This article is taken from the October 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

“Bozza, you didn’t really blow up a Russian tank, did you?” Cazza is reading over his shoulder as he types. 

“Details! This memoir is about the greater truth. Do you think the bit where I kill the general with my teeth is too much?”

“Maybe a bit. Where are you on the title?”

“Blood, Sweat and Cheers: My Walk With Destiny.” 

We are staying in a new house, because we have had to move out of the flat over the office. Bozza says it won’t be for long — “just until they realise Liz is a lemon”— but he is passing the time by writing about his adventures. 

I think he should include one about a dog who fights crime, like when I solved The Case Of The Missing Party by finding Cazza’s CDs under a sofa cushion, just as she was telling the police people that she’d never heard of ABBA. 

Bozza accidentally taped me into a big box

Moving day was very exciting, because Bozza accidentally taped me into a big box and then locked it in a cupboard and then pushed a wardrobe across the cupboard door. But just when I was beginning to worry I might get left behind, a woman called Liz who used to come and measure the curtains found me and told the police to stop Bozza and Cazza from leaving. 

“Shoot the tyres if you have to,” she said, “but they’re not getting away from here without their  turd machine. It’s bad enough that they won’t take David Frost.”

Cazza picks up a page from the desk. “Did the Queen really say you were an incredible prime minister?” 

“Well, incredibly something. She said she’d never known anyone like me. Which is odd, because she knew Churchill, and he and I were actually very alike.” 

“You’ve mentioned.”

Bozza says he hopes to get his book finished by Christmas, which will be nice, but then he’s going to have to go on a long speaking tour. Cazza says she’ll be going somewhere called the Bahamas. As for me, there was a bit of an argument, but it’s very exciting: they’ve agreed I’m going to get “the Balmoral option”!