Dance & Drink & Screw

Lying on Regent's Park's grass, right by the main passage that leads through the flower gardens in the south east corner. Red, orange, white and wine-coloured tulips surround us, their mouths gaping at the sky. Magpies sing from the trees, hop on the fresh grass and disappear into the perfectly trimmed hedges. Families, couples, tourists and groups of young people stroll by in sweet harmony.

Before we found this spot, we walked past a woman sitting by a flower bed, by herself, writing what appeared to be a poem into an A4 notebook. I couldn't see her face, hidden as it was underneath a white hat. Her feet were bare.

Most of the benches are taken up, though it looks like people prefer to walk or lie on the grass. We certainly prefer to be on the horizontal. Kevin brough with him London The Biography and he's now reading the chapter on the city becoming a megalopolis. Ricardo, Lila and Helena (brasilian friends we ran into on the canal, near Camden) are taking naps.

A tree rising from the hedges to my left has a few droopy white flowers hiding behind its dark green leaves. I can hear a bird sing loundly from its branches, but I can't find it; it must be tiny. Other birds respond in kind from nearby trees.

I don't mind getting these jeans dirty with mud and crushed grass; it still smells from the curry I had on Thursday at New Tayyab. Washing load this weekend.

Passou um grupo de jovems brasileiros, com cara de paulistas.

Some people sit by themselves on the benches, eating pre-packaged sandwiches or simply watching life go by. The sun has turned us all into lazy lizards. The tulip flower beds are a constant source of tourist photographs (guilty as charged, with my Holga and my automatic Olympus.) I have no clue what time it is. Maybe it's 3pm.

It's snowing in London. I only had three hours of sleep last night. I woke up at 7 to grey light pouring into the bedroom and snow flakes hitting the window. Looked outside and saw the city disappearing under a heavy flurry. My first thoughts were for the flowers that bloomed, the creatures that came out of their hibernation this past sunny week, getting covered with snow flakes. How hippie am I? When the flurry subsided a little, about two hours ago, a small pterodactyl flew past my living room window towards Victoria Park.

I only had three hours of sleep because I drank a lot yesterday and ate a large hamburger at 2 in the morning which didn't agree with my stomach (I'd been a fishetarian for the past two weeks.) The hamburger was consumed at Balans, on Old Compton Street, a queer establishment I had not visited before (I always thought it was a bit over my budget every time I walked past it, and it turns out I was right - but they do have damn good food!) Two crazy ladies accompanied me: one who has a long history with the restaurant; another who simulated a loud orgasm that got the nearby tables giggling when I slid her engagement ring back on her finger. The touchy-feely gay waiter had his bum pinched, wine got drunk and we may have run away from a cab driver without paying the fare.

Yesterday started out as such a nice and calm day; I couldn't have guessed that the dark storms were drawing in and my friends would be as wild as them. Two friends had come down from York for the weekend. I showed them my neighbourhood - including Mile End Park's Ecology Centre - before we met with another friend (the one who knows Balans well) for a visit to Tower Hamlets' cemetery. The day started sunny but by noon it was clear that things were going to get progressively worse (I suppose leading up to today's snow flurries). We decided to skip the cemetery for a walk across soggy Victoria Park and some posh fish & chips. Our friends from York then drove us to Camden to the sound of Siouxsie Sioux. We found a parking spot near the market and were shocked to discover every single table in Bar 55 reserved for the happy hour (oh unhappy lack of foresight! But how were we supposed to know the place would grow popular after Camden's fire?) That didn't stop us taking tables, then moving to other tables when réservées arrived and kicked us off.

