I tried to flee the country at night, little realising that people only notice when you don't want them to notice. Suddenly everyone was eyeing me up, dressing me down, working me out. So I had a bad feeling when I walked up to the check-in desk at the airport. Particularly as I had developed a rather painful erection.

To my utter dismay the check-in clerk informed my passport was invalid, in that it ran out a month hence. He would not be budged from his idiotic standpoint, even when I licked his earhole. As a result I was refused passage on to the airplane. I thus retired disconsolately to my luxury cardboard box to contemplate my next move.

Bright the next morning I turned up at the passport office. Again I had a turgid sensation in my undergarments. The reason soon became clear as the official informed me that my photographs were insufficiently clear, given the stainage thereon, and my identity documents were falling apart. I informed him that the stainage was actually upon my face, and therefore could not be removed easily. He refused to accept this explanation.

I was thus forced to insert my application form, complete with pictures, old passport and £114 in cash, into his rear passage. My boot was then deployed smartly on his backside. Almost immediately a brand new passport issued from his mouth. I grabbed it and kissed it with glee, paying particular attention to the Royal Crest.

No sooner had I got on the bus to the airport when I saw this one-eyed midget shouting the word 'Now.' I said: 'For what reason?' and he said: 'How?' And I said: 'What does this mean?' and he screamed back: 'You're a cow ... give me some milk or else go home.' And I knew something was happening here, but rather than investigate further I ran into the terminal to claim my aisle seat and complementary sick bag.

My groinbell tolled loudly as soon as I presented my documents to the staff on duty. I was immediately interrogated as to the purpose of my visit. It appeared that possessing brand new travel documents are indicative of terrorist urges. And it was indeed true that I had a strange compulsion to detonate an explosive of some sort in my trousers as I regarded the ape-like security guard don rubber gloves with aplomb. Not only was my baggage thoroughly raped but my person was also patted down with excessive vigour. I was only fortunate that he did not detect the tumescent growth between my legs.

I thus finally escaped from Britain bowed, broken and humiliated. Truly I was the hobnob biscuit upon which Kafka, Freud and Pavlov had profusely ejaculated.

One fine summer I decided to abandon my restless wanderings around this detritus-ridden metropolis and bum a ride on various modes of transport headed for the continent. Forty-eight hours later I was tossed at the side of a layby in Southern Spain like a worn-out sex doll. Summoning my last reserves of energy, I limped into a small conurbation near Valencia. I forget its name now, but I have not forgotten the Bacchanalian scenes that greeted my optical nerves as I arrived. It appeared that there was to be a festival that day, and hordes of people were crowding into the centre of the town. I followed, convinced that this could only mean free food and drink and possible a woman of the loose variety. Imagine my delight when I discovered countless dreg-laden plastic cups littering the streets.

I was just savouring my 100th swig of wash-back when I heard a loud roar erupt. Heads swivelled, eyes lit up and no doubt organs were aroused. It appeared that a large truck was approaching, containing a mound of red vegetable matter. Several human beings of both sexes appeared to be distributing said foodstuff liberally without requesting payment. It was only when the vehicle drove past that I realised the items being dished out were tomatoes. I gleefully gathered up as many as my oversize hands allowed. Yet such was my confusion at receiving this unexpected windfall that I spent countless seconds musing on the true nature of the tomato - fruit or vegetable?

Erring on the side of fruit, I decided that I should gobble up my loot greedily before it was snatched away by one of the hundreds of marauding omnivores among the crowd.

This was of course a fatal mistake. No sooner had the last tomato slithered down my gullet than I realised nobody else was eating. Instead they were flinging their cargo at each other zealously, with no thought for the food wastage involved. It appeared that this was the true nature of the festival. I immediately determined to join in with gusto.

Alas, just as I wound back my awesome throwing arm - developed through years of onanism and glass tilting - when I experienced the unpleasant sensation of a missile slamming directly into my eyeball. I can assure you it felt more like a depleted uranium shell than a tomato. Mortally wounded, I slumped down to the street, which was by now a foot deep in crushed organic matter.

