Two Chaps Talking

Mon Vieux,

Art colleges for the masses eh? In the words of Queen Victoria on the subject of teetotalism, a pernicious heresy. Though this fortnight I came across a few who might benefit from just such an alternative outlet for their energy. But I'll come to that.

We've lived you and I. And we didn't get to where we are today by shirking a bit of Unpleasantness when it bared its fangs.

Remember the days on the school playing field when someone needed correcting and the Queensberry rules had to be invoked? Or rather shoulders had to be pushed and the word 'Yeah?' repeated over and over again in the fervent hope that one of your mates would rush over and drag you away shouting 'Leave him, he's not worth it'. Thus preventing the next step which would be the grappling of each other's necks until one gained a secure grip and could squeeze a submission from the other. The pressure might induce a mild nose bleed but no more. And I'm told there was even nobility in defeat if the match was fair.

Those were the days.

All very interesting but scarcely germane you may think. Would that it were so. For this recent weekend fresh from a ride in the country with a pal and his dearest to look at a rural retreat for the OB&C we decided to venture north on this fair island and enjoy some food originally from ironically, the deep South.

Now a Chap doesn't really know a city until he's seen it from all angles. Hence forays into the Old Centre of Amsterdam, the Topkapi Harem in Istanbul, or Phat Phong in Bangkok. Where else can a Chap get the experiences needed to regale the club of an evening?

With that in mind and with the target being some way north of the official res. we took a cab and were exposed to an instructive panorama of the Third World areas of this fair city. You'll have seen the sort of thing in shanty towns around the world.

Charlie's Barbecue Buffet has been fulsomely praised by those in the know in this city for some time now and with good reason. With Autumn drawing near what could be better than fried chicken spiked with hot sauce, smothered pork chops and succotash or collard greens and barbecued ribs? Nothing that's what and once we'd got outside of our third helpings we were spiritually transported to New Orleans. A jazz band funeral could have passed us and we would scarcely have noticed.

What in fact we did fail to notice was the sun going down and the night shift emerging from their lairs. Going into Charlie's in the late afternoon sun we left a lively and energetic version of downtown Kingston, Jamaica. Coming out in the early evening we were in Mogadishu circa '92.

What had previously been open areas of natural wildlife for little children to skip around were now darkened waste ground for dumping bodies. Classic Nineteenth Century architectural structures ripe for renovation were now crack houses ripe for SWAT raids. And smiling families and kids playing footie were now swaggering groups of young men with pimp rolls, ghetto limps and Tupac bandannas.

Technicals drove by with dark windows and blue lights instead of gun mountings but were no less dangerous for that. And high powered motor cycles screamed by delivering bad things or fleeing the scene of the crime.

But why need a Chap worry? We were after all only one block from the enormous castellated edifice that housed the local constabulary. Furthermore I'd seen dozens of brightly painted Police motor cars parked along the street. And you don't spend your formative years as a Bournemouth New Romantic without being able to deal with harsh stares.

Mind, I'll not pretend that I was entirely sanguine about our little trek.

It is true that we excited some unwanted attention. Yes there were several young toughs sprawled over a police motor car outside the police station and for them to have so little fear of recrimination said something about their disregard for authority. And yes, words may have been called in our general direction that don't bear recording in our fair correspondence. All that is true and yet we made it the half dozen or so blocks to brightly-lit safety and cabs without any actual contact being made. Another chapter in the book.

Only when I returned home did the OB&S put me fully in the picture.

OB&C, 'You noticed what those kids sitting on the cop car were wearing didn't you?'

Yours truly, 'No my sweet, I fear I did not.'

OB&C, 'Red. They all wore something red. And that makes them Bloods. You know, the gang that cut people open just as an initiation, before they even get going on the real stuff. I'm talking about the kids that you led us through the middle of. On the way back from the restaurant that you suggested. You know. At night. In the dark.'

Yours truly, 'Ah.'

She was not impressed.

I reassured her with talk of the Code Duello and Cosh pockets. I shot my cuffs nonchalantly and may have mentioned that they'd got off lightly. You know, the sort of thing that goes down well at the bar.

Well it seems I don't know the fragrant sex as well as I thought and I am confined to barracks for the nonce. Needless to say Charlie's won't be including me on their Christmas list as a regular customer. But I am getting full use of the couch in my study which has to be a bonus surely?

Yours in exile,

S