It was an emotional evening at Wotsit Towers as I prepared for the last ever* Wine, Western and Wotsits Staying In night.
Much of the past 14 months has been frustrating, bordering on the darn right miserable at times (apart from that lovely spell from 4th July-4th November) but #WWWSI has kept my pecker up in some of the gloomiest moments (i.e. last June, mid November & Jan/Feb).
It had been a chaotic, turbulent week, starting with my first jab, ending with a boiler fitting. I love it so much, do you want to see it? Course you do .....
It is a sentient boiler though, more in keeping with a SiFiPieFri than a WWWSI night. It allows me to set timings etc., but ultimately, it ignores me and makes up its own mind what to do, telling me "it knows best" when it comes to the temperature in my flat.
On Friday evening, it suddenly turned the heating up to full blast, perhaps to warm my wine up? It is helpful like that. At the same time, my boss was messaging me in a bit of a panic. Something had gone wrong in the LIBOR Migration project we don't like to talk about, but I wasn't in the mood for signing onto my laptop and fixing stuff when I had a brioche bun defrosting and tomatoes aerating on the vine.
And to complete the traumatic trilogy, I'd just read about the sad death of Jack Terricloth, frontman of The World/Inferno Friendship Society, a Punk Cabaret act with guest travelling musicians. So instead of the usual 'Uncle Matt's Western Mixtapes' I put their tunes on as a tribute to the great man.
Of course, the Wotsit dice did nothing to help! Does it ever? It wanted to go out with a bang obviously, so it just HAD to be 6. I only had 5 bags of Wotsits left, so I threw in a bag of bacon fries and hoped no one would notice.
It was already 9pm and the dusk was rapidly falling over York. Time to get changed and open the wine, which was easier said than done as it had a wax seal as well as a cork. Why was nothing straightforward tonight?
Sangiovese was the next grape on the list (the word is best said full Italian style with outstretched arms). I'd managed to get a bottle from Sainsbury's which saved the usual £10 shipping fee for just the one bottle of wine.
My initial thoughts were 'yuck' as it hits you with a real fruity sweetness. But then, as it goes towards the back of your mouth and down, a nice fuller darker feeling. I drank the first glass scarily quickly, it was sign of my mental state!
Feeling much happier, I stuck a nice juicy burger on the grill, in the afore mentioned brioche bun with melted blue cheese. I did some gherkins, olives, tomatoes, and a bit of out of date cottage cheese, just for shits and giggles (literally).
Considering tonight was partly an exercise in 'emptying the fridge before my holiday' , it had all worked out pretty well. The burger tasted nicer than it probably looked .....
And it was finally time to go through and watch the film.
I will miss scenes like the one above, not as much as I've missed the inside of pubs, and I suppose there's nothing stopping me settling down to watch a Western and do myself some nice food, I might just go steady on the wine and wotsits.
Our final film then was Rio Bravo, and being ranked as the 5th best ever meant expectations were high ......
And I wasn't disappointed, a definite classic.
The premise was basically that the sheriff John Wayne puts this 'Joe' chap in jail for murder, but Joe has a powerful brother and lots of friends who want to break him out. All John Wayne has to help him guard this Joe fella is a young drunk bloke called Dude (Dean Martin), and an old cripple (which probably definitely is an ableist term in 2021) called Stumpy.
Seems like it should've been SO much easier to break him out than it was, especially as Wayne and Martin kept going for walkies, but I decided to suspend my disbelief. Stumpy, to be fair, was a bit trigger happy but quite often, it was only him guarding the cell.
Luckily. Dean Martin's alcoholism is the sort where it is still fine to drink beer, as long as he avoids wine, spirits and 90's alcopops. He actually catches one injured baddie from a high vantage point above the bar when he bleeds into his pint! It's like being in Guildford 'Spoons all over again.
There is another older guy who wants to help, but John Wayne says no cos he's shite, and the bloke gets himself killed anyway to prove it. But his young apprentice Ricky Nelson starts making a bit of a name for himself, so he eventually joins them. Plus, it means him and Dean Martin can sing together in the jail, for no apparent reason.
There are some funny Mexican goodies for comic relief , and this alluring dishonest woman called Angie Dickenson. John Wayne fancies her, but accuses her of cheating at cards. When Ricky Nelson proves she didn't cheat, John Wayne refuses to apologise anyway. So she apologises to him. For no apparent reason.
It is a great film, honestly, trust me!
I won't spoil the ending, partly cos the wine was strong, but what I can reveal is that the local pub was great. It put me in mind of some Cumbrian classics at places like Holmes Green, High Newton and Tallentire, but also with a glorious spartan wooden boardedness like at Cricketers in Horbury or Sportsman in Huddersfield.
So there we have it! The end* of WWWSI, it has been a fantastic 35 weeks.
*It may return for special occasions like funerals, bar mitzvahs, and baby showers.
Attentions can now turn back to BRAPA full time with the Heaventeenth of May only two days away, so please follow @StymieSi as I career around the GBG pubs of the UK. All packed and ready to go .....
See you all in the future, and thanks very much for reading!
Si