Remember When A Johnnie Was Something Else?

I am regressing. Not only do I spend my new-found single life trying to get back into the kind of orifice from whence I came, my mind and my actions keep dribbling back to the days of my youth.
I went to a barbecue at the home of a couple of big pals of mine on Saturday and started off behaving like an adult.
"New Labour didn't take the battering we were all expecting, I know, but wait until the General. Their massive lurch towards the right will be their downfall, hopefully, but what will plug the gap? Oh, yes please, another glass of wine would be lovely."
Informed, analytical, topical, sober and respectfully polite. I was on form.....but, later, and as it always does, the sun began to set. "I can't see the Wolves doing it 'cos they always fuck up at the end of the season and The Baggies continually ram it up 'em. Yeah, fill it up. I know it's a pint mug but that's how I like my wine." Still topical, still analytical, a tad loud, perhaps, not quite as erudite, admittedly, and a little squiffy.
"Fucking Andrew Neil is a wanker! I hate that twat! Fucking Shredded Wheat-headed letch! A fat, neo-Nazi, Murdoch apologist who spends his spare time chasing little blond girls. I hope he dies in a car crash!"
Controversial, certainly, forthright, yes, not particularly eloquent, a tad harsh, maybe, and possibly the mad ravings of a drunken buffoon.
"When I wuz 16 I 'ad a nipple 'air which wuz 8 fucking inches long!!! Top that!! Look, I still got loads of pigging 'air on 'em now. Bloody great! Nah! Do' bother. I got this bottle 'ere and I day wanna glass." No longer any attempt at topicality. Informed, yes, but of no interest to anyone outside the field of psychiatry. Beyond drunkenness now. More into the realms of a near-death experience and something for the Guinness Book of World Records.
As people began to drift away from the party (I wonder why?) I lost the power of any intelligible speech altogether and began "playing" with the host, who was as inebriated as I was.
We tottered into the lounge and he produced, from a cupboard, his model SPV from Captain Scarlet and I, of course, knew where the button was to make the doors open and the fact that the caterpillar tracks at the back could be pulled down. Then I had a "brrrrrmmmmmm, brrrrrmmmmm!" around the carpet with his James Bond 007 Aston Martin, again knowing exactly how to make the machine guns pop out at the front and how to operate the ejector seat.
The soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither found the pair of us lying on the carpet, playing cars, and thought it might be better if I went back outside and sat at the table with the grown up people. I was led back, like a naughty boy, but then the host appeared with...................his Johnny Seven!!!! Girlies, you needn't read on anymore because you won't have a clue what I am on about but boys out there over the age of 40 will know that I am talking here about the most iconic symbol of our childhoods. I could never afford one as a lad and nor, it turned out, could my host but his wife had bought him one off e-Bay for a recent birthday. Wow! How brill is that?
We instantly fell to dismantling this prince among toy guns to reveal the hidden pistol and the like and I taught him how to fire the grenade launcher. "Can I have one, can I, can I, can I, huh?" We were too far gone to run around playing soldiers so we concentrated our efforts on trying to shoot the heads off daisies in the garden with the plastic bullets. All this, from a 46-year-old kid and his year younger chum.
The inevitable Stage Z followed, in which the host began hugging and kissing me, telling me that we should have been brothers, and then he started punching me because, apparently, I am big and look "punchable".

Kissable AND punchable - there is no higher compliment!

The soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither agreed wholeheartedly with half of the description at least but resisted the temptation to join in the punching - at least until we got home. Little boy, you had a busy day.
Now, that's a full day's entertainment! I'm not sure, however, what I have learned from this and what to send to Grantham. I think I shall send people who refuse to refuse to grow up (untangle the double negative in that lot!)