I flew to Rome and landed among pints of stout at O'Mahoney's Bar, along with a posse of British tourists.

Jamie, a Scotsman resplendent in a kilt, beamed with delight when the band played Whisky in the Jar.

But a stern-faced man of Kent commented, 'The Irish didn't help us in the war,' and the landlord looked furious.

Then a white-haired Italian stood by a fading photograph, featuring a ...

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Montessa the Mighty is out of sorts.

Shame, I was hoping to see her in shorts,
and learn from that little woman how to curse.

Why, her mum said she even swore at the nurse,
after emerging from the womb.

What a bundle of fun is that lady,
who hails from the land of Eternal Cloud.

It is rumoured she once showed that father of psychology,
Sigmund Freud, the sights of her home city of ...

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Micky Most, from Ireland’s county Mayo,
became the toast of Kentish Town,
after he kicked a goal in extra time,
to win a game of Gaelic football,
a cross between soccer and rugby.

But it was nothing to the roar that greeted Lachlan Lam, whose right foot kicked the ball over the posts at Wembley, to give Leigh the Rugby League Challenge Cup.

His old pal Walter had invited him along,
and ...

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He was a little kid from the back streets of the Shankill,
who became Britain’s leading exponent of a playwright called Will.

His name was Kenneth, and despite his fame,
he'll often revisit his home city of Belfast and relive childhood days, with his old pal Malachi, over a pint of plain.

But Ken can still recall the insults and hurled stones, the streets he was forbidden to enter by angry...

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‘Mad’ Mabel lived with her brother, ‘Red’ Mostravin, the heir to a grand estate, which had seen better days.

He’d left the Army under a cloud – some say he refused to attack striking workers in a time of industrial unrest, and was a devotee of Karl Marx.

His old housekeeper, Mavis, watched him grow up, under the stern rod of his father, General Sir Herbert Halfbreast.

He loved his sister,...

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In my youth when the whims of women got me down, 
I would seek the company of ex-sergeant Eamonn McSwilly.

He’d fought at Rorke’s Drift against the Zulus,
and would often do one of their war dances,
while drinking a pint of stout,
then sob into his glass, recalling the horror of
that misguided military campaign.

I would listen in awe, but it was myself,
a wet-behind-be-the ears young m...

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Do you see the man with the ridiculous 'tache,
behind women in corsets and flowery hats?

Some say he's a rake and a cad, and not very nice.

So take my advice, and avoid him at all costs.

He's not a gent at all, but a fantasist with no sense of smell,
who never washes his socks, as you'll learn
if you ever stay at Vose Hall.

The surroundings are splendid indeed,
and if he's feeling ...

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You will no doubt accuse me of being a charlatan,
when I tell you I joined a self-help group for troubled men,
to gather material for a would-be novel,
having won Best Essay Prize at Harrow public school.

I sat entranced as tormented souls unburdened themselves,
realising they are not alone, and reluctantly admitted to
being a misogynist (well, I had to confess to something).

I nodded i...

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All pop stars have their stalkers – while most
are merely a nuisance, others can be rather irksome.

Take the case of Rory Rocking Rogers,
my stage name, who became the victim of a
fame-obsessed denizen of the ocean.

While making a pop video in Ilfracombe,
that famed resort in the English county of Devonshire,
to promote new single, I’m Ravaged By Your Devotion,
the make-up lady told m...

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There’s a guy, festioned with headphones, acting strange in the library.

He’s babbles in tune to whatever he’s tuned into, at the computer terminal.

Outside, a dog wags his tail while Billy no-mates watches the short skirts pass by.

He’s outside a club called Funny Girls,
and is confused, ’cos the skirts are filled with hairy legs, making him wonder, ‘Am I hetro, homo, metro or bi?’

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Oh, mysterious Miss Coffee Cutie,
what do you think of when sipping your daily brew,
in the morning after the doctor has done his rounds?

You sit entranced like a cute mouse, ears a-twitching to the many accents,
from Geordie, in the north east with its castle that’s always new,
and that shrill sound emanating from our most musical city – you’ve guessed it,
the dialect known as Scouse.

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Why do all the Serbian football players in the
Euros tournament have an itch?

Abrofomitch, Saskovitch… do you get my drift?

Sorry for the repetitive rhymes, but we live in an uncertain,
dangerous world (you see I avoided that obvious one).

