BEFORE WE GANG AWA'

Single malt bottles are guarded in all manner of secret ways  in our local supermarket but the Ferret treats them with contempt because she is a closet whisky hater.

It was in a moment of rare tolerance she agreed to get my weekly bottle of  'The Balvenie'. When she came home I could see she was in the nearest she ever gets to a 'pet'. On such occasions she prefaces her remarks with the word 'horrors', the nearest she ever gets to swearing. When she is really mad I can always tell because then she allows herself  'Multiple Horrors'. This was clearly a multiple horrors day.

"It's getting so noisy in Sainsbury's," she complained. "I thought the place was on fire.  The ringing bells nearly deafened me."

When I took the bottle out of its rather smart barrel I discovered why. Ordinary blended whiskies have a burglar alarm round the neck. The rarer malts have a second alarm on the lid of the barrel because the Scot has a reputation for bawbee preservation.
                                                                                                                                                                                                           That had been removed but the inner alarm was still clinging to the bottle neck. I could see in a moment it was my fault but I had more pressing worries working out how I was going to get at the amber nectar without provoking the alarm.

My son-in-law who is from Blackpool and calls a spade a spade was in favour of ripping it off because my wife had wisely kept the bill. A cautious woman she has shopping bills going back centuries. If we removed the alarm goodness knows what crimes would be laid at our door by irate Highland Maltmasters. So I got my son-in-law to rip it off. He has just been made redundant after 35 years and had little else to do. A spell in durance vile would give him the opportunity for studying his future and I had already done my share.
Sportingly he agreed and we shared a friendly dram. Then the Ferret spoiled things because how was she going to explain the broken alarm, she wanted to know, when she took it back to the shop? She didn't want to get the cashier sacked.

At the death I had to ring the shop manager, a nice chap called Alan. I said that before I told him what I was ringing about he would have to promise not to sack the cashier. Alan said he hardly ever sacked anyone so I told him and he said, "Bless you, there's no need to worry. Bring it back to the shop. We have machines for removing the alarm." I said, "I've got one, it's called a son-in-law." And Alan said to just bring the alarm and the receipt and everything would be tickety boo. And that is when the Ferret looked at the receipt and discovered she had not paid for it either.

HIMS ANCIENT

"Wherefore to some, when being abed they betake themselves to sleep, presently in the arms and legs a leaping and contraction on the tendons and so great a restlessness and tossing of other members ensue, that the diseased are no more able to sleep than if they were in a place of the greatest torture."

Thus Sir Thomas Willis, the founder of clinical neuroscience, writing in 1672, describing his discovery of restless leg syndrome, about which, readers will recall, I have also written. When on April 1st I brought these observations to the attention of the Ferret she ungraciously insisted it was an April Fool joke. Hold your foot up, lass. The information comes from an American reader and chum Jerry Jasper, who points out that one of the authors in 2009 in the Journal of Neurosurgery writing of  "Bilateral restless legs affecting a phantom limb" was one F.M.Skidmore. Curious because the prime authority in the 18th century on gout was also called Skidmore. I was alarmed to see that Skidmore, F.M., has also studied "Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder", from which I haven't suffered for far too long but never thought of it as disorderly.

Curiously, Mr Jasper also sent a pamphlet of suggested cures for Restless Leg, including this: "Orgasm is by far one of the best treatments for restless legs. Odd but true. It releases all sorts of happy chemicals into the brain. Another remedy if you cannot achieve orgasm for what ever reason (asking for help is always a favourite for my husband) a hot bath with Epsom salts is helpful."

Not surprisingly, this suggestion provoked an immediate response from readers. "If I have a bout in the middle of the night, I immediately get up and do some housework or leg exercises. I am a single Christian woman so the orgasm remedy is not currently an option."

Under the circumstances so described, one male reader suggested "putting an unwrapped bar of Ivory soap underneath your bottom bed sheet. I have not had such a wonderful sleep since my early twenties..."

                                        .......................................................................

You thought Easter was exhausting. My chum Katyann writes:

"Hope you spent a happy Easter. In Trinidad we celebrated Easter, spiritual Baptist Liberation Day and phagwa or holi, a Hindu festival, all in one weekend.."

