High Life, Low Life

Posted on May 21, 2009 by The Ed

mount-everest

A few years ago someone I was then related to asked me if I’d like to take the trip to Mount Everest Base Camp with her. She’d done it a couple of times previously and wanted to show me the experience first hand. I looked in my diary and noticed I was busy for the foreseeable future so had to turn her down. I’m not sure if she believed me. You will be well aware of my sporting prowess and my enthusiasm for breaking sweat over anything more vigorous than opening a bottle of port, so climbing up a mountain, albeit a little bit of one, didn’t seem like fun to me. But at one stage in my life I would have actually considered such a trip.

You see I always imagined Base Camp to do exactly what it says on the tin: it would be at the base— at the foot of the mountain, somewhere you could get a cab or a bus to. How glad I am that I’d learned my mistake before I took up the invitation: Base Camp is at an altitude of 17,600 ft. When I’m at that height I traditionally expect to be tucking onto my fourth scotch and settling down to a movie. 17,600 ft, as far as I’m concerned is for the birds and crimpelene-clad stewardesses. She said that to reach Base Camp you set off and ascend 3,000 ft but then descend 1,000 to avoid altitude sickness, go to sleep, then wake up and do it all again—up 3,000, down 1,000. Yeah right, I’m gonna do that. I tell you what, I’ll go down the pub and pour away a third of each pint I buy to avoid getting drunk.

No, I shall leave all that and much, much more to stone-cold, certified nutcases such as Ranulph Fiennes who, at the age of 65, has become the oldest Briton to conquer Everest. That’d be the whole mountain—not just Base Camp. You really do have to raise a glass to him (just don’t pour any away). One of the last great Brit eccentrics and one of the last true loonies in the world, Fiennes is a Boy’s Own Hero, complete with the SAS training, but not with a full compliment of toes, thanks to frost-bite. Makes me whingeing about bowling two overs of dross on Saturday seem a little silly. (Read any of Fiennes’ books— they’re just sensational).

A severe bout of frost-bite seemed to be running rampant through the West Indies Cricket team last week as the cold, geordie winds nibbled about their vitals as they succumbed to a drubbing by an England XI. The poor sods, resplendent in seven jumpers each, must have thought Montego Bay was a very long way away (it is). They looked as happy to be in Durham I would in a tent half-way up a mountain. Each to their own, I say. Caribbean Cricketers are at home in the heat of Antigua or Barbados, no the sub-zero temperatures of Northern England, any more than the Poms can stand the heat of the tropics of Port of Spain, or Columbo, Malaya or Bombay (yes, I know, stop it).

I wonder if anyone will feel out of place at that Buckingham Place Garden Party? Reports suggest the guest-list will include a couple of kamerads from the BNP. It’ll be nice for Phil the Greek to have someone who he can speak to on his own terms, and I’m sure there will be lots of tutonic twittering about the Fatherland between Nick Griffin and Der Saxe-Coburg-Gothas. Oh what fun it will be. I wonder what Harry will wear?

Anyway, I need to get into the garden and clean the duck-house. Lend us a fiver, would you?

Short Square Legs

Posted on May 19, 2009 by The Ed

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I once had a row (no, honestly) with the bloke who taught me history. He stated that nothing was inevitable. Nothing. I took issue with this and, as is my wont, argued the toss. As I recall it was in a lesson that had supposed to be dealing with the outbreak of WWI—you know the stuff: The Serbs, The Austro-Hungary Empire, Rio Ferdinand, etc etc and after we’d gone through all the build up, I had noted that war was, therefore, inevitable. A debate/row ensued as Mr Lepine (for that was his name) listed the many different ways and points in time when war could have been avoided. Nothing, he repeated again and again, is inevitable.

I only mention this as I’ve just watched our glorious leader, Mr Brown (with my mind he runs), look the camera in the eye and state that no MP who has defied the rules on their Commons expenses will be allowed to stand for election as a Labour Party candidate. Defied the Rules. Hmmmm. Has anyone out there read anything by any MP who has actually admitted to breaking or “defying” the rules? No, of course not— they’ve all made “mistakes” or “errors of judgement” but all of them, of course, were working “within the rules”. I put it to you, Mr Lepine, that it is INEVITABLE that these shitbags (or is that manurebags?) will get away with the fraud and the skulbuggery because they were acting “within the rules”. Also, just look of the smugness as one-by-one, MP after MP queue up for the BBC and Sky News as they celebrate the demise of Speaker Martin— as if we’re supposed to believe the HOC is a good clean-living honest house again. One of them (faceless tory/labour backbencher) actually said “I’m relieved that we’ve put all this behind us”.

A wee dram afore ye go ?

