What a Character!

What a great show to start the week Kid, a show full of festive Christmas cheer and a nod and a wink towards Hanukkah.

"Ah Hanukkah," said Tommy my cat,

"when the nine candles on the Menorah shine out like-like, nine candles on a Menorah."

"The festival of light!" I yelled.

"Christmas lights, Menorah lights, the Northern Lights, Bud lite. Everything is-light."

"LET THERE BE LIGHT!" screamed Tommy. "Did you know," said Tommy, "that today is the shortest day of the year? Tomorrow the sun will head back towards earth, with the horn blaring and the lights flashing."

I became all light headed and yelled, "Let's sow wild flowers and slap on some sun cream."

"Where's my sun bonnet and little tangerine shorts?" cried Tommy.

We were brought back to the cold, harsh reality of Winter, when two hard snowballs came flying through the window and hit Tommy and me up our respective cake holes.

I think the snowball thrower was Jim Rodgers, though I have no proof. But as the ugly, deformed man in the bell tower of Notre Dame cathedral said when he looked over his shoulder, "I have a good hunch."

Tommy nudged me, winked at me and said, "I think we have one."

"Will you stop talking like Sean Thaddeaus Coyle!" I yelled. "You think we have one-what?"

"A character," said Tommy, tapping his nose slyly and winking in a very repulsive manner.

"And who, or whom is the character?" I said.

"The shaving man," said Tommy, leering most hideously and winking and nodding like a mad thing.

"Eeh by gum Thomas," I yelled, "You're right. Why would a man, well-on in years, take the trouble to phone Gerry and talk about-shaving?"

"He's a character," giggled Tommy. "I feel we have a new character, The shaving man."

"Not so fast my fine, feathered friend," I cried. "The shaving man is going for a shave with a cut throat razor. Should the shaving man suffer from the shakes or hiccups, it could be goodnight Vienna for the shaving man."

"What the shaving man must do at all costs," said Tommy, "is keep his head."

"Not so easy," I said, "when all around you are losing theirs."

"Kipling?" said Tommy.

"No thank you," I said, "I'll just have a rich tea please."

Tommy and I had tea in the tea room, which is adjacent to the tee-hee room where we go to laugh and quite near the sitting room, where we stand looking out of the window.

We also have a box room. We go in there in times of stress, put on boxing gloves and batter the face of each other. We also have a room upstairs, which we brought down stairs and turned into a spare room. If Tommy or I pick up a bit of spare round the docks we bring them there. My bedroom window is up on the roof to catch the early morning sunlight. Our front porch is round the back and our back porch is round the front. A man is coming round next week to tile my back passage.

We have removed all the doors and replaced them with big gaping holes. This allows the wildebeest to run through our house during the annual migration from Ballymena to Poleglass. As the magnificent beasts thunder by the sofa, Tommy and I sit on the mantelpiece singing.

"BORN FREE.".

Did you ever find out what wee ghostie was haunting bonny wee Lord Laird's kilt?

It could well be yon wee caber ghost from Fife. AYE!--Fife.