Lowife 106 – Profit not Prophet

Profit not Prophet

By Dominic Horton

In last week's edition of Lowlife I wrote about the case of Raif Badawi, a blogger from Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, 1,000 lashes (50 at a time over 20 weeks) and fined the equivalent of £175,000 for publishing dissenting comments against the repressive Saudi state in his Free Saudi Liberals blog. The blog, which was established to encourage debate, was shut down by the Saudi authorities. Badawi received his first 50 lashes in public on 9th January but fortunately the Saudi authorities have twice postponed the next round of lashes, originally citing that Badawi's injuries were too bad and that he might not be able to withstand another flogging at that time. But the decision to postpone the floggings may have also have been made in the light of growing international protests about the case.

Herp Albert, by request of Toby In-Tents

The Foreign Secretary discussed the Badawi case with the Saudi Ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf Bin Adbelaziz, last Thursday and a Foreign Office spokesman stated, “We are seriously concerned by Raif Badawi’s case. The UK condemns the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment in all circumstances. The foreign secretary has raised the matter with the Saudi ambassador, and we’ve previously raised the case at a senior level with the Saudi authorities.”

So I was horrified to learn that the Prime Minister David Cameron and Prince Charles were flying to Saudi Arabia to pay their tributes to the late King Adullah, who died on Friday. Further, the government ordered flags on public buildings to be flown at half mast as a mark of respect to the late Saudi King. Cameron's and the governments reverential attitude towards the monarch is complete hipocrasy given the Saudi's appalling record of abuses of free speech and women's rights and Cameron and the Prince of Wales should be ashamed of themselves; stating that attending the funeral and flying the flags at half mast is “protocol” is no defence at all.

Ironically, the officials at the Saudi Arabian embassy in London did not fly their flag at half mast as they believe such an action to be an insult to God and the Prophet Mohammed. It is an insult to the people of this country and those that have suffered at the hands of the Saudi regime that Cameron is flying to Saudi. The government's attitude towards King Adullah's death is more to do with profit not prophet - it is no co-incidence that Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest oil exporting country.

A message to David Cameron

Amnesty International believe that the government is being “muzzled” over the Raif Badawi case because of the country's commercial and defence interests in Saudi. As the condemnation of the government's attitude to the Saudi regime increased it was with incredulousness that I read a story in The Guardian that the UK Ministry of Justice (via a new commercial Arm, Just Solutions International) has bid for a contract in Saudi Arabia and is looking to profit from selling its know-how to the Saudi prison service, a service that is reported to routinely infringe human rights. Floggings, amputations and even public beheadings are common – the Saudi's executed 87 people in 2014, most of them beheadings. The Ministry of Justice's bid for the contract is beyond the the pale and the ministry should spend more of it's time and resources campaigning for the likes of Raif Badawi and for lasting reforms to the Saudi justice system and human rights regime.

The flags were most definitely at half mast this week at my Codger Mansions home after my diminutive car, Helen, took a right old bashing on Thursday while she was parked minding her own business on the road outside my house on. I was all ready to leave the house in the morning to attend my shared reading group when I heard a loud bang on the road outside. I went out to investigate only to find that Helen has been horribly assaulted and her driver's side door had been battered and smashed. A neighbour backed his car off his drive over the road but failed to see a vehicle that was travelling down the hill, who hit the neighbour's car before ricocheting into Helen and another car that was parked on the other side of the road. Luckily none of the parties to the accident were hurt.

A similar incident happened a couple of years ago when there was heavy snowfall and on that occasion there was no vehicle parked outside the house so the car that lost control on the difficult road surface ploughed into my front garden wall. The driver and her passenger escaped unhurt and I was delighted in the long run as I ended up with a new, sturdy wall to replace the old one, which was in a crumbling state of disrepair, not surprising as the my younger brother, the Codger himself, had a hand in building the wall when he lived at the property. A builder the Codger is not. The wall he built was hardly like the walls of Jericho and it wouldn't have needed a legion of trumpets to knock it down, Herp Albert could have done it on his own.

Prince Mohammed Bin Nawaf, the Saudi Ambassador

to Britain, who looks like Paul Henry, who played Benny

in Crossroads

Once the dust had settled over Helen's accident and I had made my insurance claim and taped a plastic cover over Helen's broken window I began to again see the accident as a beneficial thing as there has long been a scuff down the driver's side wing and as a silver lining I thought that this would be fixed as part of the repairs. But Pat Debilder and Neddy Lachouffe (who works in the car trade) both p*ssed on my chips in the Flagon & Gorses saying that they both feel that given the damage to Helen that the insurance company will decide to write the vehicle off and send me a cheque for what they think it is worth. That of course will be a pain in the aris as I will then need to buy a new car and I find buying a suitable pair of trousers stressful enough let alone a new motor.

I am not in the habit of discussing motor vehicles in the Flagon & Gorses as it is a subject that bores me to tears but given the upset of Helen's condition I popped up the pub on Thursday evening and told the sorry tale to Dick the Hook, who was lingering about at a loose end as his wife was in hospital having her knee replaced. We started telling each other general motoring yarns and I mentioned that when one of my old car's wing mirrors was smashed I taped a shaving mirror on as a makeshift replacement. Dick said, “that's funny because I have got a wing mirror in the bathroom that I use for shaving.”

