Branco & Squarehead
Branco and his offsider, Squarehead, (I called them Yugoslav and Yugoslow) were both heavy gamblers, (sixteen stone if they weighed an ounce). Dogs, gallops square-gaiters and trotters, footy, soccer, tennis the pools, tattslotto and two flies crawling up the wall, you name it they would gamble on it.
“I got the doggie dubble lars nite,” said Branco to me, “Do you ever gamble?”
“Nar,” I said, “I bet on a horse once but it ran unplaced.” “Come forth” I yelled, and it did.
“I backed a hourse once who started at ten to one…. he finished the race at quarter past.”
Hotlips
“I need a character witness.” Hotlips said to me one day.
I still wasn’t certain how he aqcuired his nickname. Was it his success rate with the opposite sex or the fact that he could talk the legs off a chair? Especially after one or two (dozen) beers to which he was quite partial on the odd occasion.
“Why?”
“The booze bus stopped me the other night and I had to blow into this little bag. Mate, I was full as a fat ladie’s sock.”
“What was the reading?”
“0.275.”
“Bloody hell, you should have been declared clinically dead from alcoholic poisoning. What happens now?”
“I’ve got a summons to appear in court next Tuesday. I’ll probably lose my licence but I’ll try to squirm out of it. A character witness might be of some help. I asked my mate Bluey but he got caught stealing a car last week so I thought I’d ask you.”
“OK,” I said, “I’ll be in it.”
And so there we were on Tuesday morning, dressed in our Sunday best for the occasion. The magistrate was a stern, stoic, old fox with steelgrey sideburns and eyebrows.
His somber looks and the tone of his voice as he dealt with other cases before ours did nothing for our confidence.
Finally Hotlip’s case came up and the young constable on duty on the night of the alleged ‘crime’ read out the charge.
“0.275,” said the judge, “you must have been very, very drunk Mr. W. Do you have anything to say in your defence before I impose a fine?”
“Well, you honour,” pleaded Hotlips, “all I can say is that I normally don’t drink that much.”
The magistrate slid his glasses down to the tip of his nose, peered over the top of them and replied in a slow, emphatic way: “Mr. W, nobody……. normally…….. drinks that much.”
