Deeply Dippy

Ella, alla, wau and peace be with you my friends.

First up, soz for the lack of posts. I've been discovering myself, or rather re-discovering my true inner self.

Last week was a proper mind scraper readers. I've become a slave to the corporate machine of late. It's Christmas party season and I was (I thought) cutting lose and getting festive. Last Thursday I went to get my hair done at Mr Toppers - £6. You get one chance to ask for a style, the hairdresser usually pretends to listen, then gets the clippers out and gives you a short back and sides.

But last Wednesday, I really connected with my stylist. She was a gorgeous, passionate, Australian environmentalist, taking a year out traveling the world. She as working in Mr Toppers to save up for EasyJet trips throughout Europe. She really listened to what I was saying when I described what hair cut I wanted, I said I didn't want clippers, so she gave me something she called a "feather cut" she said she was taught it by a First Nations she'd met in Praha. Wtf?

I tell you what though, she didn't use the clippers, just danced her way around my head, with the scissors flicking at ten to the dozen. She leaned right over me to do the fringe, I was glad to be wearing the gown, because Little Barry put in a surprise appearance - I had to think about Mrs Bradley to make him go away.

I gave her a tenner and told her to take for eight. I decided there and then that I wouldn't be waiting the customary ten weeks between cuts until the next time I'd pop in to Mr Toppers.

Later on that day I went out with everyone from work for the Xmas booze up. Some shitty West End wine bar, with a set meal of dry roast turkey and rock hard stuffing. The only upside to the whole depressing affair was the fact that the bar served Cobra.

Well, you know me readers, I don't need asking twice. I got stuck right in. There was little I could do to lighten my mood though, I couldn't stop thinking about the girl in Mr Toppers. I made a half-pissed, half-arsed attempt to chat up Suzi, but she wasn't really into me, I think she might have a thing going on with Dan. She must have something, because she hasn't sold an ad for seven months. She seems unsackable.

At one point my sales nemesis Mark Baker decided that he'd latch on, I couldn't shake him, he was a bit maudlin readers, I think he's been a long time without the love of a good woman. He didn't half go on about his Mum. Now, I think it's great that he loves his Mum like that, but really, it's a bit weird when the only point of reference for womankind that a middle aged man keeps making is his own mother. Weird readers, and a bit sad. The straw that broke the party's back though, was when Baker told me about the time he'd been to Vietnam and shot a buffalo with a rocket launcher.

"I'm not proud of what I did Barry," he said, "But I'd split up with my missus and I just wanted to know how it felt."

I told him I was off to the loo, but I just walked out vowing to jack it all in on Monday. I was making my way to the station and heard a familiar voice shouting my name from the other side of the street. It was Larson, a Kiwi temp from our place that I told you about a few weeks ago. I asked him if he'd been the work party and he told me that as a temp, HR had told him he couldn't go. I said that it was a bit rubbish, but then he said that technically he wasn't really a temp anyway, that he'd actually been sacked, but was doing shifts for his pal, also (confusingly but conveniently) called Larson, so he hadn't really wanted to argue the toss with HR.

We struck up quite a lively conversation about work, seems Larsen's been around the office a few times, he had an interesting tale to tell about Suzi. We nipped into a boozer for a pint or two, then he invited me a house party he was going to in Stoke Newington. It was the complete opposite direction to the one I was heading, but I thought what the hell. You're only young once.

(Your) God readers, when I walked in it took me right back to a squat party I'd been to with Dave the roofer back in 1999. The music was banging. Here I was ten years later, it was really invigorating to know that I was still able to move with comfort in the subculture. I can't be pinned down readers. Try it. See, you can't.

Check out this link of Larson's pal Barusha69, he is AWESOME. He was DJing at the party. Pretty soon I was immersed in the vibe, I did feel a bit out of place in my suit, but Larson knew everyone, and I mean EVERYONE. He handed me some monkey bullets. I think he did a treble drop readers. A treble drop!

I did a double and I was flying, I don't mind telling you. (Your)God the people at party were so much more welcoming than the wankers at my office, Dan, Suzi, Mark, they're so fake, so plastic, so bought into the bloody rat race.

