Tag Archives: Pubs

Idle Eye 62 : The Big Tissue

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Has anyone noticed that toilet roll tubes are shrinking? Anyone? I’ve been giving this one some thought of late (as a former owner of thirteen gerbils, my attention to such matters is somewhat more devout than you might otherwise think) and I cannot for the life of me imagine why. You reduce the circumference of the tube, ergo the volume of tissue necessary to fill the gap increases. And surely it is more cost effective to expand the cardboard by an insignificant fraction than to manufacture the extra sheets? To say nothing of all that extra perforating and, if you’re posh, quilting. We’ve all got used to the stealth techniques employed by supermarkets and the like with their swingeing reduction in product proportion, but this is blatantly a false economy & somebody’s head should roll.

And then there’s the matter of quality. Does anyone remember back in the day when you only needed a couple of sheets to wipe the slate clean? Because they were the thickness of a small sandwich or a baby’s mattress? Or how about Izal medicated, the robust choice of municipal buildings, schools and the more progressive public conveniences? So hardy was it, in fact, it could stop a Sherman tank in full flight if lined up correctly. Well without putting too fine a point on it, nowadays you could copy the entire works of Charles Dickens onto the paper necessary for just one go. And the end user (oh stop it!) lives in permanent fear of finger pop. Don’t think we haven’t noticed, Mr Andrex! And no amount of impregnated aloe vera is gonna make up for all that chafing.

But fear not, my friends. I put in yet another narratively convenient call to Nibs earlier and he assures me that the exceptional tissue provided by the Idle Hour has maintained its triple A status for another year. And, as one of the lucky few who has stood sheet to cheek in the traps, I can vouch for the same. These bountiful beauties are organic, responsibly sourced, line caught & hand stitched by Vestal Virgins on the foothills of the Appenines for your sanitary convenience. No horse DNA, no artificial sweetners, no CFCs, no nonsense. And a free drink at the bar if you can punch a hole through the middle. Pre-application, obviously.

Finally, a word to the ladies from Nibs himself. Apparently you lot are whipping through the stuff like it’s going out of fashion, and, being a gentleman of good character, he is loath to drop by and investigate. Vast industrial-strength tubes regularly vanish into thin air, and whilst he is aware that there are many bottoms to feed, demand is seriously outstripping supply. May I suggest that you ‘make room’ before you leave the house? We are living through a time of unprecedented austerity and it’s only fair that you do your bit. And us blokes promise to wipe up the oversplash when we get in. Right lads?

Idle Eye 59 : The Merrie Month of February

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Oh no! An entire month of alcohol abstention is fresh out of the blocks and let me tell you, gentle reader, it is a far, far worse thing than you can possibly imagine. Makes a swift waterboarding at Guantanamo seem like kindergarten, and the relentlessly brutal assault of everyday reality, once successfully held at bay at evenings and weekends, is now free to scythe down its quarry at will. Why, in God’s name, do people do this to themselves? It is no accident that hops/barley/grapes/junipers etc…are widely available across the planet for our consumption, nor that we have honed the requisite skills over centuries to arrive at todays bountiful plateau of choice. To reject them is tantamount to sticking a finger up at creation, evolution and the education of the soul.

Anyway, never mind that now. I’ve only got 500 words and I’m not going to waste them on semi-literate Zen rhetoric. I do, however, need to get across the barren nature of my pursuit and get you lot back into the Idle Hour. It’s my job. And if anyone emerging from their own month of sobriety is under any doubt whatsoever, remember this:

The initial body response is, to be honest, not all that stringent. In fact, it’s a bit of a novelty. No more night sweats, morning tinkle now the hue & viscosity of elderflower cordial (not Castrol GTX), the twin throb of angry kidneys has backed off a bit and I can make it through an entire episode of Borgen without falling asleep and dribbling. However, that’s about as good as it gets. Suddenly I’m acutely aware of the banality of existence, the inanity of radio comedy, the dirty patches on the stairs I said I’d hoover in November, the fact that nothing works properly, that all the stuff I’ve hoarded my entire life has swollen to gargantuan, suffocating proportions and needs urgent attention (the last time this was an issue I moved house rather than deal with it.)

