'insert foot' by susan murray
in my life i look back and the and realise that i'm a walking chaos theory - realised. i flap my butterly wings and there is civil war
in bolivia.
basically i've started many fights by accidents. i've never been hit.yet. i've probably come very close, but been too drunk
to realise.
the first one i can remember - i was actually sober. this is why i can remember it. me and my best mate joanne sweeney were travelling on the 529
bus to wolverhampton to go shopping. we were 17 and in the middle of studying for a levels.
we were upstairs at the back and about 4 lads got on and sat spread out infront of us. they started talking to us.
as it was 17 years ago and i've been caning it ever since, i dont' remember the specifics. one of them was ok. two
were mute and one was a cretin. it was 1986, the era when spots clothing became really fashionable, at which point me
and joanne were veering towards goth. as much as still being at school would allow anyway. dyed hair underneath
covered up during school hours. we went to a strict catholic school. can you tell?
anyway the 'cretin' starts attempting to impress us, he's wearing a nike shell suit and needless to say
it didn't quite wash with us.
"it cost 15 quid" - quite a lot of money in those days,
to which i replied "well you've been ripped off cos there's a huge fag burn it in. they must have seen you coming"
now how was i to know that this top was probably this scumbag's pride and joy. he went mental. to the point where the
ok bloke had to drag him off the bus as he was trying to kick my head in. he never managed to touch me. i called him stupid, he called me stupid and i shouted, to my shame "i've got three a'levels....." and then muttered to joanne "..pending." oh how we laughed. and i did get three a'levels. when a'levels meant something.
the next time was about 10 years later. i was again on a bus, the 29 travelling from tottenham court road to finsbury park. me and my boyfriend at the time, a really posh lad called julian. he was bought up posh - went to harrow and all that, but his family went bankrupt. he was an arty filmaker type who liked his drugs. i was his bit of rough. he worked at the carphone warehouse, or the carphone whorehouse as the staff used to call it.
we were sitting right at the back on this bus. (old habits die hard). two white guys get on and sit at the back either side of myself and jules. one of them has no shirt on. it's not summer. this should have been a warning.
the bus fills up, i ask one them if they want to sit next to each other. but they don't.
two black guys get on and sit towards the back just infront. one of them is chatting on his mobile phone. he finishes his conversation and puts the ariel back in. (remember when mobs still had ariels?). i pipe up " that ariel's just for show, it doesn't actually do any thing"
"huh?"
"it doesn't actually work. he should know, he works at carphone warehouse"
how much does my boyfriend hate me at this point?
now it goes all patchy. the black dudes start talking to us. the white guys chip in. it gets nasty. i have no idea what was said. it ends up with all 6 of us stood up. me and jules in the middle trying to stop a reconstruction of the film zulu, the black guys getting off the bus, the white guys staying on.
it only turns out that one of the white guys lost his shirt in a fight he had earlier that evening. twat
then there was the time at a bus stop on upper street isligton. can you see a theme? thank god i have a car now. the world is safer.
i'm sure i had a mate with me. this guy starts talking to us. unwanted attention. then another one comes up and starts talking to us. i've no idea what i said but i do know it was a catylist for them to have a fight. we got on the bus and fucked off.
now in order to get more details for this one, i rang joanne, as i am sure i was with her. she didn't remember this incident but she did recall one i have totally forgotten about.
we were on a night bus travelling from camden, up camden road to the squat i was living in. it's not as bad as it sounds. badly decorated but rent free? bring it on
the only seats on this bus were right at the back. now joanne isn't sure if i started mouthing off first, or if this bloke said something to me but rather than ignoring it, like joanne would have done, i gobbed off back. then another bloke took the baton and started arguing with the first bloke at which point joanne decided we needed to go downstairs. which we did, as the fight broke out.
i have no recollection of this whatsoever. but it sounds rather feasable.
i still need to find out who was with me at the bus stop on upper st.
the most recent was in october. my flat mate had moved in, i had a rare night off, so what did we do? went to see some comedy of course. we had lots of booze, picked up a stray comic at the gig and got a dodgy but rather expensive cab back to the stow.
a week or so before i had bought some chip shop curry sauce granuals - but they only work if you add water. and chips. so off to my nearest kebab shop. the first time i had been there. we order our three bags of chips and stand around waiting. a local 'geezer' comes in. he's cockney. unlike us. and very unlike the kebab shop owners.
"i want a big kebab in a small bread" he asks
"no. we don do dat" answers the kebab shop guy rather patiently.
"camm on mate. i want a big kebab in a small bread"
now in the mean time i've been sort of bantering with this geezer because when i'm really pissed i think i'm the funniest thing alive. but you know how when you're really drunk you lose bits. normally the crucial bits. all i can remember saying to this bloke was "piss on his face". (my parents are not allowed to see this show as i want the grandmother clock.)
he takes the baton. it's probably the most intelligent thing he's ever repeated.
"i'll piss on your face"
"you piss on my face?"
"yeah. i'll piss on your face"
"you piss on my face?"
and the best thing about it is that the kebab shop owner looks like super mario. they
start punching each other over the counter. i think the 'geezer' threw the 1st punch.
after about 20 seconds of this, the rest of the kebab shop staff come steaming out of the kitchen with........swords. very large implements and they weren’t looking to cut the meat. it was like charge of the light brigade. into the valley of death rode the three mustachioed musketeers, pauthos, arthos and blue stratos. but if they really wanted to hurt them, they should have just force fed them shit meat covered in chili sauce with no bread at all. if you eat enough chili you can have anaphylactic shock
i have a feeling this may have happened before. they chase 'geezer' and his mates down the lea bridge road as i'm standing there going "i started that".
the curry sauce granuals were horrible by the way.
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