The Weasel: Monty and I, swimming against the tide

I was delighted to discover that Roger Deakin, author of a fine book called Waterlog: A swimmer's journey through Britain (Chatto, pounds 15.99), first took the plunge in the same glacial waters which I frequented as a youth. The setting for his "earliest memory of serious swimming" was an open-air pool in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, where I engaged in some slightly less serious swimming - a few shivery lengths in fruitless pursuit of a young woman named Jennifer. Thereafter, the aquatic activities of myself and Mr Deakin diverged. Partly inspired by John Cheever's short story The Swimmer, and partly to cure a broken heart, he spent last year swimming in almost any spot of water he could find.

He swam in the moat of his own house in Suffolk, in the Itchen at Winchester College ("Excuse me, does that fence mean anything to you?" barked a jobsworth); in the Byzantine pool of the Royal Automobile Club; in a "wild, natural Jacuzzi" near Portmadoc; and in the Leeds & Liverpool Canal near Skipton. He tumbled through the rapids of the river Dart, squirmed through the "thin, brown soup" of Frenchman's Creek and paddled in the brine baths of Droitwich. He swam with an otter in the Waveney, with Hell's Angels at Kirkby Lonsdale and with a leech ("Of our 11 native species, only four suck blood") in Malham Tarn. Though tempted, he didn't manage to swim in The Wash ("Danger: Unexploded Bombs and Missiles"), around the Corryvreckan (the whirlpool off Jura that nearly did for Orwell), or in Lubetkin's Penguin Pool in London Zoo.

Since our days in Kenilworth, I have failed to match Mr Deakin's obsessive amphibiousness, but several passages in his book struck a chord with me. Like him, I have swum in a man-made tidal pool, though his was an unexpectedly arousing spot blasted out of a petrified beach in Dorset ("the restless sea fondles the rock shelf like a lover's hand sliding up a stockinged thigh"), while mine was a dank concrete cistern at Margate. Like him, I have swum in the estuarial waters of the Thames and had the curious experience of coming across warm river-water running on top of the denser seawater.

But I identified most closely with Mr Deakin when he was pestered by coastguards ("Are you all right?") while swimming in the harbour at Polruan in Cornwall. The same thing happened to me when I was swimming a fairish way out at Cap d'Agde in the south of France. A dinghy approached and a curious official looked over the side and started doing a bit of qu'est ce que c'est-ing. I had my speech prepared in best Edward Heath Franglais. "Je suis parfaitement content, merci." Somewhat superfluously, I added, "Je suis un Anglais excentrique. Je ne desire pas etre delivre." My would- be rescuer shrugged, and revved for the shore.

My pal Monty - ever met the fellow? Decent enough cove, but, by his own admission, exceedingly careful with the folding stuff. On the rare occasions when he makes a purchase, he is determined to get full value. The other day he was given the bum's rush from the souvenir shop at Lord's for continuing to chomp a toffee despite a sign declaring that the consumption of food or drink was not allowed on the premises. ("Well, I'd only just put it in," he insists in hurt tones.) However, being a tightwad does make him privy to insights denied to the rest of us.

Last weekend, for example, he discovered that he had been overcharged by 10p at his local Sainsbury's. Few of us would have detected this error - particularly Mrs W, who always looks deprived unless she does the ton at Tesco - but since Monty had purchased only three items, he swiftly spotted that he had been charged pounds 1.25 for half a dozen eggs that were on special offer at pounds 1.15. Adding insult to injury, he discovered that he'd not been awarded the 25 extra loyalty points which constituted part of the offer.