Unable to see, I was forced to crawl through the maze of legs and the sea of red mush back the way I had come. Ah, if only Moses were here, I thought. Half an hour later, as if a walking Bloody Mary, I finally surged into daylight and dry land. As I staggered away, vowing never to eat another tomato again, I realised I resembled something like the lone survivor of a US high school massacre.

Sadly I was quite unable to find any TV camera crews to give a first-hand account of my horrific ordeal.

The locks were long and cumbersome when I meekly shuffled into the barbershop. It was time for the yearly cut. This particular establishment had caught my eye by virtue of offering hair-dressing for only £5. My hair certainly needs dressing, I thought, as my subconscious added an unnecessary 'So do you'. However I had no time for such childishness and quickly subdued my inner voice with a swift punch to the chops.

Ensconced in the chair I awaited the game of chance that is 'Barber roulette'. On this occasion I was alloted a lady of Eastern European extraction with rather too many years under her belt. 'Too many pies you mean,' added my subconscious. I was forced to poke it in the eye vigorously with my right forefinger until it begged for mercy.

By this time I was attracting quite a fair few complimentary looks from the surrounding staff and patrons, but I did not let my head swell one-sixteenth of an inch. Instead I turned my attention to the immigrant worker admiring my reflection in the mirror.

'What you like?' she asked, her accent strangely reminiscent of The Count on Sesame Street. I replied in my usual manner, as befits a man accustomed to having the same haircut for his entire life (barring one unfortunate incident with a salad bowl).

'Just a trim with a four on the back,' I said. She looked at me as if I had just tweaked her nipple. I hoped this was not my subconscious at work. 'What?' she asked.

I repeated my request, a little more forcefully this time. She remained ignorant of my desires. Thus I was forced to pick up the electric razor and demonstrate, enunciating 'Number Four' very deliberately while holding up four grubby fingers. The lady recoiled in horror, raising her scissors in self defence. Perhaps I had just insulted her mother.

At that moment I realised that I would not receive a satisfactory haircut. She clearly had never encountered electrical devices before in her life. In frustration I bade her use her scissors, fearful that otherwise I might lose all my hair as well as my patience. 'TRIM!' I bellowed. 'SCISSORS!'

Half an hour later I emerged looking like a choirboy, albeit a choirboy in the process of being buggered by a member of the Catholic Church. She was clearly a conceptual artist of some kind. I paid up and left. Needless to say she did not receive my customary 10p tip.

The Beggar's Opera descended grime-ly on one sandy shore that day, Crook Finger'd Jack at point, Mrs Peachum with the heavy artillery and Mister Tramp bringing up the rear, bashing an old drum with scabby fists.

As the sea heaved into view we took out the croquet set and began to enjoy a short knockabout. Not satisfied with this, Jemmy Twitcher suggested we mount each other's backs and turn it into a gruelling game of Polo.

Fortunately for my vertebrae we were then interrupted by a passing swarm of Ladybirds. It was not a mere smattering of these red-flecked fiends, but a vast Mongol horde. No sooner had one been flicked away than ten took its place.

'Attack, attack!' screamed Matt of the Mint.

Our contingent then plunged headfirst into the fray in an attempt to drive them away. We were unprepared for what followed. Each Ladybird began to bite and nip at our exposed skin. With the flowing of blood the insects became more frenzied, chomping on limbs and faces with apparent glee. As I screamed a score or more fell into my mouth and I had little choice but to mash and crunch them before they devoured me from the inside.

'Retreat, retreat,' screamed Lucy Lockit, and we needed no further excuse. By now we were little more than walking Ladybird colonies. Movement was slow, but with each step away from the cloud more and more of our shell-winged tormentors detached and returned to their brethren.

My wailing band finally emerged bloody and broken, each of us shocked by the ferocity displayed by what we had naively believed to be friendly creatures of the garden.

