Sprouts.

There's this man. He's just moved in next door. And the thing is I'm pretty sure that he has sprouts instead of eyes. Specifically Brussels sprouts although I'm not sure that there are any other kind.

Of sprouts I mean, not eyes.

And this is not just some simple mistake like thinking someone has carrots for fingers or potatoes for knees or a cauliflower-a.r.s.e (long story suffice to say people look very different through frosted gla.s.s and I don't speak to people across the street now).

My wife thinks it's becoming an obsession but she doesn't know the half of it. I never got around to telling her the issue with the cauliflowers. She still thinks that when she smiles at the people from across the road and they turn away with disdain it's because she has a better car than them, better dress sense, whatever. I mean, she has, but that's not the real reason they do it. Not the real reason.

You see, the new neighbour was getting out of his car, this would have been a few days or maybe a week after he and his vegetable-bride moved in. He had a couple of carrier bags full of groceries and I said h.e.l.lo to him because, well, I'm neighbourly like that. Ask me for a cup of sugar and I'll punch you square in the face but a polite greeting over the fence is no problem. It's all about scale.

He mumbled something back could have been anything. Sounded like 'Yorkshire Puddings' to me. I let it pa.s.s but as he glanced up at me and by this time I'm almost in the house, opening the door, putting the keys back in my pocket and I see a flash of green.

He has eyelids. Proper ones, not sheathes like the outside of a sprout but human eyelids and underneath sprout.

I shut the door quickly but then got an overwhelming urge to see if it was true or just a trick of the light. Where my eyes playing tricks on me or where his eyes playing tricks on him?

Two days later I knocked on their door. I had an excuse ready; I was waiting for a delivery and had it been left at their house? I knocked. Waited. The door opened and it was his other half displaying no vegetable-features whatsoever.

I just used the excuse and went back into my house.

After that I began sitting at our front window with the lights out, waiting for him to come home. I was ready, coiled to spring out and look him straight in the sprouts. But I get bored easily and ended up watching TV instead. A programme came on about an unorthodox detective and I kept imagining it was me. Except that instead of investigating the brutal stabbing of a middle-aged man I was investigating...

Well I was investigating sprouts. There was no other way of dressing it up.

The problem was that after a couple of weeks I was investigating daytime, evening and night-time TV much more successfully. I did what any unorthodox detective would do when presented with a situation such as this - I gave up. My wife had already convinced me that it was all in my mind and I had told the story to my friends so many times that it had become practised. I had honed the details, stressed the funny parts, spun it out. It had got to the stage where even I didn't believe it.

Then there was a knock on the door. I opened it and it was Mrs (possibly Ms.) Cauliflower from across the road. I balked slightly then snapped on a smile.

'How are you? What can I do for you?'

'You're vegetable obsessed aren't you?' she asked.

'I wouldn't go that far, I mean it was a misunderstanding that's all.' I moved the door closed ever so slightly.

'It's just that you know that man? The one who lives there?' she pointed to next door to the new neighbours.

I nodded.

'I think he might have sprouts for eyes.'

Rudolph Redux.

Soon after what I now refer to as my 'Holiday Incident' I started writing 'Happy Holidays?' 'Happy Holidays?' in cards instead of in cards instead of 'Merry Christmas!' 'Merry Christmas!'

My wife was screaming out of the landing window.

'You are not putting that monstrosity on my my roof.' roof.'

I looked down at Rudolph standing two feet tall next to me. His paint was peeling, one antler had broken off leaving only a long, sharp, shard pointing straight up and a long length of cable protruded from his worn posterior that, when plugged in, would illuminate him for the whole neighbourhood to see.

Of course that wasn't the thought going through my head as I hung from the roof of my house, the electrical cord that was wrapped around my foot the only thing keeping me from falling two stories and landing on my head. And Rudolph? Well, instead of lighting up he was swinging and hitting me repeatedly in the face. My wife was inside the house and I was shouting and maybe I was screaming. When I eventually told the story to my friends I didn't mention the screaming.

I could see frost on the garden as it spun underneath me as I hung, twisting in the air, molested by a shabby reindeer.

