Placenames and the Thought Police
Posted on Monday, May 21, 2007I hadn’t been in Bombay Mick’s for a while but the decor was the same and so were the clientele. Though the full noonday sun beat down on the street like an iron-mill hammer, the inside of the bar was dark as a coalmine twice as hot. A fan hung from the filthy ceiling and creaked as it turned slowly in the crepuscular half-light. Cockroaches scuttled among the empty bottles on the floor and a faint aroma of opium lingered in the fetid air.
Eyes followed me from the shadows as I approached the counter where a fat, sweating figure hunched over an ancient chess-board.
Howya, Mick. Gimme a pint.
Jesus! Bombay Mick jumped up and held out a giant ham-like hand. Bock! Is it yourself? We thought you were dead. We all thought you were killed that time the trainload of nitroglycerine went over the Victoria Falls.
It’s me all right, Mick, I assured him. Alive and, ha-ha, kicking.
Well, by God! Bombay Mick shook his head and scratched his balding, ponytailed skull. By God, he repeated. Well by God! Are you sure you weren’t killed in that gunfight with the Yakuza while rescuing the nephew of the king of Bhutan?
No.
Well then, maybe it was the time you were prospecting for titanium on Jupiter and a broccoli-monster attacked your crew but, forsaking all thought of personal safety, you leapt at it armed only with an osteo-knife?
That was a different time, and I wasn’t killed. Eh, Mick? My pint?
Oh Jesus, Bock, sorry. He reached over the foaming tankard and wiped his hand on his grimy vest.
Mick, I said, after flinging back the pint. You’re looking depressed. You’re looking worse than you did when your team lost the inter-pub over-seventies lap-dancing competition.
Bombay Mick sighed. My poor mother was very disappointed after all the training. But that’s not what’s worrying me, Bock. The Police were here last night. Really worked me over.
The cops? I was shocked. But I thought you paid the Chief of Police a gigantic sum every week to keep them off your back?
Mick waved my words away with a contemptuous scowl. Pah! he spat. Not the cops. I mean the Police.
You don’t mean - I started.
That’s exactly what I mean, nodded Bombay Mick. The Thought Police.
Oh no. What was it?
The name, he said. They don’t like my name.
What? But it’s your name.
Maybe, he said, but they don’t want anyone calling themselves “Bombay”.
So what can you call yourself?
He shrugged. Mumbai Mike. They don’t like “Mick” either.
That’s terrible, I sympathised.
It is, he agreed, but I feel sorry for the other bar-owners.
Indeed, I nodded. Peking Doc for instance.
Exactly, he said. And then there’s Dirty Dick.
Oh God, I groaned.
The list goes on, Bombay Mick handed me another foaming tankard of ale. We had a couple of nuns in here this afternoon collecting for Mother Teresa of Kolkata. Nobody would give them a penny.
I was a bit hungry. Come on Mick, I said, I’ll buy you dinner. Do you remember that place we used to eat - the one that did that great chicken Madras?
You mean Chicken Chennai, don’t you? Police tore them up this morning.
God, I said. What next? The Torino Shroud? Firenze Nightingale? Eau de Köln?
Mumbai Mike looked at me as if I’d gone mad.
Ah come on now, Bock. They’re not Asian cities. Why would the Thought Police be interested in them?
Stumble it!
YOU'VE BEEN SHOUTING ABOUT ...
May 21st, 2007
That’s going to totally ruin a verse in “Down Under” by Men at Work. Oh well.
May 21st, 2007
Bruxelles?
May 21st, 2007
hey u dirty limerick scum git, im the new sheriff, i abuse people better than u,
May 21st, 2007
Oh dear. It looks like we have our first genuine fool visiting.
May 22nd, 2007
No! I was the first genuine fool! Me! There’ll be no pretenders to my Fool’s Cap. No Young
TurkOttomanIstanbullshitter will usurp me.May 22nd, 2007
Can I still blog under my Nom de Plume, or has it to be a Nom Phen?
May 22nd, 2007
Does this mean an end to Delhi Belly? p.s.I see Willie has figured out how to get that computer on his minister’s desk on to the interweb then!
May 22nd, 2007
where and when will it end? *sighing*
May 22nd, 2007
I was thinking about the Bombay verse.
May 22nd, 2007
Bout time… and that shaggin caff in Dublin should change its name from ‘Mao’ to ‘Beloved Leader’, I think they have another branch out in the boro’ of Kingstown.. (not Jamaica, mon)
May 22nd, 2007
nothing to do with ur topic, but thought u might enjoy this vid on i-rack
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/49148/
May 22nd, 2007
For a minute there I thought Sting was going to show up and order Bombay Duck. Shows how wrong you can be.
May 23rd, 2007
Fuck me, I was going to say “Thank God, at least it wasn’t Sting,” but someone beat me to it.
Sincerely,
Full-figured Sparrow
May 23rd, 2007
They can pry the empty bottle of Bombay out of my cold,dead (drunk) hands.
May 23rd, 2007
bombay mick’s, Bombay mix! now i get it! crap.
May 24th, 2007
Sam: OK. Your the fool That guy was just a cretin.
Mr Sneeze: You have to ask a social worker’s permission.
Galwaywegian : I’ve checked. Delhi belly is all right. For now.
Savannah: It’ll all end in tears.
Sassy: You mean the Mumbai Mumble.
Cionan: You reminded me of a guy I knew who used to sing a song called “Churchtown Rock” because he thought that was its name.
Frank: Thanks
Dick and Sparrow: Snap.
Devin: Mumbai Sapphire? Nah. It don’t work for me neither.