Category Archives: food

My Kinda Town, North Londonshire Is

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Well that’s that then. Unless Baldrick comes up with a cunning plan within the very near future I’m gonna have to get shot of Railway Cuttings. The place I’ve called home since I managed to get myself 30ft of rope, a set of wire-cutters and fake passport and hopped over the fence of Stalag Marriage has to go on the market. Sell it or rent it, I dunno, but I can’t afford to keep it. One week’s work since June has dug deep into the coffers and my old chums at the bank and the mortgage company are starting to get a wee bit uppity.

So I need to spruce it up for the prospective buyer or the potential tenant. Get rid of half of the of rubbish laying around the place (The Incumbent can sell it on Ebay), give the walls a lick of paint, cut the grass and start thinking about how best to advertise the place.

It’s a nice part of London to live in (if you just ignore the previous 73 posts I’ve written slagging off the place) and very handy if you wanna get to London Bridge or the West End within 20 minutes. There’s the lovely Greenwich Park and common just around the corner, good connections to the M2 and M25 motorways and some of the local pubs now serve both ice, lemons and limes. There’s a farmers’ market, a Starbucks, more curry houses than your average small village oughta, and rather nice kitchen shop.

Non-CIA spook Terry Waite lives here, as does Matt Pritchett, the brilliant Daily Telegraph cartoonist and professional Millwall fan Danny Baker. Former residents include, highwayman Dick Turpin, cook Fanny Craddock and obnoxious git Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen. Very soon I shall be added to that list of ex-inhabitants and gits.

But I think I need something that little bit extra to pull in the punters. How can I sell the area to entice the loaded gentry to part with their cash to buy my place ? Will the attraction of The Cactus Pit – our combined Tex-Mex restaurant and ‘nightclub’ (guaranteed a punch-up or a bunk-up) be enough for Hedgefund managers to rent my little gaff for a couple of years? I suspect not.

So I was listening to the car radio this morning and heard an advert for “North Londonshire – the place to move, for space to move”.
“Where?????? North Londonshire ??? There’s no such place” I found myself shouting at the dashboard.
The commercial continued. “It’s closer than you think”
“What the fuck does that mean ? Closer than you think ? Closer to where ???”

I sped home to my waiting laptop, determined to find out where this place was. I was convinced in my heart the North Londonshire was a made-up place. Certain in my own mind, but not enough to bet my house on it. I remembered once having an argument with a bloke about Hoxton, a district of London I was convinced was an invention of estate agents in the 1980s. After all, the place they now call Surrey Quays was what I grew up calling Rotherhithe until in 2002 some brilliant PR man for the local property developer or boundary commission came up with a new name.

Ok, I’d been slightly wrong about Hoxton – on investigation it turns out it was mentioned in the Doomsday Book – so I needed to get home this morning and double-check that only my South Londoner ignorance had prevented me from being aware or North Londonshire. Perhaps I’d actually been there, drank there, shopped there, without actually realising it.

It didn’t take me long to find it. It even has it’s own website (northlondonshire.co.uk). I went immediately for the menu Where is North Londonshire ? It read:

Closer than you think.

Located midway between London and Birmingham, North Northamptonshire is central, cost effective and well-connected.
Towns like Corby, Kettering, Rushden and Wellingborough all benefit from superb connections by road and rail.
St Pancras International, home of the Eurostar, is less than 50 minutes by train meaning Paris and Brussels are just four hours away.
Air travel is equally convenient with Birmingham, East Midlands, Luton and Stansted airports all within reach in 90 minutes.

So it’s closer than you think, if you happen to be thinking in Birmingham. Very close indeed if you live in Northampton. A short stroll down the street if you’re parked 2 hours drive north of London. Just not very close at all if you happen to be in…er…London. You may find the promotional video a little misleading too. But maybe I’m missing something.

If only all the shitty London pigeons would fuck off to Northamptonshire, the capital would be a nicer place to live. However.
The video and website may well be a load of old tosh, but it gave me an idea for an advert for the New York Post:

For Rent: 2 bedroom terraced house in Manhattan suburb.

If you think you might be growing out of New York, or are just looking to make the right move, you’ll find everything you’re looking for in Blackheath. There’s highly affordable quality housing offering considerable value. There are schools and education to rival anywhere in the country (or beyond). And there are career opportunities provided by leading forces in the Bangladeshi and Nepalese service community. Some of the pubs are even open til midnight !!

Relax in our beautiful ancient parkland and quiet surroundings. Visit quaint shops and three dry-cleaners (with ample parking). All this easily accessible from the lower east or west sides, with Grand Central Station, MOMA and Ground Zero Mosque just 2 minutes away (by phone) and our excellent links to both Laguardia and JFK airports, via the Old Kent Road, M4 and Heathrow (congestion charges may apply).

So why not make your new life in Blackheath, East Manhattan. SE3 ? Just 3,471 miles around the corner. Come live where the Limeys live. It’s closer than you think.

Time Gentlemen Please

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Autumn. Conkers. Squirrels. Cold snaps. Crisp mornings, chilly nights. Leaves falling off, evening closing in, windscreens frosting up. Harvest festivals, the bringing in of the sheaves. It’s a time of change. It’s the end of the season: time to pack away the pads and the bats, put the snorkel back in the loft, the Speedos (still unworn) in the bottom drawer. It’s the start of the season: out with the gumshield, buy a new tube of the liniment, dust off the woolly hat, eek out the hipflask. The ground takes a stud, the grass no longer grazes your knees, you can see your breath as you gasp for it by the corner flag.

