The Christmas night out

Two weeks ago I attended the “work’s do” as I have done each Christmas for the last 33 years. I’m not going again.

A Christmas celebration alongside work colleagues can be fun. Freed from the constraints of the office, a colleague often displays an alternative persona from the one on show 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday. My most prominent memories of this annual bash include a senior manager and his secretary performing one of the more risqué scenes from “Last Tango in Paris” in the centre of the dance-floor, and a staid professional punching a stranger he accused of drinking his beer.      

This year, the evening started badly before I left home. Having prised my 15-stone physique into my best pair of silvery-grey trousers, I realized I had to pee before setting off for my bus. As any man over the age of 50 knows, the combination of a dodgy sphincter and pants too tight around the crotch should come with an official flood warning. My post-urination shake proved insufficient; upon returning Percy to his cage he dribbled a puddle into my boxers. As the sensation of wetness spread around my nether regions, it was a relief to note that my sturdy underpants had prevented any two-tone staining of my trousers.

I needn’t have worried. On my 10-minute walk to the bus-stop I had to negotiate   sleet lashing into my face and torso, along with six inches of slush around my feet. By the time my bus arrived (20 minutes late) my trousers retained a single band of silvery-grey around my knees, above and below radiating a darker, drenched shade.

I live in a rural area, or “up in the hills” as my city-dwelling work-mates call it. When I arrived in Manchester city centre, there was no slush, no sleet, no wind, only a fine drizzle. And thousands of people, a combination of late shoppers and Christmas revelers  most of who seemed to be thrusting umbrellas in my direction. Already late, I sped to my destination, dodging eye-removing brolly-spikes and mumbling obscenities about the recklessness of human-kind.

As I entered the Italian restaurant I suspected my lower half was emitting a noxious vapor, like a polecat that had let himself go. Nevertheless, I joined 15 of my work colleagues at a circular table, all in pristine attire, dry and (perhaps with one exception) younger than me. I ordered a pint of Peroni at a price that, should I consume my usual quantity, would require me to re-mortgage the house.      

I wear contact-lenses because I’m short-sighted and vain. Although improving my vision, in poor light they render me incapable of reading small print. Squinting, I held the menu so far away from me the lady seated opposite had to peep around it to hold a conversation.

After the meal, the tables were pushed back and the disco began to spew tunes, most of which were unfamiliar to me. People danced and drank. I sat and drank. Despite the high prevalence of alcohol intoxication, not one lady (nor man) made a sexual advance towards me. Around 11.30 pm. the one colleague of a similar age to me collapsed on the dance-floor and sustained a nasty head-wound. As I observed the paramedics attending to the poor lady as she laid face-down, skirt hitched-up to mid-thigh, undignified and defeated, she symbolized why the over-50s should stay away from the Christmas “do.” I’m not going again.      

          

I am participating in the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be dudes: http://dudewrite.blogspot.com)

        

Fifty shades of Jones

I’ve been reading Fifty Shades of Grey to learn ways to ignite Mrs Jones’ sexual desires. It’s not gone well.

In case there is anyone not familiar with this book, Fifty Shades of Grey is the first part of a trilogy by E.L. James detailing the carnal awakenings of a 21-year-old virgin, Anastatia Steele, in the deft hands of mysterious dominant and millionaire, Christian Grey. An erotic fantasy that seems to be stirring the underbellies of women throughout the planet, I thought it offered a unique opportunity to glimpse the intricate workings of the female psyche.

Mrs Jones and I have been a partnership for over 30 years, sharing joys, challenges and beds. We are each aware of what the other is thinking and feeling. We know whether the other will like, or dislike, another person. We often finish off each other’s sentences. But as I read about the shenanigans of Anastatia and Christian, I wondered whether there was a rich seam of sexual craving deep within Mrs Jones’ loins waiting to be mined.   

I’m an affable sort of bloke. Perhaps this is where I’m falling short; maybe women yearn to be controlled and dominated?

