#i love you little argentinian section in the stands

[ratatatastic]

i couldnt make it out to the latam cup which is a shame but i did get my question of wait what chants does the 🇦🇷 stands sing during our hockey games? would it be football chants? yes. the answer is yes they did end up singing football chants XD notably its the "cada dia te quiero mas" chant

[lewishamledger]

A shirker’s paradise

Words by Seamus Hasson; Photo by Lima Charlie

For anyone unfamiliar with the cult blog Deserter it could probably be best described as a shirker’s guide to kicking about in South London. It reviews pubs and restaurants as well as offering expert advice on how to get away with doing as little work as possible.          

The writing is iconoclastic, often profane and always exquisite, attracting a dedicated and growing fan base. The duo behind it, Andrew Grumbridge and Vincent Raison – aka Dulwich Raider and Dirty South – have now written a book - Today South London, Tomorrow South London. It’s a chronicle of the pair’s misadventures south of the river and has been described as being ‘part guide, part travelogue.’

I met the irreverent pair for a pint at Sutton’s Radio in Lewisham to find out about the book launch and to ask what they really think about the nine to five. “I’ve never enjoyed it,” Vince assures me. “I find it insulting Seamus on a spiritual level” Andrew concurs.

It’s a Sunday evening when I meet them and just a few days after the book launch. Andrew is sporting a Dulwich Hamlet scarf and Vince is wearing green cords supported with a pair of braces. They each exude a certain anarchistic charm, like the Sleaford Mods but with RP accents.

I find them both in good spirits, that maybe because firstly they’re at where they love being most – the pub and secondly the book launch has gone rather well. “The launch was amazing, I mean it was absolutely packed,” Andrew tells me. “It was at the Dulwich Beer Dispensary. It was so packed my daughter couldn’t get in. It was sensational.”

“We did give the audience free beer early on though, that might have helped,” Vince suggests. “Nothing to do with it,” insists Andrew. The response so far to the book has been extremely positive, even attracting celebrity endorsements from the likes of Jenny Éclair and Jay Raynor.

The first run sold out in the first week “due to a pre –order frenzy,” Andrew tells me, “their words (the publishers), not ours,” and there’s a genuine sense of excitement surrounding it. “It’s actually the second book that we’ve written,” Vince explains. “The first book we did was more about the philosophy aspect of shirking and why you should spend more time not working.

“We got very close to a publishing deal with several high-profile publishers but it didn’t happen in the end and we ended up thinking we would attack the hyper-local stuff we do. We collected some of the stuff about our days out which worked well.”

“The publisher insisted on a pile of new stuff as well which was very annoying because it meant we had to do some work,” Andrew adds. “Yes, and we had to try and link the stories so we actually had a full four seasons of deserting although I wouldn’t call it a narrative exactly,” Vince elaborates.

The two men have an obvious rapport and when it came co-writing the book an almost telepathic sense of each other’s working patterns. “We’ve been doing the blog for so long, we don’t sit down and write the same piece,” Andrew explains.

“It’s always written separately. But basically one would write it and the other would edit it and make suggestions.” “Yes, and because we’re both fundamentally lazy,” Vince adds matter of factually, “what one person would normally do, there were two of us doing so that worked perfectly.”

“I don’t know about you but my Mrs sometimes says she can’t tell who wrote which passage now” Andrew refers to Vince.” “I think there’s definitely a deserter voice.” That voice was first established in 2014 when they launched the blog.

They had been working together on an ill-fated idea for a TV series about aliens but without any of the explosions and horror usually associated with the genre. “It was more about the backroom stuff, like the logistics and the warehouse,” Andrew explains.

“I still don’t know why it hasn’t got picked up.” “Yeah, it’s a mystery, alien admin,” Vince adds. A TV producer they were pitching to advised them they needed more characters and a light bulb went off. They decided to write about characters and places in South London.

“We started writing about what we actually do in our kind of play time; our little days out. I mean I wouldn’t say our days out are necessarily themed but there’s often a reason that sparks it off,” Vince says.

“Yeah, they’ve probably become more themed as we realised you need to do different things to keep people interested and indeed keep us interested,” Andrew adds. “I think the first post we did was about the World Cup in 2014 and where you could watch it with a partisan crowd,” Vince explains.

“So, if you’re watching Argentina why not go to an Argentinian pub.” (Incidentally there aren’t any, but the guys inform me that the Elephant is the best place to go for South American bars in general).

