Saddam's last Christmas...

So Tony Blair is apologising for Britain’s part in the slave trade. We can look forward to more apologies, since there are plenty more episodes from our inglorious past for which neither Blair, nor his government, can be held responsible. The Irish Potato Famine. The bombing of Dresden. Losing to Germany on penalties. Again. However, if we want an apology for the one crime for which he is responsible – the War in Iraq – it looks like we’ll have to wait until his memoirs are published.

George Bush’s motivation for war was simpler. He had a vision of himself in battle fatigues, riding up front as the tanks rolled in to liberate Baghdad from the tyrrany of Sadam Hussein, and being cheered to the echo by grateful Iraqis. His little fantasy ended right there, with that victory parade, in the way that people in fairy stories live ‘happily ever after’. He no doubt thought the job was finished, once the fireworks had stopped. George Bush is probably regretting the day that Donald Rumsfeld blew the dust off the White House globe, and pointed out where Iraq was. The war wasn’t supposed to drag on like this, no sir; those Iraqis haven’t read the script.

Saddam Hussein must be shaking in his boots, as he faces yet another trial. Having already been sentenced to death by hanging, he’ll be wondering what’s next: a hefty fine, community service, a ‘short, sharp shock’? So much for victors’ justice...

Here in Hurlmere, we have the prospect of Christmas to distract us from these momentous world events. It’s less than a month away. Gulp...

It's the time of year when conversations tend to start with the meaningless pleasantry: "Are you ready for Christmas?" Don't say: "Ready for Christmas... how do you mean? Comatose? Broke? Bored? Argumentative? Suicidal?" This would just mark you down as a humourless killjoy. And don't brag that you bought all your presents back in October, or that your Christmas cards are already written, addressed, sealed up and stamped. This would mark you down as insufferably smug. The correct response to this kind of inanity is to clap both hands to your face, adopt a horrified expression and admit: "Oh God, no, I haven't even started yet." This reveals you to be as disorganised as the person asking the question, and honour will be satisfied all round.

The man in black...

Football referees are getting a lot of stick. From fans, managers, chairmen, players, pundits and journalists: anyone with an axe to grind, a pen to push or too much time to kill. It’s ‘open season’ on the men in black, and, well, it doesn’t seem very fair to Darren.

It’s a well-known truism amongst football fans that you don’t change clubs. Your unswerving loyalty may be based on something as insubstantial as a game your dad took you to when you were seven. But that’s it; that’s your club. Being a fan isn’t a matter of convenience. Watching a home game might entail a 300-mile round trip. No matter. Your team may be iredeemably hopeless, anchored to the foot of the table. That’s not the point. It’s your team. You support it ever more. Amen.

It makes about as much sense as using one brand of toilet paper all your life, simply because yout dad once wiped your arse with it. But, hey, that’s football for you.

Darren was in short trousers when his dad took him to see his first match. He can remember it like it was yesterday. The crowds; the floodlights; the racist chants; the surge of the crowd as a goal went in; some old guy pissing, via a rolled-up programme, into the pocket of his anorak. But, most of all, Darren was captivated by the calm composure of the referee. When the players were losing their heads, he would have a quiet word. When they swore at him, he would raise an admonishing finger. Even when they spat in his face and pushed him to the ground in a show of crowd-pleasing petulance, he managed to keep his cool. When players chased him, he ran backwards at speed. What a guy. No wonder Darren was star-struck.

When the other kids badgered their folks for replica shirts, Darren begged for a referee’s outfit and a whistle. It didn’t make for an easy life. When he shouted encouragement to the referee and his assistants - "Good decision, linesman" – he was shouted down. On the one hand, this taught him a lot about sportsmanship. On the other hand, the sight of a miniature referee was anathma to everybody in the stands. On match days he was in danger of being beaten up by both sets of fans.

To avoid spending Saturday afternoons with his wayward son, his dad would drive 30 miles to support some ice hockey team instead. The Penrith Perverts, or something. “I have no son”, he said, holding back the tears. He couldn’t see that Darren had found his vocation: standing up for referees when everyone else was castigating them.