At last I caught enough breath to speak: 'I say, they must have mistaken us for some sort of aphid.'

I talked to the flowers, they wilted and died, I talked to the butterflies. They shivered and curled up and fell to the ground, I looked to the heavens and cried: 'Lord, is this Death from within me? A cancer growing inside?' The sky turned black, the cold wind sighed. 'It comes from your heart,' came the booming reply, 'Now fuck off, your breath stinks.'

One of my most attractive habits is to stagger along the road, bottle of oxygenated hydrocarbons in hand, surveying the sidewalk for inadequately smoked cigarettes. Such is the wasteful nature of mankind that one can easily accrue a bagful before lunchtime, ranging from the barely-dragged reefer discarded at the bus stop to the ground-out cremations of the profesional fumigant.

I may then spend a pleasant afternoon either completing the smoking process or cannibalising the remains for the creation of my own distinctive brand of fags, washed down with a swig of de-icing fluid.

Never let it be said that Mister Tramp does not recycle. Read my packaging carefully. I am an altogether Green Free-Range Fair-Trade Organic Fat-Free Tramp and no mistake.
Caution: Unsuitable for Vegetarians. May contain nuts.

One of the benefits of roaming the city streets is the lack of babies lying about the place. I have enough trouble traipsing through the detritus of humanity as it is without overgrown foetuses clinging to my ankles. Invariably, when these goblins do emerge grimacing into the sunlight they are surrounded by an oestrogenic gurgle of illiteracy. The babbling crowd increases, sucking in all-comers like an old Coney Island freak show until each visitor has paid their two-cents worth of 'Ohhh isn't he adorable!'

It seems incumbent on me to point out that in no way are babies aesthetically pleasing. They are podgy bundles of lopsided, under-developed, ill-fitting limbs. They are adorable to the masses only because they are helpless, utterly dependent and incapable of expressing their simplest desires by means of language. They weep more pathetically than any Hollywood starlet could manage in the arms of Cary Grant. Their only obvious output apart from noise is a tidal wave of filth that reminds me chiefly of the Thames under Battersea Bridge, replete with supermarket trolleys, rotting corpses and discarded boots. I could almost admire them for this last quality, if it were not for the fact they have absolutely no idea what they are doing.

And so it was that an acquaintance of mine approached me with news that his loins had finally sired offspring. He immediately began reaching for his mobile phone, and asked if I wished to see a photograph of the little fiend.

'Nahh,' I replied, recoiling in disgust. It took great effort on my part not to add: 'I'd rather see a picture of your last shit.'

Two hundred tramps riding supermarket trolleys down the High Street flinging garbage at the respectables, howling at the scrapers, downing cocktails of Chanel No 5 and White Spirit as they pass a giant advertising board dominated by the words 'Chi non fotte e fottuto!' and singing their favourite anthem:

Alone on the clouds all blue,
lying on an eiderdown,
Yippee you can't see me, but I can you.

Lazing in the foggy dew,
sitting on a unicorn.
No fear, you can't hear me but I can you.

Watching buttercups come to light,
Sleeping on a dandelion.
Too much I won't touch you but then I might.

Streaming through the starlit skies,
travelling by telephone.
Hey ho, here we go, ever so high....

[(c) Syd Barrett]

Now, you sees, moustaches don't grow on trees, the old man said, as I polished his head with the pith of a Valencia Orange. If you come across a specimen, detach it immediately, before it flies away. He flapped his hands like a bird and laughed. You missed a spot, he added, and with a gouty finger indicated the bony protusion on his Crown. I applied the garlic paste with vigour.

He took me to the Square, a pair of binoculars dangling from his truss. Seconds later we spotted our prey, an Austrian gentleman with curlicued whiskers, brown loafers and epaulettes of dandruff.

