The Pub At The Top Of The Hill - Calley Arms
After my first puncture messing up the first bike ride with the Pink Lady, the subsequent rides was somewhat more successful.
To be honest, it could not have been much worse!
We decided, correction, The Pink Lady, decided we would take a ride out to a gardening centre. That worried me a little. It was not so much the bike ride itself, but the memory which flashed through to Fitrambler brain; the Pink lady had taken a look at the Fitrambler garden recently – commonly known as the Fitrambler jungle.
Some have suggested I put a sign up at the back saying:
‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here!’
Legend has it Boy Scouts have been known to get lost in there on bob a job week! Of course, as with all legends, it starts with something simple and then is blown out of all proportion – I once found what looked like a boy scout cap…
Anyway, back to the bike ride…
‘It’s a lovely day and I need a few bits and pieces,’ said she.
‘You need a few bits and pieces.’ Said I.
‘Yes, and it’ll be a nice bike ride,’ the Pink Lady.
‘So, we’re going out for a bike ride to a gardening centre to get things for your garden, purely for yours?’ I repeated.
‘Something wrong with your ears, Fitrambler, that’s what I said.’
‘No, no, not at all. Absolutely, damn good idea.’
I was alright with that, long as she had not got it into her head to encourage me to spend money on the Fitrambler jungle. One likes to know the parameters once is working to. Besides, spending good money on the damn garden is bad enough but the bloody work that leads to. Well…
‘I’ve set our dinner going so that it’ll be ready when we get back…’
On hearing that the saliva glands began to work overtime. I tried to think of a way I could forgo the bike right and get to the dinner bit very quickly…
‘Are you ready, Freddie?’ she asked, and I straight away knew I would not get away with any excuse not to go on the bike ride, not if I wanted to stuff the old chops later.
Not that I did not want to go on the bike ride, but the thought of a Pink Lady dinner was distracting me somewhat!
Anyway, bikes out and helmets on, we were off, with, as usual, the Pink Lady leading the way.
What I did not realise was that we were not taking a direct route! This would be something which would become common over time, me confusing what was exactly happening…
We cycled to Old Town, from Toothill via the old railway line, through the back of Coate Water and up towards Hodson.
I sort of recognised the route or at least have travelled parts of it before in a car. How the direction fitted in with our journey to the Garden Centre I did not know. But these were early days of bike rides with The Pink Lady and I trusted her to lead the way.
To be honest, my sense of direction is not always perfect. Unless there’s a decent and sensible landmark. You know the sort of thing, pub, book shop, or a good place for a scoff, then I have a little difficulty. Also, in the last twenty years I had mainly gone places in cars…
What I should have remembered, though, was there’s a bloody great hill Hodson way. But as I said, only ever done the journey in a car and usually hills are not all that much of a problem in a car.
What I did remember was there were at least half a dozen times when I drank in there. First time when I got my first car and drove out there with Neatentidy, and then several times with Blameworthy. I think it was one visit with Blameworthy when I got one of my few 180’s at darts. History in the making.
Anyway, we obviously start at the bottom and as things go on, the Pink Lady gets further and further ahead and I start to slow down. Let’s face it, the Pink Lady has been cycling most of her life – almost came out of the womb with a bike attached. Me, I gave up around sixteen and only began again at 49. I just did not have her level of fitness.
Since I bought the new bike, I only used a few gears, having previously been used to around three gears on my bikes. On this hill I found myself getting right down to the lowest gear and still bloody struggling.
It got to a point where I felt I was going sideways, quite dangerous with the occasional oncoming car. It’s that sudden look of fear as they come round the corner and you are almost on their bonnet; a look that says ‘I think I just crapped myself!’
Fortunately, from my point of view, the sight of the oncoming car gave me a momentary burst of adrenalin and I managed to get over to my side of the road before having an impromptu flying lesson!
Unfortunately, this sudden energy burst did not last and I ended up getting off and walking, which was not much easier as most of my reserves of energy had been used trying to cycle up the bloody hill.
By this time my lungs were pounding like set of electric bellows which were on overload!
Finally, and what to me seemed hours later, but was probably only ten minutes later, I am approaching the top and there’s the Pink Lady leaning on her bike looking quite relaxed and smiling.
Now I am sure that the smiling was just a sign of friendliness but how I felt at that precise moment, combined with what I had just gone through, made me a tad suspicious that she was being smug.
