109 comments on “The Morning After”

1. But as we have discussed before, there are alternative universes in which all these outings actually take place. I hate to think of anyone else enjoying themselves, least of all versions of me.
2. I had an enlightening and rewarding discussion with Mrs. Blameworthy yesterday concerning our plans to not go for a pre-Christmas drink. Her mind is much more incisive, penetrating and rational than mine; she swiftly scythed through the complex detail and got to grips with the advantages of arranging not to go somewhere. I was slow to follow her logic, but eventually the penny dropped and a whole new world of opportunity has now opened up before me. If we can be secure in the knowledge that our plans will not bear fruit, then why confine ourselves to organising a visit to somewhere convenient but mundane, when we could just as easily not go somewhere much nicer. If we have no intention of ever venturing anywhere, the normal constraints of time and distance need no longer apply. So we could start an evening out at a pub in Worcestershire and then move on to others in Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Hampshire and Kent, and still get home in time to listen to Brain of Britain on the wireless. We can have such fun, GloomLaden; and the weather is bound to be sunny and dry, even in December. When I’ve finalised the arrangements for the Christmas bash, I may start work on a monthly jolly boys outing for 2012. There’s so much to look forward to and our lives will be rich and satisfying once again.
3. We should go to the Wheatsheaf both in spite of and because it is closed. We can stand outside the rigor mortis afflicted hostelry, shouting our grief into the combined cacophany of black December gale, driving sleet and Old Town traffic, our pockets no match for the bitter pins and needles of biting frost rendering any attempt at gesticulation futile. We can discuss the post mortem state of the English pub trade for a time before mutual incomprehsion compels us to walk along the path that was once the Old Town railway track. As rain turns to blizzarding snow, we can lay outselves down awhile the better to catch the growing silence that will be eternity if we only close our eyes.

   Bring a bottle.
4. I was rather looking forward to not going to the Wheatsheaf, Gloomers, after your earlier report that it had reopened. Once again though, you failed to get your facts straight and the Wheatsheaf is still closed. So not going there is no longer an option. Or rather, not going there is the only option open to us while the pub remains closed.
5. We can’t go to Bath for eleven reasons, none of which I can be bothered to elaboorate, but all of which in some way or another reference our earlier visits to that city. We should stay where put, blindfold our eyes and stopper our mouths.
6. Bath should be the venue not to go to this year, Gloomers. As we’ve talked Death to death on previous outings – and Christmas being more about birth and goodwill – I thought, perhaps, a change to the schedule was in order this time. We shall begin the day with a pleasant walk along the river, during which the discussion will be ‘Art, Light and Small Scale Brewing in Cornwall’. This will be followed by a couple of pints of Old Slug Porter in the Old Green Tree accompanied by a lively debate on ‘The Greatest Novels of Alan Titchmarsh’. Last summer’s heated discussion in Oxford, about ‘Love & Romance’, became spasmodically passionate and I feel we both compensated in decibels for what we lacked in experience. So that should be an excellent topic for the early afternoon visits to the Raven and Salamander. Death will, doubtless, rear it’s ugly head once again as darkness falls and we weave our way to the Star and the Pulteney Arms. The climax to our day will be reached when we return to the station along the bed of the Kennet & Avon Canal while discussing ‘Gargoyles and Misericords of the Somerset Levels’. During the long wait for the train home I hope we can sing a few hymns in celebration of our joint conversion to Christianity.
7. Wednesday 28th December sounds an excellent date to me. I thought we’d already agreed that The Southbrook was the venue to which neither of us is turning up – though now that The Wheatsheaf is back open in Old Town we could aleays not go there. Thinking about it, I have always not gone to the Southbrook and, since I don’t like to break a habit, see no reason not to continue not going there for the rest of eternity.
   I am less concerned with the venue than the list of conversational topics you are drawing up. Since there are only two worthy conversational topics – and one of them, being love, is outside my remit – then it’s surely going to be Death all the way, with no need for a list at all.
8. I was mightily impressed with Fitrambler’s defensive strategy, though, Gloomers. Such was his trepidation at the mere thought of having to attend one of our pre-Christmas bashes, that he was willing to volunteer to work 24 hours a day for the whole of December, rather than be left without a valid excuse. This pre-emptive strike was made long before the invitations have been sent out; not knowing if he would get one if they were; and without the certain knowledge that there would even be – which of course there won’t – a pre-Christmas bash. He gives the impression of a desperate, haunted man. I look forward to hearing your elaborate reasons for not attending this non-event. I would also welcome a few suggestions for the best places not to go.
9. Here we (don’t) go again, Blameworthy. That Fitrambler has had to contrive to work rather than risk a Christmas bash says it all. Still, the swill of overtime will be better than the Christmas turkey.
10. In the typically contrary style which regular readers will have come to expect from GloomLaden and me, we have agreed that the annual Pre-Christmas Bash will take place on Wednesday 28th December this year. We have yet to stop sniggering into our sleeves, and giggling like young schoolboys in detention, in anticipation of the confusion, mayhem and social unrest which will inevitably follow in the wake of our cunning contrivance. I am currently working on a strict itinerary for the day, containing details of travel times, proposed route, pub visits and possible topics of conversation. This should be ready for publication on the blog by mid-January. GloomLaden will be issuing his usual comprehensive list of predictions, warning of all the things which could possibly go wrong on the day. It will be a slightly revised version of the one published before our last day out, during which we were taken unawares by a series of unforeseen incidents in deepest Gloucestershire. Depending on the number of participants at this years event, we may arrange another festive game of Pessimism Bingo, which involves the use of brightly coloured cards containing random numbers relating to an index of unfortunate disasters which might befall any one of us at some point during the day. Last year’s lucky winner was clearly heard enthusiastically bellowing ‘Full House!’ shortly before plunging headlong down a railway embankment and being struck violently in the chest by the 17:53 cross-country express to Abergavenny. Didn’t see that one coming!
11. Oh, and in the two fifteen minute breaks I get I’ve been deciding what films from collection to watch. The first will, as always, be the Alistair Sim version of Scrooge.

