Lost Patrol

I promised an update on last nights “Speed Dating” event.. So, if you could kindly take your seats and ensure it’s fixed in the upright position and lap belts are secured, then I’ll begin.

Walking into a pub on a school night in a town centre you’re not familiar with is bad enough, but add into that a few dozen locals who know exactly why you’ve come into their pub and things can be a tad tense. Personally, I thought the blind kid playing the banjo in the corner was a little over the top, but what do I know?

Once the whispering and pointing had died down, John & myself ordered a drink and disappeared upstairs to the caged area where we collected our badges and found a dry patch to set up camp.

Within 15 minutes the last of the growlers, howlers and other deluded misfits had arrived and signed in….. I say signed-in, I’m still undecided as to whether scent rubbing can be classed as a recognised form of identification verification…. It may be OK with Speed Dating organisers but I’d like to see how a passport control officer would react to someone whipping out their happy sacks and rubbing them on his desk

At this point my mind was racing, If only I’d brought a white coat with me I could possibly announce myself as a doctor and convince the more lucid participants that the mescaline WAS on it way and I’d be right back after I’d checked outside for the Nurse……

It just wasn’t gonna happen, I was there for the duration…… As the stench of desperation mixed with perspiration and a little Lynx “Africa” aftershave began to subside I thought it would be prudent to scan the room…. It wasn’t pretty, so I moved away from the mirror right in front of me and took another look. Words filled my head….. words like “Trauma”, “Circus” and “Anatomically incorrect”.

I instinctively checked the date, time and venue. Surely this wasn’t the right place for Speed Dating?! I’d made a wrong turn somewhere…. That must be it!, instead of following the signs to Guildford I’d mistakenly took the turning to the 17^th century and gate crashed a pagan sacrificial ceremony….. Far fetched I know, but it would explain the 35ft Wicker Man I’d passed on the hard shoulder of the A3 only 10 minutes before.

No, that’s just silly, even the possibility of time travel could not help make sense of the carnage I could see.

Take the “potential girlfriend” sitting at table “D”, good looking lass she was, I imagined us both limping off in to the distance… my dodgy hip and her clubfoot and calliper perfectly synchronised… If I worked a bit of Delmonti magic we could be knocking out each other hips within hours.

Actually, I cant be arsed to carry on with this story. I think I’ve got half a Twix left in the car….. Yeah….. the twix wins.