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His arms beseeching infinity, His chiselled jaw set to stun. His acid green jump-suit fresh out of the box. He is the carwash Christ, perpetually poised with Holy Loofah in hand, ready to wash away the cares of the world. He's also a terrifying sight when you've been up all night and have just passed Him by as you stumble down the road towards King's Cross. I beg Him to wash away my demonic head-pain, but His is a higher calling and I have been judged and found wanting. Also, I don't have a car and obviously look a bit of a knob genuflecting before a day-glo mannequin. Humbled by his ascetic vigilance, and the stream of abuse from the fat gaffer inside who objects to my picture, I walk on.
B
Some people call him the space cowboy, I'm not exactly sure who, but un homage to Steve Miller never goes amiss. I call him Juju. The sort of juju you sprinkle in a line in front of your doorway to keep the demons away. Aha, but what then do you do about the demon you've now trapped inside your house, what then eh? Well, to start with, you feed him. A lot. He's fond of practically everything so knock up a feisty pasta and give him that. Allow him to wash this down with beer and whisky and port and gin. He will be momentarily stunned, but don't be fooled, his powers of recovery are er, demonic. You have to keep him benign by then playing him an assortment of music. He will respond well to anything smokable at this point, give it to him in regular doses until the early hours of the morning. Do not, under any circumstances, allow him to sleep. No amount of screaming pleading, drubbing and stabbing can rouse him once he has entered the arms of morpheus. This is a bad thing. His wife would agree. She did, a lot. Then again, it's nice to know even demons can be sent to purgatory.
B
Some bizarre ghosting happened in this pic which gives the impression PC's aura is ready for its close-up, even if PC isn't. The roof of the Bartlett Gallery gives good view, the Gherkin pushing up through railtracks and girders in the dim distance and trains cantering by every so often. Just have to insure Tortured Artist doesn't have one too many green bottles and dash off the edge in joyful dilerium. Yes, that trippy trail in the sky is one mofo full moon.
B
Inconceivable. Ha, by using this large word, I have cunningly shifted the text so it starts below the images rather than dribbling down the side of the left picture. No doubt there is some logical way of avoiding this happening, I just don't know what it is. Anyway, it's a great word immortalised by a great film, and should get an airing a lot more often.
The opening of the Bartlett Gallery in Bethnal Green was the culmination of many years of toil, hardship and borderline psychosis on the part of Tortured Artist. I wish him and his merry band every success for the future. Of course, now that he's got everything he's always wanted as an artist - giant studio, own personal gallery space, like minded artistes to supply objective yet deeply constructive criticism and advice - he now says it's all too late and his artistic ability has utterly deserted him. I removed the last of the beer bottles from his fevered grasp before he hurled it viciously to the ground to join its shattered brethren, then gently broke the half -nelson he had me in, before it broke my neck. I was then about to offer all manner of soothing words and assurances of his genius, when I realised he was listening to Bruce Springsteen. This made it abundantly clear he was beyond hope. I went back up stairs to the rooftop to listen to some fiendish imp mash up an old moog in tandem with his Apple mac. Now that's an art.
