London (Part One)

Where: London, UK

Date: Sunday January 11th 2009

5:20pm: Arrive at London Euston. I'm attending a cyberbullying conference on Monday morning so have been booked into the hotel so I can be there fro the 9am start. Have an evening in London to myself so have arranged to meet a friend who is coming down from Southend for a few drinks in the Capital.

6:00pm: Booked in and settled at the Hotel, due to meet Brendon in half an hour outside Piccadilly Circus Underground. have a shower and stick some clothes on. You have to do this to prevent being arrested for indecent exposure.

6:30pm: Meet Brendan and walk to the Trocadero for a couple of pints. Have a catchup.

7:45pm: Get peckish so decide to look for some food. Find a Chinese restaurant and grab some all you can eat.

8:30pm: Fed and ready for more beer we take a walk into Leicester Square. Its a bit quiet. Where the hell are all the people? This IS the UK capital... it should be thriving.

8:25pm: Find a Walkabout bar and go in for more beers. Spend time chatting to some foreigners. They have no idea what we are saying. Its okay though cause we have no idea what they are saying either.

9:20pm: Decide we need a change of scenery and people we can understand and go in search of another bar. Walk through Soho. The place is dead.

9:45pm: Still can't find any decent venue to drink in. Walk down a street towards Leicester Square again. We stop by a fella who seems to be looking for someone. I ask him where all the nightlife is.

9:46pm: We are walking up a backstreet in Soho with a large black man. We have to. He told us to "follow me!" after we asked him where the London nightlife was.

9:47pm: Brendan and myself follow the guy up some stairs and are herded into a small flat. The door closes behind us leaving myself, Brendon and a 6 foot 3 tall lady in just her underwear in front of us who welcomes us with a smile and a 'hello'. The big black fella has disappeared.

"It shall be 30pounds for 10minutes, and 60pounds for the hour" says the giant, clearly eastern European lady in front of us. Me and Brendan look at each other with faces that clearly say 'this isn't a bar' followed with eye movements that say 'how the fuck do we get out of this one?"

9:48pm: The eastern European lady stands watching us smiling waiting for us to talk. I look at Brendan. He looks at me. We need to get out of here but how? An idea hits me....

"What time you open til?" i ask.

I didn't say it was a good idea, and Brendan's face says the same thing as he stares at me. I have just treated a scantly clad lady like a local Tesco Express. The glare soon disappears though when, unfazed, she replies "usually around here until 5am".

Brendan soon realises we have an out and joins in "right...well...i think we may possibly just go and have a few more pints before the pub shuts then come back in a bit if that's okay?"

We SHALL get out of here.

"That's fine" says the EEL (Eastern European Lady) "but you make sure you give no monies to the man outside. Only ever give monies to me okay?"

"Okay" we say simultaneously eager to leave the awkward situation in which we found ourselves. Although we panic when we realise there is a big fella waiting for us on the other side of the door.

9:49pm: We are about to leave when a little old lady with a hunchback and a red cardigan wanders in from behind a curtain leading to what appears to be a kitchen. Without a word she passes between ourselves and the EEL goes to a DVD player. Changes the disk and returns into the kitchen.

9:4........: "Would you like a cup of tea" says the little old lady who has returned almost immediately into the room. Gobsmacked myself and Brendan can do little except shake our heads as she smiles and returns behind the curtain.

9:50pm: We lie to the EEL and tell her we shall see her later. We exit the room and are met with a big fella who we haven't seen for 3 whole minutes. "What happened?" he asks. "we thought we'd have a few beers first" we lie.

9:51pm: "Follow me!".............

Tequila, it makes me..... beuuuggghhhhh!

I don't drink much despite what these stories may suggest. It's just that when i DO drink... stuff tends to happen. The same isn't true when I drink tequila. Very little happens after i drink tequila. Very little at all.

Let me explain.

When I was a student living on good old Dale Street in Lancaster I had a job. A job that allowed me to continue to attend uni and live on Dale Street. This job was at an after-school and holiday club forcing children to play dodgeball and make plasticine animals. And because I was one of only two males, when it got to Christmas time and the annual kids party, someone had to be Father Christmas. That somebody in 2001 was me (mainly because the other male who worked there was the boss).

This particular kids party was to be on the Saturday a week before Christmas. Everything was planned, presents wrapped and Santa suit sorted out. All it needed was for the day to arrive.... unfortunately for me that day never existed.

Now, as well as attending uni and holding down a job i was also Publicity Officer in the Students' Union. This involved largely trying to convince people to buy tickets to events so that I could attend them for free. One particular event in question was the Christmas Ball which, incidentally this particular year, happened to fall the day before my Santa duties. 

A word of advice. If you know that you have an important engagement the day after a planned night out. Don't drink too much. even if the important engagement happens to be at 5pm the following day. I went to the ball with every intention of following this advice. Not too many drinks. Easier said then done of course.  I started off pretty well. By 1:30am I was still pretty sober and was enjoying a good old dance. It was about this time however some bright spark had the idea of buying a couple of tequila slammers. 

I had heard about tequila but had never actually drunk it before in my life. But as i stood at the bar with a thumb covered in salt, a slice of lemon and a tiny glass of golden liquid i thought to myself "what's the worse that could happen?, It's tiny!" (which is incidentally what my first girlfriend said to me the first time she say me naked).

So i went for it. And as i threw that golden poison down my gullet I knew right then that I had made a mistake. A realisation that was backed up with the fact another glass of the stuff had appeared in front of me....

....fast forward to my eyes opening in a dark room in Dale Street.

The clock read 17:10 and I felt awful. My mouth tasted like someone had done their washing up in it and my head ached. Even in the dark room. I knew I was late. I had to get up. i had to get dressed and I had to run. So that's what i did. I threw a gallon of mouth wash down my throat, had a quick wash. Threw on some clothes and ran...ran like the wind.... to the taxi that was waiting for me outside cause i was far too lazy to run across Lancaster.

I arrived at the kids club at 17:30. The place was locked up. Deserted. I was stood there in the middle of Lancaster on a Saturday evening in the dark, alone and confused. I took my mobile out to find out what had gone wrong. My screen told me i had 8 missed calls and 15 text messages. It also told me something even more important....

.....it was Sunday.

I did eventually get to play Father Christmas. But that's a story for another time.