Not wanted

Just had a quick look round and after looking on humor-blogs.com was a little surprised to find that after not posting for a while I have been kicked of the list, how strange. My blog was up for review whilst I have been ill and as such I didn’t expect anything glowing as a result of not having any content for a while. But still kicked of the list.

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Back....Just

When I last posted I had no idea it would such a long time before I even had the energy to sit at a keyboard again. My medical indiscretion whacked me out far more than I imagined it would and even given the energy to type the last thing on my mind has been funny.

I’m feeling lots better now and although not one hundred percent I at least have managed to get into the swing again. Thank you for visiting the blog and showing your concern, it was a nice surprise to see smiley faces waiting when I logged in.

Less than 100%.

No post for the last two days, I have been laid up with a bad chest infection and not had the energy to do anything. Couple of other things have gone dickey this week to and just after a check up that gave me the all clear. One of the down sides to being ill (apart from fighting for breath in between throwing up and getting hardly any sleep when you need it most) is that you are not allowed to enjoy your misery. Some kind friend who on hearing of your malaise invariably visits you and proceeds to give you a run down on whets wrong with them. They will ask you how you feel but before you get very far into your tail of whoe will stop you saying “You think that’s bad, I was in agony last week with, blah, blah, blah,

You get a blow by blow account of how they suffered for days, even weeks sometimes, after which they give you their recipe for a cure that cant fail, usually handed down to them by their Grandmother who lived till the ripe old age of thirty six. They nearly always involve the use of Olive oil and some old biddies pop sock wrapped round your neck whilst you sit feet immersed in a bowl of Kangaroo shit mixed with armadillo ear wax. What escaped me is if these remedies are so good, why did they suffer for so long.
I’m just getting older and more susceptible. I think I might be entering my falling apart period, I’ll keep you posted on what goes missing and what falls off.

Stripes for men.

Yesterday the sun was shining, and as it hadn’t rained for a few days I couldn’t put off mowing the lawn any longer. I call it lawn but its little more than a vast expanse of Australian bush land around sixty foot long and thirty wide and that’s just to the right of the path. On the other side in front of where I park my car is a strip fifteen foot wide and thirty-foot long. So unless I keep on top of it (And I don’t) making it tidy is a daunting task.

I have to have a run at these things so coffee was the order of the day followed by toast and then more coffee. I placed my safety chair near the front door, in case I needed to sit down, I have a great wheeze, if I am forced to exert myself in pointless exercise like cutting grass, then the safety chair is a must. It works like this; several of my son’s friends pass my humble pile on the way to the pub for the Sunday afternoon piss up. If I see one coming, I stagger around hand on brow as though about to collapse with a suitably pained expression on my face, and more often than not they will suggest I sit down and rest. They then unselfishly grab the mower and fire up and down the garden, grass flying everywhere until its done.

I use the old “You’re a good boy, how’s your Mum” ploy and get them to put the mower away for me. Fair is fair though I take the chair in myself, I do need to get some exercise, then I plonk myself in the back garden with the radio and a book and enjoy a lazy day. Perhaps later I have a drink as the old yellow ball nears its zenith and watch my ornate sundial rust away for lack of a lick of paint. (I don’t like painting either).

Quick story: When I first bought the sundial my youngest son and vivacious Katie picked it up from the garden centre for me. As I was placing it in the centre of the back garden and adjusting it to the sun, Katie asked me how it worked. “Its digital” I said “Works of solar power” She looked at me a little cagily (She has been caught out before by my nonsense) “What you mean the sun charges it up sort of thing?” I grabbed the opportunity “Yes the sun charges it up during the day, and that way it works at night too”. Her eyes narrowed, she sensed I was taking the piss, “Ok then if its that good how come it was so cheap” I had her “It was knock down price because the alarm doesn’t work on it”. This seamed reasonable to her, so smiling and saying “Oh right got ya” she went inside to make a cup of tea. Later she told her Mum and some of her friends about the digital sundial and one or two asked if there were any left at the store.

I had everything ready, mower, safety chair; cup of coffee, all I needed to do was mow. As I mentally psyched myself up for this monumental task, Keith from next door but one sauntered over wearing his I’ve just got back from Spain look, slight tan, loud shirt, shorts and sandals. Keith is a nice bloke but a master of the obvious, “Your cutting the grass then” I nodded “Did mine yesterday, one or two sprigs have sprung up though, might have to go over it with the scissors”. Keith is a perfectionist when it comes to his garden, he has a place for everything and you can be sure everything is in its place. Plants are co-ordinated by season and colour and where ever you look in his mini Q gardens there is a theme. Me! I can’t be arsed, everything is where it’s always been and it can bleeding stay there.

