Me and the laydeez VI

I don't even have to ask and they hold my drinks. Richard Gere's got nothing on me.

My only problem is remembering their names!

Screen Icons (Two)

In an almost unprecedented and certainly unheard of as happening before coincidence, the DJ Mike Read has today been declared completely alive.

Personally I think that popular radio and televison would have died in the 70s without him, not to mention London's Theatreland.

Dear old Tallulah!

A regular fixture slumped at the bar of Club Derrig, Madamoiselle Tallulah "Fizzy-Shenanigans" McGuinness can be relied on for a full evening of entertainment, bawdy stories, and tailfeather-shaking.

To meet her one would think what a charming, if a tad sozzled, bohemian-type cracker. One would have no idea of the sad and troubled life she has led.

I think, therefore, it only right that I put on record her pitiful story, as told to me by her over the course of an extremely long and tedious evening. I was fortunate enough to have a tape recorder with me to capture Tallulah in all her glory, and I have faithfully transcribed her interminable monologue for your edification.

"...and er, yes. What? Ah, yes. Yes! Quite right. Stick another one in there, will you. Oh, go on then, a double. What? Oh yes."

"I was born by the river, in a little tent. No, wait a minute. That was Sam Cooke. Wasn't it? No, I remember now. Playing in the snow with my sled. Old Rosebud....whatever became of it? Wheeee! I used to go. Wheee! Down the hill. Very fast, you know. Ever so fast. WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE! No, hang on, that was the fat feller - Horse'n'Welles. That Citizen Caned chappie. Oh, yes. My round already? Gosh, comes round like nobody's business, eh?"

"You know, there's no chicken in these crisps. Just the flavour they extract from them. Go through a wringer or similar, I imagine. The rest ends up in turkey roll. All true."

"I had that Pablo Pizzicato paint me once. It was his blue period. Couldn't get the stuff off for days. There I was wandering about like some ancient Brit all woaded-up. Can you imagine? Really? No, surely not! What, still? Well, I must get in that bathroom and have a good old scrub at it. Don't have any Ajax on you I suppose?"

"No, listen. Big conspiracy I heard about. Ssshh! Lean in a bit, can't have just anyone knowing this. I am sworn to secrecy. Can't tell a soul. My life depends on it. Gordon Brown. You know him? Big chap, on the telly a lot? No, not all that good at smiling. Ssssh. Scottish. Scottish! Can you believe it? There's hundreds of them. Running the country. An undercover network of them. Yes, me too. Totally shocked. No, I'd never marry one...Oh? Did I? Well, there's a turn up!"

"I do remember my dear old Mum. Played lead tuba in our musical group Superb Cuban Tuba Turbans. We all played tubas. Mum, Dad, and me. All eight of us. What, already?Oh go on then, just a little one. Yes, yes, a little double. Yes, Suburban Tuba Cooper Cubanos - a great little twelve-piece band. All on tubas. You know, there wasn't a place we weren't thrown out of after our first number. Not ready for it, you see, too many closed minds. Ava Gardner, you know? Sorry, Avant Gardner. Oh, absolutely. Or that might have been the Seven Little Foys? James Craggy, eh?"

"Look. LOOK! I bet you can't do this. Watch now. Watch...One! Two! Hup!.......CHRIST ALL-BLOODY MIGHTY. WHAT WAS I THINKING?.....Do you do first aid?"

"OK, where were we. OK. Right. Yes I was at the OK corral, shooting it out with the Clantons and the Earps. BANG! BANG-BANG-BANGEDY! BANG! Real bullets. Whizzing by like nobody's business. LOOK OUT, WYATT! Ooops. No, it wasn't me. No, I wasn't even pointing it at him. Well, I didn't pull the trigger. Not hard. Sorry....Hang on....NOW HOLD ON JUST A DOGGONE MINUTE! That was Burt Lancashire. I wasn't even in the country at the time. Stop confusing me with your offer of drinks. Well, if I must."

"I was in outer space once. That or the Caledonian Road. And I had a hat."

