LOCKED OUT!!!

tonight, having nothing to blog about because i haven’t been out and all i did was listen to the radio, i rise to a challenge. simon suggested that i write about being locked out. so i will.

the earliest example i can remember (bearing in mind that i ‘forget’ a lot) was when my parents had told me to be back by whenever but i was not because i had been to the pub. i was probably about sixteen. i got back late and the door had been bolted so i went round the back and threw gravel at my brother’s bedroom window. there was no conspiratorial answer and covert unbolting of the portal. it later transpired that he thought the IRA had come to kill him and so he had gone to wake my dad. meanwhile i climbed a trellis and negotiated some brickwork just in time to come under the full glare of the paternal laservision when the window was thrown open. honestly, the work i put into breaking the parents in, in order that my siblings might benefit.

at the age of nineteen, off i went to live in berlin. i went in february. the girl i was staying with failed to reappear one evening and i hadn’t a clue where she was. it was minus 20 and there was snow in heaps. i had no keys and it was rather a miracle that my freeze-dried corpse isn’t being chainsawed out of a drift in spandau as i write this. but i did live to tell the tale.

when i was a copper we were always having calls about locked-out people. i went to one such call at an estate near the factory where a women had been locked out leaving senile old grandma inside who was incapable of opening the door. using the cunning power of my truncheon (never used in anger; i’m nice) i stuck it through the letterbox and managed to flip the catch off. if i had been a burglar i could have been through the whole block like that.

in the late eighties, when i was married, i returned home late from the office christmas party to find the door in a not openable condition. that was a shame. aroused from her slumbers by my w.c. fields style key/lock shenanigans my wife then whipped the door open. i took a tyson style blow to my unprepared solar plexus and was told to “go back” to my “girlfriend". so i walked around in the december rain for a few hours.

in 1993 or 4 i left my flat for a night in the tap and spile in brighton. i was living alone by then. i met up with a mate and then went home. ooops! no keys! back to the pub. none there either. i had locked myself out. another night of wandering about followed by busting a window and waiting to give half a week’s wages to a nuisance to mend it again. on account of this i try to check that i have my keys whenever i leave home. or not leave home at all.

CONCLUSION

i have been involved in ‘lock-ins’; these are the evenings when the pub should no longer serve you but the landlord bestows the kindness of his heart upon you and will not let you go until 01:00 or even later. this is a good thing.
but i have been locked out and that is a not good thing. i even got locked up once in 1986 but it wasn’t for very long and they let me out because frank bruno was fighting and i was the only one in the nick who had a radio.

on the whole, i think i prefer lock-ins.

or canal locks.

sleep well.

UPSTREAM

ooh, ’scuse me for not blogging for a little bit. i really should have typed one last night but we didn’t get in until after 20:00 and rushed immediately to look at the dressing-up game and to whack frozen fish pie and spring rolls in the oven.

the challenge was to dress up as obelix which ned did and won convincingly. simon dressed up as harpo marx and put a saucepan lid on his head. simon lost convincingly.

we have been upstream. after mal had given the engine a going over we had a visit from the service engineer on thursday. he was there for quite a while. although he brought back the frying pan shaped housing for the air-filter which had been temporarily replaced by one of my socks, he took away the voltmeter (which never worked anyway) and the temperature gauge (which probably didn’t work properly anyway; it jumped up to 60 before the engine was fired up) and now all i have left is an oil-pressure gauge and i don’t know what that is supposed to read.

but at least she was ready to go. and go she did, upstream to our favourite mooring, just past the weir at walsham gates where tied up at dusk. we took the jolly rodger and the tiller in just in case they got pinched but we left our new duck pond out for the night. the life-ring thing is now on the roof. inside the ring is a plastic bowl of water. on the water float three yellow plastic ducks. and that’s the duck pond.

the next things we have to do are to go through the boat and chuck out all the stuff we don’t want and then go and get the things that we DO want and then see if we can find anywhere to put it all. then we have to paint the boat. then we have to get some signwriting things done.

and we have to have fun all along the length of the cut.

cheerio.

BLOG WITH NO NAME

how do you call it? what CAN you say?

there are some really great people about. let’s make a teensy list…

first of all merman turned up. with a free chair. with a bottle of champagne. with a pair of boaty trousers. with himself.

then mal turned up. with his two great sons. with his tools. with his knowledge and a great load of willingness to look at my boat, detect the grief, get a new alternator, sort the split-charger and everything.

consider my trilby doffed. no recompense was accepted. it was just a boaty person kind of thing that left me gobsmacked at the overwhelming generosity of it all.

so, chris and mal. thank you. i can’t say more than that because it would sound a bit rubbish. but thank you ever so much.

there was an AA tow away truck outside this evening. there was a bloke on crutches and a woman. i went down to see if they wanted a cup of tea or to use my loo or anything. they were from south wales and had been up to london and two little bastards had nicked her bag. all they got was 5 euros, a mobile phone and all their keys. so, well done you two little cunts, you have made life very difficult for two lovely people. crutches bloke has a hospital appointment in haverford west tomorrow. where’s my big gun?

really nice people stats: 6. merms, mal, marcus and joe and the two welshers.
bastard stats: the two thieving arabs. don’t go on at me me; they were thieves and they were arabs.
boat enfixification stats: mal worked his nuts off. he’s my hero

SUMMARY

some people are really nice, some are twats. if you catch a twat just kill him and then give me a ring; i’ll help you hide the evidence.

