Who’s Been Naughty, and Who’s Been Nice?

Posted on December 23, 2009 by The Ed

So, in the immortal words of my old Night News Editor, as we progress “out of one shitty year, into another shitty year”, what have we learned ?

Well, we know that a 3-iron is as good at getting you at out of the rough as it is at getting your old man out of his Mercedes. Being 106 years old doesn’t preclude you from competing in international sport- as Tom Watson, Ryan Giggs and Kevin Poole have taught us (look him up!). Google Street View hasn’t become the burglars favourite tool, and they STILL haven’t been down my road.

All MP’s are wankers. Most are theives and crooks. I will never make a 50 in a competitive game of cricket. Or an uncompetitive one for that matter. Newcastle Utd and Man City are still big clubs. Apparently. I don’t want to go to work any more. There is far too much conversation in men’s toilets. It’s nearly time for me to win the Lottery (I’ll see you alright, don’t worry). Fat unattractive women can sing rather well. Rage Against the Machine can’t.

Michael Jackson didn’t die a natural death. Remember to hold that front page. We still haven’t a clue where Bin Laden is, but they’ve found the rest of his family. In general, I don’t like people. Policemen don’t like being photographed when they’re hitting people, but they do like kettles.Obama has been a bit of a disappointment, to be honest, but my poster I bought of him on ebay is not coming down. Life is better with Malcolm Tucker and without Hazel Blears

. Jade Goody will soon be beatified. Clare Balding should be. I’m not as fit as I should be, but about as fit as I thought I was. Ricky Ponting can’t win the Ashes in England., but he’ll manage it in Australia. F1 is still an interesting sport all the way up to the start of the race. Renault drivers are naughty boys. Blackheath still doesn’t have a decent boozer, but I’d like to think I contributed to the recent glut of lemons. Gordon Brown is still the PM of Great Britain (I can always Tipex that out if something happens before I go to press).

I’ve had a cold for 8 weeks in the last 52, and no matter how many channels you have to watch, there’s never anything decent on between car insurance adverts. IPL will ruin cricket as we know it. Football is already a shambles. It’s not the Chinese or the Indians, the carbon footprints or the motor cars: It’s the bankers who have fucked up the world. We want our money back.

It doesn’t matter how loathesome the BNP are, how ridiculous Nick Griffen was made to look on TV, there will STILL be stupid and nasty people who will vote for him at the polls next year. Andy Murray is a miserable bastard, but one day he’s gonna win something big. Apparently. When entering a Nepalese restaurant, plump for the mismas.

And the war won’t be over by Christmas. Or even next Christmas. Turns out they lied to us. But we knew that already, didn’t we?

May all your Christmas’s be white, and all your doughnuts turn out like fannies.

A Couple of Little Darlings

Posted on November 1, 2009 by The Ed

Here’s a rare thing: A British F1 champion with wit, charm and charisma. No honestly, they did used to be fun to watch both on-and-off the track. Of course, since Nigel, Damien, Lewis, Jenson and the like arrived, you could be forgiven for thinking that we only produce motor racing drivers as dreadfully boring as the races themselves, or perhaps an afternoon grouting the bathroom. But once upon a time, they were spontaneous, humorous and with just that tiny little bit of class. So anyway, to mark the end of yet another season of dull and tedious processions around the asphalt circuits of the world, below is just a snippet of when Dick Dastardly ruled the roads, and everyone’s mum went gooey in the middle when he flashed his choppers, looked the camera in the eye and spoke in those magnificent clipped tones. Have a look at these few seconds of Hill, laid up in hospital after a crash, just one of many clips of his naughtiness you can find on Youtube. And check out that tash.

A loveable rogue, a cheeky chappy with a glint in his eye, Graham Hill was unmistakeably one of those chaps who you’d be proud to shake warmly by the driving gloves and by a warm pint of beer (or a cold bottle of poo) in the local village pub. As kids, when we played Scalextric on the front room floor, everyone wanted to be Hill. As we wedged our plimsoles and mum’s shoes under the the corners to hold up the banking, we mimicked Murray Walker commentating on numerous dogfights betweeen Hill and Stewart or perhaps Rindt (extra shoes were used when Jochen was on the track).

It was a time of heroes and feats of derring-do, of flat caps, pencil moustaches and men reminiscent of Spitfire pilots, rather than boys who pretend to be Airfix models in TV adverts and no-one spots the difference. Lewis wanders around in his dull way, with his dull, identikit dad, and they’re all very-nice-and-all-that, but I get no indication that they have any sense of fun, enjoyment or achievement from their titles and riches, or the wish to contribute anything more to the social fabric or culture of society than driving around Monza or Monaco.

Is there a spark of of the boy-racer left? or are they the driving equivalent of Yul Brynner in Westworld, plodding automaton-like between one scene to the next? (to be fair, Brynner spent the whole of his acting like plodding between one scene to the next, he didn’t need to play a robot). They go from corporate sponsor’s event, to press photocall, to TV appearance flashing their perfect sterile grins and their faultless thumbs, before the PR girl whips them off to the next function. Maybe the enormous G-forces have sucked all personality out of them.

Yes, they enjoy a fine line of beautiful girls on their arms (Jenson seems to have a conveyor belt of them), which all rich young sportsmen seem to have at their disposal, but what else do they bring to the table? A naughty smile at the camera? A feeling that they are enjoying life, reaping the rewards of their craft ? That sense of a Lucky Jim? Not a bit of it. They’re more like accountants, less interesting than merchant bankers. And that’s a real shame, cos they’re probably very nice chaps and don’t deserve such an attack on their characters (not that they probably care one jot- they’re not Stephen Fry, after all).

