The Christmas Evening of Ringo Spliff

Ringo Spliff had just been applauded all the way to his chair at the far end of the office. This sustained acclimation had been earned the previous evening at the office Christmas party and was in recognition of his thoroughly aberrant and bizarre behaviour at that particular event.

Although the party had been well stocked with booze courtesy of the management and the ‘Christmas kitty’, Ringo had insisted on bringing his own supply in the shape of two bottles of Night Train Express, an apple based sherry-wine in the Thunderbird tradition.

Ringo had, for reasons known only to himself, brought his ‘blues harp’ to the party with him and, as he got drunker and drunker, he chose to utilise his skill with this instrument in the making of ‘lonesome train’ noises. These bluesy emissions were at jangling variance to the disco music being played by the DJ employed for the occasion. At one stage, an enraged colleague threatened to ‘shove that fucking thing’ down Ringo’s throat if he didn’t stop playing it.

Ringo, by this time very drunk indeed, had discovered the ‘novelty plastic hammer’ that someone had brought along for light entertainment. The ‘novelty’ being that on making contact with another surface it made a disproportionately loud ‘popping’ sound. This was a fresh fascination for Ringo Spliff now that his harmonica had been taken from him. He thought it would be highly amusing to apply this toy to twin-setted arse of his manager, the redoubtable Mrs Marsh.

Before his round of applause, which though humorously meant, served only to aggravate his already aching head, he had been roundly reprimanded by Mrs Marsh in her office. She advised him that his behaviour did not reflect well either on him or his career but she’d take no further action given ‘the spirit of the time of year’.

The hammer now lay in a drawer in her desk. The whereabouts of his harmonica was never discovered.