Low life | 6 September 2012

My car is at the garage so often for repairs, the mechanics invite me to their Christmas parties. This year I was also invited to the World Speedway Championship, which they go to every year. I’ve never been to speedway before, I protested, but that didn’t matter, they said. It was easy to follow and in any case the speedway was really just an excuse for a massive booze-up in Cardiff. Everything was booked, they said: hotel, trains, speedway tickets. All I had to do, they said, was get my arse to the station for 8.15 a.m. on Friday with beer for the journey. There were 16 of us going, they said, drinking lager, mostly.

I missed the train and for one reason and another I didn’t get to Cardiff until the evening, with the name of the hotel written on the back of my hand in Biro. The town centre was full of drunk lads and coveys of raucous babes with hardly anything on, and every doorway was guarded by at least two bouncers wearing ear pieces, and the genial Heddlu were much in evidence.