On My Goat

I saw a lion!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:40:49 +0200

Last Tuesday I was on a train from Burgess Hill to East Croydon at 11.20am. For those of you that don't know the area, the first stop on this journey is Wivelsfield, about 2 minutes up the track. Wivelsfield is one of those stations that only one person ever gets on. It could have been the setting for the American ware wolf film, especially the station pub – The Watermill, darts stop in mid-air there.

Anyway the point is that a minute after leaving this first stop I noticed, walking along in a field, a lion. That's right a full grown lion. Actually it was a lioness to be accurate, but that's just splitting hairs. Really, really I saw a bloody great lion casually walking along a tractor track in a field no more than 30 yards away, and only about half a mile from the actual station.

You can imagine I was a little shocked. "I've just seen a fucking lion!" I said to the passenger opposite me. "Good for you." she replied, without even taking her eyes off the newspaper. "Err…did anybody else just see that?" I asked the carriage, "Anybody see that lion?" I think one person looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, the rest just ignored me. This was a good indicator of what would happen throughout this episode.
I really didn't know what to do, I thought about 999, I thought about getting off at the next station and going to the local police station but worried about my appointment in London, I decided to text my mate John who is a special constable. "I've just seen a lion in Wivelsfield. What should I do?" I wrote. John is smart and level headed, if anybody could give me sensible advice it was my best friend John. Beep, Beep – my phone flashed, it was John replying back, "Best you have another beer mate!".

Next step was to text 'Question Man' on 63336, it costs a quid but he can answer anything you like. Again I sent the same message, I waited about 10 minutes and eventually got the answer.

"AQA suggests if you have seen a lion you should contact your local Zoo which is Battersea Park 0207 9245826 or the RSPCA 0870 3335999."

No offence but I've been to Battersea Park Zoo and there aren't any lions there. Maybe meerkats, butterflys and some sheep – but no sodding lions. So I called the RSPCA and got put through to a recorded message in the 'Missing Cat' helpline. What is the point in that? I am sure the girl on reception just laughed and thought "I got another nutter on the phone."

I came back from London and reported it to the local police station. I explained to the officer that I was "sane, sober and had perfect vision. It was definitely a lion.". So you can imagine my surprise when he asked "Are you sure it wasn't a cow, walking like a cat?". For Christ's sake! Aggghhhhhhhhh! What? A cow walking like a cat? Do cow's walk like cats? Why on earth did he ask that? Idiot, a complete idiot. So I said "Yes officer, it could have been. It could also be a Chinese mountain goat dressed in a lion's suit going to Gerald the Giraffe's fancy dress party – IT WAS A BLOODY LION!"

Disbelief and piss taking have ensued everywhere I tell my tale. Only Lundraa, who herself shows some slight signs of madness, believes me – thank you! I have since been advised that I was mistaken and it was probably just a Llama. Oh joy, oh joy, I am saved, praise the lord we are all saved. There was me thinking I saw a fully adult, golden brown, 300lb lioness but instead I obviously mistook it for a smelly, goofy, pointy-eared 100lb two-tone bloody llama! I mean isn't it just possible I know the god damn difference between the two?!!?

Make no mistake, I SAW A LION. Not a fox, or a badger, a cow or a llama. It was my friends - a lion. It was last seen in the Wivelsfield area, probably half way up Rocky Lane, heading towards Haywards Heath. I can not answer questions like "What do you think it was doing there?" or "Why hasn't anybody else seen it?" or "What was it's fucking name?". All I know is that I saw a lion. Clear as day.

Some good news is that the police community liaison officer has been in touch following an email I sent him questioning their commitment to my sighting. His response was..

Dear James ,
Thank you very much for the e-mail concerning a possible lion on the loose. I can assure you that I have taken this matter seriously and have contacted the local RSPCA. They believe it is possible that one of the local residents could possible own a 'big cat'. They will task one of their inspectors to investigate this matter.
If you do have any more information regarding this you can contact me via 0845 ***

Encouragement perhaps? Well at least he only used the word 'possible' three times. "Possible lion on the loose" – OF COURSE IT WAS BLOODY LOOSE! It’s not as if there was a lead attached to it because Mrs Miggins was taking it for a bloody walk?!?! Jeez. And to think they've called in the RSPCA – oh thank fuck. There was me thinking about the safety of the local children who could get mauled and all they are worried about is his bloody living conditions! Come on, play the game?! It's a lion, not a pigeon cooped up in its cage.
A week passed, I didn’t hear anything. I presumed it would just blow over until some poor sod got eaten. Trust me people, I SAW A LION.