Now as you will understand, I know sod all about F1 and care even less about it, but if I could walk into a pub and at one end of the bar was Mansell, Button and Hamilton (and even Damien Hill) and at the other end of the bar was Graham Hill having a quick snifter with James Hunt there’s no doubt who I’d go and join, and yoiu’d be with me. And I bet Hill and Hunt would hang around for more than just-the-one.

Episode IV: A New Hope

Posted on October 30, 2009 by The Ed

…So we popped into The Hare and Billet last night as part of my quest for a new decent watering hole. “Let’s have a nice quiet drink” I said. I opened the door to discover four 70’s throwbacks setting up amps, and drums and mics and pedals and…oh christ, everything. The band took up half of the pub, with speakers the size of Belgium. The bar’s about fifty feet long. Where did they think they’d been booked into? Shea Stadium?? We stepped over the cables and boxes strewn inside the door and went to the bar. “Well ok, I’m sorry, but I expected it to be quiet” I said to Mrs B, “let’s have the one and see how it goes”.
She concurred, though both of us feared the worse. No matter, brave new world and all that, let’s take the pub at face-value.
“Pint of Guinness and a gin and tonic, please” . Guessing correctly, the barmaid looked at The Incumbent and squarked “you want ice and lemon in that?”
“yes please”, she replied. She flashed me a grin. Perhaps this was indeed the promised land.
“you wanna double up on that for an extra quid?”
“no thank you, a single is fine”.
One tumbler with one measure of gin, 3 icecubes and a little slice of lemon therein arrived on the bar.All was well with the world.

But then, in one devastating movement, with a flick of the wirst and a not-so-much as a by-your-leave she emptied the entire contents of a bottle of tonic water into the glass. The gin was drowned. It’s always been a pet hate of mine, and the same applies to my beloved. Our optimism had been proved to be on the previous side.
“Can I get another gin in there please?” I asked, with all the dignity I could muster.
“You what, love?”
I held out the glass. “Another gin, please. You’ve drowned it.” It didn’t register with her.
“you can’t have it for a quid, you have to order it as a double. It’ll be 2.45” (I think that’s what she said, but I couldn’t hear past the steam coming out of my ears)
“But you drowned the first one. She needs another in there to be able to taste it”
“But it’ll be 2.45”
“I don’t care, we just want another gin”.
The measure was dispensed.
“2.45 please” she smiled
“I know” I handed over the money.

In silence, I woofed my beer, Kate woofed her gin(s). We went to O’Neills.

Quite nice in there, innit?

Difficult, Difficult, Lemon Difficult

Posted on October 27, 2009 by The Ed

Strap yourselves in; this may go on a for a bit.

This is not the time to panic. This is a time for cool heads, a time for reasoning and clear thinking. We’ve been here before and got through it, and we can get through it again.

There’s no easy way to say this. So I’m just going to say it: My local pub has run out of lemons. I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to break it to you.In truth it has had no lemons OR LIMES for a whole week now. Now before you scoff, just take on board what that actually means. Ever tried, of your own free will, a gin & tonic without lemon or lime (let alone both)? Or what about a vodka and coke? For the youngsters among you, doesn’t that glass of coke that dad buys you in the pub when he sees you every third Sunday in the month taste a little bit better with a slice of lemon floating atop? Well of course it does sweetie, just don’t tell mum we came in here.

But let’s dig further, let’s get to the nub of the problem, let’s don the safety helmets, lamps on, and delve deep to the heart of the matter: My pub has gone to pot. No, there’s no use in denying it, the boozer which has been home for the best part of a year has come to the end of its run and now I must move on.

“A year?!?!” I hear you cry in amazement. “But you speak of it as if you have been there forever-and-a-day??!! A year doesn’t seem very long”

Well, as Nana Mouskouri would say, let me tell you a little story:

A long, long time ago I can still remember how the music used to make…. No hang on a minute, that’s a different story altogether.

A long, long time ago, back in the day when two young blokes called Tony and Gordon were just settling in to their new swanky pads in the heart of London’s fashionable Westminster, a young bloke called Mike was getting used to life on his own in a house in London’s unfashionable Blackheath. In a flash and purely by chance, he happened upon a newly refurbished public house, not far from his dwelling. Over the ensuing months Mike and his friends spent many a long and happy night dancing and drinking and singing and drinking and wobbling in that little faux-Irish pub. But after three or four years of happy times, the group of friends started to go their separate ways. Some of them realised they were getting a little old to be drinking every night of the week. There were those who lamented the passing of their favourite landlord. Some felt the pub had run it’s course and was beginning to be filled with far too many of the ‘younger set’. Others agreed, but thought the fact that younger women were coming into the pub was precisely the reason to remain using the pub. Yet more others pointed out to those others that none of them had pulled so much as a muscle in all the years they’d been drinking there and that those others were wasting their time trying.

And so it came to pass that this ever-dwindling band of chums trotted down the road and began to use the pub by the railway station , imaginatively called The Railway which they would continue calling the ‘local’ for many moons to come. The Railway was a completely different kettle of prawns. It was dark, sleek, laid-back with subtle shades on the walls, non-matching, low-slung furniture. Chaise longues and sofas everywhere, mood music and exotic nibbles. They served several draught beers from oversized pint pots, there was a huge and extensive wine list, and a long and varied food menu. In short, it was fucking horrible. This was not what Mike required from a pub at all! This, in fact, wasn’t a pub ! This was a ‘bar’. Yuk!! True, the clientele was a little older and looked (at first glance anyway) to be slightly classier and less rough-around-the-edges from the Oirish bar, but in truth they were the same people, just out in their best bib-n-tucker and having had a wash.

