It was cold and rainy in East Croydon - of course it was. The south London suburb has its own micro climate. It also has its own breed of being - the super chav.
I've chanced upon Burmese peasants masturbating in ditches with more decorum than some of these people. I've seen a gathering of Laotian octogenarians squatting on their haunches pissing by the side of the road with superior social graces. I have walked passed mange-afflicted mutts licking their nuts in a Sakhon Nakhon backwater with a comparable standard of hygiene.
Croydon is, was and ever shall be, a hotbed of unwashed misfits. Misfits who have a predisposition for employing the word 'kunt' in every single grammatically impaired sentence they nasalize.
It was only yesterday whilst en route to the NHS drop-in centre that I passed a gentleman shrouded in a hoodie who was speaking into his mobile phone. Unfortunately I was downwind of his conversation and was subjected to the following slice of dialogue:
"Don't be a kunt, kunt."
This perplexed me. He is telling somebody that he already refers to as 'kunt', not to be a kunt. Give the poor lad a chance, for Pete's sake.
Entering the walk-in centre and I was treated to a bouquet of piss and vomit and shit. And I'm not joking. This place stunk. It was the only doctor's surgery I'd ever been to that smelled like a public toilet. But the place looked clean enough, the floors were washed, the staff offered up a modicum of manners, and treatment rooms appeared plentiful. Therefore, yes, it was the people, the patients who harboured the abominable stench. And after collecting a number and taking a seat I had to alternate a minute of breath-holding with normal breathing in order to acclimatise to the dreadful whiff. I'd never smelt anything like this before, but it wasn't dissimilar to the accumulated sweepings of the elephant enclosure at London zoo.
Why am I here?
I closed my eyes.
It's sunset. I'm sitting on my balcony In Isaan. It overlooks a sprawling pastureland on which dragon fruit and custard apple and corn and papaya trees grow fast and with little nurturing needed. I've just finished my second beer chang of the evening and there's another four in the fridge. Now gathering momentum, my book - John Grisham's Gray Mountain - transpires to be a real page turner and I delight in every single chapter, page, word. Lighting my first cigarette of the day I inhale deeply and relax back on my chair as the final slivers of sunlight disappear behind the horizon. This, for want of a more refined synopsis, is fucking awesome. I consider the ya dong brewing in the kitchen. Perhaps it's ready. Surely it's ready. It's been fermenting for the best part of a month now...
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Number 16 please.
Fuck! A thousand time - Fuck!