It's 10am. Friday. I'm alone in the main bedroom, refining my lines. I stare gimlet-eyed at my reflection.

"You thug", I say.

I narrow my eyes even more.

"You murderous...cold-blooded gouger". That's better.

My new TV3 series "Dirty Money" will sink or swim depending on how convincing these lines are.

I give my reflection some more abuse before throwing on my trenchcoat and heading into town.

I mingle among the citizens, savouring the all-too-brief opportunity it affords me to feel...normal. Of course it doesn't last long.

I see him fifty feet away. Potential threat. Outside Kapp and Peterson.

To most folk, it's just some whiskery sot tamping mild shag into his calabash.

I'm not most folk. My years of experience allow me to see a mercenary priming a pipe bomb.

I sink into my collar, turn around and cross Dame street.

I make it half-way and catch my breath on a traffic island.

I stop for a minute, close my eyes and listen to the soothing hum of the immobile traffic.

No man is an island. John Donne said that. Yet...the Isle of Man is an island. What a fucked-up world this is.

"OI WILLIAMS!"

I'm shaken from my reverie by the shrill tones of some dirtbag shrieking my name.

"OI WILLIAMS YA POX-BOTTLE!"

I open my eyes and quickly locate him.

Well, fancy that. Some hardchaw's displaying a bit of bravado in front of his mates by shouting at me from the top deck of the 51B.

I watch bemusedly as he pushes his pimply puss against the open window, looking for all the world like...a gerbil peeking out the top of a toilet-roll insert with a fire behind and Richard Gere in front.

Suddenly he stops, and seems to fumble with his tracksuit bottoms. Ah jaysus, I haven't even had breakfast and this dirtbird wants to show me his meat'n'two veg?

"HEY WILLIAMS, I GOT A MESSAGE FOR YEH"

With that, he drops his keks, waddles to the far side of the bus and attempts a kind of reverse-charge mooner.

Unfortunately, his backwards lunge takes him crashing through the upstairs window. I watch slack-jawed as he hits the ground near me, spotty arse first.

What the fuck? I'm over to him in a shot. He's in a bad way.

This was no accident.

"What was the message?", I hiss.
"Me...jaysus...hole", he sputters.

I grab his collars and spit the question in his face.

"What was the message?!"
"Me....hole", is all he says before passing out.

Is he trying to tell me that the message is on his arse? I flip him over as I hear the ambulance crew turn the corner.

Nothing obvious.

Then the penny drops. It's his jocks.

There's a picture of a bird on them. A bird with a huge beak.

Surely he's not talking about that shitty Barbra Streisand gig in Celbridge?

Then I recognise the bird.

And it dawns on me that I've just been handed my most serious challenge.

The Pelican Briefs.