TACK CARe IsBN 13 MY LOVe AFFAIR WITH ROBYN FeNTY

Issue 4 / NOVEMBER 2012
TACK CARE
ISBN 13
MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ROBYN FENTY
FUGUE STATE
APATHY FOR DESTRUCTION
CHARLES OLIVE COLLECTION
CONFESSIONS OF A BINGE DRINKER
Reflections on Garbage
COSMOPOLITAN
BRITPOP DEATH COMPLEX
2
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STAY ALIVE. BE COOL.
Issue 4 / November 2012
Editors
Romney Taylor
Tom Pounder
Deputy Editor
Sonny Baker
Contributors
Andrew Brooke
Nemonie Craven Roderick
Philippa Dunjay
Simon McMahon
Charles Olive
Ben Perdue
H. P. Power
Duncan Robertson
Follow @gutpap
www.gutpaper.com
3
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TACK CARE
Simon McMahon
“Hej.
Sven?
Ja, just out of the shower.
Long. Very long.
Well, it’s one of those power ones. Jet sprays, Sven.
Lumbago actually.
Still working with Tord?
A baggy Gladiator’s tee.
‘Is it Hunter’s?’ No, it’s not Hunter’s.
Lightning.
Shit… water or Brännvin.
You really should stay out of the tabloids.
The hacking. A clean slate.
I’m a family woman now – a mother. I don’t know.
I’m delirious… night.”
screen mist. Those jet sprays knew when you were happiest; when you
were yourself, Ulrika.” Penalties. “Does he know how to use that pumice
like me? Strategically. You wouldn’t have picked up if he did.” Jules Rimet.
(Are you drunk right now?)
…Jag älskar dig, Ulrika. You’re wrong: I’m not delirious.
*****
Another coffee. Americano. I’m reading Raymond Chandler, recommended
to me by Frank. The skins of my under thumb rub down the broken spine.
I sense my own brutal strength. Change tracks, Sven. Frank. He’s out
with Ashley, Jermaine and JT. Cups of the XO. And girls. Impressionable,
big-titty girls. They remind me of heifers, purblind to John Terry’s sexual
abbatoir. But I do like John. But it’s Ulrika I want if I join them in the club.
*****
With my strong eyesight in low-lit bars, I always notice how Ulrika’s thighs
uncompromisingly grip the leather and wobble as her muscles, bones and
Ulrika’s right: I’m delirious. This ristretto filters through my brain – the brain seek to reposition themselves, or laugh. But her skin always resists
phlegmatic dregs. But I’m Baltic. I’m not fucking Baltic anymore. – its bond holds. She is strong. I imagine looking down a microscope to
Tempestuous England; Mark Lawrenson, get outta my grill. The see her stubborn melanin wiggling away. Inside and out, I find Ulrika
immigration Empire. Lustrous England: my Nancy. I am delirious.
pleases me.
Nancy is my Dolly Parton Italiano. What’s my landline number? I should
go back. She drinks me like a Negroni. She’s sharp. Ulrika is doughy.
My carbohydrate queen rises in another oven. Her earthenware womb
is varnished.
I’m hungry for that warm churned butter. The ristretto still filters. I forget
of Mulcaire and redial through to Ulrika. “Fuck Hunter, fuck Collymore,
fuck your new husband.” Push on Sven, extra time. “You were never tired,
Ulrika. You yawned orgasm and napped on that chaise longue you always
told me was from the actual Moulin Rouge. Not the Baz Luhrmann film.
Your tiredness was sultry langour. I know it’s my face you see on the shower
There’s Jenny Powell and Donna Air walking by. Why isn’t Ulrika here?
Has she really taken to motherhood?
I have a flight out to Munich in the morning. The glitterball dilutes in my
mind to the twinkles first of a runway, and then to a stadium lit in the
Bavarian dusk. Trevor Brooking sits alone, I’m not there. I’m snuggling
with Ulrika. My nose furrows between her shoulder blades as she writhes
from my tactical hands – her referee’s whistle. She smells of pickled
herring. Of my Sweden.
I forget of Mulcaire and redial through to Ulrika.w
4
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ISBN 13
Ben Perdue
Alan Inglis yanked open the desk drawer, shoved his right
hand in without looking, and the metal tip of a mechanical
pencil embedded itself in the soft groove beneath the nail of
his middle finger. He recoiled in a mixture of shock and pain
then glanced down accusingly at his assailant. Alan couldn’t
count how many Pentel P205s were lying there, heaped in
shifting mounds of shiny black plastic that bristled with
0.5mm lead needles. It reminded him of peeking through the
slit of a sharps box in a public toilet on the harbour wall at
Broadstairs. You could never have too many quality drafting
pencils and the P200 series was a design classic. Since getting
his quantities confused and mistakenly buying a job lot online
costing more than £400, Alan had to hold onto what positives
he could. Positives. There was the sharps box again.
According to the clock at the bottom of Alan’s screen it was
09:13 and sunlight already flooded the room. He turned
and it caught his ear, turning the cartilage translucent so
you could see the red veins under his skin. For a second the
downy hairs along his helix blazed white. Squinting at the
window he could make out the dust motes drifting between
him and the glass, just outpacing the slowly descending
floaters in his eyes. Warmth spread over his hands and face.
Behind him in the corner lay a pile of discarded beige office
equipment. Monitor stands with upturned honeycomb bases.
Old keyboards bound around the waist with their own cables.
The LED on a buried fax machine, long forgotten but still
plugged in, blinked to alert its owner of a paper jam dating
back two years. And resting in the tray of a seized-up printer
was a spherical grey webcam the size of a snooker ball. The
plastic lens pointed at Alan’s back, framing him against an
area of wallpaper that described one man’s joyless history of
broadband providers in the usernames and passwords he had
scrawled on its surface.
With or without a power source the webcam, like all
machines, would have regarded Alan with complete
impartiality as he turned back to his work. In its nonjudgemental way the defunct computer accessory witnesses
everything that happens in this room on the first floor of
Alan’s bookshop. The space is boxed-out in a back corner,
partitioned off on two sides by floor-to-ceiling shelving
units, the backs of which create internal walls of warped
and water-stained hardboard. The sides facing out into the
rest of the retail area hold the military history and self-help
sections, marked by dog-eared labels stuck to the shelves
with epoxy glue. One bookshelf finishes a meter before it
hits the perpendicular wall, creating an entrance for this
ad-hoc office. But any customers browsing near this natural
doorway had their view of the interior beyond obstructed
by a large grey filing cabinet standing flush against the gap.
A clear plastic punched pocket taped to its side gapes open
to reveal an A4 spreadsheet sun-faded into oblivion.
Alan is hidden from view but he generates noises that give
away his position. It usually takes a while for unsuspecting
customers to figure out the source of that heavy breathing,
but once located the disturbing sense of being alone with –
and very possibly watched by – such a malevolent unseen
presence is enough to have them heading back down into
the relative safety of romantic fiction and cookery. Alan’s
respiratory habits do little to promote returning trade.
