Get Out of My Pub!

Close to our ancient lodgings in the parish of Norwich-across-the-water is an Irish pub called ‘Delaney’s’. Gawd knows why it’s described as an Irish bar. It sells Guinness but otherwise looks like a run-of-the-mill pub to me. One thing in its favour is a late licence. After a disappointing bite at the über-trendy Bicycle restaurant, we passed Delaney’s welcome mat and Liam persuaded me to have a final snifter (not much of a stretch, I know). We took up pole position at the end of the bar and eyed the pubscape of squiffy painted Norfolk broadettes, Primark neo-chavs, indebted bedsit students and bewildered tourists. The only fly in the otherwise tasty ointment was the wasp-chewing landlady surveying the jovial scene from behind the bar with her arms folded. A couple of drinkers away, a dandily-dressed Italian ordered a pint but then realised he didn’t have enough pennies to pay for it. He proffered plastic instead.

“Five quid minimum spend,” growled the slapped-arse face.

“I’ll have two pints, then,” he replied warmly.

She was having none of it. “No chance!” she barked.

The bemused Italian, still smiling, asked what the problem was. He even offered to give one drink to the stranger to his right. Clearly not a woman to be crossed, she dismissed him with a wave and scuttled off to serve another punter. Refusing to submit, he persisted with his friendly inquisition. Her faced reddened, her eyes narrowed and her thin lips pursed. The whippersnapper’s challenge was stoking her fire and not in good way. Finally, the fiery redhead could take no more and blew her stack, screaming in true Peggy Mitchell style:

“You’re barred. Get out of my pub!”

He stood his ground for a little longer but eventually gave up with a shrug and left. Not wishing to suffer the same fate, we supped our frothy pints and watched our Ps and Qs. Ten minutes later, Mr Persistent returned in triumph waving a ten pound note. It had no effect. The lippy landlady just chucked him a cold shoulder and no one else dared to serve him. The battle of wills continued. He stood at the bar for a good thirty minutes, casting broad smiles and boundless charm. Then suddenly, as the crowd looked on, his dogged tenacity melted the harridan’s icy heart. She smiled, pulled him a pint, slapped it on the counter and waved the tenner away.

All’s well that ends well. Who needs EastEnders when you’ve got Delaney’s of Norwich?

Update 2015: Sadly Delaney’s and the harridan are no more. The pub’s been converted into a Shoreditchesque gastropub called St Andrew’s Brew House and the flame-haired landlady has entered a nunnery. 

 

Anally Retentive

As Perking the Pansies has been going for a couple of years, the blog is no longer seen as a here-today-gone-tomorrow flash in the internet pan. This credibility helps with Google rankings but also attracts dubious offers from a posse of anonymous advertisers trying to promote products on the cheap. Cue the latest offer to drop on my virtual mat…

“Hi there – I’m emailing because I’d like to send you a free product to review on your website. First, I’ll tell you we make pleasure devices for men – yes – sex toys. I realize your website is not exactly in the “sex” niche, but your site is geared towards men who have all of the equipment needed to use our products. I saw your site and thought that although it is in a different niche, you may be able to include a review of one of our Mangasm prostate simulators as a bit of a change from your normal content. We also make a product called the Autoblow and are coming out with a new version soon. Anyone who posts a Mangasm review would be included on a list (only if they wish) to receive a free Autoblow when it comes out, for review purposes, of course.”

*I assume the writer meant prostate stimulator, not simulator. My mind boggles at the latter (and, I suspect, many other minds boggle at the former). 

A bit of a change from my normal content? I’ll say. This less than tempting offer fails on two main levels. Firstly, most of my readers are the fairer (and fairer) sex. With the best will in the world, ladies will never know the pleasure of a stimulated prostate or a blow job – auto or otherwise. Secondly, when I bang my gay drum,  it’s not about gay banging. This is a family show, after all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude (how could I be?) and I’ve nothing against clever little plug in plug-ins to satisfy the lonely or to spice up the matrimonial bed. Whatever pops your cork, I say. But what if Liam and I did take one of these handy little appliances for a spin? What would we do with it afterwards? Hose it down, drop it in a jiffy bag and pop it back in the post? One slip of the finger and we’d be buggered. 

