Ooops!

Arriving home from work yesterday find one of our regular punters sitting at the bar in a collar and tie. "All dressed up and nowhere to go?" I quipped.

"Sort of" replied Paul aka "the Black Widow".

"What's with the tie, you look as though you've been in court".

"I have".

Reading the Camden New Journal today [our weekly local rag] explained all.

Linda Jolly and Marion Lyon at St Pancras Coroner’s courtMothers’ anguish over double death mysteryInquest hears how two men die in the same Hampstead flatTWO grieving mothers discovered on Tuesday that their young sons died in the same Hampstead flat in mysteriously similar circumstances within six months.St Pancras Coroners heard how Terence Jolly, 18, died of a massive morphine and sleeping pill overdose at a flat in the sheltered Monro House block in Fitzjohn’s Avenue last January.Just six months later, aspiring racing driver Lawrence Lyon, 23, died in the same bunk bed in July.Both men had been befriended by Paul Mingo, a live-in carer at Monro House, shortly before their deaths.Mr Mingo claimed that both Mr Jolly and Mr Lyon had been his lovers and had brought them to the flat to help them deal with drug problems. But their families say neither man was gay and are calling for police to expand an investigation which has so far failed to answer all of their questions.Mr Jolly’s adoptive mother, Linda, said she was thrown by the similarity of the deaths: “We were almost coming to terms with it and the (coroner’s inquest) threw it all up in the air again. It’s left us with unanswered questions.”Mr Lyon’s mother Marion said: “It’s going to take a long time to get over this. We’ve both lost sons. We’ve a very strong family, he knew he had a problem, we were in the process of sorting it. It’s destroyed the whole family.” Mr Mingo has received a police caution for giving Mr Lyon three sleeping tablets, which formed part of the lethal drugs cocktail that led to his death.He told the inquest: “Foolishly I gave him some sleeping pills and I should have known better and I’m deeply sorry for what happened. Unfortunately my past has not been good. Most of my lovers have been drug addicts and have been young. That’s my mistake. I’ve been this way all my life. I didn’t do anything intentionally. I’m just sorry for what’s happened. I’m living with it in my own way and it’s not easy to deal with.”Mr Mingo said he met Mr Jolly, from Kent, when out clubbing, adding: “The time coming up to his death we got to arguing about the drugs. I had a previous partner and it didn’t go too well. I’d been beaten, stabbed a few times and held hostage in my own home.”Mr Lyon’s family, including sisters Jane and Dawn and father Michael, who all live in Somers Town, said they had devoted their lives to his ambition to become a Formula 1 racer. Through competitive kart racing he had got to know Jensen Button, raced against British champ Lewis Hamilton and was ultimately buried with his crash helmet.He temporarily gave up racing to work as a scaffolder to support his new son, but had to give up work to look after his mother after she was diagnosed with throat cancer.Mr Lyon’s sister Jane said after the inquest: “His four-year-old son Blaine has got to grow up not knowing what he was like. There’s no end to the grief.”Detective Inspector Carol Andrews told the coroner that Mr Mingo was questioned after both deaths but said that no charges had been brought. She added: “If information leads us to reopen the investigation to an allegation of manslaughter or homicide it will be reopened.”Verdict in both cases: Open.

Not for nothing is he called the Black Widow!

Oi, No!

A little snippet in the Daily Mail the other day about a gay bar in Australia, Sidney I think, that has banned straight people.

What a good idea!

I'm on the horns of a Dali Lama with this one. As a pub owner, I need every penny that comes in the door. Problem being it's a gay pub so a balance has to be struck. Moonlighting as a doorman at a gay bar / club [which describes itself as "polysexual"] I go with the flow of what the owner wants [which is every penny that comes in the door]. As a punter in gay pubs, bars and clubs, I HATE to go into places that are full of women. What I hate more, and this is predominantly found in clubs, is when they are filled with "hen parties". Some sad youngold receptionist and her receptionist mates wearing the [new] traditional garb of hen party "hens" [broiling fowl [foul]], this being the hen wearing a bridal veil and a set of "L" plates. Her co-horts wearing devils horns and carrying little devil tridents. Why they feel they have to inflict themselves on poor Innocent fags who only want to go out, do drugs, get their knees damp in the lavs and fight with their boyfriends, puzzles me. And, I swear, the next time one of these brogdinagian creatures prods me in the bum with a plastic trident, she'll get an impromptu hysterectomy!

