Mellotronists

While listening to Woolly Wolstenholme's fine new recording with his band  
Maestoso, I ran into a little tune called, "Hebden Bridge." Now, if you know  
anything about Woolly, it is worth researching his songs. Inevitably I arrived  
at the following web site.
 
_http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/_ (http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/) 
 
In the left hand margin you can click on "View From the Bridge," and  thereby 
be transported to a page that has a novelette divided into about 98  short 
chapters. This story is a fucking riot. It proves without a doubt that  there 
are at least 4 or 5 people in England with a great sense of humor. Martin  
Smith, Eric Idle, The two guys who created "Wallace and Grommit," and John  
Morrison, the guy who wrote this story.
 
Here is an excerpt.
 
   3 Drinking to forget 
It is the sort of pub where they think shandy is a cocktail. Where a man with 
 a full set of teeth is regarded as a tad effeminate. Where conversations 
usually  start with "You can say what you like about Adolph Hitler, but...", and 
go  swiftly downhill from there. Yes, it's the Grievous Bodily Arms: the 
naffest  public house this side of the Crab Nebula.  
The Town Drunk, though banned from most other pubs in Milltown, is still  
welcome here - if 'welcome' is the right word to describe a pub with all the  
warmth and bonhomie of a Woodie Allen family reunion.  
A collection of forensic photographs pinned to the wall represents the only  
attempt at decor. Behind the bar, gathering dust, is a small and worthless  
collection of trophies, recalling the pub regulars' achievements in darts,  
dominoes and formation ram-raiding. When the Grievous Bodily Arms won the After  
Midnight Car-Door Slamming Contest three years in a row, they got to keep the  
trophy.  
He sits at the bar, staring blankly into the bottom of an empty beer glass  
and enjoying another evening of morose introspection: never a total waste of  
time. He drinks at the Grievous Bodily Arms whenever he feels life has dealt 
him  a particularly unplayable hand. That's eight o'clock most nights.  
The barmaid pulls him another pint of cooking bitter. He doesn't bother to  
look up; she has none of those feminine charms that might distract a hardened  
drinker. Imagine, if you will, Claire Short's less attractive sister, with  
rather more body hair than you'd expect from someone who isn't in the building  
trade. She divides her time between pulling pints and touting for casual  
abbatoir work. Some women sport a discreet little tattoo, but you'd imagine that  
having the words Die, Bastards, Die gouged artlessly into her forehead might 
be  the source of a regretful twinge or two as the years slip by.  
Monday night is quiz night at the Grievous Bodily Arms. The prize is  
generally a year's subscription to Hard Bastard Monthly, or a platter of raw  meat: 
not so much a mixed grill as an autopsy. In deference to the pub's  clientele, 
who are mostly from the shallow end of the gene pool, the questions  are 
untaxing. Like: Who are you looking at? Wanna make something of it? Do you  like 
hospital food?  
*     *     * 
Fortunately, Milltown has pubs to suit all tastes. The Flag, for example,  
caters for lovers of real ale, steam engines and computers: the sort of people  
who think there is something intrinsically funny about bad programming code. 
You  can walk in, shout "anyone got a Maltese rail timetable handy?", and 
there'll be  a stampede to offer you the requisite paperwork.  
Beer is taken very seriously at the Flag. Beer Bore, on a crusade to find the 
 perfect pint, is comparing his pint of Throgmorton's Old Throat Scourer with 
the  last such pint he enjoyed. The pump-clip boasts that it is Brewed with 
Pennine  Water - not much of a recommendation to people who know that the most 
palatable  thing you are likely to find in a Pennine stream is a dead sheep. 
He produces a  little black notebook which details every pint he's ever drunk, 
with points out  of ten for each one. Page after page of diminutive, 
obsessively neat  handwriting: the sort of handwriting you see on Crimewatch, when Nick 
Ross  quizzes the resident graphologist. "Are there any clues here that the 
writer  would one day dress up in a clown costume, walk into MacDonalds with a  
pump-action rifle and blow twenty-seven people away?".  
They certainly broke the mould when they made Beer Bore: some sort of health  
and safety regulation, apparently. He's at that difficult age when a man with 
a  beard, two left feet, and time on his hands feels an irrational desire to 
take  up Morris Dancing. He buttonholes you with an enthusiasm that proves 
less than  infectious, usually about beer, or steam trains or computers. "You'll 
find this  interesting", he lies, as you suppress the urge to add: "Let me be 
the judge of  that". If you suggested he should get a life, Beer Bore will 
merely beam at you  and say: "Funny you should ask, I'm busy downloading one"...  
Enjoy! 
Frank