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A SOBER NIGHT IN THE NOTORIOUS INFERNOS.
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On Clapham High Street, squished between a kebab shop and a pharmacy, is the infamous nightclub, Infernos. Since opening in 1985, Infernos has gained quite the reputation. It’s the place Margot Robbie went on her Friday nights when she was an up-and-coming actress. And the location where Neil showed off his robotic dance moves in The Inbetweeners.
Despite the showbiz allure though, it’s far from glamorous. You don’t plan to go to Infernos, rather it’s the drag end of a heavy night. It’s the kind of place which makes you slap your aching head in the morning.
“NOOOO INFERNOS….”
Despite living on the edge of Clapham in my early twenties, I had never put a toe in the place. This was partly because I detest queuing especially in the cold, (life is too short), and partly because the club is notorious for young, thirsty men who are on the hunt for someone to share their broken Ikea mattress with.
As this reviewer on the Inferno Trip Advisor page, colourfully explains…
“For some reason, it was as if a lot of the men turned into wild animals as soon as they entered the vicinity, and women were their prey. Reminded me of a scene from Planet Earth, without the pleasure of David Attenborough, and at times I felt like a vulnerable warthog at a watering hole amongst starving lions. “
I always check the reviews before entering an establishment. It’s handy to know what Bill from Northampton thought of the mushroom and truffle pizza in Pizza Pilgrim. I also believe one day they be used as historical documents to show how good society had it. If things get hairy for us; war, alien invasions, the whole country sinks into the Atlantic.. We can reminisce about the time when our problems revolved around overcooked steak and waiting 20 minutes for a table. (See post about The Restaurant Wailer).
Infernos is rated 3 stars; some claiming it to be the best night out ever, other reviewers are not so keen….
“Visiting Infernos was like visiting a post-apocalyptic version of hell, where zombies pray after anything with a pulse and where your money is useless except to buy £12 vodkas.”
The Inferno reviews were never my concern. As someone tucked safely into their 30s and doesn’t drink, I had resigned to the fact that I wasn’t never going to see what was behind those shiny black doors on Clapham High Street.
But last Friday night that all changed…
I was happily talking away in The Northcote, when Jack and Jay discovered my Inferno-virginity. The next thing I knew, I was in the back seat of an Uber, driving far away from appropriately-aged men, and into the depths of the city’s powder room, which is Clapham Common.
This plan would almost be ok, if I wasn’t stone cold sober.
I get asked if I will ever drink alcohol again, and I always reply with a shrug and say something like, “never say never.” After all I never planned to give up alcohol, I did Dry January in 2018 and just kept going and going –in the same way Forest Gump kept running and running.
I’m happy to do most things sober, (some things are excruciating), but it’s a well-known fact that you must be drunk to be in Infernos. The sun sets in the West. It’s physically impossible for a pig to look up into the sky. You must be drunk to go into Infernos. Fact. Fact. Fact.
But, the only thing to persuade me to drink right now, would be a champagne tasting in France…. with Andrew Garfield.
So I entered Infernos… sober. The garish cherry red interior takes some getting used to, and the cloakroom man’s judgement to separate my Hilary Clinton jacket from my woolly cardigan and charge me £3 for each, made me want to drown my inner-Karen with gin, but I didn’t.
On the bright side, we didn’t have to queue because, turns out, nobody arrives before 11 p.m. So, there we were, old as hell, with a threatening net of balloons above our heads, and Backstreet Boys blasting out. I sipped my AF Corona and mourned the night I could be having with the nice men in The Northcote.
Gen-Z began piling in with their cropped tops and TikTok moves. And I got dragged me off my barstool to the dance floor, where with the help from Bon Jovi, I shook off my sulk…..
The poor Inferno DJ gets a lot of slack on the reviews.
“I’m left feeling disappointed the music is exactly the same every Saturday; as much as I love the Spice Girls and Pussycat Dolls, I think it’s best to leave those tunes for a themed night and play more up to date music….”
I, however, enjoyed his selection of Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen. I also appreciated the amount of seating options available, and I liked that there was someone constantly spraying the toilets with a cheap rose scent.
Yes, despite the bad reputation, I woke up the next morning feeling good about my visit to Infernos.
So good in fact…. when I received an email from them asking for a review…..
I couldn’t help myself.
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DATING APPS: THE QUICK FLICK OF THE ICK.
★ THE QUACK HAS REACHED OVER 10,000 VIEWS. THANKS GUYS! ★
Can’t be bothered to read? Let me do it for you.
Last week, I read The Husbands by Holly Gramazio. The book tells the story of a woman named Lauren and her magic attic that changes her husbands. Whenever Lauren gets the ick, she can send the husband up the ladder to the attic, and a new husband comes down.
It’s not a far cry from the dating app culture.
Before technology and love collided, the dating pool was limited to whoever we stumbled across in life. Those days are gone; we are no longer restricted to the men we meet in the office, the pub, or the disco because, on our phones, we have a catalogue of men, far and wide.
Let’s see: We have a Middle-aged Peloton enthusiast, a bearded barista, a sourdough baker, and an Esty candlestick maker… each one you can imagine a life with (and do so in a terrifying amount of detail).
It’s also a lot easier; you can set up a date as quickly as you can get an iPhone charger off Amazon Prime. One minute, you’re scrolling through the catalogue – the next, you’re on a date with Nathan, the lion expert, with his safari tan and lion impression that you find strangely arousing.
