Here we are at Week 511.
I hate this time of year.
I hate the greed of the supermarkets – Just look at any dangling clip-strips, dump bins and every piece of space that is occupied by some shite or another.
I despise how folks fawn over christmas adverts. I don’t think I believe in subliminal messages but it wouldn’t surprise me with those bastards.
They tell us that they are helping with poverty and the environment when all they are really doing is lining their own pockets. We can moan all we like about the price of individual shops, markets and such like but they ain’t making the profits that those Supermarkets are!!
I love going into a pub. I try as much as I can to go into my, what I’d call my local every Monday if I can. I was just thinking that I’ve frequented that pub here and there for the last forty one years. My sister and me were in there on my seventeenth birthday. I used to meet Gwen of a Tuesday night in that pub. I had to watch what I was drinking as I started work at 3.40am. So in my mind I only had four drinks; a pint, a Double Rusty Nail, a Double Whisky Mac and my first love a Bacardi And Coke… When I think on it, it was actually ten!!
It was at one time called ‘Raffles’ – Whit a brilliant wee manageress, an Irish Lassie that I can’t remember her name, then we had Davie who moved onto other pubs, wee Alan (Who couldn’t hide his colours – Not probably the best guy you would have behind the bar!!) Emma, a stunning lady who I still miss, another Davie from Stranraer (Another belting guy) and we now have the wonderful Claire. The pub went from ‘Rumours’ to ‘O’Brien’s’ and now ‘Drouthy Neebors’ (HAH I have been in most Mondays and I still need to check out the spelling!!!!
I have a point here somewhere…Aye, I remember!! I’ve spoken to all types of folks; Long distance lorry drivers, funeral directors, chefs, (A certain local was absolutely pished on Monday morning and really shouldn’t have been served!!) a mermaid (That’s what Claire does in her spare time) a fire-fighter, a jockey, a tyre fitter, a fellow who shattered his hip, a labourer, a doctor, a dog walker, a lady who wanted to go into careers for folks who just got out of prison and a couple of musicians. I have spent time with all these folks, shared a drink and spent many a happy hour.
However my point is, yep, I do have one!!! If I met someone and they told me that they were into advertising, I think I would hurt them. I’m not a violent man and can count on one hand how many times I’ve thrown a punch, but I reckon my furious wrath would be awakened if I was having a drink with someone and they stated, ‘I’m in advertising, you may have seen my work on the TV.’
I’ve a live and let live attitude but the thought of that wank invading my space with their pre-ordained pish would be a bridge too far!!! I would hurt them sore!!!!!
Adverts timing gets me….I’m sure they’re watching us!!! You think, I’ll just make a sandwich and a cup of coffee as this is a boring bit. You do that and just as you plank your arse and take the first bite of your sandwich…On they come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really want to win the lottery, for many a reason but mainly to walk into a car-showroom with Gwen. They will ignore her and look at me, (Car salesmen are sooooo sexist) I will ask, ‘Did I see this car in an advert?’ And they will have their tail feathers up and say ‘Yes sir, you did!’
My answer will be short and brutal, ‘You ignored my wife, she’d be driving as she loves driving. I hate cars and you can take your intrusive advert, your terrible manners and stick them right up…And I mean RIGHT UP your arse!!’
I take it we would be banned out ‘The Bentley’ showroom???
To be fair, Gwen would probably accept that shite from a Jaguar Salesman (That is one thing in my life that I wish I could have done – ‘There you go Sweetheart, get whatever Jag you want!!!’)…Me, I’d want to bite him first!!!!!
Oh and please don’t think I’m a wee Greta! Nothing means much to me. The planet is HOPEFULLY FUCKED…Well the planet with us in it is FUCKED!! Get rid of us that is the cancer and let it evolve, let it go where it should naturally.
‘Oh my children!! Oh my grandchildren!!! Sod that!! If there is a higher purpose, the dice have already been rolled. If you wanted to protect your offspring, you shouldn’t have had any!!!!!!!!!!!!
