Ladies and gentlemen, I must recount to you the curious events that took place between the hours of nine pm and five am on Friday. As I have previously recounted, I had planned to meet with my favourite traveling companion, Sir Lumpy Pete esq.
I arranged to meet him at my favourite gentlemen's establishment, "The Porcupine", managed and owned by Lord Derby - an errant man with an eye for the ladies... and rather more, I wager! With my moustache firmly waxed, I glanced around me then gave the correct combination of knocks to the door on ----- Street, thus affording my entry.
I was awarded a knowing squint from the cloakroom attendent, who pointed me bar-wards with his porcelain beak.
It was, as always, a place of violent extremes. It is the noise that hits you first: a raucous din of feverish chattering beasts struggling to be heard over strange repetitive music, perhaps the work of some Krautrock band.
The visual side of the whole affair is equally hard to digest. The room, barely thirty feet square is covered on all surfaces with a thick woolen rug. It hangs down in vast rouge clumps from the ceiling, swirling in obscene masses around our feet and cascading over Regency tables and sideboards in manner that suggests the imbibement of psychedelic drugs.
One can only presume that Lord Derby picked up such peculiar ideas about interior decoration from his travels in the Orient.
"The Porcupine"'s members take many forms, but all have one thing in common - they have, as I have heard said, something of the night about them. Members of Parliament go there to spend their publicly-funded expenses on absinthe and large-breasted girls; chinese slave importers go to cut deals; slight-bodied uranians go to meet like-minded gentlemen within the denser outcrops of rug.
I have seen villains of all hues threaten each other with dismemberment, only minutes later to be cheering each other's health over a flagon of horse-cider.
Some people may question why a gentleman such as I would frequent such a place. Well, it beats Soho House.
I spotted the speckled features of Lumpy ensconsed in a corner, staring with avid intent at a loose-breasted bar girl, and broke his spell with a clap to the forehead. The startled oaf jumped skyward and spilled gin fizz down his plus fours. I scoffed and forced a packet of "wizard powder" into his claw, at which his eyes lit up.
After we had indulged, Lumpy explained to me his current situation.
"Augustus, old friend," he began in his familiar gruff tone. "What a year... my wife left me after catching me with the maid. I gambled away my house in a poker game in the Ukraine, and had to move in with my sister in her house in Stepney. But she kicked me out after I messed the bed one night."
"Well, I fell in with a rough lot after that, and have been running the streets of Bromley-by-Bow, fighting for scraps handed out by nurses and such. Oh, what a year indeed!" As he spoke, he dipped into his pocket and drew a few live worms to his mouth - a distasteful habit that he succumbed to while down in that pit.
"Lumpy, Lumpy," I muttered. "Think nothing of it - you shall move in with me at once! When you are my housemate, we shall plan together our next great journey into the unknown lands. Once more, Lumpy and Augustus shall sally forth!"
And with that my pal wept tears of gratitude, clutching his pustulous face so close to my neck that I had to demand he desist forthwith.
From there the evening descended into the usual bad craziness. We finished the "Wizard" and were taught some fascinating traditional dances by a pair of Greek boys. At one point there was a small explosion in the bar and the MPs ran around screaming. However, this settled down, and after playing bridge for an hour while drinking some form of vinegar, the log fire was lit and the wrestling began.
Got home at five, a tad scorched. Hope I'm not going have any trouble from my new house guest - he bites like a wounded wolverine.
Tuesday 12 May 2009
Tuesday 5 May 2009
A reminiscence of Lumpy Pete
Have sent a telegram to the Hampstead residence of Mr. Lumpy Pete esq., inviting him to dine with me at The Porcupine on Thursday night. I wish to discuss with him my plans for further travels in the unknown lands. Lumpy was my right hand man on my explorations through the upper lowlands in 18--, and a truly excellent accomplice he was, to boot.
There is one incident from that fateful journey of which I often think. Lumpy and I were passing into East Excelspreadsheet along the dusty Hggr Road, with two young Austrian men we had met in a bar the previous night. All of a sudden we were ambushed by a group of natives. The group – a dozen of them in all - clamoured about us, invading our personal space in a wholly inconsiderate manner.
Initially unconcerned, I then noticed the savages were wearing the acid-washed jeans and banana clips peculiar to the Detnuii Tribe, and my blood ran cold. The Detnuii are known for acts of such outrageous depravity that would chill the heart of even the most seasoned workhouse inspector.
We were trussed up and forced to accompany them through the jungle to their camp. As the sun went down on Excelspreadsheet, the four of us were pushed down into a pit along a rickety bamboo walkway. In trepidation, we descended into the darkness until fully twenty feet submerged we hit the bottom, which boiled with wriggling creatures and creeping beasts of all sizes and shapes. The walkway was removed and this pit was to become our home for the next month.
Every day at sunrise, one of our captors would spray us with rabbit droppings then shout insults until another took over at lunchtime. Thankfully, this one was a little milder in tone, but could still have a most unreasonable turn of phrase. We would spend all day under the scorching sun, scrabbling away in the dirt for the bugs that roamed therein, which we would gobble up immediately.