A week last Thursday, around 10 pm, I was in bed pretending to read the latest edition of The Oldie magazine, while peeping at Mrs Jones who was sitting at the dressing table, removing her make-up. I shut my magazine and slapped it down on the bed-side table. “Get your sweet arse into bed now” I said, adopting my most menacing tone.

She glanced towards me, and then back at the mirror, continuing to dab her cheeks with make-up remover.

“Take off your night-gown and get into bed now; now I say!”

Mrs Jones stopped her dabbing, stood and ambled towards the bed.

I dodged the first swipe, but the second blow caught me on the back of my head. That night I learnt that (unlike Anastatia Steele) I don’t like pain.       

For the next few days I sought further guidance from Fifty Shades. On page 193 I read, he pops a fragment of ice in my navel … It burns all the way down to the depths of my belly. Wow! I pondered as to whether the secret code to open a woman’s sexual vault involves exposure to extremes of temperature.

Last night, having loitered to allow Mrs Jones to retire to bed before me, I raided the freezer-box. Climbing the stairs, ice-cubes in my hand, I tingled in anticipation of that raw female sexuality I was about to unleash. I entered the bedroom, undressed (not an easy manoeuvre with blocks of ice clasped in my hand) and slipped into bed next to the luscious, naked body of my beautiful wife. She was lying on her front, denying me access to the target area of her abdomen, and seemed to be asleep. I tried a couple of gentle nudges to encourage her to turn over but to no avail. Meanwhile, the ice was melting in my hand.

I was on the verge of aborting the assignment when she flipped over onto her back, eyes closed, still sleeping. In one swift movement, I leant over and dripped several drops of icy water onto her belly. Her body tensed and her eyes shot open. I braced myself for the sexual explosion. Her hand moved instinctively towards me and lingered, palm down, inches from my midriff. She then screeched the words that will remain etched on my memory for many years.

“Have you pissed the bed?”  

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I am participating in the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be dudes: http://dudewrite.blogspot.com)

        

A bar-room fantasy

A famous Leonard Cohen song has the line:

And all the rain falls down, amen

On the works of last year’s man.

After an experience last week, I know exactly what the Canadian singer meant.

Last Tuesday evening I attended a football (soccer) game and went for a drink with my 22-year old son in the pub directly across from the ground. Ryan reminded me it was my turn to buy the drinks so he sat down while I approached the bar.

Despite the pub being busy, I found a space at the bar and waited to be served. And waited, and waited. I repeatedly tried to make eye-contact with one of the four young women behind the bar but to no avail. I felt like the invisible man. Either side of me new arrivals were approaching the bar and getting served before me. Vexed, I stared expectantly at the nearest barmaid as she put cash into the till; surely I couldn’t be ignored any longer?   

A young man, with an ear-ring and bull neck, appeared at my shoulder and the barmaid immediately struck up a conversation with him, smiling and playing with a tress of her hair. Despite me waiting expectantly with my £10 note in hand, mouth open and fixed gape, she asked the young buck for his order.

“A pint of lager and a small coke, please” I interjected, loudly.

The bar quietened. The barmaid glanced at me, her face instantly losing animation. It was as if a vile smell had grabbed her attention. Grudgingly, she started to pour my lager (my son’s lager – I was driving) but continued to flirt with the young man at my side. So engrossed was she in the young buck, that she was handing my (son’s) pint to him, until her suitor pointed out her mistake.

Belatedly, I picked up the pint of lager and small coke (both in plastic glasses, for public safety reasons) and turned to look for Ryan. Inexplicably, I paused. An omnipotent impulse rose through my body, a desperate desire to wrestle back a morsel of dignity. In my mind, I sprung into action …

I turn and, with one sharp waft of my right arm across the bar, fling all the bottles and glasses onto floor. The tavern falls silent. I have everyone’s attention. I climb onto the bar-top and scream:

“I might be 53 but let me tell you a few things.

Drunken women have been known to make sexual advances at me.

I was voted the 3^rd best-looking boy in class 6D at school.

My wife says I look a bit like Richard Gere.

Tina Cropper once said I was the best lover she’d ever had.