PACK THE KNIFE

I have watched the creation of a knife-carrying thug from babyhood to manhood and I am here to tell you, frankly, the new Home Office measures to combat knife crime are risible.We bought a ruin of a cottage on Anglesey and arrived there one day to find it occupied by a group of infants carrying a Welsh flag. There was a great deal of anti-English feeling at the time and my wife said in horror, “It’s a sit-in!”

In those early days “sits-in” were conducted according to a strict protocol. The sitters usually asked permission of the owner after promising there would be no damage. I had just done a story about a sit-in on the Lleyn.  Returning the key, the sitter congratulated the owner on his Peter Scott painting. “I haven’t got a Peter Scott painting,” said the owner. “Duw, “cried the anguished sitter, “we been sitting in the wrong house.”

The idea of a sit-in where the average age was six had the tills ringing in my freelance reporter’s head. Certain page leads all round, I told myself. Alas, the gang explained that it wasn’t a sit-in. Our cottage was their gang hut.

My wife, who is in strict training for sainthood, explained that we weren’t second homers and told them that they could still use it and when we moved in they must come to tea every Sunday. They were still coming to tea every Sunday fifteen years later, by which time they were bringing their “wives” and the next generation of thugs. Their behaviour, and that of the children, was impeccable. At Christmas they showered us with presents. They had their own spick and span homes because as soon as a girl got pregnant she was given a council house, which is probably why Britain has the highest number of teenage mothers in Europe. Parenthetically, one asked me to be his best man at his wedding. I said: “You have left it a bit late; you’ve got three kids.”  “That’s the trouble,“ he said, “the place we’ve got is too small and to get a three-bedroom council house you have to be married.”

By that time they had committed most crimes short of murder and were experts on prison life. They particularly enjoyed Willie Whitelaw’s “short sharp shock” in extra-tough prison camps. “We got meat three times a day,” they told me in wonder. At home they only ever had pheasant, rabbit, hare and salmon, which they poached, and as a diet they found it boring.

Very keen on his food, Raymond came to us every year for his Christmas dinner. We discovered subsequently he had gone just as religiously to three more houses. With presents for all. Trevor, his elder brother, usually spent Christmas in prison. One year there had been a wardens’ strike and prisoners were being held in police stations. Trevor was being held in Wrexham where I had many friends. So I rang the custody sergeant to get him to put Trevor on the phone so that Raymond could wish him a Merry Christmas.
The Custody Sergeant was outraged.  He said, “You should know better…” I said, “Come on, it’s Christmas and he’s about five yards away. Put him on the phone.” He said, “It’s not that. He’s not had his Christmas pudding yet. Can you ring back in half an hour?”

Although Trevor was a kindly soul, he was the most violent of the gang. In many ways Neanderthal. Though his younger brothers were not to be messed about with, they were also intelligent, kind and extremely generous. Qualities they hid under a quite frightening exterior.What turned them from happy infants into brawling thieves?

Principally, I think, because to the village they were known as the “Cacau”, which is Welsh for ”shit”. Their aim in life seemed to be to live down eagerly to the low expectation the world had of them. “You think I am bad? I will show you bad.”

It was tragic. Trevor, the eldest boy, was the knife wielder and the man who threw a policeman through a shop window. Once he asked me if I had got anything he could do in my garden. Alas, it was December. When I turned him down, he walked into the village pub, picked up the till and ran out with it. He got about five yards before he was dropped in a rugby tackle. I have been in a military prison so we had a rapport. When he came out of prison I told him he had been a prat. He said: “It’s your fault. If you had given me something to do I would never have pinched it.”

I have an uneasy feeling he was telling the truth. It wasn’t so much criminal intent as relief from boredom. Raymond, the next boy but one, came out of the womb fighting. He appeared to have no emotions. Yet when his Long Dog drank battery acid and I took him to have it destroyed I have never witnessed a human being so racked with sobs.