A bland window display does nothing to encourage passing
custom either, showcasing titles like Space and Time in
Contemporary Physics: An Introduction to the Theory of
Relativity and Gravitation by Moritz Schlick, the Man,
Myth & Magic encyclopedia edited by Richard Cavendish
from 1970, and Animal Painting in England: from Barlow to
Landseer by Basil Taylor. The same goes for a handwritten
sign on the door telling people to ring the bell or knock
loudly for admittance. The girl he had manning the till and
taking deliveries four afternoons a week had gone part-time
at a local bakery months ago, so by the time he made it
downstairs, torn from the comfort of his tatty office chair,
all but the most curious visitors were long gone. That was
fine. He preferred answering questions about books online,
and as for physically selling them the shop floor was more
useful as storage space for his internet auction stock anyway.
By 10:00 he had one unopened email in his inbox left to deal
with. It was from another Alan Inglis living in Winnipeg,
Canada who wanted to know whether this Alan, born and
raised in Chatham, England, used his email a lot. If not, he
would like to take over the account, rather than create an
email address in the same name with the same service, then
bolt the year of his birth on the end or use some other clunky
device to differentiate it from the original. Or carry on using
the work account that this message was delivered with. He
was establishing himself as a freelance dietician and thought
a simple email address would look more professional. Alan
explained in a reply that a one-off electronic payment of £1,000
would seal the exchange, a smudge of blood from his finger
turning the white O on his black keyboard pink as he typed.
For that he would copy his address book, forward everything
in his inbox to the shop’s general enquiries email account,
delete every trace of his existence and hand the password over
to Alan to use however he wanted. But he guessed no one
would be willing to part with so much for a free email address.
It was still only 4am in Manitoba so the response would be a
while coming.
Standing in the staff toilet downstairs Alan caught his
reflection in the mirror above the sink. Lank and thinning
hair in need of a cut, unremarkable flannel shirt under an
acrylic cable knit pullover. He had the putty-like complexion
of a man who needed to change his sedentary lifestyle, move
somewhere with fresh air and scenery, and replace a dietary
intake of processed frozen food with fruit and vegetables.
5′10″ and sickly skinny but with a gut that hung over his
pleated corduroy trousers. He was a prime candidate
for a stroke who already boasted a roster of common
ailments ranging from diabetes and eczema, to sciatica and
blepharitis. Alan was nearing 54 and had become a regular
fixture at the nearest chemist’s. The drawer above the Pentel
graveyard in his desk upstairs was full of the tubes, potions,
inhalers, wipes and blister packs he deployed in the war on
misery and discomfort. Chatham was killing him. He moved
from the grimy toilet to the grimy kitchenette next door and
flicked on the kettle. It spluttered into life while he lifted
his mug off the draining rack and pulled a tea bag from the
caddy on the counter.
Back in the first floor office Alan put his drink down on
a promotional mouse mat that was past its best and went
about sorting through the books to be posted. When
everything was packaged and franked he returned to his
inbox. There at the top was an email from Alan Inglis, right
below a confirmation message stating that £1,000 had been
transferred into his account. He was a little excited but
calmly stuck to the plan as agreed – copying, forwarding
and deleting – then typed his password into a reply, looked
around the sorry room once and clicked send. On the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean his namesake followed an almost
identical process but in reverse. Once the precious account
was updated with the personal details of this all-new Alan
Inglis, he moused over the save button and hesitated just
briefly before depressing the left button with his right index
finger to complete the swap.
The early evening sun continued to pour in through the
window. There was a minor commotion in the overgrown
garden behind the shop as a black cat broke cover from some
ornamental rhubarb and launched itself at a magpie. Cleaners
at the labour exchange around the corner turned up for
work in their company polo shirts as the last of the advisers
headed home. A chef from the refurbished pub on the corner
walked past the shop carrying a bag of supermarket lemons
and quickly checked his hair in the window of a car parked
on the single yellow lines outside. The LED warning light on
an abandoned fax machine, still obscured from view at the
bottom of a heap of outdated computer equipment on Alan’s
navy blue carpet tiles, blinked on and off almost exactly in
time with the ticking clock on the kitchen wall downstairs.
And Alan lay unconscious with his head slumped to one side
on his keyboard. When he collapsed his left arm must have
slid across the desk, knocking his tea mug to the floor where
it lay now in the centre of a slowly drying damp patch. His
shoulders rose and fell as he breathed in and out, and under
the frayed collar of a second-hand shirt his carotid artery
gently pulsed, nearly undetectable beneath greying stubble.
One eye snapped open. It stared down at a laminate desktop
that was too close to focus on. The other eye blinked into
action and in unison they began to survey their stationerystrewn surroundings. Alan’s head remained motionless
but he could feel his eyebrows scuffing against the hard
surface his cheek was resting on as his eyeballs swivelled.
This must be a lucid dream. He felt like he was awake, but
there was nothing remotely familiar about his location. He
couldn’t remember getting here. A hand came into focus
limply gripping a mouse, its nicotine-stained index and
middle fingers still positioned above its plastic buttons.
Tracking back from the wrist he came to a shirt cuff, then
the sleeve of a sweater that he followed until it became
clear the alien limb he was looking at was attached to his
paralysed body. This was definitely a lucid dream. That was
not his hand, not his shirt and the smell of this room was
completely foreign too. Even the distant sounds of birds and
traffic were wrong. He felt some movement slowly coming
back and found he could lift his head just enough to see a
computer monitor above him. There on the screen was an
email inbox and at the top was a message from Alan Inglis,
which was odd because that was his name as well, and he
was sure that this was not his computer. He willed his body
to move and the stranger’s hand twitched once, clicking the
mouse and opening the email. Large bold letters spelled
out: “Welcome to Chatham. Thanks for leaving your new
password here on the wallpaper. We’re more alike than you
think. Hope you enjoy books too.” Alan parted his gummy
lips and first started groaning then began repeating the word
“no” over and over as he began to scream. And if the white
plastic office phone wedged in beside the broken printer
that was now home to the old webcam had been plugged in,
its handset microphone would have picked up the distinct
acoustic signature of a Canadian accent.w
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Photo: Andy Morrall (alwaysincolour.com)
5
6
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The Rise, The Middle
Part of Coasting
Along Just Fine,
The Wobbly Bit
Towards The End
and The Fall of My
Love Affair with
Robyn Fenty*
Philippa Dunjay
I have loved Rihanna for a long time. I’ve loved her for her
sparkling personality, ever since I first glimpsed the true her,
seeing right through her tiny hotpants to the soul within. I’ve
loved her for her interview in Grazia magazine, where she
revealed her favourite fruit was the cantaloupe (me too, Ri!)
I’ve loved her through and beyond the Chris Brown – He
Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken – era (I would never hurt
you, Ri).
*aka Rihanna
cannot acknowledge me. I am barely a blip on her fame radar,
or ‘famedar’. Not yet can we meet, or talk. I know all her
games so well already that it almost tires me to give her a
sexually aggressive gesture with my hands. It’s like we’re
made for each other.
“By the end of the night,” I promise her, quietly, then louder and
louder, “you will know me very well indeed.”
So it was a must that I go to her concert. Tickets were purchased;
hopes whipped up; outfits of fishnet cycling shorts constructed;
layers of makeup applied. And I was ready.
She leaves in a hurry, enflamed with passion, at the wrong
exit for her concert at the O2 Arena. How wily. Giving the
paps the slip. That’s my girl.
