Lowlife 49 - Lord of the Mildgraines

Lord of the Mildgraines

By Dominic Horton

I have developed a new hobby this past week: having migraines (or in my case, given that I am partial to a drop of dark beer they would be better known as mildgraines.) Having reached my fourth decade without having indulged in a migraine it was not a pastime that I ever expected to partake in but on Tuesday last while I was sitting at my desk at work I suddenly experienced flashing lights and partial blindness; it was a little bit like watching the Aurora Borealis but unlike the Northern Lights it was not very pleasant. Being from Halesowen I should have said that it was like watching the Midlands lights but if I had told the doctor on Monday morning that I have suffered attacks of the Walsall Arboretums I would most likely have been diagnosed with another mental disorder to add to the collection.

In case it was important to her diagnosis I did tell the doctor that I have in the past had a complaint known as labyrinthitus (where the sufferer feels permanently dizzy [much like the members of the Spice Girls]) and that I suffer from anxiety disorder but she gave me that stare that I think most of us have experienced which seemed to say, “I'm the f*cking doctor here, not you pal.” Given that the surgery was packed with bodies like a busy London tube train the doc quickly took my blood pressure, looked into my eyes (which must have been a harrowing experience for her) and shooed me out of her surgery with a diagnosis of virus induced mildgraines advising me to take a few days off work and the mild and to rest.

There has been a proliferation in recent years of clothing, posters and goods of all manner on the “keep calm and carry on” theme but they are of little use to us suffers of anxiety disorder who need a different range of products to reflect the way we experience our lives. I did see a T-shirt at a beer festival a little while ago that read something like, “I don't want to keep calm and carry on so f*ck off” (I didn't buy it as the design was poor and substantially I don't wear T-shirts anyway as I prefer to wear a collar) but it would be more fitting if I had a T-shirt that states, “I would love to keep calm and carry on but I suffer from anxiety disorder so I find that difficult. So f*ck off.” I do however like to see Private Jones in the enduring and endearing comedy series Dad's Army counsel his superior, “Don't panic Mr Mainwaring!” while paradoxically going into a hysterical frenzy himself.

On his recent visit to these shores from Australia my fellow scribing crony DG Depardieu was uncharacteristically wearing a coat with a “No Fear” logo. I suspect DG had borrowed the coat from one of his brothers and had not heeded its design or make as he pays less attention to his appearance than Albert Steptoe. Again, the “No Fear” clothing range is hardly suitable for me given my anxiety and as the names of clothing brands need to be concise and punchy I suppose I would need it to be changed to something like “Brickin' it.” Fearlessness is a trait that is generally held in high esteem in society but it could lead to recklessness as the presence of fear can mean that one makes a more rational judgement. Additionally, bravery to my mind is undertaking an action despite being fearful, like going on a day out drinking with the Pirate, as notwithstanding all of his charms the man can be a social hand grenade.

One chap who seems like a fearless sort is Frodo Baggins and Friday night saw the Codger Mansions premier of the first film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which my dear son Kenteke watched wide eyed and transfixed. There was no red carpet treatment for the premier as I have laminate flooring at Codger Mansions and the best I could muster is a welcome mat that, like the Pirate, has seen better days. Baggins is of course tasked with the unenviable challenge of taking the bedevilled ring to be destroyed to save life in the Shire as they know it but if I had been in his shoes (metaphorically speaking of course as hobbits as you know do not wear shoes [or carpet slippers etc.]) I would have chucked the accursed ring in the cut and proceeded straight to Mordor Wetherspoons, which would have made for a short film I grant you. Frodo asks the wise old Gandalf how he will know where to take the ring and the sage replied, “just follow your nose”, which again in my case would have lead me to Mordor Wetherspoons, being blessed like most drinkers with being able to root out a pub like a pig in the Dordogne sniffing out truffles.

Given his half pint stature it is surprising that Frodo Baggins was chosen for such a momentous job. I wouldn't even trust the diminutive Fudgkins to go on a quest down the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away to get beef fried rice and curry sauce for me off my arch nemesis the Baby Faced Assassin. One character in the film who is anything but diminutive is the terrifying goodie turned baddie Saruman, played by the now nonagenarian actor Sir Christopher Lee. Poor old Lee is probably sick to his hind teeth (or fangs) of playing evil monsters and I can just see him turning up to the rehearsals of the film begging the films director Peter Jackson to let him play a kindly hobbit, only to be swiftly rebuffed.

 

At one point the wizardly Gandalf is having a bit of a barny with a malevolent monster who didn't seem in the best of moods and the elderly sorcerer suggests to the monster, “go back to the shadows” but disappointingly the slow witted monster missed out on retorting with what would have been the cheap line of, “who the f*ck do you think I am, Cliff Richard.” But it was certainly no summer holiday for the old duffer Gandalf.

Being full of sagacity Gandalph punctuates the movie with his philosophical insights and at one point he forewarns Baggins, “to bear a ring of power is to be alone.” Gandalph could well have substituted the words “to bear a ring of power” with “to be a writer” as writing is mostly by its very nature a lonely occupation and no doubt the underlying melancholy in this pages makes you miserable but I make no excuses as A J Carr explained in his book How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup, “An Englishman is partial to doom talk,” which certainly is the case with my younger brother and landlord Roger the Codger.

  

My other landlord the Pirate, being the governor of the Flagon & Gorses, has had an eventful week. Wednesday last the Pirate had an altercation with a chair in the bar of the Flagon after the staff Christmas meal, which left the chair minus an arm. Most pubs have a one arm bandit but the Flagon now has a one arm chair. At least you can't “do your boll*cks” (as the gambling phrase goes) on a one arm chair though I suppose you could hurt your boll*cks if you hastily sit down in an awkward fashion. The Pirate also had an unusual but not necessarily unpleasant dream where he was £14 overdrawn at the bank. I think the Pirate has hit on something as contrary to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is to be exactly £14 overdrawn at the bank and not £42 in credit. Incidentally, when Jimi Hendrix died in 1971 it was reported that after effectively being exploited by his management he only had £17 in his Martin's bank account; if only he had spent £31 he still might be alive today and sitting pretty in his red house over yonder.

