"..and how old are you, little boy"?

For many years a debate about the different ages of consent for different things has rumbled along.
Until recent years, you had to be 21 to have consensual gay sex [but only between men, there was never an age limit for sex between women]. Heterosexuals needed only to wait until 16 to start tinkering around. 17 to be able to learn to drive, recently raised to 18, no bad thing, and 18 to by drink in a pub / bar off-license.
Then, along came the Wine & Spirit Trade Association and their “Challenge 21” initiative. The gist of which is this;

All well and good, but there is another twist to this idea.
Friday night finds me running the pub while David is away in Blackpool and it’s bloody busy! Busy to the extent that we started to run out of wine.
Byron, my drinking companion, is a bit miffed that all the Pinot Grigio is gone and he’ll end up drinking the house wine shite. Harry Potter [David P] is dispatched to Tesco to get a couple of bottles. “I can’t go, they won’t serve me” he pleads.
He then explains that Tesco have gone one step further with their interpretation of the Challenge 21 campaign and raised the bar [no pun intended] to 30!
Thus Harry is considered to be under-age when buying wine.
He had to suffer the ignominy of me having to take him to Tesco to buy the wine, just so that I could see him squirm [and to see Tesco‘s refuse to serve him, and because I thought he wasn‘t telling me the whole and complete truth]. He is, in fact, 24 but looks about 16. Poor lamb.

Arty Farty

Peace has finally descended on the house. David, complete with the troop of fools from downstairs in the pub, has gone away to Blackpool for the weekend.
After the events of the past few days I’m glad to see the back of him [I’m glad to see the back of him at almost any other time too]. After living in the place for nearly two years, Dave decided that he wanted to put up some of the pictures that we just never got around to putting up when we moved in. In the last flat, we had loads of room thus, lots of wall space. Here, it’s like living in a small box and the bookcases line most of the walls.
For some unaccountable reason, David decides that the staircase is a good place to hang pictures and he started with his favourite and my most hated picture, the Creation of Adam.

Never send one fool to do another fool’s job. Had I stuck to this tenet, we would never have ended up with this vile object of a picture.
I had wanted something to go across the end wall in the living room in the house and, foolishly, sent David out with the instruction as to which print to buy. I didn’t see the picture until we had taken it back to Ireland, had it framed and I went to collect it [it previously having been rolled up in a cardboard tube], needless to say, it wasn't the print that I wanted.
I don’t think that the woman in the shop was very impressed with my reaction. Not only to the picture itself but also to the size. It’s eight feet by four. When installed in the living room it looked like a fukin’ alter piece! After selling the house, we brought it back to London and it lived behind the door in the spare bedroom, never to be hung again, until Thursday.
Also seeing the light of day is my very own Mondrian.

above: Sidney, the art critic.

I actually made this picture to hang in the bathroom. The idea started out as a bit of a laugh. In the previous pub, we had a big roof terrace above the staff accommodation. At one end, actually the adjoining building, was a large blank wall. I painted a mural on it, after the style of Mondrian. I used the paint I had handy, two different shades of blue and silver. This caused no end of complaints from the BBC offices next door. Their offices overlooked our roof terrace and they didn’t like the fact that Mondrian had had his work plagiarised with such crap colours! They weren’t keen on the nude sunbathing either.
Following on from the mural came the smaller version for the bathroom. I’ve no idea where Dave intends putting the picture, it was made for a particular colour scheme which we don’t have anymore. At the moment, I dread to think….

Wogs

I don’t think I’m a typical gay man. Actually, I know that I’m not a typical gay man.
One of the delightful staff here, Brooks, an American chap, was fine when he first started working her. Now, eighteen months later, he had become the embodyment of the “fifth form at Mallory Towers”, all screaming, hand waving faggoty type stereotype of a gay man.
Monday, is cheap drinks at the Black Cap night, and I’m rearing to go. What has stopped me is some other vile American who has latched onto Brooks. This one is an Asian-American. It’s not the fact hat he’s Asian that bothers me. Nor is it the fact that he’s added to his natural colouring with some crap that comes from a bottle, [orange / brown, like a1970’s table lamp] it’s the fact that he screams and giggles at everything, like a twelve year old girl.
I can’t go out on the piss with this prick because I’ll end up killing him! I spend all day [getting paid for being politically correct, ergo, I don't see why / and don't do it when I'm not being paid] Thus, I've already told Mowgli to "fuck off" and, straight away, he realised that I'm not a foil for his screaming girl act.
Grandma, from the Walton’s, was never like this!

The things that people say.

The saying goes that you never overhear anything nice. As true as this may be, some of the things you do hear are bloody funny.

“Take it easy at work” [overheard on the bus]. Surely the complete and diametric opposite of what going to work is supposed to be?

“Liberty! Liberty! Bleeding get ‘ere and do as y’r told!” [Yelled by some yummy mummy [not] at her delightful offspring]. Liberty is obviously a name to be conferred on grubby kids as opposed to a right to be fought for.

