Lowlife 110 – A Fall from Grace

A Fall From Grace

By Dominic Horton

As I sit at my desk writing this week's edition of this column I await the Tesco delivery driver to arrive with boxes of grocery bounty for my good self. I have a delivery from Tesco once a month with all of the unexciting non-perishable items that one needs to sustain oneself such as toilet roll, toothpaste and dried lentils, which I use a lot in cooking, not because I am a vegetarian but because they are a damn sight more cheaper than meat and very healthy. They do make you fart though.

Hans Krankl, by request of Toby In-Tents.

The delivery fee is now as low as a pound – depending on what time of day you book – and a few clicks on your mouse is all you need to choose your shopping and book the delivery; if you ask me it is a no-brainer and a substantially better way of shopping than having to suffer the trauma of wrestling with coffin dodgers and assorted zombies who block up the aisles at the supermarket. Another benefit of internet grocery shopping is that human contact is kept to a minimum and is limited to a couple of minutes dealing with the delivery driver, who without exception is always of a more cheery disposition that your average cashier at the supermarket, who usually have a glum countenance and the expression of a bassett hound.

I used to employ the traditional method for my big monthly shop and labour around the supermarket, overfilling a trolley with a faulty wheel and irately swearing under my breathe when they've had a reorganisation of the goods on the shelves, resulting in me being unable to find the items that I need. I would then load up whatever clapped out motor I happened to be driving at the time only to have to unload the multitude of bags again at the other end. It is rare that I can get a parking spot anywhere near my Codger Mansions home in the evening or on weekends so I could have done with a human chain to transport the shopping bags from vehicle to front door. If you throw a hangover or booze terrors into the mix it made the big shop a truly horrific experience. I once saw the Woodcutter in a 'the morning after' state egress a busy supermarket without attempting to purchase an item as he simply couldn't face it. He undoubtedly made the right decision in his predicament.

Despite knowing about internet grocery shopping I persevered with the onerous supermarket trips as I was suspicious of the online method. I foresaw late deliveries, cracked eggs and manky veg. But I could not have been more wrong as the reality is that Tesco have not once been late and the produce that they send is fresh and bursting with vitality and I used to crack more eggs in packed shopping bags than Tesco has ever done with their deliveries. They did once send me a foul fruit-based alcoholic drink (I forget what it was called) in place of a bottle of the delightful limoncello but everyone is allowed at least one indiscretion. And I ended up mixing the unappetising drink with tonic water and adding ice and it went down well enough.

Fudgkins.

I was effectively forced to use the Tesco online grocery service after I broke my ankle and was unable to drive for a while, or walk for that matter. It was a life saver at the time. I didn't break my ankle undertaking an heroic act on a sports field but in a more mundane mishap. On a Saturday evening I was supposed to be venturing into Birmingham with my brother Albino Duxbury and Tom Holliday to see the Madness frontman Suggs in a solo show. But heavy snow started to fall late afternoon and by early evening all local buses and trains were cancelled and it was virtually impossible to get a taxi, so we had to abandon all thoughts of going to the show.

I had agreed to meet Tom in the Flagon & Gorses, so there I remained to drown my sorrows being in a Suggs-less state. After taking my leave from the Flagon I popped in to the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeway to see my nemesis, the Baby Faced Assassin, and to buy a little supper, before descending the precipitous Furnace Hill, which had taken on the look of the North face of the Eiger. I confidently laid my foot down on what I thought was soft snow only to find that hazardous ice was underneath; I lost my footing and fell heavily on my ankle dropping the Chinese takeaway in the process. As the szechuan beef and fried rice went skidding off down the hill in its white plastic bag my life flashed before me as I awaited to see what the fate of my supper would be. The takeway sped down the snowy hill like the luge but luckily came to rest safety, upright, a yard short of a lamp post. Although my Hans Krankl was mangled at least my hot supper was still intact.

