A Jolly Bunch of Kants and Bustards

So I gets to me computer this morning to write an account of Friday night and I finds that FX Holden has done the honours already and a right fine job he’s done of it too, him being there from near the start and all. Me, I didn’t get there until around seven, what with being forgot about at the doctor’s and all so when I arrived there was already a room full of people to be worked but first there was a bar full of tipple to be started on first, wasn’t there?

So it’s up to the bar for a glass of red and then a word or two with Tiley and Helen and then here’s Nabakov with a martini in his hand and me discovering I’m not really up to the hobnobbery so I takes myself off to an armchair once I’ve slipped up to the bar to get another tipple of course, only this time out of one of the bottles with a proper label and a name on it on account of the house red fair stripping the lining off me cheeks.

And what did Gummo think about while he was sitting in that armchair?

Sure and he thought about striking an elegant relaxed pose where he could shut his eyes and nobody would catch him napping and he let the hubbub of conversation just go by and thought it was pleasant to spend a few minutes quietly by himself with a crowd of happy people on hand if the fancy to talk to anyone should strike him later.

So he was a bit sleepy drunk then?

So he was.

But then he got a couple more drinks in him and he was obtuse and opinionated drunk and he was ready to start spouting off to FX and Tony T about books they should read and films they should see and forgetting the names of the books they were telling him were worth a look and then he got romantic drunk and had to profess undying love to every woman in the room, except before he could get to Lucy Tartan, he got distracted when Tiley pointed out Mark Bahnisch had arrived and Nabakov was pointing out Gummo to Bahnisch so he had to go over and introduce himself and then buggered off to talk to someone else but by now he was swapping-personal-secrets drunk, so he decided to take himself outside for a smoke. And some making excuses about not being able to go up to the theatre upstairs because he’d probably fall asleep, and snore and not getting off the hook until he’d said he’d probably start talking in his sleep too.

Then up the lane a little to the Szechuan restaurant, where he got a bit bossy and obnoxious drunk at Boynton on his way to the jakes coming back to find himself sitting across from FX and Tony, with Boynton to his right and Nabakov at the end of the table. And looking around every second table had a plate on it with a great pile of chillies and the young couples were pulling out prawns by the tails.

Then back to the bar, but FX Holden has already told that part of the story.