This week marks 50 years since the Woodstock Music Festival. The first two are documentaries for Friday and Saturday, there’s talking rather than music for the first 10 minutes or so in each. Both are around a hour in length. The third is a radio documentary on Jimi Hendrix, mostly music and around half an hour.
The Pig-Tel Mulcher, stripper, shredder and general fuckerer-up
Story by Big M
Big M had reached a heightened, or perhaps, lowered meditative state that can only be achieved by feeding garden waste through a mulcher. Hehated enjoyed this simple mindless task because it suited his intellect, as well as his vast horticultural skills. A nagging thought repeatedly interrupted his meditation. It was something he had read some months back. He had paid all of the bills, emptied the recycling basket, and watered the baby lettuce. Oh, shit, what was it? Must be some fuckin’ trick question, or somethin’ Mrs M wanted. He ruminated. Something about the Pigs Arms….Ah, Mr Merv retirin’. “Oh shit.” He yelled.
“What’s wrong, Dear?” Mrs M yelled back. “Did you cut your finger off, again, or see a snake, or get the cord on your shorts caught in the mulcher, or fall off a ladder….?”
“No, it’s Merv. Get me best suit, and brogues, and that new Fedora….Oh, wait, I’m not Foodge. Can you book me a fourth class ticket on the Flyer?” Yelled M over the sound of the mulcher.
“Probably not!” Mrs M had already lost interest.
“Why?” Yelled M, as he dragged the mulcher back into the garage.
“It’s not 1937, and there is no flyer, and you can use your Opal Card.” Mrs M knew exactly what was happening, so was already getting her handbag and car keys, knowing that the next question would be something about being driven to the train station.
Twenty minutes later Big M found himself firmly ensconced in an oxymoronically named ‘quiet car’ heading towards Sydney at speeds of up to seventy kilometres per hour. Not three hours later he found himself in the Gentlemen’s Bar at the Window Dressers’ Arms, Pig and Whistle. “Barkeep, a pint of your best.”
Merv was about to turn around and face the arrogant sod when he suddenly recognised the voice. He turned around anyway. “I’m not yer fuckin’ barkeep!” Then grinned. “Gib W, I mean Big M, I’d forgotten who was writing this episode. How the hell are you?” He crushed Big M’s soft nurse’s hand in a vice like grip. A glass canoe quickly followed.
“I’m already enjoying my retirement.” Mumbled M through a foamy, hoppy moustache. “Always thirsty work, commuting.” As he pushed the empty canoe across to Merv who picked up on the hint and proffered another foamy treat. “Anyway, I’m not here to talk about me, I’m here to discuss this rumour about YOUR retirement!”
“Ah, well, that’s difficult.” Merv looked around furtively. “It’s not me that I’m tryin’ to get retired, it’s Granny. I thought that if I sold my share of the pub she might retire.”
“Granny, why Granny? I mean, she’ll work until she drops.” Big M was already looking at the bottom of his empty glass.
“Therein lies the problem.” Merv was pretty pleased with himself for getting one of those high faluting words in, like heretofore, and such. “She’s bloody exhausted!” A third canoe was paddling across the heavily stained timber bar.
“I know the feelin’.” M was as unsteady with his words as his legs, but eagerly skulled another half pint.
“I’ll bet you don’t. It’s bloody Foodge. He’s at her all of the time. Like a boy of fifteen. Early morning, mid-morning, lunchtime, afternoon delight….that’s just a warm-up for the evening!”
“I always thought that our dear Private Dick was pretty backward in the use of the wedding flute. Especially after Granny gave him those anabolic steroids that turned out to be oestrogen.” Big M noticed that the bar had become relatively quiet.
Granny had appeared at he bottom of the stairs. “What mischief are you causin’?” As she pointed a bony finger at M.
“Ah, oo, um, er. No mischief. Um….this new Pale Ale is good, I mean really good….ah, great.” Big M stared into the bottom of his glass and started to tremble. He couldn’t help himself as he started to laugh uncontrollably. “Pftt…..Foodge….a demon in the sack!”
Soon everybody, including Merv was laughing.
“All right you lot…SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Granny was livid. “How dare you laugh at one of the finest Private Dicks in the country?”
