15 Dec 2014

25 PART 2

THE JOURNEY (part1)

The morning ablutions this day were carried out with an unusual amount of care given the recent nuts in the drawer incident.  Gulliver’s bathroom was a depressing looking affair.  His original plans were to transform the small room into a spa like haven with rough granite tiles, under floor heating, soft golden lighting, burning incense and a hidden sound system piping in hypnotic Buddhist chanting had not actually progressed any further than four old candles and a bowl of potpourri that was now gathering dust on the stained glass shelves clutching precariously to the wall dangerously close to the light switch cord.

The bathroom suite which in effect means the toilet, the bath and the basin were a delightful pre-eighties (I mean 70’s) avocado green   They whole ensemble should have been snowy white with the toilet free floating on the wall, the bath should have been a whirlpool combo and the sink should have been set into a stunning block of hand carved Amazon (Amazon the place not the online shopping hypermarket!) fair trade timber.  As it was it was avocado green attached to the wall with huge rusty brackets with the waste pipe exposed for all the world to see like a PVC umbilical cord.   His razor sat perched on the edge of the sink and was a far from sanitary affair.  It looked like something Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street threw out because he was worried about the health risks it posed to his customers. (substitute victims for customers)  The blade had seen the best part of a hundred shaves and was beginning to look like a prop from CSI Las Vegas. (NY or Miami, it doesn’t really matter)

As he took the frightening instrument of torture in his hand he toyed with the idea of going back to bed and phoning in sick.  Then again day one of a new job is not the best time to pull a sickie, not to mention the fat the he was skint which was painfully evident by the lack of heating in the bathroom, in fact the bathroom was so cold he could see his breath as he breathed. (grammatically correct?)  This had provided him with endless hours of fun pretending to be Puff the magic dragon on days when it didn’t matter, but today he was off to work and there was no time to emit prehistoric fire from his rapidly blueing nostrils.

His bathroom had the cold lifeless depressing feel of a morgue about it, it had all of the morbid sterility of a morgue without all of the stylish chrome fittings, even the dolly in the knitted dress that covers the spare toilet roll had a despairing glum way about her as she hung all lopsided on the top of the toilet cistern like a miniature hooker on the dock side in Grimsby. (apparently!)

Gulliver shaved or at least attempted to shave as the razor which highly endorsed by professional footballers had promised to glide over his face and leave him smooth enough to marry an anorexic pop starlet tore chunks of flesh from his face.  By the end of the shave he looked like a man who had just thrust his head into a box full of very angry very startled cats.

The bath had been running while he shaved and was now approaching its limit, the hot steam rising from its murky depths and saturated every dry thing in the room.  The mirrors dripped, the ceiling dripped the toilet paper soaked up so much moisture that it would need to be oven baked at gas mark five for twenty minutes before there was any chance of having a wipe without it disintegrating into a mushy pulp.
He added a huge splash of Dettol to the water to combat the infection that was sure to infest his now crushed testicles and shredded countenance.  The water had come out of the tap so hot it was like the run off from a nuclear reactor.  Gulliver had pushed the boat out and left the emersion heater on all night, if the water had been any hotter it would have melted the bath.


Getting into a hot bath was a lovely heart warming experience, a handful of fragrant bath salts, a whiff or rose petal perfume and some Radox fruits of the forest bath soak could sooth away all manner of ailments.  The hot scented water would envelope him in a womblike massage, easing away his worries, soothing his aches and pains as he drifted off into an aquatic slumber as if resting on the tails of beautiful mermaids as they rubbed his rapidly un-furrowing brow.  Feeding him delicious sushi (the good stuff not the stuff laoded with Russian Plutonium 210) and seaweed and sea cucumber wine. (is there such a thing?) (must check with the Planet Orgasmic health food shop) (note to self: If it doesn’t exist make some and sell it to middle class types living in Stoke Newington because its soooo ethnic, make a fortune, retire, Genius!!)

Gulliver stepped into the bath, left foot first, the searing heat burned into him like a James Bond death laser and he whipped it out, not the best idea given his testicular tantrum earlier in the bedroom.  He waited another thirty seconds and tried again, again the searing heat drove him back.  He would need Red Adair and one of those sexy silver fire suits in order to get into this bath.

“Shit” he thought, he now had to add cold water to the already full bath.  This would involve him reaching down to pull the plug to make some room but this would entail a considerable amount of danger, but it would have to be done.  Gulliver stood above the steaming water and composed himself, took a deep breath and like Quay Chang Cain (70’s Kung Fu earth wandering Shaolin Monk) punched his hand into the boiling depths and ripped the plug from its heavily stained stainless steel housing.  The water flowed effortlessly into the now gaping aperture as Gulliver ran his hand under the cold tap in the sink in a bid to lower his burns from third to second or first degree.

When a sufficient amount of water had made its escape into London’s festering Victorian sewer system (no offence Mr Bazaljet) Gulliver replaced the plug, which only served to knock the burn level back up to third degree, and then turned the cold tap on.  The ice cold water hit the boiling liquid in the bath and made a sound like a red hot horse shoe being plunged into a bucket of water at the Blacksmiths.  Obviously the shoe was not attached to the horse, that would have just been cruel. Unless the horse had just done a Dick Turpin run from London to York and his poor shoes were indeed red hot, however this is very unlikely.  Or unless the horse had been on a horse middle management team building and bonding weekend and had walked over hot coals to prove himself.  Not that you should feel the need to prove yourself when you have a three foot penis!

Once the water had risen to a dangerously precarious height Gulliver turned off the cold water tap and prepared to take the plunge, literally, well not plunge exactly that kind of lends itself to falling off a tower block.  No this was going to be a more controlled ascent, like the ascent into Hades, given the heat still emanating from the avocado melting pot.

 The first foot went in and to be honest it wasn’t that bad, now for the second foot, and bingo he was in, standing stark naked in the unflattering glow of the now rapidly blinking fluorescent light, he shot a quick glance over to the mirror facing the bath, it was on reflection (what a great pun) not the best place to put a mirror.  The blinking light and his pasty body coupled with his still bleeding face and bruised, crushed and now swollen testicles have him the look of some maniacal inbred called Bubba from deep in the Bayou who had an unhealthy obsession with bearded men with pretty mouths, his sister and playing the banjo.

The blinking disco light was highly likely to give him an epileptic fit, he wasn’t normally epileptic but given today’s events thus far it was not beyond the bounds of reasonability and probability that he would develop the ailment while in the bath, have a fit, bang his head, swallow his tongue and evacuate his bowels into the bath like a mini Exol Valdez oil spill.

Gulliver turned around facing the back of the bath, he stretched forward dangerously overstretching on his tip toes leaning on the sink which was secured by the big old rusty never likely to fall of the wall brackets as he reached for the pull cord of the light switch.  Now today’s events would normally dictate  that the never likely to fall of the wall brackets holding the sink up would indeed give way under his weight causing him to somersault forward bang his head, swallow his tongue and evacuate his bowels all over the bathroom floor.