The following day, a Sunday, my ankle was sore but I was not of the impression that I had broken it as I just thought I had sustained a nasty sprain. I even managed to make the Sunday night festivities in the Flagon with the help of a lift from the inimitable Colly Coren. But by Monday the pain has escalated and it was off to A&E for the inevitable day long saga of waiting around to see doctors/ have X-rays etc. It was confirmed that I had indeed broken my ankle and it was a nasty one to boot. A couple of weeks later, once the injury had settled down, they operated and added a plate and some pins to stabilise the ankle – disappointingly the metal in my leg does not set off metal detectors at airports, which is a shame as it could of acted as a cue for me to relate this sorry, unedifying story.

A Bassett Hound.

On the plus side of things I was unable to go to work and although having a busted Hans Krankl was less than ideal I could at least make the most of being away from my displeasing and demoralising job. I soon settled down to new routines within Codger Mansions and I worked out how to do everything that I needed to do, despite being on crutches. I refused all kind offers of assistance as I was determined to be completely self reliant. It is often the case that elderly, infirm people do not uptake offers of help to the frustration of their younger, fitter relatives and friends: “I can't believe that old Great Uncle Arthur climbed up that 30 foot ladder on his one leg in the dark, with a gale blowing and without his guide dog. No wonder he has ended up in hospital. Why didn't he just ask me to do it?!” But I understand the Great Uncle Arthurs of this world now as I learnt that to be able to live independently is a valuable thing. Being reliant on others can effect a person's self esteem.

I managed to transport meals from the kitchen to the dining room or living room by putting them into a tupperwear pot and placing that in a bag on my shoulder. My toilet is on the ground floor and as navigating the stairs was difficult I would wee into a makeshift chamber pot if I needed to go in the night and tip the contents out of the back bedroom window into the drain on the roof of the extension below. One night I was a bit over zealous in tipping the wee out of the chamber pot and it bounced off the slope of the extension roof and the next thing I heard was a screeching, “meeeeeooooowwww!!!” - the liquid had landed on an unfortunately positioned cat. An unsuspecting pet owner must have had an unpleasant and whiffy surprise when Tiddles entered the cat flap.

A chamber pot.

One issue was getting to and from the Flagon & Gorses as it was too far to navigate on my crutches and I did not want to incur the expense of taxis. But I learnt from Fudgkins that incredibly a bus – which I dubbed the Happy Bus – stops down the road from me and goes around a few back streets, passing close to the Flagon on its travels. So I was easily able to get to the Pirate's pleasure palace for a pint or five. But I took my life in my own hands every time I visited the toilet, especially after I had drunk a few, on account of the sloping floor and the narrow channel of access through the bar.

After a couple of months and rigorous physiotherapy the fun was over as my ankle had healed sufficiently for me to return to work. Now when there is heavy snowfall I take the scenic route on the way back from the Flagon to avoid walking down the steep slope of Furnace Hill. The last thing I need at the moment is another fall from grace.   

© Dominic Horton, February 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 109 – Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey

By Dominic Horton

It has been revealed this week that a study by The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that more than one in five adults (21%) in Great Britain are teetotal and do not dabble with alcohol at all. The figure has risen from 19% in 2005. On the face of it, it looks to be the case that my fellow inmates at the Flagon & Gorses and I are increasingly becoming dinosaurs in a new sober 21st century age. And we all know that dinosaurs had small brains so that is consistent with the average punter you find in The Flagon. Especially after they have had a few drinks and their mental capacities shrink leaving them telling you a story that you have heard a hundred times before and playing out old set-piece jokes and laughing inanely at them, even though they were only vaguely funny when they were originally told, years ago. I concede that I am as much a culprit of this type of behaviour as any.

The new pub sign at the Flagon & Gorses.

