Lowlife 53 – Waiting for Something to Happen

Waiting for Something to Happen

By Dominic Horton

I found myself having a Mini Cheddar crisis on Monday morning as there was none to be seen in the vending machine on our floor of the office.  The Cheddars were an absolute necessity to ease the slight biliousness caused by Sunday’s drinking and the sorry offering from the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway; the chef Mr Ping graced the dish with so little meat that it could have almost as qualified as vegetarian.  Ping must think that he is the kindly butcher Mr Jones from Dad’s Army rationing his meat in such a way but it was more a case of “I’ve been done” that Clive Dunn.   I might be taking my life in my own hands buying supper from the Peking as the BBC reported this week that despite last year’s horse meat scandal there has been a worrying lack of food standards inspections with some restaurants and takeaways not having been inspected for over a year.   I doubt that Ping’s kitchen has got cockroaches though as any discerning bug would give the place a wide berth which means that I am lower than an insect in the order of things.

In search of Cheddars I scaled the stairs at work to the floor above and I was relieved to find that there were some in the vending machine with the yellow wrapper shining like a warm and welcoming sun.  But to my horror I found the machine to be out of order, which was, well, out of order.   I trudged Cheddarless and despondent back to my desk to assess my options, which were few. 

I told my work colleague the Mexican my tale of Cheddar woe and being a reader of these pages he immediately asked me, accusingly, if I was hung over.   “Hung over” was a far too severe and damning word to describe my state so I answered in the negative but it does beg the question what constitutes being hung over and for that matter when can one be said to be drunk. These deep philosophical questions demand much difficult theorising at the best of times but even more so on a Monday morning when one is despondent about the working week ahead and the senses are dulled through Sabbath supping.

There are times though when you can say to yourself without reservation that you are without doubt hung over and if you have to carry out any trying tasks in such a condition it can be challenging.  At such times I console myself with the thought that at least I have not got to go in a skydiving simulator, as did my brother the Codger in his drinking days when he was in woeful post-booze condition.  It would be harrowing enough being in the skydiving machine in such a state but the misery would be doubled if you were sick as presumably the sick would splash back into your face.

I would venture that one person who was in a hung over state on Sunday morning was the Pirate, the inimitable landlord of the Flagon & Gorses, as it was his birthday party on Saturday night to celebrate the start of his 64^th year on this planet.   To compound matters the Pirate had to work behind the bar from Noon until 1900 hours as for some reason Lario Manza was in absentia and this was especially painful for the Pirate as I was sitting the right side of the bar quaffing the sumptuous Pirate 63 stout (brewed by the Angel Brewery to compensate humankind for having to put up with the Pirate for 63 years), which was sitting a little awkwardly in my stomach on top of the pilchards on toast that I had for lunch. 

The enchanting Penelope Keith recently revealed on BBC Radio Five Live that she had to eat pilchards on toast for Christmas Dinner after suffering a power cut on the day.  Being a child of the 70’s I would like to think that I am not fazed by a power cut and when one happens I can manage and improvise as needed.   I haven’t had a power cut in Codger Mansions for a few years but the last one literally drove me to drink.  It was a Monday and I had made a solemn promise to myself that I would not go up the Flagon & Gorses due to on-going funding difficulties and I was unflinchingly determined in my resolve.  Within an hour of being back in the house the power went off but I was undeterred and made myself a sandwich for tea by the light of a torch and I decided to retire to bed with a good book and a candle.  Within minutes a deafening drilling noise started to sound right outside the house which shook the Mansions to its core.   Needless to say I couldn’t concentrate on the book and sleep was completely out of the question.  I popped outside in my dressing gown to talk to the workman to ask how long the drilling of the pavement was likely to go on for to which he answered, “At least until after midnight mate.”   I was left with little option but to get dressed and seek sanctuary in the Flagon and have a drink or two.  It was a genuine Hamlet moment and not the first time that I have ended up in the pub drinking through no fault of my own.

The pub called Tuesday last and I dutifully answered to its enticing cry.  I found Windy McDisco blowing a putrid anal gale, true to form, that would have earned him a at least a silver medal if trumping was a discipline in the Commonwealth Games.   Fortunately the Pirate did not enter into competition with him and I was mightily relieved that Windy and the Pirate refrained from duelling banjos on this occasion.  Anyway, to join into the spirit of things I explained that earlier in the day I had done the gentlemanly thing and f*rted before I had got into the lift at work so as not to offend the nostrils on the other occupants of the elevator.  However, to my dismay like a loyal dog the f*rt followed me into the lift.  The Pirate, who was on form for once, quipped, “that was wrong on many levels.” 

