Thirsty Thursday: “we might meet our future husbands tonight”

This week we are heading east, namely to ensure Billy’s journey back to Zone 23 (Romford) is less arduous and, after last week’s perils, Lime Bike free. We are beginning at ‘Yay to have a mouth’ co-hosted by Rose Easton and Ginny on Frederick, then making the long journey downstairs to Herald St for ‘Scaffolding’. Finally, we are off to sniff out the competition at The Toe Rag edition 5 launch at Camden Arts Centre. 

Dora has been feeling on the edge of glory (has a slight cold developing) and almost decides to sack off the whole affair. Predictably, Billy persuades her to join the Thirsty Thursday ride of a lifetime by waving a banana vape under her nose and floating the idea that we “might meet our future husbands tonight.” God, women are so predictable. But it’s Valentine’s Day after all…

Cherished Slade tutor and artist <3 Peter Davies <3 has described the Rose X Ginny show via the ‘gram as “an important show”, that will be “referred to as a historically key moment”. Damn, if in 20 years my children ask me “What were you doing at the opening of ‘Yay to have a mouth’, mummy?” whilst roaming a swampy techno-wasteland to survive the climate apocalypse, I’ll be honoured to tell them: “Oh darling, I was performatively taking cig breaks to escape socialising”.

‘Yay to have a mouth’ explores the ‘oral tradition’, and to be honest we can’t wait to learn what else you can put in a mouth other than a tongue, crisps and d*ck (happy valentines day xxx). As we walk up the stairs of the building, we spot recent interviewee Jenkin van Zyl (very hard to miss) skipping across the road, a dinosaur tail sprouting from his back and being dragged through the muddy puddles of Bethy G. We are gutted that we didn’t get the chance to chat, mere ships in the night… “Maybe he was going to get a vape or something,” Dora pondered. “I know he has a penchant for Cola flavour”.

We battle through the crowd and b-line straight for the beers, pocketing a couple extra (you know how these things go… sorry Rose!) and proceed with some light stairwell socialising. We accost gallerist Helen Neven for a quick superflash paparazzi moment (we accidentally bought ‘power flash’ disposables and blinded 50% of the art world) who is running off to Woolwich (God forbid) for Ridley Road Project Space’s opening.

We finally make it into Rose Easton’s sparkling new gallery, formally Molly Goddard’s studio bustling with… you guessed it… hotties. Before even seeing the work, the mere title of Van Zyl’s sculptural works gets our juices flowing – Six Scintillating Sinners (In Vitro), 2021 (Numbers 163, 237, 310) – a hybrid text of Chicago the Musical’s Cell Block Tango and Nowadays introductory dialogue ‘the six merry murderesses…’ and ‘those two scintillating sinners’, respectively. You can’t pull the wool over Billy’s bright-lights and broadway glazed eye balls. The assemblage, that at first glance appears as stacked televisions, unearths a tainted memory buried deep in our cortexes: Dorothy being probed in a mental asylum and Princess Mombi’s ornate glass corridor of interchangeable heads. Yes, I’m talking about The Wizard of Oz prequel Return To Oz (IFYKYK).

In the back part of the gallery stands R.I.P Germain’s What Does A 🧢 A 🏆 And A 🎣 🥣 Have In Common? by a sculpture of a figure wearing Nike Air Force 1s and a forearm covered in New Era hats. Dora, has been avidly following Germain’s work since his solo show ‘Jesus Died For Us, We Will Die For Dudus’ at the ICA in 2023, an interactive and multi room installation interrogating Black culture. The mask of the figure imbues something creepy as though someone is about to jump out from underneath. Other highlights of the show include Sylvie Fleury’s Bye Bye Dark Circles (Perfect Almond) resembling a BFG size compact powder. Even all of that probably won’t be able to cover up our eye bags tomorrow morning! 

We head into Herald St, experiencing an Edward Cullen-esque shock at the bright lights of the gallery. Noooo, the light. I can’t be in the light! It feels a bit like when the main light comes on at the end of the club night, except instead of ketty ravers, the crowd is even scarier: people networking. “Gosh, this light is really difficult for me to deal with because I have blue eyes,” chimed the director of Bolding gallery and arts writer Esme Blaire, who we picked up on the Central Line platform and dragged into our debauchery. Esme, babe, do you have blue eyes?…

On entering ‘Scaffolding’ you are first confronted by a fountain-esque, five-tiered ombre sand pit ash tray. It reminds us of the cinemas in Paris that have ashtrays at the doors of the screens. Billy debates asking Herald St associate director and cultural extraordinaire Laurie Barron if he can put the cigarette butt he is still accidentally holding into the sculpture. Faux pas alert! No more free beer. Classic. Laurie whisks Billy into the back office (Mum I made it into the Herald St green room) and quenches his alcoholic thirst from the secret beer fridge.

As Billy sneaks off to the VIP area (classic, he ditches Dora at any chance of glamour and fame) she is as startled as the wide-eyed and always-enthusiastic ‘gonzo journalist’ Nimrod Kamer approaches with a stretched out fist. An awkward respect/cabbage/handshake ensues as he introduces Dora to pal Heydon Prowse, star of BBC Three’s The Revolution Will Be Televised. RIP BBC THREE, gone but never forgotten (feel like pure shit just want Don’t Tell the Bride Back). Prowse was famed for turning up at Tony Blair’s London townhouse and installing a stained glass window depicting Blair as a saint. Goals.  #voxpopinspiration. After a brief chat and a compliment on Dora’s earrings that read ‘TRUST NO BITCH’, Billy bounds over, beer in each hand. The earrings are really wringing true right now – where’s my beer? Dora asks accusingly. “Laurie said no more,” he explains sheepishly. Snakes don’t hiss etc. “Oh well, at least I got a compliment on the earrings”, Dora ponders.”

‘Scaffolding’ is anchored by Michael Dean’s ‘LL (Working Title)’,  a duo of lamp post-esque poles, buckling flaccid under the weight of their own conceptualism. It adds a top heavy weight to the room, affording the rest of the works in the show the energetic illusion of holding up the ceiling of the gallery. The mark of good curation is not only establishing relationships between works, but theatrically altering the atmosphere of the room, Billy muses. 

As gallery-goers spilled out onto the streets, the gaggle headed over the road to Three Colts Tavern for the afterparty. Dora, who was one ‘third-wheeling-a-conversation’ away from heading home, decided that, when push comes to shove, her FOMO did outweigh her social anxiety. After a few rounds free pizza and making aggressive ‘fuck me’ eyes at people’s vapes, she decides to call it a night and heads home to nurse the *now aggravated* cold. Billy performs a dramatic french exit and scurries off to fraternise with the enemy in Camden for the Toe Rag’s Spring Issue launch.

As this is a Valentines Special, we are indebted to remind you that we, Dora DB and Billy P, are in fact, completely and utterly single.. I know… It might be shocking to hear. So go on, make a dream come true this Valentines – you know where our instagrams are 😉 xx

Dora DB and Billy Parker signing off xoxo. Until next Thursday…💋💫💗