I met him down t’pub the other week in the queue for the bar. We were standing beside a black gloss-painted post that held the ceiling up and which retained indents of past drunken bouts. His name was Phil, a northerner down south with northern vowels. He hated motorway services, laundrettes and modern traffic management systems such as sleeping policemen, speed cameras and bollards which he often hit. His mother had recently had a fall out with Age Concern which he told me all about and he swore he’d never been abroad in his life and had never had a passport. He lived on his wits, charming the women who swooned like lilies on a hot summer’s day with desire for him.
I offered to buy him a pint, in fact I felt obliged as he regaled me with the story of his life. But he went off on one about beers, lager, spirits and alcopops, their merits, after tastes and cost. On and on he went as he couldn’t decide which beer he best liked, he was so desiring of the lot his eyes fizzed with lust.
Myself, I got fed up, so bought him the cheapest can on sale and made a quick escape leaving him with the barmaid.
