Here we go lads last annual review of the decade and Jesus Christ man has it been a crazy year to review. I did half consider attempting to review the decade but instantly thought ‘fuck it’ I’ve been writing these annual reviews for a while now if you give that much of a shit go and have a read of therm. 2019 has been full of the unexpected. Whether it be the dizzying heights of running a takeover and making my DJ debut at the Bangface Weekender or the remarkable finally few months of the year where my many years of good times came crashing to an abrupt halt. Oh also it’s likely that this is going to be the last blog I ever write by the way lads – I’ll explain more later but until then expect the usual drug and alcohol fueled anecdotal highlights, the people I fucked, lifestyle changing anxiety attacks, friend of the year, an analysis of my inevitable downfall and for the first time I talk as frankly as possible about own mental health. There may also be some analysis of the last decade and I’ll let you know what the future holds for my own creative output. So for all you regulars out there you know the score, pour yourself a chamomile, give yourself at least an hour and try your best tolerate the atrocious spelling and grammer that lies ahead which I now refuse to adapt because fuck you it’s my own goddamn blog. This one does also get sad at parts aswell just so you’re aware
There’s that cliché about time speeding up and the years feeling shorter the older you get. In some respects I can agree with this as my experience of age is looking at my facebook memories in disbelief on a daily basis asking absolutely no one ‘fuck me was that 10 years ago?’ But as I sit here now trying to recount the first few months of the final calendar of the closing decade I’m struggling to recall what the fuck went down. It all seemed to be business as usual as spring approached. I started the year with a bit of my casual gun slinging as I do. Starting out with a tinder date on valentines day of all days with a Latvian bird who was new to London – A younger number at 21 years of age, I felt I was punching above my weight and not just because of her 5’9 height and Amazonian figure but because she was hot as shit, skull cut barnet, the symmetry of her piercings and kooky tattoos all off which she’d designed herself. Usually I dont go in for the ‘alt’ look on a person – I think it often looks ridiculous but this bird was a dime piece. She was so hot I didn’t mind fucking her on her period. Now here’s an example of the experience of a serial 1 night stander For a split second this womans overly affectionate attitude towards me would have 10 years ago made me truly believe that she was totally in to me, but through my years of casual dating and through my limited knowledge of women I was fully aware that this bird was just new in town and had just happened to meet a bloke who was nice enough to her that she could cuddle and fuck. Sure enough after a couple of weeks she dropped that she’d met someone else and her interest in me all but evaporated.
Another notable shag early on in the year was one of those rare phenomenons where I was sat at work one day when all of a sudden a text from a random number popped up on my phone asking me how it was going. A few back and fourths ensued as to this persons identity with them seeming upset that I had forgotten who they was and me assuring them that how could I forget who they was if I didn’t know who they were in the first place? Turns out it was a bird I’d been on a date with in late 2018 and when she sent me a photo of herself I remembered the date quite clearly. A standard 7/10 few drinks which I never followed up because I was either too busy and/or felt that was as far as things were going to go. But from what I remembered she seemed sound enough and she had some cool job for a computer games company which really impressed me. When I asked what the reason for her spontaneous communication was she replied ‘sex please’…. Wahey! Naturally I probed a bit more to try and find out what kind of shag she’d be just to prepare a game plan and from what she told me seemed open to anything. So with my housemate fortuitously away that same weekend I invited her down for dinner and sex. Everything went fine. I pulled out a good dinner, we got on well enough to find each other attractive, but then she unraveled once we got down to business. Firstly she had a weird kissing technique as if she’d never really done it before, secondly for someone who loved horror movies despite not having seen The Wicker Man or the Excorcist feeling envy that someone would get the to watch those films for the first time, but to then go on and tell me you did’t like Hereditary and thought Conjuring 3 was better I’m sorry my friend you are not a fan of horror film. Though the sex was adequate it was easy to tell that she lacked confidence in her abilities. When I started to do a bit of poking around on her sexual history – baring in mind I’d had this bird pegged as the text book fat bird who fancied a shag and just picked out a fellas number from her black book it turns out she was quite the opposite. When I asked about the amount of people she’d slept with I was apparently the 3rd. Considering her age of 27 and with my own track record and my expectations of her I found this to be a very low number. Naturally I assumed that she must have been in a long term relationship keeping her number low, but then when it was apparent that she’d never even heard of eating arse before that I really started to wonder what this birds deal was. Turns out she was 18 months after abandoning her strict protestant faith and was making up for lost time by getting her end away as much as possible. Shed only lost her virginity a year previous to meeting me. She told me the reason she never told me before was that she thought it would make her seem less attractive. I told her that the most unattractive quality I find in a person is dishonesty and if I’ve learnt anything decade it’s lean into the character you’ve made of yourself regardless of what others thng . But overall we had a nice night and she was a sound bird and I totally understand why she wouldn’t have opened up with that opening gambit and I guess I was happy to teach her a few new experiences. I’m sure she’s doing well
Things got a bit exciting come March when I was approached by the Bangface weekender to curate my own takeover on the Saturday afternoon. I was delighted. The very festival I’d been attending for 12 years that had introduced me to all my best friends and pretty much shaped the character who pens these entries wanted me to gather up a few mates and take charge of a stage for an afternoon. With just 2 years of experience of promoting 2 albeit legendary nights in Berlin I was now hosting and making my DJ debut at the most notorious rave festival in the country. The baddest mother fucker alive was coming out swinging lads. Sure enough the takeover itself was an absolute laugh. Though having to be ready for action at midday on the Saturday of the weekender is not something I’d usually do if I didn’t have responsibility to do so and the appalling weather outside made it difficult for people to leave their chalets and come see us all play, but towards the end it filled out and overall I was chuffed to finally be on the lineup of the institution I loved so well and when I looked up over the decks as I haphazardly chopped 90’s big beat classics together and saw 12 people dancing along, some of whom were complete strangers dancing along I thought ‘yes this is the bollocks lads’…. When I think back on it now this was the last true high point before things started to get challenging….