"Hey! Wake up! Here's a thing: I used do that wing-walking. You know, on the wing of an aeroplane. Very dangerous, I can tell you. Need all your powers of concentration, balance, and confidence. Couldn't do it now, of course. Terrible thing - I saw a girl fall off once. GET DOWN! That's what they used to shout at me. GET DOWN! I would wave back, not a care in the world. GET DOWN! THE PLANE CAN'T TAKE OFF WITH YOU UP THERE YOU DRUNKEN IDIOT! The more I waved the more they shouted. Those were the days."

"I ran into this bar once and started singing and dancing. Dressed in buckskins, and waving a gun around. How did it go? Window shopping eyes-a-popping...the best of times, the worst of times. Doris Daze? Why clever you - yes, she was there too! How on earth did you know?"

"Derek Griffiths and Michael Fish? Amazing! Well, you learn something new every day."

"I've got the most tremendous memory for conversations. I can recite word-for-word YES I SAID WORD FOR WORD - FOR GOD'S SAKE PAY ATTENTION WILL YOU! Yes, anything anyone has ever said to me. Absolutely.Word-for-blooming-word."Hello." They say that a lot. And there was one I remembered earlier. Damned if I can...oh yes, here goes, "Get out of the bloody way." Yes, a remarkable memory."

"Did you know, I go out walking after midnight? In the moonlight, just like we used to do? Just walk away Renee you won't see me follow you back home. Keep it up, two, three, four! Oh the aim of our patrol...what? Peter Purves? Once. Up a ladder. Big bandanna he had and terrible acne. Shocking. Oh you naughty boy, go on then. Another one for the road never did anyone any harm. Gosh, you look very tall. Like a giant. What? No idea. Did I fall? Give me a hand up will you? HEY! GET YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF MY BOA!"

And there, I'm afraid, the tape ran out.

Unfortunately, Tallulah was able to go on for many hours more.

Screen Icons (One)

R.I.P Mike Read.

I was only chatting to him the other day, telling him how his greatest televisual work had been done in Runaround.

The campaign for the re-release of his version of 'The Ugly Duckling' starts here. You can sign up to my petition to Gordon Brown, PM, here: www.petitions.pm.gov.uk/uglyduckling

Leonard di Caprico: An Apology

I am really, really sorry.

But next time, just sign the guest book or you'll be barred for life as well. There's a good lad.

The Important Things In Life (Part Two)

A Derrig cannot live by bread alone.

Yes, I'm going to write about sustenance. In fact the three key elements of a healthy and nutritious diet: food and drink.

Let us begin the lesson with the noble doner kebab, that mighty tower of off-cuts and floor-sweepings pressed into a majestic rotating tube of fat-dribbling "meat". See how it slowly browns as each side nears the searing heat of the flame! See how the grease runs in torrents down the column of cooking animal flesh! See how it solidifies into waxy droppings! No - none of that rabbit food with it please. Just stuff slivers of it into a pitta (God was having a very good day when he came up with that particular bread product) and I'll be on my way.

The kebab is unsurpassed as a hot-food product, coming barely second in the overall rankings of solid nutrition to Walker's Cheese and Onion French Fries which edge it on the grounds of not having to be heated and also available across the counter at Club Derrig.

Next I turn to drink, as is so often the case, and the mighty Mangers "Irish Cider".

Too many drinks producers think they can get away with a canny bit of marketing and the average English drooligan will lap it up. Not so with Mangers, which is reassuringly expensive for all those who buy me one, and well off the radar to the heavy and determined drinker. Full of satisfying chemicals brought together in a secret formula, it's one of the few drinks one can consume at length and without fear of any kind of morning after implications. A lovely weak Tizer colour as well.

But, as a man with a palate that requires the fresh stimulation of new and exciting flavours, I rarely let an evening pass these days without recourse to the drink of the Gods: Jagermeister.

I did not actually invent this drink, but if I had it would taste exactly like it does: alcoholic Liquifruta - a cough medicine from my youth, which makes Jagermeister a nostalgic delight too.

And it doesn't stop there. Jagermeister can be mixed with ABSOLUTELY ANY DRINK IN ANY PROPORTIONS and the result is heaven in a glass. My own favourite recipe is a cocktail called the Eezy-Queezy, mixing Thai fish sauce, milk, ghee, coca-cola, tequila, and the Jagermeister. I'm not going to reveal the precise recipe, so experiment yourselves and see what you come up with.