And on that happy note…Deid weans burning in the sun, drowning in Tsunamis, etcetera let’s do something a tad happier. (Ah the christmas spirit and me fights every year!!!! I’ve hit the ‘christmas spirit into a coma every sodding year!!!)
Onto the happiness and brilliance of this week’s stories!!!!
All new folks this week except one who did a match up with his son who was also a new writer!
As usual, we welcome them all, hope that they have fun on the site and we hope to see more stories from them very soon.
And another as always, our initial comments follow.
First up was Robin Dennis with ‘Jesu-Vape’.
‘A good rant.’
‘Interesting!’
‘This made me think.’
On Tuesday we had ‘War Games’ by Alan Rice.
‘An interesting little drama.’
‘A fun read.’
‘The players were visible and a little strange.’
I think this is the first time that we have had a father and son collaboration. On Wednesday it was our pleasure to introduce the wonderful Marco Etheridge for the twenty seventh time and his son, Liam who was a first-timer. Their story was called, ‘The Horrible Relocation.’
‘We have been around so long, the kids are coming by!!’
‘This made me grin.’
‘There is a charm to this.’
The newbies kept a comin’. Jack Powers was next up with, ‘Baby Blues.’
‘This grew on me.’
‘A really good read.’
‘I enjoyed the relatable content.’
And we finished off with Salena Casha and ‘Human Resources’
‘Some good tension.’
‘Very well written.’
‘The topic of climate control is getting about.’
That’s us for another week.
Back to Miss Anderson. Please get involved with the Sunday Features. (Have a look back.)
Keep commenting and please keep sending in your work. You are all the site, we just put it together!!
Just to finish. There is an auld saying here that states, ‘I can’t get oot my ain road’ which roughly translates to, ‘I’m very disorganised at the moment and am playing catch up with, well, everything.’
For that I need to apologise to Leila and Diane! Not sure if I’m pulling my weight at this moment in time. I feel as if everything is half arsed!! (I even think sitting on my arse is half arsed!!) But I promise to do better!!!
I’m even a week behind with reading my papers. But that has worked for me. You see, I tried to catch up today and I read an article that gave me the ending to this post. (With a lot of poetic licence and general, ‘I’ve made that up!!’)
I’ve just read that The Pollis are being a wee bit strict regarding recruiting folks with tattoos. Any sectarianism, defamatory, crude etc are all an automatic red-card. That made me think on a wee fellow from Muirkirk (Think ‘Deliverance’ with a Scottish Accent) who thought that the tattoo across his fore-head would give him an advantage, it said ‘You’re fucked ya wee ned bastard.’
Oh and that was just under, ‘My dad’s a Mason.’ (If that one had been on its own…Well…)
And our music this week, I may have shown you before. Blame Leila, she posted a clip of Billy Connolly and his experience of drinking the water in Ibiza. I then remembered his version of this song…It creases me up every time!!!
Image: Drouthy Neebors pub in Ayr
Oh and one last thing from all of us here at Literally Stories – A huge congratulations to Mrs Hawley, Doug’s Editor and love of his life as it is her birthday!!
If the lady is half as interesting as her husband, he is a very lucky man!!!!!
Enjoy the day! I’m toasting you both as we speak…Sorry, type!!!
All the very best!!
literally stories 
Hugh
You always do your share! I love old taverns but so many have folded around here and have been replaced with what I call “strip mall sports bars” that it’s depressing.
It’s awful that the same rich people who put down religion make certain to squeeze Christmas of every cent possible. There really should be a limit to how much wealth one can have. Long, long ago, someone I knew committed suicide because he no longer could pay the rent. And yet we have a world in which a baseball player has landed a contract worth three quarters of a billion dollars. I don’t blame the athlete, but I do blame people who have that much money to throw around when people are dying from want.
Love Billy , wish he could live forever, but alas, he won’t. Yet even with Parkinsons he won’t give up and his new venture into art has gone well.
Excellent post!
