At the double

And don't forget a meal beforehand...

A lot of people ask me: what the hell is that on your head?

Many others ask me about my magnificent hit-rate with the opposite of the man of the species - to wit, the laydeez of the species of us.

It's no big secret, but you need to think of your technique as being like a blunderbuss - let one off in a crowded shopping centre and one of your victims is bound to be of a laydee.

But there are also a number of other easy-peasy lemon-squeezy ways of bagging one for yourself and having at your establishment in front of a rug on a fire.

For one simple example of it, take an instance: speed mating. It's a fine art, but you basically rush into a room like you are bringing the news from Ghent to Aix, or the other way round, and engage in word-based communication with a ripe 'un.

Of course, it's not always that easy to communicate at a laydee, especially a strange one, of which there are many of them out there waiting for you to be ensnared up their webs.

So here are my top opening lines, guaranteed to intrigue 'em and give the impression you are top speed mating material. And remember, in speed mating, you've only got two minutes to get your point across. So to speak.

Thusly:

"Interesting fact! The spoiler on a Austin Fandango Mark 3 is set at 23.5 degrees."

"Listen!"

"No, you go first. Make it quick though, I've got a lot of you to get through."

"Christ on a bike, who did your surgery?"

And the never-fail 'desperate-man-in-a-hurry' option:

"Would you like half my house and my pension?"

I can guarantee* you'll bag a brace with those lines.

*worthless

Crystal ballsing

It's coming through the ether...


I can see it now...


A vision of...


Club Derrig...


Is it...?


Yes, it's tonight...


I'm getting a vision of the bar....

Welcome abroad!

It is with the greatest pride in all the world of the internet and beyond that I welcome my many international guests who drop in up here on this blog of mine 'Hell-o-oh!'

Bucuresti, Warzawa, Noord-Brabant, Hamburg, California, Ohio, Virginia, and Quebec - I await the votes of your international juries!

Come on you French lads - you know vous desiree it.

Eating out Lebanesian-style

It is a difficulty for me to recall rightly any previous occasion before on which I dined and supped and dined and supped quite so magnificently in a Bristolian unplastered tunnel.

But I think the picture above brings to life beautifully the extragant and sumptuous delights spread before me to such mouth-wateringly dribblesome effect. Yes, I was truly brim-full to the epiglottis and almost on spilling point, requiring me to stand perfectly upright and not tilt my head in any direction, but in a good way. Now that's what I call a sign of a good night's gut-stuffing and no mistake.

And when I thought it could get no better I was presented with not just one but two complementary memento mori fridge magnets to remind me of what will forever live with me, and my dining companions, as 'The Night Of The Garlic Sauce and beer'.

In the words of the traditional Lebanesian saying - "What a life!"

An incredible tale

I like to hear that I am a raconteur of the highest order, and I believe it to be true on top of that with bells on as well as all that too.

I am frequently to be found raconting away, perched nobly on my noble seat at Club Derrig's classy 'Derrig's Bar', spouting off about the many adventures I have embarked upon (and in some cases fallen off), my many and frequent rousting abouts of laydeez near and far, far away, and my traversing of this sad globule we call Earthworld.

It is, I am sure you'll have to agree, my gift.

But hold your harnesses! It is, as is usual with all these things, an rotten curse too.

For I am an immensely critical auditor of the tales of others. I am forced - not through pernickitiness or Braisbyism - to tease out of every last word, phrase, and sentence the subtle nuances that are, for example, wasted on the ever-wasted Beattie. He's simply not on the look-out for discrepancies, inconsistencies, contradictions, illogicalities, and tautologies.

But it's not just the chaff that is an rotten curse. It is also the tales of unremitting brilliance, wit, incisiveness and warmth that strike me. And when I hear one these pearls, I am transfixed, like a rabbit in the old headlock. Sometimes I can only bear a few words before I am begging the teller to desist it straight at once.

Only the other day I was spiritually lifted as one such narrative was wafted trickled into my ears from the slithery tongue of a strangely familiar woman of no-fixed-mental-ability.

She began in an eerie voice: "Once upon a time there were two menus - one on the wall and one......"

Already I could take it no more. I made my excuses, and left.

Pick and minx

Being of world-renowned status and famousness can be a bit of a bloomin' old chore, I can tell you and just did.

