Invisible Stranger |
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Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond
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Monday, September 27, 2004
Stranger Takes A Trip
These days I hardly ever have hangovers. Perhaps it’s down to the quality of the upmarket plonk I choose to get pissed on, but the morning after the night before I'll usually wake up, if not quite as fresh as a daisy, at least more chipper than is proper for a pickled pansy my age. And even back in my old all-night-bender daze, I was always the one who never suffered the after-effects, very visibly a stranger to the comedown blues. So yesterday shouldn't have been a problem, when a planned Sunday lunch down the local spiralled so deliciously out of control that all sense of time or dignity was lost, and we ended up past chucking-out time, spilling the Absolut while discussing the individual merits of the French rugby team. Which meant, of course, that none of the Useful, Important or Improving Things I had been putting off for ages and had lined up for the latter part of the day got ticked off on the to-do list. Not one. Why, I didn't even floss my teeth before passing out. And that is why today I have been caught generally grumping around and hating myself, doing a passable impression of a bloodhound in a K-hole, eyes heavy and drooping, and with the combined forces of the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo playing and marching back and forth inside my head. Hangovers I can handle, my dears, it's the old guilt trip that gets me every time. Monday, September 20, 2004
Saturday Night's All Right
The general perceived notion round these parts (well, Compton Street come closing-time) is that we metropolitan Marys all lead hugely hedonistic lives, mwah-mwahing our way from guest-list to A-list with our cutting-edge clothes and designer drugs, setting the standard in all things superficial, and generally shagging anything remotely resembling a member from a boy-band. So by rights, and so as not to let the side down, I should have been spotted this weekend somewhere in a mixed-up and sweaty mess of muscled madness, amyl up the nose, trousers round the ankles, slappers at my side, and dancing to next door's Hoover after having partaken of far too much of the fifth and eleventh letters of the alphabet. Instead, my dears - and if someone had even been bothered to look - they would have found me at home, slopping around in my trackie bottoms, re-reading a favourite book by table-light, whilst sipping a fine red wine, and listening to the complete recorded works of Kathleen Ferrier. Staying in on Saturday night: it’s the new rock 'n' roll, don't you know? Now, someone get me my pipe and slippers. Friday, September 10, 2004
Suits You, Sir
As a single gay man, with a disposable income and a subscription to Arena magazine (sorry), I should be every fashion retailer's Only I'm not. In fact, I am so adverse to the whole clothes-shopping experience that doubts have been raised in some quarters as to whether I am, indeed, a fully-paid-up and card-carrying member of the homosexual community. (I'm worried too: only the other afternoon I was watching a game of football played on the pitch opposite my flat and found myself appreciating the skills and the mechanics of the game, rather than ogling the barely-started-shaving eye-candy on display.) On the other hand, I love spending money and buying things for myself, and only yesterday signed away bundles on Amazon as well as on on-line theatre tickets. And therein lies my problem: it's not the shopping I can't stand but the shops, and especially the store assistants, themselves (only I think we're supposed to call them "fashion consultants", these days). As far as I'm concerned, like children these creatures should speak only when spoken to. And it should be an offence, punishable by their entire wardrobe being replaced by something from Mister Byrite, for them to smarm and sidle up to this Stranger yesterday enquiring whether Sir would require any help. No, Sir doesn't want any help, thank you very much, and if Sir had wanted any help, then Sir would have bloody well called out for some. Sir likes to take his time and hates being pressurised into buying anything he might really want, OK? And that, my black-clad, bolshie and patronising beauty, is precisely why Sir is now flouncing empty-handed out of your shop, and spending his silly amount of cash in the bars instead. And furthermore, if you really think Sir looks nice in this, then Sir will just think you're taking the piss. Anyone got a copy of the Freeman's catalogue handy? Thursday, September 02, 2004
Carry On Doctor
If your body is meant to be a temple, then I reckon mine's more ancient ruin than gothic splendour, more the weary, seen-it-all rubble of the Acropolis than the thrusting, virile grandeur of Notre Dame. Yet, in spite of all the abuses I've put this crumbling wreck through over the years, I rarely get ill. Properly ill that is. I catch the odd cold every now and then, and the occasional I'm not too sure I take doctors that seriously anyway. I'm a firm believer in the body's ability to heal itself, and it's been proven to me many times in the past that there's precious little that a bottle of good red wine and a bowl of chicken soup with barley can't cure. Earlier this week, however, I had a little "scare" – subsequently shown to be nothing more than acute hypochondria brought upon by some dodgy kebab, and a desire to make myself the centre of attention – and so visited the surgery for the first time in two decades. Probably fresh out of medical school, my new GP doesn't look old enough to vote yet, and I wonder how her fresh-faced and caring innocence is going to cope with we winos and druggies, sleaze-balls and Strangers of dear old King's Cross. And, as she greased up for an examination of, um, well, let's just say somewhere the sun rarely gets a look-in, she sweetly warned that what she was about to do to me might feel "unusual" and "strange", and maybe even a little "uncomfortable". And then she wondered why I suddenly got an attack of the Frankie Howerd schoolboy titters. And, poor lamb, I just didn't have the heart to tell her why. |
