Lamp Bassett, the evolution of 'weedspeak'

Image: Joys of summer

Lamp Bassett

Down in the cellar room, Mon and Badger are heads down at their desks, working on the teeth. It’s Monday morning after yet another heavy weekend of beer and Bassett, lunchtime looming large, come the time and Mon makes the first step out of his ‘miserable’ period, recovery from a heavy session takes the shape of resentful grunting at anyone inconsiderate enough to try to make conversation requiring verbal responses. But at lunchtime, a flick of the desk lamp switch signifies to Badger that it’s Bassett time; the unspoken understanding swings into operation as they tidy their precision dentistry tools away, climb up out of their dungeon and head for Badgers top floor flat just around the corner.

A fat cup of Rosy on the brew, and Mon assembles the Bassett, then chill in the bean bags or Buddha up on the grass mats, smoke the Bassett and drink the tea. This is the moment they begin returning to the real world, and quickly step on that moment, suffocating it with weed. No longer suffering from the weekend’s excesses, but smoked into a hazy oblivion designed to assist them through the rest of the first day back. Before returning to their work cellar, out with the eye drops, and a liberal dosage to get rid of the tell tale blood shot mincers before facing the boss. Bassett, as we all know, comes from the cartoon character Bertie Bassett, Bertie being short for Herbert, as in Herb, smoke the herb, smoke the Bassett. Add the ‘lamp’ signifier to the situation and we have Lamp Bassett, or Skin up. Just one of many shorthand languages that us weed freaks employ to cloak our conversations from the uninitiated.

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When I left school, 1979