A cocky and lucky bastard

No one has ever punched me and I’m not sure why. Because I can be a right, provocative bastard.

I say “no one” but I’m being a bit absolute here. I have had one physical fight in my life. There was a kid, maybe a year younger than me, from the most notorious family on the council estate behind our house in Southgate. You know, one mum, ten kids, ten missing dads, weekly visits from the Old Bill. We were about 8 or 9 and he started on my little brother; so, on the Green in front of our house, I fought him and beat him up. No repercussions from his dysfunctional, scary family. And as far as I recall, no opponent’s punches landed on my face.

The only punch to the face that I can recall was from a Spurs fan in about 1988, just after we beat them. Typically bitter, he spat at me, after demanding I take my “rag off” (scarf). He was the other side of a kerbside barrier, and as I tried to hurdle it to get back at him, he punched me on the nose. I have to say, that punch packed all the power of a Tottenham title challenge, so I count that even less than the aforementioned fight.

So, to all intents and purposes, no one HAS ever punched me in the face, and as a result, I suffer from a dangerous and deluded sense of over-confidence. Which makes me a cocky bastard.

Let’s face it. I’m 5’9 (in rubber soled boots), only just tall enough to be considered tall in south east Asia and I have never visited a gym in my whole life. And…although this is more recent (5 years now), I’ve had a heart attack. So, really, I should be leading a life in which I sensibly avoid all conflict with other males (or females who can hit the 10m line with a shot put), because I’d have as much durability in a physical fight as Mother Teresa up against Mike Tyson.

However, I don’t sensibly avoid it.

I need putting in my place, but no one’s done it yet, so I think, fuck it.

And this is what I think every time I get in the car.  I’m sure you’ll agree that all human faults are amplified tenfold when placed behind the wheel of a car. I deplore arrogant, selfish and bullying driving. And because no one’s punched me for reacting to it, I nearly always react to it. Out of some reckless sense of justice, irritation or pride. If some cunt tailgates me, I slow down and hit the brakes intermittently, aiming to piss the culprit off.  If some cunt tailgates someone else, I tailgate them. (But then realise that someone with my mentality might tailgate me for tailgating a tailgater, not knowing I’m only revenge tailgating a tailgater.)

If someone is constantly switching lanes on a motorway, like in that 90s video game Frogger, in an effort to get in front of everyone, I try and block them in. Strategic positioning, so they can’t get past.

If someone is speeding behind me and I can change lanes to let them pass, I use up about a quarter of a mile of road doing a painfully slow lane change, just to piss them off.

If someone does ANY road move designed to compensate for their low self-esteem, for being bullied at school for annoying everyone, for some form of social disenfranchisement or for simply having a dick the size of a cocktail sausage, then I open the window and give a sarcastic clap to applaud their pathetic display of peacock machoism.

I just can’t help it. It’s like driver Tourette’s. Any sense of fear is subsumed by the overwhelming impulse to react. It HAS nearly got me into trouble though. Sometimes, like today even, for example, calling some burly bloke in a van a “prick” can push an unstable, aggressive bastard into seeking retribution. Fortunately today, his anguished retort of “fuck you”, carrying with it an insane, over-reactive desperation to get back at me, was met with frustration, as I’d timed it so he couldn’t turn round and get past the roadworks’ lights in time. But on a few other occasions, I’ve had blokes speed up behind me, around me, slam their brakes in front of me… do all the posturing to try and intimidate me, and then the thought DOES go through my mind, that says, “Ah crap, he might get out and punch me.” And for a few days or even weeks, I’m more restrained. But like an addict, I can’t quit for long.

I blame my Dad. The older I have got, the easier I have found it to follow his adage of “Don’t get angry, get even!” And I don’t get angry anymore. I think my heart meds help with that. So, this isn’t road rage on my part these days. But it can bring out the Bruce Banner in the wankers I deliberately seek to ‘get a message across to.’ That message being, “Don’t be a wanker,”

You might think that perhaps I need to avoid using the car so much, cut down the potential for inciting these conflagrations, use public transport. But when I do, I have proved equally reactive and provocative, by sticking a foot out to trip up anyone (not women, of course, same as on the roads, never women or the elderly) who has barged their way through a crowd or onto a train ahead of others. Fortunately, no one has fallen on their face, and the fact that they have tripped can be blamed on their barging through, rather than on the deliberate outstretching of my leg as they do so. Consequently, I get away with that behaviour as well, and no one has punched me in the face yet.

