On the Yorkshire Moors the remnants of the past can be found almost everywhere if one looks with a sharp enough eye; diggings dating back to the times of the Roman occupation, when tin was extracted from under the bleak hillsides and shipped back to the Mediterranean. The ruins of the workings are still referred to by the locals as being the work of 'the old fellas'. Try to visit one of these sites alone on the windiest and wildest and coldest day of the year. The curlews will be gone. The sheep will be down in the valley. The sense of devastation will be invigorating in the extreme. You will say to yourself, "Let me get back down to the valley and into the warmth of the closest pub and the company of my fellow man as soon as possible". These Deep Rantings are the ruins of my workings. I hope you will come back again.
Diversity and choice is what this great land is all about; When I rode the Iron Horse, long ago, with Buffalo Bill, I often used to ask him: "Buffalo, what should I shoot today? A buffalo, a deer, an elk, a bear or an Indian?" Buffalo Bill always used to look at me - in that wild frontier way of his, (which was so charming and at the same time so enigmatic, and... dare I say it... so rather naughty), and always reply in the same no-nonsense manner, "John" he'd say to me, with a smirk on his face as wide as the Great Plains themselves, "it don't matter a fuck what you shoot, so long as you kill some fucking thing. Just pull the trigger."
I was halfway through my final set for the evening when a woman at the bar suddenly went into convulsions and began frothing at the mouth, at the exact same moment as a woman near the front threw her underwear onto the stage - a black satin thong with red and gold lace trim. Naturally I stopped singing and picked up the thong and inspected it closely, becoming so aroused that I had to excuse myself and go to the men's room. I locked the door and quickly took off my pants and my under pants and put the thong on; it was extremely tight, but felt very good as I put my pants back on and stuffed my under pants in my pocket as I hurried back to the stage, where I took up where I'd left off, feeling strangely empowered and inspired by the feel of the new underwear.
As soon as the song was over I located the thong-thrower and pitched my under pants onto her table, whereupon, to my utter amazement, she grabbed them immediately. She waved them above her head and began laughing wildly, kicking her chair back and running off into the ladies room, all of which prompted the rest of the patrons, most of who were pretty well loaded by this time, to begin cheering and clapping louder than they had all evening. Meanwhile, over at the bar, the frother had fallen to the floor, where she continued frothing, even more violently than before, and then began moaning and vomiting as well, whereupon the manager finally called 911.
Back on stage I started another song, as my new (and excitingly anonymous) friend returned to sit back down at her table, looking remarkably refreshed and almost radiantly beautiful and hitching up her already short skirt and crossing her legs in a most provocative manner, affording me a fleeting and tantalizing glimpse of my own under pants; I skipped the next few verses and packed my guitar in record speed. We left together, arm in arm, just as the ambulance was arriving, a spectacular ending to yet another fine evening at the Armpit Inn.