Ever the accommodating diplomat (quiet at the back!) Mike said nothing and went with the flow, supping many a happy sundowner with his chums, sometimes chatting away quietly at the bar, accompanied by the quiet hubbub of a cattle market going on around them. However, it always seemed to take just that little bit too long to be served, and was lacking in what Mike perceived to be the due respect and politeness from the bar staff due to a bloke who poured half of his week’s wages over the counter. All this was to be endured while taking in lungfuls of the smell of duck a l’orange, or scallops in walnut batter being brought to tables every 4 and a half minutes. Mike hated the smell food in pubs, and this one was a serious and serial offender. It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t very pleasant. But again, after a couple of years, the group slowly diminished down to a mere handful. Some got married, some left the area, some went to the infirmary and some to Doctor Gibb’s. So, when the couple who had been the main champions of the bar upped and went off to buy half of Cornwall, Mike saw his chance to change pubs. (continued after this Advert:)

By now he had met The Incumbent (in the Railway, funnily enough) and together they made their way up the hill to The Crown. An attractive looking little boozer (both the pub and The Incumbent), with a considerably older intake (that’s the pub, not The Incumbent) than the previously two hostelries, with an interior which looked and smelled like a proper public house (old and smelly) and locals to match. It was run by Keith, a salt-of-the-earth Geordie with a bad back. This allowed him to order the young staff up n down from the cellar, lugging barrels around, and gave him more time in the bar. There was the world’s worst afternoon gambling syndicate, armed with the Mirror and the Sporting Life they systematically bet on every horse which came in last in every race on TV. There was the local village idiot, who shouted his way around the pub trying to impress women 20 years younger than himself with his brand of cockney wit, Timmy Mallet glasses, tales of the past and knob gags. There was the bloke and his little scruffy neckerchiefed dog who popped in for a sharp single as part of their nightly ‘walk’ around the village. It was too old and crusty for most trendy types, too smelly for many women, too dead for violence-seeking herberts. Only once did anything kick off in there when one rather drunk and rather fat bloke took a swing at the assistant bar manager over an alleged short measure. He missed by a yard, fell off his stool, literally shit himself, and left with not just his tail, but also a long trail of poo between his legs.

However, after nearly a year, even this roller-coaster ride of thrills and spills got to Mike in the end: The village idiot started recognising him and tried to start up conversations beginning with “allo bruv, ‘ow’s yer bum for spots?” and suchlike. The groups of old smelly men started to get progressively louder and more boisterous, much worse than any bunch of shiny-suited tossers from Eltham. The barmaids became even more miserable and unhelpful than ever, and they ran out of beers far too often to call themselves a pub. The final straw came when Mike asked for a pint of Guinness and a G&T (ice and lemon) for the missus. The sour-faced girl behind the jump went away to address the optic. She returned.
“We ain’t got no ice. You still want the lemon?” she enquired.
“I don’t think I even want the gin” Mike sighed back. They left.

Who has EVER asked for a warm gin with no ice or lemon? (no whelk jokes here please).

Crossing the road, and with a walk reminiscent of Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, Mike led the Incumbent back into O’Neills, the very same Oirish pub he’d left all those years ago. It was a changed pub: New landlord, new atmosphere, less youngsters, less anyone, in fact. Barmaids and barmen who smiled at you, asked how you were and remembered what you drank. Night after night, week after week, month after month of great service, pleasant company and great bands on a Thursday night. Mike was truly happy once more. He felt at home. He came to know the staff and they came to know both him and The Incumbent. Drinks were bought, tips were given, jokes shared. It was a nice happy time, and it lasted for about a year. Until it stopped.

Another change of manager led immediately to a change of staff. Some left immediately, never to return. The service started falling off, they started running out of certain beers, increasingly there were too few behind the bar to serve. Last Thursday Mike waited ten minutes to be served, and there were only another eight people in the pub. Two floor-servers were working but only one person behind the bar. He had half a mind of sitting down at a table to be served, but Mike doesn’t sit down in pubs. Even the Thursday night band on stage seemed not to be pulling their weight. Mike was sad again.

And then they ran out of lemons.

So that is my story. I hope you can see my plight. Where to go next? I hear tell the Hare and Billet has something to offer, but I’m sure the landlord will serve me in his vest. The Princess of Wales may be long on lemons, both behind and in front of the bar, but it’s short on atmosphere. And anyway it’s far too far to walk (about 300 yrds). I can’t go through the whole winter without a local. Where would I take the kids at the weekend ?

Lost in Translation

Posted on October 22, 2009 by The Ed

Welcome back after the break.

“Where have you been?” I don’t hear you ask. Well here and there really, and mainly at work—which continues to pile on the hours stopping me from visiting one of her majesty’s hostelries, but more of work later.

Last Saturday, The Incumbent and I travelled on the EuroRattler to Gay Paris. It was my birthday weekend, and where better to celebrate it? The young lovers along the Seine; La Tour d’Eiffel; Le Metro; The Crap Pound vrs the Euro. We stayed with Trev and Sylvie (previously featured here) and had arranged to meet Mr Horrible (ditto) for an adult, sedate, celebration of the 45th anniversary of my birth.

I’d been hoping to deliver to Mr Horrible a gift which I ordered eons ago in part repayment for his kind loaning of his apartment in Normandy, earlier in the year. Sadly, it never arrived. Amazon keep telling me it’ll be here soon, but by the time they say they’ll dispatch it, the postmen will be warming themselves by the braziers outside Mount Pleasant, Mr Mandelson will be warming himself by god-knows-who and my package will disappear into the ether, lost for all money.

No matter, after a long and wrong afternoon in Trev’s flat, with just the four of us, the cat (yes, the cat) and enough cheese, pate and vintage vin to feed a BNP rally in Hertfordshire. Four Quatre Bon Viveurs and a chat, which, incidentally is what nearly did when I saw him. No worries, we batted and slurped on, and apart from losing the power of my eyes due to my chat allergy the evening went swimmingly and nothing untoward happened even when we went down the local eaterie later on, just in case we hadn’t troughed enough.