Things to look forward to: The Ryder Cup; The Ashes Series; the first M&S Christmas advert; the smell of a hot radiator; Trick or Treat. Things to dread: Charlton in a relegation six-pointer; the new season of The Apprentice; Strictly Come Dancing; The Labour Party conference and Guy Fawkes Night (if that’s not repeating myself).

By way of a change, and in a vain attempt to redeem themselves in my eyes, The BBC weather bureau accurately predicted the end of the summer. They said the last day would be Wednesday and, sure enough Wednesday it was. It was gorgeous. As it happened three of us took to the golf course and we couldn’t have picked a more splendid day to waggle our mashie niblicks around in the open air.

My pal, Big H, is a member of the local golf club, Blackheath, and kindly invited Shaun and I to play a round with him. Blackheath is the world’s oldest golf club, which was fitting as I played it like the world’s oldest golfer. To be fair, my first half-dozen holes were decent enough for one who hadn’t picked up a club for over seven years. However, the effort of whacking a little ball around a few miles of parkland soon took it’s toll on these old bones and by the 10th I was sweating audibly, my feet were quite literally bleeding and I was screaming for my mum long before I limped up the 18th.

I have spent many a year explaining (mainly to women and Americans) how tiring and taxing on the body a game of cricket can be, but imagine the look of incredulation on The Incumbent’s face when she saw me the following day, looking as if I’d been run over my a truck. It’s an age thing, you see, and no matter that 80 year old men happily play four games of golf-a-week without so much as a stiff back, or that there are 50 year old cricketers leading their club’s averages, my body has decided to call time early on my chosen sporting careers. I’m not in the Autumn of my cricketing or golfing life, more like the New Year’s Eve party of it- somewhere between the “can I put your coat up in the bedroom” and the “Auld Lang Syne” of it.

The previous weekend I’d had to cry off the last cricket match of the season, citing knee and ankle failure. It was a depressing decision to have to make, knowing it’d be the best part of seven months before my next one. But I was in so much pain it seemed the sensible thing to do. When later the chance to play golf came along I couldn’t resist digging out my 30 year-old golf shoes (the style of which attracted much derision and mirth from my playing partners) and borrowing a set of clubs.

As nice as they are, it was more than my pals could manage to conceal their amazement at my lack-of-fitness. I dunno why: I’ve never been fit. But the rapidity of my decent into a pool of moaning sweat had them fearing for my wellbeing. Dare I play again ? Will I be asked ? If I do play, will the paramedics be on stand-by? Or do I give it up as a bad job, wait until the 2011 cricket season begins and believe that somehow my body will repair itself in time for me to take an active part ?

There have been discussions (albeit a wee bit one-sided) on trying to get fit. Swimming has been muted. Someone actually mentioned joining the gym. Someone else even suggested dance classes. I glazed over like Homer Simpson at a school play. My mate Johnny Mac (he who has just run from John O Groats to Lands End) even said to me over a pint the other night that “everyone want’s to stay fit, don’t they?” He could tell from my expression he may as well as offered me a half-pint.

So I am seriously considering giving it all up. I’ve had a decent run, after all, and maybe it’s time to stand aside and yet youth flourish ? On most summer Saturdays, by the time I strap on the knee-supports, apply the Ralgex and pop half a dozen pain-killers the game’s already started. If I can’t meander around a short-ish, flat-ish golf course without squealing like a stuck pig maybe it’s time to look for other ways to participate in sport ?

I know how to cut up a half-time orange, fill up the tea-urn or run the bath for the lads while they’re out on the field of play. If pushed, I could be the linesman or touch-judge, as long as the players don’t run too fast. At a push I’d drive the team bus. I could umpire, though don’t ask me to caddy (those golf bags are heavy). There are many, much older than me who will scoff and scorn me for being such a lardy wimp, people who keep themselves in reasonable shape and whose weekends still entail pulling on the boots or the plus-fours, polishing off their bowls or even donning singlet and trotting off for a brisk 10-mile run.

But it just sounds too much like hard work to me. Pass me that shooting stick and hand me the program. I’ll queue up for the Bovril, I’ll happily prepare the picnic basket. Let me join the 100 Club and if you’re short I’ll even mark out the pitch, put out the flags or help out behind the bar. I love the game, I adore the competition, I am never happier than when I walk onto the first tee, or take a shiny red cricket ball on my hand or (back in the days of yore) jog out onto the field and stare down my opposite number. I’d always rather lose 22-21 than win 40-nil. But now it hurts. A lot.

It hurts more than it ever did. It starts hurting sooner and it hurts for longer. Sometimes it even hurts before the match starts. So as I sit here, three days since I peeled off those painful, painful golf shoes and I’m still feeling the pain, it’s now surely time to say “time’s up” My cricket captain never reads this rubbish so I’ll have to write and tell him. I’ve announced my retirement to him before and he ignores me, but this time I mean it. Honest. Having not donned golfing troos for the best part of a decade, my pals won’t exactly mourn my passing.

I can always meet them in the bar after. I’ll be snuggled up in front of Strictly, awaiting Sports Personality of the Year. Anyone fancy a game of crib?

Fast Food

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I’ve come to a decision. I don’t think I’ll become a muslim.

It’s not that I have anything against Islam, certainly no more (or less) than I have against any religion. Everyone has to believe in something, whether it’s God, Allah, Charlton winning the league or a lottery win. Personally I don’t think going to church is the way forward, but I maybe wrong. If you took away religion, money, Owen Wilson, guns, George Osborne and Carlsberg Special Brew I reckon we could pretty much eradicate violence in society once and for all, but that’s just one man’s opinion.

