The Blog With No Name

Perhaps too long.

I'm still here, watching, waiting, thinking. Just not typing.

But as they've tried to boot me off the site due to inactivity, that may just awaken me from my inertia. Perhaps.

The world of blogging has come a long way since I last posted.

I dunno if my life is interesting enough anymore. Perhaps I'll just invent a life and make it up.

Or stick to the satire.

Although I should finish some of the things I started.

Who knows. Watch this space, but just don't do it all the time, as you could get bored waiting.

There is a gentleman who lives near my mother who is often involved in mountain rescue and dangerous missions to the Middle East to aid in the war on terror. He must drop everything when he gets the call and hours later he is flying into the hornet’s nest with scant regard for his personal safety. Upon his return he is back walking his dog around the streets of a crumbling West of Scotland housing scheme, anonymous, waiting for that fateful call.

The general consensus is the man lives in a dream world. This is likely the case. However what has always fascinated me about tellers of tall shaggy dog tales is: do they really believe the stories themselves or are they just winding people up for some personal amusement. I don’t really know.

My brother once told an intelligent but somewhat naive former school mate he was going to Australia to make his fortune in the Opal mining business. Infact he was going away to England to University but couldn’t resist a bit of fun, never expecting any of his audience would actually take him seriously. This led to a rather bizarre interlude in a pub toilet as the chap quizzed me about my sibling’s quest for open cast riches.

Having no idea what the man was going on about I palmed him off. [With an excuse, of course, I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression about any improper behaviour in gent’s convenience]. I later discovered my brother’s well spun yarn and subsequently kept the gag running for a time.

Nevertheless I have met individuals who told monumental fibs on a daily basis. They almost always involved either extreme violence or close friendships with the rich and famous. Sometimes both. One of this band of serial offenders claimed to have not only punched Sid Vicious in the face at a 1976 Sex Pistols gig at the famous 100 Club in London but went home with Siouxsie Sioux of the Banshees fame, who became his long term girlfriend. Aside from the various errors in his story, he couldn’t escape the fact that he would have had to have done all this aged 13.

What I could never work out if they knew I knew they were lying and they were telling me for the hell of it or were they so deluded that they had convinced themselves it was true. Pathological lairs are a subject worthy of further study, that’s for sure. Do they look at their empty lives and fill it up with derring do and boy’s own adventures. I suppose it all relies on a catch 22 situation. In one hand a spy would have to appear completely normal, but at the same time wouldn’t be telling people they met at the corner shops the details of covert operations.

In fairness most of them are harmless fantasists but some like Barry George, the killer of news reader Jill Dando, are dangerous particularly when the line between dreams and reality become too blurred and thoughts become actions. I recall a letter in a boxing magazine many years ago. A woman claimed to have befriended an aging former world champion who lived in her neighbourhood. She wanted to know a little more about his career. The magazine replied warning that the champ in question had been dead for years and not to talk to strange old men.

But for every Walter Mitty, there is a Real McCoy. The following cautionary tale proved the old adage that the exception proves the rule.

Two men visited a close friend in hospital. Afterwards the men spoke to his doctor, an Austrian psychiatrist, [complete with comedy ‘Sigmund Freud’ accent]. He grimly reviewed the facts as he saw it: ‘A very sick man. Very sick. Delusional! He says he has written more than a thousand songs! And a novel too. And he says he has made records for the Library of Congress…
One of the friends interrupted him.
‘He has.’

The ‘delusional’ man was in fact legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, who eventually died of Huntington’s disease in 1967 after many years of hospitalisation. So remember the next time an old geezer tells you he won the Victoria Cross trying to sink the Tirpitz or the like, he may be telling the truth. However the chances are he isn’t.

The latest spying allegations flying out of Moscow from the mouths of the FSB, [the re-branded KGB] are hardly surprising. Friends spy on friends and foes alike. It is all part and parcel of the espionage community.

The British themselves are no strangers to spying on the Russians. I’d imagine the whole thing will have blow over in a week or so. Not that the hi-tech rock story isn’t believable, just that it experts find the whole thing a bit too fishy and convenient. A former KGB officer, now resident in Britain sees it largely as a cobbled together story to discredit non government agencies, mostly Human Rights groups within the former Soviet Union. The truth will emerge, as usual quietly in the fullness of time.

