Withered on the vine

IT'S not been a good weekend for the wonderful Withers of (Meeja) Wales. On Friday we were minding our own business, standing outside Sh*tty O'Grim's having a cigarette, when a rather inebriated old tramp wobbled up to us. He looked at me in all my dapper glory, proudly sporting my new yellow silk tie, and slurred: "Tha' mate, is a great tie, a great tie... Ah would be proud to be seen wearing tha' tie."
Then he looked Withers up and down. "You a solicitor?" he asked.
Withers, looking rather worried about what this rather rough old street dweller was getting at, stuttered: "N, no... I'm not a solicitor."
"Well, that's a good job," said the trampy character, hitching up his soggy old tracksuit trousers and tucking in his crusty old shirt and tracksuit top. "Cos I wouldn't be seen dead in that tie. It's a blooody awful tie, that one. This man (he points at me) has a great tie, but yooo, yoooo should be shot for wearing that tie. If you WERE a solicitor I think you would be thrown out of court for wearing that tie."
He then offered the wonderful one a doleful tune on his harmonica in commemorance of the death of his reputation for sartorial elegance (a reputation which, admittedly, he invented for himself upon the purchase of a pair of red socks).

But worse was to come at the weekend. On Saturday night Wren and I ventured into town to meet up for drinkies with the Prince of Darkness, Withers and David "the suit" James. It was quite an amusing night, particularly once the Prince began to go all "wowy wowy" on us and demanded to go dancing.
We managed to persuade him to walk around the corner to the City Arms and spent an enjoyable night dancing to the juke box with a group of ne'er-do-well students including a rather tall lady to whom the Prince took rather a fancy. After trying to explain to her the full story of the Rolling Stones while dancing like the rather strange Dickensian fellow into whom he sometimes transforms, he then started shouting at us "Ten Foot Tall, Ten Foot Tall". We thought he was referring to the girl in question, but he was actually pining to visit the young social butterflies that inhabit that corridor of a club which I call Six Feet Under.
At that point Wren and I made our exit, before things got out of hand. David "the suit" James was now well into the boogying WoS scene, resembling somewhat Talking Heads' David Byrne in his infamous big suit dance on the dvd "Stop Making Sense".
But the night turned bad for the Wonderful Withers when they arrived at Six Feet Under. The Prince, having blagged his way in by draping himself over his 'friend' the bouncer, was then consumed by the throng of bright young things. The wonderful One tried to join the party and thought his luck was in when a slender female approached him and looked deep into his eyes. "You're possibly the ugliest man in Cardiff," she told him rather rudely.

We just had to cheer the poor guy up and we did that on Monday night. But more of that on a later entry...