If I did become a muslim I’m bound to forget to pray 5 times a day, unless I organised myself to get out the prayer mat every third time I took a book to the loo, but I fear people would get bored of stepping over me, down on my knees as I bowed my head to Allah, the only God, in the toilets down at my local pub. Anyway, I think Mecca is in the direction of those machines on the wall, which would look very odd indeed if I was caught praying to them.

One upside would be I wouldn’t have to shave, letting the old salt ‘n’ pepper whiskers go all Cat Stevens on me, and I also quite fancy myself in a dishdasha – one of those full-length garments which middle eastern guys wear. I’d be able to strut around like Peter O’Toole and the loose fitting robe would cover up my ever-growing midriff – these trousers are cutting me in half.

But the reason I know I could never convert to Islam is that I get hungry. And thirsty. All the time. This of course wouldn’t be a problem for most of the year, but during Ramadan I’d struggle. Through a normal working day (more of that later) I’ll happily graze constantly on whatever comes to mouth, stuffing my little fat chops with sweeties, crisps, sandwiches, biscuits etc, punctuated by cups of tea, coffee, premium lager – that sort of thing.

But if I took up the Islamic faith I’d have to deal with fasting. Every ninth month of their calender I’d have to abstain from eating, drinking and sexual relations from dawn until sunset. Now obviously there are some things you don’t mind giving up for a good cause but eating and drinking aren’t two of them. If I was to sit at home all day (as has been my wont recently) not being able to eat or drink, never mind not have sexual relations (does that include with oneself ? hope not) I’d not only feel faint, but I’d go a funny shape. A day at work, with all the distractions of coffee bars, canteens, Pret A Mangers and suchlike, would be unbearable if a nil-by-mouth regime was to be followed.

You don’t burn (or at least I don’t burn) many calories while sitting at a desk or using a computer, but it’d take a monumental effort to survive all day without so much as a Dunkin Donut to keep my strength up. Imagine what it would be like working on a building site or a fireman or some other profession which required physical labour, some exertion from which a sweat was raised.

Take the Pakistan cricket team, for example. They’re playing England at the moment in a Test Series which involves them batting, running, throwing and catching (sometimes) for up to seven hours a day for five straight days presumably without so much as a sip of Lucozade Sport to keep their strength up. In these modern times of professional sport there is always a get-out, of course. The Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed said. “”A player’s decision to fast is between himself and God. We don’t get involved in this matter. We don’t mix sport and religion. It is up to the individual concerned.” Given how devout the faithful can be, there would doubtless be a lot of soul-searching in the dressing room before the opening bowler allows himself to tuck into a Big Mac and Coke to keep up his blood sugar levels.

But at least their management seem to be taking the sensible position. You can’t have a player keeling over at short square leg at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, just because he hasn’t had anything since that bowl of Cheerios at 5.30 this morning. I know I’d be having dizzy spells by 11am if I observed the fast. And that’s another thing I wouldn’t be if I did: Fast. Old ladies would be able to bowl faster than me if I couldn’t eat constantly throughout the day.

In Soccerland a couple of weeks ago Ali Karimi, an Iranian footballer known as the “Maradona of Asia”, was fired by his club for failing to fast. On it’s website Tehran-based Steel Azin FC claims Karimi, once the Asian Player of the Year, “insulted officials of the [Iranian] football federation and the Tehran team’s supervisor who confronted him on the issue”. Well I’ve never been named Asian Player of the Year, or even Ageing Player of the Year (though as a schoolboy goalie I used to be known as “The Gary Sprake of Barnehurst”), but I suspect poor old Karimi would have to take lesson’s from my delivery of an insult should anyone in my dressing room attempt to deprive me of my isotonic pork pie at half time.

I managed to pick up 4 days work this week at The It Is Are You On Sunday and jolly good it was too, especially as there were numerous tvs dotted around the office on which to enjoy the cricket during the very rare occasion I found myself with nothing to do. As I trawled my way through both the very decent workload and the myriad of eating establishments dotted along High Street Kensington I watched my current sporting heroes make Keema out of the Pakistan bowling attack I allowed myself to dream of making a lot of runs and taking a karahi full of wickets this weekend. Little did I know that at that very moment the opposition were crying off, having lost several players to the start of the soccer season and to Bank Holiday domestic duties.

The crossover end of the season is always a bugger, as rugby and soccer-playing cricketers feel the need to pack away their bats and boxes, strap on the shinpads or insert the gumshields. It’s a bugger but at least it’ll give my achilles ankle and my achilles knee further time to recover from the last match, and next time I’m called upon to perform I shall be injury free, a spring in my step and a Ginsters cornish pasty in my pocket. Insha’Allah.

My Animals and Other Families

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Unlike the previous year’s week in Italy, our arrival in Mallorca passed relatively incident-free. Ok, we were stuck in the carpark for 10 minutes while I tried to locate the handbrake in the hire car (to much sniggering in the back), but once I realised it didn’t have a handbrake we made easy work of the 45 minute drive to the villa.

Within half an hour of our arrival the kids hit the water and I explored the environs. The place looked just fine: plenty of space, good size rooms, a nice big kitchen, and if the pool wasn’t exactly of Olympic proportions, it was big enough for me to join the kids for a wallow, without too much water displacement. It was a semi-secluded spot, with just one other villa over an unkept hedge which, on first examination, seemed to be unoccupied. Perfect- we could make as much noise as we liked, and there were no neighbours to complain about the noise as I beat the children.

The area around the pool and the barbeque had recently been swept clean and, at first glance, looked to be spick and span. However, as I wandered around I did notice a pile dust in the corner where the cleaners had neglected to dispose of it. Not to worry, I thought to myself as I reached for the dustpan and brush. Then, as I made my move to sweep up the pile, it moved. Or rather the top of the pile moved. It wasn’t dust, it was ants. Or rather it was a pile of dead ants, with a surface covering of live ones. There must have been thousands of them.

