Beer today, gone tomorrow

I've only ever been to St Austell twice and on both occasions I went with friend and former colleague Jason and on both occasions we got drunk. If you're sensing a link you're right, we both like beer and the two occasions, separated by about eight years, involved the Celtic Beer Festival which is held at St Austell Brewery. I'm not sure where the Celtic bit comes into all this. Obviously Cornwall is a Celtic nation and there were a number of beers from the Celtic zone (and some from way out of that zone). As one of my grandparents was a Scot I qualify to go and felt very much at home in a large room full of sweaty drunk people at this Saturday's festival.

The festival has grown in popularity since we last went and we had to queue to get in, but the wait was worth it. Beer festivals are slightly odd, to my mind, in that they often end up like trips to a pub with no seating. Where they score over pubs is that there is a sense of a meeting of minds (livers?) in that people have come along to have a good time and try out new beers. There is not really the potential for posing, although there were some splendidly attired Roman legionaries who cut quite a dash, especially when standing next to punters in ordinary attire in the queue for the toilets. The Celtic Beer Festival has live music, which was pretty loud, and I spotted a number of more mature (maturer than me, shall we say) festival-goers who looked a bit glum at the aural assault. I suspect they were there more for the beer side of things rather than the festival element. However, they stuck manfully to the task of drinking beer.

There were also a considerable number of women at the festival and they stuck womanfully to the task of getting lashed right up. One asked me what beers I would recommend having no doubt been fooled by my beard into thinking that I actually had some in-depth knowledge. I just vaguely pointed at a few behind the bar and said it was all a matter of pot luck. Among the beers I did know was Brewdog's Punk IPA, which I had a pint of only to find when I went for a refill that it had all gone, a good indication of the esteem in which this powerful brew should be held. Nowadays we are all told to drink sensibly (not whirling round like a mental case juggling hand grenades) and this applies particularly to Punk IPA, it's 6% ABV. Even so it was far from being the strongest beer on offer, which might explain why even as we were arriving I saw one woman cannoning off walls as she attempted to leave.

Because the room was packed and the music was loud, meaningful conversation was difficult, which was a shame because I met quite a few colleagues from the place where I used to work and was keen to catch up with them. I began to think it was a bit rude to continually grab hold of their shoulders so I could bellow into their ear and even though they did this to me I could not always tell exactly what they were saying. Consequently I hope when I took the easy option of just saying "Yes" and giving a bit of a Gallic shrug every now and again I wasn't just agreeing with them that someone else in the group had become a "dreadful bore" or was a bit of a prat. In the end, I suspect that none of it mattered as we all seemed to discover that in some way we were "related through the drink".

The only fly in the ointment was the tool - not part of our group - who insisted on carrying a tray of drinks high over his head as he made his way from the bar to the table where he was sitting, which was near where we were standing. I've seen Greek waiters (other nationalities' waiters, too, I'm sure) who carry vast trays with many orders on them in exactly this way. The significant difference is that the waiters have not been filling themselves up with beer for hour after hour and they are not attempting to manoeuvre their way through a hall packed with the aforementioned sweaty drunk people. The waiters are also proficient at what they do. For our friend the tool, who affected some sort of quiff, I think, the inevitable happened and the glasses (fortunately made of plastic) of beer on his tray slid and he dropped the lot, creating some sort of beer waterfall right next to where we stood. He looked about him rather grumpily, I thought, as if it were anyone else's fault rather than the result of his own pride and ineptitude. But I suppose if that's the worst I can find to say about the trip to the festival, I haven't got much to complain about, but then that's beer for you - it gives you perspective. Thank you St Austell, shall we do it again in another eight years?

Come come now, we're all grown ups here, aren't we?

