“Alan. Look, you see that bloke over there?”
“Which one?”
“Skinhead, full length leather jacket, glasses, walking stick, and a heavy limp.”
“Oh right, what about him?”
“Well, you see his walking stick? It’s actually a sword.”
“Fuck off Dicker! You’re so full of shi…”
“…No listen, he’s had that limp all his life, you know it’s some kind of …errrr…”
“Birth defect?”
“That’s right, anyway people have been taking the piss out of him for years, through primary and secondary school, at work and down the pub, the abuse has been relentless. Up The Three Pigeons they used to call him ‘The spacca man’, he played in the pool team for a while but they had to ask him to stop playing and turning up at the matches.”
“Why?”
“Because the opposing teams used to call them, ‘Team spacca’.”
“Superb!”
“Anyway one day he had enough of the piss taking and tried to punch someone in a pub, but they just pushed him over and ridiculed him even more.”
“Really?”
“That was the turning point. He went away and had his trusty walking stick hollowed out and a very thin hardened steel blade fitted to the handle. If you look very closely you can just see the join, proper job too, had it done by some Japanese martial arts man in London.”
“Then what happened?”
“You can imagine, the next time someone called him ‘The spacca man’ down the pub he pulled this sword out and ran him through.”
“No! Really?”
“Yep, no more Mr Nice Guy.”