The family went to the same school as another young friend, the singer Aled Jones. Aled, a bright boy and naturally studious (while waiting to go on stage at the Hollywood Bowl he passed the time doing maths homework) benefited greatly from his schooling. The “Cacau” were just ignored. If they played truant there were sighs of relief. Yet one Christmas Raymond gave me a drawing he had done of a motorbike. It was perfect in every detail and I realised that with encouragement he would have made a passable draughtsman or a motor mechanic. Sadly bikes were his downfall. A good looking boy, he was taken as her lover by a middle class English housewife who had a second home outside the village. She bought him a powerful motorbike and when she dropped him he drove it at speed into the wall of her house. He is now badly disabled, unable to speak.

The biggest problem I had with ‘the gang’ was refusing their gifts of property they had stolen. The richest man in the village, a pillar of the community, had no such reservations. I bought them a set of sea rods. They were stolen by the police during a routine search of their house.

My wife and I loved them. Shown respect, they bloomed. Based on that experience, I am convinced that (a) prison is the thug’s equivalent of a good “A” Level; (b) short sharp shocks do wonders for their street cred; and (c) they form gangs as surrogate families There a very few born crooks but plenty of vulnerable kids who will prove you right if you do not show them kindness and respect.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Age brings with it a list of Things You Can No Longer Enjoy. At the top comes sex and debauchery, which is rather a relief. But it is not long before it extends to going for walks, eating the foods you enjoy, reading for any length of time before falling asleep, gardening and killing things for sport. The list is longer for the overweight because you are usually on a diet. As a noble friend of mine says, “Growing old is not for Cissies.”

Some of us deal more successfully with retirement than I have. My chum Revel Barker had a distinguished career in our trade as managing editor and Consigliere to the infamous Bob Maxwell. In retirement he bought Hitler’s pinnace, moved to Malta and set up as a publisher. His fourth book in a year is coming out soon. He specialises in reprinting classic books by newspapermen which he markets as “Hacklit”and this one is by Tony Delano, a legendary reporter. It is called “Slip Up” and it tells the hilarious tale of how Fleet Street found the train robber Ronnie Biggs - and Scotland Yard lost him.

This week saw the funeral of the gang mastermind Bruce Reynolds. I expect it was a thoughtful reunion. Those concerned must have reflected that they got heavy sentences and all they stole was a million. More recently the banks from which they stole have held their hands up for fraud, theft and money laundering for drugs cartels. They got bonuses.

Now they have found a way of stealing money from the accounts of Cyprus savers. Trouble?  Bless you, no. The Eurobanks were so delighted they have promised to do the same all over Europe. Jail? Not a bit of it. Bound to be good for a dozen peerages at the very least.



DANGEROUS CUTTING

“At M.I.T., I learned a great deal about neurons, dendrites, action potentials, the localization of function, visual perception and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

"I learned that you can make a mouse 'depressed' by dunking it repeatedly in cold water, by giving it electrical shocks over and over again, by subjecting it to 'chronic forced swimming,' or making it experience 'social defeat,' by putting a mean mouse in its cage. The latter method is the best way to test antidepressants, because after such a negative social experience it takes a mouse three weeks of drug therapy to recover, an interval that neatly parallels the amount of time antidepressants take to reach their optimal effectiveness in humans.”

Columnist in N.Y.TIMES

THESE FEET ARE MAD ON WALKING

I expected to be mess at 84. I did not expect to be a laughing stock. Other people get nice, sensible diseases which inspire sympathy. I fall for the ones which verge on the downright comic.

I ask you, Wandering Leg Syndrome?  I have known enough thieves to be familiar with the phrase 'having it away on your toes' but this is altogether too much.

Every night I gather up my kindle and trot peaceably up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire. Ablutions done, the legs and I settle down with The Barchester Chronicles, every limb in peaceful accord. But the moment I fall asleep, off they go. I wake to find they have literally 'had it off on their toes'. Sometimes I catch them halfway to the door. If they weren't attached to the knees I wouldn't be able to follow them.

Still there is hope on the horizon, even if the legs haven't made it there yet. The last thing I wish to do is quarrel with Shakespeare but by the same token I can live without eyes, teeth, almost everything, but I will not have him bad mouthing second childhood. I am having a ball in this strange eventful history, second childishness.