We cat-crawled quietly behind him, striped stockings protecting both arms to the elbow. The Austrian was preoccupied talking to a girl in soiled white shoes. Gently, said the old man in my ear, gently. I reached out my quaking hand, my fingers sweating minty Vaseline. NOW, shouted the old man a moment too soon, and as I leapt the Austrian turned in alarm, my fingers clawing at his mottled face.

I fell to the gutter heavily. In my right hand was the Austrian's nose. It contained a modicum of hair but no moustache. With that my prey turned and ran, his whiskers flapping with great elan, phut-phuttering noisily until finally he took off and drew up his undercarriage. I attempted to pursue as he hovered above the ground in a sitting position but with a great Whoop he soared 100ft in the air and disappeared over the Palace wall.

We ran bow-legged back to camp, the snout still clutched in my right hand. Damn damn damn, said the old man. He handed me his catheter and in return took the Austrian's nose. But at least we have this, he added. He put it to his mouth and blew forcefully through both nostrils. I heard nothing. The old man licked his lips and tried again. Nothing. He cocked his ear and said, Listen, listen. And then the ground began to shake.

It must be admitted that little about its design is anatomically correct. Its performance was also slightly disappointing. However, it is only a prototype. These things take time.

I once had a sidekick whose name was not dissimilar to Prick. His party trick, once a suitable thimble of methylated spirits had been consumed, was to expose himself with a wild leer, a 'Hoo hooo' and a leprechaun's jig. As for the item that was revealed, it was rather insubstantial but still unmistakeably gonadic.

This facility of his was once used to shock the bride's grandmother at his cousin's wedding. But its most damning revelation took place on the night I accompanied him to a basement watering hole not far from St Paul's cathedral. It had a smug disco and a slimy dancefloor full of suitlings jiving to the jismic sounds of Billy Ocean.

I was just ordering another round of lighter fluid when I heard a disturbance behind me. No sooner had I revolved to admire this development than I spotted my sidekick gyrating wildly in the middle of the arena with his flies undone and a small gerbil poking out. It verily seemed to be nibbling the air, hungry for nuts or a dark hole in which to burrow.

Rather surprisingly the feeble-minded patrons of the establishment fled in stark terror as this corybantic midget whooped, swung his todger skywards and unleashed a gleaming arc of silver.

Alas the landlord was not as impressed as I and began chasing my sidekick around the circular bar at least three times. Naturally I applauded their feats of athleticism heartily.

Sadly my sidekick stumbled to the floor with his trousers tangled up in his boots and was captured. To our amazement we were then both swiftly ejaculated from the pub and barred for life.

To this day our pictures hang on the wall, a stern admonishment to anyone who might dare extricate his pinkie from his pants in a public place.

A tramp has enough problems walking down the street unhindered by slow-moving pensioners, pygmy children on steroids, crapulous monkeys with spiky hair talking birds, breasts and beavers, beat-obsessed webbed-footed dance freaks with no head for melody, ghouls in more chains than ever burdened the black man, pink-headed pig-squealers, rent-boys, Medusae caught in their own reflections, two-legged sanitary towels, and a vast progeny of Gargantua scoffing Big Mac McFlurrys, without blundering into a field of dog faeces.

Not just a little drop, a Poodle plop, but a shit worthy of Cerberus and his litter eaten, digested and re-shat by Satan himself across the entire span of the sidewalk, wall to kerb. It had already claimed scores of victims but as I was rather preoccupied with my inner diatribe I realised only when it squished up between my toes.

The resulting hop-skip-stagger resembled St Vitus' Dance in its complexity and fervour, and also for the amusement it provided for the surrounding locals, although at least I did not topple over and encumber my entire person with excrement.

As I stood there with a sole caked in brown bowelmuck, a quotation from the Marquis de Sade came to mind. Thus:

'What the devil is a woman's tongue for if not to wipe assholes? I frankly cannot think of any other use to put it to.'

After pondering that this might be of use in the cleaning of my foot, I enquired for assistance from the local populace. Keen not to appear misogynistic I extended my invitation to all regardless of race, age or gender.