 

I conclude this week by returning to an earlier theme; coincidentally the official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy companion by Neil Gaiman was entitled Don't Panic, which is something that I am desperately trying to do right now in my Codger Mansions bolt hole as I can feel the unwelcome and untimely onset of another dreaded and highly inconvenient mildgraine.

© Dominic Horton, December, 2013.

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 48 - Voodoo Chiles

Voodoo Chiles

By Dominic Horton

As I am sure you know sadly an important world figure of our time passed away this week leaving a gaping void in the lives of many.  Rest in peace Lewis Collins, the actor famed for his role as Bodie in the TV cop series The Professionals.  Nelson Mandela has also died.

After Mandela’s death was announced on Thursday crowds quickly gathered outside his home and danced and sang well into the night, causing a right old racket.  This behaviour was deemed to be perfectly normal in South Africa but it is anathema to us British, who prefer to leave mourning families be, so such a performance in England would have been greeted with shouts of “turn it in!” by the deceased’s family followed by cold buckets of water being thrown from the bedroom window at the revellers below.

Despite all of the wonderful work of Mandela and his successors in South Africa Lowlife’s South African reporter, Desmond Dekka, informs me that there is still a lot of racism in the country despite apartheid coming to an end many years ago.  Poverty and financial inequalities are highly prevalent in South Africa and such inequities are also still very much in evidence in Britain making it our own form of apartheid but on grounds of class and not race.  British government figures published in 2009 show that in 2003 1% of the population owned approximately a fifth of the UK's marketable wealth and half shared only 7% of the total wealth.  Food for thought, and given the rising use of food banks that I have written about in these pages previously, food for thought is the only food that some people who are struggling to make ends meet can afford.

Anyway, it is a little known fact that the whole apartheid system in South Africa was born out of a simple misunderstanding after a comment by Nationalist Party leader Daniel Francois Malan prior to the election in 1948, following which apartheid was officially introduced.  Apparently when Malan said “we must separate the whites from the darks” he was not referring to the ethnicity of the South African populous but he was dictating a memo to his secretary to be sent to his wife concerning the laundry.  Malan was fed up of having to wear shirts tinged with pink after they had been washed with his wife’s frilly red knickers.   By the time the misunderstanding came to light the wheels of apartheid legislation were in motion and Malan was too embarrassed to say anything and given that he had the luxury of wearing pristine white shirts by then he didn’t care a jot anyway.

Unlike when Princess Diana died, the outpouring of emotion and tributes following Mandela’s demise has been fully justified given the greatness and international appeal of the man.   At Craven Cottage on Sunday prior to the Fulham Vs Aston Villa match I joined the other spectators in a minute’s applause to celebrate Mandela’s life and achievements and I pondered what other figure would command such respect following her/ his passing (other than Lewis Collins of course.)   I doubt whether even the Queen will be clapped so enthusiastically at football grounds once she is gone, especially at Celtic Park.

It is odd that when I heard of the news of Mandela’s death the two things that immediately sprang to mind related back to my home county of the West Midlands.  Firstly, the song Free Nelson Mandela rang around my head and of course the wonderful pop protest song was written by Jerry Dammers, who is from Coventry.  Secondly, I was reminded of Mandela’s visit to Ireland in 1990 in order to be awarded Freedom of the City.  Mandela’s landing at Dublin airport coincided with the return of the Ireland football squad from their successful campaign at the World Cup Italia ’90 where Paul McGrath (who played for Aston Villa at the time, hence the West Midlands connection) was one of the team’s heroes.   The Ireland fans had a chant which went, “ooh aah Paul McGrath” so when Mandela (who looked like an older version of McGrath) emerged from the plane on the runway the crowd spontaneously started to sing, “ooh aah it’s Paul McGrath’s Da.”

During his life the great man was immortalised when they decided to name Del Boy Trotter’s tower block in Peckam Nelson Mandela House but it is university students who have conspired to ensure that the name of Mandela’s old mucker Desmond Tutu will be remembered for ever more by referring to a 2:2 degree as a “Desmond.”

As I have alluded to above, after obtaining a weekend pass from the Pirate at the Flagon & Gorses I partook in a rare trip outside of the parish of Halesowen and surrounding areas last weekend to visit the Smoke with Tom Holliday, Desmond Dekka and Gill & Yan Johnett to watch two games of football and to generally have a bit of a jolly up.  I have always thought that London is a different world from the provisional and sleepy Halesowen and this view was cemented as soon as I stepped on the tube at Marylebone as a woman on there was sitting down brushing her teeth.  We are always told that the pace of life in London is relentless but not even having time to brush one’s teeth before leaving the house is a bridge too far from civilised behaviour in my estimation.   It was not until later that I wondered where the woman spat out the toothpaste.  On Sunday morning in Fulham three residents were in such a rush to attend to whatever business they had in hand that they walked the streets in their pyjamas and dressing gowns and only my fellow Midland cohorts and I seemed bemused by the sight. 

We encountered another strange practice on visiting a restaurant in Fulham when the waiter served my and Tom’s main meals before he had brought out the starter.  When we queried this he stated that is what they do there, the meals come out in any old order and another waiter confirmed this.  I am glad that I didn’t order a dessert as that presumably would have been my starter.   

On Thursday the performance of Mother Goose at Netherton Arts Centre was all in the right order and my dear son Kenteke and I thoroughly enjoyed the play.   A lovely old Gentleman sat next to us and we got talking in the way that you do and he announced that he will be 90 years of age come his next birthday.  In the week when the government announced that the retirement age is to be extended to 70 years of age I speculated that I am unlikely to see my 90^th birthday as gas prices are rising so steeply that by the time I reach old age the winter fuel allowance will only pay for one day’s heating so I will most probably freeze to death.    I won’t even be able to keep warm in the local library as given local authority cut backs it will be long closed down by then.   My lack of savings or any assets of value together with a miserly work pension means that I am likely to have a miserable dotage and the thought of larking around Halesowen for amusement Last of the Summer Wine style with Tony In-Tents and Chompa Babbee does not appeal.

