Mrs Slocombe

A jockey once promised his horses
He would run them on only short courses
‘And also,’ he stated
‘Let my stallion be mated.’
A decision it fully endorses…

I toy with limericks all the time. Sometimes they just fall into my head complete, but mostly they drive me half mad. Generally they loiter between my ears for days, short of one crucial line or another. Getting the rhyme is easy, getting the correct ‘rumpty tumpty’ scan quite another. They often stand or fall on a single misplaced syllable, and finding the unexpected punchline for line five can be a real pain in the… oh, you know the word, one syllable, rhymes with farce. (Or pass in the US. Same place, same pain.)

…And you have to be so careful where you start – let’s face it There was an old lady from China is only heading one way isn’t it?

I posted quite a lot of ‘poetry’ back in the day under a ragged little thread of The Haphazardly Poetical (including a number of limericks under the title of There was an old poet called Lear) and also a series of Zoo posts – one for each letter of the alphabet – over twenty six weeks, which drove me the other half mad. There are some great poets on this site and, sadly, I am not among them, so my ‘poetry’ posts always seem a little incomplete to me: like I am somehow short-changing you, dear reader, but I do think I can knock out a decent limerick from time to time. (Reading back the limericks in ‘…Lear’ I did, with the luxury of four years passed, allow myself a quiet chuckle at some of my own rhymes. It’s weird how quickly you forget what you slaved over only a very short time ago e.g. removing the Top Secret documents from your shower before the feds drop by and your voter approval goes through the roof.)

I do have one or two long poems that have the potential to appear as independent posts in the future – but, on balance, I think they will almost certainly stay where they are. If I have any shorter things to play with, I may well drop them into the bottom of an unconnected post from time to time to see whether you are paying attention.

So, I planned to finish today’s little tussie-mussie with another limerick, but even as I started to write it down, a quite different little ditty burst into my brain complete (although without, it now seems, a beginning) and It is at this point that today’s little smorgasbord took off in a slightly unexpected direction, earning itself the title it most certainly did not have half an hour ago. It is this new limerick with which I am actually going to leave you with today, of which I would be totally ashamed if I was not able (due to the great power of afterthought) to dedicate it to the wonderful Mrs Slocombe (Mollie Sugden) of Are You Being Served? You can read about Mollie Sugden here – but it will do her no justice, because in an age of hyper-laced up sexuality, Mrs Slocombe’s pet cat, Tiddles – of course it was – kept a nation enthralled for more than a decade. She will be familiar only to people of my own vintage and nationality, but it’s my blog, so bugger it.

Though the man was incredibly wussy¹
She told him without any fuss he
Could happily pet her
Enormous red setter
But he had to stop stroking her pussy

¹ Wussy: (UK slang) weak, timid and ineffectual

Further Excerpts from the Village Magazine

…and Mrs Armitage supplied the Vaseline.

Pg 2. Recipe of the Day
Today’s recipe features ingredients that can be easily foraged from the countryside around you.
Method. First catch your cat…

From The Village Magazine Archives.
Aug 13 1963 – Mr Prescott is the first village resident to own a car, which he claims to have found in a layby just outside Wolverhampton – although he admits that it could have been a supermarket carpark. Mrs Prescott was, as we all know, rumoured to have been seen driving the vehicle in the days before her disappearance. Despite the many rumours, no human remains have been found and Mr Prescott assures us that the bonfire was a perfectly normal allotment fire and did not, in any way, involve a stake…

Aug 13 1973 – The Cricket team finally regained consciousness after winning the local league final on the fifth. Captain W.E. Johns was the first member of the team to ‘come to’ and, believing himself to be drowning in a tureen of Campbell’s Condensed Vegetable Soup, began berating the umpire, who had yet to find his way down from the window pelmet. A scuffle ensued in which several limbs were broken and a passing boy scout suffered lacerations to the woggle. Police were called, but were far too busy…

