BUDGEE MAN (Bus from Zhong Dian to Dequin)

IT IS rumoured that the original fourth Beatle, in the middle of the night, was thrown out of a van into a country ditch and abandoned. This appeared to be a good move for the band as their later success would indicate.

Monkey Magic was a TV show based on a fable of travellers across China (really just a thinly disguised excuse for some Kung Fu) - three men transformed from animals and their monk. There was Monkey, Pigsy and a fish guy I didn't know the name of. Like the Beatles - they were a travelling four that made it big.

In my youth my family kept an aviary of budgerigars. I was occasionally deemed responsible for cleaning out the cage. This is necessary because of the way budgees (and other parrots) eat. They pick up the whole seed in their mouth, crack it open and eat the tasty innards, then spit out the husk back into their seed tray, or the ground or at another budgee.

The man sitting next to me on the bus so far has managed to spill his beer over my shoes and bag, flick cigarette ash onto my writing page and flick cigarette butts at my feet. Each time he looks at me and giggles, as if his clumsyness is the greatest joke. Now he is eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the husks at the floor near my feet. I have decided that this guy got booted out of the Monkey Magic four to make way for Pigsy before they made it big.