Parachutes and pig-bits, a gangster and a hedge

Parachutes and pig-bits, a gangster and a hedge.

by

Dan W.Griffin FOR AWARDS CONSIDERATION PURPOSES ONLY. (Ha, Ha, Ha!) www.nostrangertothep45.com

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Copyright Š Dan W.Griffin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The rights of Dan W.Griffin to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 Downloading of this file is subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be reproduced, stored in an alternative retrieval system, transmitted elsewhere or otherwise circulated in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. This document is for single machine viewing purposes only.

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Welcome to Danland Thanks for downloading this excerpt from my book, No stranger to the P45.

This is the complete ‘Parachutes and pig-bits, a gangster and a hedge’, a piece describing an attempt to build a nightclub and give all the profit away to charity. It’s the same work as featured in The University Years but produced as an independent piece via issuu.com.

I hope that you enjoy it and I’d be delighted if you’d like to make a comment via the website.

Thanks again and have a fantastic day.

Dan W.Griffin

I once had a dream in which I was pursued by a Spitfire. There was no explanation as to why it was pursuing me - it being a dream and all - but because it was, so I was running away. Clumps of mud and grass filled the air as a thousand rounds of aggravatingly hot lead thumped into the ground and ripped it asunder.

Screaming in terror and waving my arms in the air I ran as hard and as fast as my pudgy legs would allow. What was probably a molehill then exploded in my face. In a moment of semi-conscious clarity I pondered just how odd and unreasonable this entire scenario was. Then thinking that it would help I dived into a hedge. As I scrabbled through the undergrowth like a frightened mole I had a third semi-conscious thought: I considered just how fortunate it was that I’d travelled back in time to the Second World War; for had the plane been some kind of stealth bomber I’d surely have been quite a bit fucked. I awoke shortly thereafter with the taste of many dandelions and dirt in my mouth.

As I recall this dream so I also recall the feeling of abject terror as this masterpiece of aviation technology pursued me across a meadow. It was that same feeling of abject terror that I also recalled on the day that I heard Page 1

that a man named Phil wanted to have a word with me over a small matter of five hundred quid. In my mind’s eye Phil was the Spitfire, his team of psychotic henchmen the bullets. Scotland was surely the hedge.

Some six weeks before and two weeks prior to the biannual Comic Relief, once more I was hung-over and sitting in a café by the name of Capers. It was the best place to go for a greasy fry-up and a mug of tea for a quid and there were four or five of us tucking into eggs and pig-bits that morning. The previous evening we’d been out on the campaign trail for the election (of Jon and I to the executive committee of the student union).

I’ve no idea whether I disgraced myself that night. But I imagine that I probably did.

Over breakfast and through his own bleary one-eyed squint of post-alcohol excess, with a mug if tea in one hand and a copy of the Student Times laid out across the table in place of his polished-clean breakfast plate, a friend named Ben was thumbing its pages and trying to come to terms with his own fragility. Stopping at a particular page in the paper he began to read aloud a piece about the forthcoming Comic Relief event and the Page 2

fact that a few students were planning activities to raise funds for it. Pondering this, together we chewed over the idea (along with a second round of toast) and decided that we’d quite like to raise a few quid, too. Someone suggested dressing-up as clowns and waving buckets about, someone else suggested a parachute jump. said, ‘Let’s build a nightclub!’

I

In my mind (still full of booze-related bubbles and other nonsense) the idea was a simple one. It wasn’t - as I would soon realise - and with hindsight I’m altogether astonished that not a single one of my brunching companions attempted to have me sectioned right there and then. Since no one so much as spat out their tea either, so I was encouraged to expand on my suggestion as though it was a viable and perfectly feasible thing to attempt. After finishing the last of my ketchup-laden pig bits I took a sip of tea and set-about trying to explain it.

That explanation wasn’t half as difficult as I thought it would be, particularly given the fact that I hadn’t thought it through one bit.

The idea was to attempt something along the lines of the old television series featuring Anneka Rice, a series entitled Challenge Anneka... I think. I seem to recall the shows featuring Ms Rice either building or doing ‘something’ and I remembered - possibly a somewhat loose and rather inaccurate term - that one of these Page 3

shows featured her building a playground.

Another

featured her publishing a book. What the book was I’ve no idea but I do remember that it was published by Butler and Tanner in Frome, the owner of which I’d mown lawns for back when I was about ten. One particular thing that struck me about the show was that although it gave the impression that the projects were achieved in just a couple of days, the entire operations actually took a couple of weeks. This was rather relevant to my thought processes - another loose and somewhat inaccurate term - as I sipped tea and chomped on my toast and pig bits.

