Did you know Tommy? I says to the both of them. Sure, I knew him, Pat Allardyce says. Frank Marby nods. Sure, I heard he was some chanter, he says. If there was ever another Como, it was him, I says to them. Was he not managing your man Del Brogan for a bit? Pat Allardyce says to me. Sure, he was, for a while, I says to him, up until he died, that is. That’s arse-backward, Frank Marby says to me, that’s completely fucking back to front. What was Tommy doing behind the scenes with that fucking fruit merchant? Aye, it should have been Tommy, Pat Allardyce says, that wee bastard was like an unknown movie star or something. Your man Del Brogan was more contemporary, I says to them, sure he had all the new songs. Tommy convinced him to do some of the old material but people want to listen to all the disco songs and the stuff that’s in the hit parade like Rod Stewart these days. Tommy knew that. He saw the way the future was going. Face it, lads, I says to them, our days are numbered. Men like us are disappearing, fast. We’re the old school now. Soon all the hippies and the fucking punk rockers will be taking over.

When you think about what we did for these ungrateful bastards, Mad Frank Marby says, it makes me mad as fuck. It’s a different world this weather. The young ones these days have got no respect and all they do is fucking talk and fucking bang on about human rights and all that pish. The leadership is just as bad, if you ask me. I don’t know what the fuck is happening to the world sometimes, he says. We’ve become too fucking soft. I know that much. And I blame the longhairs. When all the longhairs came in and all the punk rockers came in, that’s when everybody began mincing around like fucking three-speeds and that’s when they began handing these fucking Green Books out about what you can and can’t do. I mean, it was clear in the old days that if somebody needed shooting then you just fucking shot them, end of. This new generation has no fucking balls, Mad Frank Marby says, and he shakes his head in disgust and in pity and he spits out the open window into the dark of this warm August night. Just thinking about it makes me so mad I could pish, he says.

That’s when I get an idea. It’s 3 a.m., we’re just down the road from The Shamrock. Hold on, lads, I says to them, let’s swing a wee diversion here. We pull up to the front, where there’s a memorial to your man Del Brogan. There’s a big fuck-off flower arrangement and people have left photos and Celtic scarves and copies of his album and wee handwritten notes to him, as well as hankies, as well as what looks like hundreds of silk hankies. Still mad enough to pish? I says to them, and the three of us whip our dicks out and take a steaming wazz all over the memorial. Feel better now? I says to Mad Frank Marby. Brand new, he says to me.