Hallowe'en's a lot nicer in the Village.

I should explain to my American readers that Hallowe'en in Britain is slightly different to Hallowe'en in the States, at least as I've seen it, on the Roseanne show. Whereas Stateside it appears to be a pleasant, fun, family festival, over here it's a bit like the TV footage you see of Sierra Leone or Liberia.

Anyway, the children were all nice and polite.

I was stuck for a costume for Short Tony's Hallowe'en party. The LTLP had bought a witch's hat for 60p at Tesco, but I was completely unprepared.

I had black trousers and a black T-shirt, so I did think of going as Simon Cowell, but then I found my granddad's old hat, sellotaped knives to my fingers and went as Freddie Krueger.

It was quite effective, but a bit impractical as I couldn't really do anything without knives waving around alarmingly. In the end I had to give up when Short Tony suggested we play snooker. I think he probably did this on purpose as I was scaring the children.

I think granddad would have approved. He always did an Australian Long John Silver at parties, what with him being a fairly jolly Aussie character with two artificial legs.

It was like a Dud 'n' Pete sketch in reverse. He was the only person there who didn't have enough legs to play the role.