No-Top-Lip

A number of people who read the blog can't get their head around the name "Notoplip" because they are reading it as "Not-op-lip".  Well I have now spelled it out and it is self-explanatory that his he is lacking in the upper lip department.  As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, I am not particularly gifted in this area either hence my suggestion that I might get two for one collagen implants for his birthday.

I have know Notoplip since 1991.  It was at this time that the last of my single friends  "Eddie Cruise" decided to go on an around the world trip.  I was invited to go with him, but travelling has never really interested me.  It's not something that I dislike and I enjoy holidays and different environments but I have never really had the urge to go on voyages of exploration.  I suppose that I have always believed that there is plenty that you can discover right under you nose.  One of my greatest discoveries took place when looking at my feet and a paving stone in my favourite Ibiza night club.  I pondered for moment whilst on my five month visit and decided that I missed Kitten and needed to be with her and that was the precursor to marriage and two children.  Of course, I didn't go home to her but simply conducted a weekend trip to old blighty and exported her to Ibiza

Continuing with the Eddie Cruise" theme;  Eddie Cruise" is so called because when we were in our twenties women regularly said to him "you look like Eddie Kidd" or "you look like Tom Cruise".  Naturally, he was extremely humble and never thought to mention this to anyone else.

So, Eddie Cruise was the last of the line of friends such as Ibanez Man, Car Crash, Mark the Shark and Lights On who had travelled from my school days or my late teenage days of drinking by the Kingston Riverside and had settled down or had moved on.

Eddie Cruise suggested that I take his job working in a night club bar when he left and that is when I met Notoplip and co.  Notoplip had been lodging at Taggot's (Flying Squad) and Eddie Cruise had been there too.  The common bond with these chaps was football, all being players.

It was through meeting Notoplip and Taggot that I developed a circle of friends that I would socialise with for many years and all bar one of who I still see regularly.  There were five of us who used to cause mayhem wherever we went and Kitten described us as being like "a circus coming to town".  She, like many others who had made similar observations, was describing us from the vantage point of being behind a bar in which we were drinking.

There is Notoplip, Billy The Fish,  DA Decorator and Bum Nose as well as myself Swordfish.

I could write realms (as could the News of the World) on our exploits, but it is suffice to say that these friends have proved to be worth their weight in gold to me throughout my 20's and 30's up until and including these difficult days.

I am still in touch with my old friends and I have met many other great friends along the way.  The bulk of my socialising though revolves around the friends I met in my twenties and Notoplip and Sushi have obviously been particularly close at hand during recent times.

It is always reassuring that when you have had a very difficult day like I have today that there is someone who is going to ring you up and take the piss out of you whilst also understanding your position.  It is not a role that a mother or a wife can assume.