Euphemism City

At dusk, golden light spills onto the river as the galleries and bars switch on their night illumination, and Bristol is lent a soft romanticism.  I stand on the bridge, briefly, pausing my journey to watch rowers pull their little boat through the water; they are perfectly in sync, each oar cutting down and pulling up at precisely the same time.  A thin cloud crosses the bright moon like a tentative brushstroke, and the first stars flicker in the ultramarine night.  Then someone violently throws up a lamb Donner kebab, someone else starts shouting drunk obscenities at a defiant bouncer guarding a cheap pub, and urgent police sirens pierce the air, mingling with the cries of angry gulls.  Ah, Bristol, at 7pm on a Monday.  It never loses its charm.

Just out of shot: a hen party having a fight in a burger bar.

The young barman asks Naomi what we're doing.  We're there nearly every Monday night, sat at the same table by the window, typing away on my laptop (or watching short YouTube videos), scribbling in notebooks, google searching images of famous paintings, leafing through and editing pages of script. We're writing a play, Naomi tells him, as he fixes her a lime and soda. He nods and wonders what it's about.  Naomi says that she could tell him, but then she'd have to kill him.  He nods and smiles - he's heard that many times.  No seriously, says Naomi.  She isn't smiling and there is a cold world behind her unblinking eyes.  He gulps and moves away, even though there are no other customers at the bar.

We crack on.  There is much to write.  The young barman surreptitiously watches us as he wipes away the warm wet circles on the bar.

We discuss proper construction methods for garden sheds, the scary films of David Lynch, The Spice Girls, property prices, and a very seedy Bristol establishment called The Office that hosts notorious sex parties.  Apparently it's got a glass floor.  We spend a fair amount of time researching urban slang synonyms for having sex, most of which we've never heard before.  "Roast the broomstick"?  "Barneymugging"?!  Who the hell knows these things?  And who the hell makes them up?  And how the hell do they become commonplace?  At any rate, we write all the pages we need to write, and finish this particular section of the play with style.  Hooray!  Next week, we start on the final act.

I try a different route home and briefly get lost in the maze of new and anonymous development areas around Temple Gate, where foxes have ripped apart bin bags, and a graffiti artist has sprayed a giant red penis on the wall of a gym. Ah, Bristol.