Inevitably (see!) Martin will be blamed for everything from trouser presses to to ghost mortgages. Between them, the election of a new speaker and Gordon turning a blind eye (oops) to the robbers in his own party AND the imminent parliamentary recess will go a long way to the disgraceful behaviour of MP’s becoming a faint memory sooner rather than later. Yes, GB will get a kick up the arse at next month’s elections, but he was gonna get that anyway. Knacker of the Yard is having meetings about having meetings about whether to meet about investigating the scandal. Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee who are looking into the scam doesn’t report back to the house until November— that’s six months away. So we’ll be left with the corpse of Michael Martin, who seems to be carrying the can for the lot of em. Sure, Douglas Hogg is stepping down to spend more time with his moat and a couple of instantly-forgettable Labour MPs will be shown the door over their houses-that-never-were. (Why didn’t Nick Brown eat the evidence?—he seems to have eaten everything else), but the real news is that they’ve hounded out the fat wee mon, to pay for the sins of others. Dodgy little sod? Yes. The most dishonourable man in the chamber? Not even close.
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In other news, this weekend sees the start of the cricket season for yours truly— time to oil my bat, apply the liniment, strap-up the knees and squeeze into the flannels. Think of me this weekend as I wobble about a corner of a English field that is forever foreign to me, while younger types run around chasing, throwing and hitting balls. I always greet the start of a season with a mixture of glee (I get to see all my mates again in lots of nice pubs) and dread (it fvcking hurts). Thank god for the upcoming bank holiday monday—it gives me one more day to recover the power of walking after I will inevitably be asked by the skipper to bowl several overs (I reckon he’ll get two out of me). As I plummet inevitably towards my 45th birthday Captain David still believes I can bowl quick(ish) out-swingers for over-after-over. I was sure that my puny performance last season would finally prove to him that I’m fat, flatulent and fragile. My little legs no longer have the strength to carry me around at anything faster than glacial pace. I should be making the sandwiches and opening the biscuits, not opening the bowling. Season after season he cocks a deaf’un to my entreaties. Surely he’s found a 20 year-old quickie to take over the duties? Or is he really just trying to kill me? If it happens again this season I am thinking of tabling a motion of no confidence in him. I fear it’s inevitable.

Right arm over(weight)

Tomorrow belongs to the BNP

Posted on May 14, 2009 by The Ed

Pic:FreeFoto.com

How am I expected to keep up with all this? Truth is, I just can’t. Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride, Elliot Morley and John Maples etc etc etc: You win. I shall revert to rants about cricket and rugby and booze and the police and shopping and gardening. Anything really other than MPs’ expense claims. You lot are much funnier than me on this anyway. The only thing that won’t be funny is that people are going to be so off-pissed with the major parties that the rascists and the loonies will gain ground at the ballot box next time round. You fraudsters and scheisters should hang your heads. And I’m sure they’ll be lots more like you along any minute.

I was once hauled up in front of the beak—a particularly nasty, petty editor— who questioned my claim for a lunch with a friend on another publication who’d helped me/us on a really big story. He’d passed me phone numbers and details without which we couldn’t keep up with the then breaking news. Partly because of his help we looked sensational when we published. I took him out one afternoon and I treated him to a curry and a pint in a local restaurant. The bill came to 70 quid, 35 of which was treating myself (I wasn’t gonna let him eat alone).
An ex-colleague once tried to claim for mileage of 40 miles for a round-trip from Canary Wharf to The Millennium Tent in Greenwich. I wondered if he’d gone via Heathrow? Claim refused. Another ex-colleague tried to put her weekly visit to the hairdressers on expenses. Her ruse was discovered and she was shown the door. I’ve been using my own camera for and at work for 6 years now as I was refused funds to claim the cost of buying it, even though my job requires one. (Guess what’s coming out the door with me when I leave?). That’s ok—it’s dead money, but I was miffed at the time. There are always swings and roundabouts in the whacky world of expenses. All trades and professions deal with this. Some we win, some we lose.
Point is, even those jolly journos who are masters of the Dark Arts of dodgy expense forms, the Shakespeares of the blank-receipt have been left open-mouthed at the scale and brazenness of the Commons’ Claims Chronicles. They’ve been out-Shakespeared and want their pound of flesh. Well they’re getting it now, by the moat-load. But if you listen very carefully you’ll hear the unmistakable sound of the BNP and UKIP Nazis marching in tight formation into Brussels and towards a council chamber near you as the undecided are conned by their rhetoric. Not so funny any more, is it?

