The longest February (ii)

I'm so lame at this. New update is here though. Huzzah!

I left you hanging on a Thursday night wondering how it could be that any human could consume such a toxic beverage. Cast your mind back; it contained Chinese green tea, Absynthe and Wray and Nephews white overproof rum.

It's difficult to describe in words how it tastes. If you've tasted neat vodka before, you'll recognise the slightly sharp buzz in your mouth that instantly triggers your gag reflex. If you have no gag reflex, odds on, you are a filthy ho.

If you've drunk green tea before (and I hadn't) you will understand the concept of sieving a drink through your teeth. If not, the thing is full of little leaves floating around and making the already tough task of supping on beverage a lot less bearable.

V for Vendetta and OLH didn't seem entirely impressed with it. They spent their time daintily sipping small amounts and complaining that they didn't get dainty little teacups like Cpt. Loom and I did.

He, on the other hand, seemed to almost relish the foul concoction, drinking more than it seemed to me to be physically possible for the human body to withstand.

*Cpt. Loom gained +3 respect*

Anyway, after we decided we'd had enough of this underground shrine to the demons of drink, (it's actually a really nice place though) we headed off to Rock City...



Rock City is full of some of my happiest enduring memories of Nottingham. A regular fixture on a Thursday night in my second year. Many was the night I drank cheeky vimtos until my lips turned red and sang my heart out to Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and Head Automatica with my best friends. Its where John and Katie first got together and its where OLH and I first got together.

This night, however, did not go as planned after some filthy rotter spiked OLH's drink. At the time, Cpt. Loom and I were unaware. We were dancing by the speakers wondering when the good music was going to start when V4V came over and told me not to worry. Probably not the ideal opener, because I instantly began to worry. When we reached her, she was sat down looking a little bit spaced but she's a strong cookie and after a while shook off the effects well enough to return to the dancefloor.

It's a good job she did, because otherwise we'd never have seen the greatest teenager EVER. This guy, and I shit you not, this guy was kissing a girl. "No, Grav," I hear you say! "Surely he wasn't kissing her, that most rare of nightclub pastimes. You need to get out more!"

Well, let me finish! This awesome chick magnet was kissing the girl in front of him and then he turned around and started kissing the girl behind him. He didn't miss a beat. So sudden was the 'rejection', I felt certain girl 1 would walk away stunned or crying, but NAY! She abided! She waited until he was bored of girl 2 and, sure as eggs come from chicken bums, he turned around and served up another round of tonsil tennis with more confidence than Andy Murray faced with J. Walter Weatherman




I think at one point some guy interrupted him for a moment, just to shake his damn hand to see if any of his frikkin mojo would rub off. The man was simply incredible.

I did get a bit distracted from watching this prince among men for a moment though, as some grinning loon appeared out of nowhere to shake MY hand.

Him: How you doing mate, you alright
Me: Do I know you?
Him: C'mon mate don't be like that. (to my friends, with his arm around me) I've known him ages. We used to be in a band together! (to me) C'mon man, lets do the dance!

And so it was that, in front of OLH, V4V and cpt. Loom, I proceeded to do a rubbish version of David Brent's comic relief dance while he did a similar sort of 'flashdance fused with MC Hammer shit'.

Mental

I went home the next day, readers, and I can say now, honestly, without hesitation, diversion or repetition, that it was one of the most enjoyable weeks of my entire life. Fact! Many thanks go to my wonderful friends Proudy and the Pres, cpt. Loom, V4V, OLH and her very accomodating housemates.

I've probably forgotten loads of other stuff that happened that week, but those were my abridged highlights and its been brilliant writing them down.

Next!

The longest February (i)

I must apologise for being so lax on the blogging front. I haven't written in here since the 31st of January for crying out loud, what could be more important??!! Well I've been rather busy running around doing stuff and I'm going to try to tell you about it all with as much detail as my memory allows.

It all started when I lost my job at the end of January. I still keep looking under the sofa to see if its turned up there since the last time I looked but no cigar on that front. Looking back, I had a wonderful time working there and met some truly lovely people but the time came for me to move on and therein came a change of scenery.