If there was a more equitable distribution of wealth then everyone could afford to have mirrors that were originally intended to fulfill their proper purpose but globally things are getting worse not better. The Guardian reported last weekend that in 2009 the richest 1% of the global population owned 44% of the wealth and this figure rose to 48% in 2014 – on current trends it is predicted that by 2016 the wealthiest 1% will own 50% of the world's wealth. By contrast in 2014 the least well off 80% owned just 5.5% of the wealth.

Paul Henry playing Benny in Crossroads

The richest 1% is constituted of just 80 individuals. What on earth do they do with all of their wealth? They must get fed up of eating Wagyu steak and drinking 1787 Chateau Lafite and slum it occasionally with a pint of stout in the Waggon followed by the Eastern delights of the Rhareli Peking Chinese takeaway. Apparently the Wagyu cattle are only given beer to drink as part of the traditional rearing process to ensure the flavour and tenderness of the steak – given the amount of beer he consumes the landlord of the Flagon & Gorses, the Pirate, must be part of a bizarre cannibal cult and be preparing himself to be served up as their Christmas dinner. I for one will not be joining the cult in question.

The news comes in the same week as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that four out of ten families in Britain do not have a sufficient income level to allow them to afford a basic standard of living. The definition of basic living standards includes such things as having a week's holiday in the UK or buying a second hand car if the family includes children. Shockingly the definition does not include going to the pub and having a pint. What kind of life would it be if one could not nip up the boozer and tickle the tonsils occasionally? A desperately miserable one of course. In addition to lobbying about the case of Raif Badawi and the like I think Amnesty International should campaign about the basic human right of having a pint. We are suppose to be living in a civilised society after all. 

© Dominic Horton, January 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 105 – The Saucy One's Apprentice

The Saucy One's Apprentice

By Dominic Horton

I continued the decorating work at Codger Mansions this week and the dining room was next on the list. Not that I dine in the room anymore as my dear son Kenteke has commandeered the room as a games room for his snooker table, so the dining table is in storage in the loft. That means that at meal times Kenteke and I sit in the living room in front of the television, goggle eyed like Jim Royale and Lurcio from the BBC sitcom The Royale Family. Genteel folk might comment that it is common to dine on the sofa in front of the TV but to that I say, “my arse.”

Graham Gough's fantastic photograph of Andy Wade performing at the 

Saltwells Inn, Brierley Hill, in 1974

When I am alone at mealtimes I usually read instead of watching the box but this poses a problem as I need one hand free to hold the book. This is one of the many reasons why I eat a lot of soup. The other reasons are that soup is easy to make, it's nutritious, cheap and it makes you feel like you have had a decent meal even though you have not consumed many calories, so it keeps you in trim. The downside is that as I am concentrating on my book I tend to spill the soup down my clothes and the sofa.

The sofa is leather so I can easily wipe the soup off but I have not taken to wearing leather clothes as I don't want to look like Alvin Stardust. Or Miss Whiplash for that matter. As devilish and erotic as Miss Whiplash may be it must cost her a fortune in dubbin and take up all of her time rubbing the stuff into her leather outfits. Mind you, as apprenticeships are making a comeback she might have an underling who undertakes the task for her. Maybe she's called the Saucy One's Apprentice. I might have the wrong end of the stick completely as Miss Whiplash might not be a dominatrix at all but rather she may have gained her nickname after being in a series of minor car accidents.

Beryl Cook's painting Ladies' Night

Continuing the theme of erotic (or supposedly erotic) persons and back to the decorating - I was in the process of laying out newspaper on the games room floor to protect it from paint and the publication in question happened to be an April edition of The Halesowen Chronicle, which I rarely read as I prefer the better quality The Halesowen News.  But all of a sudden in the face of doing boring decorating the articles in the Chronicle seemed absolutely fascinating and I found myself wasting valuable decorating time reading them.

One story caught my eye, with a headline that read, “Tribute paid to male stripper who inspired art.” The article was about the passing on of Andy Wade from Northfield, Birmingham, who is believed to be Britain's first male stripper. The article included a wonderfully evocative photograph by Graham Gough of The Express & Star newspaper of Wade in action, performing at the Saltwells Inn, Brierley Hill in 1974 in a room packed full of curious and excited women. Gough's fabulous photograph is one of those pictures of a moment in time that draws you in and makes you feel that you are actually in the room, so you can almost feel the atmosphere, hear the laughter and cries of the onlooking women, smell the tobacco, the barley wine and the sweat and hear the sassy music driving Wade on in his strip tease act.

