The Lost Weekend: To London and Back to the Bridges of Home

The journey back to home involved what can only be described as great pain. The first leg involved a six hour flight from Perth to Singapore, nothing too bad really, the man who sat next to me managed to say hello while simultaneously staring straight ahead, glaring at the back of the seat in front of him and not even glancing in my direction. I took this as to say 'Look I'm acknowledging your existence but I zero intentions of conversing with you', this was fine with me given the selection of films on offer too. Especially the surprising inclusion of Raging Ball, I can firmly recognise it as a masterpiece but it's still an awful film to watch, De Niro is far too convincing in playing the most unlikeable man on earth in Jake La Motta and it's just a bit unsettling really. He really must be a psycho too to play such a realistic portrait of a nutjob.
The wait in Singapore was a welcome brief one at just a couple of hours, so I barely passed through; I did find the sight of a middle aged yuppie sitting with his mac book pro out while playing with an iPad at the same time amusing. People like him need to mugged just because they're far too smug, that's the type of stuff I used to do when i was five and got a new toy that I'd take to play with in the garden in front of all the other kids. What i was really saying was "hey everyone in the street look at how amazing i am with my new legion of doom figures"...they knew the score. The next flight was onto Heathrow and a lovely 13 hour journey it was too, bad enough by itself but unimaginably awful when you've got the biggest cretin in the world sitting right behind you. I'd put his age between 28 and 37, impossible to narrow down since he was dressed like a tool with an oversized Chicago Bulls hat on and form the moment he sat down nothing but bullshit streamed from his mouth. It actually astounded me the level of delusion that was this man had to the point i gave him several half head turns and even added the 'eye raise' to put my point completely across. He was one of those people who don't just give it the 'big lad' but talk at such a loud level so everyone else can here thinking they give a shit. The last phrase I heard him utter was ' Yeah I'm going to Scandinavia on 'business' innit and the missus is none too happy...she knows I've got an eye for the Scandinavian ladies". Eurgh....CUNT.
The rest of the flight was pretty bad, it was the first time i'd been on a jumbo and i unluckily drew the middle seat so I didn't have much room to move in. I can barely sleep in beds so that was out of the question and it was a pain in just attempting to get comfortable. So yeah...I basically just sat with my eyes closed grimacing for ten hours in utter pain and watched Invictus before that and landed back in England at 6am local time having headed off 3am UK time the previous day. It wasn't much fun. The journey onto Alfie's was another chore with the central line being full of stops due to faults so that added another 2 hours onto my total before i was finally back in Wanstead. I did of course manage to fit in one argument in the meantime, long story short being that i had the shocking audacity to graze some old bourgeois cunts leg with my backpack as he sat messaging his rent boy on his Blackberry. He then tutted. I didn't like that at all after 20 odd hours of travelling but i managed to get back fine for a tearful reunion with Alfie. It was too much for me, he cried, I cried, neighbours cried and then some local kids sang return of the mack. Suresuresure.
Him and Katie had to shoot off to work so my day was spent just lazing about really and recovering. On his return we headed over to the George for a few drinks (non-alcoholic still for me) and I told him a few taes while meeting a weird Irish guy who thought I was German. I don't know which disturbed Alfie more, the shenanigans of myself or this strange 'musician'. It was nice to see some familiar faces again though and the hospitality at Oakhall Court is always of the highest standard I must say. Thursday was much the same really with me being up at 4am despite only 4 hours sleep in two and a half days.
Friday was a bit more eventful with me having to take a trip to the tailors to get measured up for the pending Hello Wedding, it turned to be quite a trek too with me stumbling across the Priory on the way. Three months ago i'd probably have took this as a sign but I was now seven weeks sober, that wasn't going to last much longer though....The fitting went fine and I was happy to discover i had lost four inches off my waist since heading into hospital last year but I never had the guts to ask how big my head is. Not that I needed to really, his reaction told me enough, it was the biggest he'd ever come across. After that four hour trip I headed to the bottle shop to go old school buying a bottle of vodka and two sprite bottles for the events later.

With bottles in tow i met Alfie at St Pauls (after we had a little tiff) and briefly caught Nick and Max too. I man with a red mohawk and various piercings was asking for cash for a bed but if you can afford hair dye then you don't need to be begging, a ouch twat categorically told him to 'fuck off' on numerous ocassions though. I was hoping for it to kick off and hopefully both would end up dead id i'm honest, the world would be better off. After watching the France game we headed out to Hoxton and i drank my bottle of vodka far too quickly, I can't taste the booze these days but Alfie certainly could so i had to drink most of his too. This left me fucked. Probably not the smartest idea to drink a bottle of vodka after seven weeks without drink really. I didn't know what was going on the rest of the night and according to Alfie i talked absolutely shit none stop. Standard. Oh and of course i puked too. That set the tone for Saturday which was spent looking down Alfie's toilet mostly, I was so fucked i couldn't even go to the BBW so had to sit and watch the England game with Alfie's mam who had came down for the weekend. Tremendous entertainment as ever with her raging at the TV, she summed up the performance well. 'Three words Gary....they ....WERE....SHIT'.
My mindset is still very much that of a backpacker so I decided to use the Sunday being a tourist while Alfie, Katie and his mam headed out home improvement shopping. I hit all the usual tourist spots, Westminster, London Eye, Trafalgar Square et al but came across a few interesting things too. Speakers corner never fails to bring the amazing so i hung out there for a bit witnessing them argue, rant and rave about all manner of things, religion and politics always at the top of the agenda of course. Two blokes were really getting into it but there's rarely a winner in these situations, people here are too deluded. I then stumbled across a massive Sikh march of hundreds protesting a massacre in India back in 1984, I'm in no way educated enough to discuss but I did join them for a bit like. London is also covered in various elephant sculptures to raise conservation awareness so i snapped tens of them too as I came across them.
With all that done all that was left was to head home back home to South Shields and allegedly resume a normal lifestyle. I had originally intended to National Express it but Jan was heading back to Shields too and drove me home in no time at all, arriving back after a short four hour drive. The rents had no idea I was coming back yet, so as i bumbled in through the door my Mam just assumed it was my brother entering the house, a loud 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' came out of her mouth on seeing me, of course my Dad was a lot more reserved, offering the standard handshake haha. I was just happy there was no arrival home tears from her unlike the deporting home tears. It was nice to be back home to be honest...and it would be nicer once i sat my eyes on them bridges again....