On the subject of oldies my Flagon associate Harry Stottle has been compared to Private Godfrey from Dad’s Army this week by the cruel and teasing Pirate, but what the Pirate doesn’t realise is that if Stottle is Godfrey it makes him Captain Mainwaring, who of course was a power crazy buffoon.  Thinking about it, if the Pirate is Mainwaring that means I am Pike but at least the Pirate referring to me as a “stupid boy” will make a change from him calling me a ****.

Talking of ****s I was horrified to hear the irritating voice of Adrian Chiles being broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live’s Drive programme the other day.   Having have got rid of the pompous cretin once it is beyond belief that the BBC have invited Chiles back after his poor performances as a sports broadcaster on ITV.  I can only imagine that Chiles must have some dirt on the BBC’s Director General Lord Hall of Birkenhead, or Tony Hall to give him his less grand moniker.   Or maybe the West Bromwich Albion supporting broadcaster has been practising the occult in order to hoodwink the BBC into giving him a job again, in which case he would be a Voodoo Chiles.   Either way at least if I allow Chiles’s grating tones to ring around Codger Mansions via the radio it might scare off the nasty Pesci flies that I told you about last week.

© Dominic Horton, December 2013.

Lowlife 47 - Once more unto the Breach

Once more unto the Breach

Like every other sane person (and probably many insane ones) I do not like having to drag myself out of bed in the morning but necessity (as well as being the mother of invention) dictates that rising at an early hour is unavoidable due to having to go to work to keep the wheels of the drudgery of life rolling.  In my case the wheels are corroded and have balding tyres but they carry on with their rotation, stoically, nonetheless.  So getting up in the morning to face the day is a case of “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” to see what the new day brings. 

I attacked with Churchillian gusto the task of trying to transform into something palatable the foul batch of carrot and coriander soup that I made (see Lowlife 46) and I decided that it might make a passable pasta sauce.  But despite enhancing the brew with what amounted to a farmer’s field full of carrots it still failed to taste even remotely like the vegetable and no amount of herbs or condiments could bring out the flavour.  I did eat one helping of the resultant dish and I told myself that it was mind over matter, but the matter in question was stodgy, ghastly and had a confusion of sickly flavours, all seemingly competing against each other.  Not even the Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway would have served it up.  So unlike Churchill I had to wave a white tea towel and admit defeat. 

Not even a rousing speech by Churchill could have stirred up the sorry and cheerless handful of inmates I found in the Flagon & Gorses on Sunday when I crossed the pub’s threshold at tea time.  The old place is normally thriving and lively at that hour on the Sabbath but many of the usual Flaggoners had deserted their posts and were absent without leave, which meant that only a few of the regiment remained to solider on.   It took a while for reinforcements to arrive, just in the nick of time before I became too demoralised and dispirited to carry on but things turned from the substandard to the ridiculous when Chilli Willy produced a big box of brand new Christmas trimmings to replace the antique, dog eared and sullied ones that usually adorn the pub during the festive season which have been wheeled out more times at Christmas than Morecambe & Wise.

I’m depressed by Christmas already and it is only the first week of December.  I am sure that putting up Christmas decorations too early leads to bad luck and I do not want misfortune visiting the Flagon, as happened to the Clutha Vaults pub in Glasgow last Friday night when a helicopter tragically crashed into it.  I am sure that putting up the Christmas tree so early would not please the mythical pub dwelling festive ghoul, the Ghost of Christmas P*ssed.

The bad luck brought on by the premature hanging of trimmings in the Flagon might account for the insect bites that have appeared on my legs this week, causing the kind of irritation I used to get from Derek Jameson on BBC Radio 2 in the morning.  One expects insect bites in joyful summertime, especially after being in the great outdoors wearing short trousers, but it is rotten fortune to obtain them in the midst of winter.  I have not even got a flea-riddled pet to blame the insect bites on so I had to launch an official investigation at Codger Mansions.  As regular readers will know the Mansions are a veritable menagerie of insects but usually only spiders, wood lice and earwigs are on show, none of which I would expect to display the Norman Hunter quality of biting legs. 

After scrutinising all corners of the house I found a number of pesky flies in the shower (in fact they must be more like Pecsi flies, as they are small but violent and cause harm like Joe Pecsi’s character Tommy DeVito in the Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas.)  This all culminated in my trailing round B&Q and spending nearly four quid on a special liquid that purports to kill all known life in drains, 100% guaranteed.   All was well the day after pouring the noxious liquid down the shower drain and there was no sign of the dreaded Pesci flies, so I deemed the procedure to be a resounding success.  But this morning, to my horror, I spied one of the diminutive flies nestling on the bathroom mirror and when I approached it to swat it I found that my attempt to kill him and his comrades off had heightened their aggressiveness as he stared at me and menacingly snarled Pesci style, “Are you looking at me?!”

So it is back to the drawing board.  It might be a case of me having to arrange a sit down with the Don of the Pesci fly family to try to reach a compromise on the issue.  The matter is now complex because even people with a basic understanding of insect Mafioso rules know that you can’t simply go around killing a made fly, a Capo, without the nod from the Boss.

Anyway, this insect bite business means my regime of having to use various creams and potions on my body for a variety of ailments and needs has reached ridiculous proportions.  I have eczema so I use prescription cream for that (which costs £7.85 for a tiny tube which is not much bigger than a super glue tube [incidentally you no longer hear stories of people getting stuck to toilet seats in public lavatories after some devilish practical joker smeared super glue on the seat]) and it also means that I have to use moisturiser after a shower or bath; I use lip balm for dry lips, especially in the winter; a permanent athlete’s foot problem means I use a remedy for that (I can practically hear the laughter of ex-football team mates who know that the use of the word “athlete” in reference to me is tantamount to a breach of the Trades Description Act); and now the Cosa Nostra insect bite difficultly means that I am having to slaver Savlon over my legs to relieve the itching.  All in all I get through more cream that a quaint tea shop in Cornwall.

