning of the end of my footballing days. All in all not much to show for a lengthy-ish career as a low powered banker.

With regards to the knee injury I was referred to a specialist named Mr Learmonth and his name sticks in my mind (which is unusual for me) due to an unsavoury and embarrassing incident in his consultancy suite on my first visit. On entering Learmonth's surgery the usual pleasantries were exchanged and I was invited to sit down, which I duly did to take the weight off my knee. After a few seconds I noticed a strong, repugnant smell and after realising that I had not broken wind I looked at Learmonth and thought, “you haven't have you?” But I was then suddenly conscious that the smell was emanating from my shoes and looking down I found to my eternal horror that I had trod in dog sh*t and what's worse trodden it into Learmonth's expensive beige carpet. My footsteps could be clearly seen from the door to the chair like those of the mythical Yeti in the Himalayan snow on a third rate documentary on the Discovery channel.

Gesturing towards the footsteps I muttered to Learmonth, “I'm afraid that …......” but I didn't need to complete the sentence as being a true pro he was already on his intercom explaining the situation to his secretary and within seconds a cleaning lady appeared from stage left and with half a snigger she removed my shoes before quickly scrubbing the carpet. At least the dog mess was fresh and had not dried out, making it easier to clean up.

Codger Mansions

Minutes later the cleaner had returned my shoes and they were significantly cleaner than before I had put my foot in Fido's finest; such is the attention to detail and quality of service of private health care. It is one of the benefits of my banking remuneration that I will miss. Lord only knows what would have happened in similar circumstances if I had been under the NHS. I probably would have been added to an eight month waiting list to have my shoes cleaned up by which time the poo on my shoes would have been so encrusted that it would have taken a four hour surgical operation to remove it: “We have got the worst of it off Mr Horton, it was touch and go at one stage but I think your shoes are going to pull through. They are going to need significant after care and attention but I have to warn you that they will never be quite the same again.”

Anyway, I am glad to have left my unfulfilling job; the upside is that I am at last free of the Barclays shackles but the downside is that I am also free of the shekels, that is, I will no longer have regular coin coming into my coffers. I did of course receive my redundancy payout but when I looked my bank account via online banking it struck me that the money was just numbers on a screen so it almost seemed illusionary, like it could just disappear any minute in the flick of an eyelid, which was a discomforting thought.

Of course the overwhelming majority of money these days is electronic accounting entries in bank's computers and only 3% of all money is actually hard cash issued as notes and coins by the Bank of England. So 97% of all new money is created by commercial banks in the form of loans and not by the Bank of England at all, which in turn means that great power is vested in the banks and that the economy of the country is at the behest of financial institutions, who of course want to make as many loans as possible to maximise profits. According to the group Positive Money while this power is vested in the banks the economy will never be properly stable and the government are effectively powerless to control it. To find out more go to www.positivemoney.org or go and visit the oracular Landlord of the Flagon & Gorses, being my crony the Pirate, who will provide you with an expert opinion on any subject you choose for the price of a pint of Nottingham Don's Pale Ale.

The Mexican & The Phantom on the roof of One Snow Hill,
Birmingham by request of Toby In-Tents

I had the temerity to miss both my leaving meal and p*ss up as my mild-graines illness had crescendoed to a peak and I was so dizzy that I thought momentarily that the Earth's gravity machine had been turned off. Also disappointingly I was unable to go on the keenly anticipated trip that the Mexican had arranged to the roof of our multi-story office. The Phantom took my place on the trip to see far reaching views of Birmingham and although Villa Park could clearly be seen The Flagon & Gorses, Codger Mansions and the Rhareli Peking could not, which is just as well as otherwise through his binoculars Mex might have spotted me valiantly trying to make my way up Furnace Hill to the Flagon, only to turn back giddy and defeated.

The landlord's agent supervised the roof visit and Mex and the Phantom were expecting her to point out interesting local landmarks and say a few words about their histories but as it was all she pointed out was the Lickey Hills and explained that the car park is a hotbed for dogging. Although the Phantom hasn't got a dog he was apparently sighted yesterday in Birmingham Dogs Home asking for a cocker spaniel and for directions to the Lickey Hills.

