It's a party (and Bram can cry if he wants to...)

THE little bowling ball was getting terribly excited all day. "You coming down the Scroat Minor tonight old chum?" said Brammy on Friday. "It's that little girl... what's her name, pretty little thing... she's leaving the Echo to join the police press office and is having a bit of a do. Should be good."
We all nodded at his excitement, knowing exactly what he was thinking. The old bloke fancies the pants off someone who was born at least two decades after him. Nothing strange there and none of us had the heart to spoil his fun.
Instead, of course, we went off to the Hard Knob Cafe to enjoy £2 pints of lager and take advantage of happy hour. The Fab BB was moaning about the fact that his contract with the Peeps had still not turned up while Monsieur Le Debusier was secretly talking on his mobile, taking a call from his broker and trying to decide which luxury yacht to buy next with Daddy's hard earned.
The Wonderful One was determined not to stay out long. "I can't afford to get drunk, I've got to drive to the Lib Dems conference in Aberystwyth at 5am tomorrow."
Well, stranger things have happened, I guess, but I didn't believe it for a moment.
As soon as the clock hit seven and the prices escalated accordingly, however, the Scroat Minor didn't seem a bad idea after all. Even I decided to pop in, though I had pledged to have an early night because of the prospect of a busy day on Saturday.
Off we toddled then, the Prince of Darkness emerging for the Witching Hour after feeding himself on babies (well he claimed to be designing our annual Cutest Kids supplement but I'm sure he had pilfered one away in a sandwich somewhere) while Smashy was up for rubbing shoulders with former colleagues and telling them how much better his life is now he's joined the winning WoS team. Not sure whether they believe him, though, especially old sparring partner Nicey.
On entering the Scroat we came across a number of the usual suspects from our rival paper, and I had a good old natter with party-girl Lyds, who seemed to be well into the spirit by the time we marched through the door.
Then the Prince decided to hone in on the girl for whom the shindig was being held - PC Anna. He had obviously noticed there was a juicy white neck on display to sink his fangs into under her long brown hair.
Before he could pounce, though, she began to regale us of a strange tale.
"Some little old bloke came in, don't know for the life of me who he was, and wished me good luck."
"Wearing a flat cap and shaped rather spherically. Probably about 2 foot shorter than you?"
"Yeh, that's the one."
"What happened?"
"Well, when I looked totally puzzled and let him know I didn't have a clue who he was, he just turned and walked out of the door."
That would be Brammy, then. We never did see him again.
I departed shortly after this conversation to go home and order a pizza and settle in for the night.

Lucky I did. Today was the day from hell. Kempy's computer is already the slowest piece of technology on the planet, but of all the days to decide to contract a virus. B**tard thing. IT came out. "Turned it off? turned it back on again?" Cheers, boys.
Then they ran a diagnostic. "Yep, definitely a virus. Don't know what we can do about it."
Then he turned it off and turned it back on again. Three hours later, fed up with being mauled, it decided to wake up and work.
This wasn't the first "excitement" of the morning. I arrived early to survey the morning papers, an important part of my job, only to find they hadn't turned up. The female version of Len was doing security. She spent most of the time ignoring everyone and talking on her mobile phone. Ooh, I was angry. I ended up going to buy all the papers myself and asked the Boss whether he knew why they hadn't turned up.
He made a few calls. "Apparently, the bloke who normally delivers them has gone away and arranged for someone else to deliver them."
Well, that didn't happen. Only it did. At 3.30 in the afternoon. Great!
Anyway, somehow we managed to fill the paper despite all the barriers put in our way. Then it was down to the press. Which went wrong. For the second successive week. Lummy days.
The only joy of the evening was rushing around to see how our Powys Popular Front terrorist managed to cope with England beating France to reach the World Cup final, a feat which was supposed to be that of Wales if you listened to this nation of rugby optimists.
"What a crap game of rugby," stormed the little bowling ball with his best "Steptoe Senior" scowl. "Humbug! They don't deserve to win anything."
Poor Brammy, the Gods just aren't being kind these days, are they?