I am hardcore

It’s been a funny sort of week, comrades. My grandpa’s funeral was on Tuesday, Hurricane Jack returned to the country on Friday, work has been stressy as the Dickens and in between a lot of strange things have been happening. The plan this weekend was therefore to relax as much as possible, which hasn’t quite happened.

Friday, as I say, was marked by the return of Hurricane Jack, who has been mentioned in passing in these pages before. This was celebrated in the traditional manner, i.e. helping to take care of the nation’s alcohol surplus. During the course of this evening, I was introduced to a place in Twickenham known as the Koyote bar. I suspect I was not really the target audience for the place, which is rather noisy and features scantily-clad young ladies dancing on the bar. On the plus side, it’s open late, entry is free and alcohol is at pub prices – I think most of the people in there who weren’t actively on stag nights were taking advantage of these facts, though there were one or two who seemed to be entirely there for the femininity on display. Why they’d go there when there’s a strip club down the road I don’t know.

The night ended with a trip back to Hurricane Jack’s place in Teddington, where we talked a lot of crap, ate some food and watched Thunderbirds at four in the morning. We speculated that Gordon Tracy has so little to do that he actually purposely loses his family’s possessions so that he can “rescue” them later in front of everybody. Sad really.

I eventually got to bed at six, which I believe officially means that I was up all night (Yeah! Still got it!), and strolled into Kingston via Hampton Wick, pausing only to stick my head into the vintage shop that’s opened there. No menswear, though, so continued into Kingston. I bought a really rather delicious brownie in the market, which I will pretend I did because I needed to get rid of the hangover and because I was supporting independent traders or something, but in reality it’s because I just like eating brownies. Brownie as in interestingly-textured chocolate cake, not as in young girl scout. I mean, obviously, right?

I came across a Louis Wain print in the antique market, which I would dearly love to own but can in no way justify spending money on. If any of you have enjoyed this blog so much that you’d like to give me £90 for no reason, drop me a line.

The evening was set aside for a Boys’ Night In at Shoinan’s place out in West London. Shoinan himself describes the area as being undistinguished, but I think it has a certain J. G. Ballardesque charm, but then, as I’ve described in previous entries, my taste in urban landscapes may not be entirely normal.

As well as shooting the shit, drinking a lot of beer and getting through enough Mini Cheddars to kill lesser men, we watched a few of those movies that between us, we missed out on.

Brief review:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall = Good

Scott Pilgrim vs The World = Alright, but definitely a case of style over substance.

Black Dynamite = If you have not seen this film, I order you to go away right now and watch it.

Once again, I totally failed to get to bed at a sensible time, this time finally crashing into bed at some time after seven. I am officially hardcore. What this did mean was that my original plans for today had to be curtailed somewhat – I did have to nip into town. On the way I fed my burgeoning addiction to frozen yogurt at Yog, a small chain of whimsical frozen yogurt shops that should in no way be confused with Snog, which is a small chain of whimsical frozen yogurt shops.

The Byocup

While in Fitzrovia, I saw a product known as the Byocup on sale in one of the shops. This is essentially a response to the problem of wastage that comes about as a result of the huge number of disposable coffee cups that get thrown away every day. The idea behind the Byocup is that it’s like a disposable coffee cup, except that it’s reusable. It’s made of silicon, and so won’t burn your hands when filled with hot coffee. Whereas you would throw a disposable coffee cup away, with the Byocup you simply wash it and reuse it.

Actually, I had a similar idea myself about a year ago. Although I thought that, given that the cup was supposed to be a lifetime’s possession, I could go to town a bit more on features – not slavishly adhere to the design of the disposable cup. My version was ceramic, and had the added design features of a sturdy base and a handle. A photo of the prototype may be seen on the right.

After sticking my head into Cass Art in Berwick Street, I encountered a drug dealer who tried to sell me some hash. I didn’t actually realise he was talking to me – he just sort of ambled around in a circle that happened to intersect with my path while mumbling about “hash” and “weed.” When I didn’t react, he became upset and accused me of being rude and snobbish. This means that I achieved the unusual accolade of being one of the few people against whom a drug dealer felt able to take the moral high ground. I am a “bad ass.”

