The Magic Man

Ricky Bobby: From now on, it's Magic Man and El Diablo.
Cal Naughton, Jr.: What does El Diablo mean?
Ricky Bobby: It's like Spanish for like a fighting chicken.

John mentioned that it'd be worth documenting a night out that could possibly not be worth remembering, but for the sake of it we'd better have some record that the following did actually take place. The story you are about to read is true, and happened in the not too distant past. More than likely involving you, the dear reader.

Imagine, if you will, a small bar/club in London. It's dark outside. Through the condensation on the glass windows you can see a mass of young people. The beat is repetitive and contagious. We step inside....

The beats belong to the party RnB playing on the clubs sound system. We're approached by a lady who appears to work there.

'Do you guys have guestlist?' she enquired.
'We're invited' answers Dips. (by the way, the words are totally being made up while i write this).
'Yeh - they're with us' says some guy, approaching the group.

Now, I'm trying to remember where we had been prior to heading to this club. We had been drinking. I'm fairly certain it was in a pub in Camden. Mornington Crescent. The Crescent (Great place). We had watched the football. It's all coming back to me....

'Wow, this place is great' Jait says 'I'll get some beers!'

Jait shortly returns with some beer. Was it Leffe? It was quite strong. Alberto, John and myself find some chairs and kick back - there are a -lot- of asian people here. The mood is distinctly chilled - unlike the asian nights of yore. We're starving and need to get out, there're too many people there, the queue to the bar is too long, and word is there's a KFC around the corner. Jait is busying himself dancing with Dips and Sharan - Alberto, John and myself make a swift exit.

After exploring Holborn fairly thoroughly, we fail to find an open KFC. We head east towards liverpool street. another FKFC closed for the night. What's the next best thing? a schnitzel take away. What's a schnitzel I asked - Let's try it, Alberto replied. We've been gone for over an hour....

Return to the bar after getting slightly lost - to find Jait has moved - he's now dancing up against the window, running around (was he saying 'Let's go running?' as he had been through most of the Foo Fighters concert??) and generally being merry.

Now - this is a typical asian gig - there are x people in the club, and there's usually a token white guy (TWG) around. The one in this club is wearing a tuxedo. Hang on - is that Yiannis from our MSc in Bath!? YES - it is! what the devil!? We end up catching up and killing time. It seemed he had been wearing that tuxedo for the past few days, having gone for his companies christmas ball and owing to all the parties, not managed to get home since.

Next thing you know it's time to go home (how time flies when you're dancing to bhangra and RnB). We wait outside, but after all that dancing (????) we need a seat. hm - well - there's a stack of them hiding behind the bar. Let's go get some!

Then, there's some guy running (very slowly) after another guy half his size. The guy manages to run away, with the big guy shouting explitives at him...

'Language!!!' shouts dips
'***** ********** * ****** $£@$!$%@$%@$!!!!' shouts the big guy, going up to dips

in the following mellee we find a few of us getting tangled up - somehow a midget has come into the mix - what next? a bearded lady and the lobster girl?

'I'm going to get my shooter. I'm going to get my shooter. I've got a wife and kids - I'm a mature responsible adult. I'm going to get my shooter' the midget exclaims, flailing his arms wildy trying to draw attention to himself....

Sharan sits there bemused...

'For ****s sake - you're 27! act your age!' she shouts (to us - not the midget, who could not have been over 13 and a half)

everything comes to an abrupt halt. damn - we're old.

'Um. Ah. yeh - best be on my way - and i'll take the midget with me....' says the big guy, picking up the midget and resting him on his shoulder.

'John???? Jait???????' No sooner is that done than we find an old friend, Kishan, coming out of the club. 'What are you guys doing here???' We haven't seen Kishan for years - since leaving Cardiff - so after a quick catch up, we're back in the taxi - heading home.....

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true story of the night that Dips took us to an asian gig*.

* all plot lines are based on 1% nonfictional events. the people and places in this story have been created for purposes of this story and are not based on real people. If you feel that the characters do, in fact, exist at this time and dimension, you can bite my shiny metal ass.

Minus one flatmate (Oct 2004 - Mar 2007)

So Bunty (Lalit) has moved out...