It is not Mafia insects that are irritating the FA and the Premier League at the moment but the increasing use of flares at football grounds, so the BBC announced this week that the footballing authorities are to take measures to enforce their ban on them.   To my mind the ban has come nearly 40 years too late as if flares had been outlawed in football grounds long ago marauding Scottish fans in bell bottomed jeans would not have ruined the goalposts at Wembley in the Auld Enemy international game in 1977.

Trousers are again a sore subject for me this week.  My on-going headache of trying to purchase decently cut (yet cheap) chinos for work lead me to trawling the internet and I hazarded upon the website of men’s clothes retailer Austin Reed.  Reed’s clothes are normally too rich for my peasant blood but they had a sale on and I captured a pair of classy looking chinos at a surprisingly competitive price.  (By the way, I wear the cotton based chino at work due to the eczema problem alluded to hitherto as they are more kind to the skin than formal trousers.)  The trousers arrived on Wednesday only for me to find that despite them being my regular size the waist was marginally too taught for me to wear them but despite this I have decided to keep them to act as an incentive to lose weight.   This is probably a less than sensible tactic given that Christmas and all its associated consumption of food and booze is on the horizon but at least the inspiration of finally squeezing into the chinos will keep me away from the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway.

The purchase of clothing items is always fraught with difficulty for me given that I am what psychologist Elaine N. Aron calls a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), otherwise known as a right fussy b*stard.   That said, when I recently bought a pair of shoes I bought some at the first shop I entered.  A rather fetching pair of black and tan brogues quickly caught my eye and I think that they are the most alluring pair of shoes I have ever seen and given that they were half price in a sale I transacted without haste.  I have had at least a dozen compliments regarding the shoes, which is highly unusual because even if people like something they are usually too miserable to mention it.   The shoes are in fact so pleasant that just to have the pleasure of wearing them it is worth getting out of bed in the morning.

© Dominic Horton, December 2013.

Lowlife 46 – Swimming against the Tide

Swimming against the Tide

Life can sometimes be like swimming to the shore against the tide and just when you get near the shore a big wave comes along and pushes you back from your goal.  On the beach you can see people enjoying themselves, playing games, reading books whilst sunbathing, eating ice creams and they all seem to be laughing and smiling and having a great time so you swim even harder as you desperately want to get there to join them but again a big wave sends you back to whence you were before.  All of this is exhausting but you know you can’t give up as the only other option is to drown, to sink into the deep and cold oblivion.   But if you do eventually make it to the beach it might be night and all of the people might be gone and if you are no longer struggling in the sea time could weigh heavy on your hands inviting thoughts of loneliness, doubt and desolation.   At least toiling along in the sea, striving to swim to the shore, there was hope to cling onto.

As you can see from the above, I have been in a chirpy mood this week.

Willy Mantitt was in a chirpy mood on Friday with it being his birthday but only up to the point of opening his present from his beloved Mrs Manitt, which knocked the spring out of his step as it was revealed to be a full BUPA medical examination, including a prostate check.  Little did Mantitt know that the gift from his spouse would culminate in him being fully exposed in a surgery with a cold handed doctor shoving his fingers up Willy’s aris.   Not my idea of happy returns.   I have heard of people being gifted experience days but this is a new one on me and it is not quite as exciting as getting to drive a Ferrari around Brands Hatch.   The thought of Murray Walker commentating on Mattitt’s prostate check procedure did at least make me titter. 

Titter ye not was the order of the day in the middle of the night on Friday when I was awoke in my bed by chilling screams from my next door neighbour who seemed to be having a nightmare the scale of which put my regular night terrors into the shade.  I haven’t heard my neighbour screaming like that before so my guess is that the phantasm that habitually visits and plagues me at night had one too many and ended up in the wrong house.   We’ve all been there.  Given the success of the phantasm in eliciting a horrified reaction from my neighbour he might stick with him in the future and leave me alone, which would be a welcome relief for me after I have had to put up with his demonic hauntings for the last quarter of a century.  That said my poor neighbour might not have been dreaming at all but he might have been watching the cricket and screeching at the dismal batting collapse by England in first Ashes test match against the Aussies. 

The family of poor Moritz Erhardt have been having a waking nightmare this weak as the 21 year old German died of an epileptic fit after working 72 hours straight in the city for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.  Erhardt’s tragic demise has highlighted concerns that young city bankers are being put under undue pressure to work unreasonably long hours to further their careers.  As I also work for a bank I can feel a wave of concern for my welfare from all my contacts and associates but they need not worry as I do not plan to work three days straight but to stick to my usual time frame for working 72 hours which is roughly a fortnight.    Working seven hours on the bounce is more than enough for me but unlike young city bankers I am destined more for the scrapheap than for greatness and riches.   It is just as well, as I don’t think I would look right in red braces and a handmade suit though the ridiculously big bonus would, well, be a bonus.   

Christmas looms large and the goose is not getting fat and worse, I haven’t even got a goose.   And if I did have such a bird he wouldn’t be a happy chappy living in the bleak garden at Codger Mansions though he would at least get some nourishment if I took him for a walk up the Flagon & Gorses where the kindly parishioners of the pub would feed him with pork scratchings.  

It will soon be time to drag the Christmas tree out of the cupboard for its annual airing.  It is a pitiful sight.  It is one of those synthetic trees that you simply unfold and it already has the lights attached, so like meals from the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway it is high on convenience and low on taste.   Even when enhanced by a bauble or two the tree looks more barren than Duncan Goodhew’s head and standing there wistful and forlorn in the living room it has the appearance of an umbrella that has lost its cover in a violent gale. 

Mention of the festive season brings me onto the Lowlife Christmas appeal.  The horrific and tragic tale of Toby In-Tents tipping a whole bottle of Ouzo down the sink as he “didn’t think anyone would want it” (see Lowlife 37) highlighted the inexplicable phenomenon of people having unwanted booze in their cabinets and larders that is gathering dust, only to be disturbed on the death of the owner or a house move.   If you have any superfluous alcohol in your storage do not leave it unloved, unwanted and abandoned and do not turn it out callously onto the streets but donate it to the Lowlife Christmas appeal so it can be rehoused in a home where it will be cherished an appreciated, namely Codger Mansions.