I have written in these pages before about the repetition of pub life, it is like a Samuel Beckett play acted out again and again and again so everyone knows the words, the routines, the actions. The form. But the familiarity of the surroundings, the people, the drinks, the smells, the atmosphere is comforting and we all cling on to it like it is a lifeboat floating in a dangerously stormy sea. Except that we don't want to get rescued, we are happy drifting in the open water. As long as we have a pint in our hands that is. Sometimes as a pub goer I feel like a hamster on a wheel, going round and round in perpetual circles, and occasionally I want to get off but I never do. I keep walking on the wheel waiting for something to happen, hoping that one day there will be a metaphorical pot of gold somewhere over the rainbow. Until then I'll keep turning up at the pub, afraid that I am going to miss out if I don't. Miss out on what exactly, I'm not sure. But then I won't know what I have missed if I miss it.

The age demographic of the sailors in the Flagon lifeboat is not young people but overwhelmingly middle-aged. The young are increasingly drinking less, according to the ONS study, with alcohol and binge drinking becoming increasingly unpopular in the youth ranks. There are undoubtedly fewer younger people visiting pubs than when I was a teenager and in my 20's and on the face of it that can be seen as a good thing as a sober-ish lifestyle has its undoubted health benefits (I use the word sober-ish as moderate drinkers have a greater life expectancy than teetotalers, so a little alcohol is a good thing.)

From a psychological perspective however the social angle of pub going is a positive aspect and one suspects that the young may in part have replaced actual face-to-face contact with socialising through social media and the like, which is a poor substitute for the real thing. One of the five foundation stones for mental well-being set out by the New Economics Foundation is to connect with others and pub going does allow people to meet up, often where it is a person's only substantial social contact of the day – indeed, that applies to me as I will spend the today in solitary confinement at my desk before nipping up the Flagon later to drop off the paper copy of this edition of Lowlife and to chinwag some nonsense with the regular Monday night devotees (we won't be having a “catch up”; I am not sure where that ghastly phrase has emanated from but I suspect that it has crept up from the Smoke and in my estimation it can jolly well go back down the M1 and stay there. Often when two people meet for a “catch up” they have nothing to catch up on anyway as since the last time they met their lives have been vulgarly splattered all over Facebook.)

Jolly Dave at the National Winter Ales

 Festival, Derby by request of Toby In-Tents.

Apparently over a third of Londoners claim to be abstainers, which is a staggering statistic but not one that is wholly surprising – the last time Alexander Sutcliffe and I visited the capital (to see Barty Hook) we spent the afternoon in the pub and we seemed to be the only drinkers who had taken root for a good old soak, with all the other punters having just the one drink or a pair at most. I was amazed to learn that regionally the West Midlands has the second largest proportion of teetotalers after London, some 25%. But once the Muslim proportion of both the London and the West Midlands community is taken into account the figures are more easily understood – 40% of the country's Muslims reside in the capital making up 12.4% of its people. 14.3% of the population of the West Midlands' biggest city, Birmingham, is Muslim.

The survey frustratingly didn't delve into the drinking habits of different ethnic and other demographic groups in the country. This was most probably because the researchers couldn't be bothered as they wanted to get to the pub. If you discount the abstaining Muslim proportion of the population and the elderly, who comparatively tend to drink little, then the survey's findings that alcohol consumption is on the decrease will most probably not apply to the rest of the population and the opposite could well be true.

Additionally the old chestnut of people underestimating how much they drink should be taken into consideration – apparently HMRC figures show that twice as much alcohol is purchased than people admit to drinking according to various studies. One would hope that the ONS allowed respondents to their study to provide information anonymously, through the internet for example, as if the data was collected face-to-face subjects would have been more likely to fib about the amount of alcohol they drink. But if the methods used by the ONS were inappropriate it would not surprise me as often official surveys can be highly shabby, such as YouGov's recent study on the popularity of accents in Britain (see Lowlife No 100, All Played Out, December 2014.)

The Pirate & The Coarse Whisperer in 

The Brunswick, Derby.