And then there’s evenings. These little bastards stretch off into the distance like the Yellow Brick Road and now that I’m clean, I feel compelled to fill them by doing something useful. But what? DIY would be utterly fatuous. Cookery? I don’t think so. Tidy my room? Ahem. I opted instead for cleaning New Year mud from my leather Stormtrooper boots in the bathroom sink and succeeded in blocking the U-tube and jamming shut that bullshit style-over-content hinged plug.

You see? Alcohol prevents us doing this kind of nonsense for a very good reason. Because it is UTTERLY POINTLESS, and our time would be far better spent earning the money to pay someone else to do it instead. In fact, the more we drink, the more we can help kick start our ailing economy on many, many levels. So please, do as I say and not as I do. You’ll thank me for it.

Idle Eye 53 : The Devil’s Playground

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Long-term readers of this pile of offal will implicitly understand how thrilled I was to discover that this week heralds the start of yet another government initiative. In case you don’t already have it seared into your subconscious, I’m referring, of course, to Road Safety Week. Conceived specifically to heighten awareness of the carnage out there, RSW also sets out to tell us that we drive too fast in built-up areas, pollute too much and should really consider walking and cycling a bit more.

Yeah, okay okay. But this morning I caught my first fleeting glimpse of the 2012 mascot, with which we are expected to bond and empathise for seven whole days. He’s a lumpy builder type with an American Dad chin and all the yellow kit on (you know, that standard issue safety stuff that prevents you doing the job you’re actually being paid for). From the protective haven of his hoarding he gurns at the viewer in an encouraging yet profoundly disturbing manner. And guess what? He’s a bloody drawing. Ad agencies across the land must dread Road Safety Week. For they know that if they are passed this particular poisoned chalice, that two-bit scribble knocked up in the blurry vortex between Toke Thursday and Chang Friday will have to hold its own against timeless classics such as Tufty Squirrel, the evil Nick O’Teen or that moustachioed shithead helping you with your tax return. And there’s not a fart’s chance in a windtunnel of that happening.

So what is it with the Nanny State and its compulsion to get its manifesto across with doctrine our own children would find condescending? More often than not the message has some not inconsiderable weight but is ultimately let down because WE ARE GROWN UPS AND WE WOULD LIKE TO DECIPHER OUR WORLD IN WORDS OF MORE THAN TWO SYLLABLES. And even if we were pre-pubescent renegades on the cusp of changing our ways, the very first whiff of being patronised would have us back on the streets torching Previas. We may be kids, but this is the Devil’s Playground. Strap yourselves in.

Speaking of kids, the above at least is an attempt at bringing order into a world of chaos. Now that we can’t fag on in public houses and our pandering governors wish to make them increasingly attractive to infants, those once hallowed spit and sawdust floors (previously only accessed by scurrilous journalists and students) are now hugga-mugga with Mamas and Papas, the small person vehicle that abides by no law, laughs in the face of common decency and, if it were subject to the stringent demands of Road Safety Week, would be slammed into the nearest pound quicker than you can say Jeremy Clarkson. So come on, mums and dads! If you insist on bringing your three-wheeled buggies of anarchy into the public domain, let’s have some rules: You make way at the bar, and we’ll slow to 20. Deal?

Idle Eye 50 : The End of the Way It’s Always Been

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So, I’m tucked away inside a Warren House deep in the grounds of Kimbolton Castle with only my stalwart Roberts radio to remind me of the world outside, when the hapless Theresa May comes on. “Oh, splendid!” I thought. “What can she balls up today?” Did anyone catch this? Anyone? Turns out she reckons people what sell guns’n’stuff are as guilty as them what use them and therefore should expect tougher sentences such as, er, life imprisonment (or longer).  And as I enjoyed a glass of something vaguely palatable from St Neots’ Waitrose and watched a Turner sky disappear over rolling Cambridgeshire hills, a distant bell rang inside my head. Not the tinnitus (although this is becoming almost as irritating as Theresa), and not the call to prayer that was to come the following morning. No, it was the slow recall of a bi-annual event at London ExCel – currently being pushed online. Yes, readers, it’s the 2013 DSEI Arms Fair at which you can buy, perfectly legally, as many weapons of mass-destruction as your budget will allow, giving you that must have edge over whatever foe happens to be irking you at present (as long as they ain’t one of our lot, in which case all purchases come in a brown paper bag).

