Mike & the mechanics.

My car mechanic and VW Beetle fanatic Michal - which I suppose would be Michael in English - invited me to have a drink with him and the boys from his garage. They are a nice bunch and the bar which they frequent is just across the road from me so I readily accepted.

The place is called Camelot and located at the end of a long courtyard. Two fat men sat on stools facing each other inside the entrance and after they had looked me up and down I had to turn sideways to get past them. Michal spotted me and dragged me over to his table in a raised corner where he held court. He was in his Friday Night Gear - a tight polo shirt and even tighter bleached jeans, and he sat like a local gangster - his back to the walls, his knees wide apart and overlooking all. He was beaming. This was the highlight of his week and he felt great.

A drunken mob sang into a microphone on the dancefloor and the awful din assured me that I would last just one drink and then make my excuses and flee. Michal sang along to the loud karaoke, clapping his hands hard and every now and then giving me a hard slap on the back shouting "It doesn't matter!!" He'd recently spent a month in London and was proud of this phrase he'd picked up.

I tried to spark up conversation with his pals but they had nothing to say. After we'd downed a few shots of vodka Michal's wife turned up with a couple of pretty pals. Before I had a chance to turn on the charm Michal suggested we (as in The Boys) go out for a rather handsome joint he'd prepared earlier and out they filed. I thought I'd better join them but by the time I'd excused myself from the girls and made my way past the lardy doormen my comrades had disappeared. Then I noticed a car in which the interior was thick with smoke, a door opened and a tattoed arm appeared from the issuing smog and beckoned me over. We sat squeezed together liked canned sprats and I listened while they talked about Volkswagen Beetles and axle differentials. This would have been dull in English but in Polish it was mindnumbing. Every time I passed the joint on another one arrived from the other side, by the time I got out of the car I could hardly move.

It was all I could manage to follow them back into the club and I sat down gazing like a zombie at the lovelies around me. A closer look made me realise that they were GORGEOUS and that I'd made a grave error. Now, as high as a kite, I had no hope of putting a sentence together and was capable only of grinning inanely at all around me. I slumped into a depression at such a missed opportunity and, looking down at the tray of gleaming shot glasses before me, resigned myself to another vodka.

Michal leaned over and giving me a mighty thump on the back suggested I start a Volkswagen Beetle club in Lodz as there isn't one. He is very impressed with the second Beetle I have bought (a fully restored beauty from 1966) and thinks I would be the perfect choice. The girls, flanked on either side by monosyllabic junior car mechanics, sat wistfully looking out at the merry-makers while I envisaged my role as President of the Lodz Volkswagen Beetle Club.

Word of the week: Mechanik meaning mechanic.