So, there you go, that’s what I wanted to share with the group today. No judgement, remember?

Teenage Tales of the 29 Bus

It’s occurred to me just recently that the 29 bus has had a more profound impact on my life than any other non-organic object. In my own little world, to steal John Lennon’s point of comparison, the 29 was bigger than Jesus. It was the messiah of bus routes. It went absolutely EVERYWHERE I wanted to go when I was a teenager. (Except maybe Arnos Grove.  I had to get the 34 to Arnos Grove.)  It cut a straight line down North London, like a knife, though perhaps with the odd kink in it, like the right turn at Manor House. It separated glorious North West London from grim North East London, which is so grim it has never been afforded its own “NE” postcodes. And I won’t get started on its football club.

The northern end of the 29 bus route was Enfield Town terminal. This marked the changing point on my journey to school, a small square covered in the spittle of Enfield Town’s frequently-flobbing fellow students of mine, from where I swapped a proper London red bus for some green yokel tractor disguised as a bus, with a 3 digit number to highlight the fact that we had crossed the Rubicon between urban and rural environments. My mate Kevin Keady once said to me, “let’s go down the Terminal after school to meet some girls I know.” At that stage, being at an all boys school, I hadn’t spoken to a girl I wasn’t related to since primary school, about 3 years previously; so along I went and I must say, those girls that Kevin knew really did suit that phlegm-swept rendezvous point.  Despite that, Enfield Town was worth getting the 29 to for its HMV and Our Price shops, where I bought most of my Queen tapes and U2 records. It also had a great pub, The Kings Head, where we once spent a truant school afternoon planning an inter-rail trip I didn’t go on in the end, and drinking enough beer to chase a moving 29 along the main street in order to jump on it. Paul Duffy was the last to catch it, by which point it had reached 30mph so his desperate lunge for that safety pole in its open doorway led to him wearing out the toes of his trainers by the time we got to the Holy Family bus stop. 

Bush Hill Park was the next stop and after that Winchmore Hill, where the same Paul Duffy, on another occasion had fallen through the Oxfam window seconds before a police car arrived, having been alerted by a local Indian restaurant that dozens of drunken young men were causing a nuisance.  We had all just got back from a 6th form prefects’ outing and decided to get pissed, eat a curry and do a runner.  The waiters cottoned on and refused to serve us. Those of us not lying in a mess of broken glass and charity shop clothing, ran away to hide from the Old Bill in nearby hedges and gardens.

So, as you can see, the 29 bus journey could be a tragical mystery tour sometimes.

Next stop, Palmers Green. In my teens, I lived in the other end of Palmers Green, where all the shops were newsagents, Greek video shops, barbers and a massage parlour. The good shops were up by Palmers Green Triangle, between there and The Fox pub, which had nothing to recommend itself except the fact that it served us under 18. I’d get the 29 up to the Triangle for Christmas shopping, because my teenage legs would never have coped with the slight incline and two bus-stop distance walk from my house. In fact, my legs didn’t cope too well with the bus either, as I once decided it would be cool to jump off the 29  before it stopped at the Triangle bus stop, lost my footing, and went arse over tit, quite honestly, a pavement roly-poly, much to the mirth of observant passengers. I quickly took refuge in Woolworth and bought mum something for the kitchen as a present. I bought smellies in Superdrug. Old Spice for Dad.

Our end of Palmers Green was known by the name of the pub by the bus garage. The Cock. We loved asking the bus conductors for “the cock please” but then they changed it to The Manhatten. Much as I love Manhatten, NYC, the vicinity had nothing to suggest any similarity. Unless Manhatten has its own North Circular Road running through it.

