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Friday was my first day without crutches, it’s a wonderful feeling. The momentous occasion was celebrated by getting drunk on only one cocktail (a common occurrence thanks to Japanese genes). Raji led the procession to Adam’s Morgan, we were, I am now ashamed to say (though at the time I found it funny) trying to harmonise mr big’s to be with you and the banana song for the entire walk there. We ended upstairs at Café Ghana, I was trying to refrain from dancing because of my knee, however I kept migrating to the edge of the dance floor due to a guy who fascinated me. He’d stand vibrating almost imperceptibly at the beginning of the song and the vibration would slowly turn into a head muscle spasm. Then after the head spasm had reached apocalyptic proportions, his arms would begin to jerk around and he’d suddenly explode into these frantic dance moves that must have taken ages in front of the mirror to perfect.
There are moments where you think because you are observing someone intently you are somehow immune to being observed, these are the moments where you are the most vulnerable. In my moment, the friend of the dancing guy thought I was making eye contact, he came bounding over, grabbed my hand and said “don’t be shy, come on we’re going to dance”. Saying no or coming up with an explanation of why I wasn’t dancing somehow seemed ungracious/impolite, he was one of those people whose enthusiasm overwhelms objections. So I started dancing with him, a couple of seconds in he turned a rather complicated dance move into a spin that ended with him slapping my arse with a resounding clap. My reaction, after a moment of shock, was hilarity, it didn’t occur to me to object or act offended, though I should have, in some way, indicated that this wasn’t my ideal scenario because ten seconds later he did it again. Before I could react he then leant forward, still dancing, and said, “let’s see how low you can go”, and started sashaying down towards the floor. Realising that something had to be done, I, in my turn, leant forward (a bit low because he had already begun his descent) and as politely as possible said, “I’m terribly sorry but, I’m wearing a knee brace.”
On Saturday I went to the wedding of Liam, my first ever flatmate in Edinburgh. The wedding was touching and wonderfully informal. It was in a small town located slightly to the left of the middle of nowhere. The events were reversed slightly in that Sunday was the wedding and Saturday night was the wedding party. The bride (Siobhan) and groom did their first dance to a band made up of family friends playing ‘Surfing USA’. Liam’s brother James and I were doing the bartending, we had a tough job in that the only alcohol behind the bar (a dresser) was whisky, rum and gin, and the only mixers were green tea, lemon concentrate and tonic. Having infinite belief in the powers of invention, we proceeded to mix together the drinks in a style first pioneered by six year olds in possession of some water, mud, and rose petals. These concoctions had to be road tested, and since none of them passed muster but all of them needed to be drunk (“to leave them would be a waste”) James and I got to the point where it seemed like the most appropriate wedding present for Liam and Siobhan would be to sing for them. We decided on a song but the band seemed reluctant, their excuse being that they didn’t know how to play it. This reasoning seemed insufficient, James was undaunted and I was determined. So we ended up performing what will probably be the Cambridge Hotel’s last ever experience of an a-capella rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody.
I’d like to say we nailed it but that would be a lie.
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