The mere mention of ‘Private Dick’ fed the laughter like trying to put out a fire with petrol. Even the Bowling Ladies were tittering from the Ladies bar.
Granny turned on her heel and marched straight back up the Errol Flynn Memorial Staircase.
“Oh fuck, now we’ve done it!” Muttered Merv. Fuck, what will we do now?”
“The best thing we could do is try to work out what’s going on.” Came a quiet voice from the end of the bar. Manne had crept in with a big basket of eggs, having recently taken over the care of Granny’s chooks because she was too busy. “I mean, Foodge might have some hormonal problem.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Big M picked up on it straight away. “Yes, too much testosterone, or some other androgen. Did Foodge go to an endocrinologist after the oestrogen overdose?”
“Yeah, but he said there was nothing to be done, ‘cept for a powerful placebo.” Mumbled Merv as he wiped over the taps with a dirty rag.”
“Have you ever seen Granny wait? She’s hardly very patient” M mused over a forth pint. “Would she buy steroids?”
“Nah, not after the oestrogen business.” Merv pulled a tray of steaming glasses from the washer, setting them on the bar to cool.
“Has he been to another doctor?” Big M was scratching his head, struggling to finish the episode.
“No, he hates the doctor.” Reckons they’re charlatans, unlike the legal profession.” Merv winked.
“No one else has become horny?”
“Well I can’t speak for anyone else, but there haven’t been many opportunities.” Merv blushed.
Manne shook his head. “Not since Granny caught me with nudies on me phone.”
“We need more help. Where’s Emmjay?”
“Queensland.” Merv was placing the glasses into the bottom of the refrigerator.
“Algy?”
“Thailand.”
“Mark?”
“Summer Bay.”
“The Oosterfolk”
“Costco, no at home.”
“Viv?”
“At ‘ome with ‘er recuperatin’ ‘usband.” Merv grunted as he realised that the IPA keg was empty.
“The rest?”
“Well they’re dispersed across the country as per usual.” Merv was trying to get Manne to pick up on some non-verbal cue about the empty keg. Manne was busily trying to balance an egg on its apex.
“Fuck, we’re on our own?” M slumped over the bar.
“Couldn’t you just measure Foodge’s testicle level?” Manne had given up on his egg-balancing act.
“Of course, great idea. How would we do it? Total urinary steroids. No, too much pissing about. We probably need some blood. How would we get, say, ten mls of blood from Foodge?”
“I could punch him in the nose, then save all of the tissues.” Manne said in earnest.
“I think we need something subtle.” Big M mused. “More subtle than a punch in the nose.”
“You remember Foodge thought he was about to be knighted last Liz’s Birthdee?” Merv’s brow was crumpled in concentration.
“Yep, but what’s that got to do with the price of mullet?” Big M was getting exasperated.
“Well, we tell him that we was doin’ ‘is family tree, and the Royal Family want a blood sample because they think he is a distant member of the royal family, like Liz’s third cousin, four times removed, or summit!” Merv’s brow finally relaxed.
“Yes, yes. I’ll get some needles, syringes, blood tubes, et cetera and away we go!” Big M seemed to sober up at the thought.
Here is a whistle-stop tour of my recent, wondrous experience of travelling with the intrepid LNER from Leeds to London and back; bearing in mind they now have new trains from japan which they boast with unadulterated hubris are ‘much more reliable’.
Both trains were cancelled.
So instead of getting the 1015 train to London I had to get the 1045 and I also lost my seat reservation. Not sure whether I was being singled out for punishment by the LNER Customer Relations Praetorian Guard or whether everyone else on the Phantom had lost their seat reservations.
I ventured to ask a member of staff at Leeds Station why the 1015 train had been cancelled and was illuminatingly told, and this would never have occurred to my train of thought in a million years, that ‘there was a problem with the train’ ….
…as opposed to a problem with the cross-channel ferries.
I could have walked along the entire Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostock and I would have remained none the wiser.
I did ask if he could be a bit more specific and helpfully gave him a few signals…
The train had been hit by lightning?
The train had been derailed by a jumbo-sized leaf on the tracks?
Roadworks on the M25?