Heading south on that North London Iron Curtain 29 bus route, the next stop on the way is Wood Green. When they first built the Shopping City there, it was amazing, space age, a cornucopia of consumerism, a high tech example of 70s architecture where you could walk from one part of the shopping city OVER the road on a BRIDGE to the other end. I’m not lying. It’s barely imaginable. And the clothes shops… wow! I got my cyan blue jumbo cords from Mr Byrite there. However, each summer my parents took me shopping for school trousers in Wood Green and it was the only time I believe they may have felt hatred towards me as I refused to let them buy the affordable regular fit sensible hard wearing trousers (“They’re flares!”) instead of my choice of sta-prest trousers with 12 inch hems or a nice pair of Farahs. Lucky for me that we crossed the road on that Shopping City bridge, otherwise Dad may have shoved me under a passing 29 bus for being a spoilt fucking brat.

Next stop Turnpike Lane. By this point, our nearest cinema was here, as they had converted Wood Green cinema (my first cinema, and my Star Wars cinema in 1977) into a Bingo Hall. I’m sure my memory is unreliable for parts of this post, but Turnpike Lane makes me think of being 14 years old trying to get into Ghostbusters and Gremlins when they were rated 15. I have just looked it up, thanks to AI, and it seems I am wrong, that both films are PG and so AI has in fact just pissed all over a long standing, fond memory, just because it happens to be untrue.  Fucking AI.

Next stop Harringay Ladder. For those of you living outside of London, Harringay is an area within the borough of Haringey. Suggestive of a dyslexic cartographer, I think. The Ladder part refers to two parallel roads (Wightman Rd and Green Lanes) with interconnected side roads at regular intervals, thus forming what looks like a ladder on a road map. There was an alleyway running through those rungs. Aged 15, we’d go to a snooker club on Green Lanes, the only establishment there that wasn’t a Greek grocery shop, and the only place you could get a pint of lager at that age; and afterwards my mates Nick Rose and Chris Watt would lead me along that alleyway to drink vodka. Bloody hell. That was beyond my capability. A few lagers over snooker in a plush (to us) club was lovely. Knocking back vodka in a pissy Haringey/Harringay alleyway was pretty unpleasant.

Next stop Manor House. Behind the pub of that name, was the Catacombs club. This was a regular haunt, because it wasn’t like your Ritzy or poncey sort of club, where nice looking girls dressed in skimpy dresses and expected you to buy them a drink in exchange for no more than two words of conversation, oh no. The girls here was less glam and more goth. You’d get NO conversation, but at least it cost you nothing for the privilege. And the music was so much better. You couldn’t dance to it. You’d drunkenly sway. This was where my little brother shit his pants, or more precisely shit my pants. Or more precisely, shit the expensive Rolling Stone Bermuda shorts I’d bought at the 1990 Wembley concert, which he happened to have stolen from me to wear one night.

Next stop Finsbury Park. All alight for the Arsenal! I was going to every game by the time I was 16, and although the 29 would have taken me there, I think I took the tube from Arnos Grove, because I went with Dalboy. That kind of ruins the narrative a bit, but I like to be be honest. I have just looked it up and AI tells me that Dalboy and I did in fact get the 29 to Arsenal. Isn’t modern technology amazing?

After Finsbury Park, you passed The Rainbow, closed in the 1980s,  but an iconic 70s venue for Queen and Bowie etc… Then past Michael Sobell sports centre, which I never took the 29 to, because in those days, no one went to a gym.  Not like today. The young generation all go to the gym, all the fucking time. You bunch of vain bastards. We drank beer, took buses to avoid ten minute walks and had no conceptual understanding of keeping fit or ripped or whatever, ffs.

Then along Camden Road, past the Irish centre, which was a great (ok, a not so shit) venue for a 16th or 18th birthday party, and then into Camden Town. The 29 took you round the one-way system, along Bayham Street instead of the High Street and here I would visit Stiff Records, the record company of the most loved band of my early teens, Madness. I’d buy new singles straight from the record company office, because the blokes there also gave me badges and posters for free. Once, heading along Camden Road, the bass player from Madness, Bedders, plus two Belle Stars (his girlfriend and the one I fancied, the sax player) got on the 29 and we chatted and got autographs. That was me and Kevin Keady again. This was before he got into Duran Duran and started chatting to unsavoury girls at Enfield town terminal.

