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.

Lowlife 42 - The Pirate ate my Hamster!

The Pirate ate my Hamster!

The paterfamilias of the Flagon & Gorses, being the irrepressible Pirate, seemingly wants to exercise such control over this column that it will soon bear the heading, “written by Dominic Horton, edited by Bob Van Vliet [the Pirate’s real name].”   (Incidentally Don Van Vliet was the real name of the late, great Captain Beefheart; The Pirate is more like Captain Beerfart.)  When we are in conversation the Pirate’s catchphrase to me has increasingly become “Don’t put that in Lowlife” but after saying that to me last Tuesday in the next breathe he advised me to not let the truth get in the way of a good story.  So it appears that the journalistic approach that the Pirate desires of me is to not write truths about the various goings on at the Flagon & Gorses but to lie through my patched up teeth.  Mind you, given that the Pirate’s main goal in life is to peddle beer (and drink it for that matter) he did have a valid point in censuring me for recently writing about the joys and benefits of sobriety.   But the Pirate should realise that given the falderal quality of these dispatches that no one takes a blind bit of notice of its contents anyway, so he need not fear that what I write actually has the slightest bit of influence on the actions of others.   Nonetheless, I have to report that I have been to the Flagon every night this week and drunk eight pints of their delicious beer on every visit and I feel absolutely on top of the world.   Honest guv.

Mother Teresa has upped the ante in the Flagon by frequently warning me with the threat “Don’t you dare put that in Lowlife.”  The additional “dare” is intended as a four letter word in every sense as it is full of devilish malice, so I heed her portending warnings for fear of fatal retribution.  

Later on in the early evening on Tuesday last The Pirate and I were discussing counselling and the subject of the difference between, and usefulness of, sympathy and empathy cropped up.   We loosely agreed that the distinction between sympathy and empathy is as thus: a man is stuck in a deep, dark hole with no way out.  Sympathy walks up to the hole and hears the man’s desperate cries for help.  Sympathy shouts down to the man, “I am sorry that you are stuck in that horrible hole, here is a sandwich” and throws the man the food and departs.  Empathy wanders up to the hole and seeing the man in there he jumps in and comments, “It’s ghastly down here isn’t it mate, we are never going to get out and we are both f*cked.”  While the man isn’t looking Empathy then proceeds to eat the sandwich.  I am not sure how this adds to the interpretation of the nature of humanity but you can all make your own mind up on that score.

Counselling did help me overcome my recent difficulties and fortunately the counsellor didn’t eat my sandwich.  Despite the assistance of the counsellor I am still having the recurring nightmare that has been prevalent in my night time life for as long as I can remember but there was a pivotal moment last week in this regard.   The nightmare is difficult to describe but it basically involves a being or a presence travelling up the stairs towards my bedroom with what I sense to be venomous intent, though it could be bringing me a cup of hot cocoa for all I know.  I always wake up when the evil presence is approaching the bed but before it gets to me.  But all this changed last week when the cunning spirit actually made it to my pit and I could feel it, with what felt like clear reality, pressing down on my body, almost like it was sitting on me.  I woke in blind terror, screaming, sweating and short of breath and quickly realised it was just the old nightmare that had taken a sinister turn.  Pondering the unnerving dream the following day I mused that it has taken decades for the phantasm to actually make it to my bed and once it got there all it did was to sit on me, so I realised that there has been nothing to be scared about all of these years after all.  It might be the case that the phantasm fully intended to do me harm but as it has been clambering up the stairs for years by the time it eventually got to me it was cream crackered, so all it could do was to sit on me to catch its breath.   So it transpires that the phantasm is far less of a threat to me than the Baby Faced Assassin at the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away. 