When I eventually found enough breath to be able to speak, I explained:
‘Had..to..get..off..to..get..up..the..hill, couldn’t…peddle…any further.’
The Pink Lady asked: ‘Why didn’t you use the gears?’
I paused, fighting the urge to say: ‘because I didn’t have any ****ing gears left!’
After all, it was not her fault I was in the state I was, well, not entirely, anyway. Instead I looked across at the pub.
‘Been in there,’ I changed the subject, still sounding like a heavy breather on an obscene telephone call.
‘Do you want to go in.’
‘No. Best not.’
It was tempting, so very tempting but there were several reasons for my sudden bout of willpower. The first was that if I got inside she would have to drag me back out again. After what I just went through to get up the hill my enthusiasm for cycling had taken something of a bruising.
Secondly, I did not have enough money on me to pay for a round; or even just one for me!
I got about five minutes rest before we were off again and I was trying to keep up with the Pink Lady again.
Beautiful To Look At, A Long Way To Go!
That day I got to see the Pink Lady’s jean-covered arse more than her face as I followed it through the country roads. There are many worse things in life but it would have been nice to have narrowed the gap to less that three hundred yards!
But it was a lovely day; impending heart attack to one side.
Luckily, it was only a short upward ascension before we travelled down a very steep hill. This was a hill leading into more familiar territory, Wroughton.
Ah, good old Blameworthy and I walked to that village many a time in those days, trying to slate our thirst with beer…
I just caught the Pink Lady turn left at the end from my vast distance behind her. I did the same.
If nothing else, the ride down the hill at speed rested me a little and dried the sweat which previously was pouring out of every pore, so to speak.
This hill, although a lot easier, was a little frightening. I was going at a hell of a rate of knots and relying heavily of the breaks on the bike.
A few minutes later we were going up another hill before going off in the general direction of where the Pink Lady lived. A puzzle as I thought we were heading to the Garden Centre; wherever that was?
As it turned out we had gone in a wide circle in order to go away from the garden centre then curve back round to be back on track. It was at this point I should have begun to get a little more inquisitive, shall we say, about what routes we were taking; something I would attempt in future.
There were several more hills (not on the scale of the Hodson one, thankfully) before we finally arrive at the Garden Centre and the Pink Lady decides it might be an idea to have a cup of tea or coffee?
A cup? The distance I travelled and the effort I put in I wanted a bucket of coffee!
My keenest on cycling was depreciated a little on this first ride, especially the hill bit. I did try an tell myself I needed to get my fitness up a lot more and I would sail up the hills – or at least that was the opinion of the Pink Lady!
Hmm?
That hill, the one at Hodson, was not going to be the last one or indeed the last time I would have to try and cycle up it.
A week or so later we took a ride out towards the Village in at the top of Liddington. We began the journey from the Pink Lady’s house, where she was working on the meal we would have on our return. I can think of no better incentive for a bike ride than the prospect of a Pink Lady cooked meal at the end of it…
Fitrambler in paradise!
This time it felt a lot more civilized as I seemed better prepared for the hills; to be honest, I do not think they were any where as bad or twisty. I think it was the twisty-thing that did for me on the Hodson hill. There’s no real way to take a run at (or should that be a ride at it?) and get up a bit of speed. Whereas, going to Liddington that option was there.
The Pink Lady still remained ahead for the most part but I consoled myself with the fact I was being gentlemanly; you know, ladies first and all that.
We dropped off at the Village Inn at Liddington but the place was closed, which was bad news. Not happy with that at all, really bad form.
How Dare The Pub Not Be Open - The Village Inn.
So after a five or ten minute rest, where, for a few minutes of that rest, it spotted a little with rain, we moved on. Within half a mile the sun peeped out from behind the clouds.
Onwards we went, to our next port of call which was Wanborough. This time our (my) luck was in and the Calley Arms was open.
Time for a snifter!
Once we double locked our bikes up in the car park, we moved round to the front entrance. Never been much of one for the back entrance, not in my nature…
Up against the wall was an old rusting bike which the Pink Lady took a liking to. Out came the phone and she took a picture of it. I was not quite sure what the interest was but I was getting a little impatient for my ale.
I mean, be fair, the bike had been rotting away there for years, no reason why she could not have taken the photo on the way out? Still, that’s women for you. What they want you have to do now, what you want can wait a while!
