Pomp and Celerymony

Well, we had a fabulous day at the races - the unexpected result is that I feel like I've discharged my best man duties amply enough.

In appropriately manly fashion, we gloried in just enough pomp to make it an occasion. Just enough pennies were won [none by me] to prompt a few short-lived chest beatings. And just enough pints [Guinness] were partaken of to make it merry, merry, merry.

None the less - grrr! Silver Adonis (13-2) and James Pine (100-1), you should be ashamed of yourselves. But at least neither of you ran the wrong way [chortle].

Now it's back to homelier pastures and earthier pleasures.

Madness to the Method

(Photo - P.E.S.H.)

This weekend I make my second ever trip to the races, with access to the enclosures and all that general hanging about. It's a stag do - to boot, one of my instigation - though probably not an excessive example of that heady genre.

I hope they have real ale, while recognising that constant Creamflow would help to prolong the relative sobriety. I've also done my pissing best with half-hearted rumours of bandstands, gaffer tape and nudity - but it turns out I needn't have bothered since some low-rent local wit has already done the hard work for me...

Here are my tips - an update regarding this folly will almost certainly follow in time. I include the names of the races because they warm my cockles as do the names of GM Vauxhall Conference official matchball sponsors. Glamour ensues:

No. 8 Fairyland in the 5:40 selectracingclub.co.uk - Experience Ownership For £59 Handicap Hurdle (Clairefontaine Trophy) Cl3 2m110y
No. 11 Dynamic Rhythm in the 6:10 Happy 80th Birthday Joe Furlong Amateur Riders´ Handicap Hurdle Cl4 2m3f
No. 4 Dishdasha in the 6:40 Jon Pinfold Industrial Cleaners Handicap Chase Cl3 2m1f110y
No. 12 James Pine in the 7:15 W + S Recycling Stratford Foxhunters Champion Hunters´ Chase (51st Running) Cl2 3m4f
No. 1 Mr Boo in the 7:45 Llewellyn Humphreys Handicap Chase (In Memory of George Jones, for the Gambling Prince Trophy) Cl2 2m5f110y
No. 13 Nobody Tells Me in the 8:20 Interbrands (Europe) Ladies´ Hunters´ Chase (for the Stratford Millennium Rose Bowl) Cl5 2m7f
No. 30 Aintnonancy in the 8:50 Di Runs The Stable Lads Canteen Novices´ Handicap Hurdle Cl4 2m110y

Still, I have no idea what any of this shit means.

Night rider

Last Tuesday night, I trudged through the drizzle from the station to Hanley following another giddy evening of teenage rampage.

It's a forty-five minute wait for the Glorious XXI at that time of night and it makes as much sense to walk up to the bus station via the Coachmakers: "we've got a visitor," riffed the couple at the bar as I necked a swift half.

In damply pixelated daydreams the waiting area at Hanley Bus Station is easily transformed into a 1980s platform game - one has to vault the onrushing "spare a smoke" folk and splat several randomised drunks, all whilst dodging some half-programmed fist-shakers from the Street Fighter auditions.

While I counted my golden pennies, a senior gent breezed out of nowhere, enquired keenly about which bus I was awaiting, and seemed delighted to inform me that, "you'll have no trouble with that one, duck - Pawel's on tonight." Producing a dazzling golden pocket watch from within, he was able to add that I'd only be waiting three and a half minutes (precisely).

He was absolutely correct. Acknowledgments duly exchanged, we both took separate seats on the bus, me surrendering £1.70, he twitching his cap and bus-pass.

On passing Cheque & Pawn (auspicious), an appreciative rumble broke out amongst the kindly old fella and three of his peers - a spontaneous outbreak of positivity that I guessed could add years to their lives, though I've no idea what prompted it.

I inferred that all were ex-PMT workers who had never stopped riding the buses, keeping time, or doing that thing that bus drivers do when they pass one another - even when sat in the very same saloon and deprived of their drives.

I'm not sure why, but I love those moments.