Now, I’m no logistician, but does this mean Theresa will show up at Royal Victoria Dock in her lovely grey suit and kitten heels and bust the sorry arse of whichever camouflaged warlord she can catch up with? Before buggering back off to Berkshire for high tea? Help me out. And if she is setting a precedent that the salesman is also the criminal, examine carefully the following scenario and give me your thoughts in the comments section:

Police:  Mr Nibs, we is arresting you on suspicion of selling the sum total of seven pints of delicious Harveys ale to one Dan Dodgy, who went on from The Idle Hour down the road outside and smashed in every car window what happened to be parked there. Oh, and defecated onto the passenger seat of a Mazda outside the school. Mr Dodgy has attested that he normally only has a couple and the extra few tipped him over the edge, relinquishing him of any responsibility whatsoever and thereby landing all culpability with the scumbag landlord what sold him the goods in the first place. Anything you say and/or do may be taken down in evidence: It’s the law.

This being the case, I eagerly await the arrival of a Government-endorsed SWAT team at the St Neots’ Waitrose fine wines aisle, getting those brown-aproned peddlers of doom to spread ‘em against the rotary tills and confess. And the subsequent supoena at which I am forced to admit at gunpoint that I was their most significant customer over the month of October and thereby a significant threat to national security. At which point Theresa can legitimately deport me along with my old chum Abu Qatada.

Idle Eye 49 : The Day Before We Came

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“Are you a parent who drinks too much?” blazed Dr Cecilia D’Felice in the Times this weekend, above a photograph of a slick young professional enjoying a perfectly legitimate reward for expelling her mewling sprogs onto a troubled planet. And not to be outdone by her alarmist strapline, she then proceeded to lambast these soft-target breeders with a checklist divided up into stages, neatly calculated to cause maximum collateral damage:

‘You have to be drunk to approach somebody socially with confidence’ – BAM!!!

‘You use alcohol as a reward’ – SOCK!!!

‘You spend a great deal of time drinking’ – THWACK!!!

‘You need more alcohol to achieve the same effect’ – KERSPLATT!!!

‘You can’t remember what you did’ – WHAM CR-R-A-A-CK PLUNK!!!

‘You feel physically unwell during or after drinking’ – KAPOW ZOWIE CLUNK BOFF!!!

“Oooh,” I thought, as I browsed the paper on my iPhone at 4am with one eye as the other was begging the brain to sort itself out after a traditional friday night hammering, “what’s going on here?” Now, not having children myself, I thought I’d be in with a chance of slipping through some kind of statistical net. You know, the one which has no political bearing whatsoever and thereby has no consequence whatsoever, leaving the barren forty-something on the outskirts of anything that even resembles concern. But oh no! Dr D’Felice had somehow managed to make me feel guilty on a Saturday morning well before the birds outside had begun to sing. And all before I had got vertical and had a word with the morning glory. God’s teeth! And to think felice means ‘happy’ in Italian.

I think that what bothers me the most about this deconstruction of what it takes to be a responsible modern parent is the omission of the driving forces that take people away from there in the first place. So, I’ve got a kid. Oh balls! Everything’s gone up in the supermarkets. Holy Moly! If I’m gonna come off my interest-only deal before I’m dust, maybe I’d better start paying the bastard off. And tits on toast! Don’t even start me on pensions or I’ll have off your particulars. All I need right now is a new-world glass of  acceptably sourced old-world ruin and the nippers can fend for themselves. Them’s the rules.

