Grumpy Old Landlord….and in the end

Well readers, it is time for me to lift a lid on the truth. I am of course not a Grumpy Old Landlord and I do not hate this country or (most) other countries in the world. I have decided to retire my column as I can no longer write about how useless everything is when things can be better. I would how ever like to tell you all about how great this country is, how great it can be and how great it was.

  We all know that a hundred and fifty years ago we had an empire and that we went round in our red jackets shooting people with spears and carving up nations with a ruler in an office in London. Well we grew up and please don’t think of Britain as that nation, think of Britain who brought the rule of law, fantastic communication and techniques that were copied around the world. Some of the greatest construction projects were inspired or built by us. Yes we might have a train network which is late, overpriced and smells a bit, but this is because we invented it, it is old! Instead of moaning about it give it some love, pick up your litter, flush the toilet, look after it! No one seems to care about anything other than themselves, why not have a bit of pride in your environment? I’m sure the rioters would have rioted less if they cared about their environment more and spent less time shooting aliens or whatever the kids do! Some of Britain’s art is the most sought after art in the world and instead of displaying it and giving the rioters in Tottenham some kind education, they sit buried in the vaults of the British museum, why ? Well in my opinion the rich are far too rich and the poor are left in their wake.

  It’s easy for Mr Cameron to say that ‘Were all in it together’ Bollocks are we. I can’t be arsed to go into what’s wrong with the MPs’other than they are all P.R men, they will always appeal to some people and they are racist, homophobic posh boys who literally have never had to do a hard day’s night in their lives.

  We are a tiny island just North of France in the grand scheme of things we should be a nothing place but we keep churning out heroes. In the last 500 years we have produced not only war heroes like Wellington, Nelson and Montgomery we have managed to produce greats like The Beatles, Freddy Mercury, The Rolling Stones, and Tom Jones. We have even produced inventors like Babbage, Brunel, and Dyson. These names don’t just happen for every nation our leaders, celebrities and sportsman are known the world over. Even our very own Queen Elizabeth II is known as ‘The Queen’ around the world. We seem to re-invent ourselves at every crisis this produces fantastic people. Napoleonic wars…Bang: Nelson. Second World War….Bang: Churchill and whether you like it or not we are in crises. We are falling behind Europe, and China. It shouldn’t be all doom and gloom though! We get up off the floor and believe in life. Britain can become a model nation the world over again. 

  That was the past though, what do we do now? In my opinion there are a few things we can do. For the love of Christ stop wasting money on getting so fucked you can’t walk on a Friday night. Respect the police; respect your town, piss in the pub if you need to! Also (I know from being terrible with money) put some cash aside each month. People who are in debt are easier to control; you have restrictions on your life if you owe money. You can’t do things, you can’t function properly and there will be some scumbag who will bleed you dry. What is the point of being so miserable all the time, sometimes life is long, and you have to be so strong! The world is tough but we are a resolute nation, a nation of the stiff upper lip,

With the recent death of Steve Jobs, a man who by all accounts had a tough up bringing, born out of wedlock, dropped out of college but he built himself a massive empire that has shaped all our lives. Look what he has done…what’s your excuse! Britain, we have just metaphorically dropped out of college- where do we go from here?

Don't Look Back In Anger

Grumpy Old Landlord

Don’t Look Back In Anger

The other day I left my bar in the hands of my very capable Australian bar staff and decided to go for a wonder. After recent events in the news I thought I’d go in to town to see the frankly brilliant British public cleaning up. Then I thought…rioting, high inflation, Tory government, and mass unemployment…Have we not heard this before? You see a wise man once said 

“When England was a kingdom, we had a king. When we were an empire we had an emperor. Now we are a country…we have Margaret Thatcher” Just insert any of the Prime Ministers in the last few decades and you get the idea. 

  With the country seeming to have ‘no future’ (something the Punks screamed about in the 70’s) again don’t see it as I’m complaining because I am in a career Cul-de-sac that’s making me poor, miserable and brain dead, I’m complaining because surely, we must’ve moved on since the 70’s! Yes, we don’t see any more ‘Charlie says’ adverts (which is good, because I think that watching England lose to Germany in the World Cup was a better) but luckily it seems that we have at least moved on work wise.

