Ozzy Weed

In the summer of 1998 I travelled the east coast of Australia with a friend from childhood, Gemma, and her mate from uni, Sarah. Obviously the trip was full of adventure and I have many superb memories, but most of these stem from one in particular. We passed through a place called Airlie Beach approximately two weeks into the eight week trip. We were only there for a couple of days; it’s where you can take a sail boat to the Whitsunday Islands, something we opted not to do on account of our budget. Despite not taking up the sailing we did take up the nightlife. After a particularly lively session the girls headed home whilst I went in search of some food. It turned out that because the club kicked out so late it was too late for fast food but not quite early enough for the bakers and I was starving. A guy started walking alongside me so I asked him where I could get some food. He responded in a mild ozzy accent, ‘Aww you won’t round here now mate, come back with me and I’ll cook ye somethin.’ I agreed and we caught a cab. It didn’t take long until we got back to his and it was a huge bloody great house with big white pillars at the front like a miniature White House or something out of the Fresh Prince, a very Americanised modern looking mansion with a big dome on the roof and lots of statues in the garden. As we went inside, I could see there was a girl asleep upstairs with the door open in one of the bedrooms looking over the atrium balcony, he told me that the pair were house sitting. We walked into the kitchen and he opened the blinds at the back and switched some outdoor lights on. The pool lit up into view surrounded by Roman style decorative pillars and carved buffs of male and female torso’s, it looked like a cross between Roman baths and a porno set. The guy rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands and began to prepare what was a bloody nice fresh linguini dish, I wolfed it, he didn’t eat, I also noticed that he was beginning to behave a little strangely as we sat on the sofa, a little shifty. In my youthful inexperienced naivety, it took for him to lean in for a kiss before I cottoned on. I jumped up and told him that was the best tea I’d had in ages but my friends would be worried that I wasn’t back yet, this was before we all had mobiles permanently on our person. He stood to attention, calm as a cucumber and told me, ‘No worries, I’ll call you a cab.’ The cab took no time at all and we went outside to meet it, the guy lent in the window and asked the driver to stick it on account. He then turned to me and said, ‘Good meeting you Adam, enjoy Australia,’ shaking my hand and thrusting the biggest bag of weed I’d ever seen into my hand as he did so. That bag lasted not only us, but everyone we met on our travels thereafter for the next six weeks. Thanks to that weed I got laid twice, ended up with a tattoo, learnt to play the didgeridoo, ate the freshest baking each town had to offer at dawn and nearly ended up on a two month fishing trip off the top of Australia.

Rachael Steven's Grandad

Whilst out looking for a training contract, having just moved to London, my search led me deep into a posh Jewish area not too far from St John’s Wood. I visited a nice neat high street practice and introduced myself. I had a good chat with the senior partner and left my CV. It was about lunchtime as I came out and so I found a nice quiet road and sat down on a bench to have a sandwich from my packed lunch. Whilst I was eating I heard a very faint sound coming from above me, as I listened I realised that it was actually a very weak human voice. I looked around and saw standing about two floors above me on a balcony of some flats was an elderly man. He saw that he had my attention and spoke up a bit saying, ‘I’m ever so lonely, won’t you come in for a cup of tea, please, I’m ever so lonely.’ At that precise moment two traffic wardens had walked past, one of whom was camply spoken and said, ‘I wouldn’t go up, he just wants to molest you.’ I ignored this tw#t and agreed to go up, the elderly chap told me his flat number and buzzed me in. Once he’d let me in he showed me around his flat and with great pride pointed out a number of beautiful pieces of furniture, all made with his own hands he told me. He had been a carpenter, and clearly a master at that. We had a cup of tea and a chat and he brought out his photo album saying, ‘You may know my granddaughter, she’s in a pop band.’ I was then astounded as he showed me photographs of Rachael Steven’s and the rest of their family. It was unmistakably her, if a few years ago, and you could see the likeness. As I left I thanked my host and told him he should make sure that granddaughter of his visited him more often.