Hmmm…. I’m not squeamish about ants, but I didn’t want a colony of them, dead or alive, sharing my holiday home. With several flicks of the wrist several generations of hundreds of ant families and their ancestors were in their temporary Addis home in transit to their new home over the hedge. We spent the rest of the evening by the pool, supping the local brew, nibbling oddly and amusingly name potato-based snacks. Oliver, our 16 year old budding Gerald Durrell, searched the grounds for lizards and snakes. Thankfully he returned empty handed.

Waking early next morning, The Incumbent and I prepared ourselves for a quiet cup of tea and a peaceful breakfast by the pool while the youngsters slept off the effects of a chlorine overdose. The sun was shining, the cockerels in the surrounding farms cock-a-doodle-did each other, and two long lines of ants were marching up and down the wall near barbie. Oh sod it. I looked more closely and the floor of the verandah was teeming with the little buggers.

These critters did not enjoy a long life, it seemed to me, as half of their number were already evidently dead. Perhaps they were a particular type of ‘one-day’ ants, I wondered to myself. It made no never mind, as no sooner did one snuff it on my patio, then he was replaced by a dozen others or more. Again I burst into action with my trusty dustpan and brush, but clearly I was going to need something more to combat the attacking forces. In any event, the neighbour’s garden was beginning to resemble an ant cemetery.

Once the kids had finally woken and had breakfast we attempted to press-gang them into the car for the short trip to the beach. Oliver had found a grasshopper and was studying it intently, ignoring our pleas to get in the car. The other three were moping about at the speed only teenagers and Jamaican beach coconut sellers have mastered. Why is it so hard to move kids anywhere? All they want to do is to lay down or sit on their arses wherever they are at that particular moment. You can promise them a beautiful beach, blazing hot sun, ice cream, watersports, even free money and they still want to stay in bed til way after the sun is over the yardarm. You also know that once you arrive they won’t want to leave, taking a good hour and a half to get packed and ready for the journey home. Anyway.

On arrival we set up camp under two sunshades and the four teenagers, showing a rare display of enthusiasm, scurried off to the water. Ah! peace again, we thought. I’d hardly had time to remove my socks and sandals before Tom (the eldest of the four kids) returned from whence he swame. He’d been stung by something which had left a watch-sized welt around his wrist, much to the amusement of Ollie the part-time botanist and full-time elder-brother-annoyer. While his mother was tending to Tom’s wounds, I walked down to the shore to check on the others. I made for a magnificent sight: the sun gleaming off my baldpatch, the sweat trickling down my pale hairy skin, creating a torrent between my moobs, my swimming shorts at half-mast out of respect to the ants who’d died that morning so that we might enjoy breakfast.

Like Daniel Craig‘s grandfather I waded thigh deep into the sea, egged on by the kids, two of whom were hiding their embarrassment rather well as they watched in horror as their father’s naked upper body wobbled towards them. I stood there for a second, letting the warm, invitingly blue Mediterranean waters lap gently up against my nadgers. 29 ½ inches below the surface, something was afoot.

No sooner had I plunged my shoulders beneath the waves when “Oh you little bast..OW!!” I cried (with all the dignity I could muster). I’d been stung too. Something had taken a shine to my instep and sunk it’s teeth/claws/tentacles into my foot. It wasn’t much more painful than a nettle sting, but it was a sting nevertheless. I retreated to the sandy shore, dragging my mutilated foot behind me, like a puppet on a string. The girls followed hastily, not wanting to join the victim list. Oliver went off diving to look for sea monsters.

As Tom and I compared wounds, a middle-aged, pink and plumpish woman laying on the lounger beside us sat up.

“Excause me, boot have yau been stoong”. Her accent told me she was from the midlands. That and the Aston Villa tattoo on her forearm.
“Er.. yes.. I think so” I replied.
“Jelleefeesh” she declared.”There were oondreds of jelleefeesh around ere yestardie, I got stoong on me leg, loook!” She showed us a long lesion running up the length on her inner thigh, stopping just below her gusset. It was a disturbing sight, for all manner of reasons. “I got some cream for it off the loifguard over therrr. Ee’s very noice.”
We turned to look at the lifeguard station, a sort of tennis umpire’s chair with a roof on. Flying above it was a red cross flag and a yellow one which we later discovered meant “swim with caution”. The loifguard, sorry lifeguard himself was at that moment hoisting a third which had a rather crude drawing of a jellyfish on it. After saying some rather crude words of my own, myself and The Incumbent went off in search of some jellyfish sting ointment. By the time we’d returned twenty minutes later, all four of the children were back on the beach, looking bored, cold, hungry or tired, or a combination of all four. We left.

By the time we got back to the villa, Ollie’s grasshopper was but a furry black ball on the patio.. The ants had got hold of it and were feasting their tiny choppers into the poor little sod. There were noises from over the hedge. A family had moved in and were mucking around in their pool. This caused much fascination and some rather obvious spying and snooping. “Chinese” said the girls. “Scottish” declared the boys. I couldn’t be arsed to adjudicate, they were simply referred to thereafter as the McWongs.

I ordered one and all to shower before anyone made a move for the pool. As I poured myself and The Incumbent a sharpener the girls rushed into the kitchen complaining that a column of ants had invaded their dressing table and were all over everything. I put down my beer and picked up the car keys. As I left the house to go find a supermarket to buy some ant repellent, I passed Oliver in the garden, playing with his latest find ; a large blue-black bug which was crawling up his arm. If I’d had the time I might have discovered it was a cockroach, but thankfully I didn’t have time and as far as I’m concerned it was nothing more than a stag beetle. Or something.

