I have a couple of mentions of my Brother-In-Law Geordie Bell this week.
We went out for a few pints a week or so ago and something I realised that I did but now realise why, came to light.
I have a local pub that I go into of a Monday. It’s struggling. But when we got off the bus, it was shut. We went into the next pub, had a few and decided to have a wee crawl. We both had a great time and it was when I was thinking on we should do this again I realised I couldn’t. All pubs are struggling, so the odd tenner here or there doesn’t do any of them any good. However, if you nail your colours to one mast, then your sixty or so quid a week may help. It saddens me to see the state of pubs these days. Only three pubs in Ayr open at 10.00am and most of them shut their doors when it’s quiet. It’s hysterical that at one time the government was considering twenty-four hour opening. In a way, they have achieved that but it’s twenty four hours per week!!
George and my sister were just back from holidays with their friends. I know that I shouldn’t have laughed, but I was told that George had to be Heimliched by his pal. So that day that we were out, I did what anyone would do. I slagged him about it. I told him that now he has reached seventy, he should be counting how many times he chewed his food, I suggested thirty?? I then stated that I blamed my sister as she hadn’t cut up his meat small enough. I suggested that maybe he should stick to Soup and Angel Delight. And I finished off with what I thought was my best slagging:
‘Aye, and I heard that you and wee Graham got very close.’
He crucified me with the reply, he said:
‘I probably should have kept ma trousers on!’
I’d like to move onto old skills that we’ve lost. I was inspired to write about this a few weeks back when I was trying to spread butter just out the fridge onto a piece of soft bread. I think I could do this better as a kid! There was no spreadable and we weren’t that open to Margarine in them days!
I thought of more:
– Covering your jotter with wallpaper. (Or brown)
– Wrapping your piece with the Plain Breed Wrapper.
– Looking up something in an Encyclopedia having lost the index book.
– Respecting your grandparents even if they were old bastards.
– Being able to find a book in a library by using the reference cards.
– Tuning into Radio Luxembourg to get the least static.
– Un-Choke yourself due to a Spangle misadventure.
– Taping the chart show on a Cassette Player without catching the shite chat of the DJ.
– Being able to judge how many pickled onions, cubes of cheese and pineapple you would need to make a respectful Hedgehog.
– Looking up a phone number in the Phone Book.
– Manually changing channels on the TV.
– Stemming the blood after your Tufty Club badge stabbed you through the nipple.
– Avoid breaking your knuckles whilst playing Clackers.
– Using a dictionary as porn.
– Lighting a match using your thumb.
– Putting a needle on and lifting it off a record.
– Blagging your way into a pub at fifteen.
– Choosing the relevant weight of coin to counteract a scratch on an LP.
– Accepting yourself as you and not a fucking label.
– And the most important one (Especially relevant in Scotland) – Hiding and suppressing your emotions.
I do realise that if there are any youngsters reading this, they won’t have a Scooby about most of them!!
Onto this week’s stories.
We had two new writers, two returners and a well established friend of the site.
As always, our initial comments follow.
First up we had Mick Bloor with his twenty third story for us. This is a cracking amount but you also need to take into consideration the amount of Specials and Mick’s continual commenting which makes him one of our most prolific writers.
‘Alan’s Lost Domain’ was his story on Monday.
‘This reminds me that the people in charge hate peace, this has that vibe to it.’
‘A look back at rare times.’
‘This feels as if it comes from a very personal view point.’
On Tuesday we had Alex Faulkner with, ‘Three Swans.’ This was Alex’s second story for us.
‘A fun read.’
‘Cleverly put together.’
‘The tension at the end builds and builds to settle at the end with the mystery when they disappear.’
Our first new writer was showcased on Wednesday. We welcome Seth Bleuer. We hope he has fun on the site and continues to send us his work.
Seth’s story, ‘Swindled’ was next up.
‘A bit of comeuppance is always entertaining.’