Leils
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I put limits on financial success with limits on physical ability. No one can run the 100 meters in less than ten seconds.
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Hi Doug,
I hope you saw the bottom of this posting!! (It’s been changed)
I can’t remember which comedienne stated that they were all for drugs in Athletics as they wanted to see a human running the hundred meters in four seconds!
The only problem would be would be how much would a ticket to see that cost??
All the best my individual friend!!!!
Hugh
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Hi Leila,
Someone once said, ‘Wealth isn’t the problem, the distribution of it is.’
Human nature can be humbling, touching and well, humanitarian! The problem is we see more greed, selfishness, narcissism, egotism from the sociopaths that could, if they wanted to, make a difference. We can only throw in a few quid here or there and the previous mentioned will take three quarters of that (At least!!) for their management and no-how!!
BASTARDS!
Connolly has been part of my life since I was around ten years old. I’ve never seen him live, my brother-in-law has around four times. (I’m jealous!) The last time he was in Ayr, (Mid 1980’s I think??) I was on shite shifts working with my dad, so I couldn’t get away.
I’d love to own a piece of his art but I think they start at a grand, so a wee tad out my price range…Maybe one of these days!!!
Thanks as always!!!
Hugh
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I always enjoy a good Cron rant but though reading your words is fun the truth behind them is not so much. Yesterday we were in a shop and I overheard a couple of young women ‘Oh look here’s a stretchy Superman, should we get that?’
‘Who for’
‘Oh I don’t know but it’s on offer’ and that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it. I agree that there should be a limit on how much money someone has. I know there has to be reward to encourage people to strive but it shouldn’t all be in the pockets of so few when we are still putting food in donation boxes for food banks. They put out the boxes but they still charge for the food. Maybe they should look through and anything in there they match from the shelves. They are just greedy and grabby and cynical and it’s a darned shame.
Ah well. I hope it’s not too horrible for you for the next few weeks but I’ve a feeling it will be torture. Thanks for the post – dd
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Hi Diane,
Regarding the ‘It’s on sale attitude’, George, my Brother-In-Law, said it as it is. My sis came in one day and showed him some clothes she had bought, ‘Look at these, they were a hundred quid and I saved forty.’
He sighed and stated, ‘Nope, you spent sixty.’
If you sign up to any supermarkets ‘discount’ system, they show you two prices. The fuckwits think that they are saving, they’re not. They are paying what they should. The folks that don’t sign up are paying what ever the bastards can get away with adding on!!!!
I’ve another week or so before ‘Valentines Day’ kicks in, then ‘Mothers Day’, then Easter, (But that’ll be there from January) then ‘Fathers Day’, then ‘Back To School’, then ‘Halloween’, then, fuck me!!!! It’s christmas again!!!!!!
Every sodding thing is spoiled because it turns up too early or is available all year round. (Strawberries, shortbread, mincemeat pies, cream eggs, haggis, to name but a few)
Thanks as always for everything that you help me with!!!!!
Hugh
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Hugh,
Great post! I always like reading them. That bit about the sandwich and plopping your arse down in front of the tube and here comes the adverts… Rings so true. Usually the ones about the bubbling sewer pipe or coach roaches doing laps–while I’ve got a big plate of steaming roast on my lap–never ends. In the states it’s drug commercials two, three or four a session between “The Wheel” and “Jeopardy.” Drives me nuts! I can’t hit the mute quick enough, they’re so damned loud too! I don’t want to hear about getting screened for some damned cancer every five minutes, or about soft peckers. Kinda miss the “Marlboro Man” riding the range.
Christopher
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Hi Chris,
Thanks so much for your time and comments.
It took me years to realise that adverts were louder. In fact, I didn’t realise, someone told me. I try not to self-promote and the only reason that I’m saying this is the love I had for the total individual that was Scott Nielson, he was the guy that made me realise about the loudness of adverts. I wrote about him in my story ‘Hep C And A Lot Of Codeine’. The story is nothing to do with me, it was all him and he was a belter of a character!!