So the findings of the research should be taken with a pinch of salt, preferably smeared around the rim of a glass of tequila. Based on HMRC figures of alcohol sales people are drinking on average 25 units a week (the equivalent of a dozen odd pints of standard strength bitter) and it is believed that more than half of those who drink do so at risky levels. The figure of 25 units is of course an average so once you disregard the abstainers and infrequent to moderate drinkers those who are left must be knocking back a fair bit between them. It appears that in reality Britain is as booze soaked as a Christmas pudding after all.

Contrary to popular belief it is the middle-aged and not the young who are the least sober. Ironically one of the favourite sports of the middle-aged is sitting in the pub having a pint whilst moaning about the drunken behaviour of teenagers on weekends. Statistically a young person of 16-24 years is more likely to be partaking in sober pursuits on a Saturday night than getting blotto – the ONS study claims that only one in 50 young people in the 16-24 age range drank alcohol frequently in 2013. I do not know what the definition of “frequently” is for the study's purposes but it undoubtedly seems to be true that young people are generally not drinkers.

Drinkers at the National Winter Ales Festival, the 

Roundhouse, Derby

If my trip to the CAMRA National Winter Ales Festival in Derby on Thursday is anything to go by the middle-aged are most definitely the most boozy section of the populace. The festival was jam packed with mostly men of advancing or advanced years having a tipple or ten and our party consisting of the Pirate, Jolly Dave, Harry Stottle, Ant, the Coarse Whisperer and yours truly, was no exception. I was most probably the youngest person that I saw at the festival. A hot bed of youth it was not. In fact if you had taken a photograph of the throng of drinkers at the festival you could have entitled it Fifty Shades of Grey.

You can dress beer festivals up in a thin veneer of respectability by saying that attendees go primarily to taste different ales in a variety of styles or to be social and chatter and have a pleasant day out. But the bottom line is that a beer festival is just an easy excuse to drink all day without the stigma of doing it in the pub - they provide a snapshot of the boozy middle-aged underbelly of the drinkers of Britain that seem to have flown under the radar of the ONS study.

© Dominic Horton, February 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 108 – Castaway

Castaway

By Dominic Horton

I've long fantasised about going a whole weekend without touching a single drop of booze but not in the circumstances that I have found myself in the last few days. After gentle merriment in the Flagon & Gorses with Neddy La Chouffe and Jolly Dave on Thursday evening I found myself having to rise from my bed in the small hours to visit the toilet; there's nothing unusual about that in itself, as at least one sleep-interrupting comfort break is the norm for me these days but this time I didn't just need a routine pee but rather I was sick with all the violence of a gushing dam that has just been penetrated by one of Richard Todd's bouncing bombs.

Wilfrid Brambell as Albert Steptoe in Steptoe & Son

It took me a while to realise that I had not had the ill judgement to eat a Chinese takeaway from the Rhareli Peking after leaving the Flagon, so once I returned to bed feeling decidedly dicky I began to retrace what food I had eaten during Thursday to see if I could isolate what might by the cause of the vomiting: two rounds of peanut butter on toast; a Tesco Everyday Value range yogurt (that was in date); a banana (not on the turn - well, slightly on the turn maybe but nothing drastic); a Cadburys Caramel Freddo (a treat after going running); home-made tomato and lentil soup; tinned mackerel in teriyaki sauce (quickly becoming a favourite of mine) with plain rice and salad; and finally the obligatory packet of Mini Cheddars (or cheesy communion wafers as we call them) in the Flagon & Gorses to accompany the beer, which was of the best quality and not nausea inducing. So on the face of it nothing I had consumed during the course of Thursday had caused the biliousness that I had experienced. I put it down to being in the company of Neddy La Chouffe and Jolly Dave and tried, but failed, to get some sleep.

On Friday morning I was the antithesis of being as fresh as a daisy and I felt like I had been poisoned by an especially foul and repellent sauce that the chef at the Rhareli Peking, Mr Ping, reserves for those he dislikes the most, such as local authority health inspectors. I had a busy time of writing planned for Friday but I knew that the day was going to be a write off, so feeling rotten I had no option but to retreat back to bed and feel sorry for myself. I learnt during the course of the morning that I was most likely suffering from a stomach bug as my dear son Kenteke was off school with the same complaint so I had undoubtedly picked it up from him.

