SO yes, most nights I’m still going into Hell’s Waiting Room, my favourite pub in New Brighton.
I dived in there late last night, when I got back from a 14-hour day at work (thinking about it, is that legal?).
Anyway, I was well knackered by the time I got to the pub.
First, I got talking to Celeste in the vestibule bar. She’s Irish, as many in these parts are, and her son is a Wirral councillor. (Well, was at the time of writing. We’ll see what the local elections bring.)

Being a pensioner who likes the odd dram, Celeste was opining on the rising price of Jameson’s whiskey.
She blames that on the smart arse marketing campaigns aimed at young people and the drink’s resulting trendy image.
When I’d got my pint, I shuffled off to the music room, which wasn’t at its most lively and certainly didn’t have any music in it.
Spread around it, and emanating a uniquely English sort of gloom, were half a dozen middle-aged men.
That’s normally OK by me as I’m a middle-aged man myself, but I dunno, there didn’t seem to be any cheer in the room.
And after the pig of a working day I’d had I was in dire need of good cheer and some human warmth.
So I moved out and into the long bar that runs along the front of Hell’s Waiting Room. That was better. I got talking to Stella Feathercut in there.
We compared asthma inhalers ... while we smoked our Silk Cuts.
She’s got a new souped-up inhaler. I think I’ll see if I can get an upgrade, one like hers.
Stella was in playful mood, so the talk soon got around to my so-called love life. Well, to be honest, I think it was me that raised it.
Eventually, I announced to everyone in the bar that I was off-limits for luurrrve, which is a very un-New Brighton thing to say but I mean it.
I mean it because women always done treat me cruel, and besides I can no longer tolerate their mad mood swings, or the way it takes them four hours to get ready for work in the mornings. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
Billy Bustimes (who knows every public transport timetable on Merseyside off my heart) told me for the third time about his big battle with the bus company.
Actually, it’s a funny story. Billy had been out to lunch in Thornton Hough and wanted to get back to New Brighton by bus, changing at Birkenhead.
To his consternation, however, the bus failed to stop in Birkenhead and went hurtling on towards Liverpool.
In no uncertain terms Billy told the driver of his grave error. The bus was definitely scheduled to stop in Birkenhead.
Now the driver saw his arse over being lectured in this way (well driving a one-man-operated bus is a stressful occupation).
After a tense few minutes Billy was allegedly told by the driver: “Get off my f***** bus.�
I quote the words exactly as they appear in Billy’s stiff letter of complaint to The Fat Controller of the Bus Fleet.
Once ejected from the bus, Our Billy was forced to walk back into town alongside the tunnel approaches, which is rather hazardous for a man with as many health impediments as him.
The letter of complaint has been despatched. We remain to see if justice and compensation result.
If not, I am quite sure Billy is up for the gig as some sort of bus martyr.
Towards last orders, Rocky Geetar came in from the music room, evidently determined to tell me one of his long, rambling riddle-wrapped-in-a-mystery stories.
I bobbed down behind the bar, trying to hide but it was no good. He spotted me.
Now I like Rocky but the trouble is I don’t like listening to long stories, not when I’ve just completed a 14-hour working day.
And, as I’ve explained to Rocky, I just DO NOT LIKE RIDDLES. I’ve told him this repeatedly but still he brings puzzles and enigmatic situations, for the solving of.
Last night, I think I did get the message through to him finally.
There must be something wrong with my psychological make-up, because I really do HATE riddles.
There are lots of other things I can’t stand either. For some of them, you will understand why . For others, the reasons why I feel such intense irritation and antipathy are perhaps less obvious. Unless you are me.
Anyway, here is my Hate List …
• Wire coat hangers
• Pigeons
• Phillip Schofield
• Dog owners who don’t clear up mess
• People who say “ah, bless�
• Teenagers who say “like� at least six times in every sentence
• Simon Bates (the radio jock)
• People who say “I’m loving it�
• Alan Titchmarsh
• Patricia Hewitt, Health Secretary
• Supermarket tobacco kiosks (they’re useless)
• Supermarket newspaper racks (never kept in good order)
• Railway embankments in Wirral (so heavily littered)
• British banks (such rip-off merchants)
• British opticians (ditto)
• Esther Rantzen
• Graham Norton

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