His luck had finally run out.

Reynaldo the Red Fox was suspended, hanging on a barbed wire fence by his stomach.

The more he twisted, the more the barbs sunk their teeth into his pink soft underbelly.

He was trapped and he knew it.

He was literally kicking himself that he should get caught this way- in such a simple fashion – as he a very intelligent creature.

He had misjudged the take-off, slipping on some sheep-shit.

Reynaldo had for over a decade, survived the harsh Winter temperatures, and rainy Summers that Gwynedd in North Wales had to offer its native fauna.

In the freezing cold sub-zero temperatures, he would go and warm himself next to the decommissioned Nuclear Power Station , Trawsfynydd and its Magnox reactor.

He loved basking in its warm glow.

He always felt safe there, as for some reason the Local Huntsmen and their pack of dogs would not pursue him under the security fencing, preferring to take their cries of Tally-Ho and Soho to other quarries in and around Flint.

Whilst hunting with dogs was illegal on private land -that didn’t stop the local Hunt, ‘egged’ on by the local farmers missing their chickens, who continued as if nothing had ever been put in place by Parliament to stop such events.

The Manifesto of the New Labour Administration in the Noughties, had promised that ‘things could only get better’.

Well maybe not for the Country or the people of Iraq but for foxes it certainly had.

They loved Tony Blair.

He was made an honorary fox- Blair Fox if you like- as a direct result of the Hunting Ban, foxes just like the National Debt, quadrupled in numbers.

Foxes started appearing everywhere- on biscuits, near polar bears on glacier mints and even in Downtown Abbey.

It was no longer the ‘day of the jackal’ but the decade of the Vixen.

Brer Rabbit wasn’t so fussed on the New Policy, as their natural predator had been given special preserved status and like fox shit was now everywhere.

Thankfully, as is the way of Mother Nature- she balanced things up by providing a glut of KFC & MacDonalds outlets for vermin to feed on – and the foxes too.

Reynaldo, knew he had to figure a way to extricate himself from his predicament or die trying.

He knew it was only a matter of time before his nemesis since birth, ‘Old Gellert’ , a North Walian Bloodhound caught up with him.

He would never give up.

He was the canine equivalent of Metropolitan Police Detective Jack Slipper.

The Former East-ender had tracked the renegade Reynaldo all the way from his Dirty Den in Gwynedd across three Counties- Gwynedd, Rural Powys, Ceredigion and finally to Merthyr.

Looking at the sign in Welsh-’Bedlinog’, Reynaldo hoped it wasn’t a bad omen.

Normally, Reynaldo could usually give the pursuing back the slip by running through streams and doubling back- but not this time.

He figured that as his fur was starting to fall out then it made him easier to pursue.

He normally moulted in around April ever year – losing his Winter coat- but he feared this was different.

It was falling out in clumps, not individual hairs- worse still he couldn’t ‘groom’ himself with his ‘brush’ ,as his tail was attached to the sharp metal barbs on this livestock proof fence.

He had once heard from a wise old bird friend of his, who was losing his feathers - that he had been diagnosed by the vet as having ‘owlapecia’- so Reynaldo assumed that he was suffering from a similar complaint.

One thing for certain was that his love life hadn’t suffered because of his hair loss- he was still inundated by ‘foxy’ ladies that wanted a bit of his ‘Boom Boom’.

It seems he was the Vulpine equivalent of Errol Brown of ‘Hot Chocolate’ fame.

The vixens screamed for him from Mountain Top and Wheelie Bin Lid- much to the annoyance of the North Walian residents- as they all vied for his attention.

Reynaldo put it down to him regularly rolling his nether regions in the herb patches of the gardens that he prowled in at night.

It was like aftershave to the females – who loved the scent of ‘Basil Brush’.

Reynaldo knew he didn’t have time to reminisce, he must find a way off this blasted fence or like much of his prey -he was dead meat.

In the far distance, he could hear the yelping of his pursuers.

The last two dogs NOT to give up were Caradog and Old Gellert- he recognised their distinctive barking.

They were a little older and their noses less keen- from years of following the multitude of behinds of the younger, fitter dogs.

But they were nonetheless committed to the cause.

To Old Gellert it was personal- his wife Red, had been killed in the hunt back 5 years ago when Reynaldo had deliberately led her into a trap.

He had marked his scent all around the bottom of a milk float knowing full well that the dog would not resist checking out the bottom of the vehicle.

In the process, he had helped himself to two dozen eggs and a carton of Orange Juice before he was chased away by the returning milkman.

Red was not so lucky.

Being the fastest and fittest canine around, she was always first on the scene for any kill , as like most bitches liked to tear their opponents apart limb from limb.

The angry Unigate Dairyman thought that the dog was the thief and deliberately rolled back over her and ‘squashed’ her in the process.

Old Gellert knew that Lassie was the son of a bitch, but ever since that day to him so was Reynaldo.

He was convinced the fox had consumed part of his wife’s remains before being chased off by the pursuing pack.

His swore on his wife’s grave in the corner of ‘Vet Cemetery’ that he would get even with his foxy nemesis.

Sadly, Old Gellert’s legs weren’t as good as they once were- if only he could corner Reynaldo he would kill that vermin once and for all- and die happy.

Gellert sniffed the air- he knew he was gaining on Reynaldo as the ‘tumbleweed’ of red fox fur was getting thicker, the closer he got to his quarry.

Reynaldo wasn’t ready to give up the ghost just yet-if that Fantastic Mr Fox had been one thing during his lifetime it was he was very lucky.

So lucky that they named Foxy Bingo.com after him.

They say fortune favours the brave and Reynaldo was not just lucky – he was brave too.

Fate played a hand too in the shape of local resident, Lewys Street.

Lewys was only sixteen but had Bedlinog tattooed through him and on him like Blackpool Rock.

There was more Bedrock in him than the Flintstones.

Today, he was busy tootling along on his 998cc motorised hair drier.

The funky moped had a top speed of 30MPH having been fitted with a speed limiter and integral tracking device by an Insurance Company- otherwise his premium would have been £10,000.00 a year.

Lewys had left school with a GSCE in Woodwork and was busily searching the job market for suitable job opportunities in the Merthyr Borough to encompass his qualifications.

Not surprisingly, the Job Centre was not overflowing with opportunities.

Enticed by the glut of cheap cookery shows on television- he wanted to be the next Mary Berry only without the recipe for wrinkles…but they no longer wanted a chef at the Food Bank.

So he decided to do some volunteer work for new Political Party UKIP.

He was driving along the country lanes leading from Treharris to Bedrock whilst checking on the numbers of telegraph lines in the area.

He checked the job description and confirmed he was asked to ‘Count the Poles’ in the Merthyr Borough for Head Office of the Party.

After a while he had realised that the poles already had a serial number.

He thought it would now be an easier task than he first thought.

He was shocked to happen upon the stricken fox and even more surprised to find that the Fox could speak in Welsh.

He was surprised to find someone that did given that the National Average was between 22-30%.

And in foxes even lower.

“ Bore Da!” spake the Fox.

Lewys nearly crashed his moped into Pole number 86543.

“ What the Bluddy Hell are you doing hanging there?” said the youngster.

“ Just chillin’!” replied Reynaldo leaning back on the wire to pretend like he was not in excruciating agony but sunbathing.

“ How did you get there?” asked Lewys.

“ Haven’t you seen a flying fox before?” replied the cunning Reynaldo.

“ No…!” replied Lewys…” I’m from Bedrock…we don’t see much wildlife down here at all- apart chucking out time at the Bedlinog Rugby Club!”

“ Doesn’t that hurt then?” asked Lewys.

“ Wot hurt?” asked the balding fox.

“ Those barbs in your guts?” asked Lewys.

“ Oh …those body piercings you mean…I am hard …I’m Welsh mun…these are all the rage now in hip places like Merthyr!” said Reynaldo.

“ They are one on from body piercing –and are the ultimate stress relief too….!” continued the wily one.

“ If you come over here…I will show you how they are attached!” said Reynaldo.

“ My Mother warned me not to talk to strangers….especially Super Furry Animals or Lost Prophets!” replied Lewys.

“ But I am no longer a Super Furry Animal…my hair is much depleted ….like the Welsh Language…I have less than 22% left….and I am certainly not lost….!”said Reynaldo.

Lewys was a little reassured and came closer- as did the sound of the barking and hollering of Old Gellert & Caradog in the near distance.

“ I see you are wearing a ‘Friends of the Earth’ badge!” said Reynaldo.

“ You…I am against that Opencast lot…!” said Lewys pointing in the direction of where the sky was black.

“ Did you know that a group of foxes is called an Earth…Lewys ?” asked Reynaldo.

“ How did you know my name?” asked the teenager.

“ It’s written on your coat label!” said the fox …eyes…well like a fox really.

“ Oh!” said the Low Achiever.

“ So that makes us Friends…doesn’t it…!” said the cunning one.

“ Like on Facebook!” said Lewys.

“ Fox-book!” chuckled Lewys.

“ I don’t know what that is….but yes…friends none the less !” said Reynaldo.

“ And what do friends do Lewys?” asked the fox.

“ Help each other!”

“ So what do you want me to do?” asked Lewys hesistantly.

“ Come closer to me!” said the fox.

Lewys moved closer to the trapped skulker.

“ Closer please!” asked the prisoner of the wire.

“ But you don’t know my nickname do you….everyone in the Valleys has a nickname!” said Lewys.

“ Is it Einstein?....Socrates?....” asked the sarcastic fox.

“ No….it’s the Rock innit….as I am from Bedrock and I want to be a chef one day…!” said Lewys.

Lewys was now level with the fox who was splayed out with his undercarriage on full display- totally defenceless to any form of attack.

“ I don’t care how much of a friend you are or how much fur you have lost…I ain’t sucking THAT thing!” said Lewys.

“ Don’t be daft!” said Reynaldo.

“ I would merely like you to assist me with undoing the barbs holding me on this fence- I have done enough sunbathing for one day!” said the canny vixen lover.

“ Are you sure…because that’s what I was told priests and prophets do….and if I help you…you will not bite me?” asked the tentative Lewys.

“ Of course not….have the heard of the expression …not to bite the hand that feeds you?” said Reynaldo.

“ No….but I am not feeding you anyway….or touching THAT thing!” replied the nervous Lewys stepping closer.

“ It’s a figure of speech….trust your gut…!” said Reynaldo.

Lewys looked at the bleeding gut of the trapped animal in front of him and released the first barb from around the fox tail.

“ Now -You haven’t got that disease you catch from rabbits have you?” asked Lewys.

“ Mixamitosis?” asked the knowledge fox with a higher IQ than the human.

“ No rab-ies?” replied Lewys.

“ No- I’m clean I promise…..and if you help me out I will give you my lucky charm so that as a trainee Chef you will always have something to put in the pot!” said Reynaldo.

He reached inside his cheek and regurgitated something from his extended jawline.

“ What is that?” asked Lewys patiently undoing the last twisted metal spike from the barbed wire fence from the fox’s midriff.

“ That my FRIEND….is a lucky rabbit’s foot!” said Reynaldo proudly.

“ Go on then pick it up and rub it for luck and watch what happens!” said Reynaldo.

“ Lucky rabbits foot…it wasn’t that lucky for him was it!” said Lewys.

“ His name was Warren Want….and he was the King of the North Walian rabbits and he had magic powers!” said Reynaldo.

Lewys picked it up and rub the fox spittle on his WWF tee-shirt.

“ Now blow on it three times and I promise you in less than five minutes over that hill will come more rabbits than the cast of Watership Down!” boasted the fox.

Lewys blew on it three times and watched the horizon for signs of life.

“ Keep looking now…I promise you will never be hungry again!” said Reynaldo skulking pass his new friend.

After five minutes had passed- there was no sign of any leverets, does or bucks anywhere.

With the only hairs in sight that of the red fox fur still attached to the sharp metal fence.

As Lewys turned he could see his first Bedlinog Flying Fox ever, as Reynaldo came passed the field entrance riding Lewys’s scooter.

Pursued by two ugly slobbering bloodhounds with hang dog expressions.

Old Gelert and Caradog stopped and asked Lewys in Welsh, if he had seen a ‘chicken chaser’?

Lewys replied- ‘No …but if you do….it belongs to me!”

Little Daniel Boyd was lost.

The seven year old thought he was clever, when he ignored his teacher’s command to hold the hand of his classmate on a trip to Dan-yr Ogof caves in the Glyn-Neath Valley.

True, it was an act of revenge by his teacher, Mr Don Oxbridge for his recent behaviour in class at Gwaun Dowlais Primary School in Merthyr Tydfil.

Dan had sulked because he didn’t want to be paired with gypsy, Gustavo Worrell from the local travelling community that lived close to the Slip Road in the former mining Town, as he more ‘bugs’ than a spy from GCHQ in Cheltenham.

Whilst Gustavo was a lively character, he was too easily distracted to learn from books, as all his family were illiterate and he had no intention of being the ‘white sheep’ in amongst that flock.

The children all knew that Gustavo used to pick his nose and eat it with his blackened fingers that were not cleaned from one month to the next.

His class nickname was ‘Fun Gus the Bogey Man’.

Daniel looked around him at the dark limestone cavern trying desperately to find a way out.

He had long since given up trying to retrace his steps, as he had no idea of direction and with the only light coming from the front of his miniature pith helmet, he couldn’t see any obvious exit in the gloom.

He decided to pause and lean against a rock to try and get his bearings.

His lip began to tremble and the tears began to roll down his little ruddy cheeks.

He longed for the comfort of his Mother but being from a broken home knew that his estranged Father would have no sympathy and would tell the little seven-year old to ‘Man Up’ otherwise he would get a smack.

He promised himself that if he got out of this situation alive he would never run off again.

He had tried shouting for help but his feeble soprano voice was drowned out by the sound of rushing water in the caves which was magnified by the hollow echo chambers of dripping limestone that surrounded him.

He had lost track of how many caves he had squeezed his way into as part of his little adventure.

He had pretended he was Indiana Jones looking for treasure, as his fertile imagination ran riot being outside of the confines of the classroom, with his 20p pick n mix of sweets having to be rationed.

After a brief spell, in which he devoured both his packet of swizzles and his sticky pink n white drumstick, he decided that he would follow what looked like a pathway on the low floor of the cave in a downward descent.

Something instinctively told him he would find a way out in that direction.

In the main chamber of the caves, school teacher Miss Adventure was busy pointing and explaining the different limestone rock formations to the young children.

“These long finger-like features that hang from the roof….can anyone tell me what they are called?” asked the young teacher more in hope than in expectation.

“ Daggers?” asked one of the local urchins called Wesley Hermon, originally from the Dowlais Flats area of Merthyr .

The flat complex was a pile-them high attempt at cheap housing in the valleys to help with the surplus population after a massive slum clearance from the Town that died.

“ Knives?” asked another called Gwernllwyn Close.

Miss Adventure was well aware that a lot of her ‘flock’ were on the Social Services ‘watch list’ being allowed to play the violent Playstation game, Grand Theft Auto and of course subjected to Video nasties such as ‘Child’s Play’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’.

She shook her head- as she wanted to engage her audience without alienating them from the class.

“Suzy….do you know?” asked the teacher of her class pet.

The little Chinese girl looked up at the teacher and announced proudly that there were called stalactites and were made of limestone.

The daughter of the local Chinese Takeaway ‘Wok around the Clock’ was always Wong but was always right too being exceptionally bright and was determined not to fall into her parent’s trap of working every hour Buddha sent to make ends meet.

“Correct!....You are such a clever little girl!” praised the teacher.

Suzy glowed with pride.

She loved all her teachers but Miss Adventure was her favourite.

The rest of the girls in the class glowered at Suzy with envy.

“And now boys only -what are these called that grow up from the floor?” demanded Mr Oxbridge in a sharper more expectant tone.

After a minute silence and no takers, the teacher tried to encourage a male response.

“ Sounds like Stalactites….!”

“ Stalagpricks?” asked Wesley not so innocently.

“ Stalagcocks?” offered Gwernllwyn catching on.

The class began to giggle at the rude words.

“Wesley, Gwernllwyn, you pair have about much hope of getting a good job in the future as I have of finding a mate!” said Mr Oxbridge.

“ Go and stand over there by Gustavo!” ordered the disciplinarian.

“ Gustavo….stop eating your headlice there’s a good boy!” said Miss Adventure.

“ And where is Daniel?” she continued.

“ Dunno….!” said the child scratching his head and shrugging his shoulders- in doing so sending lots of nits to their death on the cold stony wet floor.

The two teachers looked at each other in horror as they realised that one of the children in their care was missing in a very dangerous environment.

They like Gustavo, did an impromptu headcount.

Again, just like Gustavo they were one short of a picnic and their emergency plan had to kick in.

“ You stay with the children….ordered Mr Oxbridge ….I will retrace our steps and see if the little ‘Duffer’ is sitting on a rock further back on the trail eating his packed lunch or something!”

Daniel carried on slowly in the dimly lit cave hoping to find signs of life.

As he rounded a big rock, he suddenly froze, as he could make out a dark shadow of a human reflected on a wall.

He could make out the muffled sound of a voice which was almost whispering.

After a few seconds , he realised that a phrase was being repeated over and over again.

“ When I catch you I will eat you!”

Daniel was horrified- he was petrified that he had stumbled across a real life Gollum from the film, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and that he was next on the dinner menu.

Whilst he was tempted to run as fast as he could backwards- he was oddly pleased to hear a human voice again.

He stared at the shadow on the cave wall which appeared to show a large one-armed figure in silhouette touching his head.

“ When I catch you I will eat you!” the voice continued.

Daniel had seen this shape before recalling his classmate Gustavo dirty habit.

The little lost boyo plucked up some courage and rounded the corner realising that it was a man sat on the floor cross-legged dressed in some rags with his finger up his nose.

“ You dirty bugger!” said the seven-year old.

The shock of seeing a Caucasian child challenging his eating habits shocked the man into reply.

“ Who are you infidel?” said the stranger through bogey encrusted teeth.

“I’m Daniel and I am not an infidel….unless that’s what you call someone whose parents are not married…is that an infidel?” asked the youngster.

Daniel stared at the dirty unkempt figure sat cross-legged before him.

“ And why do you have a dirty bath towel on your head?”

The stranger smiled.

He had forgotten how innocent a bastard child could be.

“ Are you Father Christmas’ dirty brother?”

Daniel somehow felt less scared being with a new companion.

“ No….Daniel…my name is not important!” replied the stranger.

“ But have you been a good boy this year?”

Daniel nodded.

“ And what would you like for Christmas?” he continued.

“ A gun!” spouted the child without any inhibition.

“ You are in luck….I have lots of them…!” said the stranger.

“ When I was your age in Saudi Arabia I had plenty of British made guns and ammunition to play with!”

“ On your list of demands ….did you ask Allah…sorry Father Christmas for which ones….An AK47 perhaps or a Stinger Surface to Air Missile launcher like the one that I used to play with in the poppy fields of Afghanistan?”

Daniel felt at ease with his newfound friend-they had something in common to talk about which was their love of playing soldiers.

Daniel did what came natural to a child and offered to share the remainder of his sweets with his new pal.

“Chew?” asked Daniel offering a blackjack to the stranger.

The stranger’s demeanour suddenly changed, as he went into a rage ranting that he hated all chews especially Zionist ones.

For the first time, Daniel started to fear the beard.

He had developed pogonophobia when his Estranged Father had grown one for Movember and then left his Mother for a Gurnos Woman, who had done the same for Fanuary.

“Come closer, my little friend ‘, begged the stranger using a softer tone of voice.

“Sorry, for my little outburst but those sticky sweets take my fillings out and I already have a toothache, as I haven’t been to register with a NHS dentist as I am not supposed to be in the Country”

“Officially, I am dead to the Western World and I wish it to stay that way!” continued the stranger.

Daniel was a little more wary at the mention of a dentist….he had already lost all his adult teeth from his sweet only diet- he shivered in the cold dank confines of the cave.

“ I see you are cold little soldier, why don’t you put on one of my specially made vests that are very popular in Somalia and Sudan….they will keep out the cold….although be careful not to pull this string on the front….!” Warned the stranger.

“ Is it like an Action Man?” asked Daniel.

“ My Father bought me one from a car-boot sale and if you pull the string he says

‘Action Man patrol fall in’.

“ Yes…this is a real ACTION Man vest but you mustn’t pull this cord until I give the order….as soon as you hear the phrase Ali Akbar you pull the string okay….!” he said glaring at the child like Rasputin and commanding obedience

“You see I am the Sargeant in the Suicide Squad whereas you are the private and you must obey only MY orders!”

“ Is that clear Private Daniel?

Daniel stood upright, clicked his heels like he was a reincarnated member of the Hitler Youth and marched toward the stranger in character.

Children have wonderful imaginations.

He stood proudly as the vest was fitted around his waist and chest.

“Remember Private Daniel this is an Order …do NOT pull this cord until I tell you!” insisted the stranger with mesmeric eyes poking out from under his turban.

“ Are you hungry Soldier?” asked the stranger.

“ Here is your chocolate ration!”

He handed him a square of dark chocolate.

“ Aren’t you having any?” asked Daniel.

“ I already have a bounty on my head!” laughed the stranger making eyes towards the turban.

The joke was wasted on the wannabe child soldier.

Mr Oxbridge was glad he was thin and able to pass easily through the narrow passages between rocks, as he tried like a Red Indian scout to follow the path the little boy had taken.

Luckily, just like Hansel & Gretel, he had left a trail behind him.

Coming from Merthyr, the little boy had no qualms about dropping litter and every so often, Mr Oxbridge would find a remnant of a 20p mix by way of sweet wrapper as a sign.

As the floor got wetter, there were child-size footprints on the cave floor, so unless he was following Wee Jimmy Krankie or Dennis Wise, he knew he was on the right pathway.

Mr Oxbridge was glad that he had joined the Scouting Movement as a child and read that Baden Powell Handbook from cover to cover, otherwise he would have had no chance of tracing the boy.

