Top Four Numbers!

1239

01240

92

37

45819365147

86517

4156478

956465784396

5437

65782364736

7813264736173

246547386

57894657

298674657

8

16758

6143716517

8436537864736454

786374

613784965

9378610387643050137

8618972

645718035678613

894

7328917463274

674567832657328

9

3907135

647823811280

14768

76257

31641098

274

2190 

but which is best?

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.