Yesterday's Man

I went back to my home town the other day. I go back from time to time as I have a lot of history there. Now I live in the ‘sticks’ so when I go back my perception is coloured by my last visit and that history. It doesn't take long to feel at home in the geographical surroundings you are so familiar with, and it's easy to forget that time moves on in your absence. This time I hadn't been back in a while, mostly due to the pandemic that shut the world down temporarily and the fact that life in 'the sticks' is my new normality.

Anyway, armed with the confidence of being a 'local' and familiar with all the usual social haunts, I stroll up to a wine bar that I used to frequent. In the past I'd walk in, no problem, like a Giancana associate, no questions asked. I knew the door staff, they knew me and the geezer at the bar knew my drink, gave me priority. So, I guess I showed up with a ‘don’cha know who I am’ look on my face. As I approach, I realise that I have never seen the guy on the door ever before. He was all black gloves, big overcoat and high-vis lumo jacket, that 'uniform' that's supposed to add some authority to what must be a boring job, standing outside a social venue all night. 

I say, 'hi'. He doesn't say anything, just looks me up and down, perhaps figuring out a response to 'hi' with his intellect and mental agility probably contained in the two pockets of the aforementioned overcoat. It's clear that he doesn't have a clue who I am, and he makes no attempt to step aside and allow me into the venue. 

So, I try charm but maybe it doesn't work on the dim. It doesn’t permeate the pockets.

Then he speaks. “You have to book to get in now.”

I look astonished, mostly because I am. I raise an eyebrow, intent on posing a question. Despite his ‘pocket IQ’, he gives me some bollocks about a new policy (he wouldn’t know what a policy was if it slapped him around his shaved head and left a big P on his skull) and repeats that you have to book, plus, as an afterthought, tells me, "they don’t let single blokes in who turn up as a walk in." As he mentions this only as an afterthought, I consider that it must be a sub-clause to the ‘new policy' that he's just remembered. Do I need to get married, I wonder to myself. And which is it - they don't let single blokes in or you have to book?

So I ask if a ‘single bloke’ can book. Seems like a sensible question! He stutters a bit, not because he has a speech impediment, but because it's the sort of question you might get in a court of law that leads to a devastating point that brings down your whole defence like a pack of Jenga sticks that can’t take the strain anymore. He tells me that a single guy can book provided they mention that they are on their own (which all single guys tend to be), and then the venue will sort out a table for one! I feel sorry for the guy as he is trying to be polite now, but seems to be making stuff up on the hoof.

Anyway, in an attempt to rescue things, I call a friend who lives fairly locally to see if he can pitch up and we might blag it as a ‘gay’ couple. He rings me back and says he’s at a golf club do that he had to attend because he won something that most people do not give a toss about. In fact, nor does he, but he's just trying to do the right thing and avoid members talking about a ‘no show.’ I’m okay with that but then he texts to say it’s an extremely boring event. Mildly irritated already because I'm being questioned about my status as a venue legend, I text my friend as follows:

“Boring! Of course it is! It’s at a golf club! You're probably surrounded by middle-aged geezers who can’t stand their wives so they prefer to talk about how shit they are at golf! And I bet they made that speech about how great the weather was and how fantastic the frigging course was too.”

He doesn’t respond.

At that point I knew I’d have to try to blag the door guy. So I chat to him, pulling out my best moves and eventually he says he will ask his boss if I can come in as I seem like a sensible normal guy. (Not sure his assessment was correct, but I roll with it.) Off he goes. A few minutes later he comes back and says he’s really sorry but the boss won’t let single blokes in. 

"Yeah, but you just said single blokes can get in if they book. Does your boss not know his own policy?" I ask.

He stutters again and then says, "Like I said, you have to book if you're a single bloke."

By now, I'm feeling argumentative and, even though I realise that argumentative has never won over any door staff ever, I say, "Cool. So I'd like to book, uh, for say, five minutes time? That okay?"

He laughs. "Sorry, mate, that's not how the booking system works."

I think to myself, 'isn't a booking system about booking ahead and if I give five minutes notice, that is booking ahead,' but I leave it. I came here for a convivial evening not a debate and just ask how the policy applies to single women. 

He stutters a bit more, glances back through the door, but the boss is nowhere in sight. He then falls back on the 'only doing my job' thing but adds, "if it was me, I'd let you in, mate."

I'm thinking, it is you, but by then, I don't care anymore. 

