Author's note: This story predates the current unfortunate mystery involving the disappearance of Alfonso The Weevil, and is included for curiosity purposes only.
I was having a long and pleasing dream involving Fiona Bruce and a potholing holiday in the Cairngorms, when gradually, Fiona's pleasant blandishments on the subject of corrective nipple surgery became drowned out by the sound of the most unholy torture. I came, drifting over the gentle waves of Lethe, to believe that donkey had been stapled to a pair of mating foxes, and the unfortunate trio slowly dragged through a wood chipping machine.
However as the noise became so acute that it looked even Fiona might ruffle a hair in that perfect coiffure, I woke up to find that in fact Alfonso was practising the violin on my chest.
"Alfonso", I said, looking at the clock, "it's four thirty in the morning."
"Just tell me what I've got", he demanded.
"Insomnia?" I volunteered, but he prodded me in the clavicle, with his special weevil bow, strung with purest My Little Pony tail hair.
"No, tell me what I've got"
I tried to go back to sleep.
"Tell me!"
The things I have to do to get a decent night's sleep.
"All right, Alfonso. You've got talent."
"Yes! I knew it!" He bounced off my chest. "And you", he said, "are queuing with me outside the Apollo from 7 tomorrow."
"But it is tomorrow Alfonso..."
****
We did not make it on stage till the very end of the day. The judges and we had endured what could best be described as a parade of inmates on day release from Dr Moreau's Island. And that was just the audience. As for the acts there was the purportedly talking cat which literally shat on the mat, the special needs transvestite who could sing the whole of ”Fiddler On The Roof” backwards but nothing else, and the class of schoolchildren in fluorescent cycling garb performing synchronised sewing.
It was late, and the theatre was stifling hot, and the atmosphere in the auditorium was brooding, hostile, restless, like a boxing match in its final moments. A perfect atmosphere for introducing a new performer.
Alfonso strode on, clutching his violin.
The man with black hair and white teeth yawned and said with magnificent disinterest
“So Alfonso, tell me, what’s the ambition? Where do you want to be in five years time?”
Straight off the bat, Alfonso replied
“I would like to be as big a star as James Galway was in the mid-Eighties.”
“But he played the flute”, said the man. “And you’re holding a violin.”
Alfonso did a little wiggle. “Yeah, we’ll see about that, Simon!”
The audience bayed like hyenas over a rotting bone.
Alfonso began to play, on the violin, the delightful hiking song from Cabaret, “Tomorrow Belongs To Me”, over a drum and bass backing track.
Six hours later, when he had finally finished the various remixes and alternative endings, he took a short bow, to utter silence.
“That was”, said the man, “the worst thing I have ever heard in my life.”
And for once, I had to agree with him.
But later, on the night bus home, Alfonso was not remotely downcast. Far from it, he was leaping about the seats like a mad thing. “Look at this! Look at this!” he kept yelling, brandishing his iPhone. “15 million hits on YouTube already! Just think of the franchising opportunities! Weevil cookware and fashion ranges, here we come baby!”
So, dear reader, I squashed him. But he’ll be back….
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