By Friday lunchtime I had stopped being sick but I'd had a belly full (ironically) of rolling around the bed holding my stomach and groaning like Albert Steptoe in the first Steptoe & Son film after he had contracted food poisoning in Benidorm. There was no use in my shouting out “Harold!!!” as I was alone in my Codger Mansions home, except for Alfie the teddy that is, and he has always proved useless in medical emergencies.

Jolly Dave caught playing air guitar in the Flagon
& Gorses, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Poking around the kitchen I quickly decided that I couldn't face trying to eat food, not even the most inoffensive sort - even the thought of dry toast took on the unpalatability of a typical lunch in the film Alive. At that very moment my mobile phone beeped and buzzed and a text from Pat Debilder asked, “Do you fancy some curry?” The master craftsman quipster Bob Monkhouse himself would have been overjoyed with the precision of the comic timing. Luckily I had my wits about me enough to realise that I would be an utter fool to hastily turn down Debilder's excellent homemade curry as it would come in handy once I was restored to full health in a few days time.

I had a shower to get rid of the odour-de-puke-in-de-toilette and after that I was in a condition to face a little television. I thought that I might as well make use of my newly acquired Chromecast device, which allows you to watch pictures on your TV screen that are being streamed on your computer. So I was off and away casting, which was very suitable as I was effectively castaway on my lonesome in Codger Mansions. I started to watch The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, a film that is so miserable that it makes the average edition Lowlife seem like Mary Poppins.  I was downbeat enough as it was given my ailment so I switched the film off and started to watch another, The Visitor starring Richard Jenkins, about a bloke who goes to his little used flat in New York only to find an illegal immigrant couple living in it.

The film had all the hallmarks of being a feel good movie - which is what I needed to lift my spirits - as after Jenkins' character had initially told the immigrants to f*ck off out of his flat he had a bout of sympathy and invited them to stay for a couple of nights while they were looking for a new place to stay. He struck up a friendship with the couple after the Syrian male taught him how to play the African drums. All was going swimmingly for a time but predictably things ended in sorrow and gloom as the Syrian ended up being deported and his mother decided to follow him, which Jenkins' character was not very pleased about as he has spent the best part of the latter stages of the film subtly trying to get her knickers off. She did get into bed with him once but it was inconclusive as to whether they actually did the business or not but it seems unlikely as she was upset at the time about her son being deported. I wish films would spell things out for clarity and not cloud things in ambiguity as I often find it frustrating. Even a quick note on the screen would suffice, in this case for example: “for the avoidance of doubt he tried it on but she wouldn't let him.”

The late Bob Monkhouse

I still felt very ropey on Saturday and I was in doubt as to whether I should go to Villa Park to watch my beloved Aston Villa struggle to fight off the menaces of the title contending Chelsea. In the end I thought that getting out in the fresh air might do me some good and I must have been the only Villa fan going to the game that day who was doing so for an uplifting tonic. After pluckily leveling the score to 1-1 Villa eventually decided that it simply would not be sporting to let a decent team like Chelsea leave Villa Park with less than all three points, so they charitably donated a goal to opposition late on in the game so that the visitors could win 2-1. The result ensured that I was restored to being as sick as a parrot.

Earlier in the week I had arranged to meet Harry Gout in the Flagon & Gorses for a drink at Sunday tea time but my state by then was still highly delicate and I decided with a heavy heart that quaffing pints with Gout was not a sensible past-time to partake in at that moment. But late in the evening the walls of Codger Mansions started to close in (and they haven't got far to go with it being a Victorian terraced house) and I made a dash for last orders at the Flagon. So my fantasy of a dry weekend was dashed by a mere splash of beer at last knockings on Sunday. The sober Friday, Saturday and Sunday was a dryathalon but within sight of the finishing line I pulled my hamstring and failed to complete the race.

