Ricky Bobby: From now on, it's Magic Man and El Diablo.
Cal Naughton, Jr.: What does El Diablo mean?
Ricky Bobby: It's like Spanish for like a fighting chicken.
John mentioned that it'd be worth documenting a night out that could possibly not be worth remembering, but for the sake of it we'd better have some record that the following did actually take place. The story you are about to read is true, and happened in the not too distant past. More than likely involving you, the dear reader.
Imagine, if you will, a small bar/club in London. It's dark outside. Through the condensation on the glass windows you can see a mass of young people. The beat is repetitive and contagious. We step inside....
The beats belong to the party RnB playing on the clubs sound system. We're approached by a lady who appears to work there.
'Do you guys have guestlist?' she enquired.
'We're invited' answers Dips. (by the way, the words are totally being made up while i write this).
'Yeh - they're with us' says some guy, approaching the group.
Now, I'm trying to remember where we had been prior to heading to this club. We had been drinking. I'm fairly certain it was in a pub in Camden. Mornington Crescent. The Crescent (Great place). We had watched the football. It's all coming back to me....
'Wow, this place is great' Jait says 'I'll get some beers!'
Jait shortly returns with some beer. Was it Leffe? It was quite strong. Alberto, John and myself find some chairs and kick back - there are a -lot- of asian people here. The mood is distinctly chilled - unlike the asian nights of yore. We're starving and need to get out, there're too many people there, the queue to the bar is too long, and word is there's a KFC around the corner. Jait is busying himself dancing with Dips and Sharan - Alberto, John and myself make a swift exit.
After exploring Holborn fairly thoroughly, we fail to find an open KFC. We head east towards liverpool street. another FKFC closed for the night. What's the next best thing? a schnitzel take away. What's a schnitzel I asked - Let's try it, Alberto replied. We've been gone for over an hour....
Return to the bar after getting slightly lost - to find Jait has moved - he's now dancing up against the window, running around (was he saying 'Let's go running?' as he had been through most of the Foo Fighters concert??) and generally being merry.
Now - this is a typical asian gig - there are x people in the club, and there's usually a token white guy (TWG) around. The one in this club is wearing a tuxedo. Hang on - is that Yiannis from our MSc in Bath!? YES - it is! what the devil!? We end up catching up and killing time. It seemed he had been wearing that tuxedo for the past few days, having gone for his companies christmas ball and owing to all the parties, not managed to get home since.
Next thing you know it's time to go home (how time flies when you're dancing to bhangra and RnB). We wait outside, but after all that dancing (????) we need a seat. hm - well - there's a stack of them hiding behind the bar. Let's go get some!
Then, there's some guy running (very slowly) after another guy half his size. The guy manages to run away, with the big guy shouting explitives at him...
'Language!!!' shouts dips
'***** ********** * ****** $£@$!$%@$%@$!!!!' shouts the big guy, going up to dips
in the following mellee we find a few of us getting tangled up - somehow a midget has come into the mix - what next? a bearded lady and the lobster girl?
'I'm going to get my shooter. I'm going to get my shooter. I've got a wife and kids - I'm a mature responsible adult. I'm going to get my shooter' the midget exclaims, flailing his arms wildy trying to draw attention to himself....
Sharan sits there bemused...
'For ****s sake - you're 27! act your age!' she shouts (to us - not the midget, who could not have been over 13 and a half)
everything comes to an abrupt halt. damn - we're old.
'Um. Ah. yeh - best be on my way - and i'll take the midget with me....' says the big guy, picking up the midget and resting him on his shoulder.
'John???? Jait???????' No sooner is that done than we find an old friend, Kishan, coming out of the club. 'What are you guys doing here???' We haven't seen Kishan for years - since leaving Cardiff - so after a quick catch up, we're back in the taxi - heading home.....
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true story of the night that Dips took us to an asian gig*.
* all plot lines are based on 1% nonfictional events. the people and places in this story have been created for purposes of this story and are not based on real people. If you feel that the characters do, in fact, exist at this time and dimension, you can bite my shiny metal ass.
About Me
- Neil Samtani
- As an experienced developer and solution architect, Neil Samtani has been helping organizations to successfully deploy BPM solutions for over 7 years. In that time, clients have noticed tangible benefits on ROI, improved operational efficiencies and reduced operational risk.
1 comment:
Yeah what a night! I feel like I can elaborate on certain events of that day and a sorry to all for the length, I tried to keep it short and sweet, but it didn’t happen. So here we go……..
Shake and motherbleepin Bake
The day was the 2nd of December 2006. The reason I remember this is because we were all celebration of the fact that we were rid of Janisha that day and despite her presence was only going to be absent for the grand total of six weeks she felt the need for a send off and the rest of us begrudgingly agreed just to humour her. The day started way to early for me as I was the recipient of a rude awakening from Jait and Janisha at around 8am while they caught the train from Birmingham to London and then had to go meet them for the cultural event of the day which only the three of us attended. The rest of you were way smarter than me, I could really have done with a sleep in given that it was a Saturday Morning.
