Lowlife No 10 - It’s a Dog’s Life

It’s a Dog’s Life

So the Queen has got a severe case of the sh*ts.  At half time in the football yesterday on BBC Radio 5 they announced that there was to be an extended news broadcast.   Knowing that my London based cohort Bartholomew Hook had gone on an impromptu bender in Soho, my first thought was to wonder what chaos Barty had got up to this time that warranted an extended news.  I knew whatever had happened it must be fairly serious as the news at the break in the football is always very brief so the listeners are not exposed to reality for too long, in order to get back to the serious business of analysing the first half.  Half time football analysis is like lunch time drinking during the working day, there’s so much to do in such a short time frame, so time is at a premium. 

They announced that the Queen’s impending trip to Swansea had to be cancelled.  So that explains it.  I can hear her announcing to her court, “There’s no chance that I am going to Swansea and I don’t give a f*ck what you tell them.”   Even Regina Betty has to draw the line somewhere.   To make the story look plausible the fixers at Buck House also had to cancel a trip to Rome, which was planned as a treat so the Queen could recover from the trauma of having to visit Swansea.   The timing was perfect with there being no current Pope so our Ruler could even do away with the inconvenience of having to visit the Vatican to be served the disgusting tea they dispense, which is only slightly off set with fine handmade Garibaldi biscuits. 

After the shock of being denied the full half time broadcast, when the football had finished it was off up the Flagon to meet my good friend the foreboding Toby-In-Tents, who is quick of opinion but slow of foot.  Like Panini stickers, friends are collected along the way.  Some are like the sought after and treasured shiny metallic badge of your team and others are more akin to an unknown and unloved centre half of Heart of Midlothian.   Fortunately Toby fits into the former category, though ironically in his football playing days he was an unloved centre half.

In-Tents has taken to trying to train his over excitable dog, the ever popular Suavey, to sit in the pub calmly so he can quaff pints, combining dog walking and drinking to kill two birds with one stone.  I gather that is how Barbara Woodhouse started out, but she preferred a dry sherry or five to real ale.  On arrival Toby proceeds to spend the vast majority of his visit to the Flagon pacifying the lively Suavey and I am constantly in fear of the dog bounding into the table and knocking over my beer, so I am in a permanent state of anxiety which is the very thing you go to the pub to get away from.  Especially on a Sunday. 

As Toby’s hands were full trying to calm the irrepressible dog I had to visit the bar with his money to get the beer in which meant that out of necessity I had to break the time honoured ‘he who pays fetches rule’, which gave me no pleasure at all.  The alternative, paying for the round myself, was swiftly dismissed, as was the flavoursome pint of Kinver I ordered.   In-Tents assures me that within relatively little time his canine friend will be boozer familias and placidly roam free around the Flagon in relaxed fashion.  I remain to be convinced.

Charl served Suavey water (in a drip tray, there are no bounds to human ingenuity) and after his refreshing drink he calmed down sufficiently for In-tents to come out with the ludicrous statement that he was giving up smoking his tatty roll ups for Lent.  My knowledge on the regulations for Lent abstinence is a little sketchy but giving up something that you should not be doing in the first place does not seem to be in the spirit of things. Is it officially permitted to give up taking cocaine for Lent for example? Or refrain from drinking Carling Black Label? Not wanting to be dragged into the vague and murky world of Lent I am not going to give up anything.  Talking of lent I have just realised that Toby has effectively ponced the tent he borrowed off me last summer.  He has a habit of stockpiling tins of tuna, buying them at discount prices employing the economy of scale theory, so he is probably using the tent in his back garden for overspill tuna storage.

I wouldn’t call In-Tents vain but he always pays good regard to his appearance to assist him in his fruitful search for the opposite sex and it must be working as he always has runners and riders.  Barty Hook is also trying valiantly to ensnare women, but his success seems a little more mixed than Toby’s.  The kind of types Hook is having to mix with in the capital are not going to be satisfied by a night in the Wetherspoons, so he is going to have to up his game. 

I have noticed that vanity is something that my wonderful 8 year old son the Cannonball is starting to develop.  In the Postman Pat mobile on Saturday he pulled down the passenger seat sun screen and started looking at himself in the mirror.  I explained to him that hereon in he will gradually get more and more vain until it reaches a frenzied peak in his late teenage years where he will look in a mirror more frequently than the Pirate farts. Which is quite regularly I can tell you.  I continued that in his 20’s the vanity will persist but it will start to drop off slowly in his 30’s and by the time his 40’s come round if he is anything like me, he will no longer give a fiddler’s fart (to borrow Frank McCourt’s eloquent phrase from Angela’s Ashes) about the way he looks, which is a blessing given the state of my work shoes and trousers.

