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Friday: To Euston with ![[info]](../../img/userinfo.gif?v=91.5)
commonpeople and his amant wink_martindale to Amy Lamé's Unhappy Birthday. I have met Ms Lamé before when Fosca did a live set at GLR and she was very nice. Unlike, say, Eddie Izzard, she's kept her 'outsider' status, she's still the first female drag queen, "lesbian trapped inside a gay man's body", whilst going into the mainstream (mayoress of Camden, radio show with Danny Baker etc), so I suppose I thought it would be a night of amusing tales from a Moz obsessed raconteuse. Instead, it was a rather dark journey into the pitfalls of fandom. With audience participation, selected by pass the parcel. As well as complaining to Ollie about my back pain and sniffles, I mithered beforehand that I do not do audience participation. Even as a small child at a panto, I would not run on the stage to do the "it's behind you" thing. As well as crippling self-consciousness, I believe if you've paid a tenner to see someone perform, they should do the performing. Anyway, the night is staged at Amy's birthday party in which she invites Morrissey, he doesn't turn up, she runs around in a manic-depressive kind of way, cutting her hair, snogging an unsuspecting member of the audience, making an eau de Morrissey (tea, armpits, hairspray), removing items of clothing, and listing 30 ways in which Morrissey has ruined everything - from the sublime ("Increasing the numbers of cross-dressing members of the clergy") to the ridiculous ("making David Cameron seem cool"). The audience participators seemed mostly happy to fling gladioli around and get covered in lipstick and cake so it's possible that the sound guy stopped the music at people with a little more exhibitionism than me, but it still seemed an odd thing to do considering the shy and retiring nature of most hardcore Moz fans. It ended with a prayer to the Mozziah and a jolly sing along of This Charming Man. I enjoyed it, but I was mostly terrified and also, traumatised by Amy taking a delicious looking red velvet cake and smashing it to smithereens. That's just disrespectful.
Saturday: To Shoreditch Grind for a cuppa and in the evening to a work colleague's 50th birthday bash. I am far too young to be going to 50th birthday parties and I should definitely not have to witness 50 year olds shaking their booty to Salt 'n' Pepa's Push It. Still, a good time was had by all, especially by those who hadn't been out for 5 or 6 years.
Sunday: To Hackney Wick to do a Hidden City "treasure trail" that was a free offer in the Guardian. To my chagrin, unlike the last one we did on Christmas Eve, we did not get any free hot chocolate or mulled wine, but on the plus side, who says Londoners are unfriendlyl? Three people asked if we needed help whilst we were peering at the text message clues and one woman offered to help me carry my bike up steps. Oh, and a charming canal-side drunk asked me if I were entering the cycling in the Olympics. But we didn't get to finish it because David decided he had to take his bike to London Bridge for a service.
Monday: A traditional bank holiday jolly up to the Royston cave in Hertfordshire. We arrived a little late and so had to go to the pub whilst the previous group did the tour. On the way there, Allan, now living in Devon, remarked that he didn't know why people live in London, citing police cars, noise, dog shit etc. On entering the pub, I remembered why. The place had no tea, coffee, juice or beer. People glared at us. I've got too used to nice places. Later, we found a nicer pub with squishy sofas and the ubiquitous fairy lights and bar snax, so please go to the Green Man if you ever find yourself in Royston, and not the Coach and Horses. The cave is great, it was discovered in 1742 and believed to have been four hundred years old at that point. It is full of carvings: Jesus, St George, the Holy Spirit, a sheela-na-gig. It was like staring into a fire or at stalactites, you start to see your own things: a teddy bear, a skull, Munch's scream. As with practically everything old, it was probably a haunt of the Knight's Templar. The original entrance was sealed with a millstone, but is now outside Ladbrokes under a grille. We knelt on the pavement looking down at those still inside. People in cars stared at the idiots on their knees. In the pub, Allan told us a story about the government exporting double decker buses to Cuba in the 60s on a boat which sank. They tried to re-float it with ping pong balls which escaped, floating down the Thames. We go home on the train, a golden cloud break over the fields of oil seed rape.
