The Prince Of Deansgate

And then he’d repeat this again, as if he was some kind of high priest offering some
kind of sacrifice. He would then leave these ripped up slips in neat little piles next
to him. After that, he’d usually come to the counter to put some bets on, go and
throw the piles away and then leave, wishing us a pleasant day and return a bit
later to collect any returns. That was fine – were could handle a few less betting
slips to deal with. We christened him Dave The Ripper and called him that to his
face, which he chuckled at because he knew his little habit was harmless enough.
He once asked for a price on an event I couldn’t find and I had to call head office in
Liverpool. Brian at head office was the guy that would either find or create prices
in instances such as this and was a fairly meek and even tempered man. He asked
who the customer was, as he had to. “It’s Dave The Ripper,” I informed him.

“Christ almighty, you’ve got a customer called ‘The Ripper?!” he shouted in Scouse,
“Don’t you have any normal people in that bloody shop?!”

I wasn’t in the same room as Brian but it’s needless to point out that he was
extremely high-pitched and short of breath when he said this. He was probably
red in the face, too.

Gradually we were intrigued by Dave’s habit, though. What had started off as one
betting slip each day quickly got to about ten. Piles were being left around the
shop instead of being thrown in the bin, which was slightly annoying. We started to
notice that in addition to his ripping of the betting slips, he was writing something
on them before the ripping commenced. As soon as we discovered this, we just
had to find out what was being written. We waited days for an opportunity and
eventually curiosity got the better of us. I retrieved one of the piles of betting slip.
I pieced it together, painstakingly, behind the counter. Customers were probably
being ignored while I did this but it needed to be done. When I finally got all the
pieces together I could scarcely believe my eyes. It read:

LUCIFER, YOU ARE WEAK. I DEMAND THAT YOU SHOW ME YOUR POWER!!

Bear in mind, this was the most normal customer we had. Here he was invoked the
power of Beelzebub before casually approaching the counter and asking for the
price of trap 4 in the next dog race!

Over the next few weeks, we were treated to a whole array of dark planetary and
satanic figures that were being beckoned into the shop via the medium of ripped
up betting slips. Strangely, Dave The Ripper then started swigging Jif Lemon straight
from the bottle. Then just as it seemed as though we were losing our only normal
customer, things reached a head. Dave The Ripper stood directly behind one of
the other regulars that was checking out a price on the in-shop computer screen,

51

made the sign of the cross behind him with betting slip in hand and then ripped it
in the usual fashion before calmly going and sitting down. That was enough for me.
I hastily wrote a sign, which I displayed prominently on the counter screen. It read,
‘Would patrons please refrain from invoking the power of Satan on the premises’. I
never imagined in all my life I would have to write such a notice, but it did the job. I
never saw Satan on the premises (and I didn’t see Dave The Ripper for a few weeks
afterwards, come to think of it), though it may have had less to do with my notice
and more to do with our own particular guardian angel and that of many betting
shops along the A6 between Stockport and Manchester. The local legend that is
known and loved by many simply as Fred (though, in fairness, there are plenty that
have their own name for Fred and would use plenty of phrases that are the polar
opposite of ‘loved’ to describe their feelings for him).

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I’ve always enjoyed comedy and having fun which,when allied with my naturally
charitable nature, is why Comic Relief has always been a charity close to my
heart. I can remember being hugely excited when they held the first Red Nose
Day. Everyone in the entire world seemed to be getting involved but sadly for me,
when the day actually arrived, there weren’t enough red noses to go around at my
primary school. And so, at the very impressionable age of nine, I had to suffer the
indignity of having one of the teachers at primary school use her lipstick to make
my nose red and pay her for the privilege (that’s not as wrong as it sounds!). When
the next Red Nose Day came along two years later I had gone to Woolworths as
excited as a kid in a sweet shop (which was no surprise seeing as I was a kid and
Woolies sold sweets), bought my red nose on the day they were available and
planned whatever stunt I would do to raise money. Over the years I came up with
some genuinely unique ways to raise money for Comic Relief. Some went beyond
being unique and could be more actually described as weird and some were just
plain ludicrous, but all served their purpose. Over the years I raised over £3,000
for the cause:

1989 (Aged 11) - Arranged a ‘Dads v The Lads’ soccer match in Primary School;

1991 – Cut my front lawn with a pair of scissors;

1993 – Juggled tomatoes up and down my road for an afternoon;

1995 – Rolled a cabbage with a golf club for four miles around my local area;

1997 – Bounced around the walls of Chester on a space hopper while dressed as
Hong Kong Phooey;

1999 – (With my mate Lurch) Pushed an inflatable 5ft pint of Guinness in a pram
from the top of Moel Famau to Chester while dressed as a toucan;

2001 – (Again with Lurch) Recited the Canterbury Tales into a megaphone at the
top of Blackpool Tower while dressed as a massive nun (Lurch) with a large cock
(of the feathered variety - me);

2003 – (Once more with Lurch) Collected a lock of hair from a member of the
public of Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff and London within 36 hours (Lurch
getting us between locations on a Harley Davidson).

That 2003 fundraiser was the last one to date for Comic Relief. After that it took
me years to do anything for charity again. Not because of a lack of compassion or
ideas but because of my own paranoia about my personal financial circumstances.
After that 2003 event people had started calling me by different names in my

53

professional and personal lives. That took some getting used to but it was fine by
me as it eventually gave me a temporary respite from the escalation of debt that
was beginning to get daunting. To say I have always been rubbish with money
would be an understatement on a par with saying that Gordon Ramsey has ‘a bit
of a potty mouth’. In what became a dizzying whirlwind without an escape route
I found myself in a situation that meant I relied on hitting targets in my job as a
finance broker to pay all my debts each month and live. When I didn’t hit those
targets the amount I had to live on wasn’t actually enough to pay for the fuel to
get me to work throughout the month. Feeling like there was no alternative I then
borrowed even more money. Eventually my situation was so dire that I resorted to
going to travel agents to pay for foreign currency by cheque (backed up by cheque
guarantee card). I would then take this foreign currency to the next travel agency
and cash it in for pounds, which I would then use to live. Each time I did this I was
losing out by around fifty pounds on the exchange rate alone, without counting the
additional charges I incurred for going over my overdraft limit. It was fine as long
as I hit the targets, but if I missed one I was up the creek without a paddle. After
one bad month in work it didn’t take long for that creek to become a Tsunami. I
had twice as much debt as I was earning each year. Effectively I had a mortgage
worth of debt. The way I saw it, students did the same thing and they made it
through OK. The only thing I didn’t factor in was that these students had signed
up to agreements where they didn’t have to pay back their debts until they could
afford to do so and they usually had a degree to show for it. I had signed up to
pay all my creditors from what I was earning and all I had to show for my massive
debt was a bit of a beer gut and a garden gnome that, technically, wasn’t mine
and didn’t speak to me very much. I felt trapped. I felt so alone. I was the only one
that knew the situation I was in. I couldn’t tell anyone because if work found out
then I was likely to lose my job due to my credit rating, which had previously been
impeccable. When I look back it’s hardly surprising I was so paranoid. I felt sorry
for myself and frequently cried myself to sleep after chugging down three litres of
strong cider to ease the pain of my failure in life. I wasn’t thinking straight and it’s
safe to say that doing anything for charity was the furthest thing from my mind.

In my mind, even if I was to attempt another charity fundraiser I felt like nobody
would trust me with the money they were giving to me. This would have been
wrong as I would never have stolen any money from anyone, least of all a charity. I
never actually asked family or friends to loan me money, either. As I saw it, people
are one thing but massive corporations are another. At this time I was known by
different names to different people. One name to family and friends I knew before
2003; another to friends and colleagues in Manchester from 2003 onwards; and
another to colleagues from 2005 onwards. It could get confusing and I had my
work cut out getting my head around it myself. My increasing paranoia made me

54

suspicious of everyone and everything. When I first joined Facebook I used an old
pen name from my school days – The Scarlet Gooseberry – and stuck with that for
years because I didn’t know which organisations could find me and what they may
demand from me of if they ever did find me. Not that I had done anything wrong –
I was merely in debt and, as I’ve discovered since, there are ways out of situations
like that. Yet for years I wouldn’t do anything for charity in case the publicity and
questions about the various names that would have to be on a sponsor form got
too much for me. I didn’t do anything to raise money for charity for eight years.

Fast forward to 2011 and my circumstances were entirely different. I was happy
in work, earning good money and out of debt. I had become comfortable with my
own identity again and was ready to embark on something big. I’d had an idea in
my head for years to raise money for a good cause that would be consistent with
the originality of my earlier charity ventures and now, once again, the time and
circumstances were right. Only this time it would not be Comic Relief that would
benefit, it would be the Steve Prescott Foundation.

Admittedly I’m a Wigan rugby league fan and Steve used to play for our arch rivals
St. Helens. Yet there are things that go far deeper than mere sporting rivalry and
to me Steve Prescott is by far the most inspirational person I’ve ever heard of apart
from my own parents and grandparents. Diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in
2006, Steve was told it was terminal and that he had months to live. In a spirit most
commonly associated with Peter Griffin when faced with a giant chicken, Steve
chose not to mope around or feel sorry for himself. He set up his own foundation
to raise money for Christies Cancer Hospital in Manchester and the Rugby
League Benevolent fund. He then embarked on a series of phenomenal
fundraising events that would be beyond the limits of most ordinary humans.
Steve Prescott, though, is no ordinary human. He overcame chemotherapy
treatments amongst other things, got a few old rugby league mates together and
embarked on a coast to coast walk. He cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats
via the 3 Peaks. In what was his most audacious event, he cycled from Paris to
Calais, rowed the channel and then ran from Dover to London. It was as if he was
saying to this terrible disease, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard
enough!” If he could overcome cancer to do these things, which have so far
raised hundreds of thousands for his foundation, then I was sure I could
overcome my previous paranoia about raising money for charity.