In the fullness of time I will need to hoodwink a philanthropic benefactor into bestowing a job on me but these things can't be rushed, especially with the World Cup upon us. As part of my redundancy package the Bank have employed the services of a leading employment consultancy firm who have assured Mex and I that once they have finished with us we will have to turn prospective employers away, such will be the flood of job offers. Call me a pessimist (or more accurately a realist) but I was viewing the job hunt more of a challenge to stay off the unemployment scrapheap, a scrapheap challenge if you will.

My new life hasn't started exactly as I had planned mainly because of my ongoing mild-graines illness which has lead to me taking things easy but I think I am starting to slowly get better as on Wednesday I did complete a gentle three mile walk up Waseley Hills, the most exercise that I have been able to do in a long while. I felt fairly pathetic only being able to meander listlessly around the paths like an ailing octogenarian and things quickly took a turn for the worse when it started to absolutely bucket it down with rain meaning that I quickly became a drowned rat. At least the torrential rain kept other walkers away leaving just me and a cow to keep each other company and as I often enjoy being alone I milked it, the solitude that is, not the cow.

I was absolutely saturated on return to the car and all of my clothing was completely drenched so I decided to strip off on the empty car park and drive home wearing just my underpants and shoes. On return to Codger Mansions at lunchtime I was so eager to get in the house and get dry and warm that I was unaware of my surroundings and on emerging from the car I was greeted by the sounds of tittering school children heading down Furnace Hill to the chippy; the sight of me half naked in just my boxer shorts will have done nothing for the kids' appetite and I would wage good money that none of them ordered a saveloy. Getting soaked to the skin and being mortally embarrassed in front of a group of giggling children meant that it was not a day for the scrap book but I can wholeheartedly say without hesitation that it was still a great deal better than sitting miserably at my desk within the confines of Barclays Bank daydreaming of some other Eden.

© Dominic Horton, June 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 72 – Bring out the Bunting

Bring out the Bunting

By Dominic Horton

In order to diagnose the nature of my on-going mild-graines illness I had an MRI brain scan on Thursday to see if they could locate a brain in my cranium and to see if there is anything neurologically wrong with my ailing person.    I was greeted by an extremely friendly radiologist at the hospital and after I had left the waiting room and entered the scanning room he reassured me, “well done, you are doing really well.” By that stage I had only removed my belt and shoes and taken the small change out of my pockets so given the radiologist’s reaction I assume that some patients must struggle to affect even these simply manoeuvres.  Well done to me indeed, especially as I was wearing lace up shoes, which are trickier to take off than slip-ons.

The radiologist asked if I have had an MRI scan before and I replied in the affirmative but disregarding my answer he still tediously proceeded to explain at length what the scan entails.   Every effort was made by the radiologist to ensure my comfort, including a pillow under my knees and after I was then asked what radio station I would like to listen to via headphones (I requested BBC Radio 4, for the record.)  Then I was slowly slid into the small, person sized tube of the scanner like a coffin preparing for cremation. 

The cover to Headhunters, by Herbie Hancock

I was warned that I might find it a bit claustrophobic in the confines of the scanner but not a bit of it, I actually felt the most relaxed I have been for a while given that I was forced to lie still on a comfortable bed and do nothing.  Mind you, I was eternally grateful that I did not attend the leaving do I was supposed to go to the preceding evening (due to ill health – it was actually my leaving do, more of which next week) as lying in the cramped scanner with booze terrors, sweating and dehydrated, would have been ghastly beyond belief not to mention the risk of choking on my own real ale induced flatulence in the incommodious space of the tube.

           

I perversely found that the loud noises of the MRI machine were very restful and calming and in fact I discovered that the experience was more relaxing than the gong baths that I have been to recently (previous discussed in these pages), especially given that I was alone and not in a room full of people, which can make me twitchy.   