‘We’ve had a few of this type but this is the best by far.’
‘I thought this was entertaining and very readable.’
Ian Douglas Robertson was our second returner. His story, ‘How The Captain Got His Garter’ was published on Thursday.
‘I like the language.’
‘A wonderful yarn.’
‘I really enjoyed the dialogue.’
And we finished off with R.H. Nicholson’s, ‘Caged’. R.H. is also a new writer for us and we extend him the same warm welcome!
‘This spins you around.’
‘There’s a lot in this.’
‘This is one that you need to concentrate on.’
That’s us done and dusted.
As I’ve said over the last few postings, please keep doing what you are doing…Everything is going superbly well!!
The only thing I’d ask is for those who used to regularly comment, maybe have a look again. I’m sure you would enjoy the interaction that we now have that maybe we didn’t have a few years back.
To finish off I’d like to say a few words about OAPs – Not the booze swilling, Barley Sugar hating, Never to a Church Of A Sunday, Still having sex, having more life in them than a twenty year old and most importantly, great story tellers with life experience type…No not them, this type of cunt.
Obnoxious.
Arrogant.
Pedantic.
You will normally find them as a Micro-Managing Tit-head.
By the way, I keep needing to look that term up as it is so anal, controlling and pish, my mind refuses to comprehend it.
What I want to do is appeal to all the Serial Killers out there, these fuckers have never been targeted, don’t you think it’s time that you did?
Okay when you got caught and end up in the jail, you may have a sticky beginning when you tell your fellow inmates that you are ‘The OAP’ killer. But when you explain that it’s OAP as in:
Obnoxious.
Arrogant.
Pedantic.
You will be met with – ‘Whit they cunts! How many did you get?
…Here, have ma pudding!’
Now for some music.
I had forgotten about this one. Leila did a list a month or so back regarding story-telling songs. To my disgrace I forgot about this one which I consider one of the best!!
Image: Hugh’s favourite pub in sAyr – Drouthy Neighbours in the twilight with the lights shining out a welcome.
literally stories 
Omigod, clackers!! Lethal they were. Never stabbed m’nip with a Tufty badge although I suppose there’s still time …
LikeLike
Hi Steven,
I always thought that having a squirrel as a road safety icon was a wee bit sick. I think the first twenty or so squirrels that I saw were three foot wide and not moving much on the road!!
Thanks as always my fine friend.
Hugh
LikeLike
Hello Hugh
Truly a great post. There used to be fifteen or so taverns in my downtown area that I went to in my 20’s. Most had bee around since the early 20th century and each one lived between fifty to about a hundred years. Today there are three, two are gentrified and so utterly self conscious (if a bar can be) that I won’t step inside out of respect for their memory. We have strip mall like sports bars that will cut you off for any reason.
Bastards.
I recall phone stuff that is now archaic. Not only rotary dials, but party lines and having letters or a word as the prefix to the number. Ours was ES (for essex)795-something. We had a World Book set, but the world “ended” for it in 1953.
Thank you!
Leila
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Leila,
Every time I go into a mens toilet, I remember those phone boxes as they both had the same smell of pish.
I’ll need to have a look but I think they are all gone. Years back, I went into one and it would only accept phone cards. I had my two pence at the ready and felt a wee bit silly!!!!
Hugh
LikeLike
Hi Hugh
When I quit drinking, Budweiser’s stock fell at an alarming rate but has since rebounded.
I got sort of Heimliched by my step brother, when I was a kid. Choked on toast. He turned me upside down and hit my back–a good fellow.
I liked the idea of these forgotten skills. My math skills seemed to have fallen into the elementary level. On a brighter note my general writing skills have climbed.
Running–not sure how far I can run now?
My olfactory senses don’t seem as sharp. Sometimes that’s good.
Cool Robert Cray Video. He can pic that guitar!
Christopher
LikeLike
Hi Christopher,
Academically, Primary School was a breeze for me. I could do anything that they put in front of me. However I was a total fuck up as I got stressed about everything. I was on Librium before I was ten.
