Regular readers will know that I am not really a fan of new year's eve. I didn't have any firm plans about how I was going to spend the transition from old year to new year. I had been kinda holding out, hoping that Chrissie Hynde would return my hospitality of last year and invite me to some celeb/vegetarian shindig or other, but I didn't hear a word from her. Some people just have no gratitude.
I ended up doing another gig at the Amused Moose in Soho. This one went a lot better than last time and hopefully I am finding my feet with this fearsome art form. I wasn't sure where I would be at midnight though and was thinking of going home and watching Friends.
The venue seemed intent on extracting as much money as possible from everyone, even though tickets cost a staggering £45 (not just for the comedy I should add: there was a disco afterwards - and I am using the word disco on purpose there as a kind of joke in case you were wondering). Pre-gig I went for a wee; I find that performing generally helps loosen all my sphincters and generally go a few times one way or another in the minutes before I begin. There was a man standing in the gents doorway, talking on a mobile phone. I suspected from his demeanour and the fact that he was standing in a gents toilet for no good reason that he was one of those blokes who helps you wash your hands and then you feel duty bound to give him a pound, even though you are quite capable of washing your hands on your own. They are the windscreen washers of the toilet world, but harder to escape because you are not in a car and can not keep your windows wound up or set off your windscreen wipers to discourage them.
I started doing a wee. It was going quite well. The man said, "So what are your plans for New Year's Day?"
I was pretty sure he was talking to me rather than whoever was on the phone, but I was mid-wee and I like to be able to concentrate on that and can easily be put off, so I pretended to ignore him. To be honest, I don't really like talking to people I don't know in toilets. I think it is a place for excretion and quiet contemplation.
After I finished off my wee, I turned round to see him watching me and waiting for an answer to his question. "Oh sorry," I lied, "Were you talking to me? I thought you were still on the phone.... I don't really have any plans yet." I didn't tell him that I didn't really have any plans for New Year's Eve after I'd done my gig.
"You've got to do something New Year's Day," he informed me as he turned on the tap (which I would have been happy to do myself). Not content with ruining my piss-toral idyll, engaging me in a conversation that I didn't want and charging me money to do something that I was perfectly capable of achieving myself, he was now criticising me for my lack of social life.
I put my hands under the tap and he squirted some soap on to them. I felt I was capable of doing this on my own as well, but I had no choice and no windscreen wipers. I was allowed to rub my own hands together without assistance, but he pulled me out a paper towel and handed it to me.
I was a bit annoyed at the imposition and expectations of this man and also aware that I would probably be visiting the toilet four times in the next ten minutes and I didn't want to pay him for his service. And so for once I stuck to my guns and didn't give him any money, making some vague comment that I was sure I'd be back soon. The man gave me a stare of wounded disappointment, but I wasn't going to be swayed. Why should I pay someone a pound for providing a service I neither wanted or required?
I was now going out the door and still had the paper towel in my hand. I was clearly looking for somewhere to put it. "The bin's over there," he told me, pointing behind him. As he was closest and in the way, I added insult to injury and handed him my wet paper towel. His face was the definition of disdain.
I was in the club for another hour or so and drank a fair amount of liquid, but I was too intimidated by this toilet troll and his monetary expectations that I couldn't go back in there. Perhaps I should have just given him a pound, but that would have been to admit that he has a reason for being there. I held my bladder in silence.
I decided to go home, not because I needed to go to a free toilet, just because I wasn't in the mood to get drunk with strangers. As I walked the streets back to the tube the mood was bouyant and most people were having fun, but already mixture of alcohol and the realisation that another year of life had gone by was having negative effects on some people. I saw the beginnings of a few arguments and even one near fight. I saw men sitting in a fried chicken shop on their own, mournfully picking at some disgusting food. Chrissie Hynde hadn't invited them to a party either, but their chickeny fingers would only have offended her sensibilities if she had.
All I could see was desperation; either the desperation to have fun and or sex on the faces of those with friends or plain old miserable desperation on the faces of those who hadn't got any plans or anyone to share the night with. Both were the desperation of being seen to conform with expectation.
It was going to get messy for everyone.
It felt quite empowering not to join in with this. To head home and treat this night like any other. And to see the last episode of Friends, which fittingly is nothing particularly special.
I was left thinking that were I Charles Dickenss I might end up thinking that the toilet troll with his imposition and unwarranted expectations perfectly personified New Year's Eve. The fact that he spent all night in a toilet could only augment this conclusion.
Happy New Year readers.