“When we started writing about South East London we realised that nobody else was really covering it as we were,” Vince tells me. “Or the way that we wanted it covered,” Andrew agrees.

“I always wanted to read travel logs that tell you about the darker side of the locale as well as you know the best places to eat or drink. I wanted to know the worst places to eat and drink as well.”

As well as the blog Vincent and Andrew also have their own podcast which covers similar themes - pubs, days out and deserting. It’s a tongue-in-cheek broadcast where the two guys have occasional like-minded guests to discuss the finer aspects of deserting.

They’ve also recently introduced a literary corner to the podcast where they discuss humorous books they’ve both found funny down the years. “We’ve got an insider friend who does still work in a high powered job but he’s an utter slacker and he tells us about his experiences of sleeping on the job and getting away with it,” Andrew tells me.

“We get the odd guest who has an angle on how to live for less such as opting out of the property market and living on a house boat or someone who’s letting their flat and travelling the world,” Vince adds.

“There’s a friend of ours who rents out his house and just travels around all the time. He considers himself homeless, which is a bit rich because he’s renting his house but nonetheless he has to keep travelling because he really has no choice.”

“Obviously not everyone can do it but it’s kind of nice to know that someone is doing it,” Vince adds.

The podcast is split into sections and each episode covers what the pair have been up to since the previous broadcast. There are also sections on what Andrew describes as “the philosophies behind deserting and slacking off, you know how to make ends meet.

“It’s Kind of a support group” he says. “More people I talk to now, I don’t know about you Vince know us for the podcast rather than the blog.” “Yeah I think the podcast is the rising star of entertainment,” Vince agrees. “Our slightly long form written pieces on the blogs are perhaps increasingly old fashioned.

“I mean we like them, because we had to write what we wanted to read I suppose ultimately. We had to amuse each other as well.” “That was a guiding principal,” Andrew agrees. “Just to kind of blow the tumbleweed.”

For now at least, the guys have resisted commercialising Deserter believing that sponsorship or at least certain types of sponsorship may dilute the brand. “To run an ad for windows 10, alongside an article saying ‘don’t go to work, it would just undo everything we stand for, our beliefs,” Andrew explains.

“We’ve had to turn ads down because it just doesn’t feel right.” “Yes, when we started doing the podcast a couple of them we got offered were for razors,” Vincent adds, “and at the time we both had massive beards.”

“They simply hadn’t done their research,” Andrew laughs. Whatever the duo’s hostility to the gloomy nine to five rat race, there’s no doubting their passion and drive for what they do. Their book is an achievement that could only be possible through determination and whether or not they’d like to admit it hard work.

“Although it’s a hyper local book about a small part of the country,” Vince says, “it would be nice if it was received more universally” “Yes,” Andrew agrees, “I think so because the message is a universal one, the message is you can have a good time with the right people wherever you live, you can go out and look for it.”

....................................

Today South London Tomorrow South London is available at all good local and national book shops as well as online outlets including Amazon.

[equinoxrox]

Some shit I’m writing. (Yes, it’s been a while.)

Tuesday, 11:06 P.M.

           The city is always relatively dead around this time. Each night I find myself creeping up to my third story apartment, I can never tell whether I’d rather it be exciting or dead. I couldn’t take part even if it were, but I guess it gives me an idea to entertain for a little while. The wind is quiet, as it always is this time of year. Dead center of June. Fucking hate it. By the time I’m at the door to my place, I’m drenched in sweat, well, more sweat, and that much more frustrated when I have to fumble around in my bag for my keys in the hallway of the apartment building; a tasteless combination (clearly designed by someone who’s never seen a fucking color wheel) of olive green walls, crème colored lights, and a carpet that was the most uncomfortable shade of orange. Granted, it’s a cheap place, and somehow, I managed to avoid having neighbors that make living there worse, but, one has to occasionally wonder who gave the green light on that design scheme.

Sweating, irritated, and simply done with my day, I finally manage to grasp the keyring buried in my bag, due to its definitive amethyst crystal keycharm, slide the key in the lock, turn, and hear the oh-so-sweet sound of the tumblers clicking out of place to let me into my home. Apartment 310. Not much light being shed in, with the exception of slits of light peeking through the blinds that cover up my arcadia doors, and the tiny red and green lights of technology left on stand by that composed my entertainment center. Looking in that direction, toward the small, dark brown coffee table placed in the center of the living room, separating the entertainment center from my lovely, cobalt, sectional (one I managed to swipe from a Savers), I noticed a tall bottle sitting in the center, with no lid.