From Camden Town the 29 went towards Euston, past the UCH (University College Hospital) where I was born and down Gower St, close to Tottenham Court Road station. One end of Oxford Street. From here we’d walk to the other end of Oxford Street, visiting the 3 record megastores of HMV, Virgin and Tower (not sure if the last two co-existed at that time, not even AI knows), before finishing up at Hyde Park for a jolly jaunt on the Serpentine rowing boats, hopelessly hoping to meet girls on other rowing boats. The fact that this never happened, didn’t deter us.

Sometimes we’d stay on the 29 past Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square, just because it felt like an exciting landmark. But all we did there was visit the tourist shops and buy those fake turds, which we were convinced were made of real turds that had been dried out and glazed. We never went beyond there, because the next stop was Victoria and there was no reason to visit Victoria.

Finally, to complete these tedious tales, I will mention how we would get the night 29 (the N29) home late from one of three night clubs for people like us who would only dance to music not made to be danced to. I’ve mentioned Cats in Manor House, and additionally there was the Electric Ballroom in Camden and the Borderline, just off Charing Cross Road. Staying awake on the N29 for a long journey back from central London was a bit tricky, but on one occasion I was helped out by a friendly bloke. I was upstairs on the back seat (not to be cool, just because I don’t like people sitting behind me) and I was lying with my head on the seat asleep. Friendly bloke sat next to my head and dropped an enormous fart that vibrated through my skull. Such a kind gesture. I might have missed my stop otherwise and ended up at Enfield Town terminal. Eww.

Bastard "Celebrity" this and "Celebrity" that.

I've come to the conclusion that adding the prefix "Celebrity" to the name of a TV show is tantamount to attaching the word "turd" to a dish on a restaurant menu.

I don't have a problem with celebrities per se.  After all, most TV shows and films are heavily populated with celebrities.  But most of the time, celebrities are in the right place.  Like items in the home.  Kitchen utensils are in the kitchen.  Bathroom utensils are in the bathroom.  And so on.  But should I find the toilet brush in the cutlery drawer, then the balance of my universe becomes upset.

In the case of celebrities, it's when they appear on quiz shows.

Very few celebrities have become celebrities on account of their general knowledge.  Fred Housego was a rare exception.  A few more are endowed with a well-stocked bank of important and trivial facts, but generally speaking, celebrities have a different skills set to people who have heard of at least two authors, three capital cities and four 'historical figures' outside of Marcus Rashford and Jamie Oliver.  

So, when I turn on "Celebrity Mastermind", I know that the show title is going to be as oxymoronic as a dish of "delicious dogshit".  It will often host one or two celebrities who won't embarrass themselves.  A TV presenter with a background in journalism perhaps.  It may also include a sports person, which is usually a bit awkward, because as much as we can admire them for their single-minded dedication and countless years of 24/7 focused effort in excelling enough in their chosen sport to attain celebrity status, it is exactly that single-minded dedication and 24/7 focused effort which has prevented them from investing time in learning any general knowledge.  At all. 

And then you might get a "Celebrity Mastermind" contestant who is a soap actor, a radio DJ or a reality TV show participant.  The Only Way is Chelsea or Made in Essex or some such crap involving culturally void half-wits.  These types of celebrities make a living out of showing off, so when they appear on quiz shows they show off in a way that the usual ordinary contestants don't.   I don't just mean on Mastermind, where its usual contestants are directed to demonstrate a level of robotic, emotionless decorum that you'd find cold even from a Victorian undertaker, but even on the quiz shows with normal behaving contestants, like "The Chase" or "Tipping Point".  These celebrities absolutely revel in the attention they can glean from their ignorance of the basic knowledge required to get above a grade U at GCSE.  And they really do revel in it.  Their excitable self-deprecating laughter at thinking the capital of France is Belgium, is not shame, it's a form of arrogance against everyone who is a sad and boring bookworm for knowing the answer's Paris.  How is it entertaining to watch the delirious showing off of a misplaced celebrity who is getting payment and media exposure just for being as thick as a fucking brick?

