The Power of Spite

I suppose everyone I know hasn't won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, but one old-timer who used to drink in my local is the one who has come closest, and I suspect the only one who was robbed.

Bob is the sort of person for whom the word cantankerous seems too mild, mind, and I suspect that he has been often bored out of his mind so picks fights for the entertainment value. I recall once him meeting Istvan Csicsery Ronay when the latter was visiting from the USA.

Bob: "Do you know what the worst country in the world is?"
ICR: "America?"

[Pause]

Bob: "Ah, but do you know what the best country in the world is?"
ICR: "No sir, I do not."
Bob: "America."


And then they went on to talk about all the places they'd both worked at.

But Bob also has endless supplies of bile and venom, and felt hard done by in his own country - although he once annoyed Thatcher by drinking all the whisky in No 10. He was involved in the Pugwash grouping, and is the expert on the chemistry of wool. He's also more likely than not to tell you to eff off.

A few years back, he disappeared from the pub for a while, having broken his hip, but he reappeared, and frankly was less than lucid, going through a hard drinking phase. I could take half an hour before I'd had enough - I was the smartest person in the world, I was stupid, I was a ****... I shouldn't go to any of the meetings at work, etc.

And then, again, he vanished. He'd had a row with someone he'd known for forty years, and a row with one of the bar staff, and stopped coming in. I ran into him around town, but you'd more likely get abuse than a welcome. Every so often you'd hear that he'd been thrown out of a pub.

Bear in mind he must be 93 or more.

Then I heard he was in hospital. Prostate trouble. Possibly his heart. The prognosis was not good; he was moved to a hospice. Whilst he is as much a pain in the butt as anyone I know, I miss the bastard. And you make allowances for a once smart man with failing faculties, whose friends have all died.

"I know nothing," he used to say, "I'm from Barcelona."

Then he'd go outside and piss against the wall. And come back and tell you how much the Chinese and the Japanese respect him. I believe it, too.

His old friend visited him in hospital, and he lay there exposing his balls, refusing to cover up. XXXX off, he told her.

Last night I heard that he'd been spotted, walking past the pub. Not yet at death's door then.


Today I saw him in town - lit cigarette on his lip. There's life in the old dog yet.