Despite stories to the contrary in the media, booze, even purchased from supermarkets, is not cheap and a night out in the pub is even more expensive so many people are struggling to afford to go out in these times of austerity.  With this in mind it was with great surprise this week that I learnt that according to the official National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles that sex is on the downturn as apparently modern life is turning people off it.   Instead of the recession leading people to indulge in the free (or at least cheap) act of having a bit of slap and tickle it is actually having the opposite effect.  Dr Cath Mercer, from University College London, said: "People are worried about their jobs, worried about money.  They are not in the mood for sex.”    The study also suggested that modern technologies are also getting in the way of sex as gadget obsessed individuals are busy p*ssing around with their tablets, mobile telephones and laptops instead of fiddling with their partner.  Couples could try to incorporate their gadgets into their sex lives to kill two birds with one stone as mobile telephones do vibrate after all.

The study found that the average person has sex five times a month, which must be once a week and additionally once more for good behaviour.  Chance would be a fine thing.  Apparently even men aged between 65 to 74 have sex on average 2.3 times per month which means that my septuagenarian friends Tomachezki and Harry Stottle are getting it more often than I am.  The 0.3 in 2.3 must account for times when the act is prematurely ended after one of the participants false teeth fall out, being the ultimate passion killer.

The reek of the foul soup that I brewed yesterday would be another passion killer if a lady ever dared to venture over the threshold of Codger Mansions.  Other than a few notable exceptions my soup making prowess is generally pretty good so I was disappointed with myself for making a hash of a veritable cauldron of carrot and coriander soup, which I concocted in order to use up a number of carrots that were on the turn, as I am not in the habit of throwing food away.  In fact if I had made a hash instead of soup it might have turned out better.  I now have the task of trying to rescue the batch of the odd and unappetisingly coloured liquid and I think even the Red Adair of the soup world would struggle to get the situation under control.   In my experience a dish that has gone wrong is almost impossible to successfully turn around.   The main problem with the soup was the lack of carrots and the abundance of coriander but cooking, like life, can be a fine balancing act.   But unlike the daring, legendary trapeze artist Charles Blondin (who amongst other feats tight roped over Niagara Gorge, sitting down half way to cook and eat an omelette) my sense of balance is poor which is why I fall down so often, in the metaphorical and not the literal sense.   But I get myself up, dust myself down and defiantly in the face of adversity start the long and wearisome swim to the shore once again.

© Dominic Horton, November 2013.

Lowlife 45 – Cheesy Does It

Cheesy Does It

It was the second cheese night in the Flagon & Gorses on Monday (or The Revenge of the Killer Cheese) and I learnt the following fromage fundamentals: firstly, a cheese based meal is more calorific than any counterpart known to human kind (in the spirit of equality I have avoided the phrase “known to man”) and leaves the partaking diner’s stomach leaden and bloated to such an extent that the drinking of beer post meal is almost impossible.  Secondly, it takes the body’s internal organs a minimum of three days (under protest) to digest an excess of cheese and no amount of water/ beer/ sundry fluid can accelerate the process.  Thirdly, cheese, more than any other food stuff (including but not limited to stuffing) induces a proliferation of farting in the consumer to such a degree that a cheese fest can provide a person with one’s own self-propelled jet pack.   On the cheese night the Flagon’s uncompromisingly incomparable custodian, the Pirate, went into flatulence overdrive (Flatulence Overdrive could be a third rate 70’s prog rock band) and produced a world heavyweight champion like demonstration of bum burpery not seen since the days of the fabled Gassius Clay.

Before the Pirate farts he arches his back or lifts his leg in order to get exactly the right position for the gust to make its egress from his bum cheeks in a display of such delicate choice of angle not seen since Dennis Taylor potted the black in the concluding frame of the 1985 snooker World Championship final.

The old adage of course is that eating cheese in the evening inevitably leads to nightmares but I did not have one on Monday so it is now clear that the phantasm that visits me weekly has a dislike of Stinking Bishop.  Eating cheese every night to ward of my enduring, sleep inhabiting ghoul is not a realistic option for the reasons described above so I await his next visit in the coming days.  I might even bake him a cake but I had better not make it a cheesecake.  

I think I have foxed the phantasm recently though as I have taken to falling asleep on the sofa, only to wake in the middle of the night fully clad in a confused state.  I find sofa sleeping not properly restful.  It has oft been said that an hour’s sleep before midnight is worth two after but I contend that an hour’s sleep on the sofa is worth half an hour in bed.  Being a poor mathematician I am not sure what an hour’s sleep on the sofa before midnight equates to and I dread the day when my dear son Kenteke asks me to help him with his algebra homework.  The only vaguely algebraic calculations I understand are things such as: friend = DG Lowe = from Dudley, where people for yes say “r”; friend – r = fiend, therefore DG Lowe is a fiend. 

After conducting a quick physical inventory on awaking on Tuesday my overriding feeling was one of bloatedness, a condition that I despise.  I was also rendered a little on the nauseous side and given that this was due to a gluttonous surfeit of cheese I could hardly counteract it with my usual remedy of Mini Cheddars as that would have been simply fanning the flames of the fire.   I needed some of the exotic, green liquid that one woman gave to another whilst I was watching a brief clip of the film Flash Gordon on Sunday.  The conversation between the two women went like this: Woman 1: “Drink some of this it will do you good”; Woman 2: “Will it make me forget”; Woman 1: “No, but it will make you not mind remembering.”  The dialogue could easily have been between the Pirate and an aspiring beer drinker in the Flagon & Gorses.

If I was quickly catapulted to power in a banana republic style coup the first thing I would do is be tough on bloat and tough on the causes of bloat.  This inevitably means that cheese would be rationed, but I would make no excuse for this.  You can’t, after all, make an omelette without breaking eggs.  Come to think of it, I would ration eggs as well as they are another bloat inducing foodstuff.  In terms of self-induced ailment, in my book being bloated is worse than being hung over or having bowel difficulties after eating spicy food purporting to be based on recipes from the sub-continent but in actuality originate from Sparkbrook.  But like Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.

