Forged credibility… 3, September 2007

Feeling a bit… well… credible, after the way some of you reacted when you heard I handle spiders (phnark) I thought I’d share a true and bizarre story with you about how I gained some street cred under false pretences. Mainly because the real ones were so unbelievable… This is story is just one of the many examples which have led to my being known to my husband as Babychaos, the woman THINGS happen to. Still, at least it means he now understands why I never usually bother to plan.

A long time ago in a capital city far, far away -well 75 miles to be honest – and it was only 15 years ago because it was when I lived there, my brother, who lived “out of town”, came down for a day or two and we agreed to meet at a pub on High Holborn.

So, the pub is a huge old place and as it’s just after work, it’s heaving with big yuppies who play rugby in the top league at the weekend (before they all turned professional they had day jobs). On the whole, the few yuppies who don’t play rugby are just big. We get drinks, I don’t recall what but mine is something with ice in it and of course, before long we start arsing about with the ice, trying to eat it in the fastest possible time, throwing it at one an other etc.

I pick a great lump out of my glass and hold it between my first finger and thumb, probably to say something like “why the fuck have they put ice in this, I hate ice, it gives me a sodding headache!” Or something like that. I want to hold onto it while I’m gesticulating with it so I grip it quite hard. The inevitable happens, it pings out of my hand and flies high into the air. Oh dear.

I may have mentioned there are a lot of large gentlemen in the pub, none of whom, I reckon, would want an ice cube on the head. We watch it arc high across the room in fascination, which quickly turns to horror as it comes down into somebody’s pint with a splash. The results are impressive. As it lands, the impact of the ice throws a foamy finger of beer into the air. It fountains about 3 feet skywards from the glass and by dint of not coming down the way it goes up, most of it lands on the table and the man holding the glass. Oops

Brother and I take one look at each other and lose it completely, laughing so much we are crying like babies but at the same time, mortally afraid one of the party will come and knock our blocks off. Sure enough they turn and stare over in our direction.

“Shit.” I say.

“Baz!” Says my brother.

“Baz?” I say.

“Yes. Thank fuck!” Says my brother, a palpable aura of relief emanating from him.

The four youths are making their way towards us, even the one covered in beer.

“Hi Brother BC.” Says the beery one, actually he doesn’t he uses my brother’s name but to preserve the few shreds of anonymity left on this blog I demur from typing it in. Anyway where were we? Ah yes.

“Hi Big BC.” Says the beery youth. It turns out he is a mate of my brothers from university, as are the others so they join us and we settle down for a good old gossip. “Did you see what just happened?” Beery Youth asks and he begins to explain how some eagle eyed so and so had thrown an ice cube into his beer, how it arrived with almost paranormal out of the blueness and before it gets any worse I admit the truth.

We spend a very enjoyable evening in the pub with them during which I try repeatedly to convince them that the ice cube incident was an accident, a freak of nature and nothing to do with any freakishly excellent aiming skills I might posses. They don’t believe me.

I have gained kudos under false pretences. It’s still with me the next time I see them, without my brother this time. They still do not believe. They still think I am cool. Eventually, I let them.

Is there a moral to this story, something about life? What does it tell us? Nothing. Although it might explain why I took to stand up, with this kind of high “incident” quotient it was just a question of going on stage, chatting to the audience for a while, reading out a couple of poems until something like this happened and then hoovering up the credit by pretending it was deliberate.