Black hat, Fedora, low over his eyes and shadowing his face, its twin peaks framed by the window behind. His attire smacks of an unhealthy Zorro obsession. Coat, trousers, shoes, all are black. A gold watch glints from under a sleeve. His scarf is red, as if to make a point. I may be a suspicious-looking old man all in black but I have a red scarf. Eat that.

Slouching against the bar, ambivalence in a greatcoat, long grey ponytail dangling down his back. He scowls diabolically, glancing about as if he is plotting revenge. Or perhaps he is a man on the run. Killer? Murderer? Charlatan? Jewellery thief? A man whose crimes are catching up with him. I see it all now…

Known in the underworld as ‘Black Hat’, he learned his trade early. As a toddler he stole biscuits from his mother’s shopping trolley. In his teens he pinched fags from the newsagent while preparing his paper round. Bullied at school for his unusually thin face, geeky glasses and irritating habit of twiddling his thumbs, rotating them round each other in some sort of bizarre cycling dance, undetected thieving gave him a sense of self-worth and achievement. It transformed him from a nervous tick into a confident prick. Eventually he kicked the thumb twiddling habit.

But it was his gran who led him down the criminal path, a prolific pick-pocket who practised her trade into her late eighties. A tiny woman, smaller than a mouse. It would have to be an abnormally large mouse. A product of a NASA-sponsored “mouse-enlargement” experiment perhaps.

“Listen,” the old raisin had said, knitted beanie precarious on her head, her piercing little eyes twinkling with craftiness, “the older you get the less they’ll suspect. Who would suspect a sweet old lady like me? Like my Rolex? Here, it’s yours. Silence is golden. I’ve knitted you a scarf, don’t want you to catch a cold sweetheart. Sorry about the colour, I only had red left. Fancy some onion soup? Pilfered the onions from Jim next door. Hah! He’s always coming over, miffed about losing vegetables.”

It all escalated from there. Petty shoplifting at first. Deodorant, hand-cream, gift cards, scented candles. Then on to electronic goods, flogging record players on the black-market. Revelling in small-scale success he moved on to robbing banks, jewellery stores and antique candlesticks from stately homes. He got in with the wrong crowd, formed a gang and with his gran’s guidance, soon became one of the most respected criminal minds in North Yorkshire. With fame and success came paranoia and stress. The Fedora was pulled lower and lower and it was convenient too, hiding a giant mole on his forehead that had unhappily been exposed by his receding hairline.

And here he is, slouching at the bar, filled with fear and the knowledge that his past is catching up with him.

Or maybe he’s just an innocent old chap fed up with the weather. I’ll let you call it.

The surroundings are picturesque, Yorkshire stone is always pretty. Stark at times, but the yellow weathered brick is homely, Novocaine for the soul, lovely when contrasted with the clouded sky.  The memorial is tall, rigid, proud and honouring. A crescent bends away from it. Graceful, elegant, pleasing to the eye. Bollards and lampposts frame the scene perfectly.  Black, functional, doing what they do in quiet, inanimate perfection.

Scuffling, pushing, pecking, crapping, a raucous cacophony. The plague of pigeons surround her. Hundreds of the scum. An old lady feeds them, going out of her way to be a nuisance, every town has one.

It could be worse I suppose. Imagine an alternative universe where a delinquent pigeon feeds scraps to a flock of old ladies.  Now that would be terrifying.

Sorry about my absence last week, I was sick and then needed some time out. Sue me if you like. Rubbish has been sending abusive texts all week and apparently Braja was distraught. It’s nice to be missed.

Anyway, while I’ve been absent the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival (Harrogate) has had a programme launch. Old Peculier, incidentally, is one of my favourite beers.

They wandered into the restaurant with purpose, determination and if I’m honest, laughable coordination. She was thin, very thin, and he was fat, very fat. As they read the menu he kept touching her. A gentle squeeze of the hand, a rub down the back, an occasional tickle of the ear with a movement like a maid dusting a vase. Quirky to the extreme and (bless him) exceptionally chivalrous.

She wore extraordinary glasses, black and orange, giving her the bizarre appearance of some sort of exotic insect, accentuated by the fervent way she sucked her G&T through a straw. He was probably a banker and in all probability, a rich one with a penchant for fatty foods. Neatly and uncomfortably encapsulated in his suit, he looked like a pistachio bursting from its shell. But what struck me was their coordination.

“In a moment,” I said to my wife, “glance over your shoulder. The couple over there are in matching pin-striped suits. What would lead anyone to do that?” She waited a moment. “Some couples like to coordinate outfits,” she said, glancing over my own attire as if to remind us that we were not that type of couple.

I’m not one to psychoanalyse (would I ever?) but seriously, why would any couple wear matching pin-striped suits? Matching to the extent that the stripes were of equal thickness and frequency, fitted no doubt by the same tailor, she in a black blouse, he in a black shirt. In a game of Suit Snap it would be, well, unequivocally snap.

“What shall we wear tonight darling?”

“How about our matching Levis and white shirts?”

“What are we, a pair of Texans? Besides, it’s a slightly up-market Italian place, how about our identical green polo-necks?”