Not A Bad Drop Of Beer And Much Needed - The Other Calley Arms.
Anyway, once inside I managed to get away with two drinks before we were on our way. To be honest, I did not want too many because of the journey home. Although a fine and sunny day, it was quite windy on some of the country roads.
Well, too many beers and there’s a pressing need to drain the old python; and having a crafty pee near a bush or something with a wind that might change direction at any minute; bit risky. It’s bad as a wet fart in white trousers! Not good for the image!
If I remember correctly, that ride was about 25 miles, which I did not discover until we got back to the Pink Lady’s house. She has a Speedo-come milometer on her bike; oddly enough in pink.
Made me feel rather good, cycling all that way. Of course what made me feel far, far better was sitting down to the Sunday roast the Pink Lady had cooked…
The rides during that Summer often began from the Pink Lady’s house or the canal bridge. And quite a few ended with dinner or lunch (and a pudding, no less) at the Pink Lady residence…
A Fitrambler cannot ask for more in life…well this one can’t!
TELLING TALES 
Might I go back a comment or two about wasting time? Teaching an apple to speak Esperanto is considered to be a waste of time? Does that, the, presuppose teaching an apple another language isn’t a waste of time?
Suicidal thoughts. I was going to say suicidal deeds but these would occupy less time in the end. And suicidal deeds can’t be plural in the case of an individual unless you count attempts at suicide which you wouldn’t.
Now who’s waxing whimsical? But you’re wasting your time listing ways of wasting your time unless you can also suggest a way in which you might pass the same time purposefully, as an alternative to what you consider to be wasting it.
There is such a thing as wasted time. Say, for instance, you sat saying the phrase ‘The three jolly Jack Tars’ 7658 times. Or spent eighteen years rearranging all the letters in a Top Gear script to make an instruction manual for a DVD player that doesn’t exist. Or squander seven seconds wondering who the politician FE Smith was before wasting seven years believing he founded The Fall in 1911. Time spent teaching an apple to speak Esperanto is wasted, but only if you already know Esperanto. But the best way to waste time, I find, is to place your left shoe in a box under the bed and then go looking for it in Church Stretton.
I’m not sure there is such a thing as wasted time.
Or time well spent for that matter.
Either way it soon passes and we are all forgotten.
Some paliative Bob is in order:
‘You can only waste time by deliberately setting out to do so. Buying a single stamp at a post office is as good a way as any.’
Or commenting on a blog.
Good grief, GloomLaden! For the love of God man, steady on! For the benefit of all the innumerable blog readers who are not Radio 4 listeners, or Countdown viewers, I would appreciate it if you would clarify exactly what you are accusing me of, with your libellous tittle-tattle. Those of a nervous disposition will be logging off in droves. Imaginations will be running wild out there with murky visions of a disreputable, hooded figure sidling surreptitiously into the Robinson family vault, under cover of darkness, in the dead of night.
You have conjured up a nightmarish vision of the pockmarked, lecherously leering, contorted facial features of Blameworthy as he rhythmically humps and grinds endlessly through the night, spreadeagled upon the unresponsive, icy, off-white flesh and bones of the late, former quiz-master, who lies there like a gargantuan slab of baking dough awaiting the oven, powerless to resist, or cry for help.
I am aware of the subtle difference between necrophiles and necrophiliacs, but the fact that you seem to be accusing me of a necrophile act suggests that mine was not merely a passive role. You say I have viciously attacked your hero at a time when he is least able to defend himself. Can you tell me at what point the victims of necrophilia are in the best position to offer up some resistance to the frenzied enthusiasm of their admirers?
If there is a shred of truth in your suggestion that any shred of decency I once had has been shredded into an infinite number of pieces, surely the sum total of those shredded pieces would still amount to the same overall weight of decency which was mine before I gave vent to what you have termed a ‘crass barrage of insults’, despite no longer being intact as a whole, as it were.
It’s good to know – though somehow not surprising – that Mrs Blameworthy and I are at one on the issue of Arthur Smith. There was, I concede, a degree of hyperbole in my comparing you to him. But you had viciously attacked – one might say committed necrophile act but for its lovelessness – a hero of mine at the moment when he was least able to defend himself, so I think I was entitled to react with excessive hostility. Robert Robinson is dead. Nothing either of us can do is going to make that situation better. But you, with your crass, yokel chip-on-shoulder barrage of insults, have contrived to make it worse, if not for Bob, then for me. In mercilessly mocking the most intelligent, witty, asttingent man I ever didn’t know, you have left me in no doubt that whatever shred of decency I once thought you had has, in fact, itself been shredded remnants too small to be visible to the moral intelligence, let alone the naked eye.