The first time I see Rihanna in the flesh, she’s on the Tube. All
dressed down in her hoodie and Ray-Bans and she seems like
a normal girl. People don’t realise at first. People don’t get her
like I do. Other people just aren’t as attuned to her presence as
I am. But I sense her star power radiating through the press of
rush hour heat. Sure, she’s wearing a pencil skirt and sensible
shoes, but it’s all a disguise. A cover for her greatness. A veil for
her stardom. A shield for her daily battle against ‘the paps’ and
their insatiable weapons.
I’m not some obsessed fan, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like a
good view of Rihanna in her bedazzled bra top and mini shorts.
I get my way to the front of the concert, moving forward during
the support act, slinking low like a cheetah in the grass of
Calvin Harris, stalking my prey. Twelve year old girls are no
match for a well-placed elbow and fold away like crumpled
paper fans. Couples are passed by targeting the weaker element
and winking creepily at them, so their partner protectively pulls
them close, creating the perfect gap for me to slide through.
A swift look around, drawn up tall and inquisitive like a
meerkat – as if finding a lost friend – is the perfect foil to cries
of indignation. To one particularly demanding reveller in the
second row, I pull off a grotesque limp.
I play it cool though. I give her a subtle nod in recognition. She
wrinkles her perfect brow back in delicate confusion. Ah, the
pop princess playing it like it is. As a civilian myself, she
(Ri Ri, Baby, Babe,
Honey, Lovebunch)
7
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“It’ssss my birthdayyyy,” I lisp in her face, covering her fake tan
in flying spit.
She recoils and is banished from her place, like Adam &
Eve from the Garden of Eden. FRONT ROW IS MINE.
Paradise awaits.
There’s a mind in a mindless crowd and it works like this:
it thinks like the hive. The smallest tremors come to it a
millisecond before any one person could possibly have
heard them. Tremors become roaring sensations that ripple
through the pack, all antennae turning towards a source
indistinguishable, as if ordered to en masse by an invisible
puppeteer. The noise that comes is voiceless until you realise
your own throat is one of those screaming themselves hoarse.
Your hands move without you realising. You think as they do,
you feel as they do. Your own body is one endless eyeless
monster, rolling in packs of limbs, arms and legs, waving and
stamping, thrashing in blind and massive power. As the band
struck up, the hive went up. IT’S RIHANNA.
The set was a blur. Her dancing was like that of the devil; her
voice like that of an angel above. Her hair was as if stolen
from the heads of a thousand red unicorns and her bra top and
hotpants sparkled like a thousand rubies in a house fire under
the lights of the stage. But it got even better.
In one song in her set, Rihanna grinds herself up on an
unsuspecting member of the public. She gyrates, she twirls, she
grabs their hands and puts them on her young nubile body. And
that night, the fates were shining down on me, like the faces
of the kindly men hoisted above to move all the stage lights
around. That night, Rihanna chose me. It was to change both
our lives.
A flick of her hand and she’s gone, back to her performance I had not previously considered in my wild pursuit of a popstar.
and waiting fans, gesturing to her bodyguards, who come to
haul me upright. They hand me a pass. A pass to a life I never Firstly, it was her amnesia that got to me.
dreamed of. A pass to Rihanna’s secret inner life. Sure, the “What’s my name?” she’d ask me, repeatedly.
words on the pass might just say “AFTER PARTY – MAHALU
CLUB, MAYFAIR”, but their meaning is so much deeper. “Rihanna. Robyn Fenty. Ri Ri,” I’d say, but it never satisfied her.
Sure, the security guard might grope me a little as he pulls the
pass round my neck, but it was probably accidental. I’m in. In “What’s my name?”
with Rihanna.
I sat down with her once, just before the end.
I couldn’t even tell you about the wildness of that night.
The strippers, the cocaine, the arson. No, I literally couldn’t “Rihanna, you need to slow down. These last five months have
tell you about that night as it’s all under a legal injunction. been a blast and I can’t deny I’ve enjoyed the champagne, the
Just presume it was incredible. Litigation-worthy incredible. yachts, and hanging with Beyonce and Blue Ivy. But you can’t
Rihanna and I became close. Too close.
even remember your own name, let alone what we did last
night. You need to chill, girl.”
“You make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world,”
she’d whisper into my ear. “Where have you been all my life. And that’s when she told me something devastating.
All my life?”
“Unfaithful,” she sung melodically while lowering her head and
We lay swathed in three hundred thread count Egyptian cotton grabbing her crotch.
sheets, hand embroidered by Jay-Z with tiny daisies and
revolvers, in a rotating hotel room above Tokyo’s skyline.
My world exploded in a starburst of pain. Now I knew what
it was like when I stole all those other girls’ boyfriends. It hurt
“Oh Rihanna, you know I had to go get my university degree like a supernova in my chest.
first. And I don’t think your first single came out until I was
about 17 anyway. I don’t want to be your hanger on or no ‘gold “It was HIM, wasn’t it? I knew it when you collaborated with
digger’. I want to be able to support you through a semi-skilled HIM on Birthday Cake. The whole world knows, Ri. You ain’t
administrative position in the kind of lifestyle you deserve. I’ll going back to that piece of filth?”
get you that Oyster card you’ve always dreamed of when you
ride the Tube to your own gigs. I can do that for you, baby, “You Da One,” she whispered, her beautiful eyes brimming
providing you don’t top up too often.”
with tears. “SOS.”
This reply seemed to pacify her, and she would nestle her curly “It’s not enough any more,” I mewled. “It’s not enough,”
red wig closer to my armpit as we lay together in our California I bawled. “I’m done!” I emoted.
king bed, and her songs would play, as if on Spotify shuffle,
through my tousled and dreaming head.
It was then I knew I had to end it for good. I’d gone so deep.
But I had to surface again. I couldn’t let her drown us both.
“Ri Ri,” I would ask, “Just what size is a California king bed I needed oxygen. I needed to climb out of our swimming
anyway? I’ve always wondered. Is it substantially different to a pool of starry-eyed love to find the dry towel of normality.
queen size bed? Bigger than a king size? What size duvet cover
do you have to buy from John Lewis?”
The fact was I realised – with the shock of touching a
plug socket with wet fingers whilst drying your hair post
But I would be greeted by serrated snores, the kind only a swimming pool – that she never said anything real to me.
resting pop diva can make. At breakfast, over half a grapefruit Anything that wasn’t one of her own lyrics. The lyrics
and a black coffee (shared), she often slid over to the window, she doesn’t even write herself but has a co-writing team
and look out wistfully across foreign cityscapes, her grey producing hits and auto-tuning for her.
jumper slipping off her shoulder just like in that video she did
with Drake, while she made calls and took photos of herself for She was but a parrot for the music industry. And I was but a
Twitter so the Daily Mail could continue to run articles on what mirror for her own self love. And I had been happy as that
she wasn’t wearing.
mirror. But I had cracked. And now seven years of bad luck
awaited us both.
“Who’s that on the phone?” I’d ask.
She licks her lips, bends down and catches sight of me. She
extends her hand – to me, I swear it’s right to me, only me –
and her security guard suddenly boosts me up from the crowd, “Rude boy,” she’d say dismissively. Or “a rockstar.” Or
dragging me over the railings and lifting me like Angel Gabriel “Mr D.J.”
unto the Virgin Mary. Suddenly I’m face to face with Rihanna.
