Oriental In My Continental World

I did my usual Thursday drive up to London to see my mum in the home. She was brighter than she had been the last few visits I had made. As it was a nice sunny, but not too hot, day I took her out for lunch. She can’t get in the Prelude because it is too low so I wheeled her to the local shops in a chair. There was a café at the end of the small parade of consisting of: a hairdressers, a small grocery; a tobacconist; a mandatory bookies; kebab shop; second hand white goods emporium; florists; and a post office that doubled as a second tobacconist/newsagents. The café was run by what I think were Turkish people; they had adopted the theme of ‘greasy spoon’, well it was pretty close to that in all aspects, including the menu. I opted for an all-day breakfast and mum took the sausage, mash and peas, holding back on the onion gravy; she has never been a fan. We both went for large mugs of tea. Mum had a good appetite and ate all on her plate bar some of the mountain of mash. She said it was good, and mine wasn’t too bad either. We sat there for a while and chatted about a few articles in the day’s paper then headed back to the home. We sat in her room for a while, had a go at the crossword in the paper and she nodded off. It was mid afternoon by now and time for me to go, try to avoid the evening rush hour traffic. I woke mum up and kissed her goodbye. She smiled, told me to shave, then fell back to sleep. Love you mum!

I got back to Oxford by 5pm. It was Thursday but I didn’t really feel like going to the Half Moon, I needed a break from the poetry night for a week. I sat on a bench in the Marston Road and called the South African barmaid (SAB) to see if she was free and fancied doing anything. All I got was her voicemail message. I went back to the boat and laid on the roof for a while looking at the evening sun, terns catching fish, moorhens with beaks full of nesting material, and the crop of what ever it is in the field opposite, now tall enough to move in the breeze. I had things to do: I had been carrying around unopened letters for a week or more, stuff that needed to be dealt with; there was the writing, three projects on the go and I had slacked off on all of them; the leaky water pipe on my calorifier and the shower filter that needs cleaning. It was too nice an evening to stay in doing those things and after giving the matter some thought, whilst cooling off in the breeze; I grabbed a jacket and headed off for the Half Moon. I got about half way there when my phone rang. It was SAB. She was doing nothing except about to be watching the Brazil v Japan World Cup game on TV. I have probably already said that I am not really interested in football, but needs must. I asked her if she would like me to pick her up and go to a bar in town and watch the game. She said OK and I changed the direction of the Prelude and pointed west towards the 8 Bells.

The trendy bar opposite the Westgate centre was heaving with Brazilians; I never knew there were so many of them in Oxford. It was was a fantastic latino atmosphere in there and Brazil went on to win four one. Even the sprinkling of Japanese fans were hugging and congratulating the Brazilian fans at the end. That bit I liked to see. SAB had said she wanted to go straight home after the game but now that moment had come she seemed keen to go for a drink someplace else. I realised I still had the key for the half Moon and asked her if she would mind if I popped in there for five minutes just to say hello and give the key back to Joe. I didn’t think it would be her kind of bar and said we wouldn’t stop and that I knew another trendy bar down the Cowley Road that she would like. As it turned out she loved the Half Moon; in my mind, really, it is hard to think of anyone that wouldn’t. She was very happy to stay there and didn’t even mind if I did some poetry. Joe called me over and said he had some domestic stuff that had come up unexpectedly and would I mind running the bar at 11 and locking up at 2:30 am. SAB surprised me by saying she would be happy to stay there with me and even help behind the bar if I wanted. So I agreed and got the key back from Joe. It was just before I got up to do my first poem that I noticed three women sitting in under the window at the front of the bar. One of them had a beautiful smile. It was Special Needs! I was really pleased to see her, then realised I had a situation going on, a clash of interests! I told special not to leave without speaking to me and got up and did my first poem, Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys. I introduced in the same way I usually do: “This poem is a love poem. It is about that intense period when you first meet and fall in love, when you can’t get enough of each other, and you can’t keep your hands off each other” I dedicated it, as always, to Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen saying “I hope in their very short life they did this at least once”, I know I have.