And again, for an alcoholic drink, it has no nasty after effects and does not show up in breath and blood tests. Most Friday evenings you will find me at Club Derrig necking a dozen or so pints of Mangers, followed by six or seven large Jagermeister-based cocktails. Amazingly I will be none the worse for wear by the time work rolls around on a Monday morning!

But do drink sensibly.

Me and the laydeez V

No tongues! No lips even!


However, I did pocket 79p off the increasingly money-oriented Mr. Thomas, as the result of the drunken bet that led to this embarassing photograph.

Blank looks

A number of readers have asked, "Hey, Your Majesty, what's with the blank spaces in your beautifully constructed blog?"

"What blank spaces?" I replied.

"These ones here here and here, " they replied back at me.

"Well, that's easy. It's where lovely little snippets of entertaining film featuring me are placed. But you lot can't actually see it unless you've got access to a computer that doesn't belong to the employer. Unless you work in Communications, of course. So look at them on your PC at home. Or Mac if you are that bonkers."

"Oh," they said. "Right."

Trivial? Not at all!

You would, of course, be amazed if I wasn't Club Derrig's 'Big Cheese' of Trivial Pursuit, and rightly so. Because I am that very Huge Gorgonzola. And I demonstrated this again last week in a triumphant victory over the forces of Ignorance (Dicky 'Loon' Evans) and Befuddlement (Mr. Bottling Thomas).

Having said that I must here query some of the research behind the questions and answers provided in the game. As a master of the inconsequential and generally uninteresting I am always disturbed when detail is overlooked. It is by this means that misapprehensions enter our culture and poison our communal knowledge base.

For example, take Caesar. Made a very fine salad (if you can stomach that kind of thing) but a Roman Emperor? Are you having a laugh?

Moneymaker!

I spent last night drinking with that lunatic Dickie Evans.

The lad is full of madcap schemes that won't work in a million years and spends most of his time expounding on these to anyone careless enough to allow him to catch their ear. Personally I have never heard so much nonsense spilling from one person's mouth.

His detailed expositions usually end with a crafty request for investment of hard cash, which, he explains carefully, can go down as well as up.

Well, as you might imagine, I was having none of it. I wished the foolish boy well and retired to my bed, my wallet safely unopened.

At about three in the morning I awoke with a start, my brain feverish with a cunning scheme of my own devizing. I often find I am inspired by a copious intake of alcohol, but on this occasion I surpassed even my usual brilliance.

I had formulated quite fully in my sleep an ingenious way of making money from the card game "poker-card". I have but a slight grasp of its rules and concepts, but I am familiar enough with it to understand that gambling is a major component.

My plan is to raise money from "investors" whose money will go to players to use for "stake cash money". The return on the capital is determined by how well the player performs. All very simple so far, I'm sure you will agree.

Now pay attention, here comes the science: I bring the two parties together by use of the Wide World Virtual Web! I will advertise my service on poker-card game sites.

I make my money in paid-for advertising on my site and in a small commission on the stake cash money returns.

And my dream even revealed to me a brilliant name for my wizard scheme: Derrig's Original Shark Stakee.

If you would like to get in on the ground floor of this opportunity, please send me a cheque for your investment (minimum £1000). You won't regret it.

Sometimes I just don't know how I do it!

Derrig famille

Meet mad uncle Walter Derrig. Bought all his drinks from the village sweetshop.

Now that's a real man!

Club Derrig Goes PR Crazy

I have decided that it would be good for the Club to advertise in cinemas, and have developed a short advertisement for filmgoers' pleasure. By this means I hope to coax in a higher calibre of clientele than some of the dregs that manage to drag themselves up to the ninth floor.



If that doesn't pull in the customers I don't know what will.

Team building II - The Rotters

So much for my shed, then. Who said they were completer-finishers?

Team building I

Today I am taking my team out on a 'team-building' exercise.

Or 'shed-building' as I prefer to call it.

My garden's in a right state and I need somewhere for my tools. I don't hold out much hope of a decent result from this bunch of turnip-heads, but let's see what the day brings, eh?

On tidiness

Those chosen few who have had the pleasure of visiting Chateau Derrig will know that I run a tight and tidy ship.

There's a place for everything, and everything is in it's place. I am, by nature, a man of great tidiness: orderliness, economy, neatness, and method are my watchwords.