don’t have nightmares; sleep well.
XXX

APPARENTLY YOU CAN DRINK WATER

this morning i felt ill. in fact i felt very ill.

trouty went out scavenging for grub to cook for the most excellent merman when he came to stay. i did not leave the house.

when merman arrived i did go out to meet him and i did cook a chicken casserole with dumplings.

we talked of this and of that.

engineer bloke is supposed to be coming on thursday. much more reasonable bloke, pal mal, should be here tomorrow to sort the electrics.

i wish i wasn’t so shite at these things. all i will do is get in the way and wish i had a greasy boilersuit. i might go and get beer and things but prob for myself. or play with the magnet.

if all things are set fair we shall set sail on friday. there will have to be a ghastly conversation with the ex because i want my kids to come too. is it selfish of me? i wonder.

anyway. wish me luck with the leccys and the service and with the horridest thing of all, the PHONE CALL.

until tomorrow… fare thee well.

p.s. merman says that water is potable. can this really be true?

SHORTY

nothing much to say. except that merman is coming to stay tomorrow. so hoorah for that!

i hope that the engineer turns up tomorrow but i’m not holding my breath.

goodnight.

YOU CAN’T STEER A BOAT BACKWARDS

on my mooring you are not supposed to sleep overnight. full stop. not supposed to. however, if you go over to the towpath side you can sleep there for a fortnight. if you go up to the pelican you can kip on there for 24 hours. it’s all a load of bollocks. the engineer has taken the air-filter off and we don’t know when he will ever be seen again. so the engine got started and went ‘bang, bang, bang’ and off we went backwards, trying to get downstream to where we could moor.

i made a bit of a twat of myself in midstream but then rescued the situation by bringing her in pretty well. we got moored up, bought the obligatory pints and then went to bed.

saturday night we got the nod off the warden to stay overnight on the mooring after he had taken the piss out of me in the pub garden for mooring right across where we shouldn’t have done so we could give the boat a wash and brush up.

we met a bloke called john who has marriage troubles and loads of other folks. we had a splendid time really. now everything depends on when the engineer will come out. when the engine is mended we will be off and my kids can come to stay. until then the sea-cock stays shut and we just have to bob about. if you have a boat but can’t really go anywhere it’s a bit frustrating.

anyway, as per usual i’m covered in crap and filth, i stink to high heaven and am as happy as larry. i hope that engineer bloke comes out tomorrow and that we can get gone. there are things that i need and one of them is a run down the cut. but not backwards. you can’t steer a boat going backwards. it’s just one of them things; you are at the mercy of the current, drifts and wind. and that’s how i am now, bobbing about in my life, no steering, waiting to see what happens. something will.

simon stats: i spoke to him today. he realises that he is bollocksed with fg. he says he will turn round tomorrow and come home. except he can’t. he’s barred off the navigation. but wait! there may be a chance! there are some moorings on the river wey, not the navigation, that he may be able to get onto. so, fingers crossed, i shall find out for him. he should be able to come home and die or whatever at his mum’s house. people think he’s a wanker and perhaps he is. but he’s also a human being.

other stats: just let me get back on the canal. it’s weird to try to explain but i need it. i can’t cope any longer with real life. i need the canal. the beautiful, beautiful canal.

sleep well.

I’M OUT OF HERE

when you have a boat there is no excuse not to go and play.

in the meantime i recommend the ‘just william’s on bbc7 and this, most excellent, site:

http://www.sixthseal.com/

have fun. see you all later, covered in mud, just like just william.

big kiss and byeeeeeeeee.

WHAT HAPPENED WAS…

we turned up at nazi hall to see the bastards. we were early by about 30 mins. there was a pub just opposite. i needed some lunch so over i went. when i got back trouty was in conversation with council bloke.

we had to go in a room where the light was on the blink. i said i wouldn’t go in there because the flickering would give me an epi. so we went elsewhere. it turned out that he used to be in the cid at streatham, just down the road from brixton.

it turned out that i didn’t have to make a statement under caution. what it was all about was a box i had ticked months ago that said i was not sure of benefit payments that may have been made to me. all these things started turning out.

anyway, i got away with it and retreated to the pub for swig. we went shopping and then we went back to the boat. i went to the building site…

‘hoi, scuse me, mate. got any spare scaffold boards?’
‘no’
‘oh, that’s a shame’ *eyeing big pile of scaffold boards*
‘what for?’
‘to make a gangplank for my boat’
‘oh, well there’s a load that are going back tomorrow, help yourself’

i then selected the juiciest brand-new gangplank ever. matey wouldn’t even accept a fag for it. a bit later on i invited him to come and have a look on the charly rose. what a nice man!

then, down the canal came john. we met him the other day and spoke of this and that and when i saw him today i ahoyed him and we went to the pub. much laughter ensued.

boat people are much better than real people. just hang around a canal with a bunch of keys hanging out of your pocket with a big cork float dangling off. you will meet the finest people ever; people who will actually help you instead of spitting on you.

CONCLUSION

i knew that they couldn’t do me because i’ve done nothing wrong. i didn’t get my fares paid but that is no surprise. i have not magged up a single windlass. i saw a tern.

and, at the end of the day, that is what you want.

so here’s to ruining your life wearing the badge of courage and getting nearly murdered on the streets of sowf lundun. you never know when it might come in handy.

ah, bless me. i have a boat. i can go and fuck about on my beloved canal. i can sit here listening to dave mathews doing ‘the space between’ and i can do just what just about i fucking well want.

god bless you and sleep well.

ps. if anyone in the midlands wants a free narrowboat, i might just be able to sort it for you.

