Thursday afternoon post-coffee mistake

In this city, the strangest thing is the one that's most likely to happen. Whether it's the fourteenth birthday party that was crashed by a stag do in frog costumes, the time Morgan and Devlin got into the beginning stages of The Apprentice on the back of some false CV's or DeWitt's short-lived pastry olympics of 2003, the only life lesson Morgan has really taken to heart is that somehow, the centre of this metropolis turns unexpected gold right back into dull old base.
He gazes for hours or perhaps minutes sat behind the counter in Basha cafe, Soho, his workplace, tapping his finger to the radio and trying to write. When he eventually looks down at the page, he realises he's filled it with the massive X from The X Factor several times over. He sighs and pours another skinny macchiato.
'Soho's lost it's glamour,' purrs Landry, his boss. 'I see these dreadful identi-twinks mincing up and down in their... deck shoes and their lumberjackets and their silly manbags... Seb Horsley would've taken one sneer at them and sent them packing.'
'When did you become a vegan, Landry?'
'Dear,' he rolls his tongue, 'I've always been vegan. My gang all were back then. Nobody could afford meat in the seventies. You spent your dole money on poppers and flares and that was the end of that.'
'I need something to write about for my column. I'm thinking I might write about food. You know. Because I live with a scone and a sandwich. And I'm destined to a life working in this coffe shop...'
Suddenly someone, some thing passes by the window, like a large black shadow. A large black... crow.
Morgan gives one of his usual can't care glares up at the door whenever anyone comes in, but the diamond-encrusted baseball cape and wool cape of this customer seem strangely familiar.
'Excuse me?'
Morgan stares blankly at the customer. He's a young, white, very skinny, very tall, standing next to a very tall tranny with very long hair (is it real?) and the look of someone about to burst into tears.
'A double chocolate and organic hazlenut macchiato for me and, what are you having Bren?'
The man turns to the tranny. She mumbles something inaudible.
'White filter coffee for her.'
'Yep.'
Morgan feels very strange and has a sudden urge to cover up his notepad. As he makes their coffee and Landry stares out the window picking his ear, as the steam hits his face and the reassuringly expensive coffee smell rises with a sickening novelty he feels his phone buzzing against his thigh- classsshhh. Metal, silver, crockery and enamel hit the floor, with a gravy slick of black steaming coffee. The boy screeches with laughter and the tranny sighs.
'Just bring it over when it's ready, yah?'
Landry tiptoes amongst the broken china, stepping up to serve someone else. 'For crying out loud.' Several minutes' worth of sticky coffee and a cut finger later, Morgan can't shake off the feeling off the deja-vu. He serves them their drinks and apologies, still wiping hands on his silly retro-apron.
They sit and sip their drinks as Morgan takes out the bins.
In the alley behind the shop, he sees the crow-like boy and his accomplice swagger down the street.
'Ugh,' harps the boy, thinking he's out of earshot. 'I can't believe We View Horizons Kindly's new columnist is working in a coffee bar... I have to put this in my column.'
'Do you know who that was?' cries Landry, red in the face now the cafe's empty.
'I'm sorry. I've got a lot on my plate.'
'Well.' he folds his arms and lights up a cigarette, semi-hitting Morgan. 'Haven't we all, sweetheart. That's Kyki Czukay. The Metro's frigging star columnist. The darling of the cameronite commuter class. And here's a tip for not getting fired- please please not to piss off my west London regulars who earn five times as much as you do. '
When Morgan gets back to work, he finds his pad is totally soaked with coffee.

Del Cruz

Latimer Road, thinks Morgan. How in the name of hell did I get here?
Here, London is a distant promise. It's like some new derelict province, some 90s snapshot, all distant video screens and apocalyptic brutalist blocks, a ghost platform from a sad, old television film.
The wind whistles as he clumsily trudges through the station. People and newspapers talk about THE CUTS all around. DEFENCE CUTS. PUBLIC SECTOR CUTS. Has the public sector ever been such a public topic? Ever got such good publicity? Every cloud has a silver lining. SCHOOL CUTS. DEFENCE CUTS.

That awful road, what was it called again? hovers above weird concrete blocks and basketball pitches that are almost so depressing, so cliched, he considers they could be the sets for the new Shane Meadows, or Ken Loach, or Mike Leigh, or Andrea Arnold, film. Phew.
Turn right under the bridge, jump over the turnstiles... 'keep going,' is scrawled across the brickwork of an old school. keep going.... The phone rings.
'Morgan?'
'Emily...'
'Are you on your way?'
'Yup.'
'Taking one for the team?'
'Yup.'
After last week's Come Dine With Me fiasco, Morgan and Emily realised there was nothing else they could really do: they had to find out who had stolen their band's name and plastered it all over London. Morgan's seen it on bus-stops, stickers covering faces on the underground, on walls, ceilings, posts and clubnights- it even showed up in Time Out. Though there was always the possibility that We View Horizons Kindly the band had just stolen the name off the magazine/clubnight/party promoters.