Urban Stars

Sometimes after a shift at the Jolly Crocker, me and Si would walk up Kilburn High Road, shoot some pool and then have a spliff on Primrose Hill. It was like observing the hustle and bustle of life from a safe distance up there, like being disconnected from all of its thousands of lives and stories unravelling and spreading out beneath us as it went about its nightly business. I often thought it must be a little like having a near death experience, hovering above it all as it moves on without you, as sparkling urban stars below you.

The Jolly Crocker

At the beginning of the Summer in 2002 I moved down to London with Debbie, my unlucky number 1 to go in search of a training contract, a compulsory step on the ladder to qualifying as a solicitor. Deb was a well established and high profile nanny, she had managed to secure a job with a wealthy family who owned several art galleries throughout London, the maternal grandfather having been a significant player in the art world throughout his life. Deb had already worked for Sir Christopher Evans, John Barrie, a mistress to a very high profile horse trainer who had two secret children with him, THE Greek shipping family, and a host of other millionaires, whether co-operate and/or renowned in the city. Once you get people like that on your CV other such employers will follow. This latest family owned a colossal Georgian end terrace town house in St John’s Wood, near the top of Edgware Road. The rooms were incredibly large with very high ceilings, white washed walls, original stripped doors, floor boards and features throughout, all left untreated, natural and pale grained like the dried drift on pristine seashore. The place also had a very large ground floor extension surrounding most of the back half of the house allowing for a vast open plan kitchen with what must have been a twenty foot long table, art gallery flooring with underground heating beneath and white washed walls with art gallery style lighting. There were also strategically yet sparsely placed pieces of art throughout the house. There were three children, all of whom attended the same school, along with the children of Jonathan Ross, and of Annie Lennox, who would subsequently become Deb’s employer. I remember the youngest daughter of the family was very sweet; she was into insects in a big way. The middle boy was a bit of a tearaway, the family felt that he had a few issues that perhaps my being there from time to time might help; I have to say that his name would have been my chosen name for a boy too. The eldest girl was chat room crazy, eleven going on 20. The family owned a flat just around a ninety degree corner from their home, it was on Edinburgh Street if my memory serves me right; that was the nanny flat, I was to be allowed to live there rent free with Deb, and very nice it was too. On the actual ninety degree corner of both streets was The Jolly Crocker pub. It was there that I found bar work to tide me over whilst I found a training contract with a solicitor, any solicitor, anywhere within Greater London, and if not, anywhere. I’d already written well over a hundred letters and gotten nowhere, so it was time to bang on doors. The Jolly Crocker was like no other pub I’d ever seen or set foot in. It was Victorian and heavily architecturally styled, it was also huge. The building had three very tall storeys and a sprawling cellar beneath. There were so many hanging baskets across its front sides and ivy hanging from its various crevasses that you had to part the foliage like a beaded door curtain to gain access. The actual wooden doors would simply be left open to allow for this, it gave the inside a kind of magical feel, like a pub hidden at the bottom of a secret overgrown garden, it also looked beautiful when the light streamed in through the moving gaps. There were two bars, separated by ornate wooden panelling containing engraved glass in parts and a door with rather darkened dirty stained glass, which at night played tricks on you, it always looked like there was somebody standing behind it when the lights went out long after kick out. The bar on the left of the building as you entered, Edinburgh Street side, was a highly decorative red marble bar with stunning brass features, Chesterfield furniture, glass top carved wooden tables, a huge beautifully carved marble fireplace, red carpet and a grand piano. At night we would light T-lights and line them along the bar, an elderly pianist would then turn up from 9:00pm to play. The bar on the right was of the same age but a tired pale brown dusty old Oak bar, it too had nice original features, but they were made entirely of wood. It was this side that let in a lot more light and which housed the television. The pub was run by a Maori girl and her English fella. She was absolutely lovely, hard working, great fun, extremely kind and a wonderful cook. He was a bit of a dickhead, but tended to work from home doing some freelance nonsense. Home used to be above the pub, and most of the staff who passed through on their travels lived up there too. There was after all two massive floors of living quarters up there. Apparently the parties were legendary, I never did find out why they pulled the plug on it, it had probably been the kill joy blood sucking brewery that eventually killed the place. The Maori girl did all of the food, there was a huge kitchen down in the football pitch cellar which also contained an old pulley lift for the beer and loads of nooks and crannies to explore. The food was good quality pub grub cooked well and as a member of staff you were always kept well fed. There were two types of drinkers in the Jolly Crocker, ‘old school’ retired gentlemen gangsters and honest hard working blokes of the same generation who were still working hard. You can no doubt guess who drank in which bar. There were real characters on both sides. We had a rogue resident psycho Millwall supporter who drank on the oak side; he lived in a barge right in-between Little Venice and Camden, St John’s Wood side of London Zoo and Regents Park, the park where incidentally I had the pleasure of walking into Elle McPherson by accident. The whole time I served the Millwall man he had a rather foxy journalist in tow; she was gathering material