Fed Up to the Front Teeth

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BBC News:

New ‘superbug’ found in UK hospitals
By Michelle Roberts Health reporter

A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn.
They say bacteria that make an enzyme called NDM-1 have travelled back with NHS patients who went abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery.
Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global.

Scary innit ? Well maybe. It’s August, there’s nothing to write about, so let’s scare the bejeesus out of the population and announce a new killer virus (see “Gnu Flu” in It Is Written – earlier post).

I got an infection when on holiday last week, apparently. Fortunately for me it wasn’t fatal, unless the BBC or the Daily Express tell me different. My aforementioned wobbly crown started to get even wobblier, and worse, started to ache. Infected. Now as we all know, there’s nothing worse than a toothache (if you discount nuclear war or a coalition government) and this one really did put me off my stride no matter how much Medico San Miguel I administered to the troublesome spot and surrounding areas.

For three days the pain came and went, pulsed and throbbed in the back of my mouth, often forcing me to prescribe more numbing fluid than was decent. I didn’t want to fly with toothache (I didn’t really wanna fly at all), so imagine my relief when the day before we were due to return home the pain subsided a little. Happy days. To celebrate I chose to cook a slap up meal (pizzas) for the kids, went to the fridge for the ingredients, picked up some cheese, went to tear the packet open with my teeth and promptly sheared off half of a front tooth. Bugger.

So that’s how I landed back in Blighty on Friday: swollen molar and deficient in the front tooth department to the tune of half. I was carrying a healthy tan, some undesigner stubble and a dashing, windswept look to the barnet, but had a mouth like Nanny McPhee. If I could have bitten the bullet I would have done, instead I was left to grab the bull by the balls and call my very least favourite phone number: The Dentist.

I’ve always hated the dentist. It used to be the pain I feared, now it’s the bills. My present situation isn’t conducive to me wanting to chuck wads of cash at a dental surgeon, but needs must so off I popped to my appointment yesterday lunchtime.

“Hello there” said the doc “haven’t seen you for a while. How have you been ?”
“Well I’m in a bit of a state, to be honest” I whined.
He looked at his notes (or rather mine).
“Three years. We haven’t seen you for three years !” he sounded surprised. I don’t know why. If he’d missed me that much he could have always phoned.
“Probably why I’m in the state I’m in” I said, embarrassed, as I climbed into the chair.
“But three years ! that really is far too long”. I could see he didn’t want to let this one go.
“Yes, sorry” I was kinda hoping he’d have looked into my mouth by now. “I’ll make sure I don’t leave it so long next time. Can I tell you what’s wrong?” I proceeded to tell him the tale of the teeth, and eventually he deigned to take a peek.

A clatter of steel on enamel and the odd poke with a spike into my gums later he re-emerged into the daylight.
“Is the front one hurting you at the moment ?”
“No” (I’d already told him that)
“And how about the crown?”
“Yes” (ditto)
“Well let’s have a look at that one first then”. So saying, he re-entered the pain scene and began poking, scraping and levering.
“Does that hurt ?” he redundantly asked.
“Ot earry” I raised my eyebrows. he had both hands in my gob, what else could I do?

Emboldened by my lack of pain he set about me again. Lever, lever, scrape, tug, lever, lever. He stepped back. “You want me to numb you up ? We’re almost there”
I wiped a slight tear from the corner of my eye. I decided to be brave. “No, no, I’ll be fine”

After what seemed like an age of us tangoing around the swivel chair, him orally fisting me and me with a tight grip on his forearms, he pulled the crown from my mouth. “Hmmm…… how long ago did you have this fitted?”
“Oh about three years ago I would think” I replied, wiping the saliva from my chin.
“Where?”
“Here”
“Oh”
“Something wrong?” I wondered.
“No..no.. just it seems to have moved”
“Oh”. I didn’t know what else to say.
“Well. you have a slight infection in there and the posts seem to have separated”
“Oh”
“I’ll try to clean it up and get the posts back in, otherwise we’ll have to loose the tooth”
“Oh” (my ‘ohs’ were becoming higher and higher)

After a few more scrapes, and squirt or two of air and a smidge of suction, he returned to my mouth to reverse the process. He was now pushing in as opposed to pulling out, which in turn caused our dance routine to rotate the chair in the opposite direction. His assistant showed some pretty nifty footwork when dodging the doctor’s ankles as I swung him around the room. This clearly wasn’t going well.

After a few more verses he removed his mits, admitting defeat.
“No. No I can’t get it in” He sighed. The posts have splayed.
“Oh” (well what would you have said?).
After some further thought on the matter, he filed off one of the posts, covered the crown with cement, held me in a half nelson and AT LAST inserted the crown back into it’s rightful place.
“Now bite down” his beads of sweat was threatening to drip on my forehead. “How does that feel ?”
“A little proud” I panted through clenched teeth.
“Really? Bite again”
“Still feels proud.
“Really?”
“None of my other teeth touch. It’s not right. You sure it’s the right way round?”
“Yes, yes. Now look, ” (moving swiftly on) “bear with it and if the pain persists pop back and I’ll write you out a script for some antibiotics to get rid of the infection.”
“But I can’t bite”
“That’ll settle down” he said, almost as if he meant it. “if not I can have another bash at it next time”
Have another bash at it ?????? Which page of the Dentist’s Handbook was that phrase from ?
Whatever was going on in the back of my mouth, I still had a gaping hole in the front.
“What about my front tooth? Will it need a crown?” I inquired.
“We can discuss that next time” he smiled, de-rubbergloving himself. He’d clearly had enough.

