PORT
OF
LONDON
AUTHORITY
BUILDING
Trinity Square, EC3
I think we can all tell by the way he uses his walk that Neptune is… well, a bit of an old tart, frankly, especially after a dose of Saturday Night Sea Fever has led him to try busting a few salty moves at the local Palais de Danse. Not for him, though, Travolta’s white suit and pointy collars – instead, just some kind of disco cape, the sort of thing you might toss on hastily should the doorbell ring as you were nakedly honing your hustle at home… though hopefully you’d think to employ a belt, to keep things together, as it were, and avoid scaring the postman. Or do I mean to avoid amusing the postman, given that – oh, how can I put this? – well, let’s just say that Mr N’s love might decide not to spend another night on disco mountain with him should her answer to the question “How deep is your love?” be anything more than an inch and a half. Capisce? Yes, yes, I’m sure that that niche is a bit parky, but the old cod-botherer has plainly been juicing up his thews in the gym to compensate for a sorry lack elsewhere. Though quite why he’s so worried about Venus (or, indeed, Mars, for we’re not here to judge, merely to measure – though I’d draw the line at Pluto, because… well, that’s dogs, isn’t it?) giving him a second look (other than to check that she hadn’t missed it the first time), I don’t know; it is, after all, not on the sea bed but on the dancefloor that this god is… a god. Albeit a god who smells vaguely of haddock. Or, as Jupiter noted in his autobiography (Thunderbolts and Lightning are Very Very Frightening), recalling a night the two of them once spent at Faces at Gants Hill: even if the whole immortality thing leaves strutting your chunky stuff to Stayin’ Alive open to accusations of taking the mick, then old seaweed-beard just don’t care, and will happily wave his knobbly trident in the air to prove it.
Matt Haynes
[This piece originally appeared in Smoke 11.]
