Whoa, who's this - Young & Confused of Chapel en le Frith ? - Why is he confused ? . . . Easy - Woman Trouble, innit ?

Yea, and right nobly on the Twelfth of Never he didst say,

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, up stepped a young Jawja boy, a bachelor boy, the best that could be found, then a dense, dark cloud fell on the land. It was a flock of dense seagulls blown off course by three little Billy goats' gruff. (Plays havoc with their sense of direction and is generally not recommended, save in the direst of circumstances, i.e. famine, hallucination or dubious plots.)

Knew a bloke once who went to Blackpool every year "To see the hallucinations." Strange trip ?

A sudden, fierce, Gulf Stream-induced thermal brought on a collective flock's-trots and the gulls whooped and swooped and readily took such sport as it offered with new-found glee. Plop. Plop-plop.

"Aw, shucks . . . . Ma Daddy'll git meaner'n'hell now !" cried the Jawja Boy. "Shoo, li'l birdy, shoo." Just a voice in the wilderness, alas !

Bygge Ploppe ! Oh, to be a bird . . especially the one that can go "Thwrrupp" willy nilly and hit the sweet spot !

One got me dad once in Piccadilly Circus - worst bloody circus we ever went to . . not a hefferlump in sight . . and the only monkey was tied to a spiv photographer . . Do they still have Spivs . . or Johnnie Boys . . or are they all just a sub-set of 'Geezers' now ?

(Alas, they did not have 'Ye Têche Thyself Booke of Byrds' in those selfsame days, and knew not their seagulls from their pidgins, nor even their Byrds from their Flying Burritos . . . "Over 'ere son . . . on me 'ead . . phwoarr, that's 'ot !" - "Yeah, it oughta be . . it's an 'ot Burrito Number Two, ya pillock !")

Did you hear about the lad who entered the World's Largest Turd Contest ? - - He really threw himself into his conditioning routine heart and ar-soul, and just a week before the contest he broke the world record in training. He told his manager and asked him what he should do. The wily old dog told him to tell no one . . "Keep it under yer 'at, my son !"

Enter, stage left, an umbilical imbecile who spake thus:

"Well, what it is . . . This is what it is . . . . . I was looking up at a likkle chimbley when I got off of the bus at the ternimus, right, and didn't notice the puggle, right, an' I got really REALLY wet, right ? And I nearly DIED, right ! It was fweezin' and I had to go to hoss-pickle in an amber lance. Hey, mister, what does 'Triage' mean ? "

"It means 'Exit, stage left', from whence you came, dolt !"

"Like 'Wow', Man. Isn't that like in Math ?

He truly had lucky lips. Curiously, his Saturday job was relief Billy Goat herdsman. He had lately been feeding them his meagre McGrats so he could eat the Billy goat rations himself, so poor were he and his ilk.

His ilk died not long afterwards. No more ilky milky.

Sometimes, when shit happens, it really happens . . . . . . eh ?

Suddenly, there am I, three-dimensional and centre stage, if you can call this mock medieval cess-pit scenario a stage. They're asking ME to pick up the tab for this theme for a dream and, to make matters worse, the outraged Daddy of the Jawja Boy plays the spread with some high rollers and they have a few serious markers - he owes them BigTime - so he's fixin' to "Sue yo' ass, boy !" to try and get out from under . . I've been quoted a ballpark figure !

This is truly a first for me. I wonder will there ever be a next time . .

"And what would YOU lot of shitheads know about it ?", I enquire of the rabble, still seething as before, only now more side-glidewards than hokey-cokey fashion, the downpour having slowed to a torrent by this time, (and a good foothold being in short supply, and therefore half a groat more than yesterday).

Little do they know it, but they are in the process of inventing that timeless endeavour now known and loved by all as "The Slosh".

Some mad woman is trying to tidy all this lot up with 'Thyake an' Vac', but she gets bowled over as a Hawaiian racing canoe charges across the mire. I'm relieved to note that she means nothing to me, nor to anyone else, it seems.

"Book 'em, Danno. Murder One."

"Rico . . you go in the back."

"Duh . . Okay, Eliot . . ."

It's getting weird . . . but good. Like in The 'A' Team, no one's actually getting hit. There's a screech of tyres, an explosion, the all clear siren is heard. I'm trying frantically to get it to rewind but it has a life of its own now . .

Then, up jumps Jarrow's jet-lagged giant jesting Geordie juggernaut, jovial Jimmy 'Geronimo' Jensen, jaunty Japanese genital jiving jewellery gently jingle-jangling, gingerly juxtaposing generously jaundiced genetically Germanic jowls.

"Gee Whizz. It's you, Jimmy !" says I.

How do I know him ? Where has he come from ? Too many imponderables . . .

The self-appointed site foreman, he's a loud and obnoxious fellow to boot, (which is why Boot hates his guts). He fancies himself as a sort of a John Wayne with an extra five frothing, free-range foreskins.

He hails, from far too close to my lug 'ole, "Say fella, let me start by givin' ya a fer instance !" (A voice inside urges "Don't talk to him !")

I bark back at him, "Sorry, I'll have to take a rain check on that fer instance ! There's too much shit happening in these parts. I gotta split, man. See y'around."

He seems to empathise . . as you do now and then in the company of complete strangers with reassuringly horizontal furrows. Just don't ask where, okay.

So, Daddy's home and, there being by now no further business, the fat lady sings, it's J. Arthur's gong time again, the bonny lass comes roond with the Butterkist and we all go for a sluice and a McSlice and then the midnight trolleybus, where a legendary drunk plays the spoons all the way to the Fox & Pheasant, where they throw him off . .

Only a few know he is the conductor, trying to catch the lock-in . . .

"Have a nice day" . . . . says someone who, had they said it sooner, would also have got shat on from on high.