My time was up. Between now and the next time I’d be wandering around south London with a wonky jaw and a gap in my smile, in the unlikely event I choose to employ it in the near future.

“Oh”

.

Spanish Stroll

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Don’t you love getting sprayed with someone else’s waste product when you’re standing at a urinal ? I know I do. I was standing at the trough the other evening, resplendent in my ever-present summer shorts, when a fella came into the pub toilet to begin his business. Now I don’t know what he produced from his fly (I’m far to polite to look) but by the feel of the mist that started to cover my right leg, I suspect it was some sort of steam lance.

He was presumably in a hurry to force it out and finish quickly as he started after and finished before me then returned to the bar before I had time to zip up. I stood there, thoroughly dejected with damp leg and one moist tennis shoe. If you think it’s tough washing your shin in a pub toilet basin, try cocking that leg up to the nozzle of the hand-drier, then come up with a plausible explanation as to what you’re doing to the next bloke that comes in for a pee.

I suppose I might have pointed out the error of his ways to my urinary assailant while he was imitating a garden sprinkler, but being a lover not a fighter I didn’t want to get into a fist fight with a man who not only was a good deal larger than me (in nearly every department) and who’s fist were covered in wee.

I should have asked him what he was up to for the net week as I could do with him in my garden. We’re off for a week, taking the herberts to Spain and I need someone to water the plants while I’m away. With a natural talent such as his, my chillies, carrots and peppers would be sure to get a good watering. As it is, I am relying on my parents to pop over and administer the watering can to the veg patch, and at least that way my produce won’t have a faint lager aftertaste.

So the annual trip with the four kids has arrived and, as usual, I’m pottering around Railway Cuttings making sure I have everything I will possibly need for the holiday, and all the time taking my mind off the fact I have to get on a plane in the morning (why is there always a plane crash somewhere in the world just before I go to Gatwick?).

At the moment, the suitcase list reads (in order of importance): Medical bag; loo roll; passport; tea bags; playing cards; cribbage board; iPod; reading matter; money (if applicable); TomTom; swim shorts and clothes.

You’ll notice I have not felt the need to include a Spanish phrase book. The kids tell me that at least two of them have a working knowledge of the language, but more importantly I fear that fluent cockney, brummie and scouse are the dominant languages where we’re going. I’m less likely to use “Dos cervezas, por favor” than I will “‘scuse me mate, can you shut the fuck up?”. I’m expecting to see many more signs for Ye Olde Red Lion than I will Vino y Tapas. Fish n chips and a cup of tea are likely to be the local delicacies, rather than chorizo, paella or Rioja.

Yes, the Inglés will be there in force and I thank the little baby Jesus that we have booked a villa and pool all to ourselves so I need be nowhere near them. Last year in Italy we stumbled across very few Brits and bloody marvellous it was too. I’m not sure we’ll be so lucky this time round. So the plan (well, my plan anyway) is to spend a goodly amount of time stocking up in the local supermarket then eating and drinking ourselves stupid around the pool. Give me a German, an Italian, a Frenchman or even a Spaniard to chat to at the bar and I’ll be as happy as Larry (depending on how happy Larry is, of course), but I find it hard to embrace my compatriots as they try to Anglicise the world. Maybe I’ll pretend to be Australian ? Maybe not.

If we do find ourselves outside the confines of our villa we shall be vigilant. The first sign of a pair of Union Jack shorts on the beach and we will retreat to base camp; any Barnsley bullshit that they “don’t do a decent pint of bitter over here” will result on us leaving the premises; 18-30 holiday rep organizing foreskin-drinking contests will be kept out of sight of the children and, more importantly, me. I have very low tolerance and embarrassment levels when it comes to the English abroad and look forward to avoiding any pink, tattooed nause from Nottingham holding court in a bar and giving us his thoughts on football or motor racing.

All that aside, I’m thoroughly looking forward a week with the kids and won’t let anything detract from it. Bring on the San Miguel, the gambas pil pil and the Tortillas. Bring on the large scotches in Gatwick and bring on a smooth and scream-free flight. At least there won’t be a bloke giving me a free shower in the plane’s khazi.

Oh, Olé!

A Beggar’s Banquet

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Back to Dartford on Wednesday, to watch my old school play the MCC in the annual cricket match. I rarely return to my alma mater so this was a rare treat for me, if not for them.

I’d met my old sports master (O.T. “Buster” Price, for those interested) at Lords the previous day who told me he was playing down at the old school and wondered if I fancied coming down to watch. I checked my diary and, as luck would have it, I was free.

I enjoyed my time as a student at school, mainly because the headmaster was a sports nut and allowed me and my mates to stroll aimlessly through our academic timetable, just as long as we were fit and able enough to represent the school in our chosen sports.

The Blurry, Black and White Summer of 1980

So ignoring the weather forecast of wind and showery rain, I donned shorts and t-shirt and made my way down to the school field where I’d ran around as a young, fit lad (ok, ok it was 30 years ago), on the cricket and rugby fields for house and school teams. A marquee had been erected, chairs had been set out and small boys in school uniform were sat in rows to witness the action before them, as a master patrolled behind them to make sure they at least looked like they were interested. It was all very English: flannelled fools throwing and hitting balls around, resplendent in their whites, a force five breeze bringing in the storm clouds from the west, and three people trying in vain to get the bar-b-q to light.