Kill or cure

Now, if there’s one question I get asked more than any other, it’s “What, in your experience, is the best hangover cure?” Actually, that’s a lie, it’s “Are you sure you’re a qualified gynaecologist?” But that’s not relevant right now.

Hangovers are a bugger. Indeed, the Latin term for hangover is “sodomia summa sodomiae” or “bugger above all buggers,” and I’d actually be offended if after all we’ve been through, you felt the need to check to see that I hadn’t just made that up. Anyway, it’s the second day of January, and if you’re anything like me, you started the year badly in need of a hangover cure.

Usually at this point, someone says that the best cure for a hangover is simply not to drink. This is ridiculous. I mean, would you tell a cancer patient that the best cure for cancer is not to get cancer? In my experience, the fun of an awesome party far outweighs the agony of the hangover. If not, then that was a bad party and you should have left before you got drunk. If you’re having a bad time sober, you’ll have a bad time drunk.

But the fact is that alcohol is a holy thing. What did Jesus turn the water into? Here’s a clue: not Diet Coke.

[PARENTHESIS: Ah, but what about Islam? Well, there has been some debate over what exactly was meant by the prohibition in the Qu'ran. Some scholars have argued that drinking is fine as long as you don't get drunk. Others have argued that "intoxicants" can be taken to mean any substance that affects the mind, which also includes coffee. Admittedly no interpretation really allows you to get roaring drunk, I just thought that whole passage was interesting]

If you want to go further back, you know how we raise our glasses to someone? That may actually be one of the oldest rituals humanity has. You see, alcohol actually dates back to the very early days of civilisation – one theory actually has it that we moved from hunter-gathering to agriculture purely so we could cultivate grain and make beer.

Whether you subscribe to this theory or not, alcohol was certainly one of our earliest inventions, and possibly our first interesting invention. To those early settlers, fermentation was a mystical process, not properly understood and believed to be the result of direct divine intervention. Thus, the custom was to offer part of every batch of beer to the gods who had provided it. And that, my friends, is why to this day we raise our glasses when we wish to salute someone.

17th century German hangover cure. Still in use in parts of Slough.

The most obvious religious comparison in the context of hangovers is that of karma. You have a wicked-awesome time the previous night, then you feel like death the following morning. Well, alcohol is technically a poison (so is water if you have too much of it, so there), so it’s probably going to have some negative effects. Your man alcohol is broken down in the liver into acetaldehyde and then into acetate. Once all the night’s alcohol is metabolised into acetate, you’re home and dry (literally). Unfortunately, the process of metabolising alcohol requires an enzyme known as  nicotinic acid derivative, which your body has in limited supply. If you drink enough alcohol to deplete your reserves of NID, you’ll get drunk and then you’ll get sick. Given that the average body can only metabolise one unit every two hours, expect happiness and then sadness if you’re out partying.

Alcohol is a diuretic, and will basically dehydrate you over the course of a night. It’ll also deplete a lot of the vitamins and minerals that the adverts are always telling us we need, and increased insulin production will see that your blood sugar levels will go way down. Your brain will readjust itself to the depressant effects of the alcohol, but will probably not have enough time to adjust back by the morning.

Complicating matters further are congeners – without getting too technical, these are what we’ll call impurities that make it much harder for your body to deal with alcohol. As a general rule, the darker your drink, the more c0ngeners it has. Port is very high, vodka is very low. This is the origin of the dread disorder known as “red wine headache.”

You should by now have some idea of why you have a hangover. Having said that, if you actually do have a hangover, you probably shouldn’t be staring at a computer screen.

Now, to combat a hangover. Firstly, it is recommended to have something to eat before you go out. This should top up your body’s store of what the hangover will take away. Some recommend eating something greasy to line your stomach. My great-granddad used to swear by two pints of milk before going out to the pub.