I find that light dusting comes as a relief that is bordering on the physical, and hoovering is almost too much to bear in an ecstasy-type of way. My home is a haven of hygiene and harmony.

I spend many an hour poring over my Visitor's Book, delighting in such comments as:

"Kim and Aggie eat your hearts out!"

"I felt I could eat off the floor if he could have bothered to cook anything for me."

"An insect-o-cutor in every room! How very now!"

"Sadly, the sterile boiler suit and slippers he supplied for my visit didn't fit and I only had time to write in this blasted book."

"I would like to thank the lady at number 28 for being decent enough to let us use her loo."

This kind of ultra-cleanliness requires dedication and a substantial time-commitment.

Although, luckily I don't feel the need to bother at work. *


*Except of course for when 'she who must be obeyed' is on one of her nine-minute wonder displacement rampages.

A Three-Towel Conundrum

Loathe as I am to get into discussions of decency in a public arena, I find I am strangely drawn to what I believe is known as the three-towel conundrum.

Picture the scene, if you dare.

I, the Derrig of the Derrigs of that ilk, was returning from a visit to some of my admirers in a far-off part of the provinces. After nights of carousing and debauchery I was returning to my abode (adobe? check sp.) and was unceremoniously forced from my mode of transport by inclement weather.

Approaching a nearby inn, I was offered rooms which on taking the six flights of stairs up, I found locked from the inside! I descended to my landlord and expressed dismay at this turn of affairs. He immediately provided a ladder by which I could gain access via the outside of the building through the window, claiming to have mislaid the key.

I mounted the ladder and ascended, passing by a window where my view was arrested and then shocked beyond belief.

My sight was struck by a most curious tableau. A young woman –clothed! – was laid athwart the bed, facing the wall. At her back stood another young woman having apparently only momentarily stepped form the shower. She was all too clearly dripping wet all over, beaded in droplets of warm water which ran in rivulets down her torso, damp about the body and arraigned only in a towel enclosing her presumably wet tresses and a second towel knotted at her waist. Imagine the view!

The scene bordered on one of those dream-like visions captured by deChirico.

Barely an hour later I completed the ascent to my room and fell panting on my bed.

The next morning I approached the landlord and questioned him closely on the inhabitants of the room, which was clearly located beneath mine.

At first he looked shocked and then became pale.

“Answer me, landlord!” I demanded.

“Why good sir,” he quoth. “There is a tale I fear to tell.”

“Tell on,” I said. “I fear no words.”

“Well, sir – that room remains locked and we have discarded the key at sea for the sake of the sanity of our other guests. The room was once occupied by two maidens, thrown together by chance in a travelling incident.”

“Forsooth, a likely enough tale, mayhap,” I saith verily unto him.

“One of them,” continueth he, “availed herself of the bathing facilities and without a thought for her room-mate used BOTH towels, being wet all over. Her room-mate tried in vain to conceal her wrath, but soon flew into a rage and tore the towels from her, and used them in a merciless and quite gratuitous flogging of her hapless victim. In the morning we knocked on the door but got no answer. We were forced to break into the room and all we found…”

“Yes? Yes? Get on with it man!” I ejaculated.

“Was three towels!”

“You said there were but two of the hellish items!” I cried, staggering away from the landlord.

“Did I? No it was definitely three.”

I stumbled from the Inn clutching my chest, bewailing the curse that had fallen upon me and how I had been condemned to recall the vision of just the two towels.

But, having said that, the vision has often been a great comfort to me in my many hours of need.

The Important Things In Life (Part One)

For your enlightenment, I intend to address the important things in life. I imagine this series of thought-provoking advisory material will be published in a collected form in the future, so be grateful for an early sight of it and the opportunity to get your life in order accordingly.

We live a very short time on this spinning globe and so it is vital that we live right, focussing on the essentials and not on the inconsequentials. Or, as another writer who has aspired to match my own prose put it: Don't get theeself in a muck-sweat over nowt, d'ye hear?

So, I turn to what is undoubtedly the most important contributor to the happiness I enjoy, and could so easily come to be yours too: the unalloyed joy of a perfectly-warmed brandy.