Like everyone I have seen loved ones die from cancer. I have friends that battle with
cancer and friends that have loved ones that battle with cancer. I have also been
given some of the best times of my life by being a fan of rugby league. All of which
made the Steve Prescott Foundation an easy charity to choose to support. It would

55

be my way of giving something back to Manchester and the sport that I love so
much. My idea was to walk from St. Helens rugby ground in Swansea to St. Helens
in Merseyside, which was one of Steve’s previous clubs by pure coincidence. I had
originally intended to walk from Wales (where I’m from) to Wales (the suburb of
Sheffield) but felt this would have been a bit too easy. After all, that’s only about a
hundred miles. Whereas the St. Helens to St. Helens route was over two hundred
miles and, in keeping with the spirit of the challenges undertaken by the man
himself, much more of a challenge. I planned to complete the walk in eight days.

I identified the last week in September 2011 to begin the walk and got my walking
boots on to practice. Starting in late March, I would walk as much as possible
to prepare. I gave up booze and started dieting for a short time until I realised I
was losing too much weight and my trousers kept falling down. I was taking this
seriously! I would walk to and from work most days each week – it was 9 miles in
each direction. Anyone that has ever taken up walking as a pastime will tell you
that you begin to notice things that, previously, you hadn’t realised were there.
The closest I came to this was when I walked past a camouflaged wheelie bin in
Prestwich. The very fact that I could see it at all shows how ludicrous that was!

I arranged publicity, the hotels had been donated and, in one of the ponciest
things I’ve ever done, I got myself a foot-spa. Suddenly there was a serious amount
of money being paid into the JustGiving website. And so it was that on my week
off work I set off to Swansea with nothing but ‘my wing man / support driver’
Stan and hundreds of miles of tarmac for company. As I set off from St. Helens
rugby ground I was wished all the best by representatives from the South Wales
Scorpions including the mascot, Sting. For some reason some people had got
confused about the identity of Sting when I’d mentioned this. I hit the road for
one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life. To sum up, it was dangerous,
lonely, emotional, painful and boring. Like how life is for a full back in most rugby
union games, I’d imagine.

The most emotional day I had was a 38 mile trek from Brecon to Leominster. That
day I had a phone call from my mate Karen who had chosen to share with me a
poem that she’d forgotten she’d written. It mentioned me and I was blown away
by the sentiment. For a moment it took the sting away from the blisters that were
becoming unbearable on the soles of my feet. I then had texts,calls and Facebook
messages from friends and colleagues back at home, in Australia and my brother
in the USA all giving encouragement and support. Friends I’d lost contact with and
hadn’t heard from in years were sending texts. I had tweets from many, amongst
them Steve Prescott. When you get called a ‘legend’ by someone you admire so
much and add it to the pain I was feeling physically and everything else that day

56

(including coming within an inch of getting run down by a pink Cadillac) it’s hardly
surprising that when I tried to describe the events of the day to my mother that
evening I couldn’t talk because I was sobbing too much. To prevent any further
disparaging looks from the patrons of the pub I was in I had to hang up on my
own mother! And yet, when it was all done, it had raised just over £4,300 in total
for The Steve Prescott Foundation. That’s a fantastic amount and everyone that
supported me and donated deserves enormous credit for getting me through it.
Sadly, though, when I asked Sir Ian Botham for his advice about how to approach
my walk I didn’t get a response. I still can’t understand why!

57

Dear Sir Ian,
I am writing to you to see if you can assist me. As far
back as I can remember you have been a constant inspiration
to me, both as a sportsman (you were my favourite cricketer)
and as a man (I have been known to eat Shredded Wheat now and
then). However I am writing to you on this occasion because
you are one of our country’s most distinguished wa*kers.
I have decided to dedicate much of my time and resources
to raising money for the Steve Prescott Foundation in September
and am doing so by attempting a charity wa*k. Though I try and
wa*k whenever I have the choice I have never tried wa*king
to this extent before. As you are much more experienced at
wa*king than I am you must be aware of how much effort and
preparation need to go into a wa*k that is going to take eight
days to finish. Therefore any hints or tips you can give are
bound to be of great assistance to me.
I have started my preparations. I took things steady to begin
with and had a few nice wa*ks with the vicar. Now, though, my
wa*ks take me hours. At times I am wa*king so fast I swear that
passers-by think my shoes are going to drop off! My friends
are now so used to me refusing to go out with them because
I am ‘too busy wa*king’ that they don’t even ask me to come
out any more. I have undertaken a dramatic reduction in my
consumption of beer as I have heard this can have an adverse
effect on stamina during a big wa*k.
The pain is something I have yet to get to grips with, though.
Various parts of me are starting to show signs of vesication.
The other day, for instance, it was tough for me to get to the
Gents’ in work and some of the women found it amusing the way
I was wa*king around the office. I thank you in advance if you
can recommend any products that may soothe the pain caused by
extreme wa*king.
I am due to begin wa*king in Swansea on Sunday 25th September
and finish in Merseyside on Sunday October 2nd. I hope the
weather can stay fine but am concerned about what to wear when
wa*king in rainy or windy conditions. It may be that there are
ways to stop chaffing around my nether regions, too! If you
have any ‘tricks of the trade’ then do share them.
Any support you can offer is much appreciated. In fact, if you

58

don’t have anything in your diary around that time and fancy
wa*king with me at any stage then get in touch.
Oh, and sorry to use so many asterisks but as you’ve no doubt
gathered by now the 12th *etter of the a*phabet isn’t working
on my computer and I had to rep*ace it with something.
Kind regards,
Scar*et Gooseberry

59

Part Two

60

I’ve already established there could be a bit of a din in the Longsight branch of
David Pluck’s; excitable Jamaicans, drunken Pakistanis, Chinese roulette addicts
and Satan worshippers swigging Jif Lemon from the bottle, amongst others,
creating a wall of sound that Phil Spector never came close to. Yet there was
always one man that was able to make himself heard, no matter how loud things
got; a man whose imminent arrival could be heard at least two minutes before
you ever saw him; a diminutive, shuffling man in his early sixties that looked a
little bit like Norman Wisdom; a man that made the eruption of Krakatoa sound
like a new-born’s burp; a man known to instill fear, bemusement, loathing and
amusement in equal measure; a man whose very name would make grown betting
shop managers shudder; a man by the name of Fred.

Nobody of sound mind dislikes Fred but he gets agitated very easily. This agitation
manifests itself with foul-mouthed outbursts that made me feel sorry for him
and the memories I will share are certainly not to mock him. Fred has something
afflicting him, though nobody quite knows what. It’s not Tourette’s syndrome but
something that shares certain characteristics of that condition. Some say that Fred
was once as normal and placid as most guys and was the victim of some kind of
accident. One version is that he once got beaten up by a gang of youths, while
others say he was in a scooter accident. Others maintain that nothing has ever
happened to him and he’s always been as he is. If anything did happen to him then
obviously that’s a shame, though it doesn’t alter the fact that Fred is a local legend
along the A6 between Manchester and Levenshulme. The outbursts he frequently
made were never violent but they were such that we simply could not have him
in the shop because they would be indiscriminate and would offend every single
punter in the shop. They would then respond to these outbursts and Fred would
get even more abusive and even louder. Plenty of those punters saw him as fair
game to wind up for their own amusement, which was extremely cruel. I used to
take great pleasure in barring whoever I could for trying deliberately to wind him
up, but sadly at times there were too many trying to do so to make that practical.
Mainly for his own protection and state of mind it was Fred that was barred from
the shop, like he is barred from almost all betting shops in the district. Yet even
though he knew he wasn’t welcome he tried to get in the shop every day without
fail. Wherever possible he was always directed out with respect. Each time he
was asked to leave the shop he gave the same forlorn, bewildered expression and
shuffled out like a soggy Ewok in oversized slippers. Usually this was accompanied
by a cry of “Fuck off!” that would easily have been audible in the Vatican. Yet he
meant no ill will and was certainly no threat to us.

61

Once outside the shop he would shuffle around and would react to every sight,
smell and sound in the same way. I got the impression that his paranoia made
him think the entire world was trying deliberately to wind him up. And so you
would see him hearing a group of schoolchildren laughing and shouting one of his
most popular catchphrases, “What’s wrong with you?!” as loud as his lungs would
allow. Passers-by that knew him would enquire about his welfare by asking, “Are
you alright, Fred?” and Fred would shout his reply of, “I’m OK!!!! Why wouldn’t
I be?!” in such a way that nobody in Western Europe would be left in any doubt
that he was doing fine. I saw him crossing the road outside the shop many times,
but one occasion sticks in my mind. A kindly motorist had stopped to let him cross
and beckoned him across the road. As Fred crossed, he glanced at the driver who
gently gestured to him that he was fine to cross the road.

“OK!!!!” screamed Fred at the startled driver who had obviously never met him
before, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU??!!!”

I simply found it impossible not to have a soft spot for a man I once saw telling a
group of pigeons to fuck off outside Asda.

On occasions that Fred did manage to sneak into the shop (during busy periods it
was especially difficult to monitor an effective ‘FredWatch’ system) asking him to
leave was always a bit of a spectacle. He would shout and scream, refuse to move
and the decibel level rose from both him and the rest of the shop. During one such
instance I had been patiently been asking Fred to leave repeatedly for around two
minutes. Each time I asked him to leave he would ask “WHY?!” and each time I
would come up with another reason. I started with, “You’re not allowed in, Fred.”
He looked as confused as a dog chasing a boomerang. Then I’d move on to more
elaborate reasons, such as, “David Moyes is outside and he wants to sign you for
Everton.” Finally I lost patience so after being asked “WHY?!” for the umpteenth
time I reasoned with him, “Because any moment now, Fred, you’re going to tell
me to fuck off.”