Talking of my book it reminds me that my crony DG Depardieu, the writer of rodent based children’s literature, this week kindly gave me valuable written feedback on a piece of work that I have been scribbling.  DG suggested that I needed to put more of myself into the book and he wrote, and I quote, “e.g. divorce, depression, drinking.”  The worrying thing is that Depardieu was not playing it for laughs in describing the essence of my character by reference to the three D’s, he was in fact being deadly serious for once in his whimsical life.  Although DG’s concise assessment of me doesn’t make heartening reading many would argue that he has hit the proverbial nail on the head but if he carries on with his insulting slurs I will indeed be banging a nail into his head.   DG advised me to be ruthless when editing the book but I explained that being ruthless is not in my nature.  The only way I could be ruthless is if I married a woman called Ruth and she left me.

I do not need to attack people with nails to be called to court as my presence has been requested at Dudley Magistrates Court next week despite me being an upstanding, law abiding citizen of the highest degree.   The bumbling buffoons at Npower have besmirched my good name and told porkie pies to the court officials claiming that I refuse to let their engineer into Codger Mansions to inspect my gas meter for safety purposes, which is more defamation of my good character to pile on top of DG Lowe’s description of me (which at least has some substance, though the fact that his comments are abusive makes the whole thing substance abuse).  Npower have conveniently forgotten that they not only cancelled an appointment that I arranged at the eleventh hour without explanation but also ignored all my subsequent correspondence with them.  No wonder Npower’s gas bills are so exorbitant given their bungling inefficiency.   The N in Npower must stand for nincompoops.

I hope that Nincompoops-power don’t cut my gas off in an act of schoolboy vindictiveness as the weather is on the turn and as I effectively have no heater in my vintage Postman Pat style car I have had to dig out the leather gloves that Kenteke bought me to drive in, so I now look like a cross between the Swaffham Strangler and Postman Pat.  Postman Pat’s cat Jess is unlikely to see the week out without being asphyxiated by my leathery hand but at least I will be able to attend Dudley Magistrates Court at the Nincompoops-power hearing to confess all after first selling Jess’s lifeless carcass to Mr Ping at the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away.  If Pat sees the winter out it will be a miracle as his engine is coughing and spluttering more than a Senior Service smoker with bronchitis and strange banging sounds are emanating from the front of the car almost like a small man is trying to get out from under the bonnet.  Maybe Fudgkins is stuck under there. 

It is a little bit undignified having to scrape the ice off the inside of Pat’s windscreen on frosty mornings, especially as the procedure produces what look likes snow, which falls from the glass onto my legs in the driver’s seat.  It comes to something when the weather in the car is considerably worse than it is in the open air.

If Nincompoops-power do cut my gas off then I will have to abandon what will be a freezing Codger Mansions in the evenings to seek a warming retreat which will inevitably mean that I end up in the Flagon & Gorses, a place where I can be found on occasion, as you well know.  As long as they don’t force me to eat any more cheese I think I could put up with the situation and despite the trials and tribulations of the week I could triumphantly burst through the door of the pub in a blaze of apathy and like Henri Charrière in his famous book Papillion announce to all and sundry, “Hey you b*stards, I'm still here.”  Knowing my rotten luck after such a grandiose entrance I would be greeted by Chilli Willy behind the bar, who in a gentle, kindly tone would ask me, “Do you fancy a piece of stilton?”

© Dominic Horton, November 2013.

Lowlife 44 - Where there’s Muck there’s Brass

Where there’s Muck there’s Brass

The BBC reported yesterday that a new £2m sewage treatment plant in Slough is to turn human excreta into a sustainable source of environmentally-friendly high grade fertiliser that experts claim could help secure future global food supplies.  Phosphorous, being a vital component of fertiliser, is due to run out in the next few decades but human poo seems to contain a high percentage of the mineral so treating it (but not to flowers and chocolates and the like) is solving the problem of the dwindling phosphorous stocks.  Being a mere simple writer I am no scientist but if our human waste contains a high level of phosphorous it must be because we are eating it all in the first place, hence the shortage.  It would not surprise me one jot to find out that Mr Ping, the chef at the Rhareli Peking, laces all of his dishes with the mineral as apparently too much phosphorous can lead to diarrhoea.  Phosphorous has the atomic number of 15 and appearing at that number on the Peking’s menu is phosphorous fried rice, so I now understand their little in-house joke.

The thought of eating vegetables that have been nurtured with the assistance of fertilizer made partly from the Pirate’s fecal matter is putting me off eating the usually lovely, luscious sprout for life.   So next time you are sitting on the karsi having a number two, pondering the wonders of life and the universe you can turn your idle thoughts to speculating where the fertiliser that is made by your very own droppings will end up; a field of asparagus in the gentle Worcestershire countryside might be effectively splattered in your bum gravy.  It is a very sobering thought and enough to turn a person to drink or at least to making one’s dietary habits less vegetarian and more carnivorous.

Without the fertilisation from phosphorus it is predicated that the world’s food production could fall by more than half which will be bad news for most of us but it will probably do Sleepy Tom Parker a favour as he has returned from his annual jaunt to Tenerife fatter than ever.  

Fortunately Tom didn’t holiday in the Philippines.  Amid the awful, dreadful chaos and catastrophe caused by the typhoon this week it was good to see that the Filipino authorities took time to exercise originality by declaring “a state of national calamity” as opposed to the oft used and tired “state of national emergency.”  After testing several beers with the ungainly and shambling DG Depardieu (who has temporarily escaped the colonies) and the nonpareil Alexander Sutcliffe on Monday night I had to declare a state of personal calamity on Tuesday morning after being afflicted with a mild to moderate case of biliousness.  Although it is indecent to consume Mini Cheddars before 1000 hours I deemed the situation serious enough to dispense with the normal convention but alas the Cheddars did not work their usual magic, leaving me with an unsettled and quivering stomach. 

