Joey Morino

'Back in 5 Minutes' Joey Morino

The name is Cornelius O'Reilly: Investigator. In 1966 he became a private investigator after ten stifling years in the good old firm of MI6: guardian of our souls in far away foreign lands. It had its perks of course, having spent your initial apprenticeship for two years as a Drag-Anchor, sitting 12 hours day or night in what was known as the "broom cupboard": a small nicotine-stained room, consisting of a single bed, cracked sink, a mirror to study the bags forming under your sleep-deprived eyes, the all important coffee machine to keep you awake on the long night-shift, and the coffee-stained mugs with suspect cracks. A room you share with fax machines that clatter throughout the night, two telephones, one coloured green and one red being the emergency straight to the controller usually somewhere out on the golf course; at night ... well he could be anywhere of course ... usually not home?The perks come afterwards if favoured: travel to some exotic location, or perhaps if, sometime in your past, you blotted your copybook, then stuck in some God-forsaken outpost, writing useless reports about the local natives whilst swatting their anti-foreigner mosquitoes. Enough is eventually enough, so he tendered his resignation and fled to the gentle, sleepy town of Cracklewood to become an Investigator. He had been assured that the sleepier a town appears, then the more investigating needed: think Miss MapleIn most cases, it's not the various jobs that crop up, it's the intriguing characters who come knocking at his office door, or indeed sit at his desk waiting for his eventual return with the "Back in 5 Mins" notice on the door: He can't lock the door as his landlord Antonio, the baker, never seems to find time to have the ancient lock repaired; or when of course, his candlestick telephone rings...!