Is it finally Spring? I don’t want to get
lulled into a false sense of security on the basis of one day when it didn’t
rain and I felt bold enough to leave off all three layers of thermals when
leaving the house. The Winter of Discontent has now lasted for so long that I
have come to the conclusion that in order to try to sort out the nation’s dire
financial problems, the Coalition have in fact sold us to the White Witch, and
we are now living in Narnia.
As my friend Claire pointed out, this would
make George Osborne the Edmund of the outfit, keen to barter everything he owns
for the promise of some Turkish Delight and untold power, which pleased me
greatly. Who will be our Aslan? Only time will tell. Perhaps we need an actual lion running both the economy and
the weather. Oh God, is that why Boris Johnson
has that terrible hair? Is it a subconscious attempt at a mane?
Anyway, these hopeful attempts at a change
of season are accompanied by new shoots in the House of Tiny Tearaways. Yes, it
is all change on the home front, with a recent slew of departures and arrivals
to rival Heathrow on a Bank Holiday.
Firstly, Beautiful Couple Canadian David
and Kim have moved to the coast (Plymouth? Portsmouth? Somewhere like that).
Kim had family down there, neither of them seemed to like living in London, and
David finally managed to get an actual, permanent job, working for Canadian
beer company Molson, after a succession of jobs that included being a builder,
a charity mugger and packing dildos in an Ann Summers factory. (Is this the 21st
century equivalent of the ‘butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker’, one
wonders).
They have been replaced by less beautiful
(but even younger) couple Chris and Natalie, who both hail from Hull. Chris
works on oil rigs off the coast of Aberdeen, so spends two weeks there and then
two weeks in London. He gets flown to work (from Aberdeen) by helicopter, which
beats most commutes. He also has an even longer trip down south than I did when
I lived in Edinburgh, and that was bad enough. Natalie wants to be an actress,
but is making ends meet by working in fancypants bakery chain Gail’s, which
means that she regularly comes home loaded down with free baked goods which
would otherwise end up in the bin at the end of her shift. I can confirm that
the Gail’s hot cross buns are definitively the best in the world. Thank God it
is only the Easter period for a short time, or I would now be the size of a
killer whale.
Asha (fan of Holby City and making
elaborate meals for her boyfriend, which they then insisted on eating in her
room – weird) has made way for Mysterious Neil, who I have literally seen about
eight times since he arrived. Despite a comment from Ben soon after he’d moved
in that we were now living with ‘the 40 year-old virgin’, (he is,
conversationally speaking, what could best be termed ‘a bit awkward’), Neil
seems to have a social life that requires him to be out every night and all
weekend. To the extent that I think he may be living a double life and is actually a spy. He has lived in
Streatham for a very long time and has an exhaustive knowledge of every bar,
pub and eatery within a two-mile range. We have yet to meet any of his friends.
The only time I see him is when he is en route to bed, having come home at
11pm, and I am still in the sitting room watching shit telly.
Handsome-yet-dull Ben has also moved out,
taking his Abercrombie and Fitch biceps and his protein shakes with him (and
also freeing us of his annoying habit of draining food in the sink, then
leaving most of the stuff that’s escaped over the side of the colander,
because, what, it will eventually all
break down and go down the plug?) He has yet to be replaced, so I live in hope
of recruiting a man who is equally buff but who has developed a personality as
well as his quads.
Terribly Tall Chris has moved to Brixton;
his slot in the house has been taken by South African Will. I’ve never been a
fan of South Africans, owing to the abrasively clipped accent. And the only one
I was a fan of is currently suspected
of shooting dead his girlfriend in the middle of the night. Which brought my habit
of mentally singing, ‘happy and glorious, Oscar Pistorius’ to the tune of our
national anthem every time he was mentioned, abruptly to a halt.
However, South African Will is the
exception to the rule. I think he looks a bit like Aaron Eckhart, I’m getting
used to the accent and he has very good manners. The other evening, for
example, I came in and fixed some dinner. He was sitting on one of our two
sofas. He spotted me coming to sit down and asked if I’d like to sit where he
was sitting, ‘as this is your favourite chair’. (I’d never stated a preference,
it’s just the one I usually sit on). How nice is that? I thanked him for being
gentlemanly, but insisted he stay where he was.
He is also uber-sociable, which led to an
excellent, random night out on Saturday. I’d been to see the early showing of
the new Ryan Gosling/Bradley Cooper film, The
Place Beyond the Pines, which is good, if overlong, and with a welter of
clichés. But heck, RYAN GOSLING – even with bleached blonde hair and a
collection of horrible tattoos – and robbing banks – you still would. He also
sets back the no-smoking cause about 15 years by permanently having a fag on
and looking gorgeous. My friend and I, after spending most of Friday afternoon
gathering all the different Ryan Gosling Tumblrs, have decided that because he
is so universally popular (and seems kind and generous – plus I think he saved
someone’s life not that long ago – so is also HEROIC), he should be the
world’s Timeshare Boyfriend, and every woman should get to go out with him for
a night.
