BEFORE I get to the latest botheration in Hell’s Waiting Room, there’s one wee episode I meant to relate from my recent trip to London.
I refer to the vile torrent of abuse directed at me from a sixtysomething madwoman...

There I was last Saturday evening, in the centre of Kingston upon Thames trying to get the 281 bus to Ealing where I had a party to attend.
Ting Tong, my Chinese Malaysian friend, assured me the 281 went from outside McDonald’s and would take me exactly where I needed to be across town.
Ting Tong even dropped me off by the bus top. Well, by what she thought was the right bus stop anyway…
Straight away I asked what I took to be a perfectly sensible woman at the stop, who was dressed in very middle class way, just where and when precisely could I catch the 281 for Ealing.
“No, no, no,� she said, shaking her head rather too vigorously, “it’s the number 65 you want, over there, over there!�
The woman jabbed her bony finger towards the other side of the road, a bus shelter outside the Ann Summers dirty drawers shop.
OK, the old girl wasn’t very friendly. But I put that down to her being southern English.
You know what cold fishes they can be.
Well, I investigated the other bus stop and those near it, in fairly dilatory fashion, I admit. One must never take buses too seriously. That way insanity lies.
But I could see no number 65, so I crossed back over the street and starting to look for the 281 again.
Surely the ever efficient Ting Tong could not have got it wrong about local bus services.
Lo, a 281 pulled up and I got on, asking the driver for a single to Ealing, ignoring the excessive twitching that broke out in the body of the old middle class bat who’d given me such firm instructions to the contrary only a few minutes before.
As it happened, the driver quietly and politely confirmed that it was indeed the 65 I needed. I’d find one “over at the vibrator shop�, he added, helpfully.
It was just at this point that the old bird threw a crazy fit, shouting at me: “I told you your bus was over the road. You idiot. You complete f*****g moron. You have been gormlessly drifting about like an imbecile. Why don’t you bloody listen?�
Well, I am not easily shocked, but, really, this old biddy was a nasty piece of work.
I could easily have given her a mouthful back, and normally I would do, because my fiery mum, Teresa Philomena, has always taught me to stand up to bullies.
However, I decided to response with grace and dignity (most unlike me). I simply smiled beatifically at the old girl and fixed her with a firm but compassion stare.
Then I said to her, quietly but clearly: “You are a madwoman. Stop harassing me.�
After that I walked across the road to catch the number 65, which had just pulled in right in front of the split-crotch panties window.
It wasn’t entirely a dignified retreat for me, however.
Because the old bat, enraged that someone had dared to put her in her place, screamed after me, somewhat bafflingly: “You f*****g scrubber.�
I mention the above incident because it seems to me that increasing numbers of women nowadays will act in an aggressive, abusive way, a way that was once the preserve mainly of men, and of the most stupid kind of men at that.
Why, I was in Hell’s Waiting Room, New Brighton, on Wednesday night, having enjoyed a pleasant evening in the company of some of the regulars, including Slutty Hardman and his new squeeze Della, Quiet Jack, Johnny No-Legs, Duncan Kindlyface and local therapist Dr Gyggle.
As most of us were leaving to go for a few late beers down at The Lost Weekend there was a palpable air of tension and hostility in the vestibule by the Waiting Room’s front door.
What happened was that one of the female customers – no names, no pack drill on this occasion, but it was NOT the Bacardi Queen – saw her arse at some perceived insult by another woman customer who was on her way outside.
I know both of the women involved in this scene of muscling-up-for-a-scrap-man-style activity, and believe me, in normal circumstances they are lovely girls.
Both of them are funny and both can be charming.
Luckily, we lads had a pacifying influence on the chief protagonist and on the other girl who clearly was in no mood to lose face.
Well, actually, it was Duncan who did most of the pacifying, effortlessly spreading the Balm of Gilead around the place until the aggression magically subsided.
Well he’s had a lot of practice – being a football ref.
It had been a very nice night in the Waiting Room, you know, though I had been a bit giddy early on, doing my famous and VERY LOUD Dalek impression.
The sound of it is truly chilling. The distillation of evil. Based on memories of watching the old Dr Who, but with added nastiness, copied from the voice of charge hand I used to work under at the old Tupperware factory in Wigan.
Also, I sang Men of Harlech in the pub on Wednesday, as I am prone to do when in drink.
Altogether now… “See the Saxon flee before us, / Victory’s banner floateth o-er us. / Raise one loud exultant chorus, / Britain wins the field!�.
There’s no way you can sing that quietly.
Here, I hope it wasn’t me singing that fierce song which inflamed the passions of the women and made ‘em get their fighting gander up.
Note to myself: do not under any circumstances sing anything in pubs when drink you have taken.
Excruciating details of embarrassments past are etched in to my memory.
There I am in the early 1990s, dancing on the bar top in Vic Naylor’s, Smithfield, London, wearing only my underpants and singing What’s New Pussycat? at the top of my voice while doing horrible pelvic thrusts.
It had been a trendy joint up until that night. Suddenly, though, all the Hoxton haircuts and their gorgeous girlfriends deserted the place.
Then there was the time when I did a really over-the-top version of Total Eclipse of the Heart in the Dockworkers’ Social Club in Ipswich some time in the mid 1980s. Miraculously, I wasn’t run out of town.
Still, I am drifting off the point aren’t I?
And the point is the increasing aggressiveness of some women...
As the former boyfriend of several psychotic birds in the past, I can tell you that the trend is not entirely new.
In the late 1980s, while working as a newspaper feature writer in East Anglia I started courting (oh, OK, living with) Miss ‘Treacle’ Tartt.
In the normal run of things, Treacle wasn’t a bad girl. She could be very loving and sensitive.
But when she was in a bad mood, boy, you had to watch out.
Once, she locked me under the stairs and left me there, while she went shopping for girlie stuff for two hours.
When angry her normally pretty mouth would be contorted into a terrifying rectangle of rage.
Of course, as a man, you can’t really defend yourself from such attacks, because no decent man would ever strike a woman.
One time, we’d had a row about some awful slop she’s cooked for dinner.
She threw the panful of steaming gloop at me, narrowly missing my head and making a right mess of the kitchen wall.
Then she grabbed a mug tree, a very large and heavy mug tree, and proceeded to smash my head in with it.
It was only when my screams alerted our lodger at the time, Sir (now Lord) Johnny Vino, that I was able to escape with my life.

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