You can just imagine the anarchy that evening in the Saltwells Inn. Black Country women tend to be lively and fun loving, when they have the chance, at the worst of times so being presented with a male stripper, a brand new phenomenon, it would have been pure pandemonium. Can you picture the uproar. Gough explained in the Chronicle article that he and Wade were the only two men in the room and the women in the audience were getting increasingly frisky, so he was relieved in the end to escape with all his clothes on. Let us remember that the 1970's were an altogether more innocent time than today and also the pastimes of men and women were more separated that they are now. I can just picture the women who were at the Saltwell's show telling their workmates or other mothers on the school playground the following day about Wade's naked histrionics, to the utter disbelief of the listening ears: “he actually took his clothes …....... off!!!! In the Saltwells!! Crikey Brenda!! Did he have much to look at?!”

Graham Gough's photograph of the infamous evening in the Saltwells Inn caught the attention of the late artist Beryl Cook and she bought a large print of it. The photograph inspired Cook to paint a picture based on Gough's image and she entitled it Ladies' Night and the painting quickly became well known to the public. I do like Cook's work as her paintings are mostly a record of ordinary working class life that show people in pubs, dance halls, cafeterias, car boot sales and the like. Cook died in 2008 and none other than the multi-talented Victoria Wood described her as “Rubens with jokes.” The photographer Graham Gough is now 74 years old and he is alive and well in Kinver.

Raif Badawi, by request of Toby In-Tents. 

Somewhere along the line the old fashioned social club stripper was usurped by the increasing popularity of ghastly lap dancing clubs, which I have to say I have never been a fan of. They do not have real ale on and sell you an unappetising bottle of lager for an extortionate price, so together with the entrance fee punters are massively out of pocket before they have even seen any flesh. And lap dancing clubs are a case of you can look but you can't have, like window shopping but worse as you can't even try the wares on. And all of that is before I even get into arguments about the degradation and objectification of women.

The only stripping I have been doing this week is stripping flaky paint off the games room skirting boards, a task only made bearable by pausing now and again to read the newspaper articles on the floor. Another article that made me stop in my tracks was from Monday's Guardian and concerned the case of Raif Badawi, a blogger from Saudi Arabia. The piece was of interest to me for very different reasons for those that made the Andy Wade stripping article fascinating.

Badawi is founder of the Free Saudi Liberals blog, which he used to voice dissent against the state's influential clerics who follow a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism. It has been widely reported that since the 2011 Arab spring uprisings there has been a crackdown on freedom of speech and criticism of the authorities in Saudi Arabia and as part of this action Badawi was arrested in mid-2012 and has been detained ever since.

Alvin Stardust

Last May Badawi, a father of three, was convicted of insulting Islam and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, 1,000 lashes and he was fined the equivalent of £266,600. On the Friday before last Badawi received the first 50 of his 1,000 lashes in a public square in the city of Jeddah in front of hundreds of spectators who had just finished attending Friday prayers. The barbaric flogging lasted fifteen minutes. Amnesty International called the flogging a “vicious act of cruelty” and stated that Badawi's “only 'crime' was to exercise his right to freedom of expression by setting up a website for public discussion.” You can sign an e-petition to protest against Badawi's case by visiting https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/saudi-arabia-free-raif-badawi-flogged-blogger – it only takes a minute of your time. Badawi was due to receive fifty more lashes this week but it was was postponed as his injuries from the first fifty lashes were so appalling that a medic stated that he would not be able to withstand any more punishment at this time.

The Badawi case struck such a sickening and shocking chord with me being a fellow writer and blogger. I routinely write what I want in these pages and I often criticise the authorities and the government and I never give it a second thought. British society and the way that it is governed is far from perfect but we do at least have the right to exercise our freedom of speech without generally having any fear of reprisal and for that at least we should all be grateful.  After all, if would be no fun at all for me to be dragged out of the Flagon & Gorses and taken to Somer's Square in Halesowen town centre to be given fifty lashes in front of an assembled crowd fresh from Pick's pub and the Wetherspoons who would shout, “give the **** another fifty!!!” And imagine having to choose one's words carefully while drinking in the Flagon & Gorses for fear of arrest by the secret police. The Pirate would have to be muzzled – but then again given the nonsense that he spouts forth that might not be such a bad idea. 

© Dominic Horton, January 2015.

* Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Lowlife 104 – A Dart to the Heart

A Dart to the Heart

By Dominic Horton

As I occasionally dabble in a bit of satire in these pages it has been a nervy week for everyone at the Lowlife headquarters at Codger Mansions (i.e. Alfie the teddy bear and I) after the shocking murders in Paris of staff of the weekly satirical news magazine Charlie Hebdo. I doubt whether a little known humourist writer from Halesowen is on the terrorists most wanted list but you never know – it would send shockwaves around the West Midlands real ale community if I was to be assassinated. Thinking about it I am a humanist in addition to being a humourist, so that makes me a humanist humourist. You often hear of humanist funerals these days but never of humourist ones. If the terrorists do hunt me down (which won't be too hard for them as they only need look in the Flagon & Gorses, Codger Mansions, Villa Park or the Coombeswood Sports & Social Club) and clip me then I desire a humourist funeral. With Roddy Doyle as the master of ceremonies.

Alan Brazil in his Ipswich Town pomp. 