As I stumbled my way through the above, a text came through from Nibs inviting me (and I presume y’all) to his party at the Idle Hour on the 27th. There promises to be, and I quote, “loads of free booze and one hell of a party spirit”. Now, in the interests of responsible journalism, I am compelled to steer you towards a mere couple of glasses each, only to wag them in front of your designated driver before you head off to make babies at the Godly hour. And for this I make no charge and wish you all the luck in the world. As if…

Idle Eye 46 : The Last Good Day of the Year

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I was listening to Radio 4 on Saturday morning (as one does) and this lady came on who had been struck temporarily blind. Oh no! But then she went on about how she had reassessed her life and realised it had been peppered with relentless negativity, and from that moment on she vetoed any such sentiments which in turn improved the quality of her everyday life immeasurably. Anyway, I turned it off ‘cos I was late for the Barnes Food Fair, in which Nibs had a stall doing spectacular Bloody Marys I badly needed to assess for this ‘ere blog and ran out to get the train. Cancelled. Engineering works. But before I did my usual Ian Dury (****holes, bastards, ****ing ***** and pr**ks) I thought of that woman, lifted my head up high & took the replacement bus with pride. Good on ‘em, I thought, for actually bothering to replace the entire train with a bus: Good on ‘em.

And when I got to Barnes Common two hours later, no small thanks to weekend traffic and an unfortunate iOS6 maps error, I was determined to keep this up. The sun was out, small boys were kicking a ball about (jumpers for goalposts) and everything was heading up to be a Breugel-tastic, culinary lovefest. Even a Volvo passenger opening her door into my smalls did not manage to dampen my ardour (although I did get the temporary blindness). ‘Oh yes, life is good’ I thought, after sampling several pints of the red stuff which, in turn, led me to the real ale stall where I discovered Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a 32% beauty I saw no reason not to obtain for the very reasonable sum of £45. Which, in turn, made the Barbers’ Shop singers sound so angelical I was compelled to enjoy a large Pimms in sheer admiration which, in turn, made me purchase a rather delightful fishermans’ winkle box for Ursula despite my misgivings as to its authenticity.

You see, what the R4 lady left out, and this is the salient point, is that you don’t need a life-changing event to make every day of your life the last good day of the year. What you actually need is an arsenal of high-quality booze and the ability to set aside the cold front of cynicism for the sunnier climes of La Dolce Vita. And the former aids the latter, trust me. Now, I know Nibs will be wanting me to big up his efforts right here in the last paragraph but there’s no need. Really. You all ate those award-winning burgers, drank the BM’s and had a great time. And you know what? As I struggled to focus on Nick Clegg’s apology in the freesheets strewn about on the tube home and I listened to that viral tune drawn from the very same, I felt really good for the first time in ages. Shortly before taking a very long ride on the porcelain bus…

Idle Eye 45 : The Sick, the Bad & the Wicked

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Language has moved on a bit since I were a lad, and rightly so. It is the moral duty of the next generation to mix things up for their elders to the point where traditional arteries of communication get so furred that we reluctantly hand over the baton and creep off into extinction. Take this weeks title, for example: A couple of decades ago you could be forgiven for thinking all three denoted particular ailments and we would have had the utmost sympathy for those afflicted. Today the same guys are Top of the Pops. Well matrix, actually. However, anyone of a certain age attempting to shore up their own vocabulary with yoofspeak walks a mighty thin line. For they shall be vilified by those they borrow from, ridiculed by their peers and old hat before the week is out. It’s cruel, I know, but that’s the law of the jungle.

The same goes for businesses and politicians trying to cash in on a fleeting youth market. Nothing makes you look more out of touch than when attempting the exact opposite, as I shall demonstrate:

IDLE HOUR MENU

Homemade Soup 5.50
OMG!!! Legendary. Crucial when served steamin’. Meat flava

Our Award-Winning Organic Steak Mince Burger 11.00
Commin’ atcha with fries’n’tha. Totes amazeballs

Wild Mushroom, Tarragon and Pea Risotto with Parmesan and Rocket 11.00
Proper nang gang’o’veg, bluds

Callebaut Chocolate Brownie w/ Organic Vanilla Ice Cream 5.00
Frigid, but ice is nice

And so on. Shrewd oldies should never kowtow to the shifting sands of youth patois because, as Stewart Lee would say, it’s not for you. Its very purpose is to keep you at bay, and should you and your cronies at Bletchley Park ever manage to hack your way in, the rules will change quicker than Usain Bolt’s lady count in Stratford. Nota bene, Mr Cameron, nota bene.