It’s too much. I’m overwhelmed like an Asian-Pacific island “Who are all these guys who keep calling you?” I’d ask. “You’re
in a tsunami of love. There were no early warning systems in making me feel pretty defensive here, babe. I’d like to know.”
place. I swoon gently while hyperventilating into her waiting
arms. Oh god, I think, she must get this all the time.
But then she’d hand me a miniaturised bottle of champagne
from the hotel fridge and I’d swallow my reservations along
She masks my faint professionally by dropping me onto a with a sweet glug of Laurent-Perrier Brut ’89.
circular platform behind her. She’s wearing only leather and
her sweat droplets splash onto my chest as she sings into the “Cheers!” she’d shout. “Drink to that!”
microphone. Her legs are either side of my arms, pinioning
me down.
But that ain’t no way to live, or love, and we both knew it. Our
love could be as transient as the bubbles in a champagne bottle
“Ri Ri,” I breathe, lost in wonder.
that had been previously opened. But our love could also be as
effervescent, and as uncontained, and nearly as alcoholic.
The crowd screams, but fades out as the stage becomes just
the two of us, swathed in the overtly sexual lyrics of “S&M”. “Roc me out,” she’d tell me, on First Class seats, balancing mini
We rotate downwards underneath and she’s looking at me as prawn cocktails in turbulence. “Umbrella,” she’d yell, as we
if she recognises me. As she slides herself off straddling me, sped on the back of a jet-ski across the Caribbean blue, the
she presses her hand to my stomach briefly. Her false nails are ocean spraying sea salt into our excited faces. “Shut up and
manufactured in perfect neon orange.
drive,” she’d scream, as we drove our red Cadillac down
Route 42, having bought a new model as the old one got dirty.
“Pon da floor,” she says mysteriously.
But in the end, I had to end it. The crazy lifestyle was driving us
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, we are upon the floor.”
apart, along with all of Rihanna’s exposed personal flaws that
Narcissism, that fatal sword, that brings so many young
popstrels to their knees and is held, like Damocles, dangling
above their heads. Know this – the axe will fall, Ri Ri. You
will bloom and you will fade, my rebel fleur. I just pray
it doesn’t hurt you too much. I pray you grow stronger
and take up animal activism and fade out of public view
and don’t over do the plastic surgery. I pray Jay-Z keeps
his watchful blessed eye on you. Don’t do a Madonna,
darling. Be strong for me. We had good times. Remember
those. Rihanna, babe, if you’re reading this, two words:
Take Care xxx w
8
GUT
FUGUE STATE
Andrew Brooke
Through the gym-feet stinking hall. Burger, pizza, schooldinner, sweat smells. As if particles were hovering all
around, just like they had those few thousand days way
back then. Invisible ticks chatting and dancing above a dirty
pond. Why had he agreed to this? He carried on discreetly
probing his left ear on his escort’s blind side, intermittently
remembering what it looked like when people looked
interested, smiling the smile he felt few enjoyed receiving.
Murmuring from the man: laptops and connectivity… pool
re-tiled rather than a totally new build… they had a brand
new pool block in the… new broom really would… cuts…
consulting something academy something. Should’ve
trimmed the nails about two days ago really, but hadn’t
prioritised it during his bathroom routine. As he carried
on curling a slim, pale finger into his ear and scraping,
he wondered at the spasmodic little cough of sentiment
that had brought him back here, the thin tempting soup of
time-filling and vanity. Back to those brown plastic chairs
that farmed sweat triangles during the summer exams, back
to the cleaning fluids and the hot-piss air of the changing
rooms, the muddy boot stink. He’d been caught at the
right wrong time by an email from an old friend who had
clung onto him as the years wafted on. An email every
couple of months, essentially a dead newsletter, politely
responded to. Yuk Fa could never understand why he
would respond at all – why not let it wither and die? She
couldn’t comprehend it at all, like he had missed out an
essential part of an equation; well, no wonder the rest of
it’s wrong. She was gentler than to express it explicitly, but
it was there in a silently folded shirt, or a tweaked window
blind; there in fiddling.
He tried to summon Gary Reynold’s face and failed; time
had Picassoed Gary’s features in his mind. Yes, the nose
had been snouty, he remembered that fairly well. The
grease and tiny rhubarb-and-custard spots in the cracks by
the nostrils. Then the lips, the lips, the lips were… no, not
there. Gone. The eyes were – definitely were – brown, but
how did they sit in…? No, gone. The hair though; blackbrown and constantly wet with gel back then. Wet-look
gel – the green, luminous stuff. He remembered Elliot and
his brother in the film E.T. They had fluffy towels, white
socks to waste that got ground to grey on happy muddy
days, power-showers, dungeons and dragons with figures.
He’d always reckoned then (and fixated on the idea for the
summer he wore it) that wet-look-gel would’ve been easy
to come by at that time in California. In Gloucester in the
late 1980s however it was a prized pocket-money-sapping
commodity, and the local shop – TJ News & Mags – often
ran out. Gary Reynold bought his elsewhere, so it wasn’t
Gary Reynold that was buying it all up (though he did get
through a lot of it obviously). It would probably have been
a tub a month even if he went dry a few days now and again.
And they were quite big tubs, Swarfega-sized. Dad had
made the same jokes: “Buying more Swarfega?” or “How’s
the Swarfega? Getting all those essential oils off?”. He’d
made those jokes a fair bit. It had never felt annoying. It
simply reminded him that a joke had been made before, as
he realised one was being made then. He remembered that
Gary Reynold would often go dry after Games. It wasn’t
because he’d showered though – few boys did, and Gary
certainly didn’t. It was just because the gel had cracked
and dusted off during the games. Oh yes; Gary had really
red cheeks, that was true. At least then, after PE, he did.
But then, given how little he could remember, maybe Gary
Reynold’s cheeks were red most of the time. No, the face
still wouldn’t come together properly. He was pretty good
on the hair, but the face hung under it pulsing and shifting
blankly, a halfway ghost. He briefly imagined being taken
hostage for years and trying to occupy his mind with
memory exercises. Or if he was paralysed or something.
How much would you forget, and how quickly? Could he
possibly forget Yuk Fa? Could you really forget your wife’s
eyes? After how long? Or his first boy Duk Sing? Duk Hong,
the smiling-eyed youngest of the two boys? As he thought
about it, he could see his father-in-law Jimmy’s face clear
as day; his lines, his kind eyes, and always a blue shirt. His
favourite of Jimmy’s shirts was the one with the initialing
on the breast pocket, and the fraying on the neck and cuffs
where white lining showed through from underneath. It
seemed like the shirt had reached some optimum point of
degradation, some benign place where it had crossed over
into probable indestructability. It suited Jimmy, the most
practical man he’d ever met who found a use for everything
(apart from talking, which he did very little of). He would
sometimes sit in his small kitchen with nothing in front of
him. No newspaper, no tea, with his hands clasped together
on the laminated table-top as if waiting patiently for life
to present him with the next problem to resolve. And on
those occasions when a task arose, the pace of Jimmy’s
movement was regulated to such a degree that it was
mesmerising to watch him doing the simplest things; the
changing of a lightbulb had a calm beauty to it that made
him feel clumsy and vulgar by contrast as he moved about.
Yuk Fa’s parents were from the New Territories , just across
from Hong Kong island itself. They weren’t country folk,
and they weren’t from the island; they were just motorway
and ferry people. He liked ascribing mystery to his father-inlaw. Jimmy had been a croupier for a short period on Macau
before becoming a manager in a small department store. He
always got the impression that Jimmy had done the bulk
of the talking and the living he was willing to during that
time in Macau, and there was little now for what was left.