'What do you want? I'm trying to get ready, we're going out in half an hour.'

I could hear her through the bedroom window. She sounded the same upside down as she did the right way up.

Dear Santa, I have been a very good boy this year, please don't let me become the person they remember as Reindeer Man.

LOCAL MAN FOUND WITH HEAD UP REINDEER'S a.r.s.e.

Children would make pilgrimages to the place where Rudolph nearly bought the big one.

'No, darling. Santa was worried but it was all right in the end Rudolph could fly but the Reindeer Man couldn't.'

I kept thinking of ice skaters and how they keep their balance after spinning around over and over. My memory was telling me that they tried to keep focussed on one fixed point so I tried it and the number on door 81 became my focus. Really I was just trying to keep from thinking about how old the cable was and how it would snap any second.

I started in the loft looking for decorations except I knew we didn't have any because we'd just moved into the house two months ago. My wife is at the bottom of the ladder saying, 'Just go to the shop and buy a tree. If you wait for five minutes I'll come with you and help you choose baubles.'

Notice the careful positioning of the word 'help'.

So, of course, I ignored her and started rummaging, a medium sized torch shoved into my mouth, wedging it so far open that my jaw ached and saliva ran down at the corners. It was a treasure trove up there but for every box I opened, for every neatly wrapped nugget of a forgotten holiday season I found I was greeted with a thump, a b.u.mp or a grump from the Grinch downstairs.

Dear Santa, although I have not been a particularly good boy this year I was wondering whether you would see your way clear to leaving me a ball gag and restraints. They aren't for me so I thought you may make an exception.

It was then I found him. My soon to be nemesis. Dusty. Forgotten. Rudolph.

I carefully carried him down the ladder to the landing, put him lightly on the ground and began dusting him off. It elicited exactly the response I expected.

'What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is that?' screamed my current nemesis.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me; three blazing rows, two dirty looks and a promise there'd be no s.e.x for me.

There were these carol singers in Australia who had gone out to do their thing and two of them had died of sunstroke. Perfectly normal thing to do at that time of year but they got carried away, filled with the spirit of the season and that was it, game over. This sort of thing happens every day, we just don't expect it to happen to us.

Rudolph had proved to be heavier than I imagined and it took me some time to wrestle the d.a.m.n thing step by step, hauling it towards its appointment on the roof. By the time we reached our destination I was panting from the effort, I put him down by my side and bent over, my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath and... well you know the rest.

Dear Santa, thank you for the lovely flowers. And the grapes. The doctors and nurses have been wonderful and although the injuries I suffered were extensive only one of them is permanent. As I fell, only the only thing that stopped my face from hitting the pavement was a certain red-nosed friend of yours. I have been in touch with my lawyer who says I have a good case against you as I was erecting an effigy in your honour, thereby working for your, therefore you are liable as an employer. You will be hearing from us in due course.

A long time later, many months after I got out of the hospital my wife and I returned to the old house. It was November, maybe early December. I'd grown used to wearing the patch over my eye. We stood, the cold biting at us, my arm around her as she snuggled in for warmth and we looked at the house.

After a couple of minutes my wife said, 'Come on darling, it's freezing. Can we go now?'

I smiled and nodded, kissed her brow and a kid ran out of the open garage wrapped up and ready for the cold. He ran past us, did a double take and stopped.

'Mister,' he said, staring at me wide-eyed. 'Are you a pirate?'

I laughed and shook my head.

'Wh-?' he began but the sentence stalled.

'You have to be a good boy at Christmas time,' I said, leaning in close to impart secret knowledge to him. 'I was a bad boy and Rudolph did this to me with his antlers...'

I lifted the patch. The kid screamed and ran. To destroy the good name of Rudolph was one of the things I enjoyed most.

My wife and I turned our backs on the incident at number 18 and went to find a bar we used to drink in.

Special K and the Yorkshire Terrier.