He managed to elongate his torso just enough to reach the pull cord, still leaning on the avocado trough that passed for his spa like sink.  He managed to reach the cord giving it a good hard tug, however he had overstretched just enough that his hand came crashing through the stained glass (stained as in filthy not as in some fabulous Germanic gothic cathedral window) shelves sending them crashing into the avocado trough.

However on the plus side he did manage to make it back into the upright position in the bath.  The sink although full of glass, roll on deodorant and Pizazz body spray (a touch of class for your underarms) and a collection of brightly coloured hair gels remained affixed to the wall. Result!

Gulliver placed his hands on either side of the bath and began to lower himself in.  First his arse touched the water and it was not too bad, a tad hot but not that bad at all.  He lowered some more, now the bruised and battered danglers hovered precariously above the steaming water.  Gulliver began puffing they way you do when you are getting into a hot bath.  Not entirely sure why, it was not as if it was going to cool it off.  The hot water began to swirl around his damaged appendage taking his breath away, like evil cats do while you’re sleeping.

The disinfectant in the water found its mark and invaded every tiny open, pores scratch, abrasion and nick on his damaged goods stinging him as if some blind wizened hundred year old Chinese acupuncturist  with Parkinsons was giving him the needle while bumping around on a space hopper.
The initial shock was over as Gulliver slowly sunk into the steaming murky broth, he was throbbing down below but not in the good way, however he was now relaxing into a pleasurable mariney slumber, a brief respite in what was going to be an eventful day.

Before drifting off, not literally you understand, drifting in a bath would be weird unless the bath itself was in some water rather than the other way around or unless the bath was enormous and he did actually drift off, finding some weird and wonderful land, or a world war two Japanese soldier hiding on a sponge waiting for the war to end. No this was the just before falling asleep type of drifted off, anyway before drifting off Gulliver gave himself a thorough going over with his posh bar of soap.  Well it was posh when he mum presented it to him for his birthday some six months previous.  It was so luxurious it had its own red and gold label in the middle, the ultimate accolade for a bar of soap.   However it had now perished to such a degree that he was technically washing himself with the gunk on the back of the label.  But this bar was indeed the king of soaps, imperial indeed.  And in case you are thinking a bar of soap is not a great birthday present it had come with a gift set of underarm deodorant, the ball now matted with pubic hair which was now sitting in the sink with five kilos of broken glass some foul smelling aftershave and some talc.

The talc being the only thing that had not been used with any degree of regularity.  Everyone knows that talc is only ever used by mothers on their babies (legitimately) and Mistress’s on their perverts privates! (just plain wrong)

Next was the hair, always a frightening experience.  His anti dandruff shampoo was a strange milky blue colour and always burned his eyes to the point where he was only able to make out shapes and shadows for three minutes after rinsing.  He wondered how this stuff ever actually got on to the market, surely it should have been tested on a bunny first.  Or maybe it had, maybe it had been tested on the Andy McNab of bunnies a hard bastard of a bunny immune to torture who pretended the shampoo was actually very pleasantly mild knowing full well that the end user would indeed be left writhing around on the bathroom floor screaming in agony, maybe he was a Jihadist martyr bunny suffering the torture to further the bunny revolution.  Bastard Rabbit!

After a brief snooze and a final splash and a small screech as the water tore into his shredded face Gulliver struggled to free himself form the bath.  Curiously much sweatier than when he went in.  He reached out for the towel in the darkened room for the area where he judged the towel rail should have been and not surprisingly it was just about where it should have been  doing nothing much other than hanging on to the damp plaster of the bathroom wall, sadly for Gulliver minus any towels.

So if a towel rail is minus a towel is it still a towel rail?  And if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? (‘A’ Level Philosophy)

Gulliver suddenly remembered that his towel, and yes he only had one towel was in a heap on the floor in his bedroom where he had thrown it last night.  He had been watching MTV after a near cold bath the night before and caught sight of Christine Aguilera in a bra and leather jodhpurs being all nasty and stuff and for a man on his own it was all the encouragement he needed.  And given the absence of a handy pair of socks or T shirt he used the towel, his only towel to mop up his guilty spillage.
The real sad thing about this whole shameful incident was that he switched on half way through the three minute song and was done before it ended.

 Gulliver made his was into his kitchen and grabbed his tea stained tea towel, yes he only had one tea towel but mercifully it was only stained with tea, and began to dry himself off.  

There was no need to mess about with making breakfast today, as it was the first day of his new job Gulliver was going to treat himself to a fried bacon sandwich from the greasy spoon café two doors away. The place was a source torture to him every morning with the luscious smell of crispying pig flesh and hot exotic teas from the far reaches of the world, or more precisely from the furthest isle of the wholesaler on the new road as they invaded his nostrils causing involuntary bouts of unconscious drooling.
(By the way it was the computer programme that put the pretentious ‘ above the e in café ((there it is again)) not me, I like my Café to be pronounced Caff)

The problems of dressing today were also swept away as there was no need to make a conscious decision on what to or what not to wear, a bit like Einstein who had seven identical suits so that he would not have to waste any conscious thought on his sartorial requirements for each day.  In any case Gulliver didn’t’ even have one identical suit in his wardrobe, his fashion sense was a strange cross bred hybrid, kind of skateboard chique and Ronald McDonald leisure wear.

No today’s attire had effectively been thrust upon Gulliver by the job centre, well they hadn’t actually put the clothes on him but they were responsible for their presence in his IKEA wardrobe which with its cold as the Sweeds Swedish design had absolutely no chance of being the gateway to Narnia.
The restart officer had happily informed him, well not happily more delightedly, well not even delightedly it was more ecstatically and orgasmically informed him that his days on the dole (sorry I mean benefits) were indeed at an end, and when I say days I actually mean years.
Gulliver had become a well know face at the job centre, actually he was on first name terms with everyone there and was usually invited to the office Christmas party, until the restart officer turned up and started gunning for him, she actually looked like she was gurning for him but it was actually gunning.  That’s the gunning in the hot pursuit kind of way not in the I don’t like Mondays shoot up the high school cafeteria with my Daddie’s automatic weapons Columbine kind of way.

Although when informed that if he didn’t take the retail security guard job he would be chucked of the dole Gulliver had toyed with the idea of travelling to the Elephant and Castle and hooking up with some nasty sarf London gangster types and buying a shooter off a tattooed thick necked naughty slag in the toilets of a boozer and travelling back and shooting up the dole office.  This was however ridiculous as there are no dodgy types at the Elephant and Castle that would sell you a shooter, secondly Gulliver had never been to the Elephant and Castle and thirdly could there ever really be a place in London called the Elephant and Castle?  It would be as ridiculous as calling a place Worlds End, ridiculous!

