Coastalblog

It's commonplace at this time of year for things like this to do some sort of head-scratching look back at the year just gone. Some whimsical piece full of wonderment at the twists and turns the last go round the sun has taken. Cor, they say, I never saw that coming. Blimey, who'd have expected that. Well, I thought about it, and then decided not to. Because whichever way you slice it, 2022 has been an absolute shithouse for a heck of a lot of people, and it seems a bit tasteless going coo, who remembers "surprised by cake"? crikey, that was a laugh, eh?  Likewise, I am irritated by our media class's tendency to treat politics, which is the stuff of real people's actual lives, as though it were all some jolly entertaining spectator sport. The disastrous conduct of our ruling party has actively served to make everyone in the country worse off this year. It shouldn't really be the subject of a parlour game where someone has to remember precisely how many day

     What would you think if, when you asked someone how they were, they replied "OK"? Would you take that at face value, or regard it as being indicative of deeper problems?      I ask because this has been on my mind a little of late. Mrs Coastaltown asked me how I was one day. I was okay, I said so. Whats's up? She said. Nothing's up, I said, I'm okay, I'm fine. Reader, I was, I was fine.      What would you think if, when you asked someone how they were, they replied "fine"? Would you take that at face value, or regard it as being indicative of deeper problems?      I'm being slightly facetious here, but I have been wondering a little recently about how we perceive language, and how we place too much weight on hyperbole. You can't simply be fine, you have to be amazing, so good, living your best life. Things aren't bad, they're a disaster. Eminently believable events become unbelievable. The comedian Gary Delaney has a good line a

To my mild surprise, I came home one day last week to find one of my sons, who shall remain nameless, reading a copy of one of my chapbooks. "Hello Dad" he said, in an off-hand manner, before tossing it on the table. "Not really my sort of thing" I wasn't, I hasten to add, particularly offended by this; his thing is anime, and he's eleven. I don't recall being a particular fan of procedural poetry myself at that age, to be entirely honest with you, I was more a fan of really intently watching the opening titles of Baywatch . Indeed, as with so much of my life, writing poetry was just something I sort of fell into and it turned out I was alright enough at it to publish a bit and read a bit and...well, not much else really. And that's fine, I never had dreams of fame or success from writing, it was always just something I did.  To quote Homer Simpson: aim low kids, aim so low that nobody will realise if you fail. This isn't to say that I didn't

This post will be about several things, but it won't be about The Queue. I don't need to explain  that any further, you know it the one I mean, the one that has dominated the national conversation to a perplexing degree over the last few days. I knew when HRH popped her little bejewelled clogs that I was going to be out of step with the majority if my fellow countrymen. Not so much due to my lack of support for the monarchy, though that's definitely a factor, but more due to my distaste for greetings card sentiment. And, dear me, but we've had that in spades. Grieving, I understand. Grief and I, as longer term readers may recall, are well acquainted. And I'm not so arrogant as to tell others how to grieve; but it does seem, from the perspective of one utterly unmoved by the death of someone I didn't know, that we as a country are...enjoying this a little too much? Wallowing a little? I do understand it, to a degree. Brenda represents one of the last links to whe

Now, after typing it,  I realise that the title basically sounds like a racist AC/DC cover version, but before you cast your phone aside in disgust at my, now you come to think of it inevitable middle aged slide into reactionary politics, hold on a mo, for this is merely the news that, after a pleasurable couple of years of semi-retirement, your super soaraway Coastalblog is back on the stoves full-time. (I hadn't realised you weren't, you quite reasonably say, fair enough, so to recap...) When I took the pub over I reasoned that I was going to be to preoccupied with various bits and bobs that needed doing front of house, and wouldn't be able to give the kitchen the attention it deserved. I was right in this, to be fair, paperwork, repairs and renovations, navigating the uncertain waters of Covid, all of this took a lot of time up. So I handed the kitchen reins over to my sous chef, Lyndsey (who has, I should say, done an absolutely sterling job). That's me done, I thou

I've been trying, I really have. I've been refraining as much as possible from commenting on the unedifying tussle to be our next entirely unelected PM. As Mark Drakeford so tartly and correctly observed, there's nothing I can say about them that they haven't already said about each other. Indeed, I've been trying to stay off the politics as much as possible,the increasing madness of the last few years has been overwhelming, and for the sake of one's sanity alone it's necessary to keep the whole fucking shambles at arms length. How else can one respond to Liz Truss contradicting her own press release of a few hours before? Or Sunak cosplaying as a dictator because he thinks that'snwhat the membership wants? But the problem is, you may want to avoid politics, but politics sure as hell doesn't want to avoid you. And at this shaky point in our history, as the economy teeters on the brink of recession, and the real-world impact of climate change becomes

Dizzy heights of fame for your humblish correspondent this week, as I and my esteemed boozer merit an article in none other than the Ormskirk Advertiser (to which I cannot link because, in the year of our Lord 2022, it mystifyingly doesn't have a website other than some convoluted accounts only thing which, frankly, I can't be arsed dealing with. So we'll do this the old fashioned way)  In a nutshell, I stuck a food bank collection point in the pub. That's pretty much the size of it. Must have been a slow news week (admittedly, every week in Ormskirk is a slow news week). What I found noteworthy about it (besides it being literally the only time I've ever been described as "kind-hearted") was how much of the article I've actually written. It's pulled together from a couple of quotes and various Facebook updates. Nowt wrong with that (though I was wondering whether I should invoice them, seeing as how I've effectively written half of it), I alwa