Fred looked at me aghast, as if he’d been rumbled before he’d done anything.
His response brought a huge ovation from those gathered in the shop, evidently
appreciating the pure genius of his comedic timing when he screamed, “Oh fuck
off!”

On one occasion Fred tried to come in and got as far as the counter. The shop
was full of customers who had a face like a bucket of smashed crabs at the best of
times but the reaction this time made their faces contort even more than usual.
As I made my way from behind the counter to usher him out, the reason for these
horrified looks was immediately apparent: Fred was blissfully unaware that he

62

had shit himself. I cautiously approached him in an effort to avoid provoking any
sudden movements that would have had catastrophic consequences for the shop’s
carpet. Not that Fred seemed capable of sudden movements, but you can never
be too careful. “Fred,” I said quietly, “Come on mate, you’ll have to leave.”

“WHY???!!!” The leaning tower of Pisa wobbled a bit.

I hushed my voice to preserve his modesty. “You’ve shit yourself, Fred.”

“I HAVEN’T!!!” A small avalanche was recorded in the Alps.

“Fred, you have. Go and get yourself cleaned up in the toilet but then you’ll have
to go.” It was as quiet as I’ve ever spoken with anyone. After all, I didn’t want to
unnecessarily embarrass him.

Fred glanced at his own rear as much as he could. The stench was almost
unbearable. He noticed that what I was saying was true and, in case anyone hadn’t
noticed, he then announced to the world as loud as he had ever shouted anything
in his life, “I’VE SHIT MYSELF!!!” He then made his way out of the shop, choosing
to clean up at home instead of using the toilet like I had offered.

It’s always a shame for me when I think of Fred and what he must have to contend
with because underneath it all he was a really nice bloke. The girls that worked
behind the counter wanted to offer him a cuddle (not in the same way that Lauren
wanted to cuddle people) because of the way he carried himself. He shuffled
instead of walking, hunched over and weather-beaten, always sporting ‘puppy dog
eyes’. We often said that the day to day existence of the shop would have made
an excellent sitcom. If it did ever happen then Fred would undoubtedly become
the star of the show. Not only did we witness his day to day antics in the shop, but
I have to consider that every Sunday he went to church. I have never seen him in
church but amuse myself with the image of the vicar conducting the service and
saying, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…”

“FUCK OFF!!!!”

Through dealing with people like Fred I learned a lot working in betting shops
and mainly enjoyed the experience. Nothing illustrated how much I learned more
than when I told a joke to one of the Pakistani customers. Even though his English
wasn’t the strongest, I thought a basic joke from a Penguin wrapper would be
easily understandable. That’s when I learned that the word ‘penguin’ isn’t used
very often in Urdu. I’m not sure they have many penguins in the Indian sub-
continent and in that moment I learned that, even with accompanying penguin
impressions to describe what you’re talking about, a joke about a penguin to a

63

Pakistani is probably more trouble than it’s worth. And so, after five years and the
job starting to take its toll, I’d had enough. At Pluck’s I was working six days a week,
five of those I would start at 8.30am and finish at 10.15pm. It was time to look for
a new job and I was delighted when I got an interview for a sales role in an office
a twenty minute walk from my home. I didn’t particularly want another sales job
but this was as good an escape route as any. If I got the job then I’d have weekends
and evenings to myself again. I’d be getting my life back! The first stage of the
interview process was a group interview. I knew I had to put all of my efforts into
this. Group interviews were nothing new to me and I knew that in those situations
I had to appear confident. Equally important was to ensure that those conducting
the interview remembered me.

The group was sitting around a large, circular table. There were three assessors
that circled the table like moths around a candle. They were instructed to make
the job seem like the best thing on Earth. They laughed and joked as if to say,
‘Look at us! We’re a walking embodiment of the company! We’re having a great
time, which means this is a great company! LOOK! You REALLY want this job!’ They
perhaps didn’t perceive my state of mind. I knew I really wanted the job, even
though I knew it was a sales job and that would mean I’d be working with, and for,
a complete set of bastards. I felt like saying, “Listen, Numbnuts, there’s no need to
sell it to me. Give me normal working hours, take away the threats and the danger
while I’m in work and I’m all yours!”

As is customary during these group interview assessments (or ‘twat elimination
exercises’ to give them a more accurate title) everyone was asked to introduce
themselves to the rest of the group. I was about fifth in line and had listened to
each previous candidate say something mundane, like “My name’s John. I’m from
Derby, I play tennis and I have a cat”. By the fourth time they’d heard this, even
the perma-grinning assessors were now struggling to muster anything more than
an enthusiastic nod. Personally, I was thinking, ‘For the love of Clarence and all the
E-Street Band, John! At least try and make an impression! I bet you’re a wow at
parties!’

My turn came. Thanks to the piss-poor attempts of the previous saps I was in a
perfect position to get myself into pole position. I gave my name.

“I’ve worked in betting shops for the last five years, Rupert Murdoch once
threatened to sue me for libel, I asked the Prime Minister to change the national
anthem to One Step Beyond and I have size eight feet”.

The assessors were practically doing cartwheels! I swear I saw one of them giving
me a nodding wink and an encouraging fist-pump once I’d finished. That’s what

64

they wanted! At last, someone had shown at least a modicum of personality and
had the confidence to do so in a group environment. Basically, I’d shown them that
there was someone in the room that would be able to be enthusiastic when selling
whatever Godforsaken product they had to offer. This was now my stage. I’d made
an impression and now I looked for an opportunity to ‘seal the deal’. I didn’t have
to wait long.

As is common in any sales interview we were each given an imaginary item that
we had to ‘sell’ to one of the assessors. That assessor was a slightly smarmy but
reassuringly rolled-up sleeved Scotsman in his mid-forties called Lorne. He had a
twinkle in his eye and seemed to relish the opportunity to find flaws in the sales
attempts of those that had gone before me. He was a tough nut to crack and I had
been given the task of selling him a hair dryer. Seriously, a hair dryer?! I hadn’t
used one in about the previous fifteen years and it wasn’t so long previously that
I went through a phase of shaving my head every couple of days with a Gillette
Sensor! Me selling a hair dryer was like Stephen Hawking selling gym membership!
And yet here I was, face to face with Lorne and desperate to get the job. At the
very least I had to make some kind of impression that would show them how
confident I was. And so I began.

“This hair dryer is amazing for drying hair due to the four different speeds it has.
Normal hair dryers only have three speeds but you’ll note that this one has four.
Not only that, but due to the exclusive non-slip technology being used on the
handle, you’re guaranteed not to drop it and risk injury, even if you have wet
hands when you emerge from the bath or shower….”

Lorne chose this moment to find a flaw in my plan. “That’s all well and good,” he
said, “but I only have an inch of hair. What do I need a hair dryer for?”

This was my moment. I weighed up the situation. Everyone around the table
looked on expectantly awaiting my response. Had the cocky Welsh guy been
dealt a knockout blow by this argument? The other assessors had stopped
breathing. Had Lorne knocked the stuffing out of their only candidate with a
personality?

It was now or never. I had a line in my head and I was unsure whether it
was appropriate to use it. Especially as one of the assessors was a woman. It
would make me or break me if I did use it. In the blink of an eye I had
assessed the argument, the assessors, the situation and come to the
following conclusion: If I used the line and people laughed then I pretty much
had the job. If nobody laughed then I’d stand up, pick up my coat, apologise and
walk out.

“That’s all well and good,” he said, “but I65only have an inch of hair. What do I
need a hair dryer for?”

“That’s exactly what I thought!” I responded instantly, “and at the time I was
thirty years old and single. Then I bought one and now BOOM! I’m knee-deep in
fanny batter!”
The room exploded in laughter. I was correct – my use of the phrase ‘knee deep
in fanny batter’ had got me the job. I lasted for just over three weeks and
then left the job in a ‘by mutual consent’ kind of way (I’d come to the conclusion
that they were a bunch of arseholes and that feeling was mutual). That was
on the Tuesday and I didn’t know what to do. I sure as hell didn’t want to go
back to the bookies. The following day (Wednesday) I rang an old work colleague
of mine that had set up his own company in Bury. He invited me for an interview
the next day (Thursday). I started working there on the Monday. They didn’t
hang around at Key Financial Claims.

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I settled into life at Key Financial Claims very quickly. This didn’t have so much to
do with the fact I had worked previously with the three directors of the company,
Andy Gannon, Andy Parker and Dave Armistead. It had much more to do with the
fact that everyone in the company seemed to enjoy a nice brew! (That and the
fact there seemed to be a policy of employing unfeasibly hot girls) Let’s face it, a
brew during the course of a working day is something that made the country of
ours great. It’s on a par with defeating Nazism, creating the internet, establishing
the model for democracy and inventing the Pot Noodle. I’m particularly partial
to several brews during the course of a working day and it’s my personal belief
that my excellence in brewing up is the primary reason I was given a job with the
company.

My passion for a brew during the course of a day was such that I unofficially took it
upon myself to act as some kind of custodian of the fine tradition of the tea break.
This involved getting supplies and carefully coaching those who lacked experience
in how to make a decent brew. Having been making them for my parents since I
was able to walk my attention to detail is something that sets me apart from the
majority of other brew makers. At times this attention to the brewing up process
may have been infuriating for my employers, who may not have realised, for
example, that most of my brewing up was conducted in my own time or while
spending long hours on hold to the likes of Lloyds TSB. There may have been times
when they thought I should have been doing something more productive than
making a brew or shopping for our brew supplies, including biscuits to accompany
the beverages, but then they would get one of the best cups of tea in the Northern
Hemisphere and I would be forgiven.

