Neverending weekend

Oh lordy, where do I begin? Here goes...

Thu 24th March:
The start of a very extended weekend.
Went out with work colleagues for the leaving do / birthday party of the lovely girl who sits next to me at work. It was close on my birthday too, so I was presented with cards and £40 worth of book tokens from my team. Nice. Managed to organise / scrounge a buffet and booze at work, then to the Bear on Clerkenwell Rd to meet with more people (most of whom seem to work for The Guardian) and finally to Dust, where I lost the cards and book tokens. Damn.
Transpires that the girl in question and I celebrated our birthday last year on the same evening at the Vibe Bar down Brick Lane, before we'd actually met. That's probably meaningful but I'm not sure what of, so we'll skip it.
Things got very drunken. And a bit messy...

Fri 25th March:
Ponced around Bond Street for the day, swanking round the boutiques and generally being horrified by the prices. Then to the excellent 43 South Molton Street for a late and boozy lunch /dinner where one of my companions spent most of the time making doe-eyes at Heather, the Canadian girl who works there.

Boosted off to Brown's on Islington Green for another birthday do - this time one of my flatmates' (I do seem to hang around with a lot of Aries people. Again probably meaningful, again don't know what of).
Odd place - overpriced combo bar and restaurant with a lot of colourwash and way too much pretension.
Left at eleven to try to locate a restaurant that would take all ten of us at that late hour.
Found a little one that was empty apart from a couple at one table having some kind of domestic which culminated in her yelling, "God, you're so arrogant!" and storming out (presumably stiffing him with the bill - the cheeky mare). I of course went over and told the bloke "not to worry, cos women are like that and I've spent years on the receiving end of similar behaviour" blah, blah.
I become very empathetic when I'm drunk, y'know. Or maybe just pathetic? Oi! I heard that. Quiet at the back.
He turned out to be a nice bloke and seemed sure he could patch things up with her.
Nice food and a bottle of wine later and I find to my consternation that people are threatening to go to a "cheesy disco". Fliers are produced and given that they state proudly that the Osmonds and Toni Basil are played nightly, I make my excuses and leave.

Sat 26th March:
Little bit worse for wear. Sat around, watched an awful lot of trashy television and (owing to my vulnerable state) got completely hooked on Ellen on abc1. I must have watched about eight episodes in row. It's quite funny and I'm sure Ellen DeGeneres was looking at me in a special way. Honest.
I considered staying in all day, until a couple of texts reminded me that I had in fact organised my twenty-ninth birthday celebrations for that evening in the Phoenix Artist Club on Charing Cross Road, so I had to make a move. Sigh.
In the end, I had an uproariously good time - most of the invited showed up, a lot of them bearing cards and gifts and everyone seemed to have a good time.
A bumper haul of presents this year! Not that it matters but, y'know....it's nice...8o).
The booty included Martin Brundle's Working The Wheel, a bottle of Bombay Sapphire, a biography of Sir Percy Sykes, a portable ashtray, Anthony Sampson's Who Runs This Place? The Anatomy of Britain, The Dedalus Book of Absinthe and Hilary Clinton's autobiography. Not sure about that last one...
Met an interesting bloke in the toilets who told me he had fallen in love at first sight with the girl on the next table and was trying to pluck up the courage to talk to her. I advised caution and warned against such folly. He went for it and appeared to be doing well. However, at our next rendez-vous in the bogs, he confided that she just seemed to like the attention and not him. Alas.
The bar would have been open 'til three but the clocks went forward an hour and thus the fates conspired to rob a hour's drinking time from me. Damnation.

Sun 27th March:
Laundry. Old habits die hard.

Mon 28th March:
Headed out to South Woodford for the birthday party of an old mate from university. Glorious day in leafy suburbia, pub action, pizza and quickfire DJ competition (play four random tunes from his vast vinyl collection and get graded by the others on style, quality and technique. I went for 'Hot Love' - T-Rex, 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots' - The Flaming Lips, 'You Can't Alway Get What You Want' - The Rolling Stones, 'Sunshine of Your Love' - Cream. Open booing and catcalls ensued).

Tue 29th March:
My actual birthday. Decided to have a rest from partying hard and slobbed about the flat all day, watching Press Gang on DVD. It's strange watching a TV series that I was so passionate about years ago. It made me remember how I was and what I thought at the time. Old man wipes nostalgic tear from his eye, etc. Also I know from watching it the first time that Julia Sawalha looked at me in a special way. Honest.

