Of(f) Three...

The third attempt.

Here’s a pipe.

It sits in a glass cabinet in a museum on the island of St Mary’s – the largest of the Isles of Scilly.

I like museums.

I like quirky museums.

I don’t particularly like pipes.

And I certainly didn’t like it when I bought my ticket and the female ticket seller enquired – “senior?”
If she hadn’t had been – can you say that? – female, I MIGHT have felt (slightly) different.

Females perturb me.

Or is it that they confuse me?

The pipe, of course, is mythical – otherwise it clearly wouldn’t be in a museum – even if it is a quirky museum on a tiny (though main) windswept Atlantic island.

And I wouldn’t have taken a picture of it.

Even if I was on a wind swept tiny (albeit main) Atlantic island.

The other day someone asked me where I went on my holidays, the Isles of Scilly I replied, where’s that they said, over there I said pointing, what is there to do there they asked, there’s a pub I replied, oh they said, and the sea, is it cold they asked, very cold I replied, did you swim they said, I did I said, but I had a wet suit I explained and it was still bloody freezing.

And there was a mythical pipe.

Harold Wilson’s.

Who is Harold Wilson they asked?

The last decent British Prime minister I replied, though I don’t know what I base that on.

Either the fact that all but one of the subsequent Prime Ministers have been right wing fascists, even those who weren’t meant to be…..

Or the fact that he was a guest on The Morecambe and Wise show on British TV in 1978.

What did he do they asked?

He wore a raincoat and smoked a pipe, I explained.

And made us laugh.

Prime Ministers should make us laugh more often, I said.

But he had gone.

To the museum on St Mary’s – where you can see his raincoat and his pipe.