for a book that she planned to write on him. He had been rather prolific in his day and I have to say, after a few beers he could turn pretty nasty, and like being face to face with a grizzly, you just had to hold your ground, show no fear and keep pouring beer. In the summer months the softest local and regular was a St Bernard dog who used to visit every Friday with his owner and sit outside. Everyone knew that he liked a beer and he wandered from table to table getting ash trays filled up with beer at each one. One Friday night he got so drunk he passed out and wouldn’t be stirred at last orders. He was a big dog, he must have weighed 12 or 13 stone and his owner had to get him home. I had an idea and ran down to Tesco’s to nick a trolley. It took four of us to lift him in, even then it was only his back half that would fit, his front half had to be held up by two fellas as his owner wheeled him down the street. Poor dog! But he was back the following Friday and like us he hadn’t learnt his lesson. For me, one of the most impressive characters was Stan of the marble side. Stan was an ex-gangster, he had run with the Krays in his day and still dressed like he did to the day. The man was well into his sixties, overweight but impeccably presented, certainly at the start of a daily drinking session anyway. He would always wear a three piece suit, even on the hottest days, he told the time from a traditional gold pocket watch kept on a chain in his waistcoat. Stan always had a hefty wad of cash in a money clip and drank heavily. His tipple was a pint glass full of ice, an empty pint glass and a bottle of white wine, God knows how many bottles he’d plough through on a night, but he always left looking down trodden and sad. I know the saying curiosity killed the cat, but after I felt Stan had grown to value my quiet and quick service without the need to say anything, I asked him why he seemed a little sad. His eyes looked fierce and I thought he was going to crush my head like ice on the bar, then he settled and brought out his wallet. He opened it up and showed me a picture of a petit, fun looking lady, she’d clearly been a blonde in her day, ‘That was the love of my life,’ he said, ‘She passed away last year.’ Nothing more was said. One evening as the nights were drawing in, there was some commotion as one of the regulars came into the oak bar, it was the bus driver, he was clearly very scared and very upset about something. His friends gathered him in, sat him down and then sat around him, there was a pretty intense chat then took place. One of the friends then came to the bar and ordered a double brandy and asked if Stan was in, I confirmed he was. The lad took the brandy to the bus driver and then walked through the door that divided the bars, it was the first time I’d seen anyone other than staff use it. This chap then went to have a word with Stan, it didn’t last very long, but I got the impression it was just to arrange a conference elsewhere. A week or two later I overheard people talking in the oak bar. Apparently the bus driver’s daughter had got caught up with the Yardies and had been pinched coming into Heathrow full of drugs for them. She’d cut a deal with police and been placed in a safe house somewhere in Scotland. Unfortunately the Yardies next port of call was her parents. Anyway, they’d terrorised the shit out of the poor old bus driver and his wife, they’d threaten to kill them if they didn’t come up with £15k for their losses within a certain timescale. Anyway, Stan had agreed to move in with the couple and the next time the Yardies rocked up Stan had opened the door. He’d apparently grabbed the kid with the gun and put it against his own head telling them he had nothing more to live for and demanding the kid dare to pull the trigger. He then disclosed who he was and what his existing associates would do if they dare kill him or threaten the bus driver’s family again. I don’t know if the Yardies ever came back. When Deb and I split up it was rather sudden and I had nowhere else to go, so I lived above the Jolly Crocker for a whilst washing in cold water from a sink, sleeping on a mattress in a sleeping bag next to a gas fire; the only working appliance left up there. One of the other bar staff let me stay at his once as well, it was about twenty minutes walk or so across some very main roads and roundabouts to a very ropey area. He told me how he and his flatmate had been burgled at knife point the week before, they were both hilarious character, but they hadn’t even got round to having the front door fixed they were still so deeply infected by student mentality. The next morning I walked out of the place to find that the whole street had been cordoned off. I later discovered that a Somali gang had gone through the street smashing up kebab house shop fronts and attacking staff with Machetes, this had included the place directly underneath us and I understand that there had been a fatality. Manchester, in the middle of his exams, good old Gus, only in his very early twenties pulled up to the Jolly Crocker in his 1.1 beefed up white Nova, totally un-phased by London. We loaded the car and set off to Chesham where by the mercy of God I had finally managed to land a training contract. The boss had even cleared it for us to sleep on the office floor that night and then go and find somewhere for me to live the next day. It was the next day that we rang round the various adverts in the back of a Buckinghamshire paper from the front seats of a very laden Nova and eventually spoke to Yan. I moved into 112 Chapel Lane later that day. I walked past the Jolly Crocker a few years later. The rumours had always been that it was going to be closed and turned into a Thai Restaurant, which would have been criminal, or at the very least in breach of some planning law. Anyway, maybe that was the case because it just lay there locked up and lifeless, empty with shutters on the doors where the plants used to cascade. I was privileged to have known and been part of that place while it was still alive, indeed grateful that she had waited just long enough for me, a part of history now, mine, London’s, and all the folk who frequented her, unless of course any of they may be history too, in which case, I salute you.

