In Dorset, this is a disco

Came back to Dorset after New Year and was delighted to see the next door neighbour. He bounded in to show me his rash (he gets one every birthday and every Christmas) and then said: "Something's happened since you last saw me". Oh? And what is that? The rest of their chickens killed by a fox? "No, actually," he said. "The last time I saw you I was seven. Now I'm eight." "Many happy returns," I said,

"When was your birthday?" "June 25th," he said.

I'd only been gone a week. It's touching that my absence had seemed to him more than half a year. He seemed undaunted by the evidence though, and proceeded into the sitting room, turned off the lights and proposed a disco. It was only four o'clock, but the weather being somewhat overcast and the thatch being thick, without the lights on it could easily have been the middle of the night. He put on some music - African drumming in the end ("Don't you have any, you know, rock?") -