He made himself comfortable on the gate and settled down to watch a cack handed amateur make a balls up of a simple task like cutting the grass, I wasn’t about to disappoint him. I fired the beast up and began the long walk down to the front of my house where I would turn around one hundred and eighty degrees and walk all the way back, only to do the same add infinitum. On my second trip back up the garden I paused near the gate. Keith pointed to my efforts and said, “Your not doing stripes then? You should do stripes, I did stripes on mine, stripes look better, more professional stripes are”.

I was about to suggest he shove his stripes up his arse when the do-it-yourselfer with the Tefal head from across the road joined us, “Your cutting the grass then” he said leaning on the gate next to Keith, “He isn’t doing stripes though” volunteered Keith. Tefal man looked shocked “Not doing stripes, what’s the point of doing it at all if your not doing stripes, everyone does stripes round here”. I was tempted to remind him he had only been round here five minutes so how would he know who did and didn’t do bloody stripes, but I bit my lip. I looked at them both leaning on my gate complaining about the way I was cutting my grass, when a piece of advice my Father gave me many years ago popped into my head.
“”Flatter the vanity of men and watch them Move Mountains to validate your claims.”” (He was always coming out with gems like that)

I adorned a forlorn expression and wistfully informed them that “I’m nowhere near as good a gardener as you two lads are. You know what you’re doing; well you only have to look at your gardens to see that. I couldn’t do stripes to save my life, I wish I could, perhaps next time your doing stripes Keith I will come over and watch how you do it.”

Keith and Tefal head sprung into action, “Theirs no time like the present, watch and learn chummy, watch and learn”. So watch I did from the comfort of my chair as Keith lovingly squared up my earlier attempt and whizzed up and down my lawn alternately cutting low and high, whilst Tefal head bagged the cut grass and explained that the secret was “Not to mow over old grass”.

When they had finished I made a point of admiring my stripy new lawn, thanked them for the gardening lesson and offered them a drink. “Thanks but no thanks” said Keith “Have to pick the grandkids up soon, so I’m off to get ready” he disappeared leaving me with Tefal head who accepted my offer. As he drank my coffee he cast a do-it-yourselfers eye over my place and pointed out one or two things that needed doing. I agreed with him but admitted that I wasn’t very good at home improvements and wondered at how some guys could turn their hand to anything.

He puffed his chest out proudly and said “Well I’ve always been a dab hand at DIY, if you ever need any advice, I’m the man to ask”. I escorted him through to the back garden to have a quick look at my rusting sundial, “What kind of paint would I use on this sundial I asked innocently” He put his glasses on his enormous head and began to inspect the dial. “Hmmm it depends on whether its cast iron or cast steel, you cant just slop any old paint on metal you know, it’s a science”. Inspection finished he announced that Hammeright paint (Whatever that is) was the right paint for the job. It just so happened that he had some and that if I wanted he would drag the sundial over to his place and do a proper job of it in his shed out of the sun and the dust.

I thanked him once again for being all knowledgeable and helpful as he struggled with the heavy sundial over the road to his shed. “Ill bring it back tomorrow,” he said as he closed his shed door. “No rush” I said “No rush”.

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The copper top tart.

It amazes me how people who abuse and torture their bodies with drugs, booze and raucous living can outlast seasoned fitness freaks who do all the right things health wise. One such person is Nora, or as she was known locally “The copper top tart”.

Nora has always been a tart; she learnt her trade during the black out of the Second World War. It was then that she discovered American soldiers would pay handsomely for a few hurried moments of sex with a then pretty girl who didn’t much care what they did to her as long as she got her few bob for the job. British Tommie's were among her patrons too, but she preferred the yanks because they treated her well, and gave her presents.

I’m not being unkind by calling her a tart, this was how she referred to herself, and was I think proud of her profession. Once when in the dock for attempting to solicit whilst being drunk and disorderly, or was it being drunk and disorderly whilst soliciting? Whatever the charge was it left the magistrate in some confusion. Wishing to clarify the matter for legal reasons he asked her what she was doing staggering round Albert Square at three in the morning with her skirt tucked in her knickers calling a copper a knob head and telling him to get his hand in his pocket and pay up.