B
When you're having so much goddam fun all the time, weekend after weekend, it's easy to forget. Forget that we went to a fabulous Jazz Cafe picnic in the grounds of a beautiful stately home. Forget we made a delicious margarita mix and brought it along in a handy dispenser. Forget t
he jolly friends, the happy crowds, the monkey's wedding, the all encompassing goddam fun we had. I'm remembering it now, with a little prompting from GWonder (doll). Curiously enough, while the lady on the left, the lovely Melanie, has lingered long in my mind, I seem to have misplaced the lady on the right. Perhaps one needs to see a face. Ass recognition is a fine art I never quite mastered (Yes Spencer, that ass). Other things happened on this day. A gentleman called Dr.Syntax told us a salty tale of his encounters with humankind, he 'layed it down a cappella stylee' I think the kids might call it. We lay down on our picnic mat and chortled, our Waitrose packets whirling about our heads. Zero 7 made us all shake uncontrollably. Jose Gonzalez made us stop shaking and stroke our beards instead. Then we went home, a lot, home and home and by Christ are we still walking where's the fugging station, oh thank Gawd a bus, where are you, you're where? We wait for you, and wait and wait oh no I am going to cry I lie down on the ground just kick me please where are they now? Ah, here they are, super. Then we slept.B
There is an extremely inebriated man sitting opposite me on the train to Hove. He is at that amiably drunk potentially belligerent stage, chatting randomly to the terrified Chinese couple next to him until I turn up and they do a runner. He takes his time to engage, leering at the cover of my music magazine and making lip smacking noises. Eventually I'm forced to fix him with a gimlet eye. 'Sheza bitof awright' he mumbles, jabbing a pudgy digit at the Ibiza babe frolicking on the front of Mixmag. I manipulate some facial muscles so my lips turn up at the edges, but the utter insincerity of this grimace fails to put him off. God shines down on me when he begins a lengthy treatise on the unsung merits of Rod Stewart and the Faces, letting slip that he's got all their records at his squalid hovel in Hastings. I politely point out he is sitting in the wrong set of carriages for Hastings and is on his way to Hove if he remains in his seat. Eyes bulging, he frantically grabs his can of Tennants and salty KPs and dashes for the front of the train. I bathe in the tangible waves of good will directed at me from the rest of my fellow passengers, until Hove, er, hoves in sight.Girl Wonder (doll) waves from the balcony, and the titter and tinkle of Mr.Incredible's birthday party wafts down to me. The Zim factor is high at this event, as are most of the Zimmers. The blunt force trauma of being smashed in the face by so many 'flet' accents, sends me reeling into the arms of a large bowl of punch. This in turn sends me rolling onto the balcony. There, I find the b-day boy and, engaging hearty mode, discreetly try to shake off the (sucker) punch with jolly banter. The day gently dribbles into evening, all have supped of punch or the devil beer and merry appears to be the way forward. I have sensibly partaken in some wholesome stew action (cheers for that G-Wonder) and have partially returned to my senses, possibly around the same point certain hangers-on actively begin to leave theirs far behind. Herding cats madly, Mr.Incredible rustles up a fleet of taxis and we troop off into the Brighton night, destination Audio.
Two giant peroxide bouncers man the door and are remarkably friendly to this dubious rabble that staggers out of the darkness. I'm assured by Mr.I that the DJ is known for sending his acolytes on a Journey of Uplifting Musical Joy(TM) and I'm eager to experience this first hand. Sadly, said DJ appears to have not received the uplifting journey memo and decides instead to lead us in a giant samba via the grimy juke joints of the West Coast. This Latino/hiphop hybrid is a journey to the forth tier of Hell, presided over by a giant set of demonic congas. Knowing he can't sustain this diabolical tedium all night, our DJ let's his flunkey bosh out the odd OK tune. Tis' but a ruse to punish the unwary reveller who has stumbled hopefully back onto the dancefloor, with a fresh bombardment of whistle/conga horror. 4.00pm brings merciful release from this damnation, and we return to the sanctuary of the balcony, an unwelcome demon trailing after us. It's remarkable how far an individual has to go before polite middle class constraints snap. Here's a few top 'getting thrown out' tips. Consume all the consumables, do not offer any of your own. Ask people meaningless questions. Don't bother listening as they struggle to answer. Carry on talking over them about an exam you wrote. Consume more. Fall on people. Scream incomprehensibly in their ears at the club. Hang on people, sit on people, grope people. Return to after party despite palpable air of hostility. Talk incoherently yet again about self. Burst into tears for no apparent reason and flounce off to the loo to no doubt hoover secret drug stash. Upset old friend of the host in the process. Throw bottle off balcony. Yes! Finally, an act so stupid and unnecessary, even I am appalled. He is summarily ejected and all breathe an enormous sigh of relief. I immediately play an exuberant samba tune and everyone shoots themselves. (Ha jokes, not really hey Boet)
Happy Joy Mr.Incredible. May your jaw forever be chiselled and all your demons thrown over the balcony (preferably at the beginning of the evening)
B
These are collaborative works produced by my child and his mother. They are part of a future exhibition, revolving around the worldview of a child and how their perceptions evolve and are influenced by parental opinions of the the same symbols and mythic representions they both encounter in their daily lives. Fairy tales, religious iconography, pop culture, the detritus of a 1st world society. I'm opening this event. I'm going have to be a bit more coherent than this.