I have put Barty Hook of the Lowlife London Office on high alert as he is more at threat in the Smoke than I am in sleepy Halesowen and sensibly he immediately retreated to the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green to attend the World Professional Darts Championship, to hide among the reveling throng. Even if the terrorists sniff him out I doubt if they would ever have the heart to kill a drunken man who is wearing a Kermit the Frog costume and holding a sign reading, “Let's have darts in the Olympics.” Given Barty's appearance at the arrows the assassins might try to bump him off with a dart to the heart, a bullseye, at which Jim Bowen would appear from the shadows and tell the successful hitman that he has won a speedboat. The unsuccessful assassins will of course just get the bus fair home, which might cost Bowen a few quid given that they live in Paris.

I have been listening to Talk Sport recently in preference to BBC Radio 5 Live as there was a proliferation of child abuse stories on the latter station and I just can't face listening to them as they make me sick to the stomach. So I have opted for Talk Sport, which like following football or other sports is pure escapism, but even there I could not get away from the dreadful Charlie Hebdo murders. But being the consummate breakfast time sports broadcaster the jovial and garrulous Alan Brazil quickly brushed over the matter by saying that the murders are an awful business but life goes on, before quickly moving on to a preview of the weekend's football fixtures. Brazil didn't even ask the opinion of his sidekick Micky Quinn, in the way that he did when Iraq was invaded in 2003, which lead to the farcical situation of Quinn proffering his views on world politics.

I'll never forgive Quinn for exercising his weapons of mass destruction on Boxing Day, 1992, when he scored two goals in a 3-0 Coventry City win against my beloved Aston Villa at Highfield Road, which I attended. It brought an expeditious end to festivities that year and as last week's edition of this column suggested I have never quite recovered.

Angel Ales' Bob 60, brewed for the Pirate's
60th birthday four years ago.

The hurtful memory of Quinn's goals made me hastily re-tune my radio to BBC Radio 5 Live where the reporter stated that despite the Charlie Hebdo killings Paris seemed to be relatively normal with tourists taking pictures of themselves with selfie sticks. I had no idea what a selfie stick was so I had to research the matter. The only stick I possess is a turd stick, which I use to unblock the toilet if there is a log jam.

I have always stocked a turd stick since an incident at one of my previous dwellings, No 2 Fairfield Drive, many years ago. A particularly hearty and firm log had blocked the toilet and it refused to disappear down the U-bend after several flushes. I can't remember who the owner of the stool was but I have a feeling that it might have been my then housemate Still-in-Fjord, who had form in such matters. It just so happened that my dear departed friend Alfie C was in the house and on hearing the commotion upstairs he inquired as to what the problem was, so I explained the situation to him. “Haven't you got a turd stick?” Alfie asked. “No,” I replied.

Alfie was perplexed as he thought that everyone possessed a turd stick in the same way as owning a kettle. Undeterred Alfie descended the stairs and rummaged around the garage and returned to the toilet with my cricket bat in his hand, declaring, “this will do”. I of course protested that I didn't want my cricket bat shoved down the karsi but I was eventually persuaded that it was the lesser of two evils as the log needed to be shifted to render the toilet usable once more.

Alfie shoved the handle of the cricket bat down the loo and after poking around for a while he flushed the chain and announced that the turd was gone and on it's way to the sewerage works. The news was greeted with more glee and relief than was shown by the princess when St George slain the dragon. For his efforts with the cricket bat we awarded Alfie six runs and it must have been the only time that a person has been delighted by getting runs in the lavatory. Although most households probably have a turd stick they will always be an improvised affair as to my knowledge you cannot buy such a product in the shops. As such there is a clear gap in the market that needs to be exploited, I'll have a think on that. “This time next year Rodney we'll be millionaires” etc.

Jim Bowen, by request of Toby In-Tents.

I have had less cause to visit the toilet this week for number twos as I have had a booze free week, not having imbibed since last Sunday. Not that I am having a puritanical dry January, not at all, I had my first drink of the New Year at lunchtime on New Year's Day and I have no intention whatsoever of denying myself the pleasures of drinking during the course of the month. It has become somewhat of an annual ritual for me to denounce the practice of having a dry January in these pages so please remember that during January, probably more than any other time of the year, your pub landlord needs you. Talking of landlords it is the Pirate's birthday on Sunday, which is another reason why a boozeless January doesn't work for me, especially as my friends at Angel Ales always brew an outstanding stout for the occasion.

It is amazing just how much you can get done when you are liberated from booze; it is just a shame I didn't realise this when I worked for Barclays, I would be the CEO by now. Not that I aspired to fill such a position, on the contrary, as I thankfully got out of the bank while the going was bad and being a highly paid executive is not really my bag. This week marked the occasion of ‘Fatcat Tuesday’ the day on which, according to the High Pay Centre, the amount of money earned by the average FTSE 100 CEO this year to date surpasses the amount that the average worker can expect to earn all year. I would wager that given their wealth most FTSE 100 CEOs have custom made, gold gilded turd sticks, designed to their exact specifications.

The humourist writer Roddy Doyle.

