Drinking

New York or New Year

by Enormous on January 1, 2008

‘But –’

I tried reasoning with him; it was having little effect.

‘But I just thought that this New Years Eve was gonna be amazing. You know: dancing girls and everything.’

‘Look, Nelson,’ I told him, ‘this is just a boring little Derbyshire village. We simply aren’t going to find what we’re looking for here – spiritually, aesthetically or intellectually – especially tonight. We don’t belong here, old chum. Let’s count our blessings: we have recorded so much good stuff over the last few days and tonight we have so far managed to escape a beating by the local ruffians. Why don’t we just go home to Audrey? We can open that bottle of Chablis that has been smiling at us from the fridge and listen to the songs we were working on earlier.’

‘But it’s only eleven o’clock and I’m not even drunk and I just thought . . .’ He trailed off, frowned at me and finished the dregs of his warm lager.

In my head, I said to myself: ‘My brother and I should be somewhere else, anywhere but here. I love him and want the best for him, for him to be as happy as he deserves to be on a night like this.’ But these deep and sensitive thoughts of mine were only as fleeting as most thoughts are and were quickly replaced in my mind by more pressing concerns.

‘Give me a tenner and I’ll go to the bar,’ I told him. ‘Same again?’

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Trimmings

by Enormous on December 21, 2007

The man on the cheese counter in the Co-op earlier this morning was for some inexplicable reason dressed as a Viking.

‘Didn’t they have any Santa outfits left?’ I asked him while ordering my Christmas Stilton and Camembert.

‘I’m a Viking,’ he hissed, ‘and I can’t wait to get out of this frightful outfit, darling’ – I think he leaned a little towards the lavender as my Aunty Gladys used to say – ‘it’s playing havoc with my hair.’

I thought about having a seasonal joke with him but I wasn’t sure he would appreciate it: his eyes gave away nothing as he went about his cheesy business. I got the distinct impression he wasn’t in the mood for my irreverent and restless festive questioning so I paid for my smelly provisions and left.

I plan to cook some ripe oyster mushrooms in a Stilton and sherry sauce for Nelson when he arrives from London this evening. After our meal, we shall no doubt be patronising the local beer cellars, our recording duties deferred until tomorrow.

It is at this point that I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I plan to not post very many words over the festive period due to heavy recording commitments and Nelson’s insistence on poisoning me with alcohol. I might manage a drunken paragraph or two but if not, calm your crazy hearts: I shall return in a few days.

Happy Holidays – I sincerely hope you are having a wonderful life in your very own Bedford Falls.

Cheers! Napoleon. X

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Whisky Echo

by Enormous on December 19, 2007

The bottle of whisky that Scottish Brian gave me a few weeks ago was polished off last night. Surprisingly, I do not have a hangover at all. I do, however, have a bad case of indigestion – whisky always does that to me, especially Jack Daniels. As I was walking Audrey this morning, I was repeatedly burping oak-matured alcoholic fumes into the frosty early-morning air. To tell you the truth, I think I was still a little drunk from the evening before: the birds were swaying and the trees were singing and – unusual for me – I was more than happy to stand and chat with a few fellow dog-walkers.

The blended malt was all I had to offer Hamilton at 10pm last night when he surprised me by turning up at the house completely unexpectedly. He was carrying an old leather suitcase and was looking very dishevelled and forlorn. ‘I’ve been evicted from my lodgings in Nottingham, dear boy. Could I crash with you?’ he asked softly.

‘Just for the night, Ham,’ I told him. ‘I simply don’t have the room.’ I felt awful.

He went on to tell me a sorry tale of unpaid rent and threats with violence and of nights spent wandering the city and sleeping rough.

‘What about your sisters?’ I asked him.

‘They want nothing to do with me,’ he snorted, full of rancour. ‘I’m such a disappointment to them.’ (Oh God, here we go, I thought.) ‘The bailiffs came and took all my belongings – I don’t have a bean.’