In other news on my nocturnal habits, I seemed to have progressed to visiting the toilet twice in the night as opposed to once (which previously used to be at pretty much 0300 hours on the dot.)  On the odd occasion the bathroom visits have even numbered three. (I say bathroom visits but toilet would be a better word to use as the toilet and bathroom are separate in my Codger Mansions dwelling; if I were to visit the bathroom for a tinkle I would have to do it in the sink as you know men should only do this if they are sleep walking or in the most desperate of circumstances.  I don’t know why more properties do not have separate bathrooms and toilets as it can be very off putting if you are trying to have a relaxing hot bath while a few feet away the wife is having a dump.)  Anyway, my visits to the downstairs toilet in the night are becoming so frequent that if it gets any worse I might as well just make life simple and sleep on the karsi.

Despite multiple night time visits to the toilet I have generally been getting enough sleep and I have been partaking in a few early nights as I have not being going out as much as previously.  The only problem with staying in more is that I have fewer things to write about and earlier this week I was struggling to think of anything to scribble for this edition and I was completely devoid of ideas, suffering from writer’s block.  The American poet William Stafford said of writer’s block, “There is no such thing as writer’s block for writer’s whose standards are low enough.”  It looks like I am the exception to the rule then as my standards as lower than a snake’s b*llocks and I would write any old balderdash just to fill these pages.  Advice on overcoming writer’s block that I read stated that, “go ahead and write drivel at first, as long as you write” but that what’s I do anyway and I seemingly lost the ability to do even that.  Ernest Hemingway’s advice was to avoid writer’s block was, “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.”  But as my going is never good this offers no resolution to the problem.   Anyway, eventually enough gibberish started to flow again to populate this edition.

 

One person who has been purveying gibberish this week is Hugh Pennington, professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, as he claims that people who put their shopping into reusable bags are putting their health at risk by using the bag to carry raw meat and soil-covered vegetables, as it increases the risk of food poisoning.  According to Pennington even if the raw meat is wrapped in a separate plastic bag it is still highly risky. This is a good example of my long held belief that there is a lot of rubbish talked about hygiene.  How does Mr Pennington think that people used to carry their shopping in the days before plastic bags? And does he think that impoverished little old ladies who use shopping trollies should buy a new one specifically for each shopping trip?  It is a cheap bullying swipe to have a go at the innocent soiled vegetable; to my mind washing vegetables is a waste of one’s time and energy and a having soiled vegetables is better than having soiled pants.   Gawd help Mr Pennington if ever he were to be presented with a photograph of the state of my oven, I think he would have a seizure on the spot and that he would envisage that Codger Mansions is a rat infested hellhole.  Talking of rodents, did I mention that the Pirate ate my hamster?!!........................ 

© Dominic Horton, October 2013.

Lowlife 41 - You only Live Twice

You only Live Twice

In the witty and jocular book The Meaning of Liff by John Lloyd and Douglas Adams (which was recommended to me by Dick the Hook) a tincleton is described as “A man who amuses himself in your lavatory by pulling the chain in mid-pee and then seeing if he finishes before the flush does.”   My long time crony Still-in-Fjord is without doubt a tincleton as the chain/ pee challenge is exactly the type of antic that he revels in.   Still-in-Fjord’s favourite tincleton type pastime is the checkout game which works as follows: when he does the monthly shop at the supermarket and he has dozens of items to purchase he has to ensure all the items are bagged up immediately after the checkout operative has slung the last item from the conveyor belt to the bagging area.   To avoid a build-up of un-bagged items Still-in-Fjord staggers the placing of loose fruit and veg on the conveyor belt so the checkout operative has to periodically slow down to weigh the items, thus allowing him to ensure that all goods are placed in bags.

One man who will not be able to enjoy the pleasures of the checkout game is 37 year old Alireza M.  Last week the BBC reported the incredible story of Alireza M, an Iranian prisoner who was convicted on a drug trafficking charge and was sentenced to death, who was found alive in the morgue after he was believed to be dead as a consequence of hanging for twelve minutes.  Undeterred by the prisoner’s astounding defiance of the rope the Iranian authorities plan to hang the man again when he has recovered to health; the way he is going he will be hanged more times than a painting in the National Portrait Gallery.   No doubt that when the prisoner came round he thought he was in the afterlife before quickly realising that it was a miracle and that he had not died and was still alive.  However, his unbounded joy would have been short-lived as he noticed the prison guard standing over his bed, who quickly soured his mood by saying “That was only the dress rehearsal our kid and when you are better we are going to hang you for real.”    The story is akin to a man surviving a shipwreck only to be eaten by a shark after almost swimming all the way to the shore.   If the prisoner is a tincleton he will no doubt try and defy the rope next time round for more than his previous record of twelve minutes in order to make the otherwise grim experience more entertaining for himself.  This is no laughing matter of course and I should add that as an ex-member of Amnesty International I oppose capital punishment and human rights abuses generally.