Despite the access and ease of dating, my friends are still whining about the lack of men.
“Literally, no men. LITERALLY.”
Obviously, they are referring to quality, not quantity….but what defines quality in this current dating climate? The apps have widened the pool so significantly that we have the luxury of giving the ick card when things are not quite perfect…
If the ambitious, funny, 6ft 2 dark-haired man rollerbladed to your first date, you could replace him with another ambitious, funny, 6ft 2 dark-haired man who doesn’t rollerblade to his dates.
The same goes for the flip side. I once joked with a man that I’m everywhere in Clapham. A few months later, he texted me, saying,
“I’m just in Clapham, and you were right—you’re absolutely everywhere!”
And on the surface, that’s what I am on the apps—everywhere.
Blonde-Avocado-Toast-Munching-30-Something-Year-Old… I’m not exactly reinventing the wheel here.
And if that’s your thing, [except I gave you the ick], then I’m replaceable with another, Blonde-Avocado-Toast-Munching-30-Something-Year-Old.
Sometimes, it’s a shallow ick that makes us throw each other away, other times, you just don’t want to see each other naked. And that’s fine. You can’t spray a bottle of pheromones over each other after all.
But maybe there is a risk that, like Lauren in The Husbands, we are too hasty to dispose of someone over little icks like…rollerblading, knowing that you can replace them with a flick of your finger.
This brings me to my dating app idea called Stuck or Unlock…. (The name needs more work).
Once you agree to go on a date, both of your accounts are locked. Think of the playground game Stuck in the Mud. The only way you can ‘unlock’ your account is when your phones are in proximity on two separate occasions—forcing you to go on two dates.
(And yeah, yeah, health and safety, there are ways to unlock the account if needed.)
The idea is that you will be more meticulous before agreeing to the initial date, saving us from treating each other like a product off Amazon Prime.
The second-date rule means that you’re giving, whatever it could be, a good chance. And you never know…he may explain the rollerblades, and you may change your mind about sending him up to the attic.
Thumbs up or down…
Would you download Stuck/Unlock?
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A CRUISE TO RUSSIA: THE LAST FAMILY HOLIDAY
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Blog “illustrated” by my Panasonic camera & Motorola KrZr K1 photography
In the Summer of 2008, my parents thought it would be a grand idea to take four teenagers on a two week cruise to Russia.
I was sixteen, brace-faced, and was tortured by how far away the Baltic Sea was from my Mcfly-haired boyfriend. Jack was a student and didn’t like any of us. And Joe had been allowed to invite his sidekick, Tom, with him. They’d recently turned 18 and were determined to show their ID to every bartender on the cruise… and every woman in Scandinavia. They also packed the Xbox with them, so they could play Halo in their cabin when they weren’t drinking in a bar. Each night, they would emerge red-eyed at the dinner table, once with a confession that one of them had vomited on the side of the ship.
The dinners were often formal events that required us to dress up. I was currently moulding myself from a grungy tomboy to a girlie-girl and had packed uncomfortable floaty dresses that exposed my shape and my first pair of high heels. My face was made over with magazine lipgloss, glittered eyeshadow and cheap black eyeliners. It was as awkward as you can imagine. (Read The Time A Kicked A Magdalen Boy to see what I mean).
Eyeliner galore I would meet my parents in the piano bar before dinner, where a jolly old pianist played familiar songs and encouraged requests. He was so round and happy; it was like watching Father Christmas at his summer job. On one of these evenings, Dad went to the pianist with a request and came scuttling back as American Idiot began to play.
“Your favourite,” Dad said to me with a smile.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had stopped listening to Green Day a year ago.
On the way to St Petersburg, we stopped at various European cities, where Mum would lead us around and try and force some culture into her kids and husband. It was in Tallinn where I learnt about the power of the high heel. A tanned long-legged woman, silenced our lunch table by the sound of her heel clicking in a hypnotic tune as she went by.
Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Heel-toe.
“Blimey,” Dad said, as he turned his head back to his family. Mum inhaled loudly as she rearranged her knife and fork on her plate.
We arrived in St Petersburg a few days later. At the time Mum was fan-girling Peter the Great and was trying to get her three teenagers, and Tom, as excited about the dead emperor as she was. Unfortunately, we didn’t care for his cabin, or the Smolny Convent. Joe and Tom wanted to know where they could buy vodka, Jack wanted lunch, and I wanted to go back to the cruise’s computer room to check MSN.
I was reading on the top deck of the ship, sailing away from Russia as ignorant as I came, when I sensed someone sitting across from me.
“What are you reading there?” an American voice said. I looked up from my book and saw a white haired man in a polo shirt that showed off his puttylike sunburnt neck.
“Er, Riders,” I said. (It was unfortunate that I was reading an erotic horse-riding novel).
“What’s it about?”
“Horse riding,” I said. The cover was also unfortunate; the backside of a woman in tight white leggings, holding a whip behind her back, and a man’s hand on her bum.
“Has anyone told you, that you look a lot like Britney Spears?” he said.
“No,” I said, quickly. Not liking where this was going.
“Well, you do,” His thin damp lips broke into a smile. “Britney.”
Oh, not this again, I thought.
Only a few weeks before that holiday, I was in Tesco when I noticed a man appearing in every aisle I was in. I didn’t know if it was a coincidence, so I quietly made an effort to lose him. I got to the fruit juice section and was relieved when I couldn’t see him anymore. It was just me being dramatic. I reached for the orange juice when I felt something on my leg. I looked down, and it was him crouching near the hem of my Top Shop blue skirt. It was like losing a spider in a room and suddenly having it crawl up your leg.
