We eventually park up, in a place that the wild horses are known to congregate, at a certain time of day. A small river lies to the side of us, and this is where the horses come to drink. So we sit, and we wait, and we sit and we wait, for what seems like and probably is hours. Another minivan, containing a Spanish family (or were they French)?, pulls up alongside us to endure our misery. Let me further describe the scene. It's getting late, we're getting hungry, the weather is getting wet, the mosquitoes are getting abundant, Saskia is getting more irritating, Danielle is getting more irritated, the horses are getting more invisible and Gerrard, who remember is essentially deaf and blind, plus 85 years old, is getting increasingly more concerned that the organisation of the trip is not that great. Thus proving that although he is not in full control of all his senses, his sense of smell is strong enough to smell the truth, "Le organ iz ation, c'est terrible", he mumbles to himself and anybody else who, may or may not be listening. My own role in this scene, is one of observer.
Eventually after many false alarms, many mosquito bites and many conversations between the driver and the guide, the decision to continue the journey is made.
With images of Gerrard's appendage firmly etched in my mind forever, we leave the double rainbow, poisonous plants and invisible horses behind as we bump our way along an ever increasingly hostile terrain. Our driver once again instils us with the confidence of a sheep, at pub closing time, in a small Welsh village on St David's day. As he hits every bump, pothole and puddle that he is confronted with, as well as ones that he isn't. And all the while he sings along with the radio, to Mongolian folk songs about legend horses that won the Naadam competition for 20 years running. Suddenly the music stops and the void of silence is filled by the neighing of a horse, who I can only presume is either impersonating or actually is the legend himself. Which in turn brings a tear to the drivers eye and a lump to his throat, in a manner that a Churchill, Kennedy or Hitler speech would to patrons of their respective countries.
The Naadam by the way, is kind of like the Mongolian Olympics, which take place every summer and is watched in some context by every Mongolian citizen in the country. It has existed for 5 centuries, but now formally commemorates the 1921 revolution when Mongolia declared itself a free country. The event is split into 3 sections, horse riding (the songs of which bring minivan drivers to tears), wrestling (where the men throw each other around, attired in gay little outfits) and archery (where men and women try to knock balls of wool (surs) off a wall). It all sounds kind of retarded to me, but they enjoy themselves, god bless them and there's little else in the form of entertainment in Mongolia, I guess. The main Naadam is held in Ulan Bator, but it seems like there is one in every city, town and village these days. At first I am upset that I have missed the Naadam. By the end of the trip, after being invited to one in every place we go, I'm glad I never went.
It's getting late now and the driver does not seem to have a clue where he is going. From listening to the banter between the driver and the guide (which I can't work out whether is hostile or friendly), they seem to be playing for time. We have been given news that one more Spanish girl will be arriving tomorrow, although our guide can't elaborate any further on this. Then there's the ever increasing threat that the fuel could run out at any given second, since we were earlier, unable to fill up the tank. The skies are once more darkening, down to the impending thunder storm rather than the late hour. The mood of the van is also darkening, as our hunger and anxiety increases.
To our delight, we spot a ger camp on the distant horizon and we head towards it. The mood immediately brightens as we draw to a halt. The guide gets out, disappears into one of the gers and then returns. We are told that this is where we will be staying for the night, a message of which I relay to Gerrard by shouting into his ear. He replies with his usual "C'est bon". He is obviously dying to get stuck into his vintage Chateux 2007, red wine.
The ger camp is small and cute. It is essentially 2 big round tents (gers). Our ger houses 6 beds which surround the inner perimeter and rest on a wooden floor. A lattice frame work forms the body of the ger and support the long roof poles which come together in the middle. Layers of felt surround the lattice and this is covered in white cotton. It is all held together with several ropes. In the middle of the ger is a stove, with a flue rising up through a hole in the ceiling. Two support poles come down into the ger and make for a nice place to hang stuff. Our guide explains that there is a ritual about which way you should walk around these poles although I am not paying attention when she tells us and I am consequently too scared to go near them for the rest of the trip, in case I cause offence. The door of the ger, always faces South (which begs the question -why could I never find it)?, is a flap which you can tie back during the day, like a regular tent. The whole construction is erected with portability in mind and can be assembled/disassembled and put on to the back of a truck within an hour.