Managers criticise referees, suggesting they’re part of some secret cabal (Referees United, perhaps?) dedicated to undermining Pele’s “beautiful game” with dodgy decisions. Yet managers encourage their own players to run into the penalty area and fall over, as though they’ve been shot by a sniper in the stands. Managers don’t have to agree with every decision that every referee makes, but they shouldn’t be given a soapbox for their post-match whinges either, which are as predictable as the seasons. Managers agree with 99% of decisions that go their way, and disagree with 99% of decisions that go against them. Insert an appropriate Mandy Rice-Davies quotation here.

Commentators put the boot in too. “I’d need to see that incident again”, says a pundit, unwittingly recognising that the ref gets just the one fleeting opportunity to make a decision. He’s denied what the commentators can see: the slo-mo replay from every conceivable angle. Everyone can make mistakes - even referees. If footballers never made mistakes, the team that kicked off would still be passing the ball to each other 45 minutes later.

Let’s be straight on the matter. The ref is a facilitator, arguably the most important person on the pitch. Without him, games would quickly degenerate into a playground brawl. And he can only officiate effectively with the players’ consent.

Darren longs for the day when players will keep their feet in the penalty area, and try, instead, to put the ball in the net. When these pampered, self-regarding millionaires will get down on bended knees and give grateful thanks to the referees who officiate their games. When managers will shut up and, well, manage. When fans will come to understand that you just can’t win ‘em all. And if his dream comes true, who knows... Darren might lay down his whistle for good and support some team instead. Hurlmere Harriers, down on Armpit Road, would welcome him with open arms.

A shower of sparks...

It was Bonfire Night last week in Hurlmere (and everywhere else, presumably, where people have more money than sense). There was a new constellation of stars over Conciliation Street: neon chrysanthemums. Rocket zoom – an unrestrained “Ooooh!’... a shower of sparks – an unrehearesed “Aaaaah!” Scribbling nonsense in the sky with five grand’s worth of fireworks. It was brief, expensive, showy, meaningless: could there be a more appropriate symbol of modern life?

Speak of the devil...

It's Halloween, so the shops are full of bats and face paints and pointy hats (memo to the manager of our local supermarket: don't ready-made pumpkin lanterns rather miss the point?).

The children of Hurlmere - dressed up as witches and wizards - are demanding money with menaces from unsuspecting householders. Steve, vicar of St Breville’s, looks on in frustration - wishing there was some way he could incorporate devil-worship into the church's calendar of sacraments, without alienating the more traditional members of his congregation.

Neville, landlord of the Grievous Bodily Arms, is boiling up a cauldron of oil in case any 'trick or treaters' have the temerity to call. This is not one of those pubs where businessmen go for lunch, with their Blackberries, braying voices and over-loud laughter. It's where strange, violent men with eyebrows that meet in the middle go to plan bank heists. While pubs such as the Flag feature guest beers, the Grievous Bodily Arms has guest bouncers.

What Hurlmere lacks, according to the drinkers propping up the bar, is a reputable brothel and an all-night pawnbroker. While you'd be unwise to ask for credit here, the barmaid can be quite obliging if a regular customer tips her the wink and rustles a fiver meaningfully between finger and thumb. So she makes a little money on the side by taking regular punters home after closing-time. She specialises in the things that women won't let their husbands do - like putting their elbows on the table and cutting their toenails in bed.

Spring forward, fall back...

The clocks go back tomorrow. Unless it’s forward. Or next week. Whatever. One way or another, Hurlmere’s going to be gloomier and more depressing for, oh, about the next six sodding months. Soon the sun will set just after lunch - with nothing but game shows and lame comedies on TV to keep us from the existential, all-pervading dark.

The Lake District Escape Line (0870 224 1856), which opens today, apparently, includes seven recordings to “evoke a warmer era”. What could be more summery (the press release gushes) than the sound of Lake Windermere lapping against a jetty, the gush of Aira Force Waterfall, or fresh air whistling across Scafell Pike?

