Bluesphinx

  It’s Friday evening, five thirty five, and a chill wind blows around the gaudily shop-illuminated, Christmas light festooned streets. Its frigid fingers whisking the discarded chip cartons, paper bags and plastic packaging, and the micro skirts of the mincing, tottering high heeled, troupes of over eager, and over inebriate young ladies who flirt, mobile ‘phones in hand, their red elf hats tinkle-belling as they drape themselves over the willing shoulders of the predatory wide boys. Santa’s little helpers have certainly grown up! This happy, festive flotsam drifts upon the gelid airstream that prevails from the statue of Nott at the far end of the High Street, as he looks sternly down, his cold bronze eye disapprovingly monitors the bibulous comings and goings of the partying townsfolk, as they teeter and laugh, and snog and shout and sing and brawl, swig from the can, and be sick on the pavement.

  Consider the little smoking freemasonry gathered outside under the scant solace of the green canvass awning set up outside each shebeen exclusively for the use of the puffing lepers, who have gathered there ever since the anti-smoking legislation set out to make criminal those who formerly enjoyed the simple pleasure of a chat and a cigarette over a pint of warm beer in a balmy bar. Cold comfort indeed as they now huddle together, a forced fellowship against the whipping wind.

  See the steam rise from the shop doorway that like the others closed early for Christmas, as a little yellow liquid trickles and meanders its way to the gutter. The constable on duty has seen it though, and is at this very moment stepping sharply across the street to finger the collar of the feckless imbiber, drunk in charge of his hose. That could earn him a night in the cells!

  The lesser authority of the ape like door staff is no way diminished by this Festive Season. Black suited and dickie-bowed, face-miked to their walkie-talkies, they prepare themselves, brawny and stone-faced for a busy and punctilious night’s work refusing admission into these most salubrious premises anyone who optimistically presents themselves either tie-less, or wearing denim, on the grounds that their attire fails to cut the sartorial mustard. 

  But none of these things can dampen the feeling of gay abandon on this cheery last-Friday-before-Christmas-booze-up. Workers who whilst slaving to earn a weekly crust have looked forward to this event for the last two weeks have since dinner time, poured out of their offices and shops, and factories. And the ones who still remain within those dark satanic mills witness a transformation as their bosses momentarily step down from their pedestals, bearing, like little Lord Bountiful, boxes of chocolates, cheap supermarket red plonk, bags of dry roast peanuts, platters of Iceland partyfood (little morsels of processed shit marinated in shit), and crackers and streamers, and party poppers to make sure that everyone fully lets their hair down, and enjoys the celebration. They have deigned to mix with the drones, but necessarily retaining enough conceited loftiness to allow a thin veneer of authority should anyone think that just because it’s Christmas they can get away with murder!

  Innumerable bums have been photocopied. 

  Look, as the leering legions of office lotharios crank up their act a notch or two on this night, dancing like Grandad on speed as they fantasise about pretty Miss Joneses, who obviously, collectively, and secretly lust after them-”she just doesn’t know it yet. And at any rate if she doesn’t, she must be a dyke!” And the pretty, tipsy Miss Joneses who do succumb to the predatory vulturine philanderers will, whilst throwing all caution to the wind, end up in the little private womb of the stationery cupboard for some illicitly snatched slap and tickle. Oh! The flawed wisdom of the office romance! 

  When the drink is fully consumed, and the party blowers are all blown, poppers all popped, the cracked crackers have delivered their gimcrack gifts already broken or unloved, their garish paper crowns adorning uninhibited little heads, and their jokes groaned at, now forgotten and littering the floor, someone has the bright idea, ”Let’s all get out and join the real party outside!….Weatherspoons!!!” “YEAH!!”, goes up the cheer, and everybody begins trooping outside to mix with the other human jetsam that is swaying and schmoozing out in the street this sharp, cold December night. Everybody that is except pretty Miss Jones and her excited, but flaccid paramour-they’ll be joining the others later-maybe!

  Outside a watch of off-duty firemen, with their wives, girlfriends, and partners in tow, are just entering the ‘Star of Bengal’ to fill up on enough Ghandi’s revenge to make a rhinoceros wince. Their Christmas ’Do’, like a train on a track, has followed the same predictable course. Providing that they weren’t called out to any Christmas shouts, work finished at six o’clock sharp. Then after a quick shower, they had all raced upstairs to join the gathered wives, girlfriends, and partners at the station bar for a few cheap subsidised jars. Given the choice, some would have preferred to stay ensconced there all evening, after all, the bar is subsidised, and the drink is mighty affordable.  But someone always gets that hungry feeling, and after just one or two glasses of bargain booze the call goes up for food-always a curry. And so a taxis are summoned, their drivers happy to take the revellers to the local ’Indian’, at twice the normal fare of course-well, it is Christmas!

