London Overheard

[millionreasons]

I wonder if la Moz would have beaten Cyndi Scooch. Probably not. Maybe Tara Palmer Talmer should be our Eurosong entry. She can’t be more out of tune than Jemini.

 

 

**** 

 

Friday night amongst the anarchists at a little Indian restaurant in an unloved part of Euston and then an Irish boozer where regulars have evolved to be able to breathe nicotine rather than oxygen and which is the only place I’ve seen where Aftershock on the optics, but it’s not celebrating Plastic Paddy Day any earlier than necessary. The lesbian bar at the bottom of our road has free bacon and cabbage on 17^th March. Make of that what you will.

 

Saturday, I get the 73 to Marble Arch and then walk through Hyde Park, which is fulsome with blossom and daffodils, to the Notting Hill Arts Club where a myriad of bands are playing Irish Rebel Indie Pop Music. Against any man who gets rid of snakes, I eschew the Guinness for pomegranate and rum cocktails (happy hour prices). It is the second birthday of the weekend and afterwards we go with Paul, Marisa and others to a Japanese place behind Liberty’s for miso soup and suishi and tempura. We stop off at the cashpoint; Dave and Paul both get new £20 notes out of the machine: “Is it Adam Smith?” says the boy behind us, yes, we reply and hurray for capitalism. There’s a Saturday night west end mood in the air, the sort of un-threatening atmosphere that makes being out in a group nothing less than marvellous.

 

We go down into the cellar of The Phoenix for How Does it Feel, where most of RoTa have also decamped and where the guest DJs are spinning slow 60s music. The last time we visited HDIF was exactly one year ago; I remember walking up Holloway Road past a lot of twats-in-hats to a soul-less Nambucca.  We get in a few dances to the likes of Cool Jerk, Sweet Soul Music and Handsome Devil - which is the rudest paean to bisexuality ever written (in the 80s, at least): “A boy in the bush is worth two in the hand” must be a quadruple entendre. And later Jens Lekman, I’m from Barcelona, the whole dance floor singing along to these two, making me remember that feeling of inclusiveness you get from a good club (I think Ian should do a How Does It Feel to Do Indie Karaoke). We leave about 1 a.m. and get the N73 home, a bus much mellower at night than in the day.

London overheard:

 

-          Her house is sick, yeah? Really sick.

 

-     What do mean I owe you money? I bought the cider, the cigarettes and the chips to eat in the cemetery later!

 

-          One of our servers at work is called Angel.

-          Is the other one called Buffy?

-          No, Euston.

 

-          My brother’s getting married.

-     To a man or a woman?

 

-          How do you know if a pub is Irish?

-          Well it has an Irish landlord and maybe live Irish music.

-          Oh that’s too much. I mean, I just want to get pissed on St Patrick’s Day.

-          No, I mean they have Irish music maybe every weekend, not just today.

-          I like the Irish, they’re so funny. Like that girl I worked with who left after 3 months. She was so shy, she hardly said anything.

 

 

And from Heike vai SMS in Italy: I’m looking at David, the Florence version. He looks like he has athlete’s foot.