Exciting Times

There was more than a frisson of excitement prevalent in the Kings Arms last night…

Although I’m sure that band de jour – the 309′s – were excellent in their own way (unfortunately my conscienciousness regarding work the following morning precluded me from staying and experiencing them.  We did however enjoy a little titter as we watched them doing a 5 minute sound check before they had even switched the PA on), they were not to blame.

No, with a record 10 people waiting for just 1 number in the Lottery Bingo game run by the pub and the prize pot up to just short of £1000, anticipation levels were running high about who would win.  Last minute ‘splitsies’ deals were struck, as punters sought to gain an extra chance of sharing the pot.  I myself struck a deal – even half of the prize would go some way toward supplementing my meagre income and enabling a more comfortable Christmas for Mrs Funk and I.

However, it was to no avail.  Neither of the numbers required to trigger a win for the Funk household were drawn, and it now remains to be seen whether anyone won at all, or will the prize roll over yet another week.  I’ve no doubt I will be informed by my network of informers over the course of the morning.

In other news, it appears that one of our more prolific commentors has announced that he will no longer be cutting and pasting posting comments to the Old Heatonian.  Which is a shame, as I was hoping he would shed some light onto the list of pubs that I was unsure about on my recent article ‘Pub Crawl’.  However, his place has been ably filled with new commentor Titus Salt (who Facebook users in the village may know from the Victorian wisdom he has been dispensing – he appears to know where to find out about Corned Beef on Wikipedia for instance).  Perhaps he will eschew rampant Victorian xenophobia in order to enlighten us about more mundane topics?

Only time will tell…

Comments

Overnight, all comments on the website appear to have disappeared…

I don’t know what has caused this, but am investigating and hope to sort this out soon.  In the meantime, please don’t post comments as the may be lost.

Thanks

Pub Crawl

There used to be any number of pubs between the village and the town centre, making a pub crawl to the New Beehive an interesting and debilitating experience…

I remember once meeting up with a friend – Daz – in the Tut ‘n’ Shive on Duckworth Lane one Friday night.  The plan was to have a couple in there, then get a taxi down to the New Beehive to see a band in the cellar bar.  However, the night was positively balmy and young, so we changed our plan and decided to walk down into town, calling in at every pub on the way.  The plan was further enhanced when Daz revealed the bottle of Jim Beams he had secreted on his person, from which we could take regular, fortifying swigs should the distance between pubs (and drinkies) become insurmountable.

So, after a couple of pints of lovely lovely Stella in the Tut, we set off on our journey, breaking the seal on our bottle and making not inconsiderable headway into it as we made our way down to the Upper Globe, the first stop on our journey.

The Upper Globe has always played a prominent part in my life – as a child I spent many happy Christmases there as my uncle was the landlord for a few years.  It was also the place I finally managed to make sense of the seminal work ‘Trainspotting’ by Irvine Welsh.  The dialogue in Trainspotting is written in coloquial Scottish, and is almost incomprehensible unless, as I discovered while reading it in the Upper Globe, you read it while listening to a Scotsman banging on about whatever it is he was on about.  A quick pint in the Globe, followed by a quick diversion to the Bavaria for a game of pool and a pint of Murphys, then down to the Lower Globe.  By this time, the beer and bourbon were starting to make their presence in our systems known, so from then on we decided that we would be best drinking halfs.

Woolpack, Rose and Crown, then into the Melbourne for a couple – by this time our bottle of Beams was a shadow of its former self, and we decided that we should neck the remainder before we reached our final destination…

I’m not good with spirits, and keeping my final jolt of whiskey from the bottle down was a bit of a task, but I managed it and, green at the gills, we finally made it over to the Beehive.

The place was heaving and claustrophobia got the better of me for a time.  We decided not to brave the cellar bar after all, having found a spot to sit in the public bar, where we would be handy for both the toilet and the bar.  My nausea finally subsided, and we got back into the swing of drinking – Murphys with a Famous Grouse chaser – and no doubt our conversation became more and more unintelligible as the night wore on as we fought to make ourselves heard over the throng of happy drinkers.

