we don't drink sherry...we drink ga-a-asoline

My comrade 'Vivien' pays the rent by selling drinks in a noted high street alcohol emporium. A lazy afternoon can be spent crouched behind her counter, sampling the goods, listening to Leonard Cohen and snarling at the customers. The area is achingly bourgeois, and a steady stream of wine snobs with shallow pockets, cocky exchange students and carefully cultivated local eccentrics provide easy targets. One particular joy is watching our Viv interact with the youthful end of the market. Each shoddily forged carte d'identité, each poorly though out argument, each stroppy exchange is dealt with as a personal slight; her froideur is impressive. When the going is slow, one can look through the book in which the nanny state compels the employees of the off licence to detail the minutiae of everyday encounters with underage drinkers.

Viv and chums won't give up the goods if you happen to

• "look sheepish"
• give "too much chat; too confident".
• have acne, floppy hair, pink shirts, "dodgy dress sense", "preppy demeanor", a quiff, an abercrombie hoody
• are lanky, skinny, stocky, squat, or chubby
• perform "gallic shrugging" or "Latin arm waving and squawking"
• ask too many beer questions.
• "Irish or third world looking" identity cards

Some of the quotes I managed to copy down from the book of shame before being unceremoniously bundled from the shop and added to the 'tramp list':

• "Three posh students, requested vodka, WKD, cheap wine, all very predictable"
• "Very young arse-out boy wanted 'red vodka' to get his no doubt underage girlfriend drunk on."
• "Little pudgy boy, v. polite, gave the 'I only brought me card' talk, graciously buggered off to tell the mates across the street that it would be a dry night."
• "Sweet stocky brunette... I had to say no. But I did feel guilty."
• "Two Swiss lads had a long and persistant argument about their right to buy alcohol. All very wearsome and pointless. I told them buying gin at noon was not what they were in Oxford for."
• "Bulky lad, with that lost look that many youngsters tend to show."
• "Bunch of Danes asked for Barcardi Breezers. Should not be served on grounds of taste. Got really pissy when would not take credit card as ID. Whatevs."
• "Eurostudents. Being a total cunt, I even refused to sell them a bottle of coke"
• "Said we'd do him if he didn't get well out of town. Tosser."
• "Buck-toothed youngster. Refused service, in a huff, Marks & Spencers' problem now."

democracy/ennui

Have nothing left to say about the election; struck speechless by a fog of melancholic anticipation of the Tory hangover that tomorrow may very well bring. I'm absolutely sure that fear of being (further) overrun by right wing lunatics has nothing to do with a desire to take solace in stroppy Teutonic musicals. Some loosely linked video pap:

Blixa Bargeld sings Tomorrow Belongs to Me

Nick Cave sings Mack the Knife

Dudley Moore sings The Ballad of Gangster Joe (starts at around 1:30, although the preceding Britten/ Pears parody is pretty good too)

Auf wiedersehen, kids, and God help us all.

recycled from my old blogue: a slow bicycle club for backward bicyclists

I was contemplating the wreckage of my bicycle* today, and my general ineptitude at maintaining/ riding the sorry beast, when I was struck by the need for a bicycle gang to serve my personal take on bike kulcha. It is time for the downtrodden riders of crappy velocipedes to rise up and celebrate a laissez-faire, yet mildly irritable approach to their transports of delight. I give you the Whore’s Delay Bicycle club (DFL Cadre). We will embrace rust and reject speed. We will wobble constantly, block paths, and let our knees go to shit. We will get distracted attempting basic repairs, cut ourselves on the normally blunt derailleur, and forget the whole blasted chore while digging for tcp. Our idleness will only be broken at full moon, when we round up hipster bike nazis and garotte them with specially adapted trouser clips.

There should be initiations and secret handshakes and special tie pins.

The admission process would be as follows:

1. The Duel. The initiate must take up a mitt thown down by their sponsor, and then ride past them, catching them on the cheek with the glove. Both riders will then pause to exchange spiky badinage on the condition of their respective mounts, family members and choice of footwear.
2. The sixpack ride. The initiates will ride in a group to a local off licence and buy six beers each. One of them will suggest an interesting place to drink the beer. They will ride there, drink, and decide on the next stop and so on. It will soon become apparent that the beer is becoming rather shaken by being kept in a plastic bags slung over handlebars. The initiates will complain that wine would have been more appropriate, although potable wine does not come in six packs, thus negating the valuable point of whole exercise. Shirts will be soaked, and a degree of anxiety raised about catching cold, and people will sulk off home before the booze is finished.
3. The initiate will have a poorly informed and slightly hostile exchange with a teenage bicycle mechanic. Their bicycle will remain shit.

*my bicycle is admittedly now awesome, but the sentiment persists.

admirably slovenly