You see, a happy office is a productive office and crucial to that happiness is a
regular tea break. This is not something that should never be trifled with, especially
not with a claims management company based in Bury, Lancashire. Colleagues of
mine began to take notice of the effort I was putting into the tea break experience
and quietly expressed their appreciation. Some had also heard of my endeavours
to change society for the better, like reducing obesity levels and giving us a
national anthem they could happily do a rude boy dance to. And so, during one
of the darkest episodes ever to occur during a tea break at Key Financial or any
other workplace in a Western Civilisation, I was asked to act as chief diplomat. I
sent the following e-mail to the Consumer Foods department at Burton’s Foods,
manufacturers of Jammie Dodgers.

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Date: Tuesday 15th March 2011
Subject: The Case of the Defective Dodger

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to you in my capacity of confectionery distribution
supervisor at my place of work in Bury, Lancashire, to express
my indignation at one of your products.
When I arrived in work this morning I took great pleasure in
distributing a packet of Jammie Dodgers among my colleagues.
Some of the team look slightly dishevelled when they arrive
in work first thing in the morning and I have found that
supplying them with the fruity goodness contained within the
Jammie Dodger biscuits is good for the morale of the team
when distributed alongside the early morning cup of tea and
their productivity throughout the day is greatly increased
as a result. It’s a bit like giving a shoot of bamboo to a
giant panda – though a couple of team members are far more
sexually active than Ying Ying at Beijing Zoo (though I’ve yet
to ascertain whether this is also a result of Jammie Dodger
consumption).
You can only imagine my horror and the looks of blind panic
that I got from one of the team, who we shall refer to as
‘Tim’, when it emerged that I had supplied him with a Jammie
Dodger WITHOUT JAM!
I have tried to do justice to the effect the Jammie Dodgers
have on our team and presume the ‘jam’ element to be vital
to achieving this effect. When I provided Tim with a Jamless
Dodger he began to gently rock back and forth, started sweating
and had a glazed expression on his face. It was much akin to
a Vietnam veteran getting a passing whiff of napalm. I swear
I heard Tim muttering, “You weren’t there, man!” under his
breath at one stage.
I have retained the offending Jamless Dodger as evidence
and can send it to you if you need to inspect it. You can
rest assured that Tim had not exacted some kind of ‘biscuit
cunnilingus’ on the Dodger to extract the jam and he remains
deeply traumatised. I tried putting an arm around his shoulder
and provided a replacement Jammie Dodger (complete with the

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fruity goodness of the jam) telling him it was “all a bad
dream” but it was too late – the damage had been done. We may
now try hypnotherapy.
I have provided details of the offending packet and where it
was purchased below. I would now ask that you provide us with
some kind of compensation to try and repair the damage that
has been done. A voucher for a replacement packet would be
nice. Anything beyond this would see us as dedicated consumers
for life, possibly even willing to train our minds to be
mentally strong enough to ignore a Jamless Dodger in future.
If you need me to forward the biscuit in question please let
me know. My contact information can be found below. Otherwise
the biscuit was purchased in Tesco in Bury on 15/3/2011. The
serial number appears to be G1030.
Kind regards,
Griff
Confectionary Distribution Supervisor
Key Financial Claims

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Date: Wednesday 16th March 2011
Subject: RE: The Case Of The Defective Dodger
Dear Mr Griff
Thank you for your e-mail from which we are sorry to learn of
the problems one of our Jammie Dodgers has caused. We would
like to examine the biscuit in question and so have today put
some pre-paid packaging in the post to you along with a request
for the return of the biscuit and packaging for examination.
We look forward to receiving this parcel when we will give
this matter our immediate attention. In the meantime please
accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.
Kind regards
Jean Huddlestone
Consumer Services Department
Burton’s Foods Ltd

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Sure enough the packaging to return the offending Jamless Dodger followed shortly
after Jean’s e-mail, in an envelope marked for the attention of the Confectionery
Distribution Supervisor. This, in itself, caused much confusion amongst the office
juniors whose job it was to distribute the post.

And so I returned the evidence for them to examine, along with the following
accompanying letter.

21st March 2011

Dear Jean,

Following on from your response to my e-mail dated 15th March I now enclose the
offending Jamless Dodger (hitherto referred to as ‘Exhibit A’) that caused so much
distress and heartache for my colleague Tim.

Another of my colleagues took pictures of Tim before and after he was presented
with the rogue biscuit. The pictures are below for your consideration.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Griff

Confectionery Distribution Supervisor

Key Financial Claims

TIM BEFORE: TIM AFTER:



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When I started working for Key Financial Claims they were solely a PPI claims
management company, but had one slight difference to the majority of companies
that have given the industry a bad reputation. All the time that I was working there
my colleagues and I were able to hold our heads high, safe in the knowledge that
we weren’t one of the companies that annoyed the majority of the population
by cold calling or sending Spam e-mails about PPI refunds. We left that for other
people to do. Once the other companies had done this and found customers that
wanted their money back from the banks they would then pass their details to us
and we would actually do the work of claiming the customer’s PPI refund. This
worked well; the lenders paid the customers and most of the customers then
paid us. This meant the business was extremely lucrative for the first year that
I was with the company. The workforce was well rewarded for their efforts and
the company was a glorious place to work. The directors were especially happy
and would be seen sporting beaming smiles, driving fast cars and living the life of
luxury that they had worked hard all their lives to achieve.

Of course, the lenders had to put a spanner in the works. As if leading the country
into near financial meltdown wasn’t enough for them they then decided to go
to the High Court to try and worm their way out of paying the population of this
country what they had ripped them off in the first place. Until the verdict of that
nine month court battle was known, the lenders stopped paying any PPI refunds,
which resulted in our directors sweating like blind lesbians in a fish market.
They had to make sacrifices and so too did the staff. We had to work reduced
working hours, which meant a reduction in our wages. If this hadn’t been done
then redundancies would have had to have been made. It was a difficult time
for everyone in the fledgling PPI refund industry and there were several similar
claims management companies that didn’t have as astute management as ours at
that time and didn’t survive long enough to see the verdict delivered against the
lenders. It’s a testament to the spirit that existed within Key Financial Claims at the
time that when the chips were down nobody chose to leave.

Once the High Court had ruled in favour of the consumer it meant that the lenders
started to pay the refunds once again. With the additional publicity following the
court case we became busier than ever before and needed additional staff to cope
with the extra work being put our way. The company doubled in size over the next
few months and such was the growth that in order to accommodate the amount of
workers we now had, we had to find a bigger office. This meant moving the entire
company to Bolton, six miles down the road from Bury and known to anyone that’s
never been there as the place that Peter Kay comes from.

It was only a short distance to travel but it left me in a bit of a quandary. I knew my

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route around Bury and was able to make my department’s ‘brew fund’ stretch well
beyond reasonable expectation. For those that wanted a brew they were able to
enjoy a month long supply for £5 each. This probably doesn’t sound too difficult to
achieve and I’d dare say it would be easy to do if you wanted to scrimp and save,
but in our department we were brew connoisseurs and felt that nothing but the
best would do. Some other departments made do with some filth that someone
had packaged as ‘tea’ and rammed into a brown box, or endured supermarket
own brand of coffee that smelt like a dead tramp’s socks. How you can get through
a working day with such second rate essentials is beyond me! So I devised a way to
get the best. It meant traversing the Historic Market Town of Bury on my lunch hour
and if I had to go to all of the various retailers to collect the supplies then it meant
for that hour I was busier than a paedophile on Halloween but everyone agreed
it was worth the effort. Lancashire Tea was an acquired taste but was the brand
that caused least arguments in the office. (We’d previously had an unfortunate
incident involving a massive bag of PG Tips. We were refunded after I sent them a
letter claiming morale hadn’t been as low in the office since the day Princess Diana
died). I had retailers of Lancashire’s finest blend of 12 teas that would sling it to
me for 80p per box! Carte Noire coffee would regularly be on offer in either Tesco
next door or Asda and I was dispatched to return with a load that is normally only
attempted by forklift truck.

Milk was a different issue altogether. Whereas we could safely save money on
sugar by buying a bag so big it had to be airlifted in and kept in the car park,
this was impossible with milk. We had limited shelf space in the office fridge and
normal milk was just too expensive to afford. After all, it soon goes off if you try
keeping it next to the sugar in the car park. And so in an attempt to make the fund
go further we gave UHT milk a go. It didn’t take long for us to realise our folly. After
trying a brew containing this stuff, those with any taste buds were left looking like
a Rottweiler licking the piss off a nettle. We tried powdered milk but we found
that unless you spent 15 minutes stirring the stuff with a spoon strapped onto a
Rolls Royce jet engine it left peculiar lumps in the bottom of the cup. Oh, and that
it doesn’t go well with tea. Things got so dire that one maniac even suggested we
get the ‘white tea granules’ kind of tea! Not on my watch. Eventually I was able
to source fresh milk at a very reasonable £1 for 2 litres and with Ruby Murray and
Craig Parry as willing accomplices to help collect it our brews were soon the best
in the business.

The move to Bolton threatened this lavish lifestyle. Prior to going to work in
Bolton I’d only been there once and hadn’t got a clue where the new office was in
relation to my potential suppliers. So while others fussed and fretted about how
they would get to work, whether or not there would be parking spaces and how to

73

negotiate Bolton town centre on a lunch hour without ending up wearing a shell
suit (something evidently extremely difficult) I was concentrating on the important
stuff – brew supplies. My primary concern was how to keep my department’s
supply of fresh milk going. We were averaging five pints of the stuff each day and
the department was still growing! As you will have gathered, I was not averse to
walking anywhere within the parish to retrieve the milk but I did feel my time
could be better spent. I also felt that the brew fund could be more wisely invested.
And so I decided to make enquiries into buying our own cow.