  Work, work, work it’s a four letter word we all have to deal with. We are just another cog in the machine, where we drive on and on but rarely achieve anything and then we are paid sod-all for it. When I were a nipper (before my grumpy days) I had aspirations and dreams of becoming a Spaceman, disappointingly there was not a NASA recruiting office in Slough so that went out the window. Before becoming the greatest landlord of all time (in my opinion) I was in the ‘paperclip game’ I spent days on end looking out of the window, thinking of opportune moments to skive and just how many ‘toilet breaks’ I can make in one day without people thinking I had a problem. Most of the people I worked for had the IQ of your average Hollyoaks actor, they’re the kind of people who try and make the office a fun place to be in, the same kind who thought it would be a good idea to re-route a phone call to a local bank to a Mumbai call centre first, then to Manchester. Clearly I wasn’t suited to pen-pushing so a decision was made by the Gaffer to give me the ol’ tin tack. When I was getting fired I realised that me Gaffer must have been that lad who, on the first day of school wet himself when he were 11, so he was always known as that kid who wet himself throughout school. Not a nice person and he enjoys it! To be fair, at least he’s not French!

  

 

   

Some might say

Grumpy Old Landlord- Some might say

  As you may know we all live under the oppressive and strange regime of Herr Health and Safety. It is like Bacteria; it thrives and grows the stupider people get. Don’t you remember the old days when it was called ‘common sense?’ Back in the old days when you saw a great big deep hole you thought ‘Do I wanna step in it?’ No I bloody don’t!’

  A great example of how too far we have gone is the city of Amsterdam. In Amsterdam you can buy any number of illegal substances there are canals, trams, roads, bicycles, interesting ladies in shop windows, women on bicycles, small children on bicycles, the lot! Do you think there is a fence next to the canal? Not a chance! In England there would be a huge Berlin wall put around the canal, with signs saying ‘DO NOT SWIM’, ‘DANGER OF DROWNING’ However in Amsterdam they’d say, “Is your bike wet? Yes? Well you’re on the wrong bit mate!”

  The likelihood of you having an accident out and about is a lot less likely because don’t forget 100% of domestic accidents happen at home…..If you did have an accident at home and you have to go to Hospital it is not a nice experience is it? I should be made minister for health, I’d sort that mess out right away, the people who work in Hospitals work very hard under a lot of strain and pressure. Everything would be a lot better if everyone stopped moaning! People moan about the services before you get there, I hear quite a lot “I can’t believe the ambulance took half an hour to get here” my reply would be “well this is because you live half an hour from the Hospital, if you want a faster service then move nearer!”

  Last time I was in casualty I had to wait for hours, it’s a horrid experience I don’t expect Disneyland but you’re surrounded by ill people and there was this bloke who said “Cheer up mate, might never happen!” I turned to him and said “The sign over there that says accident and emergency is a bit of a give away, oh and the rather large chisel imbedded in my knee would suggest that it already has!”

  When I am in charge I have two very simple suggestions to sort out the mess that is the NHS. Firstly if it is your fault then I am afraid you cannot come in. Yes, it is tough but you will see those waiting lists drop down, even though time is a great healer. Secondly, there should be predetermined waiting lists. For example if you fell off a ladder and hurt your leg then you have but a mere 10 minute wait. If you were injured because someone fell off a ladder on to you because you walked under said ladder, then you have a 25 minute wait I’m afraid. However if you were say walking down the stairs naked, tripped and fell on to the vacuum cleaner nozzle then you have a very long wait my friend. Or you could just move to France.

Modern Life Is Rubbish

As the poor weather continues in our beautiful summertime this surely is a metaphor for the Great British economy. We are facing more cuts than a night out in Manchester while taxes on our beloved ale goes up and up because some hicks from a land that bought us ‘spray on cheese’ and ‘pig hoof bobbing’ America managed to get the most insane mortgages this side of Uzbekistan! If they want some cuts bring the bloody troops home! The money the government spends on painting our tanks in a sand colour can be spent on looking after injured troops on their return, we are only going to have to spend money on painting them green again, two words in Europe; ‘leopard and spots’. As a gloomy cloud hangs over Dover, it is like Mother Nature is French; she wants to kick us when we are down. The Tories are slicing through Labours’ mess after Labour threw money at the Tories mess, who were cleaning up after Labours, do you see a pattern here? It is all the same, the majority of our politicians are in it to make their second homes bigger not to serve the Country like us beautiful landlords and ladies. It now turns out that our jolly councillors (remember they work for us) have decided to hike the pub licence fees, when I say hike I mean make them soar like Concorde. With this in mind it could be the straw that broke the camels back and the end of many Pubs and Bars could well be in sight. Mr Cameron would like to make even more cash for Mr Tesco and Mr Cowell while we drink lager out of a tin and contemplate if Britain really does have talent, (it doesn’t) still, it could be worse- Clegg could be in charge!

