Easter weekend - going out and staying in
After having done not very much in months, we had a colossally busy weekend.
On Friday night we pretended to be young again and went to a nightclub for the first time in... I can't actually remember how long, but most likely about a decade, and possibly longer. Of course, there's nothing to say that when you hit 25 you have to stop going out to clubs, but that's just what happened. For me, it was a case of having to stop because of smoke allergy, and then not getting round to going again when the smoking ban came in.
It was Voodoo Rock Night at Elektrowerkz (otherwise known as the Islington Metal Works, or the place where Slimelight's been for the past N years), and it was pretty good. The venue was vaguely wheelchair accessible, in that the ground floor is fully accessible as long as you have your own personal carer/bouncer to get you through crowds, but the upstairs isn't at all. Fortunately, the ground floor room was playing Punk, Pop-Punk, and Emo, which is more the sort of music I want to hear than Metal Remixes and Dubstep (?!). I heard a Blink-182 cover band called Bling-182 who weren't bad, and a Green Day cover band called Dookie who were actively good, then avoided the Prodigy cover band because I don't like the Prodigy at the best of times. More people fell over me than I could count, even though I positioned myself carefully at the back of the room - and only 4 of them apologised!
We carefully worked out that if we stayed until 4 am, we could Avoid Night Buses and simply Get The First Train home. I highly recommend this. Of course, we had to get a bus back to Trafalgar Square, but from there we walked to Waterloo and then got the train as usual. Far more civilised than the hour and a half that the night bus takes to wind its way back to Kingston. This only works on Friday nights, since the first train on Saturday morning is 05:12 whereas the first train on Sunday morning is after 7 am, but it's still worth noting.
We then slept all of Saturday and went out with Tim & Peter in the evening to celebrate Tim's birthday. I believe he was 25* this year. I suppose by the same logic I will also be 25 in June and can simply carry on clubbing like I used to, if I can find the energy. What I really need is to be able to persuade/pay one or more of my friends who like vaguely similar music as me to come and do the bouncer-ing so that Richard can enjoy himself without having to Be My Carer, since he does enough of that already.
* = hexadecimal
On Sunday I mostly played Skyrim, and then on Monday we went to Poole to see Richard's dad, stepmum, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. This necessitated far longer on trains than should reasonably be required considering the distance, but all of the Special Assistance actually happened!! I am thinking of writing to South West Trains to congratulate them, because it's the first time in bloody ages that I've booked assistance and all of it has materialised as expected. Possibly because I emphasised really hard that I was concerned about whether the lifts at Surbiton would be working, and the fact I'd be changing at Woking around 11 pm when the staff tend to change shift.
Yesterday all I did was go to the doctor to get my vitamin B12 injection. Today^ I am on a train up to Glasgow. Tomorrow we are going to see the Wildhearts supported by Eureka Machines. It's the 20th anniversary of Earth Vs the Wildhearts, if anyone else wants to feel positively antique. They're only doing four dates, none of them in London, which is why we're going to Glasgow to see them.
^ = written on the train on 2013-04-03
On Friday night we pretended to be young again and went to a nightclub for the first time in... I can't actually remember how long, but most likely about a decade, and possibly longer. Of course, there's nothing to say that when you hit 25 you have to stop going out to clubs, but that's just what happened. For me, it was a case of having to stop because of smoke allergy, and then not getting round to going again when the smoking ban came in.
It was Voodoo Rock Night at Elektrowerkz (otherwise known as the Islington Metal Works, or the place where Slimelight's been for the past N years), and it was pretty good. The venue was vaguely wheelchair accessible, in that the ground floor is fully accessible as long as you have your own personal carer/bouncer to get you through crowds, but the upstairs isn't at all. Fortunately, the ground floor room was playing Punk, Pop-Punk, and Emo, which is more the sort of music I want to hear than Metal Remixes and Dubstep (?!). I heard a Blink-182 cover band called Bling-182 who weren't bad, and a Green Day cover band called Dookie who were actively good, then avoided the Prodigy cover band because I don't like the Prodigy at the best of times. More people fell over me than I could count, even though I positioned myself carefully at the back of the room - and only 4 of them apologised!
We carefully worked out that if we stayed until 4 am, we could Avoid Night Buses and simply Get The First Train home. I highly recommend this. Of course, we had to get a bus back to Trafalgar Square, but from there we walked to Waterloo and then got the train as usual. Far more civilised than the hour and a half that the night bus takes to wind its way back to Kingston. This only works on Friday nights, since the first train on Saturday morning is 05:12 whereas the first train on Sunday morning is after 7 am, but it's still worth noting.
We then slept all of Saturday and went out with Tim & Peter in the evening to celebrate Tim's birthday. I believe he was 25* this year. I suppose by the same logic I will also be 25 in June and can simply carry on clubbing like I used to, if I can find the energy. What I really need is to be able to persuade/pay one or more of my friends who like vaguely similar music as me to come and do the bouncer-ing so that Richard can enjoy himself without having to Be My Carer, since he does enough of that already.
* = hexadecimal
On Sunday I mostly played Skyrim, and then on Monday we went to Poole to see Richard's dad, stepmum, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. This necessitated far longer on trains than should reasonably be required considering the distance, but all of the Special Assistance actually happened!! I am thinking of writing to South West Trains to congratulate them, because it's the first time in bloody ages that I've booked assistance and all of it has materialised as expected. Possibly because I emphasised really hard that I was concerned about whether the lifts at Surbiton would be working, and the fact I'd be changing at Woking around 11 pm when the staff tend to change shift.
Yesterday all I did was go to the doctor to get my vitamin B12 injection. Today^ I am on a train up to Glasgow. Tomorrow we are going to see the Wildhearts supported by Eureka Machines. It's the 20th anniversary of Earth Vs the Wildhearts, if anyone else wants to feel positively antique. They're only doing four dates, none of them in London, which is why we're going to Glasgow to see them.
^ = written on the train on 2013-04-03