B
Peeping Tom the film that destroyed the career of respected British Director, Michael Powell, was compulsory viewing in our film course at Uni. This image instantly transports me back to the icy cold projector room of the journ department at Rhodes. Our breath solidifying before our us, we huddled together for warmth while creepy Carl Boehm roamed the seedy underbelly of Sixties Soho (can I say 'Boehm roamed'? guess I just did) The subjects of his perverted desires? Disfigured prostitutes. His depraved quest? To capture on film the purest moment of abject fear as his victim realised they were about to be skewered on one of the sharpened legs of his tripod (no Spencer, not that tripod, though no doubt the comparison was intentional) Perhaps it was the combination of sub-zero tempratures and smuggled-in Tassenburg Red, but this film scared the living shies out of us. So now I go and take this weird picture and it all comes flooding back, aaaaaaahh, I hate Tassies!
B
Gawd, tempis really fugits when you're having fun, seems like seconds ago I was sweating my ass off in Orlando. This place is a shies-hole of epic proportions. It's reclaimed swampland, overrun with cheap housing and toytown municipal buildings. It exists to serve the multiple evils of Disneyworld, Universal Studios, Seaworld and various other lesser but still diabolical theme parks. It is also one of the leading convention areas in the US, which is why I was standing around with Mz.P for three days, smiling and nodding at corporate Amerikakaka. I was most happy to return home from this chore, content in the nollige that the automotive industry now has a clear understanding of what my mobile phone operating system company does. OK, perhaps 'clear' is pushing it a bit.
B
Americans, they're everywhere, speaking, smiling, being polite. They love this shit, the conferences and the milling about aimessly saying 'Hi chuck' and 'Hi Ed' and waffling about kak that means nowt to anyone. Mz Pakistan eats for Asia and is pleasingly HM, like a dusky Fox she moos about touching fruit and alligators may break into her hotel room and other random nonsense that gives me a warm sense of nostalgia. We spend our first stand session, drinking an assortment of alcoholic concoctions and fielding futile questions of the 'what do you do?' ilk. No problems really, until a smug pair of indian boys sidle up and start hurling arbitrary queries about shite we should perhaps be familiar with but patently aren't. I larf at their obvious attempts to impress my co-worker and accidently on purpose pour a bud lite on their ugly corporate shirts so they have to scuttle off to change their nappies, children. Lunch time session, day two, exactly one person talks to us in two hours, he is utterly incomprehensible but very enthusiastic and I reward him with a pen and and three copies of the getting started book, which he clutches to his heart like the rosetta stone. Evening session two, I am accosted by a journalist who pretends to know nothing about this smartphone business but is obviously highly clued up, I hedge madly, babbling with pristine confidence about global sales and waves of the future. He eventually realises I am a (poorly) trained stand monkey, with utterly nothing of significance to impart, and flounces away to gorge himself on sushi. The food is fabulous once again, pasta and cuban sandwiches and sushi this time as opposed to last night's prawns and fajitas and kobe beef. Obviously we all caned it a bit too much the night before and the bar tonight has been reduced to beer, wine and sodas. Mz P only drinks girly drinks with sugar/spice interfaces, and turns her nose up at wine and beer, despite this she still manages to hoover up two plates of pasta and a giant portion of risotto, I am in awe. Tomorrow we have a mid-morning session starting at 11.45am until 1.45pm and an evening session from 6 until 7.30, curtailed because of the big end-of-event party at the Hard Rock Cafe. Mz.Pakistan will be wearing black, I will be wearing thin.B
'Tis but a hop, skip and a jump from Manchester to the rolling hills of Gisburn and the matrimonial marathon that is Ish n' Alfie's nuptials. I have fulishy attempted to assuage the raging thirst with Coke Zero(TM) and discovered it is as kark as you'd imagine. Fortunately, only men are allowed to drink it, so Loved One is spared the horror of its cancerous assault on the taste buds. I barely resist gobbing it into the carpet and am forced to have yet another soothing Murray Mint to appease my senses.
Sweeping into Stirk House we are soon ensconced in our oven/room and take to the bar as quickly as possible for a cheeky hair-dog interface. Downstairs we find Mootham in his natural habitat, scarfing chips while watching the croquet. He too is broken and blanches at the sight of our G n' T's. The crowds are beginning to gather so we take to our finery and join Mooth n' Spencer on the front lawn (No Spencer, not that Spenc..shit! Yes actually, that Spencer!) haemorrhaging water by the bucketload in their smart suits. The hotel is rammed with rellies, 300 odd of 'em,
all ready n' rearing to welcome the arrival of...The Groom. The bride of course, doesn't get a look in at this stage, preferring to make a grand entrance later on in proceedings. Alfie and Papa Alfie roar up (quite literally) in an ancient vehicle held together by snot n' cat gut. Alf runs his first gauntlet of the day through a phalanx of petal wielding ladies, all intent on drowning him in rosehip before he's made it to the door.
