It was late evening and San Antonio was still a cauldron. The tourists were wilting visibly under the red sky.

Germans were scrupulously clean in their long shorts and red faces – and the Brits, well they were just the Brits, low-slung Camos revealing tourist cleavage, sweat breaking out like grease on roasting pigs. But what can you expect in Ibiza – it’s Marbella, Torremolinos and Blackpool all rolled into one. Insane, throbbing, thundering bass, subterranean noise, sex on the beach firefly platforms low-slung hipsters.

Something happened though, late evening, as the street vendors turned fake watches into gold, and the hotels pulsated to music. The smell of veal and squid stained the air.

And she was there, quiet, dignified and weeping. Black as night. The holidaymakers barely gave her a second glance as they melted in and out of the bars. The marina was like a thousand restless horsemen.

She looked into the endless sky as the sun began to slip down behind the mountains and I saw the crescent of the moon and geometry of the stars.

The next morning I decided it was time to get away from it all, so I took to the air – in a micro light. It’s a strange way to travel. A gondola, suspended from wings that even Icarus would have turned down, powered by an engine that doesn’t look powerful enough to turn a washing machine.

I sputtered over the walls of the town and skirted round mountains. Beneath me the island was laid out … the fishermen, the orange and lemon groves, monasteries, donkey carts, ancient abandoned houses and an ostrich farm.

The town unfurled below, and I could see the market spreading like mercury through its mediaeval streets. At one point my washing machine engine failed and I faced going into a fast spin – but the air saved me. A current buoyed me over the forests, highways and country lanes that seem to endlessly go nowhere, and dropped me gently into a field.

It takes a good barman on the island six seconds to poor a straight brandy and it costs you less than a beer. I’d had five when I asked the barman at Blackbeards who the girl at the marina was. He told me she was dead.

Eight straight brandies later and doubts set in. Maybe there was something else about her. Perhaps she was just a slice of seaside theatre. A sideshow. Perhaps she got a grant to support her performance art. Maybe she was just a phoney.

I slept  in a coma that night.

The next day I needed stinging black coffee, the sort that is so strong it makes your heart go out of sync. I turned off the beach, negotiated the traffic and headed into the Old Town.

You couldn’t call Bella’s a bar, or even a coffee shop. It was more a coffee tree.

Bella was breathless and old with haunches like a bull. Each morning she struggled to put four white plastic tables and eight plastic chairs under the palm tree at the side of her hovel on the edge of an ancient walled square.

A large cast iron coffee pot rattled the day away on the cracked and smoking range in a kitchen that should have been condemned. She served with dignity and silence in chrome cups the shape of small ice cream scoops. She didn’t smile and wouldn’t speak unless she was spoken to. Coffee was all she served. And it was black gold.

She got ‘busy’ twice a day. Once in the morning when the coach arrived from the mountains, the second, mid-afternoon, when it was heading back again.

I watched it arrive, diesel engine so dry it sounded like a dozen hammers battering on tiny anvils. The gears didn’t fit and it coughed black smoke rings from the broken exhaust. The driver jumped down and let out what I took to be a curse.

He lit a cigarette and headed into the Old Town proper. An elderly couple alighted and creaked towards Bella’s. The old coach hissed like a short sharp sigh and settled in on itself.

And that’s when I saw her again, stepping through the fog of exhaust fumes. She was wearing a calico dress, her hair was tied high on her head. She was serene but her eyes were haunted. She had no luggage.

Bella poured me another cup of coffee. I put the sentence together as best I could: “Sabes quien es? Porque viene aqui?”

Bella turned, fists on hips, massive belly rising and falling under her pinafore, to squint after the retreating coach.

She made a derisory spitting noise and waved her finger in a circular motion by the side of her head then she smiled at me sympathetically: She whispered la leyenda… “… people in the mountains where she comes from say that if you find a place where the sea, the land, the sky, the sun, the stars and moon meet, then you have found the place your love has been lost. By day her love was a fisherman, by night he was a danzar.

“He was fishing alone for mullet when a storm blew up …

“Her name is Senorita Maria Goya – she built a shrine to herself by the side of the road to his house. Then she died – suicidio. Because of this they can not be together in death, so she visits him where love is lost. And at night you can hear him dancing before her shrine, trying to wake her.”