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Peter Finch—Network

La Cage aux Fools

Posted on May 14, 2009 by The Ed

As the great Pam Ayres once might or should have said: I’m ‘aving trouble with me tits. As my regular reader will know I was very pleased earlier in the spring to see a pair of Blue Tits setting up home in my newly-nailed-up bird box in my back garden. For the next few weeks there was a flurry of feathers and a chirruping from tiny birdy beaks as mum and dad took it in turns to bring back a selection of worms, maggots and caterpillars for their young to devour.

A Future Poet Laureate?

Well, I say it was mum and dad feeding them, though you never can be too sure: I also have a pair of male Blackbirds in the garden (again, you’ve met one of them here before) who seem to have taken a real shine to each other. I’ve read all the books about competition between the males of the species and of the punch-ups which regularly occur between rivals and, true to form, these two when first sighted were fighting like bird and bird over the local bit of skirt, and I thought that was all very Bill Oddie. Trouble is, they now seem to be best of pals. BEST of pals. More power to their elbows, I say—given that they have elbows— but it’s now made me wonder if my tits are male and female or if one is, ow yu say, a bearded tit? Well you never know, do you?

Anyroadup, I digress again. So weeks of twittery-twittery action and I’m getting all excited and I’m making up names for the babies and I’m still filling the feeder with nuts and THEN. Nothing. Not a sausage. Bugger all. The twittering and the flurrying and the chirpy chirpy cheeping stopped. Last Saturday. It was all very worrying. What had happened? What had scared them away? Chief suspect immediately became, you’ve guessed it, me. I’d prepared for the Incumbent and some friends the world’s smokiest and smelliest barbeque, and had arranged the fire and the seating arrangements far too close to the bird box. THAT’S what scared them away! It was an open and shut case, apparently. My claim that they probably had a second home cut no ice whatsoever.

Yup, they look done!

Pic:FreeFoto.com
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What would you do if your tits disappeared? It’d be a worry, wouldn’t it? Well I guess if you’re Gordon Brown (finer temptress) you’d kneel at the altar in the church of St Alastair of St Campbell and pray that they never come back. But I fear that although Gordon’s final hope of winning, or even competing in, next year’s election has flown the coop, his Great Tits are never gonna leave his nest. The old devils are at it again. Poor old Gordy must be livid. It’s one unmitigated disaster after another, though half of them (of course) are due to his own shoddy judgement. No point listing all the cock-ups again but it’s like watching your doddery old maths master getting waterboarded by the lower fourth, lesson after lesson, day after day, term after term. His mouth’s so full of water he can’t catch enough breath to shout “I resign”. You wanna go help him but as odious as Blears junior, Beckett minor and Under-Clarke are, a little bit of you wants to shout “Serves you right, you manky Scotch Git: You’re supposed to be a Socialist!!”.

A Great Bearded Tit

Such is Gordon’s luck that he can’t even rely on Tory boy opposite to be a traditional money-grabbing, pissed, lard-bucket. Nope, our Dave not only seems to have been a good an honest boy with taxpayers’ cash, but he seems to be showing Gordon the way home by demonstrating he has, at least, some modicum of understanding of what the rest of us are so angry about. He uses phrases like “come down on them like a ton of bricks” and “won’t stand for it”. Cameron’s gonna make sure that we never see a bill for a moat cleaner ever again (did any of us really ever think we’d ever see one in the first place?). He can smell victory and no trouser-pressed pillock is gonna ruin his party. Gordon, on the other hand, seems to have faith in his lucky Gonk, Hazel, and chums to do the decent thing and admit to their “mistakes”.

Have yer seen me motorbike, Gordon?

Mistakes? These weren’t mistakes, they were crimes against the electorate. Their favourite phrase is that they acted “within the rules”. Yes, they acted within the rules which MPs themselves drew up. what next? Centre-forwards deciding there are no off-sides? Michael Barrymore appointing all the swimming pool attendants? I think I shall write my own rules that Guinness should be £1-a-pint. What do you mean you want more money than that? I’m living within the rules. MY RULES!!!! And, while I’m at it, I think I’ll take all those biros and staplers and Post It notes from the office cupboard and sell them on ebay. If I’m caught after a few years by the Personnel Dept I shall admit my “mistake”, apologise on behalf of ALL office workers and demand a committee be formed to see if I’ve done anything wrong. I’m writing my own lbw laws too, by the way. The old ones are far too batsman-friendly.

Anyway, just like a new series of Big Brother, the tits are back in their house, but unlike a new series of Big Brother they’re back making pleasant, heart-warming noises, and are not picking on the alleged gay, black neighbours, sunning themselves outside in the garden. They came back on Monday. Don’t know where they went, maybe went to treat their holiday home for dry rot? But like having Dennis Skinner back, the house seems complete again.

The Beast is back

…It’s later than you think.