After that we all decided to meet for lunch and since Janisha had dropped her luggage at the flat that Alberto rents from me in Camden town, we or I decided that I needed a pint and watch the remainder of the Arsenal Spurs game. A quick moan about the fact that I had tickets to watch my beloved Gunners take apart the scum for the first time in our beautiful new home but had to give that up due to the fact that Janisha is inconsiderate and chose to leave on this particular day and I had to give up my tickets to meet her. Anyways I made a swift move to my favourite bar in the area, the good old crescent. The crescent is of great historic importance as I once spent new years here and got so drunk that I forgot the rules of pool and reversed the rules and potted the white ball with the black ball, but on a further note I am usually pretty good at pool honestly.
Still I was euphoric upon arrival as the Gunners were up 2-0 and absolutely killing the scum and the only reactions the girls could get out of me at that time were uh-huh, all good and come-on followed by rudimentary football terms usually meaning something very rude. At this point they said something along the lines of we're going to get food, I was like whatever thinking they would just go next door and being Camden Road there were no shortage of food dispensing outlets. However the match ended (3-0 to Arsenal incidentally) and somehow the girls were not satisfied with the hundreds of restaurants near the pub and had to go all the way up Camden Road to the very end by Chalk Farm. So anyway the next couple of hours are pretty forgettable we had lunch and saw Janisha off, where she had her usual panic attack over nothing. So naturally after all that stress, I gravitated back towards the Crescent with Jait, Neil, Alberto and Dips in tow, I just couldn’t resist, it was like a tractor beam of beer and potential drunkenness.
After watching football and drinking many, many pints Sharan turned up and the night was ready to get started. At this point it should be noted that we called Lema and Deeps up to get them to come out and the oh so familiar excuse of we are going to let you have a guys night out came around, to which we replied “but Sharan is coming…..” but before we could finish the notion was again dispelled by “No, guys night out” and all this coming from a pack of girls disappointed about not being invited to Neil’s stag do, not so eager for us to have a guys night out then are you?
Back to the story, Dips being a smart and savvy guy waited until we were all pretty intoxicated before unveiling his grand plan for the night. Apparently he had a friend who was leaving to work abroad and he was having a leaving party somewhere in the Chancery lane area. Feeling like he had to sell it a little he said it will be free to get in. Then in a hand over mouth type mumble he uttered it’s going to be a bit of an Asian Invasion. Then again we were pretty drunk and probably would have gone to a hoe down at the Anchor and Hope at this point, so we cordially accepted and went.
The night was pretty much as described by Neil, as Jait’s true colours were exposed that day. The boy loves a good Asian night and danced the night away and enjoyed it so much that he must have accrued a huge bar tab with all those Leffes he bought. Just because they have Leffe on tap there is no need to buy so much of it that we can’t drink it all Jait but thanks for the drinks though.
Also left out to my utter surprise, is Dips friend who took a real shine to Neil, in fact she didn’t leave him alone all night. Apparently she wanted to talk to Neil about weddings cause her brother was getting married, nice one. She was also upset when Neil left to get food and missed him.
Also funny was in the hour and a half we were gone, Jait suddenly realised we had actually left the bar and got worried that we had ditched him. Six missed calls, two incoherent drunken voicemails and one illegible text message later we were back. Funniest part of this was Neil, Alberto and I stood outside the window for like 5 minutes waiting for Jait to notice us while he danced to Bhangra! When he finally realised we were there he had the look of what me? Dance to Bhangra? did no such thing!
The drunken midget, oh how I will never forget thee, I just remember him threatening to get his “shooter” from his car and get us all. At this point I had visions of him running to his bicycle still with the training wheels on and grabbing his supersoaker 3000, I was bricking it as my biggest fear was that he might have loaded that badboy up with mustard and ketchup and I was wearing a white t-shirt. Then as with all children with a short temper he was quick with his apologies after aunty Sharan had told him what for, he was ashamed for his wife and kids that he behaved like this, I guess he must have been talking about the girl at primary school who he played happy families with and in about a years time he will disavow knowledge of this and pull her hair and say girls smell and discard his son in unwanted toys chest. I would also like to add that I had no part in the “fight” or as I would describe it “aggressive hugging”. Even though at one point Dips did have him in a very impressive looking headlock I might add.
The night ended with a chance meeting with an old friend and I mean old figuratively and literally. I mean seriously how old is Kishan I want to see a birth certificate dammit. Well Jait hugged him and his pants didn’t fall down, so at least something right happened on this evening.
Post a Comment