Here’s a confession that I’m sure its cool to make public now. For the last few years or so I funded my hair brained schemes and daft adventures from a side project of selling drugs on the internet. Though to stop myself from going complete Scarface I remained low key and never made it my full time gig as I’d noticed that just having the slightest bit of access to a life of no responsibilities was making me reckless. But seeing as I had some debts to pay, it was nice having that extra income to keep any money trouble themed anxieties at bay. There was always a few promises I made myself when I said I’d jack in my 2nd job and that was if I ever started to get paranoid that I’d get caught or when the last reliable website where you could easily sell gear went down. Come April I’d already started to get insomnia over one day having my door kicked in and then said website announced it was shutting down. With a stash of bitcoin in my wallet though I saw this as my first opportunity to start re branding myself as an actual up standing member of society. If there’s one thing having the occupation of drug dealer taught me it’s that I have no management skills at all and I’ve easily persuaded by an expensive idea if it has all the makings of a good story later. Now I was no Pablo Escobar as I mentioned but I was earning enough money to pay off the debts I’d incurred over the years and probably even keep some away for some even grander scheme down the road… But being the total cunt that I am not a lot of that money went to paying off those debts. I wanted to go to festivals, plan ridiculous holidays, organise another profitless night in Berlin and generally be a flash cunt with my made up internet money. Now I wont go into full details on what all my money went into for tax reasons of course and I’m also not sure whether this confession could be held against me somewhere down the line but lets just say for the Bangface Weekender alone I decided to buy my crew a rider of drugs, take up mixology and drop a substantial amount of money on spirits for Tiki cocktails, complete with Hawaiian shirts for the lads and a captains hat for me, and also have my own chalet that I could host people in despite also having my own one provided by the festival itself and I only slept in the cunt for one night! The fall out of this was the booze I’d bought with the best of intentions ended up getting me so black out drunk that I missed 2 nights of the festival. This lavish venture set me back 500 quid alone without me batting an eye lid. In fact just before the market went down I had my finger on the trigger of a 2 grand masseuse course as I felt I needed to learn a new skill that I could take around the world with me…. Still a bit gutted about that one. No regrets about jacking in the pirate life though. It was always just a little sideline to pay the bills which I knew had a time limit, and if you want my full opinion on the subject the darknet aint as secure as it used to be. No market seems to have any longevity and as someone shifting on their this is both annoying and dangerous. The more your username keeps popping up with all the data they have from each seized market the more interested they are going to be to find out who you are and like I mentioned I also needed that kick up the arse to get something resembling a satisfying life together…. But yea with a cache of made up internet money stored on a USB drive as I sat alone in my living room one night accepting that the days of milk and honey were finally over, nursing a high proof rum cocktail, analysing my situation safe in the confidence that as it had done so many times for me before – life would find a way.
And then just like that life plodded along as it always did. But as often happens with me with each passing year I started to feel unfulfilled. The first of many stones I’ve had in my shoe for a while was my cushy job in the civil service. Now as much as I loved my set up in that office with all my heart it just wasn’t going to be sustainable. This was made all the more permanent by the fact the office was relocating in November 2020 which was when I decided that I would finally move on no matter what my circumstance. Now as marvelous and as care free as the job was I hadn’t had a significant pay rise in the 4 years I’d been there. Back in 2015 when I started £11 p/h was a nice amount of money when my outgoings were the equivalent of a weeks wages, come 2019 my rent had doubled and I had other debts to clear. This was starting to effect my idyllic living situation with my best friend of more then a decade. Though our lovely house in the suburbs of where we both grew up was peaceful and lovely, it was also taking up a huge chunk of my outgoings and when I did a bit of searching online I saw that I could find a house share in a more central area for less money. I thought give it till the New year before properly re evaluating my living situation and just carry on enjoying myself till then. Though I was still lacking direction in life I had a time structure for things and this sense of control makes me feel comfortable at least.
So I did what I’ve always done I came up with some hobbies to keep me entertained. I started playing football with work colleagues, took on a vegan diet permanently, signed up for the gym that was opening up round the corner, started baking, potted vegetables for the summer time and also signed up to do some volunteer work for an LGBT+ chairty for the elderly and befriended Hugh, an old gay fella round the corner from me who was recovering from cancer and wanted someone to hang out with of an evening. At the house we’d taken lend of Del’s sisters bulldog for a few months which was cool for a while then one afternoon I’d got a text from a bird I’d met at the weekender asking if I’d like to join her at an exhibition at the Welcome center, then considering it was the last day of the football season I suggested we go for a drink and see if Liverpool could pull off an upset which she was more then willing to do, then as the booze flowed it was quite apparent that we was getting on quite well and we ended up back at my place. With the football season over and summer and with it the festival season just around the corner I had a spring in my step – even that same bird sent me bizarre and confusing mugging off text I got from said bird later that afternoon couldn’t break my stride.
Summer came and went in its usual haze of drug and alcohol fueled benders. Balter festival was a messy yet fun start to the summer and theres a few stories from that one Ill save for a different camp fire. Glastonbury was a highlight with its beautiful scorching weather, great bunch of lads and reminder that after a fallow year it truly is the undisputed champion of festivals. Then of course there’s the usual endless BBQ’s and bag of cans with the lads, the odd birthday here and there that cant be turned down because you just dont get to see the cunts that much any more. I even got laid at one house party and I couldn’t remember the last situation where that happened under such circumstances. Probably most importantly though was one afternoon Del mentioned that he’d shown an interest in this electricians course he’d found on Instagram of all places so I thought I’d wait to see how legit the gig was after his interview then declare my own interest. It was whilst I was on a bus to Balter festival that he rung me to say the geezer was at the house and if I wanted I could sign myself up there and then. It was one of those decisions where I felt if I’d have lingered on it and it passed me by I would have lived to regret it. So despite taking on a further £200 a month of debt to pay I thought it vital to take up it this opportunity of a future career. It had dawned on me as I reached my late 20’s and my career options slimmed that the biggest failure the education system ever bestowed on me was not informing me that my best option would have been to learn a trade. Instead I’m left knocking 30 with a dormant degree a loan repayment that will chisel away at my pay packet with each passing week. If I could do one thing differently on reflection it would have been to inquire when the next opportunity to sign up would have been. With summer in full swing there was no studying being done.