Dawn broke and we started again. Pressies and Poo for brekkie and we’re off on the toot again, where Monsieur Horride would join us for an afternoon nibble. Unfortunately he came too late to fully appreciate my wit and wisdom. The occasion had got the better of me and I was a tad elephants. I think he joined us just after the first mixed crate of cheeky blanc and rouge had been quaffed and within seconds of his arrival I’d lost the power of my legs and nez-dived into his crotch. He being American may do things differently to us back home, but I suspect even in upstate Nebraska (that’s a guess, and one I’ll pay for later) that the traditional thank you for lending a mate your apartment is probably not getting snuffled in the goolies by a bald Limey.

I picked myself up, dusted myself off and started all over again. A little later, back at Trev’s flat, I collapsed across the coffee table, into the take-away Chinese meal, which the girls had been enjoying. I’d lost the power of my legs twice in two hours. A mere 45 years old and I’ve already forgotten how to walk and how to drink. Bollocks. I was kinda hoping to quite a bit more of both before I snuff it.

Back in Blighty on Tuesday morning and not feeling at my peak, I get the fab news that everyone else in the world has called in sick and I am to run the main desk at work, which apart from anything else, means finding a front page photo, as well as overseeing every news pic in the paper that day. Not having done this sort of thing in about 15 years (and I’m not sure I was very good then), and having been on the slurp for three days previously doesn’t seem to be the ideal prep. Courage, mon ami.

The Leaving Time Magazine Speech

To be honest, as first days go, it wasn’t a complete disaster, all the pics went in the right way up, and The Times didn’t go bust overnight. There was one steaming turd in the water tank though: During the 12 hours I was in work that day, I lost a cufflink. Not just any cufflink, but one the Incumbent had given me as a Birthday present just two days earlier. Sod it. Sod it, sod it, sod it. In truth, when I told her, she took it better than I did. And, in truth, I’m still a little upset about it. But as none of my senses were working at their full capacity, I don’t suppose it’s completely surprising that everything didn’t go completely smoothly. I least I passed my inaugural newsroom test without completely fucking-up. I shall replace the cufflinks.

So that was my week. Nothing groundbreaking, just thought I’d catch up with you (my daughter Lucy complained that I was slacking).

No hang on, there was something else. Now what was it? Oh yes, I remember now: I lost $2,500 tonight. Wanna read that again? Two-and-a-half-thousand-dollars. U.S.

As my regular reader in will know I used to work from a different bunch of Yanks than I do now. That last lot used to give out stock options. And the longer you worked there, and the higher up the ladder you went, the more stock options they granted you. Since our friends in the city (hello boys) fucked it up for the rest of us last year, my options have been worth nothing. Not a sausage. Bugger all. But just as I plotted my escape from TIME, the price started gradually creeping up again. I’d get occasional letters from New York informing me of their progress, and like most of my kind (fat, old, lazy, er.. bloke) left the letters in that special place on the sideboard where all letters with windows stay.

Then, for reasons unfathomable to me, on Tuesday night I opened the latest one. There it was. There in black and cream I read I was worth, in their eyes at least, around $2,500. Quick-as-a-flash (well, 24 hours later) I dug out (well, The Incumbent dug out) my pin numbers and rushed home (well, after the pub) and called New York immediately (well, after we had tea). Stunned that I got though to the department I needed, and flabbergasted that I had indeed got all the information she needed from me, I was even more elated to hear the girl at the other end tell me that my options had elapsed on “10/3”. Sadly, that’s October 3rd, not March 10th. They were now nul-and-void. Worth nothing.

Bugger.

I have to go to IKEA at the weekend to buy a new door for the kitchen cabinet which I kicked several times very hard moments after I put the phone down. Hope I haven’t lost my wallet.

Green Army!!

Posted on October 7, 2009 by The Ed

Not a single TV company bothered to bid the rights to cover the match, or if they did, they offered a pittance. The papers have dubbed it a national disgrace. It’s a bloody long way to go to a miserable, bleak corner of the world to watch 90 minutes of football, and few will fork out and endure such a long journey. However, I’m gonna go, and I have a plan so we can all watch it:

I’m taking my camera.

It’s got a pretty decent lens and a video mode, and I have 2 batteries which I reckon should last long enough to cover the whole match, barring long injuries. I’ll post it here just as soon as I get back, if you play it smart and avoid news broadcasts you could watch it as live. Get a few tinnies in, arrange the furniture accordingly, invite a few mates round and sit back and watch Gravesend U13 Girls vrs Dartford U13 Girls, live from Dogshit Park, Gravesham. (Kent Girls/Ladies Football League, U13 Div.2)

Why? Which match did you think I was talking about? England ??? Pah!

Apart from the fact that England have already qualified for next year’s World Cup, did anyone really expect the BBC or ITV to show live coverage of their match vrs Ukraine at the time when, traditionally, the nation sits down in front of Strictly Come Dancing or The X Factor?? Do you honestly expect them to replace Calzaghe for Capello, swap the obvious talents of Cheryl Cole for the unobvious ones of her ex Ashley? Have you not worked out that this country has gone to hell in a handcart? that our collective national taste is shot to pieces??? THAT THE WORLD HAS GONE BLEEDIN MAD!!!!???????? I had a dream the other night that I thought I was playing football with Wayne Rooney, but was really on Strictly with one of the male professional dancers. It all went horribly wrong when I shouted “backdoor, backdoor”.)