Neither encounters escalated to anything more serious, but that summer when I was 16 was an uncomfortable one for sure.
So, with a pervert on board and the love of my life (it lasted 18 months) back in the UK, the last night of the holiday couldn’t have come quick enough. For the final dinner, I put on my black dress and high heels, lined my eyes with black eyeliner, sighed with despair at my reflection, and then walked like a baby giraffe to the piano bar.
Heel-toe…. Heel…..toe. Heeltoe. Heel…….toe. HeeltoeHeel-toe.
The pianist came shuffling in a little late with a grey face and holding a Bloody Mary in his shaky hand. He began tinkling on the piano whilst he introduced himself once more.
“Any requests just let me know…” He pulled away from the mic to hid a burp. “Sorry, feeling a little…fragile…today.”
After a few ropey songs, we went to the dining room. Joe and Tom came bumbling in late, with the two-week European bender showing on their clothes and faces.
“Another heavy night I see,” Mum said as she glanced disapprovingly over the menu.
“It was bants,” Joe said with a mouthful of bread. “We taught this pianist how to play Xbox. He got so wasted.” Tom and him both laughed as if imagining the same comical image from the night before.
“So wasted…” Tom added.
At some point when the ship sailed into Southampton the next morning, our parents decided that that was going to be our last family holiday.
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THE TIME I FED THERESA MAY A FINGER SANDWICH.
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Some call it a side hustle, I call it a B-job.
People in the arts, entrepreneurs or academics tend to have a B-job so that they can do their A-job, or pursue ‘their calling’… An actor may be a bartender, or an academic may do some tutoring.
2014, I was 23 and living in Southwest London, when I spotted the ad to join a temporary staff agency; flexible, no experience required, a training day… it was all I wanted from a B-job.
At the training day it became apparent that the agency didn’t have high expectations.
I couldn’t quite get the cork out with the waiter’s friend corkscrew that they required us to use. (I had only ever used the corkscrew with the big arms that cheered you on as you screwed down, as if saying…“WAAAYHEEEY!”)
And when it was my turn to balance the five plates on my arms, all the plastic carrots rolled off onto the floor. Yet, I got my B-job.
I was disheartened to find that the uniform was deliberately unsexy. (See post about how much I love an outfit here). I couldn’t channel the Rachel Green waitress look, with a cute skirt and a tiny waist apron. Nope. It was black straight trousers, dumpy shoes, and a man’s shirt, buttoned to the top to hide any evidence that you had boobies.
You also had to stick your hair up in this tight, tight doughnut bun that made you look bald. This wasn’t so bad when I joined the gaggle of other clunky waitresses, but when I was alone on the tube, I had the urge to let every attractive man know that I didn’t usually dress like an off-duty vicar.
My first job was at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where I had a dessert tower put around my neck. The aim was to balance the bowls of moose and cupcakes on the tower as I meandered around guests, whilst also trying not to knock over an ancient Greek statue. Other events followed; like a breakfast in an empty office space off Trafalgar Square, and a champagne reception on Pall Mall.
The job was fun, the people… not so much.
The event managers always seemed to be a canapé tray away from a breakdown. They spoke to us like we were automated robots that could only function if the instructions were short and shouted.
“Join THIS line, and take THIS plate, and take it to THAT table.”
“Take out the salmon last. SALMON. LAST. Got it?”
Once an events manager, (who had one of those bob haircuts that warned you about her personality before you even spoke to her), grabbed my shoulders with a tight grip.
“No, you go over HERE,” she squawked as she marched me to a table.
I stood with my mouth opened, flabbergasted. Well, I never.
The guests were not much better. Perhaps I was expecting too much from the interaction, but people would nab a canapé without a thanks. They would dump their dirty champagne flutes on my tray, which was CLEARLY filled with fresh champagne flutes. The worst types were the ones who would order something without looking up from their plate.
“What was that madame?” I’d ask, again and again, until they finally got the game.
At a corporate boat party, I approached a circle of guests with a tray of beetroot and goat cheese croustades.
“Scott’s has to be the best restaurant in town,” said a wispy white haired man, as he lobbed one of my canapés into his mouth.
Excited about our mutual taste, I said, “Oh, I love Scott’s too.” The conversation stopped in its tracks, and the man gave me a sympathetic smile as if to say, ‘Probably not the same Scott’s dear.’
I once served at an event in Whitehall, it was a drinks and nibbles event, and I was in charge of the finger sandwich tray. Theresa May was there chatting to her colleagues when I came strutting over. Theresa inspected my tray and took a cucumber sandwich.She looked up and said, “Thank you.”
(That’s right…if the Home Secretary has time for manners, so do you random corporate woman on table 5).
She carried on her conversation and I left her to it…And that’s how I fed Theresa May a finger sandwich.
I never did get the knack of pulling out a cork without the “WAAAYHEEEY!” corkscrew, but I did learn a few things from that B-job. For certain, I would never want to be an events manager, or be friends with one. And that given a choice, Theresa May would pick cucumber over ham as a sandwich filling.
My days of temp staffing are behind me now, but my B-jobs continue, and so do the strange celebrity encounters – like that time I was an Oxford University tour guide and sang a duck song to Justin Rose…but that’s another story.
