The Herculean Intellect of the Wrexham Mentalist.

Hello again. The Leader was a bit slow yesterday and today, which is only a bad thing when it's getting so bad you can't take cheap shots at the idiot provincials writing to it, and stories about daffodils being found early on.

The Daffodil story is true, by the way. About 8 years ago, the front page of the Wrexham Leader (Like an once weekly omnibus of the Evening Leader for people who really like to read shite) ran a story proclaiming "DAFFODILS FOUND IN FEBRUARY!". I'm pretty sure someone would have died that week, or they may have been some job losses, but fuck that, some old dear has some flowers pre-spring, so let's stop the presses.

Anyway, back to my planned commentary, this one on some of the respected characters of the area, mainly found in Taverns or sitting under bus shelters with a 3ltr bottle of White Lightning, and a roll up cigarette made from disgarded fagends on the floor. For example, there's a man who lives near me who trained under his father to be a butcher. Fair enough. But he wasn't very good, which his dad pointed out. So in perhaps the greatest instance of "I'LL SHOW YOU!" of all time, he cut his own fingers off and said to his father "What do you think of that?". To which his father brilliantly replied "I think you're an even shitter butcher now.". Which is fantastic. I don't see mentally unhinged meat merchants amputating their extremities in the Groucho Club! Oh no. That's a Wrexham pursuit.

While not prone to self-mutilation (as far as I know), I had the pleasure of meeting such an upstanding member of scoiety a fortnight ago. I decided to go for a few pints in The Ironworks, which is the refurbished Barracuda, and much nicer for it, it is too. So, me and a friend of mine where sitting in the smoking area having a pleasant chat about Crimewatch or something, whereupon this small gent walks over to us, with a big shit eating grin on his face and asks...

"Do you know what JKD is?"

Now, I actually do know what JKD is, as does my friend. We've been fans of MMA for many years, but we decided not to engage the mental in the hope he'd leave us alone. Undeterred, he continued...

"Do you know what JKD is?"
"Yeah."
"Bruce Lee invented it you know."
"Mmm-hmmm"
"Look what I bought today..."

He had his in. We mistakenly gave him an answer. One syllable as it may have been, an in is an in. And he was about to seal the deal. He sealed it by placing a DVD on our table. A Martial Arts instructional DVD. It looked like it was from the Pound Shop.

"99p that"

Ah yes. The 99p shop. Incase the pound shop wasn't quite shit enough, they opened a 99p shop in Wrexham. Where evidently they sell Martial Arts DVDs.

"I do all them"
"Oh yeah..."
"Yeah. Have you got a fag?"

Quick as a flash, and with a fag in my mouth, I told him I didn't smoke. This gambit somehow succeeded. And he turned to my friend, who, under duress, gave him a fag. Now he was really in. He'd shown us his DVD, and managed to co-erce a cigarette. He decided to continue showing us his 99p booty. One item is all it was. Lightbulbs. Which he had "been meaning to buy for years". So god only knows what he did for light before then.

After sitting with us for a good 10 seconds, he decided to take the conversational to a more intellectual plane. He came out with the statement "I believe in God, but I'm not religious. Arfe you Religious?". At this point I started smoking as quickly as possible in order to leave, and this made me explode in a coughing fit, which made our new friend decree that I'm a drug dealer because "That's a drug dealers cough, that". While I tried to regain my composure, he turned his attentions to my friend who has long hair. Our companion claimed that my friend was either Axl Rose or Ozzy Osbourne and went on to ask my friend to sing "Civil War" by Guns N' Roses. This was the last straw for us, we downed our pints and I said what I thought would be a masterstroke.

"We're going to Fat Cats mate, come along when you finish your pint".

He thought this was a great idea, and said he'd be there in five minutes. Brilliant. As we walked to the L'Etage bar instead we congratulated each other on this brilliant scheme of sending him to the other end of the town centre, and leaving us in piece. We settled down to out pints of Heineken, smiles on our faces, when our new friend turned up. 99p bag in hand.