Have a Shitty Weekend!

Photo by Jamie Taete

I thought I was going to get married this weekend. I thought my life was going to begin anew. Perhaps the drudgery of my day-to-day life would be somewhat lifted by the companionship. Even if your better half weren't home when you got back, you’d have the feeling of belonging, the sense of partnership, of a team. It would have been a team that lasted forever, until consciousness came full circle and, as it was in the eternity before birth, nothing, blackness, would encompass us once again. It was to be a lifetime no doubt filled with cliches – but cliches that meant something, private cliches we could enjoy together.

As the disease took her by the hand, I grabbed the other one and squeezed, as if to push it from her. She looked at me as if to say, "I appreciate the effort but it’s alright, don’t worry," and with a tired smile she drifted away. I won’t get my wedding this weekend, but the more heartbreaking thing is neither will she.

Only joking! Let’s get on the pints, you fucking windchime cunts! Whey! Have a shitty weekend, wankers!

QUEEN OF HOXTON ROOFTOP SUMMER CLUB WORKSHOPS – TIE DYE
The Queen of Hoxton pub, East London, Sat 3rd May

This one is a bit of a blockbuster, friends, as the tie-dyeing workshop is merely the beginning of a month-long nightmare of total shite. Queen of Hoxton is a kind of faux-dinge grudge palace in East London, and is more annoying to be in than the bends.

The listing states that this is an opportunity for you to "revamp your wardrobe", which would be completely true, if by "revamp" you meant, "make it look like a stereotypical hippie's jumble sale box because even those backwards pricks don't wear this shit any more". I kind of feel like tie-dyeing is something that should be done once or twice in the teen years and then never again for as long as a person lives. It shouldn’t even enter your head as an optional activity, as something that you can perhaps do on a Saturday, let alone be the central premise for a "workshop" attended by you and some other cunts.

But who am I to judge. If tie-dyeing doesn’t tickle your fancy, you can always come back in a couple of weeks for the "customise your sunglasses" event. That’s right, you can take your expensive thick-rims down to the ol’ Queen Of Hoxton roof and superglue sequins and plastic marshmallows to them, making you look like you’ve been shot through a primary school with a cannon.

Don’t want to look like a speccy, infantile stain? Well, looks like you need to be "making your own knitted festival jewelry with Wool And The Gang". What the fuck is knitted jewelry? Who thought "wool" sounded like "kool"? I just don't wanna get involved, mate.

ECLECTIC FRIDAYS
Gigalum, Clapham, London, Fri 2nd May

What’s the worst question someone can ask you? That’s right: "What sort of music are you into?" If you can’t tell by the way someone is dressed then it’s probably not even worth asking them. Who fucking cares, anyway? What, you're going to have a long, drawn-out conversation with someone you’ve just met about your agreed or conflicting tastes in music? Really? Why don't you just go on the internet? Why don't you call your mum? She misses you.

Conversely, the worst thing you can say in response to this question is: "Well, I guess my tastes are pretty eclectic." It’s a boring answer given by dullards, so naturally it would be sound logic to make a club night in fucking Clapham out of it.

Your girl Liv Knight will be smashing it up down the Gigalum tonight, and what, you ask, will she be playing? Bit of punk, maybe some jungle thrown in? Pig-squeal metal and a touch of reggaeton? What, Liv, what?! Nosebleed fucking techno?

No. Abba and "Juicy". Fuck off.

THE NEW WOMAN
Brixton East, London, Sat 3rd May

I went along to a sixth-form art exhibition in East London when I was a touch younger. There were some OK paintings and drawings and shit, a couple of people did some video stuff that was cool, I guess. There was one big theme that ran through most of the female students' work, though: it was all about periods. Periods and vaginas. There were vaginas made of cotton, felt, books made of vaginas, giant vagina canvases made of period blood, books whose pages were designed with period blood, the list goes on. It was just pussies and periods all over the gaff.

I have a sneaking suspicion that The New Woman, "a day and night event incorporating art, education, music, poetry and dance", may turn into something like that. Songs about periods, poetry about periods, interpretative dance relating to the flow of a period: I can picture it now. Just vaginas everywhere.

It fucking terrifies me.

@joe_bish