Last week a fairy godmother called Mrs Merry flew in, made a few passes with her magic wand and by Budget Day the house was transformed into a luxury convalescent home. Hand rails abound, front step raised, armchair perpetually levitated, heat reflectors behind the radiators, sexy night light and dimmer switches all round. A Grand Pris Zimmer Frame with shelves which makes a bespoke drinks trolley; handles on the bed that forty years ago would have put the sparkle into bedtime; and finally a magic necklace with a button like Aladdin's lamp which I press to summon genies. All free courtesy of Age UK.

The help I have had since the body started to crumble makes me very cross at criticism of the National Health Service. I get a carer's allowance and a key to the cripples' lavatories. I have an excused seat belts chit, a disabled pass which means I can park pretty well anywhere, I watch TV free of charge and when I travel on buses others pay the bills. When I was ill I had 24-hour home nursing and my GP has twice saved my life. All that is needed for perfection is to get rid of the hospitals. 

The first time I was swinging from death's door I went to our old hospital and it was four star. Unfortunately we have a massive new hospital that has put the city in debt for the foreseeable future. It boasts new wards which are being closed down as an economy measure and since it opened there have been endless front-line redundancies. The ambulance risks million of pounds in fines because of slow pick-ups. Fines that will come from the Health budgets which are already under pressure to cut down staff they cannot afford to pay. I was rushed into hospital for an emergency transfusion because I hadn't enough blood left for a nose bleed. I got it two days later.

My old chum Herodotus  said we should be like the Medes and the Persians who made every decision twice. Once when drunk and again when sober. I assume the same formula applies to the European Empire (EU). Not that I'm knocking the idea. Presumably when you get the answer,  repeat the ritual.

For her final appearance on this septic Skidmoresisland, Kattyan Lachoo extends her view of the law.

Lawyer: “Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his

sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?’’

That is a true question asked by a real lawyer in a real American courtroom. So says Charles M. Sevilla who wrote Disorder in the Courts: great fractured moments in courtroom history. His anecdotes have been stolen and circulated online everywhere and friends are always sending me these real-life jokes because they know I love nonsense.

Sevilla developed an eye and ear for the ludicrous to get him through his legal education and practice because the law can be as exciting as the study of dirt. His cockeyed interest developed into magazine columns about the howlers in the halls of justice and the columns were appropriately gathered into two funny collections.

But as much as I respect a fellow discombobulator, this guy is an amateur of the absurd. He hasn’t heard a thing until he consults my specialist archive of true exchanges in real courts in Trinidad and Tobago. I am making up none of this. What you are about to read is all true, true, true. Proceed at your own risk of splitting the seams of your pants and spurting your morning cup of tea through your nose.

Lawyer: “Did you check for fever?’’

Pathologist: “You trying to insult me now? You asking me if I take the temperature of a dead man?’’

Lawyer: “How were you able to see the man?’’

Witness: “Because I have two eyes in my head.’’

Lawyer: “Are you able to continue? Look you sleeping on yourself.’’

Witness: “You doh worry about me. Ask your question.’’

Lawyer: “You said there was faeces on the body. Is there an explanation for that?’’

Doctor: “The explanation is that the body came in contact with faeces.’’

Lawyer: “You ever did recitation in school?’’

Witness: “Yes.’’

Lawyer: “You know what recitation is?’’

Witness: “Er, er, like mouth to mouth?’’

Lawyer: “I am putting to you that you are mistaken.’’

Witness: “You cyar put nutten to me, you wasn’t dey.’’

Lawyer: “I put to you your evidence is a pigment of your imagination.’’

Judge: “A what?’’

Lawyer: “A pigment, My Lord.’’

Lawyer: “How tall are you?’’

Defendant: “I never measure.’’

Lawyer: “My Lord, please instruct the witness to answer the question. He is oscillating.’’

Judge: “Only fans do that. I think you mean vacillating.’’

Defendant: “The cell was damp and cold. I had to sleep standing up whole night.’’

Judge: “I thought only horses did that.’’

Lawyer: “You’re a sweet man?’’

Witness: “Well, my perspiration not too strong.’’

Police prosecutor Sgt John Constable (name changed to protect the poor fella from fatigue from his colleagues): “Ma’am, I am not ready in this matter. Put it to next week, please.’’

