MY paL was asked to help the police with their enquiries when he was caught selling pills that he claimed would give the buyer eternal youth. He would have got away with it, too, had the cops not discovered he had previous convictions for the same offence - in 1787, 1829, and 1927.

He developed a reputation for being a bit of a snakeoil salesman. That may have had something to do with his new diet tranquilisers - you don't lose weight, but you really don't care; and his new morning after pill for men - she still gets pregnant, but his blood type changes.

My pal's latest money-spinner is selling Valium door to door in Newton Mearns and Bearsden the day after their Frasers bills drop through the letter box.

Last week he was offered cheap Viagra at £2 a pop for his personal use.

"It's not worth it," he told his supplier.

"What do you mean, not worth it? Where can you get Viagra at that price?"

"Oh, there's nothing wrong with your pills," said my pal, "it's the wife that isn't worth it."

The Wicked Witch of the East makes my pal a very nervous husband. Their doctor, a fellow-member of his local golf club, and a kindred spirit with his own Witch at home, prescribed a sedative.

"How often do I take these?" asked my pal.

"Start with one every six hours. But they're not for you, they're for your wife."

THE Wicked Witch kept them in the bathroom cabinet next to her mood swing pills, the ones she can find in the dark thanks to the bite marks on the lid.

"While I'm here, doc," my pal said, "can you give me some acetylsalicylic acid?"

"Do you mean aspirin?"

"That's the word!"

The Wicked Witch ditched the sedatives when she realised she was being nice to people. They also made her depressed. The morning after she took two of them and a laxative was not a pretty sight.

She even tried to do away with herself with my pal's acetylsalicylic acid, but after the first three she felt better. And, no, my pal wasn't tempted to wake her up and give her a headache.

When she was on a course of iron tablets, the only time she felt fine was when she was facing magnetic north. My pal was in dispute with her family over her mineral rights.

When I think about it, The Wicked Witch is probably a hypochondriac (that's someone who takes different pills than you). She's had so many prescriptions, even the doctor can't possibly know which ones worked.

Here's a woman who can swallow a cheeseburger whole, yet she still eats M&Ms one at a time, with a glass of water.

THE bird flu had her really worried. When the doc finally managed to convince her it couldn't affect humans, she sat up all night rubbing Vick on the budgie's chest.

She was actually seen to imitate a smile last week, was The Wicked Witch.

The coven's annual Christmas ceilidh not being until next week, by which time the new broom will have arrived, her mood could only have been inspired by the news that prescription charges are to be abolished.

The SNP plan to start cutting them from April and abolish them entirely from 2011.

This prescription prohibition will not help by pal's nefarious activities.

"Have you seen my pills, gran?" he asked his old Nana last week. "They're marked LSD."

"Never mind your pills," said granny. "Have you seen the size of that dragon in our kitchen?"

Meanwhile, my pal says he has a surefire way to beat those drug squad raids. He stuffs contraband up his rottweiler's bum. When the police sniffer dogs move in, nobody bats an eyelid.

Genius or what?