It was a memorable day for the police. After many years of trying they had finally managed to get enough evidence to file an application to get the Handcuff’n’Handgrenade closed down. They’d trid many times before, but had always failed. Their first attempt had failed when the undercover officer they sent in to observe the inevitable lawbreaking was identified within minutes. He had done everything he had been told; he’d walked into the Vladimir Putin lounge, he’d said “Keepriron” to everyone who’d looked at home and then ordered a pint of lager. Unfortunately, when he turned away from the bar he’d bumped into a Bloser and said sorry. This inexplicable act of politeness had marked him down as a Dirty Villa Bastard.

Within seconds a crowd had gathered and the policeman’s life flashed before his eyes. He tried to explain that he wasn’t a Dirty Villa Bastard, he was an undercover policeman, but Barry’s uncle Basil had said that he’d known every policeman in the area for the past fifty years and never seen this one before. The policeman had then pointed out the size and flatness of his feet so the crowd accepted that he was likely to be a policeman. Barry had a quiet word in his ear and he went away, ashen-faced and shaking but still in one piece.

When he got back to the station his superiors asked him what evidence he’d managed to gather. He spoke vin a robotic voice “I saw no evidence of any law breaking by Barry Lose or any other Blosers”. At this, the superintendent realised that it was a waste of time carrying on with this line of enquiry. The undercover officer had come up with the standard line all policeman repeated after Barry had a quiet word in their ear. He could have been made to say what had really happened, but the superintendent knew from experience that it would take a lengthy series of therapy with a team of post-traumatic stress consultants and the annual budget for the Barry Lose Operational Unit was almost used up.

The second attempt had come at the beginning of the next financial year. The police had a word with the Counter Terrorism Unit, who spoke to M15, whose Barry Lose International Liaison Officer got in touch with the CIA, who told them that their extremely secretive monitoring equipment was far too high-level to be used on a bar in England. The man from MI5 told them which bar it was, and they agreed to help out.

The CIA had a file on the American branch of the Lose family dating back to 1776. That was when Bartholomew Lose, a private in the British army, had deserted and joined the American side at the start of the War of Independence. Two days later the Americans found out that the British had paid him to desert, and paid him to join the Indians. Since then the American government had kept an eye on Brandon’s descendants, such as when Chief Burning Lose had offered to show General Custer the back way out of the Little Big Horn only to decide that Custer was a Dirty Villa Bastard because he wasn’t from round there so he could take what was coming. and so the Americans were happy with anything that kept at eye on the Loses.

The spy satellite was set up to pick up a signal from the Genghis Khan TV Room. Unfortunately, the windows had been broken so often that Adolf had installed the most toughened glass in the world, so impregnable that nothing could possibly break it, and nothing could see through it either. The satellite was therefore switched off. Three hours later one of the bar staff unfortunately mentioned to a Bloser that the windows were unbreakable. Barry loved a challenge…

Still the police tried. They tried putting a hidden camera in the 260 inch TV screen in the Caligula Sports Bar. Unfortunately, they were in such a hurry to get the camera in place that they forgot to triple-padlock the TV back to the wall. The TV was declared salvage by Barry, who took it home. Somehow the camera found its way to CEx.

After that the police tried a more direct approach. They knew Adolf advertised for staff on a weekly basis, so one of them dropped in one night and asked if there were any jobs going, in the hope that they night hear something while they were working. Unfortunately, such a blatant attempt to find employment immediately ruled him out of any job that might have been available. As Adolf put it, if any of the Blosers had seen someone actively looking for work rather than being frogmarched towards a vacancy by the Job Centre staff their suspicions would be aroused. “And a Bloser with aroused suspicions,” he explained, “is a Bloser with too much on his mind to order another drink.”

The unsuccessful job seeker knew what Adolf was talking about. She’d been on duty the last time that the Blosers had been in two minds. It was the last time Blose had lost a cup tie, when they thought they had a good chance of winning a trophy because Tom had said they had. They’d lost, and their ‘earts were broken so they were in two minds whether to set fire to the away team coach or the high street. With so many things going through their hears most of them had fallen over and were lying on the floor so the police had had to pick them up and put them in their armoured cars to recover. It had been the worst night of the year for Adolf, even worse than the time the DWP computers had failed and the Blosers benefit payments were a day late.

The police had even tried bribery. They’d given Barry’s brother Brian’s eldest lad Backalley two twenty pound notes to go in and find out something they could use in court. Backalley had gone up to the bar and ordered three vodka Red Bulls. Unfortunately, the twenty pound note he used had been checked on Adolf’s anti-forgery machine and when it was found out not to be forged, Barry’s suspicions were aroused.

He’d had a brief chat with Backalley, who had at first been unable to tell him where the money had come from. Barry got angry at this, but his cousin Brains pointed out to Barry that it would be hard for Backalley to tell anybody anything with Barry’s foot on his throat, so Barry relented and the whole story soon came out. Normally Barry would have extracted extreme retribution on anyone who had been paid by the police but Backalley was family so three vodka Red Bulls and a twenty pound note in Barry’s pocket later he was forgiven. But the police had failed again, so the police gave up trying to get the evidence for the existing laws and decided to get a new law made.

The Home Secretary had pointed out that they’d already made lots of new laws aimed at dealing with hardened criminals but the police said that these weren’t hardened criminals they were dealing with, they were Blosers. The rest of the Cabinet outvoted the Home Secretary, and so the Closing Pubs Named After Means of Detention and Deadly Weapons (Emergency Powers) Act went through Parliament in record time. The previous record had been the Stop Any Lose Travelling By Air Act that had been passed in 1903, when news had emerged of the first powered flight. That had forbidden “The conveyance of any member of the Lose family, past, present or future, travelling by any mechanical means at a height exceeding fifteen feet”. It had needed amending when the Job Centre had put in an escalator and Barry’s special office had been on the third floor, but on the whole it had served its purpose.

The new act had been drafted more carefully. Any mention of the Handcuff’n’Handgrenade was bound to attract the attention of civil liberties groups who had adopted the Blosers as their Persecuted Minority of the Year, and had sworn to defend their rights. The government had therefore decided to word the act in such a way that it would appear as though it wasn’t aimed solely at the Blosers. It stated that “All public houses named after means of detention and deadly weapons are to be closed, in alphabetical order”. As there was only one such pub, the application could be made and carried out immediately.

The solicitor for the police had stood up in court and explained that the Handcuff’n’Handgrenade clearly fell within the meaning of the Act, it was the only such-named pub in the country, and therefore he asked the magistrates to grant the application.

The chairman of the magistrates was about to grant the application before he realised that he had one brief formality to get through before he could grant the application and get back to the golf course.

“Is there anything the defence has to say?” he asked, and because he was looking for his pen to sign the forms he didn’t notice Adolf’s solicitor standing up. Barry whispered to the court usher, who told the chairman that there was, indeed, something being said for the defence.

“It appears, your worship,” the solicitor began, “that there is a similar establishment in Glasgow known as the Anklerestraint’n’ Armalite. Here is a photograph of said establishment. This would have to be closed before my client’s premises.”