This would have been impractical while we were in the Bury office. After all, we
had nowhere to store a cow. I’m no James Herriot but I know they run on grass and
there wasn’t much of that around the terraced streets that surrounded the Bury
office. When it came to our new offices in Bolton, however, we had a vast expanse
of parkland opposite. Admittedly the grass in Queens Park was more commonly
associated with ganja smoking manual labourers having a kick around at lunch
time than it was with a grazing dairy herd but this could be easily rectified. It was
time to make a serious enquiry about how much a cow would cost. And so I rang a
cattle auctioneer in Darwen, Lancashire, who asked to remain anonymous when I
rang him back after our initial conversation, which is transcribed here.

Griff: Hello, I’m interested in buying some livestock and was wondering if you can
help.

Cow Man: What type of livestock?

G: A cow, please.

CM: What kind of cow? Do you have a farm?

G: No farm, no, but I did go to a farm once. I got attacked by a goose and my welly
stuck in the mud when I tried to run away so I didn’t like it much…

CM: So what do you need the cow for? What type of cow. We’re very busy at the
moment.

G: Good! At least I know that you’re popular and probably a reputable cow
showroom. I need a dairy cow.

CM: *sigh* you don’t have much knowledge about this, do you? There are several
kind of dairy cows.

G: No, I dare say my knowledge isn’t as good as most of your clients. That’s why
I’m asking you questions – you’re a salesman so should know. And though I might
not know much about cows I have just as much money as your regulars and I don’t
wear manure-stained dungarees. Ideally I’d like a cow that does semi-skimmed.

CM: Are you being flippant? Cows are very expensive and there are lots of different
breeds.

G: Well, what would you say is the most basic one? So I can get a point of reference?

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CM: Basic?
G: Yes, you know a cow that gives milk but doesn’t do much else.
CM: Ummm, I think you could say that about most dairy cows in the world.
G: There are ones I’ve seen on Anchor butter adverts that dance. I won’t need a
dancing one.
CM: (Hesitates) I’ve never been told that it doesn’t need to dance before! Is this a
joke?
G: No joke, no. I’m just after a basic cow that can give me milk and is preferably
house-trained.
CM: (shouts) HOUSE TRAINED?! Why would you need to house train a cow?!!They
don’t go indoors! Ha! Are you mad? Think of the smell!
G: We’re used to that the morning after Craig’s had a curry. Listen, I’ve told you
what I’m after. Are you able to help?
CM: OK, let’s say we do a Holstein-Freisian. At auction and if you’re not planning
on using it for breeding purposes you could get one for around £1200.
G: Excellent, now we’re getting somewhere. And what colours do the come in?
CM: They’re usually black and white, though occasionally they’re all white or all
black and some have brown bits…
G: Right! Though they can be dyed, can’t they? After all, they all wear leather coats
and they come in loads of different colours.
CM: Well……I’ve never….
G: Do they need much exercise?
CM: No, they don’t generally exercise much at all.
G: But it wouldn’t be a problem if we wanted to take it for walks, would it? Or if my
mate Alison wanted to ride it around? She misses her horse riding, you see.
CM: We’re getting off the subject slightly.
G: OK, we can find that out when we get the cow. Is the price negotiable?
CM: We’re an auctioneer’s so of course, all the prices are bids.
G: Cool. I have some magic beans, you see….
And with that, the line went dead.

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I don’t just send correspondence to dignitaries and world leaders. Occasionally I
have had to send things through the post through necessity. Christmas cards, for
example. Though one year I got caught out and put them in the post too late to
be delivered before Christmas. And so I learnt my lesson and sent them early the
following year – in June. You’d have trouble imagining how difficult it is trying to
buy Christmas cards at the time of the Summer solstice but I managed to do it and
it did the trick – the cards were delivered in plenty of time. Admittedly this caused
some confusion, not least for my Grandma. Though this isn’t the first time I’ve sent
something by post which has caused confusion.

When I first moved to Manchester I was delighted by the vibrancy of the music
scene there. OK so I’m not a huge fan of many bands from Manchester (Elbow
being a notable exception) but there was an abundance of clubs and record shops
that specialised in the kind of music I enjoy. This was great news and I set about
adding to my CD collection with relish. I may have been in debt but I needed music
in my life so this was considered an essential purchase. The only trouble would
be trawling through the rubbish that can be offered and the really good stuff that
sometimes goes unnoticed. Thankfully help was at hand from BBC 6 Music and
The Fly magazine, which was given away in a variety of discerning record shops
around Manchester.

I hadn’t encountered The Fly before I got to Manchester but enjoyed reading
it so much that I recommended it to friends back in The Motherland. Sadly it
wasn’t readily available there and so I took it upon myself to mail copies back to
friends. After all, it was free for me to pick up a copy. In an effort to amuse both
the postmen and recipients of the magazine I decided to give put titles on the
envelopes that were a little different from the usual ‘Mr’ or ‘Esq’. On one occasion
my mate Fred (no, not the one from Longsight) received mail addressed to ‘Fred
Tosspot, Commander of Underwater Naval Troops’ with the first letter of each
word of the acronym in large letters and the rest in small letters. Fred was used
to such behaviour. As well as being a joint custodian of Nobby and joint liberator
of him, he has been my ‘partner in crime’ on many occasions when we’ve done
ridiculous things just to entertain ourselves. These varied but included things such
as going on an all-day drinking session on a freezing day in January while dressed
in dressing gowns and slippers (using public transport to get there, naturally) and
casually walking around the city of Chester playing inappropriate tunes at passers-
by on kazoos. I remember I was once having sex with a girl at Fred’s house. For
reasons I can’t remember I had agreed that upon reaching the point of climax I
would shout, “Geronimo!” and therefore notify Fred (who was in the next room)

76

that the deed had been done. In doing this, I got a fit of the giggles and the lady
I was with could not have looked more bemused if I had unscrewed my cock and
flushed it down the toilet! I’ve hardly been the most prolific swordsman over the
years but one tip I can share is that nothing kills passion quite like shouting the
name of a legendary Native American leader at the point of ejaculation.

Fred was telling others in our local pub that he was surprised that some of the
packages I’d sent to him had been delivered at all due to these stupid titles. I
asserted that I was confident the titles on the envelope wouldn’t be a factor as
long as the address was correct. In fact, I continued, “I reckon if you sent a potato
through the mail it would get to you as long as the address was correct. After all,
you could argue that the potato skin is merely packaging for what’s inside.”

Fred shot me a look that suggested this would never happen. I shot him a look back
that made him chuckle, because he knew that it wouldn’t be long before I tested
my theory. The next day I went and bought a potato. I took it to the post office
and got it weighed by a suspicious looking counter assistant, who then gave me
the stamp that I stuck straight onto the potato. She laughed as she put the potato
into the post bag and looked at me as if she was going to alert some authorities as
soon as I’d left.

Around a week later I got a phone call from Fred. Like most blokes we don’t
speak with each other very often unless we’re actually in the same room (or bar),
preferring instead to communicate by text, piss-taking comments on a Facebook
status update or some kind of telepathy that knows we’re each doing fine and
nothing much has changed since we last enquired about the other’s welfare. I
must say that I was expecting a text so a call was quite a novelty. Fred was giggling
when I answered.

“I’ve just had a hysterical postman deliver a potato to me,” he said.

I told Fred that this was disappointing as I’d posted it over a week ago. I had written
Fred’s address on perfectly and, just to amuse myself, had also written perfectly, ‘If
undelivered, please return to Rt Hon Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, 10 Downing
Street, London. SW1A 2AA’.

“The thing is,” continued Fred, “that you put Gordon Brown’s address on it. You
nearly caused a riot at the sorting office because everything addressed to him has
to be security checked before being delivered. They had to ask the Prime Minister’s
office for permission to deliver a potato to some bloke called Fred in Shotton!”

77

It seemed as if I was having no problem getting the attention of world leaders.
Buoyed by this, I thought I’d do my best to try and do my best for a cause very close
to my heart. Reparation money is a highly emotive issue in the USA. For those
unaware, it’s the term used for compensation money that some descendants of
former slaves are trying to get paid from the government. When Barack Obama
was elected it was thought he would be more sympathetic to such a request.

78

Griff
The Prince of Deansgate

Manchestershire

President Barry O
Big Cheese
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington
DC 20500
USA

30th July 2009

Dear Baz,

How’s your belly off for spots? Hope all’s well. Firstly may I

congratulate you on getting elected and having had a relatively trouble-free first

six months in office. I was pleased that you won that election. Not just because

the alternative was a geriatric lunatic that promised to keep some of the policies

of a man who had somehow become the most unpopular political figure since

Hitler (which took some doing by George when you consider he was President at

the same time the likes of Gaddafi, Mugabe and Sepp Blatter were in office) but

because you seem to be on the same wavelength as an entire generation in a way

not previously seen in world politics.

Anyway, the reason I am writing to you is because I believe that

you could be the man to help put right a wrong that has been done over the course

of generations by those that began as inhabitants of the United States. They have

since come to my native shores and displaced those that had previously enjoyed a

peaceful and idyllic lifestyle, unspoiled by predators human or otherwise.

Yes, I’m talking about squirrels. Namely the red squirrels that were

originally in the majority in this country but are now facing extinction because of

the influx of grey (yes, it IS spelt G-R-E-Y) squirrels from the USA. I’m not sure when

or how the greys managed to get over here but suspect it was some sort of covert,

secret mission you guys had them doing during the second world war, the details

of which have yet to be released into the public domain for fear of the outrage that

would spring forth from the red squirrel loving population within our country.

