(Public) Houses of The Holy

[In this post I became unusually distressed by the slowness of which certain members of a group were drinking their pints. Now this is unlike me so I'd like to defend myself by pointing out that my friend I keep mention heading to meet up with was actually a girl I fancied the shit out of. -Curator]

Today’s show is brought to you by “CONFUSION” and “THE NUMBER 17″!

CONFUSION!

It’s the feeling that best describes seeing a man in town pulling along an old folk’s canvas shopping trolley with music blaring out of it… It’s the feeling that you see on the face of the gypsy Big Issue seller that stands by Tesco and only knows the words “Big Issue please” when you give her a Big Issue in a delicious display of pragmatic incompetence. It shouldn’t, howe’er, be the feeling that commonly defines ones St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. That feeling should be the feeling of being about to fall over and be sick on someone’s shoes.

CONFUSION!

It was the feeling that predominantly presided over our St. Patrick’s Day celebrations which, due to the fact that there were no Irishmen with us this year, can also be described as Chris’ Birthday pissup. As usual I’m willing to concede to the possibility that it was partly my fault. Staying up drinking beer and vodka till seven a.m. the morning of St. Patrick’s Day didn’t leave us in a good position to be entirely ready for the path which the Gods had chosen for us. Hell perhaps if we’d of all got more than a couple of hours sleep we could have managed but instead we had to snatch what little we could before making the trek into town to play the PS3 that HMV had set up in store. Either way later that day Adam and I were all geared up for more drinking when I received the text message, “My mum has just dished me up some noodles.”

CONFUSION!

I should explain… But I can’t. Essentially Chris was sacrificing getting a start on his St. Patrick’s day, nay his BIRTHDAY, celebrating for some noodles. We did the only thing that good friends can do in a situation like this: Start his birthday without him. An hour later and we decided that these must be the best noodles known to man or Chinaman (because as every American knows: Communists don’t have souls). Eventually he shows up and even brings a couple of budding drinkers along with him. It was time to get this night going!

DUMBFOUNDMENT!

The general definition of a “pub crawl” is the act of getting drunk by imbibing large quantities of ale while moving from one pub to another. The quantity of ale part is important. It’s why they don’t refer to it as a “pub stroll” or simply “going to a different pub”. In order to drink a multitude of alcoholic drinks when on a pub crawl you need to move quickly between each pub. To do that you need to drink quickly. The reason I explain this in such gut-wrenching detail is because there is obviously some CONFUSION. There sure was the night of our pub crawl when Chris chose to bring along somebody who could not for the life of him drink quickly. Even after a slew of subtle nudges on my part ranging from “I don’t think there’s much point getting another pint here, we should be moving on soon,” to “OH MY FUCKING GOD STEVEN YOU LITERALLY COULD NOT DRINK THAT FUCKING PINT ANY SLOWER IF YOU WERE TAKING IT THROUGH THE EAR!” we still found our pace to be full of woe. Eventually, through sheer brute British persistence, we managed to make it to the Oyster Bar. Only to be told by two cunts that they were too busy to let us in.

BEWILDERMENT!

And fucking anger I might add. This was the place Adam and I had waited for all night… The place we kept saying “Oh it’s OK we’ll get drunk at the Oyster Bar. They’ll ring for last orders and we’ll buy three pints each.” In order to stop my self from prizing a paving slab from the ground and going to work on Steven’s skull I tried to appeal to the bouncer’s sense of reason… A sense of reason, it transpired, they didn’t possess. I pointed out that four people were just leaving and that was handily just how many of us there were (there were actually five of us but I was relying on the fact that a bouncer generally needs one of those click counters just to count simple numbers) but they countered by saying it was late anyway. Adam tried pointing out that we were quick drinkers but they just gave him a “look”… Frankly they were right to, because one of us clearly wasn’t a quick drinker. We moved to another pub.

PUZZLEMENT!

