The man who thought he was a banana had greater peel.

There are many things I could say about Animal’s qualities. His affability has more affs than anyone else I know. His suitability is pure Armani, and my excitability when we get together is torrential. I did already mention the carnival atmosphere we have going on, but perhaps it’s more of a circus. We have it all, the juggling, the acrobatics, plenty of elephants in the room and performing fleas which live in the pygmy forest of chest hairs nestled shyly somewhere above Animal’s solar plexus. Each flea has its own little hair upon which to practice its pole-dancing routine. Sexiest damn thing you ever saw.

We didn’t always have it so easy. Relationships are hard work – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Our first act was a tricky tight-rope walking number, and while we both firmly believed our shadows would catch us if we fell, we realized the ground was firm in its belief also. I always felt that Ms S and my own Mr Shady were out there with us, but a couple of times I saw him give Ms S the wink just before we put ourselves on the line.

A wobbly beginning isn’t such a bad thing. Turns out I’m an unnatural clown, and Animal is a barrel of laughs. We gave each other a few pies in the face, a couple of times he cut my suspenders and there I was pants down in the middle of the ring .. Awkward! And I may even have squirted him with my zappo-matic pistol-grip water gun once... or twice. The moral of the story turns out to be a good one though: If you don’t like bananas, stay out of the fruit bowl.