Special delivery. A bum. Were you expecting one?
Gumby was a perennial guest, although he was rarely invited anywhere. I first met him at my first ever festival, where we were sharing a tent. The first I knew of this detail was when I finally stumbled on my canvas stronghold after hours of fruitless searching to find in my sleeping bag, dead to the world and taking up every inch of available floorspace.
One day he decided to leave Manchester and head down to Gorblimey Lahndahn Taahn, where he planned to stay with our friend Clive until he found his feet. The first Clive knew of this details was when Gumby arrived on his doorstep, suitcase of marmalade sandwiches in hand and expectant look on his blotchy face (the guy looked like a drunk Roman from Asterix).
Gumby also liked a party. He was rarely invited to these either. Instead, he would crash them using his arsenal of wily Mancunian party crashing techniques. He was like a party pointer, a braque des bashments – we'd be walking home frm the pub when suddenly his neck would stiffen, his head cocked to one side, his nose a-quiver. We'd hear his familiar cry – ''Sa party over there!' – and off he'd bolt, towards the flashing lights/thudding beat/muffled conversation which had stirred his interest. One time he blagged into a house party only to find it was full of dancing midgets... sorry, how rude, what's the proper name for them? Oh yes – 14 year olds. He still gamely boogied through the confused throng, searching for illicit booze until the birthday girl's dad forcibly directed him to the exit.
His best performance came in the summer, when he picked up the faint scent of beats on the early evening air following a 'Leo Sayer'. Being too inebriated to turn on his dubious charm, instead he decided to break in through the bathroom window. Astonishingly, he managed to do it without anyone noticing. He then strode triumphantly into the main room to join... four smartly dressed metropolitan elitists, drinking wine and listening to Everything But The Girl with the volume turned up a bit. He quickly deployed the 'wrong house' defence (which to be fair was sort of true) and bolted through the front door. I'm actually quite surprised he didn't just tell them he was moving in and start raiding the fridge.
(electricteeth, Fri 7 Jan 2011, 19:08, Reply)