Saragh-Jayne and I wandered round for a bit, soaking in the atmosphere of this gruesome festival. Everyone seemed to be having a marvellous time as apparently I was the only one to view it as being in somewhat dubious taste.

“Do you want to have a go with the lucky dip?” asked a stallholder.

“What must we do?” I asked. Normally games of chance are rigged so I won’t win but my luck was in today and I was willing to profit from this disgusting exhibition.

“It’s a pound a go – you stick your hand in here and pull out a moustache. If it matches Dennis Brent’s moustache you win a prize.”

I gave him a pound (it was my moral victory as I emptied my purse of one and two pence coins) and stuck my hand into the bran tub. I rummaged around for a while and eventually found the hairy clump I’d been looking for.

“Ah ha” I said, withdrawing it in exactly the same way as King Arthur withdrew the sword which made him King of the English.

“Well done” he said. He took the moustache, compared it with the large photograph of Dennis Brent he had on an easel behind his counter and he rubbed his chin. “I don’t know” he said. “There are two hundred moustaches in that tub and only one of them is a dead ringer for Dennis Brent’s moustache. This might be it but I can’t be sure. You’re the forty sixth person so far to find what might be Dennis Brent’s moustache. So I’ll be fair and give you a prize as well. Here you go.” He handed me a pound coin. “Can’t say fairer than that.”

“I pay you a pound, win a prize and you just give me my pound back?” I said angrily.

“It’s all about everyone getting rewarded in line with the contribution they make” he replied. “An equal distribution of wealth and a protest against a socio-economic system in which a minority get arbitrarily enriched by a quirk of fate or the unfair nepotism of the privileged classes. Dennis Brent hated that sort of thing so it seemed only right to bring my ‘Socialism in Action’ bran tub to this party. Normally I do the Marxist fete circuit and Communist Wives coffee mornings so it’s nice to have a change of air.”

“You are a very silly man and this is a very silly stall” I said cuttingly. If my harsh words made him rethink his life he made no mention of it.

“Look on the bright side” said Saragh-Jayne as we walked away, “you gave him loose change and you came away with a much more convenient pound coin. You’re the victor – a small victory but a victory nevertheless.”

“I pay you to fetch and carry, Saragh-Jayne, and it is good to know I get occasional pearls of wisdom free of charge.”

We walked on – past a booth where people could throw sponges at a man wearing tweed and sporting my famous moustache-and-spectacles combination, past a sketch artist who was offering to draw caricatures of people as they would look if they were Dennis Brent (a con as all he did was draw the same Dennis Brenty face on a body adorned with whatever the sitter was wearing (and with appropriate chest undulations for male and female clients)) and past a foreign mime artist who was recreating episodes from my life using only his body.

“Why is he bent double and apparently drinking through a very large straw?” asked my employee.

“I have literally no idea” I told him firmly. “It’s probably something he’s made up based on graffiti on a lavatory wall or something he misheard from one of my school contemporaries or something Doctor Flapjack told him after one too many glasses of absinthe.”

“Mr Brent Impersonator!” called a voice from behind. “I’m glad I found you – it is the Dennis Brent impersonator isn’t it?”

“It is” I confirmed falsely.

“We have been looking everywhere for you – moustache and tweed is such a popular look tonight – we have a little job for you.”

“I’ve seen enough of this ghastly event to know that you are doubtless arranging something utterly and disgustingly tawdry and I would sooner lick…” I replied.

“He means he will be delighted to do it providing you meet his terms” interrupted Saragh-Jayne.

“Naturally” agreed the man, “what are his terms?”

“A hundred pounds up front, a further hundred pounds when the event is over, no more than one hour of his time from now until the conclusion, no unauthorised audio or visual recording of the event, the Mr Brent impersonator has complete creative control over all aspects of the event, it won’t involve any wetness, gunge, custard, cream, bodily fluids (genuine or simulated) and he won’t be expected to smile warmly at any point in the proceedings” explained my employee smoothly. He’d covered all the main points admirably, though I would’ve preferred there to be a caveat about Arabs in there somewhere.

“That all seems fair. He’s a hundred pounds, would you follow me?

“What sort of event is it?” I asked.

“We just need you to judge the finals of the under-10’s Dennis Brent look-a-like contest.”

“The what?” I tried to ask but he pushed me through a curtain and I stood before a row of twenty or so miniature Dennis Brents. Small boys (mostly) with tweed jackets, stern expressions and moustaches constructed from wool, paper, charcoal, felt, animal hair and one I’m fairly sure was projected onto his face by a family member in the audience. Ah yes, there was an audience watching me as I stood there looking at twenty boys and twenty eager mothers. The organiser of this pageant waved for me to go along the line and earn my two hundred pounds.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked the first one.

“Don’t be pah… pah…” he stopped and his mother whispered in his ear. “Path-et-ic-ully stupid” he said at length, “it must be ob-vee-us that I’m a tell… tell… WAHHHHH”. He ran from the stage in tears and the other nineteen mothers looked delighted.

I walked over to the second boy and was about to ask him what he would do if he won the contest when he mother leaned over and whispered in my ear. I was about to inform her that I could cope perfectly well with multi-syllabic words without help when he grasped my groin with her hand and hissed,

“If you pick my Timmy I’ll see you get lucky tonight.”

Not again.

Women.