I was greeted by a few Old Boys and several of those staff who helped me tip-toe my way though maths exams, history tests and physics classes, and then doubled-up as cricket umpires and rugby coaches. Happy days indeed. They were all kitted out this day in suits and school ties, and I stood out like a fat bloke in shorts, but no-one seemed to mind, though I did think they were a little over-dressed for the occasion. They looked like members of an ageing bowls club, I looked like the greenkeeper.

Hands were shaken and niceties exchanged as we wound our way down memory lane, all the time shuffling out of the way of others bustling around preparing lunch, tea and the bar. It really was a hive of activity and excitement. A little over-the-top for a school match, I thought, but each to their own. Plates and plates of salad arrived, there was cake, there was tea and biscuits, there were scones, there was beer and cheese and wine and crisps: a feast fit for, if not a king, certainly the Mayor of Dartford complete with his chain of office (“what the hell is he doing here ?” I thought) there was also a bar-b-q which still wouldn’t light.

The morning’s play ended and the players and invited guests (ah! that’s why they’re wearing suits) went into the clubhouse for lunch. The rain started coming down so I did the only reasonable thing: I went down to the pub for an hour.

Two horrible pints and a rotten cheese sandwich later, I returned to the field of play. The rain had stopped, the players were back on the field, and if anything the activity in and around the marquee had intensified. You could cut the atmosphere with a white plastic spoon. More reluctant spectators had been drafted in to ‘watch the match’. About 30 more uniformed 13 year olds had been inserted into a previously empty row of chairs, but none of them were paying attention to the game. Most were peering, meerkat-like, in the general direction of the gates to the field. All of them were texting on their mobile phones.

The rain started again in earnest and within seconds I and a hundred other spectators, players, schoolboys and barbie lighters squeezed ourselves into the marquee. To be sociable I bought myself a bottle of beer and chatted with my old pals and masters about absent friends and enemies.

It was a little snug under the tarpaulin, until suddenly it happened. The assembled masses parted down the middle to reveal the guest of honour standing at the entrance to the tent. A smiling, slight, almost skinny man in his mid-sixties stood there, dwarfed by both his partner and the accompanying headmaster from the school. Unbeknownst to me (but clearly well-known to everyone else) Sir Michael Philip Jagger, cricket enthusiast, rock star millionaire and the other famous Old Boy of the school had agreed to come in, under the radar, to visit, watch the match, talk to the boys and open an extension to his eponymously named music centre at the school.

No wonder everyone was running around like a blue-arsed fly, dressed like a pox doctor’s clark. Flashbulbs went off, old ladies swooned, Mr Mayor jangled his way through the throng to shake Mick’s hand and mobile phones were held aloft by boys and staff alike to grab a snap of their allegedly most famous son. Jagger was magnificently polite to all, smiling and spending several minutes talking to each of his greeting fans, then he and his girlfriend moved to where I was standing near the bar. I crabbed out of his way, lest he congratulated me on the cricket pitch I’d obviously prepared earlier.

“Any chaaance of a cuppa teeeea ? ” He enquired of the ladies serving. Mick still retains his Dartford drawl, fortunately I’ve lost mine. Two cups and two wedges of madeira cake in hand, Mick and his elegant, enormous missus took their seats by the boundary’s edge to watch the match, which the players had been forced, at gunpoint, to resume. I got myself another pint. Every couple of minutes someone would pluck up the courage to ask Mick if he’d mind posing for a photo with them. Women of a certain age resisted the urge to throw undergarments his way. I restrained myself. I don’t easily get star-struck, and after all he’s hardly David Gower or Francis Rossi, is he ?

A few sips of tea and a couple of nibbles of madeira later and it was all over. Mick and L’Wren (for that is her name, apparently) stood up, smiled at everyone and were escorted off again by the headmaster. Around the marquee, stomachs were let-out, the bar-b-q finally came to life and the wind played its merry game with the paper plates and napkins across the cricket square.

I’m told Jagger later that evening had an altercation with the paparrazi as he left the school. In a quirk of fate, they left me well alone. Maybe they didn’t recognise me in my shorts.

The Git & The Galla

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Sir Ivor Cullen and his wife Betty had ham hock for supper last night. I know this because yesterday afternoon I was sitting in front of a guy that was off to dine with them later and I overheard him telling his friends.

In Buenos Aires (that’s in Argentina) a salad starter, followed by a 400g lomo steak (that’s spelt l-o-m-o), with sauteed potatoes, a glass of red wine, then finally rice pudding washed down with a desert wine costs £12.45. Were you aware of that ? No ? Oh well you should have been with me yesterday because you would have learnt all this and more, all from the same dull bloke.

Carluccio’s in St John’s Wood don’t take reservations for lunch – they don’t get very busy. A bottle of Wolf Blass Unoaked Chardonnay costs £22 in Tescos, yet one’s able to buy a bottle of, albeit a plastic bottle here today for just £19. I think that’s very reasonable, don’t you ? He did. It was, he said “one of my favourites”.

So where was I yesterday ? At a meeting of my wine club ? No. Cookery class ? Afraid not. Dining with friends at the Savoy Grill ? Not even close. I was, in fact, watching a cricket match at Lords cricket ground. Or rather I was trying to watch a cricket match, but my concentration and enjoyment was constantly ruined by this bloated English dullard sitting behind me, ‘entertaining’ friends or clients, though who could have been entertained by this fat git, Thomas Lord alone knows.

Ever been at the cinema when a bloke sitting behind you comments or commentates on every scene, recites every punchline or preempts every key scene ? Well you get the gist of my morning at the Home of Cricket. This bloke was boring. I mean he was DULL. Every shot, every ball, every catch, every run: not only did he have a comment or opinion on it, it was clear he knew absolutely sod all about cricket (though I guess I would have to bow to his gastronomic expertise. Judging by the size of him, he worked hard at it). He was wrong or boring or both on a number of subjects. When he produced his holiday snaps from his trip to Buenos Aires, my jaw hit my knees.

