Holiday ro-ooo--ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooad.....
Marvellously, classicly typical start to my birthday mini-break started with over-sleeping and getting into work half an hour late. Almost as if my body had already slung its passport into a rucksack, ordered itself a pint and forgotton clean about my last obligatory day in the Man's custody, that is until Wednesday. Good on my body. It has the right attitude. It's my double-checking, anal, officious and frighteningly unforgiving brain who wears the swastika in my body.
My girlfriend is flying me to a mystery location on Saturday. I have known this for three weeks. I have been given three guesses - I guessed Scotland, Ireland or Holland. But this remains to be seen. All this time I have made it more than abundantly clear that I never asked for any of this fuss and that I'd be happy for a few days away anywhere, as long as it wasn't bloody fucking Brighton. Basingstoke, Derby, Whitby, Bristol, Isle Of Wight, Reading, Crewe, Banbury, Orpington, Leeds.... anywhere but the birdshit covered, druggy loving, student saturated, pretentious, prissy, pricey and diseased little prickhole that calls itself Brighton.
How weird that I should say all that, yet the second I hear somebody dissing my home town I feel very defensive indeed. I hear our team are doing very well, according to sources that follow the foot and the ball. I feel some pride, in the same way a man who barely knows his own father learns that he has just got engaged to a woman five years younger than his previous trophy wife, who was ten years younger than the wife before her, the woman you call your mother. Well done for him. And good luck. Because you know this time it will Most Definitely Last.
But enough of me being miserable. I like the mystery, the sense of surprise and suspense that lies afoot of this particular trip. With all the best will in the world, this should make me feel a childlike enthusiasm not felt since September 1992 when as a cub scout of 10, I was taken on a mystery trip to Thorpe Park and the only thing that didn't totally suck was the Logger's Leap flume ride. I'm hoping this time that more than one thing won't suck. That's because it's 2011 and nobody even uses the word 'suck' to describe a collection of some things that are 'terrible' any more.
I am 30 next year.
My girlfriend is flying me to a mystery location on Saturday. I have known this for three weeks. I have been given three guesses - I guessed Scotland, Ireland or Holland. But this remains to be seen. All this time I have made it more than abundantly clear that I never asked for any of this fuss and that I'd be happy for a few days away anywhere, as long as it wasn't bloody fucking Brighton. Basingstoke, Derby, Whitby, Bristol, Isle Of Wight, Reading, Crewe, Banbury, Orpington, Leeds.... anywhere but the birdshit covered, druggy loving, student saturated, pretentious, prissy, pricey and diseased little prickhole that calls itself Brighton.
How weird that I should say all that, yet the second I hear somebody dissing my home town I feel very defensive indeed. I hear our team are doing very well, according to sources that follow the foot and the ball. I feel some pride, in the same way a man who barely knows his own father learns that he has just got engaged to a woman five years younger than his previous trophy wife, who was ten years younger than the wife before her, the woman you call your mother. Well done for him. And good luck. Because you know this time it will Most Definitely Last.
But enough of me being miserable. I like the mystery, the sense of surprise and suspense that lies afoot of this particular trip. With all the best will in the world, this should make me feel a childlike enthusiasm not felt since September 1992 when as a cub scout of 10, I was taken on a mystery trip to Thorpe Park and the only thing that didn't totally suck was the Logger's Leap flume ride. I'm hoping this time that more than one thing won't suck. That's because it's 2011 and nobody even uses the word 'suck' to describe a collection of some things that are 'terrible' any more.
I am 30 next year.