Submitted by: Michael Corbett (Brother)

I was around 13 years old when I some how convinced my mother that it would be a good idea to let me go to Brixton Academy (on a school night as well) to see Dee-Lite play a set. I’d like to think that it was because she trusted me, as I was a sensible child but, in hindsight, she let me go with a friend who could be a bit mouthy* to Brixton, at night, so I have to assume she was testing my survival skills. Anyway, as the gig would finish late (actually, she might have been trying to get me bumped off, the more I think about this), I was to stay at Casa Corbett in Wapping, at that time inhabited by Joe “Hi, Joe Corbett here” Corbett, and the hero of the piece, Fingers.

We filtered out of the venue and somehow managed to get in to a black cab, despite my friend John’s best efforts to get us a good old fashioned shoeing from the local roughs. As the cab pulled up outside the flat in Wapping, I saw Fingers getting out of another black cab just in front of us. I also noticed that his shirt was ripped open, his knuckles looked bruise, and he had a very pleased look on his face.

It turns out that Fingers had managed to convince a bouncer at one of the nightclubs he’d been at to order a taxi for himself and the people he was out with. He was told that the taxi had arrived, and that it was parked down a side alley. Ever helpful, he bounded off to collect it and bring it back to pick the rest of the group up (I suspect he bounded in the style of a drunken monkey, a walk he did particularly well). As he arrived at the car, he heard some shouting, and a group walked up to him.

“Oii!! That’s our cab!!” Shouted one girl at funky Fingers.

“Erm, it isn’t, I’ve just ordered it from the club. It’s mine, I’m taking it”.

The girl clearly took this as a challenge.

“If you try to take that cab, I’m gonna slap you in the face”. A threat indeed.

“Bovvered” came his reply, and he went to get in to the cab.

True to her word, she slapped Andrew in the face. Realising that there wasn’t much he could do to her, his only option was to discuss it further with the lady in question’s boyfriend. And when I say discuss, I mean punch in the face. Oddly, the girl took offence to Fingers laying out her boyfriend so easily, so she slapped him again, and then ripped his shirt (Andrew, not the boyfriend, he was already having a shocker without her help). This delay gave the boyfriend just enough time to get back to his feet before Fingers, like a disco dancing Bruce Lee, “discussed” him again. The boyfriend didn’t get back up this time (erm, I’m sure he did eventually though), and Andrew jumped into the cab, happy with his evening’s work.

 (*and he didn’t let himself down on that front that night, but that’s a different story).