bri(t)in

So my good mate The Dove has moved to London.

Again.

She has this habit of living there for succinct periods of time until the weather and monotony of the Piccadilly line get a bit wearisome, she comes back and then, inevitably returns again. I’m missing her like mad, for she is my mate, but she is also unbelieveably hilarious and frank. Most refreshing in a world filled with conservatives.

If I ask her for instance if my bottom looks grotesque in new jeans she’d say: “Take those off…looks like you have a ton of junk in your trunk.”
God I miss her.

So she’s fucked off again to the Island of Mud. I bought her a t-shirt: I have enough friends, thanks.
I tried everything this time.

To:thedove@innit.com
From:peasontoast@gmail.com
Subject: why you shouldn’t go.

I’m going to appeal to you through the medium of persuasive email not to go to bloody Britain:

This regular decorum of flying fudging Virgin Airlines across to where He Of Airplane lives is nothing short of annoying. Why do you want to go there anyway?
Oh I know. You get to hang with the rest of South Africa in Southfields. Kiff bru. Oh and it’s wonderful living in a house with fifteen people to make extra poundage innit? Oh and you’ll start talking like a retard from Eastenders, find a boyfriend in Milton Keynes, settle down, have two kids to get the council house, oh and the weather is wonderful.

Aren’t you excited to dress in black in grey everyday while it pours drops of freezing cold drizzle over your naturally curly hair, which will now frizz? You’ll miss the bus, the tube lines will cease due to an unfortaunte saron gas incident and when you do your groceries, you’ll miss your Renault Clio, as you haul buns and bacon into the tube from the nearest Tesco, which happens to be three train changes away.

A drink will cost you R150, and that’s only when you leave town for the weekend, because your drink will cost you R400 actually, plus cover charge of R1 000 to get into any decent place. You say you won’t be seen dead at the Slug & Lettuce, but I concur. You’ll have to go to a Mr Bean premier, that’s if you’re not temping in the IT department of a rubber duck factory in Brixton.
I know I’m being an unfair bitch but you have to admit that the points raised are legit.
I love you. Please don't leave me.
Peas

To:peasontoast@gmail.com
From:thedove@innit.com
Re: why you shouldn’t go

Peas. While you’re watching Fokofpolisiekar at the Dome, I’ll be watching Bob Dylan or the Foo Fighters at Hyde Park - as in the park, not some suburb in Joburg. And on the way to the Dome, you’ll be sitting in traffic on Hans Strijdom for three hours, and you won’t even be able to read a newspaper while you do it. You’ll shop at The Zone, I’ll shop at Covent Garden. On Saturday nights, while you’re slipping in vomit at Manhattan’s, I’ll be doing something cultural like watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's timeless rendition of Evita. [Yeah right – Ed]

When it rains, I’ll fuck off to the French Riviera for the weekend on a cheap package deal where flights will cost me twenty quid, and I'll probably meet a hot dude that'll take me back to his apartment in Monte Carlo. Or maybe I’ll just catch a train to Paris and shop up a storm at Galleries Lafayette. When my folks come over, I can stay with them in Surrey and get fed homemade Toad In The Hole. And no, I won’t be living with fifteen South Africans in Putney, I’m living with one mate in Clapham. I know plenty of Poms so I won't be having school reunions at The Walkabout either. I can wave at the Queen if I feel like it, and maybe I’ll picnic at Hampstead Heath. I will, however miss you Tart.
Come stay with me in London. I know you want to.

The Dove
xx

Her latest is that she has, in fact, in accordance with my prediction, got a temp job at an IT company and is so bored she wants to staple her jean pant to the desk and clip a hole into her fringe with the office punch.
Jesus I miss her.
Her life sounds amazingly pleasant. Less the IT thing.