Then prepare yourself for the return. Do not allow yourself, upon returning to a party, to simply fall into bed. Yes, I know how tempting it is, but keep reminding yourself throughout the evening that you have to take preventative measures. Have them ready by your bed if needs be. The preventative measures I would recommend are:

1. Two pints of water.

2. A glass of effervescent vitamin C.

3. Two ibuprofen.

4. A sandwich, preferably something with protein. Chicken salad seems to work.

The water will take care of the dehydration, the vitamin C and the sandwich will take care of the nutrients your body will lose and ibuprofen is anti-inflammatory. Vitamin C will also take care of the congeners.

Now, if you haven’t done this before bed, you’ll have to do it in the morning when you actually have the hangover, in which case you have my sympathies. I’d recommend if possible doing these things and then returning to bed so you don’t have to think about how dreadful you feel while your miserable carcass mends itself.

If you have to go to work, you’re a bit screwed. Speaking as a hangover veteran, there are few things worse than being at work with a hangover. The classic folk remedy in such cases is black coffee. I disagree – caffeine can constrict the blood vessels. In Scotland they swear by Irn-Bru, which contains caffeine but also the life-giving substances known as quinine and sugar. A full English breakfast is highly recommended by many, but you may find this a little difficult to stomach.

Speaking personally, the hangover cure I favour goes thus:

1. Wake up. Drink two pints of water and take two ibuprofen. Return to bed.

2. Wake up again half an hour later. Have a shower, as you stink.

3. Walk to the supermarket. This will get oxygen moving around the body.

4. Acquire milkshake, aforementioned chicken salad sandwich, fruit salad and can of Pepsi, Cherry Coke or Irn-Bru.

5. Consume slowly.

6. Watch Withnail & I.

The simple fact is, though, there’s no hard-and-fast cure that works for everyone, and frankly a lot of curing a hangover simply involves gritting your teeth and enduring it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and if you party hard then you’ve got to take the consequences. Sad but true.

One last tip: if you’re going to bunk off work, be creative. Every manager knows that “food poisoning” means “hangover.”

Anyway, assuming you’re feeling better, enjoy 2011. Here’s hoping it ends like 2010, in a drunken stupor.

C U Last Tuesday

NSFW WARNING

Well, chums, I think I’ve finally recovered from Friday night, physically if not morally. You see, Friday was the night of the Last Tuesday Society’s May Masked Ball, an event so very over the top that it actually caused reality to collapse in on itself, leaving me in a confused state.

When it comes to events, the Last Tuesday Society really goes the extra mile to provide an experience that is, shall we say, unique. If I might be permitted some cheap and amateurish philosophy, I have a theory. You may want to skip this bit if you’re of a non-wanky disposition.

We, humanity as a whole, are a deeply confused species. We’re expected to behave ourselves at all times – don’t say this out loud, don’t scream, mind your own business, eat your prunes, be pure, be vigilant, behave. Yet in reality, once you strip away the bullshit, we’re basically governed by the two imperatives of life – survive and reproduce. Or, to put it more crudely, eat, drink and screw.

Yr. Humble Chronicler in full regalia

The conflict between the way society expects us to behave and the way we want to behave instinctively creates the desire, every so often, to be a little bit naughty. Victor Wynd and the Last Tuesday Society caters to this desire.

The masked ball, as I have said before, is effectively a licence to misbehave. The tickets make it very clear that the event is “Masks obligatory, clothes optional.” I was particularly in a mood to misbehave, having been on this diet for two weeks now. I wasn’t brave enough to go without clothes (more on this later), and so had assembled a look inspired by various sources – part 1890s thug, part the Emcee from Cabaret, part A Clockwork Orange. The waistcoat and cravat were lucky finds in Camden (I think they were glad to get rid of it), the cane originated in 1901 and had not been out in public until then and the bowler came from a market stall in Seven Dials. The finishing touch was translucent white make-up from Charles H. Fox in Covent Garden (I’d told them I was looking for a “corpse-like pallor” and they found the stuff right away).