‘You must feel awful,’ I said.

‘It hit me like an atom bomb, old boy.’ Hamilton is always going on about atom bombs; it’s his favourite subject. At school, he was known as Atom Bomb Hamilton.

‘I don’t want to be a Scrooge, Ham,’ I told him, ‘but you’ll have to find somewhere else. Nelson will be here in a few days to work on his album and he’ll be on the sofa-bed in the studio.’

‘I’ll sleep in the bath,’ he growled.

‘Shower,’ I corrected him.

‘Don’t worry, Atom Bomb,’ I said eventually, ‘we’ll sort something out for you. We’ll ring that good-for-nothing, hook-nosed publicist of yours in the morning.’ I poured him another tumbler of Scotch and patted him on the shoulder.

I’m seriously worried, though – not for him: he’s been in this kind of situation before and always lands on his feet – but of what the cerebrally-challenged elements of the community will think. I fear there will be a public stoning when they find out that there is a songwriter, a glamorous transvestite and the bloke from the Mr Sheen advertisements living together in a terraced cottage in the middle of the village.

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How It Hangs

by Enormous on December 13, 2007

When you get to my age, thirty-five (Eh!? – Ed.), hangovers take on a malevolent character and can be very debilitating.

Nelson returned to London over a week ago and I am only now beginning to feel human again. I blame him – out of pure expediency, naturally – for being a bad influence on me but of course it is I who must take full responsibility for my actions.

I do feel slightly let down by my body: when I was younger, hangovers would only last for twenty-four hours at most. But what I find hardest to deal with now are not so much the physical after-effects of a binge but the mental ones. Apart from feeling overwhelmed by isolation and loneliness, I often disappear again into my favourite deep black well of depression.

One feels confident, elated and ebullient when under the influence – ignoring the fact that I go completely over the top these days and am always too inebriated to actually appreciate being drunk – but the trouble with alcohol is, like any drug, it makes you feel good but it isn’t the truth. It makes reality interfere with your delusions.

When the hangover strikes, my hard-earned mental equilibrium always deserts me. It makes me realise that my defences against my depression are not as cast-iron thick as I sometimes like to think they are.

At least there is one thing of which we can all be certain: when Santa is emptying his sack all over the world on Christmas Eve, Nelson and I will be talking complete nonsense about middle-eights and drinking ourselves steadily into a festive Bolivia.

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A Hit With The Ladies

by Enormous on November 29, 2007

Audrey and I witnessed a fight between two women outside the Villager pub last night. I cannot repeat here for reasons of decency any of the language being used while blows and insults were being exchanged, but I am sure it is not difficult to imagine the kinds of things that were being said. The word ‘bitch’ (we hear that a lot around here) and various vulgar and colourful terms for the act of sexual intercourse were being employed with liberal abandon.

I managed to glean the gist of their dispute as we drew near; I am fairly certain they were fighting over a man called Danny or Fanny – I did not ask them to clarify. Foolishly, I tried to intervene.

I began in the least patronising tone I could muster: ‘Come on, ladies; let’s try to calm down, shall we? I’m sure he’s not worth it.’

The taller of the two glanced momentarily at me before quickly turning away to question a denim-clad gentleman with prize-winning sideburns and a withered arm who was leaving the pub; ‘Where is he, Tony?’ she shrieked.

‘Inside, playing snooker,’ was the informed reply.

At that, she lunged forward and took a clumsy swing at my face. I wanted to try to reason with her and explain how it was nothing to do with me but there was no time. I managed to step nimbly backwards and, completely missing her target, she fell heavily to the floor. As a pathetic and comical encore, her false teeth flew from her mouth and clattered into the middle of the busy road in what appeared to be a spontaneous and dramatic bid for freedom. ‘Julie, your teeth!’ exclaimed her erstwhile combatant.

‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘Please accept my assistance.’ I tried to help her to her feet but she pushed me away in apparent disgust.