The Pirate must have finally found his funny bone as he came out with more drollery shortly after; I bought a round of drinks but left the Pirate’s in the pump as he had not finished his pint.  When the Pirate was strolling to the toilet Chilli Willy behind the bar in reference to Bob’s pint said in all innocence, “do you want me to pull it for you?”  Looking down at his private parts the Pirate retorted, “No, I will pull my own thank you.”

Despite the Pirate trying to ruin things by having his birthday party the normal hum drum quietude of the Flagon has more or less been restored following the frightful Christmas and New Year period and that is fine by me.  It is now back to being a case of “We all sat round or lounged at the bar waiting for something to happen” as Christopher Isherwood put it in reference to his regular watering hole in the book Goodbye to Berlin.  The peace needs to be shattered occasionally though by an influx of customers to keep the Flagon machinery rolling so it is highly disconcerting that the dry January disease has reached epidemic proportions and sufferers are upholding their sobriety like a badge of honour.  If you are suffering from this affliction the Pirate has many remedies that can cure you and they are a damn sight cheaper than a prescription.  

There is bound to be an example of a dry January saint arriving at his local on 1^st February for a pint only to find it shut down with the doleful landlord explaining, “We have had to shut down as trade was so poor in January all because of w*nkers like you.  Thanks a million.”   I am the first to admit that drinking, its culture and its people are far from glamorous and in fact the whole business is often not far short of the exact opposite and I encourage no one to drink more or for teetotallers to take up booze.  But a mass boycott of public houses in the New Year at the time landlords need customers most is at best thoughtless and at worst disdainfully selfish.   So if you are suffering from dry January disease, or you feel it coming on, do yourself and your landlord a favour and take some suitable medicine.  After all, even the thought of sobriety seems better after a pint.

© Dominic Horton, January 2014.

* EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.

Lowlife 52 – Drink and be Merry and Have a Dry Sherry

Drink and be Merry and Have a Dry Sherry

By Dominic Horton

On Monday the Daily Mail reported that according to a study conducted by the drinks company Upbeat the day was “Blue Monday”, reputedly the glummest day of the year, with the Christmas merrymaking being at an end the populous is wallowing in a deep pit of despair having to face once more the reality of life, which was temporarily suspended over the festive period.    In such circumstances reading the Daily Mail is ill advised as it could push one over the edge.   Apparently on Blue Monday the British compulsion of complaining about the weather peaks and the divorce rate soars, with twice as many people petitioning for divorce in the month of January than in the second most popular month of September. 

I would imagine that disgruntled spouses intending to get rid of their other halves leave it until after Christmas in order to profit from cunning gift tactics; that is, knowing that they are going to end the marriage in the new year the discontented party cynically buys their spouse a cheap second hand Showaddywaddy CD knowing full well that they are going to receive in return the complete box set of The World at War, the latest edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack and a 92 piece set of socket spanners.   Once the gift booty is in the bag it is a case of thank you and good night.

One person who was not suffering a Blue Monday was the multi-millionaire businessman and art dealer Charles Saatchi who consoled himself over his split with TV culinarian Nigella Lawson by swanning off on his £25m “love boat”, smoking fags whilst cavorting in the company of toff fashion designer Trinny Woodhall, made famous by her television show What Not to Wear; Saatchi should have no worries on that front as he always plays it safe by wearing a dark suit and a white shirt with a tab on the end of his lip.  Mind you, if his relationship with Woodhall goes the same way as his marriage to Lawson he might be wearing spicy beef with green peppers in black bean sauce if they have a bust up at the dinner table.

The New Orleans Rhythm and Blues legend Fats Domino immortalised the phrase “Blue Monday” in his song of the same title and latterly so did the pop band New Order, which reminds me of my brief encounter with New Order bass player Peter Hook, whose autobiography is called How Not to Run a Club, in reference to the financially ill feted Hacienda club in Manchester, which Hook part owned.  The Phantom, Ms C and I went to see Hook at an evening at the Glee Club in Birmingham where he was interviewed by the writer and former notorious drug runner Howard Marks.  At the end of an entertaining show we approached the affable Hook to say hello and to take our photographs with him.  When it was my turn to have my photo taken I handed the camera to the Phantom, a Grimbarian, who proceeded to have difficulties with it so Hook exclaimed, “Can’t you work a f*cking camera?!” only for the quick witted Phantom to devilishly reply, “Can’t you run a f*cking nightclub?!!!”  Grimsby 1 Manchester 0.

