The Saddest Day of The Year

It’s the tail end of January 2007 and the weather has just turned cold for almost the first time this winter. Lots have happened in the past two months. For me, however, things have plodded along in their usual random way – except they haven’t been so random lately. Some strange regularity has crept into my existential world. Lately my life seems to have consisted of: doing: the part time day-job in the office that time forgot; working the night shift behind the bar in the Half Moon; poetry and blues at Mangos; and Sparky’s Flying Circus every Thursday night at Joe Ryan’s Half Moon! Not to mention three swimming sessions a week at Westminster College Pool and the odd evening at Binsey driving range. And despite all the expected excesses of the festive period, which saw Santa bringing me a bread maker, I still managed to lose nearly 4lb! I am working on my diet video as we speak. “Losing it with the Outcast Poet” – ‘A step by step guide to eating and drinking yourself thin’.

I did a gig with the Pete fryer Band last Friday at the Magdeline Arms in the Iffley Road. It went surprisingly well even though, for some reason best left to medical experts, I was having some problem finding my breath! I was supposed to play with them at the same venue on New Years Eve; I did attempt to play on one number but due to a combination of foreseeable and unforeseeable events, I left immediately after – no more did I play that night. Foreseeable: The band didn’t call me up until 1am, 1st January 2007, by which time I was bollocksed! Lager is a young man’s drink, larger is a young man’s drink, lager is a young man’s drink! Why do I keep forgetting that basic rule? Unforeseeable: earlier that day I visited the boat people at the rock and whilst munching on a packet of dry roasted, I managed to break a front tooth in half. It was difficult to play with the cold New Years Night air being sucked over the exposed nerve. If it hadn’t have been for the aesthetic effects of the draft San Miguel I would never have even been on stage for the short time that I was. And I had a cab waiting!

No New Year resolutions did I foolishly make and, therefore, none have been broken. The tooth got patched up by an emergency dentist and is getting further treatment at the end of the week. I haven’t seen what’s left of my family for months, and my friends all seem to be having relationship breakdowns. Yesterday, so the ‘scientist’ quoted in the ‘newspaper’ The Daily Mail, that I happened to catch a glance of, said that yesterday was the saddest day of the year: post Christmas blues; too much time spent in each other’s company; the first of the big bills for the credit card shopping rolling in; the length time ahead before the next holiday, were all cited as contributory reasons. I think they may be on to something; yesterday was not one of the best I have had, by any means!