I sipped my coffee.

By the time I reached the marina, it was late evening. The afternoon glow had turned to a fiery red – bright shape of things to come, Garlands N-Trance was cranking up the noise at Eden. The town was getting ready again.

 4.30am in the rain. It’s party time down there.

I’m up here in the mountains, there’s a hacienda over there, inside the skeleton trees. Family wound in sheets trying to sleep. Dogs howling. The moon is as high as a kite tonight.

Café del Mar is down there, so happy to be beside the seaside. The island’s pulsating, the sky’s beating faster than a bloated heart. Thunder inside the rain, mountains where water swirls for 10,000 years.

Buckets of rain. I’ve got no head for heights but I keep walking up this dirt road. The crickets are singing, a snake rattles inside an abandoned gourd. And that’s when I see it, ten feet from the roadside. I’ve found the shrine of the Senorita.

I sit down and wait …

Now the rain’s running backwards, the moon’s gone out and the world’s silent. The air fizzes as a thin white thing begins spinning by the roadside. It moves easily across the brushwood towards the shrine.

And the dance begins, like the slap of dying fish on a slab, slap slap slap. Slap slap slap. Then it starts picking up the rhythm, slap – slap – slap. Click! Slap slap slap. Click! Now a ricochet, drum-roll scatter, heels and fingers clatter … sparks on stones, heels on fire …

And as the rain comes down again the sun comes up over Café del Mar and I laugh out loud as the dead man dances.

#Cafe del Mar #dance #DeadMenDon’tDance #drink #Family #ghosts #hauntings #holidays #Ibiza #Norman Mailer #Paranormal #roadsideshrine #SanAntonio #sun #trance

Ron Lambton was a dapper little man, business suits, shiny shoes, smart shirts and slick garish ties.

He was a sharp-dressed man with a smile as big as the North-east.

And he had ambition … he wanted everything he did to entertain and look and taste good.

I met him when, one day about forty years ago, he washed up on the doorstep of Maxims, Bradshawgate, Bolton, a monster of Gothic bizzareness, glazed brick and Victorian tiles.

When he arrived the pub – a few yards from Yatess Blob Shop – had a chequered past and a bad reputation.

But Ron and his missus, Lorraine, took to the place like Geordie ducks to Northern water. And his children were in their element too … upstairs where they lived, there were long dimly-lit corridors, dark abandoned rooms and spooky corners and crannies. It became their 18^th century indoor playground.

Ron’s playground was the massive cellar which ran like brick tentacles under the pub … he painted it white and arranged trips around it for customers, passers-by and coaches.

I hit it off with them all immediately and me and the likes of Dave Rigby became as big a features at the bar, as the Vaux beer he was determined to sell by the gallon to Boltonians. Dave, like me, was a sub-editor at the Bolton Evening News, just down a narrow cobbled – I seem to remember – dead-end street which bordered Maxims.

Maxims became the Bolton Press Club for many of us who worked there.

The place was uproarious, it was like a house full of Blackpool, beer, food, side shows in its thousand corners … bouncers, local bands, an alcoholic magician, storytellers and garrulous drunks!

And all the time Ron was there, sipping on small glasses of bitter – Lorraine opted for white wine spritzers, quite exotic at the time – standing at the hatch to the bar.

Often Ron was silent, almost sullen – other times he was a wild erratic one-of-the-lads crying with laughter!

His laughter was infectious and suddenly Maxims became the happiest home in the world for all us reprobates and fools.

We all loved Ron Lambton.

He did some mad things – things hatched over ten pints in an afternoon – like sneaking a wax head of himself into Madam Tuessauds in Blackpool – like arranging a Rambo look-alike competition which ended up with a customer being arrested for carrying a rifle!

Or the time he challenged celebrity steeplejack Fred Dibnah to race him up a 200ft factory chimney, a staple of Bolton’s landscape way back then.

Bernard Manning, who lived 20 miles away, was a regular at Maxims. It was the call of Ron’s magnificent food that did it.

Ron died on 28th July 2022 at the East Lancashire Hospice. He was 74.

