Shameless

Well, the play’s over and done with and now normal service on this blog can be resumed. I was pleased to see that many of the old traditions of the theatre group have been maintained, most notably rather anarchic parties. Speaking personally, I take the business of partying very seriously, and so to this end I attended in the following outfit:

And yes, I am drinking Fosters in that photo. I apologise for nothing. Not even the shirt. Especially not the shirt. Following a rather downer speech to the cast from the director, I was personally in the mood to drink responsibly, in the sense that I wanted to be responsible for a beer shortage. God dammit I went all the way into Soho to get that present, I don’t want no downer speeches. What was my point?

Ah yes. The cast party was held in a flat in Whitton, which regular readers will recall is not far from where the ‘rents live. This meant that, after a short nap on the floor, I was within walking distance of a place to get changed, have a shower and generally recover from my hangover.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the concept of the “walk of shame,” allow me to explain it to you. It’s basically the situation where, following a heavy night, one has to make one’s way home. Of course, unless your home has been repossessed overnight, you’re bound to head home at some point, so allow me to qualify. To qualify for the walk of shame, you must be in a hell of a state. You should be wearing your outfit from the previous night, disshevelled, bonus points if it’s someone else’s outfit. You should ideally be hungover. Hair should be worn lank and in all directions. If female, makeup should be smeared and if male the face should be unshaven. Complexion should be an unhealthy, consumptive shade and staggering is considered highly desirable. You may well be occupying that netherworld where you’re still drunk enough to lack coordination, but hungover enough to be nauseous and in pain. Overall, the effect should be that every drink, every dance move, every inadvisable snog is discernable to the casual passer-by.

I have to say, I’ve always considered the “shame” element to be a misnomer. Now, it’s true that most walks-of-shame happen (for me at least) on a Sunday morning. People out and about that time tend to be, well, the sort of people who get up early on a Sunday morning. You can well imagine how such people in suburban West London react to the above outfit. Today, there were an awful lot of people who, upon seeing me coming, decided they were actually going to walk their dog a different route, or figured that maybe the other side of the road was where they want to be. But here’s my point – why should I be ashamed of the reactions of other people? In one night, I’ve had more fun than they’ve had in their entire life. Screw ‘em, I say. I’m reminded very much of the last few lines of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan:

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Except, you know, instead of “milk of Paradise,” substitute “inexpensive Australian lager.”

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.

An Unfashionable Opinion

I must apologise in advance if this entry is a little below the usual standard. I’m afraid I was out celebrating my birthday last night, and most enjoyable it was too. Kudos to all in attendance. Those not in attendance will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Anyway, the end result has been a hangover that feels as if someone is trying to pull my brain out of its skull cavity, and no attempts at a cure have so far worked. I’ve tried greasy food, caffeine, sugar, a long walk, going back to sleep and eating painkillers by the handful, and nothing has made more than a dent. The best cure, in my experience, is coconut milk, but I can’t find that for love nor money around here. I tried offering money first, then love, but it turns out my pallid and necrotic countenance is not as sensual as I had first thought.

So I’m going to go over a book I’ve been reading recently. It’s a little difficult to define a “London novel.” There must be thousands of books set at least in part in London. James Bond’s HQ is in London, but you’d hardly call his books “London books.” The Time Machine is set in London’s suburbia (and the ruins thereof), but again, you couldn’t say it’s a London novel.

I suppose my definition would be: could you set it anywhere else? In the case of, say, Oliver Twist, the setting is absolutely integral. You need the slums of Jacob’s Island, the respectable streets of Islington, the crossover-point that is the City, the roads and junctions. Their proximity and interrelationships are essential to the story. Oliver Twist is, therefore, a London novel.

The novel in question is London Fields by Martin Amis. Now, I know this is a very popular London novel, so when I say how much I didn’t like it, I’ll no doubt be accused of fashionably Amis-bashing, which seems to be the standard accusation levelled against those who dislike his work. But, well, I didn’t like it.

The story is told from four points of view. We have Keith Talent, a cheat (Amis’ term for a conman, italicised throughout the book), wannabe professional darts player and generally horrible individual. His reality is defined by the media – television programmes, tabloid newspapers and pornography – and so he can’t quite relate to society other than on those terms. Then you have Guy Clinch, a successful banker in a boring marriage with an out-of-control toddler. Then there’s Samson Young, a crap writer with an inferiority complex. Linking them all is the femme fatale, Nicola Six, who has decided that she wants to die. She manipulates the other three central characters with the aim of bringing about her own murder. Meanwhile, the city is in the grip of unspecified upcoming apocalypse, which is a Metaphor. Or the murder is the Metaphor for the upcoming apocalypse.

Now, I’ll admit that Amis isn’t all bad. There was, for instance, a joke I laughed at. But the characters are so broadly caricatured, and so obviously designed to serve a purpose, that I just couldn’t give a toss about them. And yes, I know the characters aren’t supposed to be likeable, but even an unlikeable character should have enough depth to allow you to identify. The most irritating of all, I think, is Clinch’s toddler, Marmaduke, whose havoc starts out as entertaining, then surprising, then finally tiresome and predictable.

The get-out-of-jail-free card is that Amis is writing about writing. Samson Young is a writer adapting Six’ life into a novel in an effort to prop up his career. He’s in a rivalry with the more successful Mark Asprey, whose supposedly real-life exploits are as real as his fiction, and by the same token we can never be sure which version of events is the one actually taking place.

I’m not a fan of writing about writing. I mean, yes, the unreliable narrator device is an interesting one, but too often writers-who-write-about-writers disappear up their own literary arses. Your book was remaindered? Baaaaaawww!

Then there’s the device of the self-insertion. If I was a publisher, the moment an author inserted themselves into a story I’d reject the manuscript. Amis is more blatant in Money, in which a version of the actual Martin Amis plays a significant role. In London Fields, you may have noticed some similarities between the names Martin Amis and Mark Asprey, the latter of whom signs his name as “MA.” What I hate about self-insertion is that ultimately, it carries the message, “Why, look at old Amis making fun of himself! What a jolly good chap he is!” Self-deprecation is all very well, but ultimately it’s still on your terms.

So, back to my earlier question. Is this a London novel? Well, it’s set in London. It’s not, as the title would suggest, an East London book, the title simply referring to Young’s unattainable desire to revisit childhood memories. The book, in fact, is set largely in and around Ladbroke Grove and Kensington, in a version of London that doesn’t really exist. The London of this book is a purely symbolic presence, having little to do with the real city (Amis’ version of Great Ormond Street Hospital, for instance, differs significantly from the one in our universe). The setting doesn’t reflect London so much as it does human society as a whole. Therefore, I don’t think it can justifiably be called a London novel – the grimy streets and upmarket residential districts are called London seemingly for convenience.

On that bad-tempered note, I’m back off to bed. In conclusion, Amis is annoying.

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.