from the archives

John didn’t like Steve, because Steve had a thing about Harry, but Harry had made Julian unsociable once and everyone, including elderly Barry and even diminutive Timothy from the nearby flats, thought that Harry’s influence was enough to make anyone become as much of a recluse as Peter, who hadn’t left his flat since Louis decided that Norris was actually called David and that Frank once had a pal called Richard who fathered two sons – Oscar and Charlie – before befriending big Daniel and his brother James so that they might form a team of four with Geoffrey, only Geoffrey wanted Jeffrey to be a part of it but Jeffrey didn’t want to be a part of anything unless Alexander was prepared to participate, and Alexander was a huge fan of William who in turn acted as a kind of middle man, trying hard to bring in not only the boys from the Shropshire Arms, being Colin, Douglas, George, Henry and Robert, but also all of his friends from the Devonshire Constitutional, like Simon, but Simon had developed a reputation and this had put off the likes of poor Paul and his eldest son Gary, who worked in an abattoir, while Michael, the friend of Johnson, wanted his old college buddy Ernest to be welcomed into the team, but the hot temper of Frederick made this an impossibility, as Lawrence had no choice but to introduce the local fishmonger, Arthur, to the master of meats and butchery, Ian, who sold spare animal parts to the scientist, Roderick, for experimentation, and fresh livers to Brian for use in his pies, but the farmer and landowner Leonard hated Dale so much for being tall that he decided to hire the simpleton Anthony to use his secret weapon, Francis, to get Dale via Kenneth who knew Jack who was an ex-business partner of Philip, the friend of Ivor, who had created Thomas in the back of Terry’s old Ford Cortina which was sold to him by Howard who once played a hand of poker with Eddie who was a friend of a friend of Alan who had apparently overheard a conversation between Christopher and Adrian who both met Andrew at a dinner function once and who are good friends with Graham who lent a lawnmower to Duncan whose mother’s boyfriend Samuel owned a small allotment right up the road from Benjamin’s place, and he had once played football with a team who claimed to have known Reginald, the second cousin of Nicholas who once brushed shoulders with Dale in a busy supermarket when he talked to Nathaniel about garden tools and car parking space, the specialist subject of Dennis, who was busy with his only uncle Edgar in the shed with Rhys, who was known to be dangerous and trustworthy, so Leonard would get Dale like that. Then every man realised he didn’t have a cock.