The BBC also informed us last week that British Gas energy prices are to rise by a whopping 9.2% from November 23^rd and this British Gas announcement was especially untimely as it came on the same day that the Daily Express reported that we are set for the worst winter in over 100 years with record breaking snowfall predicated by some experts for next month.   The price rise comes after the "big six" energy companies outlined price rises of between 6% and 10.8% between August and December last year.   The only consoling thought is that the big freeze/ energy price rise is not quite as bad as Alireza M’s double whammy.   Impoverished tincletons the country over will no doubt be challenging themselves to see if they can see the winter out without freezing to death.

Codger Mansions is far from being a warm property and the bathroom is always chilly, even in the height of summer, and this is believed to be the case because a previous owner of the property committed suicide in the room.   The only thing I can think of to dispel the frosty aura of the bathroom is to offset the suicidal death by the room hosting the birth of a new born baby to restore parity.  It is a shame that I didn’t think of this idea earlier as my work colleague from the valleys Rhydderch Richnerds had some good news this week as his lovely wife Angelica gave birth to their first child Adam Ronald Paul, my congratulations go out to them both.   Whilst sitting in the Flagon & Gorses last week I received a photograph via mobile phone from Richnerds of young Adam, who is a very pleasant looking little new born.

A photograph of a different nature formed part of my agenda on the day that Adam was born.   As a Christmas present my ex-wife Selena generously bought a gift voucher for my son Kenteke and I to have a free portrait picture with a professional photographer and I only got around to arranging the appointment for the photo shoot a couple of weeks ago for one reason and another.      The results of the shoot (which I viewed this week) only just fell short of a disaster; Kenteke looked great in all of the shots but I looked awful, especially my skin, which was dryer and ruddier than normal, despite me moisturising before the shoot; I had an appearance not dissimilar to Michael Gambon’s character, Philip E. Marlow, in The Singing Detective.   I was tasked to choose one photograph from the dozens of snaps that were taken and I managed to quickly narrow it down to three photos, which were the only ones in which I didn’t look horrific.  However, on two of the pictures it appeared that I had a belly sticking out due to the way my shirt was sitting, so that ruled them out and the choice was effectively down to a solitary photo, which was a more sympathetic long shot.  Even the sepia snaps did me no favours.  Photogenic I am not though I hoped that the photographer would have done a better job of using tricks of the trade to soften my displeasing appearance in the pictures.  Mind you as Willy Mantitt put it, she’s a photographer not a miracle worker.

It would usually take a miracle worker to transform the cuisine on offer in the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away into something approximating the palatable but despite this knowledge on Sunday my arch nemesis the Baby Faced Assassin, who occupies front of house in the establishment, again used his mesmerising powers to draw me into the shop in a trance-like, moonstruck state following the saliferous aromas, like the boy in the fabled Bisto advert.  A change of tack by me, ordering a plain beef curry and friend rice, produced pleasing, if not wholly gratifying, results.    By siphoning off some of the oleaginous matter from the stodgy dish I managed to partially isolate the beef and onions and once they were liberated from the gelatinous sauce and assimilated into the rice it formed an edible, inoffensive meal.  I cannot claim this as a victory over the Assassin, especially given the repellent aftertaste in my mouth on Monday morning, but I am at least counting it as a score draw.