Our arrival could not have been timed better. Light raindrops start to fall as we move our bags into the ger. Once inside, our guide immediately starts to prepare dinner, but we are too filled with curiousity to help, much to her disdain. Historically. Mongolian women have been known for their servitude. Unlike many countries, this attitude has not dissolved over the years, although our guide is an exception to this rule. Her feisty attitude has been intensifying throughout the day, and is clearly visible in her facial contortions as she peels the vegetables. The focus of her hostility, is aimed at the driver, who she clearly does not like, "He lazy, he don't do nothing, but drive the van", she spits out. I follow her gaze as she flashes a sideways glance at the driver. I am rewarded by a view of his enormous belly, which hangs over his large, leather weight lifting belt. This seems to be the vogue in Mongolia. My eyes work my way up, over the contours of his midriff, past his blue vest (which he wears for the next 10 days), until I stare him in the eyes. His eyes, reveal nothing but stupidity and idleness, which is a pity because they are strikingly turquoise and are wasted on the rest of him. He looks back at me, probably thinking that I am going to offer him vodka. He does not seem to realise that I do not have a death wish. The roads are treacherous enough, without the introduction of hard liquor the night before a long journey.
Like kids arriving at a theme park, Danielle, Saskia and I run off to explore the terrain. In the distance, forks of lightning illuminate the whole landscape, followed by deafening, hollow cracks of thunder. At this point, I am unsure whether day is becoming night or it's just a result of the storm. We are only on day one of the trip, but time seems irrelevant. Danielle, takes my camera and tries to capture the moment in a photo. She gets some good shots, but it is impossible to capture anything beyond a slight feeling of what we are actually experiencing. Turn around in any direction and the vast emptiness of the place is overwhelming. Literally, nothing for mile upon mile, yet strangely beautiful and awe inspiring. The greeness of the the landscape, like no other green that I have have experienced.
The owner of the camp, it turns out is a lady in her mid 70s, although her youthfulness belies her age. Unbelievably she lives here alone, he husband deceased and her sons living on different camps with their families. She does not seem too bothered by this, nor by the fact that total strangers just turn up on her doorstep, early one evening and ask if they can stay in her home. When we ask if we can take a photo with her, she dissappears into her ger and re-emerges in a change of clothes and a coat of makeup on her face. Although, she lives alone, literally in the middle of nowhere, she is fiercely proud and wants to look her best.
The moment digitally captured for the Facebook generation to view for ever and eternity, the old lady jumps on her small Mongolian horse, with the agility of an Olympic gymnast. Our posse stand and stare as she rises in the stirrups and flies across the landscape at a breakneck pace. The horses little legs animated in an almost comic fashion, as they move ten to the dozen. What an image! A beautifully illuminated mountainous backdrop, colliding with a perfectly moody sky and as luscious a green foreground that anybody could ever wish to experience. My mind is perfectly charged by a fantastic blend of the surrealism of the environment and excitement of the situation. I stand in awe, as the old lady's silhouette flashes back and forth across the horizon, as she rounds up her cattle.
Our guide, summons us to dinner in a visibly hostile manner. It is clear to me (and evidently her), that she has been born the wrong gender in the wrong country. As we sit and eat our bland mix of pasta and rice, the guide shows no hesitation in letting us know how much she has toiled in the preparation of it, whilst the "lazy fat pig" plays with his belly and waits. I am assuming that she is telling the "lazy fat pig", a similar story about us. It would also not surprise me if she has spat on our meal. I even momentarily consider the idea of spitting on it myself to add some urgently needed condiment.
By the time our carbohydrate dinner has been consumed, the rain is pelting against the side of the tent and the whole landscape has been eaten by darkness. There is nothing left to do but retire to our narrow ger bed. We assume that the guide will sleep in the van with the driver, but she is having none of it. She would seemingly rather sleep with the horses. Stupidly, rather than gallantly, I offer her my bed. A gesture which she pounces on, and one that I am left to regret all night, as my hips dig into the hard floor, a mouse darts over my aching torso and my ears are tortured by a combination of the guides comfy noises and gerrard's musical anus.
"C'est terrible".
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Unheeded warnings of a costly kind
Part 1 March 1989,
I'd been living on a kibbutz in Israel for 4 months when I first met Roly.