“They’re both in the wash, we wore those on Tuesday remember? Let’s go for our matching pin-striped suits.”

“Excellent idea, and they fit so perfectly too, I LOVE that tailor, and it will give us that dubious Mafia look.”

“Nobody should ever be that coordinated. It’s hilarious,” I said. “Mind if I take a few notes?”

“Suit yourself,” said my wife, and I might have noticed a slight eyeball-roll. “I’m going to the ladies’ room,” she said.

Ageing gangsters, Mafia bosses, or leaders of warring factions of the elderly population. Two old men, one at each end of a long bar. They ignore each other, pretend the other doesn’t exist, a bizarre and pointless rivalry. I witness this daily, the contrast between these two rogues is intriguing.

At one end of the bar the gentleman sits upright. With his huge forehead and high hair he looks like a cross between Beavis and a toothbrush. His skin is taught, doll-like, and his mannerisms stiff, like a mannequin. He drinks Peroni, always in a polo-neck, Italian heritage surely? People come, people go, all acknowledge him and stop to shake his hand. All apart from his opposite number.

The gentleman at the other end slouches, slumped in his chair like a giant reclining slug, a giant reclining slug in corduroys.  He holds a paper close to his face, just inches away, turning a page every ten minutes or so, a slug reading at a slug’s pace.  No Peroni for this one, he drinks real ale. Makes sense, I guess, everyone knows slugs favour real ale.

Not once have I seen them acknowledge each other, exchange weather predictions, moan about the youth of today or even wave from their respective ends of the bar.  Every so often they pass on route to and from the toilets (elderly bladders) yet even then they pretend the other does not exist.

Beavis and Slug, stoical to the extreme.  But one day there’ll be a gunfight and I intend to be here to witness it.

The box aroused my curiosity.  Not being a cat I wasn’t worried.  A little red wooden box, quaint and innocent, mounted on a badly-painted red wall. The box had a door, suspiciously without a handle.  Now why would there be no handle?  Scratched on the door was the word ‘help’. I got out my keys and set to work.  Five minutes later I was still at it, hacking frantically at the box. The door swung open…

I woke up in an antiquated pub that I didn’t recognise. Groggy, confused and with a throbbing head. It was crowded. Muttering, clinking, men telling tales, little round tables with little round stools. They dragged me to a table in the corner where a dodgy-looking character in a Manchester United shirt tapped away on his laptop.  Cigarette in one hand, whiskey in the other, a flickering candle setting the scene.  “Sit down,” he said, “let me get you a drink.” “There’s only one Leeds United,” I said, regretting it immediately, he obviously hadn’t recovered.

Elegance walked over, a lady in red, heels clicking on the ancient floorboards. She set a tall glass of beer on the table.  German it was, Erdinger perhaps, or Schneider’s Wiesen Edel Weiss, it’s hard to differentiate with such a throbbing head. “I’d have preferred a stout,” I said.

“My name,” he said, “is X, and I’ll get you a stout in a minute you pernickety sod. I represent the Illuminati. The red box is a teleportation device, a portal to wherever we want. I got it installed last week, knew you couldn’t resist.  I’ll cut to the chase. We like your blog. The observational humour, the wit, the beer. We’d like you to blog for us, be the Illuminati’s representative for the blogosphere, you know, give us a friendly, modern feel and all that, we’re fed up of all the bad press. We’ll pay you very well, give you anything you want.”

“No thanks,” I said,  “I won’t do anything for a Manchester United supporter.”  Seconds later I fell out of the red box onto the floor.  X, Elegance and Schneider’s Wiesen Edel Weiss were nowhere to be seen.

OK, so I made all of that up, you got me there.  I’m possibly crazy, a total fruitcake. But I do wonder what is inside the little red box, mounted above the urinals in the Old Bell Tavern.  Maybe next time I’ll force open the door with my keys and take a look.

Sleeping sweetly, snoring probably, dreaming of nonsense that I can’t remember.  Oh blissful slumber. Ineffably fabulous, frustratingly rare.

Poke, poke, poke.

Dream interrupted, rudely awakened by relentless poking, delivered to my ribs with surgical precision.  My wife, still asleep, has some nonsense to say.

“What?” I ask, swatting her hand away from me.

“If you like,” she said, “you can sleep in that corner and I’ll sleep in this corner or,” she offered kindly, “I’ll sleep in that corner and you can sleep in this one.”

“I’m fine where I am,” I said, “but thanks anyway.”

I found him in his van stirring a giant tub of adhesive. Bought for a fiver, he said, with supreme relish and an inane grin, retail value one hundred quid. Spoken with the matter-of-fact air of a chap who was used to such bargains. Satisfied, relaxed and definitely sleepy.

I’d met Baz down the Marquis the night before, but prior to that it had been a long time. I’d been down in Brighton getting married, making babies, commuting to London. He’d been gallivanting round the world. India, Thailand, Tibet, Guildford, Milton Keynes, all sorts of exotic places. Come and see my van, he’d said, so here I was, the fumes already hitting me hard. Guess I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

I mentioned the scratch I’d seen down the right hand side. ‘Handbrake snapped off,’ he said, sheepishly, ‘found myself rolling down Dad’s drive.’ He’d fixed the handbrake himself. I had visions of a broom handle rammed in its place.