I’ve always said that God has a wicked sense of humour. When he placed a prostate up a man’s bottom, he knew exactly what he was doing. It’s all a bit of a bummer and something’s that caused no end of trouble ever since the Creation. Think on, ladies. Christmas is just around the corner. Why not treat the hubby to a pulsating prostate rub? It’s not just for the ‘gays.’ And It just might put a pep in his step.

Blood Brothers, the Farewell Tour

The flatlands of Norfolk were draped in thick wet fog when Liam dragged me out to see ‘Blood Brothers’ at the Theatre Royal. The show is on its farewell tour after a 24 year run in the West End. The damp opaque night was a fitting overture to the brother’s grim tale of twins separated at birth. Loosely based on an Alexandre Dumas novella, Willy Russell’s gritty kitchen sink drama is acted out on the mean streets of Sixties, Seventies and Eighties Liverpool. Apart from “Tell Me It’s Not True,” there are very few memorable melodies in the show; Blood Brothers is more of a play with music than a musical play. The annoying pop-star placement trend continues to afflict the UK stage. Niki Evans, an ex-X Factor contestant, was cast as the hapless mother and ex-Wet Wet Wet pretty boy front man, Marti Pellow was the narrator. In fact, Ms Evans was indisposed for our night at the theatre and Tracey Spencer (who usually plays a supporting role) slipped into her shoes. Like Cinderella, it was a perfect fit. Ms Spencer has one of those rare seductive voices with a goose bump touch. It was she and Sean Jones (who played the doomed twin, Mickey) who stole the show. Interestingly, the two actors are married in real life. Less interesting was Marti Pellow’s performance. He delivered his lines with misplaced melodrama (think Shakespeare with a laboured Scouse accent) and he was very pedestrian (literally and metaphorically). Despite this, the show got an enthusiastic standing ovation. My verdict? I was on my feet too.

Cue the video. This is Barbara Dixon who played the original mother way back in 1983.

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The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing

I’ve never been a big reader. It’s amazing I managed to pick up the writing thing at all. But these days, I get asked to review quite a few books and I’m rather surprised by how much I’m enjoying the experience. My current read is ‘Sleeping People Lie,’ by Jae de Wylde. It’s a love story with an iron grip and bitter-chocolate taste. I’m a little bit addicted.  The fragrant Jae dropped me a line to ask me if I’d like to participate in The Next Big Thing, a blog hop in the best tradition of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ I’m a sucker for these things. Before passing the baton onto me and four others, Jae wrote her own take on the title which you can read here.

Jack’s Next Big Thing

What is the working title of your book?

I’m currently compiling the best bits from Perking the Pansies, the Turkey years, into an uncensored two volume e-book coming to a Kindle near you very soon. The first volume is called Turkey, the Raw Guide and the second is called Turkey, Surviving the Expats. Taken together, the boxed set will be a spruced up director’s cut of our time in a Muslim land with added bite, previously unreleased material and additional features.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

When I read back through the blog, I was amazed about how much I’d written. Most of it was never included in my debut book (and, being different animals entirely, much of book was never included in the blog). The trouble with most blog posts is that once they’re read they’re dead. I thought bringing it all together would be a satisfying way to draw a line under our Anatolian Adventure and now I’m back in Blighty, I can be a little more honest.

What is the genre?

The mini-series is an easy-to-digest guide to Turkey with a tasty hard centre of memoir.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Believe me, this has been the cause of much drunken speculation among the Bodrum Belles and Gumbet Gals. Liam is rather taken with the idea of Jude Law playing him. Now that poor Jude is losing his hair, the cap really fits. As for me, well it has been cruelly suggested that Danny DeVito would be ideal in the part of Jack, the rotund, drunken short-arse. If he wasn’t so creepy, I’d probably go for Tom Cruise. He’s about the right height.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to live in a foreign field, particularly a Muslim one?  To get a real feel, you need to ask someone who’s been there, done that and bought all the fake t-shirts. (Okay this is two sentences. So shoot me.)