Magistrate: “I thought my name was Mary Jones, not Mrs John Constable.’’

Judge: “Madam, you knew you were coming to court today? I don’t want to see your belly."

Woman, in midriff top: “Whey she say?’’

Judge: “You have a hearing problem?

Woman: “Eh?’’

ON THE FALKLANDS ISLE by DR SAM JOHNSON IN 1777:

The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland's island, have admitted a precedent of what they think encroachment; have suffered a breach to be made in the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior right, have suffered a dangerous exception to the prescriptive tenure of their American territories.
   Such is the loss of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain. We have, by obtaining a disavowal of Buccarreli's expedition, and a restitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and the superiority of our influence. Beyond this what have we acquired? What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only occasional; and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future bucaniers. To all this the government has now given ample attestation, for the island has been since abandoned, and, perhaps, was kept only to quiet clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it in a short time.
   This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the titular sovereignty. To charge any men with such madness approaches to an accusation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess. But of this faction what evil may not be credited? They have hitherto shown no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mischievous cunning for which it is held, by Hale, that children may be hanged!
   As war is the last of remedies, "cuncta prius tentanda," all lawful expedients must be used to avoid it. As war is the extremity of evil, it is, surely, the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are diseases of animal nature, which nothing but amputation can remove; so there may, by the depravation of human passions, be sometimes a gangrene in collective life, for which fire and the sword are necessary remedies; but in what can skill or caution be better shown, than preventing such dreadful operations, while there is yet room for gentler methods!
   It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splend id game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most successful field, but they die upon the bed of ho nour, "resign their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death."
   The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands, that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless ; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery; and were, at last, whelm ed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without remembrance................

THE LAW IS AN ASSET

After all I have done for that computer, the gold coins I have hurled at its undeserving cartridge head... Only last week experts on two continents spent hours coaxing it to do a simple thing like delivering a few emails.

That is the last time. It's back to the biro and the cover of my cheque book to write on. I will probably sell Skidmoresisland to the Argies or British Coalite and go into business writing begging letters to footballers.

The Blog? I have put my name down for a course on blogging by IPad and for the next two weeks I am letting out this enchanted isle to a friend of mine. Her name is Kathyann Latchoo (nee Waterman) and she is the Deputy Director of Prosecutions in Trinidad. She also writes a weekly column in the Trinidad Express of which she was once the editor. She studied for a law degree with Leicester Distant Learning Project and qualified as a barrister.

My old, much lamented chum Neville Stack first brought her to Skidmoresisland. He wrote: "Inevitably she grew out of the newspaper job, its frustrations and - worst of all - its vicious office politics. So she quit. After a bit of trial and error at highish levels she used her academic prowess to become a State Prosecutor, where she shone so brightly that she is now Senior Prosecutor.

"Kathyann is 50, voluptuous, very,very clever and humorous. Her husband, Max Latchoo, also applied himself to distance learning and is now a graduate health and safety expert.

"Can't think why, but she enjoys the company of certain old hacks in these islands. She asks me to introduce her.......You will enjoy knowing her.”

I

Indeed I do, as I hope will you. Here she explains what you have to know to hold down her job in Trinidad: 

"Do not kill or wound pigeons. Never be quarrelsome in a shop. And whatever might happen, stop stealing dead fences.

"Did you know you can’t crook goods on a Sunday? That sounds like something that should be forbidden every day of the week and written into contracts of Italian politicians and Trinidadian contractors. But it’s actually a provision in the Summary Offences Act Chapter 11:02 and has to do with hard labour (the preferred punishment for other kinds of crooking, provided we can catch the well-dressed crookers). 

"Reading up on weird or obscure laws is a favourite contrarian pastime of mine. It brings out a spirit of anarchy which is one of my best features.

"Crooking is one thing but look out for the hooking too. Allowing known prostitutes, rogues and vagabonds to live on your premises can make you a guest of the State for up to three months.

"During Carnival, it’s forbidden to indulge in lewd behaviour or drive a car while wearing a mask. Taxi drivers have to provide a litter bin in a convenient place in their vehicles or they could be fined $500. Do not trundle hoops or fly a kite in Port of Spain or any borough.

