Life Less Literary

Had a strange trip down to London. A bit wasted but… fun nonetheless.

The idea was that I went to one or two of the Sonic Mook Experiment gigs at the ICA, so that I could take photos of some of the bands playing, to use as a fashion shoot for FAD. I met up with JC at Charing Cross on Monday night… nearly got separated, by the police who were busy erecting barriers everywhere. Then I remembered that the Queen was having her jubilee gig thingy that night. We skipped along the Strand and across Trafalgar Square. There was a real festival atmosphere - people wandering everywhere, families heading back from the fun, no traffic, it was lovely. We struggled against the mass of people under Admiralty Arch and into the Mall - stopped for a moment to watch Meera Syal and Nina Wadhia on the big screen, then headed into the ICA. Unfortunately Sean had messed up on the guest list, and try as I might I couldn’t get him to answer his mobile. No problem, JC wanted to go to The End anyway, and there was always tomorrow for the ICA. We didn’t exactly stop to catch Dame Edna or Rod Stewart on the screen, cut across town to Holborn.

The queue at The End was huge… right around the block… I was tempted to go home straight away, but thought “what the fuck… I’ve come for a night out in London”. An hour later we were nearly to the front of the queue. Another hour-and-a-half after that we finally got in (it was one-out one-in on the queue). I stayed for about 40 minutes then went home (it wasn’t that inspiring… not a bad night, but a bit crowded and… I was bleedin’ knackered). Fortunately, because of the Jubilee the tubes were running all night (now _there’s_ a novelty). Unfortunately, the Richmond tube I caught changed into an Ealing Broadway tube when it hit Earls Court. So I changed at Hammersmith, picked up the Piccadilly line to Hounslow, got a vastly overpriced cab back to Teddington (and then, when my incomprensible Indian cab driver called another cab service as we were driving along and, after a brief conversation, screamed “I NO WANT YOUR CAB. TOO SPENSIVE! TOO SPENSIVE!” I realised that I should have haggled). I didn’t get back to my Mum and Dad’s until 4am. And then Lola woke me at 8. <YAWN>

And then today… we were expecting the gig to start at 1pm. My mum and dad were going to babysit Lola, but I had to be back by 5. It was going to be a squeeze, trying to get several photoshoots done and enjoy a bit of the gigs and still get back across London in time. Then Mark rang and said it didn’t start until 3pm. Bummer. So I came back to Sheffield. Still, it was nice seeing mum and dad, and nice to know that they could cope with Lola until 4am with no major traumas.