Though he was great with the boys – he would give them
words or just singing sounds, and was always looking at
them, ready to engage them, smiling wide. The boys were
always absolutely rapt in his presence too and, whilst they
could be boisterous at home at times, they seemed quite
content to stare at their grandfather for long periods, as if
willing him to action; as if communicating telepathically.
Mama Lucy would watch too, sharing her concentration
between Jimmy and the boys. She always looked so serious
until the silent agreement was reached and… the concluding
laugh. Then she would open her mouth in silent delight
and softly clap at their complicity. There were always lots
of empty boxes from the store everywhere in his in-laws’
apartment. Plastic wrapping folded flat too, along with the
boxes, tattered shrouding waiting to catch a wind and flap
into action again. He remembered when they moved Yuk
Fa’s very few possessions – it only took a taxi, but was
awkward enough. All four of them took time, and fussed
and solved and created problems as they packed a few old
9
GUT
pans into one of the boxes. “It’s okay, Lucy, we can buy
another cheese-grater…” “Or I can…” “Yes, but we can,
we should – it’s our n…” “I’ll put it in though, it’ll save
you…” “Please”. All day they earned the big out-breath in
the taxi, the mutual performed relief of it. He had caught
the taxi driver’s eyes, knowing he was looking for some
sort of validation of their Big Moving Story; “Wow. You
kids look like you’ve had quite a day. Moving out right? To
the island? I remember that myself. Wow.” Didn’t happen
though. The man’s eyes told no story at all, certainly not a
bit of his own; truly, truly none. It felt like something was
needed to make the day more momentous than just putting
a few pans in a box. Maybe in some people that feeling
would come from you, from inside. If he was honest, he
felt it would be nice to feel that, or something like it, but
he didn’t really. It was more like just a deposit being made
in a bank – just a plain fact: they’d moved Yuk Fa out. She
could have even done it all herself, and met him back at the
apartment, but they hadn’t even discussed that as an option,
just said “We’ll move you/me out on that Wednesday”.
They’d never discussed how awkward he felt he sometimes
got around Jimmy, so it might’ve brought that up if they
had got into that discussion anyway. On the day, he had
been glad to see Mama Lucy turn from the door before it
shut and pick up her paper as normal; no lingering at the
door, no stopping Jimmy’s hand as he went to shut it. Why
would there be? The taxi hadn’t even reached the ferry and
he had been already thinking about a concert he was giving
in Stuttgart on the following Saturday, and then Bremen on
the Tuesday. There was an odd spread of dates around that
time – a bit like now, a bit like what had led to today. Tours
that weren’t tours. Little clusters of odd venues that varied
quite wildly in size, with relatively big gaps in between
dates, but not really long enough to make it sensible to
come back to Hong Kong. Even the crowds had seemed
somehow mismatched, jarring – he was sure he’d seen a
man with a radio pressed to his ear in Dortmund.
He tried to focus on the immediate, to be present, as he
waited for the talking to stop, the same feeling he had when
he patiently waited to get a translation relayed to him in
English back at home, except his ears seemed to be choosing
to ignore the English in this instance. He remembered that
Gary Reynold had stayed local, and had done a bit of work
at the place – not the retiling, or the computers thing or the
something something else in the science block that he’d
skimmed over in the email.
He’d always hated his hands. Pale, long and slim, with deep
ridging on the nails that had always made him cringe at the
celery-sticks in childhood party spreads and hide his nails
away in his pockets. The trouble was, in just hiding the
ends of his fingers rather than just putting his whole hands
in, he cut quite an odd figure, like a cowboy about to draw
his pistols, wrists slightly bent in, pointing the fingertips
towards his waist (a cowboy preparing to draw ridge-nailed
hands rather than six-shooters though). Still, his hands were
were good for the job. Long fingers; very important, and no
stiffness. Despite those positives, along with the hated nails,
there was a softness to them he didn’t like; sweaty-soft and,
if not quite girlish exactly, somewhat un-manned. A bit
ill-looking, somehow medical, peelywally. He really had
left the nails a bit long between trims. No concert (nothing
that mattered anyway), no trim, no need. Still, annoying
now. He could feel the dead ends scrape the inner of his
trouser pockets on the way in. He had his second-best
silky Mao suit on, and that somehow made it feel more
blackboardy as they travelled their dead way over the cloth.
It felt like that sound, though he couldn’t hear anything of
it. It made him conscious of it, made him think about it, and
eventually made him look at his hands. He noticed a few
little white stars on the nail tops – they must have come
from a pressure, hitting them on something hard, but…
He couldn’t remember feeling pressure, feeling shocked –
even slightly – by anything for years. Even his boys being
born hadn’t shocked him. He’d definitely been affected; he
knew he loved them both, and he was missing them on this
trip back to the UK. Skype though, and phonecalls when
the link went down; surprisingly fine. He missed her a lot,
though. She really looked like a mum when he saw her
bobbing in and out of view on the screen. It made him feel
odd in a way he ultimately wasn’t that bothered about, or
couldn’t articulate, but just knew would evaporate on being
with her physically. It had before. It wasn’t a bad bad feeling,
just a distance felt. Maybe the computer element. Find it
hard enough to say those things in a way that’s good for
the boys face-to-face, not hard-hard, just don’t know if I’m
doing it right, if the message is getting in there. Always
feels so still and silent when I put the lid down on my little
picture family, like I’ve cut off their air, even when we’ve
said goodbye.
They were back in the hallway, suddenly full of all the children
now. Remember the smiling, do the smiles… and pause when
you come in, like you decided with Lawrence: stop, smile,
walk on. Applause and swimming-pooly echoes, forget the
ear now. Played so many halls, but was so many years in
here, learning it, doing the… No. No. Not now, not now, not
now. He took the tissue from his left jacket pocket to deal
with it and scrunched it small in the jacket pocket, transferred
it to the right hand – hide it from the children. I knew it, I
knew it. Should’ve put glue on the rim with a cotton bud,
and now its out. Right now; still walking to the front. How
do I…? The man – the Head – is talking, but it’s become a bit
of a sharp-sharp-in-out murmur again really because all I’m
thinking is: how do I get this dental cap – that has dislodged,
that has unglued from my right incisor, and is now loose in
my mouth – out, without it looking weird? And what do I
do then, because I can’t… Sit, nod to the boy who’s pageturning; he has the sheet music. His face is utterly impassive,
nothing there, like a discreet little boy butler, boy concierge –
okay, Sir, carry on as you please, I have seen nothing. Fiddle
with the music, face away from the other kids, tear a bit of the
tissue and make a rolled and bunched white pill of it, wad that
into the space and you can still smile, no gap.But the man – the
Head – is saying that I “…he may or may not, no, will answer
zee qvesstionsss – ha! – after playing the first movement of
that concerto. Ladies and gentleman, Philip – unless, Philip,
there’s anything you’d like to say beforehand…?” It’s in. Do
I? “Thank fyouf.” Its out. It’s up under my bloody top lip. My
scalp is on fire. My cheeks are on fire. My eyes sting. That
feeling. Head back. Nod to the boy with nothing on his face.