SNAAAAAAAAKE!

here’s what i did today.

i went out and bought some fags and then i went over to the building site. i wanted an old scaffold board to make into a gangplank. ‘take what you want’ i was assured. so now i have a gangplank. i might go back tomorrow and get another.

trouty went to tesco and then came home and put a lovely lamb casserole in the oven on a very low light. then we went out.

we went into the chandlery to see stuart and julie. they were buffing up a boat really lovely with special wax (i should cocoa for 16 quids a throw) and we spoke of this and of that.

then we made our way towards that fab cache, ‘weyside wander’ which had been reported as waterlogged. and then, on our way, we saw…

a grass snake.

at pyrford lock i magged up another windlass. stuart and julie are not interested in buying recon windlasses which is a shame. i’ve got loads now.

the little bastard moved too quick for me to catch him but at least i saw him.

we dried the cache out and left a tb in there. ooh. i must log that.

then we had some swig in the anchor and got a cab home for lovely lamb stew thing.

now i’m just shitting myself over this interview crap tomorrow. wish me luck.

choon stats: dave mathews, the faces, philip catherine
simon stats: dunno

goodnight, gentle reader, goodnight.

THE BLOG ENTITLED ‘FUCK’

woke up. lovely day. mucked about. went back to bed for a bit. postie came:

“dear mr the thirst
we have had reason to conduct an investigation into your claim for benefit, we would now like to interview you in connection with this investigation to enable you to answer questions in relation to your housing and incapacity benefit claim. please bring a current bank statement showing incapacity payments.
because i have reason to believe that your claim may be fraudulent we need to interview you under caution, this means that depending on what you tell us during the interview whether we take criminal proceedings against you, you will be provided with more information about the allegation when you attend the interview.
it is important that you are interviewed., failure to keep this appointment may not prevent criminal proceedings being taken.”

etc etc et bloody cetera.

(there will now be a period of extreme swearification; readers of a sensitive disposition are advised to look away)

my regular readers will not be surprised to read the words ‘fucking’ and ‘cunts’ in conjunction.
i have typed out the pathetic letter with all its faults as i received it. i would rather that they hadn’t bothered to send it because i am not a fraudster. nasty fucking bastards. i phoned them 5 mins after getting the gestapo missive. they would not talk to me; they would not tell me what it was all about. cunts.

i phoned my landlord, he thought it might be to do with the new tenancy agreement which he had handed in late on last friday. double fucking cunts.

then i got a phonecall saying that instead of having to live in fear of the jackboot for a whole week that they would deign to see me at 12:30 on thursday and that i should bring my bank statements regarding INCAPACITY BENEFIT with me. so they told me, without actually telling me, what it was all about. there was a cock-up at the dss which meant i didn’t get paid for 5 weeks, they obviously think that i am claiming housing benefit to which i am not entitled. so i have to walk for miles to go and see them on thursday when they could easily pick up a phone and in ten seconds realise what a bunch of fucking cunts they are and that they have made a balls-up.

what a bunch of time-wasting stupid fucking cunts. i hate them all. why can’t i be left in peace to get better instead of pissing about explaining their mistakes to them and walking about in the rain?

nasty, nazi bastards. death to bureaucracy. how dare they send out letters like that?

simon stats: he is STILL at brewood. he knows he’s bollocksed and he’s thinking of coming back home.
me stats: great until i opened the letter. i then spent the afternoon talking to john the bosh and a bloke called dave in the pub of ultimate swearification. several rude swears were mentioned and we all agreed that this wank country, under the tyrant, bliar, is going down the pan big-time
cache stats: i meant to go and maintain one that is supposed to be waterlogged. but i didn’t because i was so fucked off with the fucking cunts at the council. pub therapy works.

g’night.

WHEN DREAMS COLLIDE WITH REALITY

in response to the literally thousands of requests from my many fans i shall elaborate, a little, on the simon situation.

you know how you sometimes bump into someone in a pub and then tell you that they were in the SAS? well, it’s kind of the same situation here. i really don’t think that simon ever lied to me, it’s just that he was telling me his stuff from where he stood.

the national trust use (’use’ being the operative word here) volunteers to mend the towpaths (not very well) and to lower sluices in time of flood; that kind of thing. simon, it seems, was one of these people. in return you get a free NT membership for 45 hours free work a year. poor simon thought in his mad way that he was a lock-keeper almost and that he deserved special privileges for trying to do what he could to help. i remember when i lived in brighton there was a madman who used to stand in western road waving buses through. it’s a bit the same.

simon is still on the shropshire union at a place called brewood (pronounced ‘brood’) and has managed to get about 200 yards today. defeat is staring him in the face. he has nowhere to go and the dream has gone sour. the only thing that keeps him going is his perspective and the thought that he ‘coulda been a contender’ and that he was wronged.

i think that he is the architect of his own destruction but through nothing more than erring a little, as us humans do, and possibly by drinking too much whisky. the man who never made a mistake never made anything. at least he has a dreamworld for himself in a bit of a walter mitty way and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. he is a kind and selfless man and i wish that life had been kinder to him. perhaps he should have got involved with the st john’s ambulance brigade or waving at buses.

