Chapter 1: beginning in a giraffe's cage

My mid Life Crisis began when I turned 40.

It began in the giraffe compound at the zoo. At about 6.23 a.m. On a Tuesday.
As dawn's virgin light was slowly scorching its way through my eyes and starting to sizzle my still sleeping head.

I awoke to the hangover to end all hangovers. To the smell of moist giraffe. To the guttural sound of base animal awakening. To the hope of a crisp spring morn and the despair of being closer to sixty than twenty. To the shoes and shadow of six feet of uniformed authority figure. Uniformed authority figure in hat with truncheon.

It was the first time I'd ever been in trouble with the cops. Well, since I was a kid anyway.

"Is this your giraffe sir?" the shadow asked, without so much as a good morning. The cold, damp grass beneath my arse informed me that this was not a dream, as did the nuclear explosion in my brain.

I groped hopelessly through the mental fog of memory. Giraffe?

I remembered who I was, who I am. Danny Manny, or Dan the Man as I'm known to friends and foe alike. A sort of music journalist. Sort of, because it's a long while since I actually wrote anything, and I'm more a ranter than a trained journalist. But that's what I tell people who I meet at parties. Not that I get invited to many parties these days.

The feet remained there, in front of me, asking more and more questions about giraffes. And something about scarves too. Big feet, black leather shoes, size 13 or 14.

I remembered something about the previous night. I turned 40, went out for drinks, to get totally plastered, to live life to the full, for one night only. To show I was old in age but young in spirit. Young as the collapsed, crumpled and crippled wreck I feel the morning after.

All this passed through my mind while I'd been trying to observe the world through the slightest of slits in my eyelids, avoiding the sunlight. So much sun that it frazzled and frittered my grey matter. There was something missing, something not there. Ah, yes, my glasses. My hand started to grope the surrounding grass, until it came upon the glass, fragments of my former sight, and empty frames.

Names. Bryan and Toby. That's who I was with. Well, who I'm always with. My drinking partners of choice.

It's Bryan who I live with. Who puts me up, puts up with me, who I hang out with. Failed journo that I am, he is my one celebrity friend. My one friend come to think of it.

While I'm remembering, big boots gathered me up and I was somehow delivered to the station, to my own cosy cell, leaving the giraffes to their peace.

Giraffes! I remembered. We were in the Wonky Fishwife, many, many pints into the evening. Someone said something, me I expect, about giraffes and exposure to the elephants. Though I think I meant elements. About their having been plucked from the plains of Africa and stuck in a cold English zoo, away from their natural habitat and climate. About their long, vulnerable necks. Bare naked necks. Nude neck in cold climate threat - it must have been me, only I speak journalese.

"Scarves dear boy, that's what they need, scarves round their gregories." This is how Bryan speaks, half public school dandy, half cockney urchin. A mad man-monster is he.

And we tumbled out of the pub, on a mission, a mad drunken stumble back to Bryan's pad, well not so much pad as mansion.

We found our way to his walk in wardrobe, got lost in his walk in wardrobe, got into fights with particularly vicious suits and grumpy shirts. Soon we were bruised, trousered and torn. But somehow we got out of there alive, armed with thirty-two of Bryan's finest scarves.

Then another mad quest. "To the zoo, dear boys, the giraffes can't wait. I can feel the vibration of their shivering necks from here." Toby and I dashed, obedient to Bryan's words.

I awoke again around noon. This time in drab cell, free from giraffe but with the linger of zoo aroma. My memory gone again, just a pained blur as my brain cells shrieked awake. Where, what, how, why, I paid little attention to the questions I asked myself. Of more immediate concern was an urgent need for the toilet.

There was an en-suite bucket provided for just such a need and I pulled down my trousers and pants and my bare arse met the cold metallic sides. A painful gush and it was soon over. Then my stomach called and I gushed again, other way round this time, mouth and nose pressed into a bucket of something I'd rather not have my nose pressed into. Even if it's mine.

"How yer feeling?" asked a surprisingly friendly copper, jangling some keys as he spoke.

"Rough," I answered honestly, "as if the world elephant trampolining contest was being staged in my head."

"Feeling up to a chat with our guvnor?"

I wasn't given a chance to answer in the negative, found myself frog marched from the cells, through what seemed to be an improvised staff canteen and into an interview room, which smelt of fresh croissants.

"Dear boy, you look like death on a bad day. If I didn't know you better I'd say you'd been drinking."

Bryan was in the interview room beside the Chief Inspector, all smiles, teeth gleaming as garish as his suit, bantering with all the gaiety of a man who has never seen a drink or a giraffe in his entire life.

"Mr Bang has kindly offered to pay your bail, Mr Manny," I nodded dumbly at the top cop, who cleverly ascertained my ignorance as to what was going on. "As I mentioned to you earlier, you are being charged with badgering giraffes under the Giraffe Harassment Act 2003. I mention this again just in case you didn't understand the intricacies of the charge first time around." This was true, my memory lapse extended to his very existence.

"Giraffe harassment is a serious crime, Mr Manny, a crime to which we in this police force attach great priority. Officer Wander tells me that you were found alone in the giraffe compound of London zoo, a bright pink scarf in your hand. Another thirty-one scarves were discovered around the necks of the seven giraffes in the compound."

"Jolly good job too," interjected Bryan, "must be right nippy on a night like last night if you've a neck a mile long."

"Even so, Mr Manny," as he spoke he let slip for the first time the slightest of giggles, though recovered quickly "Even so, giraffe harassment is a crime and leaping upon giraffes depositing scarves is likely to cause them shock and stress. And I don't want to see stressed giraffes on my patch." He paused, to make sure I was taking him seriously. He seemed satisfied by my blank expression.

"However, in addition to the offer of putting up bail, Mr Bang has given you an excellent character reference and explained the situation with your age." His guard dropped again, just momentarily. "I turned 40 myself the other month, bloody depressing.

"With that in mind, I have decided not to press charges on this occasion." At this point he turned to Bryan and I realised that I'd become superfluous.

"So no need for your kind offer of bail, Mr Bang. However, I wonder if I could ask another favour, an autograph. It's not for me you understand, it's for our sergeant, he's your biggest fan. If you don't mind."

"Not at all, dear boy, if you can't do a favour for a rozzer what sort of rotter are you?"

"You're free to go," the copper reminded me. I stood up, just about, still a bit wobbly. "And next time, have the good sense to leg it before we catch you. I've got to explain your release to the Head Keeper, he was most put out by the situation."

It took Bryan about twenty minutes to finish signing autographs and bantering with admiring coppers. He eventually came out, carrying a bag of thirty-two scarves, the evidence, which he had somehow managed to persuade them to return.

"These'll need a thorough scrubbing, they reek of giraffe," he said as he led me out onto the streets of London.

My mid-life crisis had begun.