He needed to find him before word got out about a child going missing in his care.

If he found him alive and well then, he would keep his job.

He was already on report with the Headmaster for chapel farting next to the slow children making them think they had shit themselves- as he loved to see their confused expressions.

That teaching assistant, a paid- up Member of the Green Party, had never liked him and had ‘ratted’ him out to the Head over his emissions and methane fart-print.

As he squeezed passed below the main Cathedral Cave and the Bone Cave, he felt certain he was closing in on his quarry, as he felt he heard voices and assumed the little lost boy was keeping up his spirits by talking to and answering himself.

He often did it himself, as he had no friends and lived the life of a lonely bachelor like most male Primary School Teachers.

As he rounded a rock, he realised that Daniel was not in fact talking to himself or to Hank Marvin or any other member of the shadows, but an Arab man whose face was very familiar.

He did look like the man that served him a kebab when he was drunk on a Friday night but he couldn’t be certain it was him.

As he joined the pair, he suddenly recognised the face of the Arab man before him and couldn’t believe his eyes.

“ Greetings Infidel , welcome to my cave!” said the stranger.

The teacher nodded suspiciously at the man, in the same way he would nod at a paedophile passing the closed school gates.

“ Do you know who I am?” asked the stranger.

Mr Oxbridge knew he daren’t say he recognised him or he and the child would not leave the cave alive.

The teacher looked nervously at the array of weaponry, all within close reach of the Arab, who sat cross-legged like he was practising yoga.

“ No…I am only a primary schoolteacher and the only Arab I know of based in a cave from Western culture is that of Ali Baba!” said Mr Oxbridge trying to bluff his way out of trouble.

“ I don’t think he cuts hair….look at the state of his beard…!” said Daniel unhelpfully.

“ Not Ali Barber…..Ali Baba!” said the teacher in a gentle tone of voice designed not to frighten the child.

“ He was the one with the forty thieves!” said the stranger.

“ Another bias Western portrayal of the nature of my Countrymen!” he continued.

“ Was he from the Gurnos too?” asked Daniel.

“ No… he was a fictional character contained in the book 1001 Arabian Nights!” said the Teacher.

“ It was every much a work of fiction- just like your Holy Bible!” declared the stranger hitting back.

“ If there are any thieves then they are ALL Jewish ….imagine trying to say that Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel indeed!”

Daniel looked back and fore at the two adults and sensed that they would not be big friends in the playground.

“ You KNOW who I am don’t you?” pressed the Arab.

“ I know who you CANNOT be!” replied the Teacher.

“ Who CANNOT I be?” asked the stranger, as the conversion took on a surreal turn..

“ He told me he is Uncle Sam!” interjected Daniel.

“ Uncle OSAMA if you please!” replied the outed Saudi.

“You can’t be he….he was killed in a compound in Pakistan as part of Operation Neptune Spear by US Navy Seals!” said Mr Oxbridge clinging to life by a narrow thread.

“ Sharks -yes- said Daniel ….but not Seals no…!” said Daniel tugging on his teacher’s sleeve to correct him.

“ Do you think that that desert rat Montgomery and your fat Prime Minister Winston Churchill are the only persons important enough to have body doubles?” continued the Saudi.

Hearing this statement made Mr Oxbridge as effectively dead as the passengers on the hijacked planes involved in the 9/11 plot.

“ If you in fact are Osama Bin Laden and not just some lookalike wannabe ….prove it….you look more like John Pertwee dressed as Wurzel Gummidge to me!” said the teacher trying to muddy the oasis water.

“ Okay….what if I told you that I was not responsible for that whole New York thing and that it was an elaborate insurance scam all set up by the Jews to pay for a defective building that was due to crumble anyway inside 5 years!” said the Saudi.

“ Then I would believe you without question….!” Said Mr Oxbridge.

“ When I read the Merchant of Venice….I am always on the side of Portia and Antonio against that evil Shylock …charging interest rates in line with Wonga.com….who does he think he is….does he not have a Jew’s eyes, organs, dimensions etc….and as for that unmistakable nose….!” Said Mr Oxbridge suffering a little from Stockholm Syndrome.

“ But we have a problem don’t we Sir!” said the Saudi.

“ You KNOW who I am and you cannot be allowed to tell anyone!”

Mr Oxbridge gulped.

He knew what was coming next.

“ Child….pass me that AK47 please!” said the Saudi.

In a split second, the hyper intelligent Mr Oxbridge questioned as to why the Arab hadn’t moved towards the gun himself.

He called upon all his authority and ordered Daniel to STOP.

The little boy stopped midway between the pair, unsure who to listen too.

In his tiny mind, he felt the burning eyes of the Arab against the voice command of his teacher.

It wasn’t so much a Mexican stand-off it was more of an Afghan one.

Mr Oxbridge suddenly realised that their captor hadn’t moved his legs in the entire time he had spent talking to him.

“ What’s the matter with your legs then Mr Pertwee?” asked the teacher trying to confuse the Arab.

“Very observant of you SIR ….I stood on one of my own IED’s didn’t I….and now I have even less in the testicle department than my idol Adolph Hitler….!” Said the Arab.

“ IDOL ?” asked Mr Oxbridge.

“ He didn’t recognise those trespassers in Palestine either he had his own solution for them!”

“So let me get my history straight….the Arabs are the true land owners and the Jewish people just squatters?” asked Mr Oxbridge.

“So if they wanted a desert place to live in….why don’t they just go and live next to Las Vegas in Arizona?” asked the teacher trying to find ‘common ground’ with his hijacker.

“ You make a good point!” said the freedom fighter, playing the teacher at his own game.

“ Boy…bring me that gun!” he whispered to Daniel.

“ STOP Daniel….you are in a veritable lion’s den and if you give that gun to Uncle Osama you nor I will never see your Father again!” pleaded the Teacher.

Daniel had taken one step closer to the gun but now stood frozen to the spot, just like a jackrabbit caught in the headlights of a US Marine jeep.

The child was extremely confused.

He had common ground with the stranger and had always disliked the teacher intently.

His comment that he would never see his estranged Father again left him in a quandary.

Daniel was a free spirit but was slowly being indoctrinated by the teaching profession, as to how he should think, react and behave according to society rules.

On the other hand, he was standing in front of the ultimate rebel- a man from a millionaire family who was fighting American Imperialism and oil exploitation of the Middle East and multi-national Companies who sold arms for a living to wreak havoc in underdeveloped nations pitting brother against brother in the process.

Daniel didn’t understand World politics or the concepts of greed or evil.

He just wanted to be a child soldier.

He suddenly became aware of the string attached to the belt around his chest.

He remembered what his Mother used to say back home when he was in a fight with his younger brother over his 20p mix sweets.

“Now…you two … STOP arguing and pull little fingers OR I will pull this string!” he threatened.

Both Osama & Mr Oxbridge put their hands up as one asking the little boy NOT to pull the string.

Daniel was delighted with his new-found power.

He felt like he was role- playing his biological Father, on the many occasions when he had come home from the pub drunk and was ordering his Mother around under the threat of violence.

He felt like those times he had sat crying on the top of the stairs in his Spiderman pyjamas hadn’t gone to waste.

Mr Oxbridge was worried.

On the one hand, he knew that at some point the Company that owned the cave would send rescuers to look for him and Daniel and if they did, his time at the ‘chalk face’ was numbered.

Besides, he did want anyone to be held hostage by a desperate terrorist with no legs and little reason to live.

Surely, the Arab must have a helper above ground bringing the cripple some food?

The answer to this mystery didn’t take long to reveal itself.

Out of the cave shadows stepped another Arab.

His face too was familiar to the teacher.

As he strained to pull little fingers with Osama he realised that there was a Terrorist Cell operating in the South Wales Valleys.

He was also so tempted to drop one bomb of his own at the thought of ‘pull my finger’.

The other man was local Cynon Valley Kebab shopkeeper Mustafa Kemal.

Mr Oxbridge was a regular at the late-night eatery even in his local Environment Health Department had given the establishment ‘Two Food Safety Stars’ in their ‘War against Botulism’.

In the window, meats of all kinds cooking on skewers, some of which looked decidedly humped, with their delicious smell wafting down the littered streets, enticing late night revellers for both hot food and the chance of a good punch-up.

Mustafa himself was always subjected to racial abuse and many a time had chased some of the local youths with meat cleaver in hand.

He was particularly upset when lost in translation he was asked ‘if there was Saladin’.

Mr Oxbridge could see by the way Mustafa was looking at him that he had peeled many a Westerner in his Iraqi Torture Chambers under the Saddam Hussein Regime.

The key to this whole sorry episode was how Daniel would react.

One false move and he would be blown to Kingdom come and he didn’t think that the other 71 virgins would be pleased to see him intruding on their Turkish Delight.

He had managed to grab Daniel’s tiny hand in the dark and began to take small backwards steps in the direction he had appeared from.

Mustafa was slowly trying to outflank him to block his escape.

In one movement, he reached down to Daniel’s legs and lifted him Fireman Osama style like he was carrying a body in a Persian Rug.

“ Quick! ” he shouted to the stunned youngster, as he pinned his arms to try and prevent him pulling the detonation cord by accident.

Slipping and sliding over the wet limestone rock, the teacher ran for his life, followed in pursuit by Mustafa Kemal who had produced a curved knife not dissimilar to a scimitar.

Fortunately, the teacher had been a cross-country champion in his college days and despite his spindly legs and knobbly knees, he was more adept at covering the difficult terrain than his pursuer, whose turban had started to unravel after a fall and began to slow him up.

Daniel kicked and screamed, just like his Mother had done, the time his drunken Father had tried to knock her unconscious with the intention of using her as foundations for his patio.

Mr Oxbridge didn’t have a clue in which direction to go but took guidance from the Yazz & the Plastic Population song- ‘The only way is Up’.

He stumbled about in the dark, whispering to Daniel not to make a sound or the ‘bogey man’ would get the pair of them.

Mr Oxbridge knew that Mustafa must be close, as he could smell the spices that oozed out from his pores.

At one point the Arab passed the pair, metal skewer in hand calling out like a Middle Easterner version of the Child-catcher from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for Daniel to reveal himself.

It took all of Mr Oxbridge’s strength to keep the boy quiet.

After waiting for several minutes, which seemed like ‘double mathematics’ to both pupil and teacher alike in the inky blackness, the Teacher felt it was now safe to head out from the sanctuary of the crevice that had hidden them from view.

Following the cave in a Northerly direction, the former hostages made their way in the opposite direction they had come, hoping to find a way back to the main chamber.

Miss Adventure was starting to get really worried.

Mr Oxbridge had asked him to give him one hour to find the boy, after which she was free to raise the alarm with the relevant authorities.

As he held her mobile in her hand about to ring the Headmaster and spill the beans, both Mr Oxbridge and Daniel emerged blinking into the light from behind a series of rocks a couple of yards away from the main school party.

The children cheered loudly, as did Miss Adventure at the relief the pair were safe from danger.

However, when it comes to school outings then peril is never far away.

This peril came in the form of Mustafa who leapt off a high rock with the skewer in his teeth like a mad pirate about to swash-buckle John Phillip Law in a Sinbad Film.

Unfortunately, for the would-be Cynon Valley Assassin, a loose fold from his turban got trapped around his neck and became lodged in a fissure in the rock and what a cry that started as ‘Ali Akhbar’ petered out to Ali ARRRGGHH.

As he hung there choking the schoolchildren all cheered as they thought it was part of the school outing.

After all they had been to see Merthyr comedian Owen Money’s pantomime Aladdin and watched him die a death on stage in that.

Daniel started to raise his hand towards the string-pull on his chest as if acting under a trance.

As the skewer dropped from the mouth of Mustafa, as he struggled to breathe, the two teachers looked at each other as they realised they now had a way out of their ordeal which might now save their face, their jobs and get them on the much coveted BBC Wales Six O’Clock News slot.

All they had to do was to let the Arab die in front of the children by asphyxiation.

“Nothing to worry about children…..he is just a practical choker!” said Mr Oxbridge making eyes at his fellow teacher, nervously farting like a trooper next to his slow children.

“ Why has he gone red in the face?” asked Wesley.

“ My Father used to go that colour when my Mother used to put his pillow over his face when he was snoring!” said Gwernllwyn.

After a brief version of Michael Flatley’s Riverdance – the Arab suddenly became more Flatliner than Flatley.

Mr Oxbridge on the other hand was no longer flatulent.

His job was safe, as was his pupil and there had been no harm done.

Save as to a terrorist cell member and a man that was already listed as dead.

And that is the way it would have stayed if Gustavo hadn’t spotted the ring pull on Daniel’s shirt.

He wanted to beat his hypnotised classmate to it.

He loved Action Men too.

After the explosion everyone was in denial, except Daniel and Gustavo who were in pieces.

“ Alright Mun!” said the young lawyer.

“ Keep your hair on will you!” 

It was somewhat ironic really, as Welsh Barrister Leo Felix was only 23 but his fair hair was already receding more than a Norfolk beach at High tide.

“What are you doing in there… you nonce?” shouted an angry commuter, as he repeated banged on the lower half of the train WC cubicle door.

He thought about warning the angry man that what he had just said in front of his fellow passengers was actionable as a slander, but sight unseen he suspected that the individual wouldn’t have cared less nor had the wherewithal to fund defamation damages in the High Court of Justice.

The Virgin train from Cardiff Central to Paddington was packed to the rafters with passengers heading to London for work on a busy December Monday morning and the extra load of women and excited children heading to see Santa Claus and for Christmas shopping meant it resembled the ‘Sardine Express’ rather than the Polar one.  

Leo didn’t normally use public toilets but on this occasion would have missed the train, if he had used the ones located on the platform.

Boy did he regret his usual practice of standing up urinating and racing the flush to see would finish first.

Mainly because he had bent down to tie his shoelace and his expensive mobile phone had shot out of his top shirt pocket into the toilet pan and surfed its way around the u-bend before he could do anything about it.

His efforts to retrieve the same with his slender arms had not returned anything that even remotely resembled a mobile phone. 

The Virgin Train Japanese- style talking toilet was angry too at the new deposit and kept suggesting he see his Bowel Doctor immediately.

The banging of the Neanderthal on the door intensified into punches.
Leo wondered if it was a Cockney Mike Tyson outside.

He knew he would have to leave the cubicle with some dignity after the slur but also knew from playground experience that he was most certainly not a boxer. 

He needed that phone as his life was on it.

Like most modern- day young professionals -his life depended on it.

He had his diary on it, banked on it, checked the weather forecast, train times and of course the news headlines. He even made phone-calls on it too.

How would he live without it?

That was the purpose God Almighty had made humans with opposable thumbs for.
He knew he would have to face the music and leave the cubicle.

As he slid back the metal door lock, he was surprised to find that his abuser wasn’t a six- foot six builder with muscles on his muscles- but a four foot two dwarf.

Leo was used to looking down the nose at most people but on this occasion he really felt empowered.

“Sorry….I hope you weren’t caught ‘short’ by my time in there, but I accidentally flushed my mobile down the lavatory….perhaps given your size you might like to swim around the u-bend and get it back for me?” said the Barrister.

It was the last thing he remembered before the searing pain caused by the dwarf headbutting him in the bollocks.

Leo staggered to his seat.

Not only had he lost his mobile phone, but also his dignity and very likely his ability to reproduce children.

“Don’t worry luv!” whispered a kind old Welsh lady sat opposite him.

“That little fella is a professional wrestler called ‘Lowdown’ and that was his speciality move
.
Rubbing his aching testicles, he knew that his ‘Game of Thrones’ had not been engineered to hog the toilet- it was just circumstances.

“Tickets please!” announced the conductor.

Leo reached for his phone but it wasn’t there.

His season train ticket barcode was on his phone.

Try explaining that to an angry 40- year old Virgin.

“Where does the toilet flush too?” asked Leo.

“Does it go into a sealed unit?” asked the barrister hopefully.

“No- was the train stationary when you went?”  Asked the conductor.

“Yes!” said the mobile-less passenger.

“A little jerk caused the loss!” said Leo looking revengefully at Lowdown.

“Since leaving the European Union in January 2020- there are no longer any environmental control, so the waste gets distributed directly onto the track!” said the rail employee as if reading directly from a Company propaganda edict.

“Didn’t your Mother ever tell you not to go to the toilet when the train is in the Station?” he continued.

Leo knew then that he was in trouble.

What if someone found the phone, cracked the Personal Identification Number and found out all his personal information?

But then again it would take some kind of a genius to crack into his phone. 

He had client’s data on there, sensitive information for work as well that could be used for evil purposes if it fell into the wrong hands.

His sharp mind was already working overtime and the worst part was he couldn’t even bill a client for it.

As he came to terms with his electronic loss, it felt like a family bereavement had hit him.

He had withdrawal symptoms as he went cold turkey.

He felt insanely jealous that the other passengers were all looking at their mobile phones.

The carriage was silent with no chatter, as the modern generation displayed their social inability.

Even the Welsh Pensioner was doing a sudoku.

It was as everyone present wanted to be somewhere else.

Leo had no other option but to look out of the window and was surprised to see the late Autumnal colours changing into Winter, as the last remaining deciduous trees shed their coats and froze like the rest of mankind in the former United Kingdom.

He was entranced with the beauty of the English Countryside, something he had never before appreciated with his face down squinting at his mobile screen.

There were so many different colours and hues, flashing past, ranging from yellow to brown to red.

Mother Nature’s palette really was a sight to behold.

And the strange part of it was it was only he that was interested in the beautiful scene. 

As the train flew through Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire, Leo felt a pang of home sickness leaving behind his Home Country to work all weekend in the Smoke with its overpopulation, pollution and 24-hour noise.  

If New York was the City that never sleeps then its insomnia problem had been exported across the Pond and Post-Brexit was affecting the British too with its’ capitalist disease.

When America sneezes Britain catches a cold.

Now they had just had a massive Trump and the shit fallout was everywhere.

Each City looked just like a carbon copy of the next with KFC and McDonald’s on every street corner of the concrete jungles.

Food standards had dropped since the exit from the European Union and it was now difficult to work out whether it was the pollution, the chlorinated chicken or the increased permissible quota of rat hairs in the kebabs that were making people ill.

The more profitable parts of the NHS had been sold off to giant American pharmaceutical companies who now had a monopoly on legal drugs.

Great Britain had become Little Britain with zero-hours contracts the norm and a return to the Great Depression days of the 1930’s, where 200 hundred men would turn up at the gates of the London Docks in the hope of work, where only 20 were needed.

The divide between rich and poor in society had widened to those of Victorian times, with great stretches of former Labour areas now a forgotten wasteland.

Leo, ironically, on the other hand had never known real hunger but was about to get a ‘taste’ of it.

As he disembarked from the train at Paddington station, he usually bought a Marmalade sandwich from the theme shop at Mr Brown’s.

But he didn’t have his credit card.

To his horror, he remembered it was tucked in the front flap of his mobile cover which was still languishing on a rail track somewhere between Cardiff and Monmouthshire.

He stared at the sandwiches in the window, felling hungry from his long journey but unable to buy one.

It wasn’t from lack of money, he just didn’t have the means of payment.

He read the sign above the counter which said ‘Cash Only- No credit- a refusal often offends’.

Most businesses in the Smoke preferred cash as it could be hidden under the bed, as it was only the black-market economy that kept them solvent, as the rest of Britain owed more to the financial institutions than ever following the downgrading of our International credit rating in 2020.

Leo thought of his home town of Merthyr Tydfil, which had more barbers per head than Seville in Spain but strangely all kept going. He knew people in Merthyr were hairy but not THAT hairy.

It must be the black mullet economy at work.

The smell of roast chestnuts in a brazier tantalised him as he walked towards the guard on the turnstile checking for tickets.

He knew that he would trouble with his thick Welsh Valleys accent explaining why he didn’t have a ticket.

No-one in London had any time for that sort of thing.

He knew from past observation that the people would run up moving escalators and just like laboratory rats within ten minutes he would be absorbed by their unceasing rush to get somewhere else.

He tried explaining it to the guard, who was busy enjoying his power trip, raising an eyebrow or two before letting him through with a satisfactory smile, in the tacit knowledge that Leo had now missed his tube connection to Oxford Street Station.

As he waited for a further ten minutes on the subterranean platform, he felt that scary feeling of a cold wind being forced down the tunnel by the movement of the train.

It was then the usual free-for- all as people pushed and shoved to get onto the crowded tube before the electronic guard-less doors shut on people, taking shopping bags, fingers, hands and small children away from the lucky occupants who had made the interior of the carriage.   
 
He knew he would be late getting home as the trains from Wales were rarely on time.

Thankfully, he had used his day off in lieu – sometimes it paid to be self-employed when it came to time off.

He knew in the crazy World of London that he was just another number and in reality, few people would miss him.

As Leo was something of a workaholic, he rarely took time off as he was trying to build up his client base- and he knew that there were few people who would care, if he was ever pushed under a Boris bendy Bus or a tube train- besides his elderly Mother and Father and of course his live-in lover for the past year- Kitty.     

He knew that she worried about constantly and would be having kittens, if he didn’t turn up when expected.

Kitty rarely went out due to her agoraphobia and the sound of his key in the apartment door was always greeted with much enthusiasm.

For now, he couldn’t move a muscle, he felt a touch of the condition in that as he was trapped in a small metal train hurtling at 40 mph through heavily graffitied Victorian tunnels with the smell of stale piss and body odour all too evident to his senses.

Everyone around him like a kaleidoscope of colours and a melting pot of cultures and nations.

The majority seemed to have ‘earbuds’ and be listening to grime music or Adele or Ed Sheeran.

They were all so insular, afraid to look each other in the eye or smile.

Leo now minus his I-phone could just like 1970’s reggae artist Johnny Nash see clearly now.

What a society he lived in.

He was still suffering from his technology withdrawal syndrome when he spoke to the woman next to him.

“Good afternoon….!” 

He didn’t manage to finish his sentence before he was sprayed in the face with Mace.

The young woman had jumped a mile.

What sort of person speaks to someone on the Tube? 

