Extortion!

Out of the pungent vapours of beer, sweat, and god knows what else, down the stairs, down the ragged red strip of fabric, through the entrance (Why are we going through the fire escape? This must be some kind of administrative error.) and into, really, nothing in particular. The venue looked not dissimilar to some hideous old aircraft hangar that had sagged in on itself, crippled by its own self loathing, and there wasn’t a vibrant statuette or proud portrait frame in sight. (Call that a red carpet? Someone asks, a rhetorical question, we presumed. It looks like it’s had something amputated. The poor fool. He was probably right)

‘It looks like a fucking bingo hall,’ someone moaned and, according to a partially torn poster hanging uncomfortably above the urinal, it certainly was. It would seem that the architectural dress code, if such a thing truly exists, had strictly prohibited style, and it was perhaps for this reason that an attempt to merrily carry open bottles of wine inside the hangar/hall/hole was met with an orgy of frowning and tutting at the door, and someone faintly implying that I was being an inconsiderate asshole.

‘What do you mean, he can’t come?’ Some poor drunkard moaned, clutching her wine bottle tightly against two sagging burst balloons, ‘you mean this isn’t a suitable companion?’ Not unless style or class was on the agenda, but it seemed that the venue and the latter were no longer on speaking terms.

Matters improved considerably at the bar – reasonably over the top, treat-yourself-luv-it’s-the-fucking-ball price labels, but self conscious and guilty about it – however there was once again a sudden and unpleasant surge downwards as we approached the table. Everyone is talking about cummerbunds. I am not wearing a cummerbund – in fact, I don’t even seem to be wearing socks.

Eventually, sustenance arrives, born lethargically on the huddled backs of fierce, angry women who bark strangely exotic words at each other, referencing, presumably, the food, but in between their brain and their mouths some terrible transformation takes place, and what spews out orally is nothing more than garbled ejaculations. ‘Broo-lay! Krem-fresh! Do-fin-wars!’

‘Right.’ A particularly terrifying individual is stood directly behind my chair, glowering down at the puny post-it card bearing my name and some odd initials. ‘I wan’ a Gammon and I wan’ a Chikkin,’ she snarls at the hapless young boy, tentatively bearing a bent tray loaded hideously with the rickety plates of the meal, costing in excess of twenty pounds.

‘This isn’t Gammon, damnit,’ my drunken companion seethes, eyes fixed down on the sinewy strips of meat, mercifully all but submerged in gravy. ‘This is ham – this is just ham!’ Someone informs him that, really, the two meats are essentially exactly the same, but the attempt at consolation was promptly torn down and devoured hungrily, the hapless agent branded as ignorant and uncultured. Unlearnèd in the manners of food. Quite.

My attention drifts away from the small lump of chocolate on my plate which followed the Gammon – which didn’t taste too bad, even if it wasn’t true gammon – and over to the flashing lights and bold white panels of the photography stand across the hall. There seemed to be some minor dispute taking place.

‘What do you mean you can’t take a picture of all five of us?’ A bold young man was retorting incredulously, as his friends looked on in horror and restrained admiration for this defiance of the infallible photographer, ‘there’s more than enough room – we need to do a group photo.’

‘Group photos come later,’ he said. They didn’t.

‘Do not question my authority as a supreme fountain of aesthetic knowledge.’ They didn’t.

The masses then seeped into the centre of the hall, a dance floor of sorts, and so began the final desperate spasms of egotism. There might have been a band playing.

This strange throng of animals had moved as one for six years. But as the last synthetic fibres began to peel away, no one took much notice.

Rags Of Filth

‘’Ngh...yeah...oh yeah, that’s what I like...that’s how I like it, so cold and hard, so rough and rugged, that’s what I’m into lads, that’s what – oh hello, I didn’t see you there. Oh, you know exactly who I am. Remember me, the acid-tongued columnist from the Daily Mail? You're not a reader? Oh dear, you must be some snivelling fool from the under classes, or even worse, a Guardian reader. Oh, heavens forfend! I’m sorry you caught me like this; I was just shooting my load off over this circa 1940s helmet, British forces, of course. Best in the world rah, didn’t you know. What’s this? Oh, just a few odds and ends from the war – ah, the second world war, what a heavenly thing to have been whirled up in, don’t you just love to reminisce about it? I’ve got a few old guns and whatnot lying about here too, I just adore shooting my load off to it all. It’s the roughness, the derring-do and the sheer nostalgic quality to it all – yes, we Mail journalists do have a true fetish for anything hearkening back from that lovely period. Golden age, didn’t you know. Now do turn around a second, while I finish off.''