Dave Rigby said: “Smashing bloke. It was good to know you Ron. Some fun times at our Press Club!”

I think many of us will echo that…

#vaux #vauxbrewery #maxims #bolton #Boltoneveningnews #BEN #freddibnah #blackpool #bernardmanning

Is the NHS brilliant? is the BBC rubbish? and don’t get them started on utility companies

Click to watch…

#Commonwealthgames #utilitycompanies #BBC #NHS

WHAT MATTERS MORE IN ALABAMA IN 2022? HALTING THE DEATH OF A MAN, OR PRISON’S SHOCK AT A SHORT SKIRT?

A journalist was made to change her outfit at the execution of a death-row inmate in Alabama after prison officials said her skirt was too short.

Ivana Hrynkiw Shatara, managing producer for website AL.com, says she was also told her open-toed shoes were too revealing by staff at the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Ms Hrynkiw Shatara was stopped at the media centre at William C Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Her outfit violated the prison dress code.

She covering the execution of Joe Nathan James Jr, sentenced to death for killing his ex-girlfriend, Faith Hall, 26, in 1994.

In a statement shared on Twitter, the journalist said she had worn the same skirt to previous executions and other professional events “without incident”, saying: “I believe it is more than appropriate.”

The execution was apparently delayed for three hours.

Why CJ – who apparently was no saint – rings them bells for an old friend of mine…

A well-known journalist friend of mine has been toying with a name since the letters JC unexpectedly entered Bob’s life again.

A young lady called Catherine James was a well-known teenage gal-about-town in the 1960s. And in her autobiography Dandelion – the cover is pictured above – she tells many stories about hooking up with famous people including old Bob.

She was once married to Denny Laine and dated Mick Jagger.

Catherine had been born into a wealthy Hollywood family. Her memoir says that she finally ran away from home at twelve and went to live with college students. And around this time she says she met Dylan.

The woman, often pointed out as a wild child in stories about her, says that Dylan kept in touch with her and actually gave her his address in Woodstock.

One day she ran away from an orphanage where she had been sent and hitch-hiked to New York. She went looking for Bob.

There is nothing to indicate that this is the woman who made the claims against Bob and we use this story as a matter of information and to throw light on internet rumours.

#bobdylan #woodstock #uktour #catherinejames #mickjagger #dennylaine #sexclaimdylan

BE PROUD! WHY F*RTING CAN BE SUCH A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Is f”rting good for you – does it break the ice at parties, or is it just a lot of hot air?

Well, snooker guru RONNIE O’SULLIVAN let off one and left a referee and audience in stitches while potting a few days ago!

So, The Society decides to nreak away from the usual news agenda and go which way the wind blows…..

Okay, yes we all do it! Even the Queen does it (sorry Ma’am– but there are some things an equerry can’t do for you, no matter how hard they try).

And Donald, the former mad president of the United States, is named after one.

Yep. Trump!

To so many of us a trump is the laughing-gas of the masses, an hysterical expelation of wind leading to mirth and ribaldry, a whiff of laughter in the air so to speak…

… a mild form of rebellion and insurrectum. And if you can literally pump up the volume even better!

A pump! A trump! A bottom burp! A FLUFFER DOODLE! A barking spider!

A F*RT!

In fact the only thing I ever learned off my big burly beer drinking father was how to f*rt. And for that I have to say I am internally grateful…

I’m sorry to keep using the word fart, it isn’t meant to be offensive though. Its usage actually dates back to Medieval times, where the phrase ‘not worth a fart’ was coined.

But a fart isn’t useless at all, according to doctors. In fact it’s good for you.

Dr Karan Raj  says that on average, people fart around 14 times a day.

He said: “The more the merrier. If someone tells you they don’t fart they are lying and you should disown them immediately or they have got a bowel obstruction which is a medical emergency.”

The NHS doctor also explains that the average fart is big enough to fill up a medium-sized balloon.

But he also warned that keeping it all in can have it dark side too: “If you hold in a fart too long it can be reabsorbed into your blood circulation and breathed out when you exhale.”

Dr Karan said: “The first fart of your day is usually the largest.”