The great hunt for Lionel the Lion eventually ended. Far from it being an armed response unit who shot the beast dead just seconds before it attacked a group of innocent school kids, the mystery was solved by our local paper The Sussex Times. They ran an article warning residents that a ‘local businessman had seen a lion’ and asking for any further sightings. Luckily for me a local resident has come forward saying his 'dog' had been loose on the day in question and it was finally found by the railway line and must have been the lion.

Hey this wasn't any ordinary dog; it was a 'Dogue de Bordeaux' – a French dog. That's grounds for shooting it anyway isn't it? The only French dog I've seen big enough to pass as a lion is probably Goofy fucking around at Euro Disney. Which reminds me, do you know why they don't have fireworks at the Euro Disney in Paris? Because every time the fireworks go off the staff start surrendering! Oh come on – if we can't pick on the French who can we pick on?

I'd like to thank the Sussex times for their help in this matter. Clearly it was a dog. The great Lion mystery is solved. A brilliant piece of investigative journalism! Mind blowing. The fact that my neighbours put up 'Missing Cat' posters all over our street and my colleagues kept singing "A wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a wimoweh, the lion sleeps tonight" was embarrassing enough. Now the office have started playing "who let the dogs out woof, woof, woof, woof!" – which is just soooo bloody annoying!!

I'm not proposing for a moment that there wasn't a dog on the loose but I am questioning whether they think I am a complete fucking idiot? There are many unanswered questions, some good ones, a couple of ridiculous ones and ones that make me want to poke the person asking in the eye. But I guess it’s time for me to drop the lion episode if the only solution offered is that it was a dog out having a walk. I do not understand why nobody went to check it out, maybe there are footprints, maybe carcasses of other animals, maybe there is a whole sodding pride of them. Either way at least the police should have done a little more than give me various other animal scenarios to shut me up. The 'great Burgess Hill lion conspiracy' is apparently over, so I am going back to staring at hot chicks on trains instead of looking out of the window at the wildlife.

At least we have learnt something, I wasn't aware how much these animals all resemble each other. If you look at the image below and I shall talk you through them? The first is actually a Dogue De Bordeaux – hey that had you fooled didn't it? You thought it was a tiger didn’t you? The second might look EXACTLY like a lion, but is in fact just a cow – that looks like a lion and maybe even walk like one. The third man-eating predator might look like it could rip you into five pieces with one swing of it’s claw but it is in fact just a sweet little old Llama. The fianl picture is whatever you want it to be – a golden badger for all I care. I saw a lion.

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No Show

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 15:14:41 +0200

Last week I played my first International cricket fixture - Ditchling Cricket Club vs Afghanistan. Awsome experience. They have the fastest bowlers in the world - I can't actually vouch for the speed of the ball on the grounds that I never saw the bloody thing. I did here it whizzing past me - a nano second before my stumps flew all over the place. It was the last match in their inaugural tour of England and Wales they had previously played Hoddeston CC, Essex, Glamorgan, Leicester, Royal Military Accademy and Loughbourough University. The following night there was a reception to honour the team at the Afghanistan Embassy. I received an official invitation in the post a couple of weeks before, as did our club president in fact all the clubs who hosted a match got sent two or three invitations.

When we arrived at the embassy we were taken up to an "L" shaped room with the team already sitting down to one side. There were 16 chairs in an oval at the head of the room. We were introduced to the various dignatories and then offerd a seat in the oval. "We must be the first here, are we early?" the president asked me. A quick check of my watch alerted me to the fact we were a little late if anything. The ambassador kept asking the tour organiser where the other clubs were. They had all accepted so the presumption was that traffic in London must have been bad and they had all been delayed. So we waited. Then we waited some more. After an hour they decided to start proceedings with none of the other clubs present.

Not one of the other clubs turned up. All the embassador wanted to do was thank us on behalf of the Afghanistan government for hosting their cricket side and they couldn't be bothered to turn up. It was a shambles. The team looked choked, the embassador didn't know whether to carry on or just be swallowed up into the large hole that was appearing. Awkward just isn't the word.

