Charlie Woodham

Licensed to Laugh Charlie Woodham

Licensed to Laugh is Charlie Woodham's life story full of hilarious tales from his early school days, National Service antics and amusing anecdotes from a varied working life - including 5 years as a Pub Landlord... ...the only way to tackle the job was to use the pub's powerful vacuum cleaner. I approached the cage rather as a soldier with a flame thrower might approach a machine gun bunker. The sodding parrot never took its eyes off me, all its feathers fluffed up and it made a sort of low growling noise - this was war. I lunged forward pushed the nozzle between the bars and with much screeching the parrot began its attack. A swirling cloud of old bird seed, feathers and dried parrot shit poured forth from the cage. I stuck gamely to my task. I stepped back to view my handiwork. As the dust settled I saw a clean cage and a semi bald parrot. In my frenzied efforts I had managed to suck up a lot of its feathers. The landlord returned looking tanned and fit - mind you the tan faded a shade or two when he saw what was left of his beloved parrot. He was not convinced by my explanation that the parrot's condition was probably caused by what I described, rather creatively I thought, as 'seasonal moulting'.