we can all dream and how drab would reality be were we not to? he is a small man in a big world and it’s no wonder that he sees the world through his own eyes and gives it his own slant. whereas i have given up there are some, like simon, who soothe themselves in their dreaming of what should or might have been. he should have been a lock-keeper and his heart should never have been broken. but that was not to be.

gwen told me yesterday that the first time she met him he scared her by running across the top of lock gates trying to help people through and organising them all. ok, so he tries to make himself look bigger and better than he really is; perhaps he should have been a politician. but don’t we all behave like this?

at the back of it all, he has a good heart. he’s just mad, like every man jack of us.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

today i magged up a dinner knife and a teaspoon, sat on the boat for a bit, looked at vetch and himalayan balsam (10 foot high, dontcherknow) and felt generally relaxed. my stomach is unknotting itself so that can’t be bad.

and on that happy note i bid you all,

goodnight.

XXX

‘READ ALL ABAHT IT!’

today was the great handing over ceremony and the charlotte rose is ours.

we got up at the crack of dawn (08:00, unheard of) and peered moodily at the sky. was it raining? no, it wasn’t! i opened the front door. oh! yes it WAS bloody raining. it always does when i open the front door. trouty had my theory confirmed before her very eyes.

we walked up to the moorings in light showers that came and went. the boat was still on the ‘good’ side of the water’s surface. what a relief.

we hung about and waited for the mysterious ‘ken’ to turn up. i was still unsure whether extreme enconnification was about to take place; after all, a great deal of dosh was about to change hands. but ken arrived and he had bought his missus, gwen, with him. the deal was done, the paperwork exchanged and then we all sat down and had a little chat…

IT’S A SMALL WORLD, ISN’T IT?

…ken and gwen used to have a narrowboat moored at guildford but they have sold it because they are moving to spain. but they have been going up and down the wey navigation for years. i mentioned that i had been up to the midlands with a man who had been kicked off his moorings at stoke lock by the NT. ‘oh’, said gwen, ‘not, what’s his name, simon?’

THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY

it would appear that i may not have been in full possession of the facts when simon and i headed north. i won’t go into details; let’s just call it six of one and a half-dozen of the other.

i phoned simon later because i do worry about him and i promised to let him know about the charlotte rose. i left a voicemail.

SWAN OF EVIL

i met another bloke called ken who was fishing further down. i went to say hello and he told me not to worry because he was fishing off his mooring but he hadn’t got a boat on it yet. his missus was there and they came back and looked at OUR boat and while we were talking, gregory peck, the greedy bully swan that terrorises the garden at the pelican pub came begging. ken reached over the side and let greg peck him for a few times and then he grabbed him by the top beak. ha ha! greg trod water for a bit while he regretted his black-hearted ways until he was let go again. when trouty and i went to the pub for lunch, greg regarded us with a baleful eye. he hissed a bit but he didn’t peck anyone for a change. a most subdued greg indeed.

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN, JIGGITY JIG

and then we came home. the sky has not fallen in (yet) and we have our own boat. a suitable time to bid you all,

goodnight.

OH MY GAWD!!!

sailing simon is still at autherley junction at the southern end of the shropshire union canal. he telephoned me this evening and this is what he said…

fg arrived yesterday and she stayed the night. in the morning she said to him that she just wanted to be friends (again).
he has bought a new guidebook/map of the shropshire union canal and i think he must have been bitterly disappointed to see the awful news. marcB had told trouty that you couldn’t get down the shrewsbury canal to telford because it is disused. trouty told me. i told simon days ago. but he wouldn’t have it.

so the only way he will get the boat to telford is if he puts wheels on it (joke© trouty) and now he knows it. he sounded so defeated and sad. he said he thought he might have to give his boat to a charity instead.

i wonder how this dreadful mess will end up.

other boaty news: trouty and i go to meet a man about the charlotte rose tomorrow morning. there will be the solemn handing over of things and then she should be ours. but i get in a state thinking about it so i won’t think about it tonight (of course i will).

i actually went out today. the first time i have left thirst hall for ages. amazingly enough it didn’t rain as soon as i opened the front door. i expect that the monsoon is holding off until 08:30 tomorrow morning.

if we could see the future, would we any of us bother to do anything at all? would we just lie under the duvet and wait for the sky to fall in?

“live every day as it it were your last” is what the cosmic type people say. what a load of old rubbish; i’d be skint and in a prison cell by 9pm if i went around doing that kind of thing.

ho hum.

good luck, simon.

and goodnight all.

IN SICKNESS AND ILL-HEALTH

i don’t know what’s wrong with me; i feel like a bag o’ shite (i mean resembling one rather than wanting to own one). so i went back to bed and felt sorry for myself for most of the first half of the day. but the phone kept ringing. well, i say kept, it was three times actually. two from my landlord and one from sailing simon - more of him later…

the landlord came round, luckily with a renewal of tenancy agreement rather than a notice to quit. then my mind started wandering down hypochondria avenue and i made a bit of a mistake. in the utterly fabulous ‘three men i a boat’, jerome k jerome ponders on the silliness of looking things up in medical dictionaries and convincing yourself that you have all the symptoms of plague and measles and just about everything listed in the wretched book. i don’t have a medical dictionary to hand, but i do have google.

