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The day started with a trip to the Posse ammunition storage, better known as Middlesbrough's premier Pound Shop. Bypassing such joys as 12 packets of SuperStrengthSuperGlue for the vastly sum of £1, my brother and I arrived in the Special Syp Section. Or the toy shelf. Exiting the shop with cries of 'We've got guns!' probably wasn't the best idea...
And then, we were Saved. In exchange for the promise of our eternal souls, and a trip to Mass every week, we received That Sense of Completion we'd apparantely been missing, and a handful of silver and plastic medals, along with a bookmark and a blessing from the nuns who had never actually been born. I'm a sucker for free stuff. Hallelujah.
Though not even God could protect us from the gaggle of rowdy Scots we encountered enroute to London. I'm sure I heard a cry of 'Get in mah belllly' from the slightly obese, toothless, singing one seated opposite me. It wouldn't have sounded out of place, anyway.
After 3 hours of Simpsons Top Trumps, and the destruction of the rest of our 59p Travel Games in what can only be described as a fit of temper, we arrived in London.
As ever, leaving Kings X station left me feeling like Axl Rose in the Welcome to the Jungle video. I was just missing a piece of straw to chew on and a nice stetson. This time wasn't too bad though, as we saw our first friendly face within approximately 30 seconds of leaving the station. Steve/THP and his uh, original hairdo is not really that easy to miss :) A few minutes of friendly banter later, and we went in search of our hotel.
Since booking myself into the Hotel California, I'd been *really* looking forward to making a series of predictable Eagles related jokes to the receptionist, who would be resigned to them, yet still compelled to laugh politely. So, I was slightly disappointed at the surly guy behind the counter who reminded me of an evil Disney villain. Going off on a bit of a tangent for a second, I'm sure those Evil Disney Villains have a proper name, though I really can't remember what it is...
We were handed the keys to our room, and warned that guests would not be permitted after 11. This not being good news, I tried every which way to persuade this granite faced man that we'd be very well behaved and good and nice if only we could all stay in our hotel until 1am. I even showed him my Winning Smile. He must have a heart of stone.
Anyway, after finally discovering our room, in the basement of the Tardis like hotel, it was time to send Peter on a mission to locate DaveH. Mission successfully completed, we spent a pleasant hour or so chattering, admiring the Pasty Poster, watching Saturday night TV and being shot, before deciding pizza was a necessity. One phone call later, and we're left with the promise of nutrition in half an hour. We meandered upstairs to wait for it, and discovered a connection to the outside world in the form of a PC at the bar. Fifty pence for five minutes of internet! Well, it was such a bargain, we could hardly refuse, could we? ;) Ten minutes later, we've finished reading LJ, have explored the garden and still have a distinct lack of pizza. At which point I was persuaded that at least an hour had elapsed since our phonecall to demand pizza. So, adopting a rather irate manner, I phoned back and was asked if I'd actually looked at my watch, as 'it's been 23 minutes, ma'am, and our driver has just left'. D'oh.
Anyway, pizza finally arrived and was taken back down to the basement. Pete and Dave aquired alcohol, along with a grilling from Jafaar on reception 'Is obvious you are having party! Guests out by eleven! Out!'. However, by this point, we'd formed a Cunning Plan. We ate pizza, repacked our weaponary and attempted to steal the lamp before surreptitiously sneaking out of the hotel. Half way down the road, and a mere split second before DaveH jumped in the air and shouted 'FREE!', our friendly receptionist leapt out at us, demanding to know where we were going, when we'd be back and if in fact, we'd left any luggage in our room. Reassuring him with our Winning Smiles, we overcame that obstacle and arrived at our destination feeling slightly rebellious, yet triumphant.
The Central Hotel, despite putting us in the attic, was much more accommodating. We settled in, and soon it was time for the Arrival of Zazz, shortly followed by the Arrival of Gib, and much sweating as the five of us struggled to breathe in a room meant for a cat. This is the point where it all starts to blur, thanks to copious amounts of alcohol. Note to self: next time, remember that downing a bottle of 20/20 in one is *never* a good idea...
Speaking of things that, with hindsight, might not have been great ideas, at some point, Gib and I broke the hotel bed. Well, I say it was us, but really, it could have been anyone, especially Zazz. Following some very strenuous sitting-on-the-bed by the younger sibling and some suspicious not-sitting-on-the-bed action from Miss Zazz, the bouncing sessions were pretty much doomed to failure. Alas, the combined bouncing efforts of Gib, Dave and myself did nothing to prevent the impending disaster.
At some point, I also managed to persuade everyone except my brother that Jade from BB's mother had lost the use of her arm in a bizarre lesbian fisting/clamping related incident.
After the fight scene cameo from the ever present Chocolate Cake, the walking wounded struggled to get ready to leave the hotel. Somehow we managed to scrub ourselves up to a respectable manner, phone for a taxi and stumble down the stairs to wait for it. During the wait, the Magical Reappearing Prostitute reappeared from a hotel window, and told us off for interrupting her work with our drunken shenanigans. Oops.
So, eventually, we got to Slimelight. Briefly chatted to fross and kas as they were leaving, demanded to know why they were going so early, and were informed that it was 3am. Fashionably late, as ever, we ascended the stairs and were greeted by that lovely stench of Slimes that takes so long to get out of your clothes. Sometimes I think the sole purpose of Slimelight is to make you smell bad.
We immediately lost Zazz to Upstairs, and proceeded to amuse ourselves by bouncing about with various nice people. The rest of the night is pretty much lost to a haze of netgoths and alcohol, but I had a most excellent time. I failed to listen to any music, but managed to munch lots of lollipops and vodka jelly. Top three best flashbacks of this Slimelight experience are:
* Gib throwing down his title as 'sickest young man' in the face of SteveNothing's brave attempt at cleaning Slimelight floor with his tongue. Mmm, chewy.
* The uh, 12 way wife swapping circle instigated by Suzi and muftak, which ended in about 12 random people declaring love for each other and promising to be faithful girlfriends/boyfriends forever. The joint snog didn't quite work.
* Getting reacquainted with a lovely blonde Essex boy ;)
Eventually stumbled outside at 7am, to go in search of Pete who had managed to disappear somewhere with Sonnet. Found them, and nattered for a bit to Sonnet (lovely as ever), Deathboy and pda before disappearing back to the hotel.
Once there, Pete and I somehow came to the conclusion that breakfast was a good idea. Handing our roomkey to DaveH, we disappeared to the dining room, feasted upon one rasher of bacon and an egg and climbed the stairs back to our attic space. Only, DaveH had fallen asleep and locked us out. Ooh, I fully intend to enact revenge for that one, Dave. Twenty minutes we hammered on that door ;)
Anyway, that was that. The end of our weekend in London, bar the nightmarish journey back home. Vast quantities of fun were had and of course, it goes without saying that it was great to see everyone dahn sarf that I don't get to harrass nearly often enough. Must do it again sometime...