a la piss

Today was even worse. Only the prospect of a few drinks around town in the evening stopped me from hanging myself with my mouse cable. That and the ubiquitous internal email, the sole saviour of the modern age. The pleasant beep of MS Exchange as yet another new mail arrives, the very antithesis of the painful shrill electronic beeping of my morning alarm clock. So similar, yet signifying such different events.

The evening came around at last, so we began our sojourn round some of the bars and clubs of the city. The whole night seemed to pass in a bit of a blur - nothing disastrous, nothing spectacular, just vaguely enjoyable. Thinking back, I don't know how I passed the time. Probably just by gazing at the girls on the dancefloor - and I use girls intentionally; sometimes I wonder whether they really are over eighteen, or maybe I'm just getting older. But the cherubic faces, the puppy fat, the hair-slides, the white Reebok trainers with a black dress - it all seems so school disco.

Then there's the music - it's so insipid, so lifeless. The overplayed Seventies tracks, the most shallow of the Eighties tunes, all washing lifelessly past me. The best clubs I've ever been to are those with carefully honed playlists, fairly narrow genres - you know what you're getting, and the talented DJs know what they're playing I'm thinking Nottingham's Cookie Club, Leeds' Brighton Beach, etc. Not some random bloke playing pic n mix eras to an unconcerned crowd.

Maybe I read too much into these things. OK, so having a good time isn't a science. But it needn't be a lottery either.