Tales from my handbag

I have recently discovered two new rambling locations but, in the process have exposed myself to some al fresco romping. The first spot, we shall call it ‘the Common’ is picture perfect: it has a pond; it has water lilies; it has benches donated by dead people. It also has a mingling of topless men chasing each other around a large oak, laughing loudly. Further down the track, I come across another topless man carrying a plastic bag and walking much too briskly for the location. He is no doubt on his way to do some laughing himself. I wonder what’s in his plastic bag - sandwiches, a vest? I then nearly get mowed down by a Slavic looking lady with a gaberdine mack and court shoes. She looks deranged so I don’t exchange pleasantries. In my experience, you should always be wary of people dressed inappropriately for the location. Like the man in a Majorcan beach car park who was cleaning out his glove compartment wearing only a t-shirt. I thought at first maybe he had a skin condition and was getting some air to his bits but on closer inspection, I discovered he was actually bashing one out. At my next new rambling location, I come across some doggers getting ready for a matinee performance. I know this because they have their seats reclined to vertical plus they jump up like meerkats the moment I arrive - obviously thinking I am one of their kind. Wary of being sucked into their perverse shenanigans, I wave my chunky socks at them. However, I leave my pole in the boot just in case they think I’m a dominatrix.

‘I am Love’ should be retitled ‘I am noisy’. Sumptuous, elegant, seductive, yes. But boy, did the Recchi household, with its endless wooden floors, take a battering from all those high heels. It was clip clop, clip, clop, clip, clop, upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber. I didn’t see a patch of carpet, or a pair of slippers, just a lot of sliding doors and swishy scarves. Tilda had some lovely china and an assortment of Alice bands but then she got ravished by a chef and decided a bob was more practical, what with all that buccolic rumpy pumpy and hanging around in hot kitchens. Talking of hot kitchens, the film had a strong flavour of Master Chef, what with all the food close-ups. One minute they were smacking their lips over an upmarket Cornish Wafer, the next dishing out what looked like cabbage water with somebody’s foreskin in it. And in one memorable scene, Tilda did a wonderful impersonation of John Torode. I’ve never seen mastication like it.

“What good is sitting alone in your room. Come hear the music play”, sang Liza. So when in Berlin, on a four day city mini-break, I thought, must see the Berlin Philharmonic. However, said orchestra and its crazy haired conductor, Simon Rattle, had gone on its hols to Salsburg which meant we were left with a manky bunch of fiddlers from the former Eastern bloc and their camp conductor, Igor. The concert was called ‘A night in St Petersburg’ so I knew it was going to be a bit Nutcrackery. However, what I wasn’t expecting was a troupe of lumpen ‘dancers’ in nylon ball gowns who couldn’t cock a leg  higher than their Slavic crotches. Needless to say, the highlight for me, was the jumbo pretzel in the interval which had an interesting cheesy filling. Other highlights: sitting on a toilet that David Bowie/Iggy Pop may or may not have also sat on, doing the cha cha cha at the gypsy ballroom and losing my passport at the airport on the way home.

Dogs. What are they for? What do they want from us? Why the smell? Last night I got up close and personal with a bull terrier called Moo, and I have to say, I quite enjoyed it. Ever since our Blackie licked Nivea Cream off my knee then licked his bits (I think it was that way around), I’ve had a soft spot for dogs. And when I say ‘dogs’, I mean proper dogs - the ones with deep voices, a musty whiff, and the flexibility of Olga Korbut, enabling them to chew their genitals with ease. Oh those heady summer nights of 1976 when the family visited Dorset in a Sprite caravan and Blackie had an irritated ball sack. How our caravan rocked to the rhythm of his chomping as the poor mutt struggled to relieve himself of his terrible affliction. Thinking about it, I reckon he might have had dog VD; well he did put it about a bit. Dogs eh!

Ever since Liza Minnelli screamed her knickers off under that Berlin bridge, I’ve been a fan of Christopher Isherwood and his deliciously decadent tales of homo angst. So I went to see A Single Man. It was one big after-shave advert, featuring tonnes of moody close-ups, mostly involving eyebrows and teeth, interspersed with some rather pleasing revolving buttocks and a lot of brown furniture and 60s nicky nacky noos. I particularly liked Mr Single’s bathroom, which had a strategically placed window through which he could gaze at his neighbours while having a morning poo. This was a man who kept a very tidy knicker drawer, which cleverly disguised the fact that inside he was mentally deranged and about to shoot himself into the hereafter where he could snog his younger, recently deceased lover to billio and back. Thankfully, fearful of splashing his Egyptian cotton bed linen with brain, he decided instead to go for a midnight swim and mull things over with a man in a mohair sweater. Cue more buttocks. Very pleasing in an Alan Bates/Oliver Reed dingly, dangly romp-athon sort of a way.