The uniform was a bedazzling combo of Draylon, Nylon and at least two percent cotton which gave off horrendous electric shock whenever the wearer touched a metal object  or took more than three steps.  A quick walk across a medium sized bedroom could conjure up enough static electricity to power a small village, probably somewhere in the Amazon basin as they only tend to have small villages and could  probably do with some electricity to recharge their Ipods and stuff, which they had bought from the proceeds of exporting all of their fair trade hand carved sink tops for spa like bathrooms in Kensington and Chelsea! And by fair trade I mean not fair at all, a sink form the Amazon (must be room here for a joke about the Amazon basin) $4 each, selling in a shop in Kensington with a German name and only 3 things in its display £3,000

The whole ensemble was an abomination in beige the trousers were baggier than MC Hammer Pants with a ludicrously oversized hat with a shiny peak and a great big badge on the breast pocket of his shirt which looked suspiciously like and NYPD shield.  The words Razorguard SWAT Security were emblazoned in gold stitching across its centre further adding to the humiliation.

Gulliver cast a glance at his reflection in the bedroom mirror, he did appear to have an inordinate number of mirrors in his place which according to the ancient art of feng shui was not necessarily a good thing, especially when you are in possession of a hideous dangle bag like his.  The sight that greeted him was more TWAT the SWAT and his aching heart sank to a very low very dark place, he had sunk as low as he could realistically go.

He took one last loving heart felt looking at his still warm bed, sighed loudly twisted on his heels and headed out of the door into a brave new world, indeed a world he never knew existed before 11am except on signing on days and when he woke up in the park drunk or was shimming down a drainpipe to escape some middle aged bints old man returning home from a night shift down the mines.  Now being as he lived in London there were no mines for a middle aged bints hubby to return home from and he never actually got to grips with any middle aged bints, so in fact he did not shimmy down many drain pipes before 11am, none in fact.

The door clunked shut with a resounding  finality that told Gulliver he was indeed out of this place for at least twelve hours, he shuddered at the thought.  He raced down the nylon carpeted communal stairs generating some serious static, like one of those scenes from a Frankenstein movie, he grasped the handle to the front door, the metal handle to the front door.  He came to about five minutes later smouldering and frothing at the mouth.  By the way that’s the small electrical fire kind of smouldering no the Sharon Stone kind of smouldering.

Out in the early morning the day attacked him slapping in the face with an icy windy fist threatening to knock him on his arse for the third time that day.  However Gulliver steeled himself against the elements, he was not going to be floored for a third time unless he was in a ‘Withnail and I’ drunker stupor.   He made his way miserably towards the Café (bastard word 2000), the smell of the cooking bacon enticing him like a bee to honey, although given the Café’s hygiene record maybe like a fly to shit would have been a more appropriate euphemism.

Gulliver made his way Gingerly to the Café (I give up) that’s the same gingerly as discussed previously, past Mr Patel’s corner shop.  Now Gulliver was acutely aware that Mr Patel having a corner shop was a very tired cliché, a possibly a racist stereotype however it was indeed a corner shop and Mr Patel did indeed own it.  Mr Patel’s shop was like a magical Moroccan Bazaar, what ever you needed or indeed wanted was there. 
It may not be immediately apparent but if stood and stared at the place where you thought it should be it invariably would be.  The shop had hidden nooks and crannies and hidden and crammed into these dark mysterious places lurked exotic individuals, beautifully dusky maidens who belly danced and wizened old men who charmed snakes, or so everyone was lead to believe.

There were colourful carpets of Yak hair hanging from the walls, myriad coloured spice jars festooned the cedar wood shelves.  Elaborate ornate lamps hung from the ceiling and the beautiful aromatic smells were like nothing on earth.  Actually that’s not quite right, they were like every beautiful smell on earth, mixed in a cosmos sized mixing bowl and baked into the greatest granny cake of all time with a cup of piping hot sweet tea which tasted like ambrosia itself.  That’s ambrosia food of the Gods, not Ambrosia creamed rice, which in itself ain’t half bad with a dollop of jam, (lovely) but which is not the food of the Gods.  Well actually it may be the food of the Gods if there was proof that there was indeed a God or Gods.  Is there a God? Is there a teapot or spaghetti monster orbiting the earth?  Who knows?

There were wonderous things from all corners of the world, the shop was a costermongerous utopian ideal that Thomas More himself would have been proud of.  Greek humus mingling happily with Turkish olives and pitta bread.  Jewish lutkas happily rubbed shoulders with Middle Eastern dates, Indian and Pakistani spices got on famously, English lager had a drunken night in with German beer and the French bread, well actually the French bread sat alone in the wicker basket with an aloof air about it, but that was only to be expected from the French bread.  In fact if the French bread had had its way it would have blockaded the front door so no poor sod could do any shopping at all.


Gulliver gave Mr Patel a wave as he passed by, and Mr Patel, well he gave Gullver a wave, one of those theatrical waves that someone who works in theatre might give after a particularly good Shakespearean performance.  It was one of those high twirling waves that continued right down to the wavers waist.  The wave was also accompanied by a shout of “ooh hello Sailor” which given Mr Patel’s heavy accent still managed to hit the humiliation spot in Gulliver’s brain dead centre bringing him to a sudden stop, which given his zombie like trudge was not really that difficult.   Although pulling up at all was not a great idea given that his enlarged Scrotum was encased in swathes of nylon, draylon and a bit of cotton thrown in for effect.
Gulliver stopped and stopped outside Mr Patel’s and looked in longingly as the smells wafted out and invaded his senses.  He closed his eyes and for a brief moment he was transported to a boat drifting down the magnificent Ganges with the smell of local delicacies filling his holiday rested nostrils.  But he wasn’t, he was standing in a cold street on a Monday morning in an ill fitting uniform looking like a bit of a twit, well looking a lot of a twit actually.

 “New Job” he shouted to Mr Patel

“Well you look jolly smart young Mr Gulliver” came the apparently sincere reply

“Do you really think so?”

“No, I lied”

“Thanks”

“You’re very welcome officer”

“Ha bloody ha”

Gulliver would have loved to stop and chat with his old friend however he was running late, there was a bacon sandwich with his name on it (not literally) and anyway the French bread had decided to blockade the shop doorway because a Croissant had been binned for being stale, such is the way of the French.  French bread that is not the French as a race, I mean they wouldn’t blockade a port and ruin the once in a lifetime trip to Euro Disney for a group of sick orphans because a French farmer had lost a sheep under the wheels of a British lorry delivering British wine and cheese to Provance.

Mr Patel’s’ hello sailor comment now left Gulliver in a bit of a quandary. He was desperately in need of the bacon sandwich with his name on it (not literally) however the café was bound to be full of Builders, Scaffolders and Hod Carriers, or as the Americans would say “guys who work construction”, as cafes on High Streets this early in the morning invariably are.