I only have myself to blame as I sampled the delights of the orient for supper on Sunday eve by suffering the wares “cooked” by Mr Ping of the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away.  As I am generally amazed at the speed of service in the Peking, as part of my visit on the Sabbath I decided to clock the precise time it took from the Assassin taking the order to him passing me the white bag of foodstuffs.  When the Assassin emerged from Mr Ping’s kitchen with the order and gaily shouted to me “here sir, weddy sir!” with his usual gleeful countenance my eyes roved to my watch to reveal the time of 1 minute 53 seconds.  If it wasn’t for his sad demise I am sure that Norris McWhirter would have appeared from the kitchen declaring Mr Ping to be a record breaker.  Under two minutes.  Absolutely and utterly amazing.   I was left in a state of intense puzzlement, wondering how Ping can get the food out so quick, being under the two minute barrier does not even give him time to trouble his microwave.   I reached the conclusion that NASA must be using the Rhareli Peking to test new express cooking techniques to be used in the confined galley on the space shuttle.

On Sunday the Flagon & Gorses was not in another stratosphere but I was asked to adjudicate on a point of order following a debate that seemed to have being raging for most of the afternoon; I was flattered that the Flaggoners that I was sitting with (being Pat Debilder, Mother Tersea, Weston Super-Leeds and Mick Stzyder) thought that I had sufficient general knowledge to provide a definitive answer to the issue at hand but in reality it was nothing to do with my perceived abundance of learning but more a case of them knowing that I have the ability to use Google on my mobile telephone.

The point of order in question was the question of where faggots originate from: Mother Teresa contended that they come from the Black Country, Mick Stzyder was wisely non-committal, Pat suspected Scotland but was not firm in his belief but Super-Leeds was adamant they originated from Yorkshire.  I posed the question to the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia which provided an answer that we could use as definitive for our purposes.   All eyes were on me and the parties in question awaited the answer with baited breath and the place where faggots originate from turned out to be …………………..Wiltshire. 

Fudgkins could have moved to Wiltshire for all I know as he has been inconspicuous by his absence from the Flagon & Gorses for the last few weeks but there has been a reported sighting of him in Krakow, Poland (and he’s difficult to spot given his diminutive frame).  I am glad to report than Interpol have restored Fudgey to his Netherton homestead where he has been confined to barracks nursing the lovely Mrs Fudgkins who has suffered the misfortunate of breaking her wrist.   Special Agent Fudgkins did manage to sneak out of his dwelling for a few brief minutes on Monday though as I assigned a mission to him of great importance, the success of which could determine the level of enjoyment of my dear son Kenteke and I during the festive period. 

I want to buy tickets to see Mother Goose in December at Netherton Arts Centre (which like Agent Fudgey is small but full of character) but due to the inconvenience of work I cannot get to Flavell’s butchers in Netherton, which in typical Black Country style acts as the box office.  Fudgkins has gladly stepped into the breach to affect the transaction on my behalf but sadly he cannot attend the pantomime himself as he is back off to Poland to watch a football game.  Agent F must be mad as the Polish use attendance at football to satiate their desire for wanton violence and they do not confine their vicious acts to the opposing fans as they are happy to brutalise anyone.   So after his Yuletide visit to Krakow dear old Fudgey could well be returning to these shores in a (very small) box; that said, despite his ageing frame Fudgkins is nothing if not nimble and he should be able to escape through the legs of the shaven headed Polish thugs.

One person who you could not attach the word nimble to is the lumbering and physically graceless DG Depardieu.   DG was born onto a copy of a local paper on his parent’s bed in the back streets of his native Dudley and the incident was later immortalised in the song I was Born on the Express & Star that was sang (or rather spoken) by Lee Marvin in the film Paint the Flagon, which was an account of the last lot of renovations at the Flagon & Gorses in 1969.   Depardieu is trying to scratch a living as a full time writer having had a series of children’s books published to date but I have visions of him sitting around all day in his pants and vest (not a sight for the faint hearted) in his Brisbane bolt hole studying horse racing form and chain drinking tea.   DG  claims that in actuality he is hard at it writing all day though he did concede that most of his scribbling is rubbish but then after a few drinks he let the façade slip and he said, and I quote, “when I used to work…………”.  He hastily tried to retract the statement but the cat was out of the bag, meowing, sh*tting on the lawn and trying to evade the clutches of Mr Ping at the Rhareli Peking.  

Reading between the lines I hazard that Depardieu bangs out one of his brief kiddies books on a Monday morning, retreats to the little boys room for his favourite activity of having a leisure poo and spends the rest of the week untroubled by the toils of labour.  At least his extended toilet activity will aid in part the production of phosphorous fertiliser which will in turn help to grow the food to keep the show of weird and wonderful humanity on its long and winding road.  Take it away Sir Paul ………………………

© Dominic Horton, November, 2013.  

Lowlife 43 - It Don’t Mean a Thing if you Ain’t got that Ping

It Don’t Mean a Thing if you Ain’t got that Ping

I bring you news that will veritably make the world shake on its very axis: I had a perfectly palatable meal last night from the Rhareli Peking.   Yes, I repeat I had a perfectly palatable meal last night from the Rhareli Peking.  You might want to sit down and loosen your collar and have a nip of something strong and have a minute to yourself so that this inconceivable revelation can sink in. 

I don’t know what was going on but when I stumbled in the Peking the staff seemed to be having some kind of hush hush conference but on sight of me Mr Ping, the chef, and the two delivery drivers, Thing One and Thing Two dashed into the kitchen out the back leaving just the Baby Faced Assassin to attend to me with his usual Oriental charm and inane grin. 

Instead of simply blurting out the first dish that came into my woozy mind I took the trouble to studiously inspect the menu in great detail, like an optimistic punter examining the race card in immense anticipation before the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket.  I hazarded across a dish that I used to regularly buy from the Marvil House Chinese takeaway twenty five odd years ago when I used to work at Patrick Motors petrol station: chicken fried rice and curry sauce.  With the grease coated clock ticking perilously close to the closing time of midnight, at long last I was about to reveal my order to the Assassin. But suddenly I realised that the last time I had a meat stuff that purported to be chicken from the Peking it appeared to be the flesh from a creature previously hitherto unknown to mankind, or as Doctor Spock might have said to Captain Kirk in Star Trek, “It’s chicken Jim but not as we know it.”  Considering beef to be the safe option I duly ordered beef fried rice and curry sauce. 

