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When the Roman Empire ruled the world, you could make it work for you The women, the hospitality You will have heard the cliché about wives in every port You could make that happen, I promise you   Not so much now It’s important for a man to settle down As important as going out and being a beast and hunting is settling down   When I came home drunk last week I dropped the baby on its head One minute the baby was in my arms Its face was squashed against the shiny brass of my breastplate The next minute it toppled backwards and fell out of my arms The bang of the baby on the floor woke my wife up The baby’s eyes opened It didn’t make a sound It looked straight up at me The silence was odd My wife sat bolt upright in bed She pointed at the baby:   ‘That’s even more dangerous!’ she said   I knew exactly what she meant   We ran through the streets to the hospital I held the broken-headed baby aloft as we ran My wife ran two paces behind us all the way We ran all the way to the hospital in that formation   The wages of war are not enough for my father-in-law He has begun talking about opening a little Italian restaurant He claims that it is something he has always dreamed of, but I find this hard to believe When I was a little boy, there were pictures of my father-in-law in our history textbooks The pictures showed him drinking from a goblet full of blood His jaw jutted out and the blood ran in little streams from the sides of his mouth Now he wants to open a little Italian restaurant   The reason for the restaurant is that he wants something to leave to my wife and my baby when he passes on It’s partly a nice thought, and it’s partly a nice fuck you to myself   The nurse talked to us in a patronising way She told us that the doctor was going to open up the baby’s head to make sure that nothing went wrong