Devilish is not a word that will be associated with Christenings in the future as it has been reported this week that the Anglican church are to remove reference to the devil from their baptism services. Currently godparents are asked to “reject the devil.”   Debate has ensued as to perceptions of the devil and evil and as to whether the devil actually exists or if evil is just present is human behaviour.  I decided to look evil right in the eye on New Year’s day and it was off to the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway to face up to the Baby Faced Assassin and to sample his less than agreeable foodstuffs. 

I realised that as an opening New Year’s gambit it was no use denouncing the Assassin and Mr Ping so after visiting the Flagon & Gorses I decided it was best to get it over with and suffer one of their beef fried rice and curry sauces to prevent me from thinking that I could avoid their villainous lair this year.  The Assassin at least had the good grace to sugar coat the pill by providing me with complimentary spring rolls in a bag marked, “thank you for your custom” and so my return to the Peking after my Christmas break was thus sealed.   I was temporarily spooked out the following day when Ian Payne on BBC Radio Five Live Sport started the broadcast by announcing, “The Baby Faced Assassin is back!”  To my relief I realised that Payne was referring to the fresh faced Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who has just been appointed manager of Cardiff City FC. 

I could have satisfied my hunger on New Year’s Day with infinitely more nourishing and appetising fayre than the monosodium glutamate laden dish from the Peking as in the Flagon Pat Debilder donated to me two portions of meat and vegetable pie but the tucker was too precious to be hastily scoffed post-pub.  The world class pie graced the plates of my dear son Kenteke and I the following evening and we dined like kings as we were also given cheesecake that had fallen from heaven by the free baking Selena, so all in all we had a hearty meal which helped to sooth the awfulness of the day in which I had been plagued by the horrid alcohol terrors, bought on by accumulative festive tippling leaving me as booze soaked as a Christmas pudding.  

The terrors were so bad that on the train on the way back from work I had a bad case of the dreaded gargoyles whereby everyone appears to look grotesque and hideous and I couldn't look anyone in the eye and I just kept my head down until it was time to get off the train.  Of course to other onlookers the people were all of normal appearance with varying degrees of attractiveness (except for one woman who actually looked like a gargoyle [and a particularly ugly one at that]) but it is a trick of the ghastly terrors which distorts the perception of people so they look like (as my Grandad Charlie used to put it) a Friday night’s faggot trod on.   A quick dose of the beastly gargoyles would act as an effective deterrent to any prospective teenage boozer who might otherwise think that drinking is glamorous.   I feel like Marley’s Ghost in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol when I am burdened with the terrors: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.”  I most probably look like Marley’s Ghost as well.

So all in all I think a couple of nights of sobriety are in order ahead of the Pirate’s 63^rd birthday party next week and I haven’t got much choice in the matter anyway given that all I have left in the war chest is two buttons and an old peseta.  Christmas chews you up and spits you out, skint and demoralised.   As is my custom every January I will be raiding my pennies jar Tom Good style to get me through the month in once piece.  I am hoping for a plentiful bounty this year as instead of collecting just pennies, tuppences and five penny pieces I have added ten and twenty pence pieces to the mix so not only might I be able to keep the wolf from the door but in addition to the beer money there might be a bit of cash left over for food as well. 

Despite my resolution to not make any resolutions I have made a resolution, which is to drink more sherry.   Sherry is a much maligned drink so I will show it my support after payday when I will acquire a suitable bottle.  It seems as good a resolution as any and at least it will be something that I will enjoy and it is a positive action as opposed to one in the negative.   All these people virtuously covenanting to give up this and that remind me of the zealous DUP politician the Reverend Ian Paisley bellowing, “Ulster says no!” on the 6 o’clock news in the 1980’s while I was trying to eat my tea.  It put me right off.   Luckily like the Man from Del Monte at the Flagon & Gorses the Pirate says yes, he says please feel free to drink and rollick in my pleasure palace and see the New Year in during January with a pint in your hand and a smile on your face.

Money Week reported that the killjoys at employee benefits company JLT have recommended that instead of spending money on booze to invest it in your pension and it could be enhanced by £20,000 but employing that tactic would mean that life would hardly be worth living, so my advice is stuff the pension and drink and be merry and have a dry sherry.

