What a splendid weekend, save for the beasts that gorged on my knees!

The plan was simple. We'd get a taxi from Leeds Station to the B & B, check in, drop off our bags and head off to the party. We were on a roll; didn't want to linger.
But plans are proof that god has a sense of humour.
I'd arrived in London on the Thursday, four days earlier, and had been building up a beery head of steam with an ever-growing assemblage of lifelong friends. Friday evening we sat outside a pub in Hammersmith by Old Father Thames, drinking copious pints and eating excellent fish and chips. On the Saturday 'twas Martin's 50th birthday party, and having drunk dry his monumental supplies of champagne, wine and anything else we could get our hands on, we grabbed a few hours dribbly kip, and regrouped at Kings Cross Station.
Somehow we were all still in great form, and aided by wizardly cooler bag technology, we drank our way to Yorkshire in a couple of hours, powered by laughter and building excitement. Tonight the Guru's sister was throwing a 50th birthday party for himself, and as long as we kept going, all would be good.
But there was nobody at the reception desk of the B & B. In fact, all we were greeted by was an overwhelming smell of dirty greasy fat. Finally a diminutive lass arrived, and we told her of our plan.
"Well, you'd be best to tell the taxi driver to go, because we're all going to go into the sitting room and have a wee chat."
We all wanted to say "A chat about what? Who are you? Our mother?"
But we didn't, and were then suitably patronised by somebody 25 years our junior. Finally, having parted with a substantial sum, I was given my key and told my room was down past reception on the left.
Off I went, down past reception, but the only thing on the left was a flight of stairs.
Room 231? Hmmm, surely that must be upstairs? So I climbed the creaky old stairs, walked along a corridor, through another door, down some steps, along another corridor and there it was.
Oh, it's a cupboard with a tiny single bed in it.
Ah well, never mind. It's not like I'll be in here long.
Outside we swapped similarly miserable tales of our rooms. This one had no towels. That one stank.
Oh look, here's our taxi, hurrah!
And off we went, to enjoy one of the finest parties I have ever been to. There was beer and food aplenty, as well as a film of the Guru's life, a firework display and later, the release of hot air lanterns into the night sky. Magic times spent with your bestest of friends: memories to keep forever.
Morning was dawning as I stumbled up the B & B stairs, along the corridor, through the other door, along the other corridor and down some steps into my cupboard, finally laying upon my tiny single bed, only to find that the old broken mattress immediately collapsed into a 'V' beneath me.
Did I care? I was, as they say, past caring.
Kicking off the ancient blanket I lay under a single sheet and woke, three hours later, as an airlock in the plumbing was shaking the entire building.
OW! Ow and bloody hell! What's that?
All over my legs were giant volcanic welling bites. I've done a fair bit of bumming around the world, and have been bitten by many mozzies. This was not the fault of a flying beast. These gigantic bites (7 on one leg and 4 on the other) were the work of something(s) that had crawled out of the decrepit mattress.
Stomach churning, I leaped in the shower to be instantly blinded by the water coming not from the holes in the shower head, but out of the sides. Swiftly exiting my hellhole of a room, I stumbled into the dining area, ready to be rescued by what the hotel's website described as a 'buffet breakfast'.
There was a 'Routiers' sign on the outside of the building. They must have nicked it and put it up themselves.
In a bowl were some tired stale slices of the cheapest white and brown bread. There was a toaster with a timer, and a note telling you how to use it. Over by the hot water urn was a small bowl with a small amount of coffee granules in it. Everything had obviously been out since the night before. The vile catering-pack coffee granules would have been merely undrinkable, were it not for the milk which turned into clotted lumps as soon as it hit the liquid in my cup.
A bloke came out of the kitchen and took my order for a cooked breakfast, apologising for the off-milk. Several minutes later UHT cartons appeared; not exactly what you want with your cereal.
They must have given themselves those 3***. Nobody else could have.
Unlike the previous morning, we were now all royally destroyed. Our party weekend was over and we had squeezed every last drop of pleasure from our days together.
Frantically scratching my bitten swollen boiling knees, I tried to eat the grease-sodden breakfast put in front of me.
1981. I suddenly realised that I used to stay in places like this when selling advertising for Pearl and Dean, back in 1981. Nowadays there are Travelodges and Holiday Inn Expresses: less expensive, spotless, slick and plastically fantastic compared to this dump. If this is the independent sector, bring on the boringly corporate chain, any day of the week.
Giving up on my squidgy sausage I stumbled past reception, and in my semiconscious stupor passed the stairs on the left, only to find my room, yes, room 231, right in front of me.
No! Please no! Don't tell me my flea-ridden Harry Potter cell from hell was on the ground floor, only a yard or two from reception!?!
When the day before she had said "Go past reception and it's on the left", she had meant "...the right", and had I realised her error, I could have saved myself miles of epic stair-climbing and wandering the stinky corridor circuits of the entire scummy B & B.
Why put room 231 on the ground floor?
How did that work?
Evidently, as well as everything else in the place.
Thankfully, nothing could spoil that weekend. Sublime. Spectacular. Thanks guys!

I love film - it's cinemas that I find difficult!