while trouty was out shoplifting at tesco i wondered if i might have caught leptospirosis or weil’s disease contracted whilst chucking myself into one of the filthiest of canals or by licking windlasses that i have hauled up out of locks with my sea-magnet. do you know? the more i read the iller i felt. i can manage to wind myself up rather quickly and for a few horrible minutes i had convinced my self that secondary stage weil’s disease caused by all the delicious rat piss that i had consumed by dint of not washing my hands.

but perhaps i haven’t got it. perhaps i’m just bone-idle.

i haven’t been out of the house; i just sat around, ate paracetamols for my leg and foot pains (diabetic neuropathy - i expect they will have to be amputated quite soon), and listened to loads of comedy on bbc7.

fag smoking stats: just one all day
sailing simon stats: he has managed to get just as far as autherley junction at the bottom of the shropshire union canal. so, not a great deal more progress has been made since i last saw him. his fg should be seeing him tonight. and last night he got set adrift at two o’clock in the mooring by some little bastards who pulled his mooring pins out. what a pleasant prank to play. luckily he heard them doing it and woke up and disaster was averted.

cheerio, see you tomorrow.
(if i haven’t died of weird leg syndrome or leptospirosis in the meantime)

CONFESSION TIME

when i got home the other day i was pleased with my tan. i am only tanned from the belt-line up and so if viewed naked i look rather as if i have had my image captured on a rather badly tuned brown and white telly.

a hotly contested debate then ensued: was i really tanned or was i just extremely dirty?

i must confess that i don’t bathe as often as perhaps i should. my theory on the matter is that if i don’t actually smell then i probably don’t need to have a bath. but that’s just my theory. i tried to smell myself and i couldn’t; perhaps my nose wasn’t working so i submitted myself to the ultimate test, the trouty aromathon. she, with a look of some incredulity, announced that i did not pong. so i just went to bed in a somewhat grubby condition.

yesterday all i did was muck about down the canal and get even filthier but then i felt ill and tired and when i came home again i did not have a bath. i just went to bed in the end.

so today was the imperial bath day. i prepared a steaming tub and bunged in some bubbly stuff (not swig) and went for a soak with yesterday’s paper to read and some soothing throat lotion. and there i wallowed for quite some time.

when i had finished my ablutions i studied the leftover bathwater. my findings were thus: much less silty than the grand onion canal but not as clear as the birmingham main because you couldn’t really see the bottom (of the bath, not MY bottom). however, there did not appear to be any old car wheels, shopping trolleys, logs(!), plastic bags or used rubber johnnies floating in the soup.

and my lovely tan did not wash off either.

so now i am a nice clean boy again. maybe not in mind but i am in body. now then, has anyone a shovel i can borrow? when i pulled out the plug the water took two hours to drain and the bath seems to need dredging. who wants some fine composty sludge to put on their rhubarb plants? 50p a sack; buyer collects.

goodnight everyone.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERER

i spoke to simon on the phone and he is now at wolverhampton. he did the three locks at tipton on his own and is now moored up having obtained diesel, oil, coal and a new bow fender. he needed some credit for his phone and a loaf of bread. i suspect a visit to the offy was also involved.

one of the things that did it for me was when trouty informed me, via the telephone, that you couldn’t actually get to telford because although you can get up the shropshire union canal as far as norbury junction, when you want to turn west down the shrewsbury canal you can’t because it is either derelict or under repair. i told simon this. he just blanked me and said ’she’ll get there’ and patted his boat on the head.

there was no attempt to check whether this is true or not. i could no longer put up with his refusals to accept reality. when i asked him what he was going to do, when he gets wherever he gets to, he says he will ‘look for a job’. he has left his aft cover in surrey (true, they take up a lot of space, but if you leave them off the boat fills up with rainwater through the hatches and will sink unless you pump the bilges) and he just seems to live in a mad world now. he called me ‘john’ instead of my real name for a whole day and was really, really horrible to some people on a hire boat who were only doing their best. i apologised to them, sotto voce, and while i was doing so he drove the tamarisk into a load of scaffolding and caused some scrunching. i was on the towpath and had suggested that i pull the bowline onto the mooring bollards where he should have been in the first place but he wouldn’t have it.

try sleeping on your kitchen floor for a few days and then have someone pull one of their teeth out at three o’clock in the morning and come blundering in and standing on your head and looking for whisky and trying to make you look at a manky tooth which then became a not very nice ornament beside the telly for a few days.

aaaaah, i don’t know. i feel bad for writing this because i do care about simon and i feel that i have abandoned him. he may well always have been pig-headed but perhaps he has gone mad with disease. he might have metastasing brain secondaries. he might just be a complete arsehole. he may be so worried and frantic with the fear of death that he blinkers out everything else.

so i doubt that i will ever see him again. i learned quite a lot from him about boating and for that i will always be grateful. he bought me quite a few pints of swig and i emptied out the elsan (try lifting a full porta-potti; you need to be like geoff capes) and like to think that i did my best. but i’m not a bloody oncologist or social worker or psychiatrist.

so this blog is dedicated to simon lawrence, a remarkable man, possible lunatic, and a man with the only ‘mission statement’ that i would ever give credence to.

here’s to you, simon, and i raise my glass of swig in your direction. what we went through together was a right education for me but at the end of the day was more than i could do. but you have to live, and die, with it.

all the best, my friend.

goodnight.

HOME

i left simon at tipton.

he has gone mad and i can’t stand it any more.

being at home, where it is safe, is so important to me.

goodnight.

h.