Regardless of how they got here, though, I now think the time is

79

right to make a concerted effort to save the red squirrels. I have an idea about how
we can achieve this, which does not involve any direct retribution against the grey
squirrels, but does involve giving the red squirrels the ability to thrive alongside
their more robust cousins. Here’s my idea:

I am in the early stages of forming what I am calling the British Institute Guarding
Against Red Squirrel Extinction (BIGARSE for short). What I require is the funding
that will help to develop the institute, the main aims of which are as follows:

• To educate the red squirrels in ways to thrive in environments that are not wholly
natural to them;

• To train the red squirrels in self-defence techniques so they are better equipped
to defend their own land;

• To give the red squirrels the tools to harvest nuts for the winter and to build
proper, grey squirrel-proof supply shelters for these nuts during their hibernation
periods; and

• Teach them how to knit (if there’s enough money left in the kitty and if it’s
possible) so they can make themselves scarves to keep warm if they have to go to
the bathroom during their hibernation periods.

You may be wondering why I’m writing to you with details of my BIGARSE. Allow
me to enlighten you. I am aware that some ‘African American’ families in the
United States are now seeking reparation monies from those families that enslaved
some of their ancestors during times of slavery a few years ago. I also understand
that there is a call for the US government to pay reparation money to all affected
families and that this is a highly emotive issue for you. In light of this I am writing
to you on behalf of the red squirrels to request that your administration pays their
species reparation money to back my BIGARSE. The required amount is a mere $1
million. I would use the money to dedicate my life to oversee the running of the
project on a modest salary. In return, I would promise not to draw inspiration from
my country’s parliamentarians and use the money to line my own pockets. What
is more, as an act of gratitude I would send you a furry red squirrel and, when
they reach the required standard at knitting, would get them to knit a nice jumper
for Michelle. Imagine the brownie points that would get you! (wink wink, nudge
nudge, know what I mean?!)

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I hope that you share my enthusiasm for BIGARSE and look forward to your
response. Cheques should be made payable to The Scarlet Gooseberry.

Yours faithfully,
Griff

P.S. Any spelling mistakes you may have noted are due to the Microsoft Corporation
attempting to do the same to the actual English language as the grey squirrels are
doing to our red squirrels. ‘American English’ is wholly incorrect.

81

Baz didn’t reply. At the time I was quietly devastated about that as I thought the
BIGARSE would sucker him in. I guess he had his reasons for not responding;
maybe it was a choice between my suggestion and the mission to kill Osama Bin
Laden and there wasn’t enough in the kitty to do both. Realistically, though, it
was because this was the most serious and viable request that he received during
the first term of his presidency and I had made the request in writing. In my last
year of working at Key Financial Claims I had done lots of research into Neuro
Linguistic Programming, or NLP, and one of the things I learned is that requests of
this magnitude should be delivered face-to-face so that you are taken
seriously. That is why the Dragons Den TV show is the format it is instead of just
having Peter Jones sitting next to a fax machine.

NLP is something that interested me hugely. The possibilities for what it can
achieve are extraordinary and it can be extremely effective. After reading book
after book and researching the techniques of various practitioners into what they
claim to be the most powerful mind influencing technique there is I have learned
that around 85% of what NLP can achieve is common sense. Obviously the likes
of Derren Brown have mastered the other 15% and that does give them almost
unbelievable powers in mind control and influencing the behaviour of others but
for the most part NLP teaches things such as, “People will like you more if you smile
at them.” Really?! That was an Earth-shattering revelation to learn! Also, “People
will be more prepared to do what you ask if you use please and thank you”. Holy
hell, I’ve been practicing NLP since I was about three years old! Apparently “You
stand a better chance during a job interview if you turn up in more than just your
underwear” too, but I guess that all depends on who’s doing the interviewing.

The reason I was studying NLP and finding out that most of what it suggested
was common sense, was because much of the things akin to common sense
were sometimes being overlooked at Key Financial Claims. For example, when I
pointed out that having structured training for each employee as they started
their employment could reap rewards for the company. With that I was given a
new role within the company. This new role not only focused my mind a lot more
than the previous one I had held but also paid more. I soon realised that it was
actually possible for me, for the first time ever, to save money and put it to good
use. That was when I began dreaming of a holiday to Dallas to watch the hockey.
And then, when the plans for Dallas fell through, I began dreaming about

Chicago. And by dreaming, I'm referring specifically to one really vivid dream.
Looking back on it and taking into account what I learned from the research I had
done into NLP I reckon the dream was likely to have have been caused in equal
parts by my excitement about the Aretha Franklin gig, realising that Chicago is
the home town of President Barack Obama, the letter about red squirrels I
sent to him (which he ignored) and the fact that Baz is a big fan of soul music.

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I believe the dream may have actually been a premonition. I got to the gig venue in
plenty of time and was happily enjoying all the food and drink that came as part of
my VIP tickets. There were people looking at me quizzically as I was wearing an Iron
Maiden shirt but I didn’t recognise any of them so I wasn’t terribly bothered. One
of the people I did recognise was strangely standing on his own, near the buffet
table. It was Barack Obama and he may have been munching on a slice of quiche.
I decided to approach him. When I got to him I introduced myself and explained
how I had sent the letter. He said he remembered the letter and apologised for not
sending a response but that the Republicans were in charge of Congress and they
were proving to be a bit of a pain in the arse. I told him not to worry. We then got
chatting about the gig and his wife, Michelle, joined us with a bottle of some spirit
or other. Nobody else in the VIP area approached us – I suspect they may have
been Republicans. I proceeded to get drunk with my new mate Baz and his wife.

We watched the gig and had a glorious time, all the while getting more and drunk.
By the end of the night, Baz was so triumphantly inebriated that the paparazzi
were taking photos of us. Obviously they knew Baz and Michelle but asked who I
was. Before I could introduce myself, Baz leant forward and told them, “This is my
buddy from England and I’m going to help him save the squirrels in Great Britain.
They’re red!” I was so overjoyed I let him off with the statement about me being
‘from England’! And that was that. That was the dream but it seemed logical. After
all, I was going to Chicago and while there would be attending the VIP area at an
Aretha Franklin gig. It would be between Christmas and New Year when Barack
Obama would be off work. He’s a soul music fan and comes from Chicago. When I
awoke I was amused at the prospect, however unlikely it may be. Yet that dream
stayed in the back of my mind and that’s not always a bad thing. Look at Martin
Luther King.

There’s an old phrase about holidays that ‘getting there is half the fun’. Whoever
came up with that piece of bullshit had evidently never flown with American
Airlines. If my experience with them was half the fun I had in store then I was
about to make Guantanamo Bay look like Disneyworld. The details are contained
in the following e-mail I sent to them. In spite of my request not to bother, they
did send me a $300 dollar voucher to use toward a flight with them by way of
compensation. I have no intention of ever using that voucher.

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Dear Sir or Madam,
I would not describe this as a ‘complaint’. I merely want to
offer you some feedback following the flight I was on. I do not
require compensating and definitely do not want a voucher for a
future American Airlines flight. Frankly I would rather leave
my pet dog with Michael Vick than fly with American Airlines
ever again.
Where do you get your flight crew from? They looked like they
were working on a train to Auschwitz in the early 1940s
instead of a plane taking people on holiday! I know it was
the festive season when I flew and they would probably rather
not be working but every single one of them had a face like a
blistered piss pot!
I was seated between two ladies, both of whom were sleeping
during the flight. At one stage over Greenland I pressed the
button for one of the crew to bring me a drink. As we got over
Lake Michigan my light was still on. That is approximately
2,000 miles and I didn’t get a drink at the end of it.
The crew on that flight lacked anything that resembled good
manners. I finally managed to escape to the bathroom a short
while later but the nearest one to me was engaged. I asked
a stewardess if she would stand up to allow me to pass to
the vacant bathroom and was told that this was not possible
and I would have to do a complete circuit of the cabin in
order to get the four yards to the vacant lavatory. Giving
her the benefit of the doubt I would say she was concerned for
my welfare and did not want to risk me getting deep veined
thrombosis.
Another example was when I asked a gentleman if he had a pen
I could use to complete the customs form he had given me to
complete and he looked at me as if I’d asked him to donate
bone marrow. He then responded with “I don’t have a pen” in a
way very reminiscent of BA Baracas. I was shocked he didn’t
call me ‘fool’! Nobody else among the flight crew had a pen
to complete this form, which is compulsory for all visitors
to the US. Do you expect people to self-harm and complete

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the form in their own blood?! If so you may want to provide
more robust knives than the ones supplied to eat the on-board
meals. This lack of pens later caused unnecessary delays at
passport control in O’Hare airport.
On the way back from the United States one week later I am
happy to report that the service I received was much better. If
only the flight had not been inexplicably cancelled, resulting
in a three hour delay and an unscheduled stop in New York it
would have been quite a pleasant journey.
On behalf of Sir Richard Branson I would like to thank you.
Based on the evidence I witnessed, the type of service you
deliver has made him a very wealthy man. I hope you take note
of my constructive feedback and rest assured that should your
staff require training in basic customer care and how to say
‘please’ and ‘thank you’ then I will happily deliver such a
seminar. Let me know if you’d like me to provide you with a
quote for delivering such a course.
Kind regards,
Griff

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Getting to Chicago with American Airlines was annoying but, if truth be told, that
memory was soon banished as I quickly came to the same conclusion as Frank
Sinatra. It was my kind of town. Freezing cold but spectacular! The temperatures
that greeted me were -2°C and later in the week they had plummeted to a
truly testicle shrinking -19°C. And yet the cold was different to anything I’d
experienced before. For a start, there was no frost! I would have had no end
of fun drawing comedy penises on car windscreens around the city (at time of
writing I’m approaching 13,000 days of age, by the way) but couldn’t. Not that
I felt the cold much, especially after buying the warmest jacket Chicago could
muster in a sale the day after I landed. I was going in and out of blues bars during
the evenings and during the day I would go sightseeing or shopping. Soldier Field,
for example, was one of the most jaw-droppingly fantastic sports stadia I’ve ever
been to and there wasn’t even a game going on!

