SO nearly two weeks have passed since the bitter battles over bingo caused such a stink in Hell's Waiting Room.
I haven't been in there much recently because I've been poorly. Nothing serious, don't worry. Just a profound corrosion of the soul of the sort which afflicts all intelligent people from time to time.

I even missed the birthday party held last Saturday for one of the regulars, Stella Fathercut, because I was feeling below par. It was a shame because I had a nice card and a present to give her.
It was only a modest little pressie. Well, I didn't get to be as rich as I am by frittering away my brass on lavish gifts. I will hand the thing over to Stella next time I see her.
Actually, I said her birthday bash took place in the Waiting Room, but in fact it only began in there. A lairy Irish guy frightened people away and the party guests crossed the street to The Shallow Cutting, which is under new management.
A good time was had by everybody, apparently, though most of the guests were Waiting Room regulars. It was like the Waiting Room goes on tour ... to neighbouring taverns in New Brighton. More of that in later blogs.
Old Madford-on-Sea has a new restaurant, by the way. Actually, it is located in premises occupied until quite recently by an old-fashioned Italian restaurant from where I used to get my takeaway pizzas to eat while watching The Bill.
On my way to the pub last night, I spotted Tallulah Swells, barmaid from the Waiting Room, and her fella Alberre, dining in the new place.
On closer inspection, with my nose pressed up against the window, I saw that former Waiting Room barmaid Jess Pandaeyes was also having a nosh, acompanied by Silvester Sylvacrin, a regular at the Waiting Room.
So I went in to the restuarant for a chat with them all. It seems like a nice place but a little overdesigned for my tastes, a bit too fond of logos and corporate identity.
Apparently there are other "sister" restaurants in the chain. Hmmm.
This obsession with branding and building up chains of shops, bars and restaurants is what is spoiling British towns and cities, making them all look the same, taking away local character.
Look at Chester and Liverpool. Both have too many chain bars and clubs and not enough places with individual style.
Now... I write this from an Easyinternet cafe in Edinburgh as I wait to meet my old reporter pals from the days when I worked for a Scottish newspaper.
We're to go to a party tonight and out for dinner tomorrow night. It is the first time I've been away in ages.
I find it hard to drag myself away from Wallasey these days. Wallasey has everything I need, frankly. And Liscard is one place that hasn't been spoiled by chain shops.
P.S. Over the years I have filed and/or emailed my columns from some very exotic locations ...
For many years I wrote the daily Sam Brady TV review for Oracle and Teletext.
I remember phoning one of them through from Ronnie Scott's nightclub in London, and on another occasion from a phone box in the middle of a hurricane near Rannoch Moor in Scotland.
And my local newspaper column for the Whitstable Times in Kent, well I once emailed that from a luxury hotel in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. I was there on a press trip, you see, one of the few perks of my trade.
Funny thing was ... the only internet connection available at the hotel was in the penthouse suite, where the former French President Mitterand regularly stayed.
France has been much in my mind, recently, because it is clearly a country ill at ease with itself, even more ill at ease than our own troubled land, as the latest round of riots indicates.
This is shame, for while I am not especially fond of French people, their country is very beautiful and I like going for holidays there,
P.P.S. A wiser writer than me once remarked that the French were only good at things beginning with the letter C ... such as chic, croissants, and COLLABORATION.

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