Posted on May 9, 2009 by The Ed

Coming home on the tube last night, a tad elephant’s, my pal Rob and I became engaged in polite conversation with two young(er) women sat opposite. “Whaddyerthinkoftheconcert?” poured Rob to the friendlier and certainly heavier of the two girls? “Apslootelybrillant” I burped, before she had a chance to reply. We’d been to see The Specials at Brixton Academy and, even in the cold light of a hangover, I can confirm that they were indeed apslootelybillant. The girl smiled to herself then said “Yeah, really good mate, but really odd.”
“Odd???”—I could hear some of the remaining hair on Rob’s head bristling.
“Yeah, quite funny really— we had seats upstairs in the circle and as we looked down all we could see was the light shining off the back of all the blokes’ heads down below. And when they brought down that disco ball for Nightclub it was hilarious!”.

Our bubble of euphoria had been burst by a prick of realism. The girls, who I guess would have been in nappies the last time The Specials had a hit single, had never seen so many old, balding men in one place before. The very fact we were still calling it a concert was a dead give-away to our ages. The last time Brixton had seen so many overweight men with cropped hair, jumping up and down in synch would have been her Majesty’s Finest Police Force arrested a casual bystander during the riots in the 80s. They would have have been kitted out with riot shields and truncheons, not harringtons, and underneath their stomping feet would have been a young black guy, not plastic beakers half-full of warm beer, but it’d be close enough.

I’d left the “gig” (see what I did there?) earlier and waited for Rob to exit. I thought I’d spotted him fifteen times before he actually came out— everyone looked the same— skinhead, sideburns, t-shirt, jacket—no matter the gender. The uniformity was occasionally punctuated by a pair of braces or a pork pie hat, but it really was Fat Bald Boy Day in South London.
A group of us had met up in a pub earlier in the evening, and the pattern had been set early: Harringtons, Two-Tone badges, Fred Perry‘s, staypress, bald heads. I stood out like a sore thumb (or a bald head) as I managed to wear none of these (though I was wearing Doc Martens—the only things from the time that still fit me). Oh,and a growing Pate.

The excitement around the table was palpable. “Oh I hope they play Little Bitch“, “Is Rico still alive?”, “Is that an orignal Ben Sherman?” we were like giggling schoolgirls waiting for a Boyzone concert” (took me six minutes, just then, to think of a contemporary band—bet someone will write and tell me they no longer exist). My Ben Sherman’s have long-since become dusters, my staypress will cut me in half no longer, my Harrington was ripped off my back in a car park in Erith in 1980 when a skinhead tried to rip my head off for looking at him in a funny way. But the boys did look the business and the memories flowed, along with the Guinness.
The odd celeb was spotted— Phil Jupitus was seen going in the VIP’s entrance, and he certainly wasn’t getting into anything under a 40inch waist, and a drunk, borderline-aggressive bloke spent half the night following me around, convinced he’d spotted Ricky Gervais. I have one of those faces that is often mistaken for, variously, a copper, a bouncer, Ray Winstone (lots of street cred) and David Brent (absolutely none). One way or another, whoever I’m mistaken for, there’s always someone who wants to knock my block off. I’m like Dennis Waterman in The Sweeney: if there’s a right-hander to walk onto, me and my hooter usually oblige.

So a terrific night was had by all and as the masses of very sweaty, smelly and drunk 40-somethings made their way home there was a collective satisfaction that we had seen something very Special indeed and, for two hours, we had at least tried to re-live a time when we could dance the whole way through Monkey Man without stopping every other verse to catch our breath. There’ll be a lot of sore backs and sore heads in London this morning.

As Rob and I parted company at Blackheath Station he walked up the hill singing Enjoy Yourself to (and at) anyone who would listen. For my part, I moon-stomped through the station car park giving my own rendition of Too Much Too Young. Forgot every other word, but then it did come out a very long time ago.

Too Fat, Too Old

Just One More Question, Sir…

Posted on May 2, 2009 by The Ed

So I’m sitting in my garden, soaking up the rays while flicking through the papers, when I’m stopped in my tracks by an advert on page 12 of The Times. Dunno why, as I’ve always felt I don’t look at adverts. As any fule no, adverts are just there to make photos smaller in papers and magazines, or to give you something to doodle on while in morning conference. In these dark days of credit crunch and the collapse of the advertising industry, I suppose we should all thank Evans for small Murphys (some more than others) and embrace whatever adverts actually make it into print, and thus keeping us in the poverty to which we’ve so readily become accustomed, but I do fluctuate between annoyance and agnosticism when I see a dirty great Halfords or Waitrose ad where a perfectly good story, or even better, a photo should be.

