Page 40 of The Brightonomicon


  * Divination by tea leaves, as if you didn’t already know.

  * And she did – look her up on the Internet.

  † And yes, she did, too. Look her up as well.

  * And it all is – you can check it out for yourself.

  † They really did.

  * As in The Jam classic, obviously.

  * We are golden, etc.

  * And a good ’n.

  * James Dean, it is to be noted, did not die aged 27 and had no connection with Robert Johnson whatsoever. Although he was recently canonised and is now the patron saint of pirates.

  * Bog troll is the generic term applied to cloakroom attendants at nightclubs. It is to be noted that they do not actually attend to cloakrooms. Rather, they set up their stalls in the gentlemen’s toilets, where they proffer their wares, soaps and towels and a squirt of aftershave ‘for the ladies’. And all for a small fee. And just as there were once ‘the Cries of Old London’, so is there a cry of the bog troll. And this cry is, ‘Freshen up?’

  * This really is true. Look it up if you don’t believe me. I got it from Mike Simpson and he knows these things.

  * It was Morocco bound. As in the theme song of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s now-legendary Road to Morocco. Never heard of it? Well, please yourselves, then.

  * Cocktails, probably.

  † An easy mistake to make.

  * For Scotsmen are known to enjoy a drink.

  * Where I had whacked him the previous day with the chewing-fat bowl.

  * The Argus being no longer delivered due to an unpaid newsagent’s bill, we now received our news courtesy of the Leader, which was a free newspaper.

  * Allegedly.

  * And he really did play there, believe it or not.

  * I’ve always puzzled over that one: a wine that is best served at room temperature. Surely a room is always at room temperature, no matter how hot or cold it might be. Or is it just me?

  * It does not – I’ve been there! Ed.

  * Which might have been a spaniel, but was probably a Peke.

  * Nor indeed that of Flann O’Brien.

  * This being the original Widow-Maker and not to be confused with the 1960s protometal ensemble fronted by Cardinal Cox, whose only single ‘Eat Everybody’ still ranks as a classic.

  * And it is. Check it out yourself.

  † Well, I had had a very rough night with no sleep. And sixty guineas! He was asking for it.

  * It looked just like that one in the movie The Car. And isn’t that a great movie?

  * A popular music-hall tune of the 1890s often performed by Little Tich, when not doing his famous Big-Boot Dance.

  * Don’t even think about saying it!

  * Which he aid. Although I have not mentioned it before. But I am mentioning it now.

  * I know. But if He says it – well, it must be okay, mustn’t it?

  * The one the Sussex constabulary use for making patrols around Whitehawk.

  * Built in 1840 by the renowned engineer and mystic Isambard Kingdom-Come and still reckoned to be one of the finest in England. Another triumph for Brighton.

 


 

  Robert Rankin, The Brightonomicon

 


 

 
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