BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

I started the evening in a pub in the West End. I thought it'd be a nice way of getting in the mood for Bash, which wasn't scheduled to kick off for another 5 hours. I sunk about 8 pints, had an argument with someone, and then headed off towards Old Street.

In the Barleymow, round the corner from the venue - who should I spot but ****, my former mucker at Parcelforce and now occasional porn director. Some might have interpreted this incident as manna from heaven, given the current BTI porn posts - no doubt **** had been sent to me for a reason. I didn't get much chance to discover what it was, as John Eden swept in, in a filthy mood, belligerently gripping my arm and snapping, "Tonight, you will see, racist ; the power of the white MCs".

Something was obviously troubling John, so I blew out **** completely. **** isn't a bad person, but I was actually glad John dragged me away from him. We used to get up to a load of high-jinks together and were forever disappearing from work at the most hectic times, retreating to a cafe to eat liver and onions and discuss wild money-making schemes. Most of the time, we just petty-thieved from local stores in Hendon. We were atrocious influences on each other. Ultimately though, he's the kind of person who'll say, "Let's go splits on a pack of fags", then leave the pub with your 2 pounds 50, and you wouldn't see him again for a month.

He also once promised me a walk-on part in one of his porn flicks, I was supposed to be a hellfire preacher who kicks down the door mid-orgy and starts lecturing the jungle of twisted limbs about sin and debauchery. I even sat down and knocked out some lines for it, based loosely on the Irish-American detective in the 70s horror flick The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue.

However, **** wanted a girl with multiple piercings to whip me and finally eliminate me in the scene. I vociferously disagreed, I might have wanted to show the film to my grandchildren some day, and didn't want them to see me being flayed and killed. He thought offing a preacher would be a great sequence for a film that was loosely based around vampires. I thought it would be much better if the preacher just appeared, went into some mental sermon, gobbing everywhere and shaking (not that I needed much practice) and then cut to another bit of fucking once he'd snarled 'HAIL THE NEW VATICAN!' into the camera. Subsequently, **** decided to scrap the preacher idea, the petty-minded cunt.

Back to last week, me and John entered Bash after a few more pints. "YT is great.." John was snarling. "All I fucking hear from you is 'honkies shouldn't do patois'. Why the fuck not? Who are you anyway, John Tyndall?"

"Look," I countered, "Can you imagine YT or Ari Up holding their own against Ninjaman or Bounty..."

"Ninjaman's over!" John roared. "It's 2006, not 1994. Who the fuck are you to talk? You wouldn't dare get up there and chat. You think you're the only white man in the village to like reggae...yes!" John was now waving his bottle around and trying to flick beer at my cigarette. "Martin, the only white blogger who's heard of Shabba Ranks! Come on, Mar - tin, tell us all about this reggae fad! Cos you're the only white man who's ever heard it! You sure know what you're on about with your copy of Just Ragga 2, that was 1993, wasn't it? How utterly relevant. Why don't you go and tell Mala what a race traitor he's become".

Suddenly John jumped up and ran to the bar. Some mate of his, who looked very similar to him (they both had specs), had wandered in. The 'mate' was accompanied by a small girl. It was obvious the 'mate' fancied the bird and wanted to cop off with her, and was using Bash as a backdrop. I suddenly had the urge to puke, I'd skipped lunch that day and my stomach felt really beer-logged. In the background, someone was playing reggae.

Kevin Martin, aka THE BUG, was staggering around, high-fiving anyone he'd remembered to stick on the guest list. As this didn't include me, and I didn't fancy getting ejected by Kevin's doorman / bouncer / bodyguard, I chatted to Johns 'mate'. "Do you fancy her?" I asked. I'm sort of psychic like that. I bought another bottle of Stella and went to the toilet.

YT was onstage, but I was behind a pillar, so couldn't see him very well. Eden was lurching around like a speed-frazzled ostrich, pushing young dancers aside, waving his camera around like Russ Meyer discovering a Big Tit Tree. "Yes, YT, excellent", he was trying to shout over the din. YT looked a bit older than I expected. He wasn't bad actually. But honour is honour, and I'm simply not retracting my anti-white MC argument, even if it might be flawed. Four angry black blokes were waving lighters and shouting about burning the 'bablyon boy' onstage, but YT maintained his composure despite this heckling.

Boomnoise came over and said something, maybe he can remember what it was, I can't. I asked the girl John's 'mate' was gagging for something about Camberwell, where I used to live between 1994 and 1995. I can't recall her reply, but she was moderately interested in the 'mate', though if he'd really wanted to shatter her love gasket, he'd have been better off taking her to the Tippa Irie Bash at the end of September.

By this stage, I was getting tired-drunk and running out of fags. I simply couldn't be arsed to go outside and find a newsagents to replenish my haul of snout. Eden was flailing his arms around like a demented windmill and shouting something about being the first person to include YT on a mix. I thought he was going to take the mic at one point.

I had to face facts, I was crashing. I bought another beer which I couldn't even be bothered to finish, I was pissing like a racehorse. "Kevin Martin", said a girl at the bar, kitted out in some sort of 'punk kimono', with rips and zips and her electric blue hair pulled back into a bun, skewered by steel chopsticks. "I want to make love to him. To feel his beard scraping my navel as we 69 to the two sevens". The next thing I remember was haggling with a taxi driver over a quid on the fare back home, and thinking shit, Bash was still on, I'd left an hour and a quarter early!