The kibbutz, for anybody that does not know, is a collective community, usually based around agriculture. In short, a commune, where all the money made gets shared equally between the kibbuttzniks (people who live on the kibbutz). The way, it works, or should I say used to work, is that the kibbutz would ask for volunteers from all over the world to come and work there for peanuts (approx £20 a month). So, what would we gain from all this? Well, the answer to this is, a bloody good time, in the prime of our lives (I was 19), surrounded by like minded young folk, who had no responsibilities apart from cleaning up after partying and having protected sex. I must admit here, that whilst I was a legend on the party scene, during my 5 months on Kvutzat Schiller, I drew a sexual duck (for non cricket fans - this does not mean that I drew a picture of a duck in suspenders and crotchless panties - it means I did not get lucky). Despite, being forewarned of the many sexual diseases that I would return with and how many notches I would scribe on my bedpost, my efforts to prevent the former whilst increase the latter by purchase of a mega box of condoms before my departure from England, went unrewarded. In fact I only took the plastic wrapper of the mega box of condoms so that at first glance I did not look like such a loser.
Roly, who was of Swiss descent, was identifiable by a rather large lump in the middle of his forehead and his extremely well defined calf muscles. I assumed that the large calves came from hiking around the Swiss mountains, whereas I knew that the large lump in the middle of his forehead was acquired by drunkenly walking into an orange tree, 2 years earlier. A few days before Roly came to the kibbutz, Danny one of the fellow kibbutz volunteers and all round dick head, had warned us of his arrival. He told us that we would hear Roly's arrival before we actually saw it and that the first thing that we would notice would be his lump. No mention here of his well defined calves (maybe that's a personal thing). The only other information other we managed to glean from Danny, was that Roly's use of the English language was limited to one sentence. Danny, may have been a dick head but his knowledge of Roly was extremely accurate.
"I am Swiss cunt, I am Swiss cunt, I am Swiss cunt", is the mantra I hear as I hang from my orange tree. It's round about 8 am and as usual I am already behind on my orange picking quota of ten large crates, as I day dream from the confines of my tree. My day dream broken, I look down, and from a height of about 10 ft I notice a rather large lump protruding from beneath a mop of hair. "Ah ah", Roly has arrived, I think to myself, as I descend the wooden ladder. "Hi, I'm Andy", I say and offer him my hand". Roly, looks me in the eye with a big smile and says "I am Swiss cunt".
Over the next month, I attempt to have a few conversations with Roly but as you can imagine, this is almost impossible with somebody of such limited English vocabulary.
"So, when were you here before Roly"? - "I am Swiss cunt".
"How long did you stay"? "I am Swiss cunt".
"I hear that you have a masters degree in applied linguistics"? "I am Swiss cunt".
However, one day, there's a breakthrough. I walk from my room to the grassy patch where the volunteers hang out, and there before me, is Roly seemingly engaged in dialogue - and not a "I am Swiss cunt", to be heard. Granted, the dialogue is not the queen's English, but he's telling a story and people are laughing. Danny, stands amongst the gathering crowd and helps Roly with his tale. He's obviously heard it many time before, but he still joins in with the raucous laughter as the tale unfolds. The tale goes as follows.
Roly, had made a trip to London a few years earlier to see the sights. On day one, he met a guy in the street, who he had befriended and decided to go for a drink with. The guy obviously realised at an early stage that he was not dealing with Einstein and had pounced upon this vulnerability. Roly had been guided to a little sleaze shop in the Soho (sex area of London- to those who are unfamiliar), where he had purchased a round of beers for himself and his new friend. Roly and his new friend, sat for a while before the bar maid came over and demanded the cash for the drinks. He then got out his wallet and fumbled for the money. At which point, the bar maid got angry and demanded £320 quid from Roly, who turned to his new mate for help. No surprises in guessing what happened next. His new mate also turned on Roly and threatened to give him a kicking if he did not produce the cash. Poor Roly, insinuated that he did not have the cash on him, but this held no ground with his two aggressors who took him by force to his hotel room. They took the cash and left, whilst Roly's holiday came to an impromptu end. The next day he departed for Switzerland broken and broke.
At the time, I remember being shocked by the tale, whilst wondering about the validity of such an event. However, myself and all the other bystanders, love the story and laughed like demented hyenas. Two years seem to have softened the blow for Roly, who chortles along, his laughter only punctuated by his shouts of "I am Swiss cunt".
Now, you could say that this was a warning. But as you are to find out, a warning that falls on deaf ears.