A scuffle broke out and once again Leo was the subject of an assault.

He had also lost his expensive watch in the kerfuffle.

But which one of these people had taken it.

He was always good at Cluedo as a young lad, but up here the colours were not Scarlett, Peacock, Mustard, Plum or Green.

It had not been a good journey home to the English capital- as he was now down a mobile phone, a watch, had bruised knackers and been sprayed in the face with pepper spray.

As he exited the tube-station he had to spend another ten minutes arguing with the guard before being let through towards actual daylight.

It was called actual daylight, but in reality, the limited light from the late Autumnal sun was so high above the skyscrapers and high-rise blocks, it was barely visible over the highly polluted trapped smog of car fumes in the English Capital.

Leo had always wondered why London was nicknamed the Smoke- now he had his answer.
Now minus his mobile, he had a clearer picture of the Earth that the parasite known as Mankind was busily destroying. 

He had no money to hail a cab, so he had no other option than to walk the rest of the way home, dodging people walking with mobile phones like crosses in front of them, which is easier said than done on busy London streets that even Verve Singer Richard Ashcroft would find hard to negotiate.

With new eyes, he witnessed people too engrossed with their cyber life to care about oncoming traffic, as they stepped out both individually and on mass at crossings with red lights causing London Hackney drivers to swear in Cockney Rhyming slang at the careless pedestrians.

Cries of ‘Jeremy Hunt’ and ‘Mike Catt’ were everywhere.

Leo couldn’t believe that the new species of human was hypnotised into staring at their mobile screens rather than participating in the REAL World.

What was becoming of our society, where the origin of the species and evolution of humankind had led to this advanced state of electronic paralysis.

True- Mother Nature’s only trump card- the survival of the fittest had meant that lots of these idiots had now been run over and with NHS waiting times fortunately had not survived.

He was now only a block away and thought he would as usual stop at the local chip shop to take home a fish supper for his nearest and dearest.

Regrettably, once again, he patted his top pocket and realised he had no means of payment.
He was starving and he bet his Missus was too, after a weekend stuck in that flat.

As he reached the entrance door, he noticed the sign said ‘Lift out of Order’.

He knew it hadn’t been his day, but to have to climb fourteen separate flights of stairs with added fire- retarded cladding, meant he had lost two stone in perspiration by the reached his apartment door.

Thank goodness it was nearly Winter.

London’s burning alright he thought, as he fumbled for his key.

As he opened the door, he noticed that his love was in the kitchen but he had more pressing matters.

His landline was ringing.

Strange he thought, as very few people had his number as it was  ex-directory.

It must be his Mother ringing to remind him that he had once again left the ready meals she had made him on the kitchen table.   

He really loved his Mam’s Welsh cooking too.

As he closed then deadlocked the door, he raced to the phone and answered it hesitantly.

“Hello?” 

It was NOT Lionel Ritchie.

“Is this London 01 378695?”

Perhaps thought Leo some honest person has found his phone.

His mind raced and in a split second he realised that whoever was phoning must have gained access his phone and potentially could see what embarrassing pictures he held in his phone gallery.

The one of him with his arm around Prince Andrew in the Woking Pizza Express.

The one of him shaking hands with Wiki-leeks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy. 

A photograph of him welcoming Donald Trump to Britain at his golf course in Scotland.

Surely no-one could have broken into his phone this quickly?

He thought then of Hollywood actress, Jennifer Lawrence and the hacked naked photographs from her I-cloud account which now all over the internet.

“Yes!” stuttered the barrister for once lost for words

It was not the voice of a genius but a ten- year old Gurnos schoolkid, called Mitch Daley. 

  “This must be the cat shagger then?” 

The little red van pulled up in the tiny picture postcard village of Pontsticill, Merthyr Tydfil and a distinguished elderly gentleman slowly clambered out.

He was clad in a red all-weather coat with yellow flashing, so he could be seen easily in the low light of the Brecon Beacons National Park.

His much younger work colleague kindly unloaded his zimmer- frame and post satchel from the back of the red van, and waved cheerily to him as he pulled back off onto the main road through the rural village.

It was 6.00 am on Saturday Morning and in the eerie half- light of late October, the elderly man had already been up two hours before arriving at the sorting office for 5.00am.

Postman Arthur Rittik was 74 years and 363 days old and it was to be his last ever shift.

He had wanted to retire at 65 but successive Conservative Governments had consecutively upped the State Pension retirement age, forcing him to work on beyond his usefulness to his employer.

According to the Department of Work & Pensions, acting on instruction from Ian Duncan Smith, work was compulsory for all until 75 years of age, as unfortunately some of the lower classes were now living too long.

Under its new slogan of ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’.

Somebody had to pay for the poor deal negotiated over Brexit in 2019 and clearly that should not be the millionaires who could afford it, or those persons who had money hidden away in Hedge Funds and Tax Havens pretending to be Great Britons.

It should be the Proletariat.

After all they WERE the democratic ones suckered into voting for Brexit over the fear of mass immigration.

They were now the ones who could no longer afford cheap Thomas Cook flights to Benidorm or Marmaris to use their shiny new blue passports, after the Pound had been devalued below the level of the Euro and Turkish Lira.

Their feral children couldn’t even go and work in the bars of these places any more, as they couldn’t get Work Permits or Visas from the European Union Member States.

They now had to stay at home in a divided Britain with reduced worker’s rights and zero hours contracts to boot, whilst their REAL bosses- the Merchant Bankers & Venture Capitalists- drank champagne and eat oysters and caviar and retired wealthy, after dipping ‘Maxwell- style’ into the pension pot of their workers who had made them rich in the first place.

Poor Arthur Rittik’s only crime was to be born poor in Britain in 2019.

His family had fled Bucharest in Romania in 1939, with some foresight, fearing with just cause what the rise in Fascism would bring to their Mother Country.

His parents had moved to Wales and Merthyr Tydfil in particular at the time, as it was the second least expensive place to buy a house, after the village of Sellafield in Cumbria.

Despite its ‘glowing reputation’ they had chosen Merthyr over the Lake District.

His Father before him had worked on the post, mainly because he couldn’t speak English but also because he didn’t have any professional qualifications that were recognised in this Country.

Somewhat ironically however, his Dad still ended up with lots of letters after his name.

He always held a grudge against rich people ever since.

His Dad remembered the good old days of delivering telegrams to family members of the rich people that had been on the Titanic and telling them that their last words in the bar was requesting more ‘ice’ for their whiskey & tonic.

Fortunately, as he spoke in Romanian nobody could understood a word that he said.

He did have one advantage though, as he was a user of the Cyrillic Alphabet, he could easily identify where a poorly handwritten letter needed to be delivered.

Doctor’s letters were his speciality.

When Arthur took over his round, after he had retired through ill-health, he too found he had a unique way of dealing with illegible writing.

He would simply post them back to the Central Post Office.

Arthur Rittik noticed that he had developed the same occupational illnesses that his Father had from the cold, damp conditions of the South Wales Valleys.

Rheumatoid Arthritis, no knee cartilage, a crooked back from the weight of the letters and lots of sharp paper cuts.

In the Bleak Mid-Winter, there were often times when he couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers or the toes on his feet- but he always made sure that just like the ‘Pony Express’- his post always got through.

How times had changed.

Now his profession was regarded with some ambivalence, being sneered at as ‘snail mail’ by the Katy Perry generation and where once the sound of the letterbox would bring joy to the householder children waiting for birthday cards or examination results, now it was met with disdain for junk mail adverts for kebab shops, pizza huts or OAP scams sent by Canadian Conmen that the occupier had won £100,000.00- asking the Local Government supplied list of unwitting elderly victims for their bank account details so the prize could be paid out.

Now he was made semi-redundant by e-mail or telephone mobile text message.

But what the young generation would find out in a few years that their use of electric and fossil fuel that powered their electronic devices was damaging Mother Earth and sending unknown radio waves through the population causing hitherto unknown cancers from electric forcefields.

His way was far more eco-friendly and he had a letter from Swedish schoolkid Greta Thunberg to prove it.

Whereas once he was considered a pillar of a rural Community, now he was largely anonymous.

Back in the day, he had lost count of how many schoolchildren had asked him if his name was Pat or if he had a black and white cat called Jess back home in Greendale.

Now schoolchildren were more likely to threaten him with a flick-knife or call him a Paedo, or ask him why he still wanted to live till 75 years of age?

Children had changed for the worst, mirroring the ‘I’m alright Jack -pull up the ladder ‘Little Britain’ Society Arthur now lived in.

Working class children were also bitter, as Brexit had robbed them of their ability to live and work anywhere in Europe and the divide between the rich and poor had widened to such an extreme that certain areas had become ghettos and other areas- walled communities.

Even Pontsticill had changed, with the continuation of benefit cuts and the resulting crime wave had led to lots of rural burglaries, so that most properties had close circuit television cameras aligned to their doorbell to check for uninvited guests.

The last great fun of doing his job had been taken away from postmen.

They could no longer pretend to ring the doorbell and leave an annoying note with ‘Please collect your parcel from the Delivery Office by 5.30pm’.

As most rural working customers couldn’t get there during normal working hours, they would have to take-up their Saturday Morning to fight through the congested traffic schemes only to discover with some dismay that the mystery parcel actually contained a copy of the Readers Digest.

Back in the day, Arthur was young and fit, he could manage to deliver his post to the entire village and in the process leapt more fences on his round than Grand National Winner ‘Red Rum’, but now with his limited movement, he could only manage one single estate in a day and usually fell at the first fence.

Today, it was Castell Morlais with only 24 houses- all with an open expansive view of the former Norman Morlais Castle and the high former limestone quarries that were once favoured by the English Ironmasters that ruled the Town in a grip of fear.

The rape of the fair country had left behind many industrial scars but the landscape was still as stunning as it ever was – a silent witness back to the times when Arthur of the Britons had first roamed the Celtic Motherland.

It was breath-taking.

Now a different Arthur of the Britain’s stood looking at the Welsh Upland mountainside but at 74 years and still working it was also breath-taking to him.

In fact, the remainder of his breath was briefly visible in the half-light, as its moisture went off to add to the frost on the red tiled roofs of the houses.

Lots had changed in the village, as rich Englishmen from the Smoke could now afford to buy a mansion in Wales from the net proceeds of sale of a one-bedroom flat in London and still have change left over.

The price disparity was all there to see.

The new Ironmasters had arrived.

Many houses were now empty and used as holiday homes on AirBNB, with local wages preventing many Welsh people being able to afford to buy, leading to a rise in Welsh Nationalism and threats of ‘Meibion Glyndwr’ resurfacing in the Principality.

The promised ‘melting pot’ of races had not materialised and increasingly Welsh-born children no longer felt a welcome in the Hillsides.

Arthur looked up at number 24 Castell Morlais and could see a newly installed flagpole with the flag of St George proudly flying over the garden.

I bet that was popular with the few remaining old Welsh neighbours thought Arthur.

As he trudged his way on his zimmer up the uneven pathway of number 1, he tried desperately not to fall over- as he knew that if he turned turtle , he would have one foot in the grave, as people in our broken society already stepped over homeless people in sleeping bags- seeing them as an inconvenience rather than a consequence of the failure of a Government to find work and shelter for their population.

As he reached the letterbox, he carefully selected the right mail for the Property- as he was suffering from early onset vascular dementia- it proved quite a task.

At one time, this round was even harder and more confusing, as most people on this estate were called Jones, Williams, Evans or Thomas.

Now it was Smythe, Blenkinsop or Farquar.

Very few now spoke the Mother tongue and even fewer tuned into S4C.

One survey once established that no-one at all had tuned in to watch several of the Welsh Language Programmes.

But they were still running.

With his first delivery over, Arthur did a U-turn with his frame and made his way back up the shiny pathway.

Back in his youth, he loved the sight of crisp fresh snow- now he feared its very appearance as one slip could mean a broken hip or foot and could be fatal to an elderly postman no longer fit for purpose.

He also worried about how he was going to manage on his meagre state pension after he retired.

After all he wouldn’t even get a free BBC Television licence anymore from his Aunty Beeb.

But I suppose there was always S4C even if he didn’t understand a word of it.

Whatever happened to the Great British Empire and the promised ‘trickle-down effect’? he thought.

The Post Office wasn’t even owned by Britain anymore.

After 360 years of history, the institution was now owned by its shareholders with the resulting effect that the cost of a first-class stamp was now beyond most people.

With inflation, the cost of having a miniature profile of the Regent of England on the top left- hand corner of your envelope had risen to £1.50.

Opinion at the Post Office was divided, as to whether the cost increase or the Earl Grey- stained teeth of Queen Camilla had been most off-putting to the general public.

Either way the number of letters being posted had dramatically reduced.

Which was both a blessing and a curse to poor Arthur- as he feared that some latter-day ‘Robber Maxwell’ might now plunder HIS pension fund, especially as it was paid via a Private Company.

Thirty minutes had now elapsed since he had been first dropped off and he had only managed to deliver post to two houses.

But Arthur was resilient, he was determined to finish his ‘Royal’ paper round and not let down his customers.

Despite being not having originally born in this Country (just like the Windrush Generation) he still considered Great Britain to be his home, and in particular considered himself to be Welsh.

This was based on who he supported in the England v Wales Rugby Match.

As he headed for the third letterbox, he knew he would have to be wary.

There was a sign up ‘Beware of the Dog’.

He hated going into long gardens where the home-loving canine suddenly turned into the Israeli Defence Force and attacked him with those sharp teeth.

Arthur had been bitten so many times over his time with the Post Office he was immune to the tetanus jab itself.

He once did an entire round with a corgi attached to his front of steel toe cap boots by its teeth.

If he had a pound for every time a homeowner had told him –“He won’t hurt you love!”- he could have afforded to retire.

His stock answer was always:-

“ He’s not going to hurt ME love ….but you will be the one that has to climb up the roof of the extension to get him back!”

Many a customer complaint had been lodged on his personnel file for this reply.

So much so Head Office wanted to know if for Health & Safety reasons he wanted to be CORGI registered.

The Fire Station Commander had also complained about his antics in the past but now with a zimmer-frame for protection Arthur was much less belligerent.

However, Arthur’s talent was not limited to pushing paper through holes in doors or converting pets rugby style over garden walls, he had modified the frame just like Q had done for aging actor Sean Connery in ‘Never Say Never Again’, so that at a touch of a button , three six inch stiletto blades would shoot out of the assisted walking- frame.

It was ideal when doing the Post Round in the New Gurnos- as on occasion he had to duel with certain residents like he was one of the Three Musketeers over the retention of his postbag.

Vigilant at all times, Arthur made his way towards the front door of number 3, where he heard the distinctive low growl of a canine defender.

A Jack Russell Terrier by the sound of it.

He could tell the breed and size of a dog simply by looking at the scratch-marks on the bottom of the door or the size of the uncollected dog logs in the gardens.

Whenever, he reached a letterbox where a dog would wait at the back of the door to take off his fingers, he would carefully pick up a dog log with the home-owners incoming mail and then feed it through the flap to the waiting canine mouth.

What a joy it was to hear the dog retching at the taste of it’s own shit.

It was even funnier, as some breeds had short memories too.

With poor Fido having to pick up the ‘bill’ from it’s equally savage owner for a utility letter inside the house with dog excrement on it.

Arthur hated all breeds of dogs but especially German Shepherd’s- not just because of their Country of origin, but also as they were big, aggressive and very territorial.

Nowadays, few dogs bothered him, as due to his age, he smelled of imminent death and whilst the odd hungry one would try and take one of his bony fingers- his Bond villain invention- those of his ‘Rosa Klebb’ shoe-spikes attached to his zimmer- frame usually sent the dog yelping away with it’s tail between its legs.

Most homeowners didn’t blame the postman but assumed that the cats in the area had been issued with flick-knives by a Cat Protection Charity.

As he reached house number six, he was stopped at the top of the driveway by a female supermarket delivery driver busy reversing out of the cul-de-sac.

As it was a Morrison Van – her name was Carrie Abagfivepea and naturally had brown eyes.

Even if they were crossed like US comic actor Ben Turpin.

“What’s the postcode for Morlais Close in Castle Park?” asked the South Wales exponent of the ancient Japanese art of Bonkai.

“Are you talking to me?” asked the lady, whose eyes seemed to be concrete proof of the ability of females to multi-task.

“You’re a postman ain’t you?” countered Carrie.

Poor Arthur felt he was being cross examined and didn’t know which eye to look at- East or West.

“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Arthur.

“There’s no bloody mobile phone signal up here for Google Maps!” said the lost driver.

“Googlie-eyed Maps?” replied Arthur.

“Not my generation love….I couldn’t use a mobile to ring….let alone use Facetube!”

Carrie shook her head in disgust and reversed off at high speed, sending milk now passed its sell-by date and stale bread tumbling as she went.

Seeing the alternative ‘Meals on Wheels’ pull away made Arthur hungry indeed.

But the austerity measures of successive Conservative Governments had left him with a choice of Eating or Heating.

Private rental rates kept going up too with inflation but not in keeping with his meagre pay.

He hadn’t a pay rise in five years and he too was finding the cost of food expensive.

He like most people was affected by the new phenomenon of ‘Universal’ Credit ‘shrinkflation’.

His food portions had shrunk in size and cost twice as much to buy.

A Mars Bar was now the size of Mercury but cost the Earth.

Fortunately, as so few people under 80 years of age wanted to eat them, Werthers were still original.

As he carefully unwrapped one with his blue bony fingers, he took comfort in sucking down on the sweet.

Next up, was number 8, a Jewess Widow he had had his eye on for a number of years.

He felt she had a soft spot for him too, as she often came to the door wearing a negligee and stocking and suspenders.

She reminded him of Rose from the Golden Girls on the occasions when she had her teeth in.

He always pretended there was something wrong with the letterbox and so she had to open the door to him.

None of the nine cats that lived with her seemed to object to his arrival either, as they all made a bee-line for the crack in the door whenever he came a calling.

Fortunately for Arthur, his sense of smell had waned over the years, as younger postmen used to recoil at the putrid smell of stale cat faeces and urine that escaped, just like the cats themselves when the door was ajar.

“Oooh good… my Strictly Come Dancing Live tickets have arrived at last!” said Widow Yom Kipper.

Arthur was pleased to make his favourite customer happy- on a ‘Strictly’ professional basis of course.

“Heavy Sack today Arthur?” she asked suggestively.

“Are you any good at dusting?” asked Arthur randomly.

He was of course thinking of the cobwebs around his cock that hadn’t been employed for some years now.

Widow Kipper took this as a slight and promptly closed the door sharply in his face, trapping one of the escaping cat’s tails and turning it into a Manx one.

Arthur, just like most men was puzzled as to what he had said to offend the woman.

He started back up the pathway, clicking the lozenge between tongue and teeth.

Next up was Mrs Quill, she was another widow but much younger and less attractive than the Widow Kipper.

She had spent some time in the USA previously but had left America after her husband had been killed by a bull in a rodeo accident at Calgary.

He had been a Circus Clown and had died in the ring protecting a bucking bronco rider.

The only consolation that Mrs Quill had in the tragedy was that it had taken the undertakers four days to get the smile off the dead man’s face.

Arthur from experience knew that the blue envelope marked Air Mail was likely to be a letter from abroad.

He was however, curious why there was a franking stamp silhouette of a horse drawn buggy with the face of actor Tom Cruise on the driver.

It read Amish-on Impossible.

Just like the Widow Kipper, she too loved to see Arthur’s mail coming through her letterbox.

She was happy to explain to the curious Postman that it was a letter from her friend in Pennsylvania.

His religious Amish community had banned the use of Skype, Mobile Application Facetime or other modern technology.

They believed that of the 4000 Gods that mankind had created since the dawn of time – their one was against technology.

The author of the letter was a pig farmer- making him the ultimate Pen-Pal.

They had corresponded every six months for the last decade, swapping news about pork prices, the effect of new President Donald Trump was having on the swill of the people and of course who was suey-ing whom in the US Court Legal system.

He had told her he was thinking of moving into a different agricultural field- that of chlorinated chicken, as the President had assured him personally that it would be the new big export market.

Most of Trump’s political rivals were talking about impeachment, but he personally didn’t think fruit was the solution.

The pair had developed their own USA/UK ‘special relationship’ since the death of her husband and hoped one day to innocently roll in the hay one day after Harvest Festival or Thanksgiving.

Or perhaps spend the New Year in Scotland once he had saved up enough Hogmanay.

The letter was always perfumed to disguise the smell of the farm.

Arthur bid his farewell and told her that she would soon have a young stallion taking over his round as he was being put out to pasture.

Next up was Mr Stoker at number 10.

He had always disliked Arthur, as he had never forgiven him for delivering a parcel by placing it in his wheelie bin to keep it dry, when he was out.

It would have been fine but unfortunately it happened to be bin day and he didn’t want the embarrassment of asking the local binmen to return his blow-up woman that he had ordered on the internet.

He had tried to convince Arthur that the company ‘Big N Bouncy’ produced inflatable bouncy castles for children’s parties- but as Mr Stoker had no children, spouse or living relatives it didn’t wash with Arthur.

But then again it wasn’t the only thing that didn’t wash.

Mr Stoker himself always appeared at the door in his dirty dressing gown and encrusted striped pyjamas, usually around Noon holding a bowl of cereal.

The Hugh Hefner lookalike had earned the local nickname of ‘Bran Stoker’, as his light was on all night and his habits were extremely regular.

Arthur pushed the overdue electricity bill through with a smug smile.

Fortunately, there was no mail in his bag for some of the houses otherwise, Arthur would have been there ALL day instead of just the entire morning.

He was shattered.

He still had at least four houses left to deliver to and he genuinely feared he would not make his final deliveries.

He had little else to show for his decades of loyal service but the one thing no one could take away from him was the pride in him doing a good job.

It had been drummed into him as a child, that hard work paid dividends.

What a complete lie that had turned out to be.

The only dividends he had ever seen were those he had delivered to the houses of the rich shareholders that had bought into the newly privatised utility companies at undervalued prices.