Gulliver stood outside the shop contemplating what was going to be a humiliating and degrading experience, it was like the sword of Damaclese was hanging over his head.  He was going to enjoy, no he was going to relish (enjoy a lot not put relish on it that would be filth) his bacon sandwich, toasted, however he knew he was bound to be given an unmerciful ribbing.  Actually a ribbing would be nice.  Ribbing is what friends do to one another whilst partaking of Pym’s ands strawberries while punting along a Cambridge river on a Sunday afternoon between history lectures.

Nope Gulliver was in for a right proper piss take, one of those piss takes that make grown men cry alone at home under their duvets, one of those piss takes that leaves you sitting naked rocking back and forth in a hard backed chair in a darkened room in your house while Wagner plays on the stereo.  Yep indeed this was going to be the mother of all piss takes.

Gulliver had come to know a lot of the local builders as he had spent a lot of time hanging around building sites.  He didn’t have a ‘thing’ for builders or anything like that you understand its just he hated lying to his mates at the job centre, so every signing on day when he was asked “have you been actively seeking employment”? he could in all honesty say “yes indeed I have”.  Although there was never any chance of being hired, hod carriers were required to carry more than two bricks at a time, hiring him to work on a building site would have been as about as practical as hiring a woman in a hijab to work in a primary school.

Whilst still contemplating sitting alone naked rocking back and forth in a darkened room defecating and decorating the room with deficatory sludge a customer opened the door to the café.  As he did a huge waft of incinerating bacon flew out like a willow the whisp, a particularly handy willow the whisp who punched Gulliver in the nose, slapped him in the mouth and dragged him by the hair into the café before the door could close or before any semblance of self respect could draw him away.

As Gulliver flew through the door time seemed to stand still, well not so much stand still more kind of slowed down quite a lot, so much so in fact that it appeared to actually stand still.  Einstein’s theory of relativity would have loved this moment. Well I say Einstein, it was actually Galileo Galilei (note to Queen the band not her Majesty gawd bless her, this name in no way infringes your copyright of Bohemian Rhapsody) who coined the theory of relativity, Einstein’s was the new theory of relativity.

Gulliver looked accusingly around the room waiting for the first roars of laughter that he was sure were about to erupt aw the assembled hoards of Neandethal manual workers took in the total abomination in Nylon, Draylon and 2% Cotton.  He made eye contact with a group of particularly brutish looking brickies.

Men with huge calloused hands, who’s weather beaten faces were covered with three days growth, wearing denim jeans designed to show as much hairy arse crack as possible when even attempting the slightest forward bend, with steel toe capped boots with the shiny death metal poking through the worn leather. The brickies all locked eyes with Gulliver en masse as he stood motionless in the doorway.  He closed his eyes waiting for the barrage, like a man in the trenches waiting for the whistle to sound to let him know it was time to go over the top, but it never came.  He slowly opened his eyes only to find that the brickies had their snouts back in their respective troughs consuming their set breakfasts numbers three through seven with extra mushrooms instead of beans and extra toast for little Ray who was peculiarly the biggest brickie of them all.

Panic over, the sounds of the bustling café returned, crashing plates, mugs of scalding hot tea hitting the tables and the background hum of builders talking about page three tits, football, beer and the latest existentialist Polish cinematic offering from acclaimed director Lech Balderdeck.
Gulliver pushed his weary frame through the throng to the counter.

“Gulliver, what can I do for you son?”  said Mario the rotund stained vest wearing yellow fingered cliché of a greasy spoon café owner.

“I am desperate for some serious Bacon please Mario”

“Erm, ok son how about, And money is like muck, not good except it be spread”

“Pig bacon please, not the first Baron Verulam and Viscount St Albans English philosopher, essayist, politician, lawyer and courtier Francis Bacon ya fat clown. Toasted bacon sandwich please Mario, very crispy”

“On plain white Son?”

“Crusty bread please”

“Ooh get you posh bread today eh”

“Starting a new job so I thought I would push the boat out”

“New job, doing what?”

Gulliver was dumbstruck, he took a step backwards and held his hands out to the side to emphasise the Nylon, Draylon and two percent Cotton combo.

“Oh right I see, Gay stripper”

“Bollocks!”

“It’s a mans disease son you’ll never catch it, now sit down over there, Sally will bring you a cup of tea and the latest shipping reports”

“Bastard” thought Gulliver with a grudging respect for Mario’s quick witted jocularity.

Gulliver pushed back through the assembled throng and sat down at a spare table, one of those tables that is never ever balanced, no matter how much cardboard you put under the legs it still rocked like an inflatable Lilo in a force nine gale.

Sally appeared as if by magic by his side with a huge mug of piping hot tea.  Gulliver had always fancied Sally Lunn, Sally Lunn being Mario’s daughter from his second or third marriage, no one could be sure, least of all Mario himself.
Sally was always cheery and looked a bit like Kate Winslet, an English rose who smelled of bacon and sausages, that’s Sally not Kate, she probably does not smell anything like bacon.  She probably smells of something quintessentially British, like primrose and lavender toilet water from Penhaligons.

In order to clear up any confusion from the off, she was / is not the same Sally Lunn from Bath famous for her Sally Lunn Buns, that’s a big tea cake buns and not an analogy for breast s or bottoms.  (and while we are on the subject of Sally Lunn’s Buns don’t buy a whole one for yourself, you will never eat it all, try sharing it with a loved one of your choice) No this was Sally Lunn from Mario’s High Street café, famous for her own buns both breast and bum.

“There you go darling”   she said in a slightly Eliza Dolittle-ish accent as the scent of cured pig drifted from her snow white complexion (Pale, but not Gothic student white!)

“Cheers”

“So you’re starting a new job today I hear”

“Yep, security guard at cheapy cheaps”

“Oh right, hence the uniform”

“No its plain clothes but it’s my day off”

Sally burst out laughing and touched Gulliver warmly on the shoulder

“Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh”

Screamed Gulliver. Sally’s loving touch had caused a microscopic yet instant twitch down below, this caused his thingy to push through the gap in his Batman Y fronts thus making contact with the front of  his Nylon, Draylon and two percent Cotton trousers causing static electricity to arc across his never regions sending shocks up and down his legs eventually earthing in his swollen appendage.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you” exclaimed Sally

“What, huh, ey?” Mumbled the still recovering Gulliver

“I didn’t realise you didn’t like people touching you, I’m sorry”

“No, no I love people touching me”

“What!?”

“I mean its fine I like you touching me”

“What do you mean you like me touching you, it was only a pat on the shoulder”

“No, I mean it’s fine, its nice you touching me, please feel free to touch some more”

“WHAT!?”