The culinary highlight of last week was the cheese night at the Flagon & Gorses but as the slices of cheese that were served were so humungous the plate was more calorific that than a normal three course meal and resultantly I was left bloated for days and full of fromage, which was my own fault of course for displaying such unabated gourmandism.   The cheese was so plentiful I even took a fair proportion of it home thereafter putting some in my lunchbox for the following day but when I came to eat it I was still so infused with cheese that, like a picture of the late Margaret Thatcher, I struggled to face it.   The cheese bloat at least accelerated my recent quest for some new, comfortable work chinos (see Lowlife 36) and after systematically trawling around most department stores and gentleman’s clothes retailers in Birmingham I at last managed to find a pair that were cut half decently and not skinny fitting.    I found the trousers in British Home Stores, a denizen of middle age chic, and they were competitively priced at £20 and there was even the option of a single pleat version, which I have searched for in vain for many a moon. 

Standing in British Home Stores hunting for relaxed fitting chinos is a sign of one’s tenuous grasp on the hand of youth rapidly slipping away and it acts as reminder of the greatest paradox of ageing: as time moves on one’s body and demeanour slows down but a person’s relative perception of time speeds up, that is a day to a middle aged person appears to them to pass quicker than the same amount of time experienced by a child (numerous studies have verified this theory).    Time itself does not speed up as one grows older of course but one’s perfection of it so logically with the right psychological tool a person’s viewpoint of time could be once more decelerated.  To begin to even think about the solution to such an abstract concept is beyond my meagre intellect but I do know that there are few more stark reminders of the speedy passage of life than the two signs yards apart from each other on the Stourbridge Road, that can be seen by looking out from the door of the Flagon & Gorses. The signs read, “Halesowen Youth Centre” swiftly and ominously followed by “Halesowen Cemetery.”

© Dominic Horton, October 2013.

                                                                                               

                       

Lowlife 40 – Working on the Chain Gang

Working on the Chain Gang

Three straight nights of sobriety; I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  Though last night I did have a fleeting, longing look at a cold bottle of the wonderful Aldi Steinhauser German lager (which I am convinced is rebranded Becks) which is nesting in the fridge before having an admonishing word with myself.  I then turned to do the washing up and the bottles of ale in the wine rack seemed to beckon me but again I resisted before spotting the vodka when I was rustling among the bottles for some squash but it was only a brief flirtation and I determinedly stuck to the squash.  I have realised that I take great pleasure in putting a “0” in the “Units consumed” column for the day on the Aquarius five point alcohol reduction plan, it is a similar sense of satisfaction to earning a clean sheet in a game of football, which being a defender was my principle objective.  Pleasure can also be found of course in clean sheets in a different context when getting into bed after changing the bed linen, which usually happens once a week in Codger Mansions in order for me to eschew complaints from Alfie the teddy, who does after all spend infinitely more time in bed than me.

On Monday morning I found that clean steps and not clean sheets was what the cleaning man at Snow Hill Station was desirous of as I found him mopping the station steps without much enthusiasm or vigour; the reason for the lack of zeal in the cleaning man’s approach was that he was idiotically undertaking the mopping task during the morning rush at 0845 hours, just as commuters were streaming out of the station to their various offices and workplaces in the city centre, so the steps were once more dirtied as quickly as he had cleaned them, leading to him having to continuously repeat his actions.  Incredibly when I reached the office I was greeted by the sight of the resident Mr Mop undertaking exactly the same action as his Snow Hill station counterpart, resulting in comparable results. (The office is on the third floor of the building and I always take the stairs to provide me with a modicum of exercise before sitting on my ar*e for eight hours.)  I hazard a guess that in their former lives both men worked on the chain gang of a state penitentiary in Mississippi and had to break bricks and the mopping and re-mopping of steps in some way gives them a degree of comfort and connection with their former lives.  Both fellows need to go back to school to reconsider their respective mopping tactics.

(As an aside, in matters relating to cleanliness, or more accurately a lack thereof, the line of the week goes unequivocally to Ung Pirat who described his father’s (i.e. the Pirate’s) chaotic and dishevelled room as “a ‘70’s charity shop that has exploded.”)

