Licensed to Laugh

Licensed to Laugh is Charlie Woodham's life story full of hilarious tales from his early school days, National Service antics and amusing anecdotes from a varied working life - including 5 years as a Pub Landlord... ...the only way to tackle the job was to use the pub's powerful vacuum cleaner. I approached the cage rather as a soldier with a flame thrower might approach a machine gun bunker. The sodding parrot never took its eyes off me, all its feathers fluffed up and it made a sort of low growling noise - this was war. I lunged forward pushed the nozzle between the bars and with much screeching the parrot began its attack. A swirling cloud of old bird seed, feathers and dried parrot shit poured forth from the cage. I stuck gamely to my task. I stepped back to view my handiwork. As the dust settled I saw a clean cage and a semi bald parrot. In my frenzied efforts I had managed to suck up a lot of its feathers. The landlord returned looking tanned and fit - mind you the tan faded a shade or two when he saw what was left of his beloved parrot. He was not convinced by my explanation that the parrot's condition was probably caused by what I described, rather creatively I thought, as 'seasonal moulting'.