Have a Shitty Weekend!

Photo by Bruno Bayley

Why would anyone live for the weekend? It’s just more hours. More hours you have to figure out something to do in. More hours you have to whittle away to keep yourself sane. More hours to stay awake before you go back to sleep. Fuck the weekend. In my view, the weekend should be as monumentally depressing and shit as possible. Why strive for the puppy-like emotion of perpetual glee when you can have the much more human sensations of unrelenting disappointment and ambiguous sadness?

So, here’s a guide to having a shitty weekend, this weekend. Don’t thank me. See you bright and early Monday morning.

Blitz Night, Friday 7 Feb, Proud Cabaret Brighton
7PM £34 (free club night till late)

Ever wanted the Blitz experience, but without all the pesky rubble, dismembered corpses, shattered lives, looting, teen murders, endless weeping, barrage balloons, permanently greyed skies, constant fear and heady reflection on your own mortality and the future state of the world as you know it, wondering perhaps whether you’ll ever see your children again? Then we have just the place for you! Blitz Night at Proud Cabaret in Brighton (pictured above) boasts a supper club to “retreat” to (man, weren’t bunkers so much fun? Blackout selfie!) and promises “delights of the flesh that will block out any Blitz!” – though hopefully not the charred flesh of a freshly exploded sentience!

If you’ve been inspired by the poor, brave London commuters invoking the #BlitzSpirit during this week’s tube strikes, for only £34 you and your mates can enjoy the sweaty feeling of trepidation that comes with being in wartime England, but with added nipple tassels and smoke machines. They even have sandbags. I wonder if in the Middle East they have “Drone Parties” where broken families gather in destroyed buildings to listen to jazz and drink Martinis. Hope so, they could do with a laugh!

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Kader Attia, Whitechapel Gallery, East London
Exhibition runs until November, free entry

This installation by French-Algerian artist Kader Attia has one of the most bemusing Time Out listing descriptions I’ve seen. Writer Eddy Frankel says that the artist has constructed a bookcase full of “tomes on art, science and history in a variety of languages”, and a “cabinet of curiosities – microscopes, old science textbooks”, etc. Frankel’s listing then goes on to question the very substance of the installation, calling it “muddied” and claiming he doesn’t know whether the artist’s “‘concept of repair’ is positive or not”. Christ mate, I just want to know whether I should take my bird there before we go and watch Wolf Of Wall Street, I didn’t ask for you to give me a fucking dissertation on the concept of positive or negative repair in the pursuit of redemption. He finishes his observations on this installation by positing that Attia believes “creativity is futile” and that it’s “a bit of a downer all round”. Will be sure to pop that in my filofax, Eddy. Nice one.

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Traditional Song Sessions, Friday 7 Feb, Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham
7.30PM till who gives a fuck, free

Yes bruv, I cannot wait to loosen my tie, meet the lads down the boozer, sink a few Kroners, smash a couple of eccies down my gullet – maybe one up my jacksie – and burst into Traditional Song Sessions at the Kitchen Garden Cafe. If you like both singing and listening to traditional music in an informal and friendly environment, which I very much do, then mosey on up to York Road. Can you think of a better Friday than bumbling into the toilets, locking the door, undoing your lottery ticket, hoovering up a couple of lines of £40 charlie and singing “Ar Lan y Môr” and “Jerusalem” with a group of timid, scarf-wearing, doe-eyed ciderites? Can you fuck. Also: Where else will you be able to find a mixture of moustachioed post-Mumfords in braces and cats-bum-mouth-old housewives who say things like, “I mean, you can’t move for ‘em round here”? It’s a cultural explosion and you must be part of it.

Coffin Dodgers Disco, Friday 7 Feb, The Phoenix, Central London
10PM – 2.30AM, tickets start at £7

For whatever reason, there seem to be a lot of young people around right now who aspire to be old. Maybe it’s because the world’s moving faster and so people feel that if they don’t voluntarily submit to the pace of things life will slip away from them. Whatever the motivation, if this atmosphere continues – one in which people go round saying things like “They’re called ‘CDs’, ask your mum!” and chunter on about their quarter-life crises – shit like the Coffin Dodgers Disco may well become “A Thing”. It employs a strict “no under-28s” policy, enforced by “no-nonsense mistress Vera at the gate”. Vera! Like Vera Lynn! Didn’t people have funny names back in the olden days? They also used to listen to the Spice Girls and Pulp and Kylie Minogue and…

Wait a minute, these aren’t fucking “coffin dodger” tunes, it’s just shit music from the 80s and 90s. Why are people so desperate to be considered old hat and useless? If you make it through the strict “only old cunts” door policy, don’t be surprised if you find yourself staring into the decomposing bubbles of your pint foam, misting up as the The Oldest Swinger In Town competition hits its stride. Man, shit would be more depressing than a day out at the Kader Attia installation (book now!).

Follow Joe on Twitter: @joe_bish