I don't know why they didn't show, I don't really care. It was just the rudest thing to do. Dinner was the worst part, imagine having a dinner party for 16 guests and only two showing up. At least the table plan was easy to follow - you there, me here. Done. We turned up which was the main thing and we ate tons of Afghghani food which was lovely. What looked like 1/2 a cooked lamb was being served by a waitress wearing surgical gloves who just ripped the meat off and plonked it on your plate. Dessert was interesting - a cross between custard, yoghurt, moose and semolina.

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A copper with humour by-pass.

Fri, 19 May 2006 14:32:32 +0200

I was on my way home Monday afternoon when a copper with far too much time on his hands pulled me over. The grill at the front of my car had come loose and was hanging down. At worst it looked awkward - and I presumed the copper was just being a caring sort of guy. I tried to push it back in but it kept falling out. I asked the policeman if he had any tape in his jam-jar and after about 3 seconds of looking he came back and said 'No'.
I offered to drive it to the garage or even the mile to my home and fix it there but PC Plod was not having it. "Either fix it here or pull it off", were my apparent options. Well I wasn't going to rip the rest off - that would be silly. So I decided to fix it - but I didn't have anything in which to do it with so I phoned the wife and asked her to bring some tape.
Unfortunately for me, the wife was on the phone and I got the BT message "The person you are calling is currently unavailable...". At this juncture I should have just phoned somebody else but instead I decided to 'blag it'. At this second pivotal juncture, I should have opted to stick with 'the blag' instead of trying to be funny.
Rather than leave a message saying "Hi babe, can you meet me in Downs Road - I need some tape to fix my car...blah blah." I decided to act out an old gag I had heard for a professional footballer back in the eighties and screamed down the phone "Oi you fat bitch, my fucking car's broken and if you don't get off your fat arse and come to Downs Road prompto with some fucking tape I'm going to smash your ugly face in!". Then I hung up. PC Plod went absolutely, completely and utterly loopy. He immediately grabbed my arm and bellowed "What the hell did you just say?"
Pointing his hairy finger in my face he went on shouting "I can take you in for threatening behaviour, in my eyes you have just assaulted that woman - you just threatened to smash a rock in her face!”
At this point I realised my ill-judged gag had backfired. "I was only joking...” I yelped. "It didn't sound like a joke to me!" (PC Plod is now walking me to his car).
"No, no the phone was engaged - there was nobody on the other end - I was just being funny."
The copper paused - not a thinking man's pause either - more a pause before all the steam shoots out of his ears. "Funny? You think that was funny?" (In my head I'm thinking - 'well yeah actually') "I tell you what is funny, I can take you to my desk sergeant on the grounds I think you are a danger to that woman and have you locked up for 24 hours. How funny do you think that is?" (In my head I'm now thinking 'Hmm - that would get me out of cutting the grass?')
"Not at all officer - I was just being silly - obviously it wasn't funny, a mistake on my part, I didn't mean to cause offence." I think the way I was shrugging my shoulders and semi-giggling meant that the apology was not going to work.
"Do you have any idea how many times I deal with bullies like you? Everyday I speak to victims who have been attacked at home. Every day I see the aftermath of women abused by boyfriends and husbands -what's funny about that?” I'm still pinned up against his car and decided that I need to back-peddle sharpish.
"Look my friend - it was a childish and silly prank and in no way intended to reflect my loving relationship at home - I don't know why I did it, it was completely wrong and I can see how it has backfired and evidently I won't be doing it again."
"Too right you won't - stay there - don't move, don't even think about moving." PC Uptight then walks off and checks the tax disc, tyres etc on my car. He so wants to find something wrong. Had I not been in a residential street with curtains twitching I swear he was going to use my head to smash a break light or something. God he was really livid. Scratching his head and taking in deep breaths, while occasionally glaring at me he walks back over. (Now my head is saying - 'watch out he's going to chin you!').
"Get out of my sight - you Pratt and don't ever let me catch you pulling a stunt like that again."
Fair enough I suppose. In he gets - drives 20 yards - slams on his brakes - gets out and shouts back "And don't even think about driving that car until you secure that front!"
Luckily for me, the driver of a car that had pulled into a drive during this fiasco - asked me what was going on. I just told him that the policeman was having a bad day and could I borrow some selotape. He obliged. I drove home a few minutes later - the wife was completely oblivious to my trials and tribulations and sitting comfortably on the sofa watching Deal or No Deal. Fat bitch!

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