Mr Grumpy's new toys (incorporating Daily Joke #4)

We visited a friend in Barnet on Monday and came back with a petrol lawnmower. Broken, of course. Having proved itself too heavy for my friend to lift in and out of her shed, it had lurked amongst the spidery plantpots for a good five years or so. Now Mr G has a raison d'etre. He keeps diving off to Halfords and other such stores, getting parts for it. The house is full of the stink of petrol. With any luck, it will occupy him for a few more days, though trying to do things with his right hand, the stroke-affected one, gives him awful cramp.

Some men use 'just popping out for a packet of fags' (or a bar of chocolate) as cover for scurrilous behaviour of one sort or another. One friend was cooking lunch when her bloke popped to the newsagents for something and didn't reappear for three days. He had been to France with his mates and hadn't dared tell her he had arranged it.

Even worse was what happened to another close friend. It was Christmas Day. She was cooking Christmas dinner. He 'popped to the shop' and never, ever came back. He moved in with another woman down the street and she was left with congealing turkey and dried up roasties and floods of heartbroken tears.

On Monday, it was Mr G's turn to say, 'Just popping to the shops, dear'. An hour later, he reappeared looking slightly sheepish. Shortly before we left for lunch with my friend, he rolled up his sleeve, removed a blood-soaked dressing, and showed me what he'd really 'popped' for; a new tattoo. It is the Chinese word for Licentious and it covers up the grotty, fading 007 tat that he had done in gaol in the 1960s. He's planning to have the Chinese for 'venerable, wise old git' tattooed on the other arm.

Whatever next? Hope it won't be like the joke about the Jamaican guy a girl met and fell for on holiday. As they prepared to get their legs over each other, she was a bit put out to see he had 'Wendy' tattooed on a sensitive part of his anatomy. "Oh," she said jealously. "Is that your girlfriend?" He laughed and replied, "No. Once I get really turned on, you'll see it says, 'welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day!'"