THE MOST INTIMATE PLACE by Rosemary Furber

When I've got a book in my hand, nothing soothes me more than having my teeth drilled, so when a copy of The Most Intimate Place arrived in the post, I let it prop up the wonky telly stand for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't have opened it at all if my pet python hadn't slithered over the top of said telly and knocked my beer into it. The telly exploded like an H bomb on Guy Fawkes night and I was sat there looking at the naked girl on the book's cover when I realised I'd nothing else to do and might as well cop a butcher's. Imagine my surprise, guys, when I flick through and find it's written by a fan of the Sword. He's inside writing to his girlfriend about why he's got done for the murder of this lady vicar and those pages turn themselves, I kid you not! The prison stuff's so accurate, I was like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Reminded me of when I used to write for money myself, every time I wrote home to my mum from Pentonville. Now books are not really my drug of choice - if you ask me, they're usually far too long in the middle, know what I mean - and if I was stuck on a desert island with a whole library to choose from, what would I take? Poison. But this one roars by.

I'll show you what I mean. Here's a bit where he's talking about the Sword's late, great lead singer, Pug. He lifts a bit from my biog about Pug actually, which he should not have done but I'll forgive him, seeing as he adores the band so very, very much:

From 'The Most Intimate Place': I opened the curtain an inch. Sunlight blistered my eyes so I shut it again. I got back into bed and picked up my favourite book of all time: ROCK OF AGES, the amazing, unexpurgated rock and roll story of Sword Rampant by their roadie called Mugadossa, and Algernon Fox of The Times. It fell open at the story of Pug's first famous suicide attempt in the pond beside the Princess of Wales pub. Every time I sit outside that pub with a pint and watch the lights split the horizon between miles of grassy heath and a rosy evening sky, I remember that Pug wanted that to be his last view of the world. Or so he said in Rock of Ages. I smelt the pages. Glue and toilet paper. Appropriate really...

             Seeing as how Pug was well filled to overflowing with substances of one sort or another, it was something of a mystery how he found his way into the Daimler at all. Then this old bat with a trolley bag rolled up to him, shouting: 'Young man, if you don't get out of that car this minute, I shall call the police. You riff raff think you can just stroll up here from Deptford and steal cars belonging to respectable people...' Pug's electric window hummed open. He turned slowly, focused one eye on her and treated her to a unique rendition:

Who's this cross old bat before me?

Eye of newt and nose of dog,

Stand well clear, dear, Satan's Rising

Out of this here Blackheath bog.

She tried to yell over him, so Pug tried to close the window again but he kept getting his hair caught in it, and it was left to his trusty roadie, yours truly, to explain to the old girl as per usual that he was the greatest rock singer in the world and that it was his own car actually. I must have done a beautiful job. She apologised.

            A minute later while I wasn't looking, Pug walloped the car straight into Drive, mounted the grass-covered hump along the edge of Princess of Wales Drive and headed all of fifteen feet towards the pond. Two wheels climbed the kerb and slumped at the low railing before the car stopped dead, the engine growling, Pug growling and the old woman laughing her drawers off. She must have told the Mail because next morning there it was in the paper: PUG DUG FROM SLUDGE, and how he'd never be as famous as Brian Jones in a month of Sunday papers. Little did they...

         It was my mobile. Cyril. I put down the book.

            'Patrick, you listening?'

Yep.

'I'm taking the little lady to the Maldives so we're going to put the paper away on Friday. I need the lady vicar piece by noon on Thursday.'

            I laid my can of Special Brew reverently on the bed, propped up by a half-finished packet of chocolate biscuits. What day was today? Cyril said it all again.

            'Yeah. No problem.'

            'When did you see her?'

            'Ahm...'

            'Have you even phoned her yet?'

            'Yeah, yeah.' I hadn't actually. Her number was somewhere...    ' Good.'

            'Thursday's OK then?'

            'Yeah.'

            'Get her to talk about the two lesbian vicars trying to adopt a baby.'

            'Right.'

            'Patrick, are you awake?'

            'Of-course I am. I was busy on something else, that's all.'

            'Well get off her and get on with some work. I'm off to lunch now.'

'Hang on, Cyril, when am I getting the money?'

'Money?' You'd think I'd asked him to share his vestal virgins.

'Thirty quid.'

'Sounds rather a lot.'

'For the Whitehead book. I'm not going near that lady vic until-'

'It's in the post, old boy.'

'In the post?'

Hnh. I'd experienced Cyril's 'in the post' before.

'Absolutely. And make it zing, old boy. The lady vicar piece, I mean.'

            Make a lady vicar zing? She was bound to be fat and ancient in a beige anorak. But Cyril was as good as his word. Next morning I stood in my pants in the communal hall staring at Cyril's handwriting on the envelope, wondering how the hell I had sunk to this.

++++++++++++++++++

See what I mean, guys? As real as a five stretch and for less quids than a CD! It turns out the lady vicar is anything but shabby - she's a hard-drinking, hard-smoking little darling with an arse like a bag full of squirrels. I love this book so much, it's inspired me to indulge in a bit of the old pencil squeezing myself, as follows:

There once was a band called Sword Rampant

Whose chords were infrequently championed

Till a book full of pace,

The Most Intimate Place,

Brought them fame that'll never be dampened.

So - off you go, my hearty troupers, any decent bookshop should have it. Get them to order it if they haven't got it in. If they chase you out of the shop 'cause they think you're just there thieving, tell them the Sword sent ya! Or you can try these websites:

www. amazon .co.uk

www. waterstones .co.uk