Symbolic Forest

Last month we popped back up north, for a family wedding; and fitted in a side trip to Whitby.

Keyword noise: acrobatics, alcohol, Banksy, beach, boats, breakwater, drinking, drunkenness, graffiti, handstand, harbour, lifeboat, lighthouse, Mary Ann Hepworth, North Yorkshire, photography, RNLI, sea, shoreline, Venn diagram, Whitby, Yorkshire.

At the office, the main conversation-starter today was: “so, what did you do on New Year’s Eve?” I felt slightly sheepish having to say: “um, I was ill.” It might only have been a cold, but even so the headache and constant sneezing were enough to send me to bed well before midnight.

At least, staying in, I avoided being beaten up, glassed, stabbed, shot, etc. New Year’s Eve in our local town was so … well, active, that it made the national press. As I get scared at the slightest sign of any sort of violence, I’m rather glad that I was nowhere near any of it.

Keyword noise: drinking, Grimsby, New Years Eve, Hogmanay, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, violence.

It’s not often that I go for nights out around here. Sometimes, though, you have to, just to remind yourself why.

There was a good reason for it: a work leaving do. So, we all went off for a meal, before going to one of those horrible crowded town-centre bars that wants to be a nightclub. It doesn’t want to be a nightclub all the time, though, so it ends up being the worst of both worlds: a big, shedlike bar with plenty of tables and chairs so they can serve food in the daytime, a tiny little dancefloor, and loud loud cheesy dance music.

As it was far too loud to talk apart from by shouting right in someone’s ear, I spent some time just standing and watching the crowd. Being Friday, the place was packed, with a strange mixture of college students and 30-somethings. All the men had velvet-short shaved heads;^* and all the girls had shoulder-length layers and tiny denim skirts. Everybody in the place had been stamped off the same production-line; everybody in the place had bought their clothes from the same handful of shops in the shopping centre.

A random stranger came up to Big Dave, and spent a good ten minutes chatting to him – well, I mean, they spent ten minutes shouting in each others’ ears. I assumed he was an old friend, or something like that.

“God, some people,” said Big Dave when the man finally left. “The last time I saw that bloke, I beat the shit out of him.” I’m glad Big Dave and I get along, because I’d be quite scared if we didn’t.

* the older men – the fortyish ones – all seemed to have porn moustaches too

Keyword noise: bar, club, colleagues, drinking, Grimsby, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, nightlife, work, Big Dave.