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.