Anyone who has read ‘A Man Called Intrepid’ the story of William Stephenson, the head of Allied intelligence during World War Two will know there is page after page of similar mind boggling antics, too many to list here. I will say however that Iain Fleming, the author of the Bond novels was a member of the network and a lot of his early novels more or less recreate actual incidents. Well to a point.

We know from the famous Soviet spy-ring headed by Philby/Burgess/MacLain that the Russians were certainly up to no good in Britain, but British meddling in Russian affairs is not so well publicised and stretches back over the decades. Recently a growing amount of evidence has emerged to suggest British Intelligence bumped off Rasputin, the mad monk famously described by Boney M as ‘a cat that really was gone!’

The legend of Rasputin’s death in St. Petersburg, 1916, let alone his crazy life of wine, women and God, [in that order], has grown to the extent that it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction. Popular myth has the semi-superhuman Grigory Efimovich Rasputin eating a plateful of cyanide laced cakes without any effect, being shot several times but getting back up all the time like a true Hollywood baddy [think Halloween, although John Carpenter originally meant the movie to be a spoof, but it seems no-one noticed this or the fact that Michael Myers was wearing a spray painted Captain Kirk mask either, but never mind, that’s not important just now]

After beating him up a few times with iron bars the aristocratic plotters chained him up and chucked him in the river. It is then claimed he was still fighting to escape before finally drowning.

All very well, unfortunately it is mostly garbage. It is true the Russian nobles had planned to poison Rasputin. He had become too close to the royal family and appeared to exert a usual influence over the Tsarina, so he had to go. The war wasn’t going too well and any distractions needed to be dealt with, so they invited Johnny Bonkers round for supper.

The plan began to go a little astray when they discovered the Big Yin didn’t like cake. And they didn’t have a plan B. Although he was a ‘man of God’, Rasputin was also quite handy in a punch up and the upper class twits weren’t. The Aristo’s did a lot of tooing and froing upstairs like characters in a bad farce deciding what to do, whilst downstairs Rasputin kept on drinking. Eventually one of them got the bottle up and shot him. Feeling braver another one joined in. Rasputin appeared to be dead, so they dumped him outside.

After a few more glasses of Vodka and a bit of back slapping they set about getting some gear together to chuck him in the river. Looking out the window, Count Whatisnameov turned and said

‘I think we might have a problem.’

Rasputin had only been seriously injured and was trying his best to crawl across the court yard and escape. At this point one of the fellows decided to call the nice fellow from the British Embassy, Oswald Rayner, supposedly an Oxford chum of one of the plotters.

‘Hold on old chap I’ll be right over’

Meanwhile someone went out and shot ‘Russia’s greatest love machine’ again.
By the time our gentleman caller arrived, he appeared to be dead again. So they started to carry him over to the River Neva.

‘Oh yaw dirty bleeders’ moaned Rasputin.

Still not dead. Shot not fatally somewhere else. Probably the shin.

‘Now chaps you really are making a real pig’s ear of this. Let me show you how we do this sort of thing. I say, put the poor blighter down.

Calmly the British agent shot Rasputin between the eyes.

‘I don’t think we’ll be hearing anymore from him. Now do you have anymore of those lovely cakes left?

It seems that whilst investigating the famous monk’s demise, Richard Cullen, previously a high ranking Metropolitan Police Officer, and a trainer of police cadets in forensic detective work in Russia noticed that Rasputin had a bullet hole in his head, not mentioned in any eyewitness account of his death. Furthermore on viewing the photos of the crime scene, still held in the state archives he noticed a blood trail from the house, and then a large gap and another large blood splatter near the gates of the building.

Thinking this quite strange he re-read all the eye witness accounts and noticed, like the good investigator he was that they didn’t tally and they seemed to be hiding something. Accounts mentioned the mysterious appearance of Oswald Rayner, whom he later identified as a British Secret Intelligence Service operative and found evidence buried in British state papers alluding to his removal of ‘dark forces’; the British code name for Rasputin effectively confirming he had applied the coup de grace. Truth isn’t always is stranger than fiction, but it generally is more interesting.