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Anyway, I digress. So the offending item this time is a Samsung colour half-page ad for mobile phones. An attractive young couple grapple with each other next to insets of two mobiles, underneath the legend “Ourselves. Together” whatever that means. But something struck me about those words—they felt rather familiar. So off I popped to the wonderful web world of Wikipedia. Something in the back of my pickled mind led me to believe that Sinn Féin was a translation of just that: Ourselves Together. Was this electronics giant really a front for Irish Republicanism ? Would Chelsea soon be playing their matches in shirts emblazoned with Gerry Adams’ hairy boat ? As I should have known only too well after the week at work I’ve had, the answer was no. I was wrong. But only just.

Here’s the entry:
Sinn Féin:…The name is Irish for “ourselves” or “we ourselves”,[3][4] although it is frequently mistranslated[5] as “ourselves alone”.

Now given that around 64% of what’s on Wikipedia is a load of old cobblers, I still could be right. Wikipedia is about as reliable as a Jacqui Smith expense claim or an Ant n Dec phone-poll, so perhaps my memory has served me better than I think. Maybe not.

But where did I glean this little nugget of half-truth? Well I knew all those hours on the sofa would pay off in the end: It came to me that there’s an episode of Columbo where he investigates a murder of an Oirish (you should hear the accents in the show) republican sympathiser. The episode was full of begorrahs and to be sure, to be sures and ginger-haired young men, drinking whiskey and stout, wearing aran sweaters. The do-er is an Oirish wroiter who is undone by the fact he inscribes the inside cover of a book at a signing with Together Ourselves (I thought). There, I’ve gone and ruined the ending for you now, haven’t I? No matter— as it’s the wont of the series, you always know who the killer is during the opening credits and the fun is to be had by the in-jokes liberally sprinkled through each episode: his signature whistle of knick-knack-paddy-wack; his endearing habit of ‘just one more question, sir”; his battered Peugeot and the fact that Mrs Columbo is never ever seen on screen. Often she was mentioned in dispatches but the producers occasionally had fun with us by dangling the carrot in front of us that she was about to appear— but she never did. Mrs Columbo is one of man tv spouses who remain unseen: Dad’s Army‘s, Mrs Mainwaring; Rumpole‘s She Who Must be Obeyed; Arthur Daly‘s Er Indoors; Porrige‘s Mrs Barraclough to name a few. What a lovely way to be married— to an anonymous, faceless woman who’s never around. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong?

This old man, he played one...

Peter Falk’s shambolic detective never carried a gun, didn’t even have a truncheon (night stick, y’all) and always showed his badge as identification. Remember those days? The Wire it weren’t. If it wasn’t for his willingness to identify himself, and his lack of violent tendencies Columbo could have joined the Met.
It’s a chilling thought that had Big Crosby not turned down the part when he was offered it, the famous mac might have been replaced by a straw trilby and a pipe, and each case would have revolved around a golf course. Falk, of course, eventually made the part his own (it had been played by 2 other actors in the 60’s) and he became tv’s highest-paid actor for a while. Like Grandpa Simpson and his MacGyver I’ve been addicted to the show for years and was stunned to see one on tv the other day which not only hadn’t I seen before but in which the killer was neither Patrick McGoohan nor Robert Vaughn. McGoohan and Falk were best mates and not only did the former star of The Prisoner win two Emmys for his roles, he also directed quite a few shows. I know there are those who are horrified that USTV has remade The Prisoner starring something called a Jim Caviezel as No.6 and Dame Serena McKellen as either No. 2 or a number 2, it’s not clear. Why do they insist on doing this ? I’m not great fan of the original, but some things surely are sacrosanct ? I’m sure somewhere in managerial meetings within HBO or ABC there’ll be plans to remake Ice Cold in Alex starring Hugh Jackman, or Casablanca with Cate Blanchett as Rick Blaine. If I get a whiff that they’re tee-ing up Owen Wilson to don a scruffy raincoat and play LAPD‘s favourite homicide detective in something called Columbo: the Party-on Years I shall invite you all to join me in a violent bout of civil unrest. Together. Ourselves.