Richard Jenkins and Haaz Sleiman in The Visitor

I was greeted by the sight of the usual surly Sunday night inmates in the Flagon. I had a sip of beer and it took my body quite a while to reach a decision but eventually it reported back to me that while it was not wholly pleased about the introduction of the alcohol into my system that it was not going to reject it outright. It was an odd and virtually unprecedented situation for me to be stone cold sober in the Flagon late on the Sabbath. Mind you, if I had of been three sheets to the wind Colly Coren's glaring emerald green jeans were enough to sober up any man.

Coren said to me that he had been catching up on editions of Lowlife and that he had read seven that day. I instinctively thought that seven editions is too much for anyone to cope with in one go so I think I need to put a health warning on future editions: “The Department of Health recommends that you do not read any more than three editions of this column in any one day and that each edition is taken after meals as it might put you off your dinner if you read it beforehand.” If you decide to ignore the health advice then on your head be it but be warned: you might even struggle to get down a piece of dry toast. 

© Dominic Horton, February 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 107 – A Fox in the Henhouse

A Fox in the Henhouse

By Dominic Horton

Being a writer I like to be around creative types so it was a treat on Thursday to be in the company of three such persons; the artists Louise Blakeway, Fran Wilde and Elena Thomas. I was attending an exhibition of Elena Thomas's work at Artspace in Dudley (http://www.artspacedudley.com/) entitled Nine Women and also viewing the work of Louise Blakeway at the same venue. The Nine Women exhibition includes intricately embroidered women's brassieres that are hung from the ceiling on suspenders – no, not that type of suspenders, there was not a stocking in sight. Stockings and suspenders and bras would be too much for any Benny Hill loving man to bare. Staying with the spirit of Benny Hill, the bra-themed exhibition was fascinating so I bet it has received a lot of praise and favourable comments but it is bound to also have some knockers.

A fox in the henhouse, by request of Toby In-Tents. 

Elena's drawings of the bras are also on display at the exhibition. The drawings are on tracing paper and you can see that there is another drawing of the bra underneath but it is obscured by the tracing paper drawing on top – so in many ways it is like a bra on a woman as I was left thinking, “I wonder what it looks like underneath?”

The embroidered bras and drawings are accompanied by nine songs that the multi-talented Elena has written and is in the process of recording (she has recorded three to date). On one of the songs Helena sings a capella and it struck me that when you hear unaccompanied singing you tend to listen more closely to the song and the lyrics. You don't always need to shout to be heard, sometimes the quiet, subtle approach works best. I wish some drinkers in pubs would learn this lesson as some of them make a terrible din.

We are lucky in the Flagon & Gorses as other than a few notable exceptions we don't tend to get many shouters in the pub. But that is certainly not the case in the pub down the road from me and in the summer when customers are in the beer garden you can hear their boisterous racket in my Codger Mansions dwelling. It might be the case that all the drinkers in the pub used to work in the textile industry, operating noisy machines and are now hard of hearing and need to shout to each other to be heard. Either that or they are young men and women who are p*ssed and have a lack of consideration for neighbouring households as a consequence.

Elena showed us a lot of consideration at the exhibition and not only did she take the time to chat to me about her work but she also offered me tea and delicious cake, which she had made herself, displaying another string to her creative bow. I only have one string to my creative bow so if that snaps I am doomed and it is under great strain as it is.

One of the intricately embroidered bras from Elena 

Thomas's Nine Women exhibition. 

After the Nine Women exhibition I viewed paintings and work by the artist Louise Blakeway in another room in the Artspace building. Lou is a friend of mine and she was also present so again I was able to listen to the artist talk about her work. Three small charcoal portraits were exhibited of artists who have influenced Louise, including Beryl Bainbridge. Lou explained that she burnt some old court papers from an unpleasant case she was involved in and used the ashes to draw the portraits, which I thought was a very creative and intelligent way of turning a negative into a positive.