The first set of noises from the scanner reminded me of the heavy synthesiser bass sounds that are heard at the beginning of the track Chameleon on Herbie Hancock’s 1973 album Headhunters; maybe at the next gong bath I should suggest to the gongmaster, Phil the Gong, that instead of subjecting us to the gentle, ambient sounds of his oriental gongs that he instead plays Hancock’s ground-breaking jazz funk masterpiece at full speaker shaking volume.   I suspect I would be in a minority of one in preferring that Phil the G employs this tactic so I might as well just put the CD on in my Codger Mansion’s living room and divert the gong bath fee of a tenner from Phil’s palm into my welcoming coffers.   Thinking about it, for £10 I could buy three pints of bitter and half a scrumpy cider in the Flagon & Gorses, which would act as a further relaxant to unwind me even more after the Headhunters session.

Norman Collier, by request of Toby In-Tents

Due to the deafening sounds of the scanner I could only snatch the odd word of Radio 4 so it was like listening to the 1970’s Northern comedian Normal Collier.   (Incidentally it is to my mind a popular misconception that Collier was a one trick pony with his faulty microphone routine as he also masterfully performed chicken impressions and had a hilarious skit based around winding up a car window.  Indeed none other than the legendary Jimmy Tarbuck dubbed Collier as “the comedian’s comedian.”)   The heavy bass sounds eventually gave way to a series of high pitched beeps and I thought to myself that I can’t remember there being such sounds when I have had MRI scans in the past but I then realised the beeps signalled the start on The World at One on Radio 4.

I reached such a state of serenity that I imagined that I was lying on a sun lounger in the warm sun of a Caribbean beach and I felt myself slowly drifting off into a blissful impromptu sleep but I was suddenly startled by the voice of the radiologist via the headphones asking me, “How are you doing in there Dominic?”   As I was in the adjacent room to the radiologist, with him overlooking me via a window in the wall, I momentarily had no idea how I would communicate back to him, especially as you are supposed to remain perfectly still during the procedure.  In a panic I decided that the only option was to wiggle my toes to signal that I was fine but this was to no avail as again the radiologist asked if I was ok, this time in a more urgent manner.  To try to signal that I was fine I considered pressing the panic button that I had been given but I thought that the radiologist might erroneously interpret that as a sign that I was in dismay, which was certainly not the case. I then had the dawning realisation that there must be a microphone in the scanner so I quickly verbalised my agreeable state before the radiologist rushed in attend to me.

Beautiful bunting made by the talented women of
Cradley Heath

One I had settled down again I felt an increasing pool of saliva gathering in my throat, blocking my windpipe and I knew that I needed to swallow but I was petrified of disturbing my stillness and resultantly bringing the scan to a halt.  As the urge eventually became overbearing I swallowed hard as I was becoming increasingly fearful of drowning in my own bodily fluid which would have been a ludicrous way to meet one’s end; I could just imagine people asking, “where did he meet his demise, was it sailing the high seas in a daring yachting expedition across the Atlantic Ocean?” only to be informed that, “No, he was on dry land in the West Midlands as far from the sea as he possibly could be, having a standard and apparently risk free medical procedure whilst lying in an oversized Smarties tube.” 

On Saturday, being in a state of anticipation of my MRI scan results, I decided to divert my mind away from the matter by popping along to St Luke’s Church to do my bit in helping to make bunting for the forthcoming Women Chainmakers’ Festival in Cradley Heath on 6^th & 7^th June (http://womenchainmakersfestival.blogspot.co.uk/).  The bunting is made out of fabric onto which attractive and colourful designs have been printed by the talented women of the working party.   As I have no flair whatsoever for creating visual art I asked if I could be given the most menial job in the operation, so I was assigned the task of cutting out bunting sized triangle shapes from fabric sheets, which was something I could just about manage in the nervous, anxiety-riddled way I have of doing things, terrified of making a hash of it.  

I realised that I was in a room full of accomplished, skilled artists and I had never been in such a situation before, except I suppose in the public bar of the Flagon & Gorses where all hands present are usually p*ss artists.   All of the women there made me feel extremely welcome and chatting to them I felt becalmed and slowly the underlying and pervading feeling of sadness that colours most of my life started to fade away.  

I couldn’t place the accent of one of the women, Mhairun’, so I asked her where she is from.  She explained that she is from Bremen, Germany and that she originally came to the West Midlands as an exchange student as Bremen is twinned with Dudley but that was twenty five years ago and she has remained here ever since.  I imagine that there are a great number of  Dudlonians still knocking about Bremen after realising that they were onto a good thing and refused to go back home, like Scotland fans who can still be found in Spain as a consequence of the 1982 World Cup.

