Whitby Review, April 2003: Give Me the Brain

The weather was fine and sunny when we set off from Glasgow on the morning of Wednesday the 9th of April, little Horus crammed full of favourite clothes and whisky, and we had a pleasant drive, stopping in Penrith for lunch as usual. A lovely elderly couple gave us their parking disc so that we wouldn't have to hunt forever for a space. This time we visited a small Italian bistro with the unauspicious name of Peaberry's, which I heartily recommend to anyone travelling in that part of the country (for all its charm, I would not recommend living there). I enjoyed home-made pork and mandarin pate on ciabatta, with a tasty lamb madras to follow; Erith had carrot and coriander soup, and he and Donald ate salads of goats' cheese and fennel stalks. Delicious scents still lingered as we recommenced our journey. Travelling through the fresh green fields, we passed two female sheep in a distinctly amorous posture valiantly defying recent scientific claims. As usual, we made an effort to count the dead things which we passed on the road. This time the winners were birds, at forty six - more than twice as many as a year previously - with furry creatures coming in at thirty two. There were also four indisputably dead cars, two dead oranges, a dead lunchbox and two dead Bibles. "Traffic's been losing." said Donald. Perhaps it endangered itself with haste, fleeing as many people might when followed, as we were, by fifteen thousand seven hundred and five cans of Fosters lager - not the sort of 'beer' truck one might wish to hijack!

For perhaps the first time on that journey, we didn't get lost once. Within Whitby itself, things were not so easy. The cottage agency had been willfully (and, to my mind, pointlessly) obscure about the location of our lodgings up until our point of arrival; it turned out that we were very nicely positioned, just a couple of blocks from the Elsinore, but finding the place (hidden along a tiny wee lane) and getting our stuff to it was somewhat problematic. Goths die in hot cars; I was half fainted by the time we got into the place. I curled up in the dark living room and drank lots of cold water. As I began to feel better, I explored the building, bounding up and down the narrow staircases on all fours, the safest way to go. Donald banged his head a few times before getting into the habit of being careful; thereafter he was constantly complaining of backache, poor thing.

After consuming something resembling dinner, we went out to the pub to find our friends. Tal and Fury were there, and Paul, and Marconi, and a few others. They very generously gave me a seat, but still I was only able to manage one beer before my ill health overcame me and I had to make my excuses and leave. I was getting the pains under my heart which result from an excess of pressure on my pulmonary vein. The only way to fix it is to relax. Since the night had grown cold by then, and the cottage was proving difficult to heat, I retired to bed. Donald took a long bath. Erith returned to the pub "for just a couple of drinks."

In the morning I felt much better, and was wide awake at nine. Donald went downstairs to make breakfast and I went upstairs to wake Erith. I found him curled up in his bed looking rather the worse for wear. When I asked him to recount his adventures, he admitted that he was unable to. He'd gone to a party, hung out there for a while... and then been back in his bed, with no notion of what happened in between. His vodka had gone. Detective work established that he'd fallen in the living room on his way in, yet had somehow made it up the stairs, with his boots on, without making a noise. He decided to stay there and die for a bit whilst I ate breakfast (scorched bacon and eggs courtesy of an overenthusiastic stove), but later joined me and Donald for a shopping expedition. The great thing about being in Whitby on the Thursday morning leading up to one of these events is that one can get to all the good stuff in the charity shops before anyone else does. The first thing we found was a lovely soft plump round spider, called Bowing, who happily joined our party. I subsequently obtained a pair of knee-high white snake-print boots with four inch stiletto heels; I normally never find second-hand boots in my size, so I was extremely pleased, snatching them from under the noses of other interested goths. There wasn't much in the way of regular clothing, however. We made our usual visit to the wee bookshop on Grape Lane, where I got Aldiss' The Eighty Minute Hour, miserably self-parodic Ballard novel The Day of Creation, delightfully topical Ray Bradbury children's book The Halloween Tree [sic.], and a good translation of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Once again, they were all out of Wyndham.

We retired to a nearby fish restaurant for lunch; as we ate, two women who had been in the pub the previous night passed by on the other side of the window, pointed at Erith, sniggered, and went on their way. Donald was tired by the end of this expedition, and he was weighed down with stuff, so he returned to the cottage whilst Erith and I went to the Elsinore in the hopes of recovering some fragments of his memory. Bizarrely, we discovered that a number of other people who had been at that party had experienced similar black-outs, and knew nothing of what had happened to Erith nor to themselves. It was postulated that some form of alien abduction or top secret government experiment might have taken place. To date, it remains a mystery.

