Picture this Nathan Barley-esque scene: three embittered hack copywriters from three different agencies, all approaching their 40s, in the Eagle on Farringdon Road, drinking Staropramen and Kirin. After discussing women, family and art directors over a few pints, I receive a call from a Strategy Director friend of mine, who’s in a nearby bar with her boyfriend, who’s big in online media.
Yes, my life is a cliché.
So, anyway, we go to this bar and drink more beer. I’m wearing new Jeffery West boots with leather soles. The loos are down some wet stone steps (maybe someone didn’t make it to the urinal in time?). I’m a little unsteady on my feet anyway. You can guess what happens next…
I fall down the fucking stairs – my arse and elbow (no, I couldn’t tell them apart at the time) taking the brunt of the tumble. The pain – Christ – it hurt! I curse and pick myself up, go to the toilet and, as I’m unloading waste beer fluid, I start to feel rather queer (as they used to say in more innocent times).
As I zipped myself up and went back up the stairs, everything went like a cheap video effect from Top of the Pops circa 1978. It was the closest I’ve come to a psychedelic experience without drugs. I’m told I went ghostly pale and I remember leaning against a pillar, desperately trying to keep my wits. Luckily, my strategist friend knew what to do – and made me put my head between my legs – otherwise I’d have passed out completely.
This is after 5 pints. Humiliating.
3 comments:
you're lucky i didn't take photos on my phone...
I once bruised myself painfully falling down the basement steps of the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, after remarkably little to drink. I consoled myself with the thought that "hey! Dylan Thomas probably fell down those steps! And Jack Kerouac!"
Sadly, only pissed media buyers had preceded me down those fateful steps. I do, however, have a bruise to be proud of.
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