Posted on by JonnyB

‘No Smoking beyond this point’.

I stared at the new sign, impressed by its authoritarianness.

“How excitingly 2006!!!” I remarked to the Well-Spoken Barman.

“We’re trying to get ahead of legislation,” he replied.

I took my usual seat at the bar. The Village Pub (smoking side) was packed. The Village Pub (non-smoking side) was sparsely populated. I sipped my pint, reflecting on the momentous import of the new sign. It was just like being in Germany after the war. An accident of residency had found my seat in the freedom-loving smoking quarter; I could just have easily been trapped under the authoritarian jackboot of Communism (except with smoking rules).

“I think it’s good,” said Big A, puffing on a Marlboro contentedly. “It’ll definitely help me to stop.”

I am a non-smoker myself apart from occasionally when I am drunk and want to look cool, but I am uneasy about these new rules. The Village Pub is a private building, owned by the landlord. If he wants to let people smoke then it is should be his business. Nobody ever suggests that he shouldn’t serve pints in non-standard measures, block the fire exits, mix up the chopping boards or hire a twelve-piece folk band to sing in the corner. I don’t see why people should single out smoking.

Posted on by JonnyB

“Do you really have to milk that suspense so much?” asked Short Tony from behind his pint.

“What do you mean? They love it really.”

“Can’t you just tell them that you’re only moving out temporarily whilst the builders work?”

“It wouldn’t be so much fun. Besides, shhhh, people will hear us talking about the secret internet thing.”

“I think I might order a burger.”

Thank you for your comments over the last couple of days – I’ve been a bit busy doing Important Things so haven’t been able to reply to clarify matters.

I shall indeed soon be indulging in a complete change of scene. I am moving to an old cottage in a small Norfolk village a couple of miles down the road. Just temporarily, you understand. Narcoleptic Dave has kindly let us stay there whilst building work is being done.

Normal service will continue here, perhaps with a few new characters in a different location. It will be like Joey (the hilarious spin-off from Friends not the man on Blue Peter).

It is now the weekend almost, and I need to do some shopping for the Village Bonfire Party. Have a good one, and there are some good things to read here.

Posted on by JonnyB

The cottage is the second-oldest in the Village.

Starting life in the 1700s both probably and appropriately as some form of animal piggery place, it seems to have been converted into human accommodation soon afterwards. It was then split into three dwellings, before the gradual gentrification into hovel status that caused such ill-feeling amongst local peasants struggling to get onto the housing ladder.

In the 1800s some enterprising builder raised the roof, to provide a proper ‘upstairs’, and added a small kitchen and extra bedroom. You still had to go outside for a wee wee, though.

Frank Spencer lived here at some point in the 1970s and carried out some more additions. A small back room and conservatory. Roofing using the latest asbestos technology, he declined to use non-environmentally-friendly concrete for the foundations, relying instead on a natural earth base, reinforced with motorbike tyres.

But you no longer have to go outside for a wee wee at night: simply duck through the five-foot-one doorway into the second bedroom, totter down the narrow flight of stairs, through the lounge, through a short mysterious corridor, through the larder and you get to an indoor bathroom. If you’ve remembered to switch the hot water on you’re able to have a shower as well, although the ceiling’s not high enough to actually stand under it.

In the early twenty-first century, I engaged the Cheerful Builder. Strictly speaking a renovator, rather than a builder (although still very cheerful), the Cheerful Builder and his brother, the Cheerful Decorator, made the living area of the house beautiful and lovely and warm and cosy. Granted, there were a few false starts, particularly with regards to the chimney, but nothing a bit of work and the GNP of Portugal couldn’t fix.

But now there will be three of us.

Continued tomorrow…

Posted on by JonnyB

“Are you sure you don’t want any money for it?”

Len the Fish shook his head firmly. “Naah… don’t be stupid.”

Accepting joints off men in pubs is not something I do that often. But it was a Sunday lunchtime, and Len the Fish is a kind and generous man, and I was not about to turn him down.

“Get him a pint,” I mouthed at the Well-Spoken Barman, who had read my mind with his secret barman powers. I munched on a bit of pork crackling from the bowl on the bar, peckish already.

“Thanks. I’ve had a bit of a rubbish morning, actually,” I revealed.

Having spent much of the early hours waiting around to meet the cricket team in order to do a bit of groundwork, I’d thrown a strop and called one of them asking where the fuck they were. Slipping dramatically on a discarded banana skin; accidentally getting handcuffed to somebody you don’t like; forgetting that the clocks change – they’re all staples of comedy that never actually happen to anybody. Except, it appears, me. Apart from the banana skin/handcuff thing. So far.

“When are you going to have that then?” he asked, making appreciative ‘this is nice beer’ faces.

“Not today. Tuesday night, I think. It’ll last us a couple of days.” I was acutely aware that my dinner-cooking responsibilities had suffered recently. A roast topside with all the trimmings, or even just a few trimmings, might remedy that.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t take the half a cow off you in the end,” I said. “It’s just that we’re running the freezer down now, for when we move away, out of the Village at the end of the month.”

I had a dim and nagging doubt at the back of my mind that there were some people I’d meant to mention this to.

“Ahh, don’t worry,” he reassured. “You’ll still be able to pop in here occasionally, won’t you?”

“Oh I’m sure I will.”

“Your table’s ready, Jonny.” The Unfeasibly Tall Barman had appeared from nowhere, like the shopkeeper in the Mr Benn cartoons.

The LTLP and I walked through to the restaurant. I kept a sharp eye out for discarded fruit peelings on the floor.