I was the captain of the Haslingden High School 2^nd XI football team.

And I have a huge todger”. (That one was a lie, but hey I was on a roll).

But it was all fantasy. In truth, I skulked to my seat, handed Ryan his lager and proceeded, silently, to sip my coke out of the plastic glass. I consoled myself that my Leonard Cohen CDs awaited.  

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I am participating in the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be dudes: http://dudewrite.blogspot.com)

        

Humiliation at the filling station

Last week, on my way home from work, I dropped into my local filling station to replenish the diesel in my Fiat Punto. Tank fully topped-up, I left the car at the pump and entered the payment kiosk, one which doubles as a mini-market, and joined one of the two queues. Upon reaching the front, I inserted my debit card into the machine to pay the £32.58 owing and tapped in my PIN number.

“Try it again” said the young female cashier, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

Dutifully, I removed my card and inserted it again.

“It won’t accept that card. Have you got another means of payment, sir?” Her manner had instantly changed. The warm, animated young female had transformed into robotic mode, no doubt regurgitating, word-for-word, what she had been taught on a recent staff-training event about dealing with a potential fraudster.

“It worked alright yesterday, and there are funds in the account,” I said, already becoming aware of how unconvincing I must sound, “Can I try it in the other machine?”

I was allowed to obstruct the flow of the other queue to try my debit card in another machine, but it was rejected again. My car was beginning to cause an obstruction on the garage forecourt, other garage users awkwardly manoeuvrering around it.

The girl sighed and, still in auto-pilot, said “You can try the cash-point down the road, but you will have to leave your car here sir.”

By now I was convinced that everyone in the mini-market listening to this exchange had concluded there was a con-man of ‘Robert Redford in The Sting’ proportion in their midst.

After some negotiation, the android behind the counter kindly agreed to let me use their own telephone, located on the counter within ear-shot of everyone in the mini-market, to contact my bank. It was quickly established there had been a block put on my card due to some “suspicious activity” on my account. I was put through to the bank’s fraud department.

The first set of security questions, to confirm I was the person whose name is on the credit card, were a breeze; full name, date-of-birth and full postal address, no problem. But when I was asked to name three current direct debits coming out of my account, my performance deteriorated.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, “my wife takes care of all that. I think we have a mortgage with the Woolwich Building Society.”

“How much is it for?” asked the interrogator in the fraud department.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, it used to be about 770 per month, but I think it’s come down a bit.”  

“Do you know your National Insurance Number?”

“Yes, hold on I’ve got it on my mobile phone.” As I fumbled to extract the required number from the “Notes” section of my iPhone, the cashier helpfully put the land-line on speaker-phone so I could respond without having to hold the receiver. Of course, this meant that everyone within a three-yard radius could hear the two-way conversation. I sensed the young girl was beginning to regain some of her animation.

Satisfied that I was not an impostor, the man from the bank (after cautioning me that it is a serious criminal offence not to answer truthfully) began to announce the recent transactions on my account to differentiate the genuine from the fraudulent.  

“£250 to Nigerian Leather in Abuja on the 20^th October 2012?”

“No, definitely not” I replied, sensing for the first time, that I might be gaining a morsel of credibility with my listeners. “That’s definitely not mine.”

“£38.75 to the Red Lion Public House in Liverpool on the 19^th October 2012?”

“Yes that will be mine; we had a pub-lunch last Friday.” I didn’t want my acquaintances in the mini-market to think I was an addled drunk. I needn’t have worried about such trivial matters.

“£80.00 to Naughty America on the 17^th October?”

“Umm, I think that might … it could have …”

“Sorry Mr Jones, was that a debit you made or not?”

“Yes it was.” By this point I was avoiding eye-contact with anything human, staring instead at my car left abandoned on the garage forecourt.  

“What about £90.00 to Viagra Online Generic Pharmacy on the 15^th October?”

Identity established, they transiently lifted the block on my card to allow me to pay for my diesel and, head bowed, I sped from the filling station. My Fiat Punto's thirst for diesel will, from now on, be quenched at a different establishment.     