Much sniggering in the hood because poor old Ilfracombe, my favourite place to live but where I don't actually live, has found itself the focus of unwanted attention by paying marketing specialists many thousands of pounds to be told "Put a funny squiggle over the initial letter of the name of your town". While that is, in itself, somewhat laughable what is even funnier is that so many people have decided the funny little squiggle resembles nothing more than a single, solitary sperm. Now, personally, I'm not so sure it does look like a sperm - a rather overweight sperm, I would suggest - but even so it's gained the town national attention far beyond what the marketing specialists could reasonably have predicted. Good thing or bad thing, only time will tell, but in the meantime it's given every smart arse (me included) the chance to make their little jism jokes. Personally, I think the squiggle looks more like a dog turd, but maybe the bottom has dropped out of the naughty fido joke market. I don't know, but what really amazes me is the self-serving claptrap that accompanies these marketing initiatives. Seriously, you wouldn't believe that people outside of a mental hospital could spout such nonsense and then get paid big bucks for it. Yea verily, you couldn't make it up.

I lack celerity get me out of her

I miss Katie Price/Jordan in I'm a (fill the rest in yourself). She's not my idea of the ideal woman, in fact, she looks slightly scary and she talks like David Beckham, but give her her due, when the Great British Public voted for her to eat minced bat testicles washed down with kangaroo love juice she lapped it up - well, sort of. And she did it with some humour and not a little bravery. All this just goes to show you the power of the vote. Of course, the wheels fell off that one slightly when, after six or seven successive meals of wombat snot and the like, KP/J said she was off. And who can blame her?

But what is really intriguing to my mind about all this, is how keen the public can be to exercise their vote. Given something they're interested in, they vote early, and, seeing as they're allowed to, I'm willing to bet they vote often. ITV don't release voting figures so KP/J's ordeals may have been settled by the whim of little more than the collective might of a village the size of Little Torrington. But even so, I still feel my main point stands, which is that give people something to vote on in which they are interested and they will vote. After all, the voting on I'm a etc etc takes place in a short space of time, day after day.

All of which brings me to the subject of elections. How often do you have an election? Are your elections strong and vigorous? Are they firm enough to give you pleasure? Sorry, I'm drifting off towards some sort of knob joke, which is not the idea, at all. The thing is that in a few months our wonderful country will have a general election and the turn out will - and I'd love to be proved wrong - be woefully small. For people living in a supposedly advanced democracy we really don't seem to give a toss on the outcome of the process to choose our leaders. And I fear that is because people just aren't interested enough. "They're all the same," goes the weary refrain. Such cynicism is understandable, especially as most of the parties seem to make policies up as they go along in order to garner favourable coverage.

In the constituency where I live I am saddened to say I am considering not voting. This is a shaming admission because I know of the sacrifices made in this country for the vote and the sacrifices that people in some countries would gladly make if only they could vote to choose their leaders. But my question is: will my vote make the slightest difference? The candidates where I live are likely to be a self-aggrandising twerp, a literally hopeless makeweight, a flip-flopping fool and assorted nutters and bed-wetters from the variety of parties that might well pop out of the woodwork for the election. Where will it all end? I've not sorted this problem out yet, but I intend to.

As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with. . .no money for Ilfracombe

Consternation in Ilfragloom as the North Devon town most likely to be featured in a posh paper's colour supplement once again misses out on big dosh. Ilfracombe had put in a pretty convincing case, I would think, for getting around £1 million of Government-backed readies only to find it was a case of thanks, but no thanks. Oh woe is them, they are rending their garments, wailing and gnashing their teeth and generally throwing their toys out of the pram. But I suspect what really narks them in Ilfracombe is that instead, a ton of money is going to St Ives - the Cornish one, not the one in what used to be Huntingdonshire.

Trying to view this dispassionately, although I don't see why I should, in life there are always winners and losers and so in the case of Ilfracombe v St Ives the possibility that the North Devon side would come off worst cannot be avoided. However, Ilfracombe is the place in North Devon I might choose to live were I ever to move from the place I already live in North Devon, which is nowhere near Ilfracombe, but arguably just as shabby. I have considerable affection for the place, I think its setting surpasses many, many places in the whole of the South West and it has its own distinctive character. In short, I want it to do well. I bear no malice towards St Ives, but I can't help feeling that nature, history, arty-farty types and holidaymakers with a considerable amount of bunce have already endowed the town with enough to keep it going.