I have seen so many struggle to get this right. But this weekend I witnessed a callow youth get it spot-on. I was ensconced in one of Manchester's most famous watering-holes ("Robbie's Bar", named after the famous Mancunian word-smith and alcoholic Robert Burns) and ordered a glass of their finest "horse d'age". The lad behind the bar turned up with a glass of the nectar perched majestically atop another glass that, filled with hot water, was doing the job I usually need my right hand for.

I tested this approach for consistency a further seventeen times that evening, and each glass tasted more glorious than the last.

You can probably understand my confusion to then find myself surrounded by a troup of wandering Assyrians!

Manchester - so much to answer for.

Braise Be!

Club Derrig is indeed fortunate to have me as it’s President-for-Life-by-acclaim-of-all-right-thinking-people. For it is through my bulging social contacts book that I am in a position to invite new and interesting people into the bosom of my establishment: people of worth, with interesting stories, whose presence can illuminate a room and whose witty patter is often recorded by the gossip columnists for posterity.

That aside, though, I suppose I ought to write about Sir Anthony Fforbes Pontefract Desiderata Humongous Braisby (or "Bud” to his drinks-buyers), partner of Lady Amanda Kendal of Westmoreland.

Braisers – as he was known at boarding school - is also a botanist of some repute and, a political philosopher of absolutely no damned repute at all.

He is credited with discovery of the Anargalis Arvensis, having sought it here, having sought it there, having sought it every darned where.

Wearing his philosopher’s hat he also redefined the word ‘Communist’ in such a way as to allow for self-definition and the subsequent explosion in two-men-and-a-dog type political sects up a creek with no paddle.

Taller (and marginally more kempt) in real life than he appears in photographs, he would have been the man for whom they invented the word suave, if they hadn’t invented it for me first. He is also much, much younger than many people of his own age, or even younger, despite his carefully-cultivated attempts to appear so much more mature.

He is gifted with a superb speaking voice, with perfect articulation and a mesmerising basso-mumblo. He has turned down many lucrative offers for voice-over work, and was British Telecom’s first choice for the speaking clock. Instead he has chosen to put his skills to the service of the public as an announcer on the underground’s Northern Line, where his admirable diction is deployed declaiming various excuses for delays and cancellations in the enormously wide-range of accents at his easy disposal.


Also an acclaimed thespian (see above) he has starred in a huge range of high-profile non-speaking parts in films as diverse as Lulu, Lulu Dawn, and Lulu Dawn II, most often in a role he made his own as third spear-carrier.

Often mistaken for a TV celebrity chef he says he can no longer dine in the finest restaurants for fear of being asked to whip out his utensils and stir the soup with them.

Braisers' only failing, he says, is his mdmmommetmmstmyy. Sorry, what? Oh! His modesty.

Comedic genius?

No, it's not me.I have better dress-sense, and am rather fashionably turned-out in the crumpled (and convenient) unironed look.

So why do I find this has the curious impact of being rather like a mirror?

The camera never lies

I have been inundated again with an email suggesting that my onerous duties are nothing more than standing around drinking tea and waving aimlessly. Hah! Here I link to the work of an independent film-maker who has dedicated his career to capturing me inaction. What more evidence do you people need?

Gone to the dogs

Here's where I went dogging last night.

I placed my bets on the beasts on the basis of instinct, and their names. I backed a few decent ones: Limper's Fool, The Hobbler, Droopy Gut, and best of all Stinking Mangy Runt at £20 to win. Just look what I got!

The bugger stumbled out of the trap, fell over and laid there panting to be put out of it's misery. Bit like me after a big old session on the Magner's, I suppose - but with much better breath.

Blogging on the job

Well it's been a tough old start to the day, I can tell you.


If it wasn't bad enough having to try and control the rabble down at Parliament, look at the bunch of no-hopers they gave me to work with! Barely a full set of teeth between the lot of them and not one of them capable of understanding the simplest instructions.

For the less recalcitrant 'lobbier' I can get away with use of my paddle. Looks like cardboard, feels like cold steel when applied to the back of the neck.

Occasionally you get some oik from the West Midlands who needs a little more "persuasion". For this more "diplomatic" end of my work I always have to hand my trusty can of Deep Heat. Does the same job as MACE and can be purchased over the counter without suspicion. An eye-ful of that and who's laughing then, eh?


I must say, though, that after all this overwhelming excitement I'm looking forward to an evening's hard dogging.

