LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

       Title Page

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       CHAPTER ONE

      Phew! I will remember that afternoon with the wives of the Old Rottingfestrian Rugby Club if I live to be thirty-two. Talk about knackered! Sidney was coming apart at the seams like a dock-struck banana and I had about as much snap, crackle and pop as a piece of wet confetti. Those women were insatiable, or to put it in another way: that is just what they wanted you to do – put it in another way.

      Of course, it is all very understandable, isn’t it? I mean, if your old man went off every Saturday afternoon and ended up with fifteen other blokes all putting their arms round each other and pushing, you might feel the desire for a bit of a rough and tumble yourself.

      I have a theory that the birds who fancy rugby players go a bundle on all the muscles, but reckon they can put them to better use than chasing a squashed soccer ball round a muddy field. When they find that the chaps still prefer snuggling down with each other amongst the cowpats while they are expected to cut piles of corn beef sandwiches or refill the milk jugs, it is not surprising that they begin to think longingly of a couple of balls dropping lazily between their own uprights.

      This was certainly the case with the Old Rottingfestrian ladies whose speed into the loose mauls would have been the envy of their better halves. I have not seen such lack of inhibition since Aunty Flo filled her knickers with crisps and danced the hokey-cokey at the British Legion Ladies’ Night – the last she ever went to.

      When we creep away from this scene of sexual carnage, I can see that Sidney is not only exhausted but well-choked.

      ‘Not to worry, Sid,’ I say cheerfully, ‘it was a lousy chandelier, anyway.’

      ‘That’s not the point,’ he grunts. ‘Someone might have done themselves a serious injury.’

      ‘You stood more chance of injury yourself when that bird started thumbing through her “Perfumed Garden” for new ideas. I told you that position was for pregnant hunchbacks.’

      ‘Probably why you see so few of them about. Blimey – I thought I had bits of that chandelier wedged in my backbone.’

      ‘At least you discovered it was plastic, Sid.’ Sid looks at me a bit narky. ‘I mean the chandelier, Sid.’

      For those of you who have not had the pleasure before, I had better say that my name is Timothy Lea and that Sidney Noggett is my brother-in-law and part-owner of the Cromby Hotel, or Super Cromby as it will be known when the banging stops. Details can be found in a smashing book (‘once I put it down I could not pick it up again’ – Harold Wilson), available from all top class bookstalls and entitled ‘Confessions from a Hotel’. And, talking of books and bookstalls, don’t you think it is time you dug into your pocket and bought this one? The man by the cash register is beginning to look at you a bit old-fashioned like. It gets better, honest it does.

      Anyway, back to the plot: Sidney is part owner because Miss (‘call me Queen of the Boozers’) Ruperts came into the mazuma that bought the property company that owned the sites on either side of the Cromby – still with me? Good! She is advised by one Doctor Walter Carboy, whose main medical experience seems to have been in the area of curing wallet fatness. I have a constant fear that they might get spliced and really put the screws on Sidney but he reckons that Doctor ‘Conman’ Carboy already has a few wives scattered about and only needs one more for the police to start hollering ‘Bingo!’.

      Despite not getting lumbered with Miss Ruperts’ hand and regions adjacent, Carboy still has considerable influence over the old soak and has voted himself onto the Board of the Company which is to run the Super Cromby. The only thing he has not been able to change is Miss Ruperts’ intention of restricting the clientele to geriatrics. These are not, as you might think, German fast bowlers but old people.

      Now, I have nothing against old people, my old mum and dad being a bit that way inclined, but they do slow things up a bit. Also, as Sidney has pointed out in the past, they need special attention, and the more specialists there are about, the less likely Sid and I are to be two of them. In addition, people with qualifications and experience come expensive. All in all, Sid and I stand to lose out all over the shop once the Cromby becomes a glorified old people’s home and I know that the matter is beginning to prey on Sid’s mind. I know because he keeps rabbiting on about it.

      ‘Timmo,’ he says, ‘I don’t fancy this geriatric lark.’

      ‘I’m with you, Sid. I mean, I fancy a mature bird but this is ridiculous.’

      ‘I wasn’t just thinking about the fringe benefits, Timmo. In fact I wasn’t just thinking about being kept awake at night by the squeak of bathchairs. It’s this whole hotel business that’s getting me down.’

      ‘I know how you feel Sid. It’s so static isn’t it?’

      ‘Exactly, Timmo. And what’s more,

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