Wait until next year

Trendy bar. Not sure on cost so drinking halves. That sort of place. Get my coins mixed up, so he has to return for the rest, then when that’s sorted the change is 6p and they are out of change and should I hang around for the 6p or should I go, what is the least awkward.

Hawaiian shirted bar staff. Not clear if there is an Hawaiian shirt edict or just Great Minds Thinking Alike. All super nice to the point of making me super guilty for hating on hipsters.

Vague indie rock I’m too old to identify, the sort that sounds great through expensive speakers but dull when you buy it and get it home.

But then Otis Redding’s Satisfaction like an old friend, the sort of music that transcends it all.

Then something I reckon I heard on Spotify once, but I don’t listen to anything properly anymore.

The beer is excellent. As it should be in this sort of place. I cannot tell if everyone appreciates it, or if this is just somewhere to go. I’m not sure if it matters.

I still have my coat on. I’m making these notes around the margins of my Racing Post. I don’t know if this is more or less pretentious than getting a notebook out of my bag to make these notes. I work my way clockwise around the front of the newspaper, scribbled notes, nothing profound, just sometimes I need to write something down, record it, get it out of my system. And then a few weeks later I transcribe those notes, virtually without edits, as the enemy of writing is too much self-editing, so no editing seems like a strategy worth trying, for me if not the reader. I add a couple more paragraphs, including a final paragraph that disappears up its own –