Spending many years of my younger life in and around the small Somerset town of Frome I was more aware of the existence of Butler and Tanner than someone living somewhere else may have been. Since a television show involving the company was being produced in the town, so the news spread like a small ineffective virus. In Frome, because nothing really interesting ever occurred, the production of such a show constituted news. In my mind therefore, I determined that because the show had managed to produce ‘something’ within two weeks, so we could build a nightclub. Through my booze-related bubbles I figured that with this unique nay dumbfuck idea we could whip up a great amount of support and thus not be particularly concerned that we lacked of any resources whatsoever Page 4

(compared to those of the production company of the show). Confident that I’d sufficiently planned the idea in the space of about thirty seconds I presented my pitch to my brunching companions. ‘We’ll find an empty building and then prey on the goodwill of the local ‘everyone’ to encourage them to pitch in. We’ll beg, borrow and steal everything we need and then operate the club for a week and give all the profits to Comic Relief’ I declared. ‘It’ll be fun.’ Oddly, my brunching companions had still not dismissed the idea as entirely absurd, although a couple did glance at me as if I was mad.

Back at home we telephoned newspapers and radio stations and were interviewed live on-air. We prepared a pitch for the student union and nearing the end of the first week a hundred-plus volunteers were chomping at the bit to get involved. We were offered a defunct Lazer Quest building to put the whole thing together in and I telephoned the press office of the Nissan car plant and collected two brand new vehicles in which to do some of the running around. In the meantime the executive committee of the student’s union met and decided not to help out and late on a Wednesday afternoon I arrived at Page 5

the estate agent’s office to collect the keys to the building. Things seemed to be going rather well. About twenty minutes later and they rather abruptly ceased doing so.

We were about fifteen feet from the entrance of the defunct Lazer Quest building with the keys in-hand when my phone rang. Given my activities of the previous few days it was not a particularly novel occurrence and so I answered it, thinking that things were progressing according to the non-existence of my plan. The call was from the estate agent who had moments earlier received an urgent fax from the lawyers of the owners of the building. Within it the lawyers had used a number of fairly strong and unambiguous words to communicate the owners’ change of mind about letting us use the building (on some spurious grounds of not having any insurance or something), and they continued on to suggest that should I actually enter the building rather than returning the keys immediately, please, they would then be delighted to sue the living crap out of me. It was the first, but not the last time that I would ever receive a threat of legal action from a very angry firm of lawyers.

As I tend to do in these situations, I became quite concerned about that.

It was then the day before the elections and having not done any campaigning whatsoever, somehow I was Page 6

neck-and-neck in the polls with someone named Paul.

Right up until that telephone call I’d been thoroughly enjoying myself trying to build a nightclub out of nothing but the goodwill of others. Many people were actually taking me seriously for once and as I blundered and barged from one issue to the next, so things appeared to fall into place without too much aggravation. We had pledges of support from students and a half-dozen of the union’s clubs and societies. We also had responses from the interviews with the local radio stations with offers of assistance and support from local businesses to provide electricians, joiners and other useful things. It was all beginning to feel like something of a snowball rolling down a hill; picking up mass and velocity as it bumbled, bounced and barged its way forth. Suddenly, with the communication from the lawyers, the snowball then smashed into a wall and my dignity disintegrated across the floor.

With no alternative but to return the keys to the estate agent, once again we found ourselves in Capers trying to figure out what to do. We needed a new venue in which to focus all the ‘stuff’ and we needed to find it very quickly indeed. By my calculations we required at least five days of actually being in a venue for each individual or organisation to do their bit, whether that be nailing some wood together to build the bar or trailing a Page 7

few wires around to make some lights flash. That gave us about forty-eight hours to find such a place. Having exhausted all other sensible possibilities other than forget the whole thing entirely, on impulse I did exactly what I’m sure anyone with a similar problem would have done: I hopped in one of the Nissans and drove to London to gate-crash Channel Four’s Big Breakfast. ... ?

Ben was eighteen but looked about twelve. I can’t remember which course he was studying but he too was standing in the elections for a post on the executive committee.

Like me, he didn’t take it particularly seriously either, and was instead keen and excited about this ludicrous idea to build a club. Taking this new direction more seriously than he perhaps should’ve done, he climbed into the second of our Nissan run-arounds and we convoyed through the night south to London.

It was a fairly interesting journey during which Ben ‘lost’ the front wheel of his Nissan. He was then arrested because the police thought he’d stolen the car.

Apparently, their logic was that he looked too young to drive and despite his protestations and showing of his licence didn’t believe he was entitled to drive the car Page 8

anyway. Back then there was no automatic tie-in with the DVLA and insurance databases etc. and so checks had to be carried out at the nearest police station. That done, they let him go and we carried on south, arriving in London at about half-five the following morning.

Given the absurdity of the thought processes (or lack thereof) that had so far gone into what we were trying to accomplish, it was no surprise that we weren’t allowed on the show. We did however, enjoy a particularly pleasant breakfast in the green room of Lock Keeper’s Cottage and I briefly met Dawn French while Ben tried without success to pull the daughter of the week. With nowhere left to turn for help after a brief trip to the offices of Comic Relief had proved less than fruitful, we began the drive back to Sunderland and stopped off at one of the service stations on the M1. Continuing the absurdity of the day I met an extremely distant family relation whom I hadn’t seen since a funeral some five years before, and we were moments from rejoining the motorway when we noticed four girls standing on the slip-road dressed in pyjamas.

