Could you maybe help me with the beef here, I don’t know what kind of beef to buy.’ I’m standing in front of a large freezer at Lidl. Cue heterosexual female communication designer in blue and grey striped cardigan. ‘Pardon?’ ‘I’m supposed to buy beef for dinner, but they’ve got stewing beef and stir-fry beef, and I don’t know what kind I need to get.’ ‘Well, sorry, but I don’t actually know whether your mother needs stewing beef or stir-fry beef.’ ‘My mother’s dead. She’s been dead for ages.’ ‘And your father?’ ‘He’s one of those assertive left-wing wankers with an above-average income permanently doing stuff with art, living between the galleries and boutiques on August-strasse. Every day up to eleven prostitutes, hair wax and highlighter pens to colour in melancholy expressionist artworks he puts together out of black-and-white record covers. And then at night he and his gallery owner nail them to the wall on LSD. His life’s all about depressing music.