The other example of misplaced celebrity casting is their use in those shows that act as a compendium of nostalgic entertainment from the 70s or 80s, or those "50 best/worst" types of shows that we might gravitate to Channel 5 to watch on a weekend evening.  Typically, you get clips of whatever the show's focus might be... old adverts, songs, sitcom extracts... and these clips are punctuated by a "talking head" (who explains the context and slightly ruins the enjoyment as a result). Each one talks about the subject matter as if they remember it well, along with all the details, from their own experience.  When that "talking head" is someone who was a teenager in the 70s talking about a 70s pop song, or an actor who did loads of adverts in the 80s talking about adverts in the 80s, then that has some credibility.  But if I'm watching a 22 year old You Tuber whose 'funny' content gets them a million views each post, and whose own parents were born in 1981, telling me about the 1970s as if they remember them well and haven't just regurgitated what the researcher told them to say with their own 'funny' twist on it, then, really, mate, do us a favour and pretty please, kindly just fuck off.  And of course, film yourself fucking off so you have something else to post tomorrow, you fucking attention seeker,

Right that's the end of my rant.  I'll give this post a careful review now to ensure a sprinkling of vocabulary that only a genuine Mastermind contestant will know and then I'll upload it and share it online in the hope of gaining some attention.

Bastard School Dinners

Rice pudding. 

I was looking at the menu for the posh and wallet-traumatising restaurant Clos Maggiore in Covent Garden today. Mrs B and I have booked it as a birthday treat for me. We love a meal that makes you go WOW. And in an effort to decide in advance what to eat, I was drawn away from my obsessively ubiquitous choice of chocolate for dessert towards rice pudding of all things. Obviously not just rice pudding, but vanilla rice pudding mousse with amaretto and malt ice cream. And it has made me think about school dinners.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who ate something highly objectionable as a child that caused me to avoid that food for decades thereafter as you might avoid a trigger happy maniac with a paint ball gun that fires dog turd pellets.  This is because of school dinners.

Who came up with the idea of rice pudding? Savoury dessert is a rather disgusting oxymoron. Apart from when it’s cheese and crackers that is. Was it some traditional society that was dependent for survival on a single crop, which meant that they had to use it for desserts as well? Is potato cake a dessert? Whatever. Rice pudding served in schools, which was a daily occurrence, was just wrong. It tasted wrong. Like French kissing your cousin. No, thank you. 

So, steered clear for decades, then tasted some recently and thought, oh! When it’s not being boiled to buggery in a school canteen vat, it actually tastes nice. So, Clos Maggiore may well knock me sideways with what would be rice pudding at its very best.

Am I getting rice pudding muddled up with semolina? They both had the consistency of baby sick and one had a dollop of jam on top as if someone had just bled into your bowl.

At primary school, school dinners were so disgusting, you’d prefer to chew on one of the disinfectant blocks from the urinal. And dinner ladies (not mentioning any names, Mrs Adams) tended to be testosterone-imbalanced, gruff dictators who were too masculine for the army or truck driving, and who demanded that you “EAT  ALL YOUR DINNER,” or they would bark at you like the Doberman dogs in the graveyard in The Omen until you fully shit your pants.

Therefore, I took packed lunch to school. Not necessarily healthier, as I loved a crisp sandwich, so my mum indulged me with two slices of unbuttered Mother’s Pride and a packet of Prawn Cocktail.

But when I got to secondary school, St Ignatius lower school against all odds turned out a decent array of lunch fare. Especially the chocolate and syrup cornflake cake, which you could manipulate into a sphere, put in your blazer pocket and eat like an apple in the playground as you watched that day’s main event fight.

Finally, just to say, that I would not drink milk (unless mixed with a healthy sized tablespoon of Nestle milk shake powder) for many, many years on account of free school milk at primary school. A classic example of impracticable altruism. It was free, but without enough refrigerator space, it was warm and topped with a thick layer of cream. Fucking horrible. Thatcher was right to snatch it away in the early 70s.