© Dominic Horton, January 2014. 

Lowlife 51 - The Loneliness of a Long Distance Drinker

The Loneliness of a Long Distance Drinker

By Dominic Horton

I was weary of the festivities long before Christmas Day and I will be relieved when it is all over and the seasonal drinkers in the Flagon & Gorses have swanned off with their puritanical attitudes to the gym leaving us regular inmates to have a bit of peace and quiet so we can wallow in our miseries.  It will be pure bliss.  The only day really worth going to the pub during the festive period is New Year’s Day (the earlier the better) as it is deathly quiet with most revellers nursing hangovers after staying up past their bedtimes.  One can sit quietly and celebrate the relief of the passing of another Christmas and contemplate the impending year ahead with the hope and optimism that it will be no worse than average. 

The sooner the odd Christmas behaviour of fellow Flagon internees ends the better.  On Christmas Eve people heartily shake your hand and wish you all the best for the big day as if you are about to set off on a sea voyage to Australia whereas in actuality you will see them again in less than twenty four hours for a drink on Christmas Day lunchtime. 

Slowly the humdrum of pub life will get back to normal and although the regiment is always a little depleted in January the stalwart foot soldiers will fight the good fight in order to keep a few much needed pennies flowing into the Pirate’s needy coffers.   As discussed in this column this time last year some heretics abandon ship in January and don’t go to the pub or drink at all but they are forgetting that a pub is for life and not just for Christmas.  Don’t abandon your landlord in his desperate time of need.  The poor old Pirate at the Flagon & Gorses is desperate enough as it is without having to suffer a downturn in custom. 

Some people flirt with alcohol without ever forming a meaningful and long lasting relationship with it and good luck to them as it is a good approach if you can get away with it.  Many years ago the inimitable Alexander Sutcliffe told me that I am a career drinker and I was too busy ordering another round to disagree with him.  But it is nothing to be boastful about, far from it.  It would be better to be swimming in a sea of p*ss than one of booze as at least with the former you can quickly wash it off and restore purity but the latter is a more devious and evasive mistress whose cunning and trickery knows no bounds: “come to me and I will comfort you” she whispers seductively and more often than not I fall for her alluring words only to find that by morning she has fled leaving me forsaken and in need of her succour more than ever.  

Every festive season I think to myself that things will be better this time next year but of course they never are.  In many ways things can only get worse as at least at present I am fortunate enough to have a home, a job and the welcoming retreat of the Flagon & Gorses.   Maybe Mother Teresa is right and that I need to find myself a good woman this coming year. I don’t think I will need to ask ladies to form an orderly queue outside Codger Mansions as any self-respecting women that have read this column will be giving me a wide berth if they value their sanity and I don’t blame them.   At least my faithful teddy bear Alfie remains staunchly loyal though I do get odd stares when I take him out for Sunday lunch.

Funnily enough a couple of people have tried to thrust ladies on me recently, not literally I hasten to add, but I have thus far resisted given the disaster at Philly the Gent’s 50^th birthday party in the summer.   Philly had been telling me for a while that his wife Olivia had a single friend who might be suitable for me so at his party the Gent pointed the lady out and I duly introduced myself.  We pleasantly chatted while I supplied her with drinks and we even had a stumble to music, which would have qualified as a dance if it were not for my lack of co-ordination.  Anyway I eventually plucked up the courage to ask the potential suitor if she would like to have a date sometime to which she replied, “I don’t think my boyfriend would be very happy about that.”  

At least I have the Flagon but visits there are not without their challenges, especially when I converse with acquaintances of a certain age.  The youthless have a tendency to say things twice and drinkers generally have a penchant to repeat themselves so as far as ageing drinkers are concerned one tends to know their stories and reminiscences off by heart.   But I would imagine that I am as much of a broken record as anybody else in the Flagon and I am sure you could easily find at least a dozen Flagoners who would testify to this; the poor blighters wouldn’t mind but the anecdotes that I tell them are not even funny in the first place.  I could make it a New Year’s resolution to stop repeating myself but I gave up making resolutions long ago because the more you make the more you break. 