Part 2 September 1990
My mate Chris and I have decided to go on a road trip to East Anglia. A mate of Chris's is working at a holiday camp down there and says that we can stay for free. I have been back from Israel now for around a year and I am itching for a little adventure. On our return from the holiday camp we see sign posts for London and we spontaneously decide to head for the bright lights. The decision goes something like this.
Me: "Shall we head to London", I half jokingly mutter.
Chris: (who was never known for his financial fortitude) "I've spent all my money", he replies.
Me: "Really, I thought I saw a bundle in your wallet! Come on let's go to a strip show".
Strip show, it appears are the magic words to a 20 year olds libido, and override any tight arsed behaviour that the subject may have previously displayed. As quickly as you can say "hormonal imbalance", I have changed the direction of the car and we are heading for the big smoke. Two country bumpkins with the street cred of a Christmas jumper, heading for certain gloom. In retrospect, our naivety of city life was so evident,that we may as well have been driving a tractor.
Rather surprisingly, once we are in Central London, we find Soho with great ease. However, we are not so diligent in our attempts to find a cheap car park (or maybe there just are none). Our libido's eventually get the better of us and we park the car in the nearest available spot, before taking a ticket from the machine. Epic FAIL number 1 or number 2 if you include the decision to go to London in the first place.
Like kids in a sweet shop we are instantly attracted to the area. A proliferation of sex shops, peep shows, street whores and strip venues, combined with bright lights and lots of noise, is enough to make our adrenalin levels soar. Taking this into consideration, in combination with the fact that we are wetter behind the ears than passengers on the Costa Concordia, it is no great surprise that we immediately enter the first establishment that we are touted into. A neon sign above the door alerting us the fact that it's a strip show.
Before, the rather attractive, middle aged, female Cockney tout has time to finish the following sentence. "Alwight boys", you want to see some naked girls", we are descending numerous staircases into the dragons lair. Our juvenile excitement absorbing any fear that we should be feeling right now, the smiles on our countenances wider than the widest Cockney wide boy. Our eyes transfixed on the wiggle of the touts tight buttocks, as she lures us down the staircases. I turn to Chris and scrunch up my face in a "Whooaahhh" kind of way. He responds with his own facial contortions. We are about to enter into a new dimension.
At the bottom of the staircases we pass through a straggly curtain, into a dimly lit and absurdly small room. The bar, which occupies one whole wall of the room, has no bar tender as we approach, but this soon changes with the metamorphic transformation of our tout into a bar maid.
"What'cha drinking boys"?, she asks us with neither pleasantness nor vitriol.
"Erm, have you got lager", I nervously reply?
"Course", she responds "Carlsberg, alwight for is it lads"?.
We both reply with an affirmative nod of the head before we are told to take a seat. It must be stated here that given the compactness of the room, our choice of seats does not overwhelm us. In fact, had we not been the only customers in the club (since 1972), we may have been left with no other option than to stand. It's either the small leather booth to the left of the bar, or the small leather booth to the right of the bar. We opt for the right, the booth nearest the door as it arbitrarily occurs - not that our naivety even recognises this fact at the time.
Our bar maid/tout walks over to the booth carrying two pints of Carlsberg, which she deposits with little care on our small table.
"Will, you be requiring any company"? she inquires, as she prises us apart so that she can sit in the middle of us.
"Erm, what time does the show start"?, I ask. Although, by this point I am wondering where the show is actually going to take place. This is like none of the strip joints that I had ever seen in 1970s detective shows. There's barely room to move in this darkened dungeon, never mind swing a boa and a pair of knickers.
She ignores my line of questioning and once again asks us if we will be requiring any company. Only this time there is an air of irritation to her voice which instantly fills me with fear. Chris, it seems is not feeling the bad vibes and asks.
"How much"?
"Not much luv", she replies in a condescending tone.
"No, I'm ok thanks", he responds whilst his hand subconsciously moves to his back pocket to protect his wallet.
"Well then boys, you'd better pay up", she informs us, with venom in her voice.
And that's it. It's taken a while for the penny to drop but it finally does. It's like I've just put my penny in the fruit machine (gambling machine to the none English), pulled the lever and watched as the wheels spin. Before the metaphoric wheels have even come to rest, I have foreseen 3 images of Roly's face, complete with big lump, displayed in my minds eye. Above face number one is the number 3, face number 2 is the number 2 and finally face number 3, the number O. The figure, £320, then explodes to be replaced by the words "I am Swiss cunt".
Like Roly, some years before. We've been had. Our pants have been well and truly pulled down and our arses spanked.