To stop fights breaking out, we developed an arrangement whereby I would eat only beetles, while Lumpy stuck exclusively to worms. Furthermore, the two Austrian boys would eat solely spiders and ants respectively. After a while we began a system of bartering. I found myself the proprietor of a rather successful smallholding that I dare say could have gone on to greater things - were it not submerged in a pit and sprayed with rabbit effluent twice a day.
By the fourth week, things were turning desperate. From the bitchy looks they were shooting at us from their corner of the pit, we suspected the boys were cottoning on to the fact that they had gotten the raw end of the deal with spiders and ants. It was us or them, and on the thirtieth night, we charged over and fought them to the death using daggers we had fashioned from beetles squashed together then hardened in the sun.
As we prepared ourselves for a meal of Austrian boys, spiders and ants, a sound came from above us. We looked up to see the tribespeople jumping up and down and screaming, reacting in a raucous manner to the murders we had carried out. The walkway was lowered and our weakened bodies were carried aloft. We were immediately set free.
What can I say of the meaning to this adventure? Did the Detnuii put us to a test of stamina, to see who deserved freedom the most? All I can do is repeat the words of the man I took to be their leader, as we were set free:
“That might be the way you behave at your house, but when you come to ours for dinner, we expect a little decorum.”
There is one incident from that fateful journey of which I often think. Lumpy and I were passing into East Excelspreadsheet along the dusty Hggr Road, with two young Austrian men we had met in a bar the previous night. All of a sudden we were ambushed by a group of natives. The group – a dozen of them in all - clamoured about us, invading our personal space in a wholly inconsiderate manner.
Initially unconcerned, I then noticed the savages were wearing the acid-washed jeans and banana clips peculiar to the Detnuii Tribe, and my blood ran cold. The Detnuii are known for acts of such outrageous depravity that would chill the heart of even the most seasoned workhouse inspector.
We were trussed up and forced to accompany them through the jungle to their camp. As the sun went down on Excelspreadsheet, the four of us were pushed down into a pit along a rickety bamboo walkway. In trepidation, we descended into the darkness until fully twenty feet submerged we hit the bottom, which boiled with wriggling creatures and creeping beasts of all sizes and shapes. The walkway was removed and this pit was to become our home for the next month.
Every day at sunrise, one of our captors would spray us with rabbit droppings then shout insults until another took over at lunchtime. Thankfully, this one was a little milder in tone, but could still have a most unreasonable turn of phrase. We would spend all day under the scorching sun, scrabbling away in the dirt for the bugs that roamed therein, which we would gobble up immediately.
To stop fights breaking out, we developed an arrangement whereby I would eat only beetles, while Lumpy stuck exclusively to worms. Furthermore, the two Austrian boys would eat solely spiders and ants respectively. After a while we began a system of bartering. I found myself the proprietor of a rather successful smallholding that I dare say could have gone on to greater things - were it not submerged in a pit and sprayed with rabbit effluent twice a day.
By the fourth week, things were turning desperate. From the bitchy looks they were shooting at us from their corner of the pit, we suspected the boys were cottoning on to the fact that they had gotten the raw end of the deal with spiders and ants. It was us or them, and on the thirtieth night, we charged over and fought them to the death using daggers we had fashioned from beetles squashed together then hardened in the sun.
As we prepared ourselves for a meal of Austrian boys, spiders and ants, a sound came from above us. We looked up to see the tribespeople jumping up and down and screaming, reacting in a raucous manner to the murders we had carried out. The walkway was lowered and our weakened bodies were carried aloft. We were immediately set free.
What can I say of the meaning to this adventure? Did the Detnuii put us to a test of stamina, to see who deserved freedom the most? All I can do is repeat the words of the man I took to be their leader, as we were set free:
“That might be the way you behave at your house, but when you come to ours for dinner, we expect a little decorum.”
Saturday 2 May 2009
A consideration of domestic crime
I read in The Times today that felonies by domestic servants have gone up. I cannot suspect what is causing this, but my top hat balances carefully upon a silver tea tray.... should I recall the time of elves, when men walked on all fours? these sheets knot around me, I smell the vinegar close at hand, it's nearing my torso - let me free! I will walk again, but these blacklegs, they poison me!
Darkness descends, I take a passageway under the earth's crust and head South beneath the Thames... a lark alights, I consider the reaper. The light! And fishwives from Billingsgate are hawking their wares - then buboes, syphilitic chancres poison my body and I am lost...
I hear that some respectable-looking young women, in the service of middle-class and fashionable families, are connected with burglars, and have been recommended to their places through their influence, or that of their acquaintances. Shocking, really.
Darkness descends, I take a passageway under the earth's crust and head South beneath the Thames... a lark alights, I consider the reaper. The light! And fishwives from Billingsgate are hawking their wares - then buboes, syphilitic chancres poison my body and I am lost...
I hear that some respectable-looking young women, in the service of middle-class and fashionable families, are connected with burglars, and have been recommended to their places through their influence, or that of their acquaintances. Shocking, really.
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