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HOW WOULD YOU SPEND YOUR FINAL 100 DAYS OF BEING SINGLE?
This is the 100th blog post of the Quack!
Just to say a huge thank you for reading, subscribing, and now listening to The Quack.
If you are jet-setting this year, please help me with my challenge to make The Quack Map pink
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Skip introduction at 2:46. So, picture this,
You’re in the supermarket and are as single as a belly button. You start your weekly food shop for one…Frozen peas…Frozen berries… Walnuts…Pita bread…2 Avocados…5 Bananas…5 Satsumas…you reach for the marmite and touch a hand. You look up, and the most attractive creature you’ve ever seen is also reaching for the same British savoury spread.
Thunder!
Butterflies!
…And you are never single again.
Here is the golden question. If you knew you were going to meet the love of your life 100 days from now, how would you spend your final 100 days as a single person?
The need to travel came out on top of my research. (That is, me asking my board of singleton friends). There is something about a looming relationship that makes us all want to flee the country on solo trips. I had originally thought that this was because whilst you’re single you have nobody to miss when you’re travelling…but I soon discovered it was more about sex.
When I put the question to Canadian Trevor, he said he wanted to go travelling.
I said, “Wouldn’t you just want to shag about?”
He said, “Wait, what? What do you think I’m travelling for?”
The girls were no better. When I asked my friend El, she had a plan to go to Monaco to hunt down men in hotels and casinos.
So…not so much about missing your loved one then.
The worst thing about being single is the loneliness. Sometimes on a Friday night, you can’t help to think that there are eight billion people on this planet, and not one of them wants to sit with you on your sofa.
If a penguin is waddling alone in an Attenborough documentary, then we would all be crying for that penguin, wishing another penguin would just give it a chance.
“The colony of penguins have rejected this female penguin, so she has to migrate alone.”
However, if you knew your loneliness had a 100-day limit, you would relish in your alone time.
I would enjoy my morning Swiftie showers* without worrying I was waking up my boyfriend. And I would spend the rest of my evenings alone, rewinding and replaying the part where Marlon Brando puts on his t-shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire….
* Swifty Shower – Showering whilst listening to your favourite Taylor Swift playlist.
All in all, I would appreciate having the freedom to spend my time however I choose without guilt or disturbance.
Also, last thing on this point, a lonely weekend is FAR better than a weekend with a partner’s family who is obsessed with playing Monopoly – a game which loses all fun, as soon as you have bagsied the west highland terrier and called it a funny name.
A big part of being single is trying not to be single, and with that comes dating. Dating can be awful; the mental whiplash between hope and disappointment can leave you paralysed on your sofa, crying to Marlon Brando films all weekend.
On the other (ringless) hand, having the freedom to date can be pretty great.
For one thing, it’s heart-warming when you receive an animated rose on your phone, telling you that an account man named Josh believes you’re the hottest girl he’s seen… in the last 24 hours.
Oh, that’s nice, you think, and then go back to plucking your toe hair.
Your friends, who are happily-boringly secure in a relationship, need you to entertain them with your dating antics. It’s like they’re watching you as you fight it out in the Colosseum, cheering you on one minute, covering their eyes the next. You open your Hinge in their company, and you suddenly hear them breathing over your shoulder.
“Oh, look he’s talking to you, Mary! What’s he saying?” asked smug Emily from under her boyfriend’s arm.
“He’s just answering my biscuit question, saying he’d be a jammy dodger.”
Emily leaned in further “So, tell me. Why did you match with him, and not the other guy?” she asked, as if trying to work out the rules of the game.
“Because this guy is a snack, plus I like the way he uses brackets,” I said.
“Oh, look he wants to take you on a date.” Emily jumped, (getting very excited because she hadn’t quite grasped the easy-come-easy-go rules that the apps have created). “This could be the one Mary.”
Maybe Emily, maybe not.
Of course, there is this warm feeling of ‘what it all could be’ before a date, something only single people have the licence to feel. But if it doesn’t turn into DEATH DO US PART, then at least you had the opportunity of crossing paths with somebody that you would have never known existed otherwise.
I’ve been told some brilliant stories that I would have never heard. And spotted an endearing quirk that distinguished that person from anyone else I had ever met. In fact, I don’t regret any date.
But as it goes….
We display a snippet of our lives for three hours, the bill gets paid, and we go our separate ways into the world.….
(And this is when Attenborough pipes up again).
“The two penguins waddle away from each other, choosing a single life, than one together. And so, the female penguin can continue her Swiftie Showers in peace.”
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MY WORST FLIGHT EVER: MR MIDDLE SEAT VS ME.
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There is nothing like plane travel to remind you how humans can be so different from one another.
It starts with the arrival to the airport. Some people drift to their flight without any time to spare, and have full trust in the universe that no external factors will get in the way of them catching that plane. I am not one of these people.
I tend to arrive two hours before the two-hour recommended time. I unpack my laptop whilst in the queue in security to save those extra few precious seconds. There is no belt or unnecessary metal accessories to remove, or a forgotten water bottle, just a neatly-packed-hassle-free box for the security team to assess.
Others are not so prepared. It’s as if they think they are queuing for ice cream, and it’s not until they are by the machines with a grey box in front of them, and a security person yelling in their ear, that they realise what’s going on.
A tech geek will then unpack the whole god damn Apple store into their box. A woman will opt to wear her clunkiest shoes for the flight; with a heel that could hide a gun, a knife, and a medieval shield in it, and get surprised that she needs to take them off. And don’t get me started on those that still – still – have a water bottle with them.
