I'm a dad!

I have become the not-so-proud owner of a small sheep called Harold.

How, and why, you ask?

Well, somewhat naturally, Deadfast came home with it the other night and has since abandoned it with me... I'm looking after it for the moment.

Harold, a nice fellow with lovely wool, is currently living in my bed.
I am sleeping in the spare bedroom.
The chef, aware that there is a small defenseless animal somewhere in the building, has taken to wearing combat-gear and camouflaged clothing.
How he expects to blend into the crushed-velvet wallpaper in the hallway whilst dressed as shrubbery really baffles me, but there you go...

Deadfast is nowhere to be found (I have a suspicion that Persuasive Pete has something to do with his absence, but I have no evidence), so I'm left to distract the chef by leaving a trail of pork chops on the stairs.

I would write more but Harold is looking at me and it's making me rather uncomforable.

Applause please for the persuasive power of pop.

Well, Persuasive Pete did his job.
As usual, he did it in song.

He, and I've CCTV footage to back this up, burst into Baseball Paul's office and dazzled him with a string of dance moves and a choreographed routine involving several dances in feather-boas.

So, all debts are cancelled and I'm free to play more... no, no, I won't be gambling again.
Not with the dodgy people either Chef or Deadfast know, anyway!

"This is a problem for Persuasive Pete!"

I'd been feeling low for a while and, with nothing better to do with my time since Deadfast had been keeping himself busy, I'd been spending my time with the chef (who had found his way out of the maze) in the kitchen, learning how to cook.

All was going well until, one late night, bonding over some pastry, Chef invited me to play some poker with him and some of this friends.
Well, I thought, Deadfast is busy with whatever it is he is doing, so I may as well make some new friends. So, I took him up on the offer.

I now owe his "friend" Baseball Paul £15,000.

"Why do they call him Baseball Paul?" Deadfast asked me this morning, over breakfast.
"If you annoy him..."
"By, for example, not paying him money you owe him?" Deadfast chipped in.
"Yes, if you annoy him he will batter you to death with a baseball bat."
"I see."
"I've tried reasoning with him, I have..." I started to explain how it had all got out of hand when Chef had told me that Baseball Paul was rubbish at poker, and how he said he liked to make big-money bets and always lost, but could afford it because he was "... into everything, if you know what I mean!". I had tried to bluff him, and it had failed. Big time.
"You need to tell him that it was just a bit of a laugh, and you can't be expected to pay that much money... you don't HAVE that much money, do you?"
"No."
"Right then... this is a problem for Persuasive Pete!"
"Erm... who?"

Deadfast went on to tell me about a man he knew who could persaude anyone to do anything (he has a cousin called Convincing John, by the way!).

"He is the guy who persuaded Victoria Beckham that she could sing!"
"Bloody hell, he IS good!" I gasped.

So, this weekend Deadfast is taking me to see this man, Persuasive Pete.

Wish me well!