ANOTHER winter’s night in New Brighton, and there is always someone around who’ll give you a sly, shark-eyed glance or a dirty look. More of that later …
The evening started well. I called in first to the local chippy, the Twisted Halibut, and got a cod without batter and a few chips on the side.

Yes, chippies will fry the cod without the traditional greasy batter if you ask them.
In Wigan (where I was born) it is a common practice to ask for a “fish bout batter� (ie. a fish without batter).
In Merseyside it is rarer to get cod in this way, but in New Brighton, the local branch of the World of Lard Fish Frying Federation has permitted it under ancient peninsula food laws.
Both myself and Tallulah Swells, barmaid at Hell’s Waiting Room, like our fish this way. I tell you, we’re loving it.
Anyway, a pleasant five minutes went by in the Twisted Halibut while my fish sizzled. Turns out the lad who batters most of the fish in there for a living is also a drummer in a rock band called Bad Gav and the Hellbastards, or something like that.
Hey, what it is to be young and still have dreams, to have the energy to chase fame and glory and rock’n’roll debauchery.
I wished the lad well and stepped out onto the street with my supper in hand and headed for Hell’s Waiting Room.
It was with some trepidation that I passed through its reality-enhancing portals and went to the bar to order a glass of red wine.
You see, it was this time last week that there had been a most sour and uncharacteristic atmosphere in the pub.
That had happened after the auld biddies who play bingo in the front saloon on Thursdays went public with wild and totally unfounded allegations about the behaviour of my posse which usually uses that room (on the six nights of the week when there isn’t bingo).
Well, as I recounted in a previous blog, the landlord, Mr Craggs, told the biddies off good and proper for their trouble-making slurs.
As a result, Elvira Bittergob had huffily announced last week that she was giving up her job as commander-in-chief of the bingo.
But Elvira was back in the front saloon last night, wearing a rather fetching peachy lipgloss, as it happens. True to her word, she wasn’t calling the bingo, though she was playing it.
Another of the regular ladies headed up the game as caller, a certain Desiree Glamm.
There was a complication, however. The adjoining back lounge, which my posse usually switch to, to make way for bingo addicts, was in use last night for a funeral reception.
Now some of my pals felt comfortable in joining the wake, because they had known the deceased man, a well loved former regular at the Waiting Room.
But myself and several others hadn’t really known him, so good manners prevented us from entering the room of the wake.
Instead we sat in with the bingo birds, who were fewer in number than usual anyway (not surprisingly, perhaps, following all the unpleasantness last week).
Me, the Bacardi Queen, and Dixie the Jazzman settled down for the evening.
We even played a few cards of bingo to be civil and to show there were no hard feelings.
The trouble arose because there was a lot of background noise coming from the people in the wake in the adjoining room. Naturally no-one was going to tell them to pipe down.
We were all glad they were giving the auld fella such a good send off.
It could be said the bingo biddies ought to have called off their game anyway, out of respect for the dead. Certainly, I privately took that view, but there were other legitimate ways of looking at the situation and so it was decided the bingo should go ahead.
It turned out the women, who were straining to hear their bingo, started to moan that it was my pals, and not the wake party, who were responsible for all the noise. Rubbish.
Well, we stayed put and tried our best to chat in whispers, but the biddies were less than gracious about our efforts.
Their faces were worse than thunder. It is a good job there were no dairy products in the room because they would surely have curdled.
I remember being in the line of particularly baleful glares from Bertha Brezhnev, who used to be in charge of corporal punishment in Wirral orphanages in the 1950s.
And if looks could kill I’d be a dead man after copping the evil eye from Old Ma Milosevic in the corner.
So it was a rather edgy night, all told, but any real trouble was avoided somehow.
Tonight, it is Paddy’s night and, predictably, I am spending it in the Waiting Room.
It is also Stella Feathercut’s birthday bash in there, so I am looking forward to a good night.
Slainche!

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