I wasn’t packing a Kalashnikov nor planning to fire-bomb the place. I wasn't wearing a balaclava and attempting to rob the place. I wasn't even drunk! I was just a guy on his own who fancied a glass of wine. So, yeah, time moves on and so do situations. Nothing stays the same. You are never more than a moment from being 'yesterday's man.' 

The lesson I've learned? I need a ‘backup girlfriend’ on speed dial to make me look like a 'couple' at such times. Not sure how I should approach that. Women get sensitive about being appendages.

Sausages

I cooked sausages last night. I tried a new method with the oven grill. A new method, that is, for me, you know, instead of frying them. In my enthusiasm I even got the oven handbook out to make sure I understood the grill settings. I put them in and killed time by playing guitar. I checked on them about seven minutes later intent on turning them over to ensure even cooking, but found that one side was incinerated beyond recovery and looked like space modules that had tried to enter the Earth’s atmosphere without the benefit of a heat shield!

I pulled the tray from the oven and immediately two smoke alarms went off with that banshee screaming sound that sets your nerves on edge and makes the neighbours think you are sacrificing a lamb or something, but are too worried to check on what’s happening in case you are indulging in some ancient ritual and they don’t want to impinge on your rights. 

Anyway, I flapped at the smoke alarms (which were in two separate locations but had now tuned to one another’s frequency like some demented version of a rock choir on hard narcotics) with a tea towel in an attempt to silence their high-pitched cacophony, when what I should have done was shut the oven door where black smoke was belching into my home like George’s dragon in its death throes. Eventually, I silenced the screeching, opened a couple of windows and turned my attention to rescuing the sausages. 

Rescuing was, perhaps, optimistic and probably inspired by the fact that the other side was still uncooked. I lowered the heat, put the tray down a shelf and crossed my fingers. No, the sausages didn’t improve. When I pulled them out of the oven some minutes later, they looked like the remnants of the incident in Pompeii - but I ate them anyway! A geezer that lives on his own and is hungry rarely has backup options! 

Small Talk

I'd dressed up. I looked smart, I thought, even if I'd made that assumption myself from several glances in the mirror. It was a first date. I hadn't been on one for a long time so I was keen to make an effort and a positive first impression. As I approached the bar I felt the anxiety rising. I was early so ordered a small glass of wine. Dutch courage, perhaps, but I wanted to get this right. I ran through a number of conversation topics in my head but then decided that it was best to be spontaneous, unrehearsed, it would be much more natural. And anyway there was enough information on her profile for me to be able to show interest and have a conversation without any rehearsal. 

She was on time and I liked her instantly. She seemed a little tense, probably the same pre-date nerves that I had experienced. After the formalities and ordering drinks I decided to break the ice with a nice, relaxed chatty approach. Maybe it was 'small talk' but no need to go into any in-depth stuff straight from the off.

“So, how long you had the saloon?” I asked.

“Sorry? Saloon?” she replied, frowning.

“Yeah, it says you run a saloon on your profile. Seems pretty cool job,” I said with  smile.

“A saloon? No, a salon. A beauty salon. You must’ve misread it.”

Thoughts of free beer vanished immediately. I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat and tried to recover. Maybe small talk wasn't my forte! “Oh, sorry. My mistake. Uh, I don’t s’pose you really get much opportunity to use it yourself?”

Her frown grew more pronounced. “I beg your pardon? What’s that meant to mean?”

I shuffled in my seat again. “Nothing. Uh, I meant, you know, erm… you probably don't get time to take advantage of... you know, what with, err - ”

“No, I don’t know. What’re you trying to say?”

I realised I’d fallen into a trap of my own making. I took a large gulp of wine, thinking how I might retrieve the situation. “I just meant that as you own it... the saloon... sorry, the salon, you probably don’t get to use it… uh, not that I think you need to use it… you look fine without any… without all that beauty treatment thing… uh, make-up, stuff.”

She leaned forward, the frown emphasised considerably. “So, you think I look plain?”

I never said that, I thought, but I didn’t get a chance to respond.

“For what it’s worth, I’ll have you know I made a great deal of effort for our date tonight. I didn’t expect you to be so dismissive.”

Dismissive? “Listen, I just… there's a balance between a lot..." I hesitated. I realised I might be digging a deeper hole for myself. "Look, your make-up looks great. I can see you’ve taken lots of time over it and - ” 

“Oh, I see. So you think I have too much on then?”

I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off, as she stood up abruptly.