    The rest I am working on.
12. Reading the comments is always amusing for me. The tennis style banter of my good friends Blameworthy & Gloom-Laden. And it’s with great regret that I will not be able to attend – if honoured by an invitation – the Christmas bash.

    For old Fitrambler, despite his advancing years, has agreed to manage groups of casual workers in a cold warehouse fitted out like a mini-Mail Centre to assist getting the surplus Christmas mail out to the many who post cards, parcelled gifts and the like.

    Six day weeks until Christmas working a minimum of 2pm until 10pm, devoted to the cause.

    So all I can say is enjoy yourselves, lads, have one for me!
13. Oh, come now, Gloomers. You wouldn’t want to miss out on your Christmas bash, with all your friends from work, would you?

    Anyway, who’s celebrating? I’m not.
14. Any chance we could do away with the festive season, Blamers? It hardly seems right to celebrate when Robert Robinson is still dead.
15. Any chance we could do away with the festive snow scene, Fitters, it’s affecting my vision?

    Oh bugger; it’s not a festive snow scene, is it?
16. I always feel cheated, GloomLaden, by everyone and everything; more so during the festive season. At least, on this occasion, I will have been had by those with the good grace and decency to put in the time and effort required to create the illusion of honesty. Where will you be suffering your works Christmas party this year? Whose industrial products will you be swilling down your neck by the gallon? How fulfilled will you be feeling at noon on Saturday, as you surface from your malodorous putrescent pit to watch me trudge merrily by your window in blizzard-like conditions; up to my kidneys in drifting snow, with the zip of my polar explorers fleece tugged ever higher until it snags in the sticky, matted hairs of my grizzled grey beard.
17. If there indeed are nineteen breweries in Cornwall – and there aren’t – at least eighteen of them have sprung up in the last five minutes, operating out of units on industrial estates where men who fancy theirselves entrepreneurs fabricate beers from googled recipes, giving them bogus Cornish names like Old Grockle and Padstein the better to flog them to credulous beer scratchers. So when, Blameworthy, you stand in the Carters supping a pint of Pun Intended from the ersatz Moushole brewery, I hope you’ll feel utterly had before trudging out into the thick ice and snow while I sit safely at home sipping a therapeutic light ale and watching my horse come in at ten to one.
18. Nineteen breweries in Cornwall, Gloomers; they even have one called Frys. Our paths may cross on the Saturday morning then, as you wobble your way back from one of those bleak and soulless town centre vertical binging barns. You know it will only depress you for the whole of 2012. Why on earth do you bother?
19. I don’t have a diary in which to make a note and wouldn’t even if I had. And even if I did have a diary and had made a note in it, I wouldn’t go yomping on that particular Saturday because it is the day after the works Christmas do to which I have somehow conceded to go even though I don’t have a diary and wouldn’t have made a note in it to that effect even if I had.
    Cornish beer is a silly theme, anyway. They only do Tribute. And would real Cornish people not go for cider? Having said that. I don’t recall thet there are many orchards down that way either. A desert, it was.
20. Some unspeakable things are best not spoken about.