Successive Governments had sold off the state- owned Gas, Electric, Water and Telephone Services and he personally had not received a single penny from the sales.

He now had to buy gas from SWALEC, Electricity from British Gas, rent a telephone line in all the recent flooding from Welsh Water and water from Whitbread Brewery.

And that was before the Royal Mail had even been privatised.

He couldn’t afford to buy employee shares, as he currently paid more in tax to the UK Government than both Google & Amazon combined.

And the proposed Labour Government was proposing to re-nationalise everything- if they were elected….so the whole process would start again.

He was fed up of being screwed over and over again, as with added inflation he felt just like Mr Stoker’s inflatable woman.

He tried to console himself that at least he had a purpose to get up for in the Morning- until tomorrow that is- when he finished work compulsorily.

What would he then do to fill the hours?

Arthur didn’t know.

He didn’t want to vegetate and watch the moronic daytime television.

He had all those years ago thought that retirement would bring both time and freedom to do the things he had always wanted to do but put off because of his job.

Travel.

Holidays.

Enjoy not smelling the ‘Roses’ at number 8 Castell Morlais.

But now reality was starting to bite, he really felt short-changed by God.

The hand he had been dealt was not full of Aces but full of deuces.

He really felt bitter and someone was going to pay for it.

The Flag of St George fluttering in the cold mountain breeze too seemed to rile him even more than it normally did.

And then out of the corner of his eye, he caught a sight he had never seen before.

An unidentified flying object, that whirred and hovered in the air above the house with the English insignia.

It was painted a gaudy yellow with black lettering down the side.

Arthur squinted through his 74- year old cataracted eyes trying to make out what it said.

He was intrigued by the robotic UFO, as didn’t think he would ever see such a sight in his lifetime.

He didn’t expect to live long enough to witness people in jet packs whizzing about like they were members of the US cartoon series ‘The Jetsons’, let alone what he perceived to be a drone delivery from US warehousing giant Amazon.

The device seemed to pause, just like it was a mechanical homing pigeon checking its bearings before descending to the front door.

It then extended an arm and knocked the door loudly.

If Arthur had felt redundant earlier, now he knew he needed to be mothballed.

On its side was an LCD display with the words, ‘connecting to WI-FI’….

The electronic ‘Ring’ doorbell then sounded of its own volition and ten seconds later the door swung open only to reveal an out of shape male with a skinhead haircut, with a Chelsea FC football hooligan ‘Death to Spurs’ skull and crossbones tattoo on his muscular forearm.

Seeing Arthur staring at him from the top of the drive- he shouted aggressively ‘Wot U looking at?”

In reality, Arthur didn’t really understand what he was in fact witnessing.

The Amazon Drone opened a flap and in a mechanical voice ( not dissimilar to the robots from the 1970’s Smash advert for instant potato mash) spoke to the skinhead.

“Are you Ed Hunter?” asked the device.

“If so…please place your left thumbprint on the receipt display!”

Ed did so.

The word ‘MATCH’ came up on the LCD display and a different flap opened to dispatch a small bag of white powder.

Arthur was still dumbstruck.

Ed shouted to the Postman.

“Ain’t you seen a delivery of Colombian Marching Powder direct from the Amazon before?” said the National Front supporter.

As the drone flew off with its own ‘mission accomplished’, Ed quickly closed the door with a loud slam just to annoy his next-door neighbour, who he knew was working a nightshift.

Arthur had seen enough but he knew there was a delivery for Mr Ed Hunter and much as he wanted to toss the item in the hedge, his sense of ingrained but misplaced pride in his job would not let him end his career with some unfinished business.

He looked down at the item and quickly discovered that from the weight and size of the packaging that it was a hardback book.

A slight tear caused by despatch from the book depot showed, it was entitled ‘The Holocaust- a work of fiction’

Arthur was already angry but to think that someone would class the murder of millions of European people as ‘fake news’ made him livid.

It was the 1940’s equivalent of Austerity Measures & Universal Credit.

Some of his fellow Romanians had perished at the hands of those Right Wing Extremists -the Nazi Party of Germany-, many of which were women and children.

If there was only one good thing to come out of Europe in the last 74 years it was that different Nationalities had stopped killing each other over fictional borders.

He continued to shuffle his aged bent feet towards the long and winding road leading to the front door of the Englishman’s Castell.

It took him nearly 30 minutes till he reached the racist welcome mat on the porch floor.

“Beware of the Wog!” it read with a Robertson Jam Jar musical band member emblazoned thereon.

He was so incensed with the Brexiteer home owner that he wanted to give him a piece of his mind- while he still had some of it left intact.

He was intent on dealing with a vampire in the same way that they did in Transylvania in his Paternal Fatherland by putting a stake through its heart.

A last post if you like.

As he rapped on the door with his bony knuckles with the last of his ‘remaining’ strength, it was opened by Ed Hunter who glared back at him angrily.

Up close and personal, he had tattoos on his tattoos and was flanked by an English Pit Bull terrier sporting a blue Mohican, a spiked collar and bore the name ‘Drool Britannia’ on his identity ring and a highly- strung cat with a neat ‘Adolf Kittler’ moustache called William Rees- Moggie.

He was now outnumbered by bullies in the usual ratio of 3:1.

“Are you still ‘ere?.......what do YOU want?” spat the EDF energy- enhanced homeowner.

Arthur had intended to point out the error of the Neo-Nazi’s ways but was surprised at what actually came out of his mouth.

“Have you got any of that ‘whizz’ left-it’s just that I need it to finish my Round!”

By Screenshot from "Internet Archive" of the movie The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) - https://archive.org/details/RevengeOfFrankenstein-Trailer , Public Domain, Link

“Igor…. I’ve cracked it!” said the Professor.

His hunched- back laboratory assistant looked up at his Master and let his tongue loll out of the corner of his mouth.

He stared back with the same look of loyalty on his lop-sided face, that a Pit Bull Terrier would give to its owner whilst sitting on a Vet’s Death Row.

“I’ve dedicated my entire working life of 60 years as a research scientist at this establishment, trying to create the perfect Welshman, and I am confident that after six decades of collecting the appropriate genetic material that my experiment will today FINALLY work!” announced the Boffin.

“ I just need to add this final ingredient to my primordial soup…!” he said pipette in hand.

As he squeezed the rubber top, a single solitary rivulet of clear liquid raced down the side of the test-tube, as if it somehow or other sensed the importance of the experiment.

The liquid solution bubbled briefly before changing colour to a perfect red, white and green.

“What was that secret ingredient?” asked Igor looking puzzled, like a Love island Contestant trying to count to ten.

“It came from Hollywood, Igor ….it was saliva from the real Daenerys Targaryen , which I bought on E-Bay….the Khaleesi from the Game of Thrones series…” continued the Professor.

“The Muvva of Dragggons!” slurred the assistant sounding like he could be the guest presenter of the Andrew Marr Show.

Just as he did so, the eyes and forehead of a spotty sixteen year- old youth, appeared at the circular window of the laboratory door.

“Ah….perfect timing…I see my new lab rat has arrived!” said the Professor.

“Get the door will you Igor!” commanded the mad scientist.

Igor dragging his right leg on the shiny floor surface, limped his way to let the tiny school kid in.

“Are you Professor Barry ‘Awkin?” asked the nervous youth.

“No…Professor Barry Hawking…..with a H….!” replied the Boffin without taking his gaze away from the effervescent test tube.

“Wot….H as in Heroin?” asked the youth eyes darting around the laboratory in the hope of a free sample.

“No…H as in Hydrogen in the Periodic Table!” said the Professor, one Dennis Healey eyebrow raised suspiciously.

“I don’t like to talk about that kind of thing….that’s private women’s business…!” replied the red- faced blushing youngster.

“Which school did YOU play truant from?” asked Professor Hawking sarcastically.

“Was it an all-boys school?”

“No… it was Allcrooks Comprehensive School and by the way, my future probation officer told me to introduce myself to you first!” said the schoolboy, offering his tiny hand up to the chest of the Professor.

“My name is Ken D’Offender….but my mates in my posse call me ‘Wee’!” said Ken in a high pitched voice like he was wearing former soprano Aled Jones’ designer boxer shorts.

“Wee Ken D’Offender?” queried Professor Barry looking down at the circular wet patch on the front of his school uniform, that would have struggled to fit AC/DC Frontman Angus Young.

“The Headmaster of my school, Sir Richard Nixon gave me that ‘nick’-name!” replied Ken

“ He told me if I was ever caught shoplifting to tell them I was just a Wee Ken D’Offender !” continued the youth.

“He was a great teacher….he taught me all about the age of criminal responsibility, even before my TENTH birthday….how to get into my house with a credit card in case I ever lost my keys… and I can hotwire any model or make of car without need to refer to the Dark Web!” said the youngster for the first time ever- innocently.

“So have you read and signed that Slimbec Laboratory disclaimer form yet?” asked the Professor.

“I CAN’T READ!” muttered the embarrassed 16 year old.

“Perfect!” said the Professor.

“Just sign here and here!”

Ken made an X just like he did when he voted for Brexit using his dead Nan’s Postal Vote.

“Do you understand that we give you £5.00 for every injection and £ 50.00 if you are foolhardy enough to enter my version of the Large Hydron Collider?” asked the Mad Scientist.

“It is cash mind you innit?….it’s just that my Polish mate had that mouse’s ear on his chest for a whole month but had a cheque he couldn’t cash because he didn’t have a bank account….!” Said Ken excitedly.

“Good job he was a Star Trek Fan as he kept asking the girls on the Estate if they wanted to see his Final Frontier!” continued the teen.

“Ah…I remember him now….when I tested the 3d printer for the first time…!” said the Professor.

“Everyone in the local swimming baths thought he was a Russian Spy for ages!” said Ken.

“Igor prepare the Collider and get it up to Warp Speed!” said the Nutty Professor.

“Yeth Mathster!” said Igor, who was dithantly related to boxer Crith Eubank.

No sooner than the machine had been turned on than young Ken was transfixed by the laser show of different lights and array of colours in the two human sized test-tubes at either side of the Collider.

“This is what H G Wells only dreamed about in his science fiction- this is science fact!” said the Professor proudly.

“What does it do?” asked the youngster looking at the words ‘Correct Change Only’ on the former Premier Inn Chocolate dispensing machine.

“Officially it is for Time Travel - because Genetic Research on Humans is banned!” said the Prof.

“Have you heard of the space time continuum?” continued the Boffin.

“No!” replied Ken.

“A Light Year?” probed the Professor.

“Buzz you mean?” asked Ken.

“Kinda!” said the Scientist.

“A Light year is a measurement of the distance between planets in our Solar System!” said the Professor sounding like Brian Cox.

“What like the distance between Leo and Virgo….I know that’s thirty one days!” said Ken proving that whilst there is in all probability intelligent lifeforms in our Universe -they don’t exist at Allcrooks Comprehensive School.

“If we wanted to send a man to the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy, he would be long dead before he could reach his destination- this distance is measured in light years….!” Explained the Professor.

“So why send him then?” asked Ken

The Professor shone his pocket torch through the school boys ears and a beam appeared from the other side.

“Never mind….ever heard of wormholes then?” asked the Scientist prompted by the torch inspection.

“My dog had them once- I remember him dragging his arse on my Mother’s living room carpet….she was NOT happy….he looked like a Tory MP in Wales struggling to hold onto his deposit!” replied Ken.

“Only a lot more slippery!”

“So what job are you working on at the moment?” enquired the schoolboy.

“If anyone in Authority asks, officially I am working on an experiment to see if I can create time travel!” said the Professor.

“Using Einstein’s Theory of relativity E= MC2, I am hoping to create the future today by using a wormhole to bend time and space and transfer a person’s genetic molecules from point A to Point B!” explained the Physicist.

Ken looked at both sides of the machine and noticed that the two hollow tubes either side of the machine were marked Point A and Point B but were separated by a rubber floor which looked like it had been lifted from a Costa Coffee machine.

“Who would be dull enough to let you experiment on them?” asked Ken.

There was a deathly silence in the room until the penny dropped with a heavy clunk.

“Didn’t you get my invitation sent to the school?” asked the Professor.

“Yes!” said Ken.

“Look at the date stamp on it!” said the Boffin.

“3 ^rd July 2020!” read Ken aloud.

“But that’s a year on in the future!” stuttered Ken.

“Precisely!” replied the Prof.

“That my young Friend is proof that my time machine works!”

“All I need now is to test it on a human being!”

Ken looked around the room and suddenly realised all eyes were trained on him suggestively.

“So why don’t you test it on HIM!” said Ken pointing at the hunchback.

“What and spoil his good looks?” replied the Professor sarcastically.

“Besides I said HUMAN!”

Igor didn’t flinch at the slur.

He was used to slurring.

“I need a youngster who won’t be missed by anyone, an orphan that goes to a delinquent school that doesn’t appear on any registers and could disappear without trace. Does that description remind you of anyone you know?” asked the Professor.

The blood suddenly drained from Ken as a cold shiver ran down his adolescent spine.

“No!” said Ken trying to bluff his way out of the situation, as he backed away slowly towards the door.

After all he had seen the film the Silence of the Lambs.

The rubber back of his plimsole daps suddenly stopped as he realised the Hunchback was blocking his exit.

“Going thumwhere?” mumbled Igor, as he covered the schoolboy unintentionally in slobber.

Ken was trapped and he knew it.

He had to make the best out of a very bad situation and tried to play along with his captors like he had suddenly developed Stockholm Syndrome.

“If I do volunteer for this experiment, how much do I get paid ? asked the terrified child.

“£150.00 in cash AND your name will appear in the Medical Journal ‘the Lancet’, with the epitaph Wee Ken D’offender (GP)!” offered the Professor.

“Doctor Ken!” boasted the youngster proudly.

The Scientist didn’t have the heart to tell him GP would not stand for General Practitioner but Guinea Pig or even more importantly, what epitaph really meant.

Ken noticed that Igor had locked the Laboratory door and was keeping the key around his neck on a piece of string.

Whilst not familiar with the scientist concept of ‘string theory’, he knew that his continued status in in this Universe would depend upon him getting hold of that piece of string with the key attached.

If there was ever a day that he would benefit from the Allcrooks School teachings of sleight of hand-today was that day.

As Igor bent down to inspect the left hand pod of the time machine, Ken relieved the hunchback of it’s wallet but couldn’t get the key without giving him ‘the hump’.

After all, habits of his lifetime were hard to give up.

Ken knew from Primary School experience that distraction is the best means of theft.

“What are you checking for?” asked Ken pretending to be interested.

“Flies…!” replied Igor.

“Did you see what it did to Jeff Goldblum?” replied the Professor.

“Of course!” bluffed Ken not having a clue about a film reference from 20 years before he was born.

Ken noticed that there were two footprints on the left cubicle floor.

Igor motioned for him to strip off.

“You have to be naked for the experiment to work!” ordered the Professor in a commanding voice.

Good job (thought Ken) that he hadn’t lifted the key off Old Hunchy otherwise where would he have stored it?

Besides, whilst he felt that Igor wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, he was aggressively strong and didn’t want to get ‘his back up’ any more than it already was.

Ken knew that once he stepped into that machine he was as good as dead.

He had to find another way to escape rather than using the key that hung around Igor’s neck.

His own ‘back up’ plan if you will.

In times of crisis, it is the calm-headed that survive.

He thought back to his All-Crooks lesson on lock picking.

He stared at the size of the lock and down at his now naked self and decided on his plan of action.

He raised the stolen wallet in the air and motioned to Igor ‘look what I’ve got’.

Like a pet dog in a park staring intently at the stick in the owner’s hand, Igor’s one fully open eye was transfixed by the action.

Ken uttered the word ‘Fetch’ and off bounded the hunchback to retrieve the wallet from the far corner of the room.

In the same motion, the naked teenager ran at the door and tried to ‘prick’ the lock.

Due to his Napoleon-like stature, he was the perfect height, but sadly a few seconds grace was not enough.

Perhaps if he hadn’t suffered from premature ejaculation, he might have made his escape to victory.

The Hunchback grabbed him from behind with both arms and with legs waggling in mid-air Ken was forcibly restrained and then bundled into the left- hand pod of the time machine.

The Professor pressed a button and a silver shield ascended blocking any escape for captive Ken.

Even then Ken had the last laugh as he had lifted the Hunchback’s Wallet for the second time in the process.

Ken was trapped.

Naked and frightened he looked at his narrow surroundings.

The closest he had come to it was that time he was in a Premier Inn shower cubicle.

But this was ALMOST as dangerous.

Thankfully, he didn’t have Lenny Henry pimping at him through the glass mouthing ‘Katanga’ this time.

Suddenly to his left came a whirring noise and a small vial containing a red, green and white liquid appeared with the words ‘Drink Me’ above it.

Ken was in Wonderland.

He was half expecting the Johann Strauss music – the Blue Danube to be played over the tannoy.

Trapped in the cubicle, poor Ken got warmer and warmer.

Suddenly, the outer layer silver shield descended slowly to the floor, leaving a ‘Star Trek’- like glass pod made out of some Perspex material.

Ken banged on the glass and screamed to be released immediately- after he was well versed in ‘False Imprisonment’.

“It’s no good… that glass is unbreakable!” cackled the Professor, tailing off into an evil laugh.

Ken realised that the statement was true, as he had spent over two hours at the Weston Super Mare Sea Life Centre trying to break the glass once to steal a shark on a school trip.

“You may as well drink the potion now as later….after all… in that space no one can hear you scream!” said the Boffin quoting from the sci-fi film Alien.

Ken realised that barring a miracle he was never getting out of this predicament unless he drunk the contents of the test-tube.

After all he had once drunk Irn- Bru- How much worse could it taste than that?

Ken lifted the vial to his lips and stared at the Professor standing on tenterhooks awaiting the inevitable reaction.

“£150.00 in cash….no going back on your word!” said Ken.

“Yesssss, now drink it ALL up, there’s a good boy!!!!!” said the Professor.

Ken lifted his arm and opened his mouth wide.

He threw the solution into his mouth and swallowed the liquid without delay.

The taste wasn’t that bad he thought.

Nothing happened, except after a brief flash of blinding light he was now standing in the other right hand cubicle.

“It’s not working Master!” said Igor looking at the naked figure.

“Give it time Igor….it is like Heineken….it refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach!”

Ken laughed.

He was still alive.

The potion had no effect on him.

Just like the time he drank 15 pints of Stella Artois in the Vulcan Public House.

“Let me out! ”ordered Ken…..”I have done what you asked and I want my money!”

It started with a facial tic, followed by a full -on twitch and then excruciating back pain.

“Raise Pod B shield!” ordered the Professor and after staring at his assistant declared:

”This is not going to be a pretty sight!”.

As the metal ascended, the poor student kicked and pounded on the sides of the glass as the transformation began.

Behind the corporate veil, it was like a scene from an American Werewolf in London, as poor Ken metamorphized into the perfect Welshman.

Professor Barry Hawking looked down at the list of ingredients he had used to create the final solution.

The twisted genius was aiming for a Genius perfect Welshman.

In the past he had tried to create an Albert Einstein, but only ended up with Frank Einstein.

But today, he was sure he had cracked it.

He had extracted DNA from the voice box of legendary actor Richard Burton- to produce a gravelly speaking voice for his creation, whilst adding harmony from the hairspray used on former choirboy bobbed hair of Aled Jones.

He had taken a hair from the sideburns of 1970’s British Lion DR JPR Williams- to add fearless courage.

Cells from the liver of Poet Dylan Thomas gave him the ability to drink alcohol endlessly.

DNA from spittle found on the Westminster Parliament Conservative Front bench was found to be that of firebrand politician Aneurin Bevan which was then added to the mixture.

The hand to eye coordination of World Champion Darts Sumo Leighton Rees was added in bulk together with a dash of BBC Wales Boyd Clack to provide comedy genius.

With Colin Jackson sweat thrown in for good measure to ensure the creature could overcome any hurdle thrown at it.

The blackest coal dust from Big Pit was added too to give it the authentic Cambrian Gaea feel of Mother Earth.

Professor Hawking was confident that the final missing ingredient was the addition of the beauty of the Game of Thrones actress, Emilia Clarke and this would now perfect his creation- being not just the real Mother of Dragons but also the Old Testament Eve from the Garden of Eden- who would birth his Welsh Prodigy.

The Professor was so excited but nervous at the same time to see what the lowering of the second shield would reveal.

Had he in fact created the Perfect Welshman?

Igor and Professor Hawking stood transfixed as the image revealed itself.

It was a good job that Wee Ken D’Offender didn’t have access to a mirror.

The deadly duo stood mouth agape as they realised that Ken had not transformed into the perfect Welshman but something else entirely.

A fuller sized marginally female figure with black anthracite choirboy hair and a red dragon tattoo on its right-hand bingo wing.

The look of horror on the face of the scientist sent a seismic shock wave back to the former male schoolboy.

Ken could only utter the immortal phrase ‘What’s occurring?’

Looking at the flabby arms, Professor Hawking realised immediately that he must have put in too much Leighton Rees and Emilia Clarke to the mixture.

All he could do was to sigh disappointedly at the appearance of the perfect Welsh WOMAN, who could drink, play darts and rugby union internationally.

Nessa Jenkins.

He sobbed dejectedly

“I tried for Gavin (Henson) but only got Stacey”

“Is there is any p-p-person here with a j-j-ust impediment then let him s-speak now or forever hold his p-p-peace” said the stuttering Priest.

The Roman Catholic Holy Man, Ollie Water, didn’t normally have a stutter, but when he had been given the task of  marrying the daughter of one of the Heads of the Five Taffia Families to one of the those with links to the Provisional IRA- it was understandable.

The Priest looked around him at the congregation of St Illtyd’s Roman Catholic Church in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil and noticed on the right side of the church the number of men dressed in suits, sat in the pews with hands like Napoleon Bonaparte, tucked inside their outfits resting on their concealed weapons, and on the left others from the famous  O’Toole clan also used to holding their piece on a regular basis.