‘‘Pass me those tissues – lovely. Thanks. You know, it’s funny that you should have mentioned the second world war because I have a profound adoration for everything anti-Nazi, especially planes, lovely things, planes, and it just really makes me stir...down there. People claim I’ve got a nasty habit for trying to link everything back to the war, but they’re a bunch of ignorant young people. Good God, I can’t stand young people at all – so bloody arrogant, so bloody alternative. Plagues of the nation, truly plagues of the nation, we ought to exterminate the brutes! Where were we? Ah, yes, the extermination of those Jew-killing German bastards. Yes. Well, you see, I wasn’t the only one seeing clear links between the England match against Germany and the war – in fact, everyone at the Mail does, did I mention we all just absolutely love the war and everything vaguely resonant of it?’’

‘’What?! Of course it was appropriate to compare the efforts of the brave, patriotic and heroic British, oh the British, oh the Britishers, Oh God save our gracious....Ahem! Yes, it was certainly right to compare...their...efforts, I like to call them ‘the few’, don’t you know – CAPITALIZE THAT WHEN YOU PUT IT IN WRITING YOU SWINE, AND SHOW SOME BLOODY RESPECT, YOU YOUNG NAIVE PIECE OF TRASH – and the English team, referencing that rather ghastly match. And I’ll tell you why – it’s my duty, as a noble and patriotic citizen, a columnist to boot, to make sure that no one who ever reads our paper – those who don’t read us aren’t worth the efforts, they’ve all been brainwashed by the liberal media – can ever forget how profound the difference is between German people and BRTISH PEOPLE and, perhaps more importantly, are never able to cast the cast-iron stereotype of Germans out of their minds. Post-war relations? A fig’s end!’’

‘’Was that a knock from outside? Open the cell door, will you? No doubt my editor, he’s in rather a foul mood today, after England lost the football to Germany and all – what’s that, master? Yes master. Young people urinating on memorials in Manchester, master? Awful, master, awful, awful, awful. Repugnant. Of course I’ll sort them out, master. I’ll find the little runt. I’ll bite his cock off. Yes, master. We do, master. No, nothing worse than a following generation of new world values or, perish the thought....liberal ideas, master. That truly would be a hideous world to live in – see you tomorrow, master. Are you still here? Good heavens, if only they hadn’t scrapped national service, little bastards such as your ilk wouldn’t be poisoning the streets – off with you! And make sure you take your bloody hat off when you walk past the English flag, you self-interested, misinformed, blinkered, ignorant bastard!’’

I Support Freedom Of Speech...Lol, jks I'm Nicholas Sarkozy

''Fascist....moi?''

It’s not every day that a pesky little chunk of political discourse called freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, for that matter, gets, to put it bluntly, defecated upon from above, but of course that’s because most countries in Europe aren’t unfortunate enough to have an image- conscious, lecherous demon of the Cabinet like Nicholas Sarkozy.

Heads rolled this morning as the admittedly brutal and acid-tongued political humouriste Stéphane Guillon was fired, no, enthusiastically thrown out on his ass, from Radio France due to his comments on the show regarding (you guessed it) Sarkozy being perceived by certain sensitive members of the public, in effect, conservatives, as ‘nasty.’ It must be said that the French word ‘méchant’ does no justice to our sorry Anglophone equivalent, but I suppose ‘sanctimonious cunt’ makes a vaguely suitable substitute for it.


Understandably, the left wing are furious, as although Guillon claimed to have attacked both conservatives and liberals in equal measure, Sarkozy certainly seems to have recently become his favourite toy. Foaming at the mouth, drunk on his own colossal political power (I’m talking about Guillon, actually) he can’t help but drool over the microphone as he spews out onto the radio waves some of the most scathing and destructive political insults known to man and beast. Even the word weasel came up a few times, perhaps in a subtle transatlantic nod to everybody’s favourite acid head, mescaline chomping Hunter S. Thompson. He’s so awesome it would be a total crime not to throw up a large picture of him, and hell, he would more than approve of Guillion’s anti-Sarko craziness.

But mindless drizzle aside, there is an alarming implication at the centre of the media furore – it would seem that Sarkozy, urging to lick his wounds and massage his bruised ego (heavens knows he’s taken a beating in the last six hours, let alone six months) Sarkozy has simply decided to make those that criticize him disappear. Thanks to the darlings at Le Grand Journal, Guillon got a little bit of final exposure on his way out, but for all we know, he could be breaking rocks in some Cuban jail or something, right now. Goddamn Conservatives.