The Ned Wood Archive

Stayed up until the early hours talking shite
A piano in the corner and an Irish drum
Had ourselves a proper little sing along

Beans on Toast, 2025

Ellie

They’re having a lie in. All of them. It’s Sunday and if you can’t sleep in on a Sunday, when can you sleep in? Ellie’s asleep. Phoebe’s asleep. Abi could sleep for England. And Lauren. It’s Glastonbury and if you can’t sleep in at Glastonbury, when can you sleep in? Especially after last night. Obviously. But what goes on in Shangri-La, stays in Shangri-La. And if you can’t sleep in after Shangri-La, when can you sleep in?

Ellie’s having these weird dreams. She’s in these underground caves, except, they’re not slimy and damp, they’re bright and breezy. They’re like a treasure trove of nooks and crannies and sights and sounds. And she’s being shown around by this tall blonde dude who’s dressed in a skimpy, very skimpy, red swimming cossie. He’s got red devil horns on his head and he’s carrying, not a trident, but a massive big fairy wand. She recognises him as one of the blokes from NY Downlow cos they went to Shangri-La last night and the blokes outside NY Downlow were sort of chatting her up as she went past and generally taking an interest in her. And Abi said maybe that was because she looked a bit like a schoolboy with her short, parted hair.

Maybe that’s what attracted Paul at Uni that first day. Maybe Joe too. But, no, she definitely knows that he’s straight. Like what Abi said, you don’t get gay boys with long hair and beards like that. Yeah, no. But there’s like that bloke in that TV show about gay boys doing fix up for straight people. I dunno. Anyway, she knows that Joe’s not gay.

She gets these insights when she’s dreaming. And these great ideas. And she never remembers them. Or if she does, they turn out to be not such great ideas when she wakes up, after all. She’s heard of this Italian book where this bloke gets taken round hell by some guide. And it’s like some department store and there’s something different on each floor. Except with hell, the floors go down into the ground not up. So this red devil dude is showing her round Shangri-La which is supposed to be like hell. Except it’s only hell for the made up sins. Not for real sinners like murderers or thieves or rapists or masters of war. Those sort don’t get to go to Shangri-La. Her guide tells her that archangel Michael filters out the real sinners before they get anywhere near here. This place is reserved for those sins that aren’t really sins. The stuff the church makes up because they don’t like seeing people having fun. Stuff like lust or gluttony or pride. There’s a lot of pride down here. It seems like everyone here is L or G or B or T or Q or I or A or some combination of the above. There’s probably some fornication going on too and definitely some illegal smiling.

They used to call it Heaven and Hell, didn’t they? Shangri-La. Ellie can remember the first time she came and there was this place selling banana splits and they were heavenly. That’s the only word for them. She’d love to throw a party and invite everyone and serve them those banana splits.

So in her dream, she’s visiting different places in Shangri-La except that they are all underground. And she realises that’s because she’s only ever been to Shangri-La when it’s dark. They go inside this overgrown temple full of ancient gods inside the jungle. They visit tents and halls and bars. They hang out in gambling dens. They walk through a psychedelic tube train. There’s even a magical wood to stroll in and out of. And when they get to the exit, there’s this pair of blokes wearing black suits like from that Will Smith alien film where they zap you with their pens or something and then …

Then she wakes up. She tries to remember the bits of her dream, grasping for the memories like she’s trying to catch dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. They all float out of her grasp, except when the wind changes and one blows in her face and sticks to her nose. She’s near the stage where they have those trees with white ribbons for leaves. Underneath one of them is Joe. She approaches. She can see that he’s got a bowl of something in each hand. As she gets nearer, he smiles, reaches out, and presents her with a massive banana split.