I have decorated two rooms at Codger Mansions this week as well as completing a whole host of fiddly tasks that have been outstanding for an age. I use the word “decorating” very loosely as it is not exactly my forte. I made the mistake of buying a pot of emulsion from B&Q that was half price - it ran out before I had finishing painting the living room and a return trip to the store revealed that it was sold at a discount as it was the last one. I had to buy another paint that was a rough match of the original colour to finish the job off. Luckily, I think I have got away with it and the room doesn't look too bad, mainly on account of the small windows in Codger Mansions that only let in a small amount of daylight, rendering the rooms murky even on the brightest of winter days.

Illuminating summer sunshine might reveal the discrepancy in the two shades of colour but I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. The advice of the sage-like Australian psychologist and author Dorothy Rowe is to live in the present and to not fret about the future and such guidance is good enough for me, especially when I am having a drink in the Flagon & Gorses. And given my sobriety, stresses and endeavours this week, it is most definitely, without question, time for a pint of the Pirate's finest.  

© Dominic Horton, January 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 103 – Business as Usual

Business as Usual

By Dominic Horton

Thankfully the festive season is now just booze under the bridge and life can get back to business as usual. The day trippers who gleefully set up temporary camp in the Flagon & Gorses in their lurid Christmas jumpers will retreat back to their gymnasiums and television sets with their New Year's resolutions that they won't keep, leaving us regular inmates to dutifully go about our drinking and to settle back into the gentle rhythm of pub life.

Philly the Gent (on the right, with Harry Stottle on the left)

The festive season can be an unwelcome time of year for those of us who plough a single furrow. Every year I childishly look forward to Christmas and have a naive expectation that I will thoroughly enjoy every minute of it and have a glorious time. But that has not been the the case any preceding year and this time around it was no exception, though there were some highlights. The expense, heartache and nuisance falls someway short of justifying my participation in Christmas at all and if it were not for my dear son Kenteke I would opt out of the circus altogether, not write a Christmas card or buy a present or eat a single mouthful of turkey. I would implore others to not to gift me anything or to invite me to any festive events and if they challenged me on it, calling me Scrooge (which seems to be the usual disparaging comment towards anyone who dares to question the value of Christmas) then I would tell them to shove their chestnuts up their ar*e.

Talking of Scrooge I read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol recently but even that book, and the well known fable contained within it, didn't have much of an effect of me and left me with no desire to buy Bob Cratchit a whacking great turkey. For many people Christmas is a sort of a suspension of reality, an escape and so is pub going; if those of us who clock up the beer miles suspend reality any more we would end up in cloud cuckoo land. Which might be a good place to be while waiting for Christmas to pass over.

This time of year everyone says “Happy New Year” to each other. There is no doubt that it is the New Year, unless you are Chinese or Mayan of course, but it has hardly been a happy one thus far so I hope that things are on the upturn soon. My New Year started in the Flagon & Gorses as I ventured up there on New Year's Eve and although it was a pleasant enough evening, it was in essence just another night up the pub but with a greater consumption of drink all round. There is a heightened sense that one should be having the time of one's life just because it is New Year's Eve and this can only lead to disappointment. Being somewhat resigned to my fate I saw little purpose in making any New Year's resolutions and I would bet that the only resolution that most Flagoners make is to not make any resolutions at all.

Ivor the Engine, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Things improved little on New Year's Day. I thought that a bit of fresh air at the football would be the best tonic for my hangover and malaise, so Kenteke and I paid our usual pilgrimage to Villa Park to watch our beloved team play Crystal Palace, who are below us in the league table, so hopes were high of a victory and a bit of entertainment. The 10 fixtures in the Premier League boasted a bumper total of 33 goals, which is more goals than any other New Year's Day in the top flight since 1987, so there were goals and free flowing football everywhere. Except at Villa Park that is, where we were subjected to a dour, lifeless 0-0 draw. The game was beyond grim. On the way back from the match Kenteke and I had to take our demoralisation to the Flagon & Gorses for a quick drink to help to begin to thaw out the frozen conviviality in our spirits.

On Friday I could barely wait to take the Christmas trimmings down and return the living room at Codger Mansions to it's normal spartan self; the operation didn't take long, mostly on account of the pop up tree with baubles and lights already affixed to it. For a person like me, who derives more pleasure in taking the Christmas tree down than putting it up, the tree would have been better marketed as a “pop down tree.” The tree and other festive lighting were put away and the Christmas cards condemned to the recycling bag in record time, certainly less than five minutes.

The Botanical Gardens, Birmingham.

There seems to be an explosion in the fashion for people putting up vulgar, flashing Christmas lights outside their properties and I would imagine a “keeping up with the Jones's” attitude has had a lot to do with it, with neighbouring households trying to out do each other. Those Jones's have an awful lot to answer for and it is about time that they were held to account for what they have been responsible for over the years. I do not understand why some incur the trouble and cost to place Christmas lights outside of their dwellings as once you are inside the household you cannot see them and therefore take any gratification from them. And having to take them down in a downcast mood once the Yuletide party is over must be a significantly more soul destroying task than having to put them up (at the behest of the kids but against your wishes) in the first place.