SID AND NANCY DO SAINSBURYS

Nancy stares into Sid's glazed eyes
Sid lets his hand stray across her thighs
In the cold meat section
You can hear their sighs
When Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys

In frozen foods the air is cool
And Sid presses Nancy up against the wall
Its not the Haagen Das making them drawl
When Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys

In the aisle marked coffee and teas
Sid looks at Nancy and drops to his knees
To taste the difference, Nancy's pleased
When Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys

In the warmth of cooked chickens
Next to the deli
Sid puts his hands on Nancy's belly
CCTV gets it all on the telly
When Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys

A stack of toilet tissue falls to the floor
Nancy stares at Sid
begging more more more
Sid sticks his tongue into her jaw
When Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys

From fruit and veg to check out till
For Sid and Nancy it's thrill thrill thrill
If it wasn't for closing time
They'd be there still
When Sid and Nancy do Sainsburys


I did a few poems but was careful with my selection, more than I normally would be. I had guests! Fortunately I was behind the bar straight after my performance so I didn’t have a chance to get bombarded with awkward questions from anyone. Jamie turned up and chatted to SAB and briefly to Special Needs. Special came over to the bar just before she left; I gave her my number again. She suggested that we went out together on Wednesday. I started to say that it was Aunt Sally night but my senses kicked in (Aunt Sally or a night out with a beautiful woman?) and I quickly said that it wasn’t important for me to play as we had plenty of team members at the moment (true, actually). So Wednesday it was to be. Jamie stayed and talked with SAB all night, which was good because she didn’t know anyone there. The evening got busier the later it got but it was never too much, not like the night I had worked on Woodsy’s birthday. I called last orders at 2am but it took me until nearly 3am to persuade the customers, who had all by this stage reverted to a primate disposition and mentality, to move on. I dropped SAB at the Bells at about 3:30am. The last I saw of her was her hand waving goodbye over the top of the tall gates at the side of the pub. I drove home under a spectacular, early new dawn and thin sliver of a waning moon.

Friday morning I sat on the bench by Baker’s Lock with Jamie. Two hen parties were going through on hire boats and we passed an hour or so chatting to them as they struggled with the windlasses, then went to Kidlington for Brunch. Jamie and I were supposed to be working on some sketches that we had talked about but we were finding all sorts of excuses for doing what amounted to nothing much. Brunch was good though. We sat in Sami’s reading the newspapers and drinking mugs of tea. I got stuck into an article on the demise and near extinction of many of Britain’s insects and found the phrase ‘Charismatic Megafauna’ for the fist time. For a while we thought we had the name for “the band”! Jamie expanded his opinions about an article on the sentencing of two gay foster parents that had been imprisoned for the molestation of children in their care. Six years they got, only six years.

We went over to see Alice, Jamie’s daughter and watched about two hours of the Mighty Boosh on DVD then went back to the boat. Another hard day! It’s the sunshine; I just can’t seem to get my arse into gear.

On Saturday I had invited an ex-girlfriend from about 3 years ago, around for dinner. She was having problems with family and stuff and I thought she would like the break. Also thought it would be nice to see her. However, the evening panned out strangely. She sank a few house doubles in the Rock and turned into the Screaming Banshee. She got mouthy to bar staff, and then went off with a couple of Hells Angels and their mates that she had just met in the bar. You can’t make this stuff up! That was the last I saw of her until the next day when I went to the Rock with Jamie for a lunchtime pint. She was with one of her new friends and completely ignored me. I appreciated that gesture and reciprocated. A close shave I saw it as. Beware of the Screaming Banshee!. Or, as my nephew said when I told him about it on the telephone: “Sounds like things have gone oriental in your continental world mate!”

I had to get away from the Rock, it was all too close to home for me and I needed to distance myself from it. Strange the way some people suffer from severe drink problems and personality changes. “If the water was whiskey, I’d be a diving duck……”

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Jamie came back to the boat with me and I cooked the spaghetti carbonara that had been abandoned from the night before. We sat on the Poop deck of his boat, munching away in the sun. I had forgotten about the garlic herb bread I had put in the full-on oven to heat up! When the smoke had cleared Jamie took me back over to Alice’s and we watched more ‘Big Boosh’. I was tired. It had been a long week with its ups and downs that had left me stirred but not shaken. Back at the boat I fell asleep thinking about Special Needs and listening to hyperactive ducks flapping around my hull. Beware the Banshee....