gud un night owt

Last night I went to the launch of a book in a pub Highgate.

Highgate is a long way on the Northern Line from Tooting; it takes ages to get there and I’m no fan of the tube in terms of being sat in it for a fucking hour with people pushing and shoving, and touching. I was saved partially by a jolly good book, which I may recommend; I will see how I feel later.

I arrived feeling ill due having breathed a million Londoners farts and walked to the venue via the off licence to get some tabs for my lungs, for medicinal purposes. When I arrived the place was sparsely populated but I instantly recognised a face, well, a part of one as George has a massive white beard and long hair. I was sorry to be informed that his charming wife has cancer and is undergoing Chemo, this rather knocked me for six and we spent a further half hour talking rather seriously, which isn’t usually our want, despite a short Bob Dylan moment.

Den and his wife Rose arrived and we managed to get a seat in front of the stage. As the venue began to fill I drifted around chatting to mates and faces I’d not seen in a while. Sue was there looking radiant and sporting a rather large bump, so was Tim, Jack and Graham…Annoyingly I didn’t recognise Sebastian Hoarsely, partially hidden under a huge stovepipe hat as I had a question for him regarding an earlier conversation with Clair at The Urban Woo (link right) and to quiz his taste in music following something he’d said in his blog. I’ll sort a link out tomorrow.

Some of the acts on were superb but by now I my mind was working on a hand to mouth basis like so many others present. After chatting to Pete in the beer garden, splendid chap, Postman by the day, Peter Cook expert by night, Den suggested that we nipped orf to The Groucho for a burger and some more drinks, so we stepped onto an oddly empty Northern Line, straight out of an American Werewolf in London (incidentally the actor playing the victim worked with me a few years back, nice chap) and arrived flushed with a degree of sobriety. We three were joined by Sam and his colleague and ordered food and wine. The place was rather packed but by this time but I couldn’t have cared less if it was reclining in a deck chair by the North sea, I wasn’t mortal by any means but for a weekday I’d pushed myself. Den and I engaged ourselves in a deep and meaningful, being rather less pissed than I can only hope I didn’t come across as an utter berk/prick.

Many drinks later I was coerced into a cab by my pals and whisked off home, the cabbie was a most congenial fellow and we gassed until I arrived home, quite pissed, at about 3 am

A jolly good night.

I have un hangover.

you’re barred

When I was in New York last year I wandered into a bar on Murray Street, purely because that’s when Sonic Youth have their studio, ordered a beer and lit a cigarette… “Hey! What you doing Buddy!?” yelled the barkeep, looking at me as if I was offering the tip of my quivering member up to the arsehole of The Littlest Hobo, I’d momentarily forgotten, smoking in NYC wasn’t allowed. ‘How fucking stupid’ I mentally scoffed before apologising, flicking the cigarette out the door and returning to my stool and beer. I drank fast, I wanted a cigarette.

Now, as I type this, I’ve 2 more fucking evenings in pubs/bars where I can legally smoke. It’s utterly fucking pathetic. No one goes to a bar for the purposes of health, plenty of bars offer no smoking sections, what the FUCK is the problem here? Really, it’s the direct equivalent of not letting fit people into gyms, think about it.

The first nationwide tobacco ban was imposed on its populace by the Nazi’s, then the USA (can anyone smell anything here?) worryingly Ireland and Scotland got recently involved and the final blow is struck to the English in about 48 hours. So, in order, the fucking Nazi’s then the USA, then the UK. It’s rather disturbing wouldn’t you agree. No one else of any note has a smoking ban, I mean can you imagine what would happen if they tried to impose this rubbish on the French?

So, what’s the agenda here? It’s got nothing to do with the health of those that work in environments where people smoke (the main reason given by the cunts who want smoking banned in all enclosed places). The late Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll, one of the first to link smoking with ill health made it clear that the link between passive smoking and ill health was essentially bollocks. So what’s going on?

Either way, I’m fucking sick to death of all this ‘it’s bad for your health’ wank. Everyone knows what is good/bad for health, as humans with freewill we can choose to indulge in one facet or the other, but the bottom line is that being alive is bad for your health, in fact, the single most risk to ones health is age. Quick, assemble a mob, let burn St.Agnes Care Home down to the ground, the fucking crinkly old cunts ARE FUCKING OUR PLANET AND NATIONAL HEALTH.

Last night I bumped into my Bro’s missus on the Charing Cross road, the subject of Glastonbury was broached. It would seem hindsight is casting a fonder light over last week’s proceedings, but I will not succumb, I wriggled my toes in my Converse relishing the feeling of hard clean concrete under my feet in order to avoid sliding into post-festival romanticism. With the ban looming like a giant all seeing CCTV camera, I went to the Groucho Club. Even private member clubs are up for the smoking-chop so we five, Den, Liam, Stephen and Benjy chain smoking like condemned men awaiting nannies gallows.

We had a lovely evening, laughing, chatting, smoking (of course) and drinking some French white stuff that was so moorish it was easy to not appreciate every fading puff and gasp on our fags. All of us aware that an era was coming to an end, smoking is so much more than lung cancer and emphysema, to me, it’s still the epitome of bohemianism, I still think it makes me look hard and fucking cool and, of course, a bar is the most appropriate environment in which to indulge. But shortly, this pleasure will be no more.

Tonight I’m meeting some friends in a pub in Hackney and tomorrow, some more friends in my local for one last night of indulgence. By the time you read this on Monday the ban will have already been implemented. It’s going to be a bloody nightmare.

If you don’t smoke, take it up, just to show the bastards.