The ol’ sex habits were getting very hard to come by, through no fault of my own as I weren’t really trying and I think when I did fire up my dormant Okcupid profile I matched with a load of people who are eventually going to get upset with me when I want more details about their personality then the fact they’re some queer, feminist, activist who feels they have to state they dont like Nazi’s…. What else you into lads? Give a fuck about all that… So anyway I was struck with my usual post festival horn and instead of shopping around for a sex worker who could tend to my needs I thought I’d look into one of those gangbangs I’d been beating off so much to recently. With a little bit of research I found one in Mayfair which was £100 entry, at least 3 birds and whole purpose was for them to get as much cock as possible. The venue was a seedily made up basemant in a town house in Londons fancy part. I was mindful not to be too early to avoid small talk, but there’s nothing call about arriving late to a sex fest. As we stripped down to our towels and the birds started chatting they seemed disappointed by the lack of blokes on offer (about 10 of us max) ideally there should be enough for one cock to fuck, 2 to wank and one to suck for each bird…. Our number just fell a bit shy of that. A tidy Brazilian woman took a bit of interest with me and this handsome Im assuming banker type. Noshing us both then having us both run a train on her. So far so filth. I made my way around the birds. All expert blowies as you can imagine with experience like that. Shagging away noticing that one by one the fellas would leave once they’d bust a nut. I took a precaution for this and ordered myself the powerful sex aid Cialis – no one wants to the soft cunt at an orgy lads. This was put into fine effect when I returned to my train duties with mates and the brazilian bird. Him fucking her on a sofa whilst taking my cock in her mouth. ‘I reckon I could cum if I tried I thought’ I told the woman and she delightfully asked for me to cum on her face, then as I was trying matey announced ‘lets both cum on her face’ and almost like something out of porn we managed to fire thick ropes all over this sexy mulhers boat…. Then due to the Cialis I stayed hard! Oh matey boy was ready to get dressed and run back to the office, the only 2 men left standing were me and this other lad who had his owns story to tell…. His face was all mashed up from a mugging that happened to him the other day, and I mean if you knew him you wouldn’t be able to recognise him. Just me and him to service 3 birds. One of the birds asked what had happened whilst she routinely mouthed a condom on his dick and began to ride him, being all motherly and concerned as she did so. Was quite sweet. I ended my afternoon with the ring leader of the do, who not only let me fuck her arse for 10 minutes, also fingered mine so I blew my 2nd load in an hour all over her face…. Was a good way to blow off steam after a hectic Glastonbury (blog unlikely to see the light of day lads sorry)
I tried to crunch the numbers on the women to see figure out if they were sex workers and this was a nice earner and when I ran it through my head although there would have been a bit of profit to be made it seemed all the more likely that they just loved it. One bird did make me laugh just as the party got started and she was disappointed by the low turnout ‘Well unless a bus full of a black rugby team is about to pull up we best get to it then’ I’ll definitely try another one out.
In July I ran into that bird I’d spent that pleasent Sunday with. We’d kept texting on and off since we last saw each other but I never questioned her real reason for putting a platonic holt to things. The reason given to me was that she’d had a previous fling with a friend of mine and didn’t want things to be weird… I found this reasoning strange for multiple reasons because it was said friend who introduced us and encouraged me to get to know this bird, also I know a fellow gun slinger when I see one and to turn down a duel like that is out of the ordinary. I knew all along her reasoning weren’t legit and had assumed it was down to some sort of insecurity I wouldn’t understand…. Turns out that weren’t too far from the truth but upon seeing me completely changed her mind and invited me back to her place after the do. The following day we lay on the sofa and as she got up to go and fetch breakfast asked ‘so are we just going to eat food, watch films and make out all day?’ – it turned out to be one of those ‘best Saturday ever’ Saturdays.
It ain’t through all the muck and filth that sculpts the artists impression that is my love life do I get to have those cuddle and chill, whilst watching Mike Leigh and 90’s action movies on many Saturdays with someone who is on the same end of the spectrum with cinema as I am. And when said person spends that entire day telling me how great I am and how pretty I look of course I was going to leave her gaff on that Sunday morning clicking my heels like Gene Kelly. I walked to the station with a smile on my face wondering where this might lead, fully aware she was moving away soon I knew realistically there was a time limit to it – that’s usually how it always goes. Then as I stood at the on the platform enduring the awful service of the London Overground and as the perfect form of weather we had last summer turned grey and drizzly I started to take a closer look at those red flags. The initial mugging off was strange and something that never left my mind, but it was something she said the night before that really set a klaxon off…. ‘You’re someone I really could see being my boyfriend’ – I told her this was a ridiculous thing to say, especially to someone she’s known for 5 minutes but also to a bloke who’s never had someone say a sentence like that to them before. Granted we were tanked, but I seem to remember her reinforcing her statement the following morning, Something about it didn’t sit right with me and as the rain got heavier and I waited at another stop for 10 minutes for a train to arrive the tune Bullet Proof by This is The Kit came on my playlist and experience helped me figure out the equation. I knew whatever that Saturday was was going to fizzle out immediately and then I resented her for convincing me to leave my bike at Tower Bridge after the party… Sure enough nothing came of it and she moved away a couple of months later. No hard feelings. If you’re reading this I think you’re cool and you did nothing wrong.