I was a little tired from these various wanderings, but recovered at the cottage. I got a phone call from Panurge to say that he was in Whitby but that no-one was answering the door at his hotel! With no landmarks to help me work out where he was, there seemed to be little I could do for him, but fortunately he managed to find the Elsinore, and hence GothPat, who got him sorted out. At that point, Malcolm and Jane arrived at the cottage, having responded to my advert in upg and arranged to take our spare room after Weeble had to drop out. We hung around for a while and talked; I was very pleased to find that we got on well, and there seemed unlikely to be any stress as a result of us sharing the place. They shortly went out to find their friends. The rest of us ate dinner and watched the news. Watched a country which I was once close to making my home slide into anarchy. Looting for looting's sake; soon, surely, arson, and then rape and murder. How can people have failed to understand that this is what happens in the absence of a state - that this is what human beings are? Especially when half of them are under fifteen. Shades of Logan's Run. I tidied my make-up, and we went out to the pub.

As usual on a Thursday night, sitting or standing in the pub was an impossible proposition; even when there was space, there was very little oxygen. The weather forecast told us it was sunny and nice in Glasgow, and also that Whitby was getting frost at nights. Brrr. It wasn't too bad, though, once we were swaddled up in velvet and furs. I was very pleased to find that I could stand for several hours without exhaustion (or even much pain), way better than on previous such occasions, so I was able to hang around in the street and socialise. I soon found GothPat, and she introduced me to Panurge, our first meeting in person. He's exactly the way that he comes across online, in his speech, his behaviour and even his appearance. We hung around and talked whilst I also caught up with other old friends. Dag was once again accompanied by a bevy of Norwegian women; since his sister Kara had just delurked on a.g., she was able to claim her own Justified sticker. I found my friend Laura J, whom I see very rarely these days, and she introduced me to a new boyfriend and a small cuddly ghost; Donald snogged the former whilst I was content to stroke the latter. I also talked for a while to Red Countess, who seemed remarkably bubbly and sociable despite her ill health. Several kebabs were eaten and a good quantity of murphy's consumed. Afterwards, EdwardS, Siani and some of the Norwegians came back to sit in our kitchen and drink whisky and real ale and eat cherry liqueurs. It was fun, though I was tired, and I went to my bed before three.

Remarkably, Erith was up before anybody else on Friday, and out shopping at the bizarre bazaar; on his return, he said there wasn't much point, because many stalls were still in the process of setting up; so we decided to wait until the afternoon to mount a full expedition. When we did, it was moderately successful. The splitting of the bazaar into two sections proved to have been a superb idea; everything was less crowded and therefore easier to get around, and there were more stalls altogether offering more variety. We went first to the Metropole, where the second hand and vintage stuff was. I picked up a copy of a favourite PVC mini-skirt which I had once habitually borrowed from Aidan, and another PVC mini-skirt with red panels covered in black mesh down the sides, Nazi-ish but cute. I also got a (very cheap) little red velvet waist cincher which I'm sure will come in useful sooner or later. Donald and Erith both tried things on, but failed to find anything suitable. The stalls in the Spa were all a bit useless, just the same old familiar stuff. I don't blame the designers for this; much of it is a consequence of a staid fabric market which stifles innovation. This is beginning to show even with the willfully audacious cyberwear. As usual, there was some beautiful workmanship in hairpieces, parasols and jewellery (especially from one visiting Melbourne company), but these were either enormously expensive or simply the sort of things which one would hardly ever wear.

After this first burst of bazaar shopping, we retreated to a table on the main floor of the Spa, where we drank a couple of beers and discussed the politics of goth with Hirez and Panurge. Giolla came along to show us cool new polymer knives. It appeared we had accidentally slipped into the future without noticing it. Erith and I made a second sweep of the Metropole, then walked down to the arcades, where he made ridiculous profits on two pence pushing machines and the cashiers refused to convert them into any more sensible currency. We also played some games of shooting things with guns, though House of the Dead is no more, which many goths lamented. I hit some crocodiles with a hammer, missing the high score by just one point (because one crocodile cheated); then we went to get food, and went home. Erith cooked yummy bacon and mushroom pasta with lots of cream. Malcolm and Jane went out early to see a band whose website Malcolm maintains, but we sat about for a while, wanting to save some energy for later in the night.

