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By now it was getting dark, and we joined the main flow of people heading home. We stumbled across an abandoned costume in the street. It was a giant grey clam just lying there, with two inviting shoulder straps peering out from above it. Luke jumps in, and before we knew where we were, we were conducting our own carnival parade from inside the clam costume, chanting as we swayed, and even managed to get the other passers by to sing along with us. As part of his ‘get a job’ campaign, Luke has loads of balloons with ‘Vote Luke Baldwin’ printed on them, which he is mailing to prospective employers who respond to his CV. We also had several of these on us, so they were inflated and waved as we sang, ‘VOTE LUKE BALDWIN’ we chanted jovially. And then some little kids began pursuing us and trying to pop our balloons. The land rover behind us could only follow on slowly in frustration, as we could not get out of his way. Eventually the kids one, and our balloons, lungs and hips withered, so we abandoned the costume in the street and ran off down another side street. (Popular carnival escape route!)
‘Oh look, there’s Damon Albarn’s house’ (lead singer of Blur) someone shouted, and running towards it I leapt a police barrier, caught my toe on it, and tumbled into the pavement, banging both my already aching hip and grazing my elbow, while gigglepussdom erupted. (Still a little sore a week later) Damons house was heavily protected and his front gate truly padlocked up. We then decided it would be a good idea to try and gate crash one of the numerous carnival parties happening in peoples houses. Lukes friend Toby climbed in through the lower ground window, into a room of revellers, and we tried to blag our way in with the knowledge that the people whose party it was were called Nick and Corrine. I asked how Corinne was getting on in her new job, commenting on how badly she was treated at her last one. This worked on one of her real friends waiting on the doorstep, but the bouncers were having none of it. I told doorstep bird to give my love to corrinne, and she promis3ed she would. Poor Corinne, now faced with the eternal guilt of forgetting who ‘John’ is, one of her seemingly closest friends!! (Of course, we never have or will meet)Toby was subsequently thrown out, and we left looking for another party. |
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The house of one of Lukes old school friends was next, but as we got there the party wound down and everyone left again. After a brief interlude at a hot sweaty bar, with a scary big fish tank behind the barmen, we walked along the debris lined streets to our third party.
This one had police guards outside, and a perimeter fence, however Luke got us past, and in we went. I actually knew the owner of this party as well. He used to work at the Media agency that book all Prudential’s TV, radio and newspaper space. However he is an asshole, and I thankfully managed to avoid him all night, which in his living room was some achievement! There were of course dodgy people abound, and Luke ended up doing is first line of coke, and one of his friends was ejected for throwing bottles from the balcony outside onto the street below (though the street was now empty). Eventually/ thankfully it was soon time to leave, however, a further obstacle was in our way, the host had left to get some cigarettes, locking the door behind him with a key (of all things) and hadn’t returned. We really wanted to leave, so had only one option. Luke and Toby leapt down from the first floor balcony onto the street below. I was a little more dubious as not only was I still recovering from the earlier fall, but I was also pumped full off booze, making standing tricky, let alone further bodily negotiations on obstacle course. However, the booze also aids the making of bad decisions and boosts courage, as testified by the Dutch. So I step over the iron railing that protected the edge of the balcony from the world outside. Standing on a very narrow ledge by tip toe, I grab the bottom of the railing and let myself dangle by my hands. My feet were still a good two metres from the ground, but Luke came to my rescue (poetic justice don’t you think?) and caught me as I dropped. So once again we all ran off down another side street. The final party of the evening came as a result of Luke bumping into someone he knew in the street. This of course was someone else very dodgy. You see, while Lukes house is quite posh and In a very wealthy area where he grew up, it is only ever five minutes walk from some dodgy estate or another, resulting in his friends being a real mixed bag. Anyway, this was a young black woman, who had recently dropped a sprog (more news on sproggage later) and she ended up yelling and arguing with Toby all the way home after he made some joke about fornicating with ones mother. This she took way too much offence to , to the extent that we started to wonder about her father....... Anyway, we all ended up at her flat, which was on the ground floor in some VERY dodgy (note the excessive use of the dodgy adjective in this email, this is intentional, as it truly was the closest I have come to being dodgy yet. And I did so enjoy my dodgy experiences that weekend) council estate. The flat was small, like a shoe box (big shoes OK..) and the lounge was like a Polaroid snapshot from a social security casebook. Kiddies toys on the floor, crammed full of black people in their dreads and skinning up some. There was a DJ in the corner, by the brown flowery curtains, and in the dimness of the room (I think it was ‘ambience’ rather than a run out electric meter) I saw a neatly cut hole in the window, as if someone had tried to break in, and changed their mind. The air was way too smoky and the clientele way to hokey, so I stepped outside, climbed over yet another fence, and lay on my back on the grass patch in the middle of the estate, looking up at the watery moon. I fell asleep righty there. I was woken by Luke and co. calling out for me, they couldn’t see me in the dark grass, and it took all the will within me to call out, let alone climb back over the fence and walk home. We arrived back at Lukes at 3am, and out came his grandma upon our return in her dressing gown with her false teeth in a small cappuccino cup by the kitchen sink. She took one look at us and decided to get dressed and go back to her place to ‘check on her budgie’ I don’t know what she thought the bird would be up to at three in the morning, but we let her get on with it. The lounge became our final resting place, cushions, duvets and pillows strewn across the carpet, we crashed right there. Apparently two homeless people ended up coming in and sitting on the sofa while ranting gibberish, but by that time I was long gone..... I was woken by one eyed Johnny licking my face, and the sun streamed in through the pale curtains on the second day of carnival......... I shant go through Monday as extensively, but I shall summarise in saying that we were joined by Wondercow and 8 other magic friends including Emma, who I kept losing, and while we didn’t get as drunk, we got much more squashed, and began to feel the lack of real food punching us. Moment of crush came as it all drew to a close at a cross roads, we were dancing on the roundabout to a mad stage DJ, and ambulances kept coming through to attend to squashed people and potential knifings. (Though I heard of none this year.) All in all a mad mad weekend (I think it could even have housed one of the most fun nights of my life!). And while I cannot defend the debauchery behaviour that went on, the street pissings, bottle smashing, swearing and dirty dancing drunken ness, I can say that I enjoyed every minute of it and will be back for more next year!!! Drunken descent, zero repent! A way too sober J |
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