Author Archives: Sitting comfortably with andy daly

Greedy Greedy Guts Guts

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Once upon a time, I was up in Camden Town at the Dublin Castle to meet some friends who had come down from the North for a spell in the smoke.  We had a couple of beers together, before they had to shoot off to meet another party: I think, to go boozing up Highgate/Hampstead. I didn’t fancy it, so I went off down Parkway, towards the tube; as it was early, probably intending to head for home (Bromley-by Bow) and finish off in the Priory Tavern.

At the time, on Parkway, just below the Dublin Castle, was a no-frills English restaurant – I think also called ‘Parkway’. We used it a lot. They used to do a great all – week – round Sunday roast, and we’d often end up there for some nosebag if we’d been ‘getting the taste’ in Camden.

As I walked past the restaurant, I instinctively looked in the main window – I think I was a bit peckish and was half hoping that there might be someone in there I knew, who I could go join neck some scran. Well, whaddaya know, sitting at the window table: it’s only my best mate Aky and his girlfriend. I wave and grin like an idiot. Something approaching a smile briefly flutters across her lips, then her face hardens as she realises the possible implications of my sudden appearance (ie no more cosy meal for two) Aky, meanwhile is oblivious to this as he’s taking a big slug out of a pint glass and doesn’t see me. I do the honourable thing and walk on. However, he must have spotted something, or his girlfriend given something away, because he’s soon calling me from the restaurant door. I walk back up to and into the restaurant, ask for a third seat and join them; stressing that I do not wish to disrupt their evening together. While Aky says “Noooo, the more the merrier.  Listen, we’ve just this minute ordered, what are you having?” his girlfriend’s eyes are suggesting that whatever it is, I enjoy it, because if she’s got any say in the matter, it will be the last meal I have.

“The usual, I reckon” That was roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, roasties, two veg and gravy. “Yeah. Me too” says Aky.

So we order some beers and presently the food arrives. It is politely and efficiently served and we get stuck in. Aky, a real ‘trencherman’ is first to finish, wrapping up the proceedings by draining the dregs of his pint, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and giving me his familiar beery grin. I’m not far behind him, but I’m more in the skinny git with hollow legs mould.

“Ahhhhh …” I said, contentedly: “Y’know what …  I could eat that all again”

“Why don’t we?” says Aky, mischievous glint in his eye. His girlfriend is horrified.

We call over the waitress.

“Can we have it all again. Just the same, one each, all over again.”

She didn’t seem to understand: “What? Was there something wrong with it?”

In the meantime, the head waitress had appeared. She seemed braced for trouble:

“Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all, we enjoyed it so much, we just want the same again, if that’s OK”

“Certainly!”

… and so off we went again! Everything was polished off, and I do believe we even – much to Aky’s girlfriend’s annoyance – had a pudding too!

A great night. If I tried it now, of course, I’d be crippled for days!

Andy Daly  2010

Mirror mirror

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Dinks, despite being from ‘Sheff’ was a smashing bloke. Bit of a nuisance when he was drunk; but then so are a lot of people. The last time I saw him, he wore baggy army surplus trousers, a Sex Pistols T-shirt and a denim jacket. His head was shaved, revealing an angry lunar landscape of spots, blackheads and acne scars. Bleached hair sprouted from a point to the front of his crown, and for the most part dangled down over his eyes and face.

“Did I ever tell y’t’ story of when I saw me oan arsehole?” He asked one day in the pub, apropos of nothing.

“Well, I were on’t’ bus comin’ oam fr-fr- fr-fr- frum college one dinner time…” (he stammered too)

I was immediately hooked and listened intently.

“Aye, I were on this bus, when I thowat: Y’ knurr, twenteh too yeayurs on th-th-th-th-this planet and I’ve n-n-n-n-n-never seen me oan arsehole.”

Then and there, Dinks resolved to do something about it. He hatched a plan. What sort of bizarre meanderings and tortured thought processes lead a human mind to close focus of such an issue is beyond me. However, unimpeded by such concerns, the intrepid Dinks prepared to alight.

At his stop, he scuttled down the stairs and off the bus. He quickly covered the quarter of a mile or so to his house.

“Twelve-thirty: brilliant, me Mum won’t be ‘oam till at least wun. Should be perfect!” he thought to himself as he glanced at his Tintin watch

He described reaching home, hurridly unlocking the front door, and racing straight up the stairs into the bathroom.

Once in, he threw off his jacket. The bathroom, though clean and tidy, was small and poky. The only mirror was that on the front of the vanity unit placed high on the wall, adjacent to the sink. Now this was going to be tricky, it would require nerve, balance and more than a little agilty. Not to worry! Our Hero had done his planning and, after feverishly unbuttoning, dropping and stepping out of his pants, naked from the waist down, he began his ascent. Careful!… one foot on the basket that housed spare toilet rolls, old newspapers, and inexplicably, a can of WD 40. Good! … it did’t give. A step up with the other foot onto the window ledge. Easy! The fan light was open causing the net curtain to play in the fluttery wind. This was the big one … Ready? One, two, three … Hup! Other foot into the ‘soap space’ corner of the sink, behind the tap … Will it hold my weight? …. Yyyyeeessss! Done it!