Often Beaten Around the Ring. And Joe Calzaghe

Last Sunday 3.2 million people (I shall repeat that THREE POINT TWO MILLION PEOPLE) tuned in to watch a show called Hole in the Wall (“Bring on The Wall”). On this 6 celebrities are pushed into a pool of “ice-cold” water if they fail to take the correct shape or a …er…hole in a wall (the rules are too complicated to go into). Now I say celebrities, but you be the judge: Kelly Dalglish, Lil’Chris, Gemma Bissix, Matthew Chambers, Joe Swash and Austin Healey.

3.2 million people watching a wall, a hole, a pool.

So stuff all that, next weekend you’ll have the chance to sit down and watch a real competition, real sport with a real, meaningful outcome. Dartford have had a great start to their season thus far having beaten Woodpeckers twice (once in the league, once in the cup – and on both occcasions Dartford had ten men…er…players) and smashed home 10 goals in the process. Now the team, led by their stunningly beautiful captain, centre back Kate “Katie” Bealing, (great touch for a tall girl) meet top-or-the-table Gravesend in what the Dartford Times isn’t already calling a ‘six-pointer’. And as a loyal reader to this column, you won’t miss any of the action, well not much anyway.

Bealing (centre) chases hard. The ref doesn't

Go “oooh” as the shots rain in from the Dartford attackers peppering the Gravesend goalie. Go “Aaaah” as the game is held up for three minutes for a dad to wipe away the tears of his daughter who copped a ball straight in the face. Go “shuddup you prat” as you hear an aggressive dad on the touchline scream abuse at the girls on the pitch. Go “to the toilet” as my battery runs out and I have to change for a fresh one to carry on recording.

Yes, there will only be one camera, but as I expect none of the 20 outfield players to be any more than ten feet away from the ball at any time, you won’t miss a thing.

And watch it all in glorious, mono lo-res!

All this and much, much less for 3 easy payments of 2.50* (plus p&p). Please send your payments in unmarked, non-consecutive bills (no cheques) to:

The Bald Bloke in the Suit in the Corner
c/o The Manager
O’Neill’s Public House
Tranquil Vale
Blackheath SE3

…and if you’re not watching low quality video of a high quality local girls soccer match very soon, I’d be most surprised.

(*offer subject to conditions, and whether I can be arsed)

Dark Matter

Posted on October 4, 2009 by The Ed

Well that’s that, then. Time to pack away your shorts and sandals, put the covers on the garden furniture and start the never-ending process of sweeping up leaves. As a default position I’ll be drinking Guinness instead of lager, and if I fancy that something a little bit different I’ll opt for a scotch (size to your discretion) rather than a Magners. Roast potatoes will be on the bars of the nation of a Sunday lunchtime, and the social lepers will drag on their gaspers while huddled round the patio heaters in the garden.

In the mornings it’ll take just that little bit longer to raise yourself from beneath the duvet. It’s a time to delve deep into the back of the wardrobe and re-discover those long-forgotten woolies and overcoats. It’s also the time to play chicken at home. Who will blink first and put the central heating on or stoke up the fire? “Close those bloody curtains, it’s freezing in here!” Life in London will be spent in virtual darkness, only very occasionally punctuated by spells of bright, crisp days, when we’ll moan cos we’ve slipped over on the ice outside.

You’ll walk to the station in the morning and from the station in the evening, never spying the sun as you do so. Wrapped up against the elements with perhaps a hat perched at a jaunty angle on your head, you battle your way through the masses of arseholes and their eye-gouging umbrellas on the station platform. It’s gonna be dark, damp and cold. They’ll be a nasty nip in the air. Are scarves in this year, and if so at what length and what’s the fashionable way to wear them? You’ll have plenty of time to get it just right, as the first cold snap or fall of leaves will delay your train service into the metropolis. Last year during a heavy snowfall the London Underground ground to a halt. How the fuck does that happen?

The trains and the offices of the land will be alive with the coughs and the sniffles of those suffering the latest bout of bugs. Steam will rise from the gloves perched on radiators, placed there in the hope they’ll be dry by home time. There will be empty seats at desks cos ‘Julie has a cold’ or “Dave has the flu”. The perennial malingers have a friend this year in swine flu, offering the perfect alibi for a day off work. It’s a brave boss this winter who will insist you come into the office with suspect symptoms. Having typed that I will doubtless come down with it myself. But for real. Honest.

For those of us who manage to struggle into the office, sundowners on the way home will be a thing of the past, that pleasure of having a quiet sup by the river as the sun sets having been replaced by the joy of a standing by a real fire in a real boozer. It’s early October so the posters to entice you to book your Christmas party will already be festooning the walls of pubs and restaurants. We’re seconds away from this year’s M&S and Coke ads on the telly. My 45th birthday will come and go and my Black Dog will scratch at the door. This year he’s not invited in.

The soccer season will continue unabated, apart for the poorer clubs who don’t possess undersoil heating. The England cricket team will show us new and un-entertaining ways of how to lose matches abroad. Strictly Come Dancing, the X Factor and the like will clog up the schedules until the festive season, by which time you have done your bollocks on pressies, and are able to recite word-for-word both those M&S and the Coke ads. You’ve bought enough food and booze to feed the street, all the while moaning that you only do Christmas for the kids. The kids buggered off round their mates yonks ago.

January comes and you’re even fatter than you were in December, and you vow never to look another Jack n coke (Coke Is It!) in the eye again. If you didn’t purge yourself in November in preparation for the big push, you go on the wagon for the whole of January, which usually lasts 13 days until you have to go out for a drink with your mate on his birthday. Life continues in the dark and the wet of the early months, your eyes peeled for the green shoots of Spring. No-one knows when Easter is as the fuckers have moved it again, the only ones in-the-know being Devil-Dodgers and Sheave-Bringers, and they’re few and far between, thank Christ. The Six Nations Rugby offers a glimmer of hope: It takes so long nowadays that you know by the end of it you’ll be rubbing linseed oil into your bat and liniment into your groin.