The experience you have on your flight depends on where you’re sat on the plane. The window seats are good for influencers and short haul flights. The middle seats are for the amateur passengers. The aisle seats are essential for people pleasers like myself, who would rather suffer a full bladder for a whole flight than disturb other passengers.
No matter how much you prepare though, things can go wrong, which is what happened to me on my long-haul flight from LHR to IAD. (That’s London Heathrow to Washington D.C Dulles...just in case).
It started off badly, when I forgot to request my non-dairy, non-meat, non-fish meal for the flight. It was a good job that I had the whole morning in Terminal 5 so I could stock up at Pret for my plane food. (I got the best meal you could possibly get at Pret: the avocado, olive sun-dried tomato baguette, cucumber sparking water and mango pots). Yum Yum Yum.
The Queen I boarded the BA 217 flight, and shuffled towards the back of the plane. I got to where my seat was and found a man in it. I stood over him with a confident cat-bum smile. “Excuse me Sir, I think you’ll find this is my seat.” I held up my ticket in the same way the FBI show their ID.
“Your seat?” he said in a clueless way, as if he couldn’t read his own ticket. He heaved himself up and exhaled as he dropped into his correct- middle-seat. Amateur.
Once that little mishap was sorted, I got to work building my nest. My book in the front compartment. My Phone, hand cream, 1 litre water bottle, and dry mouth spray in the netting, and my Pret bag under the seat in front, ready for mealtime. I strapped myself in, put on my fluffy flight socks and studied the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner safety card. (Every aircraft is different).
Mr Middle Seat was travelling with Mr Window Seat, I worked out that they were friends, because they talked throughout the safety briefing video. Don’t come crying to me when you don’t know how to top up your life jacket when we’re bobbing in the sea.
We got up in the air, and Mr Middle wanted to go to the toilet. I thought this was nice of him to get it out of the way before I settled down properly for the flight. What I didn’t realise at the start of the 8-hour journey, that this toilet trip was going to be such a repetitive occurrence that my thighs were going to get a workout.
When the trolly came down the aisle for lunch, I felt I should take part in the communal feast, so I reached down to get my avocado-sundried-tomato baguette and saw Mr Middle’s BARE HAIRY FOOT…resting on my Pret bag.
YEEEEEEEEK
I bit my knuckle to stop myself from screaming. If only I wasn’t a British people pleaser, then I could have asked him to take his toes off my lunch. Instead, I slumped back into my seat and tried not to cry.
During some turbulence near Newfoundland Mr Middle gave me that look which translated that he needed to go to the toilet…again. I proudly pointed to the glowing sign.
“…I think the seat belt sign is on,” I said.
“The seatbelt sign is on?” he said in the same clueless-questionable way he said, ‘your seat?’ And then he grumbled, “There’s no turbulence though.”
“Better do what the captain says,” I smiled and put my headphones back on.
The next thing I knew Mr Middle had pressed the button for back up, and a moment later an air hostess appeared.
“I need the toilet. Can I go?” Mr Middle barked over me.
“Obviously we can’t stop you Sir, but the seat belt sign is on, and we have to warn you that there is a risk,” the air hostess professionally replied.
Mr Middle raised his hands at me, as if to say, ‘SEE! HA!’
I slowly lifted the seatbelt buckle and got up for the zillionth time, and Mr Middle squeezed past me.
“I am frequent flyer, so I know these things,” he snarled.
“If you are such a “frequent flyer”, then you wouldn’t have booked a middle seat, and MORE importantly you would be wearing socks right now, instead of me having to endure the sight and smell of your hairy crusty feet.”
.
.
.
I wished I could have said this.
I wished I could have also thrown my contaminated avo-sundried baguette at him too, but I know that if I did such a thing in today’s world, I’ll end up on YouTube as the woman who lost her mind on the plane, So, I sat back down, strapped in, (seat belt sign was still on), and waited for Mr Middle’s return.
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THAT TIME I WENT TO FREEZE MY EGGS.
Hate reading? Let me read for you.
I don’t know what I was expecting the egg freezing clinic to look like. I had hoped it would be a huge glass dome with people in lab coats, doors with dry ice coming out from the cracks, maybe babies growing in tanks….
So, I was disappointed to drive up to a grey office building in a business park, with overly groomed flower beds, and a fountain stuck on a round about. It was like being in a SIMS video game where the player had dragged and dropped ‘outside features’ to make the place more appealing.
The reception area was overwhelmingly green; the walls, the carpet, the chairs were all the colour of a bitter banana. Along the walls were framed artwork pieces of water-coloured flowers in the shape of human eggs, (which like the fountain on the round about, seemed to be a way of disguising the fact we are creating babies next to a ring road ).
I had a bit of waiting time, but thankfully I had my book. I was reading, How to Kill Your Family, which in hindsight, probably was not the most appropriate novel to bring to an IVF clinic.
The first appointment is a test where you get to see your womb on a monitor. As I was lying there with my legs apart, and the nurse trying to find my ovaries with her gel-covered camera stick. I was thinking that this would be the greatest way to start a Channel 4 modern nativity series.
NURSE: (Gasp) You don’t need your eggs freezing Mary because you’re pregnant.
