Three in the morning, in the deadspace of a bus station forecourt in Oxford. I'd just missed the bus, and at that time they are only once an hour, so I stood around in the cold clear night blowing glold tinted bubbles against a dark sky. Out of cigarettes and no where to buy more. too dark to read. A middle-aged clan of drunks were singing the first verse of Oasis' 'Champagne Supernova' again and again and again, looping back to the start each time they forgot the words. It was never a song I liked. Hearing it time and time over only grates on my nerves, jangling an early hangover into existence. One guy is holding court to all the others, waving his hands, conducting the cacophony, bowing to the huddles of people waiting to vanish back to the small towns, all dressed up in finery for a night on the town (Saturday night disco snoggers who would have to creep back home past parents' mutterings of 'what time do you call this, then?'.
He walks out into the empty bus bays and yells, 'Who's the bestest man in all of this world?'
He waits, getting only blank stares in response.
'Who's the bestest man in all of this bus station?'
There is an awkward chattering amongst the huddle.
''Who's the bestest man in all of this world? Me! And what's the bestest song ever, in all of the world?'
By now, they should have figured out the answer.
He's getting beligerent now, 'Eh? Eh? Answer me! What's the bestest song ever, in all of the world? The very bestest song. Ever. In all the world. Eh? Champagne Supernova. OASIS, you fuckers. OASIS!'
And he starts to sing yet again.
This cycled round, six, seven times without variation, before my bus came and I nested in a dark corner, the prickly seats scritching my skin, and I dozed all they way back to London, with that damned song eating my brain.