Anyway, as some saddoes are fond of quoting "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". So maybe the time has come for Ilfracombe to act tough and say "We never wanted your money in any case. We'll manage on our own." Because to be frank who wants to be known as a town propped up by a succession of Government hand-outs? Ilfracombe hasn't necessarily had money rained down on it by the powers that be, but it is forever putting the case that it could do with a little help to see it through bad times because it is a little bit down on its luck. So come on Ilfracombians (I don't think that's exactly what they're called) now is the time to grow a pair, work out the best way of making the most of what you've got and saying of Government charity "Thanks awfully, but why not give it to a real basket case."

I’ll never forget old wotsisname

Does dullness slump its way into every corner of your life? Is it all a bit too grey? Are you fed up to the back teeth? (No, I don’t know why it's back teeth). Are you, as I am, nursing a micro-hangover, which is just taking the edge off your keen enjoyment of existence?

If so, I’ve got a great wheeze – well, I think it’s great – and it’s all down to a bloke I used to know who died umpteen years ago. I can’t be bothered to look it up, hence the umpteen. This wheeze is based on the thing that some Christians do called What Would Jesus Do? Now, no disrespect intended to such Christians, but I have unashamedly hijacked the principle for my own purposes and the result is: What Would Buck Do? I have read that some people have also come up with What Would Obama Do? but such a lofty approach is not what I’m aiming at.

What Would Buck Do? considers the approach to life of former Barnstaple councillor, printer and general irritant Buck Taylor. I was fortunate enough, and I do consider it good fortune, to have known Buck for a fair few years and it’s only in light of today’s rather dreary approach to life that I realise what a truly mischievous old bugger he was. Who else would have come up with the idea of celebrating Luxembourg Day so we could get round the rather strict licensing laws that were in force in North Devon in those days? This even involved making an application (successfully) to magistrates for an extension to a pub licence. He and I also kicked around the idea of a campaign of writing bogus letters to newspapers so we could get snigger-inducing references in them. We never went ahead with it, but even just considering the idea cheered us up.

WWBD? aims to achieve a general level of personal satisfaction by minor acts of foolishness that will often only please me. Let the naughtiness begin. In fact, I already did one thing this morning which resulted in a sub-Viz-ian reference to a solitary vice appearing on a website. Tee hee! Fnaar fnaar! It might be a bit sad, but I suspect that Buck would find it quite jolly.

They have designs on you

Mrs Thatcher’s market forces, Adam Smith’s invisible hand – in other words the public gets what the public wants by exercising choice. That, in a rather highfalutin nutshell, is how we get so many tattoo parlours in North Devon. Put simply, some people want tattoos and therefore there have to be places where they can submit to the needle. If you doubt the power of that demand look around you. It is possible to get tattoos in all three of the biggest towns in North Devon and I think it’s true to say that those who wish to undergo such a permanent transformation have a choice of operators in those towns. And it’s not just towns. . .

The village of Northam boasts one tattoo parlour (are they always parlours? It does sound a bit questionable) but, to the best of my knowledge, no longer has a butcher or a fishmonger. Also Northam no longer has the presence of one of the High Street banks. It’s a strange state of affairs to my mind. I accept I am looking at this from the point of view of someone who doesn’t want a tattoo, therefore the presence of such establishments is of little relevance to me, but I presume tattooed people eat and use banks.

Of course, the demise of butchers, fishmongers, bakers and other such shops is due, in no little way, to the onward march of supermarkets. You might even say that the retreat of banks from villages such as Northam is down to the change in the banking market, which has seen supermarkets offer banking services (what would Captain Mainwaring think?). Indeed that has even set me wondering if, as supermarkets increase the range of goods and services they offer, they might move into the tattooing market. We might even end up bemoaning the loss of Ye Olde Village Tattoo Shop.

This pheasant is totally plucked

If there is a motorist in North Devon who has never hit a pheasant while driving I’d like to know whether they ever actually take to the road more than once in a blue moon. Poor old pheasants, bred to be gunned down or doomed to be run over. I don’t suppose they have a view on the preferred option – I’d guess that if they could articulate their wishes they may opt for poncing around and looking quite ornamental on top of gateposts and so on until they just keeled over.