A Fairytale?

In 2007 Rich and I went to the Leeds Festival. We only just made it there alive. Rich was pretty torn up about some chick that he shared a house with in Didsbury called Suzie. Granted, she was a bit of a tease, using him a little, and manipulating his highly sensitive and equally fragile self esteem at that time, causing severe anger management issues. She was just fucking him, he was going out with her though. We were in Rich’s little Rover 200 series, not the safest car on the road, especially with Rich’s driving, even at the best of times. Anyway, he’d been ranting about Suzie for a good forty minutes whilst taking a few texts from his other housemates updating him as to her latest movements. I swear there was steam coming out of his ears and he’d hit the dashboard so hard a couple of times I was surprised that it hadn’t cracked. The motorway was pretty busy and all of a sudden people were slamming on their brakes and hazard warning lights up front. Rich was completely oblivious and quite simply blinded by rage. As soon as we motored on beyond safe stopping distance I shouted up for Rich to slow down sharpish, he snapped out of his rage and immediately panicked, slamming his brakes on hard. The car started to skid and pitch slightly sideways, blue smoke from the tyres was rolling over the bonnet, we were not going to stop in time so I grabbed the handbrake. We shuddered to a halt and then stall between two lanes and a foot behind the two cars in front, lucky for us there had been nothing directly behind us. The festival was not our usual hedonistic romp, and I saw little of Rich. I often wandered off on my own at festivals and this one was no exception, there’s no pressure see, and I was soon in my element swinging through the hours, celebrating the continued blessing of being alive. When the last day came around, I managed to meet Becks, a girl I’d kind of been long distance dating and she drew Rich out a bit with tits and drink. Becks and I had met at my brother’s birthday some years back, she was a friend of my brother’s wife, we’d had tremendous sex on the night we met and a couple of times since. Becks wanted more of the same at the festival, strangely I didn’t however, and so B-lined off to get wrecked. They were pretty trippy pills and things started to get really good as the light went. There was an area of pub benches at the festival where during the day people could hang out and drink in their hundreds, it had a sort of giant beer garden vibe. However, late on it was sparsely populated and the pub benches were used more for rolling joints than anything else. I stopped for a time to observe and this is when it happened. No more than twenty feet away, I actually saw myself rolling a joint. This wasn’t just someone who looked like me, it was definitely me. I moved in for a closer inspection and sure enough there was no doubt that it was me and I wasn’t dreaming. I dare not approach to introduce myself to myself, just in case I disturbed the space time continuum or transcended into another dimension never to return, so instead I just stared. The next thing I knew a whole load of faerie type folk rushed around my knees. The males had long wispy beards, gnarly noses and big hairy warts, and so did the females, just to a lesser extent! They were dressed in fairytale like miniature outfits and pretty much whisked me off my feet as they danced around me laughing and clapping like a whirlwind. They were gone before I knew they were gone. I looked up towards the bench where I’d seen myself and I was gone, there was just complete quiet in all immediate directions and no sign of anything I’d just witnessed. Although confused and a little disturbed, I gathered myself together and went in search of music. I found some coming from where the Mystical Nik Nak stall had been during the day and it was banging. They had battened the hatches of the tent that housed their shop floor and surrounding the place with makeshift railings. After a couple of attempts I realised there was no getting in so I just stood outside on the grass dancing. Within about twenty minutes a small gathering of dancers had accumulated, an hour later there must have been a hundred, all clapping and whooping. I’ll never forget one of the stall keepers faces as she poked her head out of a flap to have a look outside, two seconds later the volume went up.