I have a great regard for Secondary School as I realised that I couldn’t be good at everything and developed a ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude. I remember throwing my Physic notes into Ayr Racecourse about four months before my ‘O’ level as I thought I had no chance. (Ended up with a ‘C’ pass – More good luck than anything!!’)
Maths – Well I was good at until third year when I ended up with this American (No offence – The reason I say American is to separate him from all the great American teachers!!) who couldn’t teach for toffee. My grade went from a 90% to around 30%. I wrote the chance of passing weeel off. But a new guy came in. Mr Ralph Donne – A big no nonsense Bastard who decided to help me out. When I finally took my exam I achieved a ‘C’ pass. (50 – 65%) That was my greatest result. He did ask if I was taking my higher and I looked at him and said, ‘I can’t thank you enough Sir, (We always had to call our teachers Sir – the women knew we were being factitious though!!!) you got me through that but I think both of us know that a higher is just a step too far!) He laughed and shook my hand. He could have been in for a time of it as he was Mr R. Donne – But no-one took the piss as he was a big scary Bastard…Who I will always have the greatest respect for!!!
Losing skills – Well there is the old saying, ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it.’ So very true!!! I helped folks in ‘The Learning Shop’ with literacy and numeracy issues for around twelve years. A wee guy asked me one time if I help him with long division. I said, ‘Not a problem, I’ll pull something together for next week.’ When I got home and started to work on a lesson it took me around twenty minutes before it came back to me!!! For the first ten I just sat there and stared. It had been over twenty years since I had done this. I always asked why someone wanted to learn something specific and he gave me the best answer ever, he said, ‘Cause I can’t do it.’
…I think I was told that schools don’t teach long division any more???
HAH! Love your Budweiser line! I was the same when I was told I was diabetic…Bacardi took a hit as well as leaded coke!!! (Don’t ask about that bastardisation that is Diet!! Gwen would test me every now and again when I was weel steamin’ and give me a Bacardi and diet coke. No matter what planet I was on, I’d hand it back and say in a loud and happy voice, ‘Get that pish away from me!!!!’
Weirdly I can drink a can as a soft drink.
Running – Well, weirdly that was what caused me to learn how to throw a punch. You see, if you ran from someone, you had to out-run them. If you couldn’t, you got caught and you were that fucked that you got beat up. I learned not to run and put everything into a punch as I couldn’t run a fuck!!!
Thanks so much my fine friend, you made me visit times that I had forgotten about.
Hugh
LikeLike
Hugh
What you said “If you don’t use it you lose it–on math. Nothing could ever be so true. I can relate about your issue with revisiting division. It’s crazy they don’t teach it now. Nothing surprises me lol.
Christopher
LikeLike
Ah Spangles!
Another thing we’ve lost is winding the tape back into the cassette using a pencil. For phones I remember ‘press button B and get your money back.
We even had a wind up gramaphone and you have to change the needles because they wore out. There was even a little saucer thing to put the blunt ones in. Writing with a wooden pen that you had to dip the nib in an inkwell. Blimey, there’s tons of stuff once you let yourself think about it. Ha – thanks for letting me wander off down memory lane. Great post. dd
LikeLike
Hi Diane,
Thanks as always!!
I swear this is true (Which normally means that it’s a lie!! But this isn’t…Honest!! Which normally means this is a lie…I’ll give up now, this could go on for a while!!!) My niece went into the loft with her dad and they were looking through all the shite that we all keep in a loft and she found his LP collection – She said, ‘Dad, was that before CDs got smaller??
I only knew a gramaphone through a guy I used to work with when I was around ten years old. He had a second hand furniture shop and he kept a few bits and pieces as display items and he had a few gramaphones.
I love when I’m typing this ‘gramaphone’ gets the red underline!!!!