Talking Shit.

This morning, I had the displeasure of having to go to work in the tube [because I was pissed last night, and woke up late]. Morning Tube trips means I get to read the METRO, a freebie newspaper.

According to the METRO, behold, a new phenomenon, Fish & Chips!

Just outside Ramsgate is one of the best fish and chip shops in Britain, the Newington Fish Bar. It dishes up firm-fleshed, pearly fish that falls into fat flakes at the touch of a fork, encased in startlingly good batter that’s crisp and light, like British tempura. Fat is kept at just the right temperature so that fish steams to perfection inside its batter sarcophagus, while the exterior is all glorious crunch.
Chips are magnificent. Doused in vinegar and dunked into an improbably green swamp of mushy peas, they are an artery-hardening joy. Inside, the place is a mishmash of ugly seaside-alia, big metal counters and hefty chaps in mesh hats; outside, the streets are, frankly, hideous. But none of it matters: the food is the thing.
Yep, I love good fish and chips. So when it’s a Michelin-starred chef in charge of the chippie, I’m in a state of high excitement. If the Newington Fish Bar can do it, surely Tom Aikens can take the humble repast and turn it into a supper fit for the gods. Am I in for a disappointment? You bet.
Despite its cutesy Chelsea Village setting, I don’t like the look of the place. Portholes and fishy mosaics and striated metal add up to a sharp-edged, shouty atmosphere not softened by bottles of Sarson’s vinegar (hurrah) on the it-looks-like-Formica-but-it’s-recycled-plastic tables. There’s an LED board with prices and choices (no different to the paper menu) which should make a City boy clientele feel at home. Above the tables dangle attractive Perspex lampshades, which staff and customers alike bang heads into with rhythmic regularity.
Every decent fish’n’chipperie should have a telly in the corner. Here, we get a lovely big screen showing not ’Enders or Corrie but a loop of Mr Aikens himself, talking about fish. At least we assume he is: the sound is turned off. Mercifully.
The admirable bottom line here is sustainability and eco-consciousness. So our fish is line-caught not trawled, and instead of plaice and haddock we get megrim, pollock and gurnard. Cod is Pacific, Marine Stewardship Council-approved, which we’re allowed to eat without guilt. There are photos flanking All at sea: The eco ethic of Tom Aikens’s Chelsea Village fish’n’chipperie is commendable. Sadly, the fish and chips are not so praiseworthy the TV of fish heroes, weather-beaten chaps from Newlyn or Hastings or Plymouth who go out in all weathers to bring back the morally sound booty.
Which would be all genuinely fine were the food fabulous. But it’s not. Crucially, frying doesn’t appear to be a major skill: batter is clunky, solid and disappointing, the use of beer and fizzy water doing little to lighten the fatty density. Onion rings are leaden coils of greasy starch. Grey gurnard – an honourable fish – languishes limply inside its stodgy armour.
Less conventional choices work far better: fresh, full-flavoured mackerel grilled and served with excellent sweet-sour beetroot and a herbed potato salad; or bouillabaisse with big chunks of monkfish and mullet (but, sadly, no bread or toast).
I love the vivid, flavour-packed mushy peas. As I always do, I shower ’em in vinegar before using the stout, beef-dripping-fried Maris Piper chips to scoop the violently green mulch into my face. This is by far my favourite part of the meal. But the willowy creatures at the next table, nibbling at their pan-fried, line-caught sea bass, watch me with unalloyed horror.
The wine list is almost 100 per cent English, which verges on the contrary. Best of the bunch is a rosé. ‘Yih, that’s a good one,’ says our splendid Aussie waitress. ‘You’d never know it was English.’

Well, have you ever read such a load of shite written about fish & Chips? I get the impression that the prick who wrote this [Mariana O'Loughlin] either gets paid by the word or has never been in the place she's writing about.
Fish & chips [Haddock] sold wrapped in newspaper, taken home and eaten with a combination of salt, vinegar, brown sauce / ketchup and the plate washed up afterwards. What more can you say. Anything else is utter twaddle, as was the review by this bumptious, silly bitch.

Woe

Just what a body needs. Saturday morning, a roaring hangover and some fool outside scraping away on a bloody fiddle!

This is how the prisoners must have felt on the way to the gas chamber and having Beethoven played at them.

The Beautiful Game

above: a pair of football type arseholes.