I lost count of how many facts and laws of the game he got wrong, and how ignorant he was, well, about everything really. I just know that when he explained what made Shane Warne “one of my favourite swing bowlers” I went for a pint. On my return to my seat he was waxing lyrical about the time in South Africa when he shared a whole bottle of sherry with “some coloured chaps” who were “frightfully charming”, then segwayed into an explanation of the apartheid system and why the coloureds and blacks had come out of it all right in the end. I got up and went for another pint.

The day didn’t going well from the get-go. The Aussies were in town and that only ever means one thing: legions of yellow-coloured cobbers, lugging eskis of laaager around with them bellowing encouragements and insults to their team in equal measure. One such groups of individuals had parked themselves near me. Within a couple of tinnies their leader (another fatty) was droaning such gems as “C’mon Ricky, yer big Galla !” or “Nurdle, nurdle ! Nurdle, nurdle! ” It was as if he’s swallowed a vuvuzela. He was painful to listen to.

He also fancied himself as an authority, not just on cricket, but on the Lords ground itself. He’d obviously been here once before and didn’t hold back taking his companions on a virtual tour of the ground, all conducted from where his fat arse was perched in row 2 of the stand and punctuated by gulps of the amber nectar. Again, his knowledge of the history of the ground was less than spot-on, but that didn’t stop him relaying the ‘facts’ that the Ashes were brought back to England by WG Grace (nope) and the ground was named after the House of Lords who used to play cricket matches here in the 1800s. Wrong again, mate.

Thankfully for all in the vicinity, he and his mob decided to move to a more sparsely populated part of the stand, presumably so they could spread out their cheeks in comfort, and my sanity and eardrums were saved. Until Sir Bufton Tufton sat himself behind me, that is.

Then came the last straw- he started telling jokes.
“One of my favourite examples of chitchat on the field – the Australians call it sledging- is the one when there was a rather rotund bowler bowling at some batsmen-or-other when the batter asked the bowler how many jaffa cakes he ate? ‘I have one every time I sleep with your wife’ retorted the bowler. Very funny, very funny”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone cock-up a story quite so spectacularly. As sledging stories go, that one’s probably the funniest and most famous, and only a complete berk like the bloke behind me could have fcked it up so completely. It really took the biscuit. Or the jaffa cake.

I made my excuses, picked up my rucksack, and watched the rest of the match on the tv in the bar. As I stood there watching the match, in peace and content to be 200 yards away from the Git & the Galla, I wondered how Sir Ivor Cullen and his wife Betty were getting on? I reckoned they’d probably made good progress with the meal preparations as they had been without the distraction of their evening’s dinner guest’s fascinating stories, a pleasure enjoyed by us poor sods in that section of the stand at Lords today. I just hoped that when he finally arrived at their house, if he was as charming and as entertaining as he’d been to us, Sir Ivor would insert a ham hock into him. I suspect that wouldn’t be one of his favourites.

The Rock Hitters

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Well what did you expect ? A sporting contest ? A great spectacle ? A fair fight ? It was a fight but it didn’t look very fair to me. Last time I saw anyone drop-kicked in the chest Kent Walton was commentating on it. I, like so many others, turned up at the pub to watch it, not giving a monkey’s who won, just as long as I watched a great match. Ok, ok, so nobody wanted Arjen Havey Robben to win, but apart from that I was pretty uncaring as to the final result. By the end I was pleading for the bald Tyke with the whistle to send any or all of them off, and to be fair to Mr Webb, he did his level best. If that was soccer’s showpiece I think I’ll start watching showjumping or women’s tennis (no, not really).

So I woke up this morning feeling pretty flat (silent ‘l’), in need of something to cheer me up. The sun had disappeared after a week of sweltering weather here in Railway Cuttings, my body aching like buggery from my sporting excursions on Saturday (yes, I survived) and still no signs of any work on the horizon. Still, there was cricket on the telly today, and the Open Golf Championship is only a few days away.

So, I turn the tv on for the cricket, except there isn’t any. Rain in Birmingham had delayed the start of the England vrs Bangladesh match. Since you ask, it’s the deciding match in a 3-match series, which on Saturday saw The Tigers beat England for the first time ever. Saw the highlights on Sunday morning and it was a terrific encounter, full of passion, guts and sportsmanship with a fantastically entertaining finish. A bit like the football apart from the passion, guts and entertainment. It was also conspicuous for the lack of chest-high attacks by the wicket keeper on the batsmen.

So with no sport to broadcast, SKY reverts to lengthy chats and analysis and serveral, long commercial breaks. I notice HSBC have re-released that great advert where the Russian washing machine salesmen is sent to India to find out why the company sales are doing so well down there. Superb ad, not least for the music, so I went searching for it. Meandering my way through Itunes, various forums and Youtube I bagged myself Eena Meena Deeka by Asha Bhosle (bear with me) which got my feet tapping, with the occasional Bollywood sideways nod of the head (currently one of the few movements my frail body will allow). The lad in HSBC’s ad agency who found this deserves a house point. (Now there’s a job I could do.)

But the real prize was the video below. There’s so much to enjoy here, from the trumpet which sounds suspiciously like 3 clarinets, to the magnificent performance by the singer, called Kishore Kumar I believe. He out-Ronnie Barkers Ronnie Barker. Never mind The Bay City Rollers or the Flip Flop guy, this is a true classic. I’ll be singing it all day, but I’ll do myself a mischief if I attempt the dance.