Actually when you think on it, our age group have came through; gramaphone, LP, Cassette, CD and now Down-Load with the fucking annoyance that is Alexa.
I still reckon that LP was the best. Opening it up, reading and then playing was a hit that no kid can understand!!!
Oh – Oh! – Oh!!! And what about the order that you did your washing in a Twin-Tub??? I would use one of them again!!! Now-a-days, putting your washing in and it being washed for around an hour with no interaction is no fun at all!!!
Fuck!!!
I’m weird!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hugh
LikeLike
Yes! I would use a twin tub happily. We had them in a few of the flats we lived in in the middle east, made of plastic ! But they did a great job and it wasn’t a chore and then a whole line of clean washing blowing in the breeze – I think that was a really lovely thing.
LikeLike
Good post and roundup. Timely to talk about pubs when one of ours just lost one of its most loyal patrons (Cheers / Norm). I like the list — dropping the needle in the groove brings back a flood of fond memories. Robert Cray has long been one of my favorite blues artists but I’ve never seen a video of him so a special thanks for sharing this one.
LikeLike
Hi Dave,
There is nothing sadder than a pub losing a regular. My brother-in-law who I wrote about in this post used to go into a pub twice a week with him, George, Boaby, Mack and John. George is the last man standing. The pub they went into isn’t there anymore – It was a tragic story. The land-lady (A beautiful lady in all aspects fell down her stairs and broke her neck, killing herself) Not sure how George would have felt if the pub was still there…There may have been moments when he looked around himself and smiled as he remembered but there may have been other moments when he looked around and remembered with a tear in his eye!!
This was the song that made me pay attention to Robert Cray. I may be wrong but I reckon that it was the first ‘Commercial’ hit he had in Britain.
HAH!! I thought I had found another new artist when I heard Taj Mahal. But when I looked him up I saw the decades of career that he had!!
I’ll toast Norm, right now!! And you keep going into that local of yours!!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Hugh and Hi!
In honor of Mr. BOSS, Bruce Springsteen, I wish to mention two story songs of his that are among my favorites of his of all time: “Darkness on the Edge of Town” and “Badlands.”
The original album versions of both these songs, off his album DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, are both truly great in a 1978 album filled with great, raw, powerful story songs.
Springsteen really hits the high notes here, exploding with a raging, outraged intensity unbeatable where his messy personas in the songs almost match his messy persona in real life, but not quite, thereby adding layers and levels to these musical tales that should very much be recalled in an era where the Mainstream prizes generic, machine-made, plastic-sounding, so-called “music” above all else.
And no one has ever combined John Steinbeck and Flannery O’Connor with punk rock and garage rock as well as Springsteen does here.
The part of the Chicago area I live in now still has quite a few low-life pubs in it though nowhere near what it used to have. When you want that raw quality around here now, it seems that house parties and street corners are the places to go. The pubs are dying off but there are still enough people living the wild life to keep it interesting, it seems. As the world gets more and more PLASTIC, generic, and conformist, more odd rebels will continue to appear who simply can’t fall in line with the generic two-stepping that stands for dancing these days. They will be the saviors of all of us if anyone is. And then they will be crucified.
And we can always put on DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN by Springsteen if we choose to. To all, I say: put it on, and play it LOUD! And check out the picture of him on the cover, the one where he’s wearing a white t shirt looking half drunkenly pale with ridiculously messy hair and bleary, stayed-up-all-night-again eyes…Thank you Bruce!
Dale
PS
“I’ll be there on time / And I’ll pay the cost / For wanting things / That can only be found / In the darkness on the edge of town.”
LikeLike
Hi Dale,
What I love about Springsteen is I can find a new favourite every day!!
Just last night I heard ‘Long Black Veil’ and that is now up there with ‘Fire’…Not ‘I’m On Fire’ (Which is also a brilliant tune) but ‘Fire’ – So many folks get confused.
I love your comment on PLASTIC, generic and conformist. I reckon you should have capitalised them all!!!
