Tubthumping, by Tom Andes
C ertain people, Healy knew, had no sense of irony. They couldn’t see themselves in the lyrics of a song, not even when the song was about blokes like them, not even when they were being made fun of, and that was Stanhope all over, bobbing his head, singing off-key at the top of his lungs to Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping” where they sat at a beer-sticky table in the back of their local, the Spotted Cow in Littlehampton. “He drinks a lager drink,” Stanhope sang, “he drinks a cider drink,” and he grinned, showing the gap between his front teeth, the guy two-fisting a pint of Stella Artois and one of Strongbow. Why couldn’t he see that he was being made fun of, the song about regular lads like Stanhope, lager louts in their football jerseys and trainers out on the piss on a Saturday night? He was also Healy’s best friend, his pill and hash connection, and just at the moment, they were waiting for Stanhope’s supplier, a white South African named Colin who lived on a council estate in East Lon...