Alas I could not even find a passing household animal on which to wipe away my troubles.

This is a cautionary tale of what fate may await those with too much money in their pockets.

It is not often that Mister Tramp is in possession of a crisp £20 note but on such occasions the rich thrill obtained from one invariably results in a staggering and bewildering loss of control. No, not of my bladder and sphincter, but of that part of the brain utilised in the purchase of unnecessary goods.

It was in this frame of mind that I wandered past what appeared to be a melancholy bag salesman one grim Saturday morning. In hindsight I should have been alerted by the suspiciously obvious delight and furtive trouser scratching he demonstrated on my arrival to peruse his wares.

Unwittingly I picked up a few cheap items, content to browse and chuckle at their shoddy construction, safe in the knowledge that I was effectively rich and could purchase them and still have enough left for a bucket of Diamond White. Perhaps I do need a bag, I thought, although there is little here that takes my fancy.

At this point the merchant unfurled a petrifying array of sales techniques that left me gasping fishlike on the pavement. 'You like that one sir? That is a cheap bag, I have a much better bargain!' Oh, you oily-skinned manipulator, how easily you ensnared me!

He pointed, gestured, nay all but knelt down and gazed upwards in religious ecstasy at a satchel hanging innocently on the top shelf. 'That is the bag you want, sir!'

I examined it. I asked how much it was, still naively thinking I was in control of the situation. He told me it was £25. A gasp of relief, I could not buy. But then he grandly produced his turgescent secret weapon. 'For you, £20!'

Lord, how easily I handed over all my cash. How meekly I slunk off, each step bringing growing realisation that this was no marvellous carrying case, no holy grail of baggage.

It was only later in the comfort of my abode that the full putrid, poncified purpleness of my purchase eviscerated my eyeballs. Thus:

Egads, you taunt me even now!

Having barely escaped alive after my near-mawling by the scrawny old goat, I decided to hotfoot it to the quaintly perilous city of Jerusalem, where unreal men grow real beards and little curly sideburns that hang down like Christmas decorations.

During my journey there I was told by a swarthy Palestinian taxi driver that there had been a bomb explosion. Hackles rising with excitement I increased my speed and soon reached the marketplace where it had occurred. Roadblocks and police tape were already in place and I glanced disdainfully at the crowd gathering at the scene as one does at other men in a sauna.

My curiosity sated I departed via the bus station and was crossing the car park in search of the number 52 when I was accosted by a small boy no older than eleven. Such was his tiny stature that he appeared much younger. I smiled amiably as I passed, thinking nothing of it.

Yet again my peaceful perambulations were disturbed when the lad in question approached me and shouted impertinently: 'You want fuck? Only 20 shekels.' A pause and a hopeful look similar to that demonstrated a dog desiring walkies. 'I fuck you hard.'

It was at this point I found myself making a mental calculation: 20 shekels at rougly five shekels to a pound. I had to admit that this was perhaps a bargain price.

However I have never been one for a bargain, and certainly not one for being buggered - let alone by a boy barely old enough to shine my shoes. I gracefully declined, bid him good day and continued on my travels.

I was minutely examining the contents of my navel using a large electron microscope one day when a shadow fell across my person as I sat upon a bench in an urbane construction of what may now be termed Israel. 'Hello, may I borrow your newspaper?' he asked, sitting down mere inches away. I nodded assent and continued in my task. However my peace was soon disturbed again when he began conversing about the nearby confluence of surging seawater and golden sand. Like a low-hanging branch of grapes in Hades he suggested we might purchase an illegal substance and enjoy the sunset puffing makeshift pipes admidst a host of flirtatious nubile girls.

I accepted with little thought as to his true motivation.

This soon became clear when we failed to find any of the fabled herbs of which he spoke, nor encountered a single Venusian beauty. Instead he lay down upon the sand and attempted to gain my confidence by means of philosophical discussion. However he accompanied this verbiage with a rather obvious manipulation of his groinal appendage.

