Behold! Meerkats!

They are my brothers.


I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you, but this is me at the British Ambassador's reception in Honduras, in meerkat mode. No Ferrero Roche were involved.

I am the one over the shoulder of the ambassador herself.

drunkover (explaination)

A drunkover is the greatest feeling in the world. When you wake up in the morning, no longer drunk but still not hung-over, just kind of bouncy. Everything that faces you is a small but interesting challenge – walking, crossing the road, putting food in your mouth, etc. Also known as PDV – post-drinking vagueness.

Number 73

By chance one day, a few years ago now, I came across a green t-shirt, which I happened to like. Emblazoned across the front were the numbers 073. Fast forward a year or so and I am wearing the very t-shirt mentioned above at a work party. Now at the party is a raffle, and sure enough, in the raffle is a giant ginger teddy bear. Several tickets later and mine is drawn, with the teddy the item of choice for the inebriated – a good friend to cling on to.
Later in the evening and I’m arguing with some girl over the name of the bear. She has plumped for ‘Henry’ (!) whilst I have gone for the far more sensible ‘Number 73’, after the shirt of the same name.
I get my way. It is, after all, my bear.
Fast forward a few months and I no longer have the bear, passed on to a friend after sobriety had kicked in from what was a monumental drunkover (see related article). I’m watching a programme on notorious musicians’ appearances on television. One such incident involves Iggy Pop bounding up onto stage in the background of another band’s set, suggestively thrusting his groin at a giant ginger teddy in his grasp. The programme? Children’s favourite ‘Number 73’, named after the house in which the attempted sodomy and other such adventures took place.
Though I do not remember seeing the show as a child (in truth I remember little of my childhood in general) I am sure I made a subliminal link between the two that no doubt tormented my early years.
I also think I will die aged 73. Nothing that has so far happened in my life has made me think otherwise.