Muff diver

Muff diver

The last person who lived in our house before us was a big bearded fella who used to work on the oil rigs. It turned out it wasn’t exciting enough for him, so he gave it all up for the heart-stopping thrills of a seaside launderette instead, his life now revolving (quite literally) around other people’s shit-and-spunk-stained hotel sheets. There’s money in shit, it turns out, lots of it. He is, however, quite welcome to it.

When he moved out, being an utterly lazy bugger, he left a few things behind. Number one being the world’s largest cheese plant, which we had to hack to pieces to get out through the patio doors; and number two being a shed and a garage bursting to the seams with his junk.

We ignored the mounds of crap for as long as we could, but after a while, yes, we would actually like to use the garage we had paid good money on, and the shed might come in handy one day as an emergency outside toilet. Hiring a skip, we spent days clearing the place of his useless tat before we could move our own piles of useless tat in.

And what tat! He was like Mr Trebus in his magpie-like obsession with hoarding complete and utter junk. There were boxes and boxes of old tools caked in rust and filth as if they’d been personally rescued from the bottom of a swamp. There was box after box of fishing tackle, all broken and totally useless in one way or another. And all the plastic flower pots in the whole world, which surprised us somewhat, as the monstrous cheese plant was the only living thing on the entire premises.

And there, right at the back, hulking like a big hulky thing was an entire deep-sea diving suit, complete with screw-down helmet, lead boots and an impressive array of knives, in case, we presumed, a killer squid might attack him on his way to the Off Licence.

It stunk. It stunk like there was a dead body inside it, and perhaps there was. We dragged the thing to the skip, arms and legs coming off as we went, the whole episode resembling a scene from a zombie movie as it creaked and farted from the strain.

And there, sitting behind it, was a suitcase. An old, battered, brown suitcase tied up with string that looked that it might contain either Paddington Bear’s marmalade sandwiches, or the mankiest, filthiest pornographic magazines you ever set your eyes on.

Go on, guess.

They were the worst sandwiches I ever tasted.

Wrong! Allow me, if you will, to give you a random sample of the goods, translated from the original German. It should be pointed out, however, that my time with the merchandise was strictly limited, as many of the pages were mysterious stuck together (one presumed by “marmalade”), and Mrs Duck whipped the filth from my hands and flung the case-o-smut under the fetid diving outfit in the skip, where it belonged.

Mourn, then, for these lost classics:

”Oh Hans!” Helga is shouting “Shit on my tits you big stud!”

And:

With a sewer from her mind, Inge likes things up her arse. Then Horst is coming home to a big surprise!

Also:

Lotte likes to shave Peter’s cock and balls! Peter likes to be tied up by Lotte! Together, they are pair of happy happy fuckers!

Poor Mr Diver. It must get so lonely in decompression.

A late-night raid on the skip, intended to rescue the case and forward it on to our man’s launderette, where it could be recycled in much the way old People’s Friends are used in doctors’ surgeries, was stealthily planned and executed. But the local magpies had been, and after fishing out the dead mattress and the Reliant Robin, the case-o-filth was nowhere to be seen.

I just hope it’s gone to a good home…