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I am participating in the Dude Write Starting Lineup this week where you can find some excellent posts by bloggers who happen to be dudes: http://dudewrite.blogspot.com)

A rare visit to the dentist

                                                                      

I visited the dentist today. It had been almost 15 years since my previous visit, at the time motivated only by a desire to set a good example for my two children. Since 1997 my ivories have been a no-go zone for everything other than my toothbrush and a twice-daily sliver of Colgate paste.

But over recent weeks, on three occasions, I have experienced jolts of discomfort when cold water has made contact with my pre-molars, ironically when rinsing my mouth after teeth-cleaning. I don’t like pain, so I decided it was time to make an appointment with my local driller and filler.

I dislike dentists. Although my aversion is not of phobic intensity, I still harbour bad memories from my childhood. During the 1960s I recall having 12 milk-teeth extracted in the space of a fortnight. I can picture the offending dentist like it was yesterday; unshaven, bad breath and a psychotic expression of Hannibal Lecter proportion as he pressed the gas mask forcefully over my nose and mouth. Suffocation in its rawest form; I can still smell the rubber mask as I squirmed under his weight, subsequently sliding into that slumber that must be the last stop before death. Even after the butcher had extracted his ivory booty, my ordeal wasn’t over. In the weeks following the teeth removal the gaping holes left in my gums acted as magnets for food which festered and gave off a sweet putrid smell. I was a solitary child.

Anyway, this afternoon I drove to the dental practice for my scheduled check-up and stepped into the surgery for the first time this century. The smell hit me straight away, not (thankfully) that of rotting gums but anti-sceptic mouthwash. At reception I paid the £17.50 fee and was given a medical questionnaire to complete. While sitting in the waiting room, completing the form and lying about my weekly alcohol intake, the pneumatic drilling sounds from the adjacent surgical rooms permeated the area. I listened intently for screams reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman in the Marathon Man.

“Bryan Jones?”

The young, fresh-faced dental nurse had peered around the reception room door and I dutifully followed her into the surgery. Standing in front of that iconic, black leather chair (the seat of as great a suffering as the electrical variety) was the  dentist in his blue tunic, face-mask dangling under his chin.

“So what can I do for you today?” he asked.

The question seemed disingenuous, falsely implying that I had control over the situation, the sort of question the medieval torturer would ask before reaching for the thumb-screws. I explained my recent teeth-twinges and the 15-year gap since my last visit. I thought I detected an expectant look on the dentist’s face that behind my jowls lay sufficient fillings and extractions to pay for his imminent house extension.

The dentist directed me to sit in the chair, and lowered me into the fully horizontal. I felt exposed and vulnerable; I stifled an urge to check that my zipper wasn’t agape. He prodded my gums with a sharp implement and proceeded to check each tooth in turn, while saliva trickled out of the corners of my open mouth. I then had to bite on a plastic gags (as if about be anally penetrated by a well-hung Turkish-prison guard) while my teeth were x-rayed.

Twenty minutes later I was recalled from the waiting room to hear the verdict. I half expected him to don the black cap before passing sentence. Multiple extractions required? Dentures the only option? Or, at best, numerous fillings needed to plug the pot-holes? Not one bit of it!

“Remarkably, all you have is a bit of gum recession requiring some resin filler. And we’ll give you a scale and polish while we’re at it. But overall your teeth are in good shape.”

I could detect a hint of disappointment in his voice.

This experience reinforces my life-long view that, for the sake of longevity, one should always avoid doctors and dentists for as long as possible!

              

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The company fridge

The Health and Safety brigade increasingly frustrate me. I know their aims are worthy in wanting to protect us all from harm, but they can often take things to an absurd extreme. The following examples, all derived from the last decade in the United Kingdom, should serve as illustration:

Prohibiting the throwing of sweets into a pantomime audience;

Banning the playing of conkers in a school playground;

The requirement that all November 5^th bonfires be registered with the local council;

Forbidding the provision of pins with Remembrance Day poppies.

