Enid Coleslaw Syndrome.

Photo by Clio

Yesterday I went with some old friends from school to the fairground. Up until I was about seven this was a permanent fixture in town, and doubtless a big incentive to moving here. Especially as a kid, having a run down, rickety, roller coaster, ghost train, old fashioned helter skelter and a plethora of hook-a-ducks, ring tosses and candy floss stalls directly opposite school was glorious. But for at least a decade now the fairs tacky reincarnation has come back to the sea-front every bank holiday, bringing with it a rudimentary crowd of tanked-up, teenage mothers in waiting, intent on emptying their cheap cider stomachs on the waltzers, only to fill them back up again with mechanically reclaimed meat snacks. It's a sad carousel of tired looking families, fake tanned adolescents and creepy chain-smoking stall merchants.

Trying to win a 200 pack of Regal cigarettes on the ring toss, the bitter north easterly wind kept blowing Clio's hoops in the wrong direction. I looked around me. With the thick, foggy sea fret that had been hanging over the coast all week, the tops of the tallest helter skelters were obscured in the mist, as was the sea. The usual sounds of seagull squawking and crashing waves had been usurped by blaring, early 2000s pop, so we could've been anywhere, but the spirit of the place was inherently in keeping. A hideous version of Jefferson Airplane's 'Somebody to Love' by the 'Boogie Pimpz' was playing full blast, whilst twelve year olds rode the uncomfortably over sexualised Rodeo Bull ride. A ten foot, spray painted picture of a topless woman with a stetson was behind them as the ride MC exhaled his cigarette, "Are you reeaaaaddddyyy?".The children squealed as Grace Slick's voice stammered electronically, the tacky, soft pornographic image smiling behind them and a crowd of track suited, shaven headed youths gathering to glimpse up the short skirts of those on the cusp of adulthood.

Spending time with one of my oldest best friends, I remembered the first time we'd watched Ghost World on a sleepover at twelve or thirteen, and how utterly and rapturously I had been able to relate to those characters. Though being too cool, awkward and Enid-like to quite express it at the time, seeing Clio always makes me feel that again. Looking back to our bitter, sardonic fifteen year old selves, I miss trawling through the streets in a dead end town with her, spying on weirdos and mocking everything in a ruthless cull of all that was tragic and lame. As I went to the ThursBay clubs for the second week running that night, I had the sad feeling of selling out in enjoying the drunken clamor around me.