I woke up in a bus garage; by the low light streaming through the high portal windows it was either early morning or late evening. Someone had been sick down my shirt and pissed in my lap and I felt vaguely uneasy on my feet as I stood up, I ventured carefully down the narrow stairs of the bus and went to the front to see where I had been. Number 73 to Stoke Newington, I figured out I'd been whoring at Kings Cross and tried to get a late bus to Victoria Station in a desperate attempt to get the last train home, a nought out of ten attempt as I had gone completely in the wrong direction. Yes, it was morning and my watch told me it was a Saturday morning, bloody fantastic, no work I thought and asked a cleaner exactly where I was. 'Leyton Bus Garage mate, you had a good night eh!' bloody idiot, 'Does it look like it? Some bastards puked all over me and slashed in my lap' I punched him hard and got a taxi to the club to clean up.

George the doorman was his usual non judgemental self as I sloped past him, 'Morning Mr Treadmill, late night sir? Someones been sick on you sir' George is like a mother to all of us high flying hard working corporate zombies and understands the hell we go through. He helps us in and out of Taxis, he phones our wives when we can't speak properly and advises us on our medication, 'Looks like you need a large Port and Brandy sir' etc. The club was very quiet, just a few exec's semi conscious in the half light as I got a change of clothes from my locker and ordered a bottle of ice cold Frascati before phoning my wife. Now, the first drink is always a gamble for me, will it stay down or will it be ejected by my digestive and renal system in a violent convulsive exhale? Also, why is it that one can pour the wine into the glass but the further one gets the glass to ones mouth does ones hand shake like a rattlesnake. I took my tie off and looped it round my left hand that held the glass, put the tie behind my neck and pulled the the other end with my right hand thus raising the wine goblet successfully to my mouth, a trick I'd seen in a film called Barfly, it so works. 'Stay down, get round the system' I pleaded and; Hey presto! It stayed down which meant another good day on the lash. I love the feeling as the alcohol pumps round the receptors and eventually brings peace to replace that fear and loathing, such relief. I could now function again and felt confident. Phone the wife, 'Morning dear, sorry its early  but I had to work late, in fact all night', 'Oh, you didn't have to go to Cairo then?', 'What? we haven't got a bloody office in Cairo?', 'Well thats what you said last night dear', aaagh! 'Must have misheard me darling, I had to work in, err....Pimlico' Pathetic attempt I know but the best I could do in the circumstances and I didn't really care if she believed me anyway.  Mrs Treadmill is a half witted ex Lufthansa trolly dolly, useful for taking to corporate functions and puts on a good spread at dinner parties, thats about it really. She used to be good in the sack in her thirties but like most women got a bit saggy in her forties and to be quite honest is a bit of a turn off. 'I'm on my way home then, I'll take you for lunch in the pub today, you can have one of those prawn thingy's you like, see you in a couple of hours, jobs a gooden' 

Feeling warm and rounded I left the club and  jumped into another taxi to Victoria. I love riding the streets of London early morning at the weekend, it brings me some level of safety and serenity observing the deserted offices and West end squares, the machine is asleep, the money, commodity and future markets are not trading, the stocks are not being shared, peace.  Nearly two days ahead of not having to play the game thrilled me, pubs, good food and drinking comrades, the Englishmans dream.