'So I thought, I'll come and meet these utter bastards.' he smiles (seeds in his teeeth). 'The other members of the band thought so too. You see, we're all really quite pissed off by this.'
'And here you are, Mr. Furzedown.'
Morgan finds himself in a large, white and silver circular room with a giant painting on the back of one wall. All the chairs are mismatched and piles of CDs line one wall. Ceaseless building noise pierces the 'moment'.
'So you have a band, and I own a magazine. And they both have the same name.'
'But I've been in that band for three years, and you've only had one issue out and you're already all over London. I thought magazines were supposed to be fucked in the, ur, downturn.'
The man, the editor, the owner- Morgan wasn't sure what- kind of looks like Swiss Toni, you know, all shoulderpad suit and vagina-shaped, blond tipped hair but with a far ruddier appearance, a bit 70s, yes, and an indescribably strange, affected accent somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and Andy Warhol. He still hasn't told Morgan his name yet.
'So if you've been in a band for three years, then...' the man spins round both loafer-clad feet. 'Why haven't you got anywhere with it?'
'I've been learning to beatbox.'
'For three years?'
'The game just keeps changing.' Morgan wishes he was at home with a cup of tea, suddenly.
'It does. Haha...' the man has an odd, throaty, Margaret Thatcher laugh. The idea floats in Morgan's head that he might suggest the man reminds him of Margaret Thatcher. Had anyone ever told him that and all. But he bites his tongue. A vibraphone sounds up in the distance.
'Listen, Morgan. I know you've come here because you're really a frustrated, cocksucker writer. If you must write a free erotic novel online for your dissertation...'
'You've read it, then?'
'Sex and Atrophy, I believe it's called. There's some interesting bits. Some fetching imagery. My father loved it... And your twitter. I saw you discussing that Kyki Czukay guuuuy...'
'You-'
'Listen, ok. Morgan. Here's the thing.'
The man lays his hands down on the desk, very flat. Very pudgy. Pulsating with blood.
'What do you think about writing for us?'
'This isn't how the meeting is supposed to turn out,' mumbles Morgan. 'Look, mr.... I don't know your name.'
'Copa Del Cruz.'
'That's... that's a name, isn't it?'
'This is publishing,' says Copa, grandly, raising his fingers (which are ringed in imitation gold). 'It doesn't exactly... do to have a boring name. Morgan Furzedown. That's a good name.'
'We View Horizons Kindly is a great name. Look, Mr. Cruz. It took us several months to come up with that name and...' Morgan begins to cry. 'I've just worked... so hard... at being a cult electro-indie pop keyboardist... So hard. I wondered where you'd found it, and what the hell this magazine is, and whether maybe... rather than contributing... maybe you could feature us on the front cover...'
Copa Del Cruz stands up and looks out, rather grandly (in Morgan's mind) at the industrial wasteland of west London. The Westfield centre dominates like a silver wound on the skyline, with nothing further except planes, plains, planes.
'If you must know, it was something I read on a tattoo.'
Oh god, thinks Morgan. Here we go.
'You know Tolstoy?'
Del Cruz shrieks with laughter.
'What a... crazed... yet rather fabulous notion... No, though I look it, I sadly skipped Tolstoy's time. It was a photo found by our picture editor.'
'Fate deals an unkind hand, yet again,' says Morgan. 'That... tattoo... it's ours. It's our friend, Tolstoy. He's dead.'
'Well of course he's dead, dear boy!' cries Del Cruz, swinging round. 'Aren't we all, somewhere out there? In here?' he says, pointing to his heart. 'This world is full of moral filth, and We View Horizons Kindly is riding the trash-wave through the heart of the MTV void.'
'No, no. I don't think you understand. We View Horizons Kindly is re-inventing dubstep and grime for an electro generation tired of synthpop nobodies...'
'You don't own the copyright on the name. I do. We have a clubnight, a music label, a creative marketing solutions service and an ideas tank, all under the same term.'
'What's an ideas tank?'
Del Cruz chuckles.
'I saw your performance on Come Dine With Me. It's... quite the YouTube phenom. I think you'd make a brilliant writer for us. Consider it? And maybe we'll think about that cover?'
'I'm not changing the band name though.'
'It's a shit band name. Admit it.'
'Not.'
'It is. You don't want to be here, do you?'
'Not. No. I mean. Yes.''
Del Cruz doesn't look convinced.

