"Thass the problem wiv kids these days, no common sense. Iss all abart them....me, me, me all the time. Gets on yer bleedin' wick".
Yes, welcome back to the latest instalment of these notes. I'm pleased to report that the lack of football hasn't diminished my weekend in any way, even though it feels like a lifetime since I was last at Portman Road, merrily drunk and discombobulated, kissing my female steward who guards the top of the stairs to rows 92-105 in SBRL, high-fiveing little Luke (who's now increasingly Big little Luke, and I'm not just talking about his cock here) and generally being a pain, spitting out songs between long hacks as I recondition my singing voice and try and remember what I'm meant to sing before 'Champions of England in 1962'. I even foray into the 'Little budgie' from time to time, just to test my range. If I cough on the first high notes, it usually means I'm not drunk enough, and I need to retire to the bar for a whisky minature to snap the old vocal chords into shape.
Anyway, I've missed all that recently. Cup games notwithstanding, it's been a rubbish November. No footie, cold, wet, Tel transforming like a rusty Optimus Prime into White Van Man, complete with McDonalds wrappers in his footwells and a pencil permanently affixed behind his right ear, work, work, work. It's not a period best remembered.
So imagine my surprise when he called round my house on Wednesday evening, clad in his work uniform of red polo top, blue fleece and cargo pants ("the pockits come in 'andy fer work; I can fit two tape measures an' a tube'o'polo's darn this leg alone") to formally invite me for a curry on Friday, his good news being that he'd been given the weekend off due to a family event for his boss, who'd graciously extended the blank weekend to all the drivers and drivers' mates with a proviso that they be ready for Monday again. "Which means ah'll 'ave ter get back on the wagon on Sundy, but ah c'n 'ave a few on Fridy and Sat'dy" he beamed, looking like a sh*thouse rat during a dysentery epidemic.
He'd swept the McDonalds wrappers out of the footwells by Thursday evening. "Iss that Callum" he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief on Friday as we met in the pub pre-curry. "'E goes on abart savin' money fer 'is college course'n then insists on eatin' that rubbish while 'e's workin'. I 'ave ter stop at any drive-froos we find so 'e can stuff 'imself silly on them bleedin' egg mcmickmacs 'n' quar'er parnders wiv cheese. Why 'e carnt do a packed lunch lark me, gawd alone knows". He paused to sip his pint broodingly and decide between a keema naan or a mixed starter.
He expanded further on the topic of 'kids today' which he'd observed from the month or so he's been working with his little mate. "Ah mean, there's me takin' 'am salad rolls an' bits'o'fruit an' bottled warter wiv me, all 'ealfy like, admittedly the missus does it for me in the mornin' 'cos she's good like that, and there's 'im sayin' 'can we stop at a Maccy's, Tel?' An' then 'e spends a tenner on that, an' eats it in the van an' it pens like gawd knows what an' 'e don' bovver clearin' the bleedin' wrappers up so it's muggins 'ere 'oo 'as ter sort that out". He paused dramatically to drain his pint and nodded at me when I asked if we had time for another.
This diatribe against youth continued when I returned from the bar ("An' a packet'o' dry roasted, ah need a quick snack if we aint eatin' til eight"). Callum, far from being the nice, bright, hardworking kid I'd heard almost nothing about for the last three weeks, was clearly beginning to irk. I should have known; Tel generally doesn't like young men. I remembered the time he employed Lee, his friend's son, in the shop. He was moaning about him almost constantly after a few weeks. The poor kid didn't actually seem to do anything wrong either, a few small mistakes that anyone could've made got magnified so large that they became almost criminal. I remember wondering whether, had Lee done what Mickey did to him, if Terry would have been quite as lenient. No. He'd've called the police.