I browsed my young niece’s Facebook page the other day. Not in a weird way, honest, but she’s just back from Croatia & I thought I’d see how she got on. Turns out she’s all gravy, well sick and had an epic keen one, oh yeeee boii. Which is important, because if she thought anyone over 25 had a clue what she was on about, she probably wouldn’t be. I mean, have. Whatever. And the very fact that an old git like myself can access the online exploits of todays teenagers may well have something to do with Mark Zuckerberg’s downward slide on the stock exchange. When the exclusive goes global, the cool factor goes out of the window and if you happen to be under 25, that’s all that matters. Innit?

Fortunately for us seniors, there is one trick left up our collective sleeve. One last defiant roar before we shuffle off this mortal coil. Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold:

“What’s Grandpa saying, mum?”

“I’m not sure, dear. Just leave him to it.”

Idle Eye 44 : The Herding Instinct

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Human beings are essentially congregational. It’s why we’ve always had towns & villages, churches, sporting arenas, festivals and, of course, pubs & clubs. For most, the complex web of possibility that life throws up is far too vexing to navigate alone, so we take on a partner to help make sense of it all and surround ourselves with like-minded individuals in establishments inside which we feel comfortable. This instinct is at once tribal and refined. From the hallowed portals of St James to the bingo halls of Bognor we prefer to stick with our own as it confirms in some small way that we’ve made the correct choices, and if we haven’t, screw it; at least we’re in good company.

However, once we’ve settled on our respective coteries, it is astonishing to learn how fiercely we defend them from unsuitable others, considering how subjective this apparent suitability can be. Legend has it that a certain Lord Glasgow once threw a waiter through the window of his club after a disappointing meal. When challenged, he brusquely ordered: ‘Put him on the bill.’ He was later charged £5 and the waiter suffered a broken arm. Indeed, the most heinous crime in the highest echelons of clubland is not that of propriety. Outlandish behaviour, in some circles, is seen as mere high spirits (although clearly it helps to be intimate with the rules before they are broken). No, that particular accolade goes to the admission of ‘manifestly inappropriate guests’, from which we can deduce that if you ain’t one of us, you ain’t coming in. And the higher you climb on society’s ladder, the more rigorously this unwritten rule is policed.

For the benefit of Barnes types who don’t already know this, the Idle Hour has its own equivalent. And fear not: There are no burly minders to get past, no dress code as such and no danger of being blackballed if Nibs doesn’t like the cut of your jib (although he did once eject a vulgar punter from a previous concern for decanting a £6000 bottle of red through the tablecloth. Be warned…) The VIP card makes no background checks, has no nomination procedure or minimum income requirements. In fact it is so widely accepting, one could be forgiven for doubting whether there are any security measures in place at all (who’s on the committee then – G4S?) It does, however, ask one thing, the one thing that is so hardwired into our DNA it would be difficult to refuse even if we wanted to. Which we don’t. See first paragraph for clues.

The beauty of the above lies in the very lack of protocol adhered to so stringently by its esteemed peers. A member of the Garrick once wrote: ‘It would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than that one terrible bore should be admitted.’ I beg to differ: Give the bore a chance, as he is more likely to be unobjectionable than those who reject him…

Idle Eye 43 : The Priory Priority

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Interesting stuff. Yesterday evening threw up one of them family parties which involved myself, Da Mudda & Ursula all pitching up at Idle HQ to accompany Nibs in a cab that shot us all off to Esher, where we celebrated not one but four (count ‘em) birthdays in some way connected to The Firm. Most of this I have scant recollection of due to usual suspects, but what I did note before succumbing to the ensuing jollities was that legendary sleb hospital, The Priory, was but two minutes away from the Idle Hour itself. Now, I know my brother reasonably well, and when it comes to business I’m afraid to report, gentle reader, he leaves me in the starting blocks. So this salient fact is unlikely to be a mere accident, no siree. And my suspicions were further raised when I did a little, er, research earlier this afternoon. Let me elucidate:

As we all know, what goes on in the Priory is supposed to stay in there, but, human nature being what it is, this is rarely the case. Perennial reoffenders, such as tubby Take That favourite Blobby Williams, fall over themselves to break out of those forbiddingly high perimeter walls, blurt out their respective misdemeanours to whichever red top will shell out a few bob, only to check themselves back in there a few weeks later, steeped in remorse and seeking the kind of meaningful salvation only prohibitively priced clinics can administer. This being the case, we need to get inside the mind of the fugitive patient to fully understand why Nibs chose Railway Side to be his bedrock:

Once out, he/she will almost certainly be on the sniff for somewhere to unwind. Now, according to google maps, the only logical route to achieve this would be to head north.

‘Why north?’ I hear you cry.

Well, listen up: As they hit the Upper Richmond Road, they will invariably come across a hostelry called the Halfway House. This will resonate with the afflicted in a way we cannot begin to comprehend, and will simultaneously spur them on to seek out their real nirvana. And as they stumble towards the railway crossing like Paul towards Damascus, they will find another sure sign that they are on the right track: the Vine Road Recreation Ground. From there it is but a hop and a step to the Vegas that is Idle Hour.

But don’t for one minute think that this is one way traffic: Nibs is far too smart for that. When the seasoned drinker reaches saturation and the bosom of his/her esteemed family can no longer tolerate the inevitable, redemption can be found by simply retracing ones’ steps and heading south, where it is highly unlikely all that personal info will yet have been scrubbed from the database. It’s a narcotic Pushmi-Pullyu situation, in which the hapless addict bounces from one haven to the other.

Bro: Respect is due.

Idle Eye 41 : The Face-Off

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Anyone who has ever attempted the dark art of writing to a 500 word count will implicitly understand what a taut organ it has to be. One sentence, a word even, can throw the balance of the piece so completely off-kilter it has to be dramatically re-approached, and punctuation (don’t get me started on punctuation) must ripple through the paragraphs like miniscule unseen roadsigns, steering the reader towards the inevitable. So imagine my dismay when I got the call from Idle HQ after I had mentally constructed an hilarious appraisal of our countryside:

Nibs : I know you’ve already done this, but I’m gonna need a big up on Britain’s Favourite Burger this week. Keeps it fresh in their minds.

Me : But I’m doing the country. It’s a corker, trust me.

Nibs : Fine, do the country by all means but just stick in a few words about the burger thing. Why not say I got a bronze? It’s topical & you can put that in the keywords if LOGOG will let you.

Me : You don’t get it. I can’t just bung in stuff about burgers. It doesn’t work.

Nibs : Well, make it work then. Cows come from the country, right? There, you can have that one on me.

Me : It’s not that simple, bro. You can’t just stick in a few words. Writing this blog isn’t just bunging in stuff about burgers. It’s a craft! I think about how it all fits together for days and when I know it’s right, I get it all down. I wouldn’t tell you how to cook one of your specials, would I? Yeah, just bung in a few bits & bobs from the fridge? Jesus H!!! I have my art and you have yours. Now let me get on with it.

Nibs : Stop being a dick. I just want you to say I came third in the burger competition. Bloody hell, get over yourself!

Me : It compromises the whole thing, man! Every piece I write is linear, right? There’s a start, I piddle about with it in the middle and then go in for the kill at the end. And it works like that every week which is why people like it. The comfort of familiarity via comedy of repetition. It’s a tried and tested formula that you can’t screw about with. So if I suddenly bring in burgers it loses its entire thrust. Something would have to give and there’s no fat to fry.

Nibs : You just said it, right there. No fat to fry! Now stick that in the blog & stop being so bloody precious! Jeez, anyone would think I was employing Coren.

Me : Ok bro, we’ll play it your way, shall we? Not a problem! Right, let’s kick off with the classic urban take on our impoverished rural cousins. Except they’re not, are they? Impoverished, that is. Down in that Chipping Norton they’re all stinking, right? Enjoying BRITAIN’S THIRD FAVOURITE BURGER while Rebekah gets her