A young man in a very long jacket comes to escort a sweating, panicking Morgan out of ht eoffice.
'How was it?' says the man. 'I'm Roy.'
'Morgan.' he shakes his hand, rather stiffly. 'Oh, um. Great. He must be a very inspiring editor.'
'He's a nightmare. But I wouldn't have it any other way.'
They pick their way through an open-plan, curiously seventies, curiously flat office filled with strange posters, post-it notes and more copies of CDs; a 'breakout area' where three people sit tapping away at laptops and discussing things; the xx are playing on the radio, everyone has a computer, outrageous clothes fill a rail at one end of the office.
'What do you do here?' Morgan's unsure if he actually fancies 'Roy', on a baseline level, or if he's just a bit desperate.
'I'm the music editor,' says Roy. 'I've heard your band, actually. You guys are pretty good. Emily's a great frontwoman. We're doing this thing on the females of dubstep and we really want to get her in. Her, Katy B and Tulisa from N-dubz posing on that Old Street totem wearing parachute dresses. Adidas wants to sponsor it.'
'Blimey.'
'So you're going to be working with us?'
Morgan feels a curious longing.
'Yes. Yes I am.' he announces, and decides it there and then. 'I'm the new writer.'
Am I? he thinks, back out on the cold street.

The Opposite of Stealth

WE VIEW HORIZONS, KINDLY

'This is worse. Far worse than anything that's ever happened to me.'
Emily's tears are stained with glitter. She stabs her fairy stick at the wall; her stick-on wings are skew-whiff.
'I thought you were chilled out about it.' Morgan sucks furiously on a roll-up cigarette. 'You're supposed to be holding this band together.'
They stand nose-to-wall with the words on a side alley somewhere near the NCP somewhere near Brick Lane. The words are spraypainted in large white letters- the alleyway's so narrow it makes Morgan feel sick.

WE VIEW HORIZONS, KINDLY

'I can't believe I didn't notice the apostrophe.' groans Morgan, thwacking out a copy of the magazine he'd picked up last week of the same name. The same name as their band.
'It must be deliberate. Oh god, Morgan. The music. It's happening. I'm having a panic attack.'
'You're just... windy. Or hungry.'
'Panic. Attack. Someone's stolen our name. We have to call Tolstoy.' (her ex, the man whose arm is the namesake behind their band). 'POM! I need POM BEARS!'
Several walks round the block and a couple of bags of pom bears later, they're on the phone to Tolstoy. Who is dead.
'Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god.'

They sit on the pavement outside the Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields, drinking tins of cider.
'How long?'
'Three years ago. He was my childhood sweetheart. Well, I can't go back to work,' says Emily, her eyes red.
'Maybe....' Morgan scratches his beard, 'if we drink enough, everything will be OK.'
She looks at him and for once they both see each other clearly.
'Yeah. Maybe.'
The lunchtime crowds and hipster tribes stake out the lunchtime circuit, ticking round on clockwork routes. The cider begins to taste stale and syrupy.
'I can't believe someone as brilliant, as bright as Tolstoy... dead. Only 21. In a bus accident.'
'Here's to Tolstoy.' says Morgan, cheersing. A passing tramp gives him a 'here, here.'
'So it obviously wasn't him that stole our band name and plastered it across the east end, and started his own clubnight with it.'
'That's not neccessarily true... Are you sure none of us just saw it, you know, subconciously, or maybe the editor of the magazine met Tolstoy... something.'
'There's always a rational explanation for these things. Listen, can we hang out this evening? Like we used to?'
'Won't Dennis be jealous?'
'I think he's ghost-hunting this week.'
'Well,' says Morgan. 'I don't really wanna go home. Devlin's on Come Dine With Me and the camera crew's taken over our house- all week. Turns out they have to bloody film him at home too-'
'Your flatmate's on Channel 4?'
'Yeah, why...'
'Has anyone ever gatecrashed an episode of Come Dine With Me?'
'No... don't... you're getting an idea, aren't you...'
'You know that turning life's lemons into lemonades is my forte. How about we get the band a bit of free publicity?'
'It's not even his dinner party. We wouldn't even know where it is...'
'Morgan.' she grabs his hand- it's a bit glittery. 'Anyone can die at any moment. We have to take life by the horns and ride it. ADVENTURE. That's what I'm talking about. This band means more to me than anything else. And what with KRK festival coming up-'
'Isn't it pronounced BRAP?'
'Whatever, this could be the best self-promotional idea I've ever had.'
'I can see the cogs whirring in your head,' he observes.

'It looked like a dog poo. Like a big, coiled dog poo.' Devlin sips from a can of Tennant's while the camera crew aren't looking.
'What did you think of her home?'
'I think she's a bloody idiot. Her home smells like moth balls. She looked like a dessicated Su Pollard.'
'This is brilliant,' whispers the script editor. 'Brilliant.'
It's the second day of Devlin's Come Dine With Me experience and he's already emotionally and physically exhausted. Only some kind of confonrtation will bring him back from the brink. He reads over tonight's menu patiently.
'Chicken alla cratcha- cratcha- trattoria?'
'Brilliant.'
'And it's a Studio 54 theme? Oh no.' the little talking scone starts to panic, as he'd always threatened to go as Bianca Jagger on ahorse if there was ever a chance of him going to a Studio 54 party. 'I'd better dig out that wig.'


