There Is HOPE!

What, me ?Go to town on a Saturday night?
All those hideous memories of feeling an outsider;the vulgarity, the heat, the expense, the terrible noise!
And all so you could feel drunk, poor, stale, tired and deaf.

And yet....and yet, I would see impossibly glamorous girls going home in the mornings, and think that if only I could endure the bullshit I could end up with one.
Well I never gave it a second thought.

A Toronto jazz club on a Thursday night? A sophisticated cocktail bar at lunchtime in a place where people live at all hours, not just a Friday night?
That was what I thought was the scene for me.

Then I went to a colleague's leaving party in Leeds on a Saturday night.
This was the mainstream weekend booze hit, the place from which trouble got its name.

I went.

My friends and colleagues were all there, and the mood was happy and relaxed. True, the music was far too loud, but the tunes improved during the night.
The beer was acceptable, not too expensive and quenched thirst.

And the people?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not a word, not a gesture, not a sound out of place.They had all decided to be civil.(Maybe the loudness of the DJ left them no choice?Good thing!).
The place started to fill up with women of all kinds, all attractive in different ways.

I'd got in with no problem, dressed as I was in an old Kangaroo leather jacket my dad gave me years ago, jeans, a psychedelic Paul Smith shirt and my new Kangol flat cap.
One girl was dancing, dressed as a 1920's Flapper in a short red silk dress, with garters and a long cigarette holder. She just talked and danced and sang and smiled with her 'gangster'-dressed friends.
Coming back from the bar for the last time(I was getting noise fatigue, I was tired and I needed fresh air),another girl nicked my hat and put it on.
There was a friendly exchange.
Me?
I'm not used to all this niceness.

But by God, now that I know where to find it, I'll be back.
I just wish I'd taken a camera.