The guests promptly head for the nearest tables, and a mild scuffle breaks out as people desperately attempt not to end up on our renegade table. Eventually a couple of mates of the bride's father, shunned by the rest of the crowd plonk themselves down with us, eying Spencer and his moist girth with obvious alarm. In filthy pig dog Westerner stylee, we all pile into the giant bowls of lamb and saucy bits, rashly forgetting this is just the first of many courses. Al-Farid is now lording it up on his throne awaiting the reading of a prayer and the contract exchange with the bride's father, which will no doubt be destroyed shortly after the event and replaced with something more suited to the bride's exacting specifications. The renegade table and new found chum, see this as the perfect cue to dart out the back for a crafty fag and some sparkling mineral water coff. Downing our double er, MW's, we arrive back at our place in time to tuck into three different types of curry and 40 kg's of rice. The temperature inside the reception area is heading into the fifties, exotic saris sway back and forth across the floor like a Bird of Paradise convention, apnabeat is laying down the bhangra vibes and events are in full swing. Bloated beads of salty sweat alliterate their way down Spencemo's cheeks and all are suffering from extreme lambasting. No rest for the sticky tho, as hurrah and huzzah the bride has arrived. She look utterly fab in her gold encrusted number, a team of engineers circling around her at all times, touching up lippie and adjusting her fringe. The woman looks like a princess to Farid's frog ha ha, ag shame Farid look tres swayve too in his bespoke savile row business. Renegades are back behind the bicycle sheds for yet more mineral action, joined by the LBC crew, who seem to have been attacking their own brand of fizz, the shame of them. The joyful couple have been plonked on their thrones for some time now, having their piccie taken with everyone, and I mean eveeerrryyyoonnnneee in the room. I have deep respect for both their stamina and their composure, which is more than I can say for team renegade who are so horribly mineralled up by this stage, they're unable to control their bodily functions. Well, one of them can't, I name no names, you know who you are you chuffy blort. Apologies to the father of the bride for the vicious blast of napalm that caught him unawares, those stains will wash out Sir. We finally wave the happy couple off, not in the ancient car, as Papa Alf forgot to put petrol in it, but in Mama Alf's handy people wagon. Finally, sheesh! Now we can get a proper drink!
Congratulations Ish n' Farid, may you forever dwell in the light of undiminishing joy.
B
Ah yes, a nice bowl of fruit. Simple strong lines, bold use of colour, tactile blending to delineate light n' shade. A fine piece of work. In this age of formaldehyde sharks and dirty beds, it's good to see a return to the basic principles of art. Manchester is full of this sort of return to the basics thinking. Like drinking beer for instance. Why attend a Beer Festival, which may or may not be populated by the Scum of the Earth(TM), when you can sit on your own front patio and crush a few hundred cans into your face in the company of friends and family. Sure, if you're so inclined, you can nip down to your local and ram a few tequilas and aftershocks and some weird blue shite that no one could really identify down your neck. Then it's back home to a welcoming ten more beers before bed and chronic heart palpitations around four in the morning. Just the way to prepare for a wedding...
to be continued.
B
RIP Crazy Diamond.
B
'Is there anybody out there?' Christ on a bike Roge, are you blind, there's fookin' thousands of us. We've all overcome our mass depression of an hour ago, purged all thorts of Ingerland from our minds, trudged a thousand miles from Notting Hill Gate, just to see you mate, knock off the rhetorical questions and break out the giant pig. Alas, Roger was too busy inflating his ego to inflate yon floaty pig, but we forgive him for that for yea, he is Roger of Waters and judging by the way the aging hippies in front of us waved their pudgy arms and shook their haggard follicles, he is a Rock God(TM) It gradually dawned on me the appeal of attending a Robbie or Kylie concert for the teenies and housewives; it really rocks to be able to sing all the words to practically everything at a gig. This would be a bit smug and irritating, were it not for the fact that everyone, as far as the eye could see, was singing word perfectly too.