Devlin shows up in a miniature, self-made, backless white tuxedo.
Miranda hosts as Edie Sedgwick in a striped black and white dress. The hysterically camp caretaker, James, arrives in a leather jacket and curly hair, presumably as Lou Reed. Savannah, the 'self-confessed WAG', also shows up herself with pink weave.
As Donna Summer's I Feel Love blares in the background and a giant disco ball twirls atop the table, buff topless men with bow ties begin serving the contestants champagne.
'Cheers!' says Miranda, her very white teeth flashing. 'Here's to another successful night of food and frolics.' she smiles at Devlin, who feels himself go a bit fluttery.
The contestants sit down as the first course, an 'all-American' savoury pecan pie is served.
'It's just not something I'd choose myself.' Burgundy plays with her Andy Warhol wig. 'Is it alright if I don't finish this course, is that alright?'
'Oh god, love, that's absolutely fine,' says Miranda. Her eyes are raccoon-kohl, her Dior flat cap tilted askew and teeth flashing. She works as a visual merchandiser, she says, and just wants to 'decorate the world'.
'Burgundy I hope you're going to eat my food when you come to mine tomorrow night,' says Devlin, a fully-topped up glass of red wine by his side. 'Because I don't tolerate
'Did you make the pastry yourself Miranda or is it... shop bought?'
'It is Jus-Rol.'

'It really disappointed me when she said her pastry was Jus-Rol. I mean, isn't that just for catering students and people making cheese twists? It actually made me fancy her less.' reveals Devlin in an upstairs room, on his third glass of wine. 'I'm biased, because I am of course a piece of patisserie myself.'

Back downstairs...
'So we were taking a look around your boudoir Miranda and we found these-' Burgundy gestures to a pair of sequinned nipple pasties. She sticks them on her top and spins around.
'Oh, I like, totally left them there to make myself look more interesting for the camera.' she flashes a smile.
'Isn't that a bit false?' says Devlin.
The rollerskating, semi-nude waiters bring out a main of disco burgers.
'Do you not think that all this pomp and circumstance is just to hide the poor quality of your food?' says James.
'I don't think that's a fair analysis.'
'Isn't it?'
'I have to agree, Miranda. I've had better from MacDonalds.' Devlin's on his fourth glass of wine, not counting the mid-course aperitif.
The editor looks at the producer and smiles.
'Sorry,' she intervenes, 'But can we re-take that scene?'

'Are you sure about this?' Morgan crouches in a bush in, well, Shepherd's Bush, outside Miranda's house. A quick text to Devlin and they had the address fairly easily.
'I've never been more certain about anything in my life. I feel like Medea about to get revenge on Jason. The Trojan-'
'-I feel like... a 1950's TV pervert.'
'Shut up! There's cameras everywhere.'
'We can't just break into a random person's house.' even just saying this sounds wrong, so wrong, that Morgan has to take another glug of vodka.
'Think like Derren Brown. We have to persuade the host that we're the entertainment. Once Channel 4's seen us, they'll want us in.'
'So we're taking the house by the opposite of stealth then.'
'Vibe,' says Emily. 'VIBE.'
Morgan shakes his head and swallows the pill in his back pocket. 'Do you need one of these?'
'Only one. It is national TV.'
They wash it down with vodka. Morgan stubs out his cigarette.
'Right. I'm going in for the kill. And I'm most certainly not doing it for a thrill.'
They're both wearing silver boiler suits. Morgan makes a run for Miranda's front door screaming. Two cameramen smoking outside a van suddenly notice him.
'Morgan!'
Emily finishes her drink and runs after him. Luckily, the front door is wide open.
Morgan barrels past one of the hunky waiters and into the living room where he instantly sees Devlin, who visibly groans and is shocked to see Andy
'Are we at the right dinner party?'
'Morgan!?' cries Devlin.
'We're the surprise entertainment,' cries Emily. 'You know. WE VIEW HORIZONS KINDLY.'
'Google WE VIEW HORIZONS KINDLY,' adds Morgan.
'Get out of my house,' says Miranda.
'Oh, come on,' says Burgundy. 'They're only having a laugh.'
'Are you going to perform?' asks Savannah. 'I'd love a bit of music.'
'What's exactly going on here?' cries Miranda. 'Can we stop filming?'
'Wait-' says the director. 'Who are you?'
'We're the first-ever Come Dine With Me gatecrashers.' Emily folds her arms and looks the director up and down then clicks her fingers in his face.
'I like her attitude,' says the producer.
'You're actually not the first,' says the director. 'But whatever. Queue filming.'
'It's my flatmate,' explains Devlin. 'He's an idiot.'
Miranda looks, well, just bemused.
'We've got instruments,' threatens Emily, taking a vocoder out of her back pocket. Morgan whips out a Melodica from the utility belt on his jumpsuit.
'Start filming on 3...'
Emily turns the light off and takes a deep breath.
'Come here...' she begins to sing in a low, wistful voice. 'Come here... '
'Where's this going?' whispers Devlin, angrily. Someone flicks the light back on.
'RUDE BOY, BOY, CAN YOU GET IT UP? COME HERE RUDE BOY BOY IS YOU BIG ENOUGH?' By this point, Emily's screaming through the vocoder. The camera crew are looking tense.
'I need air,' thinks Devlin.

