Tokyo Joe's...

There's a strange wheezing sound outside the apartment. I pull the curtains aside to find that a rickshaw has pulled up outside and a small, furtive figure wearing a coolie hat is scurrying up the path to my front door. Funny, I think, I don't remember ordering a take away. The door bell chimes and I open up to find an enthusiastic looking oriental looking up at me. "Meestah Felly out in lickshaw", he gestures. "Solly?? Prease lepeat!" I say - I'm ever so quick at picking up new languages... The diminutive from the Far East perseveres. "Is Meestah Felly! *Blyan* Felly - flom Loxy Music - in *LICKSHAW*!!" The penny drops and, sure enough, there he is, Bryan Ferry, emerging from a sumptuous pile of sonic blue satin - which I later discover to be none other than Jerry Hall - in the back of the Rickshaw. Well, I never, I think to myself - that must have set him back a yen or two.

"Why-aye wor Bob - has tha doon? Comin' oop wor toon wi' me and me bird like, fer wor crack, though but? Ah've jess get me life membership at wor Tokyo Joe's. Eee it's reet good, like. Ther've oner them Muriel jobbies, on wor wall like - wi' portraits of all wor top stars - Jimmy Durante, Marjorie Proops, Nina & Frederick, Danny La Rue, Margaret Rutherford, Christopher Martin Jenkins, Una Stubbs, John Noakes, Christopher Timothy, Rod Laver, three quarters of wor Black & White Minstrel Show and that bloke what does Police 5 - aye but that's a canny programme, though but. I love it, me: 'and remember; keep 'em peeled, though but!' Get in wor front seat wi' Ho Chi Min and let's be 'avin yers..."

Well, how could I refuse? Of course, Ferry's already half cut having stopped off at the Fat Ox for a crate or two of Newcastle Brown Ale, so I'm playing catch-up all night until I decide to go for broke and mainline some Jeyes cleaning fluid. Fuck me, that stuff *can't* still be legal, can it? He's a lovely lad Bryan, but he just doesn't know when to give it a rest with the sauce. I have to make my excuses when the introduction to the new song he's written in honour of the club starts up, and he's straight on to the midnight blue casino floor, starting to make his eyes go slitty by pulling them to the side with his index fingers and dancing around with a chopstick dangling from each nostril. I'm just about to pat him on the back and say my cheerios when he assumes his customary position on the dance floor, back arched, legs akimbo, his hand flailing around in the vicinity of his posterior, the thumb poised to spark up a gold Cartier lighter as the Ferry arse lets rip. My God, you know it's time to leave a party when Bryan starts setting light to his own farts. I give a disconsolate, embarrassed looking Jerry Hall a peck on the cheek as I make my way to the cloakroom. "Tell him to watch himself, pet," I tell her. "With those chopsticks and that lighter, he'll have both ends burning if he's not careful..."