Also in attendance were various chums, including Mistress B, the Directrix, Teachmaster D, Catlady, Tiny Emma, Long-Haired Tom and various others who don’t have nicknames yet. Two leading lights of the blogosphere were in our party, namely Shoinan and Izzi, both of whom are linked to on the right. Weirdly enough – and this was the point at which reality began to collapse in on itself – also in attendance were a former next-door-neighbour of Yr. Humble Chronicler and, stranger still, the Bro, neither of whom had been invited by me or my friends. Their presence was not unwelcome, just weird is all.

While there, I met another fellow-blogger. I had just been alco-philosophising to Shoinan and Izzi while giggling in the style of the late Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, when a young lady came up to me and asked if I was the chap who writes the London blog. Somewhat confused by reality collapsing still further, I confessed that yes, I was. The blogger in question was Johanne of Mara and Johanne in awesome outfits (http://pleasegiveusfreestuff.wordpress.com) who said that she had learnt of this event through this blog. Which was utterly flattering and totally made my night. I just wish I hadn’t been giggling at the time is all.

One problem that became evident was the difficulty of keeping track of everyone. There are many rooms with many exciting things to see and do, and the event was a popular one. It’s therefore particularly easy to lose members of the party, particularly when naked people naked people naked people.

At some point I was photographed.

I got the impression that people enjoyed themselves, and certainly as the evening went on, quite a few inhibitions were lost. Tiny Emma, Mistress B and Mistress B’s boyfriend ended up in the hot tub and invited Yr. Humble Chronicler to join them, possibly out of masochism.

I was eventually persuaded through a combination of peer pressure and wine. But fear nothing, readers, I am a highly moral individual, and so did not go entirely “as nature intended.” I kept my bowler on throughout, as befits a gentleman.

Eventually we left the hot tub, largely due to an uncouth gentleman who found the presence of so very many unclad folk a little much and decided to “take matters into his own hands,” as they say. Getting it on with someone else in the hot tub is cool and totally in keeping with the occasion. Getting it on with yourself in the hot tub is just not cricket.

There were parts I missed out on – there was, for instance, a life drawing class. I used to be pretty not-bad at life drawing back in the day, so this would have been a fine opportunity to see if I was still any good. I also avoided the bucking-mechanical-woman, as I suspected it would not have gone well with the amount of gin in my system at that point.

I’d only have one real complaint, and that’s the bars. There were several, and they all had massive, massive queues. Now, I appreciate that bar staff are only human, and that the more staff you have, the more staff you have to pay for, but the waiting time for drinks was just ridiculous. Izzi was half an hour buying a round of drinks (we love you, Izzi!) and the Bro reported waiting an hour at a different bar. I gave up myself, but in turning around managed to trip and fall flat on my arse which, even at the time, I had to acknowledge looked pretty funny.

This was the one major fault I would raise, though, and on the whole we all had a fantastic time and learnt many interesting things. For instance, I learnt that, after the first few hours of seeing random naked people doing decadent things, you find your perception altering. That is to say, you’ve seen so many crazy and naked things that it kind of stops being an issue. It’s just like, “Hey, there’s a guy. Hey, there’s his gentleman’s prerogatives. Congratulations, naked guy, your girlfriend is a lucky woman.” I mean, I never thought it was possible to see too many breasts, you know what I mean?

We stumbled out at four in the morning, as the sun was coming up. I staggered towards Elephant and Castle, still in my consumptive makeup and full costume, getting some funny looks from the passers-by in the style of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I woke up at 3 the following afternoon, thinking I was terribly hungover. It turned out I just hadn’t taken the makeup off yet.

Roll on the October event, I say.

Further Reading

http://pleasegiveusfreestuff.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/14/ - Mara and Johanne offer their take on events.

http://bryndlewindle.blogspot.com/2010/05/last-tuesday-society-may-masked-ball.html - Another review, this time from a Walthamstow-ite.

http://alisonadventures.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/the-great-may-masked-ball-a-review-in-prose/ - Another review, this one less nudity-filled than the previous ones.