    I called in at the Carter’s Rest today, Gloomers and their Christmas/Winter beer festival will feature Cornish beers this year. Make a note in your diary for Saturday 17th December. Forget the horses and look forward to a bracing yomp out to Wroughton through the snow and ice.
21. Your guts aren’t as unspeakable as mine. But we must both defer to Fitrambler; his guts are can be frankly loquacious after a one and a half good curries.
22. Given the choice, GloomLaden – which, clearly, I haven’t been – I prefer to see myself as the crow in ‘Examination At The Womb Door’ by Ted Hughes:

    Who owns these unspeakable guts?
    Who owns these questionable brains?

    Unlike Yorick, not death yet, evidently. Won’t be long now though.
23. Fair comment, Blameworthy, you are much more suited to being one of the ‘rude mechanicals’ in A Midsummer Nights Dream.
24. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times. Where be your gibes now, GloomLaden?
25. Indeed, Blamewothy, it is better simply never to have been. Hamlet is a dithery chap who puts me rather in mind of a teenager, fetishing death and suffering because his noble position allows him to do so at less cost than others. Nowadays, he would be one of those Uni educated Goths who end up in good jobs writing software for Microsoft having their twenties writing Twilight fan fiction or the like. You, Blamers, would make a splendid Yorik.
26. Steady on there, GloomLaden! Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh? Perhaps I should have qualified the comment regarding my ‘stickyphobia’ by pointing out that it only applies to sweet and sugary items such as lollipops. A whole host of regular blog readers have been queuing up to point out that my remarks could easily have been misconstrued. How Winnie the Pooh can happily spoon runny honey into his mouth from a pot, without fearing the risk of having it congeal in his fur, is beyond me; and he’s far furrier than I have ever been. I feel the same about toffee apples and treacle.

    So now we have another GloomLaden adaptation of an original Shakespeare quote. ‘Not to be; that is the answer’. I was reminded recently of another of your reworked Bard quotations: ‘ It is better to have never loved at all than to have loved; whether you won or lost is immaterial’.
27. Blameworthy’s repulsive and quite uncalled for talk of dribble and facial hair give as good a summation of his character as we have yet had. He is, frankly, base, a fellow whose very soul seems to have been contrived from the gristly, spittle sodden gobbets accreted about his facial furniture.

    I, meanwhile, have been getting to grips with the 4 hour Kenneth Branagh film of Hamlet. To be or not to be? First to be, then not to be. How else can the thing be managed?
28. I’m no expert on lollipops, GloomLaden, having not sucked on one since my schooldays, but is it not possible that the unpleasantness of your sugary experience might have something to do with lack of expertise when selecting the colour and flavour of the lolly? Green, I would imagine, would be an unwise choice whereas red or yellow being suggestive of strawberries or lemons, might prove more pleasurably rewarding on the tastebuds. If it’s masochistic reliability you’re after you need only return to the confectioner uttering a confident ‘same again’, thus avoiding the pitfall of unsought-after pleasure.

    Shortly after growing a beard at the age of eighteen I also developed a pathological fear of having anything moist and sticky dribbling it’s way down through the short stubbly hairs on my chin and meandering glutinously over the peak of my adam’s apple on its course towards taking up permanent residence amongst the hairs on my chest. The mere idea of it makes me shudder.
29. I had a couple of perfectly horrible lollipops a couple of days ago. I wonder, in fact, why I had the second when the first was perfectly horrible. I mean, even if my motive was masochistic , the perfection of the first lolly’s unpleasantness should have rendered the second unnecessary. But that is itself to assume that pleasure is something one only wishes to have once, be it masochistic or otherwise. Besides which, I had no lollipops the other day for the smple reason that I didn’t want to run the risk of enjoying either one or more of them.
30. That might explain why your avatar has changed into something closely resembling a man in a Viking helmet, struggling back from the shops, with a very large bag of sausages.
31. I had a couple of rather nice lollipops a few days ago. First time in years.
32. … and I won’t hear a bad word said about Darren; he’s the lollipop man at the local school you know.
33. Excellent idea; perhaps Fitrambler would like to join us. Just name the time and date and I’ll be there. Or perhaps not.

