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".