Chiswicked

Chiswick Park Tube Station by night

I think I might have experienced one of the most disagreeable sensations of my life that didn’t actually involve pieces of metal being inserted into me. More on that later.

Last night I made a visit to Chiswick, out in West London. I used to know a chap at school who claimed that Chiswick was the ghetto, but given that his dad owned an aeroplane, it’s possible that his definition of “ghetto” differs somewhat from that of most other people. I’d say Chiswick is one of the least ghetto-ey places in London. It’s notable, among other things, for being the residence of satirical artist William Hogarth and for being where the Chelsea Flower Show got started (although it probably wasn’t called that back then, now I come to think of it). Oh, and On the Buses was filmed there, although I’m sure we’d all like to forget that shameful period in our history.

I was there for a pub crawl organised by a chum of mine whom I shall call The Directrix, because she’s some miles away and can’t get me har har. Much fun was had. I recall explaining the origins of the word “Chiswick,” i.e. that it was founded by investors from Chelsea in 1865 and was originally to be called “Chelsea Is Wicked,” which had to be shortened due to the limitations of road sign technology in those days. I may not have been entirely believed in this claim.

I was introduced to an exciting concoction. I’m not sure how best to classify it. It consists of half a pint of Guinness with a double shot of Tia Maria, and basically tastes like a sort of fizzy chocolate beer. It shouldn’t work but somehow it does. I enjoyed various other substances, but somehow managed to avoid the champagne-and-absinthe, although I did wax lyrical with the Directrix about moving to the 1890s and drinking heinous amounts of laudanum in a loft apartment in Montmartre. I forget whether we came to any sort of conclusion on this.

The evening ended – for me at least – at approximately half past three on Sunday morning. I figured it would be a fairly simple journey back to Colliers Wood. A fifteen minute walk from the Directrix’s place in Chiswick, through Gunnersbury to Brentford. I failed to take into account two factors. The first was the sobering-up process. I don’t know if you’ve ever trodden the borderland between inebriation and the hangover, but it’s not fun. All the fun of not being able to walk straight or coordinate your movements with the additional hilarity that is rising headache and nausea. I tend to view the hangover, overall, as a form of instant karma. But I’d rather it waited until I’d had a bit of a rest before smacking me in the face.

The second factor was the rain. It was, as you may already know, wet last night. Really wet. So wet that my feet have been dyed a semi-permanent black from my shoe polish. So wet that when I took my coat off, I actually got a little dryer.

The two-factor combo resulted in utter misery and the walk being stretched to an hour. Raging thirst and a need for some sort of respite prompted me to enter a petrol station for a drink or possibly combustion-related suicide. Being too wet for the fire to take, I just bought a bottle of Pepsi. The chap behind the counter wittily asked if I’d been out in the rain. I forget whether I laughed or cried, probably both.

Kew Bridge Station, 4.32 AM, from the momentary shelter of the footbridge.

Eventually I reached Kew Bridge in Brentford and took refuge at the bus stop, although frankly by that stage the concept of “shelter” had become a little theoretical. Did anyone see Doctor Who today with those water-alien-zombies? Yeah, I didn’t realise there was anything wrong with them, that’s how wet I was. Anyway, there I stood at the bus shelter in the shadow of the tower of the Kew Bridge Pumping Station, now the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.

The tower by day. Last week, in fact.

Surprisingly, and mercifully, the journey back was pretty fast. The route was to be the Number 65 bus from Brentford to Kingston, then the 57 to Colliers Wood. Fortunately, a combination of the lateness of the hour, the crappiness of the weather and a couple of strokes of luck ensured that the rest of the journey took a total of one hour. Given my hatred of night buses, this was a Good Thing.

I had plans to go to Brentford today, but frankly couldn’t face it after all that. So I found business in Tolworth instead. Which is so much better.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Drunk

A recent survey among readers of this blog showed that 98% of you would recommend it to your friends*. Good show!

*Survey conducted among fifty readers who were asked the question, “Would you recommend this blog to your friends if the alternative was having every orifice stuffed with broken glass?” Of those who answered, one already had every orifice stuffed with broken glass and said he “quite like[s] it.”

