Hi,
You can call me Alf, which is actually a pseudonym because I want to keep my real name, Arthur, a secret, and I swear on the life of this crocodile sitting on my lap, that every other word or so of the tale I am about to tell you is the truth. As they have to say in British courts of law, The truth, the whole truth, and nothing like the truth."
So I'll begin.
It was a dark and damp evening in old London town as the swirling fog began to descend on the early commuters, shivering with the cold as they started their uncomfortable journey homeward.
Fortunately for me I was two hundred miles away playing dominos on my computer, when my concentration was spoiled by the ding-dong of the front door bell ringing.
"Can you get that Alf," came the shout from the kitchen. "I'm just putting our dinner in the oven."
With a grunt of mild annoyance, I rose slowly from my chair, and made my way through to the door and opened it, only to find the light blocked out by the huge individual who was standing there impatiently.
"Where's the bitch?" Man mountain growled at me as he shoved me back, ducked and having to turn sideways to ease himself through the doorway.
"Pardon," seemed an appropriate response at the time.
"The bitch," he repeated staring around the entrance hall as if there might be the odd bitch or two hanging up on the wall amongst the pictures. "Don't know her name but I'm told she lives here, and My little willy needs sucking."
"I really don't think....." which is as far as I got, as he frowned a terrible frown at me, and took a menacing step towards me.
Showing commendable bravery in the face of such a home invasion, I only took two steps back, and waved my hands in the air a little in order to try to confuse him.
Didn't work!
"Where is she. The bitch, where is she," he demanded, reaching down and placing his hand on top of my head, in a most worryingly manner.
"But there's only one woman here, and she's my....." which was again as far as I got as he grabbed a handful of my hair and lifted me up onto my tippy toes.
"I think you'd better come out. We've got a visitor," I shouted in the direction of the kitchen, there seeming to be no other option which would leave me compos mentis.
The kitchen door opened and my seventy two year old grandmother, all five foot one of her came striding out.
I just knew she wasn't the bitch he was expecting, and that this could all end up very badly.
"What are you doing here Timothy Smallholding?" Granny, as I called her, snapped at my aggressor. "And put my grandson down or I'll put you over my knee and give you a good spanking."
Timothy, as I now knew him to be, gulped, stood to attention, and dropped me, clearly recognising Granny as his old headmistress, as most of the local population who had attended the local school in recent decades would also have done so.
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Now I should add here, for the avoidance of doubt, that Granny was only here because Mum was away in Japan for the week, officiating at an international Judo competition. Granny was cooking for me and keeping an eye on the family business in town, the martial arts centre which she had created some years previously. Normally of course one of my sisters would have done that, but Jean was off on a training week with the British Olympic Tai Kwon-do team, and Jane was off on another one of her overseas ventures of some sort with the SAS, and of course couldn't be contacted.
The whole family were outstanding in one thing or another, my speciality currently being dominos, at which I'd recently won the monthly club championship of the tuesday night group who met down the local pub.
Ok, so maybe there were only four of us, but three of our number were quite serious, even if old Tom was getting very forgetful and Mick, who couldn't hold his drink, was usually pissed by the time we started playing.
Credit where credit is due I say.
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Where was I?
Oh yes!