Then it all happens at once, seemingly. The National, the Boat Race, then it’s here: the traditional start of the season: The Marathon. The first drink of the year without wearing a coat, and the biggest hangover of the year. It’s six months away, but stick with me kid- we’ll get through the dark times together. Wrap up warm, have a regular wee dram to warm the cockles, close your eyes, think of cold beer, hard pitches, hot tea, blind umpires and cricket pavilions and it’ll be spring before you know it.

Laughing in the face of Danger(mouse).

Posted on September 25, 2009 by The Ed

It was my own fault. I’d ignored all the omens, poo-pooed all the warnings and cocked a deaf’un to to reason. Thus, gasping for a pint after a long, exhausting Thursday, I headed down to my local for a pint-or-eight. My local pub is one of a famous chain or Oirish Pubs, it was Thursday 24th September, they were ‘celebrating’ 250 years of the birth of Arthur Guinness, yet forgetting all that I held true to my heart, I entered the establishment for refreshment.

I have previously explained my position on Guinness and Paddy’s Day and it is a measure of a) how thirsty I was and b) the lack of any other decent bars in town that I broke all my own rules. “Happy Birthday Arthur” was yet another in a long line of promotions intended to get you into a pub and drinking gallons of vitamin G. Nothing wrong in that, you might say, but then you would be wrong. Most of us don’t need encouragement to drink a lot and you just know the types who enjoy this sort of thing, who would turn up at a party celebrating the power of dysentery if there was a chance of a free pint, and dress up accordingly. My worst fears were soon realised.

My first pint was served to me by a 6ft 3″ black Leprechaun. He came complete with a green, foam, top hat, green nylon all-in-one suit and elasticated ginger beard. I know this bloke. Nice enough fella, just finishing his studies at college and wants to join the Old Bill (I’m working on him). He was the only Leprechaun behind the jump, but I noticed some of the girls serving were dressed in emerald green crushed-velvet River Dance outfits. The early signs weren’t good. But fair enough, if the boss tells you to dress up like an idiot, you dress up like an idiot, right? WRONG. There was clearly dissent in the ranks. The natives were revolting, as I witnessed when I spotted two of the older barmaids, with faces liked slapped arses, wearing their regular black shirts and trousers. They’d told the boss to stick his idea. There was tension in the air.

Or at least there probably was but I couldn’t sense or hear a bleedin thing over the noise of the pissed youth of Blackheath and the PA system spewing-out Diddly Diddly ditties at a decibel level of somewhere near an eleven. The bar was busy, very busy, and very lively for 8 o’clock on a Thursday. Most of the punters had either started early or quickly, or both. I asked The Incumbent who was chugging away on her half of Guinness, whether we’d missed a public holiday cos this lot looked as if they’d been at it all day. She mouthed some words which I couldn’t here over the din and proceeded to attack a scratch card to see if she’d won another half pint (free scratchcard with every Guinness. As we’d ordered a pint-and-a-half I suggested we got a card-and-a-half but the Leprechaun was having none of it).

I went outside to the tranquility of the street to take a phone call. Superman was having a fag with The Joker. Oh Christ! There was a fancy dress night on too. My heart sank deep into my right-handed underpants. Why can’t these fuckers just turn up to a pub like anyone else? I told my mate on the phone not to bother coming to the pub, describing it as ‘Amateur Night in Disneyland’. Returning to the house of fun, I noticed The Incumbent was clearly non-plussed. In the few moments I’d been outside, she’d had an altercation with a drunk fat woman and , in a rare display of aggression, had given her a dig in the kidneys as the awful woman had backed into her for the sixth time. We made a tactical retreat to a quiet(er) corner of the bar.

From our vantage point, and having placated the Mrs, I cast my eye over the scene before me. it was only about 8.30 but it looked more like 12.30. The bar was jumping. The Pogues had now replaced The Batchelors (I believe) on the jukebox and groups of lads, pints held aloft, eyes shut, and heads tilted back to the ceiling were shouting the wrong words to the ‘Fairytale of New York‘. “The band of the in my seedy choir were ringing Galway day…” etc. Dotted among them I spotted Batwoman ( I assumed) dancing with Dangermouse in a rhythm only a superhero could master. Both of them out of time with the music and with each other. It took me a while to realise who the second of this couple was, as at first glance it looked like a girl in a white catsuit with a large white breast on her head. Then I realised she’d pushed her foam head back off her face so the mouse’s face was pointing straight up. It therefore wasn’t a huge nipple I had spotted, but a nose. Quite disappointing really.

More pints (and scratchcards) arrived, and took their inevitable toll. I made my way though the all singing-and-dancing hoards to the back to the pub and towards the loo. The aforementioned fat pissed bird was on the on her arse on the dance floor (it’s not really a dance floor, just a space in the crowd, but such was her size and her flailing dance-technique she’d managed to clear a few square yards) and shouting obscenities to passers by. I circumnavigated her and made for the gents (or the fir, as they’re known in Oirish bars). An odd conversation was taking place.
“Why you look like Spiderman?” asked the toilet man (you know him, he charges you a quid to wash your hands)
“What?” came the annoyed response, from Superman.
“Why you dressed like Spiderman, innit?”
“I’m not fucking Spiderman, I’m SUPERman”, his eyes were narrowing, he was clearly annoyed. Then he added, oddly, “I have got Spidey-sense” he used his two fingers pointing from his eyes in mock-super-vision.”but I’m fucking SUPERman”.

pause

“You’re the third person tonight who thought I was spiderman” he whimpered, looking down at his kit rather sadly.

