It was Thursday night. A bad night for a night out, or a rampage or anything except staying in and working yourself up for a climactic end of the week Friday blow all. Still, off we went for dinner with a friend who will be dearly missed, not dead, but gone to Spain for over a year (that might as well be dead for me). We went to a certain franchised Italian American restaurant; you know the ones; with the sad bronze busts above the kitchen alcove. Damn! Why do the Americans always idolise the founders of anything? The British just want something to have been around since long before they were born; it gives a continuity of culture and the illusion of continuity with our ancestors. Jack the Ripper could have opened a perfumery and if it had opened since 1889, we would still buy from it. Anyway, after a meal that defiantly promised more than it delivered, we headed out to find a bar.

Making our way down Sin Alley, or Wind Street as it’s known in the hours of daylight, we avoided as best we could the drunks, the hookers (probably hookers, they definitely looked the part and gave the feeling that if you gave them enough money to buy the real clothes the look they were going for required they would be on their knees before you could even begin to fumble with your belt buckle), the chavs, the groups of insecure pre-middle aged men who seem to insult everyone in order to believe they are justified in taking their next breath, the evil sadistic militant violent crazy drugged up abusive paraplegics (made that one up) and of course groups of hookers (assumingly to abuse men more effectively by hunting and attacking in packs which makes for a quicker kill). It was a group of the middle aged bastards that popped all but one of our balloons! The balloons were given at the idle/semi-serious request of one of our friends. The young waiter, (who was either really desperate for a tip or more likely a trick) instantly offered balloons to everyone, and many took them. I, of course would rather be suffocated by a balloon than hold one, but Tink jumped at the chance. Everyone tied them to their wrists, but soon found it to be a mistake as it was cold outside and they could only look longingly at their coats…

A few minutes later, two guys, four girls, Tink, me, and a balloon walked into the closest gay bar we knew of. Why a gay bar? Well, we’d never been, and it was settled somewhere amid dessert and the bill so not a one of us were thinking straight. However, to my own personal horror, I saw “Karaoke Night” on a sign above the door. My heart dropped, my liver went into a masochistic mood, and my lips ached for liquor.

After my third bourbon I was feeling less like I wanted to leave before my next heart beat and more like I wanted to leave before the next singer. As the evening progressed, our party decided to sing some songs, which they spent ages choosing, so high expectations were roused. After hearing I Will Survive; Ride, Sally Ride; and others sung off-key, off-beat, out of tune, and mostly flat, while watching a man who looked like he was in about his middle thirties dance to them all, so camp it made me feel ashamed some how, I was ready to leave the bar either chemically or physically (but preferably both). Then, in this, the darkest hour our very own Punk (an… interest of Tinks) took the eighties microphone in hand and gave an explosive, power driven and surprisingly accurate (I’d been drinking with him!) rendition of a Sex Pistols’ song, I believe I was too impressed to recall which song (My Way) but I could just have had too much to drink. The applause was real, not a courtesy or sympathy, the latter of which I’d given too much of over the night. Next up was Tink! Damn, the whole evening seemed to hang for a moment, a moment of wonder, anticipation, mystery, and lets face it, relief. An old song started, by this point after the fourth drink, after an evening characterised by drinking, I have no idea what. Only it was an old beauty song like I wanna be loved by you, something like that (It Had to be You). She sung it by memory, though for a while I thought it was instinct. She took to it with the wonderfully downplayed suggestive and sexy movements all the starlets did whenever! It took everyone’s attention and when the applause came it was fantastic! Again with the real clapping, no half-assed stuff when Tink or anyone WE care about does anything! Still, after a rather self-conscious performance, of It’s Not Unusual by another of our party (respect to David Jones [anonymous welsh guy?]), which ended in a huge avalanche of bras by all our girls, I stood up with the full intention of commandeering the microphone and reciting something by Wilde, Poe, Byron or especially a new lover John Wilmot, when I was ‘assisted’ out of the bar in order to catch the bus back to our place. The night ended soon after my memory cuts out, but basically karaoke is annoying, because its listening to a bunch of random crazies sing songs you never liked in the first place and sing them badly… unless they’re your friends!