For a while, it seemed that the columnist and scourge Bargepole might disappear forever from the global scene which he had straddled for so long like a snarling, priapic colossus on mindaltering drugs. But it was not to be. Dull dogs in suits, crushed and despairing, could shut down Punch, Bargepole's home for years. Tax inspectors, wizened from spite and irritable bowel syndrome, could distrain upon, his chattels. Wicked moralists could ring up his women and preach Christianity and political correctness at them. But Bargepole could not be kept down. This compendium of columns from the late humour publication, the intensely irritated standard bearer for the dissatisfied fogies amongst us.