Hope you are happy and healthy my fine friend.
Hugh
LikeLike
Great post, Hugh! Aaargh, putting a coin on the head of the needle to iron out a jump in an album. Can’t recall that it ever worked, indeed it usually made things a sight worse – an outcome that may be the result of only attempting the repair on returning from the pub.
Just back from holiday, apologies for not responding to the kind comments on ‘Alan’s Lost Domain’, addressing that now. mick
LikeLike
Hi Mick,
No apologise needed my fine friend. You do as much for the site as anyone!!!!
That’s a great point – Not sure if the ten pence worked. Probably getting home from the pub pished caused more scratches than could be repaired!!!!
It was nice (I fucking hate that word!!!!) reliving times gone by and as Diane has said, there will be so many more!!
Hope you had a great time!!
Hugh
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hugh
With regard to lost old skills, one skill I seem to have lost is untangling stuck together pages when reading texts like newspapers or books. Perhaps I have forgotten how it’s done. I often waste what seems like hours trying to pry pages apart.
I also fear sometimes I may be jumping the cognitive gaps between the fused pages to read on through the garbled context clues as if nothing is wrong, because I expect nothing makes sense anymore. One good thing if this is the case, I seem to read faster. — Gerry
LikeLike
Hi Gerry,
Probably in the not too distant future, reading will be an old skill. Anything we need to read will be conveyed to us by the next form of Alexa!!!
Thanks as always for your interest and time my fine friend.
Hugh
LikeLike
Our local pubs went during or after the pandemic.
This aged American remembers the part about vinyl records. Now I have itunes and have spent thousands of hours converting digital to electronic.
Personal note – I found out that one grows tentacles after eighty.
LikeLike
Hi Doug,
For me, the start of the pubs death knell was when they decided that food and families were the priority.
But you are right, there are a few industries that will never recover from those very strange years.
I hope you don’t stand on your tentacles!!
All the very best to you and Sharon my interesting friend!!!
Hugh
LikeLike
Hi Hugh,
Thanks for this Sunday morning wake-up read for me. Thanks for the kick in the butt to take a look back at the past week’s presentations as well as your Old skills and Old pubs, New writers and Old writers. I enjoyed it all. I can recollect a lot of your old skills but had a good chuckle at dictionary porn… having an older brother helped educate me.
I got lucky living here, our brown pubs – bruine kroegen as their called officially in Holland are well represented and my local – stam kroeg – de Oude Sluis is alive and well, kicking up a storm with bingo nights and open mike nights and of course the best tap beers. After so many years here I cant imagine living without it!
Thanks also for the Robert Cray a fine-tuned melody.
Well its evening now and I enjoyed that Sunday reading in between a nice weather walk.
Greetings from Rotterdam,
Maria
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Maria,
It’s great to hear that a pub is doing well. (Even if it is helped by Bingo nights!!!)
I’ve thought of a couple more old skills. Peeling potatoes with a blunt knife. Using a knife to open a hazelnut and using a ring-pull from a can of lager to dig out in-grown toenails.
…That last one is madness and was probably only me!!!
Thanks for the comments – Much appreciated.
All the very best.
Hugh
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great week, great post. It is sad to see pubs suffering – having lived abroad for decades, but with regular visits home there is nothing I looked forward to more than the comfort and atmosphere of a good pub (not including seeing family and friends that is – but of course I have to say that – and really it’s pubs at number 1). So, I hope they find a way to survive and thrive again.
As for forgotten skills, where to begin, but as a teacher I would say the ability to pay attention and stay away from your phone for more than 20 seconds is a good one (this is being typed at the end of a very long semester mind you!)
LikeLike
Hi Paul,
Thanks as always! Your comments are much appreciated.
Your comments about being a teacher made me think of another couple that would probably be construed as torture now-a-days.
Firstly, holding back the tears when you were belted. And secondly, holding back your thirst until break-time!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
LikeLike