I felt a lot more comfortable with robbing the vet this time. The idea itself had been in my mind for, I don't know, maybe twelve months and as I sat in the waiting area I knew I'd nailed it. I'll admit it, the first time I tried was a shambles. I a.s.sumed too much, indeed I consumed too much. felt a lot more comfortable with robbing the vet this time. The idea itself had been in my mind for, I don't know, maybe twelve months and as I sat in the waiting area I knew I'd nailed it. I'll admit it, the first time I tried was a shambles. I a.s.sumed too much, indeed I consumed too much.

Fact: Whiskey steadies your nerves.

By the time my nerves were steady enough I was so p.i.s.sed I couldn't find the place.

The last time I tried it I lost my nerve, threw in the towel before the bell rang to start the fight but I'd made my mistakes, learned my lessons.

So there I sat in full withdrawal, the bags under my eyes trailing so low it felt like they were touching the tops of my shaking hands. Trudy didn't mind, she just panted in unison with me and relished what she thought to be the attention I was giving her.

I should probably mention that Trudy was my decoy on this mission. In fact, she was my brother's Yorkshire Terrier but a fine decoy she had so far proved to be.

The nurse finally called my name and I moved towards her.

Fact: This wasn't my real name but a pseudonym.

To use your real name in a situation like this would be truly idiotic and may cause you to throw in the towel before the bell had rung for the first round.

Inside the vet's inner sanctum I placed Trudy on the operating table and took a step back, keeping her leash tight in my hand. The breeze from the closing door blew cold across the clammy nape of my neck.

'So what can we do for you today then?' asked the vet with a smile.

I drew the heavy weight of the .45 from my jacket and levelled it at his head.

'You can put your hands in the air for a start,' I said and swallowed, my throat dry.

'Sit,' I said, waving the gun towards a solitary metal chair.

He and Trudy did as they was told, sitting down in unison but strangely Trudy seemed to be paying more attention to me than he was.

'Now stay,' I added. He didn't move. Trudy yapped.

A second later the nurse returned to the room but I was ready for her.

'Not a sound,' I hissed. Trudy yapped again. 'Shhh! This will be over very quickly.'

She nodded behind scared eyes. I could feel myself panting over my parched tongue, the gun too heavy and desperately cold in my hand.

'Where,' I croaked. 'Do you keep the ketamine?'

'We um don't have any?' said the vet. 'We are waiting for erm that is, an order that was um Monday! I was operating on a horse, you see and we, that is, I used all of our stock sedating it. It's not due until Monday.'

I tried to stay calm. Had I blown it? Trudy began yapping repeatedly. I looked at the vet, then at the nurse. Trudy's yap was high pitched, piercing and insistent. I felt a tic developing in my left temple.

'Shut up,' I screamed and grabbed the nurse. 'Do you want to have to hire a new nurse?'

Trudy whimpered. Seconds out, round three.

'I I er,' he began.

The nurse coughed and pointed at a fridge on the far wall. I let her go and pulled Trudy's lead. She hopped to the ground and trotted over with me.

It was a dirty business, I reasoned as I drove away. I had managed to get a rucksack full of horse tranquillisers. Maybe my luck was turning. And my brother told me no-one ever robs vets.

That's the point, I told him. That's the point.

A Stroll Along The Prom Prom Prom.

The promenade had long ago begun to disintegrate and the council's lack of interest had meant that no-one even walked down the prom the way they used to.

Two elderly figures moved stoicly along, lost in a world where the prom was freshly painted and it wasn't a dangerous place to be. Two men, both white haired, were walking along, moving slower than they probably needed.

'You seen Dave at the club then?' asked Mac, his cane not really making much contact with the ground.

'Nah, Tommy said he was on his last legs at the home,' replied Percy.

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d still owes me a tenner.'

'You'll never see that again.'

'Remember when he lost that bet with the sergeant and didn't have any money?'

Percy laughed, 'Yes, and the sarge beat him to within an inch of his life!'

The pair stopped by one of the booths that peppered the prom and stared out to sea, both lost in the memory.

Out of the shadows of a viewing booth a youngster stepped into their path. They stopped.

'Money. Now. And your watches.'

He was c.o.c.ky, not even a hint of threat in his voice until.