Wake up in mum’s spare room, which many moons ago was my own teenage den of iniquity, festooned with West Ham United flags, a framed, signed Trevor Brooking photo and a meticulously constructed Lego town boasting an infrastructure that would shame a fast-growing Far Eastern metropolis. All that I was missing was my “Petronas Towers”, but unfortunately back in 1981, Lego did not offer a set where budding architects could construct a 110-storey twin-towered skyscraper out of plastic bricks.
I saunter downstairs, place my order for an all-encompassing fry up of biblical proportions, specifically requesting the delectable sausages from “Jim the Butcher” - the culinary apex of Essex. I use my free morning to venture down to the dystopian urban nightmare that is Southend High Street. Nowadays, it seems to consist of tawdry, itinerant “Everything-a-Pound” and “Supersaver!” outlets that this weekend, hide behind the weekend French market (which does actually look promising.)
The multi-storey car-park is straight out of ”Escape From New York”, the kind of piss-stinking stairwell strewn with litter and discarded shopping trolleys, a stairwell that Kubrick’s “droogs” would be too scared to hang about in at night. I make a b-line for Argos to procure one Babyliss hair-drier for mum, as usual, twiddle my thumbs for three hours whilst some 17-year old part-time student working off last night’s hangover fetches item number 492/3411 from the backroom. Personally, I think Argos should install CCTV so we can observe how our order is progressing. Next I buy smellies from Bodyshop, a fail-safe Christmas present if ever there was one, the only dilemma being “Clementine” or “Jojoba”?
In the afternoon: “Leigh Jingle Bells”, in other words, my old friends from yesteryear uniting for festive nosh, free flowing Pinot Grigio and ten-pin bowling. I have been looking forward to the latter after hitting a sweet spot on my last outing to ”the lanes”, to such an extent that I was considering quitting my vocation as a wine writer and becoming a professional kingpin. Good job I didn’t…I am crap this time. Part of the reason is that Leigh-on-Sea’s “Cosmic” bowling alley switches off the lights so that everything goes ultra-violet and luminous. Yeah, it’s pretty and cool man, but you cannot actually see the skittles.
I am rather pessimistic about the bowling alley’s future since we are practically the only people here. Surely on a Saturday evening it should be thronging with families bonding over strikes and spares? I guess they are all at home playing it on their Wii. The alcohol continues tos flow and we program some cheesy Xmas classics on the jukebox to the chagrin of a pair of EMO teenagers in the adjacent lane. Trying to bowl in the darkness to the sound of Wham’s “Last Christmas” and catawauling, inebriated thirty-somethings is probably not ideal.
The bibulous evening continues chez Carolyn’s flat: crisps ‘n dips, more Pinot Grigio, an oxidized 5-year old Pouilly Fume and the X-Factor semi-final that holds the nation in the palm of its hand. We are rooting for Stacey, though she is unfairly voted out in favour of Olly who is too cabaret for me. Stace got the short Michael Buble straw when the two boys duet with megastars: Robbie Williams and George Michael. A travesty! As the evening staggers on various members of our party begin losing their essential faculties or fall comatose on the sofa and as usual, the conversation turns carnal…
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | bowling, leigh-on-sea, southend high streetm, x-factor