Chris, remains oblivious to the fraudulent events that are unravelling around us. Blissfully unaware of the financial quagmire that we have just stepped into.
The bar maid/tout strides off, hastily writes out the bill and returns to the table. She then thrusts the paper at us. I make no attempt to take it from her, so Chris (for the first time in our lives) grabs it. By now, I am almost excited at the prospect of seeing him look at it. Oh what glee to see a tight fisted friend examine an over inflated bill. My eyes are firmly focused on his facial expression as he unravels the paper and stares in initial disbelief. But wait, he's thought of something and his grimace softens. I am given little time to muse over his change of expression, before he enlightens me with the following classic sentence, which will stick with me for the rest of my life.
"You appear to have put your decimal point in the wrong place", he naively interjects. At which point, I almost burst out laughing and have to grab my sides to prevent from doing so.
"Don't be so fucking cheeky, now pay the fucking money", she screeches.
My curiosity is now well and truly aroused, prompting me to lean over and examine the bill. With the figure of £320 quid firmly etched in my mind, I am pleasantly surpised to see that we are only being charged £78.40 for our two pints of Carlsberg. The irony, if ever we needed more irony, of it is, we haven't even sipped the froth off probably the most expensive lager in the world.
Chris is still trying to argue that she must mean 7.84, causing our fraudsters behaviour to become even more beligerent. His realisation that she does actually mean 78.40 is comfirmed with an expression of pain.
I know full well that my wallet holds but 20 quid and I offer this to Chris. "You're going to have to make up the rest", I tell him. He opens up his own wallet and takes out a further 30 quid. Our offer of 50 quid is met with irrational disdain. I mean 50quid, and we've not even taken a sip. Once again she screeches "Give me the fucking money".
I decide that enough is enough, leaving the 50 quid on the table, I tell Chris "Come on, we're out of here". Despite his pain at leaving his money on the table, he follows me, as I push past the woman and head for the stairs. This is when she hits some kind of emergency switch which alerts an extremely large doorman of our escape plan. From the bottom of the second staircase, I look up, see the bright lights of the street and think that I am home free. A few steps later, I look up and see that the whole staicase is blocked by a mountain of a man whose frame blocks out every trace of street light. It's like a human solar eclipse. Afore him, is a rather mean looking dog which he has on a tight leash. Why a man of such stature would need such a beast is beyond me. But I am assuming that he is in no mood for a debate on this issue.
"And where the fuck do you think that you are going lads"?, he growls.
I timidly inform him that we have no money, hoping that he has a soft spot for my pathetic whimperings. It turns out that this is not the case.
"Ok, you have 2 choices. You either give us the money, right fucking now or I escort you to the cash point where you give me the money".
Faced with an Hobson's choice of epic proportions we go for the latter of the two options. He escorts up the remaining stairs and we re-emerge into a busy Soho street. Where, for the first time today, our lucks appears to change. A police man is walking past, at exactly the right moment.
"Excuse me, help", I beggingly plea.
The police man looks at me with disinterest.
"We've just paid £78.40 for two beers and were hoping you could help us", I say without pausing for breath.
The police man says "Well, what do you want me to do about it"? Before he exits into the crowd. "Great", I think. If the police are not even prepared to help us, we're goosed.
Suddenly, in a bizarre twist of fate, the doorman turns 180 degrees in his demands and tells us to leave.
"Go on, fuck off, get out of here before I change my mind", he barks at us, before adding "And don't ever come back".
Chris and I head off into the Soho crowd, as quickly as the police man before us. My brain is trying to assimilate what has just occurred within the space of the past 30 minutes. But all that is running through my mind, are the words "And don't ever come back". I know door men are not really known for their brain capacity, and we may look like country bumpkins, but I mean, come on why would we ever go back to a bar that's just tried to charge us £78.40 for the froth of 2 beers? It's not every day when you think you've got lucky by only paying 50 quid for 2 pints of Carlsberg.
Our return to the car park is met by equally bad news. We have been charged 20 quid for our brief stay there.
The country bumpkins trip to London is complete, only another 30 quid's worth of petrol back to Lancashire and we're back to safe ground.
I don't see Chris for another 4 months after our return home, and as for London, it's another 5 years before I dare to return.
I'd been living on a kibbutz in Israel for 4 months when I first met Roly.