Friends began to arrive at Bar 55 and the place got progressively full of 12-year-olds (no, seriously) and louder. One of our friends got accidentally covered in a sugary drink and spent the rest of the night wiping her black leather bag and dipping her hair into glasses of water. Later, at another pub, she also had her breasts fondled by another female (the one who later would reach orgasm in my hands). Men looked jealously at my harem collection, and more than three women asked me how many times I'd slept with girls and why had I given it up (I've got horrible straight man shoes so I'm obviously in denial about my heterosexuality.) Before we arrived at the night's final pub, where a birthday party was taking place (which we crashed), we had a brief stop at the Ice Wharf, which was filled with orange people from Essex. Strawberry beer was drunk. People then started buying me beer (thank you again!) and conversation disintegrated into TMI, silliness, gossip, innuendo, surreality and banality. Women sat on my lap, men treated me like shit (one even threatened to kill me in Soho, but I think he was high on something), and everyone felt the need to confide secrets in me (the kind of shocking secrets that could send ripples through London's Goth Scene). I'd like to take this opportunity to say that your secrets are safe with me. Yes, I do love gossip; but I'm not a gossip. Do you get the difference? I'm a collector of gossip, a gatherer of information. I'm that character in an Agatha Christie novel that eventually gets murdered for knowing too much. It will be up to the detective in you to unravel the secrets I take with me to the grave.

After my apartment's flooding on Friday, I thought it would be a nice, relaxing change to meet friends for drinks on Saturday night. In Camden. Most people, including the birthday-celebrators, were already sitting down with their cocktails when I arrived at 55 Bar. It was happy hour and the men behind the counter had beautiful arms and the kind of costumer service only seen in the U.S. of A.

We are sitting in the reserved corner, sipping away our fruity sobriety, under a barrage of classic rock, when someone returns from the outside hyperventilating: "there's a massive fire in Camden market. If you haven't seen it, go outside. The air is covered in smoke and people are being evacuated." One of the bartenders, who looks like the younger, fit brother of Paul Giamatti, starts a rumour that a junkie dropped a cigarette in a pile of newspaper (later, when we leave the bar, I'll catch him telling the bouncer that a freight train carrying oil collided with something just as it was going past Camden market.) As kixie said, a train goes through Camden market?!? And as moral_vacuum said, there goes London's supply of cheap PVC trousers.

For the rest of the night, we updated each other on the fire, showing the images we captured on our mobile phones, notifying family and friends that we were alive, and generally continuing our drinking as if we'd only leave the bar if forced by riot police. I didn't have my mobile phone on me, so I couldn't notify Kevin or anyone else that I was alive (Kevin, at that hour, was staying over his sister's and completely oblivious to my damsel-in-not-much-distress status.)

Other than this major event in London's history, I met some nice people, and had a good time with the old timers I always see in these gatherings. Some unfortunately left too early, leaving me in hope we'll have a better catch up next time around. Others didn't speak to me until the end of the night; they better make it up next time by lavishing me with plenty of attention. And drinks.

My most surreal memory of the night is standing by Camden Town tube station, police cars everywhere, streets deserted and cordonned off, a girl sobbing hysterically into her boyfriend's shoulder, TV cameras pointed at perky journalists (surrounded by your typical rubberneckers), and teqkiller and I, leaning against a police barrier, sharing hand moisturizer SPF 45.

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking at the bar. Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart. You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it. You start to freeze as a Scrabble board is set before your eyes -- you're paralyzed!

[Chorus]
Cause this is Scrabble, Scrabble night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it's Scrabble, Scrabble night
You're fighting for some points against a shark player tonight

You hear the letters slam and realize there's nowhere left to run. You see the pro hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun. You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination; but all the while you hear the creature counting points at your side. You're out of time!

Cause this is Scrabble, Scrabble night
There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty Ys
You know it's Scrabble, Scrabble night
Your'e fighting for your life beside a Scrabble Master tonight

Quinn's. Night creatures call; and the pale start to walk in their masquerade. There's no escaping the jaws of the pro-player this time (they're open wide). This is the end of your life.

They're out to get you, there are demons closing in on every side. They will possess you unless you get a better word than "hi". Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together. All through the night I'll save you from the goths at your table. I'll make you see:

That this is Scrabble, Scrabble night
cause I hoped to spell more than any goth would dare to try
Girl, this is Scrabble, Scrabble night
So let me hold you tight and share a chiller Scrabble game here tonight

(rap performed by Vincent Price)
Darkness falls across the land
The midnite hour is close at hand
Goths crawl in search of blood
To terrorize yawls neighbourhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the letter to be put down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand beers
And grizzy ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the... Scrabble night!

Mwahahahahahah! Mwahahahahaha!