Aug 13 1993 – Mrs Cecilia Prescott (no relation) became the first resident of the village to own a personal computer which, ‘it is rumoured, she uses to contact the alien mothership. We would like to remind you all that it is no longer 1963 and accusations should be kept to a minimum. It is further reported that the Prescott home has burned down under mysterious circumstances (or, if it has not, it almost certainly will) and Mrs Prescott is herself responsible for the virus spreading around the school. The local pharmacist has admitted that she could have given him warts…’

Aug 13 2013 – The winner of the village poetry competition was Mrs B Clench, with her poem ‘Gladioli’
In summer when the rain has stopped
And morning sunshine twinkles
A flower blossoms in the yard
With stems just like a winkle.
I do not mean the mollusc,
No what I really mean is
It always brings to mind to me
My husband’s long-dead ~~penis.~~

I also find it very strange –
In fact it’s quite uncanny –
How much nasturtiums in the rain
Remind me of a ~~fanny~~*
I prefer the gladioli
And sometimes for a stunt
I…
Yes, well, I think that is probably quite enough of the Widow Clench’s elegiac poetry for now. If you wish to read more, you can find it at www.middle-agednimphopornographersweekly.com for a small fee…

Cont from Pg 2
…despite the strong smell of urine. In order to fully mix the ingredients, you may need the use of an industrial strength shredder. It may be wise to render the sheep unconscious. First, peel the lemmings…

*This being an English Fanny, which is quite unlike the American variety

Missing the Point

I took some time off from this bloggy world a few weeks ago and when I eventually settled myself into the ‘getting back on the bike’ groove, it struck me that these pages had started to become a little bit me-centric: that there is a limit to what anyone wants to know about someone they have never met and, more importantly, are probably unlikely to ever meet. You would still recognise me from my WordPress avatar. The beard ebbs and flows, but I remain five feet seven tall and red haired. Everyone (ok, if I’m honest, mostly very elderly women) tells me that I look young for my age. I have skin like limpid lard and bright, blue eyes, occluded only by the very earliest onset of cataract, crowned by eyelids that look as though they have been through fifteen rounds with Tyson Fury; rimmed with the kind of skin that screams of insufficient sleep and a vitamin intake that stops at A. You’d spot me at the airport – you wouldn’t need to know what I was thinking about or why. (Clue: it is generally chocolate, whisky or Sandra Bullock – the order is unimportant.)

So I decided that I should perhaps ring the changes a little bit – leave me out of it now and then – although not, I have to say, altogether: I’m much too fascinated by me to let me go completely. In truth I learn more about me by writing about me than I ever would by growing a goatee beard, sitting cross-legged on a black leather swivel chair, clutching a clipboard and asking myself about my relationship with my mother (not, you understand, that I would possibly be able to afford me.) This is my real-time Adrian Mole moment. I write about the inconsequentialities of my life in the hope that you might find something profound to think about them although I assure you, there was absolutely nothing profound about them when they left my head. Colin McQueen – specialist subject, ‘Missing the Point.’

I will continue to search for something new to tell you about me: whenever I manage to do something (or more likely – truth be told – think about doing something) that I have never done before: refuse a family-sized bar of Galaxy chocolate, pass up on the opportunity to be centre of attention, or go on a run just for the fun of it, you will probably be told. At length. But I won’t bore you with things that I am merely thinking of doing because a) the percentage of those that make the transition from brain to reality is miniscule and b) they just might be illegal, immoral or impossible to perform without a neck brace and the promise of a new hip.

I decided to let my brain off the leash a little more, and what you seem to be getting from ‘new me’ as a consequence is a lot like old me, only shorter. Like the earliest posts of this almost five years-old blog, the new ones feature snapshots from my mind, but with far fewer ‘selfies’ than you might have grown used to. I’ve, perhaps realised that I don’t need to explain, nor explore everything. If there is one thing I have learned about me, it is that there is so little to learn. It is pointless for me to try and debate the whys and wherefores: all I know is that when I write whatever-it-is that I write, it amuses me and when I post it, I hope it might amuse you too. Mutual disappointment, that is the glue that holds this whole thing together.

