Peculiar History or Saved By The Bop or The Japanese Invasion of Ireland in 1942

History is quite often depicted by authors and historians as a horizontal line with the occasional sticky-uppy or droppy-downy line and a date which indicate important events.

Unless of course it's a vertical line, in which case there will be sticky-out-lefty or sicky-out-righty lines with dates.

In the case of Brian - an acquaintance (not through choice) who now and again, when least expected, turns up and attempts to 'explain' things - the 'line', with all it's stick-uppy (and downy) or sticky-out-righty (or sticky-out-lefty), has been well and truly scrunched up into a ball and left for the cat to play with.

I must stress that Brian is NOT a client!

He is the friend of a friend's cousin's next-door neighbours friend ... or something like that ... and is, contrary to popular belief, highly intelligent but, sadly, easily confused.

I bumped into him on Tuesday!

"'ere!" he shouted when he saw me. "You was the Army, weren't ya?"

I sighed! It was not going to be easy extracting myself from a conversation with Brian.

"Yes", I answered."But not all on my own."

"Yah! You got your arse kicked, didn't ya? Them Russians kicked your butt!"

It was going to be one of those conversations. I winced.

"What?"

"The Crimea ... " he continued. "When you nicked those Russian cannons to make them Victoria Cross's. They kicked your butt!"

My protestations, in which I denied all responsibility for any theft of cannon's at any point of my military career, fell on deaf ears.

"You British ..."

"You are British too, Brian"

"Na, mate. I ain't your kind o' British cos I never killed no Irishman to steal his potatoes. And then after you killed 'em, you made 'em join the British Army and fight your wars against the Chinese."

Confusing, isn't it?

"And all them Chinese and Japanese and ... and ... 'ere! I reckon I know why there are so many Japanese in Ireland!"

Sudden and unexplainable changes of conversational direction were commonplace with Brian.

"Why?" I asked, knowing full well I should be making my excuses and going home. What can I say? I'm curious!

"It was on the History channel!" he said. "They was looking to invade England in 1942  and they landed on the wrong island!"

I was not surprised.

"Anyway, why did you kill all the Irish then?"

At this point my phone began to belt out Cyndi Lauper's She Bop.

I was saved!

I took the call.

"Sorry Brian. Have to dash.  Emergency at work. See you again soon."

It was all I could do not to sprint away from him.

Saved by the Bop!

Behind me I could hear Brian begin another verbal assault on an innocent passer-by.

"'ere! Phil! Phil! Wassat what them Vietnamese did in Burma when the French ..."