"Internationally also, law is a source of divertisement. In Oregon - and I can think of no reason whatsoever for this prohibition - it’s illegal to strap children to the fender or hood of a car. In the United Arab Emirates, only married couples and close relatives who are of the opposite sex can share a hotel room. You can buy, sell and smoke marijuana in coffee shops all over Amsterdam. And in Greece women are not allowed to wear shoes that 'wound the monuments'. In Iceland you have to choose your child’s name from an approved list. If the name is not on the list, you have to apply to a committee. So if you are a boy, you can be Adolf but not Alistair. And if you are a girl, and you want to be called Gentle Breeze, you will be denied that right by officialdom and be referred to for 15 years as 'girl'. 

"The secret unwritten rationale behind these ancient regulations is that there should be less work for therapists who won’t have to treat traumatised patients, scarred for life because their evil parents gave them the first name of the lioness in Born Free. Therapists are already overworked curing the masses suffering from winter depression because, over there, the blasted sun never stops shining yet they still have 13 months of snow and ice.

"In the Cayman Islands it is an offence to insult the dignity of a woman, which, by the way, is what happens to me every month-end when I collect my salary cheque.

"But my all-time favourite is found right here in our Fisheries Act, Chapter 67:51:

You must not attempt to resuscitate a dead turtle.

But if you have one that is merely comatose, here is how you do it legally: place turtle on its back and pump its breastplate with hand or foot. Or you can place it face down and elevate its hindquarters for one to 24 hours.

"And you thought all those yoga classes practising your Downward Facing Dog would never come in handy..."

Katyann will return next week for another look at the legal oddities of life in the sun.

In the meantime, here's a thought to stay awake by:

In the 20^th century the cost of 165 wars was 5 trillion dollars. The result of this profligate waste of money? One in four children in the UK is living in severe poverty, three out of five classrooms are full, the NHS is saddled with massive debts and its nursing staff is far below strength. We have betrayed our warriors, and the people with the greatest need who can least afford it are having to pay a bedroom tax to have a separate room for a sick child.

DRINK TO ME ONLY WITH THY SICK NOTE

The visit to the surgery was following its usual course. The Ferret had just finished telling the doctor what was wrong with me when I said I know what is wrong with me: I am gagging for a drink.

AND THE DOCTOR SAID: “WHY DON'T YOU HAVE ONE, THEN?”

The Head Ferret said: “I don't want him to be ill.”

AND THE DOCTOR SAID HE UNDERSTOOD THAT BUT added: “AT 84 ANY HARM HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE. AND LET'S FACE IT, THERE IS NOT MUCH ELSE HE CAN DO.”

I should explain that during these meetings both of them talk as though I am not there. But the point is I am drinking under doctor's orders. Not a lot, mind you. I have spilt more down my shirt than I'm currently allowed.

Five a day precludes organising orgies, even assuming, as I have, that he meant doubles. And what to drink? Something celebratory? Kir Royal, a mixture of champagne and a cube of sugar soaked in crème de Cassis, is celebratory but a fellow member of a dining club insisted the perfect drink is when the man drinks green chartreuse the woman yellow chartreuse and they kiss.The Head Ferret might judge that as liberty taking. A great favourite of my youth was Black Velvet, a mixture of Guinness and champagne which Count Otto von Bismarck invented and which was always drunk at the Grand National Winner's dinner at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. In the days when it was still a hotel.

All excellent aperitifs but there was something missing. Ritual. Non-drinkers do not realise that as important as the drinking is the preparation thereof. A pink gin, for example, when a drop of Angostura bitters is poured in and around the glass and then poured away before the gin is introduced.

Purely in the interest of historical research, I have collected over the years the signature drinks of many celebrities and famous watering holes, like the Cinnamon Club which was famous for its Rum Pomme, a delicious assembly of cooking apple purée, cinnamon tea bags and half a pint of golden rum. At Simpson's in the Strand the barman's Glogg was a mixture of red wine, brown sugar and golden rum.

