Events
Sloyd Black Vs London - Brought to you by Gazz Wood -
It’s not often someone the likes of Sloyd Black [AKA Neil O’Mahoney, brother of our very own Nick O’Mahoney] initiates change. He seeks comfort in the familiar, the kind of man who enjoy the same faces every night in the same pub... in the same chair. He’s a sort of house cat, if you will. Knowing this about Sloyd made his decision to voluntarily come all the way down to Lon-Don for an evening something special. We were excited about getting him down here and then he dropped the bomb on us. He wasn’t coming alone. He was bringing someone with him, someone from Nottingham, someone who would guarantee the night at least four fresh stories. That’s right.
Hoss.
If you’ve got no idea who that is or why it’s significant, then check out the Leytonstone House Party story. It’s a wild scene man.
If you don’t got the time or the inclination, then just take my word for it. Hoss is a human story machine.
Early doors for this one, because Nick wanted to try out the new Power Hour: Hoss Edition
Specially formulated and generated to be more conducive to a Hoss level of drinking. You see he’s got problems, and the one shot of beer per minute pacing was making him nervous. Too slow, came the reply. The Power Hour: Hoss Edition follows new rules, put in place to up the ante and keep Hoss from going off on the deep end too quickly.
For the first 15 minutes we’re talking one shot every THIRTY seconds, followed by the regulation one a minute... but then the real test of a man and his liver [and ability to burp often enough that he doesn’t fill with gas and explode... with vomit] is The Power Minute. Final minute, one shot every ten seconds.
Oh man... that’s a spicy time.
Sloyd and Hoss hit the smoke at 2pm, at which point I met them in Nick’s swanky Kensington dog kennel to begin the games immediately. The music mix, as you will discover if you download the file [and you should... try it out and send us some video or something maybe] is the best music mix. The best of the 80s, 90s and now. Scatman John, Haddaway... some Run DMC no less. We drank, we enjoyed the tunes and we laughed at Ross for bringing two cases and a suit cover for a one night stay.
What a cunt.
I’m pretty proud of the way the Power Hour: Hoss Edition went for me. If you recall, during John The Juggs 40th Wedding Anniversary Party, we made our first attempt of the hour and I may have let myself down. I lasted 27 minutes all together, so today I was looking to claw back some dignity and manhood... which is pretty easy when you’re just four lads in a 20 centimetre square pantry, burping it up. Burping’s the key! You do that many shots of beer in quick succession and you get gassed up pretty bad. Carbonated you might say. It proved to be my downfall the first time so I was taking no chances. Constant burping is the lynch pin.
Kept me going pretty good, drinking the shots whenever Quagmire told me too... “DRINK THE BEER” and we did sir... some of us anyway.
Hoss, you see, has problems. Despite tailoring an entire Hour of Power specifically to Ross HIMSELF, the man was still not satisfied! TOO SLOW CAME THE REPLY! He was taking inbetweeners! Drinks between minutes and what’s worse drinks between 30 second intervals! He’s taking a shot every fifteen or twenty seconds over there! Within the first five minutes we’re all down to half a can and he’s cracking open can number 3. The guy practically played his game in the kitchen, making frequent trips to the fridge so often he could have done some washing up while he was in there.
Not that it’s a long way. You could mop the floor in there from the sofa without even leaning forward.
I belched myself all the way up to MINUTE FIFTY NINE MOTHER FUCKERS! Minute Fifty Nine of the Power Hour... HOSS EDITION NO LESS! That’s twice the shots for quarter of an hour... I just... well...
... I faltered on the Power Minute! I COULDN’T TAKE IT! It’s too much beer in too little time! I could barely breathe!
Obviously Ross had no bother, but Sloyd Black was having troubles round about the half hour mark. The filling up, the shotting, the gasses! Proved too much for the Man from The Red [Lion] and he gracefully bowed out.
Game Over Gentleman, let’s hit the town. A Joe Baxi was summoned and we dropped off at the good old John Snow. Nice and Sloyd friendly, because the drinks are cheaper even than his local in Nottingham. You have to ease people in to drinking in London. You can’t just throw them into Eclipse in Kensington [which was where we were to end the night] and expose them to the extortionate prices therein. I should point out at this juncture that I was on the Pity PintsTM, due to my lack of a job. Ross got the round in and then he got himself another one about 4 minutes later. The fun really started when, true to form, Ross started accidentally chatting up some guy in The Blue Posts [despite him not being gay and having a girlfriend... the same girlfriend... from when he was 14... who doesn’t actually like him at all] and the guy turns out to be some born again Christian type, starts telling us all about how mint church is and how they let you drink beer if you want to etc... One by one we peeled off, leaving Hoss and St Peter to talk it out, theologically speaking, and maybe get a room.
Sheened off and around the fabled Endurance, where upon we met Claire Duffy and James Wormald. Due to James’ similarity to Ross, facially, one or two people have commented before now that they appear brothers. Akin said it at our party and I wanted to see if an impartial bystander might feel the same way. So I did what I think everyone would have done. I asked the guy from The Barenaked Ladies. Well not him exactly... but a tubby guy in spectacles. The test was whether or not The Barenaked Ladies could choose who was related... Nick and Neil or James and Hoss.
It was half and half for the group, so I asked a couple of scenester types to the left of us and they were all over the place. Some said Hoss and James, some said Nick and Neil... one girl said it was ME and Hoss. It was a disaster. Nothing conclusively proved, but decide for yourself. There’s a picture of the two of them stood together, Hoss and James I mean, in the picture section obviously. Have a look.