Now before you ask ‘fuck sake Powder that was a boring story that went nowhere’ I would like to point out that back when I first started writing this blog almost 7 years ago an encounter like that would have stuck me in the ground and taken me months to recover from. So what’s interesting is how easily I was able shrug it off and carry on with life, what’s fascinating though is what happened after our last encounter because this is when shit started to get serious…
After her leaving party we’d agreed to see the new Tarantino film together at her local cinema. It was the August bank holiday and I’d taken a couple of days off in front of it to make the most of the week long free house I had so I met her on the Thursday afternoon. The film was great and it was nice to hang out for a bit and I ended up going back to hers to collect something that I’d left there at her party as I approached her house it dawned on me I kind of needed a shit but settled on the laurel that you cant just go into someones house, take a dirty shit and leave, aint good manners. What ensued was an hour long cycle ride home with me dying for a scared I could shit myself with one wrong move with a blaring anxiety attack about how much of an idiot I was for not asking to use a friends toilet. Now you’d think once I’d gotten home this would have probably been the greatest dump I’d ever dropped. One of those 12′ 6ilbs that break the water mark and disappear up the cistern and quaranteen the bathroom for hours leaving you in a state of exhausted euphoria for the rest of the night. Instead it shifted the gears of the anxiety from me needing a shit to ‘I am shit’ All of a sudden the whole summer came crashing down on me. That huge wad of drug money had been spent on feckless retail therapy, stupid financial mistakes that could be glossed over by another cash injection, drugs for benders, drugs for other people and I’d also already began ploughing money into an upcoming party in Berlin come November, also the bitcoin was in decline, so I was losing money with every passing week regardless of my own spending. I was nearing the end of the pot and had spent it all on being a cunt. Other themes of the attack was my own lifestyle. The drugs, the alcoholism, the mild benzo addiction. The way I’d behave when I was off my face and how my text books for my supposedly life sorting career change were gathering dust because of it. Now usually when such an attack hits me I reach for my stash of xanax and wait for half a bar to kick in and send me off to sleep. In this instance however I was having one of my dry periods when I notice I’m starting to enjoy them a bit too much. As it was Thursday night I knew I could put an order in with my contact and they’d be here for Saturday where at least then if there was still embers of troubling thoughts I could extinguish them immediately. I didn’t sleep for the next 2 days and resided myself to laying on the sofa watching the whole of Euphoria (bait as fuck but super duper production and sensational performances) in one sitting, then continuing the bleakness by rewatching Seven (still fucking sick, couldn’t imagine going to see that when it came out)… I then tried to balance things out with Stand By Me, Up and some podcasts I enjoy… All this whilst the sun shone outside and ear piercing building works at a neighbors house made it impossible to have the windows open. So I lay there for more then 36 hours until the postman came and sure enough there was my jiffy bag and I was elated that I might finally find some rest, until I noticed the split in the corner, tore open the packaging and of course it was empty. That’s when I accepted that maybe I should finally listen to my anxiety and make a change.
The following week I started applying for a second job and by the following weekend had found work at a pub up the road. It was also around then we received the notice from our landlord that he wouldn’t be renewing our tenancy and that we’d be out of the gaff in November, so that settled any decision I was going to make on my living arrangements come winter. I also cleaned my act up. I went sober for all of September, started working evenings and weekends at the pub, hitting the gym with any spare time I had joking that I needed the cardio for the ensuing shifts. At my 9-5 I used my endless amount of free time to work on my course and was working through modules with ease. I had a holiday to Kiev to visit Chernobyl booked with Kush at the end of the month, the organisation of the next Berlin party was falling into place quite nicely, a lads holiday to Kosovo had been arranged and I immediately started to both look and feel better. For once I weren’t just feeling comfortable with life I was feeling quite excited for what lay ahead. I was doing things the right way for a change. Then the Chernobyl trip came along and sure enough that was both a laugh and a fascinating experience, getting shit faced in Kiev with Kush, wandering around the ghost town of Prypyat and a huge secret Soviet military base were all fantastic…. Then October came.
Now I’ve experienced a few dark periods in my life and I knowledge my privilege when I say these have been few. But I can honestly say none can compare to what was to await me in the month of October. Upon arriving in Kiev I’d noticed I’d lost my keys. This was doubly annoying because it had the key to my bike lock which was securing my bike to the railings at Streatham Common station. This didn’t bother me too much however since I’d treated myself to a new decent bike for working so hard the month prior. Truth be told I didn’t totally expect to win the auction, I just dropped a £350 bid on an £800 bike in almost perfect condition to keep an eye on it. After a week of begrudgingly getting the tube to work I come home one evening to find the ‘sorry we missed you slip’ from the postman and notice they’ve dropped it at the neighbours house. I get no answer from the neighbour but they’ve left a phone number on the slip so I give them a call then a text asking when they’d be in to hand over my very important package. Their response? Fucked off on holiday for 2 weeks. Who does that?
Seeing as my weekends were now taken up by my second job for the time being I had no time off till a long weekend I’d given myself in the middle of the month to see some films at the London film festival and attend 2 parties back to back. This would also give me a solid amount of time to release my bike. Over the next coming weeks the search for a new house was quickly becoming something I wasn’t quite prepared for. The process reminded me of internet dating only once you’d gotten the date for the potential match you then had to convince the 3 other strangers living there that you were the ideal person to live with within the space of about 5-10 minutes and also taking note that you were probably up against 8 other cunts after the same bed. Another thing to factor in was the timings. A lot of places wanted to move you in by the following week and I couldn’t handle the stress of having to wait until the week that I left before finding somewhere. Also the rejection from the places I went to visit where I thought I got on well with the house was a bitter pill, the one gaff that seemed perfect where I thought I was a shoe in completely ghosted me and that was a kick in the balls.
One evening I got a text from an old friend telling me that she’d split up with her boyfriend. Now this being a friend that I hung out with years ago we’d only ever seen each other since when she’d split up with what ever partner she was with and we’d catch up and then fuck. An agreement I was more then happy with and considering how piss poor my last week had been was something that would cheer me right up, it also fell on a Monday which was an evening when Del was always out so it was ideal. She agreed she’d be around for 7ish, then 8ish, then she cancelled with a reason that I now cant even remember. Naturally I lay in my bed sulking all night.