How things might go in the future, I have no idea. I am the world’s worst chess player. I seem only to be able to plan behind. I cannot plan ahead. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn’t happened and today I have to try and shake off the image of a chocolate-coated Ms. Bullock from my mind.

I’ll let you know how that goes…

First Date

You’ve been on dates where conversation was difficult right, and you just seem to lose control over what comes out of your mouth. I suppose everyone must be like it…

Nervous He: …Have you ever wondered how bad things must have been before sliced bread?
Nervous She: What?
Nervous He: Erm, I popped into the bank on the way here and asked whether they did joint accounts. They said they did so I gave them a pork loin as deposit…
Nervous She: Are you ok? You seem a bit anxious. You don’t have to entertain me you know… This is not what you’re always like is it: telling stupid jokes?
Nervous He: Well, not always. Only when I’m nervous.
Nervous She: …Do you think this top is too low?
Nervous He: It looks great.
Nervous She: It’s too low…
Nervous He: Erm, you’re at the Uni?
Nervous She: Yes.
Nervous He: So what are you studying?
Nervous She: Ethics.
Nervous He: Oh, morality, hedonism and Epicureanism…
Nervous She: No, Chelmsford, Basildon and Stansted*… Joking. Oh God, you’ve got me at it now.
Nervous He: I never went to university, although I am doing an Open University course at the moment – I’m currently on the Eating baked beans straight from the tin whilst watching Countdown in my underpants module…
Nervous She: Well you don’t look too bad on it. Do you work out?
Nervous He: I’m ok with adding and taking away, but my long division is not so good…
Waitress: I’m sorry, are you ready to order?
Nervous He: Oh yes, can I have a pizza Margarita please?
Waitress: How do you know my name?
Nervous He: I don’t, it’s just… it’s on the menu…
Waitress: Calm down, it’s a joke. Just a little waitress joke…
Nervous He: Oh right, very good…
Waitress: …Look, I know it’s none of my business, but you’re not very good at this are you?
Nervous He: This?
Waitress: First date stuff.
Nervous He: Why would you say that? You don’t even know me.
Waitress: No, but I’ve just watched you shred every serviette on the table.
Nervous He: Ah… That’s Origami. I’m a black belt…
Waitress: Isn’t Origami about folding paper, not turning it into confetti?
Nervous He: It’s the wrong paper.
Waitress: I see… And would you like to order?
Nervous She: Yes thank you. I think we’ll share a pizza… and two dry white wines please… better make them big ones… She’s right, you’re not very good at this by the way.
Nervous He: Well I don’t get out much. The last time I found myself talking to a girl I didn’t know, I was on my mate’s Stag Night: a karaoke evening.
Nervous She: Ah Karaoke: the ancient Japanese art of making a complete tit of yourself.
Nervous He: What a night it was… 27 different versions of ‘I Will Survive’ – now that’s what I call entertainment.
Nervous She: I’ve never understood why anybody would want to pay to see somebody who can really sing, when you can watch somebody who really can’t for free…
Nervous He: …and all with the added frisson of projectile vomiting… You didn’t order salad…
Nervous She: Rebellion. My older sister always tells me to eat more fibre, but what’s the first thing she does when she has a baby? She stops it eating the carpet… Anyway, salad isn’t salad anymore is it? It’s a bowlful of stuff you would put weedkiller on if it sprouted in your garden. Rocket? It’s a bloody weed. Even my rabbit won’t eat Rocket.
Nervous He: You’re right, if I order a salad, I want lettuce, tomato, cucumber, radishes shaped like roses, little cubes of cheese, a pork pie with a boiled egg running through it… now that’s salad… Have you seen that sign, ‘Ice Cold Water’? Isn’t that ice?
Waitress: One pizza, no costly extras, two glasses of wine and two sachets of ketchup to hide in your handbag and take home. Can I get you anything else?
Nervous He: Thank you… You don’t do pork pie with an egg in do you?
Waitress: I think we maybe used to… in the nineteen sixties…
Nervous He: No, that’ll be fine then, thank you.
Nervous She: Wow! You handled that so well. Pretending it never happened is always the best way, I find.
Nervous He: Actually, I’m not usually very good at handling ‘situations’… I went into town just the other day to buy a pressure cooker, but I found it way too stressful…
Nervous She: Well I went to buy a colander… what a strain…
Nervous He: Did I ever tell you about the chicken crossing the road?…

*Sorry. Very English joke. Chelmsford, Basildon and Stansted are towns in the county of Essex.