l-r: Hanks, Aniston, Jackman and Ferrell

That’s what I want

Posted on May 1, 2009 by The Ed

76 million-to-1. No, not the odds of Gordon getting back in next year, nor your chances against surviving a fortnight in Cancun, but the odds on scooping the jackpot in tonight’s EuroMillions draw. On the upside if you are the sole winner you stand to gain £89 million— that’ll keep you in tamiflu and Mariachi bands for a couple of weeks. It’s about now you start hearing people say “Oh I wouldn’t want all that money” or “winning the lottery wouldn’t change me” or even “I’d carry on working at Lidl“. Well, excuse me. Give me the money and I’ll show you how it can change me. You’ll recognize me instantly as I’ll be in a purple quilted smoking jacket , jodhpurs and a monocle, queuing up at the bank every morning checking my balance (and if I drink as much as I intend to when I win, my balance won’t be as good as it should be). “I beg your pardon!” I shall yell at the top of my voice, “89,274,693 pounds, forty-nine pence? Are you George Bernard about that? Please check it again” And if I don’t like the cut of the teller’s jib I shall take my business and my money elsewhere. This will, of course, mean I won’t be spending quite as much time in the office as I’d like to but, hey, them’s the breaks.
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They tell me the interest on 89 million is about £1,524 per day. I don’t think I could drink that much so the trick would be to think of new and exciting ways to spend it. I thought I’d found a perfect solution this lunchtime when an old biddy beside me at the bar ordered a JLo. I waited with baited breath and sweaty palms to see if the pub actually did sell actresses over the bar, but sadly they don’t. Not even as Off-Sales. The landlord suggested to the old girl she might mean a J2O. How disappointing for us both. Imagine the fun you could have with Jennifer Lopez and a pickled egg? “Oh and a Kelly Brook top, please barman. Nah, I’ve gone off the Kelly McGillis—think it’s on the turn.”

I suppose with some of my winnings I could sort out the mortgages of friends and family—but who needs friends when you’ve of wads of cash ? I shall buy new ones, and the family will get it soon enough what with the kidney failure and all. But there must be a more fun, if no worthy way to get rid of it? It’s not gonna make much of a dent in Gordon’s debt, is it, so bugger that. It would be enough to run an F1 team for two years, but you’d spend half as much again on suits for court appearances. I could invest it into Charlton Ath.. oh fuck it, I’m gonna do what everyone does. Play golf, drink champers, follow the English Cricket/Rugby/Netball team around the world. Get fat and pissed watching sport, and why not? I’ve been doing that for 25 years now. See—winning the Lottery won’t change me. Arriba Arriba

We don't need no schtinkeen badgees

Quick nurse, the screens: It’s happened again

Posted on April 30, 2009 by The Ed

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I think I’ll go for a curry tonight. Not ground-breaking, Pulitzer-winning, hold-the-front-page stuff, I grant you, but I thought I’d celebrate the Gurkha’s latest victory, this time in the House of Commons. I like showing solidarity with other nations’ or peoples’ celebrations. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Back in the days of yore at The Telegraph we would religiously celebrate Beaujolais Day by getting a crate into the office. Anzac Day didn’t go unrecognized either as pallets of Fosters and XXXX would turn up to be supped through the days work. Paddy’s Day (as mentioned here earlier) was celebrated every day BUT the official one, and there was often some sub-editor or late-stop asleep at his desk having mistakenly celebrated Burns night in mid-July.
Of the five (and counting) curry houses in Blackheath three are Nepalese so there’ll be plenty of happy lads to serve my taka dahl and garlic chilli chicken this evening. Goody! I could eat a scabby horse. Before Khans restaurant changed hands the staff would serve in Gurkha regimental ties. You didn’t get many run-outs from there, I can tell you. They used to do a Chicken Gurkhali which I drunkenly and foolishly ordered one evening. “It’s what the Gurka’s eat, Sir” I was told. Ignoring their warning I tucked in. The effects were devastating, trousers ruined and the coastguard alerted.
Around the corner at the Sopna (which became Everest, now called Saffron) they used to do a Terry Waite Special, in honour of the local devil dodger/CIA stooge who spent all that time attached to that radiator in the Lebanon, and was allegedly what he ordered when he came home. If memory serves it’s a whole chicken stuffed with keema mince , topped with cheese and roasted. The dish on the menu is meant for 2-3 hungry people (give him his due, Waite is a big unit and hadn’t eaten a proper meal for 4 years) but I sat and watched a good pal of mine devour it on his own in minutes. I cannot mention his name here, but suffice to say he hadn’t eaten since the Sunday Mirror canteen had closed two hours earlier.

Four fried chickens and a coke

The third these is the Mountain View which was a Barclays Bank, then a bar —Flame (still full of Barclays Bankers)— and has all the atmosphere of Harry Ramsdens, Heathrow Airport. The fat, smiley guvnor is ok if a bit overpowering, and they do a line in the world’s sweetest cake and will sing (terribly) happy birthday to any of your party who happens to be celebrating. It doesn’t matter if it IS actually your birthday—could be your anniversary , new job or decree nisi—they’ll sing Happy Birthday anyway, it’s excruciating. I can only imagine their songs have been passed on, father-to-son by generations of political prisoners in Kathmandu to remind their successors of the terrible pain meted out on them by the ruling classes. Where they must have shoved their kukris is anyone’s guess. But the food’s good and they serve Gurka Beer (brewed in Horsham) to take your mind off the singing.
So it’s to one of the above I shall repair to this evening, in the hope that they’re still feeling particularly chipper after their commons victory and that there’ll be the odd free poppadum or dry sherry on offer. I’m still hanging out for Argentina to re-take the Malvinas—there’s a great Argentinian steakhouse in the village. But there’s no point in Turkey becoming an EU member—we don’t have a kebab house.
os010511

