I liked that name as a child as it seemed like a joke, and also pre-empted by a decade my mate Matt’s nickname for me as an Arabic tunic-wearing junkie, Mustafa Skagfix. The other prejudice I’ve been carting about was learned from the Joe Orton biopic Prick Up Your Ears where Joe and his murderous lover Kenneth Halliwell briefly holidayed here and copped off with loads of rent-boys. I don’t know why that stayed with me, it just seemed so jolly, bathing costumes, giggling and Alfred Molina and Gary Oldman enjoying tense frissons. The memory of the pair of them, and Mustafa Merry, skipped through my mind while I was on the phone to the travel agent. ‘It’s like flirting a bit, or any form of seduction: one must destabilise the target to make them suggestible to new ideas’ I’ve not encountered Mustafa or a single rent-boy the whole time I’ve been here and am thinking of demanding a discount. I’ve kept my eye on things in Albion though and here’s my round-up of football news, not to mention my ‘wacky, sideways’ view of it all: Chris Hutchings’s sacking; oh.