I don’t believe in ghosts. Neither does my brother, but he does claim he once saw a phantom couple on a bench near a church in Stafford. He was a student at the time and was probably drunk or had one of those ‘magic’ mushroom risottos for tea, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

As with every rule, there is an exception. When I was a kid I had a book of Sea Mysteries. It dealt with all the usual suspects; Marie Celeste, the Bermuda Triangle, mermaids, the Titanic etc. All fairly interesting and provable tales but intriguing none the less, but one always fascinated me, principally because I could prove or disprove it.

It told of the ghostly schooner the Lady Lovibond which had struck the notorious Goodwin Sands and sank on February, 13, 1748 and supposedly appeared again on the same day every fifty years.

The book claimed it had been regularly spotted on schedule every half century since. It was due again in 1998. Jackpot! I thought, I’ll go and have a look at it next time.

So I made a solemn promise to myself that I would be there on Goodwin Sands all day long on 13th February waiting for it to appear. Okay, I was seven at the time and my belief in the supernatural was a bit less sceptical than it is now. Over the ensuing years I came to firmly believe that all tales of ghost and ghouls were nonsense, generally made up.

Near where I grew up there was an old ruined 17th century hunting lodge, known locally as ‘the castle’. It has since been renovated, but everyone and their uncle back then claimed to have seen the ‘white lady’. I was occasionally in the company of friends when they swore they saw her. Vivid imaginations running wild combined with the desire to tell a good tall tale rather than visitations from the other realm.

Nevertheless anytime I came across the book, [I still have it somewhere] I would re-affirm my pledge to be there and see this so-called ghost ship. I was now resigned to not seeing it, but I suppose a little of the young boy reading it for the first time still remained and secretly hoped it might show up. By 1998 I was working but still had it in my mind to make the pilgrimage to Goodwin Sands and my date with destiny.

Unfortunately I forgot all about it.
Infact I had completely forgotten about the whole thing. I recall whilst living in Kent in the mid 1990’s I had remembered, but quickly got distracted by hum-drum everyday life. I do recall vividly coming across the book again three or four years ago and the horror that struck me when I remembered I had broken my vow to my younger self. I didn’t have one of those schmaltzy rites of passage moments so common in American films but I was annoyed for a few minutes before remembering that it was all a load of cobblers. However remembering that young lad and his dream, I have to find out so…

Did anyone see her?
Does anyone know if the Lady Lovibond turned up?

Many years ago, the King met the Greatest and gave him a sequinned robe. The Greatest promised to wear it for his next fight. He did, but he never wore it again.

Because on the night of 31st March 1973 the wheels fell off the wagon courtesy of Kenny Norton. I’ve always liked boxing and Muhammad Ali and on the 2nd July 2005, I got to feel what his shoes might fit like.

For many, this date reminds them of Live 8 and the festival of rock. For me it brings memories of an entirely different kind. Despite having had my contract rather abruptly and unexpectedly ended the week before I was fairly upbeat. Something else would come along soon. Although lurking in the back of my mind I suppose there lay a great deal of frustration.

It was a sunny day, so I headed off to the pub for a few lemonades. Usually I would knock it on the head around tea-time and head home for something to eat and a rest before heading out again later [if I could be bothered]. This particular Saturday saw the boozers filled with fellow travellers brought out of hibernation by a combination of the sun and a desire to escape the rock dinosaurs and their mammoth back slap-a-thon dominating the day’s TV schedules. Not that I or they objected to the cause but some of the line up stank of opportunism. It reminded me of the plague of charity singles that polluted the charts in the post band aid 80’s.

Unsurprisingly one drink led to another as I discussed the events of the day and all manner of other pointless drivel with like minded barflies. Suffice to say by around 9pm I was well oiled. So well oiled infact I could be used to lubricate an entire fleet of Intercity 125’s. It is always best to quit when you are ahead and as I struggled to maintain any interest whatsoever in the reformed Pink Floyd set [to be frank I had little interest in them before they split] I decided to have one for the road and beat a hasty retreat.