Mrs. Blameworthy – another avid Radio 4 listener – says she wholeheartedly agrees with you concerning Arthur Smith, describing him as coarse, unfunny and forever polluting the airwaves. She considers Arthur Mullard to have been gentler and better natured. She was good enough to reassure me that I’m not like Arthur Smith at all, but made no comment regarding any characteristics I might share with the other Arthur. I suppose I should be flattered that you compare me with someone who actually gets to be heard on Radio 4. I thought you only considered me fit for Radio 2 in the dead of night. You could never accuse Arthur of being urbane though.
Are you aware that Arthur Smith has a degree in ‘comparative literature’. Sounds like the study of Lewis books.
Pam Ayres might well have been the moment the rot set in. Working class voices should never have been allowed on the radio in much the way profoundly ugly or ordinary people are not allowed in films. These days, I can’t turn on my wireless without having to listen to Arthur Smith, for God’s sake. Arthur Mullard would be preferable – and I now recall that Mullard once guest presented Libby Purves’ Midweek. Arthur Smith, witless and blokey with all the intellectual appeal of a Plaistow pub at chuckng out time – eugh! That’s who you’re more like, Blameworthy: Arthur Smith.
That’s more like it; you can’t beat a nice bit of Pam Ayres. Do you remember the one she did about looking after your teeth?
Robert Robinson approved of Chesterton. He was one of Bob’s small pantheon of heroes: Dr Johnson, Dickens, Chesterton, Beachcomber. Friends all.
A poem, ext
So you want to get married? Sir, take my advice
Don’t marry a hatstand, marry a wife.
Though a hatstand looks splendid when stood in the hall
When it comes to the housework, it’s no good at all.
And a wife can be lover and helpmeet and friend
While your hatstand’s a hatstand, beginning to end.
So take you a wife, sir, be sure you adore her
No matter you’ve nowhere to hang your fedora.
Continuing the, slightly more high-brow, theme; here’s one from G.K. Chesterton:
‘Evolution meant different things to different people; it was sometimes understood as progress towards a perfection in which the lion would lie down with the lamb; it was sometimes understood as a mere ruthless struggle for life in which the lamb could only lie down inside the lion.’
For those seeking heavy relief from Blameworthy’s unintellectual ruminations, more Bob:
‘I’ve always thought it was the car went to the showroom to chosse the man, not the other way round, and Volvo like to pick a dentist who is going to send his son to a not quite first rate public school.’
He could have done Top Gear, I reckon.
And I think you may have overstretched yourself with ‘culumny of traducements’, Gloomers. Is that the Arthur Mullard pronuciation of calumny?
Bob would be appalled; his body has barely had time to cool – it’s probably warmer now than when he was alive – and already your standards are slipping.
For those seeking a little light-hearted relief from all this impenetrable, intellectual tosh, I shall return happily to the subject of swedes. I’m sure Robert Robinson would have known this, but another name for swede is rutabaga, which apparently means Swedish turnip, yellow turnip or more accurately root bag. Despite my lack of success in finding songs about swedes, I have managed to trace an American punk band called Rutabaga Suicide who recorded the album ‘Steel Pipe Treatment’ in 2006. There is also an obscure bunch of musicians called the Rutabaga Boogie Band. Frank Zappa in his 1966 song ‘Call Any Vegetable’ repeatedly mentions rutabagas
But, saving the best for last, in 1974 there was a single called ‘Rutabaga Boogie’ by Paul Shelasky And His Musical Zombies.
I kid you not!
Another Bobular gem to help us forget the filthy culumny of traducements put about by Blameworthy:
There are three great topics of conversation. One is the weather, one is class and one is eggs.
As Arthur would have said: ‘Yus my dear’
I don’t know about you – which, I know, is what people say when they think that is exactly what they do know about – but I think we might cleanse the air with a little wisdom from Bob himself. From Prescriptions of a Pox Doctor’s Clerk, here it comes:
‘The national dish of America is menu.’