“Shit,” I maneuvered to the table, grabbing and lightly shaking the bottle, “can’t believe I left this out all night.” Without a second thought, aware there wasn’t more than a nice half glass, I tipped the bottle to my lips, and polished off whatever wine I had been drinking the night before. Dry, bitter, and warm. I really should have put that away yesterday. Though, I admit, I did already feel somewhat better. Less frustrated anyway. I headed toward the back of my apartment, dropping my bag on the countertop that led into the kitchen as I did so. Shifting to the door at the very end of the hall, I passed by a room I wasn’t particularly fond of seeing these days. I could just close the door. But I never do. I guess it’s my own brand of masochism. In a relatively small, dark room, with thin, white curtains that covered the window in the back, sat a canvas perched on an easel. It’s been there at least a few months. Next to it, sat a grocery bag with freshly bought acrylic paint poking out, the store receipt crumpled on the ground next to it. Near the window, sat a desk, filled with artistic clutter; paintbrushes, pens without ink, scratch paper, magazines torn to shit, you name it. As I’d realized myself caught up in thought, simply standing in the doorway and degrading myself, I continued to walk to the end of the hallway, and into my bedroom.

           At least here, there was evidence of life, be it an unorganized and arbitrary one. In the center, sat a queen-size that was very evidently a gift; the mattress was thick, with a decent firmness, sitting atop a smooth, wooden bedframe that was colored a beautiful pastel blue. On top of the mattress, thick comforters were tossed aside, hanging graciously over the edge, while my pillows were flat, and definitely well used. My floor was a dim shade of brown, wood, slightly glazed over with a gloss, that probably looked really nice ten years ago. Thankfully, it was hardly visible, courtesy of the gratuitous amounts of clothing scattered about. The room itself wasn’t particularly large, with the bed taking up a good 40 percent of the space, but that didn’t stop me from neglecting the upkeep of my sleeping space. To the far right of the bed, was a small closet with a two sliding, wooden doors, decently full of clothes and old school stuff; to the far left, against the wall, was a tall, canary yellow bookshelf, adorned in various stickers and nicks it acquired over the numerous years. As I lazily maneuvered my way over to the bed, I slipped out of my shoes, unclipped and slid the bra from underneath my shirt, tossing it on the floor, and flopped into the comfortable embrace of my bed. On a heavy exhale, I rolled over, and reached out to the night stand to my right, fishing for the USB cord to charge my phone, unintentionally noticing the time on the alarm clock that rested there as well.

“ Goddamn it,” I muttered, realizing it was already nearing 11:30, meaning I needed to get to the kitchen and open a bottle of wine before I had to get to sleep. I grabbed my phone from my pocket, and quickly checked the interface; one missed call and two text messages, both from Anya. Without realizing it, I had been nervously gnawing on my lip. Plugging my phone in, I placed my phone face down in the comforters, stood up and proceeded to the bathroom, grabbing a nearby t-shirt as I left the room. I removed my disgusting work shirt, and slipped into the shirt I just grabbed; a large, purple tank top, and undid the messy bun my hair had shaped itself into over the course of my 9 hour shift. I unraveled my hair, shook it out, before wrapping it back up into a semi-messy bun. As usual, I stuck a pair of heavy, black chopsticks into the bun, and sauntered into the kitchen, where my wine rack sat. I flicked the light switch and to my displeasure, I noticed that I only had one bottle of wine left, and that in two weeks, all of my bills for the current month were due. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem, if I hadn’t already been behind on just about everything I had to pay at the moment.