If Messrs Mop and Mop returned back to school they would find themselves in the middle of a crackdown by the authorities on parents taking children out of class during term time to go on holiday, much to the consternation of many parents who can ill afford to go away in the school breaks.  I would imagine that the stricter regulations will lead to many parents claiming that their children are ill so they can go on holiday.  This tactic could pose problems if families go to clement destinations as it will look very suspicious if the child returns to school with a glowing suntan.  Given this potential issue I predict that there will be a boom in holiday bookings to Iceland and I have rustled up a few pennies and bought a share in Icelandair.  Flagon & Gorses dignitary the Abdul can be spotted in Iceland most weeks, not the country but the supermarket in Halesowen, buying a stock of frozen chicken tikka lasagnes.  If families do visit hot locations on their illicit holidays they will have to dress their children in burkas to prevent them acquiring a suntan or force them to inhabit one of those funny little tent like shelters whilst on the beach to keep them out of the sun.

One schoolboy who will most probably not complain about not being able to go on his jollies during term time is the bespectacled Harry Potter as on the evidence of the film that I watched on Saturday night with my son Kenteke Potter seems to be having a jolly and japing enough time at school as it is.  Mind you, if ever Hogwarts were to be visited by OFSTED they would be sure to fail the inspection as amongst other things the pupils’ lives appears to be under constant threat.  During the film (the Prisoner of Azkaban) one of the Hogwarts teachers even turned out to be a werewolf, so the school cannot be CRB screening the staff, which even I know is a basic requirement.   Incidentally, the physical appearance of my old cohort the Frymaster General is so similar to that of a werewolf that it is said that on a full moon he turns into a human.

Despite it not being a full moon the Chancellor George Osborne had to visit the Chinese in a state of desperation this week but I empathise with him as I often have to do the same, usually on a Saturday night after closing time.   That said since my last despatch I have managed to avoid my nemesis, being the Baby Faced Assassin who lurks behind the counter of the Rhareli Peking Chinese take away and I feel a lot better for not having ingested his fatty oriental wares.

Although I did not suffer the unusual tastes of the Rhareli Peking this week, on Sunday in the Flagon & Gorses Chilli Willy did serve me an intriguingly drink called a Shrub in order to illicit my opinion.  I couldn’t place the alcoholic content of the drink; at first I thought it tasted like a very bitter cider (or even a cider gone off) that was mixed with black currant and tonic then I suggested to Willy that the drink contained sherry. Willy said no on both counts.  The drink tasted curious and unusual but was pleasant and different.  Chilli Willy eventually confessed that it is a non-alcoholic drink and that it is a form of vinegar mixed with tonic.  Willy plans to sell the drink and other “adult” soft drinks in the pub soon, which will be a welcome addition.  If the Flagon are to sell adult products they might want to enlist the services of Dick the Hook who has well known expertise, professionally speaking may I add, in that department.

One thing that is neither tasteful or intriguing is the proliferation of charity street sellers that litter Birmingham City Centre; it is like playing British bulldog walking down New Street trying to dodge past them but they still try and accost you even when it is obvious to all and sundry that you are making great efforts to navigate away from them.  Mind you, the only thing worse than being stopped by these street sellers is not being stopped by them, especially when you are the only person in their proximity, as it feels like an affront.  By not stopping you when you walk past them they are effectively saying to you, “I’m not even going to bother wasting my time approaching you pal as by the looks of it you haven’t got a pot to p*ss in.”  If the charities want to place their staff on the streets, instead of bothering people for money they may be better employed approaching passers-by who are clearing in need and offering them assistance, e.g. “ee are mate, let’s go and buy you a new coat because frankly the one you are wearing is a complete disgrace and if you are waiting for it to come back into fashion then don’t bother as it was never in fashion in the first place and we both know that if you try and wash it to remove the filth and grime that the coat will perish in the process.”   So that’s the Lowlife lowdown on charity, next week: no faith, lost hope, all matters religious and Pope on a rope.

© Dominic Horton, October 2013.