INTERMISSION

Er… hello? <taps microphone timidly>

screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech

Oops, sorry about that. Um, if I could have your attention, people… yes, I know Scott’s brought a parrot in, but he’s had his turn. What’s that el10t? I expect it is painful, he’s got a sharp beak. Well you shouldn’t have tried feeding him your nuts in the first place. Oh she did, did she? If Mort told you to jump off a crane, would you do that too? What? You have jumped off a crane and you quite enjoyed it? Yes, well never mind about that now. Shut up and look this way.

Now where was I? Oh yes. I expect you’ve all noticed that I’ve had my moment in the spotlight already*, and no doubt you’re wondering what I’m doing back on the stage. Well I was just passing through and I couldn’t help noticing that - owing, I presume, to the combined incompetence of Cap’n The Thirst and Vice Cap’n Omally - no one’s been dragged in to hold the fort this evening. Well the show must go on, so like the old trouper that I am, I’ve stepped gingerly into the breach. I don’t suppose anyone’s got something I can wipe it off with? Ah, thanks MMM. Well, no, it’s not quite what I had in mind, but a nappy’s better than nothing. Ah… a used nappy. On second thoughts I’ll use the jolly roger.

Obviously I’ve not got anything prepared, so I thought I might amuse you by reciting Kubla Khan. Unfortunately, owing to my inability to remember the words, I Kubla Khan’t. Perhaps someone’s got a party piece they’d like to perform? What’s that? A stilt walking act? Ooh, yes, I’m sure we’d love to see that. The floor’s yours.

…Yes, very impressive, but I don’t think you fooled anyone, Bean. You haven’t, in fact, got any stilts, have you? You just walked across the stage. Yes you did. Now go back down into the audience and look suitably ashamed.

Fine… if a job’s worth doing, do it yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, for your entertainment, I will now sing ‘Poor wand’ring one’ from The Pirates of Penzance.

<ahem>

…Er, ladies and gentlemen? Where did they all go? Good lord, they all seem to have jumped over the side. I wonder what brought that on. No doubt there’s a good reason… I suppose I’d better follow suit, just in case. Farewell, Mary Celeste. It’s been good sailing with ye.

splash!

*Or rather you would if you knew who I was, which I realise, with hindsight, is by no means apparent

Yaaaaarrrr!

Welcome to Cap’n Morty’s class: The art of pirating 101!

Line up against the side o’the ship, me hearties! Ah-harrrr! Ned, you stop doing that now, you lily livered… no, I don’t care if you wanted a plaited buccaneer beard; you do it in your own time! Because you won’t look piratical if you’ve got your curling tongs out, savvy? Now, for the first part of the course, you need to raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer your weasly black guts out! No? Oh. In that case, just commandeer that ship as a getaway vehicle, and then plunder a shop. Yes, that’s the one, arrrr!

Lieutenant Marc, says I! You thieving little black dog! I’ve never seen someone plunder a NEXT store quite so well! I’m so proud, so I be. Ah-harrr! You need to make your getaway, go on! Now be the time to cast away! Young Bean, untie the rope! No, you fiend! You’re ‘posed to untie the rope from the mooring afore you haul it up. Well, I’m no’ coming down to get you, savvy? You can do some keelhauling, so you can. Anchors away!

Ah-harrrrr! We be on our way to the bay of the isla de muerta, me hearties! Yaarrr! Cabin boy Simon, take the gear to the cabins, JG, Paul and that scurvy dog Omally can swab the decks! Ah-harr! Get to it, savvy? I’ll make pirates out of you yet. No el10t, ‘pirates’. Scallywags, not the people who fly them mechanical birdies.

Swig time! No, for me. Carry on as you were. Ah-harrrr! C’mon on now, sing along…

“We’re devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up me ‘earties yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho a pirate’s life for me!”

Aye, fine. Go ahead, have some o’me rum, so you can. I s’pect there to be some in the morn, I do. Ah-harrr!

G’night me hearties.

Cap’n Morty

SANDWICH FILLING

Sandwiched as I am between those towering lights of the blogging world, Mort and Mort’s Mom, any attempt on my part to write prose would inevitably be overshadowed by their combined literary skill. That’s assuming, of course, that it’s possible to be overshadowed by towering lights, which presumably do the exact opposite of casting shadows; but I can feel this metaphor buckling like a man without a spine carrying an elephant, so this would probably be a good point at which to end the sentence.

My point - and I do have one - is that I’ve cunningly evaded the comparison by writing a pome instead. And here it is.

By the side of the Wey Navigation Canal
Stood a man and some geese and some goslings et al.
The former was trawling the waterway’s bed
With a magnet attached to a long piece of thread.

At his side were the treasures he’d salvaged to date:
Two pennies, an orrery, pieces of eight,
A Harrison watch and a small submarine,
Some paperclips and the Enigma machine.

Now cut if you will to the watery deep
Where a mermaid arose from mermaidenly sleep.
Half woman, half goldfish, upriver she swum
With a long string of poo hanging out of her bum.

A few moments later the rope became taut
And the man wondered what kind of treasure he’d caught
So he heaved and the mermaid splashed onto the shore,
Her earring drawn in by the magnet’s allure.

She looked up from the path to the man’s smiling face
And said “Please sir, I beg, put yourself in my place!
“Show some mercy I pray and in Tethys’ name
“Let me hie myself back again wherefrom I came.”

That night over dinner the man would regale
The lady he loved with his curious tale
As he poured the main course from his cookery pot
And they scoffed every bite of his nice mermaid splot.