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It’s virtually impossible to get agent representation. Trying to get one is a bruising and expensive business, best avoided by the thin-skinned. I’m self-publishing the e-books through Kindle and pricing them competitively to see how they fly. My first book was published through Summertime Publishing and they’ve agreed to publish the sequel which should be out in early 2013. The e-books are something that lie in between, a kind of bridge between the two.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It’s taken us (Liam is my whip-cracking editor) about two months so far to revise the flabby grammar, edit the material down into a believable whole and decide what tasty extras to include.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

A difficult one. I’d say Perking the Pansies has the feel of Bridget Jones with a pink twist and an injection of pathos.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I’m hoping the unreleased material and some solid old-fashioned advice about the reality of living in Turkey will grab the imagination. I’d like to be functional as well as decorative.

Now it’s time for me to pass on the poisoned chalice. In no particular order (as they say on Strictly Come Dancing), let’s hear it from …

David Gee, author of Shaikh-Down – a delicious, randy romp through the myopic and bawdy world of Gulf expatriate life set against the chilling winds of change.

Deborah Fletcher, author of Bitten by Spain – a very funny, beautifully descriptive and endearingly frank account of building the dream in Murcia.

Jo Parfitt, multi-tasker extraordinaire and author of Sunshine Soup – a hugely enjoyable tale of loss, intrigue and redemption.

Maggie Myklebust, author of Fly Away Home – a heartfelt book written with searing honesty that covers the push-pull effect of growing up in two cultures.

Laura J Stephens, author of An Inconvenient Posting – an agonisingly candid and raw account of loss and transition.

No pressure.

After the Fall of Saigon

Hasn’t Vietnam come a long way since the Fall of Saigon? Watch and smile. Ho Chi Minh and Lyndon Johnson must be spinning in their graves.

Never Knowingly Undersold

Yes, I know it’s a garden table

John Lewis is one of the grand old dames of the British high street (Marks and Spencer is the other). The company’s enviable reputation for quality and service has enabled the group to weather the lashings of recession better than most. Not that you’d know that from our experience of the Norwich branch. There was a cute little corner of our kitchen crying out for a bijou table, a place for Liam to listen to Radio 4 and munch his early-morning muesli before a busy day at the doc’s fiddling the data. We found just the thing in a little corner of the local John Lewis. After the bruising press gang trials of Turkey, shopping in Blighty is an eternal joy (except at Christmas, when it’s every man for himself). But things are not always as they seem. There’s a Grand Canyon of difference between being bullied into submission by the pretty boys in skin-tight shirts and being ignored completely by the snotty partners who are too busy gossiping with their co-workers. It took a lifetime to get hold of our goods. And while I’m ranting, what’s with the take-the-ticket-to-the-collection-point business? It’s just like Argos but not nearly as fast or efficient. ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ boast the John Lewis adverts. ‘Never Knowingly Served,’ more like.

Post Script: I used to know a handsome young Spaniard called Juan Luis Salle, known about town as the ‘John Lewis Sale’ because he was never knowingly undersold.

Other posts on a shopping theme include:

Nick It!

Retail Therapy

Pot, Poofs and the Good Book

The wise people of the Yankee state of Washington have voted in a referendum to legalise both same sex marriage and the recreational use of marijuana. Perhaps the Good Book was right all along.

Leviticus 20:13: ‘A man who lays with another man should be stoned.’

Who knew?

We Are Norwich and the EDL

We Are Norwich is a rainbow alliance of political, faith and community groups and individuals who have come together to oppose the presence of the English Defence League (EDL) in the fair city of Norwich. The EDL intends to stomp through the streets tomorrow (10th November 2012) to protest against a decision by the City Council to ban a stall by the Norwich Reformed Church* because of the alleged Islamaphobic nature of one of its leaflets. We are Norwich is planning a peaceful, family-friendly counter-demonstration that celebrates and protects the city’s diversity, multiculturalism and honourable tradition of inclusion. The counter-protest will start at 11am in Chapelfield Gardens. Expect an uplifting party atmosphere. For more information please check the website.