Her reply was typical of how she spoke about herself. “I was out earning your worship, just had one toddy too many”. “I see,” said the Magistrate “your saying you are a lady of the night?” “I’m a tart your honour, day or night”. The Magistrate was lenient with her that day and she was only fined a fiver, whether it was for being drunk and disorderly or for soliciting I can’t say, but it was one of many appearances she made in court over the years for plying her trade.

Nora had bright orange hair that shone like copper wire, and green eyes that in later years turned more of a muddy yellow specked with red. But those that remember her in her heyday say that she was a stunning looking girl, if just a little common, with a mouth to rival that of a sailor. She spoke with a broad Manchester accent punctuated by swear words that would shock hardened Dockers. Her tone changed though when ever she was brought up before the beak, not wishing to offend her judge’s she would affect a posh accent using lots of H’s which apparently helped her not to blaspheme.

She could drink like a fish, and spent a good deal of her time in Yates’s wine lodge in Piccadilly, or The Queens hotel just across the road knocking back hot toddies (Australian white wine with hot water, sugar and lemon). In those days the floor of Yates’s was bare wood scrubbed clean every morning. But by closing time it would be soaked in spilt wine, covered in dog ends and the odd farmer blow from visiting dignitaries. Many times after drinking one too many Nora would keel over and crack her face on the floorboards, which over the years fashioned her nose into a bugle any boxer would be proud of.

In the course of servicing the lonely and forgotten men in the district, she met and married a Totter named Norris. He had the second floor of an old run down warehouse in Ancoats where he dealt in the recycling of rags and old oil. I can’t imagine what he did with the old oil, but his efforts more than covered the living allowance, allowed him to put a few bob away each week and still left a little over for entertainment. So it was surprising that Nora carried on trading flesh for pennies when she really didn’t have to. Norris apparently turned a blind eye to Nora’s indiscretions saying, “Everybody needs a hobby”.

The older Nora got, the more she came to rely on the contents of her make-up box, which by the time she was in her forties was the size of a walk in wardrobe. Time, and the ravages of handbag swinging under the railway arches meant she had to get up earlier in the morning to erect the scaffolding that enabled her to reconstruct the look she had found so easy to achieve with just a splash of cold water and a little lippy when she was a young girl.

My brother and I were sampling the light ale in a pub in Ashton one night when in walked Nora dressed in a Salvation Army uniform shaking a collection box. Considering that she was a representative of that worthy association she looked out of place with her bright orange hair, devil red lipstick and skirt half way up her arse.

She recognised us, came over and sat down. Giving a secretive wink she told us that she had rescued the uniform from one of Norris’s rag boxes and doing the pubs and clubs a couple of nights over the weekend was a nice little earner for her now that customers were a bit thin on the ground. She didn’t get away with this little scam of hers for long, whether God grassed her up, or she just crossed the path of real Salvationist's who stripped her of her uniform I don’t know, but she was soon up to her old tricks outside Belle Vue Dogs.

That was in the eighties, Norris died from Emphysema in ninety-one the result of breathing in rag dust for years. Before his death the rag business had been in decline and was closed down shortly after the funeral. Nora who had no real interest in totting and who had looked at the rag business as just a cheap way of supplementing her wardrobe, continued despite her failing looks to try to interest men in what she had to offer.

Sadly it wasn’t a lot. Towards the end of her career as a streetwalker she had begun to plaster her face in white powder, draw unequal and bizarre eyebrows near her hairline, and apply deep red lipstick with a trowel. This plus her bright orange (Copper coloured wig) hair had the effect of scaring rather than attracting men.

I met this singular woman again this morning when in Martins Bakers buying my lunch. Nora was stood at the counter eyeing up the cream cakes. She turned to look at me her bizarre appearance was made even more bizarre when her lips cracked into a smile to display huge yellow teeth and a tongue that darted from one cracked tombstone to another as though she were counting them.

Its hard to imagine that she was (despite always being promiscuous) the darling of American GIs in the forties and a much sought after drinking companion for lots of men after those heady days of fun when she was known as “The copper top tart”.

Glossary (For my American pals)

Copper: Policeman
Beak: Judge
Docker: Dockworker
Knob head: Idiot
Farmer blow: The act of ejaculating snot from the nose one nostril at a time.
Totter: Rag and bone man who collects old rags from houses
Bugle: Nose

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Rupert the tramp.

Rupert the tramp was a familiar figure in Gorton during the late seventies, early eighties. He was tall, gaunt and easily recognised by his shabby greasy clothes and wild hair that gave him a Ben Gun appearance. Most days he could be seen walking the empty streets of terraced houses awaiting demolition. This was where he earned his living; this was where he lived. During the day he would comb the old houses for scrap copper and lead piping that he would weigh in for a few pennies and at night he would find a house that still had windows and a door and there he would sleep.

