Rocky Di Sasatra - President of the Lewisham-Leichhardt Lambretta Club - before the accident.

Emmjay welcomes this Guest Episode by Big M !

O’Hoo leant across the table, “You gunna eat that?’ His hand hovering over the last day-old sausage roll, fresh from Merv’s ancient pie warmer.

Foodge shook his head, and drained the warm remnants from his glass canoe. The warm beer gently soothed away the fire in his gut, which would be revealed, at autopsy, to be due to a gastric ulcer. He shifted his gaze towards Merv, who took the hint and started to pour two more canoes of trotter’s best.

“Granny,” roared Merv, “Drop that bloody broom and get down under to see what’s wrong with that keg.” Merv held a canoe in his great fist with beery foam streaming down the side, running off his elbow. “Sorry gentlemen, Granny’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.”

A hint of a smile crinkled the corner of Foodge’s mouth. Yeah, Granny would fix it. There was nothing that the old girl didn’t know about kegs and taps, and pipes, as well as cooking, cleaning, and the general administration of the Pig’s Arms. It was a pity she new nothing about keeping beer cool, he reflected.

It was ten o’clock on a fine morning, and the place was humming along, mainly due to the presence of the Window Dresser’s Arms, Pig and Whistle Ladies Bowling Club. They held their weekly meeting every Tuesday morning, in spite of the fact that their green had been demolished to make way for Aldo’s Shopping Emporium.

Foodge’s ruminations were disturbed by the sound of a crash against the front door, as Hedgie’s distorted face pushed up against the glass. He had never been able to work out that the entrance doors opened outwards, to facilitate the egress of patrons at closing time. The door was wrenched open and Hedgie appeared, sobbing so fiercely that his entire frame shook.

Foodge moved to Hedgie’s side, expertly navigating the big, blubbering giant through the assorted stools and gasping bowling ladies (some, inexplicably held flames for poor old Hedgie, but that’s not for here). Merv placed a glass of JW on the bar, “On the house, son.”

O’Hoo had wiped the sausage roll oil from his maw, and had taken up position on a stool next to Hedgie, his best Police Association pen and police notebook in hand.

“It was bloody Gez, wanting dual club membership”

Foodge was befuddled, “What club?”

“Gez has been a member of both the Hell’s Angles, and the Lewisham-Leichhardt Lambretta Club.” Moaned Hedgie, “He’s been riding his Charlie Fat-Boy by day, and a bloody bright yellow Lambretta Serveta, by night. You know how one –eyed those Lambretta riders are? When they found out they went berserk. They declared a Lambretta vendetta”

“Settle down lad,” soothed O’Hoo, wishing he hadn’t eaten that second sausage roll, which seemed to be having a war with Granny’s beans and toast, “What did they do?”

“What didn’t the bastards do?”  Wailed Hedgie, “desecrated Highbury, that’s what they did. Broke in, cracked the slide on our Napier’s Memorial Slide Rule, broken all of the set squares and, T-squares, then they’ve torn up the only remaining sine, cosine and tangent tables left in Australia. Anything to do with Angles has been destroyed.”

Foodge, O’Hoo and Merv looked at each other. They all knew what this meant. Gang war, here, a bee’s dick away from the Pigs. Only swift, direct action could divert total disaster.