The following weekend after working continuously for the last fortnight I set out to release my bike from the station. It had already been 2 weeks of me having to get public transport to work and those of you who know me will be aware of how both my cycling and my happiness go hand in hand. I can never understand how people can ride the London Underground to work every day. Aint they aware theres a faster, cheaper, healthier and more enjoyable way of getting there? For me it’s all those things and it keeps my mind clear… Typically that same weekend I was also able to collect the bike that was being held at the neighbors house. What I thought would be an in and out job with an angle grinder turned into a 2 day mission of me going back forth to buy new blades to cut the Kryptonite lock. FYI it takes 4 blades to cut one of those cunts. But more the trouble was the process of getting it off in the pissing rain when you have no knowledge of how to use an angle grinder and you’re racing against the clock to go view a house and watch some films at a film festival. I did get on well with the pretty girl in the HSS shop though. When I weighed up the 2 day mission financially including, the tool hire, new lock and all the money I’d spent on public transport and also factoring in that the relentless rain had now rusted the features of the bike I had planned to sell to retain a bit of money off my new one. In terms of cost and effort I should have just of abandoned the cunt. The ordeal left me feeling exhausted and dejected and also a bit more skint then I planned, so I mugged off the film and party that night. That Sunday I spent the whole day in bed not wanting to do anything.
As the month went on it was approaching crunch time for both the house move and the Berlin party. I’d made sure I had enough money to cover a deposit and rent for a new place but also knew I had enough bandit money to cover party costs. But as I crunched the numbers whilst booking agents took their time telling me what flight they wanted me to book for their client I conceded that there was no way this party was in anyway going to break even. Which was fine as I do it for the laugh and not for any financial gain, but I was set for quite the loss. The whole thing just got me down and I started to wonder whether the decision to do another one was really a good idea especially considering my financial situation. It didn’t help that despite working all the time it never really felt that I had extra cash to spend and I had to cancel a trip to Kosovo with Kush and the lads which I was really disappointed about. I was miserable and anxious and had no time to go to gym to exhaust myself from it all. My weekends at work would do that for me but more so from stress.
But then the following week I found myself starting to lighten up. The 9-5 was also unusually busy that month which was annoying because it meant spending a lot of time doing deliveries in the rain but nice because I did always feel like it was more worth while when I was doing things. Then this particular week things got quiet again, and I had time to work on my course again and use my invaluable down time to actually get some rest from the stresses of everything else I had going on. Then that Friday whilst I was ticking off answers to a module in the text book and texting someone I’d matched with online who i was getting on well with. I looked outside and it was the first nice day I’d seen in a while. I booked myself a free ticket to see the re-release of Singing in The Rain with my membership at the BFI later that evening, paid out the final balance to one of the headliners to the party and also dropped first months rent and deposit on a place I’d settled on in Camberwell. I’d also finally decided to sign myself up to the office gym seeing as I was moving away from my local gym and it was cheaper anyway and had everything I needed. Shit was starting to look pretty hopeful…. Then my manager walked in.
‘As you know your contract is up on the 1st November, we had a meeting with our line managers yesterday and unfortunately it was decided that we wont be renewing that contract and I’m afraid this will be your last day working for HMRC’… He continued for a bit longer but everything went silent for me and I thought I was about to disintegrate as I could feel the colour drain from my face and the life from my body. Once the shock subsided I tried to mumble a few questions but about why I was being let go the answer being that it was no reflection on my work (or lack of) as everyone in the office thought really highly of me it was simply a decision by some people that had probably never even met me – someone had to go and I just happened to be the unlucky cunt who’s contract was over next that was it. Then almost comically it turned into a scene from Alan Partridge where he gets told he wont be given a 2nd series ‘But I’ve just bought a house’ I said meekly and then tragically when he told me that my next options were to get straight onto the agency and get them to find me a new job immediately my instant response looking at him with a face full of tears ‘yea but they wont be as nice as this’ Then just like that I packed up my books, closed down my computer, collected my bike and was escorted off the premises and just like that my near 5 wonderful years and 2 sabbaticals at the most wonderful job a slacker like me could ever hope for was over. I never got to say goodbye to any of my colleagues.
I paced up and down The Strand for some time wondering what to do next. It felt like I’d just been given the news of a death. That job meant the world to me. It’s not often you find a job with zero stress, where you can show up at 10 and leave at 4 and still claim a 42 hour week, have your own office where you can study for a course in peace, listen to podcasts and music all day, go for a walk for an hour when it’s nice outside, or where the rest of your colleagues are under the illusion that you’re hard at work or have colleagues as sound as they were for that matter. Have a management that were fine whenever you wanted a day off because you couldn’t be arsed to get out of bed. What hurt the most was that they had all of those reasons to get rid of me and if they’d have used those reasons then at least I could have someone to be mad at and that be myself but they didn’t it was just bad timing and bad luck and whats more lads, that weren’t the end of it.
I spent that weekend in a benzo induced trance. Then on the Sunday night I decided to pull myself together and get a plan of action together, I’d recently got back into the swing of working on my CV when applying for pub jobs and already had a few office job ones saved during the brief period when I foolishly thought I’d try another job that weren’t portering. I slung something together then tried to get online to post them off to some agencies, then the wifi card on my laptop died and I couldn’t get online and that’s when I started crying. The next day I woke to my usual alarm that would wake me up on weekdays for work and balled a little bit when I got up and realised I had no job to go to, then when I called the woman at the agency and she asked me what had happened I had to hold back the tears explaining that they just didn’t want me back there after all this time. ‘Atleast I still have my health’ I’d tell myself through exhaustion that gave me a heavy cold that wouldn’t go away, stress that was making my back ache and anxiety so high octane it gave me chest pains.