People didn’t pay much attention to Rupert really, they didn’t bother him and he certainly didn’t bother them. It was a good arrangement; sometimes people swapped rumours about why he became a tramp. Nobody came near the truth, he walked amongst them for years and they never knew who he was. Had they done so they may have been a little more sympathetic to his plight. He had in fact touched a great many of their lives in one way or another. Like the wife whose husband left them penniless after gambling the housekeeping money on the horses, or a poor family whose children through the efforts of a charity people like Rupert supported were taken to the seaside for a few days holiday.

Walking home late one night after a few drinks with some friends I called in the public toilets near the Lake Hotel, there standing very still and looking in the mirror was this tall thin man, in a long overcoat with wild matted hair and a unkempt beard. I decided against washing my hands and made to leave, “She wont come back, she said she wouldn’t come back” For such a scruffy looking individual he was well spoken and his voice was surprisingly cultured. He turned to look at me, his eyes were sad “You can’t trust them, they just, you can’t trust them”. I smiled and left, as guilty as anyone for ignoring this lonely man.

I met Rupert again some years later during a stay in hospital at the beginning of my Gall bladder period. He looked decidedly different, clean, well groomed and happier, though his years spent living rough had taken their toll. In the few days that we spent together in ward M6 we talked a lot, and he told me a good deal about his life.

Rupert had been a polish immigrant from war torn Europe, he had worked hard at various jobs until eventually he became the propriarter of a Bookmakers and although not wealthy he was certainly comfortable and could easily have retired on his savings and the sale of his business. He met a woman a good deal younger than him, at first everything was good but despite warnings from friends that she was a gold digger who was after his money they married.

To some he was a pariah because of his business, to others he was a saint because of his charity work and the money he spent helping people. To his new wife he was an unfortunate but necessary encumbrance to her new lifestyle. It wasn’t long before she began taking lovers in double figures, and almost everybody knew including Rupert. When she took his best friend to her bed it did something to him that changed his life. He went on a destructive drinking spree that lasted weeks, and then he just disappeared.

In fact he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he spent some time before discharging himself, taking to the streets and living rough. Although he lived for years in squalor and dirt, the money he earned from scrap metal was carefully saved. He told me he managed to put aside about a hundred-pound a week. His wants were few, his overheads minimal. He had found himself in hospital after a fall from the roof of a derelict building where he had been collecting lead guttering. The hospital had managed to inform his next of kin, who just happened to be the loveless wife who betrayed him with his friend.

She hadn’t seen him for years but she managed to convince him that they should make a new start and that she would look after him. She had run the bookmakers into the ground, spent all the money and now she was back for another bite of the cherry, and he fell for it. I tried unsuccessfully to talk him into taking more time to think about it, but he was determined that this time everything would be ok. She had changed, she was sorry; she was ready to start again. There wasn’t much I could do really, I hadn’t known him long and it was to be honest none of my business.

He was discharged a couple of days before me, we shook hands and wished each other luck, then he left with his wife to begin what he thought would be a better life. I don’t know all the details of how it fell apart, but I can guess. She finished up once again sat at the bar in the snug drinking brandies and dripping gold, whilst Rupert went looking for scrap lead again, this time to fill his pockets and go for a swim.

“You can’t trust them, they just, you can’t trust them”

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Asda's Own brand.

Despite my recent beefs about Asda I found myself there again yesterday, not for the weekly shop but to browse the CD Isle, they have quite a good selection and how wrong can you get with things like pre-packed, made somewhere else type goods? In the car-park I overheard two battle worn vets of power bargain shopping talking about Asda’s own brand goods that were just as good as, if not better than the real thing.

I should have known better, but I’m a bloke, I’m supposed to fall for this shit. Anyway the thought of huge savings that could count in pounds rather than pennies had me filling a basket once more. I started the ball rolling by visiting the less than hygienic café for a cold coffee. Complaining about the lack of heat in this beverage seems to draw nothing but Blanc stairs from the staff so I have stopped trying, its wet, it moves, its more or less the right colour. Besides I have another plan for getting something done about that. They have a suggestion box hung on the wall for customers to suggest ways to improve their service. The suggestions I intend to stuff into it will run into a novel, emailing head office seems to have had no effect. The gloves are off.

