Band: The Normal
Year: 1978
Label: Mute
Tracks:
1. T.V.O.D.
2. Warm Leatherette

Suffice to say, that my first date was an unmitigated disaster. Cut to the chase shall we? And forgo the niceties. Dinner was lovely, I said as little as possible, which is a rare occurrence because I have not been blessed with the gift of keeping silence when I have nothing of interest to say at all. It was even so amicable as to be invited for a homeward bound drink, a stop off, at the Jazz Bar in Dalston and incidentally nowhere near my route home. A delightfully petite venue staffed by friendly people and reasonable prices. We spent a wondrous couple of hours basking in the ambience of music and alcohol, until I started to think like this.

I can’t quite believe it, I am doing so well, still polite talking despite being totally pissed. Sixth double drink in hand while thinking. Really? You young, French, beautiful, political journalism student. Me? A drunk leering tool. What are the chances of us ending the night with a kiss? Still important to say nothing I might regret so go with the safest bet “Sarkozy? Are you a fan? ” “Non.” Dumb! Should have known that question has already been done by similarly minded fools but nevertheless move on. Falling more in love with the sound of my own voice, a proverbial neon sign that always reads as Quit while you are ahead, go home and put yourself to bed, “Another drink?” I suggested instead.

I turned and took the five steps to the bar, put my right hand on the bar stool and with my left summoned the bar-maid and ordered another double, pour quoi pas? We are young, carefree, and stupid. I had being buying myself doubles and her singles all night and sometimes even drinking her drink when she went to the toilet, I get myself drunk, it’s an inverse logic that has never really worked except like this. I turned to smile at pretty alluring Jouette who, I imagined, was looking at me with unrestrained lust, maybe give, you know, one of those little hey there waves, to find myself looking up into fuming cracked-tooth snarling mouth of what I initially thought was a five foot ten (I am five six, small and weak) fifteen stone man on whose not un-comely behind my right hand had mistaken for soft yet firm leathery bar stool. “You’re hand is on my arse.” The mouth said, I looked from the face to the offending hand and was suddenly very aware that alcohol was not indeed, as I thought, my friend but in fact my enemy and that I was a stumbling drunken wreck.

I think at that point my tribal spirit merged with my modern self and completely departed from my body. I don’t know what was said but all I can I tell you is what I know to be true …and it all seemed to happen in a matter of minutes. It transpired that the looming glowering threat was actually a lovely thirty eight year old Angolan lady who had been livin in London for five years. Yes, Magueritte, what a formidable woman, and then, somehow I think it may be the case that words were said I don’t know what, an exchange perhaps, I remember the phrase “Yeah I bet you like your mummy to bring you chopped carrots and fruit juice in bed” being shot at me in a deep musky growl just before I found myself grabbed by the testicles and pulled into a passionate, vice like, lip locking embrace.

It was not unpleasant. I dare say, had my senses not returned to me like the gun shot to the head I so sorely needed who knows, it could have been beautiful. I broke from her grasp looked into her beautiful, big, warm, smiling, loving eyes and with awful realisation, like a rabbit about to be obliterated by a truck, knew that my date was stood right there next to me staring at me. Not knowing what else to do I did what I do best, turned and ran. I ran out the bar, down the street, round a corner, crawled into an alleyway and was sick many times all over my nice new shoes. Magueritte’s cry of “Ramon! Ramon! Ramon! A donde fuiste?!! Ramooooon NOOoooooo!!!!” ringing into the dark night has haunted me ever since.

I did try to Facebook pretty Jouette hoping that somehow none of it happened, that it had been forgotten, an jolly postscript of a lovely evening, that we could meet again, but no, she sent me this reply:

“Please do not contact me ever again. You mean nothing to me, you’re just an arsehole whose only function is to grease the tract of an even larger arsehole that is forever constantly shitting all over us, and by us I mean everybody else. ”

Magueritte if you’re reading this, I miss you, I love you, I want you, Come back to me I will wait.

Next week: Facebook courting.

In September 2009, Transition Town Brixton’s Currency Group will launch the Brixton Pound: a local currency which can be spent only with local Brixton businesses.

The Brixton Pound will make money work for Brixton by supporting smaller shops and traders who are under threat from the recession and larger chains. Money spent with independent businesses circulates within the local economy up to three times longer than when it’s spent with national chains, research by the New Economics Foundation has shown. READ MORE HERE

See more HERE