The only adverts I ever enjoyed was when I was at the pictures and they showed cars. It was nothing to do with the car, more the driving down mountains and mainly, the cracking Rock Music that went with it!!
Car adverts now-a-days, show you a bit of the car, play shite, if any music and here’s the thing – Very few show the price. But to be fair that goes for very few adverts!!
I hate the bastards!! It is illegal for companies to ‘Cold-Call’ at your door although they get round that. So why do we need to suffer adverts, leaflets and phone-calls?? To me there all the same!!!
Thanks again!!
All the very best!
Hugh
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Hi Hugh
Wow! “Hep C And A Lot Of Codeine’ is a cool title for a story. I’ll have to check that out. I read your “Four Bars” story and thought it was excellent! I like the way you described those different bars and the darkness in-between them where all sorts of things happened. Dark things–just down my alley.
I hate them too those lousy bastards on these commercials. I’ve actually filed a complaint to the FCC about how loud they are. It’s supposed to be illegal. And there’s not a damn thing to be done but hit the mute on the clicker every five minutes.
I heard that the USA and Australia are the only countries that allow drug company commercials. Consider yourself spared if you don’t have listens to these sons of bitches, man, they suck ass and never stop with their bullshit.
I’ve been seeing a pretty good car commercial lately ( maybe Hyundai) where this family is like Vikings, cruising to the heavy bass of Heart’s “Barracuda” trucking to the Bitter Root Mountains. Their dog is howling and might be a Wolf! That one might restore the faith.
Best
Christopher
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That’s quite a rendition of “Laura”! It’s nice to have a bar where everybody knows your name. (Maybe.) Speaking of subliminal messages, I knew someone years ago who was a stocker in a grocery store. He said come Christmas time, if they put red produce next to green (apples and limes?), sales of both would go up. Pavlov would smile.
sales of both would go up.
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Big request (note – not an ask) – Editor / wife is having a birthday today. Could I get a big shout out from the LS gang? Best thing that ever happened to me, even better than being published in LS which might be second place.
The movie Laura was interesting particularly if one notes the frailties of the two leads – one with mental troubles, one with alcohol problems. Spoiler alert. Really far fetched – misidentified victim. But she’s only a dream.
Previously noted – two walkable pubs closed down probably pandemic related. One was temporarily replaced by a massage parlor staffed by trafficed women. Grim.
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Hi Doug,
Happy to send the birthday wishes – Check out the end of the post as it’s been Edited!! (See what I did there!!!)
Enjoy the day!!!
Hugh
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Happy birthday to the Editor! I will be surprised if that’s your real name! “Oh what a night, mid December 2024” might not have a ring to it, but you never can say 🎂
Leila
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Happy birthday, Editor! Keep up the good work!
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Dear Doug
Tell Editor I said HAPPY B-DAY and Happy Holidays; the world doesn’t have enough GOOD editors in it of all different kinds, and creative writing can’t exist without them, not at all!!!
Sincerely,
Dale
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Hi Dave,
Thanks as always my imaginative friend!!
Never heard of the apples and limes idea…I should take it to my manager to see if their sales would go up!!!
…Fuck that! I’ll never put money in that till!!!!
I think all shops think too much at christmas. Folks buy things. They will find them. So don’t worry where they are, just get them on the sodding shelves!!
Connolly is a comedy god. If you haven’t heard his rendition of D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
That is worth a look!!
Hope all is well with you and yours!!!!
Hugh
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Hugh
Thanks for the energetic post with a great and original point of view! Tolstoy agrees with you about the extinction of the human species (and he truly influenced everyone from Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr., and pretty much every freedom movement of the 20th century, not just literature). And he repeatedly asked in his writings, what will be the problem when this species is nil? The answer is nada! And the cycle will start all over again…
Advertising makes me gag. I can truly say that I’ve found it reprehensible, horrible, destructive and just plain bad since I first began watching TV in the early 1970s at the age of 4 or 5. Anyone with their eyes wide open can tell that the “sell, sell, sell” mode is awful because it’s part of what Conrad called (along with Jesus) the “whited sepulcher,” the container of rotting corpses painted up to make it look bright, shiny, and new.