  And once there, when every diner has taken to his or her seat, and perused the menu, the conversation such as it is, orbits around the usual topics-work, football, work, sex, work, cars, and of course, work. One of them has ceased such tittle-tattle because he is on a mission to fill up, and no amount of idle chit-chat is going to divert him from his objective.

  When enough food has been shovelled down their necks, a raucous mood fills the air, and before anyone has barely had the chance to belch appreciation for such a wholesome repast, it’s time to be on the move once again and another couple of taxis are called, and this time the destination is the club-God save them!

  They pour confidently out of the cars, and fall into a laughing line outside the entrance of the club. Hot, sweaty, and boisterously, the drunken, garrulous other clubbers emerge, some to go home, some to be sick, and some to quarrel and scrap, and some, under the cold glass-eyed stare of the CCTV to pee in shop doorways. They huddle together, shivering, and now as the inevitable Winter drizzle is setting in, our damp pack of revellers wait, like the herd of nice fat bovine wallets that they are until the ubiquitous doormen get the go-ahead from the management that there is enough room inside to safely accommodate them. 

  Finally, after a little more than ten minutes their wallets are lightened to the tune of eight Christmas pounds, as they are herded inside. The music is a deafening thumping rhythm that would make Motzart whirl dervishly in his grave-”Didn’t I teech zem anyzing!?” Its hot, dimly lit interior is packed to bursting, so much so that when a little expedition is mounted to hunt down the necessary drinks at the bar, they are conveyed there as if on a belt by other sweating, writhing bodies. And there they wait another full ten minutes until it is their turn to pay for their expensive watered down glasses of soon-to-be piss. Then it’s back again on the human conveyor belt, the jostling lubricated by the drinks as they are spilled in the crush. Conversation is not even attempted, because at best it would run to a combination of yells and pidgin sign language. The range of activity is limited mainly to finding a less push and shove position from which to stand and observe proceedings, to drink whilst doing so, and to ‘dance’ in that crazed semi religious, trance-like way that is reminicent of the passions of ancient Mayan sacrificial rituals.

  At last, everyone has had enough, and at way past their bedtimes, and with just enough lovely lucre left in their deep pockets to pay for their taxi ride home, they troll happily, laughing outside, some to be scooped, others to stagger, and a few to walk to their waiting carriages-”Home James, and don’t spare the horses! It’s been a great Christmas do, and we must do it again next year!” Doesn’t that just sum up ‘Xmas’? Doesn’t it fill you with festive cheer?

  Well no, not really. I wonder how many would have thought of a better way to celebrate ‘Black Friday’. Would anyone out there think that to start saving from January, putting away in the kitty a couple of quid a week? With these funds a gaily Christmas decorated function room in a local hotel could be hired, somewhere exclusive to them, somewhere where they would not be disturbed and jostled. During the year to come, each of them could then learn and perfect a ‘turn’-a witty speech, a song, a magic trick, or perhaps even a stand-up routine. In other words, they could entertain each other, a great way of breaking the ice to unfamiliar faces, and of cementing even further long established friendships. It doesn’t matter if they all laugh at each other’s efforts-that’s the whole point. They would each be laughed at, and they would in turn laugh at everyone else. In respect to the female company certain topics of conversation would be on the blackest of blacklists, and a fine might be imposed upon anyone who brings up the sordid subjects of work, sex, and football. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for each of them to initiate conversation on some topical issue from the media that is relevant at that festive time. Then a sumptuous meal of good healthy food could be served, and drinks could be waitered in. And afterwards, they could all sit around in a circle and talk, and play old-fashioned parlour games. To round off the evening, a toast to Christmas could be washed down with a dram.

  How many would stop to think that instead of getting out there with the mindless unthinking, unimaginative herd who bovinely accept without question the social conventions that guide them by the nose to be fleeced by cheap, tacky, throw-away experiences that bear absolutely no relevance to the true Christmas ideal? I hope that one day we’ll start to hear the penny drop.

  What, dear reader, do you think?