Famous last words. My mobile phone rang and it took little convincing by my friend for me to stay in the pub and wait for him to arrive. My compadre had just finished a 12 hour shift and unremarkably was eager to have a bucket or two. So I remained in the fleapit of a ‘rock’ pub awaiting reinforcements.
By the time the cavalry arrived I was still borderline lucid, but must have looked a pretty picture. Large quantities of alcohol seem to have a unique effect on facial muscles and you begin to look like a Crimewatch photo-fit of yourself.

As closing time neared I was in full swing and my second wind kicked in. My beer sizzled brain, fortified by [I’d imagine] a fair few shorts of the harder stuff had begun to convince me that I was actually quite sober. Given I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and had been drinking since two in the afternoon, had no bearing on this state of mind of course.

So we concluded it would be a wonderful idea to frequent the next door dive of a nightclub, enticed by the later closing time and the allure of another yard or three of ale. Had we stuck to this plan, I don’t think I would be writing this cautionary tale. Oh no, not content with propping ourselves against a wall and watching the kids play, we decided to join in.

The venue had once been quite a good spot for tripping the light fantastic, but time had moved on, as well as the clientele. Gone was anyone remotely near to us in age. It looked like a school disco and given the present nostalgic trends in music, it sounded like one too.

In fairness, my partner in crime was only partially bladdered; I unfortunately had gone over to the other side. The dark side! I thought I was cutting a fairly nifty rug, but really I was just stumbling around banging into people. Generally my fellow dancers wisely kept out of my way. Not everyone is imbued with common sense. Myself included.

It seems there is a trend these days for young turks to stand about on the dance floor, not even attempting to dance, save for the occasional communal hug type dance, which isn’t very pretty to watch. It has always been my one of my philosophies that if you can’t dance, watch from the sidelines.

But then my philosophy also extends to a beer fuelled Georgie Best-esque notion that it is my ball. In days gone by, it was always thought to be important to take the dance floor with mind boggling moves early on so you had plenty room to manoeuvre. But like Ali, we all go to the well a few times too many and well, it was a recipe for disaster.

A lanky clubber took umbrage to the peculiar rumba I was demonstrating and took me up about it.
‘Stop banging into me!’
I apologised to him. However he dismissed my attempts to make amends and repeated himself. I repeated my apology and pointed out to him that given the dance floor was a little busy, he ought to perhaps stand somewhere else. I reasoned if he did this, it would lessen the chances of it happening again.

He seemed to accept my rationale; however one of his two companions provided me with his tuppence worth, which was more or less the same argument as his taller brethren. It was clear they had no intentions of giving an inch. And number two seemed to take exception to my friendly advice. I was in the process of repeating this now familiar mantra when someone turned the lights out.

I had fallen victim to a classic ambush. As I debated with one and two, clown number three snuck up behind me and pole axed me. They say in boxing the ones you don’t see hit you the hardest. That is true to a point. I never felt it, heard it or saw it.

I don’t know how long I had been out for, a minute or two. It could have been three weeks for all I knew. I had only ever been knocked unconscious once before when I had been ran down as an eight year old. It may not surprise you to learn it was at a set of traffic lights. [I have an uncanny knack that way.] I find it rather like when you accidentally erase part of a tape. There is nothing there. You have everything right up to the moment, nothing, and then the music starts again.

I quickly got up, thinking ‘how did I get down here, everyone seems a lot taller’. I then realised what had happened. I also realised I had a very sore face. The inside of my mouth felt like a mining disaster. One of my molars appeared to have mutated into some kind of rock formation. My mouth was bleeding as was my lips. One of the bouncers, a friend of mine and an amateur boxer seemed concerned for me.
‘I think you might have broken your jaw.’

I remember watching an interview with Ali many years ago. He was asked if he knew Ken Norton had broken his jaw in the second round in the first of their three classic encounters. Ali seemed amazed to have been asked the question. ‘Of course not, do you think I would have continued taking all those punches, hard punches if I did?’ At the time I just thought, yeah, there’s Ali being his usual mad driven self, throwing caution and his health to the wind for the sake of a win. I don’t anymore. It wasn’t really as sore as you would think. Maybe the brain switches off some of the pain sensors. I don’t know. But then I had had umpteen pints. All Ali got was another ten rounds of similar punishment.

The moral of this story is there is only one Greatest and if you are going to dance, keep your guard up and your mouth shut.