Luckily, being right handed, I was able to go quickly about my business and keep out of the discussion. Re-entering the bar I realised the band had turned up. One of the regular Thursday night bookings, and they’re bloody good. Five black lads and a white bloke. They play reggae. I squeezed through the revellers as the band kicked off with “You can get it if you really want”. The Leprachaun was arm-in-arm with Captain America singing a Jimmy Cliff number.

“C’mon, we’re leaving” I announced to the other half. “This has all gotten too weird for me.”

Send Me Victorious, HD and Glorious

Posted on September 12, 2009 by The Ed

I’m back, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. I took the decision based on how much I’d missed. I took the decision because I was missing out. I took it because there’s too much coming up which I didn’t want to miss, and because I was drinking too much. And I took it because I’m a gadget-freak and I believed all the hype and the adverts.

pub

Having fallen out with Sky TV (see Lions, Tigers and Beers previously) over the standard of their service, I’ve had a summer of watching my chosen sporting events from the bar of my local. No great hardship, you might think, supping a cold one as the footy, cricket or rugby is on the box? We’ll yes, and no. If the soccer is on, all four tvs in the pub show the match, sound up high and no-one moving off their stools or in front of the screen. A boozer packed with replica-shirted herberts all ooh-ing and ah-ing in unison is a fun place to be. Rugby matches, especially the internationals, are often accorded the same level of respect and attention as is the round-ball game, except on the whole the fans are bigger, drink more and are much better behaved.
Cricket on the other hand, even though it is the nation’s summer game, is often begrudgingly switched on to a couple of screens with the volume either right down or off altogether (though god help you if Man Utd or Chelsea are on the other channel, then cricket doesn’t get a look-in at all). There’s something distinctly unsatisfactory in watching a England vrs the Aussies to the sound of Puff Diddly or Lady Goo Goo blaring out over the sound system, when all you really want to hear is Botham seething in the comm box, or Bumble laughing at the fancy dress costumes in the crowd. No, unless there’s a packed mob whooping en-masse at an Australian collapse, or multilaterally despairing at the ineptitude of the English bowling display, the pub’s not the place to enjoy the great game. It’s also difficult to concentrate on anything when Dan Dan is looking at you.
So enough is enough, and I’ve gone all Cable TV on your ass. Step forward Lord Branson and his Virgin Media TV. Andy the tv engineer has this morning arrived to install it. I get, movies-on-demand, catch-up tv, recordable, pauseable, fast-forwardable tv AND Sky Sports AND much of it in “Glorious HD”, as the Sky advert would have us believe. And this time it’s not Sky equipment which I have to deal with and which will inevitably go down on me, it’s a Virgin Box. It’s a schoolboy dream, nearly. Fnarr fnarr.

virgin_vbox_epg

So then, HD. How exciting is that? Truth is, I’m not really sure. Yeah yeah, I’m sure sport and movies will be stunningly (or should that be gloriously) enhanced when watched in HD, but surely they can be only as glorious or as stunning as my TV will allow? You’ll be fully aware of my technophobic tendancies and I have no idea how good or bad my telly is. It’s a couple-of-years-old Toshiba and it may well be ( and knowing my luck, it probably is) a bag of old shite, no more likely to give me the full, glorious, HD sensation than one of those wood-clad, 14-inch, 1970’s jobbies on which whole indian villages watch the world cup. Do I need to tramp down to Comet and spend wads of cash on the latest LED/LCD/Plasma box to make my new service worthwhile? Bloody hope not. Maybe I just go and get my eyes tested? I’m long overdue a visit to the opticians and I’m convinced my minces aren’t what they were. Gotta be cheaper than buying a new telly, hasn’t it?

You won’t have missed the fact (especially if you’ve been reading me) that The Beatles back-catalogue has been re-released having been digitally remastered. Will I really notice the difference if I play these CDs on my little mini-system? Granted, if I had a 3 grand, state-of-the-art hi-fi, with speakers the size of Belgium I might well be able to appreciate the cool clean repro on these new discs. But I have a cd player the size of a teasmaid, so I doubt that I’ll feel the benefit. And anyway, my ears need syringing. Poor old sod. Pardon ?

For those of you who feel a bit flush, this new Beatles stereo box set retails at £169.99, mono at a cheeky little £200. That doesn’t Please Please Me either.

Looking down the tv listings, there’s another thing that puzzles me. Do I really care that I now have the capability to watch Friday Night With Jonathan Ross in High Definition? I mean, next week he’s interviewing Ant n Dec. How glorious would HD have to be to make me enjoy that experience?

woss

So while I’ve been tapping away here, Andy the Virgin man has been and gone. I’m hooked up, tuned in and watching a Steven Fry documentary in yes, GLORIOUS HD. It seems (and this will shock you) that I may have to upgrade my subscription if I want to be able to watch all the channels I thought I was getting, but Steven Fry will do for now. He looks pretty good in Hi Def, I suppose. I’m started playing with all the new gadgets and toys on my new cable service because England have just collapsed against the Australians at Lords. HD or LD, they’re still a bunch of wankers.

The Last Night of the Proms is on later. Pomp and Circumstance in crystal clear sound and vision. Try asking to watch that in your local.

The Punter Problem

Posted on August 23, 2009 by The Ed

Look carefully at the above. I’ll wager those of you reading from overseas may just about have heard of Leeds Utd, a famous old club from the north of England, famous for cheating, foul play, Eric Cantona and the location of that film about Brian Clough.

A few of you who’ve been following these pages regularly might just recognise the name Charlton too. They are, of course, my local football team, the team I follow, the team that has caused me a little pleasure but a lot of heart-ache of the over the years. And the top of the table. Top! Ok, they’re top of the third league in the English game, but top of the league nonetheless. Four wins in a row. Four! The last time that happened there were Zeppelins flying over South East London.

