People like me were sometimes shouted at in the street and called nancy boys so you probably won't be surprised to know that I'd give nearly anything to have my life over again, right from the very beginning, only it would be a different life, a very different life, one where I don't have the awful cravings I have now, even at the age of seventy-one. One night not long ago, after I'd read the first couple of chapters of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I dreamed that I was given written instructions on how to start over. They were really daunting, so daunting that they woke me up, whereupon I got a biro and a pad and wrote down everything I remembered about the dream. Here's what I wrote down.

Go to 666 Eureka Street, walk slowly around the American Pit Bull Terrier that you will find growling on the top step, remembering to pat it playfully on the nose as you pass (that way he'll know you're a friend), break the front door down with an Indo-Persian war hammer and proceed down to the cellar which you will notice has no steps and no stairs. There, in a locked treasure chest at the bottom of a toilet bowl overflowing with solid human waste, you will find directions on what to do next.

Not very helpful. Dreams aren't up to much of course. But the part about the Pit Bull Terrier puts me in mind now of the dog I groomed back in nineteen sixty, Aubrey Hegarty by name. Two months at it I was. Lovely animal with a backside on it that would have put you to loss. Belonged to the breadman Seamus Hegarty from out the Slaughmill Road and was what you might call a street dog. Allowed to run wild like children you'd see on TV in one of those misfortunate countries. Hegarty was the kind of boy that's all smiles to his customers and hard as nails underneath. He had a duty of care but didn't bother his big arse. Aubrey was out all day and allowed to wander anywhere it wanted and meet all sorts of disreputables.