bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Ahoy there, casual lovers

When not at Camden, I can often be
found drifting around NW1, NW5, N19, or E’s 1-9 like something out of a
novel by Dickens, a painting by Lowry or advert by St Mungo’s Shelter
for the London Homeless. Like any Englishman, I consider it my
birthright to nip into various hostelries of my acquintance and have a swift half with the friends,
associates, petty criminals, and general violence enthusiasts who
comprise my social circle. I have no capacity for alcohol whatsoever,
as previously discussed here on September 4th, which makes me all the more impressed
with a simple drinking game common among ladies in London in the
1730s, which any ladies reading this in contemporary times might want
to make a note of for the forthcoming Christmas season. The rules are
like this: 1) Find two friends – this game is traditionally for three
players. For authenticity, they should be called Molly or Meg or
Eliza, have few teeth, raucous cackling laughs and probably work as
competitively-priced prostitutes. 2) Drink gin. 3) Carry on
drinking gin until two of you are dead. 4) The last lady alive is the
winner. Say what you like, it knocks the shit of vodka shots, pretending to be happy, crying yourself to sleep, and being sick in your hair for a girls night out.

(You’d be better off clicking ‘read more’ at this point)

These days, however, while actually at Camden, I am more bound up with
the fortunes of our General Expansion Plan, which so far consists of a
West Yard stall which we are doing in conjunction with Meaningless
Slogan. It’s looked quite promising so far, which is nice, although I
can’t say I have ever been particularly impressed with the West Yard,
which is the one with the
food and boats in, and is known among traders as a fickle yard to work. I personally think of it as the yard where the ugly people go.
Yeah, there aren’t many people traipsing around the East Yard who are
dashing or rakish or foxy, but most are at least comfortably attractive
or charismatic or charming, and it’s like they get to the bridge over
the Middle Yard whereupon some hidden ne’er-do-well leaps from the shadows and
thrashes them in the face with a pitching wedge. It’s true – check it
yourself. Also, I readily accept that everyone connected to
publicgriefjunkie is an unlikely – indeed, impossible – lust target,
but at least we don’t look like that woman who sells fudge by the
canal, who in turn looks like Iggy Pop.

While we’re on the subject of thinking about stuff in terms other than
its actual name, the excellent lady of Anthony from Meaningless Slogan
is looking after the new stall. Anthony calls her Gabriela, but I
think of her as Unfriendly Soviet Wife, because the first time I spoke
to her I thought I was being arrested in Budapest in 1972. I wasn’t,
obviously, but to this day I keep my identification papers to hand at
all times, just in case.

Just the one contribution from the Griefjunkie photographic archives this week, which is a picture of the Barfly on Chalk Farm Road, taken from the very back of the Stables Market. I quite rate Barfly, as it goes, but now the matchless Hawley Arms is back open there really is no excuse for drinking anywhere else in the immediate market vicinity. I once walked out of the Hawley and into a bus which was travelling at some speed down Castlehaven Road. Happily, I bounced off it, but still looked a proper twat.