She's a local girl, "Our Shirley"
You can tell. Wee ferrety face, attitude, skinny, I like her.
Fab song, she wrote it, good band too.
Yes, cheers me up.
I have spoken!

On the twentieth day of the month I made an amazing resolution. Life in my leisure hours had been strenuous during the whole of September and most of October, so when I awoke with another frightful hangover, I decided emphatically to abstain for the duration. Teetotal.

I had to tell someone.

“Teetotal!” exclaimed Mrs Pouncer, much shocked. “You shouldn’t joke about such things and you in the throes of a hangover. Surely a hair of the dog at dinner?”
“Not one drop.”
“Tut tut Achilles, one glass of wine.” she persisted.
“Not even if it was champagne. My mind’s made up. Drink is a curse and I’m done with it for I can’t stand it.”
“Nobody is asking you to stand it, I’ll get them.” she explained, “I am not without means.”
“It’s no odds,” I said “not another drop will I taste –“
“Stop, stop!” she interrupted, more shocked than ever, “Don’t say anything rash for you might be struck down dead and then you’d be sorry for what you said. Do you mean to tell me that you are going teetotal altogether?”
“Hardly. I’m not that desperate, I wouldn’t care to go all that length, but I’m going to be teetotal until Martinmas.”
“Well I think you foolish Achilles,” she said, “October of all months. Why, summer is hardly over and Christmas is coming. Could you not put it off for a more sensible time?”
“No, October is the month for me, forbye, it’s half over. I tell you I’m thraiped with it.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s neither muckling nor mickling.” I explained.
“Are you taking a rise out of me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well just talk as your mother and father brought you up to talk then. Now sither, we won’t go over the ins and outs of this, but I think I aught to talk to your mother. What do you say to that?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered, hanging my head.
“Well don’t look like you’ve lost a shilling and found a sixpence, you’re not dead yet. Straighten up! Now sither, you’re not a young man, you have a long way to go, but you can’t do it by thisen. Think on.”

She left me feeling she had said something sage and shrewd although I was unable to fathom quite what she was getting at. It took a couple of drinks before I understood.

Daphne reminds us how much easier it is to rise than fall. For many, the very prospect of modified cloth cutting is too much and they hang themselves (quite ingeniously) in the front hall stairwell.
A young neighbour of mine did that. I discussed it with my closest friend.*

“Why d’ya think he did it? There must have been an alternative.”
“He was tired. He couldn’t face starting again. There was no alternative.”

I love when laymen give an opinion on economics. Small business men are the best. They come out with the funniest remarks. What they never consider is that they are testing predictions against an intelligent system. They haven’t a hope.

*My closest friend lies buried in the ash pits of Lanarkshire, put there by his lazy doltish family.

For Inkspot

Three Deborah Kerrs in Colonel Blimp and three here at

Cape to Rio

I know which is my favourite.

Because I'm Worth it.

You may be interested to know that I shall soon be opening a Berkshire branch of AHK Maroon Chiropractology Limited.
I shall cater for sciatica (leg pain) sport injury, migraine, stress, bullying in the workplace, slipped disc and arthritis.
I have already insured my hands for One Million Pounds at Lloyds of London. That is £100 000 per finger!

I am presently auditioning 25 year old assistants. You know who I mean, no make up, fresh, beautiful, pony tail, anais anais. I will pay full equity rates plus 50%. You must not skimp on professionalism.

Berkshire is wonderful. I love it. Sooooo bucolic. Constable country.
Its lanes are spattered with charming pubs and twists and bends which the motor just adores.
One strange thing, the livestock form swastikas when feeding in the field!
I assume the farmers have a sense of humour and lay out their cattle cake upon the sward in that unfortunate symbol for some English reason that is beyond me.
It's like the hoax forest swastika in East germany.

With me along some B road yet unknown,
That just divides the desert from the sown
Where name of Costa and McDonalds scarce is known
And pity Gordon Brown on his throne

Here with a Loaf of Bread not far from Slough
A Grand Cuvee, a GPS - and Thou
Beside me panicking in the wilderness
And Berkshire is Paradise enow.

Ah, fill the Cup:-what boots it to repeat
How time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!

For some time now I have had this terrrrible realisation.

Within the next five to ten years I will suffer an embolism. I will be confined to a Bath chair and only the philanthropy of the Royal Society will keep me from the poorhouse.

Worse, I will be provided with the services of the most beautiful and magnificent woman to care for me. I shall be unable to move, react or speak. I will write notes in a small crabbed hand to her which she will ignore.