Mary thinks back to the last time she had sex
MARY: But…but…that’s a miracle
After the follicles in my ovaries were counted, (GOSH WILL YOU STOP WITH THAT SEXY TALK), I was booked in with with the consultant. And the very next week, I was walking in to the consultant’s room, which was also tremendously green and decorated with creepy flower-egg shaped artwork. The consultant offered me one of the three chairs opposite her.
I had originally thought that the whole egg freezing process was a quickie; I’d come in, be numbed, they’ll collect a few eggs, and then like a bag of peas they will be stored in a freezer until the man of my dreams divorces his first wife and finds me.
It turns out that it wasn’t such a simple task, and that I had to do some homework. The consultant said that I would inject my own tummy for up to two weeks. The injection would be stuffed full of hormones, which amongst other side effects, can bring on mood swings.
Mood swings. Hmm. Like most women, I have been known to put on a pretty good show with the hormones I already obtained.
For instance, I have a Spotify playlist called ‘Week 4’, which has songs like Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, David Grey, and How to Disappear, Lana Del Ray, which I listen to on repeat as I stare out of windows for a week. Other actions include biting the head off an ex for using my Jo Malone bubble bath, storming out of coffee shops for no reason, and sending that one-letter text that makes every man want to crack his phone in half…
K.
So, for the sake of world peace I asked the consultant, “on the scale of La La the Teletubby having a good time on the hill, to Carrie unleashing her powers in her school hall killing all of her classmates…how crazy are these hormones going to make me”
The consultant smiled professionally and said, “some women say they feel no changes to their moods, others will say that they started crying because they didn’t know what to have for breakfast.”
A vision of me sobbing on my kitchen floor, surrounded by broken bowls, Coco Pops and croissants flashed across my mind.
“Yes, I think I’ll fall into latter category,” I said.
The consultant then explained that after the injecting hormone stage, (and if I hadn’t blown up the world), I’ll be ready for the big scoop and freeze, (not her words). She advised that I have someone pick me up after the operation as I will be slightly battered, (also not her words). I mentally ran through my Hinge inbox and wondered what man would be most appropriate for the job.
Now the process had been explained, it was time for business. The consultant twisted the screen to show me the cost breakdown. That’s when I saw that the storage of the eggs will costs £350 a year. Naturally, I was already doing the girl maths in my head:
Hugh and Mary start dating on the 1st June. On the 30th September Hugh tells Mary he’s ‘not looking for anything serious’, how much money would Hugh have wasted on freezer costs?
£117.12
(As you know from my Maths blog – this would be a very rough sum)
In total egg freezing (including putting your eggs back into you), costs around £8,000. I leaned back in the green chair studying the breakdown to make my baby. The injections, the operation, paying for Hinge George’s Deliveroo, to say thank you for picking me up from an egg clinic on our first date, and of course the annual £350 freezer cost.
I got back in my car and rang Mum.
“The thing is Mary…a kid is not the be end and end all,” she said, forgetting her audience. “You could spend £8,000 on freezing your eggs, force a baby into your life, and the kid could be a real piece of work…like Joffrey in Game of Thrones, or The Omen…”
“Or a TikToker,” I said.
“Exactly,” she replied. “Perhaps you should just let nature do its thing. If you spend £8,000 hanging around Italy for a year, I’m sure will happen naturally.” (Mum has a thing for Italian men). She then added, “But if you do go ahead with it, can you please give me plenty of warning I just need to pop it in diary when you are going to be hormonal goblin…..
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SOUTH WEST LONDON FOREVER
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I had thought my nights in Brixton were long behind me, but last Saturday I found myself amongst the shipping containers of Pop Brixton, shouting my food order over the deafening dance track.
“THE HUMMUS WRAP!”
“What?”
“THE HUUM MUUS WRAAAP!”
I had been invited by my former housemate, Pete, to his birthday drinks in our old stomping ground. ‘A bit of a blast from the past …’ he said, shyly in the Facebook message. A blast from the past indeed. Ten years have gone by since we lived in that terrace house in Stockwell.
There were four of us in that house. Me, Pete, Big Bro Joe (read about him here), and Dan who I had nicknamed Park Life, due to his love of English rock bands. When Definitely,Maybe started blasting from his bedroom, we knew he was getting ready to hit The Common. Pete also liked music, but it was bands that nobody had heard of.
“Would you like to come to a gig with me?” he’d asked on weekly basis.
“They’re called Parisian Dodos, kinda drum and bass. Kind of reggae. Kind of pop.”
His film collection was no better. Occasionally, he tricked the house into a movie night, and the four of us, plus a girl trying to impress Park Life, would be squeezed onto the sofas for three hours watching some 70’s Korean action film.
Our temporary family began in 2014. The city was gin-obsessed, and all the flat white-sipping millennials had made base south of the river. We’d cram on the Northern Line on the weekdays, and then cram into The Northcote on Friday nights. The first summer day of the year, saw everyone spread out on The Common, dizzy from bottomless Prosecco. There were endless gourmet burgers to try, Autumnal tag rugby matches, and late night bars where you make a two hour solid friendship with a marketing girl, who’s name you’d soon forget. I wanted to capture it all, stuff it into a jar and label it The SW Days. That’s when I began writing That Bloody Mary.
Along with Bloody Mary reviews, I wrote stories about our house share. One where Park Life and I had stumbled down to Brixton Market to cure an Honest Burger craving. As we munched our hangover away, we saw a pretty blonde with a backpack on. Park Life had a thing for blondes – still does I think.
“I’m not sure about the backpack,” Park Life said . “They’re a bit…” he pulled a face.
