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Every time I start to think that I might have run out of things to blog about, I have a weekend like this one (when I was both sworn at in the street and asked to leave a pub for doing nothing more than trying to buy drinks).

But first things first. On Friday night, we celebrated Sally’s quarter of a century by dragging a whole bunch of people out to the pub. It was an excellent night out (as far as I remember), at least after we had relocated from what was formerly one of our favourite pubs in the area. In the spirit of the New York bloggers who were asked to leave the bar in which they were having a party in similar circumstances, and retaliated by Googlebombing it into becoming the worst bar in NYC, I’ll now be referring to the Barnsbury as the rudest pub in Islington.

We’ll probably never go back to the rudest pub in Islington again now, after they told us they needed their table back at 8.30 because they were too busy, we’d have to leave, and no, we couldn’t buy any more drinks, actually, not even if we stood up. After we’d moved next door to the infinitely friendlier Prince Regent, and secured a large table, the remainder of the evening was wonderfully entertaining, and ended, for Sally and me at least, at the Medicine Bar on Upper Street. Apparently there was dancing, but I barely remember it and I’m not sure exactly how I got home.

Most of the rest of the weekend was quiet by contrast, especially given Sally’s double-whammy birthday/valentine’s combo on Saturday, but extremely relaxing.

Then on Sunday night, we went to see the Jack Nicholson/Diane Keaton OAP-Rom-Com, Something’s Gotta Give, which actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, and worthy of mention for a couple of reasons. First, there seemed to be an awful lot of “please don’t bootleg this film using a video camera” type messages before it, which is rather quaint and only slightly ironic. After all, who would ever want to bootleg a film using a video camera when everyone knows you can get a DVD-quality rip of a screener copy–if you’re that way inclined–off the Internet (or your friendly neighbourhood Oscar judge)? Secondly, I wonder if it really means I’m too far gone if I spend half the film obsessing about the fact that, when Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton have a conversation over AOL Instant Messenger, they seem to have the screenshots the wrong way round, with the icons on her nice little iBook looking distinctly like they were grabbed off a PC, while his part of the conversation on his Sony Vaio laptop looks like it was done on a Mac?

On the way home we were stopped by a chap who told us that his van had run out of petrol, and did we have a quid. Which was rather odd, thinking about it, given that I’d probably be asking for directions to a petrol station, or something, in those circumstances, (and I’m still not entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing with the pound if we’d given it to him–can you buy a can of petrol for a quid?) When I apologised and explained that I didn’t actually have any money to give him (we had just walked out to the cinema, and were walking home; not anticipating any petrol emergencies, I didn’t have my wallet), he actually audibly called me a “lanky streak of piss” as he was walking away. An excellent insult, I’m sure you agree (and one that I haven’t heard since I was about 11) but one that I still have trouble understanding. Like the daft I’ve-run-out-of-petrol-can-I-have-a-quid story, he really hadn’t thought it through, had he? We were some distance away by the time I realised what he’d said, and unfortunately the best come-back I could manage (in what I now realise was maybe my squeakiest, scouse-est voice) was “hey, calm down mate”. I still can’t believe I actually said it.

All in all, an excellent weekend.

10 thoughts on “”

  1. How amusing…”Lanky streak of piss” I’ve just been asked what I am lauging about this early on a Monday morning.

  2. Was watching “Deathwatch” the other day, in which an officer is called a ‘posh streak of piss’. But it is set in the First World War. Funnily enough, I was only watching it because I had given up trying to watch a DVD of Master & Commander – the quality was terrible, as it had been filmed in a cinema.

  3. I must have missed this on the Becoming British aptitude test that I had to take in order to become a citizen. Is “[adjective] streak of piss” a common insult? Has someone likely called me an “American streak of piss” in the past 5 years?

  4. Angel,

    Was reading your post to Kim asking her if she was my “lackey”.

    While I usually enjoy and agree with most, if not all, of your posts, I wasn’t sure if you were player-hatin’ or just simply making a funny.

    Either way, I just wanted to let you know that if I could leave this shit hole and move to your location, I would do so in a heartbeat! What a miserable place to be (Conway, Arkansas, U.S.A.) during such an unstable time. Ugh.

    Is there room for me there? If so, what should I pack? :o)

    INeedADrank
    a.k.a.
    John

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