commonpeople and his amant wink_martindale to Amy Lamé's Unhappy Birthday. I have met Ms Lamé before when Fosca did a live set at GLR and she was very nice. Unlike, say, Eddie Izzard, she's kept her 'outsider' status, she's still the first female drag queen, "lesbian trapped inside a gay man's body", whilst going into the mainstream (mayoress of Camden, radio show with Danny Baker etc), so I suppose I thought it would be a night of amusing tales from a Moz obsessed raconteuse. Instead, it was a rather dark journey into the pitfalls of fandom. With audience participation, selected by pass the parcel. As well as complaining to Ollie about my back pain and sniffles, I mithered beforehand that I do not do audience participation. Even as a small child at a panto, I would not run on the stage to do the "it's behind you" thing. As well as crippling self-consciousness, I believe if you've paid a tenner to see someone perform, they should do the performing. Anyway, the night is staged at Amy's birthday party in which she invites Morrissey, he doesn't turn up, she runs around in a manic-depressive kind of way, cutting her hair, snogging an unsuspecting member of the audience, making an eau de Morrissey (tea, armpits, hairspray), removing items of clothing, and listing 30 ways in which Morrissey has ruined everything - from the sublime ("Increasing the numbers of cross-dressing members of the clergy") to the ridiculous ("making David Cameron seem cool"). The audience participators seemed mostly happy to fling gladioli around and get covered in lipstick and cake so it's possible that the sound guy stopped the music at people with a little more exhibitionism than me, but it still seemed an odd thing to do considering the shy and retiring nature of most hardcore Moz fans. It ended with a prayer to the Mozziah and a jolly sing along of This Charming Man. I enjoyed it, but I was mostly terrified and also, traumatised by Amy taking a delicious looking red velvet cake and smashing it to smithereens. That's just disrespectful.Saturday: To Shoreditch Grind for a cuppa and in the evening to a work colleague's 50th birthday bash. I am far too young to be going to 50th birthday parties and I should definitely not have to witness 50 year olds shaking their booty to Salt 'n' Pepa's Push It. Still, a good time was had by all, especially by those who hadn't been out for 5 or 6 years.
Sunday: To Hackney Wick to do a Hidden City "treasure trail" that was a free offer in the Guardian. To my chagrin, unlike the last one we did on Christmas Eve, we did not get any free hot chocolate or mulled wine, but on the plus side, who says Londoners are unfriendlyl? Three people asked if we needed help whilst we were peering at the text message clues and one woman offered to help me carry my bike up steps. Oh, and a charming canal-side drunk asked me if I were entering the cycling in the Olympics. But we didn't get to finish it because David decided he had to take his bike to London Bridge for a service.
Monday: A traditional bank holiday jolly up to the Royston cave in Hertfordshire. We arrived a little late and so had to go to the pub whilst the previous group did the tour. On the way there, Allan, now living in Devon, remarked that he didn't know why people live in London, citing police cars, noise, dog shit etc. On entering the pub, I remembered why. The place had no tea, coffee, juice or beer. People glared at us. I've got too used to nice places. Later, we found a nicer pub with squishy sofas and the ubiquitous fairy lights and bar snax, so please go to the Green Man if you ever find yourself in Royston, and not the Coach and Horses. The cave is great, it was discovered in 1742 and believed to have been four hundred years old at that point. It is full of carvings: Jesus, St George, the Holy Spirit, a sheela-na-gig. It was like staring into a fire or at stalactites, you start to see your own things: a teddy bear, a skull, Munch's scream. As with practically everything old, it was probably a haunt of the Knight's Templar. The original entrance was sealed with a millstone, but is now outside Ladbrokes under a grille. We knelt on the pavement looking down at those still inside. People in cars stared at the idiots on their knees. In the pub, Allan told us a story about the government exporting double decker buses to Cuba in the 60s on a boat which sank. They tried to re-float it with ping pong balls which escaped, floating down the Thames. We go home on the train, a golden cloud break over the fields of oil seed rape.
