Friday’s social engagement was rather off the cuff -if you’ll pardon potential puns that have utterly no bearing on what I did on said day. I digress, I’d not planned on travelling to visit Swineshead and his missus in Hackney but when the invitation appeared out of the blue I accepted.
This involved a journey by bus and tube after work which took almost an hour and a half, but being accompanied by a jolly good book I didn’t mind, frankly. I met SH when I alighted the bendy bastard bus I was crammed into just as night fell, we grabbed some beers and returned to his flat where we joined shortly by two more friends and there I remained virtually until the morning. We spent a pleasant evening nattering and listening to some music (oh, and drinking and doing fucking drugs yeah) and I think I managed to behave myself. It had been agreed at about 11pm that I would be cabbing home, SH kindly offered to pay half my fair and serendipity occurred.
I was after 3am when I got into the cab. London was asleep and we travelled from one side of it to the other, despite there being virtually any traffic the journey took an hour or so. But I couldn’t have cared less; it was wonderful. The buildings passing by oscillated between a single line of motion before suddenly flashing into two permanent hypnotic parallels punctuated only by the dazzling steel and glass monuments of the city and a breathtaking crawl over Tower Bridge which is as invigorating a feeling as standing looking over rolling green country. Apart from when I said ‘goodnight’ to the cabbie this was the only moment we spoke, each of us said ‘beautiful’ before we roared through a deserted South London and home to bed. Fucked.
Despite the quantity of intoxicants I was all right on Saturday afternoon, which is when I resurrected. I ate a kipper and made my way to B&Q to procure a large picture frame for the poster of the movie ‘On Any Sunday’ which I can see from here. It’s Sunday afternoon incidentally… (it was a fucking devil to frame) and made my way to bloody Sainsbury to grab some shopping, it was an arduous hour, I really wasn’t in the mood and I couldn’t find the shit I wanted.
In the evening Jamie came over and we went directly to the pub. Unfortunately Jamie wasn’t feeling 100% (I suspect he’s acquired a version of the bug that turned me into a puke geyser a few weeks back) and this malaise wasn’t helped by the fact the pub was rammed to the gills with barking south Africans and some wanker and a keyboard playing Bingo Hall tunes causing the south Africans to shriek along. It was like the apocalypse; Jamie and I could barely communicate over the fucking din so after a modest 3 pints we left them to it and fucked off home.
As we passed by Jamie’s van he remembered he’d brought my bass from back his home and we took it upstairs. Whilst the bass was as gorgeous as usual the case had acquired a rather nasty musty mouldy niff, noticing my undulating nostrils and sour visage Jamie mentioned that ‘something was dead under his shed’ just before he flaked out on the couch. Shortly after James, by now recovered from showering my gaff in sweetcorn, tripe and carrots last week, popped by for a cup of tea and to show off his new pimp mobile, the thug. We three, well two and a half, watched Taxidermia which probably didn’t do much for Jamie’s constitution despite it being responsible for much belly laughing.
After James went I too crashed out and awoke mid morning with a headache noticing the flat reeked like something had died and melted on a radiator. Jamie, looking frail, took himself off home and in my sorry state I managed to put the bass case into the loft (which resulted in more loft based shenanigans, really, it’s all fucking rock and roll at my gaff) clean the flat (devils horns) nip out for an Observer (mosh pit) and prepare bacon and eggs for breakfast (choke on my own vomit). After a good old fat shit I was feeling human again, I lolled in front of Scraphead Challenge before reading, writing and doing some of this crap.
Toward to end of the afternoon I prepared a roast, spuds, chicken breast, broccoli what have you, making a splendid gravy from the skin on the tits. Needless to say I ate without the accompaniment of booze, a day off for me. I’m (more) sensible these days when it comes to such things. Anyway, it was fucking lovely, a sensation.
Feeling drowsy Sunday evening was spent in front of the TV and under the cover of broadsheets. I intended an early night because today is Monday, for fucks sakes, it’s always Monday these days, but instead I finished off The Road (Cormack McCarthy) and hit the lights way after 1am. Oops.
Hi.