“I just mean its ok for you to touch me should you feel the need to”

“Well it’s not fulfilling any need for me I just touched your shoulder, I was being friendly”

“I know, I know, I mean its ok, I don’t mind you or anyone touching me, except maybe a homeless sleeping in a public toilet, that’s just plain wrong, its just when you touched me I got an electric shock from the static in this ridiculous uniform”

“Oh right, I see, sorry” she chuckled

“The next time I touch you I will wear a pair of rubber gloves”  This line being delivered  with a saucy wink.
The image of Sally touching him in a pair of rubber gloves shot through Gulliver’s brain like an exocet missile and the thoughts of a mad passionate night bedecked in pvc shorts and a gimp mask with Sally and her rubber gloves a bottle of baby oil and some root vegetables was not an unpleasant one.  Gulliver knew that to try and make a witty comment at this juncture was sure to end in Kamikaze-esque failure.  (Actually a Kamikaze failure would mean you actually came out un-scathed so maybe it was not the best analogy)

“Ok” he said with the best non threatening non lecherous smile he could conjure up

A broad grin broke across Sally’s face as she winked and nodded her head in the direction of Gulliver’s lap. Gulliver looked down at the bulge in his trousers.

“Oh no you didn’t do that, that’s not down to you” he blurted out in a blind panic, as blood rushed to his face turning his pasty complexion a healthy radish reddish.

“Sure?”

“No, no I shut my testicles in the drawer this morning, its just a little localised swelling” he stammered.

“You shut your testicles in a drawer, how come?”

“Its a long story”

“You big bragger you”

“No, the story, not my knob”

“Oh dear, poor love”

“No I mean my knob is a great size, honest!”

“Not sure if I really needed to know that ”

“I wasn’t bragging, its not a cry for help.  Suffice to say my knob is great but I accidentally slammed my testicles in a drawer and am a bit swollen and the bulge in my trousers is just a little localised swelling and in no way connected to you touching me or any kind of sexual arousal”

“Pity” she said in the best lecherous voice she could summon, as she turned on her heels and headed back towards the counter leaving Gulliver speechless.

Localised swelling!  Localised swelling what the hell was I thinking thought Gulliver, there should have been a more witty urbane reply, but no the best he could come up with was localised swelling.   While Sally was away Gulliver had thought of the best line ever in relation to his swollen gesticulars however to try and use it now would be totally out of context and would in all likelihood earn him a well slapped face. He would have to save it for the next time someone commented on his swollen man bag.

After five minutes Sally arrived back with the bacon sandwich, the thick crusty bread looked like a British Museum artefact and needed to be treated with all of the reverence of a first edition bible with a foreword by Moses in his own handwriting.  She plonked the thing of beauty on the still rickety table which was by now covered in a fine pool of hot tea due to the tables unstable nature, that’s unstable in the rocky sense (rocky as in wobbly not as in “Yo Adrian I did it”) not as in unstable in the nitro glycerine sense. The table was not about to explode, not unless it got very very angry.

Gulliver looked at the thing of beauty which had by now taken on an almost religious reverence, in fact there was a burnt piece of crust that actually looked like St Francis of Assisi carrying a small fawn on his shoulders. Gulliver lifted the sandwich from the plate and the napkin on which it rested like a British library manuscript, and wondered why the hell do they serve you a greasy sandwich on a napkin that you have to then wipe your face with?  The only thing that the napkin is good for now is smearing a fine film of greasy butter and tomato sauce (not ketchup) all over your satisfied phizog.  Gulliver took one last long lingering look at St Francis and then sunk his teeth into the sandwich like Christopher Lee descending on a virgin.  As he did so a fine film of melted butter congealing fat and tomato sauce dribbled out and ran down his chin looking for all the world as if had been a teen starlet in a culinary skin flick.

Gulliver devoured the sandwich whilst slurping huge mouthfuls of tea allowing the whole mixture to melt into one sloppy fat filled mess as the world around him seemed to fade away such was the all consuming aura of the bacon buttie.  The whole process took less than five minutes, the best five minutes he was likely to have that day, although he did not know what the day was likely to bring he was pretty sure that those precious pork filled minutes would be among the best.

Gulliver drained the last drop of tea from his mug, let out a resounding belch and made his way back to the counter.

“That was Super Mario”

“We aim to please son”

“And very occasionally you do”

“Up yer arse officer Dibble, that’s three pound exactly”

“Three pounds! daylight robbery”

“Just as well its only dawn then”

“Now my good man I wish to avail myself of your facilities”

“Down the end of the corridor on left, but you already know that you idiot”

“ I was just wondering if you were going to remove the body of the Council Health Inspector first or should I just piss over his bloated corpse?”

“Cheeky Bastard!”

“I heard Gordon Ramsay has been sniffing around looking for tips for his next restaurant”

“That leather faced prancing Scots cock, I wouldn’t give him the steam of my piss!”

“I know, you save that for the soup”

“Touche” conceded Mario as Gulliver turned and sauntered down to the abomination that were the Café toilets.

Now café toilets, in fact any public toilets are at the best of times unsanitary affairs, however Mario’s toilets always seemed to be at the worst of times.  Such were the toxins floating around the bowls and festering in the urinals it had been rumoured that shady looking Chechen gangsters in cheap shiny suits had been spotted scooping gallons of grimy water from their porcelain bowls spooning the stuff into shiny metal flasks to sell as biological weapons on the arms dealing black market, but it was just a rumour.

Gulliver managed to negotiate his still aching parts out through the nylon zipper and relieve himself, taking equal care when loading it all back in however that was not the only problem which a dodgy toilet can present, swollen sack or not.  Now when I say dodgy toilets I mean normal dodgey ones like you may find in a restaurant or café, or even in one of those grandiose mocca serving bookshops that should know better, not the types of dubious public toilets you would find say on Hampstead Heath frequented by multi platinum record selling bearded Greek men, or the type in a iffy Soho peep show with a hole cut in the partition where the promise of glory lies beyond, no this was just the type of problem which could be encountered in any public toilet in which an ordinary citizen might find themselves, either by design or necessity.


The problem was getting out of the door, you see you have to wash your hands but you also have to touch the tap which will itself have been touched by a stranger who had recently touched his own todger or worse wiped his chocolate starfish. 

However if they had indeed touched the tap with dirty hands they would have done so to wash them which would in turn mean that their hands were clean when they last touched the tap before you which was when they were turning it off, but what if they had not cleaned them properly and had left some germ lurking on the tap?  It was ok for you to turn it on because you could wash the germs off but if you then tried to turn it off you would have to touch the whole germ ridden article all over again.  So Gulliver hatched a plan simple, wash your hands then grab a paper towel to first dry your hands and then use that towel to turn the tap off (Brilliant) but then you had to get out of the toilet which means touching the handle and what if the dirty sod before you never washed his hands and then touched the handle? 
This now means you have to gently pull your sleeve down over your hand, turn the handle and open the door with your foot, but what if later in the day you forgot about it and used your sleeve to wipe away some sweat from your head or worse wipe your mouth?????  At 7am it was all too much for Gulliver to consider, he had been contemplating a pooh but the poohing in public toilet precautions were a minefield of intricate manoeuvres and etiquette and would take the best part of thirty minutes to perform so he held on to his turtle and headed back out into the steaming heaving café.


