Floyd On The Jukebox - by Ginge

I went round Robbie’s house to discuss something or other.

I think it was around the time he was organising a Tubular Bells/Dark Side of the Moon/Rumours tribute tour. The whole thing kinda flopped after a few shows, but he’d organised a proper tour bus for the first weekend so we all felt like rock stars for a bit. Nice one fella.

Anyway, we said what we had to say and decided go for a pint at the New Inn. I’d left my sax at his, so I picked it up and off we went.

After several pints and a few games of pool we sat down for a chat, at which point something from the upcoming shows came on the jukebox – maybe a Pink Floyd tune with a sax solo. So, feeling suitably spurred on by lager, I decided to have a play along.

I put my sax case on the table in front of me and opened the lid.

The smell hit me like a ton of old prawns as I realised - I’d been fishpranked.

The stench of rotten fish came forth from my saxophone like the scene at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, except with twisted satanic scary kippers instead of ghosts.

You could actually see the foul emanation radiating outwards through the pub, as one by one, people’s expressions went from mild pub contentment to utter disgust.

Robbie was grinning.

Robbie was laughing.

Robbie was totally pissing himself, the bastard..

As I shut the fishy Ark of the Covenant, I realised I’d left my horn at his house for a whole week. It had been next to a radiator when I’d picked it up. He confirmed that yes, the offending mackerel had been on a slow warm rot setting for about six days.

I suppose you could call it revenge. As his best man (by short straw, not request or choice) I’d put a couple of herrings into the car in which he and Libby were driving to their honeymoon. He rang me before they’d even left town with the question “Ginge. Where’s the fish?”

You have to be of a certain mindset for this sort of thing. A sort of Robbie Fraser mindset. If he’d have placed those fish in my car, he’d have put them somewhere to lie undetected until the end of the honeymoon when they’d be really stinking.

So there it is – the harshest of lessons I learned from that beautiful, filthy, depraved individual known as Robbie “total bastard” Fraser is this.

Never blag a blagger. Never prank a prankster. And never EVER fish prank a fish pranker. Especially when that esteemed fish pranker is Robbie Fraser: Slayer of Saxophones, Prince of the Pollack, Soveriegn of the Sardine. Master of the Mackerel.