Well, how about some of the real sounds that typify the Lakeland life? Like the ker-ching of a cash register, as you’re being overcharged, yet again, by an avaricious shop-keeper or pub landlord? Or a jet flying over your house at an altitude of 20 feet, with a terrifying roar that sounds like a thermo-nuclear device being detonated inside your skull?

Meals out...

You can get a meal at most of the pubs in Hurlmere, apart from the Grievous Bodily Arms, of course, where the menu is limited to a choice of pork scratchings - with bristles or without. So here’s a handy ‘cut out & keep’ guide to what you can expect to get for your money...

On the lowest rung of the culinary ladder is ‘pub grub’, a ‘you get what you pay for’ deal that views food merely as ballast. There will be no surprises on the laminated, sauce-stained menu: just burger and chips, sausage and chips, pie and chips. There’s just the one vegetarian option: chips. A guy in a greasy vest will drop the plate in front of you.
Nobody will ask whether you’re enjoying your meal - for obvious reasons - but at least you get change out of a fiver.

For an extra quid or two you get ‘bar meals’: much the same unimaginitive fare, just with more florid descriptions (poisson, pommes frites avec pois mushy). You know your meal is nearly ready when you hear the ‘ping’ of the microwave. You’ll get garnish: a slive of cucumber and some limp lettuce. As she’s taking your empty plate away, the landlady will ask if it was OK, but she won’t wait around for your answer.

Some pubs have taken a lurch upmarket by dispensing with menus altogether, and writing the dishes on a blackboard. This pushes up the prices, since you’re paying about 50p for every extra adjective. ‘Pan-fried breast of corn-fed chicken, with a drizzle of raspberry coulis, served on a bed of wild rice’ will set you back at least a tenner. The waitress, a fresh-faced English rose, will hope you enjoy your meal. She’ll pop back when you’re half-way through, to check that your enjoyment is unabated.

We have a handful of gastropubs in the area, where they take food very seriously indeed. The Swan, for example, is aptly named. The staff, and the pub itself, seem to float serenely along through still waters. There’s a calm, unruffled air that proves happily contagious. Of course, it takes an awful lot of hard work behind the scenes to make catering appear so effortless. The staff give the impression that they actually enjoy working here: quite a novelty in a place like Hurlmere. They’re mostly young girls, smartly dressed in white blouses and black skirts. Intriguingly, they all seem to fall short, by the tiniest margin, of being absolutely bloody gorgeous. They’re wonderfully efficient and a little bit shy.

Your waitress will slide a huge, white, hexagonal plate under your nose. The food will be piled up into a sort of tower in the middle (if you were seven years old, this would be called “playing with your food” and you’d get a slap), with a moat of brightly coloured liquid surrounding it. Your vegetables – two baby sweet corns and a mange tout – will arrive on a separate platter.

You will be asked to enjoy your meal. She’ll keep hovering around. In fact she won’t leave you alone (“and how was that mouthful”). After you’ve finished, she’ll ask you if you’d like a sweet: an equally expensible – and tiiny - sliver of something sweet. What you really want, of course, is a burger and chips, because you’re just as hungry now as when you walked in. And there’s about twenty quid less in your pocket...

The last swallow...

Limbo is a place, between heaven and hell, where newborn babies go who died before they could be baptised into the Catholic faith. What a comfort that must have been, down the centuries, to parents who lost a baby during childbirth.

The Pope’s having second thoughts about all this. A “30-strong commission of theologians established by John Paul II”, has decided, apparently, that unbaptised children deserve a better fate. It’s taken 700 years of hand-wringing and soul-searching for the Catholic Church to jettison this odious idea... when all it needed was one bloke in a funny hat to say: “Limbo? It’s bollocks, isn’t it?”

All those unbaptised children will now go straight to heaven. Great, except now it’s going to be over-run by kids. Christ, it’s going to be hell up there... like Hurlmere on a wet Bank Holiday: “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”...