Be that as it may, I fear that was not to be the end for a hen pheasant I encountered yesterday. I was making my way along the narrow lanes near Lovacott and Horwood at a sedate pace - I am always conscious of the propensity for people who know such roads to treat them as their personal racetrack – when said hen pheasant popped out of the hedge.

I believe the Highway Code says you shouldn’t swerve to avoid such encounters if it will endanger other road users, but to be honest it all happened so quickly there was little I could do in any case. I heard a bump, but when I looked in my rear-view mirror I couldn’t see anything and when I got out of the car to look there were no grisly remains to be seen so I told my fellow passengers that “it must have just been a glancing blow” and the bird had hopped back into the hedge, probably having had a bit of a shock. Not very convincing, I know, but the best I could come up with, particularly for one passenger who claimed our close encounter of the bird kind had cast a pall over the whole day. I didn’t like to suggest it had been considerably worse for the pheasant’s Sunday.

On reflection, I don’t often see pheasant corpses on the road – especially when compared to animals such as badgers and foxes - so maybe my “glancing blow” theory was correct. Anyway, Mrs Pheasant, sorry if I spoiled your Sunday.

You naughty little vicar

I am pretty cheesed off with a member of the clergy. For ages, I've been trying to get this said person, who lived next to me, to do something about the sodding great tree in one corner of his garden, which has begun to spread in front of my house. My last communication on this was with his wife, who assured me that "Oh yes, we'll get something done about that." It now emerges that the something done about the situation was to move away. Within three days of her promising action, they had buggered off.

I've always said this vicar looked shifty, he always seemed to be sloping around as if he had got something else on his mind rather than the Wrath of God. When he was conducting the wedding of a friend of one of my daughters, he coughed, sending a gobbet of sputum on to the floor of the church just in front of the happy couple. The vicar dealt with this by treading on the offending mucus. Yuck, dirty boy!

I could write tons on religion, religious faith, belief, God, gods, the unknown and so on, but just harking back to the shifty vicar, he has made me wonder how many members of the clergy really believe in God. I suppose what I mean is do they believe in God the way I think they ought to believe in God, which is not necessarily to say that I believe in God - I've got much more wishy-washy beliefs than that. Ultimately my feelings on religion are that it's fine if you can keep it to yourself and it doesn't make you want to go around converting people at gun or sword-point or with a huge pyre in the background to encourage them to sign up. But I also wonder how religions can have much validity if everyone considers their set of beliefs to be THE one to follow. I don't want to get too comparative, but if every faith says "Yes, we're the ones" doesn't that mean all the others aren't the ones, which means they can't all be right and might even mean that none of them are right.

Anyway, back to the shifty vicar and his, in my view, equally shifty wife, I'm sure as a signed up man of God he shouldn't go around dissembling and pissing off the neighbours. Isn't that in the Ten Commandments? And if it isn't, shouldn't it be?

Of course, if before leaving the shifty vicar set in motion whatever needed to be done to deal with the tree, then to some extent I take back what I've said. But I still think that thing about not pissing off your neighbours ought to be in the Ten Commandments.

Ambition knows no bounds

It looks possible that smiling goon Tony Blair will not be widely supported in his plan to become EU president. Fortunately in North Devon we have a more than adequate alternative in the form of political dynamo Rodney Cann. Regular readers of any newspaper in the area will have seen his face looming out of the pages at them for stories about dog poop, public toilets, refuse collection, but mainly, I would submit, about Rodney himself. After being dropped by local Conservatives as their candidate for county council elections, but still managing to win a seat by standing as an independent, Rodders flicked a further v-sign at his former political colleagues by announcing his intention to stand as an independent candidate at the next General Election.

Rodney, you plonker, (sorry, it's irresistible) you need to raise your sights even higher. Forget the political backwater of Westminster and go for the big one. Arise Rodney Cann, President of the EU. Supporters of the Blair have proclaimed him as ideal because of his "motorcade quality" or some such. In other words he looks the part and would make heads turn. Well North Devon's very own R Cann Esq, (Cann he do it, yes he Cann) would make them positively swivel.