Wed 30th March:
Headed out to The Boardwalk on Greek Street, Soho to meet a mate where we discussed joining this little social club and were joined later by Cursor Miner. We planned to go to Cheapskates at Moonlighting (shots only 60p!)but the queue was horrific; five wide and stretching down the road.
Scooted off to NagNagNag at The Ghetto to be confronted with surreal door pressure consisting of questions such as "Have you been here before?", "Which bar have you come from?" and "Where do you usually go out in Soho?". Judging by the numbers of people turned away, not everyone was giving satisfactory answers.
Cursor calmed my intial suggested response of "I've been going out in Soho since before you were born - who the f**k are you?" and mentioned that he's DJ'ed at the night before. We were passed graciously through. Nice. Glad we made it in as we had an enjoyable night of frenzied dancing and drinking to excellent music - highly recommended. Cursor got introduced to Boy George and exchanged a few pleasantries. He's a bit taller than you'd think.

Thu 31st March:
I've forgotten what I did.

Fri 1st April:
Arose bright and early to make the Caravaggio exhibition at The National Gallery (excellent Guardian link, here). The ticket allocation on t'internet had sold out, so started queueing at 9.20. By the time the gallery opened there were about 70 people waiting - this guy inspires some hardcore fans.
The exhibition itself was relatively small but no less intense for that - in fact, given the detail and brutality of these (his later) works, I think it was better that way. I bought a "Supper at Emmaus" fridge magnet, which'll go nicely with my "Last Supper" fridge magnet. Renaissance supper magnets are the way forward for fridges.

To the Kings Road in Chelsea for some hardcore posing and minor shopping. We nipped into a gift shop and found ourselves at the counter with Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys who was purchasing a card. He's a bit taller than you'd think.
Then took a 22 to Piccadilly for a spell at the Japan Centre for my mate to locate Kanji books. A brief browse and I discovered that the Kanji character for "cowardice" is also the character for "tenderness". Cue long debate about language and its effect on national character. Need to look into that one...
Grabbed some Japanese cuisine there, too - salmon teriyaki, very tasty.

Quick blueberry G&T (sadly not as good as it sounds) at the top floor bar in Waterstone's, thence to the Hogshead and Duke of York down Dering Street (met a bloke who works in the trauma and counselling department of London Underground - many horror stories - never knew there were so many attempted suicides on the tube) and finally to Loop. Loop is the kind of West End bar that I swore blind I'd never frequent and it lived down to expectations...

Massive ruckus occurred on the number 12 bus back home when it picked up a bunch of kids at Elephant & Castle. They sort of split into roughly two groups - one trying to pick fights with anyone on the bus and the other trying to stop to them. More yelling and threats to get their mates to shoot suspected rivals than actual fisticuffs but there were so many of them that people couldn't get to the doors and were missing the stops thus generating even more aggro on the increasingly noisy and swaying bendy bus. Managed to squeeze out near Burgess Park and left them to it. I might take a self-defence course...

Sat 2nd April:
Would you believe it; another birthday. Inane's girlfriend to be precise. Venue was The Garden Bar on Upper Street - the food and drink performed well and comfy banquettes to boot.
Noticed a girl who kept glancing over at me. Ullo, I thought...
Left it a while and still she kept looking over. Hmm.
I was noisily chatting away but every time I checked she was flicking her eyes in my direction. Ding dong...
I strolled nonchalantly over and introduced myself.
Her name's Kirsten and she's from New Zealand.
It transpired very quickly that the reason she was looking over was because I was standing directly by a television screen showing an Antipodean rugby match that she was watching. Ah...
I made my excuses and slunk off. Sigh...
Home to the Walworth Road, stopping at the 24 hour bagel shop where an uncouth individual lounging at the counter tried to sell us cocaine. Having demurred, he then started listing all the possible drugs he could get hold of for us at reasonable prices. To fob him off, my flatmate told him he was a police officer and he was lucky he wasn't on duty.
I wish I'd snapped a photo of the guy's face but he disappeared too quickly...

Sun 3rd April:
Nursing a week's worth of hangover with my liver the size and consistency of a squash ball, I was fit only to potter about the flat and water the plants. Watched the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix, the Box of Delights on DVD, read a few of my birthday books and dozed in front of Midsomer Murders.

I think I need a holiday....