It is Palestine

Dogs mark territory and fight over it, otherwise, dogs are much more civilised.

Glastonbury Amnesty 2003

Briggy and I also went to Glastonbury in 2003. We stocked up on pills and weed before we went. Unfortunately the police were pulling in any vehicles obviously bound for Glastonbury on the A303. Despite driving a very inconspicuous Audi A4, we got dragged into a lay-by just after Stonehenge, Glasto parking sticker in the windscreen and all. As we approached the back of the queue of cars before us we could see police tearing pre-pulled vehicles apart, unpacking people’s bags and conducting very thorough and disruptive searches for all to see. The copper that drew us in looked like a Seargent, he had a very important looking uniform and one of those flat hats with the shiny peaks. The deal was you either handed over your drugs to an amnesty bin right then, escaping prosecution, or risk being searched, and if found in possession, prosecuted. Briggy and I simply looked at each other in complete horror. It wasn’t as if we could debate the pros and cons with the filth hanging through Briggy’s window. Anyway, the VIP in blue must have taken our looks of utter horror as a declaration of complete innocence and shock at even having been suspected. He then said, ‘actually, I can see that you two aren’t the sort, carry on,’ and let us go, completely laden with Class A’s.

The Black Cat Home

Briggy and I got a day pass for the Reading Festival back in 2003; he had friends in Reading so the plan was to stay at theirs on the Saturday night after the festivities. We arrived at their house that morning to meet up and drop off gear; they were a lot older than me and entirely civilised. We had Bucks Fizz and a beautiful fry up for breakfast in the garden and then walked down to the festival site. It was a good twenty five minute walk, I’d never been to Reading before and so had no idea where we were going. It was a stunning day and once on site we sat on the grass drinking and listening to bands at a nice distance to avoid being trampled. By midnight those guys were ready for the off, I wasn’t however, so we bid goodnight and I wondered off into the dark in search of pills. It wasn’t long before I scored and so I double dropped and bopped from dance tent to dance tent, happy as Larry and oblivious to the fact that I didn’t know any of the girls that I fell in love and danced with. Eventually the organisers pulled the plug and I set off home alone. I came out of the entrance we’d come in through and saw a bridge to my right; I recognised it, having borrowed a light underneath it on route that morning. One of the guys had told us how it had been blown up a few years back by some urban terrorists. I can’t remember if Briggy had said he’d been one of them, or whether I’d just dreamt that. I do recall his thorough brief in how it had been done and what damage had been caused. Anyway, off I traipsed in the darkness, under the rebuilt bridge only to be met by a fork further up in the road. I was lost. Whilst gathering my thoughts a black cat came across a park to my immediate left. It started weaving through the railings between the park and the footpath, goading me to follow it, so I did. The cat led me up the left hand fork, across roads, up streets and down garden paths for approximately twenty minutes and then vanished. I had until that moment been living in a dream and was now forced to take stock as to where exactly I’d ended up, immediately I recognised the road. I’d clocked it’s Massage Parlour on our way to the festival, I was literally two minutes away from my hosts, theirs being the next street on the left. They couldn’t believe it when I made it back, when I told them how they laughed. I slept in the garden’s hammock for the rest of that night, to be closer to the magic.