I don’t like football. Not only do I not like the game itself, I don’t particularly like the twats who play it. Many years ago, I got kicked out of a nightclub because I didn’t recognise some prick footballer. I was desperately trying to get to the bar to get drinks and found myself in a queue. It turned out that the queue was to meet, and get and autograph from, a particular football player.
Upon being discovered to be a common or garden drinker and, worse still a common or garden drinker who didn’t recognise this demi-god, I was rudely slung out of the place.
Many years later, I had the pleasure of throwing this has-been [and his abused and badly operated upon wife] from my own nightclub.
Remind me again, Lee Chapman, who are you?
This wasn’t my last dealings with football players, and players for Leeds Utd at that [and another “Lee”].
Lee Bowyer, arch racist [allegedly] and all round bad-boy, trashed a pub in which I was the relief manager. Himself and his mate went on to trash the local McDonalds [no bad thing] but they managed to get away with both crimes. Revenge came for Mr Bowyer when, in the same nightclub from which Mr Chapman had been removed, he encountered my “Head Doorman” [which should read Headcase Doorman] Adrian taught Mr Bowyer that he himself could kick balls better than any footballer and in his demonstration, with any luck, spoiled any chance Mr Bowyer had of ever having children!
Most of the above, I hope, goes to prove that stardom is relative. Football stars are only stars to those whom follow football.
As I don’t follow the game, I don’t see them as being anything other than yobs who think they have a license to be yobs.
Should he ever read this, this is a little coded warning to a certain non-league, semi-pro player. Mind your balls, I’m apt to give them a bit of a kick.

Tobacco can seriously damage your health

David has never been particularly open to new ideas, especially ones suggested by me. Quite some time ago we went out for dinner with friends. One of the friends is a member of the Savage Club, an old style London Gentleman’s Club. The food was nice, the surroundings very opulent and a nice time was had by all.
The thing that made the evening for me was the little container of snuff which sat on the bar and was available for all to “have a pinch” from.
This was before the smoking ban came into effect and I showed the snuff to David. “You need to think about keeping this stuff on the bar” Of course, this being suggested by me meant that the idea was consigned to the bin straight away.
Coming home from work last week, and finding the usual cluster of smokers outside the front of the door was nothing unusual. Brooks, one of the staff said “Here, Chris, I’ve got a present for you” and he handed me what is commonly known as a “K bottle”, a small plastic device used by clubbers to store and administer ketamine or cocaine. “Put the bloody thing away! I hissed at him, “it’s ok, it’s not what you think” he said.
On closer inspection, I could see that, while the container itself was similar to the one that I’ve used in the past, it had a small health warning sticker on it. It was snuff.
Finally, after eighteen months, David had gotten his finger out of his arse and started stocking the stuff.
It was prompted by a drastic fall in the sale of cigs from the cigarette machine. Anyway, the snuff is flying out, you get sixty “hits” out of each bottle and, because of the container that it’s in, there’s no of the old style sniffing it off of the back of your hand. Much cleaner.
It is, of course, still tobacco. Hence the health warning. That’s the down side. The up side is that, when empty, you can use the container to keep your coke in!

Now it can be told!

Well, it was only a matter of time! First you find yourself as the boy wizard, next moment you're on stage in the nip [did you ever have that nightmare?]. From there, it's only a hop and a skip before you're biting the pillow with some other young chap grunting over your shoulder into your ear.

Over Weight, Over Charged!

Gatwick Airport or, more precisely, some of the airlines flying from it, have been done by their local trading standards department for overcharging customers whose baggage is over weight or, as the airlines term it, “Excess Baggage”.
I’m well versed in the woes of overweight luggage. David, my ex, was the stereotypical gay man in as much as he would take every item from his extensive wardrobe [of overpriced tat] on holiday with him. To this end he bought a suitcase [ Dolce & Gabbana] the size of a large hotel and at the cost of a small war, into which he could almost fit everything he “needed”.
The first outing for this luggage behemoth was to the Dominican Republic about five years ago.
Having financed the suitcase, we had to travel with a shyster outfit for the holiday [MyTravel].
David, not being the tallest gay in the village, hauled this thing around the longest serpentine check-in queue in the airport only to reach a minion with a set of scales before he reached the minion at the check-in desk.
As we’d shuffled along in the queued towards this point, I could see that there was always some kind of commotion going on but could never quite hear what it was. This commotion also seemed to entail lots of disgruntled people either walking away arguing with their partners / kids / travel companions. Then I saw the scales.
“You’re in trouble, sunshine. They’re weighing the baggage!”
“No worries, I weighed it before we left and it was just under” he assured me.
True though this was, what we didn’t know was that this outfit of bastards had a baggage limit of 13kg, where every other airline tends to operate at around 22 -25kg. This information was actually printed on the flight tickets but hey, who reads flight tickets? Not me, certainly not David, and, by the look of almost every other passenger in the queue, nobody else!
The end result was that even my baggage was over weight by about 2kg; and I take virtually nothing with me on holiday. David’s was massively over weight, I forget by how much, but it cost him over £60 in excess payment.
When we got back, David wrote to MyTravel and complained. Their response was that the information was clearly printed on the tickets. Not much fukin’ good if you collect your ticket at the airport.
Anyway, seeing this on the news, today, I was somewhat surprised. I would have thought that such a public place, like an airport, would have been up to the mark with simple things like having their scales verified. Places such as Post Offices have to verify and record their scales at the beginning of every week, so to find that some airlines have been caught out makes me wonder what else they don’t do that the should?