Approaching the Close where my mother lives this morning, I see a man who looks like a pillock.  He is wearing khaki shorts and white socks, with white knees between them.  Nearby, one of my mum's neighbours who I sometimes have bland conversations with is loading the boot of a car.  I realise the man is her husband, Eric, who I barely know.

"Alec" he says (of course he doesn't, in fact, use my blog name).  "I feel pleased that yours is even bigger than mine."

Huh?

He is heading towards me, intending to grab - no, not my cock, of course - that's not a very Home Counties thing to do - but my belly.  I know nothing about you - but what the hell!  We must be blood brothers!  We both have large stomachs.

Well, he's probably a beer drinker. (what do I care?)  I have a digestive problem, which I have no desire to share with Eric Pillock.  Just as he gets within millimetres out touching me, I do a rugger-type feint and avoid his greasy embrace.

"So, how are you Alec?" he calls after me.

"I'd feel better if I hadn't run into you," I murmur, sotvoch.

"What did you say?" he demands, suddenly belligerant (drunk? it's eleven in the morning.) (He probably thought I swore, which - however provoked - is a capital offence in the Guildford area)

I'd have loved an OK Corral style rumble, but this is where my mother lives.  One day she may need Eric to mend a fuse.  Around here I'm just a bit player, keeping everything unpleasant locked in my inflated stomach.

One day (I fantasise), probably after my mother dies, it will all release - in what may well turn out to be be the world's longest fart.