I got dancing with with really gorgeous girl, long brown hair and luminous face paint, it wasn't sexual though readers, not like a boozey West End nitespot. We had a trust. Not sexual, but we connected, in harmony we were, like crazy dancing moths to the techno flame.

Then it dawned on me, I knew this girl, I knew I knew her, I said "I know you," but she just kept smiling, smiling and dancing. Arms in the air, hair flying everywhere. I was transfixed. It was the girl from Mr Toppers, "you gave me this," I shouted pointed at my hair "the feather cut. You gave me a stiffy," I shouted, but she couldn't hear. She just leant and and shouted, "Ah, mate, it's you isn't it?" "Yeah," I said, "it's me."

Well, to quote the one of the greats, we danced all night under electric candlelights. Although, the Mr Toppers girls wasn't a transvestite. I'd seen down her top at Mr Toppers, she had the kind of breasts that don't really need a bra. You know, small ones.

As the light started making its way into the Hackney skies, the party died down. I'd taken the precaution, like a good number of my colleagues, to book Friday off to sleep off my hangover, not that I felt like sleeping now. I was buzzing.

We all piled into a cab and went back to Larson's place in Shepherd's Bush. The cab ride over was like gliding on a flying carpet, a claret Ford Focus with a man from Lagos at the controls. London minicab drivers always play Magic FM and their gear changing is the stuff of majesty. If you could bottle their gear shifting skills, you could use it lubricate shifting tectonic plates. Fuck me, readers, no more earthquakes. Think about it.

She told me her name, Serendipity, "but people call me Dippy," she said with a smile. I was in love, I don't mind telling you. LOVE. When we got back to Larson's, a three bed flat above a pub he shares with a nine other antipodeans, he popped a pill into my mouth. I didn't want more, But I've done my time on the disco biscuits so not much phases me.

The pill was a slow burner, but pretty soon my head was spinning, Larson was insisted on playing Guitar Hero with the sound down and some crazy jungle music in the background. Fairly soon I was totally unable to move my fingers, and my vision was coming in and out of focus. Dippy knocked over a bottle of chocolate Yop, "don't cry over spilt milk," I said. "But it's a yogurt drink," she said.

So I lay on the floor with my face next to the edge of the Yop puddle and lapped it up out of the side of my mouth. Dippy put on Macy Gray's I Try on rotation. I think we must have listened to it a dozen or more sides, just sound of Macy and my tongue lapping up the fluids.

Larson had disappeared, where I didn't know, me and Dippy found a space on the sofa, and well, British reserve stops me from saying exactly what happened next time. Although, thanks to what I suspect were strong quantities of speed in the pills, Little Barry was living up to his name a little bit too much when I went to the loo for a piss, so I kept my pants on and fingered her instead.

The rest of Friday and Saturday were spent drinking it up a bit. Smoking a few doobies with yet more Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans. Nothing hardcore. Then on Sunday me, Dippy and her pals went and did the Blue Wave march against Climate Change , which was really empowering. I felt alive readers, more alive than I've felt for years.

Sometimes you've got to stand up (and march somewhere) for what you believe in. I hadn't actually gone on the Stop the War march, but then when the war went ahead, I thought to myself, maybe if I'd gone on the march and maybe if thousands like me had gone on it, then the needless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might never have happened. I certainly like to think if the governments of the world see the footage of me and Dippy marching on Whitehall dressed as Smurfs, then maybe they'll try all that bit harder to put a halt to environmental meltdown.

It wouldn't take much effort. Maybe cycle to work, make sure you recycle your empty cans of Cobra, turn the telly off instead of leaving it on stand-by, all that sort of thing. The sorts of simple things that everyone can do really easily, that all added together can make a big difference. We're borrowing the Earth from our children!

Unfortunately, I had to go to work today, mind you they're sending me to a conference in Dubai the day after tomorrow. Fuckin A! Should get myself a bit of winter sun. Sadly, Dippy can't come with me, as she's got to put in some extra shifts at Mr Toppers for special festive art project that she's invited yours truly to be part of! COOL eh?!

Anyway, gotta fly readers, I promised myself an early night. Got some serious zeds to catch up with.

Bazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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