Lamo Lamo Pizza Co

Bank Holiday Monday...

It's hot, I'm lazy, I fancy a pizza but need to just call for a delivery... So I rummage through the vast selection of junk mail that squeezes through my door every week in the local "fast food war" - You think I'm joking? Well there's Rocco's, Perfect Pizza, Domino's, Herbie's, Pizza Chicken Hot 4 U, The Chandni, McChina Wok Away, It's Pizza Time, blah blah blah, oh, and Pizza Presto... "Truly, Madly, Deeply, Italian" Remember that one, I may be asking questions.

I decide to give the local operation a try out and see what they're like... Hmmm... Pizza Presto... I'm sure my mate M said they were good, I'll try them...

So this girl answers the phone, like, and takes my order, like, and says that it'll be, like, 50 minutes right? Yeah, OK, it's bank holiday so I can wait, I got beer...

The pizza delivery bike turns up 50 minutes later and the guy sits at the end of my drive, looking quite literally like a bell-end with his skid-lid perched on top of his head. At the same time the doorbell rings. How did he do that?

There's *another* pizza delivery "boy" at my door... That means two 6' tall guys have just zipped from one end of town to my place (about 4/5 miles) on a piddly 50cc scooter !!!

Anyway, this guy just stands there with these pizza boxes...

Lever: "...So, do you want to see my card, get me to sign something?"
Pizza Man: Unintelligible Grunt
Lever: "OK, give me the ticket, I'll sign it"
Pizza Man: Barely Audible Murmur
Lever: "There's no obvious place to sign it, No *Customer Signature_____* line; where do you want me to sign it?"
Pizza Man: Mumble "Sign"
Lever: "Yes, I know, but which one do you want me to sign?"
Pizza Man: Click, whistle, whir "sign"

Fuck me, Westworld better come get this one back, I think it's blown a fuse...

Lever: "OK, stupido, I'll sign both, I'll let you work out which one to hand back" Presents paperwork to foreign fool. And waits...

Long Pause...

Lever: "Well, can I have my stuff now? You're just standing there like a schmuck and my dinner's getting cold."
Pizza Man: Grunt
Lever: "Oh for fuck's sake just give it here." and swiftly removes the savoury burden from Neanderthal man's elongated arms.
Lever: "Thankyou very much. So where's my receipt?"
Pizza Man: "You want receipt?"

Jesus, it *does* speak English!

Lever: "Yes, I want a receipt, that's what I said didn't I?"

Pizza-down Man fumbles paperwork and looks quizzically at the two items of long-since processed wood-pulp with print & signatures on...

Lever: "Look, just stop pissing around and give me the top copy"
Pizza Man: "You want top copy?"
Lever: "Yes, I want top copy. Give it here!" and grabs strip of paper from our new court jester.

After all that I felt sorry for him and give him a tip...

Lever: "Sod off, you imbecile, and don't come back!"

Slams door on another chapter of idiocy.

So these are the ones "contributing to our economy" huh? Like what? Express delivery of coronary heart disease, clogged arteries and obesity in a box?

It's OK, I was good; with my hypocrisy I took a side order of salad... Looks good doesn't it? It's a "Presto Salad" - Feta Cheese, tomatoes, green pepper, red onions, cucumber and parsley...

But what I got was this... The "DIY salad"... The lazy git of a "chef" couldn't be bothered to make it even look good... and they didn't give me any instructions on what to do with it next ;) Sorry, Pizza Presto, a big fat zero out of ten for presentation! Oh, and the crust was the tastiest part of the bland old pizza!

So they're "Truly, Madly, Deeply, Italian" are they?

Truly terrible, Madly delivered, Deeply disturbing and about as Italian as Irkutsk!

If I get round to complaining, I dearly hope they don't give me vouchers for any more of their crap.

Oh, and remind me never to trust M's taste in food again... Afterall, he does have a fridge full of Fosters Lager!

Quote of the week (week 36)

Well technically...

"I don't know what the milk will be like after this."

...was last week's quote, from a Russian Federal Drugs Control Service spokeswoman, referring to how agents accidentally burned a field of crop destined for the farmer's cows. They mistakenly thought it was marijuana but on finding they'd torched a perfectly decent meal for his dairy herd, they re-imbursed him with 40 tons of confiscated marijuana crop... Full story here.