The fact that we’ve beaten teams who most of you have never heard of matters not one jot to me. Walsall, Hartlepool, Leighton Orient and the mighty Wycombe Wanderers may not be regulars on your screens in New York, Paris or Honkers, and you may not have read anything of them on the back pages of Corrire dello Sport or in the back pages of The Sydney Morning Herald (those of us living in Blighty would even struggle to find them on an A-Z or an O.S. map) but Charlton Athletic Football Club have beaten them all and, because they’ve scored more goals than Leeds, are sitting proudly on the top of the tree.

Do not read any further. Bookmark this page—you’ll not see them on top again. Now let us continue.

charlton

It is the nature of most sport fans to believe their team to be world-beaters when they win, and utter tripe when they lose. I am not one of those sports fans: I believe my teams to be utter tripe whether they win, lose or draw. I always want them to win, but I never expect them to. As mentioned previously here, being a pessimistic supporter means you are rarely disappointed. Charlton may win another game or two but, in the end, will wither away into mid-table anonymity next to the like of the MK Dons (who they???) and Milwall (ditto). Don’t put your life savings on them winning the league. I bet on them once. What a complete waste of money that was.

A bloke on the radio this morning, of a similar mindset to me, said he was gonna pay the bookies a tenner to help England win the Ashes (we’ve gone on to cricket now, chaps). He reckoned if he could get odds of, say, 10-1 on Aussie and put a bet on them, then with his luck England were sure to win but if somehow they managed not to, he’d be 100 quid to the good, thus sweetening that bitterest of pills. I like that kind of thinking. There are many who wouldn’t dare bet against their own team, but I see nothing wrong with it: patriotism is patriotism and betting is betting.

wales438

Example: I have a friend (to protect the innocent, let’s call him Trev) who has lost the equivalent to the Mexican National Debt by persisting on betting on his beloved Welsh Rugby team, regardless of all the evidence and odd stacked against him and his Boyos. Throughout the nineties the sluicegates of Trev’s bank account opened up and spewed the contents therein into the gaping reservoirs of Messrs J.Coral, P Power and S.Index, Turf Accountants. Yeah, ok, a resurgence in Wales’ rugby fortunes means he’s been able to recoup some of his losses, but Trev suffered long and costly Saturday nights as the points mounted up against his team and the cash made its merry way out of his wallet. Great fun to watch though.

It’s now 12.20 on Sunday, August 23rd and England are, or at least seem to be, romping home to regain the Ashes at the Oval. Everything points to an England win. They are miles ahead in the game. The pitch resembles the crust of a semolina pudding. Any given bowl thrown at an Australian batsman could either go through the surface of the pitch and dribble along the floor, bruising his big toe, or hit a lumpy bit, rear up and knock the batters block off. They cannot possibly predict what’s gonna happen next: Big Advantage England.

Just two things stand in the way of an England series victory: The England players themselves and Australian Captain Ricky Ponting.

ponting

Ricky “Punter” Ponting is possibly the best batsman around at the moment. He’s technically excellent and mentally tough. Like many great men (Napoleon, Nelson, T.E.Lawrence, Mickey Rooney) he’s rather short and perhaps this focuses his mind. Short-man syndrome is well-known and perhaps this one compensates for his lack of height by wielding his bat and smiting the ball to all corners. Whatever the reason, he sure is a tough little bugger to get out. He gets boo-ed on and off the pitch and that only seems to strengthen his resolve to protect his wicket. His nickname “Punter” was given to him for his love of a betting office. As a young man he loved a bet. Loved a bird too. A bet and a bird. And he took a drink. A bet and a bird and some booze. Now, though, he’s a reformed man and a superb cricketer, free of distractions (apart from his little legs). He knows his odds, and he knows that while he’s still at the wicket, even the London bookies wont be giving a decent price against an improbable Australian win. He knows that if anyone can do it, the Aussies can, and the bookies know that too.

Anyone who’s watched and supported England play football, rugby, cricket, you name it has seen us throw away much stronger positions than this before. We seem apologetic for winning. A lack of killer-instinct. Somehow we seem to think winning well, stuffing the noses of the oppo into the dirt is not the done thing (hence the phrase “just not cricket”). We like a competition, a near-thing, a close-run race. The whole of the English sporting psyche is built around the “it’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part”. What a load of cobblers. If we ever do trounce an opposing team, the first thing said in the pubs and the papers is that the opposition were “not very good”.

Perhaps because of the many times we’ve lost, we’ve always had a very different view to the rest of the World of what constitutes a victory or a defeat. Dunkirk is taught in english schools as a victory, for Christ’s sake. If the Charge of the Light Brigade had happened to any other country’s military, the story would be torn out of history books in Russia, China and parts of the Conservative American West. Douglas Haig and Bomber Harris would be filed under ‘E’ for ‘Embarrassment’ if they were German. Not here: we erect statues to them. Scott was beaten to the pole by Amundsen and died a heroes death, freezing his nadgers off in a tent. Our history books are chock-full of dead heroes. Why can’t we have a few more very old codgers walking around who once beat West Germany by 11-0? or who captained the European Ryder Cup team which beat the yanks 28-0? or was 100 Olympic 100 meter champion for 16 straight years. I’ll tell you why: it’s cos we don’t like winning, and if we do, we don’t like winning well.

Rorkes_Drift

In 1879 just under 150 Welshmen from the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot successfully defended the mission at Rourke’s Drift against about 4000 Zulus, winning umpteen Victoria Crosses, (and providing us with a great story for a movie, 85 years later).

Trevs’s Great Grandfather was there. He bet on the Zulus.

The Sharp Single

All Done

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