Ahhh Nottingham! A home from home! I had already planned to spend time with the wonderful OLH (OLH obviously isn't her name, I just feel its more respectful to peoples privacy not to tell all and sundry who they are if they aren't keen on the idea) and she was obliging enough to allow me to stay at hers. So with accomodation and travel sorted, along with the promise of an incredibly exotic drink (more on that later), I set off.

Got to Nottingham at around 5 on the Monday and within my first hour back in the city, I was annoying people. I'd forgotten OLH's flat number, so after some liberal experimentation with the buzzer system at her building, had a wonderfully brief conversation with a woman who could, quite blatantly, not have cared any less.

Me: Hi is OLH there

Unwelcome neighbour: Theres no OLH here

Me: Sorry, I may have got the wrong flat, its the one on the second floor on the right? What number is that one?

UN: I don't know. Bye

Turns out, she did know. She knew because she lived right next door. Upon learning this, I shouted "FOUND IT" into the hallway before entering the flat.

Tuesday we chilled out for most of the day before heading to revs in the night. I don't recall any major events of note at the moment but it was just lovely to spend time with OLH and her flatmates.

Actually, I've just remembered that I had lunch with the SU President and the Vice President, Student Services. A brilliant lunch in which I found out about pretty much everything thats gone wrong this year and yet still came away feeling jealous I wasn't still living up there being a part of it all.

I believe that that Wednesday will now and forever be known as 'kid in a candy shop' day in OLH's memory as she witnessed my regression into an adult sized child. We'd been out and about shopping in Nottingham when she mentioned a sweet shop that had appeared opposite zavvi, The Barley Twist if your interested.

This is THE old fashioned sweet shop of my dreams. Walls covered in jars full of sweets, of every size, shape, colour and texture imaginable. We debated how we would go about creating our own mix and asked the woman whether she'd help us. Unfortunately, she was not inclined to follow a wild Welshman as he whirled around the shop at a dizzying pace, so instead we were to bring the jars to her.

This seemed pretty fair and we were all set to do this until the proprietor of the store, an old man with a twinkle in his eyes, appeared from the back of the shop to the counter. I felt I was in the prescence of a true disciple of Mr. W. Wonka. The good one played by Gene Wilder, not the eerie Johnny Depp one.

Not content to stand and watch, he followed me everywhere as I gave crucial instructions. "5 of those, a couple of those, 2 no 3 of those, how many of those do you want? ok we'll have 4 of those". Occasionally, my new hero would recommend various products, only so as to give him an excuse to sample their delights himself. How he wasn't a fat, toothless wreck I will never know!

Occasionally, members of my family may read this and so I shall not disclose, dear reader, how much we spent in the Barley Twist that day but never fear! One day, when I'm a fat, toothless wreck I'll still say it was worth every single penny!

That night, OLH persuaded me to watch The Notebook. We'll watch three dvds, she reasoned, one sad, one funny and one weird. So it was that we watched the notebook, russell howard live and coraline that night.

Blogs are about honesty. They are about opening up your very soul to the outside world. Therefore, in the spirit of being brutally honest, I will admit that I DO NOT cry in films! I didn't cry when bambi's mum died. I didn't cry when mufasa died. I came close when Boo got really scared in Monsters Inc. but as a rule I don't cry in films. A fine record spanning over 20 years! (I had no control over the films I watched during the first 2 years of my life but rest assured I was pretty stoic throughout) This fine record however, came to an abrupt halt ten minutes before the end of the Notebook. As shaming as this is, and as crap as the first 113 minutes were, the final 10 were real heartbreakers and I tried very hard not to show any sign of emotion. I failed, epically. Ever the superstar, OLH laughed at me and told me I was being a sissy which, as she later pointed out, if she hadn't done, I may have dissolved in a pool of my own despair. As it happened, I was able to recover quite quickly and proceeded to cry tears of unbridled mirth at the hilarity of Russell Howard. Coraline was weird and we didn't really watch it all. I think we fell asleep at one point.

Thursday I met up with Hermano for a drink and some food. I took him to the barley twist and he loved it.

In the evening, myself, OLH, V for Vendetta and Cpt. Loom (How I come with some of these nicknames is quite brilliant, honestly!) headed out to a bar in the lace market called Coco Tang. Its a great big basement bar which serves, as a main attraction, this!

Please, please, please trust me when I say that this drink is pretty much everything you already think it is.

TO BE CONTINUED....