Fish fingers (Asda’s own brand) Ok I know the nearest that they have come to fish was in the delivery truck on the way into the store, but even devoid of the main ingredient (Fish) they should be at least edible. I gave some to my grandson Mark who expelled them from his mouth almost as soon as they touched his teeth. He looked at me with dismay, more I think because he didn’t want to disappoint me after my frying them to death for him (They wouldn’t change colour) than because they were uneatable. I told him not to worry, just eat the chips and the beans (Asda’s own brand). As he set about the beans, which by the way have a fart factor of nine point eight on the sphincter scale, I tried the fish fingers for myself. The result was the same; they left my mouth like a speeding comet and the re-entry into earth’s atmosphere probably cooked them more than when they were in the frying pan.

This morning I made some sandwiches to take into work. Time to get out Asda’s own brand cling film and cooking foil to wrap them in. The cling film stubbornly refused to cling to anything other than the roll that it was packaged in. I fought with it for over ten minutes before consigning it to the bin and reverting to the cooking foil. Again Asda’s own brand. The instructions on how to remove it from the box were a little more than ambiguous, which resulted in my slicing my thumb and forefinger quite badly on the serrated edge, covering the work surface and my sandwiches in copious amounts of blood rendering them in turn inedible. I really did try with the cooking foil, but of so bad a quality was it, and so thick, that only a car panel beater could have fashioned it into anything like a package fit to carry my lunch in. That I gave up and it too went into the bin.

I have a cupboard and fridge full of white packaged, bland looking Asda’s own brand food waiting to do battle with me. I get the feeling I am going to need a bigger bin.

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Triumphs and disasters part 3

After I left theYarmouth track in the capable hands of Rob the new Manager, things became quieter on the social side for me partly because I wasn’t in the mood for the complications of courtship, but mainly because I was so busy with work. I was to travel to Ibiza to reconnoitre a rundown outdoor go kart track that was part of a hotel complex with a view to buying and turning around the fortunes of what could have been a very good money spinner.

The companies business plan was to set up five or six tracks as a group and make it a buyable commodity. We had given ourselves five years to do this, not a lot of time but it was (in theory) a workable plan. The Ibiza complex was to be our venture into the European market. Unfortunately the reason the Spanish track was in such dire straits was because even though several attempts had been made by other people to make a success of the business, the intrusion of the local villains wanting their cut of the profits effectively brought to a halt any hope of success.

We did toy with the idea of taking a crew of our own over to maintain security, but there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the police to this idea. Quite apart from the logistics and expense involved in flying people backwards and forwards. There was also the matter of tribute to the police who needed their palms greasing for that to have worked.

On my return to Manchester I fell into the hands of Carol a buxom blonde whom I had crossed swords with on several occasions over the years at various social functions. She had made it quite clear that my being married made no difference to her intentions towards me and that should I ever feel the need for female company all I had to do was whistle.

We met up again at a mutual friends funeral, the deceased Graham had tried many times in life to get Carol and I together maintaining that we were perfect for each other. His premise for this was that as she was an attractive, curvy, fun loving and sexually gregarious woman, and I was a dirty little bugger we couldn’t miss. I felt somewhat slighted by this assessment of me considering the articulation he used to describe Carol. It was ironic that he managed in death what he couldn’t manage in life. He would have been pleased.

I was in no doubt that she enjoyed sex, but to what extent and under what circumstances I couldn’t have imagined. In fact it overshadowed everything else and was the basis of every date or social occasion that we enjoyed. In short she craved the buzz she derived from making love in situations where there was a possibility of being caught inflagranti.

At first I enjoyed these sometimes impromptu assignations, in the Blackpool tower ballroom during the day, the back of a car in Morrisons car park, a gazebo in a garden centre, all of these were exciting but a tremendous strain on the nerves. I had to call a halt to the relationship after a particularly bad experience on a fairground ride. It was in Blackpool a favourite haunt of hers because of the variety of interesting places that one could perform the deed.


The pleasure beach had just opened up for the morning, in one of the arcades there was a N A S A shuttle ride. It seated about eight people at a time but as Carol and I were the only two waiting to go on it the operator was reluctant to allow it to go through its paces without a full compliment of passengers. She pouted and pleaded and pushed her boobs out at him, and to give him his due he held out for quite a while until she took him to one side and whispered in his ear.

The shuttle was quite large inside with four rows of seats facing a large screen that displayed various images of space whilst speakers gave a commentary. The operator buckled us in, but as soon as the door was shut and the show started Carol was out of her seat, unbuckling my harness and desperately trying to ravish me where I sat. I protested on the grounds that as the damn thing was swinging and bucking like a mad horse it was dangerous. She pulled me out of my seat and as she bent across the back of another she said “Don’t worry, I paid him extra so we could have a longer ride”. My heart sank I was about to protest more but the shuttle tipped forward and I was flung into the breach.

