They're hosing down Broad St. Washing off the vomit and larger, piss and blood - the cocktails of choice for a night out. Apart from that, the streets are deserted. The stags and hens of England still a-bed in the Travel Lodges and Comfort Inns above.
Morning is the colour faded from last nights picture. The brash neon of the bars, the lurid tinge of the drinks, the bright reds of the faces.
Broad St is no worse than many. But it concentrates the experience. A mile or so of interchangeable bars. Shuffle outside; pass approval from the thick-necked missing link; pay your entrance fee and you could be anywhere.
I'm in Revolution (not so much televised, as xeroxed), grimacing through a pitcher of liquorice flavour vodka. Thinking how did it get to this. How did it become so mechanised, industrialised - factory drinking.
The girl collapsing into the wet gutter, rag-doll limp, tears streaking her thick mascara, as the world swirls around her. The lad leaning in a doorway - the assailant, and the reason for the altercation long gone - blood running through his fingers, dripping down onto his shiny Next shirt. The woman squatting, pissing, in the alleyway; knickers in one hand, bottle in the other. Swap the gin for Aftershock and we're in a Hogarth print.
But they love it. Driven, questing: for queues longer, PAs louder, drinks fouler. It seems there's nothing too base for the great drinking public. The Walkabouts, Jumping Jacks and Branigans full to bursting.
Why can't the English learn how to drink....
