DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

Edward Fox-lookalike Bob 'Barclays' Diamond is one of those unfortunates unblessed by nature with a face that retains body and composure when under heat.

Jimmy Goldsmith had it

Conrad Black has it

That lecher DSK has it - or had until his milliardaire wife decided suffit est suffit and booted him.

My old boss at the Hong Kong tourism bureau had it in spades

A trio of tricksters.

Bet you've lost track who's Fox and who's Bob

The cornereder they are, the fleshier and flarier and scarier is their engorged enragement - like that creature in Jurassic Park that sends the Landrover's screen blood-bespattered.

Everyone retreats. Can't be taught outside the plastic chirurgien's scalpel and then you'd have to have a pump in your poche to inflate your sagging jowels once the interrogation got rowdy.

I knew someone who had exactly a pump to put a tiger in his trousers as he oozed around the Hong Kong cocktail circuit. Can't remember how I learned this, no doubt from one of the feral school-leavers with whom I cavorted during '64.

She would have heard it over the dinner table from mum and dad having a giggle, and been told never to let it leave the room.

Straight on to best friend and it'd've been round the Colony by dawn.

Natch, the next party attended by the Pumper, he must have wondered at his soaring popularity [ouch, dreadful pun], tittering teens crowding round and behaving most oddly. But I digress.

By god yes, that was one hell of a year.

I'd escaped virginity by the foreskin of my teeth thanks to playing guitar outside hours in the school pantry and catching the attention of a right little goer who ended up giving me a seeing-to friday evenings during prep just before they all scooted back to the village.

So when I'd finally done my time in that prison and got out to Honkers, I wasn't as scared as I should've been of those mysterious leggy creatures.

Virgins akimbo - the one thing I remember is that everyone was a virgin. Les filles were virgins but set on losing their cherry; the boys were, too, but terrified of being put on the spot.

I'd come across swivel-eyed vixens spitting with rage after having manoeuvred the stud of their choice into a dark corner of the beach, practically inserting it for them, and the bloke keeps making excuses and wandering off to swim or inspect some intriguing plankton ... anything to face the dread moment.

One evening I'd handed the guitar over to some aspiring player and taken a pliant Australienne down to the bottom of the garden where I'd already stored a rug and lilo under a bush.

When we got back my pal expressed surprise at how long we'd been gone.

"Douglas ... we were having it off."

"No seriously, what were you doing? You were gone a helluva long time. Did you hide some booze down there? Oh god no, not drugs! Blimey."

"Dougie ... I was shagging her, she was shagging me. We were taking our good long time - OK?"

"Well, i dont believe you. For a start, she's so ..."

"Virginal, Dougster? Looks like a sweet innocent virgin, does she? That's the whole point, you prick. Butter wouldn't melt ... ahem, an image in which context I would always get an instant erection à la m'sieur Pumpidou."

My fellow 18/19-year-old stalwarts, straight from public school, were frozen with fear, leaving the field to villains like me.

Got a bit off topic from Senor Pump and certainly a long way off Bobby Diamond.

Yessiree - the Bobster is having a bad time and his minders should tell him not to spend 10 mins polishing his specs, bit of a giveaway. As is the flesh falling from his face as the drubbing gets more medieval. Nothing he can do about it but isn't nature a mischievous thing?

Imagine practising up all your con man's wiles and tricks and chutzpah, only to be let down by sagging jowels and startled eyes?

Doesn't seem to affect Sons of Homer, they dont seem to have the guilt enzyme. Ever seen one betray himself? Me neither.