As he headed down the narrow corridor towards the main café Gulliver could see that a number of the builders were standing, arms folded and scowling in his direction, looking for all the world like a Neanderthal first eleven line up.  “What the hell” he thought “why were they all looking at me?”  Maybe they are just ready to pay their bills and were unhappy about the number of beans they had received, they surely could not have wanted to speak to him he thought again. It was amazing how much he thought in that brief couple of moments.  He looked over to Mario for some comfort, some solace that the brutish brutes had no business with him.  His eyes met Marios’ (in the long distance across the room sense not in the ball to ball sense) Mario just shook his head and turned away, “fuck, shit christ” what have I done he thought (again with the thoughts he thought) As he cleared the corridor it became clear that the builders were indeed there for him. He shot a panicked look over to Sally, she just shook her head and turned away, “oh bugger” that was it he had upset Sally and now he was going to be found in a wheelie bin covered in old bacon rashers with a spirit level up his rectum and a bricklaying trowel embedded in his head.

Gulliver braced himself and attempted to push through the wall of testosterone and hair that was the builders posse, he thought that his denial at his impending situation may rub off on the builders and he would be allowed to float through leaving them stunned into silence and scratching their heads and collective brain cell.  The wall funnily enough did not budge and Gulliver bounced back with a resounding acceptance of the condemned man.  As he did big Dave stepped forward and poked a stubby friend egg stained finger into Gulliver’s chest.

“Young Man” he said

“yes” Mumbled Gulliver

“Young man there’s no need to feel down”

“Huh?”

“I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground”

Pick yourself off the ground? Oh shit is this where I say I ain’t on the ground and then he cracks me in the head??  Oh please God (if you do exist, and we are not going to get into an argument with Richard Dawkins at this moment in time, not with our hero/anti hero in such peril) make it quick.

“I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town there's no need to be unhappy”


And with that the whole group began to belt out the Village Peoples classic hit YMCA, builders were up on chairs and tables jumping around like the opening credits to Fame, minus the New York skyline and yellow taxis, tool belts swung, levels were used as mock canes as the whole café erupted into the chorus.  (just a quick point if you have ever been to New York try to imagine would actually happen if a bunch of kids in leg warmers and leotards jumped all over the yellow taxis and early morning commuters cars….absolute bloody carnage is what would happen.)

“ITS FUN TO STAY AT THE YMCA, ITS FUN TO STAY AT THE YMCA”

One particularly nimble plumber even did the double jump leg split thing, he did manage to take the front row of teeth out of a parking attendant who had come in for a quick cuppa, but as everyone knows its ok to do that to traffic wardens (the views of the author do not reflect those of the publisher, the rest of civilised society maybe but not the publishers).

Gulliver looked over to Sally and Mario who arms around each others shoulders were belting out the song at the tops of their voices.  The swathe of humanity parted like the Red sea for Moses as Gulliver headed for the door, as he reached the door he turned on his heels came to attention and saluted the still less than mellifluous throng as he backed out into the icy morning and the café collapsed in a heap of laughter (that’s the people inside the café, not the actual café) Gulliver looked back in as Sally was looking out, she gave him a huge grin, a Nancy from Oliver wink and waved him on his way.

Women love a man in uniform, perhaps it’s not going to be such a bad day after all he mused, he would have thought that but he had done a lot of thinking so far toady, he could have engaged in meditation upon the point but a good muse was more appropriate for the current epoch.



7 Dec 2014

25 The Book, LIke 24 but an extra hour in bed!

5.59am (not 6am) Monday 13th November

Gullivar Lunt stirred in his bed as the depressingly suicidally mellifluous tones of Dido (the singer not the queen of Carthage) ushered him from the land of dreams, a place were he dreamed of quite wonderful and magical things. Her elfin voice massaging away his fatigue and drawing him into the waking world as if ushered in by a squadron of angels, who would again return at the dark time and guide him through the labyrinth of dreaming into the warmth of all consuming enveloping sleep where like a child in a parents arms he would rejoice in the comforting coma until the time of light had come again.
Or that would have been the case if he had managed to properly programme the highly stylish monolith of black plastic and colourful lights that was his 50 watt Dragov Mark 2 stereo.  He bought it five years ago because it looked great but was in reality pretty shitty. He had never quite worked out how to programme the thing. The clock continually blinked and the auto sleep setting had a mind of its own

So at precisely 5.59am, not 6am as he had intended the black hulking beast sprang to life, it was as if this thing had been skulking breathing slowly and deliberately in the corner of the room all night, darkly brooding as hot steam and static wafted from its sub woofer nostrils, stalking its prey, just waiting for the right moment to unleash such terror on the world, a terror so loathsome that men dare not speak its name for fear of being drawn into the impending desibelic carnage. 
Its blood red and radium green eyes glared with the menace of Beelzebub himself as it automatically jumped from Dido’s greatest hit (there’s only ever been one,)(yeah thanks Eminem) to Metal Bastard FM and spewed forth a vile and sickening cacophony of wailing maniacal screams that would send a shiver down the spine of  any self respecting Satan worshipper and have Banshees reaching for their ear plugs.  In actuality it was the third track from Megadeath’s second album, but you get the picture.

Gulliver was not much escorted from his sleep on a cloud of angelic love but more dragged kicking and screaming from the nightclub Hell by the Devils meanest bouncers, Basher O’Flynne and Fucker O’Basher.
He shot bolt upright in his bed as if a red hot poker had been shoved up his….once again you get the picture.  Crusty stuff that is pleasantly referred to as sleep but which in fact crusty stuff welded his eyes shut as the panic accompanied by the terrifying screams washed over him like an aural Tsunami.

He knew he had to confront the beast and so with no conscious thought or sense of direction sprang from his bed with the grace of a Gazelle, landed deftly on his feet like Olga Corbett executed a fast paced forward roll like Jack Bauer with perfecting time and distance, and as he emerged out of the roll his legs straightened, he executed a small jump landing with his front leg bent and throwing his rear leg out behind him like a fencer (the Olympic kind, not like the illegal Polish immigrant bloke who paved our back garden at a very reasonable £6 per hour) driving home his epee, he thrust a single solid digit forward like Bruce Lee and delivered the killer blow to the hard to locate off button, a skilled perfected at the Steven Seagal school of single finger death blows.