Stress began to encroach, and I felt the rise in my heart rate as my breath intensified. “What better a time to drink?” I said to myself, grabbing a corkscrew from a nearby drawer. I grabbed the virtually black bottle of wine, a delicious, $7, 2015, Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon, and popped the cork out, catching a whiff of a bittersweet wine that I was about to guzzle. Without the need for a glass, I grabbed the bottle by the neck, and a water bottle from the refrigerator, as I made my way over to the couch in my living room. I placed the bottles on the coffee table in the center of the room, while I reached my hands into the couch creases for the television remote. Feeling an solid object with buttons, that wasn’t a self pleasure device, I pulled the remote from the couch and turned on the TV, and the sound bar that was also, most definitely a gift. The 20-something inch Vizio made a tiny jingle as the white light illuminated the lettering beneath the screen, and the screen itself flickered on. Shifting through the television apps, I made my way to Netflix, and waited as the red loading screen cast a crimson light throughout the otherwise darkened living room. Three profiles popped up; Anya, Familia, and Nia Who Really Needs to Pay For Her Own Account – that last one is me. A small chuckle escaped my lips as I began scrolling through shows, coming to my personal favorite; Hannibal. I’d seen it thousands of times, but ask any girl my age in this generation, nothing was better after a 12 hour shift than watching a man cook and murder, while you competitively drink alone to each time a cooking sequence takes place. Not to mention the artistry of the show itself, sweet Christ, the way its handled is simply perfect. From the individual shots, to the color palette, and even the costume design; its truly amazing. Time passed, and casual sipping, in addition to three separate cooking scenes, had brought me to nearly less than half a bottle of wine. In watching Hannibal in some scenario involving pigs and a pedophile, my mind began to drift, or rather, as I shifted attention away from the television and looked around my apartment, my mind came back to the same place it always does when I find myself knocking back a bottle after work.

Down by the table in the center of the living room sat a small garbage can, packed to the brim with take-out boxes and various alcoholic beverages, with an empty bottle of cheap champagne sitting on the floor right next to it. Taking note of the fact that I should probably take all of that trash out, the realization that the wine was finally working its magic dawned on me when an all-too familiar feeling began to encroach.

“Another day, another bottle.” I muttered as I stared at the empty champagne bottle and all of the bottles peeking from the top of the trash can. A few moments passed as I sat in silence, the television awaiting my next Netflix choice, looping the advertisement of whatever was selected at the moment, and the only other audible sound was the quiet hum of an air conditioning unit.

(That in itself is a miracle; the air conditioning here is just under livable, on a good day.)

However, in these moments of silence, the few I allow myself during the day, also being the ones I spend a good portion of my day avoiding, my thoughts drifted into an objective observation of my life thus far. Starting with the garbage can filled with booze, I stared, and I felt my stomach contort briefly, with the feeling of shame, and disappointment. Not only was it gross, and unappealing to have a full garbage can in plain sight at all times, but I was also aware that that alcohol was all from this week. Every night after work, and after class, I stopped by the liquor store that was across the street from where I got off of the train each night, and grabbed a bottle of wine. At one point, I would have told you that I strictly only drank red wine, and only when I was planning on working on, or had just finished a project. Now, the clerk who’s usually there, a super laid back guy named Adem, knows me by name, and always saves one bottle of the cheapest wine he has for me at the end of every night, typically alternating between a terrible Pinot Noir that’s only a step above Arbor Mist, or a Cabernet that is worth the $5.75 I pay for it. 7 days a week, roughly $42 a week. Initially, it began as a way to enjoy the end of a week, or the extra kick I needed to push me through a piece, but now, it’s all I look forward to after work and class.

And for what? I knew, that once I went to bed, I was waking up to go and repeat this seemingly endless cycle over, and over again, with no real chance at achieving all that I had sought to become for so many years.

Reflexively, I grab the bottle resting on the table, as if I had been stirred into action to take this swig, and take a drink. The bitter, and subtly sweet wine glide smoothly behind my tongue, and hopefully, given I don’t exactly remember eating today, straight to my liver, keeping my depression at bay. At least for the moment. Smacking my lips, I scratch the itch on the back of my head, while I raise the bottle to see what I had left to finish off before I passed out. Understanding this was gonna hit me like a house of well-made bricks once I stood up, I decided the best plan of action, based on the fact about only a half a glass of wine was left, coaxing me to just finish it already, was to down the rest in one go. I rubbed my stomach, and began to knock back the remaining wine, officially ending my night. My mouth tasted of fermented grapes, and my eyes felt heavy. Dropping the bottle on the floor, next to the living room trash can, I had looked down to notice that I had spilled some of the wine on my shirt; the deep maroon liquid morphing the purple top into a deeper, indigo color upon where the droplets had hit.

Or maybe it was just dark and I couldn’t necessarily see.

Regardless of the reason, I had decided the night was officially at a close, and if I had any intention of waking up for class on time, I would have to go to bed right now. I rose to my feet at a gradual rate, and almost instantly, a wave of dizziness and slight nausea welcomed me into the world of the Lush.