‘F**k off, poof,’ she slobbered through her gummy orifice. ‘You don’t impress me with your intelligence and your dignity.’

I gladly complied with her request, but I could not resist a quick glance over my shoulder before I turned the corner into Victoria Street. Both the women were sitting on the pavement sharing a cigarette with a taxi driver and howling with laughter – apparently the best of friends. I suppose that is typical of one’s affections when inebriated: you detest people you usually love and decide that complete strangers are your best friends in the whole world.

‘I can’t wait until we find somewhere else to live, Audrey,’ I told my little dog as we walked up the hill to the house.

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Electric Galaxy Continuum

by Enormous on November 26, 2007

I’m so excited. Nelson is due to arrive from London on Friday to continue work on his full electric album for Big Arena Records.

I am looking forward to recording his vocals again. I have been sweating away over a hot mixing desk in the studio hard at work on the new Enormous songs for the past few weeks and listening to Nelson’s dulcet tones for a few days will be a welcome break from hearing my own muezzin wail. He tells me he has some new songs, too, which I cannot wait to hear; he is a formidable song writer.

He will be here for five or six days. During his stay, we are all going out to a posh restaurant to celebrate my mother’s seventieth birthday and coupled with this, Nelson has threatened to escort me on a nightly basis to one or two of the cosy local hostelries and ply me with pints of Guinness and tumblers of Amaretto.

Thus it is I shall more than likely be feeling grotesque and ridiculous and decidedly over-hung for a few days. I cannot therefore promise with hand on heart that I shall be in any fit state to post a blog entry every morning. Or maybe I will. Perhaps I shall write complete nonsense every day as one tends to do when drunk at 11am.
(Plus ça change . . . Ed.)

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Night Moves

by Enormous on November 23, 2007

Brian, an old friend from years ago paid me a surprise visit last night. He made me go to the pub and get drunk. You can’t say no to Brian. He is a bluff and hearty Glaswegian and very strong and very persuasive.

‘I don’t really get drunk anymore, Brian. Apart from the physical crapulence, it leaves me poisoned by depression,’ I pleaded with him. ‘I no longer have any purchase in that world.’

‘Och, shut your cakehole, you pretentious old recluse,’ he told me. ‘You’re coming with me and you’re gonna get pissed and you’re gonna enjoy it.’ So you see: I had no choice.

It was a lovely evening and went by in a flash. We talked about old times and absent friends. We reminisced about the days we both worked as Bingo callers in Mansfield and how we were required to learn CPR, due to us having to attend regularly to old-aged pensioners who would suffer massive heart attacks whenever they came close to winning the daily jackpot. Every month, some old dear would get over-excited while waiting for one number and suddenly collapse in agony and die. How we used to laugh!

On returning to the house around midnight, we were surprised to see that the young couple who live opposite in number 84 were doing a midnight flit – moving out of their house under cover of the night. There was a huge van parked outside the little terraced house which was being filled very steadily and very quietly with their furniture and modest belongings. Being the helpful and gregarious soul that he is, Brian could not resist crossing the street to give them a hand. ‘Don’t, Brian,’ I told him. ‘You’re completely rat-arsed. It will only end in disaster.’

‘Ahgrr-ahhr och-aye the noo, ya big Sassenach,’ he hissed, flapping his arms in irritation.

I decided not to join him, but watching through the lounge window, I was immensely relieved to see the whole enterprise being conducted in a very efficient and capable manner. Brian had quickly taken control of the situation and his presence was clearly appreciated. My fears were allayed.

The affects of the alcohol in his system seemed to have disappeared – he had suddenly become quite lucid. He was busily organising everybody and ordering them around with potent enthusiasm and, at times, a certain amount of bald Scottish aggression. I heard him return to the house about 3am.

When I arose this morning, he was gone. There was a note on the kitchen table that said: ‘See you in another ten years!’ Next to the note was a big bottle of whisky with a garish tartan ribbon tied loosely around its neck.

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