I drove to Nottingham today to spend the weekend with Andrew. I didn't get up there until late thanks to an accident between junctions 8 and 9 on the M1, but it was enough time to get thoroughly lost in the city centre (no street name signs anywhere) and witness some pretty horrific driving skills. Anyway, it is advisable not to park on the streets so Andy managed to swipe a secure underground parking space from a work colleague. Once parked up, we head up to the flat. It's right in the city centre and it's ultra cool: balcony, good view, and not too noisy (for me, anyway!). Not keen on the whole design thing though, which includes a frosted glass bathroom door ("Are you sure you can't see in?!"), and a column in the middle of the kitchen area (obviously not there for decorative reasons).
We head downstairs and attack the buffet being held in the Chinese restaurant next door to the building. Apparently, the flat corridors only occasionally smell like take-out but it doesn't actually hit the flats themselves. The restaurant is full of people, mostly of Oriental ethnicity and we manage to swipe a decent table near the food counters. It's worth observing that people don't actually queue for things. They seem to form a queue but in reality, they're just chatting and are not actually in a queue per se. The flip-side is that people generally will not queue when they should. London this ain't!
Eating completed, we head out and stop in a bar which is not all crowded, plays music at a decent level and has v classy décor. We settle into comfy leather chairs and consume two rounds before the music becomes unbearably loud and we decide to move on to a club. Oh, but before we did, I took a trip to the bathroom and met Wonder Woman. Okay, it was a girl dressed up in a Wonder Woman costume, but it was really cool! I told her that I loved her outfit and she laughed and said that she actually wanted a Xena one but this was the closest she could get.
While waiting outside one club (before going into another one instead!) I noticed that there were a lot of people walking around in fancy dress garb – mostly Santa-related outfits, angels, fairies, and comic book characters – and it surprised me. London clubs, you see, are generally pretty fashion conscious and I wouldn't dream of walking into a London club without looking short of fabulous. Here, anything goes and I think it's brilliant! I now feel a little more confident about going to a NYE fancy dress club I've been roped (read 'guilt-tripped') into going to.
So, first club of the night: Long Island Club. The club is on two floors but they play the same music throughout the entire club. The basement consists of bathrooms and a coat check. The music is mainly chart hits of the pop genre so it was okay for about an hour or so. I've now consumed three rounds of JD & coke, and Andy's not sure if he's getting doubles or not… In any case, when we start to salsa to the music and I get spun, the room spins at twice the rate in the opposite direction. I also start to giggle at everything, including the guy at the bar who tries to look cool by tossing glasses behind his back and promptly drops the lot. These are usually signs of stopping. So I grab a diet Pepsi. Then we decide to go elsewhere because what I really love dancing to is rhythm 'n' blues/ drum 'n' bass.
We skip the heavy D 'n' B club and hit Faces, an R 'n' B club, which also stands on two floors, but the upper floor is really a standing area. The music is better in here and the club seems to attract professional dancers, or at least people who can dance extremely well. I have another two JD/cokes. And then my brain feels like its being squeezed. I find the bathroom to try and grab a breather in non-smoky air and witness two girls simultaneously throwing up. Suddenly, the air isn't so fresh in there… So I go out again and we go upstairs where it's a bit cooler and slightly less smoky.
I think I started phasing at this point. This is where the night kind of goes blurry. I generally can't clearly remember events during which I phase, which is anything from five minutes to half an hour. After that I start to sober up, unless I continue drinking, which is generally a bad idea! I do remember walking back without shoes on, and I do remember sobering up whilst still awake, which is a slow and painful experience. I also remember having to play 'Guess the artist' as Andy plays with his iPod and I manage to name a ton of people he doesn't own music for, including Blink 182, Green Day, Squeeze, Franz Ferdinand, The Beatles (!), Snow Patrol and Hoobastank. He did have a Keane track though and I managed to guess all he played except Tubular Bells (the Exorcist theme is Tubular Bells II) and the Prodigy, who I dislike at the best of times. I think sleep came into the equation at about 4am!
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