Luckily all the Christmas gifts that people kindly gave me were decent and things of use so the only Christmas turkey was on my dinner plate.  Ung Pirat bought his father the Pirate a DVD of the film Hitchcock, being a biopic of the legendary film director starring Anthony Hopkins, and Jolly D explained to me that when his father went to the cinema to see the Hitchcock thriller Psycho in the 1960’s the manager announced to the audience that the cinema doors were locked so viewers could not leave if the suspense got too much for them.   I suggested to the Pirate that he should lock us in the Flagon so that we can’t escape even if we wanted to.  Once news of our unlawful imprisonment gets out I can just see Amnesty International turning up to get us released and Jolly D shouting out of the letterbox (“f*ck off and leave us alone”.) 

Sadly the presents that I really wanted for Christmas didn’t materialise: an E-Lite pipe and a pair of Superman wellies, the latter of which I saw a toddler wearing in the Cornbow Precinct in Halesowen.  Although I am not trying to give up smoking I would like an E-Lite pipe to enable me to ponder matters like Sherlock Holmes and also point with it when someone asks me directions.  I can’t remember Christopher Reeves sporting a pair of wellies in Superman though any competent superhero would be wise to be dressed suitably if the weather turns inclement as if Superman gets his foot wet in a puddle it could severely hamper his mission to save the world.    Kryptonite is the one thing that that has a detrimental effect on Superman and makes him feel dreadful but it is another radioactive material that has such an effect on me in the form of beef fried rice and curry sauce from the Rhareli Peking.  However, I am glad to report that despite over eating like everyone else that I have managed to give the Baby Faced Assassin and Mr Ping at the Peking a wide berth during the festive period.  I am sure normal business will be resumed in the New Year and I will once more be ruing the evil offerings of Ping the Merciless.

Getting off the train to work on Monday morning was even more demoralising than usual but a kindly pre-recorded voice cautioned me, “when you alight please mind the gap between the platform and the train” but if the owner of the voice had been a student of the psychologist Edward Tory Higgins she might have more usefully advised, “when you get off the train please mind the gap between your perceived self and your actual self.”  In his self-discrepancy theory Higgins explained that if the way a person views himself is different to the way others view him then it can cause psychological distress.  That being the case I should be fine as the Pirate thinks I am a **** and as it happens so do I.

© Dominic Horton, December 2013.

Lowlife 50 – Yule be Miserable

Yule be Miserable

By Dominic Horton

People often use the phrase peace on Earth at Christmas but it would be more appropriate to talk about p*ss on Earth as at this festive time of year as the Earth is still the same old place with all its conflicts, wars and disagreements, the only difference being that at Christmas everyone is p*ssed.    So that being the case one might ponder what this Christmas Malarkey is all about.  The God Squad will of course bang on about the birth of little Jezza but it is generally agreed amongst the clever people that he was not born on 25^th December or anywhere near it and for the majority of people religion hardly features at all in their festive reckoning and habits. 

The central character in the story of Christmas is not the King of the Jews at all but the German philosopher, sociologist and political theorist Herbert Marcuse, who was most definitely one of the clever people.  Marcuse argued that modern industrial society creates false needs to satisfy the greed inherent in the capitalist system and there is no greater display or celebration of this than at this time of year.  Christmas is a vulgar display of rampant consumerism and if we were to be honest about it we would call it Consumermas.  But to make this vulgarity seem wholesome we still wrap Christmas up in a thin veneer of Christian swaddling clothes.  And stick a fairy on top.  But ultimately Christmas is a load of old baubles.

Notwithstanding the above, I did find myself having an extremely pleasant time within the confines of a church on Sunday.  I didn’t attend the church to confess my many minor sins as I prefer to divulge these to the high priest of the Flagon & Gorses, the Pirate, at my principal place of worship whilst drinking his holy water.   Rather I was at the church at the invitation of Mr & Mrs Phantom to witness the baptism of their lovely little new member of the club of life, Poppy and I have to say that the Vicar played an absolutely blinder carrying things off with warmth, good humour and a common touch; such an impressive religious performance has not been seen since Dick Emery played the buck toothed and sex starved vicar in his television show.

At one stage in the ceremony the Vic banged on about the importance of olive oil in the baptism ceremony and in Christianity generally at quite some length and I half expected him to whip out a suitcase of cut price Bertolli and start flogging it off to the congregation for last minute Christmas presents.  But alas there was no Derek Trotter action.   At one point the Vic implored Mr & Mrs Phantom and the God parents to denounce darkness but in their shoes I would be reluctant to do that as I am partial to a drop of stout.  Also a little bit of darkness in the shadows is not unwelcome and there is plenty of it lurking in the Flagon & Gorses and more so at Codger Mansions, where playful demons dwell.