When we did go out, Erith wore his catsuit, which looked still more sleek with his recently dyed black hair. I wore a little red snake-print PVC Lip Service dress and knee boots of a similar fabric. Trizia was there ahead of us, resplendent in a new corset and with 1920s hair which really flattered her face; she had laid partial claim to a table at the back of the main room, and we soon conquered the rest of it. Other netgoths gradually joined us there. I made a couple of brief circuits of the band room, but didn't catch anything which made me want to stay. I was a little startled to hear Joy Division played between acts (goth music at Whitby?!?), and pleased that later I got to dance to some Cure and Sisters of Mercy with Dag. This time, there seemed to be a better overall balance of music, so that nobody was left with nothing to dance to. The atmosphere wasn't great, though; a few people said they spent much of the night waiting to see where a fight would break out, feeling that one must be inevitable. I wasn't personally too worried. I'd had some of Giolla's special old-fashioned substances, and spent the latter part of the night in a pleasant half-daydreaming state. I felt rather as though I were watching from a distance, especially when confronted by teenagers clearly affected by assorted stimulants, trying to hold themselves up by clinging to doorframes, getting hysterical about three person toilet queues, but all along being perfectly lovely if one could manage to extract coherent words from them. At the end of the night, though, everyone was tired, so we just went home. Panurge hung out downstairs talking to Donald about progressive rock whilst Erith and I crawled through the four foot high stair space into the attic bedroom.

On Saturday morning we were up fairly early and ready to go shopping again. Donald stayed at home for another long bath (enjoying the luxury of a bathroom not vibrated by a neighbouring washing machine) whilst Erith and I went back to the Metropole, where I obtained a rather nice maroon velvet skirt with lace sides. The weather was hot again, so Erith bought me cherry ice cream, and we climbed down the cliff paths to sit and watch the waves for a while. Afterwards we went to the Spa, where there was fuck all worth buying, and then we progressed to the arcades to make more two pence pieces and shoot some more computer generated 'terrorist' unfortunates. We had an early dinner in another fish restaurant. We were worn out going back up the hill, but managed to resist the hands of strangers reaching out to try and drag us into the pub. A nap was needed before the evening's adventures could begin.

So far as the official entertainments were concerned, Saturday night was the exciting night for me, since it featured Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, a real band, goddamnit! I wore my black and white tulle tutu with a black PVC waist cincher and my thigh boots, and one of those little goes-with-everything spiderweb tops. Donald wore his striking black and red bondage shirt. Erith, in a sharply cut but dishevelled suit which made him look like a drug dealer (appropriate, really, since he was handing out supplies of thin ice and listerine squares as part of a netgoth sex experiment) proved yet again to be the perfect girlfriend and sat at the back looking after table and coats. Hirez bounced past me as I positioned myself close to the stage, very happy about the choice of band; and they were certainly worth it. After seeing so many amateurs and beginners there, it was really refreshing to watch a band with real authority, a band whose years of experience had only added to the quality and strength of their music. It was also refreshing to hear some hard-edged political stuff, especially during these strange days. The only flaw was that the set was a little repetetive to begin with, but it picked up pace as it went on. Definitely among the top five best bands I've seen at Whitby.

After the band, everyone was a bit restless; no interesting potential parties emerged; we just hung out in our netgoth corner at the back. Donald acquired a pink glowstick (which he insisted was purple) and people tried to take it off him for fear he was turning cyber; naturally, when EdwardS acquired a green one, there had to be a lightsabre duel. H Duffy and Lunacia had to guard their cleavage as people tried to hide the glowsticks there; it's an inevitable hazard of wearing such impressive corsets. Erith and Siani got into a fight, threatening one another by baring their teeth, then trying to pull off one another's noses. Everything got a bit silly.

At the end of that night, about twelve people came back to sit in our living room, and more beer and whisky was consumed, along with kahlua. Donald put on some music with the bass turned right down to get that authentically tinny back-of-the-Spa effect. Everyone talked happily for a long time, but at about three I decided I no longer had the energy for it, and I staggered off to bed.

I was up early on Sunday, and bored; everyone else was asleep, or trying to be, and would not entertain me. I went for a walk by myself, a rare enough opportunity these days, and bought more tasty liqueurs from the chocolate shop. Met a woman in her sixties who had never encountered goths before and wanted to know what it was all about. I did my best to provide a simple but useful explanation. She said she was delighted to see so many people making such an effort with their clothes, and was all the more pleased to discover that it's something which many of us do all the time. Later, my lack of sleep caught up with me, and I passed out for a while on the couch, curled up against Erith. I was startled back into wakefulness when Panurge knocked very loudly at the door behind my head. Shortly afterwards, EdwardS and Siani also arrived, and we played games of Fluxx and Give Me the Brain. It was a most excellent zombie afternoon. They brought very nice wine, too. EdwardS had to run off part way through to pick up second hand 'eighties night tickets from the Elsinore. We got pizza for dinner, then they headed off to do their Laughtons thing, and the rest of us went to the pub. Quite a lot of folk were there, avoiding the familiar events. It was a much more sedate evening, but still fun. Afterwards, back at the cottage, we lazed around in front of awful TV programmes for a while and then went to bed.

