I want to dance. Not smooch. No slow dance at the end of the evening with high hopes and low expectations. I don’t want Barry White. I want the Toy Dolls. I don’t want pop. I want punk. I want to thrash and writhe. I want to be thrown through the DJ booth. I want to be young. I want to pogo.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

The expectation. The silence. The madness. The bumping the pushing. I don’t want a slow number, I want a riot. I want it to be the 80s. I want to drink the wine of youth. Not my pretentious craft beers. I want to get breathless, but not from walking up the stairs. I want to dance. Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

The rule of the mob. The Star Of The West. The call of the herd. The pulse of the crowd. The blur. The buzz. The Speakeasy. The Rack. The Bricklayers Arms. The Grand Duchess. Sticky carpets. Slippery dance floors. Toilets without any doors. Never any soap. Soap bar. Finding friends. Instead of discovering that old ones are dead. It’s the same with the pubs. Nellie the elephant packed her trunk.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Dancing till dawn rather than up all night worrying about bills. Bill and Tim the not-so-terrifying punks. Sniffing glue. Drinking Rock n Roll cider. Or a round of Heavy. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. Brothers in arms. All for one and one for all. Got any skins? Who’s got the Rizlas? Lend us a fiver. Buy us a pint. Oh, Nellie the elephant.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Dizzy drunken abandon. Pink elephants. Punk elephants. Being sick. Losing days. Finding out that the best meal I’ve ever had is in my past, Cap’n Jaspers, on the Barbican, paid for with all the money I had in the world. The light bulb moment. No Michelin restaurant in the world, no matter how many stars, can compete with your memories.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Nellie. Tenpole Tudor. Crazy colour. Pink hair. Jet Black. Dyed blonde. Cheap hair spray. Exploding hairdos. Flex-wire-head. Bobby Bullshit. Matt the Hat. Stealing traffic cones. Trying to give them back. Pinching Polling Stations. Nicking a Photo Booth. No guilt. No Facebook. No Twitter. No mortgage. No COPD. No regrets. Young love. Ambition.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Charlie Aardvark. Nicknames instead of funny asides in eulogies. Names for the dead, like the two Daves. Names for the living. Stu. Lightning Reg Strange. Or Reg as he prefers. And the rest. You know who you are. The ones I’ve forgotten. The ones I’ve forgiven. I love you all.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Charlie was a ladykiller just like Stu, you could never compete with those two (and Reg if you are reading this). Funny, articulate, good looking. Bastards. Charlie. Unreliable to the end. We were supposed to give you a lift to see Prefab Sprout. We waited and waited. Watching Charlie whiz past in some dolly bird’s sports car. We on the other hand.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

That’s Charlie. That was Charlie. You waved as you passed our knacked van. Full of dog shit. Who the fuck feeds a Rottweiler curry? Kaiser. Nice dog. Long dead. But aren’t they all?

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Sex & drugs & Duran Duran. Sadly, not in that order. Bauhaus. Joy Division. Wearing out a vinyl copy of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Old romatics. New Romantics. Broken hearted. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was the end of a chapter. There will be more tears before you finish the book. B-movie. Remembrance Day. The Young Ones. Live fast, die young.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Elephant Fayre. The Cure. Siouxsie and the Banshees. Popeye the insane Dutch hippy and drug-smuggler who gave you a lift. Thinking he was mad when he told you to swear and shout at the coppers as you crossed police lines and the Tamar Bridge. His wry smile as he explained that they never stop those who make such a fuss. Hiding in plain sight.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Memories hiding in pain’s sight. The huge lump of blow he gave you as a reward. And the rest of the goodies. Whizz, weed and mushrooms on toast. Preserved in honey. Honey monsters. Scary monsters. Acid trips instead of guilt trips.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

The happy coincidences. What were the odds? The serendipity of friendship. Like walking past the common room phone just as Charlie rang, begging you to bail him out of the local nick. Then, using the budget of the student film you were shooting to do just that. The same is true when Simon, your best friend from school, happened to be crossing the road just as a Volkswagen Transporter laden with weed stopped. Chance or destiny.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Summers are never so hot or perfect as the ones that haunt you and live on in your memory. Getting so stoned that when you woke up at the festival, with naked and topless women walking around, you and Simon are not quite sure if you are dead or not. Is this heaven, you ask? No. I still feel guilty that I was not there for you when you needed a friend. Finding out from your brother that you’d died. I wish I’d gone to the funeral. I did go to Charlie’s.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

I went from best man to pallbearer in less than six months. But you are forever young. You live on in my memory, mate. One of a kind. Surfing down the stairs on an ironing board. Yes. It is as stupid and as dangerous as it sounds. Yet you upped the ante by tobogganing down in a cast iron bath. Casualty. Casualties. Of course. Ultimately, I had to open the cans of Lager for you. Following in your footsteps as I always did with cans you would never finish.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

The music. The memories. No wonder they hurt. To be cherished. Celebrated, not forgotten. Never to be repeated. Art College in the 80s. My son you hit the fucking jackpot. Too old to pogo. Too young to die. And if I can’t fucking pogo, I’ll still fucking try.

Oooooooooooooooooo…

Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and

Said goodbye to the circus

Off she rode with a trumpety trump

Trump! Trump! Trump!

PS: Yes, I was actually thrown through a DJ booth. Plymouth, circa 1984. To the sound of the Toy Dolls. More than my pride was dented.

In loving memory of Simon, Dave, Dave, and of course that legend, that man, that friend, that larger than life, that raconteur, that bonny bon vivant, Mr Andrew Charles Norman Taylor, AKA Charlie Aardvark, AKA Charlie. Gone but not forgotten. Who could never be forgotten. You burned the brightest. So never saw those of us who were left burn out. Spared that indignity. I loved you, mate. But the music lives on.