An interesting weekend.
Party finishes at about four in the morning and I'm turfed out into the cold night. A trio in a taxi offer to take me as far as the bus stop. On the way however they persuade me that coming back to their place and chilling for a couple of hours till the first trains is probably a better idea. The problem is – they neglect to inform me I've also got to pay my share of taxi till we get there. And I haven't got any money.
'I haven't got any money,' I tell them.
'Don't pull that shit,' the guy says, stepping towards me. 'You little arsehole.'
'Alright, get lost.'
'What about the party?' I say, glancing around. We're miles from anywhere.
'The party's cancelled,' he says. 'Now fuck off.'
I'm now stranded a mile from anywhere on the edge of some park and five quid the poorer. When I finally make it into town I then have to wait for another night bus – but as I'm waiting, see one of the strangest sights that has ever met my eye: a tiny hump of a man with no legs on a wheely wooden 'skateboard' thing slowly riding his way up the pavement of Charing Cross Road, skirting a garbage machine as he does. What's even weirder is the wide-brimmed Fedora hat he's wearing. He looks like a gangster cut in two, strangely silhouetted against the fluorescent hell of the West End at the arse end of the night. What a beautiful world.
A million buses – not mine – go past; then mine pulls up. Two blokes suddenly start knocking ten shades of shit out of one another in the next stop, taking about half the shelter with them as they do. I take refuge in the smooth purr of the 29. Just a few seats in front a few teenage girls are talking about boys etc. Not ordinary talk, however: some of the lewdest filth I've ever heard is issuing from the lip-glossed mouths of these youngsters, stuff that would bring a blush to the cheek of a Soho clip-show bouncer. In fact so profane was their exchange that a Chinese mother and daughter who didn't even seem to speak much English actually got up after five minutes to change seats. It really is a marvel. We stop north of Euston for an elderly lady pushing a guy in a wheelchair. The bus does its hissing and rocking thing. The couple get on, helped by no one. Then – silence. The bus is not moving. The driver gets out, has a look, scratches his head, gets back on helplessly. Another rock and hiss. Still nothing. The quiet of the night broken by the rumble of passing traffic.
'That was him,' one of the girls is saying. 'I tell you. I went right down on him. I was pilled off my face. He was greasy.'
The driver gets out again, stands looking at the wheels, scratches his head, lopes miserably back into the bus and phones the control centre. There's silence all through the bus save for the chavettes. We are definitely not going anywhere. I hear the Chinese mother sighing to herself.
'He's got massive balls,' the teenager is saying. 'Telling you, never seen anything that size. Like f*cking apples.'
What happened to Saturday night?
