Goodballoon's paunch

Alas, my dear, dear friend Bernard Manning has passed on to the great pie-shop in the sky. Bernard was something of a hero to me; I learned a great deal at his enormous, water-retaining knee about the ways of the world and all it's strange fascinations. He showed me the correct way to treat a lady, he ensured my entry into society was smooth and worry-free, and he was the first person to point out how a bludgeoning, charm-free racism could make one a millionaire.

I shall miss Bernard's company; he was always the first to have his cleaning lady offer you a drink or a bag of crisps. We would sit for hours on end discussing who was taking whose job, who had made what area go downhill and what constituted "foreign muck". That being said I shall, at last, be able to use all of those jokes that, for years, Bernard passed off as his own, or at least I will when dearest Jim Davidson finally shuffles away to the summer season on the other side. Sad days.