Roger was on stage for the duration, and he and his trusty session musos performed a brace of Floyd classics with effortless glee. Except for a brief moment in the middle when he disappeared up his own rectum in search of his latest political opus, the profoundly named 'Leaving Beirut' I will let you discover the magic of this song for yourselves, I am unable to talk about it without losing control of my bladder. After a ten minute break while a crack medical team extracted Roge from his rectal passage, it was off to the Dark Side of the Moon for us. (No Spencer, not his moon)
This naturally, was brilliant. Every moment of that album was executed to perfection, every agonising wail of 'Great Gig in the Sky' every bang clang pip bong of 'Money'. Everything. The grizzled hippies were reaching nirvana by the time that final heartbeat palpitated off into the distance. I sang my garbled version of every song with such crazed gusto my lungs fair ached. Roger couldn't bare to leave it at that of course, and dashed back on to do 'Brick in the wall Part II' but it was fine, he didn't have to, we were full to the brim and anything more was just greedy. Roger, you earned your crust of bread that night. Ingerland, I want my money back.
B
Nice to see Desparate Dan and Juju again, even if it meant we had to sit through some truly diabolical bands. 'Bush Guru', the reason for us being at the Clapham Grand on a Friday eve, were the best of the lot. This isn't praise by the way, as the rest of the acts were so utterly bland and formulaic, it didn't take much to rise above them. I'm not a fan of this sort of right-on 'Afrika the Muthaland is weeping' shite, but they were competent players and they did do a song called 'Bulawayo' which must count for something. It was all downhill from there as they were followed by a ghastly Nelly Furtado wannabee (that's 'I'm like a bird' Nelly, not sexed up, Timbaland trippin' 'Man-eater' Nelly) wearing a screaming yellow dress which looked like someone had detonated a cage of canaries into some cling film and wrapped her in the remains.
She was eventually dragged off the stage by some passing PETA activists, only to be replaced
by one of those bands who used to play during break in your school hall. You remember those utterly wet Christian Youth bands, wot had one of those cylindrical hand shaker things and a weird sort of clacker machine that used to randomly mulfunction when they artfully banged it against their pasty thighs. The earnest weenies used to gaze meaningfully down at their synchronistically tapping feet while their leader (who always looked like that Jane from childer telly classic 'Rainbow' ) beseeched us all to 'Caharrmm to ther Lorred.' Not sure why she had a quasi-americano accent, it being seventies Rhodesia n' all. Sheesh, if anything was to drive an impressionable yoof into the arms of Satan it was these people. But I digress. By this stage I was sufficiently numbed by cheap lager and Jazz cigarillos to venture across the Saturday Night Fever Flashing Coloured Disco Floor (TM) the like of which I haven't seen since Sarah's in Harare, with the intention of rudely heckling the God Squad. Lucky for them they dashed off into the wings and cunningly tagged with something even worse. The lead singer of the next crew came on in very nice white jeans and top to compliment her shiny blondeness, but for some mysterious reason, had decided to wear a fluffy white tutu on top of her jeans. This was one stylistic flourish too far, I begged for mercy and Juju n' DD graciously allowed me to escape from what was quite obviously 'Bad Band Hell'.
B
Fuerzabruta at the Roundhouse in Camden, is an Argentine production which perfectly suits the newly revamped home of crusty rock concerts of yore. The show traps its audience in a ring of curtains and herds them about in shuffling groups, their movements dictated by the action taking place overhead and all around them. As a treadmill barges in from a corner a lone spotlight picks out our everyman hero of the day, trudging endlessly towards death/epiphany as all manner of obstacles hurtle towards him (including some people who looked like they'd just stumbled off the platform at Chalk Farm station). This poor fella gets shot in the back but bravely soldiers on, runs like the clappers for a bit, gets bludgeoned by a wall of boxes, gets rained on, gets randomly bumped into by those rude tube people again, gets shot again, keeps going, holy shit, it's like a metaphor for, like, life! This is all laying it on a bit thick but fortunately he manages to run off before someone else shoots him (namely me). We are now surrounded again, only this time by a massive curtain of tinfoil. Two nimble young gels in flimsy frocks dash around at ceiling height across this billowing silver surface, like a human wall of death, rolling over each other and screaming like banshees. My metaphor gland struggles to process this bit, but gives up as we are once again shuffled around by frantic backstage crew all sporting elaborate head mics, in order to make way for what looks like a giant 50p piece that floats down into the middle of the space. On either side of this 'coin' are a man and a woman, who set up a rhythm