Sitting in the church, ham-fistedly cutting out the fabric, I witnessed a warming atmosphere of cooperation amongst the members of the party and I was enlightened by the thought that the world would most probably be a better place if it was predominantly run by women.  I carried the thought to Drew Monkey’s wonderful brewing shop on Cradley Heath High Street (http://www.brewmonkey.co.uk/) to reward myself by buying some bottled beer and on the way I picked up a metal teapot from a charity shop for a mere £1.  But when I put the kettle on at Codger Mansions later in the day I found that the teapot, like a conference of a far right-wing fascist political party, was full of scum.  The teapot cleaned up quite easily though; if only it was as easy to get rid of xenophobic bigots.

© Dominic Horton, May 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 71 - Let Them Eat Steak

Let Them Eat Steak

By Dominic Horton

This week has seen the latest chapter in my sorry mild-graines illness odyssey as I visited the consulting rooms of an ear, nose and throat specialist, Mr R. On the night before my appointment Fudgkins was in a typically frivolous mood in the Flagon & Gorses and he explained that if he were the consultant he would quickly cure my illness by saying to me, “please look at the ceiling Mr Horton” and while I unsuspectingly stood there awaiting further doctoral instruction he would swiftly administer a forceful right hook to my chin (Fudgkins – “bosher!!!!!!”) and after that I would be right as rain. The Fudgey remedy is akin to giving a smack to an old fashioned black and white television set in order to correct an errant rolling picture. Fudgkins followed the description of his recalibration method with hysterical and lengthy cackling. Like Queen Victoria I was not amused.

Mr R, by request of Toby In-Tents

My work colleague the Mexican previewed my consultant appointment by stating that when he visited a specialist in relation to a similar complaint many years ago the doctor instructed him to stand up straight and to extend his hands out in front of him and to march up and down on the spot with his eyes closed. This seemed like a very antiquated (and capering) way of diagnosing any illness and the image of Mex lumbering blindly around the consulting room bumping into the doc’s skeleton, like a novice zombie, made me chuckle.

The ENT man, Mr R, greeted me warmly when he invited me into his spacious and airy surgery and I instantly took to him and his affable nature, noting that he is a dead ringer for BBC News 24’s Chris Eakin. Mind you, disappointingly I spotted that Mr R was wearing a light beige trouser accompanied by a black belt; surely a man in his position, which boasts such a handsome remuneration, could afford to acquire a tan belt in order to be dressed properly. After a detailed interrogation Mr R chirped, “right, it’s time for a few tests. First off I want you to stand up straight and to extend your hands out in front of you and march up and down on the spot with your eyes closed.” It was reassuring to find that like Banks’s beer the ear, nose and throat game is unspoilt by progress.

After prodding various implements up my nose and down my ears Mr R then put one of those rounded, cardboard nail file type thingies on my tongue and asked me to say “arrrggh”, which hitherto I did not think was a bona fide medical procedure but one only used when a character in a 1970’s sitcom is examined by a doctor (for example, the first episode of series 1 of Porridge [entitled New Faces, Old Hands]). Following this I was asked to step inside a glass booth so I thought we were going to have an impromptu game of Mr & Mrs and I half expected Derek Batey to appear from stage left. But Mr R explained that the booth is intended to cut out all background noise for my impending ear test.

BBC News 24's Chris Eakin,.

At the end of the appointment Mr R explained that all seemed normal with my ears, nose and throat and that the only thing left to examine was my brain, so he booked me in for an MRI scan on my loaf stating that he had no reason to be alarmed but we’d best be on the safe side. I fully expect the doc to give me a call after the test to tell me that, “You have a perfectly normal brain Mr Horton ……………. for a field mouse.”

I have been concerned by my illness this week but a news headline that I came across was even more disturbing as it read, “Ping wins Masterchef title”. I thought to myself, how on earth can the workmanlike chef of the undistinguished Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway win such a prestigious award? To my great relief I learnt that the headline was not referring to Mr Ping but to a certain Ping Coombes who sealed the award with a delicious Malaysian pork and liver soup. The Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli could do worse than invite Coombes along to tutor Mr Ping in the art of making curry sauce that actually has a liquescent quality and is not just a homogeneous gelatinous lump.