He added that hydrogen and methane are flammable which is why you can set a fart on fire. However, don’t. That really is a bit of a bummer.

But interestingly he says that “the noise of a fart is a combination of the anal sphincter vibrations and the percussion of the bum cheeks against each other.”

Well, I suppose that’s why you get in a bit of a flap when someone hears you doing one.

Anyway, my best fart happened one sunny evening in a beer garden in Marbella…

I had been drinking an excessive amount of lager and eating curries while staring out at the sea, the dried-up prunes of the rich wives and their Bentleys.

And then I was taken by surprise. And so, dare I say, was my wife … the old familiar rumbling downstairs began and the uncontrollable desire to lift a buttock took over. Then it happened with the velocity of an Exocet missile and the volume of passenger jet taking off… Marbella went silent as it seemed to go on forever. People stopped drinking and stared, a waitresse’s cigarette flared and went out and the restaurant’s cat fell off the wall.

Everybody seemed deeply shocked but I have to say it was one of the proudest days of my life.

It made my holiday.

What were probably the least believed sex claims against an iconic rock star have been dropped forever.

However, JC – the only moniker given to the accuser – now faces a media scrum to expose her. It is an iniquity of the law, in cases like this, that the accuser can remain anonymous while the accused is unmasked.

This is particularly the case when the outcome is seen by so many as proof that the case was malicious, brought by a relic of the 60s who saw a change in the law as a way to a small fortune.

Good on ya Bob!

Here is the background:

The unnamed woman who said Bob Dylan sexually abused her as a child in 1965 has dropped her lawsuit forever.

The decision came the day after Dylan’s attorneys accused her of destroying evidence and “irretrievably” compromising the integrity of the case.

The woman had alleged that Dylan abused her over a six-week period in 1965, leaving her “emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged.” Bob ’s lawyers quickly called the case “false, malicious, reckless and defamatory” and a “brazen shakedown masquerading as a lawsuit.”

But at a hearing on Thursday (July 28), the plaintiff – identified only as J.C. – asked the judge to dismiss it “with prejudice,” meaning it will be permanently closed and cannot be refiled. The move came after she was accused of deleting key messages and threatened with monetary sanctions.

“This case is over. It is outrageous that it was ever brought in the first place,” said Dylan’s lead attorney Orin Snyder of the law firm Gibson Dunn, in a statement to Billboard. “We are pleased that the plaintiff has dropped this lawyer-driven sham and that the case has been dismissed with prejudice.”

J.C.’s attorneys did not reply to a request for comment.

The unnamed woman claimed that Dylan had sexual abused her multiple times at Manhattan’s Chelsea Hotel in April and May 1965. She said he provided her with drugs and alcohol and “exploited” his status as a musician as part of a plan to “sexually molest her.”

Allegations like these would be barred by the statute of limitations. But the case against Dylan was filed just before the closing of a one-year window under a recent New York statute that allowed past victims to sue their alleged abusers.

Historians and Dylan experts quickly cast doubt on the allegations, saying they seemed to be refuted by historical documentation that showed that Dylan was away from New York City for most of April and May 1965. JC later filed an updated version of the lawsuit, claiming the abuse instead came during “several months in the spring of 1965.”

Thursday’s abrupt dismissal came amid chaos in the case, including warnings from a judge about potential sanctions, the sudden departure of the accuser’s attorneys, and, this week, bombshell accusations from Dylan’s camp that she had deleted key text messages and emails.

At a July 15 hearing, Judge Katherine Polk Failla said that Dylan’s attorney Snyder had alerted her that the accuser had failed to turn over emails and text messages by a court-ordered deadline. According to a report by Law360, she warned the accuser’s attorneys that they might face serious sanctions if they did not comply soon: “For the love of god, produce these materials,” the judge told the accuser’s lawyers. “You understand the consequences if you don’t.”

Days later, the accuser’s attorneys notified the judge that they had been fired from the case. The lawyers — Daniel W. Isaacs and Peter J. Gleason – said they had been “discharged by the plaintiff as her attorneys,” but did not include any explanation for their termination. Dylan’s attorneys said it appeared to be “designed to evade court-ordered document production obligations and the threat of sanctions.”

