haonowshaokao

That was a really good weekend, then. And a long one. I’m not entirely physically wrecked too, which meant I was able to get back to Worcester without any physical pain. A long sleep is in order now, though.
I spent Saturday daytime getting my London shopping out of the way, hauling some green trousers, a world-to-world plug adaptor, ‘The Prisoner’ on DVD and, uh, Viz. Then I went over to Blackfriars to check out the millennium bridge and the Tate Modern. I’d missed out on seeing both before due to being in Prague and thought I’d better get some tourist stuff in. Both looked great, though the selection of art at the Tate was a little disappointing. The only things I really liked were some of the video installations and optical illusion art. I don’t get Cy Twombly at all.
London seemed to have changed a fair bit since I last looked around, generally in a positive direction. The new buildings are bold without being cold, the underground cleaner and easier, strangers talk to each-other occasionally and there are swarms of rickshaws everywhere.
But anyway, I found Jamie at 8 after a fair bit of telephonic difficulty. He’s down in New Cross now, which seems like a fairly cool area. We met up with Jackie and all talked about Scumhampton stuff for a while, then I went along with Jamie and a couple of other people to the Mean Fiddler. There was a fair bit of queuing, alleviated mainly by Jamie having a go at the filth for eating subway instead of working, but we got in on the sweet again, so all was well.
The Long Blondes were playing at the start. Pretty good too. And not unattractive. I had a few more beers, danced a bit. It all goes a bit hazy at this point until we left at 4am to hand out flyers to R&B clubbers, buy (or steal) sandwiches and get the night bus back to New Cross. There was some guy sleeping on Jamie’s sofa so I had to kip on the floor. But it was alright.
Then today we went for some Sunday roast at their local with Jackie and her housemate. The place was very odd but very good, the food very nice but not odd. The jazz-improvisational hammond organ playing blind man in the corner was just the cherry on the cake. Bumped into Kelly from Southampton too, she seems very sensible now.
And now back to Worcester again, for the last time.

So, I got down to London yesterday on the unbelievably expensive train, sitting next to a very attractive Indian girl, listening to all the old 7″ singles I ripped to MP3. That didn’t take long, so I had free time to go to Camden and find out how rubbish it has got lately. I suspect it was always full of goths and oregano dealers but I was previously too impressed by the novelty T-shirts to notice. All I wanted was a pair of non-skateboarder jeans, but after an hour I gave up and turned up at Dennis’s shop for the in-store gig they were having. The band were a bit boring really, usual strummy acoustic indie nonsense, but on the upside I got some beers.
Dennis is pretty well set up down here with a cool flat, sweet job and various connections. We were supposed to meet up with Jamie too but it was too much of a trek in the end and we went out to The Good Mixer instead. The place was surrounded by London Types, though I was unable to spot Graham Coxon or any members of Menswe@r. Dennis bumped into his ex who he doesn’t seem to be on the best terms with, then we went on to the Barfly. We tried our luck at getting in on the guestlist, but Dennis’s name wasn’t down so we got some beers from the corner shop, drank them, rearranged our hair and clothes and turned up at the club again and said “Simon Singleton, on the guestlist.” They laughed at us, shrugged, stamped our hands and let us in.
The club wasn’t bad, danced, talked to ladies, all the usual. Now I’m running out of internet time so must fly.