Speaking of James... if you look at the pictures there you might notice he’s wearing a special kind of T-Shirt. It’s one he got for free, as it goes, from the D&AD Professional awards. It’s also got a big fucking hole in it. He’s very proud of this shirt. The hole represents the part of the Brazilian rainforest which has been irrevocably cut down. Sadly that does not come across. People who see the shirt don’t stand aghast and remark “Why James, what an evocative and controversial representation of the mass deforestation in South America!”, what they usually do is look, frown and then say “Why’s there a big hole in your shirt?”
Claire and James peeled off right when we left The Endurance, and we taxi’d it back to Nick’s cabin so Hoss could apply his myriad hair styling products [despite having shorter hair than James and probably being able to ‘spike it’ or whatever with a wet hand and a little concentration] and I could throw on my requisite suit jacket. I’m that guy. The t-shirt and suit jacket guy.
I’m told this is the point at which Ross loses the evening. It’s weird because he didn’t seem all that bad really. Fairly coherent, responsive to conversation. Talking with real words. The whole magilla.
We’re pretty flash and got our names on the list for the VIP again, but we’re not out of touch with the common man and to make that point we opted to go through the regular club entrance, bustle through the crowd and then give the nod to the VIP doorman... you know, so everyone could see us.
The place was dead, just the one other group in there and the waitress stuck us right behind them. Table after table... empty! We’re sitting on each others knees, which within an hour or two was more than possible. You gotta have a bottle of something in this place, because it’s pretty expensive, and last time I hit the white wine which was a mistake. Ross ordered champagne and guzzled it like a pint of Despair Brewed Failure and then necked my vin blanc when my back was turned [shouting down some High Hair Hugo who thought Leicester was in the North] I ordered Rosé this time. You can imagine the looks I received. Derision, mostly, and some smirking. I don’t care. I really don’t.
I don’t even LIKE wine, but the wine I find least objectionable is rosé and so that’s what I ordered. How the others DARE chuckle at me when they’re sipping a couple of citrus martinis and, in Sloyd’s case, a Vanilla Sky, is beyond me.
Special Guest Star Annameka Porter-Sinclair, henceforth referred to as AmPS, made an appearance with “Michael Jackson” artfully caligraphised on her forearm in glitter. She had a Scorpion on her back too. I expect she was at a very pretentious 11 year olds’ birthday party or something. I’d have loved to have seen the kid with the Spider-Man face paint done with gold leaf.
Ross really started to slur up a storm round about this time, and he was having to use his eyebrow muscles just to keep his eyes open. Constantly Alarmed was the expression of the moment for our dear friend, who after much prodding worked up the nerve to go chat up the girls we were sitting behind [one of whom had some pretty spectacular boobs working there]. He sauntered over [READ: Erratically Danced] and got into a conversation. Against all odds the girls were digging him, and a joining of the groups was on the horizon for sure... until a bouncer came in and, in doing so, hit Ross in the back of the head with the door. He apologised, Ross said don’t worry about it, and suddenly, without warning abandoned the girls and sat down.
“What the hell are you doing? Get up and talk to those girls?!”
“Whu? No no... they wouldn’t be interested”
“They WERE interested... just now!”
“Nononono... amnot goin ova...”
The knock on the head, coupled I expect with the Citrus Martini, had removed the last few minutes from Ross’ mind entirely and so to him the earlier success had never happened. He was nervous and unconfident once again and didn’t go back over to the girls at point for the rest of the evening.
What he DID do was keep getting up, dancing away, only to return a minute or so later and then wait for a while before doing it again. He even asked AmPS to dance... “Djyawannadance?!” and then took her over to the dance floor [there isn’t one] and started busting out moves.
The DJ stopped a record just to laugh at him.
Other highlights include the moment when my Ross Impersonation became true to life and actually spilled wine on AmPS, which became small potatoes in the grand scheme of the evening when Ross, on one of his many journeys to the heart of rhythm, stacked out into Neil, who dominoed over and threw almost a full glass of white over her [in her white dress]
I couldn’t take anymore and, because I know my limits, I elected to get the eff out, taking Ross with me as a precautionary measure. We split before AmPS could get back from the ladies [drying herself off by jumping up and down in front of the hand dryer] and went in search of food.
South Kensington is not a place overrun by takeaways, as you might imagine, and the two we did find were closing for the night. Beirut Express seemed our only hope. There were kebabs on those poles and the lot, but it wasn’t a takeaway like how it looked. It was a REAL restaurant. Plates, knives and forks etc...
What I’m here to tell you is that people in South Kensington DO eat kebabs, but they’re doing it wearing formal dresses, cravats and using the proper cutlery. There’s garnish.
I only know this because I saw a waiter serve the kebab to a rather well turned out couple, not because I got to order any myself. Nick rung me to say he was leaving the bar and, in the minute or so I was on the phone Ross was asked to leave by a waiter. To leave... a kebab place. These are our lives now.
Home. Pizza. Done.
All apart from Ross passing out on the floor again and giving the doorframe little kisses. He took his shirt off the second we got inside [Ross is not a fan of clothes] and so when the pizza guy finally turned up and Nick went to pay, he was confronted with a semi-naked unconscious man trying to bust a move on some skirting board.