Worse, in the course of taking me to the bar and putting a straw in my mouth her magnificent body will brush past me at every opportunity and there will be no way for me to react or cop a feel.

Worse, all this will be plain to her and she will take advantage of me, pretending to listen as I try and whisper in her perfumed ear whereupon she will take the complete opposite meaning quite wilfully.

Worse, she will answer enquiries on my behalf taking care that the answers she gives cause the most consternation.

Worse, she will be punishing me for a lifetime’s slacking and wasting and dissolution. I will deserve it and know in my heart that I deserve it.

Today, Mater and I enjoyed the West End sunshine and pushed out through the Byres Road throng for lunch in Ashton Lane.. She was on particularly good form and never once brought up her disappointment that Peter Mandelson was back in cabinet for the third time and I have yet to be called. (such high expectations). We had lunch in a little Italian bistro and there were no cracks in the crockery and the ladies’ lavatory was clean and well stocked with paper towels and soap. Result!
We were in her crowd. That is to say 50 000 Glasgow West Enders of all ages; involved at the university, or in art or the media or just plain flamboyant. Ask Eryl, she knows what I’m talking about.
We had a bottle and a half of some Italian wine which was red I believe. She put it away like the old days and we stumbled off over the cobbles for a fag and a coffee and a sticky bun. In the next hour, we watched another multitude, there were no clones, none of them were ugly and Viviane Westwood would have passed unremarked.
I am so old.
Hey! I noticed young men are back into Bono boots! The ones you tuck your trousers into, with straps and buckles and stuff. Dead 1980’s.When the fucking Hell did that happen?

CSI Miami vs CSI Glasgow.

Consider the scene. A man is engrossed in a private passion when from 36000 feet a small meteor of blue ice, not the size of a football, crashes through his roof killing him instantly.

Miami

Within the hour, CSI Miami arrive, they take samples, temperatures, they shine a laser up through the holes in the ceilings to verify trajectories. In another hour they have the flight path of the plane and the name of the stewardess who pressed the button.

Glasgow.

Three days later, CSI Glasgow kick in the door.
They are appalled by the crockery in the sink and the piles of bed linen awaiting laundry uplift. They step round the body, sneering at the red tartan pyjamas. The blue ice has melted over a pleasing Turkish rug.

“What a stink!”
“Jesus look at this, he’s been so drunk he never made it to the bog”
“Dirty…drunken…bastard”
“Aye.”
“Christ look at that”
“What?”
“There’s a hole in the roof and the lazy fucker hasn’t even put a bit of felt over it.”
“What an arsehole.”
“Drink is a terrible thing”
“You said it mate”
“Right, call it in, I’ll see if there’s any whisky left in the house.”

As they return to their flashing car, they comment on the state of Scottish alcoholism.

“Did you see how his dick was stuck in that syrup tin?”
“ Yeah. Now, that WAS fucking weird.”

That historic meeting.

AHK: Clarissa, darling! What can I get you?
CLdeM P: A taxi?
AHK: I tried to warn you. Brandy, that’s good for shock.
CLdeM P: I thought you were being modest. Jesus! Make it a Bushmills and coke.
AHK : Shall I supersize that?
CLdeM P : What do you think?
AHK : It’s just shock, it will wear off.
CLdeMP : I fucking hope not. Oh God, those emails!
AHK : You said they were erotic
CLdeM P : Yes, but at the time, I imagined they were sent by…
AHK : Who? Cary fucking Grant?
CLdeM P : Well, not Norman fucking Wisdom.
AHK : Cheers.
CLdeM P : Sante.
AHK : Another?
CLdeM P : Keep them coming and what the hell is that?
AHK : What is what?
CLdeM P : I take it you have nothing in your pocket?
AHK : I’m sorry, it has a mind of its own just now.
CLdeM P : Well can’t you drape a coat over your lap: it’s distracting?
AHK : It has been a problem; there isn’t a stone wall left unmolested in Scotland.
CLdeM P : You’d stand a better chance with a stone wall.
AHK : I’ve got gravel rash for Christ’s sake.
CLdeMP : Are you quite sure your parents weren’t related?
AHK : God, I need another too.
CLdeM P : In that case, get to the bar!
AHK : I can’t stand up now. It happened when you walked in.
CLdeM P : Carry your coat in front of you.
AHK :.Carry my coat? I could fucking hang it on it.
CLdeM P : Jesus, call him over then.
AHK : I could hang an anvil off it.
CLdeM P : Yeah, yeah, just call him over.
AHK : So you’ll stay for another?
CLDdeM P : God! Why not?

Cont. page 94