It is shocking - he moved in roughly 2 1/2 years ago (October 2004). It was a good run, and he was a great last flatmate before I get the 'eternal flatmate' - Deepti.

Good thing he just moved down the road, otherwise I would get really emotional!

So - in other news - my health is improving. At least it feels that way...the weekend was spent complaining about this damn flu thats been going around. I still blame that turkey I had 3 weeks ago for all this - all the worker bees have been dropping like flies & although this could partly be my fault for coming in to work while still ill (I blame the machismo corporate culture around canary wharf for that!) it seems like this could be the pandemic avian flu at work. How much of a let down would it be if this was the big, bad bird flu that caused this?

Hopefully that will mean an end to the hermetic state caused by my illness. Based on the Diamond Geezer definition of a 'night out', any time I've ventured out after 6:00 pm would count as a night out (this does not include overtime at work or any training related to the triathlon!). I'm aiming for quality over quantity - as I've got too much happening concurrently. To measure this I'll maintain a Geezeresque count - the total for March stands at 1 - Digress, followed by dinner with Shirley, Sonal, Barkha and Deepti at Strada this Saturday eve. Verdict: would have been great if (a) we didn't get thrown out of area in digress (b) i could stomach some food with my head pounding and (c) the taxi not charging so much to get us back home.

I was meant to be at Paparazzi Cafe on Saturday night for Rohinis birthday dinner (happy birthday!!!!), but it would have infuriated me to be in one of my favourite restaurants in London and not being able to eat (or enjoy the company!) - the restaurant is due to close at the end of March, and I will do anything in my power to get there before then - any excuse for a night out really, so people - any suggestions??

Weekend of the flu.

Generally I spend Monday evenings recapping the adventures we've all had over the weekend. Unfortunately, the last weekend was spent brutally ill in bed with the flu. Read Johns comment on the last post, that contains more than enough content to keep anyone busy - after you're doing that, if you haven't watched the video in the last post, check that out too!

I'll make sure to post something meaningful tomorrow....it's been too long & trust me - I have a great one in mind!

Neil

Web 2.0 is us/ing us

Yes, there has been an absence of new posts this last week - i apologise!

I've been ill....ugh....

anyway, rather than post anything unique or original, I thought i'd reference this brilliant video clip from the university of kansas faculty:



it demonstrates perfectly the social and ethnographic impact of the web - the growth of web 2.0 usage and how we, as bloggers , bleaders, photographers, amateur videographers (etc) have as much a role to play in the future of the web as larger corporations do.

Yuh!

They say you know you've made it in the blogging game when you're on the People Over Process links....

Click here...

French Storm Buckingham Palace

BREAKING NEWS

After centuries of foreign attacks, foreigners have finally taken over Buckingham Palace. The country is in a severe state of alert, while security is trying to control the situation

Read more...

Shake And Bake!!

Quick update on the past weekend (for the record)

Friday: Jait came down from brumham, went out with all the usual crowd (Bunty, John, Jait, Dips, Sharan, Lems, Sims, Deeps) as well as Johns cousin, Chian (who happens to be pretty cool - we got to find a way of bringer her down to London for more than a couple of days at a time!).

Saturday: Jait, Dips, Bunty and myself were planning to go to the video game exhibition in the science museum, which didn't happen - we ended up pooling buying 3 planes instead, and throwing them at kids by the exit (unintentionally I must add - them planes were meant to make return flights back to you. kinda like a boomerang plane - now that idea aint worth a velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin getting it on). Seemed the only way we could get the planes to return were by the kids throwing the planes back. The planes are still lying around somewhere....

We ended up in London Bridge - where every bar appeared to be shut - before venturing down to Bank, where again every bar seemed to be closed. Ended up back in Canary Wharf (Good ol' cheap whetherspoons), where we had a few drinks while waiting for John. Got back home, put on some Taledega Nights (what is this shake and bake?! it doesn't even make any sense!?), and knocking out after the pretty tiring night before.

Sunday: Green Street - Eastham - London, home of asians and west ham football hooligans, living in harmony. Deeps and myself ventured a visit down there to have a look at wedding gear. All good fun, particularly as we got some gulab jamus (indian fried cakes in syrup...mmmmmmm....artery blocking....)

Pretty busy huh?