It gets so that one can't even walk down the street without being set upon by hordes of delightful darlings all keen on getting to know me in the flesh (or en flagrantly as I believe the infamous Frenchy nation of lovers-not-fighters has it).

And it's not just the impingement on my freedom either. It is of course entirely unfair on these luscious loverlies - I could not attend to all of them and their many and various wants, not with the best willy in the world. There just isn't enough of me to go round yet.

This regrettably enjoyable turn of events has left me with no option but to instigate - at my own enormous expensivity - a process whereby the parties doing the chasing of me must go through a rigorous selection procedure. This involves a presentation on a subject of my choosing - e.g. "lovin' it up big time with a celebrity" (such as myself), followed by a mock media appearance - asking such questions as "are you prepared to dress up as a woman monkey?", and a panel interview against a strict job description and personification specification.

The successful candidates are then invited onto live television (BBC Radio Six) to take part in a revival of that old favourite 'Blind Date', where they are put through their paces in spoken smut and sauciness.

I, of course, am far too busy a-lovin' and a-so-forth to dirty my hands with this broadcasting processing of the hopefuls, so I am delighted to have volunteered the ever-grumpy Beattie. Well, who else would know my foibles in such glowing detail?

Rouge Rogue

Cabbing Fever

Finally I get the chance to park my rear end behind the wheel of possibly the most recognisable means of transport in the world of all time (after, of course, the London Routemaster bus, the popemobile, the Titanic, the Spitfire, Genevieve, the ski-lift, the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, Shergar, James Bond's Aston Martin DB5, the Bullet train, Del Trotter's yellow Reliant Robin, the pogo stick, the Batmobile, the Vespa scooter, the Segway, that car out of Starsky and Hutch, shanks' pony, the go-kart, the Flying Scotsman, Red Rum, the Mystery Machine, roller skates, the A-Team van, the Ark, the Triumph motorcycle -and sidecar, Kon-Tiki, the Nautilus, Phileas Fogg's balloon, the Queen's gold coach, the Saturn rocket, Herbie, K.I.T.T., Concorde, Concordski, the Viking longboat, the Sinclair C5, the jumbo jet, Bucephalus, the dog-sled, the funicular railway, the skate board, the tube train, and white-water rafts).

I had that Beattie in the back once.

Sparktacular

I know what you're thinking.

"Isn't that pretty! What a brilliant sight! How beautiful! Aren't sparklers great! I'm looking forward to bonfire night! Good old Guy Forks! Soup and jacket potatoes! Fireworks hooray!"

But STOP!

STOP! right now.

Think for a minute - seriously.

Just consider: that single sparkler could all-too easily fling out a lone spark that could whizz across and land on an innocent bystander's lycra bonfire-night 'Snugfitta'TM costume, creating a raging meltingness that causes the whole outfit to dissolve, leaving me standing there in just union jack y-fronts and my glittery deeley-boppers.

So think on: Health and Safety - it's not all totally cobblers.

Guest posting: Lady Jojojojojo

Well, look at me leg all casted up, la.

There I was smashing a shuttlecockle across the netting and leaping like a right nutter to do it, and next thing I'm sprawled on the deck like I'd been on the business end of a Kirkby Kiss.

Six weeks out of action - no wairk, no tarting up the new abode, no getting off the settee, no action upstairs (thank the fook).

Ain't life grand!

Nice ice, baby

I was proud today to visit the emporium opened by that master of the art of 'rappling', Mr. V.Ice, probably Canada's finest export since logs and stuff.

Regrettably Mr Ice himself was not in as he was down at the butcher's picking up some bulk supplies of scrag end and tripe for his speciality ice-creams.

I blame that Esther Bloomendal.

Pegging out

I thought I'd heard the last of all that pegging nonsense, but it seems Cap'n Jaaaaaaaahn has been out and about with his equipment and self-erecting tripod - capturing this magnificent example of a huge big one.

Imagine that clamped to a tender spot! Fair flushes the old tear ducts, I can tell you.

I salute you, Cap'n Jaaaaaaahnn, and admire your many ways of persuading reluctant cabin boys to get on with their swabbing and jigging.

Pastry delights

There's not much I enjoy more than a game of Visually-Impaired Buff with Ms Kelly Brook.

Black Sabbath

Last night I stumbled upon the World's Sweariest CoupleTM - Ozzly Ozzbornio and his flame-haired pot-of-vitriol-cum-missus Shazza, out for the evening to celebrate their special night.

Quelle horreurium!