On the bedside table....

Currently reading Wicked Beyond Belief. The story of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. Or how the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police cocked it up. I'm actually re-reading it for the third consecutive time, there's so much detail in it.

It holds an interest for me because I was growing up in Leeds while this nutter was going around killing women. I know it sounds like a tabloid cliche but, at the time, there was a tangible feeling of fear. Also, one of his victims, Wilma McCann was murdered about fifty yards from my grandmothers house, one of the weapons that he used [not the screwdriver] was found in her garden.

Just finished; Vulcan 607, the biography of Fred Dibnah and Remains of the Day.

I thought Fred was one of the best things since sliced bread. The original BBC series about his steeplejack's life was probably the only thing I've seen on TV that made it worth while having the bloody thing in the house. I bought this to take on holiday but it became "Tube reading" IE what I read while on the way to / from work. The description of him working while dieing from cancer reduced me to floods of tears. Well, it's one way of getting a bit of space on the tube.

I bought this after reading the review in one of the Sunday papers. Although it wasn't a bad read, it could had had a bit more detail. I loved the Vulcan. When I was at school I would see then every day on their way to and from the east coast bombing ranges. An awesome aircraft.

Remains of the day was read [the first time around] as the result of seeing the film. I love the film to bits but the book was the biggest load of old rubbish. I re-read after reading something about the author. I was correct in my initial assessment. This book is crap. Avoid like the plague.

Next on the list is Britain BC. Ive read some of Francis Pryor's work before and it's really well written, not to technical.

Britain BC will be read concurrently with The Complete McAuslan. I've read this before and it is riotously funny. This one will have to be toilet reading [the only place in the world where it is possible to escape the rigors of life and enjoy yourself on two different levels].

Food of the Gods

I'm having withdrawal symptoms. I've not had fish and chips for over a year. It's not that they're difficult to find, it's just that I'm picky when it comes to fish'n chips [to give them their real name].

There is, just down the road in Belsize Park, a chippy which is one of the best in London... apparently. Not good enough. It's not the quality of the fish [doubtless, it's fine] it's the fact that they fry them in oil.

Real, northern, fish'n chips are fried in beef dripping [fat]. Also, real northern chippies do not sell shite like sausages, saveloy's, "southern" fried chicken etc, etc which, here in London, tends to be fried in the same oil as the fish'n chips thus rendering everything with the same oily chickeny / sausagy / fishy taste. Not being in the north, I don't expect to find a chippy cooking in anything other then oil.

David sells fish'n chips in the pub [cooked in oil], and the silly tourists love them. Fish'n chips they are, real fish'n chips they are not. Also following the faux British tradition, they are served with mushy peas and a wedge of lemon.

Fish'n chips do not come with mushy peas. Another urban myth concerns newspaper. Yes, it's true that fish'n chips were at one time wrapped in newspaper. Not directly in newspaper. Beneath the fish'n chips was a layer of greaseproof paper, then a sheet of plain paper and finally, the newspaper.

False: the fish'n chips were never placed directly onto the newspaper [and what is this shit with wedges of lime?].

True: they had a sheet of greaseproof paper and plain paper wrapped around them.

Good viewing, crap reading.

Hmmmm, I was stuck for something to read so, in desperation, I re-read Remains of the Day again.

I had read the "book" many years ago and thought that it was the biggest load of rubbish in print.

I still hold that opinion.

I had originally seen the film on New Years Day on channel 4 and thought it was superb. Then I read the book.

Whoever wrote the screenplay must have been very talented and had a vivid imagination because how such a great film was concocted out of such thin material defies belief.

At the second reading, it puts me in mind of some of the Booker / Whitbread / Orange prizewinning tosh that I've tried to read. Pseudo high brow / high art rubbish.

A load of old tosh [which, incidently, never mentions butlers, English or otherwise]. Reviews of the [un-readable] book tend to be reviews of the film.

The real McCoy.

Libraries

It seems to be that some of the blogs that I read and some of the people who read my blogs have a connection with libraries. Doug's blog mentioned that the library he works in is being refurbished / enlarged and that he's happy with the change. Good for him, he has to work in the place.

I don't use a library in London. Camden [Council] libraries are not very good, I've been in two of them, and was not impressed.

