peterbirks | It is or it isn't

SHOE UPDATE:

My black leather Church's (right) shoe is now in City Airport. But the journey was not simple. Oh no.

It got to the warehouse in Hanoi okay, but a phone call on my voicemail at work informed me that there had been a "delay" at Frankfurt -- single shoes apparently looking a bit suspicious to Customs and Excise types.

Eventually it got out of Frankfurt, and arrived at Stansted Airport. However, then there was another "technical hitch". As a result, my poor (British) shoe was questioned by immigration authorities and, on the grounds that it might be here for some arranged marriage with any left shoe that it could find, it was deported to Liege, an obscure part of Belgium.

Spending mere hours in Liege, my cunning shoe got itself on the next flight out of Belgium (wise shoe) and has now arrived at City Airport, where it is currently undergoing interrogation again. I am full of hope that it will be released into my care in the near future.

Christ, it's probably easier to adopt a kid from Vietnam than it is to get a show back (please, no references to William Whyte, guys ... I know ... that was the point of my sentence).

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So, I'm ploughing through the Asia newspapers, when a glance at Daily News India showed me, as usual, no stories of any interest (Indian journalists match their call-centre counterparts when it comes to skill and concept of truth) but there was a Google ad that caught my eye. "Business Resources in West Lothian", it ran, at www.westlothian.com.

The obvious question is, why? What on earth can connect me, Daily News India, and an obscure part of Scotland? What algorithm can possibly be at work? Whatever it is, I hope that the guys who wrote it are the same as the ones who write the scripts for pokerbots.

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No-one takes the Eurovision seriously any more, do they? No, wait, they do. Why else would there be a reaction that might lead to questions in the House about the "bloc voting" by the Balkan entrants, and the ex-Soviet entrants, and the Scandinavian entrants? (No mention, of course, that Malta and Ireland were the only countries insane enough to vote for the entry by the UK.)

FWIW, I thought that the Serbian entry, which won, was quite good, and at least the singer could sing. On top of that, the song wasn't in English.

Oh, and back to the UK entry. I'm sorry, but does anyone remember a BBC sitcom called "The High Life"? Siobhan Redmond was one of the stars, along with two camp actors whose names I forget, mainly because the sitcom itself (about a budget airline) was not very memorable. However, it did have one of the great opening sequences of all time, with the staff members of the airline performing a dance routine while singing the opening song. Utterly hilarious.

And then, what the fuck happens? Yes, you just cannot satirize anything these days, because surely the Scooch entry was some kind of post-deconstructionist piss-take of the opening sequence to The High Life? I mean, what were the songwriters thinking? What was the public thinking when it voted for it? Was it demonstrating some obscure subtle sense of humour, realizing en masse what a farce the Eurovision Song Contest was, and therefore voting for the silliest piss-take of a song. Is it all some kind of hyper-UK joke that neither I nor the Eurovision were in on?

No, I don't think so. It just shows the standard of taste of the average BBC viewer on a Saturday night.

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I know that I shouldn't say that I have a lot in common with Richard Herring, since he is famous and I am not, for which I give much thanks. But he often writes about his (rather solo) life and the travails (and the way that he reacts to them, and then writes about them) do rather remind me of me.

Then again, I'm 12 years older than he is. If I'd been like that when I was 39 then, well, I would have been worried.

However, in his blog Richard did mention a hotel called The Dolphin, in not the most complimentary terms.

To which, my question is, has there ever been a good hotel or pub called "The Dolphin"?

In my vast experienced of pubs, I can't recall one. I can recall one that was so bad that it almost came back the other side. This one was on the junction of Mare St and Wells St, and Mecca betting-shop managers ni the 1980s would use this for their meeting place after work. It had a giant eye-scarred Irishman as the landlord, who drank tea out of a mug that must have held a quart. The floor was so worn that you went through four layers of linoleum (a new one being laid every decade or so, without removing the previous layer -- eventually only short people would have been able to get in there) to wooden floors. The seating, in genuine Watneys Red Barrel plastic, had not been replaced since the 1960s, possibly because there was one woman in there in her 90s or thereabouts who always drank a bottle of Guinness and had not, apparently, moved from her seat since 1962.

The tables, in genuine Watneys Red Barrel Formica, were also remnants of another era, matched by ashtrays which by now are, I suspect, collectors items (indeed, I still have one, a "Double Diamond" ashtray in the shape of two Ds.).

But this Dolphin was good only in the sense that it was so irredeemably awful, in the light of the gentrification that would soon hit the area, transforming the nearby Broadway Market, which now seems more full of tapas bars than Pie and Mash shops.

I was walking from the Mecca shop in Broadway Market to The Dolphin one Saturday night around 1987, after a hard day's work. As I passed by the canal, a guy came up to me and handed me a note. Since it looked as if the guy didn't speak English, I assumed he was looking to find an address where they stored runaway eastern Europeans.

I unfolded the note. It read:

"I have a knife. Turn round and walk back to the shop, now."

To which I replied. "Fuck off. I'm going to the pub", and carried on my way.

Sometimes being pissed for 20 years can have its advantages.