If you are going to put up fancy lights outside then you might as well do it in the back garden in the summer and enjoy their illuminating glow whilst lounging on the patio. You could even invite the Jones's round for a barbecue and show the lights off to them solely for the purposes of one-upmanship but the smug b*stards will probably tell you that they've had similar patio lights for years.

Philly the Gent was telling me on Friday night in the Flagon that it will take him hours to take his extensive Christmas decorations down as he has more trees in his house than the Botanical Gardens and a display of tinsel that can only be bettered by Hollywood itself. Given what Philly was drinking I doubt whether he undertook the task on Saturday but I might be doing him a disservice. If he's anything like me it could go one of two ways – when I wake up booze tainted I can either be highly productive or the morning can be a write off, it is usually one of the two extremes. Often I view being hung over as dead time as it is not possible to enjoy pleasurable activity, so I fill the time by doing menial housework tasks and the like that are going to be a drag at the best of times. And if you stay active and on the move it makes it harder for the booze terror devils to keep up with you.

Vulgar Christmas lights. 

One thing that I have enjoyed doing over the festive period is playing with my dongle. For those technophobes among you (which I would hazard is the majority of my readership) a dongle is a small device that can be plugged into a USB port to enable wireless access from a computer to an external device. The dongle in question in this case is a Chromecast, which you plug into your television set and it will then play anything on your screen that you are streaming over the internet on your laptop, tablet or smartphone. It was very simple to set up and even a Luddite like me managed it.

I had no idea of the amount of television programmes and the like that are now available on Youtube, so for a mere £18 the dongle has given me access to a practically unlimited supply of entertainment. I started off with a few episodes of a childhood favourite, Ivor the Engine, and I was delighted to find that the ravages of time have not diminished the programme one jot, it still has the becalming and uplifting effect that it always had. The wonders of modern home entertainment are all well and good but all of the laptops, X-Boxes, flat screen televisions and dongles in the world cannot replace the pleasure of a pint of decent beer and a friendly chat in the Flagon & Gorses.

© Dominic Horton, January 2015.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 102 – In the Dead of the Night

In the Dead of the Night

By Dominic Horton

Boxing Day dealt me a right hook as by the evening I felt like a zombie with little conversation or life left in me by the time that I shuffled into the Flagon & Gorses early evening. The afternoon was pleasant enough, a run over the woods followed by a trip to the social club with my dear son Kenteke to watch our beloved Aston Villa, who were playing away at Swansea: although Villa lost they played well and it was a good game, so we enjoyed it. There was thick snow at the club in Blackheath and it was very festive but back home, a mile down the hill in Halesowen, there was virtually no snow at all. It is amazing how each small area seems to have its own little micro climate. Furnace Hill, where my Codger Mansion dwelling is situated, is consistently colder than the Dudley Road around the corner and it can often be covered with a thick frost while adjoining roads have none. There is often a discernible change in temperature when you turn the corner at the bottom of Furnace Hill past the chippy and enter Dudley Road. Mind you that might just be the heat off the deep fat fryer.

Marley's Ghost, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Anyway, after getting home from the club I didn't want to linger around Codger Mansions so instead of killing time until later in the evening I had a quick bowl of home made soup (tomato and lentil) and made haste for the Flagon & Gorses. It was very quiet in the pub and there were only few people in there and most of those were day trippers in Christmas jumpers and not regular Flagon inmates. I spotted Clawdia sitting alone, and not working behind the bar for once, but enjoying a pint, looking like an impish garden gnome with her woolly hat on, so I joined her for a natter.

Poor Clawdia had to carry the conversation though, as I seemed to have nothing to say for myself, as I felt flatter than a witches t*t. All the eating and drinking and slothing about on Christmas Day had taken its toll and left me in a nullified and languid state and I was struggling to raise my game to drag myself back into the land of the living. I was hoping that a bustling and lively atmosphere in the Flagon would give me the fillip that I needed but as I had ventured out too early the atmosphere in the pub was on the sedate side; not even the Pirate was around to ruffle my feathers.

After half an hour or so even Clawdia bid me adieu and abandoned me, leaving me to sit and stew in my own fats. Every time the latch went on the pub door I thought that the likes of Neddy Lachouffe, Dick the Hook or Theo Atrical would pitch up to entertain me, but to no avail; mostly the people entering the pub were drinkers who had popped outside into the inclement weather for a fag. It is a rarity that there is no-one for me to talk to in the Flagon but that was the position I was in, on Boxing Day of all days. And I couldn't even have a read of the newspaper as I had forgotten my glasses.

An urban fox.

I knew that the cavalry would be arriving in an hour or so, in the form of Chrissy the Gent, but I couldn't hold out that long and in a fit of lugubriousness I decided to cut my losses and skulk back to Codger Mansions where at least I had a pork pie awaiting me with open arms. I complemented the pork pie with pickled onions and a film, The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke as an ageing professional wrestler who struggles on performing, despite suffering from ill health. I was delighted when I saw that the film was on as I had long wanted to see it. But once the film had started it dawned on me that I had actually seen it before and although it is a good movie my enthusiasm to watch it drained away. I was left with only one option for the rest of the evening – an early night. I joined Alfie the teddy and I quickly nodded off and fortunately I didn't have my reoccurring nightmare, so the phantasm who haunts my dreams must have secured some time off for Christmas. But like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, he'll be back.