It was around about this point that I remember thinking that if I couldn’t find a job in November, I certainly wouldn’t find one in December, January would be equally as hard and there was no way I could put the hours in at the pub and still have a worthwhile work and life balance. The gaff I was moving into didn’t allow for housing benefits and if I’d have made the decision to take their offer just a week later I wouldn’t have got the place due to having no work reference. I still had a party to fund and a course to pay for and though I had the pub job that was just fucking around money the guarantee of £400 a week from portering was what was really keeping the wolf from the door and making budgeting possible. For the first time in my adult life I felt it may be time to tap out. Pack my bags, sell whatever I couldn’t fit in a suitcase, declare bankruptcy, change my name and move to Ireland to live with my parents and start a fresh because if the bubble of my lifestyle hadn’t already burst, it felt like with one more false move and it would
I managed to steady the ship somewhat over the next few weeks. I started some extra hours at a hospitality agency, the agency managed to get me an interview pretty quickly, I sold a few bits and pieces I didn’t need and eventually got my deposit on the gaff that I’d now left. Just over a month before I was excited to see what my future living situation would be, I was now sad to leave a place of calm for a year, living with my best mate calling each other cunt all the time, watching films and talking bollocks. I’ll look back on that period of my life with endless fondness.
I never want to experience a month like October ever again. Never have I known a stretch of bad luck and timing so awful that it was profound. I worked almost every single day only to have all my extra cash hoovered up by misfortune and moving out of a house I didn’t want to leave, when I couldn’t find a winner with houses I settled for a room in a Guardianship house which was cheap and well located but not really what I was after. Then losing the job that had been a safe haven for both my finances and mental health these last few years, a rare job where I had time to study for a change of career and had a date in place for when I was going to leave, only for it to pulled away from me hours after making a few financial and living decisions which would have otherwise changed if I’d have not lost that job – oh and the person I was texting that day ghosted me literally the message I sent before my manager walked in. Then just a matter of days later when I really needed the internet my laptops wifi card breaks down. It felt like I bought back something evil from Chernobyl. What did really wind me up is that this was the reaction to me trying to clean my act up. For once I was doing everything the right way in life and it chucks all that at me. If I was still a degenerate drug dealer I could have just laid low and done that for a few months. The working mans a sucker. All I could do now was keep my head down, work all the hours I could get and pray that some force from somewhere took kindly on me for my party in Berlin. If anything disastrous was to happen there then my suitcase was packed and I shanghaiing out of town.
November was another long and arduous month of what felt like constant work, little funds to spend anything on and the worst phase of mental illness I’d ever suffered. The latter being the worse it had ever been. I started the notice the further effects poor mental health has on your life. Your hygiene starts to drop, routines like brushing your teeth and taking a shower start to become non existent, you stop tidying up and live in stressful squalor. Diet turns to shit – Being a vegan cuts out most of the shit food like takeaways but just means more full packs of hash browns and a pot noodle to see you through the day. Lack of sleep causes exhaustion which brings your physical health down, there’s general aches and pains, heavy coughs and colds that wont shift, nausea and of course fatigue. Anxiety running like a freight train in your brain soon turns to paranoia and you start to think that everyone around you hates you for what a miserable cunt you are. Working in the exploitative industry of hospitality didn’t help at all. Being expected to be constantly on in front of customers whilst also going beyond the call of duty with work itself for very little pay, unsociable hours and little satisfaction. I had a cause to work to however and that was BreakXit in Berlin. I had everything covered financially, the night had been promod to fuck and I had a target of people to get through the door to make it worth my while. Then like a cut scene from a computer game I was confronted by the enemy I couldn’t defeat again and he had a nice one in store for me this time round.
I was checking in all the flights for the artists the day before their flights. Everything fine and I’d not fucked a single thing up, then I got to my British Airways flight where I had 2 other people booked again both of theirs completely fine. Then when I typed in my booking reference… ‘This booking has been cancelled and a refund is being processed’ I went pale and again everything around me fell silent. It didn’t help that when I got myself together the BA customer services was an automated ‘All our lines are busy, call back later’ then hang up. I eventually managed to get through from some other department to get to the bottom of what was clearly a mistake. According to them the booking had been canceled on my side on the 16th August at 16:50 and a refund had been processed. When I checked the records of my account indeed the refund had been processed but on a day where I’d also been paid from work, so any glance at my account I would have just looked like I had a good week. The cost of rebooking the flight was over 5 times what I originally paid and the cheapest one I could get left later that evening at a cool £350, just 3 and half times more then the initial price.
I tried not to rack my brains over the cancelled booking as it would only drive me mad at a time when I needed to be compossed. Could I have done it in some drunken benzoed fugue state? The 16th of August was a Wednesday and at that time I would have either been just leaving or still at work. Also my limits of pissed up Valium behavior extends to nothing more then falling asleep, unreadable whatsapp messages and making dinners I cant remember making. Not logging into my BA account and going through the multiple steps it takes to cancel my crucial flight to Berlin. Whats more I could find no proof of an email confirming i’d canceled in buried all the other bullshit emails airlines send you whenever you make a booking. This was clearly some sort of system error, but I had no time to add battling BA customer service to my list of things to do. I had booked myself a day off before my flight to get everything in order – all that had been cancelled for me to fly out at great expense later that night.
The Beano to Berlin for BreakXit 2019 was one of the most beautifully chaotic benders that I’ve ever organised. There was a perfectly big amount of crew joining us for the party then the previous year and we all mostly stayed at the same hostel. To have so many different friends from different circles and from different parts of the country all together for one big mash up weekend, all getting along, drinking heavily, networking and hooking up. tearing up the bars of east Berlin, going for huge fuck off dinners and of course successfully pulling off a blinding party together is something I am so proud to have been able to pull off for a 3rd straight year.
Granted the night was by far the most stressful of the 3 – of course it was I weren’t going to get away with it that easily. There was a lot of running around to do during the night completing tasks one by one, having to race against time to get the next acts equipment set up – though the lads mostly took care of that, the odd person who ran a bit late for their set, having to jump in a cab to pick up a headliner last minute, almost losing the cash to pay the headliners would have been a knock out blow. Oh and there was a bit where I’d missed my flight back and Kush graciously booked another but it was for 2 weeks later and we had to book another flight much to the amusement of everyone around us. But just before the night was due to start and as we were having a pre party dinner I got a call from Mandidexstrous agent regarding the key to her airbnb, anyway to cut the boring and confusing part of the story out I ended up finding myself running across the city of Berlin to find a safety deposit box which had the key. Along the way when running through the station Rachel who had just arrived from the airport jumped on me to give me a hug I was in no mood to be pleased to see her but she joined me for my mission. We parted ways and as I left she snapped ‘And lighten up!’ – When I tried to piece this memory together after the weekend I confused it for Rachel and I having a huge argument in the street. From there I ran straight to the venue and up to the decks to play a set of Irish Hip-hop…. What is this? I asked myself. What had life become?