  The other day it was quiet in the boozer so I left it with my very capable Australian bar staff and went in to town to get some cheap Vodka. On my way to Netto I noticed that I was being followed by CCTV the whole way down there. Back when I were a Nipper, 1984 was a date in the very distant future and now it is very much in the past it seems like we actually live in Orwell’s nightmarish book. I mean you can’t eat, sleep drink, smoke or even fart without someone having a say in it. I mean what the hell has it got to do with the Nanny State? The State has our blood type, national insurance, credit rating, bank account, criminal record, dental record and doctor’s record all on a file so they can pretend to be looking after us. We grew up with people like Humphrey Bogart and Clint Eastwood drinking and smoking and living off burgers in films. No one told them they were going to get lung cancer, liver sclerosis or die of obesity. Back then men were men and the state got the hell out of their way. I mean, the other day I was reading the paper about the delightful economy, and it was jabbering on about how we are going to cost the government millions because we are living too long, the next day we are all going to die young of obesity, which one is it? Do you want me to be healthy and live till I am 100 or do you want me to eat a meat pie and explode aged 54! It’s all you can’t do this, you can’t do that now days They’re even telling us to examine ourselves for ailments, you now check yourself for testicular cancer, I like to do that on the train but I keep getting funny looks. It’s the same with smoking; the ban has brought pubs to their knees, and previously respectable members of society standing outside in the rain looking like cold, wet addicts. Soon enough you won’t be able to smoke anywhere, except for The Isle of Sheppy in a glass hut where you have to register yourself as an addict while young social workers beat you with a stick.

  On my way into town I crossed over at the traffic lights and saw one of those huge 4 by 4’s parked up at a traffic light, in the rear window I noticed one of those bloody ‘Baby on Board’ signs. I mean how ridiculous do you have to be to have one of those? I saw it and I was thinking ‘God it is lucky that I am not driving because I would have ploughed in to the car, but now I know the messiah is in there I’ll leave it!’ Actually come to think of it, we should be constantly updated as to where the baby is at all times, ‘Baby at Auntie Jeans’, ‘baby sleeping, shh’ if we know this we can adjust our driving accordingly.      

Mr Cameron would like us to stay in more and watch TV this means we can be safe in our homes (unless a burglar comes in, you have to let him steal your things, it’s all part of the big society) surely we can sit and watch some good old fashion entertainment. You’d think so wouldn’t you? Unless you’re brain dead I wouldn’t bother. If you want to see people who are too embarrassed to go to a doctor, but are more than happy to show their horrific lump sticking out of their foot to millions then feel free to watch Channel 4’s ‘Embarrassing bodies’, I can hear Churchill turning in his grave! Or failing that you can watch a six year old lad who is on 20 cigarettes a day, 16 year old mums getting drunk and our troops getting shot at because Mr Blair wanted some more oil!(all BBC3) So failing this tripe you can get watch some culture with a good old fashion cookery show. How about ‘Come dine with me’ this show goes under the pretence of being an educational cookery show, if this is the case then Only Fools and Horses was about four single (ageing) girls who live in New York and have promiscuous sex with GAP models. If you are not depressed enough there is always BBC news 24 which is the same as being repeatedly punched in the face by David Haye, eventually you zone out, glaze over and question yourself. You could always turn over to ITV’s coverage of the FA Cup and see clunky, slow cameras missing the action; looking at relatively good looking girls in the crowd and then as something interesting finally happens the action will be cut short to an ad-break.

  When I returned from my shopping trip I flicked on the box and found the worse program I have ever seen, it was not  Jeremy Kyle, loose (evil) women, it was much, much worse it is called ‘My super sweet 16’ and this show is a borderline recruitment film for Al-Qaeda. Initially it comes across as a sugar coated reality T.V show that shows Moms and Pops (back off America) treating their off-spring to a day of fun. However the spoilt little brats seem to get everything they want while their parents bow down to little Tabitha’s every whim. The run up to the part shows little Tabitha inviting her dribbling cretins (guests) who are so painfully thick they use ‘party’ as a verb normally in the sentence “I like to party” When I am in power it will be people like that I come down upon heavily. It will be them, men who wear trilbies, people who wear Led Zepplin T-shirts but don’t know a song by them, Arsenal fans and Damon Albarn. I am not to sure why I want to harm Damon Albarn; maybe I am drunk with power! Anyway I digress, this particular episode Tabitha’s day was ruined by her Mom (seriously) for buying her a £67,000 Lexus and presenting it to her a couple of days before the party. Tabitha cancelled the party. After watching that show, I quickly fell to my knees and prayed for a nuclear holocaust. In summary Modern life is rubbish.