Headbutted by a galloping, kamikaze Friesian cow?
The driver had decided to hand in his notice at 1014?
Apaches?
… I wasn’t exactly asking for a tannoy announcement from the Fat Controller but he remained steadfast with the most resolute of customer-assassin, one-man Rorke’s Drift stands (I looked carefully all around me but, alas, I was not inspired to mutter the immortal line ‘Zulus sir, thousands of ‘em’), and he doggedly declined to give me any further details upon pain of death by a thousand Assegais or 2,000 redundant seat reservation tickets.
By the time I arrived at Kings Cross the whole train was livid but luckily I was able to get to the office on time as the Northern Tube Line was slightly more reliable than LNER so at least LNER didn’t derail my presentation. It just meant I could only have a banana for lunch though this did have some benefits as I could do with losing a few kilos and I did not break my cracked molar which had recently been the unwitting object of Dr. Mengele-like dental surgery.
I sailed through my presentation then we all flew back to King still cross only to find the 1703 train had gone out in sympathy with the 1015 from Leeds and had also been cancelled so we eventually got onto the 1733 but this was clearly less sympathetic with the 1015 as it was a mere 15 minutes late in departing (having been told initially by the Fat Controller that it had also been cancelled).
The Fat Controller was clearly having the time of his life causing utter chaos and mayhem by announcing multiple train cancellations from Kings Absolutelybloodyfedup then deciding some were only a few minutes late e.g. to Birmingham New Street, whilst others were now back on time e.g. to Cambridge, whilst some were cancelled without a shadow of a doubt e.g. to York, Harrogate and Edinburgh: all the while totally mystified passengers swayed bewilderingly from one platform to another like rudderless vessels in a transatlantic hurricane. On that note, transatlantic hurricanes were about the ONLY reason NOT used as an excuse for any cancelled or late-running trains that evening.
Being of ineluctably non-riff raff stock, and hence of a polite disposition, I naively let about 13,651 other passengers pile onto the train before me. I again lost my seat reservation, which led to much gnashing of teeth, which in turn exacerbated the ever-widening chasm in my cracked molar and, to raise customer getstuffedicity to new peaks enjoyed previously only by Greek Gods and Ryanair, the customer-centric LNER Company Pitbull who purported to be the Service Manager on the 1733 train from Kings Incandescentwithrage to Leeds refused, whilst smiting me down with her Medusa-like gaze, to upgrade me to First Class so I was unable to sit with my colleagues who had somehow purloined First Class seats in the Zeus and Dionysus Carriage, but I did at least console myself by having the somewhat less supine pleasure of standing all the way to Stevenage in the Plebeian Carriage as there were no seats left in this modern day chariot of the Gods. I did have a nice chat with Caractacus and Boadicea about how superior 2,000 year old Roman roads in Britain are compared to 12 year old railway tracks, until they alighted (LNER speak for opened the door and got out) at Colchester.
And there was no hot food.
Or bananas. Hot or cold, Puerto Rican or Colombian, yellow or green, ripe or rancid.
Not even one putrid, over-priced banana. Maybe there is a national banana shortage due to Brexit.
So, you may ask yourself rhetorically, what exactly is the point of a Catering Carriage on a train that has no food unless the crew have decided that all the passengers are clinically obese so must embark forthwith on an 8 hour (8 hours and 15 minutes to be precise), zero-calorie crash diet? Even Tantalus would have been gorging on the Grapes of Wrath by this microwaveable, culinary debacle. A tannoy announcement from Polly Pitbull, who did not mince her words, or beefsteak for that matter, gave me a hint
‘Would all the tight, fat bastards who are sat in First Class but do not have First Class Ticket please squeeze your fuckingg big fat lying arses into the Plebeian carriages’
I managed to get home before midnight so at least the train turn into a pumpkin. But if it had, at least I would have had something to eat.
I know this sounds harsh but I possibly may not rate this epic journey as a first class customer experience. Next time it might be quicker if I travel with Thomas the Tank Engine. Or Pegasus.
Later that evening I saw a LNER post on Facebook boasting about how much more reliable their trains are now… so at least they do have a sense of humour… I was so impressed that I decided to comment on their post but for some reason they declined to reply.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 