The Wisdom Of Solly Mann
by Paul D. Brazill
Although I didn’t particularly possess a great deal of knowledge regarding the sordid shenanigans of most of my antecedents, Solly Mann, my paternal grandfather, was definitely a memorable old bugger, to say the least, and he certainly made one hell of an impression on me as a child. Indeed, during the 89 years that he circumvented this planet, Jimmy appeared to have enjoyed a somewhat vivid and gaudy life, and adventurous anecdotes and exciting escapades flowed easily and readily from his silver tongue, a smirk often lurking in the shadows of each tawdry tale.
He was also a constant font of homilies, most of which were as much use as a condom in a convent, truth be told but there were one or two pearls of wisdom amongst the swine, including his oft - repeated dictum to ‘never confuse information with knowledge, or knowledge with wisdom.’ Now, I often suspected that he’d pilfered these ‘words - from- the wiseguy’ from a fortune cookie, or perhaps one of those scappy bits of coloured paper that you found inside a Christmas cracker, but to give the old bugger his due, he did, in this particular instance at least, have a fair point.
And for some hazy reason, I rehashed those memories, as I tried to catch up with a somewhat sozzled Johnny who strode through the oncoming winter blizzard with the bravado that only the hopelessly overconfident and deluded ever had. I, however plodded on behind him like some sort of Poundland Sisyphean side-kick.
Somewhere in the distance, a church bell sounded and a murder of crows sliced through the migraine-white winter morning. I suddenly felt drained and it wasn’t the cold weather, or the hangover that were to blame, although they hardly helped matters. It was all down to Johnny The Fox and his incessant jabbering.
Johnny was like a perpetual motion machine and once he got going on a topic, absolutely nothing could shut him up. He seemed to be able to fuel his own fire of drivel.
‘So, you see, that was when I told him. That was when I said ‘Look, you’ve got to be a bit more specific, mate,’ he said, as we cut through the snow smothered cemetery, Johnny’s long, red raincoat flapping in the wind behind him.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You were dead right, Johnny. Spot on, pet. You really hit the nail right on the head, you did.’
Though I really didn’t have a clue what Johnny was actually babbling on about. I had regularly put up with - and even occasionally enjoyed- his soliloquies of shite when we were boozing it up in some down-and-out pub or other, but out there in the cold light of daybreak it was like fingers down a blackboard.
Johnny stopped walking, and I followed suit. I took off my backpack and fiddled with one if its broken straps, but to no avail. My warm, brandy-brimmed breath appeared and disappeared in front of me like a spectre. Johnny The Fox turned and pointed a bony finger at me, swaying a little.
‘You see, what I said was for the bloke to be a bit more specific, like. You know? And I was right though, eh? I mean, when you start talking about ‘the thick one out of Oasis’ it doesn’t really narrow things down much, does it?’
I chuckled.
The information that I’d recently pertained from 'a reliable source' was that Johnny had in his possession a particularly valuable piece of the jewellery, which would be very well-worth purloining indeed. The knowledge aspect of the equation was that the information had been confirmed when the sozzled old soak had actually shown the aforementioned sparkly bauble to me in a smoky, poky Soho pub earlier that night.
‘You’re not far wrong there, pet,’ I said as I smashed him in the face with bottle of White Lightning cider.
Which, I assume, was the wisdom part of the equation, all things considered.
© Paul D. Brazill