When the Queen of Sheba asked the all-wise King Solomon for a motto which would apply in every mood and circumstance, he told her: “This too shall pass.” That is what I was looking for in liquid form. I have the recipes for Hemingway's daiquiri and David Niven's Bloody Mary. Both delicious but a touch too exotic for daily throat sprays.

What I was looking for was a drink for all seasons. I found it in a Dry Martini, which by wild coincidence is my signature drink. It fulfils all the requirements of ritual. I have the glass, generous in size, frivolous in shape. I have the shaker, the mixing spoon. It was the work of a moment to find Bombay Sapphire gin and I have friends who have studied the Martini at home and abroad. My oldest friend John Edwards, the Daily Mail columnist, has met everyone in the world. From his good friend Fred Astaire's daughter Ava he got the recipe for that great man's very dry Martini: 

Generous shot of gin or vodka. Tip up a bottle of Vermouth, then right it again, unscrew the cap and drip the contents in the gin (a little Astaire joke because there ain't any Vermouth in the cap). Shake or stir in a cocktail shaker with cube ice, not shaved, and drain into a frosted glass. Add a twist of lemon or an olive.

John, no slouch in these matters, suggests the best way to frost a glass is first to warm it, then put it in a fridge. Condensation quickly frosts. 

The legendary reporter Brian Hitchen has a million friends, including the late Johnny di Lustro, Capo di Tutti Capi of the New York Gambino family. A formidable ex-paratrooper who masterminded the hunt for train robber Biggs, I assume it was the Capo from whom Brian's muscular Martini originates. Use vodka not gin. Place four ice cubes in a frosted whisky glass, pour vodka to the slow count of ten and add two of the tiniest drops of the driest Vermouth. Slice a two inch long piece of lemon peel, twist to release the oil and drop it in the glass. Stir with your biro.

Three of either of the above before the main meal of the day, plus a large glass of 'The Singleton' single malt from Speyside as a nightcap - and welcome to Heaven.

                     ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reader Brian Gesty writes apropos of my police car story last week:

The story of the coming together with the police car caused me to recall an old friend`s tale of when he crashed his Honda Prelude into a Morris 1000.

All the correspondence with the Insurance Company was ,apparently, headed  "Prelude in D Minor ".

A SOBERING THOUGHT

In 1899 the Hague Congress on Peace outlawed throwing bombs out of balloons on the grounds that it was inhuman.

In 1942 Bomber Command's role in the war was defined by the RAF thus: “The purpose of Bomber Command is to destroy the morale of the civilian population.”

In Tokyo in 1945 80,000 civilians living in paper houses were burned alive in fire bomb raids. In all, 350,000 Japanese civilians were killed.To improve the killing potential, tests were done on specially built paper houses and the quality of nitrogen refined so that it burned bodies more fiercely and when quenched on skin it reignited... In 1945 the Japanese sent an offer of near unconditional surrender via Moscow. They made only one condition. They asked to keep their Emperor. Truman and the Allied High Command refused. After the refusal they dropped the atom bomb, massacring Japanese civilians merely to frighten the Russians who were our allies at the time, according to historian A.C Grayling in “Among the Death Cities”.

It is OK for governments to be generous with agonising death. However, a patrol of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders is under investigation as I write. In the first Iraqi War they were ambushed and in the heat of a day-long battle which followed it is claimed they killed four Iraqi civilians. Three Royal Marines face trial for a similar offence.

Parenthetically, in our decadent society where crimes against children are endemic one wonders whether Cupid and his troop of cherubim are fitting symbols of innocent love. By the same token it would be interesting to count the number of endless TV detective dramas which involve the violent deaths of children. This week there were three.

A PORN THING BUT MINE OWN

They are gone the days of Daimler Jags and Lagondas, of Land Rovers and MG TDs. In their place is a walking stick. These days we are a tripod.

The odd thing is I prefer it. I never felt at ease with the combustion engine. For one thing they rarely combusted on command. Show me a blasted heath or a lonesome grott and I will show you the scene of a grotty me, kicking the wheel of a sulky saloon. Silent and not only on a Peak in Darien. At least the MG always broke down within walking distance of a pub.

