"They had to close the kitchen, you know..."

The Rat
Originally uploaded by Dolores Luxedo.

I've been getting so behind in this bloggue marlakey lately, and am struggling to keep up, which is quite a distressing situation. Pictured here is our lovely rat, which met a sad end last weekend. The only solution is to take temporality in a stern iron fist, throw caution to the winds, and abandon any pretense at chronology. So here goes.

The other thursday began with going to meet Andy and Alice for coffee in the Dumb Waiter, but as Alice moved to the Red Roast Coffee Shop in Kemptown, confusion ensued, and we all ended up missing each other. A cup of tea later and me, Anna and Alan found outselves sheltering under the canopy of the next-door shop as the rain poured down. Anna set off to work and me and Alan made a dash to the Great Yeastern, where we found Andy after all that time. Rosanne was at work, and as Becky, Annie Hell and Lou Carpy turned up, it became quite an Albanian Convention. We sat in the Yeastern and smoked cigars and Nicky P arrived. Alan suggested that he might be able to get us a gig that evening.

A gig! The return of DJ Tea and MC Cake! This sounded pretty exciting. Alan set off to call Really Tall Thom (or Des, as he seems to call himself these days), whilst we went to the Bombay Aloo to eat absurd amounts of Indian Vegetarian Cuisine. After food, we returned home to make further plans. Meeting Tommy and Dom at the Park Crescent, and noticing how Dom looked uncannily like Steve Martin, we drank pints of ale and I labelled 20 DJ Tea and MC Cake Special Free Sponges. Andy kept buying me shots of some kind of ginger-based spirit. Many other people turned up, including the Albanians, Dave the Machine, and Amy.

(Now if this bloggue was anything like as chronological as it should be, then you, dear reader, will already know of the events that took place on the previous friday. Little Tom, my pomeranian-loving housemate, had a 'beautiful moment' with Amy at The Bake whilst watching Big Daddy Moochin'. However, he had cancelled their prospective date on Monday in favour of a documentary about taxidermy. This sort of behavious would be considered rude in many people, but for Tom, quite rightly, taxidermy comes first. Needless to say, Amy was not incredibly happy about this state of affairs.)

Alan had told us to turn up before twelve, in order to play at about half past 12 or 1. So we arrived, together with the big bag of sponges, the rat, and the chicken head. Only for the bouncer to insist that first Dom, then Andy, and then in fact all of us, were too drunk to go into the club. "What do you mean?", inquired Andy. "We're performing tonight." Unmoved, they suggested that we go and get a cup of coffee and then try again. So Tea and Cake and fans all wandered down to the 24 hour cafe, where we had a cup of coffee and Daniel and Rosie ate a steak and kidney pie. Returning to the club, we were still not allowed in. Andy was not too happy, and threw the Tea and Cake sponges at the bouncer. There then ensued an improptu DJ Tea and MC Cake acoustic set. We then left, feeling like we were stuck in a box with water and rats. In a good way. Best gig we've never played. Tom arrived as we were outside performing the acoustic set. On to the Pav Tav, where, as Andy put it, "they would let you in if you had a needle hanging out of your arm". Fortunately Daniel had left his needle at home, and the greatest risk was the Rat, which was mistaken for a living rat by the staff, and nearly caused me to be thrown out for bringing live animals into an indie club. "Do people often bring animals here?", I asked. Apparently, the answer is yes. "Someone once brought a rabbit along", replied the bouncer. Brilliant!

Tom dancing wearing the chicken head. The rat disappearing onto the dancefloor. Amy comes up to Tom and slaps him around the face for preferring taxidermy to her. We leave the club and sadly on the way home, the rat gets into a fight with Andy and Tom and is badly injured, with two missing legs and fire damage. Feisty, my wayward sister is.

Somehow I ended up having a massive fight with Andy in the street. I'm not sure how it happened, but suddenly the two of us were throwing each other through the air. Much pain ensued. Anna got bored of the fighting and took my glasses and keys and went to get some folofel. People were leaning out of the window of the Travelodge across the street and cheering because of the over-the-top nature of our scuffle. For some reason, flying through the air and landing on the street didn't seem like it would cause pain. Also I got to climb stuff. I love climbing things. Deary me.

Back to the house where Andy passed out in his clothes and shoes again.

Saturday was also an eventful day night and then day. It was Andy Kiraminski's birthday, but firstly, me and Anna get up and stroll into town, where we buy a big squashy bag of misu and some pocky. The pocky tastes of banana milkshake. We meet up with Andy and Tamsin and Tom and their dog and Alice and Ed, and drink tea in the street in the North Laine like the Brighton hipsters we truly are. I trip over in the street and bump into Nicky, who is also sipping coffee in the street like the deadline-battling MA Freudster that she is. More wandering in the streets for illegal doughnuts and then an epic stroll along Hove Lawns to see Andy K, who has plans for great Barbeques. Sipping cider and rescuing lost Miso, me and Anna go and get food for barbeques and warm clothes. We cob on at Waitrose with 5 corn on the cobs all encased in the softest of leaves. Back to the barbeque and it is getting darker and we cook some cob and then Debs calls up. Debs, queen of email and permaculture is in a small car with some miscellaneous Israelis and making her way from Exeter to Brighton to come see us all.