Doctor’s Orders

Doctor the Thirst is away at sea and in his absence I have stepped in as locum. I would like to make it very clear from the start that I will have no truck with namby pamby pettifogging incapacities.

Don’t come running to me with a broken leg. Lash it to a broom handle and let it knit.

Slipped disc? Lash yourself to a broom handle until you can stand upright.

Lockjaw? Get a friend to hit you in the mouth with a broom handle.

Death? Make sure that your next of kin returns any unused broom handles to the dispensary.

Doctor the Thirst left behind an ample supply of antibiotics and medications of all kinds. In the light of my new regime I have swapped the entire stock for a crate of Doctor Mrs Mort’s Special Tonic which will be available from my receptionist for a modest charge. Not yet available on the NHS, this miracle liquid will both get you going and help you stop. It cures coughs, colds and constipation. A couple of swigs will treat dandruff, dehydration and diarrhoea. Half a bottle and you’ll feel like a new man - I certainly did.

Right, first patient in here. Now, drop your trousers and cough…

Sorry JG. Wrong glasses. In that frock I thought you were Ned.

Yarrrrrrrr!

Time to introduce ye all to the scurvy dogs who will be a-blogging for Capn T this weekend!

Tomorrer night will see Mort’s Mom (A.K.A. Skull Krusher) a-waving and a-swiggin’ from her flagon of Special Tonic! Ah-Harrrrr!

Friday will be the turn of Simon ‘Frote Slasher’ G with his impressive collection of dead flies and ketchup-stained shirts! Yarrrrrrrrr!

Sat’day will be the turn of that Pirate Princess, The Royally Earlified Duchessesesesness Baronifimacated Sir² Capn Mortington Bear. Look out for them cutlasses, and she be a mean shot with her duelling pistols, so be sure to only talk about her when she can’t be a-hearing you! Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

The Sabbath will see Lord Scottington of J, our world-famous US correspondant, taking the helm and singing a mighty shanty as he swigs some Real English Ale! Ah-harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! *cough* *cough*

Dear oh dear, this is killing my throat. Anyone got a nice cup of lemon tea? Thanks awfully!

Yarrrr! Capn Grace Omally at yer service again! Capn Thirst has left his stately pile unattended once more, so it be fitting that we have another bout of Raucous Behaviour and rummage in his pantry for grub! Ah-Harrrrrrrrr! Mind you wash them nettles carefully though, shipmates! I hears tell as Capn Thirst soaks ‘em in dog’s piddle to make ‘em taste nice! Arrr!

Here’s a fine sea-shanty we can all have a singalong to, me hearties! Here we go!
And a one and a two and a one-two-three-four…

Ying-Tong
Ying-Tong
Ying-Tong
Ying-Tong
Ying-Tong Iddle-I-Po

What? You don’t know how it goes? How simple do you want this a-cursed shanty? Tchoh!

Alright, try this for size:

Swig Swig Swiggetty Swig
Hide a bottle inside your wig
Lose the cork, on the plank you walk,
Swiggetty Swiggetty Swig.

Better? Ah-harrrr! Right, now that’s got us nicely warmed up, let’s ‘ave us a bit o’ dancin’!

*Skips merrily off around the Poop Deck, trips over dead Wombat and falls into the briny*

Afore you drift of to yer slumbers, consider this:

Where does Capn Thirst keep his Buccaneers?
On the side of his Buccan ‘ead! Ah-Ha-Ha-Harrrr!

HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO! (again)

in the morning i’m off to see simon. he has got as far as warwick and is moored up in a secure marina. this is good because he has had scummers chucking stones at him off of bridges and all sorts. FG has been no help at all, has dumped him and then asked for a painted watering can off the roof of the boat.

so tomorrow i will phone the NT nazis and find out about his home mooring. i will then go to leamington spa and to warwick and find him and see if i can’t persuade him to come home.

i think that he wants to really. he just needs a shove.

if he wants to keep going then i will go with him. if he wants to come home then i will bring him home. in the meantime, look after my little trouty for me and say a prayer or two for simon.

see you when i see you.
h.

OI! WHO NICKED THE MARKET?

today i left the splendour (pffftttt)of simonG’s chatroom to go to the sunday market at brooklands. there is a wednesday market too but the sunday one is the best; full of varied stalls and hundreds of customers and much cheapness and the smell of burgers and onions wafting about. some of the things there are incredibly cheap, like on the tools stall and the excellent fruit and veg one. they even have a trailer of portaloos and although i don’t go there very often i always enjoy it when i do.

we walked past tesco and out into the centre of brooklands and i pointed out to trouty where the part of the old runway (they used to build aircraft there) where a bloke had set up a go kart business had been cleared. i read in the local paper that mercedes benz had bought it from under his feet and he had had to go. all rather sad. a little dream crushed.

today i had actually managed to get 150 metres from my front door before it had started to rain. we plodded on to the market in the drizzle. but when we got to where the market was we got a bit of a shock for the market was not there at all. a lot of fencing had been erected. on the fencing was a little notice. i got rather cross and tore it down so i could consider my campaign at my leisure. here’s what the notice says:

DAIMLERCHRYSLER UK RETAIL LTD
NOTICE

announcement of plans for mercedes-benz heritage and technology centre

daimlerchrysler is delighted to announce that the successful acquisition of this 155 acre site was completed on friday 3rd june 2004

the company’s plans for the site include the renovation of the brooklands racetrack and the construction of the mercedes-benz heritage and technology centre - an innovative centre dedicated to the history and future of the mercedes-benz brand.

