For Sale: Foffa Single Speed Custom-built bicycle

I've never been a graceful guest at a swanky do. I have a tendency to harass people with trays of food, hovering around the door from which they will emerge, making up for lost time or 'lining my stomach' if you will. This is tense because it keeps me away from my primary objective - getting to know the bar. The sense that my time would be well served being a charmster with the many influential types gathered about me sends me into a social tail spin, the antidote being booze. Ultimately I rebel, assume my rightful position as a wallflower or spend my time drinking and people watching with the few actual humans in the room. This is how it plays out. If I get through the evening without everyone in the business of making or showing art hating me from the depths of their soul I've done a good'n. Generally though, my opinion of these gigs is that they're best avoided. I'll never clamor for a passage into one of these shmoozefests again... not since...

I'd been out of art school for about two years and was running a little project in Hackney with some pals. We'd spent the day installing a pop up show at a space run by the Royal Academy and this tenuous connection was deemed enough for us to be invited to a seriously classy fundraiser at the back of the Academy in what was once the Museum of Mankind. So we hit the pub somewhere in North East London, downed a half dozen pints of loosener and tubed down to Green Park.

On arrival we were ignored by piles of paps who were awaiting the inevitable YBAs, model wives and TV glitterati. Inside the whole thing was themed around schooldaze. Unfortunates dressed as Bash Street style schoolkids were handing out all kinds of goodies including my weapon of choice, test tubes and beakers full of deep red stuff. There was an indoor basketball shooting comp and a lot of exceedingly tall people! Proper thoroughbreds.

Memory from this point is fragmented:

Knocking back the red things.

Seeing that the senior curator / director of the Royal Academy was having a little go on the hoop shooting game I charged up to him as he was taking a shot, blocked it, crashed into him knocking him to the floor, pointed at him and screamed "denieeeed". This may or may not have been the part where I showed myself out.

Regaining consciousness at the bottom of the stairs, having done a proper stunt roll down them onto the red carpet, being well and truly papped by the very cameras who had ignored our arrival. I stood up grabbed the handle of a waiting taxi and mumbled "just drive".

Regaining consciousness again in the back of the cab on Hackney road being asked to leave by the driver - who reminded me that I had asked him to bring me here but that he wouldn't just sit there all night. No charge "just fuck off". I pressed a sweaty note into his hand as he lifted me from the car.

Proudly announcing the highlights to my flatmate and his new girlfriend I look to her clothes horse for stability, leant on it (never lean!), snapped it and plummeted to the floor trapping my thumb in the scissorlike mechanism as I went, howling in pain while surrounded by her bra and pants.

Fade to black, all is quiet until I swim into consciousness for the final time. I'm aware of my girlfriend's voice first. "No Wrongcog, don't help me, I'll do it, just leave it alone, you're making it worse". Then I focus. I'm kneeling by the bed collecting huge pools of warm red liquid up in my hands from the trough formed by the sheer volume of science lab regurgitations seeping into the the duvet. The pintage of London Pride tainted by massive lakes of test tube goop had violently bounced. Smearing it like michelin starred raspberry jus over the crisp surface of our cotton sheets then raising my hands like an offering to the gods, Ruby gore squeezing through my fingers into the lap of my future wife I finally slip from the stressful distractions of the waking world. Fade to a sweet sweet black. None of this is my problem anymore. Sleep well little prince, for tomorrow is another day.