"Robert Rankin - Nostradamus Ate My Hamster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

Pooley and Omally made nods and winks towards Old Pete and patted at bulges in their jackets.
Neville presented further pints and the patrons sat, took in their cups and discoursed upon the
doings of the day.

Overhead, a heavily laden sleigh, jingling with bells, drawn by six reindeer and bearing a Shaman
clad in the red and white of the sacred mushroom, swept off in search of good children's stockings. The
snow fell in cotton wool balls and crept up towards the bench mark on the Memorial Library wall.
Several more revellers blew in from the blizzard.

Roger de Courcey de Courcey, production buyer for a great metropolitan television company,
staggered towards the bar, bearing upon his arms a brace of evil-looking hags. These had displayed
themselves at the Christmas bash (with him half gone in Pol Roget), as a veritable deuce of Cindy
Crawfords. But the snow had been sobering him up.
`G and Ts,' said Roger, his Oxford tones raising hives and bouncing off the baubles.
`Doing it for a bet then, Roger?' Neville asked.

* Not to be confused with the other Norman Hartnell.


`Care for a couple of paper bags, while you're about it?'
Roger winced, but went `haw, haw,' said `typing pool,' and `well away'.
`And the sooner the better,' said Omally. `I hope you have a licence for them.'
The two hags tittered. One said, `I fink I need the toilet.'
Old Pete moved away to a side table, taking his dog with him. The Memorial Library clock struck
six.
In dribs and drabs the Yuletide celebrants appeared, patting snow from their duffle-coats and
discarding their fisherman's waders beside the roaring fire.
At length Johnny G made his arrival. He was small, dark and wiry. But he walked without the aid of
a stick and appeared to have all his own teeth. Small details, but none the less encouraging to Neville.
Booking an Act is a bit like buying a used Cortina from Leo Felix. You never quite get what you
think you have got but it's hard to tell just how you haven't.
Publicans accept that when they book a band to begin at eight and play until eleven, they have
entered into an agreement which is, for the most part, largely symbolic in nature. If, by half-past eight,
even one of these professional players has turned up and actually possesses his own PA sys-tem and a
full complement of strings to his guitar, the publican considers himself one bless'd of the gods. Should
two or more musicians arrive and commence to play before another hour is up, then the publican will
probably contemplate suicide, reasoning that he has now seen everything that a man might ever hope to
see in a single lifetime. Or possibly more.
Johnny G strode manfully from the three-foot snow fall, bearing an aged guitar and a thirty-watt
practice amp. `Corner all right, guvnor?' he asked.
Neville nodded bleakly. `And slacken your strings. We have an opera singer comes in here and the
door still has its original glass.'
Johnny nodded his small dark head as if he understood. "`Blueberry Hill", "Jack to a King", that
kind of business?'
`That kind of business.' Neville looked on as Johnny braved the elements once more to dig his
equipment from the rear of the GPO van he had `borrowed' for the evening.
Much ink could be wasted and paper spoiled in writing of Johnny's equipment. Of its history and
ancestry and disasters that nightly befell it. But not here and not on such a night as this. Suffice it to be
said, that some thirty-five minutes and three near-fatal electrocutions later, he had completed its elaborate
construction. He seated himself behind an obsolete Premier drum kit, slung a war-torn Rickenbacker