the scheme also includes plans for a flood compensation(?) scheme which will be completed by winter 2004 and a large area of community parkland, which will offer local residents and visitors a combination of walking and cycling trails, [sic] and additional leisure facilities.

the development of this site will take place over a two year period, with work commencing on monday 7th june 2004. daimlerchrysler will keep local residents informed of all developments and plans, but should you have any queries in the meantime, please contact rebecca thomas or sophie hewitt at the daimlerchrysler public relations office on 0121 713 3500

…………………………………..

at this point, smoke started to issue from the thirst lugholes like a steam whistle going off. it stinks to high heaven, of course. here is my brief translation of the ‘notice’:

“we are chuffed to announce that following the transfer of a big bag of money at the golf club after protracted negotiations at the masonic lodge that we have swagged off 155 acres of prime building land in the heart of surrey (an easy bentley ride from the a3 and st george’s hill)

our plan is to destroy a business that has been built up and not pay any compensation because we are a massive multinational and we only grease palms when we have to. everyone else gets crushed. we will also destroy a thriving market that serves the many poor people who live around here but we will compensate them by filling the village with loads of heavy traffic which the roads can’t take.

we shall call our new head office a technology and heritage centre because that sounds better.

in a small corner behind the skips we shall provide a whopping 12 sq metres of bark chippings for the yokels to enjoy themselves on in a leisurely way.

there will be a massive amount of misery for anyone that lives round here for 2 years and then it will just be misery. we don’t care and bollocks to everyone.”

……………………………..

so. there you have it. it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth, doesn’t it? and where’s the market? gone, like a puff of smoke blown away in the breeze.

DISCLAIMER: mr the thirst would like to make it crystal clear that he does not suggest that daimlerchrysler uk ltd have acted improperly in their acquisition of 155 acres of prime land in an historic location. in fact his gratitude to those great people at daimlerchrysler is unbounded. he can hardly wait those two long years for the heritage centre and cycling and walking trails.
mr the thirst is raving mad and relies heavily on artistic licence. when he says he tore down the notice he meant that he picked it up off the ground where it was causing a litter nuisance and disposed of it thoughtfully.
END OF DISCLAIMER

sailing simon stats: he has reappeared in leamington spa in a pub with FG stuffing his face with mixed grill. he hasn’t got very far.
tongue in cheek stats: i think i might need a screwdriver or possibly a jemmy to get it out again.
grub stats: more roasted veg. i blame sarah for suggesting it.
waist stats: amazingly my belt needed to get tightened up another notch, yet i’m eating a bit more than i was. how does that work?

night john boy, night mary ellen, night granpa etc etc etc…

SEVERAL THINGS

today i had my hair cut. trouty did it. she is not, ahem, a QUALIFIED hairdoer but she had a bloody good go. i shaved off the sides of my beard so that i now have a fairly massive goatee affair going on. i want to grow it long enough to tie a knot in for piratical effect and in tribute to viv stanshall.

sailing simon has disappeared. i have had a couple of calls from his FG and she doesn’t know where he is either. she is going looking for him tomorrow. i telephoned pubs where i hoped he might be but no one knew a thing. dear god, even though you don’t exist, smile down on simon and make his phone work. he was last heard of at stockton and not looking forward to the flight. i wish i was there but i can’t be because…

…i phoned ted heath (not that one, and not the other one either) who is a mobile marine engineer type bloke. we need the engine mendifying and there is something seriously bust going on. there is far too much happening in the oil department. he is calling me back on monday.

today, yah harrr, ye scurvy dogs, i plumbed the depths at coxes lock and spoke to boaty types. a nice man with a smallish boat (30′ sea otter) came through and we helped him with the lock which is an utter pig. on the southern horizon we saw a pirate hire-boat with ten young lads aboard. now, the etiquette is that you should share the lock so we had to wait for them to turn up and matey in his little boat was bricking it a bit in case he got bashed. we half shut one gate to point them in the right direction. what a palaver. they wanted a supermarket so i told them to moor at the pelican (without bashing charlotte rose if poss) and we walked over to join them. they had overshot by 100 yards and were struggling to get her back before the stream caught her. what a big boat! 66′ long and when i stood by the tiller (poking my nose in again) i shuddered to think that the ‘crusader’ that we are going out on in october is 3 foot longer. oh my gawd.

we went to see the ‘charlotte rose’ (trouty observes that the name has 13 letters but that’s ok. i was born on friday the 13th so it has to be kind of lucky) and graham, the mooring warden, came to have a poke around under the hatches and show me how to refill my gland-greaser (!) and then a nice bloke called fred came and had a shufty. neither seemed overly impressed, to be honest, but they didn’t run away screaming and try to man lifeboats.

my pirate chest is now groaning with treasure as i added another two double doubloon pieces what i magged up today. no more windlasses today but i have a fine collection in the making of clout nails and loads of interesting rubbish.

simon stats: if you see him, please let ME know
choon stats: ‘cast your fate to the winds’ by sounds orchestral
scoff stats: skate wings with new pots, spring cabbage, leeks and corn-on-the-cob. yum yum.
treasure chest stats: 8 pence, two windlasses and some interesting old grot.
happiness stats: yeah, i’m happy today. you can’t ask for more than that.

g’night. XXX