who’d have thunk it?

Today was gonna be the day

Dear super secret blog,

I have to tell you something because this will never make it to the papers, although it is a good story.

My gorgeous darling of a friend Lieselot manages a bar in Brussels. Ealier tonight a rather famous British band called Oasis walked in and tried to order a Guinness. She told them off for asking for an Irish bevvie while they were in a Belgian establishment serving more than 50 different types of beer. Taken aback by her common sense, they acquiesced and proceeded to consume the first of many, many Belgian beers that night.

At some point during the night, Liam Gallagher walked over to her and asked her if she was married. “No”, came the reply, and he suddenly planted a big, sloppy one on her. “Are you crazy?!” she pushed him back, half astonished, half put off by the thick British bloke who wouldn’t take off his sunnies the entire time he was there.

“Just another drunk foreigner”, she thought to herself. One of the guys ran over, pulled him back, and politely apologised for his friend’s behaviour.

Liam and his posse ordered many drinks that night, calling her over to bring them another round each time. “You’ll have to wait, I’m serving the other table first”, she told them on occasion. When the bar began to empty out, the guys invited her to have a few drinks with them. She did, and found out that they were an okay bunch. So she stayed for a few more drinks and chatted some more.

“Can we play a song?” one of them asked, pointing at the stage where live bands usually play every night.

“Well…. I don’t know, I’ll check”, she replied, not sure if these blokes were going to be any good. Plus, was there any company policy about not letting drunk customers play music at the bar?

But the bar was quiet tonight, and there were only three tables left. One of the musicians on stage scanned the empty premises, and probably thought it would be a good time for a break. He told Lieselot those drunk British guys could come up to play if they wanted to.

So they did, and on the second song she thought to herself, ‘Hey, these guys are pretty good. In fact, their songs sound really familiar. Really, really familiar’.

The other bartenders thought they’d heard these tunes somewhere before. “These guys are famous”, one of them pipped. “I just don’t know who they are, but they’re quite big I think”. Unable to place them, the Belgians shrugged it off, and went back to drying glasses, wiping off the bar top and generally doing other bar-like things. Their customers continued with their late night chatter, enjoying the good voices and the decent riffs coming from the stage.

When they were done, Lieselot went over to their table.

“Hey, you guys are pretty good. Are you musicians?”

“Yeah, we’re a band actually. Oasis.”

“OH.”

And she had a few more drinks with them, and chatted some more. It was getting late, so they stood up, left her a generous tip and put on their jackets to leave.

“Are you in town for much longer?” she asked, as they were heading out.

“No, we’re heading to Stockholm tomorrow.”

So they said their goodbyes and left. Lieselot closed up the bar, headed home and had a shower. Then she googled “Oasis”.

“Oh, so that’s why they sounded so familiar. And hey, that guy who tried to kiss me, he’s the lead singer of the band!”

Dear blog, that’s what I had to tell you. Lies and I think it’s a good story, one to tell her grandkids many years from now, when she no longer has any real teeth and when they have no clue a band called Oasis ever existed, and when people no longer go to gigs because hologram bands now play live music in their living rooms.

Never met a girl like you before

“Ye can keep yer knickers on if ye want to.”

“Really?”

Right there and then, I knew this brazillian wax was going to be different from any I’d had before. For starters, her name was Charlie and she stood right there while I took off my jeans. No discreet look-away move, no “I’ll be back in three minutes (while you strip and purposefully subject yourself to this torture)”.

“Alright then, up you go, lie right here. How are you?”

“I’m alright, thanks. Just got off work, thought I’d pop by. You sure you don’t need me to take my knickers off?”

“Aw yeah, it’s fine.”

“Wow, I mean, I’m just used to-”

*nggrap!*

“MOTHERFU-”

*nnggrrraaaaaap*

“Ooh darling, ye alright?”

“You get right to it, don’t you. Haha! I was just a bit surprised there!”

*nnnggggrrrraaaaaaaaaaap*

“Aw yeah, there’s no other way to do it!”

“MM-HMM. Wax is a bit hotter than I’m used to”

And then in four minutes flat, my poon was looking like a million bucks. The rest of our conversation is unimportant, and in any case was lost in that space between my silent screams and the shockingly fluorescent lights a few feet from my head. The only other thing I recall was the bit where she asked me if I wanted to leave a triangle, and I said yes please (because this is England and you mind your P’s and Q’s even when it comes to shaping your pubes).

Now you might not be familiar with brazilian waxes, or waxes in general. But where I come from the fancy salons boast about strip-offs that can be done in FIFTEEN minutes. They put you in nice rooms where the lights are dimmed and a Best of Bebel Gilberto CD streams from hidden speakers. They treat your poon like it’s another human being: “Wax temperature okay? This size alright? The other side now, yes?”. Short of reading it sonnets, my KL waxers have nothing but love for le poon.

But here in East London? Charlie will do it with your kickers on. In record time. I’m never doing high street beauty again if all it takes is a 20-minute Tube ride to the other side of town and 17 quid for this.

When paying up, I told her how genuinely impressed I was at the speed of my wax. She giggled, said thank you very much and told me that she’d be happy to see me in a month.

On my way out, I turned to Charlie and waved. I wanted to curtsey, too, but my poon hurt too much.

The magic store, should you ever find yourself in need of an express brazillian:

171 Hair & Beauty
171 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 1RG
tel: +44 (0)20 7354 2266/3733

So long to the headstrong

It’s terrifying – and incredible – that the world is holding its collective breath for about 130 million people to decide on the fate of the free world in the next few hours.

Perhaps The Sunday Times’ Andrew Sullivan put it best in his closing paragraph of his feature on the potential of the world’s most powerful country:

We are indeed on the verge of something that seems even more incredible the closer it gets, something more than a mere election. This is America, after all. It is a place that has seen great cruelty and hardship in its time. But it is also a place that yearns to believe naively in mornings rather than evenings, that cherishes dawns over dusks, that is not embarrassed by its own sense of destiny. In this unlikely mixed-race figure of Barack Obama, we will for a brief moment perhaps see a nation re-imagined and a world of possibilities open up. For a brief moment at least.

It’s 3AM now. I’m staying up to see if the world is about to change.