Having been dubbed a Mullard, I wouldn’t be expected to know about a fedora but would have a vague recollection that r fedora(sic) had won Wimbledon a few times. In any case the fedora is only the thinking man’s hoodie. Equally, a Somerset Mullard could not be expected to know that Bob had moved beyond the county boundary. I suspect the mugging outside his door was committed by Bob himself, the victim subsequently setting fire to his house.
Waxing whimsical about your fellow Mullards isn’t going to get you off the hook, Blameworthy. You’ve gone too far this time. I’d have you for dancing on Bob’s grave but for the fact that they haven’t dug it yet. What with this and Mr Smartcar at work alleging that Bob was homosexual just because he sported a fedora on occasion – I am disgusted.
And did you notice in the obits that Bob sold the Somerset house some years ago and lived in his London house at Cheyne Walk? And that his later years were blighted by a housefire and a mugging at his very front door? Pessimist as I am, I was oddly shocked to find that he didn’t have the comfy country retirement I had imagined.
Now, hold hard there GloomLaden. Once again those long years spent imprisoned in your attic room, surrounded by books and with only the wireless for company, have left you completely out of touch with the real world and given you a jaundiced and skewed take on reality. If you ventured out there into the soulless ghettos of England’s sink estates you would find angry, snarling hordes of young, poor Arthur Mullards, living on benefits and struggling for their very survival. It is the likes of Robert Robinson, and his ilk, that are at the root of the recent riots and the anger of the rioters stems from pure envy.
You may think that the young hobbledehoys wear those hoodies to hide their faces from the CCTV cameras, but I know for a fact that most of them have secretly, in the privacy of their own homes, shaved the tops of their heads and cultivated just two or three strands of hair from just above their left ears, which they then plaster across their scalps using Brylcreem. Deep down in their hearts these uneducated ne’er-do-wells crave to be just like St. Bob but they are unable to admit it to their friends for fear of mockery and ridicule. How else do you explain the reports in last week’s South Somerset Echo of rioting in the streets of Chard and Crewkerne. The illustrations of young, local hoodlums, some as young as 18 months old, smashing the windows of the gentleman’s outfitters in the High Street, and casually walking away with teetering stacks of expensive tweed jackets, were truly shocking.
I blame the recent riots in England entirely on people like Blameworthy who think Arthur Mullard in any regard better than Robert Robinson. If the youth of this country had attended more to the likes of Bob, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now. And it would still be possible to buy a decently tailored tweed jacket on the high street.
Thought the comments was an improvement. More like discussion rather that erratic mini-subjects. I’ll push through a theme which puts the comments at the top.
This theme is better for the comments, except that you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to find them. No doubt you’ll have changed it again by the time I post this one though.
Let’s hear it for Arthur Mullard! Do you remember that version of ‘You’re The One That I Want’ he did with Hilda Baker. What a classic. I’m flattered to be compared to such a genuine, honest, warm-hearted character. Unlike that despicable fraud Robinson. Rest in Peace Arthur.
Always prepared to react to feedback. Which theme. Was that the brown theme? I move to a past one and see what you think.
One thing I have changed that may make things a little easier is the comments. I think I have solved how you get the latest on top. In other words comments in date/time order rather than all over the place depending on where you hit the reply button.
How dare you, Blameworthy. Bob is not even in his grave – let alone cold in it – and you are deriding him. It’s only working class oiks like you who thought him smug. He was clever and knew he was; your sort can’t stand that, can you? Bob could quote acres of Auden, hectares of Houseman; what can you do but regurgitate the contents of the Tim Rice helmed British Book of Hit Singles for vegetable related pop songs on anothers blog? If I were Fitrambler, I would censor your earlier comment as it is horribly offensive. It is altogether possible that Bob’s widow, seeking respite from funeral arrangements and the carping of lawyers, innocently pays a visit to the Fitrambler blog and its attendant comments in hope of some cycling related badinage. What does she find? A man with the intellectual credentials of Arthur Mullard fulsomely attacking her husband at the first possible moment (of an infinite number, but I won’t start that again) that he is unable rather than simply unwilling to answer. You sicken me to the marrow.
Can you change the theme again please Fitters? I’d like my Y back.
Strikes me he’s not worth the effort. Best forget all about the smug, self-satisfied, supercilious snob. Just be thankful you’re still alive to take up the mantle.
