Another day for Yule and me in Purgatory...

Just about recovered now from another typical Christmas day...

8.30am - wake up after two hours sleep, having been dancing (read: drunkenly lurching) in a little back-street Indian club throughout the night. I've been there a few times, showing some of our visitors the other side of Purgatory, and the boss there loves it when I show up. So do most of the crowd, especially when the DJ takes the piss and throws on "Play that funky music white boy" as one of my barely upright members of staff attempts to mimic very Indian dance moves.

9am - set up breakfast for those of our visitors who can make it downstairs. Very few do. Bossman and I raid the alcohol store for booze to take to his barbecue later on. We have gentle choir-sung Christmas carols playing, in contrast to the red hot sun outside and the Indian community of this area of town going about their usual business.

10am - take my favourite shoes to be fixed by a little Chinese chappie who sets up a stall outside the local wet-market. I casually wonder if he gets the leather for his repairs from the same place as the stalls inside get the meat that they sell. It would, after all, make sense. Then I head back, take a shower, and change into less sweaty clothes.

11am - speak to brother, sister and cousin, all currently in Oz. Quite possibly the first time sis and I have spoken since last Christmas. But that's for another post... she seems jovial, pleased to talk to me even. Bro and cuz sound slightly drunk already. Kind of runs in the family, I think to myself as I sip on the first vodka of the day.

Noon - Bossman and I escort some of our visitors to the wet market. He has invited those that wish to join us and the staff at his place for the barbecue, which is a nice gesture. At the wet market we pick up huge amounts of rump steak for the equivalent of 5 pounds sterling for a kilo. It's good meat too... I collect my shoes and the heavens finally open. It is the rainy season here after all. Bossman and I leave the visitors there and brave the weather to get his van, drive back to pick the visitors up, and head north. Lack of room results in one of the female visitors sitting on my lap in the front - I don't know which of us is more embarrassed by Bossmans suggestive comments.

1pm - we have arrived and set up everything. Bossman gives out instructions to everyone that give away his old-fashioned world-views - lads stocking the beers and sorting the barbecue, lasses making the salads. I end up doing the salad anyway, which is fine by me. We crack open some cans and sit back in the sunshine - the rain has kindly avoided this end of Purgatory. The atmosphere is relaxed and peaceful, one of the few residential areas that has a rural feel. It's nice to be out of the city.

2pm 'til 7pm - steak, beer, vodka... repeat ad infinitum. I speak to Ma and assorted other family members in the UK, although the line is bad and we don't really understand each other. The lads work up their appetite some more by kicking about a football (Australian variety, not UK or US). The Aussies are all about a head taller than me so I rarely get the ball, but when I do they are impressed with my kick. I learn quickly that as long as you keep your eye on the ball you can do just about anything to your opponent and I make my presence felt... Eventually I shower and change into another set of clothes, noting that the sun had indeed been strong and I now have very prominent tan-lines around where my wife-beater vest-top had been. Now in my smart jeans, favourite shoes, nice shirt and new cufflinks (a Christmas pressie - they had belonged to my Grandfather) I head back into the city with one of our staff, Junior.

7pm 'til 11pm - plastic Irish pub (same one as last year) to meet Cocoa, his sister Emerald and their mum. Cocoa is shit-faced and has had an argument with his girlfriend Kitty and Emerald and their mum are heading off for food, leaving him in our care. I don't much like this bar, but we bump into a few friends and it's generally a good time, although Cocoa is behaving like a twat. Eventually I get fed up and Junior and I head to the sleazy building next door - it's full of hookers but I know of the one bar where they are not allowed to solicit and it's actually a nice, relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. We intend to go home after one (it's been a long day) but I get a message from Crewcut, one of our other staff members, telling me he has sent the visitors down to meet us... Crewcut has an obsession with this building. It's going to be one of those nights.

11pm 'til 2am - We meet the visitors. Junior sensibly disappears, leaving me with a group that includes a couple of fresh-faced young girls who have no idea what this place holds. The non-hooker bar has now closed so, at the insistence of one of the male visitore, we head to one of the other bars. This one happens to be full of transsexual prostitutes. To their credit the girls find this quite amusing. One of the lads looks visibly terrified, but the others take it in their stride. One even buys one of the hookers a drink - a bad idea as she now thinks she's on to a score. The girls ask me if they are the only 'real' women in there, to which I point out a table across from us. How do I know they are women, I am asked. 3 reasons: They do not have perfect bodies, so they have therefore not paid for them; They are wearing baggy clothing, not designed to show off their figures; They are with some lads who are probably their boyfriends or husbands and they are very obviously pissed off at being in a bar filled with men who have better figures than they do. Eventually we move next door to a bar where the women are women, even if they are still hookers. At least this bar has a decent band.

2am - I am tired and not really in the mood for this place. Thankfully Crewcut has now arrived. It's his bed, so he can do whatever he wants in it.... I'm heading off to sleep. As I leave a building notorious for it's ladies-of-pleasure a shifty Chinese guy sidles up to me - "You wanna girl?" he says. I raise my voice, loudly pointing out that if I wanted a girl wouldn't I be leaving with one already, telling him I should get the cops, demanding why he should assume that I am after a girl. Is it cos I is white? He shifts off sharpish and I get a little round of applause from some drunk girls across the street. I feel no guilt at having publicly berated this man. When someone stands outside a four-storey self-contained red-light district offering girls you know that the operative word really is "girl". If they ain't inside the building it's because they ain't old enough to be. And regardless of opinions of prostitution in general (a grey area, in my opinion) what this guy was doing disgusts me.

Christmas in Purgatory. It's not greetings-card perfect but I think that's why I like it. No bullshit saccharine - you can have a nice time with your friends but it's still real. And the next day? It's just another working day...