The topic went briefly 'off-radar' in favour of what makes the ideal packed lunch. As someone who works away a lot myself, and therefore makes full use of local Tesco's and Sainsburys for cheap packed sarnies and bottles of Evian, I probably wasn't the best person to bounce ideas off. To me, a packed lunch is what kids take to school when parents decide it's cheaper than paying for school dinners. We've all been through it, those of us who were school-age in the '70's and '80's probably all remember opening their Spider Man lunchbox at 12pm and delighting in the classic combination of warm, curly cheese sarnies and a bag of Wotsits. It was rare that I got any chocolate in mine, or anything sweeter than a Granny Smith or an unripe banana. It got increasingly like iron rations the further we got into the week; my parents shopped on a Saturday morning as both worked full-time when I was a kid. So stuff you'd have bought for school lunches on a Monday had usually been consumed by Thursday, and you were left with the scrapings, the mashed banana sarnies and the cling-filmed scraps of cheese, the crumbs from the last three fruit shortcakes in the packet. That's why Fridays always meant an illicit trip into the local town, raiding my piggy bank for the ten pees so I could buy a Mars Bar or a kids portion of chips.
Tel favoured fruit and simple ham salad rolls and water. He said it in the same tones Jamie Oliver used to denounce parents who bought their kids pizza'n'chips for school lunch. I erroneously mentioned Big Macs and the fact I didn't even try one until I was about eleven and even back then, it was a massive treat, like a birthday occasion or something. This was a mistake as it bought us back to Callum. "'E's jus' like all kids terday; 'e's selfish and stoopid an' finks 'e'll live forevver".
The curry was jolly nice. Nicer still was the sight of Tel, now tipsy, opining on the state of today's youth and why he could have Callum in a fight. Yes, puerile, schoolboyish stuff but it beat the po-faced alcohol-less brevity of our last curry together. Tel told me that Callum had a place at Reading University to start in September next year. "Theology, Economics an' summink called Media Interests" he spat, scornfully. "Dunno what 'e's aimin' ter do wiv them, probly present 'Songs 'o' Praise'.
We bantered on, Tel telling me about his boss, bits that seemed to be gleaned chiefly from the sort of tattle disgruntled employees usually share between themselves when they're sure no-one's listening. "E 'ad an affair ten year ago" Tel grinned, tapping his nose. "Right brasser, she was, Mick in packing reckoned she'd 'ad 'alf the blokes in deliveries an'all". He smiled as the waiter brought him his bottle of house white in a plastic ice bucket. "Gaynor, 'er name was. Knockers out 'ere" (he held his hands cupped at chest height about two feet from his body. Exaggeration? I've never met her, but she reminded me of those misspent nights of my youth watching 'Eurotrash' after the boozers kicked out). "Anyway, 'is missus found out an' that was 'is first divorce. 'E's on wife number two now. No kids. Must be seedless after Gaynor had emptied him".
The night flew by, a mixed metaphor of drink and music and curry burps. We went back to the pub to find a covers band installed, the lights dimmed save for the fairy lights they decorated last year's Xmas tree with, the band tearing through a terrible version of 'Breakfast at Tiffanys' by Deep Blue Something, then tuning up in the break between songs to launch into a travesty of ' The Passenger' by Iggy Pop. We danced like our crotches were on fire, bopping between tables, pints slurring dangerously near the rim. When they broke into a nauseating 'Your Song' by Elton John, we returned to the table and swigged down what was left in our glasses. "Brandy?" said Tel. "Yes" I replied, and we ordered doubles on ice, clicking glasses as we launched the bitter liquid down to our stomachs, doing a good proportion of the bottle between us as the band went for a piss and probably a quick shag with the ugly studenty-type women in the front row they'd clearly bought with them.
And I didn't miss the footy one bit, although I did miss the toilet a few times during the night, and then woke with one of the worst hangovers ever, a sort of combo of guts, head, back and eye pain. Even the birds seemed to laugh at me. Especially the starlings. They want to be careful. I might not be having spare bits of bacon rind for much longer.
Hope we win at Lincoln on Wednesday. I was going. But then I was doing quite a few things I haven't yet this month. November eh?
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