Notwithstanding all of which, Robert Robinson remains dead and will do for the reat of Time, unless you subscribe – as he did not – to religions. So where is he? I don’t mean the body; that is doubtless with the undertaker. But the man himself, the essential Bobness of Bob, if you will. You can call out to him and he won’t answer. No matter how long or hard you call, no matter you grow hoarse with shouting. He won’t be coming back. He’ll go on not coming back, over and over and over again. When you can no longer remember who he was or what you wanted of him, he still won’t come back. He will continue to be dead every second, every nanosecond, wounding you afresh each time with his implaccable failure still to be in the world. They will comfort you with absurd notions that he is still with you in the sense that you have memories of him, but it won’t be the same as his being in the world. And the fact that you called out to him when he was in the world and he didn’t reply then either is neither here nor there; he possibly could have done.
Continuing the random song title challenge:
‘You Broke My Heart’ was done by Alexandra Burke, the long since forgotten (hopefully) X Factor winner in 2008, but better still there was:
‘You Broke My Fucking Heart’ by Screeching Weasel (1993)
‘You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw’ an album by Spooky Tooth (1973)
And ‘You Broke My Heart’ by the magnificent punk band, The Vibrators (1977)
‘Walking The Dog’ was originally done by Rufus Thomas (1963), and has since been covered by the Rolling Stones (1964), Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey and Green Day.
‘Sugar Cube’ was originally recorded by Porcelain & The Tramps and covered by Yo La Tango. It includes the line ‘ And though I act the part of being tough, I crumble like a sugarcube for you’.
‘Seagull’ was a track from the first album by Bad Company (1973), sung by one of rock’s greatest vocalists, Paul Rodgers. Joni Mitchell recorded ‘Song To A Seagull’ (1968) and, of course, there is a band called A Flock Of Seagulls. More obscurely, a song called ‘Lesbian Seagull’ is attributed to Engelbert Humperdinck, and included on the album ‘Beavis and Butthead Do America’ (1996)
‘Cemetery Gates’ by the Smiths (1986) from ‘The Queen Is Dead’ album is too easy, but there is another song of the same name by Pantera (1990). The Smiths version includes the line: ‘A dreaded sunny day, so let’s go where we’re happy, and I’ll meet you at the cemetery gates’
‘Just One More’ was recorded by The Mad Caddies (2003).
Astonishingly, all sorts of people have waxed lyrical about turnips. There exists a band called the Surfin’ Turnips, who describe their style of music as Scrumpy & Western. The Sexual Turnips have turned up at a number of pubs and sung songs such as ‘A Pint Of London Pride Please’ and ‘Bash The Bastard’ but never seem to have been given the recording contract they most richly deserve. Even more disturbingly, there is a song called ‘Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip’ by Porcupine Tree. ‘Jig Of The Turnips’ was done by Ewan Dobson and ‘Yesterday’s Turnip’ by Jay Irwin.
A comprehensive range of songs about vegetables and fruit has been discussed on this blog in the past, but I have been unable to trace a song about swedes, perhaps because no artist wants to be accused of confusing the people of Sweden with hard, inedible vegetables. I would suggest anything by Abba, the most successful bunch of Swedes in living memory.
Clicked on the wrong reply button there but it’s worth saying again:
Yes, yes, yes…
Doffed hats and slit throats aside…
GloomLaden Lives !!!
Yes, yes, yes….
Doffed hats and slit throats aside….
GloomLaden Lives !!!
Alas, it falls to me to call a halt to what merrymaking there is by pointing out that radio and television quizmaster and novelist Robert Robinson is dead. Life, if it ever was, is no longer worth living. Intelligence and wit, indistingishable in Bob, prove not to be ineradicable. As one who wanted to grow up to be Robert Robinson, falsely imagining Robert Robinsonism to be a vocation not a person, I can see no way forward. The tweed jacket I so coveted is not mine to take, no matter how I might wish it were. The last of my true boyhood heroes has gone to the valley of Death; would that I could do the same. I hoope those of you who have, in recent days, cavorted here with talk of rugger players legs and bygone songs, acknowledge your folly, doff your hats to Bob’s memory, and slit your throats in restitution.
