Todays Crossword .....

  Fucking Priceless! This is the shit ' Ditch's ' Blog exists for! So I don't have to rerelate belters like this in half a dozen places.

  First off then, the usual groundwork, which I often feel I need to put in, to bring the uninitiated up to pace:

  Marion is the part time, afternoon, bar maid at Jim's. Jim's is my Local. 

  I love Marion, for her mind. I mentally block any thoughts of her body, by default! I'm absolutely certain this thing is mutual. We're both of a certain age. 

   There really Is some shit neither man, nor beast, wants to consider about their associates. I'm mentioning this bollocks simply to vanquish from the readers mind Any of this, Traditional 'Barmaid' shit. 

  Forget  pouting blondes, thrusting vertigo inducing cleavage beneath a smouldering stare. Marion, I'm sure she won't mind me saying, will have long since left such frivolities as " Middle Age " behind her. As have I. 

  Now? We do the crosswords. Irish Independent, as it happens. Because ye get Three crosswords in there, including the " Farmers " one. Rest of their shit goes in the stove. Pages not even opened!

  No matter though. Because I'll Never forget the fucking clue / Answer / Or Upshot! I mean, I can't exactly quote ye the " 9 Down " shit that the internet, so often, seems to demand, these days. It was there though:

  " 3 Down. Single Humped Camel. Nine Letters "

  Obviously, with animals being the absolute focus of my entire life, the answer was as natural as breathing. " DROMEDARY, Marion. "

  Marion looked a bit non plussed. I, having had a couple of my own pints, before I'd even come into town, felt a rush of the Bamber Gascoigne's and, without hesitation, went in to follow the thrust with the old twist!

  " Dromedary! 'Ship of the Fucking Desert', Marion! Peter O fucking Toole! Tea towel on the head? Laurence of the Fucking Sand Dunes?!? "

  I'm screaming this shit in her face. Because I love her. She's taking it, because she Knows she'll hand me my balls, on a plate,  by Six Across. 

  Then, just to Really assert my unquestionably Alpha Male dominance of the situation, I say:

  " I don't s'pose ye know the true name of the Two humped camel, either, do ye? Thick Fuck! " (Ye know how, the more fond of someone ye are, the more badly ye insult them. And they ~ knowingly ~ accept it)

" Bactrian, FFS! ", I yelled. So loud that the whole ~ few compatriots in the ~ bar could hear me. Marion suitably withered. A :| sort of expression about her.

  " Bactrian Camel, Marion. " Visualising one, in my minds eye. Using that memory to scream the description at Marion. " Two humps. Get them in places like Mongolia. Walk around on snow and mountains. Not fucking sand dunes! Shaggy things. Fucking great, hairy hooves! "

  There was that split second of complete silence. As time stood still. Our eyes locked. Then, Wendy, the young girl whos shift begins shortly before Marions ends, sprayed her fucking mineral water all over the bar. 

  And there's dear Marion. Still staring at me with that tight lipped look. Finally announcing; " Well, I don't know! ".

  No, love. You obviously didn't. But, Wendy did. I did. And going by the stifled sniggering? Half the fucking bar did!