As it approaches quarter to ten, everyone sets off to Andy K's house, which is actually Doctor Booth's house. More about that later, for at this point young Debs calls up, having reached Brighton, and me and Anna go to find her. A tiny white car filled with Debs and chain-smoking Israelis, and the six of us squeeze into the car for a tour of the residential streets of Hove. Finding Maison De La Booth, nobody is in, and it turns out that everyone has popped down to the Albion for a pint. Quite a loud and unusual pub, we decant some of the cider from our massive bottle of scrumpy into half-glasses, and talk about creating some prejudiced poetry-nights.

I take advantage of my new status as a Rabbi to perform some basic duties, and then back to Doctor Booth's house. Now Doctor Booth is a legendary gentleman, a real genuine medical doctor, and he lives in a most classy house in Hove with a wine cellar and a hot tub. We are sipping cider from long stemmed wine glasses, whilst many people about us get loaded on various heinous chemicals. I'm a bit wary, having stayed clear of most heinous chemicals for over a year, but in the end the 'ambience' takes over, and Tommy spikes me with some kind of powdery substance. Me and Anna are sitting out on the street when Antonios, her Spanish friend, pops up. It's always quite funny when someone spots you sitting on the street looking a bit puzzled. You almost expect to ask them for change or spare hats. Daniel Taylor turns up and asks for cigarettes to cheer up a distressed middle-aged woman they have found in the street.

Back into the house, and Rosie is soon cavorting in the hot-tub in her underwear with many scantily clad boys. Which is more or less her element, it would seem. Ha.

Eventually we give in and join the folks in the Hot Tub. Sipping wine from long-stemmed glasses in a hot tub as the heady rush of chemicals and clove cigarettes washes over us. It's almost too decadent, but we manage to handle it. The Brothers Machine are there, and eventually Rosie persuades them and Daniel Taylor to also get in the hot-tub. Rosie has actually lost any ability to make coherent speech, and keeps ranting on about things that we assume only she can see. The most beautiful moment is when she assumes the character of a racist old man, and starts to go on about "the little darkie maids". Andy turns up with a big bag of records, and a plan to go to a free party at Devil's Dyke. By the time we find out where the party is, it is about five in the morning. As the night goes on, the steps down to the garden become increasingly slippery, and every quarter of an hour chimes with the sound of someone else tumbling down a set of metal steps in a flurry of broken glass and spilled wine.

Eventually they manage to motivate us all, and we find ourselves in a series of taxis setting off to Devil's Dyke. We arrive with two of Andy K's friends, me, Anna and los siblingos Machine. Andy K is there as we arrive, but he sets off over the horizon at quite a pace, sure that he can 'hear the party in the distance'. We follow at a more sedate rate, for what turns into a lovely stroll in the countryside as the sun rises and the dew seeps through the holes in the soles of my shoes. Across the rolling hillside, suddenly we see a massive free party on the hillside. As we get there, that familiar sound of pounding pounding dark twisted breakcore. Andy is on the decks, playing heavy twisted electronic music and ranting like a madman as many crazy ravers get on town to the sounds. Laurence is there with a pink feather boa, and the Machines have huge amounts of more heinous chemicals. Rosie and Daniel are nowhere to be seen. Dressed as a character in a Beckett play, we get on down to Andy's wrong sounds, waving cobs in the air like glowsticks.

Andy rocks a heck of a lot of Pims in an attempt to sober himself up. The Machine Brothers perform a machine dance, which out-Jeds-jed in the field of choreography. The sun is properly up. Andy bites a girl who has a camera and then passes out. A girl drives up in a car and rubs suncream on his face. I'm feeling quite clearheaded and Daniel arrives from a van where he has been with Rosie who has completely departed from any sense of reality whatsoever and passes out in the van. Me and Anna swap shirts, leaving me with a tight green affair, and Anna in my 'dream' top. Then Tommy and Graham feed me a series of consonants and I become really confused. Wandering around with the valley spinning around me, Anna in the distance dancing to some kind of techno music looks like some kind of crazy Japanese daytime raver in her tweed trousers and my Dream top. We roll around on the floor in a state of great confusion. It's all very colourful and we find Tommy and friends once again. Rosanne finally emerges from the van. It's now eleven o clock, and this is the point at which she points out that she has to be at work in an hours time. We're in the middle of a valley in Devil's Dyke, probably over an hours walk from the bus stop. We gradually get round to leaving, and go for a walk in the countryside to the bus stop. The day is beautiful, but making out way across steep hilly fields in the blazing light begins to take it out of us.

Me, Andy, Daniel and Rosie decide to climb down and then run up the other side of a massive steep valley. Sitting outside Devil's Dyke pub with massive glasses of water, Rosie has s series of messages from her workplace, culminating in her shift being covered. As we get on the Open Top Bus with water flying everywhere, and as the bus starts my hat flies off my head and disappears back down the road. Thankfully a kind man places it in lost property at the pub, and Tommy retrieves it the next day. Home to sleep deeply, and then down to the Alleycats all dayer, where Rosie and Daniel wander about in a trance-like state, and we get to catch up with Visuals Tim and Ollie Gimp. Most excellent.

Anyway, this narrative is trailing off a bit, but it's a start at getting back into blogguing. Ah well. To follow, amongst other things, Blindy goes to the Shambala Festival.

It turns out I left my telephone and camera at Doctor Booth's house, so sadly we didn't get to see Debs again before she returned to Exeter. Apparently she's thinking of moving down here. That would be cool.