Throughout the night I’d been communicating with another group to try and organise where we were all going to meet up. It was a toss up between “Fift Ave” as Chris would call it or Rock World. I was quite proud of Rock World being in contention because it was only really me and Paul that could claim to like the music, and no-one really gave a fuck what Paul thought… None of us having met him before. Except Steven of course, Paul being his brother, but people cared even less about what he thought. The point is though, that I was communicating with what had been described multiple times as a ‘group’. So I wasn’t expecting a call that went along the lines of “Phil, all my friends have abandoned me, where are you?”

BEFUDDLEMENT!

Adam hadn’t finished his pint! We were ready, nay eager, to move onto the club and meet up with the admittedly diminished second party but Adam was only halfway done. I mustered all my motivational skill and shouted “FOR SHIT’S SAKE ADAM WILL YOU HURRY THE FUCK UP!” only to hear, “Hey! That’s one of your friends! Don’t be mean.” Oh I’m sorry… Is that the sound of somebody poking their unwelcome nose into other people’s business? It was you know… They didn’t seem happy. They seemed even unhappier when I burst into laughter halfway through my ‘heartfelt’ apology to Adam… Luckily Steven came good, for the first time all night, and whispered in her ear… She seemed taken aback for a second and then says “Sorry love I’m engaged”… She then leaves… Quickly… Later when we asked Steven what he’d said he couldn’t remember.

STUPEFACTION!

As we finally get to Rock World only to be asked by the bouncers if we did, indeed, know we were at a rock club. I indicated that we did… Trying my hardest to avoid making reference to the blatant sign above his head that stated this to anyone within the same county. “So why did you come dressed as Townies?” He asked. Now many city folk don’t understand townies… They have scallys. I come from a small town… I know what townies are… I knew at that moment none of us were dressed like one… Even Steven in his stupid shirt. Despite having gone completely white with rage I managed to keep my voice calm while explaining, politely, he was talking out of his arse and that if he didn’t mind he could get over the fact that his father refused his sexual advances for a second and just let us in… Apparently my indignation worked, because he did.

FURORE!

As Chris and Adam tried to find “Room 3″ the one room that I promised them would play music they liked.

PANDEMONIUM!

As my friend revealed that she was in a different rock club and I had to try and persuade her to come to the one we’d spent over £5 to enter… With no battery left on my phone.

PERPLEXITY!

At the contents of the strange drink that looked like the mouthwash which they give you after major dental surgery.

VEXATION!

When the night was over and we realised Adam was gone. Now I’d been travelling around the different rooms, only stopping off every now and again to check back on Adam and Chris and, to a lesser extent, Steven. They had all stayed put at the room that did house the music they liked though. And it wasn’t a very big room. Still they’d managed to loose Adam… Who is ginger… And not exactly inconspicuous. Did I mention I had no phone battery? Well turns out between no credit and no battery we had no way of getting in contact with him. So the night ends and me and Chris go back to my flat to further investigate. I plug my phone into the wall and call him. “Don’t fucking ask me what happened… I’m in a taxi. Will be back at your place in 10 minutes.”

You guessed it… CONFUSION!

Here’s Adam’s story:

Adam went to the toilet and on his exit bumped into some girl. Being the polite and upstanding member of society that he is, he apologises to her. She replies with “I’m really horny”. Being the degenerate sexual deviant he is he decides to leave with her without telling anyone. Adam then finds himself all the way in Moston, only to be told “Oh my boyfriend will be back soon, he’ll not be too happy to see you about”. Adam thinks NO FUCKING KIDDING and attempts to make his way back to Salford! His £17 taxi fare would turn out to be the most expensive unnecessary charge of the night, but not of the weekend. But that story was less one of CONFUSION and more one of comedy… [I have no idea what this story might have been. This turned out to be the last thing ever to be posted on Planet of Bastards. Think of it as an end of season cliff hanger to a series that never got re-commissioned. -Curator]

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Clarity: Phil… Yeah, right.

~ by Octaeder on March 20, 2007.