Then on Wednesday, Snyder and Dylan’s legal team sent a letter to Judge Polk advising her that the accuser had still not produced “dozens of critical emails we know exist,” even after the threat of sanctions. They said that included key messages in which she was discussing and “casting doubt” about the core allegations in the lawsuit.

Dylan’s attorneys told the judge that the evidence “strongly suggests Plaintiff has destroyed evidence directly relevant to the central factual allegations in this litigation, and that the evidence may be lost forever. This would mean Plaintiff will never be able to comply with her discovery obligations and the integrity of these proceedings and Defendant’s ability to mount a fair defense have been compromised irretrievably.”

There will be more news on this very soon …

GOOD ON YA BOB!

#bobdylan #dylan #jc #sexallegations #chelseahotel #60s #touruk

The final station on Oldham-born star’s journey

Oldham-born Veteran actor Bernard Cribbins, who starred in the Carry On films, Doctor Who and the 1970 film The Railway Children, has died.

A statement from Gavin Barker Associates said: “Beloved actor Bernard Cribbins OBE has passed away at the age of 93.”

“His career spanned seven decades with such diverse work ranging from films like The Railway Children and the Carry On series, hit 60s song Right Said Fred, a notorious guest on Fawlty Towers and narrating The Wombles.”

“He worked well into his 90s, recently appearing in Doctor Who and the CBeebies series Old Jack’s Boat.”

“He lost his wife of 66 years, Gill, last year.”

“Bernard’s contribution to British entertainment is without question. He was unique, typifying the best of his generation, and will be greatly missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing and working with him.”

Born in Oldham, Mr Cribbins was revered for his versatility and became a favourite with young audiences all over the country as the narrator of The Wombles, as well as for more than 100 appearances on the children’s favourite, Jackanory.

#bernardcribbins #railwaychildren #wombles #carryon #wombles #oldham #drwho

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No street lights, factories closed and bills soaring again

Wholesale gas prices surged again after Vladimir Putin’s regime halved supplies to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

Germany has already condemned the action as a ‘duplicitous game’ and others are predicting energy bills could hit £500 for January.

And as European nations try to buy liquefied natural gas from US, Africa and Middle East there are suggestions that in the UK there could be 1970s-style black-outs, street light bans and cut-backs in manufacturing. Many countries are drawing up contingency plans to cut gas and electricity use by 15 per cent to protect families through the winter.

These include turning off street lights, not heating public swimming pools and shutting down production at some major manufacturers, however more drastic measures may be necessary.

The Electricity System Operator has said the situation could be particularly difficult..Analysis by energy industry experts at consultants suggests the new increase in wholesale prices could see the figure hit the equivalent of £3,420 in October and £3,850 in January

Wholesale gas prices rose to all-time highs of 530p per therm for the coming winter on Wednesday morning.

Moscow has blamed maintenance issues, but the Nord Stream move is widely seen as Moscow ‘weaponising’ gas and deliberately limiting European supplies in retaliation for western sanctions. 

There are fears that Russia could cut off supplies entirely.

Death at the bus stop… the intimacy of loss in Putin’s horror

#russia #putin #moscow #gas #power #electric #oil #ukraine

Does anybody really know what happened here? The bald bloke with TWO umbrellas on a hot day in the UK may already have been seen by police. One arrest has been made …

No matter what the victim did (did he do anything?) he should not be treated like this …

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said one man has been arrested for assault. Enquiries are still ongoing, but police confirmed that they were called to a ‘racially aggravated altercation’ and said ‘this type of behaviour will not be tolerated in any circumstances’.

The victim told the M.E.N he was on his way back from doing his shopping at the Tesco Express on Wilmslow Road, when he noticed a man harassing a homeless person nearby, while his friend stood watching.

“The homeless guy was there just minding his own business – he’s a local homeless man who everybody knows,” he said.

Racist assault caught on camera yesterday in #Cheadle. But who is this man ? Do you know him ? Get in touch. #Edgeley #Stockport
@StockportMBC @My_Stockport @MENnewsdesk pic.twitter.com/fcp7LugOdy

— bro (@kasnawaz) July 26, 2022

#race #black #shame #stockport #cheadle