At least the Rhareli Peking has overcome its past sanitary difficulties and it no longer has a zero rating for food hygiene which is not something that can be said about Marco Pierre White’s expensive four star Steakhouse restaurant in Birmingham which was condemned by environmental health officers, it was disclosed this week. Buying beef fried rice and curry sauce from an undistinguished local takeaway after a gallon of beer in the Flagon is one thing but when you are paying £50 for a steak in a top notch restaurant you at least expect the kitchen to be cleaner than Cliff Richard’s underpants. The news of White’s restaurant’s indiscretions came a week after it was revealed that Jamie Oliver’s upmarket butcher, Barbecoa, in the City of London, was forced to close after failing a health inspection. Mouldy cow carcasses were found in addition to out of date steaks and mouse droppings: at least the droppings indicated that the mice, unlike the cows, were fresh.

Derek Batey

There were no issues with the food on Monday evening in the Flagon & Gorses where Tomachezki, Pat Debilder, Mother Teresa and I gathered for steak cooked by Chilli Willy’s unfair hand to celebrate Tomachezki’s 72^nd birthday; we all had a jolly pleasant time, enhanced by Willy’s world class gravy. Unbeknown to each other, Pat and Teresa, Chilli and I had all procured birthday cake for the occasion so it was a case of Marie Antoinette, “let them eat cake” but given the main course of the evening it would have been equally suitable for Chilli Willy to declare, “let them eat steak.” We all scoffed the steak with relish. Well, actually we ate the steak with vegetables and gravy but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Earlier in the week Pat Debilder, Fudgkins and I were lining our stomachs not with steak and cake but with with the delectable house beer in Ma Pardoe’s in Netherton prior to a visit to the Arts Centre to see the Dudley Little Theatre’s (DLT – unfortunate acronym) satisfying production of Blackadder, which they put on to mark the 100^th anniversary of the start of the First World War in 1914.

Given the fiascos of trying to get tickets for previous performances we turned up at the theatre on the hop this time hoping there was room in the house and luckily there was. Usually DLT states that tickets are available at the local butchers but when you make an enquiry there they always say, “we don’t know anything about any theatre tickets mate but while you are here do you want to buy a pound of pork sausages?” The butcher directs you to Netherton Arts Centre box office which is always ticketless so they re-direct you to Dudley Council. When you call the Council the member of staff who answers the call is temporarily thrown by your query as he was expecting you to lodge a complaint that your dustbins have not been emptied on the due date again. The confused council official denies any knowledge of theatre tickets and refuses thereafter to tell you anything other than his name, rank and serial number in line with the dictate of the Geneva Convention. So all in all it is no wonder that DLT rarely get a full house. The whispers are that due to local authority cuts that Netherton Arts Centre is under threat so if you can make it to a show there please do because of course the more people that use the place the more chance it has of remaining open (http://www.dudleylittletheatre.org/).

One place that is definitely still open is the Aston Hotel pub on Witton Lane in Aston, which cropped up in conversation the other day with Willy Mantitt as his firm is trying to flog it off. This gave me chance to relay the following story to Willy.

When my my elder brother, Albino Duxbury, and I were boys our Uncle Albert used to take us to watch Aston Villa and we used to go in the Aston Hotel for the pre-match drinks but as they wouldn’t let kids in the pub we used to stand in the entrance hall, which was fine as it was enclosed and heated. Uncle Albert use to have a pint with his friend, so as it was in the days before hand held video games the Albino and I had to make our own fun so we developed a game whereby we would throw pennies into a glass lampshade hanging from the ceiling. The lampshade had a glass bottom to it and was only open on the top, so it would collect the pennies that were on target.  Anyway, we did this for a couple of seasons but of course it started to get full of pennies.  One pre-match we threw a penny into the lampshade but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back; the lampshade finally gave way and smashed releasing hundreds of pennies onto the floor of the entrance hall.  Sensing the impending commotion Uncle Alb said, “quick, neck your drinks we’re off” and we swiftly hot trotted it, laughing our socks off all the way to Villa Park.

© Dominic Horton, May 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.