I was not concerned with the selection or range of books, I didn't even get that far. I was put of straight away by the fact that they have a children's play area. This didn't have any books in it but a wide selection of toys. Do they lend toys? Perhaps it was to keep the little loves quiet [fat chance!].

Anyway, my mind went back to the library in Crossgates. There is a website called the Leodis Database which has thousands of pictures of old Leeds. Amongst them are some pics of the library at Crossgates. I always remember that it was opened on the 14th December, my birthday, but in 1936 [as opposed to 1964, when I was born]. It was a marvelous 1930's style place, not art-deco, and is exactly the same today as it is in the following pics [or it was, the last time I was in there, about a year ago].

The Library Lobby

The central area of the childrens library

The childrens library again

The main [adult] library.

The view, taken from just inside the main entrance loby, looking into the main library.

The reference library, I never remember seeing this many books in it!

The "reading room". ultimatly taken over by social services.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr #2

Birds? You can't say that!

Not as good as the first but still funny.

Holiday Guff

Home sweet home, finally! [more about that later].

I don't have anything to do with booking the holidays, David does all of that, I just go where I'm told to go. Crete, OK, I would have preferred Cuba again but, sadly, no chance.

I'm not such a connoisseur that I can tell one Greek island from another. Crete looks just like Rhodes which looks like Mykonos, except that Mykonos had lots of cute men, so, in theory, we could have been anywhere.

The hotel was one of these "All Inclusive" jobbies which, with the amount that both us us can eat and drink, is ideal. I've posted previously about the problems in the hotel with the Poles so I won't cover that again. I thought I was on to a bit of a winner with the internet connection though. Sadly, It was a bit problematic...

Only in Greece could a man come to fix a computer and bring with him a 2lbs lump hammer to do it!This was above somebody's front door, god only knows how old it was.

In the room above this shop is where Alcoholics Anonymous

hold their meetings [every Monday, 7.30pm].

Gorgeous colour

A mixture of Paris and London. It was actually a clothes shop.

Again, just like London. Apparently it was where somebody

on a scooter hit a lamp post, Ouch!

The essence of a good holiday, drink, cigs and a good read.

A "good read" does not apply to some of the crap that David reads.

But, all good things come to an end and then it was time to come home [which requires a post all of its own].

Personal Secretary

I've never been very good with days and dates etc. That's probably why I was under the impression that we came on holiday on the 19th. I normally know what day it is, despite what my colleagues say, but this not having to get up on a morning or having any fixed timetable has thrown me more than normal.

David and I sat this morning trying to figure out if it was Wednesday or Thursday [it's Thursday, apparently]. I guess it's nice to be able to have those sort of arguments.

The down side of not knowing what / when sort of fell out of the sky on me this afternoon. Because we came away a week earlier than I had expected [I came home from work and Dave asked me why I hadn't started packing my suitcase...] I was more thrown than usual. It resulted in me having to ring work and explain that, although I did have leave booked, due to my stupidity, I was having to bring it forward a week and that, beg, beg, grovel, grovel, I would be on the plane in a little over six hours and thus, wouldn't be back to work for a week.

Anyway, back to the Chicken Little type realisation. There I was, gazing into a clear blue sky when the black clouds of work crossed my view. What shift am I working next week? Oh, shit!

Well after a quick phone call, to the tune of approximately E20 I discover that Ive got "Field shifts". This means that I'll be like "shit in a field"; all over the fukin place.

Table Manners

While sitting in the airport the other day, I was reading in the Daily Mail, an article about people sending their offspring to etiquette classes.

The gist off it was that the little loves were failing miserably at recruitment days because in the lunch interval, when they thought that they were not being assessed, and of course, you still are, it was discovered that a huge chunk of them lacked the basic know how of how to use a knife and fork and other such skills.

Sitting in the restaurant yesterday, if you look around at some of the Brits and their table manners, I can see why some folk would need instruction.

Normally, when it comes to being fed, I'm the first one with my feet in the trough. Some of my co-holiday-makers were not only in the trough up to their elbows but were wielding their eating irons as though they were about to take part in a knife throwing act!

I was always lead to understand that there was only one way to hold a knife and fork and, really there are not that many possibilities to doing so. Think again! I goes to show how many people either normally eat with their hands or doing things "Sidney style" just lick food straight from the plate.