Next, the old routine.  The Assassin relayed the order to Mr Ping who cranked up the microwave before playing a BBC soundtrack entitled Man Cooking in a Chinese Takeaway in order that I get the benefit of frying in a wok type noises for authenticity.  On occasion Thing One and/ or Thing Two will even bang pots with a wooden spoon to enhance the masquerade and to drown out the noise of the ping when the microwave stops cooking. Since my last visit Mr Ping must have upgraded his microwave to a more powerful model as the meal was presented to me in the obligatory white plastic bag by the beaming Assassin only two minutes after I had settled down to read The Halesowen News and before I had chance to turn to the court adjudications.  The speed of service in the Peking is only surpassed by the staff of the wonderful Mr Gregg at one his bakeries.

These days if you see a person walking the streets carrying a little plastic bag it could contain one of two things: take away food stuffs or dog poo.  I just hope that dog walkers who stroll down their local take away with Bowser do not get the two bags confused when serving dinner.

On return to Codger Mansions I took the food containers out of the white bag with the same heady mixture of excitement and fear that the intrepid Howard Carter and George Herbert must have experienced in 1922 before they entered the enchanted tomb of Tutankhamun.  To my astonishment and delight the removal of the lids from the two steaming pots revealed what looked like and smelled like a perfectly plausible and edible Chinese meal.  Additionally, the curry sauce was fluid and of a different consistency to the version Mr Ping uses for his beef curry in which you could stand a spoon on end and it would remain unflinchingly immovable.   The sauce at hand poured nicely onto the meal as opposed to falling out of the pot in one gelatinous, fatty lump.  The whole experience was only two fathoms short of a miracle. 

So the meal from the Peking for once wasn’t pants and on the subject of underwear I am glad to report that I have at long last found my missing favourite blue boxer shorts (see Lowlife 39) and I simply could not believe where I discovered them; in my underwear drawer of all places.  They were cunningly intertwined with a pair of decrepit boxer shorts that I never wear, discarded at the back of the drawer, abandoned and unloved like a retired and punch drunk boxer.  I also found the Dead Sea Scrolls, Shergar and Lord Lucan at the back of the drawer but unfortunately I could not find my sanity or the Pirate’s sobriety.

With Kenteke being in Minorca Halloween last week was not exactly top of my agenda and my first instinct was to pop up the Flagon & Gorses as there are plenty of zombies and spectres up there.  Going straight to the pub from work would have been a good idea as it would have given me enough time for the trick and treat calls to die off.  I would have had nothing to give the little blighters anyway unless they had wanted a nip of Aldi Vodka.   But from somewhere I had a bolt of enthusiasm and not only did I purchase the fitting Frankenstein by Mary Shelley to read on the night but I even wrote a poem (On Halloween Night) to recite to Kenteke over the telephone and to inflict on the trick or treaters who dared knock on the door of Codger Mansions.  I purchased sweets to hand out to the kiddies In order to obviate complaints from irate parents that I had given their children Aldi Vodka (instead of a better brand like Smirnoff).  I did ask calling infants what they would do if I requested a trick instead of a treat and I was met with blank expressions and a deafening silence on every occasion, which was also their exact response to my poem.  I didn’t tell the kids as much, as parents these days have the annoying habit of accompanying their charges and standing in earshot of them, but I wanted to suggest that any tricks they planned to have in their armoury should most certainly include the 70’s schoolboy’s principal weapon of dog sh*t.

Luckily the phantasm from my reoccurring nightmare (see Lowlife 42) didn’t pay me a visit at Halloween to turn me into a pumpkin but I did receive unexpectedly educational correspondence from Toby In-Tents on the subject.    Toby explained that nightmares of this type are classified under the generic term sleep paralysis and that such experiences are relatively common.   The feeling of being asleep but being physically oppressed and not being able to move was in folklore believed to be a demon or incubus (for women) or a succubus (for men) and there have been many representations of this in art such as Le Cauchemar (The Nightmare) by Eugène Thivier (1894) and the Nightmare by Henry Fuseli (1781).  The incubus or succubus is a demon who, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions, lies upon sleepers, in order to have sex with them and possibly to have a child, as in the legend of Merlin the Wizard.  Knowing my luck I will not have a randy succubus in my nightmare but it will be more on the Wizard theme and most likely involve Roy Wood.  And for the record I do not wish it would be Christmas every day.

As ever, Christmas has arrived prematurely in Birmingham City Centre and a large Christmas tree appeared in Snow Hill Square on Monday despite us not even having seen the back of the curious tradition of Guy Fawkes Night.  I was heartened to see that the recent strong breezes had by Tuesday blown the tree down almost as if Zephyrus, the Greek God of the west wind, was displaying his anger at the tree being installed such a long time before Christmas.   I would wager that all Harry Burrows, a nine year old schoolboy from Halesowen, desires for Christmas is a new vacuum cleaner as a short article in Monday’s The Sun (unearthed by Lowlife’s London correspondent Barty Hook in a greasy spoon in Tooting) explained that he has collected some forty examples of the appliance.  Young Harry is simply a sucker for vacuum cleaners.

Collecting is an odd and strangely English phenomenon that I have never quite understood.  Like the legendary music producer Phil Spector my dear friend Alexander Sutcliffe is a collector of decommissioned guns and it is no coincidence that both men are as mad as March hares. I have never quite understood the attraction collecting as the only things that I seem to collect are a string of minor disasters and failures.   Most of the time I struggle to even collect my thoughts.  Now that I have made a tenuous peace with the Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away all I want for Christmas is beef fried rice and curry sauce (and maybe a wonton soup for starter) as in the words of the song, it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that ping.

© Dominic Horton, November 2013.