My first thought was to ignore such base behaviour and treat it as some kind of anecdote I might catalogue for use at a future social event. He then uttered the phrase: 'I'm feeling really horny.'

Seeing my combined look of disgust and bemusement, he suggested that a ladyfriend of his might be interested in an interaction commonly known as a 'threesome.' I played along for my own amusement. No I have not yet had the pleasure, I said. No I have never touched a man in that way, and certainly would not when there is a naked woman already in view. And no I will not lower my face to your midriff and open my mouth.

At this the wily satyr invited me to examine his vinyl 'music collection' back at his 'luxury flat'. Knowing full well that there was only one groove he wanted me to place my needle in, I declined with venom and abruptly walked off into the aforementioned sunset, my innocence untroubled.

Periodically I like to spend my evenings imbibing industrial quantities of fermented barley-based beverages followed by lengthy peregrinations through the metropolis' darkly stagnant streets. It was a Thursday night and my blood was approximately 20 per cent aftershave and 75 per cent Tennent's Super special brew. The rest being... well... haemoglobin I suppose.

In any case on this particular occasion I was accompanied by several other mendicants of ill-repute. I exuberantly decided to play a little trick on them.

I ran ahead some distance out of their view and spotted some railings on the side of the street, beyond which lurked sufficient undergrowth to hide in for the purposes of launching a scare attack. However it was a high fence replete with perilous looking spears on the top.

Fearless as ever I manouvred my size 11 right foot on to the top of the railing and attempted to haul myself over and catapult into the soft bushes beyond. Sadly one of my laces became caught on a spike and I swang forwards into the earth face first. My right foot was now tethered to the fence, as the laces had pulled tight and my foot could not be wrested from the iron grip of my boots.

In this position I was unable to see the street and listened grimly as my trampmates walked past noisly, singing a bibulous shanty and seemingly oblivious to my position. Perhaps my failure to vocalise my distress was due to the amount of intoxicants in my blood.

'Help, help,' I eventually stuttered. Nothing. It seemed this was a particularly quiet spot. I began to imagine myself trapped for days, surviving on nettle leaves and small worms clawed from the soggy earth. Eventually a beautiful, slim young lady would realise my predicament and initiate a daring rescue before offering me a share of her bed while I recovered - albeit she hardly allowed me much time to sleep...

I was just beginning to enjoy myself when an impossibly cheerful Australian male poked his head over the railings and admired my inverted form. 'G'Day mate!' he greeted me inanely. I pondered whether to tell him to fuck off, but alas, self-preservation won the day.

Perhaps my greatest blunder in life was in seeking employment as a manual labourer and member of the proletariat. My only excuse is that I was cruelly deceived by moustache-twiddling bourgeoisie types and the location of my work: The Cushion Factory.

Naturally I assumed that this would be a relaxing job, given the preponderance of sleeping material to hand. Of course I had failed to understand the precise meaning of the term employment.

No sooner had I arrived at the dust-swept establishment when I was initiated into one of the most pointless tasks which are not already the exclusive preserve of womankind. Namely the conversion of inside-out cushion covers into covers ready for filling.

I had just mastered this demanding skill when I was transferred to the vast blowing machine that transformed the flimsily-sewn cotton sheets into exciting, dynamic and brightly-coloured couch accoutrements.

Sadly, I knew my career was doomed as soon as my first cushion exploded in a shower of synthetic feathers to the cheers of my unsympathetic colleagues.

Not a week goes by without someone suggesting I take out my cock so they can remove my foreskin. It is getting rather stressful, particularly in these wintry conditions when frankly I could do with every layer at my disposal.

Sadly, I was perusing the news when yet again it was reported that circumcision was great, just right, a veritable boon to mankind. I'm starting to take it personally.

Over the last few years a variety of studies, perhaps religiously or racially motivated, have suggested that stripping off my foreskin will reduce my chances of contracting AIDS by 50 per cent. The reasons for this the studies do not supply beyond suggesting the fleshy material therein is specifically targeted by the virus.