Poles apart / too close for comfort.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, it was the case that if you went on holiday in Europe, the Brits did most of their complaining about the Germans. Well, I'm sad to announce that things have changed.
This hotel and, seemingly the whole of the Med [according to one of the holiday reps I spoke to] is full to the brim with Polish persons.
At least with the Germans you knew what you were getting. They were loudish, wore speedos that were two sizes to small and had huge moustaches [ not to mention the sunbed thing] but at least you knew where you were with them.
The Poles, on the other hand........ This will be my last holiday in Europe. Loud, over or under dressed; never just right, and for a nation who had absolutely fukin nothing in the shops, have failed to grasp / remember the art of queuing.
This must be the first time in the history of the two nations that the Brits and the Bosch have sided together.
I get the impression that Stalin spent all the years that the Poles were subjugated, breeding them to look like Popeye; huge big fukin elbows! When it comes to "pushing in" the Poles act like they're breaking a barricade and their table manners [there will be another post about table manners tomorrow] are the worst!
If any of you have read A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine, it paints a perfect picture of the way Eastern European women dress and why. To say that it looks like a prostitutes convention would be a bit of an understatement.
Then there is the dentistry..........

Wrong Date

It's a good job that I have David to keep me on the straight and narrow! I thought that we were going on holiday on the 19Th of May. We actually went on the twelfth so, this comes to you courtesy of the Hotel Creta Panorama.

good News - Bad News

Goodbye [and good riddance] to Tony Blair.

Well, that was the good news. The bad news is that he's going to be replaced by another fuckwit out of the same stable.

There is an old adage that "it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in". Well I didn't vote for any of this crew and the buggers still got in! I want a recount.

Hair or no hair?

I was reading something about hair, or the lack of same, on Dr Sparkys blog. Sadly, although I can empathise with his plight, I can't sympathise with him. In many respects, I envy him. I don't like hair, it traps dirt, changes colour and needs cropping frequently. If mine fell out tomorrow I would count myself well rid.

I suppose that some would consider that I'm lucky in that I'm like a baboon when it comes to hair. I don't know where it comes from, my Dad had a classic Bobby Charlton "comb-over".

This is Gregor Fisher by the way, not my Dad.

My very own dog fur grows such that I have to clip it every other week. My brothers [Mathew, Mark, and Luke, and that's not a joke by the way, there is also Frank, and me, Chris] are all like me, hirsute. John [known by the rest of us as Judas] has inherited my Dad's trait, IE. the DNA of a billiard ball.

David, my beloved, started to lose his hair when he was 22. It finally reached the "Islands in the sun" stage when he shaved the lot [little?] off.

It seems to be a bit of a gay trait that those who are "good with colours" don't piss around when it comes to going bald. Damn right too.

With that tenet in mind, here's hoping that Patric Stewart is one of the "boys". Toooooo sexy!

TOOOOO SEXY [This isn't my Dad either [that would be illegal!]].

Me [in the pushchair] my Dad pushing me and Judas tagging along.

Judas would have been about 12 at the time and I think I can detect that

hairline heading towards the nape of his neck!

Family Values # 6

Monday morning finds me a bit under the weather [and also under the influence] still from the weekend. It being a public holiday and me, for once, not having to work, I thought I would spend a portion of the day sleeping off the excesses of the weekend. Some hope!

9 o'clock on the dot and the doorbell starts ringing. I elbow David in the ribs and tell him to go see who it is [well, it is his fuking pub!]. Five minutes later and he treks back upstairs with his delightful brother [father of Fat Bird].

Some conversation ensues and then he's gone, thank God.

When I eventually crawl out of bed I ask Dave what he wanted.

"to borrow the car"

"I hope you told him to fuck off!"

"no"

To say that I was annoyed would be a wee tad understatement.

I didn't even know he was in the country. Had I known, then I would have been prepared for.... well, anything really.

Eamon is a complete fuckin sponger. He's a big, fat, lazy, Irish cunt who's never done an honest days work in his life. He lived in the US for a lot of years and it was the best place for him. He should be a Nigerian, being just the type who thinks he can make a quid from anything or anybody. Problem is that all he can make is a quid, nothing more.

Many moons ago he joined one of these "happy clappy" religions but, and these are his words, he keeps losing his religion, needs to keep it on a bit of string, in my opinion.

At our first meeting, and this was just after David had come out as being gay, and would be shacking up with another bloke, Eamon said that he would pray for us. I told him he'd better pray for a good surgeon because if he came out with any more cracks like that one, he'd fuking need one!