Excerpts from the Village Magazine

Cont. from p12. …and her mother played the whale, Mrs Norrington-Blitt, long-time neighbour and clandestine lover of Charles F’Ner, Second Earl of Pheasant Goujon, who claimed to have invented the hydraulic truss and was regularly seen walking the streets of Benidorm in a lurex tutu, accompanied by his pet guppy Desmond. Mr Derek Derek, Lord Mayor of Wednesday Week, threatened to steal the show with his bravado performance as Iago (although, unfortunately in the wrong play) but the Klingons won by three clear panes… Cont p3.

Cont from above (below) …although the vicar claims that he has never actually doubted the existence of God, stating that he merely questioned His right to Sundays off when the rest of us are so busy. On a happier note, this week the organ restoration fund has topped £3 for the first time – possibly more if we can identify the three people in the photographs on the memory card left (anonymously) in Sunday’s Offertory.

The stonemason assures us that the gravestone for the recently deceased Neginald Curt will be corrected ASAP.

Whoever changed Mr Philby’s organ recital programmes to read ‘The Onanist Entertains’ should be ashamed of themselves… Cont after Hymn 37.

Cont from P.T.O (over) …and if I ever find out who is doing it, I will fill their pockets with the contents of my dog. Yours sincerely etc etc

Dear Editor
Many thanks for your useful ‘Guide to Fungi’ (April Edition). I have now been able to identify what is growing between my toes and, as it does not appear to be edible, I will be seeking help from Rentokill in removing it. Yours sincerely etc (half brother of etc etc)

Dear Editor
As you never seem to be at home these days, being too busy fiddling with columns, typefaces and the ex-Mrs Litoris – who I know for a fact knows absolutely nothing about the WI garden party – can I just point out that your clothes are on the front lawn, your car is on Ebay and I am in a luxury 6-berth mobile home with Clive Litoris who, despite what your WI correspondent may have told you, really does know one end of a woman from the other… Cont. after Decree Nisi

Cont. from below (above) …the men’s walking football team, led by Mr Crouch, made it through to the final of the Silver Shield Cup without kicking a ball, as they had actually entered a chess competition and their opponent did not turn up on account of their horse-thing refusing point-blank to jump over the Bishop. The ladies fared slightly less well and will return from Dudley as soon as somebody finds them a bicycle pump.

Quiz answers:
1. Liz Truss
2. A total disaster
3. A grease nipple
4. The Treaty of Ghent (1815)
5. Yes
6. They fell off in the rain
7. Reginald Maudlin
8. Six inches
9. As soon as the police find the password
10. A slight fungal infection

Corrections.
The letter from Mrs Doreen Whelk in last month’s magazine discussing the merits of ‘Suregrip rubber gloves’ should not have contained the word ‘orgasm’.

The photograph on the letter’s page in the same edition is not, as captioned, Mrs Doreen Whelk, but is in fact the Reverend Clapper’s penis, which should have been forwarded to AskMyGP.

The phrase ‘Mrs Doreen Whelk is a hatchet-faced old hag’ which accompanied the photograph of Reverend Clapper’s poor benighted member is, in fact, the answer to Quiz question 3 and not ‘Can You Correctly Identify the Goitre?’ as advertised…

The Holiday File

Although my current weekly requirement is simply to produce sufficient ‘material’ for three posts, I generally write far more and for that I can only apologise. Some of these excess posts are consigned immediately to the bin – even with a bar set as low as mine, certain things are irredeemable – whilst others are set aside for cut and paste rescues, providing I can find sufficient parts that do not make me physically cringe. Others come to rest intact in The Holiday File, where they idle away their hours, waiting for me not to be there, at which point they come out to play. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to discern when this period starts, when it ends and – if possible – why? Answers on a postcard please.