All too soon, the night wound down and the inevitable, invisible and inaudible call of the curry house that only people of a certain level of intoxication can detect, insisted we leave the pub immediately and seek spicy sustenance.

The early morning air hit me like a sledgehammer between my eyes, and, staggering, I sat down hard on a low wall outside the pub.  Waves of nausea hit me as I swayed from side to side, the motion further exacerbating the inevitable.  I raised my head, as if to howl at the moon, and unleashed hell.

The fountain of partially digested food, bile and Murphys stout flew spectacularly through the air, glistening prettily in the streetlight, and showered almost gently down onto a small crowd of passersby, no doubt on their way down to Lingards.  I cringed in horror at the sight, expecting nothing less than a good kicking, but they merely held out their hands, as if to check for rain, and finding no more rain, continued on their way.

I felt a lot better after this, and we decided that a good curry was the best way to complete the evening.

I woke up 2 hours later to the sound of hammering on the toilet door.  Returning to the restaurant, I found the chairs stacked neatly on the tables, the waiters hanging round looking cross, and Daz looking guilty in front of my empty keema dhopiaza plate.

Charlies Back!

As readers of the comments will know by now, Clare and Neils cat Charlie finally turned up on Saturday, safe and well, if a little hungry…

He was found by Jobseeker Plus and the Bedmaker, who recognised him from the posters around the village.  So, a bit of good news in the village to brighten us all up on these cold wintry days.

I Know What Mrs Doyle Wants For Christmas

Cease and Desist

Recently, and through no fault of anyone in particular, the general direction of the Old Heatonian has been turned toward issues on which none of us have the in depth knowledge required to comment authoritatively, and to be honest, I doubt that many of us want to see this on Old Heatonian, which has traditionally been a forum for discussing much more trivial issues.

So I hope we can put an end to it all now.  Debate is good, and fun at times, but the topics we have recently worked through do not really have a place on the Old Heatonian.  This is one of the reasons why I set up the Forum, so that off topic issues could be discussed without alienating the people who come here for a bit of a laugh at the adventures of the people of Heaton.  Unfortunately, the Forum has been a bit of a failure – plenty of you have signed up, but noone seems willing to use it.

I think what has transpired is important though – if nothing else it has stimulated people to talk about what is on their mind, which is why we have the comments facility.  But we should also bear in mind that Old Heatonian is principally for fun, and it saddens me that so much ill informed content has tainted this philosophy, and has caused at least one regular commentor to sit out.

So, in a couple of days I am going to remove the articles ‘The Earth Turns’ and ‘Sick and The Dangers of Picking Cherries’ and their associated comments from the main display loop.  I won’t remove them for good – there will be a special category page where they can be accessed.  I don’t believe in censorship, and as I said, I think that what was said there was important.  I just don’t think it fits on the main page.

What do you think?

Look Out For Charlie

Charlie

It has been reported that Claire Bears cat has gone missing (since the early hours of Sunday morning).

He disappeared in the Ashwell Road area.  Larger than a kitten, but not quite fully grown, he is a tabby with a white belly and answers to the name Charlie.

Anyone spotting him should contact either Claire or Neil, or ring the Kings Arms on 01274 543165.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Sick and The Dangers of Picking Cherries

My recent (and, if my current state of being is any indicator, ongoing) illness has rather precluded me from joining in the, quite frankly hilarious, debate that has raged in the comments section of the article ‘The Earth Turns’…
Read more »

Checking In

For anyone who may be bored, bewildered, or just a bit fed up with reading the increasingly bizarre turns that a casual article looking for opinions about the US Elections have taken, why not kick back and watch some puppies

For those of you who are keen to see Banjaxed and Dribbly go head to head in some form of ‘Mass Debating’ session – well, Barely Legal has given us a venue so lets get them down there, getting it on!

My feverish delerium is diminishing – normal service soon.

Busy Busy Busy

Not much to say today really…

Due to t’workload and all that.  I have responded to a comment against the Earth Turns article though, but rather than drag politics onto the front page I’ll leave it where it is.

Upcoming highlights of the weekend include the return of Misspent Youth at the Kings – Mrs Funk is looking forward to that one, being a Dire Straits fan and all that.

I think she thinks the drummer is cute too…