It was a disaster. He wouldn’t talk to his sponsor, and had to explain over and over again that he had no understanding of God, full stop, and never would have. He left the first meeting at a half run, stopped off in the pub at the end of the street, and made it back to The Dog just as Mel was calling last orders. She refused to serve him. fficeffice" /> “Don’t cast those doggy eyes on me, Phil. I’ll not serve you. You drink too much.” Phil’s eyes widened. “Do I?” She nodded. “I’ll make you a coffee, come on. Come round the back. We’ll get you sorted out.”

3.3.04 20:11 Permalink / comment

“Do you think I drink too much?”fficeffice" />   Tommy looked up from the cash register. “Hm? Do I what?”   “Do you think I drink too much?”   “I’m a bar man, Phil” said Tommy, flapping his towel in the direction of the fruit machine to illustrate. “Why you asking me?”   Who else is there to ask? thought Phil, but he said nothing. He watched Tommy ease his considerable bulk out from behind the bar, and wander about emptying ash trays. It was force of habit, really. Most of them were as empty as the pub. Under the juke box the puppy whimpered and stretched out. Phil yawned. The fruitie was winking at him, enticing. He turned his back on it and hunched over the bar.   “Is it Monica?” asked Tommy, squeezing himself back in again. Tommy had learned in the past eighteen months that mostly with Phil it was Monica. “Maybe,” muttered Phil, “yes...no. I don’t know. Perhaps. If I hadn’t spent so long sitting up here, talking about her… I could have been at home, you know, talking to her, trying to sort things out.”   Tommy said nothing. As the eyes and ears of the pub he knew very well Monica had never been sat at home lonely. He shifted uncomfortably, too heavy to be stood all day. He glanced at Phil. Maybe he should suggest he looked for a proper job instead of skanking the social, but there were profits to consider. These were lean times. He took Phil’s glass and poured him another Guiness. Phil stared at it mournfully. He missed Kristiana, the little polish barmaid. She would draw hearts in the foam of his pints. Sometimes flowers. She’d gone now though, disillusioned. Shocked to find English man were just Polish men, beneath it all. Tommy was not really a substitute. He didn’t smell as nice, for one. They were all leaving him, he thought, taking a welcome mouthful. First the builders, their work on the new shopping centre complete. Welsh Steve emigrated, and Derek got posted abroad with work. The Geordie lads fell out with each other and neither had been seen since. Then Kristiana fled, and shortly afterwards Dave was barred for calling Tommy ‘a stinking paddy fuckwit.’ ffice:smarttags" />Nev stopped drinking in there on principle, and took Debbie and their four screaming kids with him. They drank down the street now, in a place that was rumoured to have a pool table. Phil had never ventured in. This was his local. Without Debbie the darts team had fallen apart, which was a shame. There were some nice birds on the darts team. Many a cosy Thursday evening he’d spent watching them slowly sinking Bacardi Breezers to steady their hands. Monica would roll her eyes at them, and make fun, but he knew she was jealous really. Excluded. Monica, with her silver jewellery and subtle beauty, would never be on the team.   Now he was thinking of Monica again. He felt unsteady. There was a white pain between his eyes. He’d known, when she stayed out all night, that the game was finally up. He’d lost. But still, he hadn’t been prepared. She’d started crying and then he was crying and then she was running out into the night, one sleeve of her coat flapping. In too much of a hurry even to dress properly. He’d run down the street after her, shoes in hand, barefoot, unheeding. She managed to flag a taxi and escape. He hurled his shoes after her, as cars swerved around him. Then he’d come up here and played the fruit machine blind til Tommy made a bed up for him upstairs. He’d spent his entire Jobseekers in one evening. He could hear the fruit machine behind him now, whirring and bleeping, taunting. He looked at Tommy, who was absentmindedly polishing glasses. He asked him again.   “Do I drink too much?”   “Of course not, mate. When you have to drink down The Dog cos we won’t have you. Then you’ll have drunk too much.”   It must have been around eighteen months before Phil found himself in The Dog and Partridge.  There’d been a misunderstanding over karaoke, and Monica, and the internet. A pint glass was thrown. A window was broken. A lip was split. And he was barred from his only refuge. (‘Sure I feel terrible,’ said Tommy, ‘but you’ve got to understand…It’s since Monica left Phil…get yourself sorted out, eh mate?’) He felt uneasy walking into the place. Enemy territory. The only contact he’d had with these regulars was the rough and tumble of a Sunday League morning. He noticed, without much satisfaction, that there was a pool table after all. But it didn’t feel like his pub. It was bright and white and noisy, full of teenagers Tommy wouldn’t risk serving and outcasts from The Anchor.   How quickly things change.   Soon he was on the pool team, then darts. Tommy had always changed the fruitie every two weeks in the Anchor, so Phil rarely got the measure of them, but in The Dog the machine was old and dusty and he soon fell in love with it. Learned it’s little tricks. In time he got a job, driving a van and delivering car parts. Not much, but enough to keep him in Guinness and whiskey chasers. He found himself pulling into the The Dog’s car park every night, and driving an unsteady mile home in the early hours. He got on with Mel behind the bar, and although she never drew him flowers she served him way past twelve, which he felt was a more important quality. And so the years passed, until his days of living with Monica and joking with Tommy were all but forgotten.   Then one day he reversed out of The Dog’s car park and straight over The Anchor’s dog.   The police were unsympathetic. Tommy was raving until they threatened to arrest him for a breach of the peace. He retreated, sobbing, back into The Anchor. He closed up, and stayed closed for a fortnight.  Everyone understood. A pub had to have a dog. It was never the same in there again.     Phil was hunched over the body, dry heaving and giggling like a maniac. The alsation had grown up big – Tommy had been right about the paws. He tried to explain it to the policeman, but they were more interested in forcing him into the back of the van without getting vomit over themselves. He passed out in cell as soon as they’d manhandled him into it. When he came round a WPC had to explain to him what he’d done. He cried real tears for the first time since Monica vanished.   They took his license for eighteen months, which lost him his job. They fined him five hundred pounds, which lost him his flat and sent him back to a bedsit. They gave him 50 hours community service and, owing to his previous warnings for being drunk and disorderly, asked him to attend 12 meetings. A life for a life, he thought, ruefully. He glanced at the leaflet in his hand. This was the right street, with the church in the middle. There was a pub at the top and at the bottom. He wondered if they’d chosen the church specifically for that reason. He crossed the street and stared up at it. The pigeons stared back down at him. A door opened somewhere and he heard laughter. Students. These houses were near the university. They must watch everyone trooping in here every Wednesday, he thought. They must know. He screwed the paper up and jammed it into his pocket, pushed open the double doors and took a deep breath. He was not looking forward to this.   http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n23/suth01_.html