I awoke in the middle of the night needing a trip to the little boy's room and it quickly became apparent on my return to bed that sleep had fled and wouldn't be back anytime soon. I lay in bed but I was wide awake and restless and it reminded me of a line spoken by Marley's Ghost in Dickens' A Christmas Carol: “I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.” After a while I had soon had enough of starring at the ceiling so I decided to do something useful. I got up and made a batch of soup with left over vegetables and meat from Christmas dinner that I had pilfered off my Mother. The soup turned out to be pretty decent, if not a little rich. But any soup containing roast potatoes and pigs in blankets is hardly going to be a light and airy number.

The ESSO petrol station, Bromsgrove Road, Halesowen.

Once I had made the soup it was still only just past 0300 hours and as I felt a bit on the dolorous side I decided to go for a long walk. In her harrowing but ultimately heart warming book Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression Sally Brampton cites walking as one of the key factors that helps her combat the illness and getting your walking boots on to improve well being is a very useful tool indeed.

Tramping around the streets of Halesowen in the middle of the night it was surprising just how many vehicles were on the road and not just commercial lorries and ambulances etc. but regular cars too. Some households had lights on and I wondered if the occupants were still up watching television and enjoying Christmas cheer or had they got out of bed in the middle of the night to make soup out of the Christmas dinner left overs?

I spotted a fox, who was ferreting around someone's front garden trying to get his fangs on a few scraps of food from the rubbish bins. The fox spotted me and briefly went back to his savaging but then thought better of it and he bolted off into the night, pausing briefly after a hundred yards or so to look back at me. I love to see a fox as they are synonymous with the night, the dark, the secret, secluded world that they inhabit. Foxes allude to other mythical creatures, goblins, trolls, werewolves and shadow people. The fox knows the way to other magical worlds and universes and he could lead you to the devil himself if you ever needed to find him.

Sally Brampton

The one magical world that the fox didn't lead me to was the 24 hour petrol station on the Bromsgrove Road. As ESSO have recently taken over the petrol station it is all shiny, gleaming and new and when I walked past it it looked like a glistening, bright oasis of life in the dead of the night, like a mini Las Vegas glowing out from the dark. But without the Elvis impersonators. I thought about popping in to buy a Scotch egg, just to make contact with another human being, even if it would have been through a glass partition, but I decided that I had eaten enough rich food over the last two days so I carried on walking.

With it being nippy outside I was glad to get back into the warmth of Codger Mansions at the end of the walk and as it was past 0500 hours morning had officially started so it was time for a restorative coffee and a banana for sustenance. I am glad that I didn't have the Scotch egg as I felt the stirrings of the beginning of gout in the ball of my left toe, so I flushed it out with pints of water before it had time to settle and do it's evil work. And talking of evil work I thought that I might as well get to work on this week's edition of Lowlife before apathy set in to replace the gout. And above is the result; in terms of a result you would probably classify this week's offering as a 0-0 draw – fairly boring but at least there is a point (if you look hard enough.)

© Dominic Horton, December 2014.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com

Lowlife 101 – Market Forces

Market Forces

By Dominic Horton

On Thursday I popped to the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham to see the Phantom, the Mexican and other ex-work colleagues. It was only my second visit to have a drink at the market this Christmas and on the last visit (with the Stottles two weeks ago) we only had one pint before retreating to the warming comforts of the Post Office Vaults pub. When I visit the market I only ever go for a drink, I never actually do any Christmas shopping as I see no appeal in buying gifts that people mostly do not want for twice the price of their normal mark up. In fact I haven't visited any stores to do Christmas shopping this year as I have done the entirety of my purchasing online as in the words of any self-respecting Punch & Judy man, “that's the way to do it.”

Sleepy Tom Parker, by request of Toby In-Tents.

Why in this internet age people want to suffer the aggravation of fighting their way around bustling stores to suffer Christmas shopping is beyond me; it only leads to the panic buying of naff and inappropriate gifts for Auntie Doris that she won't thank you for. I wouldn't accept all the tea in China to be tasked with enduring Christmas Shopping at Merry Hill on a Saturday afternoon whilst suffering from booze terrors. It would be my worst nightmare. Just imagine. It would drive one to drink. But some odd individuals actually enjoy Christmas shopping. “Let's go Christmas shopping for the day at Merry Hill dear, then afterwards we can put our feet up at home and watch X-Factor will a cold can of Carling Black label.” No thank you, on all fronts. I am having cold sweats just thinking about it.