In this world, multi-millionaire insurance executives can deny much-needed medical care to many, many THOUSANDS (and even millions) of people who don’t have too much money and no one says a word, especially the politicians….Then when someone goes nuts from all of this (or was he nuts), jumps up, and strikes one of these people down, the billionaire folks who control the mainstream media all begin to rant about how horrible it is as they hire extra body guards to keep themselves even more insulated from the righteously angry populace…Bob Dylan called it WORLD GONE WRONG.
FDR and Karl Marx pointed out that you can only keep the boot on the neck of someone so long without killing them before they start thinking of ways to get you back…I don’t support violence, and I don’t support millions of people dying from curable medical conditions in a world where one man (EM) has more money than most countries in the world (and there are many other billionaires not that far behind him) which is just as much violence as the end of a gun is.
Feodor Dostoevsky in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and THE POSSESSED, and Joseph Conrad in THE SECRET AGENT both depicted this in fiction in the nineteenth century…and it seems like the early twentieth century is rolling around again (perhaps we can never escape the cycles of history just like we can’t escape night and day…) except now there are fifteen or twenty thousand nuclear bombs added into the mix.
Arthur Rimbaud wrote: “We have faith in the poison. We know how to give our whole lives every day. This is the time of the assassins.”
He wasn’t supporting the violence, he was diagnosing (or commenting on) the condition….
Thanks for a thought-provoking post and the BILLY C song was a masterpiece of hilarity and reality! That dude knows how to rock out!!!!!! I also enjoyed your sketches of the folks in the pub, humans are cool too as well as expendable and that’s a complex attitude to carry around but it’s at least as close as we can get to the truth!
Dale
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Hi Dale,
Here in Scotland, we were arrogant years back as we gave the Americans a bad beef by stating that their TV was full of adverts…We’ve now done the same. Any hour long programme, at one time was interrupted three times with adverts. (That was bad enough) Now that hour long programme is one hour five / ten minutes, with guess what…More sodding adverts!!!!
I just read about that musky person a few days ago and it stated that he was worth 140 something billion – In the name of the wee man, that is obscene…In fact there are no words for it, ‘obscene’ is such an understatement it’s criminal!!!!
I reckon that all those wee bullying social media wanks would have been filtered out and murdered if they had done what we had…We learnt life in a pub!!
Man oh man, you had to learn very quickly, how to read folks, how not to insult, how to stick up for yourself when you had to and more importantly when to walk away!!
Connolly is a Comedy Genius and all his work is worth seeking out. (Maybe the ‘Billy And Albert’ concert wasn’t his best)
He stared in a few of Peter MacDougal’s plays and every one of them is dated but absolutely brilliant. In order…I think…’Just Another Saturday’, ‘Elephants Graveyard’, ‘Just A Boys Game’ and ‘Down Amongst The Big Boys’.
If you ever have the time and get the chance, I would love to read your take on the social commentary????
They may not be so relevant to another country but I’m ages with you and the times are therefore the same…If you know what I mean.
Thanks so much, you enhance the site my fine friend.
Hugh
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Hugh! Great post. You could be a big help to me considering your skill set.
The Advertisers have taken over my favorite Brewery. It’s a Scottish wanna-be joint called “Caledonia” with unicorns & Nessies all over the barroom in Dunedin, Florida. Anyone could sense a setup, there is not being a Scot in sight, but a decent drinking man or woman hasn’t a chance among the whistles and horns. There’s 30 beers, ales, & stouts to choose from infused with every fruit and vegetable imaginable from pumpkin to papaya. All named after . . . what? Pour Gingie, Full Arsed, Half Arsed, Dragon’s Blood, on and on. Each with a different APR per portion from 12% down to 3.2% with limits if you expect to be driving home or having a conversation with the fool on the stool next to you. You can’t buy a 16 oz. Modern Love @ 9.9% booze quotient, but you can pour two 12 ouncers or 8 six ouncers into yourself no problem. You can also buy a dozen 5 0z. glasses of Irish, German, Belgian, & Scotch brews arranged in a board in the shape of Florida (?) for$20 which can be drunk by a group or emptied solo. And the Advertiser [a.k.a. Bartender] will tell you all about every hop, malt. yeast, and grain involved [is any of it true?] in each one you dare to buy, like he was some brand of Christie Moore song. The math alone is staggering.