Me and the laydeez IV

Don't be misled by my clowning for the camera. This one's an absolute corker AND she's got the badges to prove it! Goes by the pseudonym of Brown Ale.*

* or possibly Brown Owl - I wasn't really listening as the telly was on.

New technology - ain't it great

I am a much-photographed man. Here we see a few of my legions of admirers attempting to master their cameras following a night of alcoholic excess.

But I know that there are many of you out there who can't get enough of me and who want even more pictures.

That's why I am launching a whole new concept in internetting: MyFace. It's a site dedicated to pictures of me. I'll be posting a slideshow of it here at some point soon, so get yourselves ready, Derrig fans.

A weekend of great enjoyment

I don't know what your weekend was like, but I had a whale of a time.

Friday evening was spent enjoying the company of an entirely incoherent woman of my past acquaintance, singing rebel songs and downing a variety of noxious created-on-the-spot cocktails. I dined later on a magnificent kebab of assorted meat-derived contents (hold the salad!).

Come Saturday I rose late and enjoyed an hour in my gentlemanly pursuits, followed by ablutions. I watched a considerable amount of television, especially the second part of the 100 Greatest War Films. I partook of a take-away from the local Chinese in the evening before continuing my reading of an informative tome on the wars of the Victorian era.

On Sunday I rose even later and took my constitutional to the launderette and there composed letters to the editors of all the serious Sunday broadsheets on subjects as diverse as foreign policy, fashion, and polenta. I then braved the sun (I do have awfully fair skin, don't you know) and was pleased to attend the start of the Tour de France and a chance to observe the lycra lads. I again watched more television and selected extracts from the greatest film of the past 10 years,"Armageddon".

This morning, beneath the handwritten first draft of volume one of my autobiography, I found an invitation to party that occurred on Saturday night. How very clumsy of me to mislay this invitation.

But did I miss this social event?

Not nearly as much as it missed me!

Snakehips

I have often been asked by those brave enough to query my decision-making abilities and level of compos mentisness, "Just what is it you see in that Benjamin Thomas galoot?"

I am not someone given to bestowing my affections lightly, and neither I am so shallow as to make such a judgement on basis of looks alone. Which should be obvious to anyone with half an eye in the case of Benny-Boy.

I like to look deeper and appreciate the person in the round, appreciating them for the life they have lived and what it has made them.

Here, then, in a potted biography, is the life - so far - of that rapscallion Thomas.

Ben Thomas was born into a poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, workshy family of Cornish itinerants. So poor in imagination, so easily-distracted, and so poor they either forgot or couldn't afford to give the poor lad a surname, leaving him to get by in life on two first names of mind-numbing ordinarinessnessity.

He was tutored in the demonic arts of Cornish Wrestling but found to be hopeless, especially as the family had now moved to London's Limehouse district and there were no other Cornish wrestlers within two hundred miles. The stripling lad was abandoned at an early age by his parents who knew that with his looks and general fecklessness he would never bring in much on the begging circuit. Fortunately he has erased this damaging period of his life from his mind.

Found on their doorstep at the age of 12 by a bunch of idle, landed aristos - Lord and Lady Crouchend of Crouch End - he was educated at the famously ill-disciplined Holland Park Academy for Misfits and Ne'er-do-wells. He flourished in the liberal atmosphere, gaining several of their self-examined qualifications in absenteeism, indifference, smoking, and reclining. He has no recall of this time in his life.

He left school one day for an out-of-bounds assignation with the nit-nurse and never returned. His education, he decided, was complete.

For the next three years he lounged at home in the prone position of a limp lettuce leaf, soaking up the hospitality of his adoptive parents, and all the while using his mighty brain to memorise the North London postcodes, the shipping forecast zones, and the history of the football league. A bang on the head means he is unable to remember any of this formative stage.

Eventually the bed sores got the better of him and he took to strolling around Hornsey entertaining passers-by with his drunkenness and feigned Tourette's.

One day, stumbling inebriated into a job centre he slumped down at a desk and discovered he was working for what was then the Department of Employment. He remembers absolutely nothing of this period.

It was at an almost-memorable Laydeez Nite at Club Derrig that he first encountered the Club's President and namesake - me. Sneaking in past the Club's top level door-security team he came to my attention, dancing like an intoxicated, snake-hipped Berserker to that old disco classic YMCA. Obviously three sheets to the wind, he then proceeded to grab the mic off the DJ and give us his rendition of what I now know to be his most favourite song, "Mustang Sally".

