News from Somewhere Else

...continued from last post

Like me, Ted (see last week's post) has been invited to to spend the evening of Mayday, celebrating the publication of the new edition of The Idler.

After getting up at 5am, Ted opted to go home to bed. I managed to stay awake.

I reached Farringdon tube station at about 7pm to find about 70 people standing on a traffic island in the middle of Clerkenwell Green. They were drinking beer out of plastic glasses while spit-roasting a whole pig. It was drizzling and the pig was steaming gently.

For a while, the rain got heavier and I worried that the pig would be put out. However, it eventually stopped and the animal began to sizzle and blacken.

Did the hog-roasters have permission? Apparently not. At one point, a fire engine circled us slowly but decided we were not a health and safety risk. 

I talked to Tibor Fischer about plummers in Streatham; Dan Kieran about milk floats; Matthew de Abaitua about the Arthur C Clarke award and Clare Pollard about the quality of hog roasts in Bolton.

Circulus played crum-horns and some mummers mummed. I thought they were great (does no-one else enjoy fart jokes?).

It got cold. We went to the Three Kings pub round the corner. We stood outside. Someone cornered me. He said,

"I remember you. The last time I saw you, you were wearing high heels in the Groucho Club. I remember you because you didn't walk like most girls in high heels. You could actually walk in them."

None of these details seemed familiar to me. Nor did he. If it was a chat-up line, I applaud its studied complexity.

It began to get colder. I went back to the roast. The only way to stay warm was to nestle up to the pig.

Toward the end of the evening, with the pork and his work diminishing, I got to talk to John Mitchinson, hog roaster, ex-publisher, writer and telly producer, about his pig.

"Is is your pig? I wanted to ask its name."

It's actually a pig from the next door field. But it knew our pigs. So that's about as close to being one of our pigs as you can get. I feel I know it. I shot it this morning."

John and his co-roaster load the remains of the pig into a body bag, his face blacked as a May Day Green Man. He asks me,

"Are you just talking to me, or are you working."

"I'm always working, sort of."

All the next day, I smelt mildly smoked.

...

Here's the second part of my Idler piece. Double click to enlarge...