DOGS ALOUD

I'm not sure if I saw our mayor at the exhibiton the other night. I think he might have been astral projected as he wandered around and claimed he wanted to be photographed with 'the lions'. A minor celebrity, he is nonetheless a raving nutter and thinks he is some kind of guru which the town could not survive without. It's probably at that stage where even his family and friends can't get through to him.

The crime 'wave' of January isn't over yet or maybe it's the first time the paper can be bothered to report on what might have been going on all along. Along with the other crimes of late a 'drogueria' or shop that sells everything but drugs was held up the other day and petrol is being siphoned off from lorries as I write. The guy who glassed another during last year's carnival has been sent to prison and to show how far behind we are here, a punch up between some 'skins' and a 'punkie' took place somewhere other than our flats for a change. Such a perfect town for misunderstood youths.

When I was in Britain my chiropracter told me that in Switzerland where she is from there are strict rules about what kind of sounds you are allowed to make after nine o'clock. Hoovering was one noise but there were many others. It sounds like heaven but I can't imagine I would last long in a country which my friend David tells me smells of farts.With all the noise around me here is it any wonder the bells in my head keep ringing away? The garage door has turned into one of those birds you find in Australia which can mimic chainsaws and the like. This door has started to copy the same sort of sound which can be found above my head in the form of Piti and I have started to do a very good impersonation of Herbert Lom in The Pink Panther. Sometimes I start to twitch at the sound of the beginning of a police siren as I can't tell the difference anymore between man's best friend upstairs and the local fuzz.

I am beginning to wonder what I am doing here as one needs nerves of steel to get through the day and this one doesn't always have them. The journey from home to school or home to anywhere always involves or resembles a kind of assault course with various 'hazards' thrown in which today involved a loaded skip being dragged along the road in an attempt to put it on a lorry and a woman with a black bin liner and a very sharp looking brolly pointing in my direction. Cars mounted the pavement while I tried to walk along them, a woman opened her car door onto me as I walked past, a piece of wood came round a corner before the man carrying it, and a bus with a wing mirror scraped my ear don't ask how while I was still on the pavement. That was for starters. The umbrella phobia I have to hand to Mr Hosker my old headmaster who told us a horrific, long drawn out story which started off all 'trala la la la', of a girl who was skipping along merrily, swinging and twirling the old headguard as she went to school, but managed to poke another little girl's eye out by the type of umbrella which now gives me nightmares. All he had to say was that type of brolly was banned from school, he didn't have to traumatise us. This is the same headmaster who enjoyed playing The Liberty Bell, The Monty Python Theme Tune while we waltzed out of assembly or forum. He has a lot to answer for both good and bad.