Home alone....

Hello all

Today I'm all alone at home - Dolores has taken the children to see her mother, Mrs McHaggerty, who still lives up in the north of the country. By mutual consent we agreed I would stay behind - my relationship with my mother in law has never recovered since I accused her publicly of being a kleptomaniac on the front cover of my book. Understandably, perhaps, she has said if I ever say a bad word about her again she'll sue me for defamation of character. So be it. I will make no defamatory remarks about her whatsoever in this blog from here on in.

I've had a couple of requests to give an update on my faithful assistant, Ravel. First of all let me just assure you all that he is safe and well. What appeared to be a successful kidnap attempt by a gang of Chinese-Bulgarian lawyers (sanctioned by the local police chief, no less!) was in fact a misunderstanding on my part. They no more wanted to whisk Ravel away for ransom any more than I would like to see my mother in law take the place of a crash test dummy. Rather, they had arranged to take him back to Bulgaria in order to begin a legal case against the people who stole Ravel's replica-world-cup-trophy idea (see blogs passim). Ravel knew the lawyers through his uncle - a prominent judge in Bulgaria, apparently. They were in the UK for a conference when they heard about Ravel's predicament. Being half Chinese, they had inside knowledge of the legal system in that country, and promised to help the young man in his fight against the criminals.

What Ravel didn't tell me is that they are taking the fight to the enemy. I found out because he told Dolores not to tell me. She didn't tell me, but Twin Y overheard their telephone conversation and said he had valuable inside information that would only cost me a twenty pound top-up on his mobile phone. Wanting proof that he had such information, I made him sign a guarantee that, if the information proved less than invaluable, I would not only take away his mobile phone, but make him write letters to everyone in his phonebook apologising for his lying ways. I was tempted to threaten him with spending two weeks with my mother in law - who, incidentally, is is not an embittered old hag with a face like a mouldy walnut - but such a threat could easily backfire if they joined forces, so I let it go.

So, to cut a long story short, Ravel is on his way to China, accompanied by two of the lawyers who took him away from here. Twin Y told me that they plan to track the perpetrators down and serve them with the appropriate legal papers. I only hope they manage to get in and out of country without any problems. How exactly they'll find their targets I'm not sure. The criminals who stole Ravel's business are unlikely to be amateurs. I'm becoming more than a little concerned for his welfare - more concerned, even than I would be for Mrs McHaggerty if she, say, took up eating lightbulbs as a hobby to while away the kind of long and lonely nights that are often experienced by people with no social skills and unpleasant body odour issues.

J McC