3.3.04 19:50 Permalink / comment

“Do you think I drink too much?”fficeffice" /> Tommy looked up from the cash register. “Hm? Do I what?” “Do you think I drink too much?” “I’m a bar man, Phil” said Tommy, flapping his towel in the direction of the fruit machine to illustrate. “Why you asking me?” Who else is there to ask? thought Phil, but he said nothing. He watched Tommy ease his considerable bulk out from behind the bar, and wander about emptying ash trays. It was force of habit, really. Most of them were as empty as the pub. Under the juke box the puppy whimpered and stretched out. Phil yawned. The fruitie was winking at him, enticing. He turned his back on it and hunched over the bar. “Is it Monica?” asked Tommy, squeezing himself back in again. Tommy had learned in the past eighteen months that mostly with Phil it was Monica. “Maybe,” muttered Phil, “yes...no. I don’t know. Perhaps. If I hadn’t spent so long sitting up here, talking about her… I could have been at home, you know, talking to her, trying to sort things out.” Tommy said nothing. As the eyes and ears of the pub he knew very well Monica had never been sat at home lonely. He shifted uncomfortably in the heat. He was aware there was something he should do, suggest maybe Phil looked for a proper job instead of skanking the social, but there were profits to consider. These were lean times. He took Phils glass and poured him another Guiness. Phil stared at it mournfully. He missed Kristiana, the little polish barmaid. She would draw hearts in the foam of his pints. Sometimes flowers. She’d gone now though, disillusioned. Shocked to find English man were just Polish men, beneath it all. Tommy was not really a substitute. He didn’t smell as nice, for one. They were all leaving him, he thought, taking a welcome gulp. First the builders, their work on the new shopping centre complete. Welsh Steve emigrated, and Derek got posted abroad with work. The Geordie lads fell out with each other and neither had been seen since. Then Kristiana fled, and shortly afterwards Dave was barred for calling Tommy ‘a stinking paddy fuckwit.’ ffice:smarttags" />Nev stopped drinking in there on principle, and took Debbie and their four screaming kids with him. They drank down the street now, in a place that was rumoured to have a pool table. Phil had never ventured in. This was his local. Without Debbie the darts team had fallen apart, which was a shame. There were some nice birds on the darts team. Many a cosy Thursday evening he’d spent watching them getting slowly sinking Bacardi Breezers to steady their hands. Monica would roll her eyes at them, and make fun, but he knew she was jealous really. Excluded. Monica, with her silver jewellery and subtle beauty, would never be a Welly girl. Now he was thinking of Monica again. He felt unsteady. There was a white pain between his eyes. He’d known, when she stayed out all night, that the game was finally up. He’d lost. But still, he hadn’t been prepared. She’d started crying, and then he was crying and then she was running out into the night, one sleeve of her coat flapping. In too much of a hurry even to dress properly. He’d run down the street after her, bare foot, unheeding, but she managed to flag a taxi and escape. He hurled his shoes after her, as cars swerved around him. Then he’d come up here, to his refuge and played the fruit machine blind til Tommy made a bed up for him upstairs.  He’d spent his entire Jobseekers in one evening. He could hear the fruit machine behind him now, whirring and bleeping, taunting. He looked at Tommy, who was absentmindedly polishing glasses. He asked him again. “Do I drink too much?” “Of course not, mate. When you have to drink down The Dog cos we won’t have you. Then you’ll have drunk too much.” It must have been around eighteen months before Phil found himself in The Dog and Partridge.  There’d been a misunderstanding over karaoke, and Monica, and the internet. A pint glass was thrown. He noticed, without much satisfaction, that there was a pool table. But it didn’t feel like his pub. It was bright and white and noisy, full of teenagers Tommy wouldn’t risk serving and outcasts from The Anchor.  He missed its dingy squalor. Soon he was on the pool team, then on the darts. They changed the fruitie over every two weeks in the Anchor, so he could never get the measure of them, but in here the machine was old and dusty and he soon fell in love with it. Learned it’s tricks. In time he got a job, driving a van and delivering car parts. It wasn’t much, but it kept him in Guinness and whiskey chasers. Time passed, and nothing changed, and suddenly he found himself at his thirtieth birthday party, in a pub he’d never really felt comfortable in, with people he couldn’t really call his friends. It’d been five years, but he still missed The Anchor.   http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n23/suth01_.html