    They won’t have anything on the jukebox as modern as Snow Patrol though. Lipstick On Your Collar by Connie Francis is one of their most recent, I believe.

    Sadly, old Bob passed away within a year of ceasing to be a pub landlord. He had become a regular in the Golden Cross; perching himself at the bar each day and hurling abuse at the other regulars until they ceased to be regulars. Much the same as he did from the other side of the bar in the Twelve Bells.
34. I thought old Bob was living in Cirencester, not dead.

    It is quite obvious that we should cross the plains of cement and visit the Southbrook. The place has character aplenty – a bloke called Darren is spectacularly sick over its widescreen telly every evening at seven. There’s food on the menu – some of it semi-digested and projectile vomited by said Darren – and a range of beers that runs from John Smiths Smooth to John Smiths Extra Smooth. We can recline on the generic upholstery listening to the ungentle collision of jukebox Snow Patrol and Sky Sports hyperbole (very Charles Ives) as we go native and vigourously defend – the vigour provided by liberal deployment of f-words – Sepp Blatter’s views on racism in soccer.
35. So where shall we go for the pre-Christmas drink this year, Gloomers? If you’re so keen on Slad perhaps we should kill two turkeys with one well aimed pudding and walk up the valley from Stroud on a Saturday in December. After all, the festive session often used to be held out of town. I still remember, with fondness, that afternoon in Cirencester a few years back. You know, the one that seemed to go on for about three days. The Twelve Bells isn’t the same since old Bob died though. Didn’t we go to Bath a couple of times as well? Surely you can recall being fished out of the Avon by those police frogmen. So how about it? Perhaps you would like to throw in a few suggestions of your own.
36. Good God, GloomLaden! Didn’t I tell you to let it settle?
37. Relishing a glass of double stout procured for me by Blameworthy as a birthday gift and doubtless purloined from some ersatz Farme Shoppe in what nobody calls Richard Jeffries Country (Ade Edmondson will be along momentarily to praise the authenticity of the quandam Chicory Tip bass player foolishly sinking his lump sum into selling honest food and dishonest prices), I could harely help reflecting that Christmas will soon be upon us. Stir up Sunday – when I’ll wager Mrs Blameworthy spits flecks of bile into the pudding mixture as a broadside against the season – has passesd us by, alas. But we have all the other markers of approaching festive cheer to come: Sports Personality of the Year, a council banning Christmas trees on health and safety grounds, those awful tabloid previews of Xmas telly in which every other programme is TBC, Islamic kebab van men in Santa hats, horse racing packing up on 20th December (when I have time off to actually bet on it), an argument at work about whether Boxing Day is the day after Christmas or the Bank Holiday Monday after, um, Boxing Day, people collecting turkeys from M&S as if there were a shortage when the shelves are stacked high with the dry trollops, Dame Edna Everage appearing n chat shows witthout having a stage or TV show to promote, my brother’s somehow pious insistance on sending me a Christmas card (Injured Jockeys Fund charity one) when I won’t send him one of any kind and – and here is the point – Blameworthy and I discussing a pre Christmas drink which does not happen. So how about a moritorium, eh? It’s gonna be lonely this Christmas without you, but that’s the way I like it. I’m still up for Slad in 2012, though.
    And if my gripes about the season have stolen Fitrambler’s festive blog post thunder. . .
38. Rich praise, indeed, GloomLaden. Better Beckettian than Robert Robinsonian.
39. Admirably Beckettian, Blameworthy.
40. What, no jelly? No ice cream? No balloons? No party poppers? No cakes? No party hats? No fireworks? No fizzy drinks? No postman’s knock? No musical chairs? No Punch & Judy? No singing? No dancing?

    No idea; no point; no hope; no future.
41. Yes, it is my birthday today, an event devoid of all significance other than that it is the first birthday I have had on which Robert Robinson has been dead. I’d say this cast a gloom over the celebrations, but there are no celebrations, thank God.
42. It takes a lot to stir me from my autumn torpor on the walk to work on a dull and damp November morning but I was jolted to my senses this week when I spotted, what appeared to be, a circular black dog turd lying on the tarmac. Like a magnificent Cumberland sausage; perfect in it’s proportions; nestling by the roadside in semi-artistic glory, it grabbed my attention to such an extent that, oblivious to passers-by, I found myself slowing my pace in readiness to take up a crouching position from whence I could examine it in more detail. Imagine my disappointment when, on closer inspection, it proved to be one of those rubber dampers used to secure car exhausts. I slumped back into a partial coma and, with shuffling gait, continued my journey into work.