But yea the party was fucking dope. Didn’t get the numbers I quite wanted on the door which was a shame and made it teeter more on financial disaster then an acceptable loss. But like I say when legendary DJ’s such as Loftgroover tell you that playing your party made them reconsider retirement and when random German people shake your hand to tell you you did a good job, an Irish bloke tells you you played good tunes, booking agents congratulate you on a top gig and your mates tell you they’ve now been booked for further parties and a whole load of circle of friends you know wouldn’t usually hang out now are and are having a great time together because of all this effort you put into something– Money don’t mean fuck all. Of course a huge public shout out to my co promoters Phil, for his tireless promotion, logistical skills and Zoe for her promo, wisdom, advice and spells which helped greatly. And of course my mates who make up most of the line up – I just come up with the hair brain schemes, it’s because of them I go through with it.
After Berlin I fell into another depression where hoping the weekend in Berlin would flip my moods it instead left me feeling dangerously empty and I just waited for the 18th December roll round when my parents had graciously paid for a flight over to Ireland for me for Christmas to get away from all the shit I had going on in the UK. I’d got the job the agency sorted for me, but of course it was delayed by general red tape and it didn’t look like I’d start til the new year. I’d jacked in the pub but the agency were keeping me busy enough what with it being Christmas and I was working quite a bit. Then one weekend I just didn’t want to get out of bed, I canceled my jobs and lay there until my bladder felt like it was about to burst. Despite getting BreakXit done with critical success and with the end in sight in the form of a relaxing – do fuck all trip to Ireland just coming up I still could find no reason to be arsed to get out of bed and though it sounds I was starting to fear how the enemy I couldn’t defeat would strike next. Then on Saturday I started to lighten up, took up a nice easy evening of work from the agency and sure enough had a nice positive shift messaging an ex colleague of mine from the pub I had always fancied, a cute Portuguese passaro who was completing her last shift there that same night and had invited me down for after works drinks. I left work a bit early and thought ‘fuck it, be nice to see the lads at the pub’ Then I looked to the railing where I’d parked my bike and it was gone… Stolen. So with my mood back to rock bottom I bought myself a couple of bottles of wine, went home, watched UFC and despite my lovely Portugese friends best efforts to get me out I drunk myself to sleep. I would have been better off staying in bed that night. I was done lads.
It was around then I started to feel like I’d had enough. It wasn’t that I wanted to stop fighting the enemy I couldn’t defeat I just felt like I physically couldn’t go on. Every single passing day for the last few months felt like getting punched in the head and with these blows to an already fragile mindset I was busting open the scars of all the shit I’d thought I’d stitched up. Childhood traumas, insecurities, loneliness, all the general bollocks I spent my whole adult life trying to fix and forget about was now getting kicked to shit and running and starting a konga line in my head all because of a series of misfortunes completely out of my control. Then what made things worse was despite having many friends take notice I wasn’t having a good time and reach out to me, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to talk to them and even if I did I was working so much all the time that I never could meet up with them even if I wanted to and even if there was a load of people to reach out and talk to. What can they really say or do that will make things better? My whole conundrum was constantly being jabbed by these events beyond my control and that was another thing that was making them worse. At least with previous dark periods there was usually a reason behind all of them. Throughout it all though I do thank there was no bird on the scene to properly fuck things up for me. That would have been the hook that would have left me on the canvas. My old man would advise me to see things glass half full, I’d tell him how can you think that way when the glass is very clearly nearly empty.
There was one friend in particular though who did go above and beyond in helping me through this historic run of bad form. Kush and I have been friends for over a decade now. Socialising through sporting events, festivals, pubs, benders and general activities that lads who are mates get up to. Over the years Kush has been the bloke that helped me move house, he was the only one to come and support me on my open mic nights sorted me out financial, let me sleep on his sofa indefinitely twice, generally has always been on hand to offer a favor or free up time to get drunk with me when things are going wrong and all this without even batting an eye lid. He’s the definition of a true friend basically. Although only being slightly older then me, I have always looked up to Kush and the way he quite cooley drifts through life, knocking out all contenders, being the smartest man in the room but not letting anyone else know it, always with an eye for adventure and a pallet for the finer things in life. A working class hero who can drop the mic on any political or social debate that may spark up. A man so alpha even other alphas don’t find him a threat. Earlier this year without going into too many details Kush had his own dark period where for the first time in the 11 years I’d known him for a man who’d spent the last 20 years of his life in the zone was now finally expressing vulnerability and he dealt with it like any man should. He let loose and started living life, it even meant that we got to hang out a lot more which was great and though we’re both equally poisoned by toxi masculinity and wouldn’t dream of sitting round discussing our feelings with one another I think he could really channel that for a while in 2019 I weren’t ok and he did more then enough to help and I cant thank him anymore then I already have with this paragraph of commendation. Kush is one of the smartest, most capable, proactive, generous, caring, loyal and soundest cunts an absolute waster like me can ever dream to have as a friend. Easy pick this year. The last ever Lahm Powder friend of the year, in fact lets call him friend of the decade…. Kush
Then before I left for Ireland it dawned on me on top of all the shit I was having to deal with the latter part of the year I’d forgotten to try and get myself laid. Considering my parents are located in the middle of nowhere and as the rest of my festive plans were all booked up it appeared unlikely I’d find myself in such a situation any time soon. So baring in mind that for the next 2 weeks I wouldn’t be putting my hand in my pocket at my parents and because this weren’t going to be one of those Christmas holidays where I just go on a meth bender and as I’d been working hard I thought I’d treat myself to a Christmas sex worker. Now usually the once or twice a year I treat myself to a sex worker (usually post festival horn is a scratch wanking wont itch) I’ll go for a woman who is otherwise completely unattainable. Prime example being after the Weekender 2019 where I treated myself to a big fat black woman from Croydon who offered all the services I was after. We was chatting afterwards and when I initiated the usual ‘Hows work?’ small talk and she told me that one of the things she loved about the job was getting to fuck men she otherwise would never find herself in the situation to fuck ‘Like you! She said ‘When would we ever meet like this?’…. She was definitely right. This time however I thought I’d treat myself to a pretty one who’d I’d for in a social situation and sure enough ended up getting such good value for money I feared I may end up being one of those cunts who pays SW just to hang out and chat with them… Not that there’s anything wrong with those cunts I could always understand why that was a thing it just always struck me as an expensive pass time.