Now they are telling me that removing this naturally-occurring sheath will not inhibit my enjoyment of sexual matters.

Well I've already had enough of people telling me how circumcision makes you cleaner, and how the Jews have been doing it since they started worshipping Yahweh in particular, and how it may even increase the size of your manhood. I could get dragged into a basic discussion about how to contract HIV at this point, but the truth is I was born with my foreskin, it has never caused me any problems, and no amount of pseudo-moralising hiding behind a so-called scientific study will deprive me of it.

Oh! Beard!
not as bad as I feared...
it is regrettably true,
I was initially not much impressed with you.
But now you have gone
I admit I was fond,
of you, untamed ghost,
that I could hardly call growth,
over which I would linger,
and think: Is that ginger?
But once I was over the seven-day itch,
you stood for more than an emotional glitch,
I was quite literally
attached to you, too.
Still, you knew, as soon as you grew,
that it would all have to end with the knife...

It took only seconds to cut short your life.

This tawdry tale began when a young lady invited me around to her establishment to view a film she had rented from the video shop. Predictably, the film was not only garbage but one I had seen before only too recently and vowed never to watch again. Thus it was only a matter of time before my overactive glands began focusing on more profitable activities. And so it happened that we began kissing on the couch, the natural precursor to my lips wandering below the equator. I was just embarking on my epic journey when she suggested we retire to the bedroom, as her flatmates had just walked in through the door. I agreed, having little desire to parade my abilities in front of an appreciative audience.

Upon the bed, things soon progressed under my direction until I began performing services to the female orgasm industry. I continued, proud of my unselfish devotion to the cause, when suddenly the lights went out. A power cut. I stopped my gesticulations to admire a happenstance I had never experienced before that day.

It was then the epitaph on our encounter was delivered. She said, moodily: 'Well that was crap.'

I am awoken every morning at 07:28:12 by Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights booming darkly across my wood-lined bedroom from an antique phonograph the size of a small elephant. The great bay windows are flung open and the ornate duvet thrown back to expose my smooth, moisturised body. My cock*, worn down brown like the head of a walking cane, springs up splendidly erect and twitches in the breeze until its needs are assiduously taken care of by the busty chambermaid recruited specifically for the purpose. Everything is timed perfectly to climax at precisely 7.30am. The trumpets blare and fade and I lie there in silence as I wilt, my ardour cooling in step with my expunged bodily fluids.

Too nice. The kind of person who dismounts from his horse to kiss lepers for no reason. Notoriously once gave a beggar all the money in his pocket, which usually amounts to about 32 pence. Unnecessarily popularised the occupation of Tramp, and fouled up the whole idea by bringing God into the equation.

Most famous for talking to animals, so quite clearly a bit of a halfwit. Also first to create 3D Nativity using real donkeys, oxen, sheep, horses etc, although many criticised him for exploiting living creatures for advertising purposes. Wrote poetry in Italian instead of Latin, possibly because he lost his dictionary. Received stigmata, the five wounds of Christ, almost certainly when he stumbled home drunkenly, forgot his keys and had to climb in through the downstairs window. Died, carelessly in my opinion, of starvation which Christians ludicrously celebrate by having a Feast Day. Made a saint two years later by a bloke in a big hat called Gregory.

The Franciscan order were later responsible for conducting the Inquisition, using sharp pointy things to torture and kill heretics.

One point in his favour: He thought Poverty was a good thing, a sentiment which puts to shame those who seek to rid the world of the poor by means of a cheap plastic wristband.

I was perambulating down the street when I began to notice the irritating ululations of a provincial orchestra announcing my arrival at the supermarket. Immediately the population surrounding me revolved to look nervously in my direction, each glance marked by the shrill downward surge of horsehair on violin. I stopped dead, and so did the musical accopmaniment. As I began to creep forward self-consciously, an invisible hand plucked at a taut viola. ''Ye Gods!'' I exclaimed, ''Leave me in peace!'' Kettle drums and cymbals clashed discordantly. Even my peremptory attempts at free thought were crushed by yet more whisperings from the massed strings. And so I turned on my heels, a beaten tramp, chased only by the frenzied pooterings of a three-hundred-lipped beast on clarinet, flute and trumpet.