When I wasn’t sightseeing or shopping I was feeding myself. The USA is renowned
for it’s good food and (ahem!) ‘healthy sized’ portions. And I reasoned that if I
was to fit in with the crowd at an Aretha Franklin gig then I could do with bulking
up a bit so I headed to Gino’s. As someone that has always had a fondness for
pizza, being in the home of ‘Chicago style’ pizza was something else that excited
me. Not just the city, but the specific restaurant! I expected the pizza to be good
and generously proportioned, but nothing could prepare me for the enormity of
what they served up to me. I ordered the smallest option (9”) with sausage as
the topping. Little did I know that in true Chi Town style pizzas, the sausage isn’t
a few pieces of pepperoni sliced into pieces to adorn the top like I was used to.
The sausage meat is made into a half-inch thick patty and spread across the entire
width of the pizza. Then there was enough tomato on top of the sausage to keep
a Dolmio factory going for a month. Below the sausage, a cardiologist’s nightmare
amount of cheese. All told, the pizza was about 4” thick, took 45 minutes to cook
and had me begging for mercy at the half way stage. I took the remaining half back
to my hotel, which I believe would be a challenge fit for World’s Strongest Man. I
was ready for Aretha!

I was pleased enough to get tickets for Buddy Guy’s Legend’s bar on New Year’s
Eve. I was pleased enough that I would have made the trip to Chicago even if I’d
known there would be no ice hockey before I booked the flight and hotel. Now
that I was here, I realised that I didn’t even need to go to Legends to have an
amazing time. Blue Chicago was amazing; as was Reggie’s; as was Fado’s; as was
the Underground Wonderbar; the list goes on. And yet, in amongst all of this, I
was looking forward to Aretha Franklin’s show more than anything I’ve looked

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forward to before. Imagine if Wayne Rooney had been on a Saga holiday; I was
that excited! This would be a truly once in a lifetime experience for me, something
that very few in the UK would ever get to experience.
The whole of Saturday was spent getting ready for the gig, checking out where the
gig venue was and that I was there in plenty of time. I made sure I ate the exact
right amount so that I could get truly stuck into the food that came as part of the
ticket. Every detail was planned perfectly and, if everything went according to plan
and the wind was blowing in the right direction, I would be getting drunk with the
President and persuading him to save our red squirrels!

No reason was offered for Aretha cancelling the concert. I was refunded the cost
of the ticket, but wasn’t bothered. No amount of money could have made up for
that disappointment. That is why I believe Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul,
jeopardized the future of the UK red squirrel population.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been made possible thanks to encouragement and support from
many people over the last few years. Whether it’s a kind word from those that have
kept their eye on my blog (www.ThePrinceOfDeansgate.blogspot.co.uk), positive
feedback of my previous book (‘Who Is The Scarlet Gooseberry?’), wearing T-shirts
to help publicise my work or just ‘liking’ a Facebook post that links to something
I’ve written, it’s all helped. I’d like to say thanks and offer you all a big cuddle!

Mostly, I’d like to thank the following beautiful and lovely people that pre-ordered
this book and helped to cover the initial printing costs in the process. I hope you’ve
enjoyed it and hope the stories of how we met bring back many fond memories!

Oscar Tosspot

Oscar is one of Deeside’s most celebrated taxidermists. I went to see him once
with an old girlfriend of mine. He ended up giving her a tremendous stuffing and
afterwards he invited us for a spit roast in his back garden. When we’d finished, I
suggested liquor and poker, which somehow Oscar misunderstood. It was a little bit
unsettling for a second or two being confronted by a man with his trousers around
his ankles, a charred chipolata in his hand (left over from the roast, obviously) and
a twinkle in his eye but it’s surprising how quickly you get comfortable when it
happens. We’ve been friends ever since.

Jill McMillan

Like any Manchester City fan, Jill is blessed with a marvellous singing voice. Normally
it only gets used for one song (and she’s usually quite drunk by then) but there’s no
escaping it. During one afternoon stood on the Kippax, she let rip into Blue Moon
with familiar gusto and caught the attention of an advertising executive that was
standing nearby. He signed her up and it was Jill’s magnificently mellifluous tones
that sang the vocal on the Bodyform adverts in the early nineties. I didn’t believe
her until she did a rendition of it in the Quiet Zone of a Virgin train once. We got
kicked off the train but we’ve been friends ever since.

Carly Lane

I met Carly as I made my way through Cardiff Central train station on my way home
from a rugby trip. Carly is a professional golfer and is regarded as Cardiff’s leading
champagne connoisseur.

Rugby crowds are often associated with drunken chanting, exposing their buttocks,
flatulence, lewd outbursts toward the opposite sex and debauched sexual acts.

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And it was nice to see that, even though she hadn’t been to a match, that kind of
behaviour was also typical of Carly on a regular Saturday night. Within seconds
of meeting we were getting on like old friends. She told me that she was a shoe
fetishist, that she has never learned to ride a bike and that the mere mention of
bananas is enough to make her go demented. We’ve been friends ever since.

Andy Gannon

Flatulence has long been a condition that my family has been well known for. This
made me a wow at parties as a child with the ‘pull my finger’ joke. It wasn’t so
popular during the trenches in the first Gulf War, however. With little to eat apart
from tins of beans, spicy food and camel burgers the smell could be deadly. When
it drifted across Kurdistan we were so embarrassed that we blamed it on Saddam
Hussein and said he was using chemical weapons! That aside, I wasn’t appreciated
by the rest of my platoon. Fortunately for me, my Commanding Officer had
overcome a similar problem years earlier by swallowing live ammunition. This
stopped him farting but meant that each time he had a wank anyone within a
hundred yards was at risk of being assassinated. That man was Andy and that’s
why his friends call him Gunner. I followed his advice, it cured my problem and
we’ve been friends ever since.

Matt Lloyd

There used to be six or seven mines within four miles of Pontypridd. All of them
closed down years ago, but this didn’t stop the teenage Matt from exploring the
shafts while he was drunk. One day he fell so deep into one of the disused mines
that he decided to carry on digging. Having seen what the surface of Pontypridd
has to offer, nobody could really blame him. He eventually surfaced in Australia
covered in soot so deep that it would be another couple of years before he
stopped looking like Al Jolson. Contrary to the popular misconception of Australian
attitudes toward immigration, it was Matt’s lack of official papers that led to him
being deported and not his black face, and he returned to the UK. Upon landing
he got a job as the speaking clock where we sat next to each other. We’ve been
friends ever since.

Claire Havey and Mark Armstrong

Wandering around the back alleys of Manchester, I found Claire sitting on a kerb
looking lonely, cold and lost. She was gently sobbing and looked up at me, her eyes
looking a bit like the rabbit from Watership Down. Before I could speak, she said,
“Excuse me Mister, but where are all the single men?” It was like a scene from
Oliver Twist (if Oliver had been a sex-starved brunette from Wigan in her early

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twenties). And so I decided to take her dogging so that she could find some male
companionship. Unfortunately I didn’t have a car and it’s tremendously difficult
dogging on the number 33 bus so that plan never came to fruition. However, I
remembered one guy that once told me how he frequently had to choke a chicken.
With nothing but poultry on my mind, I thought of him when Claire mentioned
how she wanted a cock. That man was Mark, I gave Claire’s number to him and
they went at it like rabbits with a week to live. We’ve been friends ever since.

Fred Dodd

Speaking as a man that gets sexually aroused if the wind’s blowing in the right
direction, I had always seen strip clubs as being like torture chambers. Some lady
jiggling around, inches away from me and I’m not allowed to touch either her or
myself. And then I end up with something resembling a baseball bat in my trousers
and end up telling the poor girl that, “It’s not going to suck itself now, is it?!”
However, when I saw Fred lap dancing to the Camberwick Green theme tune in
an Estonian nightclub that all changed. As his ample hairy bosom swayed past my
ears making a noise like Yoda’s light sabre, I didn’t find it erotic in the slightest. At
last, I was able to view this art form on it’s merits and look beyond the boobies.
We had a chat when he’d finished his shift, he gave me a recipe for carrot cake and
we’ve been friends ever since.

Chris Sumner

Never one to avoid an experiment, over the years Chris has enjoyed mixing music,
hallucinogens, alcohol, gardening products, ladies’ underwear and necrophilia in
an attempt to make his social life more entertaining. He never usually fuses all
of these things together at the same time but as I walked along a canal towpath
at the back of the cemetery one winter’s morning I saw Chris, oblivious to his
surroundings but evidently having the time of his life! It’s fair to say he wasn’t
welcome at that funeral. We’ve been friends ever since.

Lorraine Ducklin

Lorraine worked as a hostage negotiator in Mogadishu shortly before the infamous
‘Black Hawk Down’ incident. Upon getting back to Manchester, she thought that
managing a betting shop in Harpurhey suited her experience and would provide
her with a similar level of excitement. She swiftly realised this was not the case and
re-trained herself as a personal trainer. During a night out near Piccadilly Gardens,
she confided in me that while she was enjoying her new job, she just didn’t have
the portfolio of clients that she could get her teeth into. I suggested that she apply
to the local rowing club to see if she could train their little cox. Since records began,

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no human has ever moved as fast as when Loz ran toward that river! We’ve been
friends ever since.

Allan McKeown

What goes on in rehab stays in rehab.

Stephanie Anderson

Stephanie is the only Buddhist monk that ever posed for Playboy. In doing so,
she was soon discovered not to be a man and the order of monks to which she
belonged wasn’t liberal enough to accept women at that time. Sadly, Playboy lost
the photographs that would have made Stephanie a worldwide celebrity and in
that moment not only had she lost her chance for fame and fortune but also any
hope of singing backing vocals for Kula Shaker. She settled instead for a career in
waste disposal so that she could prevent binmen from killing rodents. I was one of
the first binmen she converted and we’ve been friends ever since.