So yeah, that would have been last week's quote.

This week's, however, comes from the world's no 9 female tennis seed, the Russian Nadia Petrova, who said of Maria Sharapova, in reference to her Florida upbringing;

"Her father speaks half-English, half-Russian to her, I was kind of shocked by that because if you're born in Russia, why is he speaking English to her?"

WTF? I really don't know what to say about that! Should my parents have been speaking gallic to me? Should an old buddy of mine, English through and through apart from being born in Hong Kong, have his father speak Cantonese to him? Oh wait! If *I* am born in Russia why is *he* speaking to *her* in English? Hold on, why is Nadia Petrova speaking English, she's Russian?

Oh I don't funking know! Stupid bitch!!! She may be good at tennis but that's obviously to the detriment of her brain functions!

Odiham Castle

So here's the deal...

It's 3 o' clock, Tuesday afternoon, I'm on my own, the sun is shining and I've worked bloody hard this last couple of weeks. So I've totally earned my late lunch today and go off to catch some rays...

Round Hawley Lake (scene of some episodes of "Soldier, Soldier" and a Bond movie - though don't ask me which one) and past the "Crown & Cushion" and the "Mead Hall" and through the woods...

...into Fleet, passing the Fleet Pond and up onto the Basingstoke Canal. Drift by the "Fox and Hounds" in Church Crookham, the "Barley Mow" in Winchfield, "The Swan" in North Warnborough, the "Water Witch" in Odiham and eventually stop to take shots of Odiham Castle.

Built in the 13th Century, the position of King John's castle at Odiham was chosen because it was half way between Winchester and Windsor (more castles there) and there may have been a building here prior to the castle being built. It was from the site of Odiham Castle that King John set off to pen the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215.

The French came and stormed the castle in 1216 and after holding out valiantly against hundreds of frogs for a couple of weeks, the stalemate was ended with a truce... and just 12 Brits walked out. How's them for apples?

Odiham Castle was used as a hunting lodge until the 16th century but later fell to ruin... the Basingstoke Canal was then built through the outer perimeter of the castle in around 1788 and passes within a few hundred feet of the remaining flint-constructed keep.

OK, history lesson over.

The route home again passed those 6 wonderful pubs and I was SO tempted to stop for an ale. Or two. But then maybe I'd never have got home. Not today anyway. It was afterall just a lunchtime jolly. Next time somebody had better come with me, it's only a 25 mile round trip, but with beer and a narrow canal towpath involved I dunno...

Full Mental Jacket

Tescosuicide often sparks a lot of memories with his blog posts, the last one that got me was the denim jacket story...

Now my old denim I bought sometime in '88 and soon set about covering it in patches... Metallica, S.O.D. (as in Stormtroopers Of Death), Helloween, Anthrax, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, plenty of other stuff I can't remember and a great big Kreator "Terrible Certainty" patch - it was piss poor quality and faded so quick I had to totally re-paint it in all it's vivid detail.

And what else? Ah yeah... it first got covered in beer (& flying OJ) at Donnington '88, had snot, vomit, chilli sauce and melted cheese on it, grafitti, pin badges, a beer fight I once had landed a pint of snakebite & black on it, staining it purple over the shoulders, and it got signed by Iron Maiden too...

And then one day, about 5 years later, I took all the patches off... WTF was I thinking?

It was at this time I was in a pub in a little town in Surrey, one summer night, with a group of workmates... whatever happened, at the end of the evening there was 4 of us and Mike's NS125 motorbike... Mike's idea was to save us a taxi fare and get us all back to the hotel, about 5 miles away, one by one...

Andrea got the first lift, whilst me and Ryan just chatted...

Mike came back for Ryan next, and he was the only one of us who didn't have a jacket. So I told him to take my denim.

"Nah" he said "I'm alright, it's a nice evening, anyways, you'll get cold"
"Better to wear something on the bike, mate, Mike can just bring the jacket back. And I'll only be without it for 20 minutes or so..." I responded
He thought about it. You could see the gears in his head whirring LOL
"Yeah, go on then" he agreed

And off they went...

Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock...

I got a bit annoyed after 30 minutes, was positively cold and pissed off at 45, and after an hour I decided to head home... It was gone midnight by now and Mike hadn't come back.

Not being native to this part of darkest Surrey I just headed a direction I thought was home... Yeah, right :S Some guy in a Ford Capri pulled up and asked WTF I was doing out in this dead old town at this time o' night and offered me a lift.

So I get back to the hotel and there, in the reception, are Ryan & Andrea... she's crying her eyes out... When Mike took Ryan back it appears he took a bend on one of the country lanes a bit too fast... it was supposedly safe to do it at 40 mph, that was the speed limit for the whole road, but when he did the bend at 70 the bike crossed the white lines and the lads both ended up toast...

Mike got carted off to hospital with a broken leg. Turns out he was off work for weeks and I ended up covering a load of his shifts (inconsiderate b*st*rd LOL)

And Ryan? Well he was OK - bruised, cut-up and bloody, limping and a bit shaken but intact. He apolgised for the damage to my denim... oil, mud, grass, blood, some rips & scuffs where it had hit the tarmac... but I didn't care... it was a good move he'd borrowed it otherwise he may have had no skin left on his arms...

I always called that denim "my armour", seems like it came true :)

I got 21 inches

Originally it was just 14 inches but I got frustrated with it...

Then about 5 years ago I had it enlarged to 19 inches. Wow, the girls in the office were well impressed plus it was a good performer too :)

And this morning, at long last, I came home with 21 inches! I love it. What a confidence booster! I think I can live with this, playing with it all day doesn't make me squint so much...

Bump!

I went off to town yesterday to buy some office stationery and got stuck behind this complete muppet and his crap driving. He kept stopping to turn, but didn't, then sped off, turned without signalling, then drove really slow through the Prince's Mead car park, completely oblivious to the fact that anyone might be behind him.

Normally I'd just blast my horn and give him the finger, but I was feeling generous; so I just parked-up and left the idiot to make his stupid way through the parking lot...

Grabbing my ticket from the machine I walked back to my car... a loud sound caught my attention. BANG! The said same crappy driver had only gone and backed into a lamp post in an empty parking lot... And you know what? I LAUGHED!

Whilst he inspected the damage I hung around until he drove past, so I could see for myself... ah, he'd only dented the bumper, a nice BIG dent though LOL

I need to blog about denim jackets next... ;)

Drunken Bum

So I go out for a bike ride with my buddies (there's 12 of us out tonight) and we do about 10 miles round Ash Ranges, then come back to "The Swan" in Ash to enjoy a few pints in the beer garden. We have a few decent ales, a good old chinwag and then me, T, A & A cycle home in the dark.

A & A get home first (they live in the same road) then me & T do the last couple of miles past the Tech College... where some complete arsehole is arguing with his girl... nothing pleasant, no sorting-it-out, just lots of toe-to-toe, f'ing and blinding, him "offering her out"... So me & T stop to make sure she's OK. Being a completely out-of-control drunken arse, this dickhead decides to have a go at us too, despite the fact we mention that all we are doing is making sure the girl is OK...

Then he decides to take us on too... my phone comes out of my pocket and I dial the number of Hants & IOW police....

Mr potential-wife-beater then pursues me down the path, with T, on his bike, inbetween. Now, clever T never misses an opportunity and slams his brakes on, taking out this idiot and dropping his bike whilst I inform this nice girl at the local copshop about a guy who disrespects women...

Tenacious Dickhead won't give up and follows us down the Farnborough Road, whilst I keep a safe distance and wait for the cops to show... a lone WPC drives past and can't stop on the dual carriageway 'cos the fool has now crossed the road. He disappears into the distance, far away from the girl...

So me and T leave it and cycle home...

T bids farewell and I continue my last mile alone with just a back light, so I decide to risk using the pavement rather than the road(that's worth a £30 fine)

Just 2 minutes down the road and waddya know... a squad car pulls up... Mr Lever is all friendly and cool and asks if they're here about the incident, just incase they try to DO me for cycling on the pavement... they know nothing about our drunken friend but ask me where I've come from and where I'm going... it transpires that they're looking for a suspect to a burglary in the area...