Local Conservatives have accused Rodders, didn't the late North Devon councillor Charlie Disney refer to him as "the boy Rodney"?, of trying to destroy their "best-ever chance" of getting a Conservative MP again for North Devon. Well, fancy that. One might be tempted to think that Hell hath no fury like a Rodders scorned, although I suspect he rather views himself as a Mr Smith Goes To Washington-style candidate a la James Stewart. If the Tories had an ounce of sense, they'd be round to Cann Towers like a shot promising to buy him a one-way ticket to Brussels so that he would be at the heart of Fortress Europe ready to mount his assault on the presidency.

I shall watch the pages of the North Devon Journal over the next few weeks to see if Rod (I wonder if he would mind being called Rod) follows my suggestion. Apparently one of the most likely presidential candidates, apart from Blair, is a keen writer of Haikus. Well, that's a good idea, too, Rod. Write an epic poem, say, something like Hyperion by Keats and away you go.

Anyway, I tire of this. I've met very few politicians, certainly those from parties in power, who didn't think they were doing a wonderful job, while I viewed them as complete tossers. I realise I may be overly critical, but I do wonder whether a bunch of poets sitting around trying to exercise power might be better than the bunch we have now. Wasn't it Shelley who said poets were "the unacknowledged legislators of the world"?

iPod, uPod, podOff

Almost everyone in the world - well, North Devon - has an iPod and frankly it gets on my nerves. I don't have an iPod, but, confession time, I do have an MP3 player (why are they called MP3s?) Anyway, the reason for my irritation with iPods and MP3s, and, more specifically, their owners is the way they cut the users off from the rest of the world. Fans of iPods may well say that's one of the main benefits and I do understand that sometimes, when everyone and everything outside your own personal bubble is just too much, a bit of thrash metal, hard house, Glenn Miller or even Stravinsky can be just the thing. But what a sodding nuisance it is when you need to communicate with these people or when you want to reverse your car without getting all their nasty blood over your rear bumper. With the tiny little earphones shoved firmly in their ears, they seem to be completely oblivious to what's going on around them and then look all affronted when you either have to bellow at them to get their attention or get out of the car to gently wave them out of the way. I'm not sure if that bit is in the Highway Code, if not, maybe it could include a bit where you're allowed to use a cattle prod on recalcitrant pedestrians. Yes, I know, pedestrians were here first, but sometimes they just don't help themselves. Oh God, I'm getting more like Victor Meldrew by the minute. Sadly, I do believe it.

Odd-shaped balls and that. . .

I went to a rugby match the other night. Rugby, the game which it is humorously suggested is played by men with odd-shaped balls, is something of a no-go area for me. I don't know much about it, I don't know the rules and I don't understand why sometimes they do one thing and sometimes they do another. Also, and this is a big, and somewhat prejudiced also, I don't much like some (a lot?) of the people who follow rugby. They do seem to be either a bit Hooray Henry-ish or knuckle-draggers who revel in their ability to do revolting things while drinking. However, I went to this match because it was a charity event organised by a colleague and I felt it was the least I could do to support it. And I have to admit I was glad I went. It was well-supported, raised a lot of money for the chosen charity, the Chris King Memorial Fund, and the rain held-off. The Hooray Henrys and knuckle draggers were there, but possibly not as offensive as I expected them to be from my lofty position of not going to rugby matches. Is this a victory for a more open-minded approach?

There has been a lot said following the death of Test umpire Dave Shepherd and there's nothing much that I can add. My contact with him followed on from being a former customer of the family post office in Instow where I used to get newspapers. Years after that link ceased to be, if I ever saw Dave and his brother, Bill, out and about they would always stop to chat. Nice blokes, and my condolences go out to Dave's family and friends.

By the way, I'm not a regular watcher of EastEnders, but is there anyone else who finds it confusing to see Gavin's dad, Michael, from Gavin and Stacey, suddenly converted to East End baddie Archie? Somehow it doesn't seem right.