Who would have thought that the Barsini and O’Toole families would have one day forged such an unholy alliance?

The little mining Town in the South Wales Valleys was used to an influx of foreigners, with the Irish arriving in their droves after the Irish Potato Famine of 1845- to undercut local labour and the Italian families arriving nearly a Century later, fleeing the persecution of Mussolini during the Second World War bringing with them cafes, coffee, ice cream and the Cosa Nostra.

In a way, in view of the size of the local population ,it was written in the stars that the two families would one day be linked and consolidate their business empires into legitimate means.

Whereas in the past,  the O’Toole family had specialised in the supply of Semtex and illegal guns, and the Barsini family had run the numbers rackets on illegal gambling and started the sale of their highly addictive drugs in the form of their patented invention of ‘Ice a cream’ from mobile ice cream vans that toured the Valleys area.

Now in 2019, they had legitimised their business enterprises selling ‘feesh n cheeps’ to the Town folk under the protection of the Bride’s Father - Don Giacomo Marrone Barsini, the Codfather of Sole.

In the 1970’s, it was rumoured that the American Giant Corporation Coca Cola was using a small amount of cocaine in their bottles of Coke, so too was it believed that the current Barsini chips contained some unknown ingredient in their secret recipe that was equally as highly addictive.

But what was it?

Who would have thought that simply cooking chips from Irish potatoes in ground nut oil would have such an impact on the population?

As most Welsh people couldn’t get enough of them.

Queues of people stretched around the block, as they waited for their chain of fish shops to open at 11.30am – with fights often taking places over positions and people asking others ahead ‘to get me a cob n chips’.

There was even a death on 14 th February in 1975, after a particularly long Funeral and a scuffle over the last fish supper – which was dubbed the St Valentine’s Day Mass-Haker.

In response to the Priest’s question- there was absolute silence, which seemed to last forever- until Don Barsini nodded to the pulpit.

As the Priest declared the married couple wed there wasn’t the usual cheer or people reaching for confetti boxes.

Bride Lucia Barsini turned to face her new husband for the traditional kiss.

But as she was six months pregnant , she had the turning circle of an oil tanker and ‘crudely’ knocked off the glasses and flat cap of  family member,  Tam O’Shanter in the movement.

“You Feccking eejit’ he muttered under his breath cursing the woman, like he was a cast member of Mrs Brown’s Boys, but stopped short of a slap with one frightened look on the Holy Man’s face.

The Peaky Blinder suddenly went pale, as he realised where he was and the company that he was in.

It was the same tense atmosphere like watching someone smoking next to a powder keg.  

Bridegroom Seamus O’Toole gave his adopted Countryman an evil look but soon relented when he felt the soft caress of his new Bride’s finger on his face.

He was forced to bite his tongue and turn the other cheek- after all he was in God’s House- and had to obey the sanctity of the sanctuary.

“All R-r-rise” stammered Ollie Water.

Nobody dared move until Don Giacomo Marrone Barsini-the Italian version of James Brown -the Codfather of Soul ordered musically: ‘Get up now , Get on up’.

Pews creaked as the heavyweight laden pasta brigade got to their feet and the Stout Irish made their way to the front door in anticipation of a pint of ‘Liffey Juice’ laced with a shot of Irish Whiskey.

The combination of the two was known as a McGuinness due to its explosive force and was guaranteed to turn your faeces blacker than an Al Jolson album cover.

Once ‘taken’ in volume , it also had a depressive side effect, of turning the drinker’s mood darker than a Liam Neeson movie.

Now if one thing the Irish know what to do, it’s to combine the misery of a shotgun wedding into a World Class wake and then later into a Wild West free for all.

Even a ‘Quiet Man’ like John Wayne got punchy after a good hitching.  

‘Dukes’ were raised after the least innocent comment by a reveller that had too much and invariably it would end up in fisticuffs and broken bar stools.

So why they decided to place their church with expensive stain glass coloured windows next door to a social club the Catholic God only knows.

I suspect it was for prophet.

As the two tribes yet to go to war, stood outside the Church, the Wedding photographer-

Snapper Roddy Doyle, provocatively asked the various henchmen which side of the family they were on.

‘Bride or Boom?’

Not surprisingly, the Italian Mob didn’t want to be photographed, whereas the Irish didn’t mind being photographed as long as the picture frames didn’t have a hard border.

Using his wide angled lens to get the heavily pregnant Bride, into the shot, he was concerned that she was so ugly it might crack his expensive camera lens.

It took him merely 15 minutes to get the Irish side of the family set and photographed, as they were so eager to get a pint but the Italian Mob would only agree to their shots if the camera was set on ‘Reader’s Wives’ mode.

In view of Lucia’s face like a bulldog’s arse chewing a wasp, it took nearly 30 minutes to find her best side and that included putting two brown bags over her head ‘for scale reasons’.

Boy was Roddy going to work hard to get this one looking beautiful.

Even in his darkroom.

Don Barsini insisted in having a photograph of him and the Bride for his mantelpiece- but in truth it was to keep his future grandchildren away from the open fire.

Seamus O’Toole, the Bridegroom clearly hadn’t been looking at her mantelpiece when poking her fire.  

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Guinness can have a magical effect on a man capable of transforming even the most ‘stoutest’ of individuals in the Rose of Tralee after a dozen or so pints of the dark stuff.

It can even make the Welsh Rugby Team look like World beaters.

As the guests filed into the reception, instead of the usual Bucks Fizz, there were pint glasses of Guinness with Lucia and Seamus 2019 written in the foam topping.

A nice touch for such a classy wedding.

The other table had a selection of red and white wine from the vineyards of Bardi- whose viticulture and grape varieties dated back to Roman Times, which Romulus & Remus had reputedly fought over as their Mother’s Wolf Tit had stopped lactating.

It was normally the Bride and Groom that entered the hall last but not when they had the Head of the Five Families of the Welsh Taffia ‘orchestrating’ the reception.

He was surrounded by several men with full violin cases but none of them looked very musical.

If anything, they looked like a more threatening version of the Ant Hill Mob from the Hanna Barbara cartoon the Wacky Races- shame the Groom didn’t have a Pitstop otherwise there wouldn’t have been the need for a Wedding.

The room previous full of chatter, fell eerily silent as the Don made his way to the top table with one of his entourage checking under the beautiful white laced Neapolitan covers with a mirror on a selfie stick in case of explosive devices.

As he removed his Fedora Hat, and his expensive jacket from his shoulders, at least two of the attendants collided like a version of the Keystone Cops in the rush to hang them up.

Everyone in the Hall stood up, as a mark of respect until Don Barsini motioned Pontiff-like with his hands.

There was a flash of 24 carat gold from his replica ‘Fisherman’s Ring’.

The Bride in complete contrast looked like Gollum coveting it next to him.

No sooner than he had given his signal than the Head Caterer, Lucretia Borgia, who had flown all the way from Italy for this occasion, signalled for her own ‘Mob’ to commence serving the food.

Not surprisingly, the Top Table was first followed by the closest relatives and ultimately those with the least influence in the pecking order located at the back of the hall.

Which in truth suited the Irish contingent as it was closer to the bar and easier to get to the toilets in a crowd.

Nerves and Guinness had already got the better of Best Man, Pete Boggs, who was building up to his big speech by clearing his bowels.

Most Irishmen are piss artists but Pete was different.

He was a crap artist and had manoeuvred his posterior just like an icing bag to leave a perfect Guinness shamrock of shite on the back of the toilet rim.

It was such a work of art, that it would have been a shame for any toilet brush to spoil it.

Whether it was genetics or just the time his Father had spent in H-Block at Maze Prison that had created this Irish Armitage-Shanks version of Banksy -no-one could be certain, but once the Catholic candle of remembrance had burned away the smell…it was a shite to behold.

Pete Boggs was such a perfectionist, he didn’t even need to was his hands after.

As he started to read out the cards and telegrams of good luck as the introduction to the speeches, no-one could tell otherwise that it wasn’t gravy.

Don Barsini was also artistic, he had spent nearly five minutes preparing the food on his plate into the shape of  Italy- resembling a little boot of pasta poking out into a Mediterranean sea of tomato sauce.

Surrounded by a tiny life raft made from a Garibaldi biscuit.

The room was a little on the small size for the number of guests and did in fact breach the maximum number of occupants by 30 people.

So it was no surprise when the Bride lifted her massive ‘bingo wing’ arm flab and bumped the Don’s precariously placed plate and dinner onto his lap.

It is a scientific fact that when you drop a piece of toast on the floor it always lands butter face down.

So too with Italian crockery.

The expensive designer suit was ruined by the Gino D’Campo sauce.  

If it had been anyone else rather than his Daughter, then chances are they would be ‘sleeping with da feeshes’- but the former Lucia Barsini now Lucia O’Toole could do no wrong in her Father’s eyes.

Lucretia Borgia snapped her fingers and immediately sent over her most attractive waitress to mop the lap of the Codfather.

As she transfixed him with those big Sophia Loren eyes all thoughts of murder left the Don, as he felt his trouser Vesuvius threatening to erupt – just like the last days of Pompeii.

At that instant, best man Pete Boggs tapped the side of his Guinness Pint Glass with a pencil topped by a tiny rubber version of Warwick Davies dressed as ‘der Leprechaun’.

“Can you all charge your glasses and be upstanding to thank the caterers for providing a meal fit for a Prince!” said Pete lifting his own glass of Guinness in the air.

He paused for dramatic effect and silence before motioning with his fingers to an imaginary dog.

“ Here Prince….!”

The crowd laughed and feeling buoyed by his little joke pushed it further.

“ And Don Barsini’s trousers would also like to thank the caterers for a lovely meal!” he continued.

The room previously full of noise and mirth suddenly went as silent as the Vatican when faced with allegations of Priestly paedophilia.

Even Bobby Sands Junior stopped eating.

There was a pregnant pause in which you could have cut the silence with a Sicilian knife.

But then a guffaw of laughter from Don Barsini burst the hitherto Trappist audience, and everyone joined in.

The almost non-cholent nod of the Head of the Taffia to his most trusted sidekick, Moi Derra, went pretty much unseen – as was to be the fate of Pete Boggs from tomorrow on, when the marital couple were to be on honeymoon.

The foundations for the concrete structure supporting the Spaghetti Junction flyover would now get an additional body to add to the existing five ‘missing persons’ making it the Birmingham Six.

As the speeches started in earnest, one of the O’Toole family, Sean Finn got up to offer his advice.

“In any marriage it is important to base it on Love & Trust” declared the Dubliner.

“I have been married to my Wife now for nigh on 20 years and I don’t love her and she don’t trust me…..but it won’t be long now ….isn’t that right  Sinead O’Connor? “ said Sean slapping her bald head like Benny Hill.

The long suffering Wife- not just from a poor marriage but stage two cancer- caught him with an uppercut that Connor McGregor would have proud of and Sean sailed across the bar like he was in the Copacabana.

This was the signal that Video-Disco Jockey, Chuckie O’Larr had been waiting for and shouted at the audience ‘Boys, Boys, Boys’ before adding (Summertime Love) as he linked into the film of Italian Beauty Sabrina diving into a swimming pool as the music started.

It had the desired effect of raising the testosterone but calming the crowd.

Normally, it is traditional for the Bridge & Groom to start the dancing off but not in the most dangerous family arrangement since a Montague met a Capulet.

But if there is bad blood in a family then it is always best to spill it and invariably there will be a woman behind it.

Opening the Wedding cards, Lucia Barsini read aloud proudly…

”There is a good wish message here from Shane McGowan, the Lead Singer of the Pogues!”  

“ Why didn’t you have this Fairytale in New York?”

“ I could have arranged for the NYPD choir to sing Galway Bay and had the bells ringing out for you!”

“Look there’s one from Bono too…’in the name of love never trust anything that bleeds but doesn’t die?....what does he mean?” asked Lucia suspiciously.

“Ignore him…he just likes to be on the Edge!” slurred Seamus.

The Disc Jockey was being pestered by both sides of the hall to put on music that was more suitable to the other family.

 The Italian Mob wanted ‘Volare’ whilst the Irish Mob wanted Dana’s ‘All kinds of everything’ .

The argument continued with the Italian Mob suggesting sarcastically to put on ‘Zombie’ by the Cranberries and the Irish Lynch Mob suggesting that they ‘Shaddap ur face’ by Joe Dolci.

Chuckie O’Larr played a neutral song by Musical Youth song from 1982, which the Italian contingent then corrupted to ‘Hang Il Duce from the left hand side’.

As the drinks flowed then the tempers soon got even more frayed.

Especially at the bar.

“Barman gimme a JFK Cocktail !” demanded Nucky Tomasino, as he shoved his way from the back of the crowd straight to the front trying to intimidate the young student on minimum wage into serving him first.

“What’s a JFK cocktail?” asked the youngster.

“Loads of shots that make you feel like your head is exploding with a potato on the side of the glasses…!” said Nucky shamelessly.

“ Do you think that’s funny?”?” protested Freddy Fenian angrily at  Don Barsini’s henchman.

“You think its funny that our Catholic President was assassinated do you?” wailed red haired Banshee, Connie O’Mara.

“I do actually….take a shot…said his fellow Italian Mobster,  Hitman Tomaso Hearns offering a tray of WKD drinks around …..everyone else in this room did bar Lee Harvey Oswald did….!”  

“I heard the Mafia were responsible for his death!” said Freddy angrily.

“ The funny part is just like THESE shots it was on Don Barsini’s orders!” replied Tomaso completely stone-faced.

“Why would HE order it?” asked Freddy sceptically.

“Back in the day, the Boss had a big crush on Marilyn Monroe….she rejected him for JFK and he had the pair disposed of…..he came to Merthyr to hide away until the ‘heat’ went away….back in the day it was much easier to get away with murder….no DNA or science….all you had to do was get someone drunk….force feed them barbiturates….and leave an empty pill bottle at the scene and you could just snuff them out like a candle in the wind….!” Continued Tomaso.

“Now you have to be OJ Simpson to get away with it!”  

“Gimme a half a Bass and Half a Guinness….I think they call it a Black N Tan!” said Nucky provocatively.

“Now you have gone TOO far!” snarled Irishman Kerry Gold.

As the bridge of Nucky’s nose exploded in the impact, the Mobster found out why Kerry Gold was Eire’s number one butter.

He responded by flicking a stiletto switch-knife blade and stabbing it deep into the much taller man’s thigh- leaving him doing an impression of ‘River Dance’.

It was a bit below the Celt.

Irishman Barney Stone, who had done most of the talking up to that point, smashed an empty tall ice-a-cream dessert glass on the edge of the bar and stuck into Nucky’s face.

“ Sundae, Bloody, Sundae!” said Freddy Fenian rolling up his sleeves excitedly and punching anyone that had a ‘funny tinge’ or did not have ginger hair.

A Mexican Wave of violence engulfed the hall like a Four Tops Concert at Ebbw Vale Leisure Centre in the 1980’s, as they all went ‘Loco in Acapulco’.

Thankfully, The Don had ordered all guns to be banned on the day.

But he hadn’t figured on the Irish contingent having a consignment of ‘WMD’ to go with their consignment of WKD.

Iraq and Ireland sound very similar to a North African Dictator’s postal service.

Pointing a hand held Libyan made pocket rocket launcher (known as ‘Gaddafi Duck’)  at the bleeding remains of Nucky Thompson- Dubliner, Clontarf O’ Shannon , fired off a missile which blew off the side of the Gangster’s head and sent the remainder of him out through two sets of windows- that of the club and that of the Roman Catholic Church’s stained glass one- smashing lots of pews in the church as he went- with him finally coming to rest in the confession box.

It was a real Weapon of ‘Mass’ Destruction.

It initially shocked the poor Priest, Johnny Logan (named after a counterfeit condom that broke on re-use) but he soon recovered his composure and asked:

“ Can I help you my son?”-

As he did so he pushed his rosary crucifix through the wire grill to dislodge a charred body part.

There was no reply.

“What’s another ear?”. He said to himself.

Back in the hall, the mass brawl had smashed their way out into the street and grey smoke was billowing out of the place- like someone had just elected a new Pope.

Picking a crucifix off the wall, Bride Lucia Barsini slugged the closest of her new Gaelic relatives off his feet.

After all it was her Wedding and she shouldn’t be upstaged by the bridesmaids, who were busy kick- boxing the Priest.

She continued up the Hall waving the wooden weapon at all before her, like Professor Abraham Van Helsing in a Dracula movie, muttering ‘Don’t get cross… get even’ as she went.

A former Eurovision TV Presenter was rolling around the floor with Gangster’s Moll, Bacardi Breeza, who was clawing at his eyes with her manicured nails and pulling chunks out of his hair.

He was soon transformed from Terry Wogan to Tear-yah wig-off.

Who screamed at Don Barsini: “I was told that a Mafia Don couldn’t refuse a request on the day of his daughter’s wedding….any chance of granting a ceasefire?”

An anonymous phone-call was made to the Dowlais Police Station by one of the local residents, but they hung up as soon as they heard of the location of the riot.

They did however offer a crime number.

Don Barsini during the entire event sat at the top table completely unfazed, laughing at the now bald Wogan.

He had seen it all before.

He got up, placed his expensive designer coat over his shoulders and slowly walked out of the place.

As he tossed a bundle of crisp notes totalling a Thousand Pounds towards the bleeding Bar Steward John Smith Cooper as recompense, silver tipped cane in hand he sighed deeply.

Even he could agree with the Irish Family, that it was a ‘Grand Wedding’.

But this was just a taster.

An appetiser.

After all next year, his son was marrying available again ISIS Widow,  Sharmeena Begum. 

Councillor Phil Bent was in a jam.

He was in a right hole.

He had been given a wedgie on many occasions as Chairman of the Planning Sub-Committee but this was a first.

Buried up to his waist in an old Air-Shaft in Mountain Hare meant he couldn't move a muscle.

Below him a 30 foot drop and above him only sky.

His search for the 500 metre buffet zone at East Merthyr Land Reclamation scheme had proved fruitless.

He checked the Council Minutes.yes there supposed to be a buffet zone.

There was no such thing as a free lunch he moaned as he hung suspended in the air by his three spare tyres.

The human Michelin Man had for once been saved by his preference for cramming as many free helpings that his Council meetings permitted.

As the early Autumn sky changed to grey, he feared that he would be stuck here all night and his expenses ran out at 7.00pm.

His cries for help were only investigated by some curious Ffos-y-Fran ponies and the odd solitary ewe who had managed to evade the impounding truck.

Soon it would be dark he thought and he would miss his free lift home from Keith The Night Porter - the Mayors Chauffeur.

Why oh why did he bother wandering off from the Planning Sub-Committee - it wasnt even like it was his own Ward the proposed scheme affected.

In his opinion twenty years of open-casting dust and asthma was a small price for the electorate to pay for global warming.

A better climate for Wales was the ticket he had been elected on and besides the resulting hole would provide refuse tips for the next millennia and beyond.

No wonder he had earned the nickname Land-Phil by his beloved Cefn Coed electorate.

As he gently patted his money-belt and flab holding him above the Mine Shaft, he wondered if this was the first such occasion where a Local Councillor had been saved by some green for not being green.


Looking through his night vision specs , Zoltan the Environmental Protection Warden, could see lots of glowing red.

Carefully positioned in the gorse bushes on the moorland upwind of Trecatti Refuse Tip , he lay motionless in the coal dust in full khaki combat gear and on full alert.

In the distance he thought he could hear vehicles buzzing up and down the A4060 Slip Road and the gentle hum of traffic heading back up the Valley from their daily commute to the Welsh Capital.

What he could in fact hear was the buzzing of one million fly larvae hatching in Biblical proportions intent on plaguing the good chapel-going people of Dowlais together with the hum of waste from Trecatti Tip wafting back and fore in a visible brown haze above the lead and exhaust-fume layer rising 1000 feet above sea-level.

Zoltans infra-red glasses had tonight picked up more than the Nucleur glow of the Earth below Trecatti.

Zoltan could as see a blob -too large to be human near the old air-shafts of the Trebeddau-Brithdir Coal Seam , and it wasnt the trapped Councillor.

The eco-warden bore more face-paint than Teacher Bessie at its prime but boy did he love his job!!!

Catching and prosecuting Fly-Tippers was his life.

He had once caught more than thirty people in one week dumping their old white goods on Cwmbargoed Common during the Hoover scandal.

After handing in his collection of washing machines and tumble driers he had become the only person in Merthyr to get Free Flight from Hoover for bringing back the empties.

As the blob grew larger Zoltan was puzzled as the blob seemed to become airborne.

Tonight, the term Fly-Tipping was to take on a whole new meaning as the hatchling bluebottles, greenbottles and Crane Fly larvae began to create a swarm so vast that it would make the Mummy Returns look tame .


At Dowlais Rugby Club, the locals looked aghast.

For nearly a decade the Australian-Style Fly-strips suspended vertically from the ceiling had done their job.

The car park behind had developed its own eco-system as Venus Fly-traps had mysteriously sprung up in the grass verges and training area around the pitch.

Even the local dogs were adept at snapping flies out of the Blaen Dowlais air to supplement their sparce diet.

Tonight, however was different, the regulars of Elwyn , Big Dai and Chico sat amongst other bar-flies too numerous to mention.

As they flicked at the flies with their yellow Klondyke tickets they realized something was wrong.

Poor Ralph Twtchs bald pate had become the landing strip for a multitude of insects so much so from the Lounge Wayne Jones pushed in the glasses onto the bridge of his nose as he thought Ralphs hair had been restoredfirst Austin Healy he thought now Ralph Twtch.

How come there are no flies on you? Elwyn ask Chico licking his roll-up cigarette in true Clint Eastwood-style.

Its down to his Old Faithful lucky jacketmused Big Dai

Even local celebrity Maxi , who had been reputed to gobble anything in a fly couldnt cope.

The swarm of pests began to cover the bar ,the lounge and even disrupted the Friday Night darts match.

But still none landed on Chico.

The Polish- Scots darts team decided to abandon the game after three consecutive darts speared flying insects before hitting the dartboard .