So with a turbulent year behind me I set off to rural county Cork where for 4 days I was to be in solitude as my folks were in the UK for a wedding and needed someone to look after the dogs. almost 5 years I’ve been going to visit my parents in ireland and due to how remote there location is not once did I think to give Tinder a bash. Seeing as I was completely alone for a few days I thought I’d fire it up and give it a few swipes and to my delight the majority of birds on there seemed a right laugh. One of my first matches arranged to meet for a drink immediately, when tried to figure out the logistics of how it would work she replied with ‘shall we just cut straight to the banging?’ and sure enough came over the following night for a nice old fashioned hook up. I did have to ask her though, did the fact that I was a strange man from England, alone in a dark house in the middle of literal nowhere not deter her a bit? If I’d have really wanted to I could have murdered her, buried the body in a neighboring cow field, then stolen and burnt her car out somewhere miles away and there would be no witnesses. ‘Yea when I drove up the drive way I immediately thought that I’d made a mistake’ she joked. Some nice sex it was to.
In true Lahm Powder fashion I ended up leaving Ireland chatting with 2 other cool birds I’d already have taken for a drink if they’d only lived in London. I would have done so there if it weren’t such a busy time of year. One is top division, intimidating pretty who’s loveliness radiates through something as simple as a whatsapp message the other is a big arsed sexy bird who I converse with in nudes and Simpsons references…. The former is coming to London in February – i’m very much looking forward to it. My parents plan to move back to the UK this year making my reasons to go out there even slimmer – classic Powder.
So yea the latter end of 2019 was life on hard mode I aint going to lie. Not sure if I’m repeating myself here but what wound me up the most about this particular troubled time was that when I looked back on other black periods I could kind of understand why I weren’t doing well. The bird I never tried with, the poor decisions I made and so forth. This time things went to shit at a time when I decided to pull myself together and become an up standing member of society. When I was a degenerate drug dealer I could just chuck money at any problem I had and that worked fine. What’s more I didn’t even have to really work hard to do it and I got the opportunity to do loads of cool stuff. I can fondlley recall many times at HMRC when weeks would go by where I’d spend my time skipping around the office pretending to do work, wondering if it was just widely accepted that this is my role and thats the way it is and I’d acknowledge that no matter how unfulfilled I was what I was experiencing was the best possible days and challenges would lie ahead when it all eventually collapses. I just didn’t expect it to go all building 7 on me.
But I carry on like I always do. I set myself a goal or a plan and then I set out to achieve said goal or plan. It’s just recently I set myself so many plans and goals that I find myself not being able to achieve many or if not any at all. Instead I find myself in a position where I can never shake this nag that I should always be working on something or getting some project completed. My podcast me and Modey made for example was received well and that is one of the tings I hope I can press on with and get rolling in this new year and see how quickly we get bored of that idea. But it’s these constant nags that prevent me from relaxing and thats a problem lads. Also I dont enjoy writing things like I used to…. Look how late this is! It’s a yearly review for christ sake these are always up on New years eve without fail. There’s so many drafts that I straight up didn’t finish because it became pointless to do so at how irrelevant they were or things like the last Glastonbury and Boom I went to where I’ve now forgotten what it is I was writing a memoir on. So for now this is it for the writing. I’ve got a course that needs qualifying for more importantly and whats more writing these feels more like work then it does a laugh which is what it always used to be. Also I feel like I’m repeating myself with a lot of my stories.
Oh and dont worry by the way. Just because I’m leaving on a bit of a sad not and times have been a bit tough recently dont see this as some cry for help. Powder aint going to go killing himself lads that aint how I sign out. There’s too much hilarious and fascinating about this world. Although I have no fear of leaving it I’d like to stick around for a while longer.
That being said I do have plans to edit all of these into a ‘best of’ then self publish them as a limited release… That’ll be a nice thing for people to have. To be able to read my filthy stories in a book and treat them with the same integrity they’d treat stories from Forrest Gump sat at a bus stop.
Unfortunately I’ve not prepared any inspirational send off. Some people ask me for advice on writing my answer to that is – Just write down your inner monologue, read it back and if it at least makes sense to you then it’s probably fine.
If I could give one piece of life advice I’ve learnt over the last decade it would be to be as open and honest with absolutely everyone that you meet. From what I’ve discovered people have a lot of respect for that and you’ll meet lots more friends.
If you want my advice on seduction I will admit that I’m still not sure why people decide to sleep with me. I’m the rebound, the dirty secret affair, the drunken one night stand, the morbid curiosity and I’m happy with that…. but I find if you’re making them laugh then you’re doing something right.
So yea that’s it basically. Writing this blog has helped me shape a persona I’m very happy to be living as every single day and I’m still bewildered and flattered by the amount of people (some of which I don’t even have on Facebook) come up to me and tell me how much they enjoyed my ramblings or even some people tell me that some of the stories I told made them feel good about themselves. I really didn’t think that people would give that much of a shit about my grotty sex life but I’m really glad that you have. Shout out to Dom for planting the seed from one text ‘you should really write about your experiences’
Thanks for digging me for all these years
This is Powder, signing off
Play me out Mozzer….