But according to BBC Radio Five Live,
discussing the football Euros campaign
goes before Brexit and its pitfalls,
in order of priority on its morn...

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I sat in the library wondering why my
fellow readers never seem to fall,
considering they do so much drinking, of alcohol.

Their hearts are failing under broken dreams,
but how many of those have they left sitting on late-departing trains?

Meanwhile the kids mock, alerted by a smoker’s cough,
whose dog barks at the weed, blowing off the Irish Sea.

Then O’Reilly waves, as he walks into...

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I'll tell you a far-fetched tale of Franny Frieloch,
that little Aussie bundle of fun from the
Australian city of Melbourne.

Her father, a German immigrant and inventor,
achieved fame for his self-inflating pillow,
used by gold prospectors in the Australian
bush, not to mention self-raising grass
fed with ant urine, to feed sheep in times of drought.

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I tried to look confident as I approached
Miss Veritable at the park cafe,
but stopped as I realised she was crying into her tea.

I called, only to be almost drowned out by the
band Massive Mouthful - tuning up for that afternoon’s concert, 
featuring a muscly rocker
with a voice like crunching gravel, 
who, according to the Acton Gazette,
well deserved his stage name of Mighty Marvel.

...

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‘Meet me in Londinium, before the legions arrive’,
I told a mysterious woman, whom I knew only as the Mystical Montessa.

We were both caught up in the nightmare of war,
as my countrymen fought the invading Roman army. 

Trapped between marching columns, we sheltered in undergrowth,
and I held her in my arms.

Persuaded that we were of like minds, lovers of the land and its lore,
she tol...

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I sat spellbound in the Dog and Whistle public house,
as my ‘friend’ Montessa ordered fish and chips, with baked beans,
and it suddenly struck me that she had a very sexy voice.

The barman was so stunned she had to ask twice,
unaware of him admiring her slender body, 
a result of hours on her mountain bike,
so she now fits easily into skinny jeans.

I’d applauded when she told those so...

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It all happened the day I attended the Hove writers’ group session.
Late as usual, I arrived as former headmaster,
Miles Meade-Mensum, was reading from his novel, Dilated Pupils.

I’d been encouraged to join the group by my therapist, 
who was fed up hearing me talk about a story
I was threatening to write.

It was about an obsessive nerd – me – who,
brought up by a bishop, spends his sp...

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A Dark Cloud
What am I doing here? I wonder,
making an advert for soap in a place called Masterful Canyon.

Seeking an answer, I get down and dirty amid cowering cactus.
But all I gained was a sore bottom, for cacti can be nasty.

I was startled to see a meteorite flash across the sky,
and hear a voice cry ‘You wouldn’t see that in Dublin,’
then saw an old Indian with a wooden box, full o...

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My schnozle is not well, due to the hot weather it oozes green liquid,
enough, in a desert of spare scrub, to fill a little well.

Lizards run away from it, suspicious of its effluence,
but the Texas scrub remains hard and prickly.

Then I watch what the Americans call ‘football’,
and cry ‘You call that a game!
I know where to go when I can’t sleep.’

On my return to England I’m told tha...

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After meeting Pedro the pedlar in Malle Mercados, 
I hired a boat to Peccadillo, where we sat and gazed at the señoritas.

But when I issued romantic invitations, they all said ‘Mañana’, 
yawned and ordered a round of café con leches
(which are coffees, don’t you speak Spanish?).

Then a woman called Dorothea explained she was a physiotherapist,
and I told her about the pain in my calf.

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‘Find me a chord and lyrics that scan,’ I said to the enveloping mist,
‘and a voice to suit a poetic man, so I can emulate my hero, Buddy Holly.’

‘Chuck in a love-stricken sweetheart, maybe a
western trucker hitting the road, miles of unending plain before him.’

I sat down and reflected that I’d loved to have played the 10-string tenor banjo,
just like that Dubliner Barney McKenna, but th...

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People scoff when I dig out my old reviews to boost a fading ego,
but I proudly boast to my contemporaries there was no one like me,
that old star of stage and screen, who almost became the ‘fifth’ Beatle.

Ah, but that’s another story.

As an actor, it hurt that some regarded me as a one-trick pony.
You see, being a handsome devil, I was often cast
as the romantic lead in our drama school...

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