Because William Shatner

Posted on April 27, 2009 by The Ed

Whoever said “nostalgia ain’t what it used to be” was living in the past. Nostalgia, dear friend, is where the big bucks are. Everywhere you look there’s a movie or a tv show set in the recent past as that mythical beast, the Baby Boomer and his offspring, relive their youth. The new Star Trek movie is filmed in that stark, 60’s style of the original series. Ashes to Ashes— the follow-up to Life on Mars—is a tv show in which, from where I sit, the idea is how many Austin Princess‘s they can prang in any given episode (I don’t watch this load of old tosh, of course, but I’ve seen the trailers).

Last night the Beeb aired the story of George Best‘s relationship with his mum, and hers with a bottle of Sherry. The attention to detail was perfect, from the grubby state of the Belfast boozers, the thick wooly Man Utd shirts Georgie Boy wore, to the depth of the gusset on his dad’s trousers—could have got the whole team bus in there. Turns out that Mrs Best enjoyed a sharp single-or-three long before her son was lapping champers out of beauty queens’ navels. Who’d have thunk it?

George on the physio's bench. Hard tackle, presumably

At the weekend I watched the movie The Baader-Meinhof Complex: a rip-roaring romp of the 70’s left-wing German terrorist cell and their attempts to blow up the Fatherland, grow ridiculous facial hair and shag each other senseless. If you like your period drama with a lot of blood, guts and sideburns, this is the film for you, thoroughly recommend it.

On stage Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys and Grease are packing them in up West, and I’m sure I read the Pete Townshend‘s giving Quadrophenia the theatrical treatment for the first time. He probably had to do a hell of a lot of internet research for that one.

My influences were Lee Thompsoin from Madness and Ginsters Pies

Music fans also have plenty of old stuff to feed on: I’ve been watching Madness comeback concerts for nearly 20 years, me and thousands of balding, bloating clones, that is. Next month I’m going along to Brixton next month to see the Specials on tour, and I suspect the crowd will be of the same stamp: 40-something blokes reliving their past. The good news is Terry Hall now looks older than I’ll ever, ever be. I wonder if these bands care about the age of their followers? Are they looking for a new audience or content to take the money from the old fan-base? (Chas Smash looks as if he’s eaten a few dozen stragglers from Madstock). I keep force-feeding my daughters my old music (in scenes reminiscent of the IPCRESS File), but I fear they’ll be listening to McFlea and Justin Timberland the minute my back and ipod are turned.

Spandau Ballet announced they were reforming and to embark on a world tour, Duran Duran‘s attempts at similar last year kinda got off to a bad start when Le Bon forgot the words to “Hungry Like a Wolf” (I bet Chas Smash knows them) causing the bassist to throw a hissy fit and storm off stage.
I would include Chas n Dave and Status Quo in this list, but as you know, dear reader, they’ve never gone away and their careers go from strength-to-strength.
So it’s official: The past is here to stay and all the while us old fatties chuck money at them there will always be 70’s and 80’s band lining up to reform and tour again (though Mel and Kim are gonna struggle). So dust off your staypress, box jacket and winklepickers, dig out those legwarmers and bore another hole in that boogie-belt; slip into that cable-knit and wear that titfer at a jaunty angle: we’re gonna work til’ we’re muscle-bound in this ghost town and there ain’t no stopping us now cos we’re the wild boys. Or something like that.

To cut a long story short you look an arse

Shockin’ down in Kent

Posted on April 26, 2009 by The Ed

My sad, silly old mate Dave Sapsted once wrote, “Bealing grew up in the part of Kent which everyone else calls South London”. Well he was half right—which is 50% more than he usually is. I was born in the London Borough of Bexley but went to school in Dartford, which was and still is in Kent. Not so much the Garden of England, more the Allotment. Apart from the Warbler, England fast bowler, Graham Dilley, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, I’m the only thing of note which has come out of this rather unremarkable town. If you do want to come out of it it’ll cost you 30 bob to use the Dartford Tunnel, and you wouldn’t wanna do that cos it’ll take you into Essex. For 59 quid you can hop on the Eurostar at the nearby and romantically-named Ebbsfleet Inernational Railway Station and lose yourself in Paris or Brussels. Or you can do what most Dartfordians do instead and lose yourself in Bluewater shopping centre (and if you can get out of there alive without spending 59 quid you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din). All once-remembered links to Chaucer’s Pilgrims or Watt Tyler‘s Peasants have been washed away by that massive lump of concrete hell, sitting in a disused chalk quarry a couple of miles east. “Oh you come from Dartford? Where Bluewater is?” Yes, I do. Fuck off.