It was the longest and scariest ride of my life (I think). Sexual congress in the vertical position isn’t the most comfortable way to enjoy oneself. But when the floor is swaying from side to side and bumping up and down at the same time, it takes away any kind of control, obliterates technique and introduces an element of surprise that whilst not unpleasant can be disconcerting. It didn’t help my nerves that over the noise of the loudspeakers informing me that I was about to shoot into space, and the mechanics and hydraulics of the shuttle grinding and moaning in the background, Carol was doing her best at drowning it out with a little noise of her own.

Mercifully the ride ended and there was just enough time to make ourselves presentable before the shuttle doors opened. As we stepped out of the door and on to the gantry at the top of the stairs, we were greeted by a sea of smiling faces all stood waiting patiently for their turn on the ride. One or two in the crowd made a point of looking the other way. There was three guys together who were laughing, one of them nodded at me and punched the air silently.

I immersed myself in work after that; it was far safer than the histrionics and gymnastics that being with Carol demanded. Shame really because in every other respect we were compatible.

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Not the Trafford shopping centre.

One of the interesting things about running a shop in the suburbs was the wide variety of lunatics that frequented the place. The customers were wacky enough and although irritating to deal with were a necessary evil. There was also other shopkeeper's on the same block who felt the need to pop in on a regular basis and pal out with me as it were. There was Doreen who had a Flower shop and punctuated every other word with a sneeze (She was allergic to flowers) and dripped snot into roses and carnations as she lovingly fashioned floral tributes. Many a young girl presented with one of Doreen bouquets must have sniffed enthusiastically at it thinking “How sweet they smell, and so fresh too, they still have dew on them”. She was a homely looking girl but what an artist. .

Next door was the Lucky Hoe Chinese chippy ran by Mr Hee Hoe who unfailingly made gravy with the consistency of wood glue, he eventually hung himself after laying siege with a vicious looking chopper to a battalion of police officers hold up in his stockroom. The rumour was that his Cantonese lover had left him for a Scots gay rights activist with one leg who insisted on wearing spandex tops with a kilt. That episode hit him hard, but I think it was his fear of reprisals from disgruntled customers who had been sold meat and potato pie’s Hee Hoe had chucked in the fryer straight from the freezer.

One guy had threatened to return with his crew and launch him and his half-cooked pies through the window and that’s what tipped him over the edge I think. He phoned the Samaritans and threatened to batter himself, they tried to talk reason with him but when he screamed down the phone that he had his chopper out and was ready to use it, they had no alternative but to bring the law in. When the police arrived Hee Hoe answered the door to them naked except for a chief’s utility belt adorned with chip shop condiments that barely covered his modesty. The siege didn’t last long but before back up could get there Mr Hoe had joined the Chinese lanterns swinging in the window of the Lucky Hoe chippy.

There was fabulous Gloria the blonde secretary come assistant to the funeral director three shops further along the block who liked to spend her dinner hour in my shop several times a week. She complained that it was impossible to eat Mr Hoe’s gravy at the best of times but having to contend with the smell of formaldehyde and embalming fluid whilst eating a tray full of chips laced with wood glue was more than she could handle. I suggested she tell Hoe to hold the gravy but she said he splashed the stuff around with gay abandon and became very annoyed if you refused it. She could have used another chippy, but I think it was just an excuse to get into my shop and press her suit. However Gloria and the tale of "Does my bum look big in this skirt" will be the subject of another post.

Next door to the funeral directors was the bulb shop, a mysterious emporium that as far as I could gather sold every type of electric bulb ever made in the history of electric bulb making? How he survived I will never know he had no window display to speak of, just a sign that said BULBS in large red letters over the door, it didn't even light up. No one was ever seen going in or out of the place apart from the owner whose name nobody knew. He was simply known as the Bulb man and could be seen opening up in the morning and closing up at night. But the door to the shop was always locked and you had to press a buzzer to gain entrance. As far as I could tell nobody ever did he kept his bulbs to himself, until he eventually sold out to an international bulb consortium and relocated to the south of somewhere very expensive, obviously there is money in bulbs.