Complaints by Wayne Jones that he had scored One Bugshead and eighty were ignored as the participants headed for the open air.



Up at meat factory , the Portuguese workforce looked to the skies as their Iberian intuition told them that something was wrong.

Panic spread as the Autumn sun turned black as the swarm of flies hit town.

Those with green cards hit out at the flying masses whilst those without used the closest thing available to hand to fend off the incoming insects.

Pig Trotters and Cow Bollocks became impromptu weapons to save the Tesco bound Products.

Every Little Helps was the battle cry as the work force fought to prevent Linda McCartney Sausages becoming full of Wings..





Alone in the dark , Councillor Phil Bent began to sweat.

What if there are wild animals up here at night-like the Monmouthshire Panther or worse still the living dead that frequent the Kirkhouse on a Thursday Night (Over 25s nite).

The snapping of twigs ten feet to his right made him start and for the first time that night he felt movement.

The first of his spare tyres gave way and he sunk one rung deeper into the mine shaft.


Gears roaring the L-Passo driving instruction car sped up the Twynyrodyn Hill, flying over the pink tank-traps that doubled as Dukes of Hazzard-Style ramps as the white Peugeot 106 flew to the sound of Roxettes Joyride as the Galon Uchaf duo put their latest acquisition through its paces.

Fitted with He-Man Dual Controls this car was a joy-riders dream, as the two teenagers took turns accelerating and braking in tandem.

As they completed their latest series of handbrake-turns and doughnuts on the Formula One racetrack known as the Goatmill Road the road surface bore more Michelin skid-marks than the underpants of a councilor trapped in a hole.

Having circled the magic roundabout fifteen times the Bogey Road exit was selected being the favoured option of the seasoned car-thief as it offered ample opportunity to dispose of the stolen goods without detection.

The eldest waster ElviS had stolen all kinds of vehicles in the past from BMWs to Mercedes even an ambulance once the time his Nana had nearly been taken in.

He had earned the nickname from his reputation that his car passengers Were all shook up after joy riding with him.

That and the fact he had tattooed the name Elvis on his forehead in Indian Ink with a mirror in Junior School.

The problem is the S was printed indelibly but backwards.

His sidekick Astra (named after his penchant for Vauxhalls and throwing fireworks in letterboxes) seemed kinda quiet tonight, probably because at 14 years old he was soon to leave school and learn the ways of the dark side on a full time basis.

Having relieved himself of the contents of the glove compartment , he non-chalently slung the Spandau Ballet Gold compact discs like frisbies at his Rock-a Billy partner who was fumbling for his lighter fluid.



Dont sniff too muchleave some for me!!! he roared as the car became engulfed in flames.

The red L Sign on top of the car was symbolic of the Hellish World these pair of devils lived in.

The destructive duo waded through the grassland common towards the twinkling lights of the Valley Capital.



The Gypsy family heard the explosion and their heads turned as one towards the sound high up on the common above Trecatti and then back to their inner circle.

They had arranged a bare-knuckle bout of boxing but their sport had been interrupted by the discovery of an intruder in their midst in their turf.

Looking out from his air-shaft prison Councillor Phil Bent could make several dirty faces and by the glow of the make-shift twig fire they looked like wild savages.

Hair all matted and lice-ridden, with clothes all torn and damaged they stared at him like a lion looks at a downed zebra.

They spoke in a Romany dialect which was not English but not quite Gurnos.

It was guttural and reminded him of the film 2001-a Space Odyssey.

The oldest Gippo- Magwar reached down and stole his pocket-watch from his waistcoat and began to tug at his gold tooth.

Be off with you shrieked the trapped Councillor as the circle of scavengers drew nearer .

Fearing the worst , he sucked in his diaphragm and let out a deep breath and this had the desired effect , like a squeeze-box contracting the air moved to nether regions and he emitted the latest fart ever heard by man or gipsy and his remaining spare tyres gave way and he disappeared into the void below.

Magwar actually believed (judging by the sound) that the Councillor had spontaneously combusted.

Landing with a squelch , less akimbo Councillor Bents undercarriage told him that he hadnt yet hit rock bottom.

His soft landing owed a lot to the hand of fate.

He had in fact crash landed on top of a fourth generation Brithdir Pit pony whose ancestors had been abandoned to die in the anthracite after the pit became uneconomic to work.

The pony was blinder and tougher than any Champions League referee and had pounded the narrow passageways and tunnels that riddled the mountainsides surviving on a diet of plant roots and other subterranean vegetation.

Making adjustment for the extra weight the pony continued its perpetual forward motion in the pit shaft pausing only to let the odd one go.

The Councillor knew he was moving , but in the pitch dark couldnt work out how - not that was until his steed backfired.

Too frightened to light a match in view of the circumstances he just went along with the ride until he realized that he had a laser pen he had bought in Harrods.

The novelty pen designed to commemorate the wedding of Peter Andre and Jordan gave him an idea.

As he pressed the top a cheesy grin from Andres teeth appeared lighting up the passage with an incandescent light.

He also discovered that if he unscrewed the top two beams of green light shot out of Katie Prices nipples.

Looking down in the half-light at his Steed, he couldnt help but compare the Pen bride to his current mount as the face beaming back at him had huge white teeth and shaggy hair the only difference was that his own Mysterious Girl smelled of horseshit.

As he bumped his way his way into the night he could help but think Im a local celebrity get me out of here!!!



Staring down from his perch high above the Trecatti Landfill site, a swarthy skinned Portuguese man watched the Slip Road uneasily.

Eduardo Torres-Gracia had only taken the job as Refuse Tip manager because of his bonuses.

His Lisbon-based Agency had lured him to the El Dorado of the Valleys cos they had told him the streets of Dowlais were paved with gold and the Terraces there were named after Portuguese Kings.

The reality of Alphonso Street Penywern was that due to the overcrowding from illegal aliens from Portugal and the Eastern Bloc countries and the number of stray dogs the pavements were covered in a different material.

Since coming to Merthyr he had lost everything he ever had treasured.


When he arrived he had a job in the Meat Factory , a wife, a house and his pride.

Those Solicitors he had engaged had cost him the lot.

His misfortune started when the sub-zero temperatures of the Meat Factory cost him the feeling in all his digits.

Soon his wife Angelica complained in the divorce papers that he was always cold towards her and complained of frost bite and hypothermia of the womb.

His claim for Vibration White Finger was refused on the basis that he was Portuguese and therefore could not possibly have white fingers.

His solicitors fees and his divorce had drained all his assets and he could not raise anything to fund an appeal.

So he had decided to get back at the Factory the only way he could .by freeing their workforce from their minimum wage prison.

He watched intently as the convoy of green trucks snaked their way up the slip road towards the Penygarnddu Slaughterhouse.

As the trucks slowed for the Blaen Dowlais bend , the tail-gates opened and the latest batch of illegal aliens rolled into the hard shoulder and headed up the grassed bank towards their saviour at the Tip HQ.

AS brief handshakes were exchanged between ex pat countrymen and Eduardo Torres Garcia the steady flow of colonists headed towards the Alphonso Street Ghetto amongst them was one individual in a turban who stuck out like a sore thumb.

******************************************************************

From Outer Space, just beyond the dark side of the moon, the spacecraft stopped dead.

The odour filling the spacecraft turned the heads of ZARG and Wazz the Venusian spacemen filling each of their three noses with noxious fumes.

A quick check on their scanners pinpointed the source of the universally offensive stench.

Looking down at the blue planet the creatures the could make out the Great Wall of China, the Himalayas and a strange gold/brown glow from an Island off Europe.

As the mother ship sped towards Earth she feared that one of her offspring was sending a distress beacon .

They had to be careful because the last time they spotted a glow it turned out to be a disaster at Chernobyl in Russia.

And as any self-respecting Russian in Y-Fronts will tell you have to be careful or Chernobyl fallout.

And have three Alien penises it was not a pretty site.




Trudging through the narrow back passages guided by the back passage of his Pit Pony , Phil Bent realized that if he was to get out of the Mine he should follow the pony towards freedom.

The smell was overpowering but he preferred it to the stench of rotting landfill that had grown stronger as he headed North.

He had put away his Pen (which incidentally doubled as a Compass-Jordans breasts being silicon pointed magnetically towards Venus) because he had encountered an ooze of green slime which seemed to glow with a luminousity of its own.

As the smell grew stronger the passageways became more congested as he passed the remains of Oil-covered sea-birds , barrels marked Sea Empress, dead cattle stamped BSE carefully disguised in Old MuckDonalds wrappings, and literally thousands of non-biodegradable Asda carrier-bags which appeared to be breeding.

As he reached a sorce of light he realized that he must be below the core of Trecatti Waste-tip.

Looking up through the Pepper pots he saw a flame burning bright blue burning off the methane and he sat down in a discarded wheelchair staring up surrounding by thousands of MuckDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut boxes..

At that moment he felt like Tanni Grey Thompson holding the Olympic Torch surrounded by the same sponsors.

Wading through unsold Merthyr Rfc Premiership Programmes which had been printed too early in that failed promotion season, colonies of white socks, discarded Muller Rice prototype Cherry Bakewell containers and free Spandau Ballet Gold CDs he trudged West in the hope of finding an exit.

His cries for help went not heeded by the Portuguese Tip Manager as he assumed they were the cries of the resident flock of seagulls flying overhead.

Eddie Torres Garcia had never seen seagulls this far inland and he believed that they were hatchlings mutated from the multitude of KFC boxes and their legs coated in breadcrumbs seemed to testify to this fact.


The Portuguese connection in Alphonso Street were busy checking into their new rooms.

Only ten to a bedroom was permitted and any Polish or Slavic guests were allocated attic or cellar space only.

Jobbi Jabbah the turban wearing Muslim from Leeds was given the coal cwtch on accounts of his religious beliefs.

The mobile ring tone of Eddie Torres sounded the all clear confirming that their escape had not been noticed by the Truck drivers.


High up on the Common , Elvis and Astra the car thieves turned up the collars on their shiny shellsuits and pulled down their baseball hats against the chilly Autumn wind.

Tonight the prevailing wind took the scent of Trecatti towards Gypsy Castle and Rhymney and they were able to breathe comfortably.

Wild Mountain ponies fought and frolicked over the ever decreasing patches of grassland worth eating that had not been contaminated by leachates.

As they reached the brow of a disused red ash tip they spotted a courting couple at play in the dingle below.

The mans teeth glinted pearly white in the pale moonlight and as they crept closer in true Stan Collymore Dogger-style they were startled to see a man being intimate with and talking to one of the Wild Mountain ponies.

Ive seen him before on televisionhis face, teeth and arse are familiar! whispered Elvis.

The only words Astra could understand with all those teeth and the Salt Lake accent was Crazy Horses wah-wah!!1

The man was no less than Donny Osmond back in Merthyr to trace his family roots and see where his past generations had hailed from.

The 1970s singer suddenly realized he was being watched and dropped the rear legs in fear of an Horizon expose.

He rang off into the night with white flares dragging in the coal dust .

That experience has ruined the song Puppy Love for me!!! retched Elvis discharging his stomach contents in the gorse bushes.

The close encounter of the first kind unsettled the pair whilst the second involved a two-headed rabbit with masses of human hair growing out of its head.

The sight of a Mountain Hare with Mounting Hare at Mountain Hare startled the pair as they stood motionless like they were mesmerized by the headlights of a mountain bicycle which thundered down the grass slope straight out across the slip road and under a Green mobile Auschitzcattle truck heading for the shambles in Penygarnddu.

The pair could not believe the look on the face of the Portuguese site manager E T Garcia as his cycle seemed to fly momentarily like a scene from a well Spielburg films.

Amazingly, in the space of three minutes the poor man was run over by four vehicles including a shop keeper, a taxi driver , Donny Osmonds chauffeur and finally a man wearing a Bridgend Nursing Park logo badge who was looking for the Park hospital in Bridgend.

It was ironic that the Asylum seeker should be killed by a fellow Asylum seeker wearing a BNP badge.

The cause of the crash was the Close Encounter of the Third Kind as a giant green spinning spaceship hovered over the heads of the pair.

Landing in a clearing of Gorse bushes the ship came to a stop with a bump and two odd-shaped characters appeared at the top of a light-filled ramp .

Poor Zoltan the Eco-warden had been crushed in his rush to capture the big onethinking this delivery of Fly-tippers was from the Planet Zanussi he had misjudged their landing strip and ended up part of the living landscape.

Elvis and Astra looked at one another in awe and the same telepathic thought was sent from sub-human to sub-human.

Did they leave the keys in the ignition.



Dez Cockney could hardly believe his luckhe had sold his house in Dagenham and bought three for the same price in Merthyr at Old Forge Park Dowlais.

He had rented the other two houses to 200 Portuguese immigrants and was making a fortune off the DSS in Housing Benefit.

He was collecting the rent of his tenant Angelica Garcia the former wife of the Tip owner when he noticed he was under surveillance.

The Ice Cream van parked in Azalea Drive had refused to sell cigarettes to some 14 year old truant rugby players which raised his suspicion that it was a DSS plant.




The DSS were watching the home of Mrs Garcia at the behest of Mr Gracias Divorce Solicitors.

As he opened the door of his other house he realized that his elderly incontinent tenant Mrs Runny had been trapped overnight in the Stairlift and the carpet below was ruined.

His years of roller-shutter door repair was to finally pay off as he proceeded to clear the jammed mechanism.

Kneeling in effluent he held his breath long enough to force the stairlift to continue its descent to the floor.

As he raced for the patio doors, he inadvertently let in a swarm of flies which had been stuck to the exterior glass like a scene from Salems Lot.

As he gasped and wheezed for air in the garden, his sharp London Eye noticed a glint of metal in the vegetable patch.

Where the carrots should have been he found different carets eighteen to be precise in the shape of a nugget the size of an egg.

After pocketing the item he made his tenant a cuppa Rosie Lee after her ordeal on the apple & pears .

She told him to take what he wanted from her allotment patch.

Des, beamed a broad grin as the Pearly King had found another goldmine in Merthyr.



Deep beneath the ground, Phil Bent thought he had discovered the source of the Nileor Morlais Brook at the very least!!!!

He had come to the confluence of three passageways and by his calculations he wasnt far from Caeharris House in Dowlais High Street.

The tunnel he had followed had been filled with Green ooze and lead away from the Tip under the Dowlais RFC pitch he had figured the same because of the stud-marks in the turf above and the fact that unlike the Scarlets rugby posts topped with sospansMerthyr Council Leisure Services had buried the posts upside down and the dragon emblems were below ground.

Coming face to face with Mary Twtch and Gwyneth Hopkins in that tunnel had scared him to death.

Tunnel two was filled with two kinds of cocoa solids which appeared to eminate from a certain chocolate factory and a cesspit formerly known as Morlais Brook.


Tunnel two was filled with all kinds of iron ore and phosphates from the old foundry site upon which Old Forge Park was built.

At the meeting point of this crossroads the soil and ground glowed with a yellowish hue the like of which Bent had only seen on the fingers of the nightmarish gypsies

No wonder those miners from Dowlais had emigrated to Canada , he understood now why the area of Blaen Dowlais was known as Klondyke .

Shoveling as much gold into his pockets as he did at his post-committee buffet lunches the Councillor tried to figure out what had caused the sudden bout of alchemy.

It seems that the merger of chemicals from the tip had combined with the base metals from the foundry site had fused with the cocoa solids creating a product made of Oxides and potassium with the chemical formula of OP-OK.

Whatever had caused it meant rich pickings for Councillor Bent.

Bent decided his best way out was to tunnel up through the pitch.

As he climbed through the hole in the centre-circle of the pitch he realized too late that the Uncle Festa lookalike bearing down on him was in fact the legendary Mark Onky Palmer and the resulting tackle was to put the councillor in hospital for the evening.

As the paramedic Dai Sullivan closed the ambulance doors he made a careful note of the cause of the accident.

Onky.

The third one this month he mused as he drove off at high speed towards PCH.



Aliens Zarg and Wazz could not believe their three eyes.they had only parked the ship up for three minutes to check out the glowing they had seen from space.

Thinking it was a fellow Venusian craft with its hazards on they had realised that they had made the same Chernobyl mistake again.

It was a semi-nuclear refuse tip surrounded by Wind Turbines and worse still they had been space-jacked by two-spaced out punkswho had displayed their own glowing middle fingers to their intergalactic cousins before screeching away at 100 miles per second.




Des Lynam was in shock he had received a Solicitors letter from the Divorce Solicitors of the Tip manager Eddie Torres asking for the return of their Ex-Gracia payments.

They were claiming that as Tip owners they held the mineral rights to the land upon which his houses were built.

They were no flies on that lot he thought but Im not giving up easy Ill make a big stink about the tip claims he thought.


Elvis & Astra had mastered the controls of the Venusian craft easily.

Compared to an ambulance it was a doddle - even the red laser beams and light on top were working.

As the spaceship shot raced over Gellifaelog, Galon Uchaf and the Gurnos at 3 Gs they passed over the three Gs Community Centre.

Pressing a button on the dashboard Elvis managed to buzz Dai Sullivans ambulance but sound like a helicopter.

Speeding passed Penydre High School the two vehicles raced at breakneck speed .

Sully and Elvis telepathically sent each other a message that the winning post was the speed camera outside the Penyfan View Police Station.

As the Police officer in the station eagerly pressed the button to fine the joy riders the camera flashed missing both vehicles but catching an unlucky Caeharris Taxi driver Fred overtaking the ambulance.

The joy riders decided to get their own back on the police who regularly buzzed their homes in Chopper Drug raids.

Hovering above the Police Station flashing their lights and lasers it was like Thursday Night in the Kirkhouse and some of the regulars now living in Ty Gwaunfarren Nursing Home left their beds in hope of a Cocoon style regeneration.

Down below Female Inspector Dawn Raid look worried.

The plods were panicking big timesome even stopped beating their prisoners momentarily.

Landing the spaceship with precision on the roof of the Police Station they began to spray-paint the roof with the letters UFO before legging it across the remaining gardens of Penyfan View and Forsythia Close that hadnt been exhumed




Two weeks later Councillor Phil Bent had recovered fully from his injuries.

He had recovered from his Onky tackle within hours but Dai Sullivan had dropped him off the stretcher on the way into casualty breaking his wrist.

The Council Chamber was silent as the future of the East Merthyr Land Reclamation Scheme hung by a golden thread.

The vote was tied at 32-32 and Councillor Bent as chairman had the Open casting vote.

As a short adjournment was called .

A buff coloured envelope was pushed into the hands of Phil Bent.

Like Neil Hamilton and George Graham before him he had a difficult decision to make.

The envelope was returned to the solicitor with interest and all the celtic energy he could muster.

Thanks for the tip! but no thanks.its an ecological time bomb waiting to go offI vote No.
*********************************************************************
The cheer from the people of Dowlais and Twynyrodyn was heard at Trecatti Waste Tip.

Jobbi Jabbur the newly appointed Trecattis Site Manager sat dozing on an empty Cardiff furniture flat pack-backpack in place .

The Al Ikea sleeper was in place!!!!!!

THE END

‘The North wind did blow and Merthyr had snow and what did poor Farrah do next?” sang Dean ‘Belle’ End as he sat on the vandal proof metal bench alongside the Merthyr Railway Station.

The sound caused Farrah to turn around sharply, exposing his nether regions to the bleak March air.

His coat, made entirely of Bar towels ,acquired from the many pubs he had visited on his personal tour of the Rugby Six Nation Countries and beyond, offered little protection from the elements.

His roman sandals acquired from a trip to Rome in 2009 , were further evidence of his total disregard for Valleys weather- a historical reason why the Celts were never completely conquered by our Italian cousins and the ex- army man Major Farrah- Fawcett was living proof of our resilience .

Just before his toes turned blue, his four-legged companion ‘Buster’ the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, dashed over and instinctively became a canine foot-warmer.

His human companions stood ‘Rhymney Brewery Hobby Horse’ bottle at the ready, awaiting the arrival of the Valley Line Train from Cardiff.

“ Has Buster’s diarrhoea problem cleared up yet?” asked Dean laughing hysterically.

Farrah looked down at his toes, but refused to answer , discreetly trying to wipe his toes on a dock-leaf....as discreetly as a 20 stone man in sandals and a five-foot bar towel garb could do.

“I thought the Welsh Assembly were doubling the number of trains to Merthyr “ asked his companion Dean.

“They did start but the trains kept getting pinched!” answered his mate Jon Van Dole.

“ Rumour has it ...the Gurnos boys were stealing the wheels as they left the station......one train was found in the sidings up on bricks...apparently the scrap dealers pay well for the scrap metal.. that’s why there are no road signs left showing Merthyr Tydfil anymore !” he continued.

“ I thought Merthyr Tydfil closed when Hoovers shut down and they moved everyone to the coast like the Tories wanted to do in the 1960’s...!” offered Farrah.

“ The next train is due at 10.03am....” interrupted Garry ‘Windows’ Snary looking up from his lap-top computer.

“ Trust you Garry ...NERD....who else would bring a laptop computer to a Wales v England Six Nations match?” asked Jon Van Dole as the Arriva Valley Lines trains pulled into the station at exactly 10.03am.

“ Warren Gatland....Shaun Edwards......do I need to go on...!” offered Snary

“ But they are working...!” replied Jon limply.

“ We all rely on different ‘hard drives’....the Welsh Pack , me and of course you!” laughed Garry.

“There’s no need to mention my erectile dysfunction....I had a complete blood transfusion.... I had to....my blood count was lower than Dean’s IQ...!” countered Jon as he was about to board the train.

“Mind that gap between the platform and the train Jon !” threatened Dean in retaliation ...or I might just squeeze your Ox-Head in there!”

As they selected their seating on the train, Farrah sat next to Garry and whispered in his mobile ear piece...” That was a bit below the belt...about Jon’s difficulties in the trouser department....only his missus, Dean and I know about that ?”

“ Correction ...said Garry clicking his mouse....you, me , Dean & his missus and everybody who visits his ‘face-book page’ from today on....call it ‘revenge of the nerds’ if you want!”

