I've moved into my new place in Long Island (not on the damn subway) next to the house of a dubious specimen called Jay or Jeffrey or Jeremiah or something. An air of suspicion hovers about him: some say he saved a baby and mauled to death a polar bear in Svalbard; others conjecture he dealt in the illegal trafficking of elk spleens in pre-WWI Serbia; a small contingent even claim him to be the true inventor of instant coffee and the crossword puzzle.

Despite the mist cloaking his origins and business activities, he is a typical ‘self-made man’ – by which I mean an arriviste wanker who keeps turning up in my driveway in his souped-up Fiat Punto wearing a croquet blazer. Who the fuck drives a Fiat Punto wearing a croquet blazer? I don’t care if it’s the ‘Jazz Age’ or whatever; it’s no excuse to look like a tosser. I’m quite adamant about this.

Anyhow, the man’s invited me a couple of times to ‘come ride’ in his ‘two-seater aeroplane and enjoy the wild thermals over the Atlantic, old sport.’ Interpreting his invitation as a sordid euphemism, as is prudent, I’ve instead spent most of my off-days in the exhausting company of a lady golfer who grunts louder than the doughtiest tennis femme. My neighbour, on the other hand, is sweet for this posh mid-western filly – Daisy or Deidre or Diocletian, dunno – who likes nothing more than to run over poor women in fast cars, like the veritable New York society woman she is fast becoming.

To impress this questionable hussy – she keeps going on about her baby (nobody fucking cares) – my neighbouring vulgarian keeps throwing large house parties. Throughout the preceding day one sees vans revving up to his doorway delivering endless cases of Bud Light. I roughly surmise the idea to be to get the lady so rat-arsed she’ll say yes to a ‘ride’ in his ‘two-seater aeroplane and enjoy the wild thermals’. Wicked cad that he is.

Nick Carraway, West Egg, Long Island, Summer of 1922.

Phew! India was behind us – and so we got legless on Kingfisher beer and Old Monk rum, dad and mum and I, and periodically projected our half-digested masala dosas over the rails and re-enacted the entire song repertoire from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (mum’s favourite). The Patels were On Tour, for the first time since the wet Himalayan pilgrimage in the summer of ’74 (where there was that incident with the snow leopard and the Shiva trident, which dad still likes to bring up over chai breaks). But perhaps you’d care for a little context, and perhaps some religious allegory and animal metaphors to layer on some artistic resonance and secure lucrative literary prizes. Alright then.

We had sold all our exotic pets and hotfooted it onto that liner soon after my dad read of the ramping up of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in the Kanian Tamil News – daddy was not to be sterilised by that woman – and were treading over the waves to Canada, or some such New World dump, when the ship crapped out on us. Suddenly there was all this cracking and splintering and feminine wailing. The next thing I knew – the Kingfisher hangover blurred things somewhat – I was squatting on a rubber dinghy in the middle of the Pacific, with nothing for ballast but a pair of handcuffs, a box of flavoured condoms (hint of lemon), a bottle of scented lubricant (essence of elderflower), an over-ripe cucumber, and a trussed-up Barbra Streisand in a low-cut crimson dress.

Karma could not have dealt me a crueller hand, and I looked wistfully back to my prelapsarian days among the animals in the Pondicherry zoo, who always accepted me for who I was and never questioned my motives. How was I to survive for days, possibly weeks, possibly months, aboard an inflatable vessel with a cluster of useless implements and a hostile, possibly dangerous animal onboard? After a determined bite of the cucumber, I pondered my options, and thought about Krishna and Mohammed and Jesus. Still not sure why. Maybe this all means something?

Piscine Molitor ‘Pi’ Patel, the Pacific Ocean, 1977.

Hobbiton is shit. I am so through with Hobbiton. Seriously. Fuck Hobbiton. The women are all bearded rapists and the men do nothing but sing madrigals and grow phallic vegetables in garden plots. My best mate Frodo’s got engaged to one of those hairy tarts. He kept screaming no, waving his little arms about – but she wouldn’t cease in her advances, forcing on him one of those faux gold rings with tacky Elfin lettering on the side. Such has been the fate of all too many young male hobbits.