Outside he smokes with yet another full glass. It's absolutely freezing.
'Hello, Celine,' whispers Burgundy, troddling round the corner.
'Oh hello.' smiles Devlin. 'Andy.' he feels like he's going to fall over, though it's generally accepted this is a difficult thing for talking scones lying on a flat surface to do.
'This is funny, isn't it?' breathes Burgundy, lighting up and looking to the night sky. 'You and me, Studio 54... here.'
'I can't believe my flatmate's yet again trying to steal the limelight from me.'
'Stealing... limelight... can't we steal some moments under the moonlight?'
They lean in to kiss each other.
'RUN!' cries a voice in the background. Emily blusters past them, arms wide out and screaming.
'Devlin?' Morgan follows, spinning round to see his miniature pastry companion face-deep in blonde wig. They stop for a moment.
'WE HAVEN'T GOT MUCH TIME!' he cries, grabbing Devlin and scooping him into his pocket.
'Foiled again,' says Burgundy.

'JUMP IN THIS MOVING TAXI!' Screams Morgan, as they reach Shepherds Bush green. Morgan, Emily and Devlin launch themselves into the passing minicab as it screeches to a halt.
'Peckham, please,' asks Devlin. 'What happened?'
'They didn't understand our performance,' says Emily, shaking her lace-covered head.
'They didn't like our performance. The camera crew chased us out and threatened us with a legal writ.'
'STEP ON IT!' cries Emily.

Later...
'You snogged a pensioner dressed as Andy Warhol,' says Morgan, sipping from a bottle of Glen's Vodka.
'You're the only person to have performed Rude Boy on ecstasy, on daytime Channel 4. Congratulations.'
'Ugh,' says Emily, half-asleep on the sofa. 'The sun's almost up.'
'Cheers to that.' Devlin and Morgan clink bottles.
Morgan's phone begins to ring. He checks it- it's three thirty, unknown number.
'Hello?'
'We've seen the way you're behaving and it's not... what we'd like, Morgan.' The line goes dead.

Maybe We Stole Their Name

'Emily? Emily!'
Somewhere across the country, someone puts down a Morris dancing costume.
'Ah. Morgan. What may I do you for?'
'Some magazine's stolen our bloody name.'
'Really?' she sounds very out of breath. 'Sorry. I'm just in Oxford for this Morris meet and classics re-enactment debate. We're doing a Theocritus special. You know he's my favourite.'
'Yeah. Well listen, there's this magazine, right, and they've just nabbed our name. Nabbed! And not just that, they've set up a record label and a clubnight called We View Horizons Kindly.'
'Well it might have been Tolstoy.'
'He's dead.'
'No, my ex. The one with the tattoo. He came up with the name.'
'But it's very specific.'
'Maybe we stole their name.'
'It's the first issue! The bastards...'
'Well maybe we should contact them.'
'Maybe? I'm on it now. I can't believe they'd just steal a name... I mean, it's the best band name ever!'
'I know.'
'You don't sound convinced.'
'Where did you find this?

'I'm kicking up a right sweat under these lights,' says Burgundy, fanning herself with a piece of toilet roll.
'Is the starter ready?' groans a member of the camera crew.
'I need filling,' gestures James, the man in the floral shirt, shaking his glass.
'I'm kicking up a right sweat under these lights.' Burgundy fans herself with a piece of toilet roll.
'Can we get the starter out?' asks a member of the camera crew.
'My glass needs refilling.' James, the man in the floral shirt, winks at a very flustered-looking Burgundy. There's a murmur round the table. Apparently LOTS of glasses need filling.
'She wasn't giving anyone enough booze.' says Devlin, in his cut-scene in Burgundy's bedroom. 'I think she was taking a nip now and again in the kitchen.'
'And what do you think about your fellow diners?' the production manager asks.
'The woman's got very bright teeth,' he says, 'And the man.... he's quite camp, isn't he? Is he gay?'
Silence.
'I'm not homophobic, by the way. My best friend is gay. Oh god.'
Back downstairs, Burgundy is clattering away in the kitchen. The guests are confused.
'So what do you all do for a living?' asks James.
'I work in IT,' says Devlin.
'Oh. Are you on the canteetn dessert trolley?' He slaps his thigh and the group goes down in laughter. The main comes out. It's tournedos of beef with a red wine reduction. Devlin gulps down his wine.
'You wouldn't be saying that if I was a lesbian,' he splutters. 'Shit.'
'Do you have a problem with lesbians?' asks the host. One of the tournedos falls on the floor. A cameraman can't stop giggling.
'I thought they were like, tornadoes.' says Savannah. 'Like the film.'
'I think the film's called Twister.'
'So does everyone like beef?' asks Burgundy. 'I love a bit of beef meself. Beef curtains!' she howls.
Devlin spits out his wine. Savannah leans over to Miranda. 'Did she just say beef curtains?'
'So how old are you?' James asks Burgundy.
'Ooh, you're asking a lot of questions tonight, aren't you?' Burgundy looks rather unsteady on her feet. 'How old do you think, love?'
'I would definitely say... about thirty-five?'
'Born in.' whispers Miranda to Devlin, those teeth sparkling. 'BORN IN.'
Devlin screams. People chew their beef slowly. Miranda's teeth are starting to get stained with the red wine. In Devlin's head the room begins to spin.
The rest of the evening goes something like this: someone falls off a chair, the dessert has to be 're-taken' twice and James tells a monstrously obscene, rather unrepeatable story before licking his plate clean.
Devlin falls asleep in the back of the car. It's the same driver.
'Oh...' he murmurs. 'I'd give Burgundy's night a five. Can we stop?'
'We're almost home.' The driver turns up his stereo as Devlin throws up all over the leather back seat.