Or that would have been the case if he had been able to see straight. The crust in his eyes would barely give an inch, so half blind Gulliver swung his legs out of the bed taking the gargantuan duvet with him.  Having been wrapped around him for the best part of eight hours providing warmth comfort and some unexpected spooning the duvet was reluctant to let him go without a fight and clung to him like a drunk to a bar stool, and so a struggle ensued, man against 10 tog duck down.

The struggle ensued for a frantic ten seconds as Gulliver heroically managed to cast off the creature like a Masai warrior who has just clumped his first Lion.  He held it aloft, the Excalibur bird in the lake would have been proud of the extent of his holding aloftness as with one hand he deftly cast stained beast across the room.  However the beast was not quite ready to lie down.  As it floated from one side of the bed to the other it decided to take the pint glass (nicked from a pub, come on we’ve all done it) of Ribena that had been sitting on the bedside locker with it.  Gulliver could only look on in horror as the fallen creature began to bleed, the inky black stain growing bigger spreading across the now limp and lifeless form in the corner of the room.

With the strains of Megadeath’s third track from the second album still screaming at him, painfully loud Gulliver still had another job to do and had no time to wallow on the futility of the demise of a once loyal duvet, no matter how many ducks had given their time and feathers to produce the thing.

Gulliver sprinted across the room and was making good progress until a hitherto unnoticed enemy made its move, hidden like a sniper just under the bed by the bottom right leg was a pair of discarded pants which inevitably, as there is always an inevitability about these things, grasped at his ankles and he became tangled in them.  He was tripping and falling and flailing in mid air as he thought then fought to regain his equilibrium.
However although he had managed to avoid the fall his momentum had increased considerably and he found himself hurtling towards the black beast faster than the speed of light itself, just over 38mph.  Now Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Captain Kirk or any other notable physicist or light speed aficionados were not around to question the validity of this light speed hypothesis, so light speed it was.

The black beast was housed on top of a chest of drawers which was positioned against the long since redundant chimney breast (that’s chimney not chimley).  As with all single males’ drawers they were all open to various degrees, some like the bottom one were displaying all of their contents for the whole world to see while the middle ones were accessible yet still had an air of mystery about what might lay within, and the top one showed only a sliver of openness lending weight to the theory that the holy grail may be hidden in its darkened recess’s.
By the way that’s the general understanding of the grail as a posh cup, not Dan Browns theory that the grail is a young woman. To have a young woman stuffed into your sock drawer would just be weird.

As Gulliver slid majestically towards the beast at light speed, his composure now assured he failed to notice that the second drawer down was on the exact same level as his scrotum, a horribly deformity of an appendage that would one day be photographed for one of those medical textbooks, the ones first year medical students get out of the Uni library to show their mates the photos of all manner of freakish genitalia over a pint of snakebite at the student bar.  It’s a bit like the English language students trying to find which of the vilest words are contained in the Oxford English non-abridged.

As with the inevitable inevitability discussed previously his scrotum arrived at the chest of drawers a nanosecond before the rest of him, neatly and reassuringly plopping into the open second drawer without even touching the sides.  As the nanosecond passed uneventfully (what would you expect to happen in a nanosecond?) the rest of his body arrived, his thighs dutifully slamming the second drawer firmly shut with his hideously deformed ball holder neatly tucked away inside.

The blue white flash of pain that shot through his body was like nothing on earth as the beautifully crafted pine held on to Gulliver in its vice like grip as the black behemoth continued to scream death metal obscenities at him while the blood slowly drained from his already anaemic features. 
With all the strength he could muster which was not very much given his circumstances (just noticed that circumstances looks a lot like circumcised, very apt in this context)  Gulliver raised his left hand and with his flat palm he slammed it into the Dragove Mark 2 and finally the beast was silenced.

Once again the world was eerily peaceful, a quiet hush hung over the room a bit like the hush that hung over no mans land that Christmas morning when the Tommies and the Huns laid down their weapons and got together for a kick about, Gulliver even thought he could hear the faint song of a Nightingale or a Lark carried on the early morning breeze.

Gulliver was and is ever the optimist and so decided looking down was not such a bad idea I mean it was only his appendage caught in his T shirt drawer, I mean how bad could it be? The answer upon perusal was pretty darn bad. The one small saving grace was that luckily his old chap was outside of the drawer.  He had woken from a particularly sauce drenched dream and had one of those things that men all over the world tend to wake up with for no apparent reason, and as a result his todger and his ball sack (no to be mistaken with Honoré de Balzac, those two could not have been further apart) were a small distance apart.
However pleasing this was to Gulliver his two wrinkly mates were definitely in there and the drawer was indeed as shut as it could possibly be.  Strangely enough there was no real pain now, only that horrible numbness you get for example when you cut your finger, but he knew it was there, he knew that unimaginable pain was just around the corner.  It was hiding like a 1940’s movie  spy in a trench coat and fedora hat sat in a Parisian Café holding up a news paper with two eye holes cut out just so it could observe him as unobtrusively as it could.

Gulliver knew what had to be done, and in order to extricate himself from this hand crafted dovetailed pine prison he was going to need to open the drawer.  He knew it was going to be a bad thing, he knew that in all possibility he was going to cry, however he knew he couldn’t drag a chest of drawers around with is testicles all day, I mean how would one negotiate the stairs and what about getting your trousers on?
He reluctantly grasped the expertly hand turned pine knobs shaped ironically like a couple of balls in his shaking hands.  He was going to count to three, then when he was least expecting it he would pull it open on the count of two, but in order for this to work you had to have another person who was not expecting it, to do it on, so three it was.  One, Two YANK!  Fuck he thought, he had actually fooled himself, strangely, something he would have to ruminate on at a later date but on the plus side his hangers were free.
The drawer flew open with incredible ease and his balls flopped noisily against his thighs.  That wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be he thought.

Gulliver eventually regained consciousness on the bedroom floor after about twenty minutes.

FUCK!  I’m late for my first day at work he thought as he gathered up his bloated elongated Daliesque dangle bag and headed for the bathroom, very gingerly.

(that’s gingerly as in with measured careful steps and not as in the “ooh I say” limp wristed kind of gingerly) (not that there’s anything wrong with that kind of gingerly)  ( I mean look at John Inman) (Genius!)


 PAST HISTORY

Now before we delve into Gulliver’s past history I must allay any fears the reader may have that this is going to be one of those horrible past history things you find in one of those books that promises great adventures but makes you wade through the treacle of early memories. Like the 500 SAS books that all tell you about the gruelling selection process, or the book about some bad bastard who regales you with tales of woe from his childhood when he eventually realised at the age of seven that he could indeed bash up his “Orrible” step dad, eat a Rotweiler and how much he loved his dear old mum. (gawd bless her) (and remember you could always leave your doors open in them days)(sic) when all you really want to hear about is how he  murdered some bad slag and cooked him up and then buried him in an oil drum in the Essex countryside.