"Well it's not me" I say
"Obviously" they reply

So I continue my way home, happy that some girl got away from her nasty piece of work boyfriend and that the cops were cool.

As I write this a police spotter plane flies overhead, hopefully with infra-red cameras to pick-out the thieving scumbag who burgled someone's house... off with his hands I say!!

"Some day a REAL rain will come and wash ALL the scum off the streets" - Red Angel Dragnet - The Clash

Sleep well folks :)

The Prodigal Sons

Tags: The Prodigy / Brixton Academy

Put 4 lads together to go see The Prodigy and what do you get? A bloody good laugh. A, O, C and YT hit Brixton on Sunday night for the month-delayed Prodigy gig we'd been waiting for since the day it got cancelled when those "dickheads with rucksacks" made London travel more interesting...

Props to C who had half a dozen cans of lager before even reaching London, even though he'd only got out of work an hour before I picked him up. Said downing of cans produced physiological affects requiring the draining of lizards... i.e. a legal piss in the street. More beer was required before venturing into the Brixton Academy, so we hit the Canterbury Arms for ice cold lager before getting into the old theatre to watch the boys from Essex making some noise.

They did a 90 minute set and they were good... they did play Spitfire and Outer Space which kept me happy, with Breathe and a weird version of Firestarter, Medusa's Path... anything else, I couldn't tall ya, I was too busy digging me groove and trying not to stamp on my buddies' toes.

Home was fun too, requiring jumping on a No 2 (bus) 'cos the tube station was closed - "difficulties" at Victoria station apparently (f@ckers!), Hi5'ing everyone in the Stockwell Road, bartering for cans of warm beer and pissing in the street again (at that legal peep-show of a urinal again) this time with an audience of rubbernecks on the bus...

So yeah, we got back to the 'boro nearly 2 and a half hours after the gig had finished...

Right, where's the next gig? I don't care who it is or where it's at... just getting there and back is always a good laugh...

Great British Beer Festival 2005

Tags: beer/beer festival/great british beer festival

Hot on the heels of Brom-man and Davinian, I made it down (up?) to the Great British Beer Festival 2005 at Olympia... that's in Kensington, London for those of you who don't know ;)

With an invite from D himself and Johnny Boy, it was a 30 min walk to the station, 45 mins to London and 10 mins queuing at the cashpoint.


Anyways... whilst D and JB were sampling the ciders, I started on a "Triple B", followed by a "Dark Stranger", had some "Rumpus", a medium cider and some... oh god, what was it... at this point the name escapes me... it was American, 6.5%, quite pricey... Ah, "HopDevil"... Nice!

With steak-filled cornish pasties, salad-laden chicken kebabs, the beer belly competition, bumping into an old schoolfriend, most enjoyable company (cheers D, JB & Lou) and a sing and a shout on the train(s) home, it was a jolly good day out. Even the guy on the train who made me aware of a new and unbeknown to me stereotype by discussing his designs on fathering 20 illigitimate children, I just *had* to laugh at...

OK, who's coming along for some fun next year? :D

10 Grand

Tag: money/10 grand

OK... so who's got any good ideas for getting me hold of 10 grand? That's good old Sterling... Ten thousand Great British Pounds to be precise...

Answers on a postcard please to...

Lever Incorporated Cleaning Services

I awoke, groggy from conversation late into the night. The haze of red wine clouded my vision; I needed air, to clear my head, squinting in the vivid glare of the morning sunshine.

And there they were; one simply mauled, the other, well... to say decapitated would be an understatement; somebody had fun toying with the head... I had slept like a baby, I don't recall a thing, not a thing...

Under normal circumstances there would be a discrete phonecall, the car would turn up, an old carpet unrolled, and, packed off in the trunk, their disposal in secluded woodland guaranteed... but no, there was no time...

Had anyone seen them lying there, open to the elements? Last night? In this bright daylight? Would there be whispers, rumours, or would everyone be good and just keep their mouths shut? My watchful eye scanned the overlooking windows...

I chose to do it myself and, desensitised to the grizzly sight, took the bodies down to the bottom of the garden. Yeah, that would do... rest in peace and sorry about your head, buddy...