THREE OR FOUR BOTTLES OF WINE

....talk about pretty little girls girls about tasty boys boys about girls doing get down and dirty sex obsession with each other real or imagined did it five times more often desire and lust than real men about women women about men football no defence basketball second division lousy shot trainer lost match tits center forward cunts on television if it’s on there talk gossip cheap and nasty look at the cunt on that about last night’s telly downloaded porn cheap shot next week’s telly soaps soap powder don’t shift dirty stains lied last week’s telly the dirty rich the famous clean the infamous dead shot raped on screen twenty four hours hello the neighbours what the neighbours got normal kind of guy regular sort friends and shotgun family don’t talk to them no more fucking family stabbed in the back betrayed good exam results bad luck of the past how it was all obviously so much better back then sick present no future there is just simply none no respect nowadays not safe to be on the streets I mean it prices not what they used to be who’d of thought potatoes at that price per pound body functions dysfunctions who’s dead should be dead prick periods shit and piss and shitting skid mark fart wind the goddamned weather good morning rain lift stuck it’s never ever been so bad headaches drinking headaches beer twelve pints your round how's the migraines cars that he hasn’t got I got to get that's really nice stupid bus service take this it's stronger works better better work harder boss shithead hate it and work because I spent it all broke love it honestly you love it me too got to be done crisis five days a week eight hours a day weekends out of it bad beer bad wine bad music bad sex no sex at all sick and tired everything gone to hell train smells delayed overweight you too deadend life discotheque dirt box noise paracetamol two a day couldn't live without it shouts talks all at once and the same time are you listening no way she looked at me goodbye good riddance the young suck me off just wasted generations wasting away down the drain not like back then my father always said discipline back then discipline and order the pains goddamned cancer chemicals in all this prefabricated food when I was young you knew where you stood you see who died crap pension so sorry for them kids these days and oh my joints the aches and drugs goddamned drugaddicts everywhere you turn to take pain away codeine hurray cholesterol younger generation isn't she just so sweet goo goo kids look like slags real professionals prostitutes fuck them I would what's she called shit heads pissed as a rat see you tomorrow bye talk about girls girls about boys boys about girls doing it ten times get down and dirty sex late again never on time what's the time that's nice just your colour....

Round and round and round again and again and again forever and ever but, if you can join in all the din, find a corner in the conversation, be conversational, be talkative, it means you know you are still about, you can hear yourself, you, yes, your very self.

This is a big help. This means you are not dead. It means you are not dead, you have not already died and nobody from T.B.A.P. has come to take you away.

Yet.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, in the hot summer of 1972, Sunday the sixth of August actually, a priest on a pilgrimage to Santiago was run over and killed crossing a narrow country road in Alava, Spain, by a tractor. Run over by a tractor.

Alava isn't on the route to Santiago from France via Roncesvalles, but he was in good spirits and so just wanted to take a day or two detour to visit a friend studying at the seminary on the outskirts of a small town called Vitoria.

Back in England his hobby was restoration, restoration of classic farm equipment, steam powered mainly. He was quite an expert in the material, both old and new, so he knew that what was bearing down on him, dodgy brakes and all, was a rather tatty old looking Hanomag Barreiros R438 Special. Made in Spain sometime in the early sixties. Number plate VI 17.

Trouble was that the left hand headlight was not standard to this model. The instant this oddity caught his attention, the priest lost the vital fraction of a second he would have needed to jump out of its oncoming path.

Almost exactly two years before, the sweating owner of VI 17 had hack sawn a headlight off an old abandoned fifties box van (A Citroen, perhaps?) and hashed together a replacement for an original headlight that had been destroyed by revellers enjoying the village fiestas.

Three or four bottles of wine can change history.

The young man was never born again, and, therefore, definitely never ever lived happily ever after.