Buster, bright as a button, sat at his masters feet awaiting the arrival of the train conductor.

As soon as he sensed the presence of the ticket collector, like most Merthyr people, he bounded off the train and re-entered in the carriage behind the conductor, who was too busy checking tickets.

As he crawled on his belly below the carriage seats, he waited for the conductor to check his Master’s ticket and step off the train to blow his whistle.

The plan usually worked , but today Buster had forgotten about his incontinence problem and a trail of shite led the conductor back to the poor unsuspecting dog.

As the train shuffled away from the station the conductor’s nose told him there was a problem.

“ Oi Fred Flintstone.... you in the (visible) beer overcoat....the one with the shit in his toe nails....you can’t bring that dog on here and let him shit everywhere!” bellowed the conductor.

“ It’s not my dog...and he didn’t shit on your train....!” bellowed Farrah indignantly.

“I saw Flintstone doing it ...announced Dean enjoying watching Farrah squirm...... he shat on your seat and it probably fell off !”

Farrah gave Dean a black look.

“ Thanks for the solidarity mate!” declared Farrah.

Buster sat on his hind legs....left paw pointing and trying to blame Jonny for the mess.

“ It’s my dog....!” said Garry rolling his head and eyes in Stevie Wonder fashion....he’s my guide dog!”

“ If he’s your guide dog...show me his ‘doggy id’ ?” asked the conductor.

“ Thought you’d never ask....!” replied Garry printing his fake doggy id badge from his internet site via his lap-top.

Garry thrust the paper towards the bent-over conductor punching him hard on the jaw.

“Sorry... I followed the sound of the voice!” replied Garry.

Rubbing his bruised mandible, the Conductor backed away muttering that he would keep an eye on him.

“ Take a lap-top to a game indeed!” laughed Garry with Buster triumphantly drooling, knowing they had both got one over on Jonny.

“ Look at him...!” announced Dean, also drooling from the corner of his mouth on his third bottle of Rhymney Brewery Bevan’s Bitter....’Buster - the great train slobber’

From Merthyr station until Pontypridd Station Garry didn’t lift his head up from his keyboard .

He then suddenly smiled and pressed the send key.

“ What are you so happy about...you got the same look on your face Buster has when he tries to shag the neighbours’ Chihuahua!” announced Farrah putting down the remains of a six pack- a one pack.

At the mere mention of the word Chihuahua , Buster became amorous and chose to demonstrate on Jon Van Dole’s leg.

As Jon tried shaking him off his new velvet corduroy trousers, Buster seemed to enjoy the experience all the more.

“Jon...he can keep it up longer than you!” teased Dean

Randomly, half-cut Dean , fatally mentioned that he had tried to mount his cat once but had to cello-tape its mouth to stop it exploding.

Farrah continued to press Garry as to why he was smiling like Dean’s Cheshire cat (Pre-cellotape).

“ I just sent a computer virus to H M Land Registry Wales Office called ‘the Weakest Link’....it works by way of their intended chain matrix system and as soon as the first solicitor tries to use it , a Red Dragon logo of Anne Robinson pops up wipes out any mortgages registered against the house and turns the owners name into Meibion Glyndwr!”

“ I knew you were into that Free Wales Army bit and lived in Sospan land , but didn’t realise how revolutionary you were.... surely they will trace you and catch you!”

“ Not really...I have linked it up to the face-book page of Jon Van Dole...they won’t have any difficulty getting it up......I’ve linked it into a web-page I’ve created called Dean ‘Belle’ End’s animal bestiality page ....with a bit of luck they should arrest him too !”

“ You ‘re a real good pal and user friendly!” laughed Farrah.

As the train reached Taff’s Well, the light seemed to change on the train ...the clouds that were overhead parted and a beam of sunlight directly from God appeared , as they emerged from the Taff Valley, feeling an overcoat warmer.

A corona of yellow seemed to draw the eyes of the Merthyr boys to a broken train seat .

“ Boys...it is the Holy Grail...!” announced Dean reverently ....”the ultimate Rugby relic...!” as he approached the damaged seat.

Looking down at the love heart drawn in fake orange leg tan on the back of the leather he whispered.

“ GH Loves CC”!!!!!

“ Do you know what that means?” declared Dean.

“ Wot are you banging on about ...some Rail seat with a punch-mark through the back !” said Garry petulantly.

“ Not just any punch-mark.....we are in the compartment wrecked by Gavin Henson and his muppet show earlier this year!” said Dean on his knees and kissing the badge on his Osprey shirt.

“ That’s the only bird he will kiss today!” laughed Farrah

As Dean videoed it on his mobile phone , Garry shook his head at the behaviour of his friend.

“ East is East and West ain’t Best and never the twain shall meet !” declared Garry going back to his lap-top.

As the train arrived in Cardiff Queen Street , the gang of four and their five legged canine friend left the train and started down the Victorian steps of the station.

“ Tickets please !” shouted the announcer, as the Rugby crowds began to surge towards the barrier.

Buster seeing his opportunity slid under the metal barrier like Joe Di Maggio sliding to his home run base....shooting straight out the train station door and into the back of the Big Issue sellers obligatory dog ... called ‘ Lady Scrounger’.

Scrounger taking on the characteristics of her own master , barked at Buster the equivalent of ‘What are you looking at ?” in street doggy language.

Once through the barrier, Garry made a beeline for the newspaper kiosk, buying a number of items of confectionary.

“ Six Mars Bars and three Cadbury Wispas....you work , rest and play hard.... !” laughed the new slim-line Jon Van Dole , fresh from another blood transfusion .

As Dean passed the entrance he noticed the street dog had transformed back into cute dog Lady, and the spaniel was standing on her hind-legs begging for money.

Dean always had time for animals...but her owner was to make a fatal mistake.

In the noise of the traffic, the words “ Big Issue!” and the resulting meth’s spittle landing on his Swansea/ Ospreys shirt, was interpreted as an act of war.

The drunken Dean merely replied ‘ Bless you” and punched the Street Vendor clean over two lanes of cheering stationary traffic.

The cheers turned to boos, as Dean then dropped-kicked the dog over the two sets of traffic lights... clapping his hands and shouting there’s only One Gavin Henson......

His companions were horrified but not as much as that of Warren, a Paul’s Savoury Products driver, whose Van windscreen killed the dog outright.

Looking round, he suddenly recovered and slung it in the back for a Vietnamese Restaurant owner he knew in Canton.

“ I need me a drink to calm me down...take me to the Queens Vaults ....besides I thought that tramp had Mexican Swine flu....I could smell the chilli on his breath!” said Dean trying to justify his behaviour, as he headed up Queen Street.

The Four looked quite a sight , as they ambled towards the Pub.

Farrah clad in his multi-coloured Beer mat dress, Dean in his spittle covered Ospreys shirt, Jon Van Dole in his orange Holland football shirt and Garry Snary, two pockets full of mars bars and a lap-top computer covering his head from the sudden rain shower.

By the time they reached the pub door , Farrah’s coat had absorbed two pints of water making him weigh more than 9 stone.

Buster skipped along merrily sniffing anything that moved... and so did Dean.

“ My round lads” announced Farrah reaching the bar through a throng of Rugby fans.

The ‘ Beer- Cave-Man’ attire worked a charm, as the bar maids rushed to serve him ahead of others already waiting patiently.

“ Oi...I was before you...!” protested an English Rugby fan wearing a Fez.

“ You ...Tommy Cooper head!” shouted Dean....”one question ...wot Country is Cardiff in?”

“ Wales of course...you peasant!” relied the Saracen fan.

“ Well, we live here in the wet climate and subsidise your water bills....now be quiet now like a good boy or I will shove your Chariot up your arse!” snarled Dean returning to a different ‘Big Issue-mode’.

“ There’s no place for racism in sport!” announced a ‘number 10’ size Englishman next to the Fez wearer downing his pint in one.

“ Never been to an Wales V England before then mate? “ asked Jon Van Dole.

“ No...you speak the Queen’s English ....sorry I thought you were Dutch..... !” answered the surprised Danny Cipriani..

“ If you haven’t been to the Millenium Stadium and Wales V England in any sport, at any level, you haven’t seen racism in sport.....!” laughed Jon Van Dole.

“ Shit...thanks for reminding me ...I’ve been out clubbing all night and I’m playing in two hours!” said Cipriani, grabbing his England Track suit top and diving between the legs of a ‘scrum’ of ‘five’ people entering the main door as only a Fly-half can.

“ See....pontificated Dean to the Fez-wearing Saracen Cockney , Hamed Sackey O’Toole....you English ....aren’t real English at all....your all French....!”

“ How do you work that out .....?” snarled O’Toole , at the mere prospect of being linked to the continent.

“ We Welsh are the real English....us Celts see ....were driven back by your Italian Romans to Wales and Ireland.... and you lot are just descendants of the Normans see...French barons who came here....William the Conqueror....you lot are just a mongrel breed of Vikings, Saxons and FRENCH!” slurred Dean enjoying the rant.

“ .....and with a name like yours you can add Sand-Nigger, Coon and Gippo to the Micks....mix get it !”

As the last insult hit him , even though the Saracen knew he was outnumbered 50-1 , he took aim and caught Dean flush on the snout.

A small trickle of blood appeared below his nose.

It didn’t help that Garry had just taken up the microphone and began to sing his version of Garry-oke.

He enlisted the support of the a handsome young man with black caterpillar eye-brows.

Garry sang to the mixed bar of supporters, his version of the song ‘she’ll be coming round the mountain’.

“ I would rather wear a turban than a rose....I would rather wear a turban than a rose... I would rather wear a turban....rather wear a turban ...rather wear a turban than a rose ....English bast....”

Just as he was finishing the song, he was punched full force by the leader of the Leicester Tigers supporters ‘who had finally got his hair off’ .

Garry ‘ sailed across the bar and landed in a heap near the ladies toilets, becoming a ‘Prop Idol’ in more ways than one.

Austin Healey stood up to his full height of 5 feet 6 , a fair match for Stereo-phonics front man Kelly Jones, who grabbed the karaoke mike and swing it at the head of the ‘Leicester Lip’.

The impact sent Austin Healey’s hair implants flying down the Queens Vaults main bar , scattering glasses as it finally stopping in an inch of dust and a disused ashtray.

“ Look Dusty Hare....!” laughed Dean picking up the wig and wiping his bloody trickle.

Kelly Jones swung the microphone up by the lead and caught it , in true Hollywood /Cwmaman style and continued to sing....” As long as we beat the English ...we don’t care.!”

Dean turned up his collar in Malcolm Price fashion ...as he flatterned O’Toole and began to slug his way across the bar, packed with celebrity showbiz friends of Stuart Cable.

Anything that didn’t have the three feathers or a Welsh rugby shirt was fair game.

One minute Robbie Williams was discussing a possible come-back concert with his old pop band at the Cardiff International Arena... the next he was on the floor nursing some bruises.

“ Take That!” declared Dean mid rampage.

As Robbie slid down the wall of the pub next to Garry, he was in fact seeing ‘Angels’ instead.

“ It’s My...llenium (Stadium )...!” roared Dean- like King Kong - beating his chest.

As the rest of Take That leapt on Dean....he was cheered on by Robbie Williams....
“Hit Barlow first!” he declared.....then Liam Gallagher!”

In the melee that followed , Dean was forcefully ejected by a combination of the heavyweight bouncers and Ruth ‘Nessa’ Jones who was trying to find out ‘what’s occurring’.

“ Not you again......you were fighting with Mike Phillips & Andy Powell last time!” they shouted as Dean , Garry , his laptop and the others including the Stereophonics were thrown into the street to the delight of the waiting Buster.

“It’s your fault Farrah !” declared Dean....”it’s that bloody coat of yours, it attracts trouble....!” declared Dean still holding Healey’s hair.

“ Got a quarantine licence for that?” replied Farrah.

“ Well done Dean where can I go now...the other pubs are packed and I need to down- load some old data files.....?” announced Garry nervously.

“ Wot?” asked Jon .

“ I need a dump.... a kak....!” he replied.

“ That’s another reason why I wear this coat... said Farrah...getting up from the window-cill of the Italian restaurant leaving a steaming turd behind....and why I like Caroline Street so much !” he said scooping up a handful of discarded chip papers and removing the clinkers.

“ Are you using that hair?” he asked Dean.

Wiping out more klingons than the new Star Trek film he slung the hairpiece contemptibly at the bouncers.

Looking back at the window-sill, Jon declared I thought ‘only dogs did that!’

Buster shot him a look of disgust.

“ Well the only place I can think of, that will be quiet at this time of day ....is the toilet behind the Hayes Buttie Bar, near St Davids Hall...besides we can go to the last pub in Cardiff Dean isn’t barred from –Walkabout in St Mary Street.!” ....offered Jon .

“ What... that’s bandit Country!” laughed Dean in an effeminate voice....” I’ll come with you to hold your hand....

As the three friends texted Farrah the details of their detour, he agreed to meet them at ‘Walkabout Creek’ –which co-incidentally was the venue the Stereophonics planned to visit .

Heading down the Victorian steps and passed the railings to the subterranean toilet they all had a sense of unease , as they began to point Percy at the Porcelain.

“ Do you get the feeling...we are being watched?” asked Jon nervously.

“ I am always being watched .....boasted Dean. doing Grouch Marx impressions whilst siphoning his python, before bending over.....most people think I should be in a circus...Monty Python’s flying circus, (he said charming his one eyed- trouser snake) , besides you are safe, I can’t see anyone here with a magnifying glass....!”

“ I’ve told you ....after a blood transfusion ....it takes time to get up a stream!” proffered John.

“ This pineapple chunk I found in the urinal is blinding...I’ll meet you at the buttie bar upstairs...but I’m only waiting 15 minutes! ” laughed Dean

Garry sat in the cubicle and had double locked the door.... he wasn’t that homophobic he just had other more important things on his mind.

Lowering his trousers and underpants , the ex-prop remembered his routine.

Pause... Touch... Engage.

As he sat on the throne with a sense of unease , he waited for nature to take its course.

The cubicle walls all around were wiped clean, apart from a recent addition of an Neanderthal cave-painting in haemorrhoid brown.

Normally, he enjoyed reading the graffiti on the toilet walls...but this crap-trap was largely free except for writing at the cubicle top and just above a narrow hole in the partition wall at waist height.

The hole had been partially filled by the remainder of the toilet paper.

Garry checked his watch and realised it was now of never.

Like all rugby men, he inspected his latest ‘drop out’ and noted that it stood out of the water like the Statue of Liberty..

He took a photo-shot on his mobile camera phone and sent the beauty by e-mail to Jon Van Dole’s facebook page under ‘New blog’,

As usual some evil sod had left a single sheet on the Council-issue sandpaper...would this be enough....he was a little worried by the lack of paper available but decided to go ‘commando’ anyway, as that was the real purpose of his mission.

As he set up his lap-top, he retrieved the internet page on how to make home-made bombs from plastic explosives and household chemicals.

He began whittling away at the inside of the chocolate bars and inserting the plastic explosives in the Mars and Wispas.

Just as he finished the last one , he dropped the chocolate bar which slid on the tiled floor , underneath the metal toilet roll holder.

As he bent over, butt naked, he failed to notice that the toilet paper plug had been removed and a famous face with a leather hat and goatee beard took advantage of Garry’s precarious predicament.

“ Talk about a Careless Wispa!” announced a George Michael look-a-like rubbing his hands in the adjacent cubicle, as the comeback of Wham was complete as he he stuck his phallus through the toilet wall.

Garry wished he had read the graffiti warnings at the top of the cubicle ‘watch out for queers’ and further down ‘told you so’.

Oblivious to the impending assault , Jon stood innocently trying to think of ice cold waterfalls to get him started.

“ Garry are you still logging on in there?....if there’s no paper left in the stall...I can change two fivers for a tenner”

Garry jumped at the sudden intrusion of flesh , eyes widening alarmingly .

In response, he rammed a fuse down the jap’s eye of his assailant.

‘George’ recoiled limply and sang sadly ....” Last Christmas, I gave you my arse, but the very next day you gave it away” sitting down on the toilet seat dejectedly.

********************************************************************

Dean stood eating his bacon egg and tomato roll at the top of the steps as a 17 year old youth passed him in a Cardiff City base-ball cap and ‘Diesel’ top.

Dean was suspicious too of his two sidekicks aged 9 and 15 who were joking laughing and acting like a pair of gangsters keeping a lookout.

He rubbed the remains of the greasy bacon and tomato roll on his trousers in anticipation of trouble.

Jon stood to attention at the sound of footsteps approaching.

He was very conscious of the fact he had spent over ten minutes waiting for his engine to start.

Jon was intimidated when the youth broke the old age male convention , standing immediately next to him at the empty urinal.

He tried to look away and whistle politely, but could not help but look down at his ‘old boy’ to see if the stream had started.

“ What do you know...finally !” sighed Jon as he startled with a trickle which led to a bladder emptying full Niagara discharge.

“ Give us all your money...or your slug gets it!” declared the Ely youth Robin Hoodie.

It was only then that Jon realised the touch of the cold steel pen-knife blade had started his down pour.

Jon nervously handed over his wallet...dropping it in the urinal tray in fright.

Dripping with urine , snot, pubic hair and attached by chewing gum to the only pineapple chunk that Dean had missed, the youth bent over in disgust, carefully watching the petrified Jon all the while.

Getting his own back on someone else bending over, Garry emerged from the cubicle door with lap-top raised and smacked the youth over the head rendering him unconscious.

“ Talk about a hard-drive capability!” laughed Garry....” Can you see why I take a lap-top to the game now!”

Jon had to admit defeat on that one.

As the two friends climbed the stairs together, they were spotted by the two other gang members.

Dean stepped in , as the two scumbags realising their punk friend was in trouble,drew their illegal blades reclaimed from a knife amnesty bin in Roath Park.

Dean lifted the ‘Waterstones’ book shop sign, smote the pair , sending them tumbling down the steps passed Jon and Garry....” Now that’s what you call a good hardback!” laughed Dean triumphantly.

As they trio headed towards Walkabout, they discussed the antics of the juvenile gang.

“ I overheard those wasters talking about their ‘nob racket’.... give us all your money or I’ll cut it off.....!” said Dean angrily.

“ What man wouldn’t hand over their wallet!” agreed Garry.

“ The big one reckoned he had made nearly two grand ....whilst the 15 year old ...I heard his street name of Shiv Shover....nearly £1,500.00!” continued Dean.

“ What about the little one- the 9 year-old ...what about him... how much did he make ?” asked Jon .

“ About £10.00 ...apparently....but he did have two pockets full of cocks!” laughed Dean.

Jon ashen-faced , just gulped and thanked his lucky stars it had been the older boy.

That George Michael look-a-like will put them to good use...thought Garry.

Garry had visions of the pop star trapped in the toilet trying to convince the gang that he hadn’t let ‘the son go down on me’.

********************************************************************

Farrah , however, was stood at ‘a different corner’ - that of the Australian theme bar ‘Walkabout’ in St Mary Street.

His coat of many beer towels in multi-colours, was a benefit not just for being spotted on the BBC Cameras, but also when waiting to be served at a crowded match-day bar.

He was also a babe magnet in this garb, as the woman wanted to check to see if his ‘bod’ was as good as his Boddingtons.

A walking beer sponsor’s dream , the man’s outfit was made out of three parts Strongbow, two parts Boddingtons, Allbright, Worthington Best together with many foreign beers from his tours with the British Lions to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Around his collar , he bore the emblem of Cigarette manufacturer Rothmans.

It was no surprise that the man’s body was also ‘King-size’.

Henry the Eighth to be precise , carefully crafted and sculpted after years of weightlifting pint glasses to his lips.

Oh and after wiping the froth of the beers he had ‘Green-sleeves too!”

As he looked at the selection of beer pumps, he announced loudly in a ‘Convict Oz accent’ “ Fosters - the Amber Nectar- ‘Oztralia’s favourite beer brewed in ....Scotland” announced Farrah, to anyone that would listen...including the young barman waiting to serve him.

Standing next to the bar, he used his favourite trick to gain free beer.

As Stereophonic front man Kelly Jones, ordered and paid for a round for every able person in Cwmaman, Farrah took advantage of the procession of pints being passed over the heads of the queue of people , waiting for beer and an autograph.

Farrah , empty pint glass in hand, merely waited for Jones to look away, before dipping his sleeve in the recently poured pint glasses and sopping up the beer .

He then squeezed his sleeve out into his own glass.

Kelly Jones assumed it was just short measures and muttered something about ‘a bartender and a thief’.

When Kelly was presented with the bill for £387.30 for 150 pints Farrah, being the son of a mathematics teacher, he interrupted Kelly and told him he was being overcharged by some £87.30.

The bar-tender was not amused and told Farrah to mind his own business.

Farrah told Kelly he was ‘Just looking’ and the UWIC student-barman became so flustered with the reworking of the computerised till, that he broke off the pump handle on the Worthy Best, sending a jet of cream-flow into the air.

Mysteriously, all the beer towels had disappeared from the bar, leaving a ‘free reign’ (or free rain) for Farrah to mop up the spillage at the bar.

“ See...working behind the bar ...it’s all about ‘Performance and Cocktails...’ continued Farrah.....and I can tell you a few !”.

“ Performances?” asked Kelly.

“ Cock tales!” replied Farrah.

Kelly smiled ....caterpillar eyebrows on rest-mode... he was used to freeloaders but this guy seemed to have ‘more life than a Tramps Vest’ and looked a real card.

Weighing 2 stone heavier, dripping with Worthington, he followed Kelly back to his table and joined in with the rest of the band , as if he had known them all his life.

In the hope of a REAL pint, he spoke to Stuart Cable, mentioning that his father once drove through Cwmaman and that they were practically related .

Buster too , took a real shine to Stuart Cable , humping his leg with Cable too frightened to tell him off.

“ Is it true that your mother is called Mabel Cable?....asked Farrah not believing it.

“ Yes!” came the reply.