In a recent discussion about obscure subjects for songs – I consider ‘Tending The Wrong Grave’ by Half Man Half Biscuit to be one of the best – it was suggested that nobody had ever written a song about rugby players’ thighs. How wrong can you be? I thought everyone had heard the song ‘Massive Rugby Thighs’
I really DESPISE
Little men in suits and TIES
I tell you no secrets, don’t tell me no LIES
I give you no wherefores, don’t give me no WHYS
Just give me a man with massive rugby THIGHS
To stand in his way would be UNWISE
When he’s running down the field to score those TRYS
It could easily lead to your DEMISE
Probably best that nobody DIES
Crushed by those massive rugby THIGHS
He has the look of a man who has eaten all the PIES
With onion rings and thick French FRIES
He could very easily IMPROVISE
And crack all the coconuts on the coconut SHIES
By squeezing them between those massive rugby THIGHS
Hear the young women’s CRIES
And the old women’s SIGHS
As they stare in SURPRISE
And they can’t take their EYES
Off the mind-blowing SIZE
From the backs of his knees to the top of the FLIES
Of the man with the massive rugby THIGHS
He has a huge ding-a-ling which he cannot DISGUISE
But we do not CHASTISE
And no-one DENIES
What we all SURMISE
That if it started to RISE
It would reach for the SKIES
And the law still APPLIES
So the court would ARISE
To CRIMINALISE
The man with the massive rugby THIGHS
Lyrics by the up-and-coming black, New York rap artist Little Miss Blameworthy (2011)
I did hear that the original title of the song was to be “Tainted Sausage” and when Marc Almond suggested this the group frowned and said, “come again?”. I suppose they hadn’t expected him to take the reaction so literally.
When I related the story of the Soft Cell running joke to the Pink Lady my timing wasn’t too good and it put me in her bad books. Thinking back, I should’ve waited until she finished her ice cream…
The Wilt film, had it not been that both of us have read the book, would’ve been great. But there was so much that didn’t make it to screen. I read all the Wilt Books again in 2008/9 holidays in North Wales, getting hard ‘Paddington’ stares from people because of my raucous laughter.
Luckily, I was much more fortunate. I’ve got you a copy of Soft Cell’s Greatest Hit. Only £1.99 and it came with a free stomach pump. I’ve also been watching the DVD of the Wilt movie, as written by Tom Sharpe and featuring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. Not as funny as the book, but I laughed out loud at the scene where Mel Smith as Inspector Flint goes into the sex shop to make enquiries about blow up dolls. Surrounded by an impressive array of sex toys, Flint glances off camera and cries out in disgust ‘Good God! Do people really buy tartan dildoes?’ The seedy, old man behind the counter replies, totally deadpan, ‘That’s my thermos Inspector’
Mr Blameworthy, do you really, really think I would buy you a CD from Dan The Man? When I know you are a man of discerning taste who would never even think, momentarily, of having such a CD in their collection…I mean, what sort of a chap would I be to submit you to such an exercise in bad taste….
Ok, I went there on the last day and they were closed. We didn’t have time to wait for them to open as we had a train to catch.
The website states: He is funny, interesting , artistic and he makes your event memorable.
I bet he does….for all the wrong reasons. With his self-penned ballads such as ‘The Mobile Phone Song’ and ‘Let’s Go Line Dancing’
I’m also a bit disturbed by the forthcoming ‘Paddy the Panda and the Golden Shamrock’ An adventure bedtime story for young children. No sane parent would let their young child catch sight of Dan the Man just before trying to get them off to sleep. Have you seen his photograph? Enough to give the parents nightmares, let alone the kids!
I’m just thankful I don’t have to hear to his godawful crooning. Oh God! You haven’t bought me a CD, have you?
Just spent nearly two hours on the pier trying to find Crystal Chandelier. The only version I could find is by Charley Pride.
I did, however, find out the name of the guy belting out the songs. Dan the Man, who has a web site, frightenly enough. The CDs look a bit dodgy to me.
As it happens I’ve got some pork and leek sausages in the fridge which I was rather looking forward to having for lunch tomorrow until I read your comment. There’s half a pint of yoghurt in there as well but I don’t think I can stomach it now; certainly not with the bangers. I may have to dispose of it in the morning.
Gloomers won’t remember any of the aforementioned songs. You forget that he’s only a lad compared to us, and was barely out of nappies in the early 80s, although, in his mind, he was an old man from birth.
Wait a minute. Something missing here. Where’s Gloomers? Why isn’t he adding his four pennies worth?
