The only light in the street that's always on is the one above Mike's Place.

Welcome to Mike's Place, the virtual bar that's just realised there's a basement. The refuge for raggedy reprobates, the sanctuary for sleepless soaks. It's morning and we find ourselves back at the bar after an evening wandering the mean streets of the Brick Town. It's ridiculously cold, every window is putting barred silver pools on the rugs and carpets of Mike's Place, and after all these years that kind of moonlight still makes us think of where number one is. Whether the moon is as silver that far away. Fucking hell, listen to this sorry old bastard. Before you start drinking elsewhere, let's go.

There's nothing like shitting blood in a railway station to get you ready for a magic night out. It's nearing the hour when the world goes to work and the beer's getting a little fucking sour on the tongue, but fuck it. There's nothing like a magic night out. Not that me and Pete remember. Ker-tish! With me toots? Pour a long one and we'll get started.

One day we're going to get closed down. This is not the disaster you might think. Some of our most jovial regulars hate it here sometimes. The food makes you fat and gives you cancer. The drinks make you fat and give you cancer. The cigarettes give you all the cancer in the fucking world. Pretty much everything is sometimes joyless, don't beat it up. There's places of beauty, patrolled by guys making a buck. There's romance, that squeezes between couples in cinemas and always forgets to bring flowers. Ah fuck. I don't want you rascals dead. You'd fill up my sweet indulgent hell, where we pillow our disillusionment on the scratched oak of an old bar and where the unit of currency is the favour owed. You get to keep the world, you moneymen, methodists and t-shirt seductionists. We fucking loathe hanging around. Fucking hell, sometimes the neon is barely visible in the distance. You wonder if we've been skinned and we're never going to get there. Rest easy, toots. Flights are still booking and Mike's Place is the waiting lunge.

Heroes and product endorsements for this week....
Trench for ensuring that there's no spelling mistabes ever, anywhere. For answering an old question wisely. Answer? 'No one's got a fucking clue about any of it!' Brett for decorating. The birds that start their morning rondelay at five- and you thought no-one heard your beautiful noise!

I'd roast the villains for you, but one of the barman's knuckles has been injured, so only the barman gets in there for failing in his advice-giving capacity. Trust me, squire, there was a time when this barman handed out the benefit of the doubt like complimentary fucking peanuts, but these days Pete, the Stepney Widegentleman leaves it up to you to prove you're not a cunt. A lot of you are not getting through to him, by the way.

When the world rolls into its pissy bed and the villains start fingering the things you value, you have to admit that the world is so gleefully cunty you have to laugh. People with personalities like anal haemorrhages are taking money you can't spare for a life you don't want. You can see possibilites, wandering like dust motes through sunlight, but you really want to draw the curtains on that shit, baby. It's like Delmore Schwartz says, kids- in dreams begin responsibilities.Know what? Things end, toots. They change. Your man says he loves you, cool. Don't get this barman wrong, he does. But you are not the woman he fell in love with, dig? You are not the blue chick whose chin he lifted in the bar. You are not the beer-draggled Fridaynight Tube passenger who asked him the way and was so amazingly pretty. This place isn't a fresh start or the coolest bar in town. It's just a bar. Not even a packed or nicely decorated bar. It's just somewhere to go after Monday morning, moving through the herd of wage-grazers, packed to the balls with slow trains and draughts that burgle your coat and huff out your matches. Friday night, though, and the Brick Town can seem like an 'amazing concept.'

Remember summers making eyes at the world? All gone, love. Remembered, aye. But memories are not souvenirs and they're not friends. They're shitty electric photographs glinting in the fug of the bar. There's a space, a rare space, when he don't give a shit even about you, toots. It's not a regular haunt, it's that moment of coming to realise that all he's going to leave you is a body and his reputation. If the former is getting some serious shape on and the latter's stopped being funny, it's time to change bars.

Fuck, there's lights on all over the place now. People are getting buses, getting wrenched out of the warmth of their beds. Should have stayed up late, guys. Cracked open a bottle.

It's fucking great now. The yawning world, revelling in its poisoned beauty like a tired, infected prostitute. It's getting more leavable around here, toots. Time to let go. Time not to care about deadlines apart from the bell. Fatty's going purple over money. Let's not give a shit once in a while.

We're going to hear from Debs now. Take the stage, love. Steady on your feet, aye? No, there's no step there, just shuffle forward if that's easier. Let me rustle up something with fruit and ice cubes in it for you.