I love Louise's work and I fleetingly thought about buying a piece, which would sit rather nicely in my Codger Mansions living room and would complete my recent decorations but I couldn't justify the expenditure not being in paid employment at the moment. If I abstain and steer clear of the Flagon & Gorses for a month I could use the monies to buy a painting that I have my eye on but there is more chance of the Pirate voting UKIP than that happening.

The Nine Women exhibition reminded me that I accidentally took women's studies as part of my degree at Worcester University twenty odd years ago when my brain could cope with learning new things. I originally signed up to do a course module on social psychology but at the first lecture I was told that due to an administration error by the university the course was over subscribed and I would have to leave and find another course. There were only two courses with spaces available within my sphere of social studies, one that I had no interest in (I forget what it was) and women's studies, so I subscribed to the latter.

Benny Hill in typical pose.

I turned up early to the first women's studies lecture and settled down at a desk awaiting my fellow students. After a few minutes the lecturer breezed in with a number of students behind her and seeing me she said, “I think that you are in the wrong classroom, this is women's studies.” I of course explained that on the contrary, I was in exactly the right room as I had singed up to the course. By now the class was filling up and all of the students were women, and a general discussion and rumpus followed and many of the students looked aghast at the thought of me joining them. It was explained to me that the situation was unprecedented as a man had never taken up women's studies before and a few of the more outspoken students were not shy in telling me that this was a space for women only and that I should leave.

As things started to get heated the lecturer politely asked me to leave the room in order that a debate could be held on the matter as there were differing opinions as to whether I should be allowed to take the course. Battle lines seemed to be drawn between the radical feminists, who wanted me out off the course, and the liberal feminists, who felt that I should be allowed to stay. I obligingly took myself off to the cafeteria for a cuppa while the women in the group had their ideological bun fight.

After half an hour or so I was called back to the battlefield and I was told to my delight that a ballot had been held and by majority the women students had voted that I should stay on the course. It was clear though that there were a number of very disgruntled students and looking at the faces around the room I hazarded that the vote must have been very close. Personally I would have voted for kicking me off the course, not because I am a man but because at the time I used to dress very shabbily. The lecturer should have caveated the ballot's outcome by telling me, “you can stay on the course but as a minimum you will need to have a shave, comb your hair and introduce your clothes to a washing machine. And a collar wouldn't go amiss.”

My dear son Kenteke at the Hope Not Hate
Balloon release. 

Once I had infiltrated the women's studies course I was like a fox in the henhouse and when we were discussing things in class I knew exactly what to say to agitate the other students for sport and to get their blood boiling, especially the radical feminists and when they were contending what I said and their anger was rising to a peak I would always say, “I am only playing Devil's advocate.”

Being from Halesowen I thought that I might feel like an imposter on Saturday when together with my dear son Kenteke I attended an event arranged by the organisation Hope not Hate (http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/) at St John's Parish Hall in Dudley to celebrate multiculturalism in the town. But not a bit of it, I was made to feel completely at home by the lovely people from Hope not Hate and by members of the Dudley Borough Interfaith Network, who I chatted to at length. The event was organised to help foster community integration ahead of a planned rally by the English Defence League in Dudley next weekend. The event was an unmitigated success and people from all ethnicities, beliefs and backgrounds intermingled and enjoyed the free food, music and activities on offer, such as helping to paint a mural of Dudley with my artist friend Maren. There was a wonderfully warm and happy atmosphere in the church hall and a lot of smiling faces.

The highlight of the event was a mass balloon release on the car park of the hall. You had to write a message of hope on a piece of card that was attached to the balloon and everyone was asked to release their balloons in unison once the signal was given. It was a joyous sight seeing hundreds of balloons making their way to the skies with their messages of hope but there was a strong wind that carried my balloon into a nearby tree, where it got lodged, so for me it was less a question of hope and more a case of hopeless.  

© Dominic Horton, February 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com