The kibbutz, for anybody that does not know, is a collective community, usually based around agriculture. In short, a commune, where all the money made gets shared equally between the kibbuttzniks (people who live on the kibbutz). The way, it works, or should I say used to work, is that the kibbutz would ask for volunteers from all over the world to come and work there for peanuts (approx £20 a month). So, what would we gain from all this? Well, the answer to this is, a bloody good time, in the prime of our lives (I was 19), surrounded by like minded young folk, who had no responsibilities apart from cleaning up after partying and having protected sex. I must admit here, that whilst I was a legend on the party scene, during my 5 months on Kvutzat Schiller, I drew a sexual duck (for non cricket fans - this does not mean that I drew a picture of a duck in suspenders and crotchless panties - it means I did not get lucky). Despite, being forewarned of the many sexual diseases that I would return with and how many notches I would scribe on my bedpost, my efforts to prevent the former whilst increase the latter by purchase of a mega box of condoms before my departure from England, went unrewarded. In fact I only took the plastic wrapper of the mega box of condoms so that at first glance I did not look like such a loser.
Roly, who was of Swiss descent, was identifiable by a rather large lump in the middle of his forehead and his extremely well defined calf muscles. I assumed that the large calves came from hiking around the Swiss mountains, whereas I knew that the large lump in the middle of his forehead was acquired by drunkenly walking into an orange tree, 2 years earlier. A few days before Roly came to the kibbutz, Danny one of the fellow kibbutz volunteers and all round dick head, had warned us of his arrival. He told us that we would hear Roly's arrival before we actually saw it and that the first thing that we would notice would be his lump. No mention here of his well defined calves (maybe that's a personal thing). The only other information other we managed to glean from Danny, was that Roly's use of the English language was limited to one sentence. Danny, may have been a dick head but his knowledge of Roly was extremely accurate.
"I am Swiss cunt, I am Swiss cunt, I am Swiss cunt", is the mantra I hear as I hang from my orange tree. It's round about 8 am and as usual I am already behind on my orange picking quota of ten large crates, as I day dream from the confines of my tree. My day dream broken, I look down, and from a height of about 10 ft I notice a rather large lump protruding from beneath a mop of hair. "Ah ah", Roly has arrived, I think to myself, as I descend the wooden ladder. "Hi, I'm Andy", I say and offer him my hand". Roly, looks me in the eye with a big smile and says "I am Swiss cunt".
Over the next month, I attempt to have a few conversations with Roly but as you can imagine, this is almost impossible with somebody of such limited English vocabulary.
"So, when were you here before Roly"? - "I am Swiss cunt".
"How long did you stay"? "I am Swiss cunt".
"I hear that you have a masters degree in applied linguistics"? "I am Swiss cunt".
However, one day, there's a breakthrough. I walk from my room to the grassy patch where the volunteers hang out, and there before me, is Roly seemingly engaged in dialogue - and not a "I am Swiss cunt", to be heard. Granted, the dialogue is not the queen's English, but he's telling a story and people are laughing. Danny, stands amongst the gathering crowd and helps Roly with his tale. He's obviously heard it many time before, but he still joins in with the raucous laughter as the tale unfolds. The tale goes as follows.
Roly, had made a trip to London a few years earlier to see the sights. On day one, he met a guy in the street, who he had befriended and decided to go for a drink with. The guy obviously realised at an early stage that he was not dealing with Einstein and had pounced upon this vulnerability. Roly had been guided to a little sleaze shop in the Soho (sex area of London- to those who are unfamiliar), where he had purchased a round of beers for himself and his new friend. Roly and his new friend, sat for a while before the bar maid came over and demanded the cash for the drinks. He then got out his wallet and fumbled for the money. At which point, the bar maid got angry and demanded £320 quid from Roly, who turned to his new mate for help. No surprises in guessing what happened next. His new mate also turned on Roly and threatened to give him a kicking if he did not produce the cash. Poor Roly, insinuated that he did not have the cash on him, but this held no ground with his two aggressors who took him by force to his hotel room. They took the cash and left, whilst Roly's holiday came to an impromptu end. The next day he departed for Switzerland broken and broke.
At the time, I remember being shocked by the tale, whilst wondering about the validity of such an event. However, myself and all the other bystanders, love the story and laughed like demented hyenas. Two years seem to have softened the blow for Roly, who chortles along, his laughter only punctuated by his shouts of "I am Swiss cunt".
Now, you could say that this was a warning. But as you are to find out, a warning that falls on deaf ears.