The LG6 Lagonda was the worst. At the funeral of an old chum called Mike Quy it broke down when filled to the chrome rims with grieving newspapermen, than whom no-one is easier to drive to noisy scorn. What was worse it gave up its particularly showy ghost just as I was being beckoned into motion by a policeman on point duty. His first summons was slow and stately, not untinged with respect for a classic car. When it seemed the classic car was pointedly ignoring him the stately beckon was transformed into a shaking fist. 

"Watch him!” came a voice of a so-called friend. “Any moment now he is going to rip off his helmet, dash it to the ground and dance on it. Just like Charlie Chaplin.” "It wasn't Charlie Chaplin, it was Andy Clyde,“ offered a pedantic sub editor. “Rob Wilton,” suggested another and an argument ensued.

Can you believe the only car I ever owned which never let me down was a Lada I bought for transporting bloodhounds? It failed in its purpose by being so noisy the hounds refused to climb in. Forced, they howled piteously at passing vehicles and nothing does piteous better than a bloodhound in extremis.  Nary a car passed without a reproachful driver. 

Stepping into a motor car was like suddenly getting a starring role in a nightmare. It did not even have to be my motor car. A friend who owned a Citroen, once the property of the Paris police, wanted me to share its power so he took me to the Grand National. Heavily refreshed, we were driving home when for reasons unknown the car decided rather than go round a roundabout to jump over it. Jumped like a stag. Had it not been for the police car it hit on the other side I reckon it would have been a contender for best jump of the day.

Fair do's the policeman driver trapped well. He was out of the car like Mick the Miller, notebook at the High Port. He opened our door and invited the occupant of the front seat to step outside and tell him what he had drunk before getting in. It took a quarter of an hour and filled four pages of the policeman's notebook. At the death he asked: “And after all that drink, do you think you're fit to drive?" My friend was shocked. "Drive?” he said. “Certainly not. I am a passenger. The car is a left hand drive.”

With a walking stick you know where you are. It has gravitas. A comic character in the novels of a hunting squire of the early nineteenth century played a part in the creation of our greatest novelist. He whittled sticks carved with the heads of great statesmen which would make the fortunes of his descendants. R.S. Surtees also created one of the great comic characters of any age. John Jorrocks was a fox hunting grocer whose cry at table was “Pick me up, tie me to my chair and fill up my glass.“

Lord Scampersdale: “You think because I am a lord and may not swear you may do what you will with me.”

Surtees' publishers wanted him to add comic captions to the drawings of a fashionable artist called Seymour. Surtees refused so the publisher hired an unknown lobby reporter called Dickens. The result was “Pickwick Papers”, which is not without hints of plagiarism.

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The time has come to reveal that when I was a young and rather pretty provost sergeant I was chased naked from the showers and round the sergeants' ablution block in HQ 7th Armoured Division, Rhine Army, by a Regimental Sergeant Major in the Irish Guards, his moustache twitching with desire. I easily outdistanced him and reached the safety of my room. Some days later I was caught with little effort by a NAAFI manageress called appropriately Mrs Horne who rewarded me with 200 cigarettes. Several months later, she was charged with the theft of 50,000 cigarettes.

My Commanding Officer in a PR unit in Bad Oyenhausen transferred to the Royal Armoured Corps because the black beret brought out the blue in his eyes, causing him to be severely talked about.

As a small boy I came within an ace of suffering severe mental imbalance when I discovered I was the only child in the class who had not been fondled by our popular teacher Mr Harrison, long gone to interfere with the cherubim in the skies.

I mention these incidents in the light of recent disclosures, just in case there is any compensation floating about.

Even later in the Fornicating Fifties and Sexy Sixties I covered the early concerts by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and all Brian Epstein's stable of pop stars. The audiences were largely female teenagers and to get through the crowds of young girls who stormed the dressing rooms offering themselves to the stars was not a happy experience

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Our trade paper Press Gazette got involved in a minor disagreement with the Sri Lankan High Commission over its reporting of an assassination attempt on a British journalist. The Commissioner questioned 'British'.

He insisted: "The fact that one is also British and is a reporter does not make him a British reporter. The unfortunate shooting had nothing to do with his being British. A woman and child is not the same thing as a woman with child.”