It was an old VW. Technically a transit but an abnormally large one, once royal blue, now faded and sorry. He’d gutted the thing and was in the process of converting it into a home. Didn’t pay for this, he said, or that, or that, got this for a tenner, found this by the road. Thriftiest man I know and the son of a carpenter, his handiwork was beautiful. Fitted bookshelves, nifty bed-come-sofa, cute little gas stove mounted on a perfectly-crafted “kitchen” area. ‘What’ll you do about water?’ I asked. ‘You can always find an outside tap,’ he said with a sly wink.

‘Where are you off to?’ I asked. ‘Two weeks in Norway, ‘ he replied, ‘doing a bit of “environmental research” then up North in the van.’ I wasn’t sure whether snowboarding counts as “environmental research” but hey, why not?

He showed me the leisure battery, explained the relay switch, demonstrated where his gadgets would charge from. TV, laptop, phone. He was in the process of insulating the van.

‘Regarding insurance and all that, is this legal?’ I asked. He laughed, ‘don’t you worry about that. It will get a bit complicated when I install my wood-burning stove….’

Last I heard he was working as a “freelance environmental consultant” somewhere in the North of England. But what I’m really trying to say is, if you see a large blue van rolling backwards down a hill, a trail of burning books in its wake, chased by some angry victims of water theft, let me know.

It was one of the most unhelpful things I’ve ever said.  If you exclude countless random quotations from my toddler’s TV shows, typically made at inappropriate moments. “Oh no, it’s the Pinky Ponk” is a great eyebrow-raiser, for example. On this occasion my wife looked a bit surprised, though not unpleasantly so, and she was mildly amused I think, though not impressed.  I should work on that really, impressing my wife I mean…

One gift still under the tree, the room almost tidy, but not quite, that wreckage known as “what’s left of Christmas”, clutter on the acceptable side of chaos. A desultory crowd of reindeer lounging about on the stove, remotes scattered about (maddening I tell you, they should be lined up), the occasional fallen Christmas card abandoned mercilessly by its friends. Tins of chocolate everywhere, clearly some sort of godforsaken attempt  to make me fat.

A strong Belgian beer beside me, a book in my right hand, my left hand freely alternating between the beer and a plate of crispy duck niblets which, in my experience, are the answer. Ba da bing, ba da boom, I could easily spend the rest of my life in harmony with beer and crispy duck niblets. A happy though pointless existence.  Across the room my wife sat in a little spot filled with property papers, garden magazines and an arty book on home design with an infuriatingly trendy cover.

“Arrrrgh!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands to her head, “my mind is going completely mad.”

“Is it a bit like driving at high speed through a cloud of flies and watching them splat on the windscreen?” I asked, helpfully.

She laughed, somewhat artificially, “not really, no, but thanks for your help.”  I do like to help. Maybe I should have gone with the Pinky Ponk line.

Whenever it snows I secretly look forward to seeing people slip over. Bwahahahahaha. Let me rephrase that. Whenever it snows I sometimes get pleasure out of seeing people slip over as long as nobody is hurt.  I know, I know, my civilised instincts are unparalleled.

It snowed heavily over the weekend. The town looked fantastic. It’s always pretty, Harrogate that is, but a snowy Harrogate is a beautiful one. The Stray looked delightful, dark frames of trees contrasting sharply with a vast blanket of white. Such whiteness, it looked like a scene from Narnia. Everything was white. I even saw a chap wearing a white jacket, white hoody, white trousers and white trainers with white laces. He carried a white bag and was playing on a white Nintendo DS. Bit dangerous really, especially if the White Witch was in the vicinity. What if he fell in the snow and couldn’t get up? I’d have played on a red DS just in case.

I walked through town on my way home. A man came out of a pub for a smoke. He smoked like a true Yorkshireman, back inside 30 seconds later after a relentless, aggressive sequence of double-puffs. Flat cap, blue, long grey hair, bedraggled, a face that said ‘bloody snow, bloody cold’. He was right. The bleakness was refreshing, the town picturesque, but it was bloody cold, far too cold, and I looked forward to getting home.

As I passed the solicitors a suited gentleman stood shivering on the steps. Dark grey suit, dark red tie, dark black hair, another stark contrast against the snow. He wore shiny black brogues. Picked the wrong day to wear brogues mate, I thought. Balanced on the steps, clutching a salt-shaker, he shook it about with the delicate air of a man in brogues on snow on steps. Brogues notwithstanding it made perfect sense, the recession is bad enough without rich clients slipping on his steps and breaking bones.

I hear a cry behind me. The solicitor is on his back at the foot of the steps, floundering about in the snow like a penguin in a toboggan accident. He clambered to his feet, brushed himself off and pretended nothing had happened. I paused and savored the moment, then headed home. Time to introduce Bubba Stoneskin to snow for the first time.   She squirmed excitedly and pressed her little hands against the glass.

“Milk?” she said.