The most annoying of my fellow shopkeepers was a diminutive chap called Carl or Carlo, as he liked to be addressed. He was a self-taught hairdresser who had learned his trade on the heads of unsuspecting customers over the years, who had gone under the scissors and comb. They would watch in growing horror as he butchered their hair whilst he cheerfully chatted away behind them oblivious to the carnage he was committing. He had had his windows (and his face) smashed in many times by irate husbands who had dragged their crying wives back to his salon to complain and demand their money back. On these occasions Carlo would play his Italian card which was to speak in what he thought was an Italian accent, but really all he did was put an o on the end of every word.

He would rant on like a misunderstood artist whose every snip; every wave and curl had been dragged from his tortured body. It never did him any good the result was that fist would meet face and he would wind up on the floor clutching a busted hooter. His nose must have changed direction more times than a Tory government over the years. He would disappear for days after one of these episodes, licking his wounds in his home, which like his salon had pretensions of grandeur. He tried to keep the appearance of a high class establishment using the rejected and worn out fixtures bought at auction, or sold for pennies from the sales section of local papers.

I attended a dinner party at his house once, there was flock wallpaper everywhere, everything was plastic and mock. His dining room was a theme on ancient Greece with imitation alabaster busts on pedestals with fake ivy curling around them as though in some forgotten garden. There were gold swan necked lights over every picture that stuck out too far in rooms that didn’t have the space to accommodate them. There were so many in the hallway that one had to zig zag in order not to bang your head. In the living room he had a cheap rocking horse that had obviously been distressed to create the illusion that it was antique, and brass everywhere, far too much brass.

He asked me to install a security system at his home, apparently one irate husband whose wife had an amorous liaison with our hero had threatened to burn him out. Had he done so the place would have burned for days there was that much plastic in it. Carlo thought himself a bit of a Don Juan and to some extent used his business to curry favour with his clientele, it usually got him into trouble but on these occasions he would play the effeminate card to husbands convinced he had invaded their marital space. However this time it hadn’t worked, the threat was real, and one weekend along with a friend I found myself installing a burglar alarm and several cameras.

His bathroom although small and as overcrowded as the other rooms sported a double shower and was decked out in black tiles and tinted mirrors, the fixtures were gold plated and retro, but his bedroom was a revelation. It was furnished Hugh Hefnor style with a large bed and ceiling mirrors, there was pseudo antique bedside cupboards each adorned by an old white and gold bell telephone. But the real revelation came when my pal and I moved the bed aside to install the wiring for his panic button (Pretend gold of course).

Underneath his alter of love we found several books, “How to drive your lover wild in bed”, “Women are from Venus men are from mars”, “Sexual techniques that work”, “How to pick up girls” and “lovemaking for dummies”. There was also a large box containing close to twenty or so dildoes of various sizes and colours. Next to which was a smaller box containing fake phalluses of the strap on kind, some were obviously meant to be used in anger, but there were two that had a strange strap arrangement. My pal gingerly held one aloft between forefinger and thumb turning it one way then the other looking perplexed. Then realisation dawned on him; his eyes lit up as he triumphantly shouted “He wears this in his bloody pants when he’s out”. My pal now aware of Carlo’s secret waved the offending article around like D'Artagnan waving a sword declaring the object of his scorn a charlatan.

I told him to put things back how they were and not to breath a word of what we had seen, he said “Sure, my lips are sealed” but the smile on his face and the look in his eyes told me he couldn’t keep them sealed for very long. I made him promise he was reluctant to do so but he gave me his word. How long he kept it I don’t know.

Carlo still has his shop, he now wears a berry to cover his alapicia and occasionally when I pass I see him through the window working away at some poor buggers head intent on mischief. My shop became an Internet café after I closed down, then a law office of some kind.

One interesting note of my time there was that as a child when asked what I wanted for Christmas or birthdays by my parents, I would always ask for a box of electrical junk from Mazels Radio on London road near Piccadilly station. I loved to mess around with bits of wire and electrical equipment. Once when my Father and I made a trip into Middletown to visit relatives we stopped of at a branch of Mazels on Rochdale road. Inside my eyes lit up as I looked around at all the second hand radios and wireless parts for sale. My Dad put two shillings towards my spends and I bought a box of the crap I loved so much. Clutching my purchase I told the man behind the counter that I was going to have a shop like his one day.

The weird thing is that I did have a shop like his, in fact it was that very shop that I had been in all those years ago, 795 Rochdale road.

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Snake woman.

Snake woman or Barbara was one of those bohemian types who suddenly appear in your life and behave as though they have always been there. These people always seem to know you by first name despite the fact that you might never have met them before. I remember the day she first entered my shop (Visual Electronics), it was early morning, I had been to party the night before and was feeling a little delicate, which was why I was leaning on the counter and looking at my shoes for inspiration.

