Always wear a belt when dealing with bees...
Being fairly yokel-like, we've kept a fair amount of livestock in our time. No cows or pigs, but chickens, ducks and we've recently tried to get onboard the craze for bee-keeping and promoting the dying art of British honey. Bloody tasty stuff it is too, when made in your own back garden.

Anyhow, my next-door neighbour, Griff (he's not really called Griff, his name's Bill, but he bears a startling resemblence to Griff Rhys Jones and everyone including his wife and kids calls him that), wanted in on the game so I took him down to a large farm nearby that had loads of hives and - more importantly - the raw materials needed to build one's own.

The owner effusively took us over to a brick storage bin with a heavy wooden lid. Heavy to the extent that, to a couple of weaklings like Griff and I, it needed two people to lift it. So Griff and I heaved away and were a little startled as half a dozen bees buzzed out.

"Don't worry about that," grunted the beekeeper. "They have a habit of hiding in there. It's the traces of pollen on the wood-slats that attracts them.

So we carried on rooting through the pile of timber inside this bin. Given where we'd chosen to lift the lid we were rather uncomfortably face-to-face. And that's where my facial hair began to interfere.

For local amateur-dramatic reasons, I had been forced to stop shaving for the previous few months and was boasting a rather luxurious 'full set'. Rather too full, as it happens, for the hair on my top lip had become rather too enthusiastic and started creeping up my nostrils. And I'm sorry now for having to share that with you. But not as sorry as Griff was.

With one hand propping open the lid and the other supporting me as I leaned over the brick sides, I felt the uncomfortable nose tingle that marked an irritant sneeze coming on. And given that Griff's head was literally inches from my mouth, I didn't think sneezing was a diplomatic option. Instead I submitted to some ridiculous bunny-nose-twitching contortions and grimacing while trying to hold back what felt like half the air and snot in Gloucestershire. Knowing that it was my hairy fizzog to blame, I started blowing in a vaguely upwards direction to dislodge the offending hair. This proved not to be a great idea as I quickly realised that I was also blowing on the back of Griff's neck and, in effect, giving him a great bit of man flirt.

Without lifting his head, Griff rumbled: "You blowing on my neck, mate?"

"Er...yeah. Sorry, it's my 'tache itching."

"Well, I'd be a darn sight happier if you pointed it away from me."

With a great deal of self-control, I directed my snorting and out-of-control facial hair in another direction. And, as Griff made some positive noises about the bits of wood he found, I felt another ominous feeling. One that would do my gay-flirting credentials no help whatsoever.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I could feel my jeans inching their way down my arse-crack. There was no remedial action here: I had been relying on my ample gut to hold my trousers up, and my hips just weren't up to the job. With both hands still out of commission, I positively willed my denims to stay up, but they slowly continued their inexorable descent.

All of a sudden, three things happened almost simultaneously: Griff gave a sudden exclamation as he found a suitable bit of wood and picked it up, my jeans gave up the battle against gravity and slipped down to ankle height, and a alarmed bee shot out from under Griff's new hive wall and sought refuge in the nearest warm dark place...

...my pants...

"YYYOOOOWWWWOOOOOOOHHHBASTARDOOOOWWWOOOOOOSHIIT" went I, leaping up and down. Clearly this wasn't the cleverest move, because my trousers were still around my ankles, causing me to pitch forward, crack my head on the bricks and fall, stunned but vaguely awake, into the mud. The bee shot out of my pants, and frankly who can blame it?

The beekeeper dashed over with a look of worry and slight bemusement (don't forget I was still sans trousers). "What on Earth were you doing?" he bellowed?

Still slightly woozy, I propped myself up on an elbow, regarded him with hazy focus and muttered:

"Vetting hive bin, moustache aimed off to win Griff happiness"

Puns week? Fuck off!
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Sun 15 Mar 2009, 11:50, Reply)