Coherence is something I aspire to.

Now that I have taken up this weekly column I feel that I owe it to my two readers to acquire some. I look at all these other writers on The Post and other lesser publications and worry that they have it in spades, and good solid steel spades at that with a well seasoned wooden shaft and a nice sharp blade.

Anyhoo, in an attempt to find this wonderous literary device often referred to as a beginning, middle and end, I took a train to the most incoherent place I could think of and then walked backwards from there.
Sadly the train fare was somewhat extravagent as it took me right back to my door. 'Nevermind', thinks I, here is as good a place to start from and it was very good of BR to lay that track direct to my house. Doubt I will get used to the shunting yard in the bathroom though.

So attempting to walk backwards from incoherence I narrowly avoided a taxi, three buses and a rhino called Gerald who was in town for his holidays in the first ten minutes. 'Hmm', thinks I, 'Spike Milligan never mentioned this, not even a trawler halfway across. I fear he may have made it up'.

However I perservered, misdirected Gerald to a dingy bunker pub which caused an international incident and hence cleared the road, and shot of backwards at a fair rate of knots. And it seemed to be working. With each step backwards I felt my brain clearing. Soon I felt that I could have held a rational conversation with the proverbial man down the pub. Possibly only about the high yak suicide rate in Arbroath, but it was a start.

As the day wore on I traipsed many a mile, hiding behind bushes whenever an irate Rhino passed by, and my mood improved all the time. Eventually, just around tea time, I came upon a small roadside stall. And there, in large friendly letters above it, was a proclamation in the shape of a sign which announced;

'COMMON SENSE, COHERENCE AND SOMETHING ELSE I SHALL THINK OF IN A MO' BEGINNING WITH A C. TUPPENCE A BAG.'

Sadly the stall was shut as it was a Saturday tea time and the owner was exercising his right to nostalgia by watching Doctor Who. So I went home. Perhaps I shall return again before next weeks column.

Next time; Death by clam, a very slowly heart-rending tale.

My Life as a Boozy Oaf

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