Every sunny day in October is like being in remission from that unavoidable malady called winter. A solitary swallow dips and swoops over the lake. A few people noticed the first swallow of summer: a sighting that quickened the pulse, briefly, back in April. But nobody realises that the bird they see today - stretching its wings and preparing for that long flight south - is the last we shall see this year.

Evening classes...

At this time of year Hurlmere folk are busy signing up to evening classes. Women go to classes in car maintenance to meet fit blokes... only to find that everybody else on the course is female too, with much the same idea. Blokes sign up to Indian Cookery classes, to meet fit lasses... and end up in a room full of other guys. After one week of checking the oil and making chapattis, no-one turns up for lesson two. Cars stay unmaintained; curries remain uncooked. Everyone can go back to feeling lonely and miserable, knowing that there’s nothing much to cheer us up between now and next spring.

A little light joshing...

The Pope quotes a medieval ruler who thought Islam was "evil and inhuman”. Praise to the Pontiff for refusing to tiptoe around Muslim sensibilities: the man can really pick his moment. Respect to our Islamic friends too: they’re always ready for a rumble.

There’s always a load of placards stacked up in the hall and a brand new pot of paint. A few flags, too, bought from an Islamic website that specialises in ‘flammable flags’. Who’d have guessed the Danish flag would sell so well? They’re never too busy – or too idle – to over-react. They never say ”Hey, that Pope... what an idiot, eh? He must have had too much communion wine. Glug, glug. Come on, let’s not make a big thing about it.”

Now, more than any other time, we need the freedom to upset the followers of any and all religions, to be critical and satirical, as well as the freedom to hold our tongues. God is all-knowing and omnipotent; he can look after himself. He’s got a robust sense of humour and can take a little light joshing in his stride...

Having it both ways...

Some people don’t enjoy being on their own. It doesn’t seem to bother Gina, though. Spreadeagled on a leathette sofa, naked apart from a velvet choker and a pair of white stilletos, she lets her hands wander idly over the warm, brown contours of her body. She seems perfectly content with her own company. With every caress she gives a little startled gasp, as though the probing fingers were not her own.

Arching her back in an exaggerated S-shape, Gina surrenders herself to sexual abandon. She doesn’t hold back - pleasuring herself expertly with two crooked fingers and a far-away look in her eyes. She bites her lip and closes her eyes.

Gina’s not the girl-next-door type. She’s not about to get dressed and go to work; there seems to be no pressing reason why she should ever get dressed at all. She’s not exploring the dark continent that is womens’ sexuality; she’s every man’s fantasy made flesh.

Sensing she’s being watched, she opens her eyes in post-orgasmic langour. She stretches langorously, like a cat; looking out through the screen, she meet Kevin’s gaze with disarming directness.

“Hi Kevin, I hope you enjoyed my little show as much as I did”. Gina traces circles around her left nipple with a long, scarlet fingernail, and gives a well-practised moan. “I am here to satisfy your every whim. You can heap every imaginable sexual indignity upon my gorgeous young body, and I’ll still be begging for more.” The door opens. “Hey”, says Gina”, “maybe my friend Brandi can join in as well...”.

Brandi arrives, on cue, wearing nothing but a selection of skimpy PVC items. Gina and Brandi collapse onto the sofa in a photogenic tangle of tanned limbs. Mmmmm...

“Oh God, that’s good”, Gina gurns, in a convincing show of extasy. “And now I want you... yes you, Kevin... you with the straggly hair, the moist palms, the box of mansized tissues and the semen-stained underpants... to imagine you’re giving me a damn good seeing-to... and I want you to imagine it... now.” There’s a knock on the door. “Oh”, Gina raises an eyebrow in mock surprise, “I wonder who this can be?”

The door opens again; it’s the plumber, who sizes up the situation in an instant. Since he’s not wearing a thermal vest under his checked shirt, he probably doesn’t live in Hurlmere. And, to judge from the suspiciously new bag of tools he’s carrying, he might not be a genuine, time-served, CORGI registered plumber either. It doesn’t seem to matter; he hasn’t come to check the boiler or change a tap-washer. Seeing Gina and Brandi entwined in an intimate soixante-neuf manoevre, he just dives in. They say you can’t have it both ways, but the ensuing threesome suggests that you can.

