Coach & Horses

An obviously inebriated Chinese man lurches through the door and weaves an uncertain path through the tables and chairs. He enters obliviously into the Ladies' toilet, emerging thirty seconds later (and thus, I note disapprovingly, almost certainly without washing his hands), immediately disappearing out onto the street again.

I look around and realise that the breach of protocol is likely to have gone unmarked by anyone except me. At this particular moment the Ladies' toilet is merely a token gesture: apart from the young, foreign barmaid, this is currently an exclusively male environment.

Alcohol is being consumed, opinions are being expressed, bullshit is being spouted - sometimes all three simultaneously. The bar is the hub, the focal point, the centre of the gyroscope, with the most vociferous (and, generally, pissed) drawn to its wooden curve as though to a magnet. The amber nectar courses through veins, arm-in-arm with adrenaline.

Those of us at the tables around the rest of the room talk in more measured tones, write, think. A public house, home from home. A flamboyant voice floats over from a neighbouring table: "Joan Collins is always the last to..." To what, I wonder? I drift in and out of the here and now, seesawing my attention between my immediate environment and my thoughts.

4pm, Soho; no plans, goals or objectives. I should do this more often.

Posted by Hg on Thursday 30 September 2004 at 07:10.
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