So don’t be fearful, tis not that kind of history.

Read on you delicious creature, read on!

Gulliver was, is, an average bloke. Average looks, average height, average build average IQ with delusions of intellectual grandeur. His book shelves were bulging under the weight of Stephen Hawking, John Paul Satre, Shakespeare, Sophocles and all the romantic poets, the old ones who did preposterous amounts of opiates and wore frilly shirts open to their navels, laying around on velvet discussing clouds and Frankenstein, not crap ones like west country wordsmith Pam Ayres.  There biographies of Francis Walsingham, Robert Marlowe, Nelson Mandela, (now free) (that’s the man not the book you still have to buy Nelson books)  Orson Wells and strangely Germaine Greer, just in case he managed to get a feminist sort back to his council owned love shack.

However referring to her as a ‘sort’ would probably not be the best way to endear himself to her.  None of the books had ever actually been read cover to cover but he did insert book marks at various strategic points in them to give the impression they had been.
It always helped to be able to go straight to a sauced up Shakespeare sonnet to impress the ladies. Unfortunately most of the ladies he got back to his dungeon of love only knew the big Shakes as the guy with the goatee on the sign outside the pub, which they would stare up at from the gutter on a Saturday night after thirteen sambucas and a flaming arsehole. (that’s the drink not their botties, having said that, after so much Sambuca some of them did indeed wake up the next morning with a flaming botty, such is the inhibition lowering qualities of Sambuca!)

Enter Oscar Fingle O’ Flaherty Wilde (who just happened to be strolling by)
“Madame you are in the gutter”!

Drunken Bints witty riposte
Yes I may be in the gutter but I am looking up at the stars (nice comeback)

Wilde’s parry and counter strike
Yes Madame but you are soaked in piss and vomit! (Touche!)


Gulliver however does have a more than average name, a name that has hung around his neck like an alphabetical albatross pecking at his self confidence, flapping its wings at his dignity and pooing on the shoes of his enthusiasm.
His life had been blighted by the infinite play on words that a name like Gulliver Lunt lends itself exquisitely to, and so there was no great stretch of the intellect that lead to him being unanimously being called a gullible c…  well once again you get the picture.

His father was a wonderfully jolly man who always wore a dark pinstripe suit and a bowler hat, and had a strange fixation with the fancy dress shop which he popped into most days on his way home from work, supposedly to see his Fez wearing friend Abdul who owned it. Now some suspicious gossips would imply they were ‘special’ friends but they we in fact just friends.  Mr Lunt would always return home with some strange souvenir of his visit, a wooden spoon here, a lump of rock there, weaving the seemingly innocuous object into some magical story to the delight of his enthusiastic son.  Gulliver held on to these precious memories until he reached the age of twenty five, he then knocked them out on ebay for beer money.

His father worked for Bundy, Neilson and Manson Medical Suppliers a small firm with an unusually transient workforce, none of whom seemed to stay for more than a week or so, and usually left without giving any notice, in fact they seemed to have left in a real hurry.  Mr Lunt spent most of the day incinerating the contents of the desks of those who had in his mind inconsiderably buggered off* leaving behind bizarrely their hats, coats, purses and hand bags, oh and yes man bags.**

* substitute buggered off for disappeared
** Man bags just like the one my mum brought me back from Italy about 20 years ago, resulting in millions of cries of GAY! As I sashayed like a Victorian Dandy through the throngs of not so beautiful people down the local High Street, way ahead of the great unwashed fashion wise.

He never really gave his job much thought as his wok day mind was a swirling typhoon of fantastical adventures involving pirates, (not to be mistaken with pilates which is an altogether different kind of Lycra clad adventure) Dragons, Kings, Queens and Spacemen.

Now as a would be and wanna be adventurer Gulliver’s’ father wanted his son to have a name that would set him apart from the crowd, a name that was bold and heroic, the name of a great adventurer he thought would be a wonderful gift for his first, well actually his only born.  Now although his father was an infinitely jolly lovely man he was marginally less well read than his son.
His father had discovered in an old dusty and battered tome the tale of a great adventurer who had himself discovered a now lost land called Lillyput, an adventurer who had never been honoured or given the recognition by the establishment which he so richly deserved for his amazing achievement. It must have been some kind of adventurers cover up conspiracy at the Travellers Club that kept this fantastical discovery under wraps.

Try as he might his father was never able to track down Mr Gulliver or any of his relatives and assumed he had been abducted, bound with duct tape and thrown bodily into some dusty Harry Potteresque  underground map room like all those milkmen from the Monty Python sketch or the lorry drivers from the Heineken advert. He would be kept trussed up like the gimp from Pulp Fiction while lesser adventurers like Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Sir David Attenborough poked him with sticks for their amusement.
And so in honour of the adventuring martyr Mr Lunt christened his son Gulliver Horatio Lunt, so Gulliver it was and Gulliver it is. It was not until Gulliver was twelve that he plucked up the courage to tell his dad that Gulliver’s travels was a novel not a biography.  This lead to a rather unfortunate incident with a packet of Birds Angel Delight, a big stick and some terrified pensioners, followed by a brief stay in a very white very soft room at the five star New Bedlam NHS hospital.  Which was actually just like the old Bedlam Asylum except the new one had more Managers, Administrators and MRSA.

If only the infinitely jolly lovely man had heard Johnny Cash’s  ‘a boy named Sue’, if he had he would have realised that an unfortunate name ultimately leads to “ kicking and a gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer”.  And as an infinitely inoffensive jolly lovely man he had never heard of the word that so effortlessly rhymes with the word Lunt (you know the one) and so the misery die was cast landing squarely between the eyes of the 8lb 2oz wrinkly newborn infant kicking and a gurgling in the Mothercare Moses basket.


His mum was also infinitely lovely lady, an enticingly pretty lady in a home counties country wife kind of way a cross between Nigella Lawson (before Saatchi got his hands around her throat) Julie Andrews with the merest whiff of Sharon Stone, the Sharon Stone (but with her legs firmly crossed). A constantly smiling lady in the perfect sense not in the slightly crazy way, a lady full of excited energy who baked pies, made jam and was often seen to skip down the road like a misplaced Maria from the sound of music.  Indeed it was rumoured that a brigade of Nazi storm troopers were seen lurking around the public loos as his mum pirouetted through Tesco’s but it was just a rumour.

She wore flowery dresses and bright red shoes and carried her shopping in a wicker basket not in those garish Dolphin and Tuna strangling plastic bags, the ones that ever so working class people nick from the local supermarket and use as bin liners!

So all in all apart from the name he had a good childhood, he was never beaten or starved by his parents, fiddled with by the swimming instructor, arrested for shoplifting penny chews or been caught in the bathroom thumbing through the lingerie section of the Freemans catalogue.