He was escorted from the premises, ejaculated roughly into the street, and advised not to return.

He was, of course, back the next night, having no memory of the preceding evening's disgrace. After another six weeks of the same, he was offered a job with Club Derrig on the basis that he accepted payment in alcohol: an offer that was, of course, accepted. Always short of readies, he he topped up his earnings with appearance fees opening negotiations and disputes as a lookee-likee for Jean Geldart.

Since that time he has shimmied his way through hundreds of glamorous social events, dispensing and consuming drinks in equal measure and recounting half-forgotten anecdotes to anyone slow enough to get caught.

Only absenting himself occasionally for two or three weeks at a time to attend to his crumbling country pile, he is now a fixture of Club Derrig, where he is renowned for his bottling abilities and his diplomatic way with 'rough' incidents. In his years with the Club he has acquired a modicum of skills and is just about as complete a Bar-Steward as he ever will be.

On this last matter, can I say here and now a personal thank you to Bottling Ben Thomas for his quick-witted wink which on one occasion alerted me to the fact I was about to suffer an horrendous assault by an infuriated partner of one of my many laydeez. Coming up behind me, the ruffian tried a flying kick to my back. I saw Ben's almost imperceptible wink of warning and I dropped my head nine inches, bringing it directly into the path of my assailants size 12s. I sustained substantial injuries, but if it wasn't for Bottling Ben's quick wink of warning who knows what would have happened? He, of course, claims not to remember this incident.

(I had my revenge some years later when he sustained a whiplash injury in a car I was driving, in an RTA. I walked away unscathed. Since that time he has been incapable of communicating in words, preferring instead to rely on "ultraviolence": a language comprised of a complex set of punches, pinches, kicks and pokes and which are used to convey his feelings.)

So when I am asked about what I see in the boy, I don't have to think too hard before delivering my answer: "His simply enormous inheritance and pension benefits".

Have your say, mugs

Those of you who have taken the trouble to register to read my lovely little weblog and aren't just visiting are entitled to leave comments by clicking on the 'Comments' link (well, I never!!!)at the bottom of each post.

Naturally I reserve the right to publish, but in the interests of promoting interactivity I will refrain from exercising that right overmuch. Not that I can imagine any of you lot having much to say that would be at all controversial, intelligible, or stimulating.

Weird food alert II

This unappeasing confection is mashed potato, or "mashpo" as its known amongst its very few afficianados.

I really don't have a problem with vegetable matter being used to provide cavity-wall insulation, but I do not expect to see it on my dinner plate.

I wasted twenty-three years of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy trying to get to the bottom of my hatred of this particular foodstuff. Apart from a huge bill, all the quack treating me could give me was "Under hypnosis you kept shouting 'The nuns! No! Not the nuns!'" I now firmly believe that the various mentalist disciplines can never be classed as sciences.

As for the fools who bracket "mashpo"with the culinary delight that are chips, (and I don't mean French fries, Monsieur Le Gourmet!) and who make wild claims that both originate in the same plant, I can only pity their parents' inability to send them to a proper learning establishment of the sort run by the beneficent and kindly Holy Brothers.

It's good to know I'm not the only one out there.

Sporting pursuits

Here I am at a glittering function organised in my honour.

I had been challenged to take on a young flibbertigibbet and the irritating Mr Benjamin "Olly" Thomas at arm wrestling. AT THE SAME TIME!

The wretched knave's underhanded Cornish wrestling moves were no match for my firm grip, depite the fact he was wearing his "magic wrestling jacket".

Needless to say I was the victor and the floozy made her excuses and left us to continue drafting our civil partnership (financial-benefit-only version) contract.

Red Snapper

Behold! Lady Amanda "Snapper" Kendal.

Lady Kendal is shortly to embark on a photographic expedition to France with her long-time companion and world-renowned botanist and political philosopher Sir Anthony Fforbes Pontefract Desiderata Humongous Braisby - or "Bud" to his friends - but more of him another time.

