The Goats Had Eaten EVERYTHING

My grandparents arrived with my great aunt and uncle in tow. They slowly climbed the stairs to our flat, a dignified procession of four. My great aunt climbed the stairs backwards, something to do with her knee. I doubt I could climb those stairs backwards without falling and breaking my neck, but she managed the climb successfully.

The conversation was lively. My Nana and her sister are prolific talkers. Not even my wife, who has been known to talk hind legs off donkeys, could get a word in edge ways. Grandpa and Great Uncle John barely attempted to speak, they knew it would be futile. Instead, they drifted in and out of sleep. Every now and then Great Uncle John would wake with a start, contribute a few incisive thoughts about the "youth of today" and the "immigration problem", and then nod back off.

There was one brief moment when the conversation reached a lull. Great Uncle John woke with a start, seized the opportunity and without prompting told us the goat story.

For years he worked as an engineer for British Telecom. One day he was called out to a house in a quaint middle-class area of Weymouth. A problem with the wiring, he told us. He was met at the door by a lady that was a bit "out there". We asked him what he meant by "out there". You know, he said, shawls and things. I asked him if he meant she was a hippy. No, no, no, he said, not a hippy, just a bit "out there" you know, shawls and things.

The house was a cute little two-up-two-down. The family lived upstairs. The downstairs was populated by goats. The goats were everywhere, he told us. The nanny goats (there were fifteen of them) lived in the front room. The billy goat lived in the back room. What carpets and furnishings there were downstairs had been ravaged. The garden was bare. The goats had eaten everything, including the telephone cable.

The family was happy, the goats were happy, he didn't want to make a fuss. What did he know about the delicate etiquette of household goat-rearing? So he replaced the telephone cable and filed it under "problem with the wiring".

Shortly after this our guests left. My great aunt, of course, went down the stairs backwards. Something to do with her knee.

The Dead Dog

So anyway, I'm just back from the pub. Not drunk, mind you, as you can tell by my customary eloquence, just, well, just marginally merry from a couple of beers and a few hours of meaningless conversation.

The reason I'm shovelling drivel down your throat at 23:53 GMT is that this story warrants it. It happened to my mate's wife's girlfriend. So it's not as if it happened to the cousin of the man who lives next to the girl who walks the dog of the brother of my sister's hairdresser's hamster is it?

So my mate's wife's girlfriend had a dog. It was a large dog. I don't remember the breed but it was well advanced in age and had been slowly dying for the last year. Anyway, the poor thing passed away and this girl arranged to take the dead dog to her vet for disposal. I don't know anything about dog disposal, so I'm just gonna take this at face value. The vet was going to dispose of it, doing whatever vets do with dead dogs.

It being a large corpse, this girl was umming and arring about how to transport it across London to the vet's place. She ruled out using a bin liner, the last thing she wanted was the bag to rip and the dead dog to sprawl out into a busy street. That would not help her aspiring modelling career would it? In the end she opted for a sturdy holdall.

She reached the bottom of a staircase in the underground. A smartly dressed handsome young hunk approached her. "Need a hand with that?" he asked. She willingly obliged. The dog, dead as a dodo, was exceptionally heavy.

Halfway up the stairs the dashing young man turned to her. "My gosh this is heavy," he exclaimed, "what the hell is this?"

She panicked. The truth felt ugly. A pretty young girl dragging the rotting corpse of an old dog through London. "It's my boyfriend's DJ equipment," she lied.

When they reached the top of the stairs the man sprinted away, dragging his "loot" away and (I imagine) calculating the tidy profit he would make from it.

I like to imagine the look on his face as inspected his "loot" in the safety of his apartment. The profound state of dejection of a man who thought he was about to make a swift buck, but instead found himself in possession of a dead dog.

The Robin Bastard

Today's story is not that funny, but it really tickles me so I'll tell it anyway. If you've been coming here a while you'll know I try to keep my posts clean, but today there is a profanity which is a key part of the story so I'm going to leave it in.

Not long ago my friend's dad went on holiday to Turkey for a few weeks. His name is Robin.

Each day he ate his lunch at a little cafe close to his hotel. It was a local-yocal little joint, always busy and populated by the same regulars. The cafe was run by a large jovial man named Irfan.

Irfan well and truly ran the show. He was a great bearded beast of a man with a booming voice and roaring laugh, a prolific anecdotalist captivating his audience with stories and gags.

On the final day of his holiday Robin went to the cafe for the last time. Having finished his lunch he said his goodbyes to Irfan. Realising they had never been properly introduced, Irfan asked Robin his name.

"Robin," he replied.

"HA!" exclaimed Irfan, "you're a Robin Basssssstarrrrrrrrd!"