Living for Disco

On my cycle route into work, about three minutes from my house, I have to pass by a series of advertising hoardings.

For some reason, Spearmint Rhino, the UK’s premiere Gentleman’s Clubs apparently, has decided that the Lewisham male is the ideal demographic for an advertising campaign. Thus, daily, I am invited to partake in the delights of my own personal lapdance, while 12 foot high luscious lovelies beckon alluringly from behind the railway bridge.

They’ve changed the ad this morning, and now a rather generously endowed girl in a fluffy white bikini gazes down at me with her come-to-bed eyes. “Come to Lapland”, she incites. I imagine that the place is lit up with Christmas lights, bedecked with fake snow, and full of fur un-clad women promising things that would make Santa blush.

I’d quite like to go. I’ve never been to a lapdancing club before – I’m curious as to what it’s like. A friend of mine got briefly, but expensively, addicted to them once, and it was an education for me, I can tell you. I don’t think I’d be welcome though, unless I shoved a pair of socks down my pants, and went in drag. Oh well.

I’ve just got home. It’s taken me over an hour – usual time 45 minutes. This is because I had the bright idea to take a different route home. I did it on Friday (by accident), and it was all ok, so I didn’t think that I would have any problems. I got lost. Twice. Cycling confusedly down dark, unlit back streets behind the Old Kent Road is not my idea of a good time. By some miracle (it certainly can’t be my inner compass – I don’t have one), I found my way onto the OKR and whoosh, off I went.
God only knows how I found the right way on Friday night. At 2 am. Pissed. I obviously have a guardian angel.

The Old Kent Road is shabby. There’s no other word for it. I used to think it would be a bit cheap, as it’s only £60 on the Monopoly board, but I had no idea it would be quite as unprepossessing as it is. It’s one of those places that never looks nice, not even in summer. It’s a long dual carriageway, running from the Elephant and Castle (grimness beyond grim – don’t go), all the way to New Cross Gate, with Peckham (shootings on a regular basis) on the right and a long bank of industrial estates and business parks on the left. There are a couple of big grimy pubs – the Old Kent Gin Palace, now The Red Cow, being probably the most famous. MacDonalds, KFC, Toys R Us, hoardings, adverts, empty car parks, run down shops and grey lace curtains. It’s fucking depressing.

Now I know that a lot of people probably don’t feel the way I do about it, but I can’t help it. For me it represents apathy and stagnation, a lack of will to live or to make the most of life. I’m not saying that the people living near or around it are like this, but that if it was a person, it would sit in front of the TV in a grimy tracksuit, drinking Special Brew, eating day old pizza, chain-smoking Rothmans and swearing at its kids.

And this evening, while I was cycling down this road to nowhere, I saw something that made me feel miserable in the most bitter kind of way: a large man in a greasy blue anorak, wandering aimlessly down the road, with his head most of the way inside a family sized bucket of KFC. I don’t know why I felt so sorry for him. I’m not going to say “Far be it from me to judge”, because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We judge people every day, without even thinking about it, and we judge ourselves as well. He may have been just really hungry, and in a hurry to meet some friends. He might have been having a sneaky chicken leg before taking the whole lot home to his (extensive) family.

But something about him seemed so lonely, and so lost. I got caught up in wondering who he was, where were his family, what he was doing? You know sometimes when someone you see strikes you, and you start imagining their life, and what they do all day? (It’s not just me is it?) It didn’t seem as if he had anyone to go home to have dinner with, not even himself. I felt sad for him, because for some reason, he looked as if he was unloved. I thought of all the people I love, and how I never want them to feel that way. It made my heart feel slightly colder.

Anyway, for some reason he stuck in my head, and I feel a little melancholy this evening. And from now on, the Beast and I are going to go down our normal route, round the roundabout that, until recently, smelled of flowers, and down through Deptford, with it’s market and it’s fruit, veg and fish shops, where people shout to each other in the street, and someone always seems to be having a laugh. It’s a little shabby too, but it’s cheerful and it feels like home.

Budgets. Analysing figures. Looking at trends. Trying to work out where I can squeeze more money from, and how much shit we’re going to be in if any of this stuff falls through. All day.
My head feels pummelled. I don’t want to cycle home – I just want to be transported there, into a nice warm dressing gown, with a mug of hot chocolate (agh – flatmate has used all the milk eating MY cornflakes) and sigh with relief.
Also, tonight I need to call my mother (will be very short – my mum has the attention span of a gnat. Half way through a sentence, she’ll say “Well it was lovely to talk to you ChrisEllieRachael”, just to make sure she refers to the right offspring, and then drift away from the phone, leaving you hanging, open mouthed and feeling rejected).
Also need to call my friend in Derby who I didn’t go and see last weekend because I couldn’t afford the train fare.
Also need to put some washing in.
And cook my roasted veg.
Beach please! Pina colada and Ambre Solaire please! No more cold and damp, cycling like a demon. Had enough of winter now. Want to be warm and do nothing for a loooong long time.
*sigh*

Today marks the end of World War I. It also happens to be the day on which Yasser Arafat died. Two momentous things ended. Maybe (and I know this is a contentious thing to say), maybe now there is hope for a peace between Palestine and Israel. I say this not because I think Arafat necessarily stood in the way of peace, but because now the Israelis are deprived of their main excuse not to go to the negotiating table with Palestine. It could be that the new leader may be able to make real inroads to Israeli policy, and as well as the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, they will withdraw from the West Bank, and maybe even tear down that monstrous wall. Somebody should. Or perhaps it marks the beginning of descent into deeper conflict and a divided Palestinian state. It’s a scary time.

Today, here in London, is also a beautiful day. My cycle ride this morning was lovely. The sky is a gorgeous fragile blue, the sunshine is touching everything and making it more attractive than usual. Including the nice little piles of glass that litter the roadside, one of which was responsible for my puncture on Monday. They glint prettily in the sun, and make me wonder just how many car thefts occur in Bermondsey every day? It must be a hell of a lot to make all that mess, I can tell you.

I almost didn’t cycle in today; I have a hangover. I went out for a drink with a friend I haven’t seen for ages. It was meant to be just a quick drink, but you know what those are like. My last memory is of sitting in the pub, with a HUGE glass of red wine, ranting about George W Bush, while my mind was thinking “Gosh, I didn’t know I was so eloquent”. Words were falling from my tongue in an unadulterated stream. Usually I would be clicking my fingers, going “er, um, what’s that word, you know the one… mmm, gah”, and thereby losing all the impact of the terribly profound and important statement I was making. Last night I was spewing out erudition in whole sentences. I was so proud. Can’t remember any of it now though. Maybe I was possessed by the spirit of a political analyst.

Things that have gone wrong already this morning:

*Big spot. On my chin. Just like the one that has set up home permanently on the end of my nose. Perhaps its teenage children have grown up and found a new place to live. Perhaps I should start blasting them with Clearasil, before they have a chance to procreate and populate my face with little zit colonies.

*Puncture. Half way to work. I had to leave the Beast in Bermondsey. I very much doubt it will still be there on my return, particularly as I now don’t want it to be stolen, after spending my month’s beer money on making it better.

*General poorness not helped by having to buy tube ticket. General sense of wellbeing not helped by having to travel on stinky tube, full of gormless city drones, all plugged into their i-pods and reading the Metro.

Ok, so it’s not all that bad really. The beast burst outside the only tube station on my route, which also happens to be next door to a bike shop. A spot is a spot, not the plague, and as the BF said when I was bemoaning said spots/hair in terrible growing out Albert-Einstein phase, “Don’t worry babe, you’ve got a guaranteed shag”. Quite.