Somehow these pieces do not fit in with the normal scheme of things even though I like them. You will easily spot them. They are inclined to be a little bit odd; like me they tend to sit outside the fence and somehow they make my holiday posts a little less ordinary, slightly less predictable. My problem arises when I am about to desert you, Dear Reader, for a week or two and I find I do not have enough ‘waifs’ in the Holiday Folder to see me through, because I cannot deliberately write them: they just come along willy-nilly. They are my supermarket ‘Wonky’ strawberries; like buying a shirt from the fleamarket; like a slow off-spinner on a council cricket pitch; like not balling your socks and picking them, at random, from the drawer in the dark – things are not always what you might expect.

Holiday File posts tend to be stand-alone episodes: they do not need to relate to what precedes or succeeds them as they fail to make sense all on their very own, thank you very much. Although I have the kind of brain that generally wants things to ‘fit’, I have to remind myself from time to time that it really doesn’t matter. Things don’t always have to end logically. Sometimes they don’t have to end at all. I once worked for an editor who told me that as long as a joke was funny, I didn’t need to explain it. I promised to bear it in mind if ever I wrote one.

I think my posts have grown decidedly less bonkers over the years and I am far from certain that it is a good thing. I am very fond of barmy. Making sense is very overrated. Never-the-less, the fact that things don’t seem to make sense to me is still the number one reason I occasionally ‘pull’ posts. Most of them end up getting published in the fullness of time – usually without any great rewriting, which must say something about me – Lord alone knows what, but it must have something to do with sloth. My favourite posts are almost always the ones that I rediscover long after I have forgotten ever writing them, although it always worries me that they might just have been written by somebody else – almost certainly somebody who didn’t want to admit to it – and passed on to me from beyond the grave (Cleethorpes) via the medium of alcohol. The pixies are very active in this house.

In any case, nobody else has ever claimed the ‘writing credits’ and I really can’t say that I blame them.

Perhaps they’re on holiday.

So, You Want to be an Old Man

…then there are a number of rules you must learn to observe.

Don’t worry about your clothes matching – ever…

Trousers are never too long or too short as long as they are comfortable.

Always wear an old watch. Never wind it.

Get your hair cut at the same time once every fortnight. You must sit in the same chair and see the same barber. If he retires, see his son. If he does not have a son, sulk and refuse to let anybody else touch it. When it gets too long to manage, shave it off and grow a beard.

Always stop and point at helicopters.

Never buy a car unless it has a little hook from which you can hang your carcoat.

Always drive round and round the supermarket car park until you are able to find at least three adjacent empty spaces. Park in the centre one… mostly. No car can be considered properly parked unless it crosses at least one white line.

Never park alongside any vehicle that has its wing mirror held in place with gaffer tape.

When parallel parking, always ensure that you leave just less than a full space both in front and behind.

When entering a busy shop, always stop just inside the busiest part of the doorway while you decide what to do next.

When exiting a busy shop always attempt to leave through the ‘In’ door. Stand looking bewildered for long enough and someone will let you out.

Talk to children that are not your own with no idea that it is no longer the done thing.

Talk to checkout people like they are even slightly interested in what you have to say.

Never be afraid to ask a busy shelf-stacker to show you where the eggs are. Ask if they can split a pack of six.

Always carry a list, even if it has only one item on it.

Always shout into your mobile phone.

Never recognise your own ringtone.

If you need to text, you must stop suddenly, wherever you are, and use only one finger at a time.

Always read what you have written out loud before saying ‘Send’ loudly and tapping the screen.

When reading texts, you must always pull your glasses down your nose and peer over the top.

Buy a little chain from which to suspend your glasses. Each time you misplace them say, ‘I can’t understand it, I always hang them around my neck… oh, there they are.’

Never walk in a straight line when a diagonal one will do.

Always use the wrong name when talking to people you have known for years – especially your own children.