But he’s already planned an escape, my man Frodo has: he’s bought himself an all-inclusive, week-long trek in the alpine region of Mordor, setting off by coach at half six on Thursday morning. The trek culminates in a visit to Middle Earth’s largest and most scenic volcano, Mount Doom, where you can get your picture taken for a small fee by a dwarf in front of the lava flows. The sherpa for the trek’s a bit dodgy though, I hear: some skinny ned called Gollum with ripped tracksuit bottoms, a tartan baseball cap, and a consuming penchant for cheap bling. A possible source of discord, I fear, but apparently a powerful wizard – Gandalf or some shit – is coming along too, so he should keep that skanky pleb from downing too much Buckfast and stealing people’s jewellery.

Anyway, Frodo plans to give his engagement ring a surreptitious toss into the volcano pit; when he gets back he’s going to make up some bullshit story about the ring harbouring sinister powers, necessitating its molten destruction lest it fall into the hands of the evil Lord Sauron (he got the name from one of those obscure Korean soap operas he likes to watch). The important thing, however, is that he’s asked me to come along with him. Apparently there’s a stopover in Rivendell, the notorious Elf brothel, for a bit of rough sport with some leggy bints. Lads on Tour Mordor 2011 – has a certain ring to it. I might order t-shirts.

Samwise Gamgee, Lower Hobbiton, 2011.

I must lay down, once and for all, how I first met that Capulet bint Juliet. It was not at some gay little masked ball or at either side of fish tank (I wish people would stop saying these things). Actually, we met in a grotty dubstep venue in a disreputable suburb of Verona. The reason she denies this is because she can’t remember it. And I don’t blame her! MDMA does that to people. Anyhow, we were both thirteen; I got into the club because I borrowed Mercutio’s ID, and Juliet got in because the eunuch-bouncers let any slapper in who looks old enough to down an alcopop and give a stranger a hand-shandy.

So, there we were, off our tits on pills, flailing and grinding against people from various echelons of Veronese society. E makes me piss like a bitch, so I was constantly elbowing my way to the pisser and letting rip into the porcelain. One time I stumbled accidentally (or not!) into the ladies’ bog – and there I saw her, crouched over a loo, the door of her cubicle ajar, heaving vomit into the bowl and retching like a dying basilisk. Like the good Montague gent I am (ha!), I skipped over and helped her empty out the last of her swan dinner. Then I offered to take her home; I think I said something about the dubstep being ‘proper shit’ anyway, and that I intended to crash at a mate’s house just a few blocks down from her palazzo. And so we walked. One minute I was helping her spew again into the fountain of the Piazza della Erbe, the next I was up on her balcony, balls deep in Capulet gash. Back of the net; House of Montague 1, House of Capulet 0.

On reflection, it’s not a terribly ennobling story, and it clashes somewhat with neo-classical doctrines of chivalry currently prevalent in Renaissance Italy. Perhaps I best stick with the masked ball and fish tank bollocks. Because, honestly, if the truth got out about our drug-oiled rutting, we might both have to top ourselves. Imagine!

Romeo, fair Verona, 1562.

I’m a thinkin’ masters who be makin’ concubinage wi’ them slave-women be mighty awdacious an’ ’gainst the Lord. A Southern Christian man best be fornicating wi’ his wife or his sisters I’m a-sayin’, jus’ like ma pap – though pap be always drinkin’ an’ cursin’ an’ all manner o’ sinfulness, as said ma keeper Widow Douglas when she tryin’-a sivilize me good back yonder in St Petersburg. No, no sir, I cannot abide concubinage wi’ them slave-women. But when in Missouri…

Huckleberry Finn, on a raft somewhere on the Mississippi River, 1884.

To kill the bitch, or not to kill the bitch: that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the menstrually-induced backchat and lacklustre cottage pies of that outrageous hussy, or to roll up one’s sleeves and give her a good going over with a rolling pin – and by opposing her, end her. To have a lie-in, at last; and by a ‘lie-in’ to say that I end the ear-ache and the thousand unpleasant shocks that her flesh is heir to (you really should see her first thing in the morning; a sight most unseemly; not exactly Juliet), ’tis a ‘consummation’ devoutly to be wish’d. To have a good ten hours: perchance to dream or listen to the radio while scratching one’s testicles: there’s the rub; for in that epic repose what dreams may come when I have shoved off that mercifully mortal woman, must give one pause: there indeed is too much rub, which makes calamity of late morning. And stuff, and things, fair Ophelia. Now get thee to a fucking nunnery.

Hamlet, suburban Copenhagen, 1599.