He thinks he knows the worth / value of everything [but doesn't] and he could always have gotten what ever it is you have bought cheaper for you, if you'd only bothered to asked him.

Anyway, back to the car. I let my tourettes syndrome out of the bag and had yell at Dave, but the deed was done.

Around 7 o'clock and he arrives back saying that he's left the car outside. Outside the front of the pub is "pay & display" parking. We have a residents parking permit, but the residents parking is in the surrounding streets, not on the high street. If the car was left there it means that from 8am the following morning it would be liable for a parking ticket [and the Traffic Taliban in Camden don't mess around].

"Where was the car this morning?" I asked him,

"Oh, Prince thingy Road".

"Well in that case, put the bloody thing back there! If you can pick it up from there, you can bloody well take it back there"

With that he pissed off to move it and didn't even bring the keys back upstairs, leaving them behind the bar.

With any luck, he won't be back for a while, cheeky cunt.

XXL

Vodka Dave came up with the idea of going to XXL. For all that he is a complete drunk, show-off etc, he is very lacking in self confidence. He's heading towards fifty, quite camp, shaved head to hide the fact that he is balding and quite over weight.

I wasn't keen to go, I don't go clubbing much because I don't like places filled with women, 16 year old prissy queens in Prada tee shirts or hoards of foreign [Spanish, mostly] tourists.

David [my David, not Vodka Dave] then pulled his usual stunt of inviting every fucking half wit in the pub. I managed to un-invite most of them and the end result was that five of us went.

I cannot remember the last time I went clubbing and enjoyed it so much. All the stuff on their website is completely true. No females, no "how fabulous am I?" prissy / hissy queens, no foreign tourists.

The whole concept is aimed at the "larger" gay person. While it wasn't quite a bear-fest, there was absolutely no attitude. Vodka Dave likened it to weight watchers with a bar, drugs and music [and a dark room].

I think I know where I'm going to be spending my Saturday nights.

No hair, no shirts, no 6-packs, no attitude, no women!

The end of the world!

It's the end of the world. Hundreds of people staggering around King's Cross gasping, coughing and rubbing their eyes, and I'm one of them.

Ive never suffered with hay fever or anything like that but this yellow fluff that's falling off of the trees is killing me!

I now have sympathy for all of those who have always suffered.

But why now? I'm 42 for Christ's sake!

Good books - good films. Bad books......

One of the first works of fiction that I read was Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Straight after I read Silence of the Lambs. Then I saw the film [Silence of the Lambs]. I thought that both were very good stories and the films were good too. The I read Black September and thought that it was so-so.

Then came Hannibal. I read the book before I saw the film and didn't recon much to either.

Just as the book came out, there was an article by Mr Harris in the Mail on Sunday. I've read some shite but that was a real load of cod psychology / pseudo babble about how and why writers do what they do and where they get their inspiration from. He was definitely paid to write it, or he was drunk.

Ignore the fact that there was a re-make of Red Dragon, although it wasn't bad.....

Now comes Hannibal Rising. I've not read the book and having gotten half way through the film, doubt that I will. I'll be lucky if the film goes the distance without me hitting the "off" button.

I also doubt that at £20, I'll be buying the book.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I love this...

TYRANNOSAURUS ALAN

Stick a brush up my arse.....

The week before last was hell. Actually, it wasn't that good. As we crunched from one job / problem to the next I made a bit of an off hand comment to my colleague that the only things we hadn't done was to rescue a kitten from a tree and help a pregnant woman give birth [this was having just put out a small fire in a street litter bin, not the sort of thing you would call the brigade out for]. Today we were out together again and it's was a stinker from the outset. Talk about hitting the street running. 3 O'clock finds us heading towards Holborn when a young lady, heading towards us having come out of one of the local colleges, shouts to us "Oi, mate, there's this baby cat running around in the road back there". Rounding the corner, low and behold, is a kitten cowering against a wall.

Having spent more than long enough on the phone to the RSPCA [press 1 to report a suspected case of bird flu......] and then waiting an hour for then to turn out, we handed the beast over and continued our trek. The first thing we see, on rounding the corner into Guilford St, is a heavily pregnant woman, sweating like a race horse, stumping towards us.

We must have looked like something from a Max Senate film. A double take and an about face that would not have looked out of place in the Grenadier Guards and we were off, back towards King's Cross!