IT FEELS like my life is being played out in phases that are by turn, bad, indifferent, good and tantalisingly awesome.
Currently I’m going through a tantalisingly awesome bit – especially in the evenings.
Coming to live in New Brighton has been one of the smartest moves I’ve ever made.
The place feels both (a) neglected (thanks to the abysmal Wirral Council) and (b) magically transformed, do-different in attitude, and splendidly kooky.

Since first coming here to live in 2004 I have, most nights, gone for a nightcap to Hell’s Waiting Room.
There is a weird, transmogrifying energy about that pub. Nothing is quite what is seems after you pass through the classical columns that surround the front door.
Many a laugh, and quite a few tears, I have shared in there with all the characters I’ve been chronicling in this blog.
I was in there last night in the company of Commuting Mitch, Greta, Annette Kalms and her son Brains, plus Dixie the Jazzman and Mini Marvin.
And me bird Posh Boots. Whoops. Almost forgot to mention her.
We sat in the lovely Smoking Grotto that’s been created at the back of the pub. You should see it.
Open to the elements it might be, but it is somehow very cosy, with its rugged Cheshire sandstone back wall, strange art dotted around, tables held up by sculptures of scantily-clad Egyptian slave girls, and candles everywhere.
It was a relief to be in there last night because only a couple of nights ago the Smoking Grotto had been closed down on the orders of a couple of Smoke-Free Wirral Daleks sent by the Death Star headquarters of the much-despised local council.
Apparently, the way the Smoking Grotto had been constructed didn’t follow precisely enough the regulations laid down by the New-Fascist-Labour Junta concerning the sections left open to the air.
This was apparently explained with all the humanity-denying zeal you’d have expected from death camp guards at Auschwitz when they upheld the Nazi rules.
Anyway, some adjustments have now been made to the Smoking Grotto to let even more air in, so for the moment it is open to the public again. Hurrah.
Well, I say to the public, but some of the pub’s acid-tongued bingo biddies have been trying to stop non-smokers going in to the grotto.
I witnessed Elvira Bittergob haranguing young Brains on that subject a couple of weeks ago, as her mate Old Ma Milosevic, nodded sagely (or do I mean savagely?).
There’s also been more trouble between the bingo biddies and the musicians. The musicians like to play in the pub’s music lounge, except on Thursdays, when an ever-diminishing group of senior laydees play bingo in there.
This time trouble kicked off between Duncan Kindlyface and the bingo biddies. It got quite heated, apparently, though I can’t say what that was about, precisely, because I was away in Spain at the time with Posh Boots. Word got back to me though.
All I know is I wouldn’t be daft enough to pick a row with Kindlyface. He disciplines delinquent youths for a living, and he’s a football referee!
Anyway, there is a kind of New Brighton Posse around at the moment, which drifts in and out of Hell’s Waiting Room, and seems to have taken up residency in the Smoking Grotto.
We have the most marvellous conversations, putting the increasingly mad word to rights, and striking postures of rebellion against everything that’s rotten (i.e. plenty) in Britain, now that cruel times are upon our beautiful country.
In the Smoking Grotto on recent nights … Jack and Joolz, Palindroma, the Medieval Saint, Corky and Johnny No Legs from the Recklessly Hellbent band, Leggo, Dr Gyggle and Litherland Lou.
Also in, and receiving a warm welcome, New Brighton Newbie (henceforth know simply as Newbie), who, it turns out, is Scottish. Hurrah! ‘The more Scots around the better’ has always been my motto.
What is a bit of a shame, though, is that Newbie had to witness a wee disputation between me and Posh Boots a few nights ago, that spilled out of the pub and onto the street.
It was over something and nothing. You know how these things occur. Too much wine, a misheard remark, and suddenly it was tantrum city for both of us.
That was unfortunate but it wasn’t a real argument. Well, not by the mega-unpleasant standards of my previous girlfriends, including the fearsome Miss “Treacle� Tartt.
There has been plenty of enjoyable social intercourse elsewhere, too, on these fabulous New Brighton nights.
There was a great party for Mitch and Greta’s son, Todd, in West Cheshire Sailing Club, and another excellent bash at Spuggy’s house between New Brighton and Liscard.
The occasion being celebrated at Spuggy’s was the official launch for his new kitchen. Any excuse, eh?
Unfortunately, I inadvertently caused a diplomatic incident there with a woman from Wigan (which happens to be my home town, by the way).
Spuggy’s excellent new girlfriend is a Wiganer, you see, and she’d brought along three of her local girl chums to the party.
Well, I noticed that one of these women pals, a chunky brunette, was staring at me, intensely. Don’t know why for sure, but, hey, it happens a lot to guys like me, who are considered sex symbols.
Anyway I gave this brunette no encouragement, and chatted pleasantly instead to the blonde Wigan lass standing nearby. Turns out we had a literary connection. She runs a book club. I run a poetry club.
Well the brunette, saw her arse over this. Didn’t like her blonde chum chatting to me at all. Told the blonde it was "typical" of her to be chatting up men at a party, and demanded that the Wigan threesome leave.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle and the Wigan birds left in a collective huff. Never mind. Bad moods, grumpiness and living in Wigan go together quite well in my experience.
Nonetheless, I made discreet enquiries as to what had caused all the bad atmosphere with the Wild Wimmin of Wigan.
Turns out it wasn’t my fault. One of three had, in fact, been sulking in the front room at the party even before I had arrived. Reading The Independent, she was, as if that would improve anyone’s mood.
I do wish women could learn to be less moody, and more like us men.
Girls, do as we do. Act instinctively in everything you do. Then your lives would be as easy as ours – i.e. as easy as falling off a log.
I should also mention in this posting that my comedy turn at the Magnet bar, in Hardman Street, Liverpool, last month, went very well.
I was high on the applause, the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd and all that.
And it was good to have the brilliant and highly individual Wallasey singer, Bri Nylon, in our entourage in Liverpool that night.
He sang a fantastic number called something like 'If I Were the Greatest Lover' at the Magnet, which cracked everyone up.
Anyway my comedy turn is all about the shape-shifting Extraterrestrials who live in Liverpool’s Catholic Cathedral.
These aliens, called the Wearons, have been secretly planning colonisation of the Earth for the past 40-odd years. Only things keep being cocked up. Well, they are in Liverpool.
I’m planning to perform the Wearons piece at the Bards of New Brighton meeting this coming Monday (November 5), at the Little Brighton pub, Rowson Street, (upper) New Brighton, starting at 8.30pm.
It is open to all. You can read your poetry if you wish, or just listen and enjoy.
Admission is free and there will be free parkin cake and treacle toffee on account of it being Guy Fawkes night.
Thanks to all the people who’ve been coming to the Bards meetings over these past six months or so, including the Birkenhead and Liverpool poets, and the fantastic John Gorman and Sue.
And thanks to the lovely Posh Boots for helping me (a very disorganised person) to run it.
‘Love and peace’ till the next posting…

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