A nice Italian (psychologist)

I feel like I've somehow wandered onto the set of the fugitive. Rather than sitting next to good old Roberts he appears to have been replaced by Dr Richard Kimble. Where once there was an Elvis Presley wannabe there now seems to be a haunted figure on the run from the law. I keep looking around to see if Tommy Lee Jones is lurking in the background.
Friends assure me that said mystery man is, in fact, Roberts. The difference is that he has decided to grow himself a thick black beard which entirely covers his chin and ages him about 15 years. This is a man who, only a couple of weeks ago, was talking about having a middle aged crisis, having reached the astoundingly old age of 41. Never mind.

Talking of youngsters, the big man is leaving. Shutts dragged his huge frame out of the building on Saturday and will never be seen lurking the corridors handing out pattacakes to his girlie groupies again. A sad thing.
He will leave a big hole in our lives, mainly down to the fact that he's so tall he makes the Eiffel Tower look like a traffic cone. Not only that, but he was the tea monitor, badgering you every minute of the day. "£1 for a cup of tea, Rippers?" he would say like some overgrown version of Cardiff's favourite tramp, Shaky Hands Man.
Still, I'll miss the big yun. He is off to work on the Beeb's website, poor chap, and no doubt he will come back kicking and screaming to join us all in the wonderful new world that is Meeja Wales.
For now, though, we are saying an extended goodbye to him.

On Wednesday we went out to a nice little Italian restaurant to bid farewell to the big man. I had offered to pay, having received our generous christmas donation from one of the correspondents who believes the best way to continue writing stuff for the paper is to send us enormous cheques in the post. And, by jove, it seems to work.
Anyway, enough of this bribery and corruption, on to more exciting matters. There was Wathanovski, Smashy, the Prince of Darkness, the Fugitive, Shutts and myself who visited Prezzo on St Mary's Street in Cardiff.
Kimble, being the swarthe bastard he claims to be, perused the wine list and ordered a special vintage for the table, without checking for anyone else's approval. When the Lithuanian waitress returned later with the wrong one he was not best pleased and sent her scurrying back to the kitchen - poor girl.
That was when the restaurant decided to send in the big guns in the form of another waitress who obviously had experience of dealing with the likes of the prickly one. After a brief conversation she looked into the Fugitive's eyes and declared: "I'm a student psychologist". We all waited for answers, but even she wasn't qualified enough to analyse the workings of our colleague's mind.
It was an enjoyable meal, it must be said. I had a very nice, and pretty spicy, Calzone.
And it was helped all the more by the fact our departing colleague Shutts didn't drink all night - him being t-total - and turned himself into designated driver to give us all a lift home. Another reason why he'll be greatly missed.

The wonderful Withers has two new front teeth. They cost £2,600. Ouch!
As he put it, instead of going to the City Arms on New Year's Eve it would have been cheaper to take a round trip to Sydney to see the fireworks on the harbour bridge.
Mind you, Withers probably would have fallen off.