I just don’t get it – these odious midgets now want to turf me out of their Lego kingdom. I swear, the last time I pissed on someone they slipped me a tenner and treated me to a steak pie at the King’s Head. Besides, ‘size’ is an Enlightenment social construct. Fuck Kant, seriously. (Although entering the society of really really small people does do wonders for one’s sense of adequacy). So that’s it, I’m off. No bargain buckets of miniature sheep could persuade me to stay. I’m going to do what I always wanted to do, ever since my sinister uncle Oswald took me on an ‘educational’ trip to the family stud farm when I was six: I shall live among horses, and make my sport there. Horses don’t talk back when you ride them, and what’s more it’s socially acceptable to whip them. Far preferable to midgets.

Gulliver, Lilliput Border Detention Centre, 1702.

I was doing my thing, prowling on London rooftops in green tights, peering into the bedrooms of young middle class ladies – pretty standard night really. One silly bint had left her window open, so I crawled in and made myself thoroughly acquainted. Wendy – an alright sort of girl, despite the shit name. A bit naïve though; I had to carefully guide her towards ‘Never Never Land’. But after that it was straight on till morning, let me tell you. Unfortunately her little brother was in the room; I had to cart him out the window too, after I’d finished explaining myself. Meanwhile, I’ve been languishing in Hook’s dungeon for ‘lost boys’, hoping the goateed bastard doesn’t grab hold of my Tinkerbell. He never wants me to grow up, you see.

Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie’s deeply suspect imagination, 1904.

‘Be fair to me, wife, I’ve had a reeking shit day being a Thaine in early medieval Scotland, trying to extort rent from a belligerent peasantry and hosting swan dinners for visiting French “dignitaries”. What’s more, these three old trollops keep following me about mumbling things. I just want to come home to a fish supper and some wholesome bed-sport in our drafty four-poster. Is that really so much to ask from a housewife in the eleventh century? I can’t be doing with your “I’m not going to put out until you commit regicide” back-chat this evening. Get with the fucking times, woman. Know your place.’

Macbeth, Cupar, 1039.

Jus' suffocated my teenage wife cos my bes' mate told me to. Bros before hos, as the Moorish adage goes.

Othello, Venice, 1603.

Been trapped for what seems like half the fucking war in a cramped tunnel beneath a French field, with only a sewer-rat commoner called Jack Firebrace for company. Story of my life really. Can’t hear a bloody word the pleb says. Beyond his risibly blue-collar name, there doesn’t seem to be much to him. He didn’t take a gap year before the war. The only way I can preserve my middle class sanity down here is by replaying scenes from mine: France 1910! What a mess that year was.

There was this middle aged French bird in the house – Isabelle. Absolute tigress. She used to lure me into the ‘red room’ and then beg me to give her a good seeing to. Now, my friends, an English gent never tells. But, rest assured, she got a thorough pounding from this Englishman – in the biblical sense. Rode her like a huntsman on Boxing Day. Naturally her husband threw me out the house. CAD.

And now, look at me, up to my balls in mud in some grim corner of France, trying to spank one out next to a grinning cockney ex-minor who keeps mouthing on about the laughs he had (hardly) digging the Channel Tunnel. War: the futility of it all. I think I shall write a slim volume of effeminate poetry, detailing my suffering.

Stephen Wraysford, the Western Front, 1918.

‘Calm down, Peter, of course I didn’t mount your sister Susan while you were off conversing with magical creatures. I’m Jesus; I don’t knob people – it’s just not what I do. Don’t believe that Dan Brown bastard; that filthy slapper Magdalene washed my feet and snuck a look up my toga, nothing more. Besides, all that was before I became a metaphorical talking lion. Everything’s different now.’

Aslan, Narnia, Winter (but not Christmas).

‘Alright, woman, I’ll eat that sodding Granny Smith and put my willy away.’

Adam, Eden, the Dawn of Man.

I’m ready to be done with that muggle bint Hermione. She keeps getting her baps out whenever we go camping. What’s more – I shit you not – she keeps grabbing my broomstick and asking to ride it. So inappropriate. It doesn’t matter that I keep reminding her that the Firebolt’s out of bounds to all but the Gryffindor quidditch team. Me, I’m still sore that my last broomstick snapped – the Nimbus 2000, the best ride in Hogwarts. (Snape did for that one.)

Harry Potter, an anonymous bit of woodland, 2007.

Went to my daughter’s bedroom this morning and found her playing with her daemon. I think I’ll make it the subject of my annual slide-show lecture at the Royal Society: ‘The Limits of Masturbation.’

Lord Asriel, Jordan College, Oxford (parallel universe), 1995.