Liverpool Stories
The stories on this site are not included in my book.
The tales are snapshots of my life in Liverpool, the home of the Beatles, and the echo chamber of the Mersey Sound that in the sixties resonated around the planet like an acoustic Tsunami. The stories cover a period of 50 odd years and so they touch on every aspect of my life from the rites of passage to the passing of youth. I hope you enjoy them.
The letter - Knock knock
By John Williams
I was thinking about the stuff people used to have on sandwiches when I was a teenager and just starting work. For instance, there was something called Brawn, which was pressed pig's brain. I couldn't stomach it, because it was simply bits of pig embedded in a gelatinous mass that looked for all the world like thinly sliced air-dried vomit. I hated Spam too, despising with a passion the pale pink rubberiness of it all. Several years ago I saw a documentary about the stuff and recoiled with horror when I saw that it was almost pure fat, coloured to look like meat.
Of course, nowadays Spam is the curse of the web, or so I'm told. I just delete any that comes my way. It's that easy. In fact, I would go so far as feel deprived if I wasn't in receipt of a daily offer to enlarge my penis, help some widow of an African dictator skim millions from some hidden bank account or, and here the Spammers must be working in tandem, enhance my sex life with cheap Viagra.
Perhaps if I pursued all three offers simultaneously I might be invited run off with the rich widow and lead a life of pampered luxury as a super stud. I can't understand how it is that the Nigerian scam nets so many victims. It's not as if they are imaginative. Most of them say something like,
Dear friend, I am a painter and decorator in Lagos and one day I was working the home of the deceased minister of the interior, Major-General Filla Yorboots. As I was stripping the flock wallpaper from the Sauna rooms I found to my great surprise that the wall was plastered with bearer bonds and book vouchers for W.H. Smith. Together these amounted to $103,000,000 Canadian.
Unfortunately I cannot leave Nigeria because I accidentally dropped my passport in a bucket of paste and now the pages are stuck fast. I am therefore imploring you to send me the details of your bank account and I will deposit the bearer bonds in it, (my poor little boys want the vouchers to buy the latest Harry Potter book). For your pains I will award you 25% of the bond's face value.
Your humble servant
Igorra Nirv
I have received so many similar offers that of late I have taken to baiting the bastards. There was one in particular called Dr. Diarra. I forget exactly where his zillions were stashed, probably in the autoclave at the Lagos infirmary for tossers, but he provided me with hours of innocent fun.
I responded to his generous offer by indicating that I had a fair old stash to invest. His reply was instantaneous and he was all set on reeling me in, despite the fact that I insisted on addressing him as Doctor Diarrhoea. We exchanged a few more letters and I could almost hear him salivating into his Sago.
Then I informed him that I was banged up in Strangeways prison for internet fraud and asked if it was still a viable proposition.
I said that I had advertised, on the net, offering trained monkeys for sale. The monkeys were alleged to be able to make tea and generally keep the owner's house tidy.
Doctor Diarrhoea expressed alarm at my predicament and asked how this could be fraud. I replied that the monkeys were in fact illegal immigrants togged out in monkey suits and went on to explain that the police weren't bothered about the deception concerning the monkeys but were upset that I had imported non EU animal impersonators by the boatload.
Doctor Diarrhoea still persisted and sent email after email begging me to complete the deal as time was running out...I suspect termites were eating the hidden cash. He was writing to me right up until the moment I placed his name on my blocked sender's list.
Talk about faint heart never won a cigar!
About six weeks after writing this a Canadian reader wrote to me saying he had received a scam letter from South Africa....purporting to be from a 'Prince John Williams'.