Guilt

Been a lot of drinking going on recently. Far too much most probably. If you happened to ask a doctor, or a psychiatrist or someone like that, they’d probably tell you that I have a problem, or that my friends have a problem. We probably all give each other problems to be honest, egging each other on in an unstoppable force of sheer booze, fun and sex. As the Rakes say on their cracking first album (to which I’ve been recently been re-acquainting myself), if work only knew what I got up to at the weekend they wouldn’t speak to me. It’s not just the weekend though, it’s pretty much every day. Or it has been for the last…well, two months. It’s crazy, really really crazy. Last night was the first night in I’ve had since 2006 I think. Or it certainly seems that way.

So yes Col, I’ve been slack in updating this thing. But that’s only because I’ve been doing so much that I haven’t found the time. This is taking up my lunch break at work at the moment, in between swigs of Relentless and bites of a cheese and onion sandwich (from the BP Garage across the road), with added salt and vinegar discos for extra crunch. Not that I’m saying writing this a chore, I just want you to know what I’m giving up here. Mediawatch on football365.com will have to wait. Got a new job at work; well, I say a new job, it’s basically just a whole lot more stuff to do on top of my old stuff. But you know, it passes the time in the day before I go home and start living again. I’m feeling increasingly nihilistic, with no real point to vent my frustrations. Although the band have two gigs lined up next month, both within a week of each other. I definitely get to vent some anger on stage, I just don’t have enough of them sometimes and I vent it in other ways, drinking tends to help. Helps a lot actually. Dilutes it for a bit, makes me forget about everything.

Had a great day on Sunday, went into London with the lads for Ally’s birthday. Ally and I met Chris in town about 9.30am. He was supposed to meet us at nine, but after he didn’t show I gave him a call and he was still in bed. He had fallen asleep the previous night in his restaurant, on the kitchen floor, and woken up about 5am, staggered home and collapsed on his bed. To his credit, he met us 20 minutes after waking up, still in the same clothes as the previous night, un-showered, unwashed and still very much drunk. We picked up a bottle of champagne from his restaurant, bought smoked salmon bagels and 4 cans of Stella (Chris’s request) and caught the 10.06 train to Paddington. Having nailed the champagne and bagels on the way up to London and after a quick walk around Chris’s old Met Police stomping ground, we headed for the Oxo Tower, ordered various cocktails (a Margarita for Chris, a Martini for Ally and a Mojito for me) and waited for Adam and Nathan to arrive. They turned up, ordered beers (pussies) and we enjoyed the view over the Thames towards St Paul’s Cathedral. The weather was amazing and we were outside on the balcony. It couldn’t have been more perfect actually, I really felt like I was living.

Afterwards we headed for St Pauls and had a look around it. We didn’t let Chris in though as he was being rowdy and causing trouble everywhere we went. Well, not causing trouble, but you know, attracting attention to himself. It was great, but probably not appropriate. I don’t know. He didn’t want to come in anyway. He was checking out Yo! Sushi. We got a taxi to the Sports Bar on Haymarket to watch the Carling Cup Final. I became an honourary Yid for the day, and I wasn’t disappointed. We celebrated Spurs’ cup win with a bottle of champagne in Tiger Tiger. Then things got silly (sillier?). We went to the Cheers bar, Planet Hollywood, some other places. To be honest I can’t really remember this part of the day. Or much else really. Let’s just say it was all good. Plus my hand is hurting and I need to get back to work.