What really rankled was that exactly the same thing had happened to him six weeks ago in the same supermarket. Irked beyond telling, Monty erupted. Complete disgrace! Diddling the public! An outrage! Demand to see the manager! Winkled from his lair, a suit, possibly the manager, possibly not, applied the old oil. Inexplicable oversight. Computer glitch. No one else has complained. Will be attended to immediately. By way of apology, perhaps sir would accept a small sum in compensation for any distress caused? The incandescent Monty was somewhat placated by this suggestion - until he realised that the minion of Sainsbury's (operating profit for 1998/9: pounds 867m) was proffering a single, solitary quid. "Well, I wouldn't have accepted," says this doughty defender of the people's pence. "But he put the coin in my pocket and ushered me out of the door."

The sole extravagance of the aforementioned Monty is cheese. He used to be a member of Paxton & Whitfield's Cheese Society, a sampling service run by the celebrated Jermyn Street grocer. Once a month, members receive half a pound of four lactics through the post. Following each delivery, Monty would tantalise me intolerably with his tales of oozy Pont l'Eveque, peppery Gaperon, sumptuous Bresse Bleu. Eventually, he succumbed to my pleading and agreed to give me a decent-sized chunk from his next delivery.

I think I may have been promised some Livarot, the legendary fromage once described as smelling "like the feet of God". After weeks of salivatory anticipation, the great day arrived. But when Monty came through the door, his hands were empty. "You've forgotten!" I howled.

"No, I haven't," Monty snapped back. "I've got it here." He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. My heart fell. He extracted a foil-covered lump approximately the same size as an Oxo cube. I don't know that I have ever felt quite so disappointed. Feet of God, indeed! Little toe, more like.

Though I've been writing the Weasel column for a good while now, so far I haven't had a fan. In case this prompts a legion of readers to yell "Au contraire!", I should explain that I am referring to an electrically powered cooling device. During the recent hot spell, I decided that I needed something to stir the fetid malarial fug that has settled on Weasel Villas. For years, I've had my eye on those splendid fans made in India. Perhaps you know the ones - great bulky things with gleaming black paintwork like a Humber Hawk and silvery blades that might have come from a Vickers Viscount.

The fans have three speeds and, by fiddling with a little wotsit at the back, you can get them to turn from side to side like a stiff-necked spectator following a very, very slow game of tennis. These splendidly antique gizmos are just the thing for any hack who fantasises that he is Hildy Johnson in The Front Page. The only drawback is that they are a bit on the pricey side compared to to modern plastic versions. Or so I thought, until Mrs W, overcome by one of her regular urges to boost the Swedish economy, insisted on our visiting Ikea the other day.

Now, I admit that I have been less than complimentary about these consumerist kremlins in the past, but I was forced to eat my words when I discovered that Ikea is currently selling the fans I have coveted for years, at pounds 19 a time. This is precisely pounds 100 less than the amount being charged for the same device at Freud, the high-style outlet in Covent Garden. When I got it home, I was so pleased with the Ikea Taifun (I don't think you need a translation from the Swedish) that on the following day I dashed back and snapped up another one. As I write, Weasel Villas is as cool as a raspberry Mivvi. Of course, this may be due to the fact that the sky has clouded over and a nippy breeze has sprung up. Still, you can't deny that the fans have worked a treat.

Poor old Sir Elton! He had to borrow pounds 25m from a City finance house one week and have a pacemaker fitted the next. The prodigious spending habits of the ageing rocket man (ne Reg Dwight) may have been a factor in causing his stress problems. Apparently, it is not unknown for him to run up a million quid a week on his credit cards. Here the Weasel can sympathise. I had not previously considered myself a wild spendthrift, until a peculiar incident in our local Safeway's the other day. I was hovering round the deli counter, buying a tranche of this and a soupcon of that, when I was addressed by the stripling behind the counter.

"Excuse me, it's my last day working here. I'm off to medical school next week. Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"No."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a journalist - but why do you ask?"

"Well, you come in here so often and spend so much on food that we all thought..."

"What?"

"We thought you must be some kind of eccentric millionaire."

So, me and Elt are peas in a pod. The only difference is that I buy Scotch eggs while he buys the Faberge kind.