Night Bus to Camden

Dec 192013
 
Mascara in Sapphire

by Nicolette Loizou
Totally without friends, Giles would frequent the Venue on his own and I was so pretentious and unloved that I thought we could form something of a nihilist pair. He thought so too. On our first night together he scraped all my hair from my face and said, “Well, you’ve got nice eyes.” He had a special chair in the club under which he would stash hummus and pitta bread just in case he got hungry. [read more…]

Nov 212013
 
The Lucky Cat Watches

by Jess Sully
I waltz with a Spiders-From-Mars-era Bowie who only falls over once on his stack heels; at the end of the song we bow to each other solemnly, then I race onward to dance arm-in-arm with men, women, a giraffe. “Let’s get wasted on rum and ginger!” Slipping on the beer-sodden floor, clambering straight back up, tights subtly laddered. By a mysterious osmosis, we end up at the front at the same time, waving our white sunhats in the air with joy. [read more…]

Oct 032013
 
Lit by Fury

by Sean Longden
Outside, it betrays its origins as the Regal Cinema, a stark, plain and grimy object from an era when people uttered the words “shopping precinct” as if such a thing were the height of sophistication, and thought nothing of stripping the old Palladium Picture Playhouse of its Edwardian façade. Inside, leather-jacketed goth girls in fishnets are selling fanzines. Carpets are sticky with beer. The crowd is a mass packed so tight it threatens to burst the walls. [read more…]

Jun 262013
 
Let's All Meet Up In The Year 2000

Let’s All Meet Up In The Year 2000 by Rachel Stevenson
He plays Smokey Robinson and The Shirelles and Dressy Bessy and I lie on the sofa bed in the living room and have paracetamol and chocolate biscuits for my breakfast, until he starts to indicate that he wants me to leave. I walk down on my own in the rain to Notting Hill, feeling ill and sorry for myself. The sky is the colour of a dirty duvet and the trees are broken umbrellas that don’t keep the drizzle off. [read more…]

Apr 012013
 
Poppers and Opal Fruits

by Jack Pandemian
School nights have no meaning until September so we roam, my friend and I, within the boundaries of our Zones 4-5 school bus passes. Brixton is too far, Zone 2. Camden is unimaginable. But out here there is a club above a pub where every Saturday the walls run with snakebite sweat, and where the carpet sucks lecherously at your boots as you lift one foot and then the other to the jangling sound of L7. [read more…]

Jan 092013
 
The Comfort and the Joy of Feeling Lost

by Jamie Woods
We head back up to the balcony, the girls with tinsel in their hair, our girls, Clare; they kiss boys, older boys, boys we don’t know. We watch scornfully, teasingly, jealously. We drink until our money runs out, until it’s time to go. Danny downs a pint of Guinness in one, flips open his gullet and pours. We’re sixteen: this is one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen. [read more…]

Oct 242012
 
The Last Days of Gothic London

It is very early on a Sunday morning in June and today promises to be every bit as scorching as yesterday. The street is deserted. Your ears ring, your eyes sting, your mouth tastes like a small bat has curled up and died in it. You’re wearing black leather, PVC, crushed velvet and heavy, oily make-up. You’re going home. [read more…]

Oct 082012
 
Not Seeing The Smiths

by Sean Longden
One night they took me out. Up to Camden: couple of beers, round to visit some bloke from Scritti Politti at his squat, then to Dingwalls to see The Smiths. Walking there, I was amazed to hear the words “Oh – didn’t I mention it? We’re on the guest list.” It was getting better by the minute. I could just see myself back at school telling all this to the handful of people who would actually be impressed. [read more…]

Jul 052012
 
and I will only drink drinks that are red like blood

by Alice Slater
In the bathroom, I jab more kohl around my eyes, panda my sockets with black glittery powder. The sinks are filled with crumpled plastic cups, sodden tissues, vomit, cigarette stubs, ash. A girl with pink nostrils and armfuls of rubber shag bands asks if she can borrow my eyeliner. I hand it to her and watch her transform her small bloodshot eyes into artwork, thickly lined like Cleopatra. [read more…]