Friday 23 July 2010

Food Files: Steve

In my hood, all beers lead to this boy.

Like anyone else in our corner of Hackney, I'd clocked Steve round the way. Truth is, I'd developed something of an obsession. With his amateur tats and flimsy vest, Steve is the quiff-crowned King of Dalston. This is the first Food File to be snapped with a long lens, and I promise it'll be the last.

O Steve! It's as though the spirit of Hackney fermented in Ridley Road Market's putrid morass, trickled down the drains of Kingsland Road, then rose through its beer-soaked floorboards to take Dalston's stage in your human form.

I found him on the playground of depravity that is London Fields. It was a blazing hot day and Dalston's pasty denizens lay strewn over the grass like tofu wieners on a barbecue. It was summertime alright – the living was easy and we were sucking back on the silly juice.

Your preferred location on London Fields reveals much about your social identity. It's the same on Rio's Ipanema beach. To a newcomer, those sandy-toed cariocas merge into one caramelised mass. To the insider, one look reveals where they belong:

  • Achingly hip, naturally beautiful and well aware of the fact? Posto 9.
  • A man too handsome and too well-dressed to be straight? Posto 8.
  • ... and so on.

Here's how it works with London Fields. A more detailed map will follow:

  • Shady nooks east of the cricket pitch:
Yummy mummies and their cooing entourage. Chuck a frisbee at your peril.
  • Lush pasture south of the Lido:
Couples and cool things with careers. A nice range of rugs and throws. Balanced discussion of the week's news.
  • Outskirts of the central belt's running lanes:
Jocks, youths and office monkeys. These sporty types slurp sugary drinks, get all excited, then aim frisbees at sunbathers' gonads. The melon-balled Cereal Killah learnt this through painful experience.
  • Shadowed walkways from Middleton Road to Mare Street:
An odd kind of segregation becomes evident when taking this route through the Fields. Youths from the surrounding estates congregate around the benches and menace Daily Mail readers.

(Maybe this is where the stray bullets get fired. It's certainly where my good friend, now a special advisor in the Conservative government, was chased through the park by "a tracksuit with eyes".)
  • Dry patch just north west of Broadway market:
Off-duty labourers, barbecue guerrillas and assorted members of 'up-and-coming' bands. Typically, they'll be working on their new sound with some sick drum machine beats:

Hey-yo, hey-yo!
What you say... what you hear?
My name's Dave... and my mate Tim's here.

The debauch-scorched grass of this hipster's savannah is littered with fag butts and sad cases. They basically wanna be Steve.... and on the savannah is where I found him.

*

I picked my way through the beer cans and asked the King of Dalston that same question I pose to all Food Files:

"Who are you, and what do you eat?"

I realised that my voice had actually quivered in His presence. He's so rock and roll, I thought, he's so rock and roll....

Steve sent one of those spaghetti arms whirling out to a beer can. He took a long slug of Red Stripe. And then He answered:

"Eating is cheating."


1 comment:

  1. He had a knife. And was scary. But he didn't get anything. Nothing at all. Ha

    ReplyDelete