    Today, while passing through Wootton Bassett market, I noticed a stall which sells not only black puddings but white puddings too. Following on from the sausagecentric discussion with GloomLaden last week, I toyed with the idea of buying a white pudding as a birthday treat for the Gloomster but, a whole one being surprisingly costly and not being certain whether he would be willing to eat any of it, I walked on without making the purchase. The thought then crossed my mind that if I could find one of those rare white dog turds GloomLaden is so fond of, I might be able to pass it off as a culinary delight and persuade him to sample a slice for his lunch the following day. I spent a pleasant couple of hours searching the High Street and the car park but, rather disappointingly, it’s true what they say about the scarcity of canine albino shite. Apparently it’s because dogs are rarely fed with bones these days, you know. Now, they also sell dog bones on a stall in the market but, not having the time to force feed the local dogs with free thigh bones and wait patiently – probably until after dark – for the outcome, I continued on my way to Crump’s butchers to stock up on sausages. Nothing exotic this time; just lamb and mint.
43. There used to be a tradition of using pub skittle alleys as air rifle ranges but now that most of the skittle alleys have been converted into dining areas, the shooting has had to stop; more’s the pity. Why not have both in the same space? Better still, dispense with the air rifles and bring in the heavy artillery. I’m not aware of any pubs in Swindon that have ranges. I think the nearest pub shooting club is based at the Brown Jack in Wroughton. The George & Dragon at Potterne has a rifle range in an outbuilding, but the most famous one is at the Lamb in Devizes, where you have to fire your gun through a hole in the wall. I didn’t see QI – not being able to stomach the smugness of some of the guests – and if you can’t be bothered to search for the answer, neither can I.

    Serious question to Fitrambler though: you spent a large part of your day in London strolling about taking photographs of pubs, two of which are among the best in the capital. Were you not tempted to cross the threshold of the Mitre and the Victoria to see what was inside?
44. The idea of white pudding, oddly, is more disturbing than that of black. One thinks of those 1970s white dog turds which 1990s third rate stand-up comics used to bang on about not having seen recently. And then there is the episode of Ripping Yarns about the boring Yorkshireman (no, not Michael Parkinson) whose mother made ‘black puddings so black, even the white bits were black.’

    Incidentally, Blameworthy, it was stated on this weeks QI that there are pubs with rifle ranges in Swindon and Devizes. Being too lazy to look it up on google and not really all that interested into the bargain, can you tell us whether there is any truth in this dubious factoid?
45. Before this blog is inundated with comments from readers protesting that white pudding does not contain blood: I know; I’ve just googled it. You will doubtless say ‘Get a life, Blameworthy!’ Or if you can’t get a life, get a sausage.
46. In response to your suggestion that you have a life, GloomLaden, I would say: get another one. But what about the cereal bars? Were they all eaten? I can’t remember now. You can get white pudding as well, you know. Which presumably is fat & blood as opposed to blood & fat. Bit like milky bar as opposed to Bournville, I suppose. I wonder what the Pink Lady’s feelings are on the subject of black pudding.
47. I was pleased that Fitters resolved the cliffhanger of the orange drink from the previous posting, as it had been troubling me. What had become of the remainder? A small detail, I know, but it niggled at my mind when I read the first post and the resolution of the epsidode sets my mind at peace again. You will doubtless say ‘Get a life, GloomLaden!’ But I have a life and it comprises just such things.
    This blog and its comments is becoming a little sausagecentric. But black pudding can be splendid, too.
48. It’s comforting to know that the Pink Lady enjoys a good sausage. I wonder where she gets hers from. I remember a tiny butcher’s shop down a back alley near Paddington Station where you could get some really chunky Black Rat, Black Death, Black Pudding, Streptococcus and Penicillin bangers at a very reasonable price in the 1980s. They displayed them, piled up, on a slab in the window. The owner used to play centre forward for Leyton Orient in the sixties.
49. Nothing to say again then, GloomLaden. Neither have I.

    Although I did hesitate over the ‘Patrick McGoohan moment’. Just for a second I thought it might be some kind of metropolitan rhyming slang.
50. Just to beat Blameworthy to the first comment for once, HA!

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