On Monday morning, Malcolm and Jane were leaving, so we got up fairly early to say goodbye to them. I'm hoping we can keep in touch, and shall certainly look out for them at future such events. Thereafter, Erith and I went back to the pub, to check out the details of later events. We went for a walk down to the seafront to buy presents for relatives and a pint sized mug from which Donald might drink tea. Erith bought me candy-floss. We stood on the harbour front for a while and watched seagulls do clever things with thermals. Erith ate cockles from a polystyrene tray. The town was beginning to fill up with Easter holidaymakers, and the goth presence was beginning to fade; we attracted more confused glances than usual. Wandering back up to the Elsinore, we curled up at a corner table with others of our kind, drank more beer and admired a certain person's shiny new green ring. Donald arrived, followed by a posse of Norwegians. We stayed until the late afternoon, then went home to get our stuff organised. That evening there was a barbeque in the courtyard of Giolla's cottage down by the south beach. As soon as we reached Church Street we could smell it. Wandering along, following our noses, we turned down a western alley and saw goths arranged along the edge of a high wall. They were all over the steps inside as well, and in the attached utility room, where a table was covered in chocolates, sweets and pixie sticks. Whilst food was barbequed and beer was drunk, Giolla duelled along the wall with those special point sword things traditionally used to break katanas; and Preacher taught a student poi, swirling chains and big streamers around. Somebody else had expensive juggling balls one of which glowed red, another glowing blue, and a third flashing between the two colours. Between this and the adventures of those people who climbed onto the wall without first working out how they might get down, there was plentiful entertainment. I wandered about chatting to various people, including David, who updated me on his life in London and assured me that he and Liz will try to make it next time, figuring out some way to make it less exhausting for her.

After the bulk of the other food was gone, Erith went to fetch chips, which I shared with a hungry Lunacia. We sat around in the pleasant courtyard until the twilight began to fade, then proceeded to the beach, where our bonfire was already blazing. Erith had dug an impressive hole with his handy entrenching tool, and Fury was proud to say that her wood, collected back home, had filled his hole. She had still more opportunity for innuendo as various people handled her chopper, preparing further fuel. The palettes rescued from skips, however, had to be broken down more forcefully, with karate kicks and battering rams.

The fire worked very well, hot but not so wild as to make sitting close beside it dangerous. Furthermore, there were no fireworks this time, so the use of foxholes was unnecessary and no-one had to dive frantically for cover. A small barbecue was set up beside the fire, though there was no bread, nor anything on which to skewer the meat, so only those with asbestos fingers got to eat it. I settled for sharing a packet of prawn cocktail flavour skips with Tal. Everyone seemed to have fun, but I'm not really very good at those bonfire gatherings, because there are so many things which I'm physically unable to participate in, so after a while I wandered off along the beach and simply stood looking out to sea. My heart had started to hurt again, and I wanted to calm it. It wasn't nearly as bad as on that previous occasion, but still, when Donald and Erith found out about it they took me home.

In the morning, I woke up to discover my period had started, early and heavily, when I was four floors up from the only bathroom. There was nothing with which to clean up the blood but Erith's US flag handkerchiefs - also das Blut war fur Sie, Blut-Gott Bush. :p Annoyed, I proceeded to get dressed and organised, just finding time to say goodbye to Panurge before he left to drive Dag and Lunacia up to Hawick. I went for a walk with Donald and Erith, across the harbour and down into the old town, where Donald bought me a small pocket watch shaped like a tortoise. There the heat and dehydration made me quite faint, but we were able to stop in a pleasant little tea shop for scones and mineral water. We found further presents for friends and picked up a copy of the Whitby Gazette. Everybody was laughing about it back in the pub, because it had referred to poor Marconi as a rabbit. It calls him something different (and incorrect) every time.

In the evening, we went out to the Whitby Indian Tandoori Restaurant for a big delicious meal. It wasn't quite as impressive as last November's, but it was still good. Then we spent the last couple of hours of the goth 'weekend' back in the Elsinore with some fifteen or twenty remaining folk. Tal adopted a shy local gothling, planning to introduce her to everyone next year. We presented him with three miniature bottles of wine for his small soft hippopotamus, Bartholomew. Goodbyes were said, hugs were exchanged, and that was that.

The drive back up to Glasgow on the following day was largely uneventful. The heat was atrocious, causing headaches and neuralgic pain for Donald and fainting for me. Fortunately, Erith was on the shady side of the car, and so remained fit to drive. We visited Peaberry's in Penrith again, whereupon I ate a salmon and cream cheese sandwich and some ice cream and dranks a litre of mineral water. We parked outside Kadath at exactly five o'clock. Went in. Walked up the stairs. Checked the post. Opened up parcels containing a shirt, a corset and a catsuit, then a big envelope containing a leaflet marked Whitby X. Give me the brain, I only have six months to prepare for next time!

This way to go back to Jennie's Whitby Gothic Weekend reviews page.