On socks, sandals and having a Berni

On socks, sandals and having a Berni

To celebrate the fact that I am EXCELLENT, my charming wife takes me out to a meal at the swankiest restaurant in town.

That's right, dear reader: We had a Berni.

The reason for this celebration is my selection for the British Olympic Team at the Beijing Olympics in the sport of Socks and Sandals Spotting, in which I am the national champion, and an eighth dan LORD HIGH OF EXCELLENCE in the Art.

The Olympic trials were held in Weymouth – S&S capital of the United Kingdom – this weekend, my score of 56 being a new World Record, despite the obvious BLASPHEMY issues in taking part in such a sport on the LORD'S DAY.


It is my duty, then, to face down these hideous fashion criminals and BLASPHEMERS, laugh at them in the street, and take photographs; for it is all in the line of our nation's Olympic glory and the WILL of our lord JEFF BANKS.

For as we speak, the coastal resorts of China are thronged with crack S&S spotters, some as young as eight years old, in dawn-until-dusk training for this and future Olympic Games.

I, on the other hand, have my trusty notebook, a signed photograph of Lord Coe in a pair of swimming trunks, and a town full of bewildered fashion accidents in shopmobility scooters.

The gold medal is as good as mine.

A Sunday afternoon, we elbowed the heaving masses aside and ran the gauntlet of strange-smelling fellow customers in a range of market-bought shell-suits and waiting staff with stomach-churning piercings, and knuckled down to a fine, fine meal at Britain's second most excellent steak house.

"I'll have the chicken tikka masala" says my lovely wife to the hideously pierced waiter, eschewing the flame-grilled cow, the episode of her burning a Berni Inn to the ground still fresh in her mind after all these years.

"And I'll have the ham, eb and chips, please" I say, feeling particularly adventurous.

"Eb?"

"Oh. I said 'ham, eb and chips', didn't I?"

"Yes. Yes you did."

"What a stupid bit".