After having attended a trio of funerals this year it was refreshing and poignant at the year’s end to be able to celebrate in a convivial atmosphere the happy event of a new life coming into the world.    The experience was made all the more comfortable as after some agonising I decided to dispense with my suit in favour of comfortable chinos and a sports jacket.   I was concerned by not wearing a suit that my standard of dress would not be up to scratch but I should not have worried as on arrival at the church I found that some of my slovenly work colleagues were wearing jeans, which I thought was a bit irreverential, even by my standards.

The last christening that I went to was that of my dear little niece Eva, the daughter of my younger brother Codger and his wife Mrs Codger.  I was honoured to be asked to be one of Eva’s God parents but being a devoted atheist I had concerns that I might find myself in a compromised position during the catholic ceremony so I decided to seek correspondence on the matter with Bishop John Sherrington, Bishop of the Diocese of Westminster, as he knows a thing or two about Catholicism.     By quoting chapter and verse from his club’s rules the Bish left me in no doubt whatsoever that as a non-believe I was not considered fit to be a God parent and that I should abdicate the role in favour of someone of a more pious bent: I communicated this information to the Codger but we spoke to the local Bishop who said, “look, this is not Westminster, it’s Halesowen. Don’t worry it will be alright.”  And that was that.  The only problem then was that the Codger had asked the Bishop if he could take a word or two out of the service but the Codg had edited it down so much that he had basically stripped out all of the religious content.  Negotiations ensued and a deal was clinched. 

Continuing the theme of matters ceremonial the Lowlife Christmas party went swimmingly well and was attended by the author, the editor, the publicity manager and the publisher: in other words it was attended by just me.  The Christmas cob and pint of bitter in the Flagon & Gorses was just the ticket.  Even the Pirate deserted me as he had to pop down the town to buy more sprouts, Chilli Willy having run out due to a rush on the catering front.  Mind you there were benefits to having a Christmas party on my own as there was no fear of waking up having regretted sleeping with the secretary and the quality of conversation was good as the voices in my head were in jolly festive form.   I did though have great difficulty in refraining from excitedly disclosing to myself what I had got for the secret Santa.

I see that plastic bank notes are being introduced by the Bank of England and they are apparently indestructible so next year we will be able to bung a fiver in our Christmas puddings.  This should improve things as despite inflation being seemingly through the roof the pay out to the lucky Christmas pudding winner has stayed static at sixpence since Charles Dickens’ time so it’s hardly worth the bother of chewing through a portion of the sickly dessert. 

I also learnt this week that the Queen is having trouble with her nuts.   The BBC reported that Betty is so fed up with Buck House policemen and security guards pilfering nuts and Bombay mix (or is it Mumbai mix now?) that she leaves lying around in bowls dotted all over her regal dwelling that she has started to mark the bowls to deter the peckish policemen.  The Queen could go the whole hog and install CCTV to monitor the nut bowls to catch the culprits red handed or alternatively she could stop indulging in the frankly crackpot behaviour of leaving savoury snacks placed all around the gaff.   It will at least give old Betty something useful to say in her Queen’s Speech on Christmas day instead of spouting forth about the Commonwealth like she does every year.

If the Queen’s Speech turns out to be too boring we can always turn over the television channel and watch a James Bond film as they always tend to be broadcast at Christmas.  A bunch of clever dick doctors from Derby and Nottingham with far too much time on their hands read all of Ian Fleming’s Bond novels and they revealed last week their findings that Bond should effectively be an impotent drunk given that he drinks the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine a day.  If drinking the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine a day leads to drunken impotence then all I can say is gawd help the Pirate.

While attending the Flagon & Gorses I was unexpectedly given an early Christmas present but the gift was not from the Pirate but from the jocular and entertaining Dick the Hook who palmed me off with an unwanted calendar from his local Chinese takeaway (which I am delighted to report for Dick’s sake is not the Rhareli Peking.)   The calendar informed us that Dick is a rat (so no surprise there) and that I am a boar which is nearly correct as readers of this column will know that I am a bore and one needs no more evidence of this fact than to read this edition as despite it being Christmas all I can think to bang on about is the work of a German philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, which is a subject that is dryer than the turkey that you will all be eating on the 25^th.   So make sure you slaver the festive meat with cranberry sauce to hydrate it as otherwise there is no doubt whatsoever that Yule be miserable.

© Dominic Horton, December 2013.

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.