by hurling themselves from side to side which sets the entire structure rotating madly. This has the knock on effect of driving them both utterly insane, and they jabber and hoot at the crowd like Tourettes infected howler monkeys. Is this the paradoxical dichotomy of man and woman, or has the cast been laying into BSE infected Argentine beef? We will never know as the 50p is whisked away and replaced by a swimming pool that covers the entire crowd. The floor of this pool is made of some indestructible transparent plastic allowing us to view four scantily clad women as they perform an x-rated Esther Williams piece in a garishly illuminated cascade of water. I find myself becoming oddly aroused by all this frolicking, and am somewhat disturbed when they lower the entire structure down to head height allowing the audience to prod and paw at the nubile bodies a mere membrane away from them. The odd idiot takes it too far and has to be chastised by the roaming stage crew, as the pool sails back up into the rafters and...oh no, it's that poor running sod again, forced back into action on his eternal treadmill, you vicious Argie bastards, let him be! I too am calmed by a circling crew person, who assures me the actor is extremely fit and has been doing the show for months, like that's supposed to make me feel better. The whole event peters out suddenly in a rather anticlimactic fashion and we find ourselves abandoned by cast and crew to make our way out or linger on the floor while their DJ bashed off (no Spencer, not that sort of bashing off) a few tribal choons to prepare us for the world outside. Anyone familiar with the work of Grotowski would know this sort of thing was all done with equal fervour in Poland in the fifties and sixties (don't want to come over all poncy like, it's a miracle I remember anything from four years of speech n' drama). I can't say I was utterly blown away by the whole thing, but I recommend people check it out, just for the spinning 50p and the nekkid chicas in the pool, which strangely enough made it all worthwhile!
B
When rocking hard on a sunny Saturday afternoon, one suddenly finds one's thorts turning to matters epicurean. Rocker and myself have up to this point been content to satiate ourselves with watered down Stella/Strongbow combos. Rockette however, is having none of this and disappears for two hours on a food mission. Queensryche have deeply underwhelmed us with their faux horror ways for what seems like years before Rockette reappears clutching this smorgasbord of delights. She demands we partake of the pudgy wedges of deep fried smash, dripping cornetto and extra hot watermelon, but Rocker's eyes are drawn to the freshly minted pack of Smoking Kills and the feisty Chablis. He hoovers up both in a matter of seconds and is sufficiently enervated to sing discordantly
along to 'Wheel in the Sky'; a Journey classic that has aging rockers as far as the eye can see, weeping into their skull mugs. The Milton Keynes Bowl is a gigantic grass amphitheatre which looks like the crater formed by some giant prehistoric meteorite bombardment. We gather our meagre belongings and head for the relative sanity of the grassy slopes in order to take in the crowd from a distance. By the time Alice Cooper comes on, we have become one with nature and can barely wave a lighter to 'Be my Frankenstein'. Rocker has turned a luminous shade of vermillion and has begun chanting in ancient Mesopotamian, I begin to wonder what was in the Chablis. The Sun mercifully retreats and Deep Purple take that as their cue to stomp on the last remaining synapses firing in the puddled remnants of our brains. I too have taken up chanting as it seems the only way to communicate with Rocker. Rockette has gone off to start up a bra fitting concession next to the veggie burger stand, as she says she's never seen such badly fitted bras in her life, and that's just the men. Finally, to the strains of 'Smoke...' we crawl towards the exit, hoping against hope Rockette is able to drive us back to our hotel without any verbal input from her men. Not one to ever let the party end, Rocker whistles up three tequilas, three brandies and three buds from the hotel bar, but this is the final straw for Rockette, who despairs of us and heads for bed. Eventually, and by eventually I mean after having the shut bar reopened to get us a cheeky baileys, Rocker calls it quits, no doubt collapsing like a felled Redwood as soon as he got to his room. I know I did.
Monsters of Rock, we did you proud.
B
His arms beseeching infinity, His chiselled jaw set to stun. His acid green jump-suit fresh out of the box. He is the carwash Christ, perpetually poised with Holy Loofah in hand, ready to wash away the cares of the world. He's also a terrifying sight when you've been up all night and have just passed Him by as you stumble down the road towards King's Cross. I beg Him to wash away my demonic head-pain, but His is a higher calling and I have been judged and found wanting. Also, I don't have a car and obviously look a bit of a knob genuflecting before a day-glo mannequin. Humbled by his ascetic vigilance, and the stream of abuse from the fat gaffer inside who objects to my picture, I walk on.