Smile. Start playing.w
10
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APATHY FOR
DESTRUCTION
Duncan Robertson
I’m 25 years old, the same age as Appetite For Destruction,
and I don’t think I’ve ever really listened to Guns N’ Roses.
Of course I’ve heard them; they’ve probably been around me
my whole life. When I was a teenager, sitting up late watching
Kerrang! TV, I’d always get impatient when the November
Rain video came on. I could have watched Lostprophets play
Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja three times. There was a barrier,
something intangible there. We couldn’t communicate.
I couldn’t connect with it but somehow I couldn’t block it
out either.
I was at a concert with two music journalists earlier this year
and we nonchalantly agreed that we didn’t like Guns N’
Roses, and there was never an appropriate time to listen to
Appetite For Destruction. I felt slightly guilty, like I’d just
grossly embellished something on a job application. I’m not
qualified to make that kind of assertion. Sure, I roughly meet
the criteria but I don’t have enough experience. So, I turned
it over for a while afterwards. This is a record that has sold
30 million copies. What’s the best time to put it on? It’s got
to be one of the following: a) on the road, b) at a party, c) in
high school. These could all work individually but it’s not the
strongest alibi. Approaching it scientifically, like a musical
forensic pathologist, I started to put the pieces together.
How do I commit the perfect crime? My memory’s a little
hazy. I remember waking up late (“I get up around seven
/ Get out of bed around nine”). At some point I must have
got behind the wheel (“I’m a mean machine / Been drinkin’
gasoline / And honey you can make my motor hum”). Then
I grab some more booze (“Take your credit card to the liquor
store”) and head to the party. The mother of all parties. Only
to have my heart broken (“You don’t need my love / You
gotta find another”). The best time to listen to the album is
while doing all the things in the album, without remorse.
In the lyrical landscape of the record the physical spaces
are claustrophobic, dank and terrifying: the jungle, cars,
trains, bedrooms. It’s more an album of introspection and
observation than one about events. Ostensibly it can claim
to be about the dark side of life in LA and the realisation of a
dead American ideal but the album reflects the underbelly as
a psychic space. The anger and frustration that come through
are generalised and unable to locate a contextual outlet: you
have to see it through the lyricist’s eyes and take on his state
of mind. Axl Rose permanently embodies this conflict. In
response to a critical live review in 1992 (Guns N’ Roses
appeared on stage two hours after Metallica had finished
their set) he attempted to set the record straight. Defending
the band’s ethos and late arrival he writes, “Indiana needs to
wake up and hey if that takes a little taunting and 2 and half
hours of music + a fireworks show + cartoon for a total of
2 hours and 50 minutes to wake up maybe 5% of a 48,000
plus crowd then so be it… I came here to enrage… Thank
you, you have helped me know I succeeded. I’ve made my
inquiries, I am your Rock N’ Roll nightmare.”
Thirty years of age at the time of writing, you can’t mistake the
tones of the angry, petulant child – unable to accept criticism,
insistent on his individuality. It’s a Guns N’ Roses theme that
still prevails and goes some way to explaining their popularity.
It’s frightening to watch Rose perform live now, all dressed
up but nowhere to grow – it’s that forced perpetuation of
youthful angst that keeps them going: the angry young man,
permanently youthful and seemingly regressing further with
each passing year. A clockwork adolescent. To accompany,
there’s a strange technical proficiency – maturity, even – that
brings it together: Slash’s penetrating guitar riffs somehow
restrain that masculine confusion, keeping it in check. There’s
no denying just how tight the band sound, even now, when the
lyrical content is all but controlled; as naïve and unbalanced
as the notorious robot rape artwork. Guns N’ Roses: the
very name fuses that imbalance of destruction and adoration
in suspension.
Appetite For Destruction is, of course, downright
inappropriate, and consciously obnoxious about it.
Sometimes it borders being offensive. Take Anything Goes:
“Panties round your knees / With your ass in debris / Doin’
dat grind / With a push and squeeze”. I can imagine crashing
through this in the drunken buzz of a party but I doubt I
could ever listen to it alone. Perhaps this is the great trick of
Appetite For Destruction – it will make you enjoy it a certain
way. You can ride it on adrenaline but if you choose to go it
alone, it will deplete you somehow. You might come out like
the Captain America of Paradise City: a court jester with a
broken heart.w
11
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CHARLES OLIVE
COLLECTION
Charles Olive with @3Dperson
1. The Red Electromagnetic Wave Brings Good News
The unjust demands of the Emperor of Russia on the Ottoman Porte, and his subsequent
occupation of the Danubian Principalities, occupied the earnest attention of the Parliament
and the people throughout the year, and was the occasion of much inquiry and discussion.
2. Herdspeople Love To Read Books By Lenin And Marx
It is pleasing to observe how the bitumen was first used, how it was moulded into form,
and baked into hardness, by the heat of the Persian sun. We can trace it through many
of its forms until we come to the great Roman Brick of nine inches long, three inches
broad, and three inches thick. We now discover, with the satisfaction and pleasure of the
antiquarian, how long these Bricks have endured; but, for many years, we were not aware
of any application of the Brick, other than that of strength, stability, and support of edifices
– edifices which, sometimes, might really raise the question: “To what extent the architect
for Time meant to contend with Eternity?”
3. Awakened Peoples, You Will Certainly Attain The Ultimate Victory!
The deportation of such large numbers of shirt hands, to which we have before alluded, has
caused an unparallelled rise in wages, amounting, we are assured, in some cases, to as much
as a farthing per dozen on “gents’ dress.” It is rumoured that the “United Distressed Needlewomen” contemplate striking for a reduction of the hours of labour. Twenty-one hours a day,
with three intervals of two minutes each for meals, except during the busy season which
comprises only about eleven months in the year, is spoken of as likely to be their stipulation.
4. Everybody Comes To Beat Sparrows
Henry’s reasoning and his people’s instinct having led to the same resolve, everyone
with any sea-sense, especially shipwrights like Fletcher of Rye, began working towards the
best types then obtainable. There were mistakes in plenty. The theory of naval architecture in
England was never both sound and strong enough to get its own way against all opposition. w
4.
1.
3.
2.
12
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CONFESSIONS OF
A BINGE DRINKER
Nemonie Craven Roderick
I was struck the other day when a colleague of mine,
describing someone I was anticipating meeting, said, “He’s
nice but… well – he’s Welsh.” As I am also cut of that cloth,
so to speak, I wondered what on Earth she was getting at.
How could anyone in this age of identity crisis be so sure of a
particular, italicized cultural copyright? “Oh you know: he’s
got the black side; he’s extreme. How many Welshmen do
you know who are either teetotal or alcoholic?”
people in the Bridgend area, noting only the title of Gary
Owen’s play on the subject, Love Steals Us From Loneliness –
a production by the increasingly innovative National Theatre
of Wales performed in the Bridgend bar Hobo’s.
swiping the memory, and starting again. A bit like sex.