So the plane didn't take off, but it doesn't matter, because it's a wedge issue. God help us, this is how these people think. Somewhat abstruse, as opening lines go, but then, the whole situation is. And it has got me despairing even more than usual as to what's become of us as a nation. I shall clarify, the flight, of course, was Priti Patel's brainchild, the rendition of asylum seekers to Rwanda. I'm not going into that any further. If you feel anything but repugnance towards this racist, morally bankrupt, unworkable and ludicrously expensive pipe dream then, I beg of you, fuck off. Then fuck off some more. No, this piece isn't to comment on the policy, it's nor even one of those "slow descent into fascism" bits which people are so fond of now, there's no point. It's self-evident. No, what this piece is about is the motivation, revealed in hindsight, of the racist, abhorrent, imbecilic and embarrassing piece of shit idea about putting

As regular readers will know, I'm prone to starting the odd post or two with faux-modest, but in reality self-aggrandising observations about how often I find myself at odds with my fellow citizens. I don't really mean to, but there you have it. Opposition is very much the name of the Coastalblog game. And so it is with the state of my garden. Or rather, the pub's. I am blessed in my gaff with a very pleasant garden, which, when the weather's nice, pretty much guarantees me a busy day ( I know, hard old life, isn't it?). But what could I possibly find to argue with the general public with here? Dear reader: mowing. Now, I don't let it run completely wild (much as I'd like to), arsey though I am, I'm aware that it's helpful for people to be able to get the nice benches I spent so long building. But I don't share the English obsession with a tidy lawn, indeed, I'm positively anti it. I did no mow May, and was pleased with the riot of daisies an

Last week, I had one of the more head-scratching encounters of my professional career. Not so much the encounter itself, more the aftermath. Working in hospitality as I have for more years than I care to remember, I've accrued a lengthy back catalogue of weird complaints. Anyone in my line of work has, industry vets will trade them like playing cards: the gazpacho that was cold, the waitress that tossed her hair "sarcastically", the medium steak being medium rare, while his medium-rare was medium, the table that refused to believe that you couldn't fit a table of ten in on a fully booked New Year's Eve and turned up anyway. So, when a worried-looking member of floor staff popped in and said that a table had complained about the sausages on the kids menu not being "child-friendly" I sighed, did a little eye-rolling and said don't worry, I'll pop out and talk to them. And this I did, I had thought there might be some issue with the plating, maybe t

At the risk of harping on old themes, the writing has fallen by the wayside a bit in recent times, after a couple of years where I felt I was vaguely on top of things, and able to carve out a routine whereby I could make time to write, this year threw everything up in the air again. As is nearly always the case, there isn't any one particular cause, a variety of calls on one's time make the process of sitting down to put something down in writing harder, and before you know it, it's been so long that you almost can't imagine starting again. It certainly doesn't help things that this year has taken a turn for the seriously dark, and I'm not sure the world needs my opinions on things we all know to be awful. (Though I would observe that it makes a cruel mockery of all those people posting cheery facebook statuses at the end of the last couple of years about hooray that year's over, things can't get any worse! Stop it. Just stop it. You're all the equiv

The government have made me hate myself. Even more than usual. I've poddled along most of my existence with the same healthy level of self-loathing of your average middle-class failure, but the last ten years have ramped it up to levels which no mortal man can stand for long without requiring some form of recreational outlet. I felt it happening again, when the news of their utterly batshit, ridiculously cynical, completely unworkable, massively illegal and completely and utterly morally reprehensible "send all the refugees to Rwanda" wheeze broke. Despite  all my best intentions to the contrary, I couldn't help but get swept up in the denunciations. I'm sorry. I tried hard not to. There is a very long list of charges which can be laid at the door of this current administration, and I'll be the first to admit that this particular complaint is a long way down the list, but I must recognise that they truly have turned me into an out and out bore, the sort of blo

There's a street near me which was, until quite recently, something of a bugbear amongst the easily irritated types who inhabit local community facebook forums. The road in question had, at the start of the pandemic, been blocked off half way along with planters, ostensibly to help with social distancing. I was unsure about the rationale, but pretty happy with the result. As a sort of mini low-traffic neighbourhood, the road suddenly became much more pleasant to walk down, and, as it was on my way to the shops, it's de facto pedestrianisation improved my quality of life to a degree. It had been something of a rat run to a Lidl, now it wasn't. All to the good. My view, it is reasonable to say, was not the only one. And while I'm aware that one shouldn't look to Facebook to be an arena for calm and reasoned debate, the level of bile directed at these few humble planters was little short of astonishing. I quietly resigned myself to their being removed amid such vocal l

 *clears throat* Afternoon. Yes, I know, been a bit quiet of late round here, hasn't it? There are reasons for this, some of them pretty good ones. But the most overarching one would be that I simply fell out of the habit. Terribly sorry. Long time observers of these pages (and believe it or not, they do exist) will be aware of the usual run of things with Coastalblog, radio silence in December as the day job takes over, followed by a burst of activity in the New Year as I promise myself that this this is the year I'll make time to write which then tails off disappointingly. Well, disappointingly for me at least. Possibly a profound relief for everybody else. True to form, I managed the radio silence in December bit with aplomb, but the rest? Not so much. Part of the reason, I'm sort of pleased to say, is work; life at the pub has kept me surprisingly busy during January and February. Traditionally the quietest months of the year, they've taken us all aback with their l