Never let the absence of reliable information get in the way of expressing your opinions.

Never recognise the disdain in which you are held by younger people. Offer them a sweet from your pocket. Ensure that it is covered in fluff.

Remember you could almost certainly thrash them at Cribbage.

A Rainy Hour

I can never decide (potentially a symptom of early on-set dementia) whether it is more important to exercise the body or the mind, so I thought I might go for a walk to mull it over, but the rain set in…

…Having discovered that there is nothing much to watch on any one of the four thousand television channels available to me that does not involve people being variously pierced and reassembled; locked into a house/island/castle/contract for nothing more than vast wealth, where their every action/decision/toilet visit is monitored by CCTV and discussed at length; or fifty-year old detective yarns in which I guess the murderer simply from reading the cast list, I turn the TV off and search for some other way to pass the time whilst the rain cascades through the gap in the guttering and washes the newly planted petunias down the street.
“Alexa,” I say, “Play David Bowie songs.”
“Frederick the Third was Holy Roman Emperor from March 1452 to August 1493,” replies my trusty AI friend. I take up my pencil to make a note of this interesting snippet in case I should ever have need of it. “Alexa, repeat,” I say.
“I can fart Happy Birthday to You,” she says, after which she sings the Albanian National Anthem… in Swahili.

I decide to have a cup of tea, but find the house to be devoid of all but some herbal bags that taste as though they may have been mixed with pork scratchings so, instead I pull the old coffee maker out of the kitchen cupboard of doom – where all old appliances go to die – clean and refill the water reservoir, empty the six month old coffee grounds from the container, before cleaning out the drip tray as per the on-line instruction manual (which takes no more than a lifetime to find) and broggling a cotton bud up the titchy little spout where the hot water used to come out – before it didn’t – under which I place my pre-warmed cup before discovering that we have no coffee either. Pour myself a refreshing glass of tap water which I will drink just as soon as it settles.

Perhaps it is time to do some housework, if only I could remember whether I should dust before hoover or vice versa. If I remain unable to remember, I might be caught in this cycle forever – dust, hoover, dust, hoover, dust… – so I decide to do neither while I ask Alexa the answer, at which point I discover that I should dust first and then wait two hours before hoovering, which is fine because I have plans to pluck my nasal hairs in half an hour, which almost certainly should be done pre-hoover.

Looking through the window, I discover that the rain has stopped. I could go for a walk now – or I could watch the one episode of The Big Bang Theory that I have only watched forty times before – sorry, no, forty two times – the one where Sheldon says something you would love to say yourself, but never will. It’s important to keep the brain active isn’t it? I’ll take a brisk walk to the biscuit barrel later…

The Problem

Monday is always the problem.

Although to be fair, because of the way I do this thing, Monday is not always Monday. It could, in fact, be any day of the week, but it is almost always the day on which I decide exactly what I am going to ‘talk’ about in my first post of the week. That being Monday. I have, furthermore, occasionally written Monday’s post a day or two after Wednesday’s or Friday’s which could, themselves, have been written who-knows-when, but I seldom worry about them. Even if they happen to be Monday.

Still with me? You should be very proud of yourself.

Anyway, today being an ersatz Monday, I am here staring at a blank sheet of paper with an open world ahead of me and no idea of where I want to go… Ersatz. Now there’s an interesting word. I’ve no idea of where it came from nor why it came into my head (other than the space was freely available). Does it even mean what I think it does? Well, the dictionary says ‘substitute, usually inferior’ so it will do. As I am writing Monday, then today must be, for all intents and purposes, a substitute Monday, albeit without the foreboding sense of ‘what’s going to go wrong this week?’ hanging over it. Monday without strings: my own little Pinocchio – only without the annoying little insect on its shoulder. A chance to let my imagination run free…

…To where? Yes, well, that’s when the ‘no strings’ analogy starts to unravel like a macramé plant holder… Does anyone actually make macramé anymore I wonder? Was a day when every household had a resident macramé-er: plant hangers all over the house, knotted placemats, a cover for the toilet roll. You don’t see them now. Maybe nobody has the time these days. Or the string… Anyhow, as I was saying, Monday – whatever day it is actually on – is decision day: what to whittle on about (or more likely, given my propensity for prolonged and aimless whittling, what not to whittle on about) this week, because although Monday is only one post, it tends to set the pattern for the whole week. It sets the tone.