South London Day One: Burgundy

'There's a few problems we've got. Not that we don't want you, of course. We really want you. I mean REALLY. But what if someone decides to make scones as their dessert? What if someone tries to EAT you, thinking you're an amuse-bouche?'
'Frankly...' Devlin thinks on this for a while, 'I think they can fucking sit on it.'
'He's perfect.' the producer whispers to the director.
'I'm STARVING.' says Devlin, eyes boggling.

It's another slow afternoon in a slow year in the cafe where Morgan works. A portly gentleman in a flat cap has commandeered three seats in the corner. Morgan is too scared to shoo him away. A girl with the world's highest pitch voice screeches down her mobile and a man with a three-legged dog lingers outside. Soho never loses its magic.
One side of Morgan is slightly higher than the other.
He lost one of his shoes on the way to work today and his boss, Landry, a tall, moustachio'd, 1920's-built man who moonlights as a burlesque dancer, will just not let him out to go and buy new ones.
The shoes he does have on are- of course- a pair of brothel creepers.
Morgan gets a text off Esther, the flatmate he never sees.
'Did you KNOW devlin's on come dine with me next week? E'
He hates the way she signs off her texts E. He hates the fact that she will never, never reply to a text. Perhaps unless she is drunk. She's such a mystery.
'Alright, big leggy. Time to go and get some shoes, methinks.' Landry nods at Morgan's feet.
'Yep. Alright.' murmurs Morgan, hopping out so as not to avoid the general Soho shit (you really never knew where those flyers for G-A-Y bar littering the street might have come from or been, on their journeys). Like most of the bosses Morgan had worked for, Landry was a complete and utter nightmare. He claimed to have been born in Soho but was never sure the exact date, or decade (possibly century). He had partied with Sebastian Horsley, Danny la Rue, Issie Blow and Andrew Logan in his years, had accompanied Jarvis Cocker on his first visit to Bar Italia and claimed to have once worked as a pimp, male prostitute and Thames boat operator at one point in the mid-seventies. And yet. He was now pulling babycinos and iced macchiatos for the mumsnet mafia, efficiently silenced. Another Soho character. Morgan had declined the offer to see his burlesque show, on the basis that he was allergic to corsets. All that nylon.
Morgan eyes up the nearest vintage store. A Hell's Angels-a-like behind the counter scans him, suspiciously. For some reason, Morgan's never been in before, but he's feeling lucky today. Despite the shoe and all.
The dusty racks are filled with discount Comme des Garcons and 90s Burton clubwear, all beige and brown and orange argyle prints, clothes that make you think of TFI Friday all over again.
He places his foot down and looks at a rail filled with crocodile loafers and smart brogues before having one of those shocking moments that makes your blood boil.
WE VIEW HORIZONS KINDLY
'WHAT?!' cries Morgan. Yes, a magazine. WE VIEW HORIZONS KINDLY, the name of his band.
His eyes alight, he forgets the shoes and picks it up, flicking furiously through the pages.

Devlin's taxi arrives at five o clock sharp. He hops his way in and finds himself being taken down unfamiliar roads that don't even look like London. He feels a slight sickness and doesn't talk to the driver, as he suddenly begins to realise just what he's put himself forward for.
'She's called Burgundy,' mumbled the driver.
'Do you work for Channel 4?' asks Devlin. 'Do you have the voting cards?'
'Just get out of the car, sir.' he says before swearing profusely under his breath.
The door opens and Devlin finds himself staring up (for he is a scone, and scones aren't very tall) at a burgundy front door and several gnomes in rude positions. He can hear the voiceover man now. The driver rings the bell for him and the door opens.
'Hi!' screams someone, hugging the driver.
'It's me.' cries Devlin. 'I'M THE GUEST!'
The host is a woman in her sixties with a Su Pollard haircut and angular glasses.
'Hello,' she booms in a west country accent, bending down and offering her hand. 'I'm BUUUUURGUNDY!'
'I'm Devlin.' says Devlin.
'Didn't ya bring a bottle of wine, then?'
'I've got really small arms,' says Devlin, looking back at the taxi. Is it too late to turn back? I could just run into the car...
'Oh don't worry chuckles. I suppose you don't drink much anyway, do you? I'd be pissed just sniffing the bottle if I were your size.'
Devlin thinks about biting her hand but holds off until she carries him to the dinner table. Technically, he is a very big scone for his size.
'This is Miranda, James and Savannah. What was your name again, pet?'
'Devlin.'
'Ooh!' cries James, who instantly appears to be very camp and is wearing a floral shirt to advertise this. 'Like the Devil!'