Meanwhile, the boy awakens...

Dub steps

We have new neighbours, an older woman and a thirty-something man.

The latter loves to languish with his mates on the front step. Feet up, smoking, swearing and drinking, mostly. Basing my general foreboding on the family a few doors up (high incidence of Team England official sportswear) I was bracing myself for wall-to-wall Ayia Napa compilations cranked up on repeat.

And I would ask him to turn it down (especially at 3am - Victorian bricks weren't designed for bass) except that, instead, he appears to have a penchant for Johnny Osbourne and King Tubby.

We were so not going to get on - but this, this might be the saving grace...

Flanning and flailing

Today is a day off, from both of my employers. For some unexplored reason, I have a head full of Morrissey. Some dizzy whore, eighteen hundred and four in particular.

I had intended to spend it flanning about productively - or at least in a meaningfully non-productive way. I guess the latter is what the twenty-first century flaneur should be all about, isn't it?

But here I am, not really having got started. And so, I'm off to buy a nematode colony. Really they're for the brassicas. But this month I could really do with some newfangled intracranial ones, ideally swimmable in something tasty like chinotto.

Never written down

An oddball weekend; if not a rollercoaster, then certainly a cash railway. A weekend full of lots-of-things-long-ago-arranged-but-never-written-down. Like one of those meteorite near-misses, we got away with it without the need for excuses. Cash duly stashed by railway clerk, and never seen again. AMEX reported delighted.

And so, to recount Friday and Saturday:

The lurgy - duly despatched /a visit from a real-life blogger, pleasantly fragranced / a visit from a real-life morrisman with a chainsaw who believes blogs are for weirdos / quickfire doses of rocksteady, a washboard, and a monster set of dreads / The Coachmakers and the omnipresence of asparagus in Worcestershire discourse / a quick play, a morning flyer to London and a thwarted attempt to visit a mermaid / sister suggests Wagawotsit instead - meanwhile I, Wag-A-Finga, wouldn't be seen DEAD in there / echoes of a Pulp song *yum* but feel a bit like a dirty celeb-stalker / on the tube, I daydream of surfacing in Trafalgar Square, but can only muster air turbulence in South Kensington / attempting to experience museums the way others do is another post for another day, but enjoyable (I learned something today!) / we hang around a lake full of flapping youths named Clara and Ptolemy - it's pleasant / as are drinks with Milos and Q / then it's the last train home for me and the boys from Bury, Burnley and the Brit, plus a long sojourn in Milton Keynes awaiting the rozzers / back home, and the fans file silently past the train crew before breaking into "if you've all shagged a virgin..." - but only once safely below tracks in the subway.

Sunday, simpler. Japanese knotweed, pirate ships in Longton Park, and wondering how to get your two-year old to share the bridge of the latter. "Ask nicely when you want a go and take it in turns with the other children," we urge.

He shows faith, and asks the vacant looking kid - nicely. Oops - that'll be a big fat "NO!" right in the face, then. So Sam reflects briefly and lamps kid, a child twice his size and age. The child's vacant-looking twin dad can barely be bothered to notice as he sups from his can of Stella. Vacant twin child remains - well - vacant.

I apologise anyway and we drag our normally-shy toddler away for a time-out by the ducks. It must be hard to understand when others don't play by the same rules, or indeed any rules. I angst about this for some time, until we return. Sam promptly offers the bridge to another boy. We all feel better and take our turns on the rope slide. Then, ice cream.

And the lady working in Middleport Co-Op thinks the 1/3 off pasta offer would be really good were it not for the fact that "these new trendy foods just taste like slime to me, duck." In her honour, we conclude with the awesomeness of pasta e fagioli.

Goodbye to all that

Saltergate's final Saturdays slip by, certainly my last. A place absolutely shot through - too often soaked through - with a sense of collective memory. Pissy, piecemeal, impossible to replace with shit-for-purpose uniformity.



Gratuitous plumbing shot fitted as standard.