“She can take the backpack off. It would be like a… Dora the Explorer strip tease.”
He contemplated this for a second, then knocked on the window, and held up his number on a napkin. The backpack blonde sitting directing below us, squinted, giggled, then looked sad as she mouthed, I have a boyfriend.Then made a sad clown face.
Another failure I wrote down, was the trapping of the house mouse using Lindt chocolate and a box. The mouse was too wise for this, and eventually he/she met its fate with a pest controller. The majority of the stories in the blog though, told tales of us rambling the southern boroughs of London, without too much worry of what the future holds.
Like all house shares, things weren’t always...ideal. There was the fifth housemate to bear – football. If they weren’t watching it, they were talking about it, and if they weren’t talking about it, they were playing it on the Xbox. Our poor red sofas had black patches from the FIFA binges and endless matches.
I had attempted to make the place more homely with blankets and cushions, but the collection of sticky whiskey bottles, the hanging wires, and the ironing board which was permanently out, meant I was fighting a losing battle. I thought they would get bored of FIFA, but after two years the game was still going strong. I don’t think they noticed I moved out.
Ten years on, and we’ve all left London apart from Pete who has moved in with his lovely girlfriend. She can just about tolerate his offbeat DVD collection. On the way to Pete’s birthday drinks, I took a detour down our old road. The house hadn’t changed a bit; the random palm tree was there, the stubborn gate was open, and the blue velvet curtains were still hanging in my bedroom window.
Suddenly, the front door swung open, and a twenty-something year old woman, bundled in a black North Face coat came out. She ran down the steps, through the gates and headed towards The Common.
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GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE CLUBS.
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There comes a time in our lives when our best friend falls in love and becomes unbearable. Hermione met Sam over a year ago and has forgotten what it’s like to talk to single people.
“It’s the WORST being in love,” Hermione moaned as she drank her wine. It was Saturday night, and we were in Kettner’s celebrating Amy’s 32nd birthday.
“It must be so tough for you…” Amy said with an eye roll.
Amy, like me, is as single as a plastic straw. Unlike me, Amy is not on the dating battlefield. You may have read her list of requirements for Mr Normal. But instead of hunting for Mr Normal through apps, bad speed dating events, friends of friends, friends of family, friends of friends of friends…. she much prefers her evenings on the sofa with a meal for one. And so, I have an ongoing campaign to try and get Amy to agree to at least one date with someone. Anyone
Mid campaign Hermione was crying into her plate now. “I mean, what if Sam dies?”
“At least you would have known who he was. In fact, my soul mate could be dead already. Maybe that’s where I am going wrong,” I said.
“Don’t worry Mary, he’ll be out there, alive. Like Sam was out there for me….”
I was about to throw my dinner at her, but then I had an idea.
“You’re right Hermione.” I threw my napkin down. “We should go out right now. Like out-out.”
Amy moaned. “Really? I was going to have an early night…”
“Amy! You’re 32, it’s Saturday night. We’re in Soho. We’re single.”
“I’m not.” Hermione butted in. I glared at her, and she looked down at her plate.
“All I’m saying is your Mr Normal could be on a dance floor just out there.” I pointed to the door.
“Eurgh,” Amy groaned.
And so, I led the charge of my unenthused blonde-haired army into the depths of Soho. It had been 12 years since I had been to The Roxy, but I remembered it being a great night out. It was a rough and ready basement which played indie rock like Jimmy Eat World and Paramore.
ROXY, 2012 I kind of thought that the same people would be there, just older. That was not the case.
Loved up Hermione The Roxy had had a makeover. There was a red neon light above the bar that spelt out ‘DRINKS’. The booths were a matching red and filled with baby face men who looked thrilled to be out at night. In the ladies’ toilets, one girl was bragging about how fruity her lip gloss tasted. We tried to dance, but after two songs we felt like schoolteachers at an out-of-hand raunchy school disco. It didn’t help that Hermione insisted on tying her scarf around her shoulders.
Teachers on the dance floor “We need to get out of here. This club is too young,” I said. At that point, our friend Oliver turned up and told us about a pub with a dance floor off Oxford Street. I was keen. My blonde army was not.
“Sam has just come home…and I want to wake up next to him and eat pancakes,” Hermione said.
“I’m tired….” said Amy.
“FINE! I’LL GO ON WITHOUT YOU!” I shouted.
And so, I left my girls behind and followed Oliver to a pub called The Phoenix. The man at the door modelled himself on Alice Cooper. Inside was packed and dark, and unrecognisable garage music was blasting out. I could just about tell that everyone in the room was born in the ‘70s. There is nothing wrong with people born in the ‘70s; Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds and Adam Broody are on th“at list.
There was an awful lot of passive aggressive slogan t-shirts, a hefty BO stench and snogging. It was like a flash back scene out of a true crime Netflix documentary, you know just before a murder was going to happen. Our friend Mikey turned up. He looked around the room in disgust.
“What are we doing here?” Mickey asked. “This club is too old. Let’s go to The Loop.”
So, we wandered down Oxford Street to The Loop. I had never been there before, but both Mikey and Oliver had enjoyed the Spanish-themed Friday nights there. We scanned our IDs, got patted down, stamped, and were let in.
I knew we had found my place because my favourite Abba song was playing, ‘Does Your Mother Know” Catchy pervy lyrics sung in an upbeat way. Things got even better when I found the rainbow illuminated disco floor, which made me feel like I was in a Grand Theft Auto video game.