Thurrock, sir? First shithole on your right

Shunning the obvious delights of Dartford, some years ago I made my way 10 miles up the A2 to the last bastion of civilization left in SE London: Blackheath. Civilization, however, is suspended on Friday and Saturday eves as the Eltham Nazis take over the village bars and restaurants, and we now have a black maria which circles the small one-way system in almost perpetual motion, picking-up the knuckle-draggers as it goes. We do get 5 days of relative peace and calm, where you can get a pint and a curry and have a more-than-decent chance of making it home with as many limbs as you came out with. But I do hear often from friends “Oh, Blackheath! Lovely down there, isn’t it?” It’s lovely in the way that Basra is lovelier than Baghdad.

Anyway, back to Baghdad…er Dartford. I always keep half an eye on Dartford— my kids live there for starters, as does The Incumbent, and there are still a few of the lads who never made it over the wire, so I return there every-so-often. But like a favourite testicle after too long in the bath, it has shrunken and shrivelled over the years since I was a schoolboy more than 25 years ago. The streets are shorter, the shops smaller, pubs grubbier and girls uglier (present Mrs B aside, you understand). The town planners seem to have been influenced by Jackson Pollock or Magnus Pyke, the semi-deserted streets (Bluewater sucks the life out of the town on weekends) are the domain of small herds of herberts in hoods, grazing on MaccyDs in forests of triffid traffic signs. It’s an all-too familiar story if you know towns like Barnet, Orpington, St Albans or any of a number dotted around the M25 corridor.

Locals point the best way out of town

As a young man I used to ply my medium-pacers for Wilmington CC, a village team just up the road. Wilmington was a leafy little dingly-dell, away from the bustle of the Dartford ‘metrolopis’, with a couple of proper boozers, a local park with a decent cricket square (complete with licensed pavilion), a couple of schools and lots of tree-lined lanes where on a clear night you could witness fleets of Escort Mark I’s bouncing up and down to the rhythm of young couples at it. Nowadays those same lanes are the natural habitat for middle-aged men taking themselves on long, lonely strolls in the hope of meeting other middle-aged men on long, lonely strolls in the hope that they can have some fun together.

If you go down on someone in the woods today...

If you go down in the woods today, you

Wilmington made a news-item this week. Not for it’s cottage industry, nor for the cricket team’s tight match vrs local rivals Swanley but because of the antics of the headmistress of the local school. At Wilmington Enterprise College the head mistress, Belinda Langley-Bliss (I kid you not) sent 61 pupils home from lessons in one day. Go back and read that again. IN ONE DAY.
Now what, you may well ask, happened on that day? A mass riot? Did the upper-sixth set fire to the science block? Were the school leopard and the caretaker’s water cannon set loose on a noisy session of the Chess Club ? Nope. apparently 46 were sent home for wearing trainers or ‘extreme fashions’ and a further 15 for not having the correct equipment. Sounds like a Daily Mail report, doesn’t it? Sadly this story is true. According to the PA report: “Pupils were also required to arrive at college each day with a pencil case containing a calculator, two pens, two pencils, a planner, a ruler, eraser and notebook to prevent time being wasted in lessons.” The Incumbent tell me that one of her friend’s son was sent home for not having a pencil sharpener. Yup.
You know what I’d do? instead of sending the kids away, I’d get the parents IN. Pin them down and ask them why little Jordan or Wayne have turned up without the required uniform? See if you can help in an installment-plan for a pencil sharpener. Failing that, baseball bats and bricks usually do the trick. Tell you what you DON’T do is give the kids the day off. How many kids do you know would think that a punishment? I’d have turned up with no trousers if I thought I’d have been sent away again (tried that at The Telegraph once—didn’t work). In an ever-depressed economy, where your average school-leaver’s chances of getting a job are dwindling away, why not help parents kit-out the kids in an acceptable manner, with what kit and clothing is readily affordable to non-working families? And if it’s just the case of little Johnny cocking-a-snoop at the school rules and dress like he’s going clubbing, then scare the bejeezus out of him. A bollocking from the old man usually focussed my mind. Ms Langley-Bliss has taken the option of filling up the street corners and KFCs of her local town with teenagers who think they’ve won the lottery. Others will be sitting at home in bits on the sofa because they forgot to take a pencil to school, waiting for dad to come home and rip into them. Is that how to encourage decent 14 year olds? Dartford is depressing enough. It doesn’t need arse-head strategies like this, Miss Bliss.

The Sharp Single

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