Is the tape running now? Are you sure? OK. I’ll start again.

It was an ordinary evening. A Friday I think. Yes, definitely a Friday. I remember because I had stopped at the corner shop for a pint of milk on the way home from work. We used to get a delivery in the morning but we could never work out how many bottles to ask for. We would always either run out or have so much that we would end up throwing it away so we stopped the delivery. We had run out of the milk again, so I had agreed to get some. I am sure John was drinking more of it than his share. He used to have these huge bowls of cereal, and I think he had been eating my cheese too.

Oh. Sorry. Well. he’s a greedy twat. let’s leave it at that.

On this Friday I came out of this shop. Did I tell you I was on the way home from work? It wasn’t on the street with the rest of the shops. They always called that the “High Street”. I don’t know why, though, it was not at the top of anything, and it’s real name was Granville Street anyway. No. This shop was a few streets back. On the corner next to rows of little old houses. Almost every corner had a pub on it.

Yes. That’s how I know it was a Friday. Back then you would get lots of people out on a Friday night and if the weather was even halfway decent they would go from pub to pub. I would sometimes pop in. You know, just in case anyone I knew was in for a drink. Not in the Feathers, though. My mate Terry had been thrown out of there once and it wasn’t even his fault. We had all agreed we would never go in there again.

Hmm? Yes. Well this evening I stuck my head into the George. I couldn’t see anyone I knew, but I had a pint anyway, just in case anyone turned up. I was on my second when they needed someone else for a darts team. I’m not bad. Not a professional by any means, but I can manage a pretty good double finish. Did I tell you I learned to play darts when I was in the Navy? That’s why I get better when I have had a few. All that practice with the deck moving beneath my feet. The George is not the sort of place for your fancy drinks, and we were all a bit full in the belly, if you know what I mean, so when we won we celebrated with a round of whiskies.

I got into a bit of a discussion about whether you should put water in it and we had to have another couple to prove the difference it made.

Oh yes. That was funny. The guy I was drinking with was named Pete. You know like in the whisky. We were talking about the different whisky flavours and we could not stop laughing.

Well. I’d only popped in to the pub for a minute or two to see if anyone was there and I needed to get home to have something to eat. I had got part way along the crescent. I always go that way because I am sure it is quicker than along the main road. And there’s a little bit of a park. Well, just a stand of trees really, out of sight of the road. Just the place to empty the tank if you are caught short on the way home. While I was leaning there I realised I had left the milk on the table in the pub so I had to go back and get it.

There were are lot more people about by now, and I had to steer my way through several groups. I don’t want to say anything out of turn, but I think some of them were drunk from the way they shouted things at me.

I was just going past what used to be the Red Lion when I heard this loud music. It took me a bit to work out what it was, then I realised it was some sort of 80s compilation. I heard Wham, and Aha. I was just doing a little bit of a dance in the street to the sound of Dexy’s Midnight Runners when I noticed a lot of loud female voices singing along. I was surrounded by what must have been a hen party. They were all pretty far gone, and insisted I come into the next pub with them.

I tried to resist, but it was no use. They stuck pink rabbit ears on my head and forced me to go into the Feathers. That’s when I knew it.

I had been abducted by Eileens!

One of them had really nice eyes, though. And I never did pick up that pint of milk.