I had to escape to the loo. I was out of the loop; I was a hamster
spun off the wheel. You really have to care to binge drink. And
I no longer did. In fact, I felt like getting mean. A befeathered
In 2005, of the 16-24 age group in Wales, 36% of men and girl took a step too far when she pushed in to the queue for
27% of women indulged in ‘binge’ at least once a week, the ladies’. “It’s alright,” she explained, still attractive, but
according to the Office for National Statistics. According to lined, creased from binge. “I work here: I’m allowed to push
the jargon of the Assembly/BBC Wales campaign, they got in.” I contemplated a wild cat-scratch, a punch, a grabbing
Fair point. I know lots who are both. I’ve still got my great- RSOD – an unfortunate acronym for Risky Single Occasion of hair and feather and a pluck, but I have moved on from
grandfather’s certificate proving he was teetotal from The Drinking. Single occasion? Now that’s hopeful. Especially those days and simply said, as I thought: “That’s OK. You’ll
Band of Hope Union of the Methodist Chapel: “By divine when you consider that drinking in Wales, especially in probably never have love in life.” It proved to be the meanest
assistance I will abstain from all intoxicating drinks as my hometown of Bridgend, is almost a vocation. It was a thing I have ever said or, indeed, done. Hush descended as
beverages and discountenance all the causes and practices of positive ambition for us as fifteen, fourteen-year old girls. The Feathered Girl (so called as my friends hid me from her
intemperance.” Signed June 5th 1880.
With military precision we would enter formation out of the in my conviction that she would slit my throat) tottered out,
bouncer’s line-of-sight opposite The Welcome to Town, one- shell-shocked.
He swore by a whisky before bed. But surely non-Welshmen by-one dashing through the door whenever he went to pee, or
can display this elaborate hypocrisy? Kingsley Amis veered nipped over to the Olympic Kebab.
“That was a bit harsh,” I heard as I gently closed the
significantly – lurched, perhaps – towards the latter half of the
cubicle door.
binary of teetotalism and utter drunkdom. Though, to be fair, We worked as a team, but have no doubts that sacrifices had
he bypassed the first term of the binary, and therefore also to be made: one of us might get clobbered at any moment, And I suddenly understood. Epiphany came, as I’m sure
bypassed hypocrisy, only narrowly bypassing a triple-bypass. brought down by a dodgy fake ID, or an influx of seventeen- it always does, half-soaked, remorseful in a public-toilet
Despite this, however, he probably counts as an honorary year olds (they could completely blow your cover). Once cubicle: the binge is all about love.
Welshman. A Welshman in spirit, we might say. Positively taken out, you would gracefully accept defeat (only after
doused in the stuff.
trying to get a leg-up over the back wall) and slope home for You have to care to binge, to throw your body three sheets
an early bath, slightly cheered by the thought of that really to the wind, to drain your bank account and your brain. You
In his Booker-winning The Old Devils Amis explores the good film on Channel 4. Oh, how many times I rued S4C have to want something in return. And that something is love.
alchemical properties of booze in conjuring up a misplaced (Sianel Pedwar Cymru, Channel 4 Wales): the television Even in the state of pure sexual desire, next day no-stringssense of Welshness when Alun Weaver (formerly Alan), poet station invented to compound humiliation and despair by attached, it’s about love.
and telly pundit down on his luck, returns ‘home’ to the land supplanting Four Weddings and a Funeral with Sgorio or
of his fathers. To go In Search of Wales… presents itself to Pobol y Cwm.
Acceptance into The Welcome to Town was all we could
his mind as a soundbite, an opportunity to go on an extended
hope for at fourteen. Amis seemed to understand this, how
pub-crawl and to revive a few old flames. His band of Old But I’m getting carried away… Back to the issue. booze and need and sex all tangle up into this horrible mess
Devils veritably rattle through the jarring Modern Wales, ill Being Welsh-in-italics. What does it mean? In search of that is life. As did his friend, Larkin: ‘Beneath it all, desire of
at ease in their baggy skins, their self-loathing encapsulated Wales… In Search of Wales. It’s time for a pub-crawl.
oblivion runs.’ And beneath that?
by their disgust for Welsh-language signs where “Tacsi”
helpfully denotes “Taxi” for ‘the benefit of Welsh people who And how obliging my friends are. We got completely RSOD, Solitude.
had never seen a letter x before.’
just like at school. The limo arrived at six, and we were amazed
to find that you can actually see out. Why would you want As towns like Bridgend grow outwards, their enormous,
This self-loathing rings true. The area covered by the South to? But this became a very useful metaphor, as throughout labyrinthine housing-estates impinging on the green, green
Wales police force may only represent 10% of the geographical the night I was an increasingly invisible observer. Eventually grass of home, they lose their centre, forming a map of our
area of Wales, but they are responsible for policing 42% of people couldn’t see me at all, and kept treading on me, dashing selves, the old tabernacles now gutted and filled with drink.
the local Welsh population. And, boyo, you should see them. me underfoot like a well-sucked Lambert & Butler. “How But let’s not hark back to the halcyon, hypocritical days of the
The National Assembly for Wales has, and in 2007 assembled can people afford this?” I asked the Oracle of Chapel Street, Chapel and the unfulfilled Pledge; let’s try to understand this
over £87,000 to combat the binge drinkers who befoul the Bridgend. “Credit cards,” she replied. And I realised that one new attempt at community. Let’s try to understand what runs
land of their fathers every weekend. Let’s leave aside more could become trapped like an invisible hamster on this wheel beneath this search for love that is Binge. C’mon, mun: let’s
recent statistics regarding the spate of suicides amongst young of recklessness: swiping, forgetting, remembering, regretting, go on a bloody pub-crawl. w
GUT
13
14
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REFLECTIONS
ON GARBAGE
Romney Taylor
On June 25th 2012, the London Metro freesheet tabloid
(circulation 1.3 million) published an infographic that
plotted the path to the end of everything we know.
The accompanying article didn’t blame overfishing, GM
crops, or globalisation for our demise. Rather, it went on
to matter-of-factly describe the death of the Earth, the
wiping out of all life and the last vestiges of evidence that
it existed, as a mere inevitability. Estimates vary as to when
the apocalypse will happen, but it could be as soon as 370
million years from the moment you read this.
It’s pretty tough to comprehend that amount of time and
that this whole place is going to melt away while you’re
WhatsApp’ing a bud in DC and refreshing Instagram from
the top deck of a 388 bus on your commute home. But that
must’ve been what the previous occupier of my seat was
doing. They must have been contemplating the apocalypse,
because as I sat down I found the paper left folded open,
“How the sun will become a death star” glaring up at me
from page 26.
Consider that bus
hybrid vehicles.
route
388
isn’t
serviced
by
Consider that between my feet was a Tesco bag holding a
shop which earned me nine Clubcard points. I had intended
to transport the groceries in my backpack but the pizza – a
12” Classic Margherita by Pizza Express – was too wide,
and I ended up needing a carrier. I can’t explain why,
but that evening I lied to the self checkout machine and
collected undue green Clubcard points, usually rewarded
to those patrons that do manage to fit their pizzas in
their backpacks.
Consider the guilt that compounded when the dinner
was unwrapped 20 minutes later. The red-white-andblue branded polyethylene bag stuffed straight into the
recycling. Then the cardboard outer casing, exclaiming
in a font designed to look like a florist’s handwriting that
the product was “Individually Handmade in the UK”
(Spalding, Lincolnshire according to the back of the box).
Next: the thin layer of plastic film, at last uncovering the
cheesy top. Or most of it anyway. Laying in the centre of
the pizza was a credit-card-sized coupon, gloss printed
on both sides of weighty cardboard stock in full colour –
with an exclusive offer of £5 off my next visit to any P.
