Bricking It

The Brickhouse

There are regular readings at the Brickhouse, ‘curated’ and compered by Don Eales. He’s a hyper-charged, charming, long-haired, heavy-bellied, middle-aged Shoreditch-Hoxton interzone activist-hustler with a self-acknowledged history of drug enjoyment/abuse — and typical of the sort.

I was a late addition to the line-up, encouraged along by Suzanne who I’ve known for years. She works in PR and, as 'Suzanne Portnoy', writes about her — notably adventurous — sex life. As split lives go, it’s an interesting one, isn’t it?

Mick Brown's book on Phil Spector

For once, I arrived early. Suzanne wasn’t there but Mick Brown was. We’ve known each other even longer. He was there to read from his Phil Spector biography (which I would recommend even if I didn’t really like Mick).

Don Eales introduced me to the other writer-readers. I was surprised by how many of them were women and how dressed up they were but I didn’t give it much thought.

It kicked off at eight o’clock. The format was clear and effective. Don got up on stage, slobbishly engaging and funny, introducing each writer-reader with wit, enthusiasm, jokes, flattery and, often, a shaggy-dog story. As the evening wore on, the stories became shaggier and shaggier, eventually to the point where they were more shag than story. Which, as it happens, had a certain metaphorical aptness.

The evening started with a mixed bunch of readings. Poetry, of course — some of it about Tony Blair, of course. (They didn’t like him much, you probably won’t be surprised to learn.) Verses in a Glaswegian accent about taking cocaine in the toilets of semi-legal clubs (sometimes with Don Eales). Mick and Spector. A guided tour of a South American prison.

There was a piece about tube escalators. I paid close attention to this. I’ve long planned to write a piece entitled Great Escalator Journeys of the World. The list includes the one in the National Portrait Gallery — which takes you back six hundred years in thirty seconds. And the one at Westminster station — like being in an HR Geiger image. And the Beaubourg ones — running up the side in tubes. And the one at Dupont Circle on the Washington Metro. And the one in the Bond St station mall — the world record for escalator riding was set there (214.34 km, July 17-21 1989).
So taken was I with this idea, in fact, that I suggested it as a travel piece to one of the Sunday magazines — The Observer, I think. It was rejected. Why? ‘Escalators don’t go anywhere,’ I was told, completely straight-faced.

Although Don had told me I would be on early, he kept coming over to tell me he’d moved my spot. I couldn’t figure whether that meant I was moving up the bill or down. Still can’t.

As the evening moved on, I began to notice that an increasing number of the readers were women. Also, that their material was increasingly moving into the sex territory occupied by Suzanne. There was a story — graphically read by its female author — about sex in a car in a suburban railway station car park. There were readings with more swear words in five minutes than in, say, a page of my book.

There was a female tantric sexpert, a curly-haired woman in young middle age (as were nearly all the female readers). She was dressed in a baby blue and white Little Bo Beep mini-dress and five-inch black, bondage-strappy stilettos. The adjective that comes to mind is, I suppose . . . evocative.

Little Bo Peep costume

Before she started reading, she announced that she had forgotten to put on knickers, then called for water — which was placed on the stage next to her. She refreshed herself regularly throughout her reading — which was about why all women should treat themselves to a tantric sex masseur. Obviously, in her underwear-absent state, she felt she couldn’t bend over. So instead she did a kind of sideways curtsey. If it wasn’t a regular part of her act, it was an inspired piece of improvisation. Evocative, even.

I began to worry, obviously. It was getting late. Drink was being drunk. Women were being . . . evocative. I’d have to read soon. How could I deal with this kind of crowd? I’d planned to read the story of the first time I said ‘fuck’. As I was a small child at the time, this is a shocking story in some circles. At this gathering, I felt like a maiden aunt. And Suzanne hadn’t even read yet.

I would be on right after her, Don promised me. I was correct to worry. Her story was about her birthday present to her boyfriend — group sex in the upstairs room at Rio’s, the swingers club in Kentish Town high street. (‘London’s leading naturist health spa’ according to its website.) Follow that, sucker.

I took the stage, I hope, with the blitheness of, say, Marie Antoinette stepping up to the guillotine. I was in a world beyond terror. Fear and worry were not just pointless but impossible. Things were far too serious for that. All I could do was get on, not look too foolish, get off and get home.

I’d already cut my story right back from the book version. But I now cut it even further, right back to its essence — leaving in the Krays and Tony Hancock (for popular appeal) but dumping the bits about spastics and Hemel Hempstead town centre. There was a beginning, a middle and punchline — with not much of the second.

No one booed. There were some laughs and applause at the end. ‘Tough story’, said the Icelandic toy manufacturer who Suzanne had brought along with her. (Like me, he declined her suggestion that he pay a visit to Rio’s. ‘Chicken,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ he said, Icelandically.)

smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel

I sat down and concentrated on learning to breathe again. The final act was on, a woman in a very tight, slinky black evening dress. She read a story from a large, fur-bound book. It was about a sexual encounter, told from the woman’s point of view, of course. Like mine, it had a punch-line: the male in the story was a dog.

And so to Brick Lane, a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, a walk to Old Street tube, a short journey — and bed.