I always, always pretend it's CULTURE that lies behind my stupid quarterly outings of reckless and frankly ill-advised binge-drinking; the premise is that we meet for lunch, we go to The Theatre where we are nourished by Art, then we go for a civilised meal afterwards and discuss, as only the recently culturally enlightened can do, the weighty issues of Drama and Its Place In Society.
Sadly, in practice, what always happens is the following: meet for lunch, have something irrelevant compared to the bottle of wine each we consume. Go to theatre (it's always the same 5 of us so we can't even pretend we thought it would turn out any differently). Go see something light but with artistic merit (last time, "Glengarry Glen Ross", this time "The Deep Blue Sea"). Drink more at the interval. Come out going "Hmmmm not sure about that second act". Get lashed in some overpriced central London watering hole between end-of-matinee and start-of-dinner. Lurch ungracefully into restaurant going "Toldja, dinn I tell ya, shoulderv gone to see that new Indiana Jones film". Get, oh GOD, so very very much drunker. Spend Sunday crying gently into a large box of tissues while watching "Ratatouille" in pyjamas, frankly unable to remember much about the play, which to be fair simply existed as a time-filling ruse to stop us getting paralytic before 4pm anyway. I think it was about estate agents. I think the next one has Greta Scacchi in it. Since I will almost certainly forget my glasses, it may well have Alice Cooper and the Krankies in it, I will never be entirely sure.
7 comments:
Alice Cooper and the Krankies - now there's a cultural combo to die for. I do hope Mr Cooper performs Schools Out For Summer with little "Jimmy" Krankie in full uniform. The mind boggles.
You definitely sound like my kind of person. That is how my attempts at culture end up too. Geraldine and I often attempt to discuss what we have seen after and can't even remember what it was! I have fallen asleep in things so many times, just because I've had a couple of drinks, and then come out nicely refreshed and ready to hit the next wine bar.
Ooops I'm making myself sound like an alcoholic aren't I?
Steve - not so bizarre when you consider the habitual uniform of AC/DC's Angus Young - I'm not a metal fan myself but Mr Fishwife had a youth crammed with denim and beer-related incident. He has luckily retained most of his hearing. Jeannette Krankie was recently voted "Most Scottish Person In The World", which must make Sean Connery very happy indeed.
RB - I find Culture very difficult to handle without at least one interval drink, preferably two. Went to see a fashion exhibition at the V&A with a friend who's in the trade and nearly got ourselves thrown out for sniggering audibly after a lunchtime glass or two of wine. What got us was the knitted dress with floppy knitted boobs AND matching knitted panda.
Well I'd heard that publishing was stressful, but I didn't realise it was this bad!
Time for a career change?
Why does one get that knuckle-biting, coverlet-over-the-head-pulling sense of shame afterwards? We need these pressure-releasing flings; they set you apart from the short-winded, narrow-chested, run-of-the-mill ordinary, supressed grey folk, and provide a context for our usual sense and sobriety. Go for it, Lucy! (Do I get a prize for extravagant use of hyphens and mismatched of pronouns?)
Laura - in fact I'm in Sales rather than Production - the ever-delightful world of the independent bookshop. I'd probably get paid less in publishing AND have to rave about how readable the new Dan Brown is, so I'm quite pleased really... Stressful, though, yes it can be, as everyone who's ever enjoyed the privilege of dealing with the Public will know. 10 years of impeccably french airline customer service training and I STILL have to fight the urge sometimes to shout "BORED NOW" at some waffling twit. The culture is supposed to be the safety valve but as one of my co-conspirators is a teacher, one works for the NHS, one works for Waterstones and one is married to me, we all need more ABV than Mamet and Rattigan can provide..
BT - I will try not to let anyone take photographs this time.. We try to maintain dignity, always dignity. No hooting or heckling - we are, after all, adults, although I can't guarantee the above if Wee Jimmy Krankie DOES in fact make a cameo appearance in Terrence Rattigan's scorching 50s melodrama. With Alice Cooper.
You write very well.
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