I recall the expession on his face as he reached this pivotal point in his recounting of the whole tale: a mixture of triumph and relief.

“At last! The Holy Grail!” (His words!) “I could see me oan arsehole!”

He should have taken more notice of the open window, for no sooner had his face of triumph clouded with revulsion at what he beheld in the mirror than the bathroom door (which in his haste he had forgotten to lock) swung open, and his Mum walked in.

“Jeremy!” She screeched “What on EARTH are you doing….?

“Well, I just said first thing that came into me ‘ead”

“I’m br-br-br-br-brushin’ me teeth Mum!”

© Andy Daly  2010

Weary Wycombe

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Well, my running shoes (Reeboks if you’re interested) were hung up in 1989 in disgust after my second half marathon at Wycombe proved  to be a pale follow up to the previous year’s success in which a whole bunch of us – marathon novices – ran as a team and enjoyed a long afternoon’s post race analysis over a Sunday roast in that posh old hotel in Amersham, y’know the one in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ (or was it ‘Truly Madly Deeply’? … whatever …)  I raised buckets of cash and was generally left with a warm, cosy feeling inside.

Now let’s see …

The Wycombe half begins with a dash from the start to a large, dense and immovable object. No! not John Prescott – but ‘The Hill’ (If you’ve ever wondered why it’s called ‘High Wycombe’ here’s your answer)

A particularly mean and spiteful thing to do, methinks … put a big hill right at the start of a 13 ½ mile race (or I suppose, more correctly put a race start right next to a big hill). So, anyway the Wycombe half starts like this and goes downhill. Well, what I mean is it goes uphill, but for yours truly at least, the race starts badly and from there goes to worse. I’m soon regretting the 4 pints of Guinness and curry the night before and my similarly cavalier attitude to training over recent weeks. Looking at my watch I realise that to beat last year’s time, I have a mountain to climb. What?! Another one? I find the final section: crossing the M40 and the descent into Wycombe an uphill struggle.

 

Anyway, the upshot is that I find it a thoroughly disagreeable day. Even the photo the Wycombe Gazette took of me (in fact, of all competitors) was spectacularly bad. I appeared gaunt, haggard stumbling across the finish line. Well over the hill … truly, metaphorically and deeply … I swore I would never get involved again, and I haven’t.

© Andy Daly  2010

Which reminds me

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Once upon a long time ago, we had a French friend who was a the dinner table
with her boyfriend’s parents  for the first time. “Oh I say are you alright
Chantelle?” asked a concerned host as Chantelle appeared to choke on her
food. Keen to impress with (as ever) with her wide vocabulary she replies
“Oh yes, I’ve just got something stuck in my clitoris!”

Of course she meant epiglottis!

© Andy Daly  2010

Sticks and Bones

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I went to see my neurologist today at Charing Cross (that’s the hospital not the station – though I do wonder sometimes!) They see the Parkinson’s  patients in rooms off the narrowest corridor you can imagine: not only that, but they use the corridor as a waiting area – so you can imagine what it’s like, seated Parkinson’s sufferers at all sorts of angles: coats, bags, arms, legs and sticks poking out everywhere, so the newly-called patient has to negotiate this obstacle course before they can take their seat – if  there is one – adjacent to their specialist’s consulting room. Crazy! Do they do it on purpose?

 © Andy Daly  2010

Heroes of my Youth

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No.1: Ivor Cutler

No.2 Basil Brush

No.3 Alf Tupper ‘The Tough of the Track’

No.4 John Noakes

No.5 The Soup Dragon

No.6 Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks: aka Shirley Crabtree and Luke McMasters or (apparently)  In their days as a ‘dirty’ tag team.

Traffic in Valencia

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To start with, be prepared for a complete refusal to comply with any aspect of their equivalent of the highway code, by about a third of the population (shooting red lights, parking on the centre of roundabouts etc) and the ‘Grandes Vias’.  These are old huge 6 lane roads which run through the city. Elegant, with enormous trees, ornamental gardens, fountains, cafes and bars running down their central reservation, and over-looked by blocks of highly sought after flats and ,apartments, they are ‘roads from hell’ for the unwary, faint-hearted, and the most vulnerable of all ‘the tourist in the hired car’. Everyone travels at breakneck speed (usually breaking the national speed limit, never mind the urban limit) Obligatory free arm hanging out of the window, the other hand on the wheel, but poised ready to thump the horn for anything (In warning, anger, frustration, because you’ve seen a mate, because Valencia won last night, or because it’s Tuesday…or Wednesday..or whatever…) Lanes that you are pelting down at 70+ mph simply disappear or suddenly reduce from 6 to 4. Add to which you have (even these days) unhelmeted scooter or motorbike riders protected by nothing more than a bikini or pair of shorts, weaving in and out like mad wasps or hornets….I think you probably get the picture!

But it is exhilarating and I love it!!

© Andy Daly  2010.