They were each carrying a bucket and as we approached them one thrust her hitch-hiker’s thumb into our path. I figured it would have been rude not to stop. And so I did.

The girls were undertaking a sponsored jailbreak to raise money for Comic Relief. It appeared that they had actually attempted something feasible and so rather than Page 9

not accomplish anything whatsoever, both Ben and I decided to give the girls a lift to Sunderland. Stopping barely long enough for a cup of tea we then decided to make the most of Nissan’s generosity and aid the girls in their challenge by driving them to Edinburgh. We then returned them back to their university in Leicester that same day, attended the post-jailbreak party and fell asleep.

I lost the election but it was a close-run thing. As it turned out I was seventy-four votes short of that ‘someone-named-Paul’ who had a thousand and three hundred and something to my thousand and two hundred and something else. I wasn’t disappointed, though.

Instead I was far more concerned about what Nissan were going to say about the fact that none of the nightclub things had happened, we’d lost a wheel to one of their cars and put almost two thousand miles on them both in just under a week. happy about any of that.

They really weren’t at-all

Phil was a local gangster and owner of a small number of nightclubs in the city. His reputation preceded him but

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it didn’t stop me from getting very excited when he telephoned the office of the Student Times about a week or so after the botched Comic Relief thing and asked if there was anyone we knew who wanted to promote his bar. It was a couple of weeks late but it didn’t matter: we had our venue and it didn’t even need to be built.

Ben was as keen as I was to take on the project and so we met with Phil and a couple of his henchmen that very same day. They all seemed perfectly palatable then.

Ben and I agreed to promote one of his clubs and take a percentage of the door fees to donate at first to Comic Relief and then, with it out of the way, earn ourselves a few quid, too.

Ben and I split the responsibilities. My job was to do all of the behind-the-scenes organising which included arranging a band and decorating the place according to our new ‘Seventies’ theme. Ben’s job was to run around with posters and flyers and the like and for the next couple of weeks we busied ourselves on all manner of activities relating in no way whatsoever to studying. I’d found a barely-used room in the new ‘business’ campus of the university. It had a coffee machine and so I adopted it as my office. With an overhead projector, telephone sockets and stationery cupboard it was very useful indeed.

I had a friend who had a Sunday night show on Wear Page 11

FM, one of the local radio stations. I decided to visit him and plug our new venture on-air. Just why he allowed me to all-but hijack his show I’ve no idea but he did and having written relentlessly about the upcoming event in my column too, we were getting very excited indeed about our opening night.

Immediately after the publication of my latest column promoting the event I received another letter from Henry, the president of the students’ union. Within it he embarked on a rather extensive rant regarding the fact that I’d appeared to have broken about a half-dozen articles of the National Union of Journalists’ Code of Conduct. Ken published it together with my ‘open’ response in which I pointed out that since I wasn’t a member of the National Union of Journalists I didn’t actually care. He wasn’t in the slightest bit happy with me for that but I was far too focused on our opening night to concern myself in any way with his pettiness.

The band that I’d hired was called Love Train. It was a Seventies tribute band that I’d met while gatecrashing the NUS conference some weeks before and I’d negotiated a price of a few hundred quid to get them to travel from London for our opening night. Phil appeared confident that he’d cover the cost with the hundreds of students that we all anticipated would be turning up to the show and as the band warmed up, so Phil and I Page 12

chatted about our plans for the next few weeks while we waited for Ben and the punters to arrive. They didn’t.

And neither did Ben. Today I am fully aware of the fact that I failed to take proper control of the night and the promotions. I failed to keep myself aware and up-dated of the distribution of the flyers and the posters and I am aware that I should have played a much greater role than I did. Eventually getting hold of Ben an hour or so after the supposed start of our opening night I learned that instead of running around frantically drumming up support and possible attendance figures he was actually half-pissed in a bar across town and had been somewhat overconfident in his assessment of just how effective his promotion efforts had been.

These are the reasons why, when I heard that Phil had wanted to have words with me about the money that he’d had to spend in advance of the evening, I had that feeling of abject terror. A number of people told me that he was very displeased with me indeed, and he told me so himself when I telephoned him a day or so later to apologise. It didn’t make any difference and so I figured that since I really had been a particularly crap student and really didn’t want to be snapped in two by any of his psychotic henchmen, I’d take a dive into the hedge. I hired a car and drove to St Andrews to visit my sister for the weekend. I stayed for six months, took a couple of Page 13

jobs and tried to write a book. I also fell in love, became a gambler and almost died... twice. I quite enjoyed St Andrews.

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There is no chance that this will ever be a

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

No stranger to the P45 by

Dan W.Griffin ‘It’s not shit - it’s Art!’ - Marvellous Malcolm ‘Buy this book! (or else)’ - Andy McNab, Author Bravo Two Zero ‘Dan, you should be in prison’ - Mrs H.Downing

WARNING Contains strong language, bloody violence and scenes of a sexual nature FOR AWARDS CONSIDERATION PURPOSES ONLY. (Ha, Ha, Ha!) www.nostrangertothep45.com

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