Day 279. King of the swingers. (6/10/13)

Tom's started his Duke Of Edinburgh 'thing' (I'm genuinely not sure if it's an award or a scheme or...well, what? I went to a comprehensive, I don't think anybody did the D of E there, I don't think we were very big on dukes)

And to do this he has to volunteer somewhere (have I told you this already? I have a feeling that I have but it's late and I've been out rehearsing and I've played so much guitar of late that those callouses that you get on the tips of your 'chord hand' are back and it's actually fairly uncomfortable to type. Which is obviously why I'm using more words than are strictly necessary) so he's volunteering at the food bank round the corner.

Which is a terrible sentence to have to write. We have a food bank round the corner from us. We live in a conservative driven era of war on the working class where we actually need a local food bank. This isn't a run down area, it's not some kind of ghetto, it's normal and traditional working class and proud. And it's been put in the position where it needs a food bank because the country voted for incompetents.

Anyway, Tom is volunteering there. Which I'm chuffed about. It's a valuable thing to do and it will introduce him to people that he would never meet otherwise.

Which is what my first ever part time job did for me. Sixteen, clumsy and shy I ...got a job at the Kwiky. Which is not exactly what Morrissey wrote. But is true.

And one of the notable figures that I met was a lad who was reputed to be a fairly major gang leader in Fazakerley. A lad who really shouldn't be crossed at all. Apparently somebody who had crossed him was hung upside down by his ankles. By a rope. From a lamppost. On a main road. And from this hanging from a lamppost position, said gang leader and a few of those he led then proceeded to swing this transgressor into the path of oncoming traffic.

Far enough away from the cars to not actually kill him (gangs didn't do that in the early 80s) but near enough to ensure that he'd be a well behaved boy from that moment on.

At least that was the story that I heard.

Personally I tend to take as I find and I always found him to be a perfectly affable bloke.

Possibly because I made damn sure that, for the three of so years that I knew him, I was (as the Fazakerley parlance would have it) pleasant as shite.

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