Here Lady Kendal can be seen modelling her continental look, while holding forth on her admiration for the denizens of France who, she says "have so stoutly defended the freedom to smoke and enjoy alcohol in their native land". She hopes to rouse the good people there to lead a revolution in this country for the restoration of the right to inhale at whim. For she is also a "Socialist".

Being a gifted linguist, she intends to recruit them using her powers of oratory. Her opening salvo, she assured the gathered club members, will be,"Survenez vous cheese-mangeant des singes de capitulation et une sortie en avant avec moi et mon Tony pour défendre la liberté du fait de gonfler ses poumons dans un type d'insurrection la voie. Craignez vous pas que les forces d'oppression peuvent tomber sur vous durement, mais nous apporter plutôt vos bérets, votre ail, vos sucreries et vos désirs gaulois, pour l'amour de liberté est notre maître et maîtresse. Poussée en avant vos seins à-raies-jumpered. En avant! La lutte continue!*"

A fearless pornographer, er sorry, photographer, she can often be seen striding the streets of London, her frequently-buffed Brownie on open display for all to admire.

I wish her a safe return and look forward to most of my weekends thereafter until Xmas disappearing in lengthy slide shows of her many and wild exploits.

*Arise ye cheese-eating surrender monkeys and sally forth with me and my Tony to defend the freedom of puffing out one's lungs in an uprising-type way. Fear ye not that the forces of oppression may fall upon thee hard, but rather bring us your berets, your garlic, your sweetmeats, and your Gallic desires, for love of liberty is our master and mistress. Thrust forward your stripy-jumpered breasts. Onward! The struggle continues!

A giant among men

It goes without saying that I am always at the eye of the storm (and usually a storm of my own making); that I am the virile glow that draws close my acolytes like moths and other night-insects; that I am the music to which my inferiors dance their clumsy jigs; that I am Derrig.

And as a Derrig, I'm not really one to doff my cap to anyone.

And yet, every once in a while - a very long while - a colossus bestrides the earth and I am reluctantly forced to accept that there is a man possessed of greater standing, abilities, achievements, obsessions, looks, and appetites than myself.

Fortunately for my ego, our paths do not cross too often. My rival lives abroad and ventures this way less frequently these days, for which I am immensely grateful.

I am self-aware enough to know that, as a man with an ego the size of a planet, I seem but an asteroid compared to his truly stellar presence.

And no, I'm not talking the old Mozzarella here.

Dear readers, prepare your eyes...sunglasses are advisable...

Yes, it is none other than Brian "....Er...." Harries, gifted raconteur, bon viveur, and...eur...

I only ask that all my laydeez do not get over-excited by this new kid in town - there's only room for one ego in his many and much-talked-of relationships.

But I do know that he is renowned for his wide-range of mystical and loin-tenderising techniques when yodelling in the valleys of love.

Up to snuff

As anyone who knows me will be glad to attest, I am a libertarian of the first order.

But I am not stupidly libertarian. Oh no. When the law changes it is usually wise to fall into line. I have seen the writing on the wall - not to mention the signage.
I am of course, talking about the combustible consumption of tobacco and the ban which came into effect today.

But, dear reader, does a Derrig go gently into that good night? No! He lets rip in one mighty roar of liberation before falling into line with the whimpering majority.

Hence the magnificent "Smoke 'Em Up" held at Club Derrig on Friday. All members were able to come along and spark up their remaining cigarette, cigar, pipe tobacco, and cigarillo products.

And what a mighty cloud we made!

Not that I smoke, of course.

But that scoundrel Benjamin Thomas - avoider of civil partnership commitment - turned up with something he called "snuff".

An amazing product, the "snuff" is taken nasally by sniffing it in a very ostentatious manner from the back of one's hand into one nostril at a time. The effect is remarkable: an immediate tingling of the nasal membrane, a livening of the nerves and increased alertness, a marked growth in confidence, and a general feeling of superiority. This latter, of course, I am unable to remark upon, being in such a state naturally.

All were agreed that partaking of the snuff must become a regular feature of our gatherings now that the deadly weed was no longer permissible in a burning form.

Imagine our horror to discover that the delightful white, crystalline powder is not available in high street outlets! Mr Thomas put us all at ease by assuring us he knew a reputable supplier by the name of Charley, and would take orders that night for further personal supplies.

That boy has some uses, I suppose.

(Copyright Col Derrig.)