We Are Norwich is a broad church and did not campaign to have the EDL march prohibited. I think this was the right approach. Generally, I’m not in favour of banning this and banning that. It tends to drive things underground and is often counter-productive. As a card-carrying dyed-in-wool liberal, extremists on both sides of the political spectrum tend to leave me frigid, none more so than the EDL, an odious little organisation with obvious links to the British National Party and other Far Right misfits. I don’t particularly want them goose-stepping through this city but I wouldn’t stop them coming either. When an EDL grunt was asked by Chris Goreham on BBC Radio Norfolk’s Breakfast Show what the English Defence League was actually defending England from, the silly young man was unable to provide an answer, any answer, and just rambled on incoherently. A fine example of an education system gone awry, I thought. Conversely, Nick O’Brien, Secretary of We Are Norwich, was able to articulate coalition values with convincing authority and depth. It was just a shame that Nick was abruptly cut off by DJ Chris when he mentioned Hitler. Clearly, Auntie Beeb doesn’t do the Third Reich for breakfast. It might put middle Anglia off their muesli.

I hope events tomorrow pass by without serious incident. We Are Norwich has worked closely with the Police to ensure a loud and lively but peaceful affair. As for the EDL? Who knows. They’re a flaky lot. In a liberal, pluralist society like ours, we must accept that people are entitled to hold different views, no matter how offensive they are. There are lines to be drawn, of course. Preaching hatred is one of them, violence is another. We’ll see what lines get crossed tomorrow.

*The Norwich Reform Church is the only organisation, faith-based or otherwise, to demonstrate against Norwich’s annual pride event. This says a great deal about the package of prejudices these people have adopted to promote their particular nasty brand of hell and damnation Christian love. 

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Eat, Drink and Be Merry

One lovely old face

St Andrew’s and Blackfriars’ Halls (known collectively as ‘The Halls’) is a 13th century medieval complex at the end of our street and the best preserved friary in England. The riot of sturdy buttresses, hammer beams and Gothic arches is one of the ‘Norwich 12‘ – a list of the most iconic buildings in the city. When Henry VIII decided to strip the Catholic Church of all its power and wealth, the friary was dissolved, the friars were cast out into the cold and the buildings were put up for sale. They were saved by the intervention of the Mayor of Norwich who took them off fat Harry’s hands for £81, pledging to use the halls “…for the good of the citizens, for fairs and feasting.” The Halls have been used for secular knees-ups ever since.  Carrying on the 450 year old party tradition, St Andrew’s Hall has just played grand host to the Norwich Beer Festival, a six day piss-up sponsored by the Norwich and Norfolk branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). Real ales are for real males judging by the herd of nerds in knitwear corralled outside a side door having a quick fag before resuming their drunken orgy and sucking the kegs dry. I was so fascinated by the species that I walked straight into a lamp post and nearly knocked myself out. And I was the sober one. Cheers!

Another lovely old face after it walked into a lamp post

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The Terrible Twos

Two years in the making and, just as Liam and I celebrated the blog’s second birthday with a drop of bubbly, Perking the Pansies received its 250,000th hit*. This may be skinny fry for the big hitters but this fat little sprat is delighted. I had fretted that our move – a wrench from the warm bosom of Bodrum to a quick-step along Norwich’s ancient cobbled lanes – might put people off. I thought I might end up talking to myself. I thought I might end up in therapy. Well, I needn’t have worried, readers have stayed the course, I’ve actually picked up a few more punters along the street and the book is still dropping into the shopping basket. So, whoever you are out there, friends and strangers alike, thank you.

Who knows what the terrible twos will bring? For a start, the equal sequel to the book will be out in 2013. Gird your loins. If you thought the first book was an eye opener, well… Thank you for all the enquiries; watch this space. I will also be releasing two e-books this month, and of course, I’ll continue to bombard you with rambling posts and the occasional bit of not so subtle PR.

On that very subject, the people at iWriteReadRate have shortlisted  Perking the Pansies for their book of the month competition. If you can be bothered, please vote. You’ll have to register though, which is a bit of a drag. Who knows? You might like this fancy new book site and stick around. Aw, go on.

* combined with my original Google blog that was blocked in Turkey in December 2010, blah, blah, blah …

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200,000 Hit Plus

Happy Birthday, Perking the Pansies