Express restaurant. The coup’ was wrapped in that crinkly
plastic which I know from experience isn’t yet recyclable.
However, if it wasn’t for the covering, the dabs of tomato
sauce may have obscured my unique code! Lastly: I slid
the polystyrene frisbee base disc out from underneath the
pie and snapped it Very Loudly into quarters before slotting
it into the garbage.
Consider that, once cooked, I covered each slice in
Sriracha sauce.
Consider the TED talk I watched with my meal: ‘Capt.
Charles Moore on the seas of plastic’, which, at the time
Haringey Reuse and Recycling Centre, London
of writing, had 566,057 views. Craning over his notes
wearing a milk-chocolate corduroy blazer, Moore informs
his audience of luminaries that “the throwaway society
cannot be contained – it has gone global. We simply cannot
store and maintain or recycle all our stuff. We have to
throw it away. The market can do a lot for us but it can’t
fix the natural system in the ocean we broke… The levels
[of garbage] are increasing, the amount of packaging is
increasing, the throwaway concept of living is proliferating,
and it’s showing up in the ocean.” He offers no hope of
cleaning it up: “Straining the ocean of plastic would be
beyond the budget of any country, and it might kill untold
amounts of sea life in the process.”
Consider that the very same Captain Charles Moore of
the Algalita Marine Research Foundation is the man who
discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. If you’re not
familiar with the GPGP, it’s an area of the Pacific Ocean
that has become a swirling vortex of plastics, chemical
sludge, and other marine litter that have been trapped by
the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. It covers an area
twice the size of Texas.
Consider that the human existence on planet earth is
analogous to a parasitic skin disease.
Consider weekly deliveries of organic, responsiblysourced, seasonal fruit and vegetables from Abel & Cole;
or beekeeping as a hobby.
Consider that Veolia Environmental Services, the French
multinational and second in the world in the waste
management game, sponsors the Wildlife Photographer of
the Year prize.
If nothing else, consider going on a dystopian tour of your
local dump or sewer to get a healthy perspective on things.
Then eat a Burger King Whopper meal in an industrial park
and have a long hard think about what you’re doing with
your life. w
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COSMOPOLITAN
Sonny Baker
Babylon Castle is the new, desirable premium bar and club nestled
right in the City. The venue, spread over three floors, boasts three unique
rooms which share the same ethos; unrivalled cocktails, individual
service, great food and the perfect place to party late into the night. Our
birthday and celebration packages are the best in London, so why not
book one of our 3 private rooms, or the whole venue and make it a truly
memorable night.
The first thing you notice about Babylon Castle is the smell: Armani.
Calvin Klein. David Beckham The Official Fragrance. It’s the inventory of
those men who sit by toilet doors, a pound for a spray and an ironic lollipop.
(Do you remember confectionary that was widely available throughout
the 1980s?).
The scent would be soaked into the walls if they weren’t all mirrored,
refracting the purple and green spotlights that oscillate from a black
ceiling, carefully placed between the industrial sized air conditioning
units (no doubt a godsend during the Summer Scorcher Sessions). The
cross-stich of laser beams helps to illuminate the eye-stinging cologne
molecules, hanging in the air like an electric fog, saturating clothes and
hair; a musky, citrusy napalm binding us all together.
It’s still light outside (it’s only been an hour since End Of Play) but in here
it’s perpetually midnight: the Happy Hour, when all drinks named after
sex acts are half-priced up until 8pm – just ten pounds each for a Porn Star
Sin and Flirtini. “Do you want to open a tab?”
accommodate your event. Our Head Chef is always on hand to create
bespoke menus for canapé receptions, hot fork buffets, day delegate
lunches and two, three or five course dinners.
Whether you are having a lunch meeting, drinks with colleagues or
organising team training or recruitment days, this is the perfect venue
to host an event. Our ground level bar is light and luxurious during the
day and transformed by night into a stylish cocktail bar. With 3 private
rooms to hire (each at different sizes), we can guarantee that we can
£43.99 Per Person
• Christmas décor
• Table decorations & novelties
• Three course meal
• VAT
The men are nutters, geeks, pervs, mongs, sex-pests, swordsmen, gaylords,
paedos, nerds, saddos, losers, dickheads, poofs, nonces, ponces, gangstas
and pimps: the legends of banter, babble, Babylon. In this book of fables,
our heroes are a mix of the lecherous loose tied city obese and the poppedcollared, tan chested, crisp shirted hair waxer. They brazenly take photos
of the girls: FHM. Loaded. Jack. Front. Zoo. Nuts. Made in… [“where you
from love?”].
A dazzling sheet of platinum hair moves arrhythmically behind unplugged
CDJs, manicured hands pretending to mix between David Guetta remixes
of Chris Brown and a man who needs a dollar, dollar, dollar. T-shirt reads,
clockwise from top: Johnny. Joey. Deedee. Tommy. Those Dre Beats
headphones must be wireless, as there was no need to unplug when she
walked away for ten minutes.
One staircase leads up: The Crimson Club. The other leads down to The
Boudoir. Both are guarded by bouncers: black suit, earpiece, slick hair. If I
tried to access either, I imagine I would be told the same as by the doorman
outside: “I can let you in this time, but next time – in those shoes – you’d
be refused”. Yes. Next time.
Christmas at Babylon Castle:
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GuT
THe BRITPOP MILLeNNIAL
DeATH
ATH COMPLeX
A
Tom Pounder in association with
Festivals
Tattoos
LO VeLY
C u P PA
PROPeR
GR uB
Jamie Oliver
cooks for
Jamiroquai on
The Naked Chef
“Rock and Roast”
May 2000
Footy
Legends
Fatboy
S
n
e
l
l
A
Lily
lim
SEPTEMBER 1997
APRIL 2008
Noel Gallagher visits
Downing Street with
Meg Matthews
James Corden complains
on receipt of BAFTA award
“A good blast of these tunes, a nice bit of tukka
and some good company is, without sounding like a
cheesy git, the recipe for a nice time, happy days”
Jamie Oliver on Jamie Oliver’s Cookin’: Music To Cook By
JULY 1999
Gail Porter projected on
Houses Of Parliament
in guerilla marketing
stunt for FHM’s
100 Sexiest Women
1. Dancing In The Moonlight – Toploader
2. Motorcycle Emptiness – Manic Street Preachers
3. My Beautiful Friend – The Charlatans
4. Right Here Right Now – Fatboy Slim
5. Blow Your Mind – Jamiroquai
6. Trouble In The Message Centre – Blur
7. 6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps
8. Get Myself Arrested – Gomez
9. This Is How It Feels – Inspiral Carpets
10. Even After All – Finley Quaye
11. Celebrate Your Life – Beloved
12. On The Ropes – The Wonder Stuff
13. Loose Fit – Happy Mondays
14. Take It – Flowered Up
15. Begging You – The Stone Roses
16. On Stand By – Shed Seven
17. There She Goes – The La’s
18. Sundial – Scarlet Division
DECEMBER 2010
Supergrass’ Gaz Coombes
stars in Toyota Yaris
television advert
AUGUST 2005
David Walliams purchases
Supernova Heights with
profits amassed from
mocking the poor
Coldplay
Q uA LIT Y
Keane
Mumford & Sons
BANTeR
SEPTEMBER 2011
Alex James mingles with
David Cameron and
Jeremy Clarkson in
Kingham, Oxfordshire