The Cannonball later told me he wishes he could stay at his age forever and never grow up and that if CJ (my mother’s next door neighbour, same age as the Cannonball) didn’t grow up either he could happily play in Nanny’s garden with him forever.  This broke my heart as I know that he will grow up and have to experience all of the peaks and troughs of adolescent and adult life. 

If the opposite of hot is cold and the opposite of fast is slow, the opposite of vain is my oldest associate, the Frymaster General.  Vanity is not a word in his vocabulary.   He once claimed that even if he won the lottery he would not want hair back to cover his bald head as having hair to him was a pain the backside as it has to be combed and washed etc.  When he turned up at the Belbroughton Beer Festival last summer his shabby T-Shirt was covered in dog hairs so I said to him, “I didn’t know you had a dog” and he replied “I haven’t.”   Even if the Frymaster invests some of his ill gotten gains on an expensive and tasteful garment within five minutes it is soiled and ruined.   But fortunately for him he doesn’t care.

Incredibly the Frymaster is now engaged and even more of a shock was that he proposed in some kind of style, popping the question in a specially arranged trip to New York.  Logically, a wedding follows an engagement, though in the Frymaster’s case it would not surprise me if he never sees the matter through to its martial conclusion.  But if he does get wed it will be interesting to see what ensemble he dons himself in.   If he goes down the traditional suit route he will look like a fat Bob Hoskins on his uppers.

Hoskins of course starred with Helen Mirren in Fred Schepisi’s wonderful film Last Orders (based on Graham Swift’s book of the same name) and as Mirren famously played the Queen it brings us neatly, like another national treasure Michael Palin, full circle. 

Postscript – Wilko Johnson

Lowlife had a little night out on Thursday (that is, I went out alone) to see the irrepressible Wilko Johnson on his farewell tour at the Robin in Bilston.  As you may well know Wilko has terminal pancreatic cancer and is not destined to be long on this earth, so this was a night not to be missed.

Unscrupulous touts had despicably bought a big slice of the tickets on their release and the gig was sold out in no time at all.  With the invaluable help of Jonty von Rossi I finally managed to get a ticket on eBay for £43, which was £25.50 over the odds but the seller was donating the proceeds to a pancreatic cancer charity, so good came out of it and I was glad not to be fleeced by a morally redundant tout.

On the way into the venue I was briefly interviewed by a reporter from the Express & Star and kicked myself later for not having the wherewithal to give this column a plug.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.   Entering the venue it seemed overbearingly hot and clammy, in the way gigs used to be, and given my ongoing booze horrors I started to sweat profusely and get the dreaded nanas.  The mostly middle aged crowd seemed to all be clad in woolly jumpers and scarves covered by coats; I have no idea had they withstood the tropical conditions. At the point where it was starting to become unbearable the Robin staff turned on the aircon and a cool calming breeze blew soothingly over me.  Blessed relief.

Wilko appeared on the stage and illuminated the place with his mere magical presence.  Backed by the first rate rhythm section of ex-Blockheads Dylan Howe (drums) and Norman Watt-Roy (Bass) Wilko uncompromisingly tore his way through the set (including Down By the Jetty, Roxette, Paradise, Sneakin’ Suspicion, Back In The Night and She Does It Right), with all of his usual routines of strutting, jerking, duck walking, shuffling and of course using the guitar as a machine gun.  Johnson’s slashing and cutting staccato guitar reverberated around the place and at times the band played to a rocking crescendo that bought the house down. 

The encore, Chuck Berry’s Bye Bye Johnny, was alternately tender and rocking but given the verve and energy that Wilko had rocked with all night it was the first time my thoughts began to turn sad about the finality of his condition.

Wilko Johnson is without doubt a one off wildcard of a man. He’s also 100% rock ‘n’ roll to his very core.  The media have reported that Wilko is dying of cancer but I can guarantee you that performing on that stage last night with the adrenaline and energy flowing relentlessly through his electrified body there would have been no one in the whole sad world that felt more alive.

© Dominic Horton, 5^th * 8^th March, 2013.