There’s another, more insistant, knock on the door. Though the slurping threesome are too preoccupied to notice, Kevin leaps into action. As he presses a button on the laptop, the writhing figures disappear with a final ‘pop’.

Yes, that’s the trouble with fantasy: just when it starts to get interesting, real life has an unfortunate habit of butting in. Kevin zips up his fly, stuffs the tissues under a sofa cushion and answers the door. It’s the landlord, looking for his rent. “Come in”, says Kevin, glumly, “and we’ll look for it together.”

There are plenty of people in Hurlmere who are too ready to write Kevin off as just another sad, porn-obsessed pervert, but that’s not how he sees himself. He just has a well-honed appreciation of the unadorned female form, that’s all. And if that unadorned female is being shagged mercilessly by some well-hung, hairy-arsed stud... well, that’s nobody’s business but his.

A bad case of mildew...

Autumn has arrived. Having delivered his usual post-mortem on yet another lacklustre season of predictable under-achievement, Dennis, captain of the Hurlmere cricket XI, offers his resignation - as he has done every September for the last twenty years. He's tired, disillusioned and nauseated by the smell of horse liniment. As he hurls his unwashed kit into the back of the wardrobe, he insists he's played his last game.

But winter will wipe away the feelings of failure that smart so much today. Next spring he will have a change of heart, think "maybe just one more season" and discover that the indelible grass stains on his flannels have been supplemented by a bad case of mildew. And, unaccountably, the waistband of his trousers will have shrunk about an inch.

As the evenings get shorter, the locals have a depressing foretaste of the long Lakeland winter to come. Wounded Man feels the seasonal changes more than most. Indeed, it was largely to assuage his own feelings of futility and despair that he decided to join the Hurlmere branch of the Samaritans. He hoped that listening to other peoples' misery might cheer him up.

It wasn't long before he saw ways to bring the organisation more up-to date - principally by setting up an automated answering service. Callers would hear a well-modulated female voice enjoining those with a touch-tone telephone to "Press 1 if you feel suicidal, press 2 if you want to have a wank, press 3 if you just want to waste our time". However, putting non-urgent callers on hold and forcing them to listen to a tinny rendition of the Last Post, played on a Rolf Harris Stylophone, was reckoned to fall below the Samaritans' high standards of empathy and understanding.

What finally brought his career as a Samaritan to a premature end was his suggestion for a uniform that would give the Samaritans a recognisable identity and help put despairing visitors at their ease. But when he turned up at the branch one day, wearing a full-face leather mask, with eye-holes, zips down the side and the word 'Samaritan' picked out in brass studs on the forehead, his fellow volunteers showed him the door with a collective and heartfelt sigh of relief.

Nat Gomorrah: a life in football, part 4...

The fans took it remarkably well. In a moving show of sentiment, Nat won their votes as the club’s Player of the Year for 1969. And in a moving show of realism, they decided not to award him the traditional trophy, but gave him an orthopaedic bed instead.

As a reward for all his goals, Brian decided to keep Nat on the payroll. Nat’s been at the club ever since, an irreplaceable member of the backroom staff. Ironically, following an unequivocal vote of confidence from the club’s chairman, Brian got the sack. "He is a decent and honourable man”, the chairman said, “so we had to let him go". Since that time no fewer than twelve other incurable optimists have followed Brian through the revolving doors of football management.

Despite all these upheavals at the club, Hurlmere Harriers have never escaped from the Vauxhall Cars Beezer Homes Sherpa Van Division (North West). And now, in 2006, the team struggles to keep pace with the changing nature of football. That sign over the dressing-room door - This is Hurlmere - once struck terror into the hearts of visiting teams. Now it just makes them laugh. With an ageing team, the fastest-selling item at the club shop is a replica truss. Football’s all about money these days. If the fans are queuing all the way down Armpit Road, you can be sure it’s not season tickets they’re after, but share certificates.

