WestBay , The pudding Years

Good food, good friends, good music and good booze should always make you loose your inhibitions.
Big band and zydeco music will do just that because they are kick your shoes off , tuck your skirt in your knickers and wiggle your bum like heavens calling for you music!
Similarly good food and good booze should loosen you up, comfort you and thrill you, all in one little mouthful.
That’s precisely why I took my friend Jo to the West Bay Big Band Music festival along with one very large tub of my finest apple and calvados sorbet.
Anyway, I’d spent the majority of the previous day making this, Jo had made her infamous potato salad and we’d gather together assorted bits on the fine assumption that for once in our lives we would look like ladies what lunch.
A similar amount of care had sadly not got into picking what we’d worn for the day but seeing as how the skies had open and it was a bone bitingly cold and miserable day we did have an excuse for not breaking out the chanel twin set {or in our case discreetly liberating it from a life of pain in someone else’s wardrobe , we are such humanitarians!}.
Really at this point I ought to tell you about Jo. Jo is someone for whom the word big isn’t all encompassing enough. Don’t get me wrong, she isn’t fat; more Wagnerian in build. Like a person who would bully a Valkyrie.
Jo’s got a big soul as well. She’s the sort of person who’s presence you can feel when she walks into a room, and as for when she’s cross. I’d call her an aura spreader but that sounds suspiciously like a euphemism.
Trust me, you see Jo approaching with her ankle length black leather coat, soviet army hat, a purple cloud of hair and high heeled boots; Well if you’d upset her you would be ducking under the nearest table and crying for mother, if you hadn’t upset her, you may well just dive under the table just in case your presence caused offence.
Having said that, Jo is also a person who cooks roast dinners for old ladies, rescues stray animals and wayward teens and will sob through your first ultrasound for you. So if there’s anyone on my list of people who should get to heaven, it’s her. Even though her heaven will be populated will scantily clad Brian Blessed and Bill Bailey look-alikes feeding her peeled grapes dipped in Guinness.
All in all, exactly the sort of person you want for a day of jazz by the sea really in my humble opinion, so off we went.
The day was really a bit of a let down, I think we were secretly hoping for Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman.
What we got was a bit more amateur dramatics meets Aker Bilk and has an ill-conceived love child behind a barn.
All of the bands were playing in pubs dotted around the seafront which given the weather conditions seemed like a good idea so into the George we strode unaware of the crashing disappointment we were soon to feel.
On the face it, there were all the ideal conditions .Nicely stompy band, good beer, customers who were easy on the eye.
However what we had not encountered before was the Dorset attitude to live music. Now I grew up going to gigs in Glastonbury and Bristol where if a band has played well then you show them that you love them!
You dance, you shout, you stamp your feet and yorp as loudly as you can because it’s good manners.
In Dorset it seems , if a band has played well then you clap politely making sure that the hands never quite make contact and you say to your neighbour ‘ Oh yes , wasn’t that lovely .’ Then carry on drinking your beer and ignore them. You never ever dance because that would be tantamount to taking your clothes off, they may behave like that in Bournemouth but Bournemouth is Gomorrah on sea!
So having listened to the band of course me and Jo start to show our appreciation until we suddenly become aware that every eye in the room is turned on us and not in a good way.
It was like that scene in every horror movie where the heroes stumble into the some local pub seeking refuge from the monster only to realise that the inbred cannibalistic yokels are about to feed them to it.
We backed out the door, our remaining inhibitions not yet battered into submission by drink. Once out on the green we ensconced ourselves ready to break open the food and sorbet.
Many people will tell you that they have chat up lines that work; they will charge you money to find out the secret of their success with the fairer sex. Well as one of the ‘fairer’ sex let me tell you, there are only two chat up lines that are guaranteed to work at least some of the time as long as you don’t have a bag on your head and a pillow up your back or are dressed like you just won serial killer of the month. If any of these describes you then sorry, nothing will work. Move in with your mother and open a motel. It’s your only hope!
The first and most successful line is ‘Can I get you drunk?’ The second line is any variation on ‘Hello kind sir, could I interest you in a bit of puddin’?’ Especially if said with a modicum of cleavage showing and a 70’s Hardy adaptation accent.
Due to our lack of funds and surplus of sorbet, we opted for the second line! As in the past it did get a response 9 times out of 10, although some of those responses were ‘Why what’s wrong with it?’ ‘Have you put rhypnol in that?’ and ‘My wife wouldn’t like me eating another woman’s sorbet.’
That part of the afternoon was quite pleasant really, it’s always nice to have compliments on your food and we had some enjoyably silly conversations but I could tell we were gradually getting drunker by the time a guy wondered by in fields of the nephilim outfit.
For those of you who have yet to encounter this, the outfit comprises big boots {most be black with steel bits} a floor length leather duster and a leather rancher hat {all preferably black or dark brown}. It’s an outfit that suits those who are big enough to look suitably menacing. It doesn’t suit you if you are thin, pale and spotty.
Jo spotted the man in question before I did and suddenly grabbed me and declared loudly ‘Oh look, a twat in a hat.’ Then fell backwards laughing.
Jo’s good at loud declarations when drunk, another favourite of mine was the time she stood up, pointed at someone and shouted ‘Oil that man and bring him to my table.’ It would have looked so much better if she hadn’t then keeled forward.
The poor man scurried off into the gathering gloom and we decided that it was time to distract ourselves with more music so off we marched to the next pub which promised us a trio.
However said Trio turned out to be three portly burghers of West Bay playing clarinets in an over packed pub so as a distraction it wasn’t up to much. I think at this point they would have had to be playing the clarinet Chippendale’s style to grab our attention but given their respected builds the sight would have landed me in therapy for many years.
Squeezing ourselves onto a partly occupied table we came face to face with the highlight of the whole day. Nice, polite Irish builders. Now Jo has always had a thing about Freudian thing about Irish builders, so being the sociable soul she is, she offered to buy them a drink.
Unfortunately having brought the bottles of beer, she then shoved them down her cleavage and loudly announced they could have the beer as long as they could get it without using their hands.
As the barman escorted us from the pub, he kindly pointed out that there are by-laws against that sort of thing in Bridport and that maybe we should seriously consider bringing our day to a close.
This whole experience led to the two rules I live my life by {other than, if it’s green and smoking, it’s a bad idea to drink it}.
Rule number one; if a large angry Dorset man suggests you stop drinking, it’s a good idea to follow his advice.
Rule number two; T’is better to have loved your friends and lost your inhibitions than to have never had friends at all {apologies to shakesphere!}
This year we’re planning the sequel, West Bay 2; Nuns with beards and guns. Coming to a jazz event near you!