All aboard the wibbley wobbley.....

All aboard the wibbley wobbley….

You may recall that I do ridiculous things fairly often.

Last weekend was no exception.  It was time.  For my gig. On…… the wibbley wobbley!

The wibbley wobbley is a mad little boat in the docks of east end london.  That sells booze.  And curry.

Ms mountain had FBed me from spain in the christmas furore.  Her father, a notorious east end ‘business man’, was turning seventy – could I rustle up some songs for the occasion?  Say, johnny cash, tina turner, fats dominoe?..…

And, seeing as I thought it a good idea to leap around in camden singing elvis with my cavalry choir, I thought it also a good idea to say yes, I’d do it…..

I thought I’d better warm up for the gig by getting pissed the night before with kolvitch and tone.  Saturday came and all I could muster was a bit of croaky tina-crooning and some roast potatoes from the chrisso near the pissy bus stop.

At canada water tube I waited patiently amongst the straggle for my mountainous friends to embark upon me.  And sure enough, through the barricades came mcpherson, ms mountain, mr diy and rambunctious rubekins.

Trotting along the cobbled docks, haphazardly avoiding broken heels, we stumbled, ms mountain and I making an odd couple – me, guitar slung on back, her, baby seat.

Aboard the boat we get down to the important stuff.  Moet, veuve and some sort of pink shit greets us.  That’s better. 

Within five minutes of the party starting the boat is crammed full.  And though still waters run deep, I am not out of my depth, but I realise with horror that I may be the poshest thing there.  And that’s a first.

Later, I sourced a tall girl named margot who I decided was posher than me.  But she was by no means acting posh.  No one that night was.

Animal print is back.  But these people have been wearing it since the first time round.  Cockney mob women, bronzed and cackling, mysterious fat geordies screeching at me through my soundcheck.  I point out I can be violent if pushed.

Violence was a whiff in the curry-soaked air.  An old conspirator tells me he overheard four seventy year-olds in the bog together discussing an old mucker from days way-back-when.

“yeah, ‘e was alright.  ‘e ran a good pub….”

“Me only regret was that I never robbed ‘im.”

Fabulous.  They all have three-syllable names like ‘tony brown’, or ‘jackie ‘obbs’.

Robbie jobs.

And although the septuagenarian birthday boy has dragged a PA system halfway across the old smoke for me, samson’s words ring through my befuddled head with horror:

‘so, who’s doing the sound then?’

‘erm….’

‘do you know how to set up a PA?’

*silencio*

‘and what songs are you singing?’

*more silence…*

So after a couple of bubblies I curtail mr diy and tell him of the technical issues we may be facing.  He gets on it.  Someone’s boyfriend plays the bass, he’ll know.  Gold.

But as they do in these east-end slapstick situations, everyone mucked in and ‘ad a go.  At some expense….

Yes, dear darren ‘meant well’, but he has added to the top two most unwelcome groping incidents of this year, (mafioso waiter from last week being decidedly more sinister).

Yes, cheery darren set to work with his wires and buttons, but wouldn’t perform a trick without a little treat…..so as he gaffered an old microphone to some sort of makeshift pole and I barked orders as to exactly where I wanted him to put it, he’d slyly give my hips a good rub as he searched about the floor. 

I implored at ms mountain but she shrugged – you don’t get somefink for nuffink nowadays.  So I allowed the molestation to continue till we were set up, then turned into a complete screaming diva. 

Well I ain’t class, but these men do not seem to relate to women in a way I find familiar.  One man I shiftied past on the rockaboat said ‘nice voice’.  ‘Thanks’, I disinterestedly half-snarl.  But I can’t move for the thick whisky air.

‘not really’, he toothlessly grins, ‘I’m just tryin’ to get in your knick-as!’

Well there’s a sophisticated line.  Tried and tested before, no doubt.

What would be the appropriate response, one muses for a millisecond?

Probably all babs windsor, “oo, you saucy bugger!”  *laugh laugh, hand on tit*

I am not having it mister.  Do not mess.  Sucker.

I tentatively launch.  I decide I can’t look at the be-pied bugger, so instead turn to his surly scottish friend:

“what kind of a fucking response is that?  What kind of a fucking line is that?  Erm, you’re good at singing, no, not really, I just want to get in your pants?” *LOTS of gesticulating*

but the scottish one gets overexcited by my firey outburst:

“tell him, go on, I dare you to say to him, fuck off!  How fucking you dare say that to me!”

I recoil, serpent as I am.  No, I will not perform like an organ-monkey.

“you tell him.” I order.  “I have people to do that kind of thing for me”.  I haught off, the scottish one shouting “fuck off” in his friend’s face.  Mission accomplished.

And the actual gig?  A confusing, ridiculous, old-fashioned, knees up muvva braan.  And where the fuck was dirty darren when I needed him?  Up the galley and round the piss-soaked stairs with a wrap of our little friend, that’s where.

Set list:

·      Happy fuckin birfday, led by ms mountain

·      The one I love is gone – learnt whilst eating roast potatoes and dribbling, still not entirely sure of the chords but it shut ‘em up.

·      THE GRAND SUPRENDO – a song written for the birfday boy.  I forced him to stand before me, he didn’t like that.  I managed to fit in the words ‘I can tell you why he’s so gay’, which did not go un-noticed.  Word after the event was that he exclaimed ‘it’s all a bit overwhelming’, and snuck off to mischief.  But I made a mobster stand to attention before me whilst I sang about his funny games….

·      Tina Turner, I don’t wanna lose you, for mcpherson.  Classic.  Honked out in true country style.  Approved of by the person’s boyfriend who played the bass, someone’s husband and someone else’s husband.  I collected a pile of partners before noticing in close wibbley proximity their wives and others.  Whoops.

·      Grand finale…..what do you think it was?  Yes, that old classique, jesus don’t stick it in there.  To hell with it, why the fuck not?

To add to the disrespectful pile of chancers trying to stick it in there, was an old dude called albert.  I was on top deck quaffing pink shit, when he curtailed me by the cramped bar.

‘very pretty…….but you used to ‘ave dimples’, he says, to an audience of gizzardish women in leopard-print.  They laugh.

I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume, wrongly, that he thinks I am the birthday boy’s daughter.

‘oh, I’m, not his daughter you know!’

He shifts uncomfortably and goes red, poor old bugger.

‘well no, I didn’t fink you was, but you got me all imbarissed naa’.  The gizzards laugh.  I smile, forcing dimples.  We all knock it back.

And, after resisting several substances, it was definitely high time to leave the boat.

News came on deck that someone I girned with years back would be leaving to go…somewhere.  So I should too.

As she stoops to conquer a bag of hidden booze from the bushes, she explains to her new traveller squeeze how she knows me.

She tells him that they all cried on boxing day 2005 as they thought they had lost me to the tsunami.  And I have been thinking about my dear friends at this fraught time of year, those I’ve lost, those I have and those I’ll come to know, and the words of the DOCTOR resonate throughout my being:

“dance like everybody’s watching,

Love like you'll been hurt,

And sing like everyone’s listening”

Well, the wibbley wobbley wasn’t much listening, but it was full of friends – old, new, lost and found, which no tsunami could sweep away:

(listen out for when you hear me shout darren)