The Secret Blogs

In writing a blog or a diary or a memoir for that matter one often calls on those stories from life that have instructed or amused listeners in the past. My blogs are no different. But though some people might regard every event from their past as fair game, I will not include myself among these blaggards. There are some tales which, though perfectly appropriate for the snug of the saloon bar, should never be put into literary form and cast upon the internet's waters.

The reasons for this unaccustomed bashfulness on my part are many fold.

Some stories are best left untold to save a friend or loved one embarrassment. Others should retain their seven veils to protect the innocent. Others still, denied the oxygen of infamy merely to evade prosecution.

Every life has its' grubbier moments and mine is no exception. Like so many before me there have been escapades, almost exclusively hatched under cover of darkness, which are simply too unsavoury for human consumption in the cold light of day.

Having said that I am reminded of a very interesting if slightly tasteless evening in the early eighties while walking home with a friend from a pub in Shepherd's Bush. It must have been very early in the eighties because the Police where still a popular beat combo at the time and my friend had taken to wearing an air-force surplus one-piece khaki jumpsuit in homage to his hero Sting. As we were passing the church on the Uxbridge road he was suddenly taken with a fit of stomach cramps brought about by an immoderate consumption of Guinness over the previous five hours and a very ill-advised meat pie from the hot shelf which to my certain knowledge had been there since the previous Thursday. Gripped, as he was, with abdominal spasms, time was of the essence and to hop over a gravestone and perch behind the western nave was with him, the work of a moment. My first intimation of anything untoward was hearing the sound that Tom makes when Jerry drops an anvil on his foot. It appears my friend had improvised his intimate tissues with a hastily grasped handful of leaves which turned out to be ten percent nettle. To my eternal shame I refused point blank to find and apply a doc leaf to the resultant swelling no matter how heartfelt his pleas. This, however was not the end of his troubles. Now I don't know how these fighter pilots manage it in the thick of a dog-fight but when lowering a jump suit to perform ones ablutions accuracy is paramount. Given the levels of Guinness in my pals blood stream accuracy was at this moment not his strong suit and it seems he got his angles wrong. The upshot was, when he returned to the vertical and pulled his jump suit up it acted like a catapult and sent the entire contents of his lower bowel cascading over his head. Oh, how I laughed. He walked home alone.

This story aside, on the rest I am mute, though I will attempt not to tease, by giving some flavour of a small cross-section of my own darker corners by listing the titles under which they might appear should I be a little less of a gentleman.

1. The Broken Candle
2. Meeting a Filmstar on a Difficult Morning.
3. Never Pull a Nylon Ribbon
4. The Log-Jam at the Snooker Hall
5. The Keys and the Underpants

And perhaps my favourite, and certainly not for the squeamish,

6. Who's Pet is it Anyway?

Watch this space.