She opened the door with a flourish, stepped into the shop and stood there like a sulking film starlet. She had raven black hair that framed a pale face and her eyes were hidden by huge sunglasses, which she slowly removed. She shook her head like a girl in a shampoo advert to allow her hair to fall into its natural style, then placed one arm of her sunglasses into her mouth and narrowed her eyes, one of which was false.

She was wearing tight black pants that left little to the imagination, and a leopard skin patterned top. She advance toward the counter wobbling slightly on high heels, “You must be David” she spoke with a pseudo Russian accent peppered with broad Yorkshire that confused me for a while. After I came to know her the Russian drifted into the Yorkshire more often and eventually disappeared. She presented herself as though she had nobility behind her, when in reality all she had behind her was a long career as an exotic dancer in some of the seedier clubs of the Costa’s in Spain.

Her glamorous but slightly tatty clothes were remnants from a more glorious time in her life, a time when she would thrill crowds, and command men with her erotic gyrations on stages lit by purple and red spotlights, accompanied by frantic drums beating to Eastern music. A time when she was known as “Dalores" the snake woman. You could tell that she had once been a babe, but the years of late nights in smoke filled clubs had taken its toll. Where once she had been a ten, time and the hazards of life had demoted her to an attractive seven and a half.

From about fifteen feet away she could still pass for thirty odd, but the nearer she got, the older she looked. This of course wasn’t good for her act, she became less popular and the bookings became fewer, until one night on stage her partner (Tommy the snake) put paid to her act altogether by taking out her left eye with his tail.

Her return to a dull, grey England after year’s abroad in the sun was a culture shock for this lovely lady. And the indifferent treatment she received from the social security after being the centre of attention for so many dribbling male tourists was a depressing reminder that her life of glamour was over. She still kept a regal bearing though, and it added to her charm.

She requested that I visit her home to repair her television. I told her I would call after the shop closed because I was on my own that day and couldn’t leave until then. When I arrived she opened the door to me dressed in what can only be described as a gypsy outfit, complete with bandanna topped with a chain of coins. She skipped on bare feet into the living room and pointed dramatically to the errant TV in the corner, saying “There it is, do make it work David, shall you have tea or coffee”. I heard myself saying “I shall have coffee, two sugars” and for the first time in a long time I went red with embarrassment. “I shall have coffee”; it sounded like the goof people make when they put H, s where they don’t belong.

I set about the TV and quickly discovered that the plug fuse had given up the ghost, it was replaced and before she came back with my coffee the strains of the intro music to Coronation Street was filling the room. “You marvellous, marvellous man” she beamed “How much will that be” I explained that I couldn’t really charge her for a five pence fuse, but the coffee would be payment enough. She made me sit next to her on the couch to drink my coffee and we chatted away as though we were old friends.

She told me about her act and the life she had led as a dancer, first in the chorus line for some quite famous companies then as an exotic dancer in London before flying to Spain for a season of work that stretched to twenty five years. We chatted for over an hour and before I left she promised to pop in to the shop to say hello. She popped several times a week and we became good friends. On one visit she invited me round for a drink and a chat, this she said was a chance to show me some of her wardrobe and props from the act that had only just arrived in England.

I arrived to find the table prepared with food and a selection of drinks, the sofa had been pushed against the wall, and the lights were low. I had a sneaky suspicion that amore was the point of the evening and lets face it I’m a man of the world, I was ready for this and whilst she was no longer a young girl she was still attractive. What I wasn’t prepared for was what came half way through the evening. She had been showing me her things, photographs, knick-knacks, props she used in her act. Then she disappeared upstairs for a few minutes and when she came down she was dressed in a white Egyptian outfit, decked out in red and gold with a splendid gold head-dress.

She flicked a switch on the hi-fi and the room was filled with music. She began dancing right there in the middle of the room, and I watched open-mouthed as she gyrated and ground her hips to “Midnight at the oasis” by Maria Muldaur. Despite what I said before about her no longer being a young girl, she had a superb body and under the dim lights she looked every bit as delicious as Santanico Pandemonium in “Dawn till dusk ”. It was an exhilarating night and I even learned a few dance steps. We had a great friendship that lasted until she decided to go back to Spain and live with a French piano-playing friend of hers.

England was a great disappointment to her and I could see she was unhappy. I drove her to the airport and we had a last drink and meal in departures before I waved goodbye to her as she wobbled on her high heels back to the sun.

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