It’s Saturday afternoon in Hurlmere and Nat hobbles onto the muddy pitch. It’s fifty years to the day since he played his first game for the Harriers. Waving to all corners of the ground, he does a laboured lap of honour. As the memories come flooding back, his eyes are rheumy, like a pair of oysters floating in milk. To look at Nat now, it's hard to imagine him leaping like a salmon at the far post, and heading one of Gary Brimstone’s pinpoint crosses into the top corner of the net.

Most of the crowd know him only as a backer of duff horses and a pub stalwart who, for the price of a pint, is happy to reminisce about the good old days. If you throw in a whisky chaser, he may show you his extensive collection of stud-marks. The current players smirk at this shambling figure but, in truth, they’re not fit to lace Nat’s drinks. He’s Hurlmere’s finest: a man who’s been there, done that and got the scar tissue. Nat Gomorrah, goal-poacher and footballing maverick, we salute you.

Nat Gomorrah: a life in football, part 3...

Flabby, unfit and stung by the fans’ cruel taunts, Nat lurched down to the pub. If an alcoholic is a man who drinks more than his doctor, then Nat’s prognosis was grim indeed. As he sat morosely at the bar, sinking pints and whisky chasers, he poured out his troubles to a new barmaid called Sally. A good-looking girl, she'd done some modelling. Mostly, it must be said, for a company that made fridge magnets. Nevertheless, by the time Nat had unburdened himself, and the lights at the back of the bar were looking pleasantly blurred, he had fallen madly, desperately in love with her.

Nat was used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it. So, after a whirlwind romance, he proposed. Impressed by his collection of Chris de Burgh records, and ignoring the warnings of well-meaning friends, Sally accepted. The wedding was the highpoint of Hurlmere’s social calendar. Fans came out in force, as a touching tribute to the team’s all-time record goal scorer. And, the year being 1967, the mere sight of a formal church wedding was enough to draw crowds.

There were many aspects of the wedding that should have made Sally think twice. Nat wanted to invite all his ex-girlfriends to the reception, but the building only had a fire license for two hundred people. Then there was the matter of the drip-dry wedding dress, and the cards from his more cynical friends that read: ‘Congratulations on your first marriage’. But love is blind. And probably deaf too. Which explains why Sally came to plight her troth to a man who thought monogamy was what you made furniture out of. A man who insisted, despite all Sally’s entreaties, on having a visitors' book on the bedside table.

With Sally’s help, Nat knuckled down to a strict regime of salads, early nights and sobriety. To the fans’ delight, he managed to win his place back in the team and renew his old partnership up front with Gary Brimstone. For Hurlmere Harriers it seemed like the good times were back again.

At first, Sally was able to handle Nat's mercurial mood-swings. But by the time they’d been together a year - and celebrating their Tupperware anniversary - cracks began to appear in their marriage. Having lost her virginity at a Hurlmere Harriers home game, Sally felt sexually inhibited unless the bedroom was full of cheering fans. And after years of gambling, drinking and having a series of meaningless affairs, Nat found marriage a bit of a letdown.

He recalled the good old days, when his sexual athleticism won plaudits. On one memorable occasion he’d even had a standing ovation from every member of a women’s netball team. But it’s always a mistake to try and relive past glories, especially in the marital bed. Sally came home one evening to find Nat in flagrante delicto with a couple of nubile young cheerleaders wearing nothing more than a light coating of olive oil.

Nat tried to make amends. "I'm sorry”, he bleated pathetically, “I'm only flesh and blood", which Sally correctly translated as "I'm an unprincipled bastard, a serial adulterer and an incorrigible liar... and the only thing I'm really sorry about is being found out”.

Sally could take no more of Nat’s philandering. She threw him out, changed the locks and got on with her life. Unlike Nat, who went into alcoholic freefall and gambled away what little money he still had. Perhaps somebody should have warned him never to play poker with soft-handed strangers, but Nat was deaf to well-meaning advice. His last words, before the heart attack that finally ended his playing career, were "Jacks or better... Ante up... Cut those cards... Let's play"...