Due to a combination of indolence, curiosity and extravagance, I embarked on a controversial episode of beard-growth after Christmas. Five days on and the results are somewhat rudimentary and frankly ridiculous. But I shall not blame my chin for this scraggy patch of stillborn watercress, this fetid barbastelle beneath my nose, a disinterested melee of ginger, brown and silvery-grey, as I think it is the consequence of general lack of enthusiasm.

The verb 'to beard' supposedly means to brave or confront. But hirsute chins, along with moustaches, have been denuded of their grandeur and stripped of heroic aspect by the fools of our age. To some the iconic beard would belong to God, or to give him his proper name Leonardo Da Vinci, but he has been sadly absent for quite some time now and the likes of Osama Bin Laden, David Bellamy, Karl Marx have seen fit to further desecrate this once-great monolith to human civilisation.

Likewise, the once ubiquitous moustache, that second brain of Nietzsche, adopted from our Indian cousins and wielded proudly as the emblem of the British Empire, has been ripped bloodily from our lips and ground into the dust by a succession of idiotic, old-style-celebrity pedagogues: Stalin, Hitler, Freddie Mercury and of course Tom Selleck. Who shall reclaim our facial hair for a new era? Who shall lead us out of this Dark Age? Sadly, I must confess that Mister Tramp lacks both the inclination and the beard.

Every tramp desires at some lonesome equinox to be adopted by a devastatingly beautiful Jewish Princess and taken away to her luxurious abode to be soaped and scrubbed and prettified. Bedecked in a tailored dinner jacket he would then consume heavenly morsels from her lavish dinner table, occasionally having to peer around the fanciful candelabra at his host to swap a few eloquent bon mots.

It was not to be so for Mister Tramp. Instead I encountered mine while slaving as a dishwasher in a commune on the far reaches of the Mediterranean sea. She was not a traditional princess, having cropped hair in the manner fashionable some decades ago. However my pique must have been aroused by the nickname she went by among my fellow labourers. In Spanish it was 'Golden Pussy', although I have a feeling this was a toned down translation. I am not sure where I first saw her although no doubt it was while I was assassinating cockroaches in the dining room. For this task I discovered that repeated bashes with a heavy broom was the most suitable method. I was staring into the satanic face of one such insect as its last shivers wracked its spiny legs when I glimpsed up and saw her gaily walking through the hall. I determined to track her down.

And so it was one night that I somehow learnt she frequently occupied a community hall for the purposes of operatic exhalation. I dwelt outside one evening, and there then emerged a deathly wail, so beautiful, so melancholic and full of anguish that I knew it was her. I came up with a fiendish plan to wait outside, using a local dog as an excuse. Endless fun could be had throwing it sticks to be retrieved and then wrestling said stick away from the slavering hound on the grass.

At some point I saw her walking down the path. I proffered a conversational gambit based on the animal and proceeded to try and engage her in further discussion. It did not go well initially, as I was transfixed by her groin region. Not because it was golden, but because she was wearing jeans that displayed the crotch buttons openly, without a concealing modesty flap. Suffice to say I charmed her with my drawing ability and boasts of genius, despite my rather slovenly appearance. It ended with a fond farewell and so I retired to bed, satisfied that battle had been joined.

Of course it ended promptly as the next morning she appeared outside my workplace with a small pet, as if waiting for me to renew our acquaintance. Thinking I would let her stew in fond admiration of my cucumber chopping technique, I waited some 20 minutes before strolling outside to the bench where she had perched. Predictably she had vanished. From that moment on she affected to ignore me at every opportunity. Ah, I thought, the princess sleeps. No longer was I the pea beneath her mattress.