I learned an important life lesson last night. Never ever ever make friends with the bartender. This is known as the parable of the aching head.
Now that I think about it (some details about the evening are a bit shaky), I didn't actually befriend the bartender. That grievous error was committed by a couple of friends of mine. We were all there for another friend’s 30th birthday party / leaving the UK party. As I approached the bar for the last time that evening, they were chatting to the bartender.
The man in question was a nice young Dutch lad who had come to the sprawling metropolis of London to learn to make cocktails. Sadly, his job mainly consisted of just pulling pint after pint. He dreamed of being asked to mix complicated cocktails but all anyone ordered in this particular pub were pints. He went on rapturously about one cocktail in particular, which he insisted he make for me.
It consisted of a bottle of very alcoholic Belgian trappist beer, mixed with port, grand marnier, and cognac. Some have told me the concoction sounds vile but those who have done so have not tasted this elixir. It is, in fact, delicious.
It is also very deadly. In fact, now that I think about it, perhaps my error was not in making friends with the bartender, but in somehow becoming his enemy. No matter. The upshot is that I was poisoned.
The next morning I awoke feeling not just like shit, but like dogshit. And not like a healthy solid canine turd on some bright green grass in a park somewhere, but like diuretic Dalston dogshit that has been scuffed into the pavement by so many busy uncaring feet that it is now just another stain on the pavement of an unfeeling city.
Oh my goodness, but I felt very unwell this morning.
I had left my bike at work the night before and so had to take the bus this morning. Standing at the bus stop, the prospect of riding in a swaying, lurching double-decker bus in London traffic was distinctly unappealing. I decided to walk for a bit and get some fresh air. I walked all the way to Hoxton before I felt strong enough to get on the bus.
I slumped in my seat on the bus, pressing my head against the glass. I hadn't shaved. I was pale and sweating. My coat reeked of cigarette smoke. I felt about as unattractive as I have felt I a very long time.
At the next stop a woman got on the bus who looked the complete anti-thesis of how I felt. She was gorgeous and well-groomed. Short flouncey posh skirt, high heels, perfect makeup, perfect hair. About 22, 23 years old. She looked like a model who had just fled a shampoo commercial without getting changed. She was completely out of place on the number 243 bus.
She sat down next to me and started talking to me. In my experience, this doesn’t happen on London buses. Crazy people might talk to you; drunks might talk to you – basically, people who look like I did. Well-groomed people keep to themselves or cower in fear.
“Is this bus going to Holborn?” she asked. She had an American accent.
It took about 20 seconds or so for this to register as a question directed at me. I slowly, carefully, lifted my head from the window. “Yes,” I said. Then I put my forehead back on the window.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
This time I just rolled my head so that I could look at her without actually losing contact with the nice cool glass. “Edmonton,” I said.
“I’m from Georgia,” she said. She was unrelentingly bright and cheerful. I couldn’t understand why she was talking to me. It should have been obvious I was some kind of derelict, probably a serial killer. Certainly not the kind of person a posh young Georgia Peach should be chatting up on a Friday morning.
“In the States,” she added. “But I was living in New York for a couple of years before I came here. I used to work as a gossip columnist.”
“Oh,” I said, temporarily stuck for anything else to say. “Um, I’m going to Las Vegas tomorrow.”
“The last time I was in Vegas was for Hugh Hefner’s 75th birthday party.” She leaned towards me and whispered, “it was exactly like you’d expect, except even more so.”
I just blinked and cleared my throat.
“I apologise in advance for this,” she said and pulled out her mobile phone. She then proceeded to make a series of phone calls to various friends and acquaintances. Towards the end of the last call, I heard her say, “I’m on my way to Bush House, but I have no idea where I am.”
I sighed. Obviously this was a test of my character from some higher power. I sat up properly and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing that you’re heading for Bush House. That’s where I’m headed. I can point you in the right direction if you’d like”.
“That would be great,” she said. “Thank you so much.” Then she asked me my name and told me more of her exploits as a gossip columnist in New York.
I asked if she was hoping to work as a gossip here.
“No. I mean, I’ve been to the Oscars, so I’ve done that and everything. It’s time to do something else.”
It was a surprising conversation with an unexpectedly pleasant companion and I have to admit it distracted me from my hangover. By the time we arrived at Bush House, I was almost feeling human again.