Last month at my place of work the Infection Control Nurse became concerned about the state of our departmental fridge. Whereas I’ve always revelled in the recurrent Monday morning kitchen pastime of “find the source of that iffy smell,” Nurse Starchy has a radically different disposition and has insisted that the milk bottle infiltrated by Danish-blue and the banana encrusted with the sticky-black goo of decay present hazards to the health of all employees. As such, it is now company policy for each item left in the fridge to be labelled with the owner’s name along with the date it was put in; the fridge is inspected at the end of each day and any item not duly labelled is thrown away.

The implementation of this policy has led to many mutterings of discontent, particularly among the male workforce. Of course, not one of us has been brave enough to challenge Nurse Starchy – she is a terrifying woman – so our protests have remained covert. Yesterday I discovered that someone, as yet unknown, had pinned the following picture and caption onto the kitchen notice-board. It made me giggle, although I’m not sure what Nurse Starchy will make of it.     

Sexual angst of a 53-year-old man

                                                               

Mrs Jones and I have been a partnership for 31 years. During our 20s we creased the sheets with lusty regularity, fully immersed in the sensual pleasures of our smooth, lithe bodies. Everything happened naturally, without the need for introspection. This carnal abandon persisted throughout our 30s, albeit less often, the introduction of two children into the family unit acting to restrict opportunities for rumpy-pumpy. Despite the reduced frequency, my sexual performance remained top-notch (even though I say so myself - Mrs Jones might have a different view) apart from the occasional booze-related droop.

Then at some point in my mid-40s that sneaky bastard called Age started to wreak its own rancid brand of mischief. One evening, while stepping out of the shower, Age compelled me to inspect myself in the mirror. Horror! I was no longer a handsome young buck. Facial wrinkles, greying locks and an unwanted fold of skin hanging under the jowls like an over-used hammock provided damning evidence of my demise.

I lingered in front of the mirror, frozen by the creeping realisation of age-related decline. I had sprouted hair in all the wrong places, unsightly bristles spewing out of my nostrils and ears. My chest and abdomen were carpeted by wild, uneven tresses, an increasing proportion being grey; when I stared at my torso the pale bits seemed to spell out the message, “has-been.” There was even a triangular patch at the base of my spine, a kind of dorsal pubic hair.

This sobering realisation of bodily decay began to impair my sexual performance. Rather than being fully immersed in the act of making love, much of my mind was located on the bedroom ceiling, imagining how I would appear to a spectator. Where once I had envisaged smooth, iron-girder buttocks pumping athletically like Brad Pitt’s Achilles in the film Troy, the image in my head now more closely resembled Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid getting to grips with Madame Maxime in Harry Potter.

And to add to my growing self-consciousness I became obsessed with the size of my manhood. In my younger years I had no anxieties in this department. As a teenager at school in the communal showers after a sporting event I was never the victim of the “tiny todger” jibes, unlike some of my more unfortunate class-mates. I had always assumed I scored in the average range for penile length and, when an occasional doubt intruded into my mind, would reassure myself with the mantra that size doesn’t matter. But now I was increasingly inspecting the size of my genitalia in the mirror, from every angle, but always with the same disappointment. Let’s just say my meat was shrivelling northwards while my two vegetables were heading south!

During this period of self-doubt about my sexual prowess, I read a magazine article in a Sunday newspaper describing how male porn stars shave off their pubic hair so as to make their willies appear longer. Cue weekly, hazardous encounters with my electric shaver – I’d defy any man to trim his hedge with the Power-Comb of a Braun Series 5 without drawing blood!

When I reached that sobering 50-year-old milestone, my declining self-image formed a devastating coalition with my internal physiology (something to do with the blood vessels losing their springiness) to produce an escalating number of sexual failures. All seemed lost. The Jones’s sex life seemed to be on a downward trajectory. That was before I encountered what is, without doubt, the pharmaceutical industry’s most useful contribution to the civilised world: Viagra! But I’ll leave my experiences of taking this drug for a future post.