A young, talented saxophonist pitched up at the market on Thursday and started to play popular tunes. Although his music added to the ambiance he was quickly moved on by security guards as he didn't have an official permit to busk. When I was walking down New Street later in the afternoon there was a bloke dressed in a sort of Star Wars character costume standing on a box, purporting to be a street entertainer. This fella must have a council permit as he was not moved on and I have seen him there on a few occasions previously. There is no doubt he is on the street but I am not sure where the “entertainment” bit comes in – he doesn't even stand perfectly still like some statuesque entertainers you see. In fact I think he has circulation problems as he was stamping his feet and waving his arms when I walked past him and he wasn't even doing it to music.  Needless to say I didn't donate any of my pennies to his coffers. So how council officials decide what applicants to bless with a street entertainment permit gawd only knows; it could well be the case that you need to be a relative or associate of the official who wields the relevant stamp to get the thumbs up.

It is a shame that busking is so tightly controlled in Birmingham city centre as it could be seen as a basic human right for those who are down on their luck but have a musical, oratory or visual talent to share, however basic. If all else fails one can dig out a guitar and play Lola by the Kinks on the street in the hope of gaining a few shillings. Busking of course is not like begging, the busker is working, providing an entertainment and you don't have to pay the busker if you do not want to. Buskers are passive and do not implore you to give them money but rather subtly invite you to do so by drawing you in with their entertainment. And buskers make the city more colourful and vibrant.

Punch & Judy Man Professor Clive Chandler

 (tiptoppuppets.co.uk). 

But the council might argue that if they do not regulate busking and street entertainment that the city centre would be swamped with buskers, who would get in the way of shoppers wanting to spend money. But this point seems contradictory as the council have allowed the city centre streets to become awash with nagging charity fundraisers (known as 'chuggers'), who block your path every few yards that you take. To get up New Street these days you have to be more fleet footed that a rugby union winger in order to negotiate your way past the obstructing chuggers.

The allure of drinking at the Frankfurt market has worn off these days and I have little desire to go there. On Thursday I again only had a single pint as I was driving but a few years ago, when I used to work at a bank in the city centre, I used to frequently drink at the market and often give the German pilsners and weissbiers a bashing, usually with the Iceman. We would think nothing of standing in sub-zero temperatures for hours after work quaffing pint after pint of cold pilsner interspersed with the odd bratwurst and hits of schnapps to keep out the cold. The coldness of our feet and the tipsiness of our persons would progress at roughly the same rate so by the time our trotters were frozen we hardly noticed it at all. We only withdrew to thaw out at the pub after the market had shut at 2100 hours and the hour being early we continued with more of the same but just in a more temperate setting (temperate in relation to climate, not drink consumption, that is.)

The routine at the time dictated that we would end up in the short order 'restaurant' McDonalds in a desperate attempt for nourishment and I would always order four cheeseburgers to nibble on the train on the homeward journey. While waiting for our food we would amuse ourselves by dropping 10 pence pieces into a twirly thing whereby the coin would slowly spiral downward in the fashion of a motorcyclist on the wall of death whose engine has failed. It was a simple enough form of recreation but as we were three sheets to the wind it was more transfixing that a sober man watching the Northern Lights, so we used to stare goggle-eyed, in a state of complete engrossment, at the coin spinning downward. And it was for charity after all and it was infinitely more pleasing than being accosted by a chugger.

Birmingham's Frankfurt Christmas Market

A number of years ago, one Friday lunchtime near Christmas the Iceman and I decided to nip to the Frankfurt market for refreshment after a stressful morning at work studying the English and Scottish football league tables ahead of the hectic Yuletide programme of fixtures. Sleepy Tom Parker contacted me and declared that he would be located in Birmingham at lunchtime and he suggested we meet at the market for a festive drink or two. There was a great deal of bonhomie and japing, which must have made us thirsty as before we knew it four pints of pilsner each had gone down, one each for the four English professional leagues. As we didn't want to leave the Scottish leagues out we followed it with four rounds of schnapps interspersed with a few toasts of “Prost! - Zum Wohl!”

Anthony Andrews as The Scarlet Pimpernel

Although it was Christmas time the Iceman and I knew that the goodwill of our boss would run out if we did not get back to the office soon as we were late getting back from our allocated lunch hour. But as we hastily made our way through the market back to the office we passed El Scrumpo's cider emporium and it was one of those rare mystical moments in life when you look at another person and no words are needed to communicate as telepathy takes over and you both know what the other is thinking – the devilish look in the Iceman's eyes told me that a quick pint of 6% still scrumpy was in the offing. Scrumpy in hand we had a dawning moment of paranoia as we didn't want any tell-tale colleagues who might be roaming around the market to spot us, so we quickly ducked around the back of the cider hut and hid from view among the generators and electric cables that serve the market stalls. We stood there like naughty school boys gulping the cider, enjoying our illicit drink, which is of course the best drink of all.

We snuck back into the office in the style of the Scarlet Pimpernel and expertly enacted the charade of looking busy without actually doing anything, counting down the clock by drinking coffee and eating Mini Cheddars until it was knocking off time, when we could once more return to the market for a drink to perk us back up. All in all in was probably the best day of my working life and that lunch time was one banker's bonus that I shall never forget.  

© Dominic Horton, December 2014.

Lowlife is dedicated to the memory of the late Jonathan Rendall

Email: lordhofr@gmail.com.