I have something of a Reputation when it comes to alcohol, a reputation which I think is actually largely unjustified. It’s true that I enjoy a drink or two, and often more, but strictly under social circumstances. Remember, kids, it’s not cool to get drunk for the sake of it and if you’re being sick, you’re not having fun. Unless you manage to hit someone you hate, in which case good for you.

Last night, Shoinan and I managed to meet up for the first time in, I don’t know, fifteen years or something? Wait, we shared a flat until last November, so it can’t have been that long. Anyway, we finally managed to find a day that we could both make and headed to the Chandos in Charing Cross, a pub I may have bigged up in the past.

It’s a favourite of ours, because it’s old-fashioned but not scuzzy, respectable but not pretentious and cheap but not a Wetherspoon’s. Everyone knows it, it’s easy to get to and the clientele is a broad cross-section of London society. There’s no music (which I would imagine, with performance fees and all, is partly why drinks are so cheap) and the service is fast, so it’s a fine place to talk toot for an evening. We like it.

Unfortunately, I got confused over the time (not helped by the fact that I’d forgotten my phone, as seems to be my habit on nights when I’m supposed to be meeting people). My Reputation stems from the fact that I can drink really quickly. Not intentionally, not as some sort of macho party trick, I just have this tendency to drain a pint glass really quickly. Which meant, with half an hour to go before we’d agreed to meet, I managed to get a two-pint head start. Not entirely wise, given that I’ve been pretty dry recently and thus become a huge lightweight. Also, a dude standing on his own in a bar knocking back beer like it wuz water and reading Iceberg Slim’s autobiography is not the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.

Anyway, Shoinan arrived and we performed the mandatory bro-hug and chilled. Much alcohol was drunk, much toot was talked, and at about 10 Shoinan suggested we move on to another pub. The tiny, sensible homunculus that lives in my brain and only appears when I’m drunk warned me that it would be unwise to continue drinking and to stay out late when tomorrow is work, but I rarely listen to that guy.

And so we ended up at the Crown in Soho, surrounded by Dutch people in rainbow-trimmed overalls. I recall discoursing vaguely on the work of Antonio Salieri in response to a drunken chant by said Dutch folk, and we eventually staggered back to the Tube – we were somewhat disappointed to see that our Dutch friends were heading in a different direction.

I stumbled home, but not before getting a kebab at the terrorist kebab shop in Tooting. There is no middle ground with kebabs. They’re either a really bad idea or, after a few pints, a really good idea. I am not the first person to make this observation.

Now, let me tell you that I have experience of hangovers. I’ve nearly had an ambulance called for me before now. I’ve had hangovers to turn bad little boys good. I’ve had hangovers like Krakatoa’s in town looking for the sumbitch who talked trash about his momma. Yet I never seem to learn.

First of all, I never seem to learn that hangovers are deceptive. You don’t know the full extent of your hangover until you wake up. Only then can you decide whether to go into work. The ultimate test is the Tube – if I can get down to platform level and stand in a stuffy, crowded tunnel without my throat surging upwards, I’m well enough for work. Fortunately, I hadn’t mentioned my night out to any colleagues the previous day, so my “recovering from a migraine” excuse for looking pallid and shaky might just hold water.

There are few worse experiences outside of an actual warzone worse than being in work hungover. Your body wants nothing more than to lie down and only get up for the occasional purging session, and there you are forcing it to act like it’s a weekday, you selfish bastard. In my case, I tend to also get a massively raised body temperature, which means that I can be sitting directly next to an open window with the wind blowing directly at me and I’ll still be too hot. Except that I can’t be sitting directly next to an open window, because my colleagues, being sensible enough not to get hammered on Tuesday, would get cold. So in practice I just sit there and sweat and make the occasional hurried toilet visit.

There is one plus. No matter how crowded the Tube gets, a shaking, chalk-white dude, pouring with sweat and with bloodshot eyes will always get some space to himself. Result, I supppose.