The producers usher the guests upstairs to look at Burgundy's house.
'Why do you think she's called Burgundy?' asks Miranda, a smartly-dressed woman in her thirties, who looks as if she's just come from an especially glamorous work do.
'Maybe she likes a drink,' says Devlin. 'This bedroom stinks of moth balls.' It seems Burgundy has left handcuffs and a whip on a leopard-print bedspread, ready for them to find. 'God. This is degrading. For all the wrong reasons.'
'How are you feeling?' asks Miranda to the talking scone.
'Alright. I really bloody need the money, actually.'
'Same here. These teeth don't buy themselves.' she leans in further. 'Home bleaching kit.' she whispers, conspiratorially.
'Really? They're um, very white.'
'I KNOW.' she says, winking to him.

Stats

ONLY 1.5% OF BRITAIN'S POPULATION ACTUALLY GAY
Morgan holds up the paper, annoyed.
'Well that's my chances fucked, then.' he murmurs.
The slightly old, very squeaky door slams. DeWitt bounces in.
'Hi,' he says, throwing his bag down on the floor.
'I'm not talking to you.'
'Is that so.'
They stand, back to back, for several minutes of silence. Morgan begins whistling a Fleetwood Mac b-side to himself.
'Is this because of Come Dine With Me?'
'I'm NOT TALKING!'
He slams the door.

So that makes three. Devlin is still feeling self-righteous after the 'patisserie incident' a few weeks ago, as well as Morgan's general attitude of disrespect towards pastry. DeWitt's surprise upcoming stint on the nation's favourite dinner-party gameshow has got everyone pissed off, especially as the camera crew descends this weekend. And Esther, their third flatmate? She's, as always, nowhere to be found.
Morgan works part-time in an organic concept cafe after losing his job last February to a cartel of ruthless, serial temping addicts. The cafe is called 'Basha', which were the first four scrabble letters picked out of a hat by the white, Eton-educated owners when they decided what to pour their trust funds into. It's in the middle of Soho, frequented by the 'media types' he sort-of came down to London to join the ranks of. The squabbling classes. The net-a-porter classes. What once were known, a very long time ago, as the foccacia classes.

He throws around clothes like confetti. For some reason it seems there's only a multi-coloured jumpsuit, a too-short, stinky t-shirt and a pair of jeans with a rip in the crotch. There is nothing, even though there are so many clothes hanging up- nothing, nothing to wear. And in this cafe, even the staff wear Balenciaga (under their vintage denim jackets and scarves).
He throws a t-shirt over a shirt, sniffs the armpits (just about OK), styles with the same jeans as yesterday and walks out the door and bumps into the celebrity vicar.
'I'm late.' he says, running towards the bus.
'Morgan! Morgan!'
Morgan leaps on the number 2 and laughing, sees the celebrity vicar recede into the distance. Before realising he has only one shoe.

A bus journey deciding whether or not to walk barefoot (fashion has dicated Morgan isn't wearing socks this season) or hop to work is not a fun one.

We View Horizons Kindly

The voice at the end of the phone says 'no'.
'Phone says no.' says Morgan.
'I heard it.' says Esther. 'Wait a sec.' She grabs it off him, roughly, and chucks it into the water below. It makes a sound like a head hitting the water; beneath, the canal silt shifts and disappears. 'We'll never hear from them again.' she says.

'God, I wonder who that was. I mean, when does that kind of thing happen?' asks Morgan.
'I don't know,' pleads Esther. 'I'm really tired. I've got a party to host tomorrow. See you soon. Bye.'
Her door slams in his face.
Oh well, thinks Morgan. He sort-of misses the phone and reaches for his own one. No-one's rung. Hmm.