3.3.04 18:23 Permalink / comment

everyone's at it

16.1.04 12:21 Permalink / comment

Wednesday January 13th (evening) #1 - Reflecting I should really open all the post The (ex)Boyf brought round for me on Monday - a car drove past with CCJ on the registration plate. Yeh, okay, this would be a better coincidence if 1) I had taken a picture and 2) I actually dared open my post and see if I really have got a CCJ. What do you have to do with them anyway? Do you actually have to *shudders* go to court? #2 - Everyone rubbernecking out of the bus at a bit of a smash in front of the Reg Vardy garage. Song on the radio? Accidents Will Happen - Elvis Costello. Sweeeeeet. **edit** temporarily lost the ability to type.

14.1.04 14:07 Permalink / 6 Comments / comment

13th January 2004 Bear with me, these are slightly convuluted. It's my first day, okay? #1 Radio2 play some Billy Joel this morning. I reflect that I don't have An Innocent Man on CD. Resolve to buy it, altho I want that Juliet Turner album more. Then decide I want the Juliet Turner more and only want Billy Joel cos I am loved up and want to listen to 'Longest Time' (come on, that is the song to listen to at the start of any relationship!) Got in to work. Accidentally clicked into a blog I'd never read before. And halfway thru this entry - you guessed it - the very lyrics I'd just been thinking of.* Decide it'll beBilly Joel coming home with me come pay day. #2 e_b listened to the compilation CD I made him for Christmas last night. A slightly dumbass present considering he never listens to CDs. Luckily, Daisy explains the whole idea behind it this morning. * "I'll take my chances/I forgot how nice romance is"

13.1.04 11:33 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Coincidinks They (who? I dunno...) say you should keep a note of coincidences. They also say you should record your dreams, but there ain't no way I'm sharing those with you lot. Well, anyway, as I rarely updated Cast and Crew I've decided to change it into 'Coincidinks'. You may leave yours in the comments. The Fortean Times have set me off on it: ---------------------------------- Original story (and indeed, entire thread) HERE. The spooky coincidence Many are not that unusual - like two people at a party sharing a name, or a birthday, or even the famous coincidences between the deaths of US Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy. People's amazement at them is due largely to ignorance of the laws of probability. And yet ... Sir Anthony Hopkins got on the tube after a fruitless search for George Feifer's novel The Girl from Petrovka. He looked down, and there on the next seat was a copy of the book. It was the author's own, stolen two years before.  .... best of all, in Massachusetts in 1965 Roger Lausier, 4, was saved from drowning by a woman called Alice Blaise. Nine years later Roger saw a man drowning on the same beach, dived in and saved him. He was Alice Blaise's husband. The ironic exit Courtesy of the not-so-Grim Reaper comes the following: South African Danie du Toit gave a lecture warning that death could occur at any time. He sat down, popped in a peppermint and promptly choked to death. And in 1988 Anderson Godwin, a murderer reprieved from the electric chair, was sitting on a steel commode and bit through a wire while trying to fix his TV headphones, turning his metal toilet into a version of Old Sparky. What are the odds against that? Well, rather less than you might think, even for something so utterly unusual. Nine years later exactly the same thing happened to Laurance Baker, a Pittsburgh prisoner also spared the electric chair. ---------------------------------- Good, huh?

13.1.04 11:17 Permalink / comment

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