Tom Gorst

The mid-1990s was the golden age in drum n bass music, during which Tom
had been a massive influence. He normally used the pseudonym of DJ Sett and
during those days he was hired by stellar names in the world of celebrity, such
as Princess Diana, Michael Jordan, Ringo Starr and Russ Abbot. At the height of
this fame and adulation, Tom developed a crushing phobia of vinyl. This not only
took away his favourite pastime and his livelihood, but also the favourite items
from his wardrobe. He became dependant on absinthe and I met him in a bar in
Sale on the day that he cut his left ear off. Onlookers became hysterical as blood
gushed everywhere, but Tom remained calm, only complaining that his glasses
were suddenly wonky. I still have his ear and we’ve been friends ever since.

Helena Beck

I found Helena in an allotment when she was five years old. At first I was tempted
to hand her to the authorities in the belief she was an alien. After all, she had an
extremely pale complexion and I couldn’t understand a word she said. It turned
out that she was Scottish. Like all Scottish children she had a ‘thistle whistle’ which
she used to summon the Loch Ness Monster. We tried using it at the River Dee
once, but only managed to summon a couple of ‘Mersey Goldfish’ and a trawler
full of illegal Cocklers. We’ve been friends ever since.

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Daphne Brown

On my way home from a shift at work late one summer’s evening I went past Old
Trafford cricket ground. That had been the venue for a Foo Fighters gig earlier
that evening and I was slightly dumbstruck to see Dave Grohl running toward me,
screaming and covered in torn rags where his clothes used to be. I asked if he
was OK and he grabbed both sides of my head, looked at me with a thousand
yard stare and, gasping for breath, begged me to run for my life. He ran away and
was now being followed by other Foo Fighters who looked similarly distressed
and bloodied. Intrigue got the better of me and so I walked to the marquee they
had just emerged from. Not a soul was there, apart from Daphne with a bottle of
Magners in her hand. “What about ye?!” she shouted, with a massive grin on her
face. We’ve been friends ever since.

Martin McLoughlin

The Salisbury in Manchester is rightly regarded as one of the UK’s leading centres
of progressive thinking. Since he was released by the Khmer Rouge I had seen
Martin in there many times, trying to adapt to life as a free man. The first time
I spoke with him he told me that it’s now his ambition to develop Lancashire’s
rhubarb trade so that one day it will be even more successful than that of West
Yorkshire’s ‘rhubarb triangle’. In order to facilitate this, he hasn’t slept for the last
six years. His diet enables him to do this – he only consumes Sunny Delight and
Ryvita. This means that he can encourage growth of the crops at night by gently
singing them the hits of Mika. The first time we met, he suggested that I help him
to achieve his ambition and even adapted the diet to suit me (replacing the Ryvita
with Super Noodles) but sadly I don’t have the devotion to rhubarb that Martin
does. We’ve been friends ever since.

Sarah Connolly

Chester in the late 1990s was a grim place. Lawlessness, poverty and the bubonic
plague meant the average life-expectancy for a male at the time was 32. The only
saving grace for the city was that it was the mud wrestling capital of the world
thanks to the weekly events held at the Northgate Arena. Sarah was one of the
leading stars of the sport in that era and quickly became an inspiration to the
people of that poor, God-forsaken city. The video of her showering after a bout was
a best seller as it was the first time Cestrians had ever seen a lady take a shower.
It’s now widely assumed that Sarah and her mud wrestling colleagues brought
civilisation to Chester in a way not seen since Roman times. I produced a fanzine in
honour of her exploits and was almost arrested for taking candid photographs of
her on a training run through Blacon. We’ve been friends ever since.

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Tom Ryan

Tom is from the same part of the world as Robbie Williams, Slash and Phil ‘The
Power’ Taylor. Looking at them for inspiration, Tom recognised that if he was
going to be successful in life then he, too, needed to get the hell out of Stoke. He
moved to Oldham with the hope of creating his own oatcake empire. At first he
had to subsidise his income by working as a lady of the night in the back streets
of Longsight. His oatcake empire was struggling, his beloved Stoke City looked like
being relegated and, even in Longsight, his arse wasn’t worth more than twenty
pence a squirt. He refused to get down about it and instead realised that his life
could only get better. He set to work to make it happen. The turning point was a
bet he had with me that Stoke would stay up. They did. We’ve been friends ever
since.

Michelle Olczyk

Some girls wouldn’t have the mental strength to deal with some of the things life
has thrown at Shelle. Never was this more in evidence than when she got dismissed
from her dream job as an Ann Summers product tester. Spotting an opportunity
in the strip club industry, she created a school where she could teach dancers
how to shake their ass with dignity. She revolutionised that industry without ever
having to take her own clothes off in public. She employed me to design a poster
to help publicise the school but sadly I got my words mixed up on the poster for
her Pole dancing class. It’s a happy coincidence that the ensuing confusion led to
her meeting, and later marrying, Dave. We’ve been friends ever since.

Scott Johnson

Scott has always had a fascination with water. Whether it’s swimming the Atlantic
Ocean single handed just so he could get a cheap holiday when he was seven
or dangling his worm in the lake at Wepre Park in his mid-thirties, he’s never
happier than when he’s wet. Which is dangerous for everyone concerned as Scott
is secretly a mogwai. Thankfully for everyone I discovered this at a very early age
and through contacts at the laboratory where my Dad worked I was able to get
him a special suit that has all the characteristics of human skin. I delivered the suit
to Scott with instructions that in order for the suit to work properly, Scott must be
kept in laboratory conditions for most of his life. We’ve been friends ever since.

Michelle Herron and Sean Herron

It was never going to be easy for the Manchester public to adapt to life after the
Beckhams had left. Without Posh, who would provide them with the glamour,

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the elegance and the beauty? Without Becks, where would they find the peculiar
dress sense, weird haircuts and strange facial hair? And without the pair of them,
who would come to the fore as Manchester’s definitive couple? Who would be the
shining example of love, devotion and tenderness that would be made complete
with some wonderful children? Michelle and Sean didn’t know when I asked them,
either. We’ve been friends ever since.

Salford Slim

Darts was often misinterpreted as being solely a pursuit for middle-aged,
overweight drunks with a terrible fashion sense. Fortunately, Salford Slim was
playing in the same darts team as me and he proved that not every darts player is
middle aged. We’ve been friends ever since.

Warren Hughes

Sporting a head of hair that is the only natural product the exact same colour as
Irn Bru, it’s easy to spot ‘Ginge’ across a crowded room. We were both attending
a lecture that Tiger Woods was giving about the importance of the right shaft
and what club length to use that, strangely, had nothing to do with golf. After
the lecture I was talking with possible investors about my burgeoning bedroom
furnishings company when ‘Ginge’ approached and explained that he fully malts
twice per day and was looking to supply pillow manufacturers in an attempt to
make money from his unwanted body hair. We’ve been friends ever since.

Nas Maximillion

When I first moved to South Wales I was working in the Centre for Vaginal
Rejuvenation. Nas was initially employed as Tightening Technician but then went
on to become the Senior Snipper. I didn’t know exactly what his job entailed so he
showed me an example of his work one day. I made the observation that it looked
like one of Gollum’s ears. We’ve been friends ever since.

Jill Brown

Never one to be far from action or adventure, Jill was travelling through Borneo.
Imagine Rambo with blonde hair and a Northern Irish accent. She stumbled across
a tribe that were about to make her into a nice crumble (it was a Sunday, after
all). Jill was unable to communicate with them but recognised the dialect in which
they spoke. It was Welsh. As her last request, she requested the use of a phone
and used it to call me. It was like some extreme version of Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire. I was able to translate what they were saying to her and negotiated
for her freedom. Upon receipt of the promised game of doctors and nurses and

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rendition of Danny Boy, Jill was released. We’ve been friends ever since.
Liz Woodward
In the summer of 2007 I had a job as a diamond mining mogul in South Africa. It
was my job to displace tribes and slash and burn areas of natural beauty. In my
spare time, I went looking for other natural gemstones. On my lunch hour one
afternoon I was in a lagoon collecting oysters when Liz emerged from the water.
She was busy skinny dipping, one of her favourite pastimes. When I explained
what I was doing there she told me how she would love a pearl necklace. Before
I could respond, a crocodile emerged from the lagoon and began attacking her.
Little did the croc know that Liz is unique among humans and her skin is so
strong she’s actually bullet-proof. This has given her a ferocious reputation as a
football hooligan, where she is so intimidating that even her own team (Bury) are
frightened by her presence, which has given them the nickname of The Shakers.
The crocodile never stood a chance, Liz fought him off and later used his skin as a
handbag. We’ve been friends ever since.

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About The Author

Griff is an actual, real life Son of a Preacher Man.
That said, he did once knock out a vicar. He has
captained Shotton Cricket Club, Global Travel
FC and Sale Rugby Club (darts team). Peter ‘One
Dart’ Manley once described him as, “That cocky
little shit in the Bermuda shorts”. The thing that
impressed him most about Las Vegas was a curly
escalator. He gave up looking for love a few years
ago as women just aren’t interested in him in that
way. Rupert Murdoch once threatened to sue him
for libel. He once answered a GCSE Maths exam
question with, “I have absolutely no idea, but
a Cadbury’s Boost is slightly rippled with a flat
underside”. He once complained so strongly to
Natwest Bank that they banned him from having
an account with them ever again. He was once
barred from a pub for asking what fish was on
the menu. He stopped going to the dentist when
they told him to stop drinking fizzy pop and eating
boiled sweets. He was once asked by a passing
motorist if he wanted to join a circus. His ambition
is to drive a Zamboni. He hates referring to himself
in the third person.