But the whole thing bugs Morgan for days. Though it's not the only thing distracting him from today's band practice- that would be Emily.
ugh. EMILY.
Morgan distractedly plonks a keyboard.
'I've been musing on... dubstep,' says Emily.
'What actually is a dub step?' asks a distracted Morgan. 'is the step the dance you do?'
'I think dubstep is the TIME. It's the PLACE. It's the MOTION. Dubstep is the
way We View Horizons Kindly is feeling. You know!' she twirls around. Today, Emily's dressed like a one-woman homage to Shakespeares Sister's 'Stay' video, dusty too-tight sequin top, mascara and tiara competing for attention.
'Are feeling. Not is.' a quiet voice from the corner, a self- contained, self-made mysteriousness. His given name is 'Dennis', he's the third member of We View Horizons Kindly and Emily and Morgan found him playing guitar on top of a skip in Mornington Crescent last summer.
Yes, that's the name of Morgan's band. Oversized.Denim.Shirt, TTL FCCKRZ, Yoshi's Island- all these band names had been rejected in narrow favour of one taken from a tattoo Emily's first boyfriend had on his lower arm (the other arm had his name and address tattooed on it).
'I forgot!' squeals Emily. 'Shocking, isn't it, for a classics grad.'
'Though you did only get a 2:1,' mumbles the band's least with-it member. They'd been attempting to play chronological Sugababes covers since twelve; it was now five, and Morgan couldn't take any more.
'I just feel like... We need to fag it up a bit. Get with what the kids are doing. I mean, everyone's talking in patois now, aren't they? Black is back.'
Oh GOD, thinks Morgan.
'Did it ever go away?' intones Dennis, mystically.
'Look- it's time to buck our ideas up. We're supposed to be a multi-media art collective. Not just some musicians in a room.'
They pose on crates in Dennis's warehouse somewhere off Mare Street, feeling the cold and inhaling cups of stale peppermint tea. Dennis isn't much of a shopper. Dennis is in love with Emily. Emily is in love with Robert Pattinson and the Lord of the Rings hobbits.
'I just think our sound needs to be more ambient, you know. It's like every fucking decade's been done. Especially with this 1910's sound that's coming back.'
'We haven't written a song for five weeks,' says Dennis, in his usual, ageless monk voice.
'I thought we were supposed to be divining ambient soundscapes rather than writing songs?' says Morgan.
'Ambient songs, temperate soundscrapes...' whispers Dennis. 'Everything is fragments-'
'-I was thinking about writing this epic song,' quips Morgan. 'It was going to be a requiem for our generation, a modern-day version of We Didn't Start The Fire, starting with MTV and running through Party of Five, the Spice Girls and 9/11, played on a melodica.'
'Are you still seeing that vicar off the TV?'
'NO.' says Morgan, loudly. PHONE SAYS NO. 'And while we're on the subject, what's happened to the shaman?'
'Oh,' Emily twiddles her tiara, wipes a bit of hummus off her sequins. 'He's a dreambout, isn't he?'
'Don't you mean dreamboat?' Morgan has probably never been so keen to not be in a room, on a comfy chair, before. What with the crazy phone and the upcoming gig, it's all a bit much.
'Are you totally soft in the brainbox!? I've never heard anyone say dreamboat before.'
'Maybe they don't,' he says, slamming the top down on his keyboard. 'Sorry. I don't know what came over me. I've never heard anyone say that. Go on.' says Morgan. You absolute fucking idiot.
'We've got a meeting at the shaman's studio next Saturday.'

''We've got a meeting at the shaman's studio next Saturday.''
He even inserts the finger quote marks.
'Have you read Kyki Czukay's column this week? He's literally insane. He's lost the plot.' Devlin, the scone, scours today's copy of the Metro. 'And I quote. BAG ABOUT TOWN, by Kyki Czukay,' he puts on a drawling, awful voice, 'Shitfaced. It was only a Wednesday morning and I'd already found myself semi-naked in Daffodil's bed with a male prostitute called Ludovic. We'd snorted what was supposed to be weed tranquiliser in the back of a German shadow minister's car on the way back from Daisy Lowe's new clubnight, Lowe and Behold. Where the man-whore was concerned, I was definitely doing all the holding.'
Morgan picks up a baseball cap from the side and tries it on, spinning round in the mirror. 'I don't know how these social diarists even get their jobs. I mean, that doesn't even make sense.'
'Kyki Czukay wears a baseball cap,' says Devlin.
'Does he?'
'You just put that one on as I was reading it out.'
'Did I?'
'That's weird...' Devlin shuffles back slightly. 'Put it down, Morgan, put it down.'
Morgan's phone rings again.
'Oh god. It's her.'
'Emily?'
'Queen of the nymphs. The three-headed dog at the gates of hell.'
'Cerberus.'
'That, too.' he picks it up. 'Emily...'
Devlin continues to flick through the paper, his stick-on arms moving the pages somewhat unsteadily.
'Yep, yep...' Morgan picks his nose as he talks. 'Yep. The what? The Shaman's flatmate is holding a spirit quest next Saturday. We can't walk within a five hundred yard radius.'
'Because that's what people get up to on a Saturday...' mumbles Devlin, shaking his crust in dismay.
'You want to hold it here? At ours? Is that alright?'
Devlin's eyes light up.
'Oooh... maybe not such a good one. There's something I forgot to tell you.'
'Forgot. Sorry, Emily. Just a sec.' Morgan silences the phone. 'What?'
'I'm cooking next Saturday. For a few friends.'
'How many.'
'Why? It doesn't matter, it's-'
'It's four strangers, isn't it.'
'It's just a little thing. It must have slipped my mind.'
'Ohhhhh no you don't.'
'What?' cries Devlin, splodges of jam falling from his mouth. 'What!?'
'It's Come Dine With Me, isn't it. Isn't it! You've bloody applied!'
'I might have done.' says Devlin, shuffling out of the room as fast as a baked good can.