Part 2 September 1990
My mate Chris and I have decided to go on a road trip to East Anglia. A mate of Chris's is working at a holiday camp down there and says that we can stay for free. I have been back from Israel now for around a year and I am itching for a little adventure. On our return from the holiday camp we see sign posts for London and we spontaneously decide to head for the bright lights. The decision goes something like this.
Me: "Shall we head to London", I half jokingly mutter.
Chris: (who was never known for his financial fortitude) "I've spent all my money", he replies.
Me: "Really, I thought I saw a bundle in your wallet! Come on let's go to a strip show".
Strip show, it appears are the magic words to a 20 year olds libido, and override any tight arsed behaviour that the subject may have previously displayed. As quickly as you can say "hormonal imbalance", I have changed the direction of the car and we are heading for the big smoke. Two country bumpkins with the street cred of a Christmas jumper, heading for certain gloom. In retrospect, our naivety of city life was so evident,that we may as well have been driving a tractor.
Rather surprisingly, once we are in Central London, we find Soho with great ease. However, we are not so diligent in our attempts to find a cheap car park (or maybe there just are none). Our libido's eventually get the better of us and we park the car in the nearest available spot, before taking a ticket from the machine. Epic FAIL number 1 or number 2 if you include the decision to go to London in the first place.
Like kids in a sweet shop we are instantly attracted to the area. A proliferation of sex shops, peep shows, street whores and strip venues, combined with bright lights and lots of noise, is enough to make our adrenalin levels soar. Taking this into consideration, in combination with the fact that we are wetter behind the ears than passengers on the Costa Concordia, it is no great surprise that we immediately enter the first establishment that we are touted into. A neon sign above the door alerting us the fact that it's a strip show.
Before, the rather attractive, middle aged, female Cockney tout has time to finish the following sentence. "Alwight boys", you want to see some naked girls", we are descending numerous staircases into the dragons lair. Our juvenile excitement absorbing any fear that we should be feeling right now, the smiles on our countenances wider than the widest Cockney wide boy. Our eyes transfixed on the wiggle of the touts tight buttocks, as she lures us down the staircases. I turn to Chris and scrunch up my face in a "Whooaahhh" kind of way. He responds with his own facial contortions. We are about to enter into a new dimension.
At the bottom of the staircases we pass through a straggly curtain, into a dimly lit and absurdly small room. The bar, which occupies one whole wall of the room, has no bar tender as we approach, but this soon changes with the metamorphic transformation of our tout into a bar maid.
"What'cha drinking boys"?, she asks us with neither pleasantness nor vitriol.
"Erm, have you got lager", I nervously reply?
"Course", she responds "Carlsberg, alwight for is it lads"?.
We both reply with an affirmative nod of the head before we are told to take a seat. It must be stated here that given the compactness of the room, our choice of seats does not overwhelm us. In fact, had we not been the only customers in the club (since 1972), we may have been left with no other option than to stand. It's either the small leather booth to the left of the bar, or the small leather booth to the right of the bar. We opt for the right, the booth nearest the door as it arbitrarily occurs - not that our naivety even recognises this fact at the time.
Our bar maid/tout walks over to the booth carrying two pints of Carlsberg, which she deposits with little care on our small table.
"Will, you be requiring any company"? she inquires, as she prises us apart so that she can sit in the middle of us.
"Erm, what time does the show start"?, I ask. Although, by this point I am wondering where the show is actually going to take place. This is like none of the strip joints that I had ever seen in 1970s detective shows. There's barely room to move in this darkened dungeon, never mind swing a boa and a pair of knickers.
She ignores my line of questioning and once again asks us if we will be requiring any company. Only this time there is an air of irritation to her voice which instantly fills me with fear. Chris, it seems is not feeling the bad vibes and asks.
"How much"?
"Not much luv", she replies in a condescending tone.
"No, I'm ok thanks", he responds whilst his hand subconsciously moves to his back pocket to protect his wallet.
"Well then boys, you'd better pay up", she informs us, with venom in her voice.
And that's it. It's taken a while for the penny to drop but it finally does. It's like I've just put my penny in the fruit machine (gambling machine to the none English), pulled the lever and watched as the wheels spin. Before the metaphoric wheels have even come to rest, I have foreseen 3 images of Roly's face, complete with big lump, displayed in my minds eye. Above face number one is the number 3, face number 2 is the number 2 and finally face number 3, the number O. The figure, £320, then explodes to be replaced by the words "I am Swiss cunt".
