My foot

This is in actual fact my foot. Well, not actually my foot in the same way that Magritte’s pipe was not a pipe. What that had to do with the death of his mother I’m still figuring out. At any rate my foot was present with me at a Tony Manero lookalike competition, which was also a Tony Manero dancealike competition. No disco floor but there was a glitterball and the Bee Gees. The crowd had a few casual onlookers but for the most part they were Leeds circa 1998.

Before we go any further let me quote the great man:

Yeah, well I saw it on TV first, then I made it up.

In total there were seventeen contestants. I counted them all out and I counted them all back. Not one of them crashed and burned. The atmosphere was retroholic, more serious than the 60s studentville frock and beards found in the trendsetter alcoves just now. Most of them had decked out their lives from the 70s, with original cars and furniture, even fridges. Their clothes had been taken out from the back of a wardrobe and made to live again. That kind of dedication is generally its own reward.

The question that mattered however was: was it good. Good enough, every last eau de cologne too cool to sweat sweaty moment of it. At the end I tripped on the stairs and nearly broke my foot. Back then I was young, the bruising only took a few weeks to clear up.

Thinking about it nearly is one of life’s most underrated words, the opposite of probably. I nearly became a millionaire, my numbers came up, but that week I forgot to buy a ticket. I nearly became happy buying up everything that would fit me in the store. I nearly didn’t regret taking on so much credit. Nearly is a word the advertising guidelines accept and the advertisers don’t.

Nearly, my foot. It wouldn’t have been my foot prior to 1923, before then it would’ve been my ass. But the English are a polite race who apparently become easily confused when presented with something that looks rather similar to a mule or a donkey. This is not an ass, as the more rhetorically inclined might say.

On the subject, check out Forever Fever, if you can get hold of it. Try eBay. It’s a Singapore film Tony Manero would nearly approve of. Something along the lines of patriarchy plus state plus disco equals soul.