Please note: this piece contains strong language.
(A First Hand Account According to Ronnie Perrot)
Hostelry - The Flower Pot
Location - East London
Date - 13th November 2021
I was seated on a barstool at one end of a galley style bar of my local - The Flowerpot. It was one minute past eleven in the morning and I was the first customer of the day. The barmaid on duty was The Duchess of Canvey Island, or Vicky as she is known to all the regulars.
I remained seated and said nothing. I didn’t need to.
The Duchess of Canvey Island tottered over, but before she began tottering she adjusted a bra-strap, a habitual of hers.
‘Nelson Mandela?’
‘Thought you’d never ask.’
Vicky pulled the pint and guided it my way. ‘Seen Ronnie lately?’
I picked up the pint and took a swig. ‘Nope. He’s officially been on the missing list for the past fortnight.’
Just as I said this the salon bar door opened and what I can only describe as a cross between a tree-hugger and one of those extinction rebellion fruits, you know the type who glue themselves to roads during rush hour, because they haven’t got anything better to do and don’t have to work for a living, bowled in.
‘Don’t like the look of this character,’ whispered the Duchess of Canvey Island in my direction. ‘Looks like one of the great unwashed.’
‘Pint of Stella Artois, when you are ready madam,’ said the tree hugger in a stilted posh voice.
‘We’re closed.’
‘Look open to me.’
‘Not for the likes of you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Exactly what it says.’
‘That’s discrimination!’
‘Couldn’t give a monkeys what it is, you’re still not getting served. Now out, before I set the dogs on ya!’
Just then the character at the bar pulled pulled off a syrup of fig, and a fake beard and glasses. A familiar smile beamed across the bar, ‘Had ya going there Vick.’
‘Ronnie, you little bastard!’
Ronnie was laughing. ‘Well, do I get a pint or what?’
The Duchess of Canvey Island pulled the pint.
‘Where the fuck you been hiding?’ I said.
Ronnie pulled himself a barstool and sat down. ‘Just come back from Cop26.’
‘Cop26?’
‘United Nations Climate Change Conference.’
‘And what did you go as?’
‘Dave Smith - Eco Warrior.’
‘You, an Eco Warrior?’
‘It was a right little earner.’
Me and the Duchess of Canvey Island listened in.
‘Please explain,’ I said.
‘Twenty-five thousand accredited delegates, with every country on the planet represented in some form or another. It was a licence to print money.’
‘It was?’
‘Fucking right it was. Of course Glaswegian gangsters had sewn up most of the lucrative scams, and loathe was I to muscle in on any of that action.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Why’s that? I didn’t want to be found floating at the bottom of the Clyde, my cadaver in a sack weighted down with lumps of concrete, did I?’
‘Understandable,’ I said.
‘No, I managed to operate a nice little sideline, serving up potent illegal vapes, to all the street protestors. I even bumped into Gretel Thunberg.
‘Ooh, did you meet little Gretel?’ Said The Duchess of Canvey Island.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘You know, what’s she like, in person?’
‘Not a bad kid, but she has this irritating habit of finishing every sentence with the words, blah, blah, blah.’
‘What d’ya mean?”
‘She’ll say, can I have a cup of tea, blah, blah, blah, or isn’t the weather nice today, blah, blah, blah, or, does anyone know where the nearest portaloo is, blah, blah, blah.’
‘Yeah, that would get on ya tits after a while.’ I said.
‘Fucking right it did.’
‘And to inveigle your way into their environmentally friendly clique you had to make them think you were one of them, you had to dress up like a tree hugger and look like an unemployed geography teacher?’
‘That’s right, that’s right. I had to be one of the gang, think like them, talk like them, act like them. I mean, they are not the most tolerant of folk, and if I’d gone dressed in my usual designer togs and waffled on about climate change being a load of old cobblers, I’d have probably been lynched.’
‘And also a nice little earner.’
Ronnie pulled out a wedge of crumpled bank notes. ‘Five bags of sand for less than a fortnights graft. Vick, crack open a bottle of shampoo.’
The Duchess of Canvey Island eyed the Scottish bank notes with suspicious optics. ‘I can’t take that, that’s funny money.’
At this Ronnie became indignant. ‘Funny money, this is legitimate United Kingdom currency!’
‘Yeah, but is it legal tender?’
‘Technically no, but you’re splitting hairs. You can cash these notes at any high street bank in exchange for English notes.’
‘Ain’t ya got any Rule Britannia ones in there?’
Ronnie tutted loudly. ‘Little Englander.’
‘What did you say?’
Ronnie rummaged around in his wad of notes. ‘Hey, hey, found five English bullseyes!’
The Duchess took two of the fifty pound notes. ‘Just makes me feel more comfortable Ron. And you know what Alfies like, he would’ve took one look at those smelly sock notes and deducted it from me wages.’
‘Alright, alright, now, shampoo please.’
The Duchess of Canvey Island adjusted a bra strap, and then tottered over to the fridge where all the bubbly was kept. She crouched down on her knees and opened a fridge door.
‘Bolly or Moet?’