Like Roly, some years before. We've been had. Our pants have been well and truly pulled down and our arses spanked.
Chris, remains oblivious to the fraudulent events that are unravelling around us. Blissfully unaware of the financial quagmire that we have just stepped into.
The bar maid/tout strides off, hastily writes out the bill and returns to the table. She then thrusts the paper at us. I make no attempt to take it from her, so Chris (for the first time in our lives) grabs it. By now, I am almost excited at the prospect of seeing him look at it. Oh what glee to see a tight fisted friend examine an over inflated bill. My eyes are firmly focused on his facial expression as he unravels the paper and stares in initial disbelief. But wait, he's thought of something and his grimace softens. I am given little time to muse over his change of expression, before he enlightens me with the following classic sentence, which will stick with me for the rest of my life.
"You appear to have put your decimal point in the wrong place", he naively interjects. At which point, I almost burst out laughing and have to grab my sides to prevent from doing so.
"Don't be so fucking cheeky, now pay the fucking money", she screeches.
My curiosity is now well and truly aroused, prompting me to lean over and examine the bill. With the figure of £320 quid firmly etched in my mind, I am pleasantly surpised to see that we are only being charged £78.40 for our two pints of Carlsberg. The irony, if ever we needed more irony, of it is, we haven't even sipped the froth off probably the most expensive lager in the world.
Chris is still trying to argue that she must mean 7.84, causing our fraudsters behaviour to become even more beligerent. His realisation that she does actually mean 78.40 is comfirmed with an expression of pain.
I know full well that my wallet holds but 20 quid and I offer this to Chris. "You're going to have to make up the rest", I tell him. He opens up his own wallet and takes out a further 30 quid. Our offer of 50 quid is met with irrational disdain. I mean 50quid, and we've not even taken a sip. Once again she screeches "Give me the fucking money".
I decide that enough is enough, leaving the 50 quid on the table, I tell Chris "Come on, we're out of here". Despite his pain at leaving his money on the table, he follows me, as I push past the woman and head for the stairs. This is when she hits some kind of emergency switch which alerts an extremely large doorman of our escape plan. From the bottom of the second staircase, I look up, see the bright lights of the street and think that I am home free. A few steps later, I look up and see that the whole staicase is blocked by a mountain of a man whose frame blocks out every trace of street light. It's like a human solar eclipse. Afore him, is a rather mean looking dog which he has on a tight leash. Why a man of such stature would need such a beast is beyond me. But I am assuming that he is in no mood for a debate on this issue.
"And where the fuck do you think that you are going lads"?, he growls.
I timidly inform him that we have no money, hoping that he has a soft spot for my pathetic whimperings. It turns out that this is not the case.
"Ok, you have 2 choices. You either give us the money, right fucking now or I escort you to the cash point where you give me the money".
Faced with an Hobson's choice of epic proportions we go for the latter of the two options. He escorts up the remaining stairs and we re-emerge into a busy Soho street. Where, for the first time today, our lucks appears to change. A police man is walking past, at exactly the right moment.
"Excuse me, help", I beggingly plea.
The police man looks at me with disinterest.
"We've just paid £78.40 for two beers and were hoping you could help us", I say without pausing for breath.
The police man says "Well, what do you want me to do about it"? Before he exits into the crowd. "Great", I think. If the police are not even prepared to help us, we're goosed.
Suddenly, in a bizarre twist of fate, the doorman turns 180 degrees in his demands and tells us to leave.
"Go on, fuck off, get out of here before I change my mind", he barks at us, before adding "And don't ever come back".
Chris and I head off into the Soho crowd, as quickly as the police man before us. My brain is trying to assimilate what has just occurred within the space of the past 30 minutes. But all that is running through my mind, are the words "And don't ever come back". I know door men are not really known for their brain capacity, and we may look like country bumpkins, but I mean, come on why would we ever go back to a bar that's just tried to charge us £78.40 for the froth of 2 beers? It's not every day when you think you've got lucky by only paying 50 quid for 2 pints of Carlsberg.
Our return to the car park is met by equally bad news. We have been charged 20 quid for our brief stay there.
The country bumpkins trip to London is complete, only another 30 quid's worth of petrol back to Lancashire and we're back to safe ground.
I don't see Chris for another 4 months after our return home, and as for London, it's another 5 years before I dare to return.
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