“ and your father was called Clark....you ride in a Cable car and watch Cable TV!...in fact my tour mates are busy laying some cable as we speak!” continued Farrah.

“ Not my sister I hope ....but otherwise all true..!”.said Stuart, playing along, tapping the table like a real drummer.

“And Kelly ...your old man was called Duster...and my dog is called Buster...although Stuart ...I see you’ve already made his acquaintance....your dad was a singer in the clubs around Merthyr!” said Farrah

Farrah looked at the pint count which kept going up every-time he mentioned somebody from Cwmaman.

“ Well boys ...my name’s Richard ...and I’m an alcoholic...!” he announced raising his beer glass to toast the success of the band

“ Here’s to Cwmaman....’you gotta go there to come back’ laughed Farrah enjoying the attention.

As Farrah knocked back his eighth free pint...he decided he better go.

“ Your round Richard...!”asked the quiet unassuming member of the trio Richard Jones

“ Yes ...I think my shape is down to the beer I drink .... oh MY round ...’Maybe tomorrow’.....he sung ...as he waved to his regular mates as he spotted Dean pushing his way violently through the crowd.

“ Is this table taken... boys...?” he asked a group of heavyweight people clad in fake Welsh Rugby shirts from Rheola market.

“ Do you mind ....we’re Aberdare Ladies Rugby team....!” came the reply

“ Well sod off then ....it will take your herd.... two hours to waddle through this crowd and get to the match !” snarled Dean.

The ladies drank their Stella down...gave Dean a black look...but they knew what he said was true....they left cracking the pavement stones in St Mary Street as they went.

“ Dean ....I see you haven’t lost your touch with the ladies.!” chuckled Garry placing his lap-top on the table.

“ Nor you Farrah...!” said Jon nodding at the young Aborigine woman making her way towards the table.

“ Derek....Derek Brockway...is that really you?” asked the girl.

Farrah tried to hide behind his collection of cloudy pints...created from squeezing out his beer towel coat.

“ He’s not Derek...he’s Richard... luv!” offered Jon.

The girl continued to greet Farrah in an Aborigine love- dance ritual to the delight of the crowd in Walkabout.

As the girl reached him and kissed him passionately, he and his friends denied vehemently that he was not called Derek but that it must be a case of mistaken identity.

“ You are Derek....we met on the Lions Tour of Australia in Melbourne ...you had a Welsh Kilt on with a Paul Hogan hat....you told me you were Cockodile Dundee...!” continued the antipodean stranger....its me ..... your Sheila ....Sheila Sweales!”.

“ I’m not Derek ....!” protested Farrah , as the girl slid down his soaking beer-coat and under the table frightening the life out of Buster the dog.

“ Its dream time again!” declared the young Aborigine disappearing under the table.

“ Honestly....he’s NOT Derek Brockway....!” laughed Garry.

With the girl under his table and her head close the Worthington Best bit, Farrah changed his tune.

“ Shut –up....!” said Farrah....hoping that his Worthy best might become cream flow.

At this point, the arrival of the girl was spotted by Dean and he was delighted when he felt a strange movement in his general crotch area.

Unknown to Dean, it was Buster the dog licking the remainder of the Bacon & Tomato sandwich from his jeans.

“ I remember you were big down under ....but... ....what’s this about Cardiff City losing 6-0 to Preston North End and missing out on promotion to the Premiership.!” moaned the stranger.

“ How did you know about that ?” Farrah asked somewhat surprised that it was being brought up at that particular moment.

“ Oh I read it on the South Wales Echo chip paper stuck to your back pages!” came the reply.

“ At least City are not going down this year...concentrate on the South End !” ...hinted Farrah trying to change the subject.

“ DEREK BROCKWAY!!!” interrupted Garry... “Couldn’t you have picked a more manly false Rugby Tour name?”

Buster, sensing that there was meat and two vegemite below the surface of the fabric, bit down hard on Dean’s jeans.

In anger and severe pain, the incredible bulk, grabbed the table edge with both hands.

The sight of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier jaw clamped to his Lee Cooper’s, gave Dean a shock.

“ Now that’s what I call a High Tackle!” remarked local comic genius Boyd Clack to new boy Rhod Gilbert sat on the adjoining table, who was lost for words without his script.

“ That’s the end of his ‘High Hopes!” replied Gilbert five minutes later.

“ I thought it was you....!” said Dean to the girl , who hurriedly dropped what she was doing as Dean turned the table over in rage.

“ Hi Skippy....see you still have that animal fetish.....that poor Kangaroo in Melbourne hasn’t hopped the same since....!” said the young aborigine.

“ How low can you Dean ... for a jump?” asked Jon twitching his nose and holding his hand to this chest aping a roo.

“ A Koala! “ said Garry holding his lap-top defensively waited for Dean’s red mist to descend.

“ If its warm , furry and can move...it’s fair game in my book!” declared Dean unashamedly.

“ Hey Eucalyptus breath ....have you seen my koala possum!” said Garry legging it out of the door like Tre-forrest Gump.

As Sheila headed towards the ‘Sheila’s dunny’ to powder her ‘wombat’, the two remaining ‘Bruces’ legged it towards the door, Farrah snatching a pint off the Cwmaman table , drinking it down in one and singing ‘Have a nice Day!”

As Farrah turned the corner of West-Gate Street just in the nick of time, a boomerang flew passed his beer-coat...two seconds sooner and things wouldn’t have been ‘Allbright!”

***************************************************************

“ Getting into the old Arms Park ground never used to be this difficult!” moaned Jon who was busting for another slash .

“ Go in the bloke in front’s other parka- jacket pocket....I just did!” said Dean.

“ Don’t tell me it was warm, furry and moving.....!” said Farrah....” I am getting a pattern emerging here...!” he continued.

Suddenly the crowd standing around Farrah parted and the Millennium concourse had a giant wet circle shadow on the ground.

“ Told you ...I too was getting a pattern!” he murmered.

Buster looked around anxiously through the legs of the Rugby Crowd and decided he was not going to get through these turnstiles today.

Spotting the English Mascot John Bull, resplendent in his top hat and patriotic waistcoat, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, jaw freshly unclamped , walked in harmony behind him through the open gates and in with the English Rugby Team.

“ Look at Buster....bloody turncoat!” shouted Jon.

Jon thought his imagination had got the better of him , when the dog lifted his tail and showed him that he could not possibly have worms.

“ This security has gone all hi-tech ! “ moaned Jon holding onto a full bladder for 10 full minutes.

“ Yes ...announced Dean .......my company , Bigger Telephones- did all the work...it is top of the range, I even did all the Wi Fi and Electrical Information systems in the stands myself....that’s why it is called the BT Stand!” he boasted.

“ That’s why you are called Dean BT ...I thought BT was short for Bacon & Tomato .....or Bitten Testicles..... .or ....Buggerer of Tabby cats... !” came the suggested offerings from his friends.

“ Or Big Tosser !” said Austin Healey standing next to Dean.

“ Didn’t see you down there !” said Dean , as he launched the Leicester lip off the approach-way and into the Cardiff Blues Car-Park with his hair landing in a heap in Westgate Street.

“ They even got Iris recognition on the turnstiles now !” offered Garry .

“ How do you know that ? “ asked Dean suspiciously.

“ Any potential terrorist could download plans of the Millenium Stadium from the internet to his lap-top !” laughed Garry nervously.

“ Nice one....Osama bin Lloyden!” chuckled Jon.

“ I thought security made less fuss when they let the half-cast Welsh singer, Iris Williams through the gate....!”

“ That’s cos she was ....’So beautiful’ joked Farrah.

As they entered the booth...unbeknown to the crowd ,....security were secretly flashed messages about the person entering....a red light with the security clearance flashed up in the control room.

As Jon , Garry, Farrah and Dean filed in....the red light flashed up the following security messages.....No threat....definitely no concealed weapon....Fat Bastard likes Mars Bars.... Harmless Welsh Rugby Nutter.... and Cat-shagger.

As the four amigos headed for their place in the old North Stand, they drank in the rich atmosphere of their surroundings.

For the first time ever in Rugby , following reports of disturbances with the English Rugby fans earlier that day ...the WRU had decided to segregate the Saesneg from the Cymru.

Having refused to climb the six flights of stairs with his friends to ‘his Llanelli RFC prime seat’ , Garry was disappointed at his ticket. He knew their status with the WRU was declining...they only beat the All Blacks once and that was years ago....but having to climb up the North face of the Eiger, was a little ‘over the top’ . No wonder they are called Scarlets, he thought looking at the stadium position as the undigested Mars Bars and digested Mars Bars started to take their toll.

Even though he was breathing easier from getting through the Security, he was worried about his task in hand.

As he was a child of the sixties, he was born with rebel blood and wanted revenge for his Countrymen’s years of exploitation by the English Ironmasters in Merthyr Tydfil and their ‘Truck shop’ policies.

Seeing the Flag of St George displayed so openly at the Stadium, he remembered his vow to the people of Wales, in his oath when he joined the Free Wales Army.

He lit the fuses on the Mars Bars and during the cacophony of noise following the singing of the English National Anthem of ‘God Save our Gracious Queen’ he threw them at the English End,placing his fingers in his years waiting for the explosion.

The game kicked off and the first collision between Ryan Jones and Martin Corry could be heard loudly like a massive explosion.

When he reopened his eyes Garry , was horrified to find Buster the dog sitting at his feet with the plastic explosive mars bars intact , covered in slobber but still lit, blissfully wagging his tail in the game of fetch..

The second explosion ripped out the heart of the stadium.

Austin Healey had seen Tom Cruise ‘ War of the Worlds but didn’t expect that kind of ‘Mars Attacks’ as the blast for the third time that day separated his short Cruise-like body from his re-grown hair.

As the North Stand collapsed in a cloud of dust , it blocked out the sun sending parts of Tiger Bay into complete darkness.

The staff at the Brains brewery, who had mistakenly booked a hospitality box in the Cardiff Arms Park for the Six Nations game, suddenly cheered loudly, as they now had an uninterrupted view of the Millennium pitch.

The cheer was matched only from the WRU elite box, as they saw the stand that had been the subject of so much acrimony, between the Cardiff Rugby club and the WRU, suddenly disappear.

The cheer was short lived though and the subsequent aftershock of the stand collapsing sent a tremor through the unstable grass pallets causing a Mexican wave on the pitch never seen before.

Forward thinking Merthyr boys, Adam Jones and Robert Sidoli couldn’t work it out and tackled the rising grass pallets assuming that the English props were ‘boring in’ as usual.

The retractable roof mechanism kept buzzing and whirring as the computer controlled device , didn’t know if the roof should be covered or uncovered.

As Dwayne Pype ‘Brains employee of the month’ stood up in his hospitality box, he announced in a broad Cardiff accent...” Talk about painting it DARRRK , in Cardiff Arms PARRRK with a MARRS BARR!”

“ Actually, the correct saying is Brains DARRRRK in Cardiff Arms Parrrk!” claimed Pip O’Thalimus, Brains advertising executive, tasting a copyright infringement.

In the former North Stand, Jon Van Dole and Dean , both black-faced and hair sticking up at all angles , looked round for their missing pals.

“ It’s Garry’s round and he’s disappeared !” moaned Jon.

Stereophonic Richard Jones looked at his front man and laughed.

There were advantages to be out of the spotlight.

“ I bet your glad I got this celebrity debenture box now!”

Kelly Jones sat in shock minus he eyebrows burned off in the back-draft.

Shaking his head he turned to Tom Jones and said “ Mama told me not to come!....did you drop one of your sex-bombs?”

“ Look at you Kel... said Tom ....you look different somehow...like you v’e been on tour with Dowlais RFC! ”

Stuart Cable had also been affected by the blast as he had a dog collar in his normal nest of curly hair.

“ Have we changed labels...asked Richard Jones...from V2 VVR to ‘Buster’ Records?”

******************************************************************

No sooner had the smoke cleared, than the O’Sullivan Security Guards (Pant Division) were on them handcuffing Jon and Dean and dragging them away.

“ You wouldn’t do this if I was black!” shouted Dean.

Jon looked at the charcoal complexion on his friend and just laughed.

They had been through some hair-raising experiences but this was the biggest blast they had ever had.

As they were led to the Black Maria, they noticed the England Team Coach still ablaze..

“ Look ....a Chariot on Fire !” said Dean taking a slug from a Police baton for his trouble.

As they opened the door of the Police van, they could see that there was a ferocious Police Alsatian licking his lips, awaiting their arrival.

“ Do not put him in there with the dog....its not safe!” ordered Sergeant Grunt pointing at Dean.

“ For him or the dog!” laughed Jon in-between truncheon blows.

The Police also were bringing a handcuffed bald Austin Healey.

“ I bet you are behind this somehow!” snarled Healey at Dean.

“ What were you arrested for?” asked Jon.

“When the explosion happened my implants flew towards the Royal Box... landing on Prince William’s lap....talk about Hair to the throne....I am being charged with ‘un-common assault ‘ and attempted ‘Hair’ ssasination!”

“ That friend of your’s ...he was a sleeper!” declared Healey.

“ No wonder he never stayed awake for the last round!” said Jon struggling to stand up under the level of baton abuse.

High above the Millennium Stadium, Garry sat at the bottom of a series of white steps just above the clouds.

Buster sat (minus his collar) on his feet with him.

“ Are you going to get off my shoes or what?” asked Garry to the dog.

“ Yes...as soon as you say sorry for blowing us up!” replied the dog in perfect English.

“ Buster .......you can talk...!” said Garry somewhat surprised.

“ Talk....I have a higher IQ than all of you ....but on the Earthly Realm dogs
are n’t allowed to talk.

“ What Realm are we in now then?” asked Garry

“ We’ll judging by the piped music by Led Zeppelin....I think it is safe to assume we are on the Stairway to Heaven!” he replied.

“ We better get moving because there is a ‘Hell’ of a queue going down those red stairs” continued Garry.

As they approached the Pearly gates, Garry was worried about his chances of getting passed St Peter.

He had already turned away Charlton ‘Moses’ Heston and James Earl Jones.

“ Big Issue Sir...asked the Heavenly Street seller, until recently sat outside the Queen Street Train Station.

“ No change mate !“reply Garry which was for once true.

“ Don’t I know you?” asked the salesman.

“ No , No...No !” said Garry thrice hearing a cock crow in the background.

Watching Jade Goodie leaving the white path and heading South he didn’t think he stood a cat’s chance.

“ I thought she was a certainty according to the media....but she has been voted out already!” moaned a worried looking Garry.

“ Buster Farrah - Evans....you say......declared St Peter...we’ve been expecting you...Disney’s Lady from Lady & the Tramp has some spaghetti waiting for you!”

“ See ...boasted Buster ...”told you ‘All dogs go to Heaven’ as he cocked his leg at the entrance.

“ Next!” shouted St Peter looking down at a tiny list in white and a massive list in red.

“ Garry Snary!”

After a few minutes checking St Peter announced he wasn’t on either list.

“ I better check with the Boss!”

Pressing the holy intercom...he summoned God in person.

“ Gotta Garry Snary here ...not on either list...any suggestions?” asked St Paul.

The black female voice of God could be heard checking with Mohammed, Allah and Eric Cantona before a booming voice decreed “ Have you tried under Suicide Bombers?”

“ Ah yes...thank you...you have been allocated to Virgin HQ!” said St Peter.

“ Which way....?” asked Garry feeling lost without Buster.

“ Follow the cloud layer, passed Purgatory over there and it will be sign-posted ‘Forum’ from there.

As Garry shuffled off his mortal coil , he headed towards the sign post.

“ Virgin HQ ...sounds promising...technically I am a suicide bomber ...the first Martyr of the Free Wales Army...!” he mused.

As he reached the white Vesta, at the Forum, he was on arrival offered Red Bull and Angel cake, to build up his strength for the eternity ahead.

He was shown into the Honeymoon suite by a little golden cherub.

The cherub insisted that it was a condition of the Heaven and Virgin flights, that he be tied to the white four poster water bed in case of ‘turbulence’.

He lay all four-limbs attached lightly by a silken scarf to each of the white marble String-fellow-esque bed-posts.

As he awaited , he wondered what Vestal Virgins would be sent to him.

A Pre- Vegas Britney Spears or perhaps a Disney nymphet like Smiley ‘Miley’ Cyrus, sweet sixteen and barely legal.

As each of the Vestal Virgins lowered their veils, Garry recoiled in horror.

Anne Widdicombe.... Susan Boyle from Britain’s Got Talent...Jo Brand and finally a bearded Richard Branson lookalike in drag.

“ Now that’s Virgin on the ridiculous!” screamed Garry as he was forcefully disrobed.

“ What did I do to be so punished...?” he asked God below.

“They are the ones being punished!” boomed Jah.

As Garry disappeared in a sea of white whales in search of Moby Dick , he suddenly realised he had joined a different Free Whales Army.

“ Hot Dog Sir?” asked the pimply faced burger vendor.

Council official Job Swurth didn’t look happy...but then again he never did.

“ What the Hell are you doing?” he moaned at the bemused van owner, Rann Cydd.

“ Selling burgers from a lay-by...everyone does it in Wales!” he laughed merrily.

“ But this is the Galon Uchaf acceleration lane to get on the A465 (T) Heads of the Valleys Road!” barked Job shaking his head.

“ That’s what’s clever about my pitch....everyone has to stop!” said Rann.

“ It’s all about location...location...location!” he said boastfully.

“ What about highway safety?” asked Job astounded by the ignorance of the offender.

“ What on the Heads of the Valley....your having a laugh!” countered the Cydd.

Feeling he had lost that argument Job pursued another line of questioning.

“ So where’s your hawker’s licence?” asked the Environmental Health Officer.

“ Don’t sell hawks....only fresh meat....do you a nice Hedgehog sandwich...fresh too!” said Rann pointing to a red spot on the road surface.

“ You not telling me you sell road kill to passing tourists too?” said Job feeling he would be outwitted on flawed logic on each argument.

“ Have to be quick mind ....they soon sell out....but not as quick as my assistant ‘Frogger’ over there!” said Rann.

Job looked across the road to see a fourteen year old school kid standing on the centre white line as two huge HGV lorries thundered passed him in opposite directions.

The child seized his opportunity and sprinted through the traffic back to the van.

“ Got him!” he said holding up by the tail the remains of someone’s pet cat.

“ You can’t sell that?” ordered Job.

“ Why not...your Environmental Health Department keeps encouraging me to recycle...I’m just putting it back in the food chain!” Rann exclaimed.

“ Besides you’d only fine me if my black bin lid was open a fraction!” he continued moaning back at the official.

“ The Welsh Assembly always complain about the amount of ‘Fast Food’ served in Merthyr....I only serve ‘slow food’ Rann ranted.

“ I want to speak to you about that too...we’ve had a complaint from A.L.F that your home address in First Avenue Galon Uchaf is being used as a PO BOX for business!” said Job.

“ Apparently, you are advertising as Rann Cydd’s Swiss Pet Rescue Sanctuary on your web page!” said Job.

“ So...that’s where I get all my ideas on the interweb...what’s wrong with that?” asked Rann indignantly.

“ Your telling people that you run a Swiss style euthanasia clinic for pets...please send your pet in a sealed box with no holes and a £100.00 and you can save time and money on vet’s bills!” said the Health Inspector.

“ And your point is?” asked the last remaining roadside Little Chef frying some meat in onions.

“ Don’t tell me...you cook them too?” asked the inspector.

“ I’m beginning to smell a rat!”

“ No....interrupted Frogger....that is definitely a field mouse...when you’ve worked these roads for as long as I have you get to know the difference!”

“ Rats....tend to make it to the centre line while your mice only get as far as the hard shoulder!” he said expertly.

As he did so, a local bus driver, threw his £1.00 at Rann , grabbed his bun and pulled out in front of an oncoming Lorry.

The lorry driver stood on his metal on metal brakes and narrowly avoided another crash.

The European Driver from Riga, after 24 hours driving non-stop in his truck with no tachograph, stopped hard.

Not to miss the bus...he didn’t want to miss the burger van.

“ Alsatian burger?” Rann said to the Non- English speaker.

The driver shook his head pointing at the sesame bun instead.

“ He must be DOG tired...he said taking his £2.50 and throwing him a bun with the back legs of a field mouse sticking out.

The Council Inspector was astonished in the space of ten minutes the van had taken £50.00 in cash....all destined for the black market economy.

“ You’re on to a good thing here!” said the Inspector raging .

Parked next to the van on the embankment was a 2011 black four by four Land Cruiser.

“ Is that yours too?” asked Job.

“ Yeah...I’ve got three like it at home...of course I don’t drive to sign on in THAT...I use my little X reg corsa for that!” said Rann.

“ Don’t you think fleecing the Country is immoral?” asked Job expecting some sign of remorse.

“ F*** Off.... I take all the wool off the sheep...besides do you think the MP’s care....who paid for Prince William’s wedding...well it wasn’t me....anyway those German bastards found a lower tender for the Wedding Catering from Poland....!” replied Rann.

“ Don’t you have any ethics?” continued the Council worker.

“ Your out of luck... I sold the last one this morning...some people will sell any old body part to stay in this Country!” said Rann.

“ I wouldn’t eat any of your produce anyway...you don’t know where its been!”

“ Middle –of- the Road mate....same as your Politics....!” countered the Dog Vendor continuing his good ‘Korea’ choice by selling three ‘hot dogs’ to a local takeaway owner.

“ I must be mad...!” said Job.

“ How much are you on an hour......£50.00...£100.00”?...

“ And I’m on £20.00 per hour as an Environmental Health Officer with a science degree and £20Kworth of student debt....face death and kebab shop owners with skewers every day....and the Government wants me to take a cut in my pension and work till I’m 67...I must be mad to be the only legitimate worker in Merthyr paying tax on my day job!”

“ Shove over!” said Job instantly climbing the ladder.

“ You can ‘burger’ off when you like!” squeaked Frogger.... you start at the bottom pal......go and get me some ‘Health-y food’ ...its my way or the highway!”