Karaoke is cracking. Frazzles are fab. Together, they make for a formidable Saturday night’s entertainment. The location of my weekend Bacchanalian extravaganza is a small village hall on the outskirts of Brighton. I know this is going to be a night to remember when I’m accosted at the door by a man in trackie bottoms and Chinese slippers who’s selling raffle tickets. I buy three strips and make my way to the karaoke where two tuneless pre-pubescents are caterwauling their way through P-p-p-p-poker Face . At the bar I am served by a sneering teenager with enormous knockers who is smoking and eating a mini quiche while simultaneously thrusting said knockers at the man in Chinese slippers (who’s too busy preparing his trolley of Lambrini-esque prizes to notice). When it’s my turn to perform, I warble my way through ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’, ruing the day I chose a song with so many choruses and soooo many high notes. After I’ve hit the last duff note, there’s a not inconsiderable round of applause, but that could be for the six year old boy who’s been spinning on his head for the last half an hour and who has just moon-walked his way to the toilet. I make up for my shocking singing with a near-perfect Macarena but lose my way during Agadoo. At which point I call it a night and go home to watch Casualty.

With the Season of Suicide upon us, I thought I’d tickle my misery gland good and proper with a screening of possibly the most depressing film of all time - The Road. To sum up: man and boy go for an almighty long ramble without changing their underwear. En route they find some tins of Del Monte and a group of peckish cannibals. Man goes  skinny dipping and dies. Boy finds new rambling partner. It put me in mind of the Co-op last week when people went berserk in the bread aisle for want of a white bloomer. Having said that, I regularly go berserk in the Co-op, usually owing to low staff IQ and poor layout whereby till queues extend way past the bog paper into dog food rendering those on a hunt for bog paper and/or dog food unable to secure said articles without rubbing body parts or treading on loose babies. Having said all of that, even if it got so bad I actually killed someone in there, I wouldn’t want to eat them, bloomer or no bloomer.

I’m not a fan of folk music; tin whistles and tapestry waistcoats leave me cold but I do like a berber with a bongo so I was very happy to go and see Tiramisu or whatever they were called. They were a lively bunch of swarthy gentlemen dressed in robes and wrap-around bonnets and they played a pretty mean geetar. The lead singer resembled Keith Richards (weird but strangely cool) while his sidekick was a sort of Bob Marley type (hair like a brillo pad and wavy arms). That was last week. Last night, I went to see a blast from the past - Yellowman, a cross between dance hall reggae and High School Musical. Another lively performer, now in his sixties, Mr Yellowman came on dressed like a basketball player and proceeded to high kick and grind his scrawny groin at the crowd. How we whooped. The audience all had dirty necks and wild, stary eyes but they were very appreciative of Mr Yellowman’s gurgling and moaning. I quite liked it too.

A vigorous rub down with high grade sandpaper does not turn me on. I get no frisson of excitement from power tools although a man in dirty overalls with a mouth full of nails does have a certain primal appeal. When jobs need doing I get a man in to do them. It has to be that way because a. I hate all that preparing rubbish and b. I am a bit clumsy and prone to stabbing/piercing/hammering myself when charged with a diy tool. However, our exterior is looking shabby so, galvanised by ‘him upstairs’, I have been doing it. Trouble is, I don’t know what I’m doing. Is it ok to use a fish slice to scrape flaky paint? How do I sand my window frames without shredding my knuckles? Where do I put my knees when climbing a ladder? Aaarrrgghghgh.

If God was still alive he’d have done a Reggie Perrin yesterday, such was the mayhem of Brighton seafront. I challenge anyone to enjoy a game of volleyball when, a. Concorde 2 is playing host to a thrash metal screamathon involving bats, babies and quite possibly lesbian vampires, b. there’s a hairy bikers’ convention in full throttle, and, c. said hairy bikers’ are all experiencing a simultaneous mid life crisis and think they’re Dennis Hopper, giving the world the finger from the comfort of their own low-arsed,  ’sit up and beg’ motorbike that looks more like a commercial lawn mower. All that, and there was a force 10 gale and intermittent showers causing our ball to go anywhere but inside the court. This meant, every now and again, one of our ultra clean and perfectly manicured Men’s Health readers had to go and retrieve the ball from amidst the melee of greasy ponytails and bandanas, thereby risking being weed on in an act of ritual humiliation. Phew, what a day.