Thursday, March 18
The Law Ball (And The Aftermath)
As I mentioned in another post (Finances?) last Friday (the 12th) I went to this year's Law Ball at the Savoy Hotel.
Yes, the Savoy Hotel. We're very posh, you see...
I'd arranged to go a mate's (Joe) house in the afternoon for a few beers and to get changed into my tuxedo. I didn't particularly fancy a 45-minute Tube journey, alone, in my tux, at rush hour into one of the busiest stations in London. Not that I don't mind being stared at: I love being the centre of attention.
We had a couple of beers at his place, got changed and went round to his girlfriend's to get them (her and her flatmate) and to take a few photos. A taxi (at flipping rush hour) took us to The Savoy, and we wandered on in.
Such grandeur! Such lavish scenery! Such sheer pomposity! I was made for this.
After a brief exploration (i.e. getting lost) we made our way to the right room for the champagne reception. Free champers is definitely the best thing ever. I always felt guilty when the waiters came round to top up your glasses and I still had half a glass left. A quick downing of the glass soon remedied that.
I chatted to a fair few people, including Ant, who had managed to fall over drunk before even reaching the hotel. Good effort! Oh, and in response to a personal request from Ant:
DO SOME WORK OLD MAN!!!
Who else did I talk to? Oh yeah, James, a friend of Girl and also someone I know half-well, asked me what (if anything) was happening with me and Her. I think I explained pretty well my position. and he seemed to accept it alright.
We then made our way into the main dining room, which was even more lavishly decorated and furnished than the foyer of the whole hotel. 'Plush' does not even begin to describe...
However, what is it with the inverse relationship where the more you pay for food the less you get? Admittedly, it's high quality food, but there's just not very much of it. You can go to a Wetherspoon?s, pay ?4 and get an enormous plateful of food, or you can go to an 'exclusive' restaurant, pay upwards of ?60 and walk out still feeling hungry.
Whilst salmon fishcakes and guinea fowl (what I ate that night) are very, very nice, they are rather small. When the waiters brought round the main course, consisting of said guinea fowl and this weird veg / bacon compote mix-thing, I sat there for about a minute, expecting the big bowls of vegetables and potatoes to be arriving.
They didn't, and I went hungry.
I was on a table with Joe, his girlfriend and her flatmate, and only one other person that I already knew. I thoroughly enjoyed myself though, chatting (drunkenly) to these random people and having a good laugh.
Oh, and Carrie, Joe's girlfriend's flatmate, managed to deposit an entire set of Savoy cutlery into her bag. I'm talking 3 courses worth, including a fish knife, a bread knife and a teaspoon. That's good thieving skills. Something to tell the children about, I imagine.
I had a dance with Tara, Joe's girlfriend, and was promptly told that I was a very good dancer. Bo!!
The rest of the night gets a bit hazy, although I do remember being raped by the bar prices (twice!). I mean, really, ?15 for a double Southern Comfort and Lemonade?! It wasn't even the nicest one I'd ever had.
I remember chatting to loads of random people (mostly women, if memory serves), but I'll be damned if I can remember a single word of any of the conversations. Alcohol, I love you (even at ?15 for a double!!).
I remember leaving, and getting on the night bus alone, and I remember seeing the Burger King at Piccadilly Circus, which made me incredibly tempted to go and get a Triple Bacon Cheeseburger.
That was the last thing I remember before waking up, cold, in almost pitch black, alone, still on a bus.
I sat there for about 15 minutes, shivering (I was only wearing my tux, remember) and trying to figure out a) where the fuck I was and b) what the fuck I was going to do to get home.
It was then that I noticed a large number of other buses parked around the one I was sitting in, all with their lights off too.
Ahh, a bus station, I thought. No worries, I'll just wander round for a little bit and find my way to a bus heading back towards home. Easy, even in my inebriated state.
After a few minutes stumbling around (probably in circles) I made my way into the only building around. There was one big corridor with small rooms off to one side and noticeboards on t'other. It didn't look much like a bus station, let's put it that way.
This random guy then came out of one of the rooms and noticed me wandering around. "Did you fall asleep on the bus, lad?" he asked me. I sort of nodded in agreement and he asked me where I needed to be. In order to answer this, I need to know where I was first.
"Edgware" came the reply.
Now, my knowledge of London is nowhere near complete, but I know enough to know that Edgware is a good distance further north than where I wanted to be. A LOT further.
I said something like I wanted to head back towards the centre on a N13 bus or something. He then told me I'd need to take a train to Golder's Green and catch that bus there.
Just how fucking lost was I?!
He helpfully told me how to get to the train station, which I promptly forgot, and pointed me towards the main road.
My memory is blank again for a little bit, and the next thing I remember was ringing a couple of taxi companies that I had the numbers for. They were based close to where I actually live, and told me that they didn't go as far north as I was at the time. Like i said, I was very far from home.
It was cold, dark and raining, and I was getting very cold as I wandered around, trying to find a bus stop with a flipping map on it. They ALL have maps around my area, but seemingly not in fucking Edgware!
I eventually found one, and figured out which stop I needed to get one of the first buses of Saturday morning back towards Central London. It was by now almost 5.30am, which meant buses would soon be running again. All I had to do was wait around for another 15 minutes.
The longest and coldest 15 minutes ever in my life, I swear. So, so, so cold. I was hopping up and down on the spot, trying desperately to keep warm. I think I may even have been muttering to myself in an effort to convince myself that it wasn't actually cold and that I wasn't actually on the verge of pneumonia. All the while in my tuxedo...
The bus turned up, and I hopped on, hoping to warm up at least a little bit before I got home. But, of course, the bus was freezing cold due to it having been sat unattended at the depot all night, probably with the doors open or something. It was so very cold. This was a good thing, however, because it kept me awake so that I didn't miss my stop on the way back into Central London. I would not have been happy to have woken up at Victoria Station, once again miles and miles from where I live in West Hampstead!
By the time I stepped off the bus, it was daylight. I got into the house, and collapsed into bed somewhere around 6.30 in the morning. This is after getting up at 7am on Friday to go to a lecture!!! What a day!!! I slept until somewhere around 4 in the afternoon, and was so tired still that I had to go to bed pretty early on the Saturday night too.
The weird thing about the whole night bus experience is that the night bus I was on did not go to Edgware. It was supposed to terminate at Golder's Green, which to my mind would entail kicking off anybody who was asleep at that point. But, for some unknown reason, the driver didn't kick me off or attempt to wake me, and instead drove onto the bus depot in Edgware, where once again he failed to wake me. I wasn't even sat upstairs on it, for crying out loud!! I was downstairs, in the middle and in full view of everybody around... Meh, it could have been the most hilarious prank in that particular driver's career. Well done him.
The bastard.
The weekend was a total washout, as I was hungover for its entirety, as well as being absolutely knackered. All of my good intentions concerning cracking on with my courseworks went to pot, as I just moped around the living room for 36 hours. It wasn't just me though, it seemed like everybody in my house was just blehhhh. We all work so hard, you see. Ahem.
And yes, I know that I'm almost a week behind in posting here, but I've been trying (failing) to get these courseworks done. And I haven't got very far, so I could get even further behind in posting here. Apologies.
But, still to come: Dinner with a reporter from the Observer newspaper, who is writing an article about British blogging, including myself (hurrah!), my complete lack of a work ethic this week, and the rediscovering of my notebook accompanied by the joy of writing whilst on the Tube. I have such an interesting life, right?
Ummm, yeah. OK then.
Do some work old man.
