Do You Want Bio-Calm With That Order?

I have been unwell today - digestively and cerebrally unwell. My body, as I am sure you are aware, was always a temple but I'm sorry to report that it has been sacked by bacterial bandits.
I was awoken at around 4am by those little Numbskull men with shovels (remember them?) shovelling feverishly and they spent the next five hours working flat out in an effort to clear out anything in my digestive tract through one of the two orifices available for emergency evacuations.
The bomb doors were flung open on a couple of other occasions after that but, by and large, the rest of the day was spent in a state of exhaustion, trying to persuade those other little Numbskull men, the ones with hammers, to stop carrying out percussive maintenance on the inside of my head.
This pathetic state of affairs was, as usual, all my own fault. You see, I cocked a snook at one of the four basic rules of life:

1. Never play cards with someone named after an American state, e.g. Texas.
2. Never start a land war in Asia.
3. Never box above your own weight.
4. Never, EVER, go drinking with the BGT!!!

The BGT is a big pal of mine and last night we decided to nip out together for a couple of late pints. Now that is almost unheard of for the pair of us. We never normally hit the sauce in the week but, having both endured long and stressful days at work, we decided that it could do no harm on this one occasion.
We got into the Lachrymose Loyalist shortly after 9pm - late enough for the evening not to turn silly, or so we thought - and spent a couple of hours putting the world to rights, puzzling over the inability of our young tennis players to break through at international level and bemoaning the demise of Wagon Wheels.
Like Skinner-conditioned rats, we duly drained the last of our pints when the bell rang and made our way outside in search of taxis to take us home - and that is where everything started to go wrong!
For reasons of taste, decency and the libel laws, I won't go into detail but it is suffice to say that we ended up in a Disco/Thrash/Boom-boom/Cattle Market in the centre of Small Town, swilling £3 pints and copious amounts of vodka cola. I have no idea when the Numbskull men in charge of sense and reasoning began shouting from within but at some stage we decided things had gone a bit silly and it was time to call time on ourselves.
We said our goodbyes, exchanged the customary post-blow-out pleasantry - namely "You're my best mate, you are - hic!" - and then, Red Arrows-like, went our separate ways. That's when I made the second big mistake of the evening.
Like a bear emerging from its winter hibernation, I was hungrier than a hungry thing and so went in search of emergency vitals. Now this may come as a surprise to the tea-total among you, but there are no Michelin-starred restaurants open at around the same time as milkmen up and down the country are loading up their vans. The result is you have to make do with............burger, kebab, pizza or chicken shacks.
In hindsight, I don't think it would have mattered which one I chose. As it happened, I went for the poultry option. I staggered into a grotty but insanely and intensely lit fast-food joint (called something like Squits, Chicken 'n' Chuck or The Flaming Arsehole) and then engaged a charming Armenian gentlemen in conversation while ordering what was billed as "Southern Fried Chicken".
Looking back, I realise that the description "Southern" referred to the fact that the pieces of chicken I ate had apparently been picked up off the floor before being warmed through over a candle. Either that or they had been involved in a bloody civil war and lost! I mean, do chickens really have four legs and a tail? The trouble is, at that hour of the morning (whatever it was), packed to the rafters with vodka and beer, you will eat fucking anything!...and so you do!!
Cut to the wee small hours of this morning and the beginning of my story. When will I ever learn? The BGT thoughtfully rang me at 8am to let me know he was still alive - he's caring like that - and to fill me in on episodes from the evening in which I was involved but of which I had no memory.
I'm not entirely sure what to send to Grantham. Middle-aged idiocy, perhaps? Good intentions? Mid-week drinking? I think fast-food and those God-awful late night suicide sustenance joints will have to go for a start.