Self and Boffin went out last night. This in itself is significant, as it represented the first night out in downtown Hull we have experienced since we moved here. The movie was great - lots and lots of animals, action, weird machines and special effects. Good story too, with a fair representation of the books main themes.
After the movie we decide to go for a quiet drink, near the harbour, another virginal experience for us. The scene in downtown Hull's drinking quarter is hard to describe. Most of the females were wearing mini Santa outfits that exposed legs, midrift and shoulders, accompanied by very high heels and enough make-up to make the average clown look incomplete. The males are 90% skinhead, burly, loud rumbustious and slightly threatening - big gangs of them wandering the streets like gatherings of adolescent baboons. It is an exclusively white display, and the near harbour pubs that look cosy and welcoming by day are turned into infernos of flashing lights, crap music and cheap perfume.
After wandering the streets for a short while, amazed and in a daze, we find a quietish pub. It is not particularly pleasant place, but it does for a quick discussion about the movie, and the scene we've just witnessed, which rivals the movie in terms of it's unreality. We agree the movie was great, but notice that the age range of the people who are getting abandoned in their drunkenness, pissing in doorways and are shepherded by a massive police prescence (in the form of four van loads of fully riot-equipped squads parked at a major intersection) is our age range. This is'nt Laguna Beach Fresher's Week, or Daytona, this is mostly forty-year olds displaying themselves.
The theory we develop is that the nightclub culture that we both thoroughly embraced as early twenty-somethings has become a way of life for these people, uninterrupted by adulthood. It is unrecognisable as a night out in any Canadian city that either of us lived in or visited - Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, London, Moncton, St John, St Johns, Ottowa, Hamilton, Sarnia - the activities on display in Hull seem to be shouting, pushing, pissing, crying, arguing, screaming and very little laughing, smiling and talking. Cafe Society this is not.
We get home safely and take the cats for a walk, describing the movie to them, and telling Toshack off for breaching the "You do'nt pounce on your sister when she's doing her toilet" Rule. It is nice to see some normal behaviour.
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