A reference that most people on the dance floor would have understood. And that made this club, just right.
As for the hunt for Amy’s Mr Normal…it still continues.
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A GIFT FROM MY BROTHER: MY WEST END DEBUT.
My oldest brother, Jack, is not one to express himself with words. The evidence that he cares is presented via organising events, offering logistics to your life, and giving gifts. However, Jack’s gifts are not always the most typical; more often than not, they are damn right random.
When I was a teenager, I had a chain of Christmases where Jack bought me statues; one year, it was a wooden chef, and another was a man and woman ballroom dancing. For my 21st, he gave me a second-hand maroon military hoodie. And recently, a framed Taylor Swift shrine was delivered to my door.
I was a little relieved when Jack gave me the option to choose a show to go to for 32nd birthday. I told him that I would love to go to a comedy show. What I got was four tickets to Derren Brown’s Unbelievable.
As a people pleaser, I find magicians stressful. It takes a lot of energy to be in awe of a middle-aged man when he’s pulling cards out of your hair. However, this was a Derren Brown’s production, so I was expecting something a bit more thrilling.
And so, we went to The Criterion Theatre on Piccadilly Circus. I was relieved to find our seats were safely tucked in the middle of the stalls, far away from the stage, and so were at no risk of being picked on. Still, this didn’t stop Jack from pressuring me to put my hand up every time a magician asked for a volunteer. But I told him to leave me alone, as I was happy to observe the magic from afar. I saw water being turned into a Long Island Iced Tea and watched a pianist play a song that was in someone’s head. All very entertaining. All very relaxing…until the last act.
The magicians wheeled out a tumbler with balls that had every seat number on it. They picked out five of them, including H15. My seat. My gut twirled and twisted as I stood up. And then an audience member had to pick which one of the five should go up on the stage.
“Erm….H15,” he mumbled into the mic. My gut fell out of my butt and onto the theatre floor.
Jack laughed at my displeasure as I shuffled past him to get to the stage. When I got up there, I was blinded by the stage lights, but I could just about gather the rows and rows of faces staring back at me.
My first task was to check if the old wooden wardrobe on the stage was empty. I confirmed that it was. Then I was told to ‘make myself comfortable’ on a plastic tree stump.
Photo credit: https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/28458-derren-brown-unbelievable At this point, I realised that the magician was gorgeous and far from a middle-aged man with a pack of cards and a disappointed mother. This one had fluffy storm cloud-coloured hair and was pulling off the ‘undone suit look’ remarkably well; with a tattoo peering out from under his rolled-up white sleeve. Unfortunately, about 500 people were watching us, including my brother, and so instead of flirting, the Hot Magician told me about a spirit who could sense my energy.
To be fair I’ve had worst chat on dates.
A spooky voice echoed around the theatre. “Mary, I can sense a ‘J’ in your life. Ju…Julie….Julia?”
“Yes, that’s my Mum,” I said.
The Hot Magician looked shocked. “Your mum? Wow. So that we know we have the right Julia, please tell us something that only you and your Mum share that nobody else knows.” I sat on the plastic tree stump and had a long, hard think. Too long perhaps, because the Hot Magician hurried me. “Anything at all…”
I got it. “What… was the song … we used to sing in the car…. on the way to school…. when I was thirteen years old?”
A flash of worry crossed the Hot Magician’s face. “You want to know…. what song you sang in the car with your mum when you were…. thirteen years old?”
I tried not to take offence to how much he emphasised thirteen as if I had just said 1733.
“Yes.”
“Give or take?”
“Sure.”
The spooky voice came back into the room. “The song you and Julia sang in the car when you were thirteen years old was Hero by Enrique Iglesias.”
Hot Magician’s eyes narrowed. “Is that…?”
I nodded. “That’s it. That must be my Mum.”
The audience gasped and Hot Magician breathed again. Hot Magician then got me to hold a red balloon. I don’t know why I had to hold a red balloon, but there were a lot of things I couldn’t explain at that point in the evening.
Hot Magician said, “If you could say something special to someone right now, what would it be?”
“I would say, thank you to my lovely brother Jack who got me these tickets as a birthday present.” The audience let out an ‘aww’. They didn’t quite get my sarcasm.
“That’s sweet, but what about your Mum? What would you wish you could say to her?” Hot Magician said, refocusing the show. I am not as bad as Jack, but I’m still quite British when it comes to expressing my feelings out loud, especially in front of a whole West End theatre, so I made a joke instead.
“Um, I would say thank you for letting me share your Netflix subscription. And thanks for making all the vegetables at Christmas vegan-friendly, even though everyone knows that butter makes the potatoes taste better.”
A laugh errupted which made me very happy, but I could sense by the serious thick eyebrows on the Hot Magician’s beautiful face, and the slow piano now playing in the background, that Derren Brown was going for a more ‘emotional vibe’ for this part of his show.
I dug a millimetre deeper. “And thanks for always picking up the phone even though I’m in my 30s, and really should learn how to do life without calling my mum all the time.”
“Aww,” went the audience. The Hot Magician nodded. He was proud of me.
“Well, Mary, you can now say it to her face.”
He opened the wardrobe door……and Mum was sitting inside, smiling, waving her arms.
Baffled by Mum’s presence in a wardrobe, on a stage, in London, I turned to the audience. The only person not applauding was my brother, for he was laughing too hard to be able to clap. I guess it was a comedy show – for one person at least.
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