‘The Knobster’ aka Alan

Managed to track down ‘The Knobster’. Turns out his name’s Alan. The Knobster, or Knobby as I thought he was known to his friends, is a nickname.

Then I looked down and saw why. Jesus.

I was also slightly mortified I’d attempted to strike an instant rapport when we first met by calling him ‘Knob’:

I tried to laugh it off but I don’t think it worked. Alan was clearly a pigeon who’d been through a lot.

He told me he’d joined Harry The Hat for a brief time a few years ago as a seed guard. A ridiculous role seeing as pigeons generally tend to ignore them anyway, which is exactly what happened to Alan. A load flew in from Stratford one day, and took the lot. He didn’t stand a chance.

Harry wasn’t happy, apparently. Not even slightly. Alan didn’t want to go into detail about what he referred to as ‘the foot incident’, but I suspect it wasn’t pleasant judging by the state of it.

Mart is now clearly shitting himself. Trouble is we can’t really back out. Not now Mr Pink thinks it’s a yes. Bollocks. Never mind. Guess we’ll have to do it. Make it a quick in and out. No hanging around for tea or anything. Chuck ’em a few flying skills and a bit of jargon, and get the fuck out of there.

If not, and it does all go horribly wrong, I guess I can always get myself a built up shoe, which is something I might recommend to Alan.