It's 'F' time in Galway City again. With the arrival of the Film Fleadh we hit Festival Season so welcome, all you fans of film. My love of film reigns supreme among the Arts, but it's my relationship with cinemas that gives good tale.
Back in 1982, when E.T. was released on video, nobody was going to the cinema. Mega-Plexes had not yet been invented, and cinemas were decaying single-screen theatres with ancient seats, sticky carpets and crappy sound.
Everyone just wanted to stay home and watch videos.
Unfortunately, I chose this abysmal period to find a job with the famous screen advertising company, Pearl and Dean, (...the tunnel, those flashing lights and the 'ba-bapbap ba-babap ba-babap baaaah!).
It was my job to head off to the southwest of England and Wales and try to sell little local adverts to little local companies. You know those 15 and 30 second shorts, showing the interior of a restaurant, garage, clothes shop that bear absolutely no relation to the one being advertised at all, followed by an obviously different, usually deep male voice that declares:
"Shirley's Boutique, Union Street, just around the corner from this cinema!"
Nobody wanted to advertise at the cinema, because nobody was going to the cinema, but my real problem was not the fact that I offered a shoddy product from an ailing industry, but more that I am not a total shit.
I cannot sell something to somebody, if I know it will do them no good whatsoever.
Picture a tiny Welsh valley community; half way up a mountainside hangs a row of old mining cottages.
"But why would I want to advertise at the Picture House? I am the only baker in the village! Everyone knows where I am!"
Indeed, sir, and although I cannot say it aloud, you have the same face as the rest of the village as well.
Visiting the local cinema manager whilst in town was seen as a simple Public Relations exercise, and in one far-flung west Welsh town, I noticed that the manager's name was distinctly Arabic.
Visiting in the afternoon, I met his wife, a local woman brimming with vitality and a certain hippy charm. Himself was apparently Moroccan, and would be back later. Why didn't I come back that evening, and have dinner with them?
What a lovely invitation! Working as a travelling salesman can be a terribly lonely affair, so I accepted, and enjoyed a great meal and a few bottles of wine.
Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' was the movie of that moment, and I confessed to having not yet seen it.
"Well let's put it on then!" said himself, with a distinct twinkle in his eye.
So we sat, the three of us, alone in his cinema, watching the rock movie, polishing off a plate of home-baked biccies.
Half way through the film, I realised that those cookies weren't just chocolate chip, and enjoyed anew this suddenly epic and brilliant piece of film-making with extraordinary enthusiasm.
Citizens of that rain-lashed Welsh industrial wasteland town were that night serenaded by a singular Adley chorus, as I stumbled hotel-wards through the dark drippy streets:
"Hiiiiigh don' neeeeed noooowww wEddge-yoo-kaaayyy-shuuurrrn!
During that period of employment, I sat one memorable Saturday afternoon with a large group of friends, imbibing way too much alcohol. Pumped up on hubris, I suddenly declared that I could get us all in to the cinema for free.
Off we went, as a raggledy-baggledy drunken army, to the ABC cinema at Edgware Road.
Waving my arms wildly outside the cinema, I shepherded my tipsy giggly flock, explaining that they had to wait there, so that I could keep it together enough to speak to the manager, and do the deal.
Like the Usual Suspects, they all lined up along the huge plate glass window, looking in and waving in that particularly embarrassing way friends do when they know you are trying to keep it together.
Once inside, I took a moment to breathe, groom my hand through my hair, pull up my jeans, tuck in my shirt and stride, purposefully, as a man who means business, towards a door that looked like an office.
Ka-booomph!! Ouch! Bloody Hell!
The worst part of what had happened was how long it took me to realise what had happened.
To my friends lined up outside, to all the staff and punters in the cinema lobby, I had just walked at full speed into a wall-sized mirror, but my alcohol-addled brain just couldn't work out who was this fat bastard geezer who was blocking my way. He wouldn't bloody budge, and he had head-butted me, and as I flailed my arms in an effort to hit him, he somehow managed to punch me back in exactly the same place that I punched him, at exactly the same time.
Finally falling backwards, the terrible truth hit me as hard as had my imaginary opponent.
My head hit the carpet, and I rolled over to see that each of my friends outside was also at ground level, having collapsed in hysterical uncontrollable laughter.
Oh yes, I love a good film, but those cinemas can be a real challenge!

****

Just in case Galway's water debacle is not over when you read this, a wee plea from me to you.
A close friend of mine and I went recently to the excellent Kashmir Restaurant. Indian Sub-Continental cuisine in Galway has improved beyond all measure in the last 15 years, and we enjoyed a splendid meal, top notch food and service.
But what was this ¤3.95 for a bottle of water? We had asked for some water, and given Galway's bug in the bog, the restaurant had to serve mineral water, and as they paid for it themselves, I expected to be charged, but only the cost price which they paid for it.
Instead they slapped a whacking great big greedy profit on it, and when I pointed it out to our charming waiter, he went behind the counter to ask his superior, who merely shook his head.
On the night I let it go, but now, I urge you all, if you would normally be happy drinking tap water at your table, refuse to pay profit prices for bottled water in Galway restaurants. As Johnny Rotten might have sang:
"Making profits from holidaymakers in other people's miser-eeeee...."