And my wife tells me that I am tone-deaf, although I don’t think I can be, because I listen to music all the time. Of course, there is always the possibility that, to everyone else, it doesn’t sound like music… Not entirely likely I must admit. I was in the choir when I was at school, until puberty robbed me of my vibrato, but I must admit, I do find it difficult to hold a tune these days. My grasp of key is rather like a politician’s grasp of truth: very fluid. I once reduced my wife to tears whilst trying to sing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in a key, and to a tune, that may well have been familiar only in the outer reaches of the galaxy.

I could not function without music. When I am at home I play it all the time, but now I have started to wonder what I am actually hearing. Is it the same as everybody else, or is what I am hearing just the same kind of jumbled mess that seems to come out of my mouth when I try to sing? Do I just imagine that it has some kind of tune? I never write without music playing, but now the thought that what I am hearing is, in some way, inferior to what everyone else is hearing – ersatz music – really bothers me. It stops me concentrating and now I have no idea of what I wanted to say.

That’s the problem with Monday…

The Hops

A good beer is one of my favourite indulgences and, as I am in the very fortunate position of being able to afford a bottle or two now and again, one in which I fairly regularly partake. I enjoy, you understand, I savour. I do not guzzle. Mostly…

Back in the days of early wedlock, finances were much more constrained and I, in common with most of my contemporaries, regularly turned my hand to making my own wine and beer. (Should you be considering taking up this hobby, I can do little more than recommend my post of October 2019, Possible Hobby #3 – Home Brewing. If that doesn’t put you off, nothing will.) Beer making is something to which I have recently returned, not for financial reasons, but because I wanted to find out how well I could do it.

Well, truth be told, it turns out that I do it rather well. My beer is clear, bright and unexpectedly crisp. God knows how strong it is, but it goes down surprisingly well* and tastes better and better with each successive glassful.

I haven’t yet slipped back into wine making, although I am strangely partial to a slightly hazy, over-sweet, violet-hued, florally perfumed Pinot. Anything but Chardonnay. The truth is that wine-making requires far too much equipment. With beer I need a bucket and some bottles, easy, but with wine I’d need demijohns, airlocks, sufficient chemicals to stock a lab, corks… And everything has to be so clean. God forbid I should ever feel the need to put labels on anything. With my current output, if it’s in a brown pint bottle, it almost certainly is IPA. If it’s in a clear pint bottle and removes limescale from the taps, it is almost certainly cider (a new venture), but if I branched into wine I would feel obliged to label it with some kind of information: red or white; sweet or dry; explosive or emetic… It’s just too much work. Whilst I feel the pull of pouring out my own cru for guests: ‘Yes, I brewed it from all the dandelions growing on the field behind us. No, I didn’t know they’d sprayed it with paraquat. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Chin, chin…’ I do not feel the yen to sterilise everything I touch. By and large it isn’t necessary.

With beer I rinse things through a bit. I put the bottles through the dishwasher – which my wife loves – fill them, crown cork them, leave them for a few weeks and Hey Presto, if they haven’t blown up, they are ready. If anyone comes across a dead fly I tell them it must just have landed in their glass: ‘At least it died happy ha ha!’ If anyone comes across a dead mouse things are not so easy…

Anyway, I pass on this information to you simply as a way of letting you know that I am about to open a bottle, so if I disappear from the blog for any time again, you will at least know why…

*I edited this sentence which originally (and, I would stress, completely innocently) said ‘…but it has a good head and goes down well’ in a bit of a rush when I realised that the original might leave you with the impression that I had received a blow to the head with a copy of 50 Shades of Grey. Nobody wants that…

No man is an island – although some of us are a little wet all round…