Just don’t ask me to abstain for the holidays. It’s then I double up. Good man — Gerry
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Hi Gerry,
Sadly so many good pubs have been hammered into submission by the likes of Weatherspoons. Don’t know if they are over in the states. They buy up close to sell-by booze and can sell it cheap. They know that they can turn it over as they sell it cheap. The wee pubs are left buying their stock at full price and therefore have to charge the punter a lot more. I avoid the Weatherspoons in Ayr. It was an old church and ironically is soulless. I’m Ayr born and bred and throughout my life have come across a helluva lot of people. The weird thing is anytime I have been in there and it’s mobbed, I know no-one. I don’t know where their clientele come from!!
I laughed at your description of the Scottish themed pub. If they wanted to be completely traditional all they needed on tap would be Tennents Lager, Tartan Special (A heavy) Strongbow Cider and a Light Beer. On the gantry would be whisky (Normally Bells or Grouse) Smirnoff Vodka, Gordons Gin and Bacardi.
If they wanted to go upmarket, they could have a hotplate and a pot of lentil soup on!
There was a pub called The Eagle in the village where I worked and stayed for a few years. There was a numptey who drank in there and he would challenge anyone to a speed pie eating contest (Scotch pie that is – Pastry made with oil, flour and water and filled with minced beef, seasoning and bread crumb – They are about the size of the palm of your hand.) A legend that I knew called Joke Biggins challenged him. He said he would be in the next day. When Davy left Joke asked the owner to make sure Davy’s pies were in the oven for half an hour and to make sure that he got cold ones. The next day Joke ate his six pies in record time. Davy had to give up when the blisters in his mouth started to burst!!!
Thanks so much for your time and comments Gerry – They are much appreciated!!
Hugh
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Great post, Hugh. And thanks for the Connolly clip. Alas, the only time I saw him live was in Aberdeen in ’69 or ’70 when he was still in The Humblebums with Gerry Rafferty. But even then, his intros to the songs had the audience roaring with laughter. The way I see it, the guy could do anything: on UK freeview tv on Sundays they regularly show him as the baddies in an old Columbo – steals the show.
Belated happy birthday to The Editor,
Mick
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Hi Mick,
The first time I saw him was on ‘Parkinson’
Ironically, now that I think on it due to his health issues. I read that he was diagnosed with Parkinsons and Prostate Cancer at the same time. His doctor phoned to tell him and allegedly he said, ‘Well…No-one has ever said that to me before.’
I loved Rafferty, ‘Night Owl’ was a cracking album. As I mentioned to Dale, Connolly’s performances in ‘The Elephant’s Graveyard’ and ‘Down Amongst The Big Boys’ were inspired. He also had the best line ever in the Tom Cruise (Wee wank!!) film, ‘The Last Samurai’ ‘With all respect sir, stick it up your arse’!!!!
I loved how he was never scared to quote Chic Murray, he gave him a nod every time. He explained this by saying ‘A good line is a good line, you don’t need to steal it, just say it and you will still get a laugh.’
I’ve never been starstruck but I would love to simply shake that man’s hand and say ‘Thanks’
All the very best my fine friend…You are another person who only makes this site stronger!!!!
Hugh
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Great post and great week of stories. I too love a pub, and as someone who has spent the almost all the last 27 years living abroad there is nothing I enjoy returning back to the UK more for than a few pints in a bloody good pub (and yes, in the hope that none of them read this, that does include seeing family!).
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