I digress. I got back about ten-ish to
find South African Will, Weird David and Oil Rig Chris playing Wii Golf and
hammered on a wide variety of ill-advised booze. Will, for example, had
produced a litre bottle of some Austrian rum that was 60% proof and tasted like
floor cleaner. David fixed me a mug of prosecco (we only possess one wine
glass in the entire house), then Chris insisted that I drink a combination of
Disaronno and Jack Daniels.
After about an hour, Will announced
that an Irish ex-flatmate was having a house party in Tooting. All agreed we
should definitely go. Ten minutes later we were piled into a cab (me having
changed my trainers for boots and bunged on red lippie as a concession to Going
Out). We arrive at the house party which, despite having been billed as an
Irish rave up, is not very well populated. I get offered a Mojito by a very
drunk Irish man, who alternates asking me my name and then telling me I look
hot on a permanent loop for five minutes. 'This is fun, isn't it?' I
think. Ten minutes in, the entire house is suggesting going to some bar in
Putney, which will cost £15 each to get in, plus cab fare. Will, thank God,
vetoes us going, so the four of us, plus a friend of Will's that we have picked
up, called Angus, go round the corner to some barn of a bar, called the Tram
Shed, filled with drunken young people.
There is a huge queue and it's deemed
unlikely we'll get in. Will somehow manages to charm the door staff, who let us
in for a £20 bung. There is a lot of rubbish 90s music, to which we all dance
around like lunatics (the boys are, after all, shitfaced to a man, whilst I've
only had a small glass of red, a glass of prosecco, a shot of Disaronno/JD and
a very small amount of a mojito served by a drunk amnesiac leprechaun). Chris
(newly back from the rigs, and without Natalie – she's away in Paris), is
chatting up everyone. Girls, boys, probably if there was a dog there
he'd be talking to them. He eventually falls foul of some bloke, nearly starts
a fight and gets escorted outside by burly bouncers. Which, as he is the
world's most mild mannered man, is a bit alarming. I decide that given Angus is
the only man I don't currently live
with, and seems nice, (and Chris has informed me that Angus fancies me – I'm
more of the opinion that I'm the only girl in the party and Angus is just
dancing next to me, so doesn't obviously fancy me), and that Chris,
David and Will are clearly going to get themselves into some sort of drunken
trouble, that Angus and I should leave.
So, we end up in his (very nice)
house-share in East Dulwich. I find out on returning on Sunday that Will and
David had gone on to the Electric in Brixton and not got back till 6.00am
(David having forgotten both going to the house party and the fact we were in a
bar in Tooting – I do worry about him). They'd lost Chris, who finally made it
back at 7am having had to pay £30 for a taxi from Brixton to our house (which
is a 15-minute bus ride). He said he was so drunk he couldn't even see the bus
numbers, ergo having to get the taxi. I was just pleased he was alive. He had,
however, managed to get hit in the face when Will hoisted someone trying to
nick his phone from his pocket. All in all, quite the night out.
But it doesn’t end there. I got in this
morning, and obviously it is EXCITING that I have managed to score, and also
with a younger man (31. Although, as has been noted previously in these parts,
there is rarely anyone who is over 35 on a night out). I was regaling my two
colleagues about my escapades and saying, 'yeah, it was this really tall guy
called Angus'. At which Nicole, the PR Director, said, 'Oh, I knew a tall guy
called Angus at uni. Good looking, kind of lanky, dark hair?'
Me: 'Um, yes, but surely that's not
him? He's 31'.
Nicole: 'Yeah, I'm 31. Sort of intense,
bit in his own world?'
Me: 'Well, we didn't really talk about
a lot of culture, but he did have a
number of Noam Chomsky books on his shelf.'
Nicole: 'What else do you know about
him?'
Me: 'Er… well he's not Scottish at all
– he grew up in Kent.'
Nicole: 'YES! He grew up in Kent too!'
Me: 'Right, this is weird.'
Both colleagues: 'FIND A PICTURE OF
HIM.'
So I Facebook stalked him through Will,
with whom I am not friends, but who is on our house FB group. God, I am so modern.
Me: 'Right, here he is.'
Nicole: 'THAT'S HIM!!!'
All: MASS SHRIEKING
Jesus. How small IS the fucking world
these days?!