“Let me tell you, mister. You’re no oil painting yourself so don’t be going around commenting on other people’s appearance until you sort your own out.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

So much for checking my own look in the mirror! I slugged the rest of my wine, beckoned to the barman for a refill and considered that perhaps I should book an appointment with a life coach before I contemplated another date.

Lion Hell

It was dark but it was always dark in the animal enclosure deep beneath the grounds of the Colosseum. Night and day didn’t make much difference. One of the lions, a mature male, was restless. His fidgeting disturbed one of the other lions.

“What’s up mate? Somethin’ botherin’ya?”

“Can’t sleep,” the restless lion said.

“Mate, you need to try an’ get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”

“Always a big bleedin’ day here, ain’t it. Hundred days of games and we’re only on day thirty-nine.”

“Well, at least we get to eat a bit better, what wiv all them slaves, criminals, prisoners and Christians they feed us. Stop whingin', will'ya.”

“Well, same flippin' diet every day. Can’t say I like 'em that much. Prefer an antelope or a zebra meself, like wot we used to eat 'fore them Romans captured us and locked us up. Bit barbaric, if you ask me.”

“Wot, eating zebras?”

“No, dickhead. The Romans... locking us up and throwing slaves and people in for food. All them Emperors doing, ain’t it, and they got the cheek to have statues of themselves all over the place an'av things named after them as if they've done people favours.”

“Yeah? What statues and things?”

“Mate, don’t you keep up? I’ve been listening in on the slaves chatting. There’s statues of Caesar, Caligula, Nero, Claudius, Trajan... even Commodus. And that Tiberius geezer, he even got the river here named after him.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, the Tiber. It ain’t right. I reckon they should pull all them statues down and rename the river. He's a wrong'un.”

The other lion rubbed his chin with a paw and stared at the restless lion for a minute. Then he said. “Yeah, but loads of rivers are named after people. Ain’t nuthin’ unusual 'bout that.”

“Yeah? Like which ones?”

“Uh, well... there’s, uh... the Mississippi named after that married woman wot sells a lot of flowers. Then there’s the one in Amerikey, the Potomac named after that Scottish drug dealer. The Congo, named after the old party dance and -"

"Hang on. That ain't right. It's the conga, ain't it?"

"What the river?"

"No, the dance, silly bollocks. I tell'ya how I know that, yeah. 'Cos them slave drivers make the slaves do it as they bring 'em into the arena."

"All right. So, then there's the Missouri, named after that girl who had a sewer and drain cleaning business. Uh... the Mekong in Asia named after that famous acting gorilla. And they even named one after that parcel company, the Amazon."

"I didn't know any of that, but the point is, the Tiber name should be changed into a name that honours all of us wot been affected by them Romans who kept us prisoners and slaves.”

“Yeah, but that’s history, ain’t it. You can’t go wiping out history just 'cos it ain’t bin good sometimes. I mean, you take down all them statues and change all them names, you’re cleansing things as if they didn’t happen.”

“Don’t really care,” the restless lion said. "I look it this way. We don't make a stand now, nuthin'll change. You don't want your ancestors in, I dunno, a thousand odd years living' in captivity and stuck in cages do'ya?"

"Don't be stoopid. Ain't nobody gonna stick wild animals in cages! It's just this lot now, them Romans. All that conquering and power's gone to their heads. It ain't gonna happen."

"Wanna bet?" 

“Nah, I ain't a betting' lion. Anyway, so wot you want to change the name of the river to?”

The restless lion yawned and then said, “Somethin’ that reflects the hell we bin through, particularly us lions.”

“What, lion hell?”

“Yeah! That’s it. Lionel.”

“Lionel? Mate, people will think it’s named after that footballer, Lionel Messi and he’s from Argentina. He's got nuthin' to do with Rome.”

“Don’t matter. I like it. The River Lionel. We’ll start a petition. Right, I’m gonna sleep. Like you said, big day tomorrow.”

Has Beans

I’m in a hotel and I've just had breakfast, a full English. But... can anyone explain why, when you have beans with it, they put them in their own little dish and serve them up on exactly the same plate as the rest of the breakfast? I wouldn’t mind if they were produced as a side order, but on the same plate? What's that about? It’s not as if there’s no room for them (on the plate, I mean, not in the hotel - odd if some beans checked in for the night). It keeps happening wherever I stay and it baffles me. I mean, they don’t serve the sausage up in its own separate receptacle... nor the bacon, nor the mushrooms. And the egg gets free range to sit where it likes on the plate. So what’s the deal with beans? I’m going to ask for peas with my next full English breakfast and see what happens when they serve them up.