If you’re going to the North Wales trip days, then how can you forget……
Being With You by Smokie Robinson. Haunted us everywhere in our first Wales trip in 1981. Seemed like every time we enter a pub with a juke box or any place that played music, it’d be played at least once!!!
True by Spadau Ballet.
Fade To Grey by Visage.
Girls On Film by Duran, Duran.
I Fought The Law by The Clash.
No More Heroes by The Clash
Love Action (I believe In Love) by Human League.
Geno by Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Souvenir by Orchestral Manoeuvres.
Happy Birthday by Altered Images.
It’s Different For Girls by Joe Jackson.
Money by The Flying Lizards.
Staring At The Rude Boys by The Ruts.
Shot Of Love by Bob Dylan.
Telegraph Road by Dire Straits.
Green Door by Shakin’ Stevens.
The Tide Is High by Blondie.
Ah, old Mark. Sausages and yogurt go through my mind at the mention of him. Why that is I suppose is best left unsaid. Hmm. Half a pint.
Moving swiftly forward a few decades, as a result of you tweeting about those North Wales trips of the early 80s, these are a few of the songs that stick in my mind from that period:
Bette Davis Eyes – Kim Carnes
Total Eclipse Of The Heart – Bonnie Tyler
Come On Eileen – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Let’s Dance & China Girl – David Bowie
Karma Chameleon – Culture Club
All Night Long & Hello – Lionel Richie
Billy Jean – Michael Jackson
Eye Of The Tiger – Survivor
I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues – Elton John
Sad Songs & Blue Eyes – Elton John
Our House – Madness
You Can’t Hurry Love – Phil Collins
Jump – Van Halen
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da – Police
Dancing In The Dark – Bruce Springsteen
And, try as I might, I still can’t forget Tainted Love by Soft Cell. I still get a little queasy whenever anyone mentions Marc Almond, although fortunately people rarely do these days.
Anthony Newley? There’s one. “idol On Parade”, along with that intellectually informative “Pop Goes The Weasel”. Add to that “Speedy Gonzalas” by Pat Boone, or indeed anything by him.
We could also add into the mix “My Old Man’s Dustman” & “Cumberland Gap” by Lonnie Donnegan, master of skiffle.
Then there was ‘Lipstick On Your Collar’ in 1959, and ‘Puff The Magic Dragon’ by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1963.
And who could forget ‘Tears On My Pillow’ by Little Anthony and the Imperials.
Well I certainly had.
I stand corrected. Victorian music it ain’t. However, I was under the influence of pints of Jw Lees (and hopefully will again tonight) and just couldn’t think of the music played other than I’m sure it’s the same discs as the ones you and possibly heard in our drunken stupors of those days.
A little more sober now, Pat Boone with “Love Letters In The Sand”, “Mr Bass-Man” by Johnny Cymbal or some other ludicrous name…”The Night Has A Thousand Eyes”, by someone or other and “An Itty-Bitty Tear Let Me Down” by Burl Ives…..
A bygone era, or one that never was but people think exists!
Hey ho!
Interestingly enough, another memorable single, recorded by Carl Belew in 1959, was called ‘Am I That Easy To Forget?’
Hang on a minute!…Crystal Chandeliers? Paper Roses? Early part of the last century? As much as it dents my pride having to break my vow of silence – or whatever the written equivalent of a vow of silence might be – or should that be the non-written equivalent of a vow of silence? – I have to take issue with Fitrambler with regard to the man selling CDs on the pier in Llandudno.
Crystal Chandeliers was written by Ted Harris in 1965 and recorded by Carl Belew in the same year. The Charley Pride version, which most people remember, topped the country music charts in 1967. It was also recorded by Danny O’Donnell more recently. Paper Roses was first released in 1960 and was sung by Anita Bryant accompanied by Monty Kelly’s orchestra and chorus. The more familiar version was, of course, sung by Marie Osmond and released in 1973.
So whichever version the man on the pier has been playing every year since you first went to North Wales in 1980, Fitters, it certainly wasn’t recorded in the early part of the last century. If he’s selling the greatest hits of Carl Belew or Anita Bryant, I’d snap up a few copies if I were you; could be worth a bob or two if you can find a mentally deficient, nit-picking collector.
Altogether now: Oh the crystal chandeliers light up the paintings in your hall…aaaaggghh!!!
Blimey, it’s nearly seven o’clock. Time for my medication.