Love, what's it good for eh? Fuck all, that's what. Human beings don't deserve love. Give it to them and all they do is abuse it. That's why I've given up on humanity. It's also why I decided to go speed hating at a night called Down With Dating. Think speed dating except you get to unload all your vitriol on someone you've just met. It sounded right up my street. To make it interesting, I invited producer Benga along for the ride.

I arrived at The Albion in Hammersmith already bubbling with hatred. To ease me into the whole affair and work up a suitable belligerence, I decided to get stinking drunk. I pounded beer after beer as I eyed up arriving participants. By the time we were ready to start I was wasted. It was at that point Benga walked in. I stumbled up to him to shake his hand. If you haven't already heard, Benga makes colon-rumbling dubstep. It sounds dark, seething and resentful, just like me.

The Rules

I explained the concept behind the night to him. "You've stitched me up," he said in disbelief. "Benga," I said putting my arm around his shoulder a little clumsily, "be cool. Just sit down and tell that bitch how much you hate her."

"I can't do that," he replied. "I've got nothing to hate. My life is beautiful." 

Oh Christ. How naïve! “Look Benga, I told these people you were up for some serious animosity. Just grab a drink and get ready to hate someone."

"It's written on my name tag you idiot!"

I realised I was slurring my speech so I downed another pint and before I knew it the whole thing started. There was a long line of tables pushed together, women on one side, men on the other. The room erupted in excited chatter. Swaying a little, I looked scornfully at the woman opposite me. "I hate goldfish," she told me. I was beginning to feel sick. "Goldfish!?" I bellowed. "For Christ sake!?"

Enraged, I tried to slap her in the head but missed spectacularly and spilled her drink all over the table. "My drink!" she shrieked. "You're an animal!" she sobbed, running away. Whatever.

Benga tries to get to grips with the concept of 'hate'.

I grabbed Benga and pulled him outside for a cigarette. "Do you know why I reckon you got me here?" he asked. "Cos I'm always surrounded by birds."

“A womaniser eh?”

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Tell me the most spectacular way you've dumped a girl."

"They all end the same," he replied. "I just tell them, ‘what do you think this is? It’s about sex.’"

"So what have you been telling them tonight?" I asked.

"I ask them, ‘do you love dick? Cos I got a lot to give.’"

Bravo Benga!

I stumbled back in just in time to catch Blind Hate. "It's just like Blind Date," said the announcer moronically. By this stage the hate (and the beer) had started to get to me. I couldn’t take it any more. Something snapped and I grabbed a beer bottle by the neck, smashed the bottom off and started jabbing it wildly in the air.

"You have an arm coming out of your head."

Apparently that sort of behaviour isn’t appropriate, even at a night of speed hating, and I was politely asked to calm down. Benga seemed to enjoy the whole experience however, and I think one of his friends might even have pulled. Which just goes to show that all-in-all speed hating is just thinly veiled speed dating. But hey, if (like me) the thought of dating makes you nauseous and yet you lie there alone in your bed every night, crying yourself to sleep (like me), then speed-hating could be the solution for you.

Benga’s album Diary Of An Afro Warrior, released on Tempa, is in stores now. Catch him at FWD for NYE alongside Skream, Digital Mystikz and others, and online at  www.myspace.com/bengabeats