Dom Davis (The Blog)

So the plan for yesterday was get haircut, head to London, meet up with a friend of mine for lunch, drop my stuff at the hotel, head to Camden, pop round another friend in Limehouse, head back to hotel, get ready, get to Slimelight for 11:30/midnight, party. That plan didn’t quite pan out, although the resultant order of events ended up being far superior.

The haircut got postponed as the barbers didn’t open until 9:30. It, and the trip to Camden plus looking for a barbers in London were cancelled because Ian and I were having a good catch up and decided we’d just go to the pub after lunch instead. Very usefully Ian also knew where my hotel was so we parted company outside of that, he headed home and I checked in before heading out to Limehouse. That journey was an epic in itself and I was an hour late. Still a good night was had with Mr and Mrs Goron and I ended up staying much later than intended. Not that that’s a huge problem, the band wasn’t on until 2am and the good company more than made up for having to pay £4 to get into Slimelight.

Back at the hotel I changed and walked to Slimelight. The rain very kindly held off until the last few meters of the journey saving me getting drenched as I didn’t have my brolly. Once in the club I barely had time to dump my top in the cloak room and have a quick drink before some stomping tunes came on the dance floor. I stayed there until 1:45am when I headed upstairs to get a good spot for the band.

The [X]-Rx gig is the fullest I’ve seen Slimelight in a long time. If I’m honest they are supremely cheesy with fairly formulaic songs which are easy to dance to, but then a good cheesefest is huge fun one in a while¹. An hour later and I’m drenched in sweat with a knackered shoulder² and a huge grin on my face. Concert over it was back to the middle floor to continue dancing for a bit before retiring to my hotel room and dying. All in all a fantastic day

¹The highlight for me had to be when one of the band had to take 5, presumably to be sick as he wasn’t well apparently. With the music paused for a few minutes we were invited by the remaining member to “make some fucking noise!” to which one heckler replied “No, you make some fucking noise!”

²And before you start telling me that perhaps I’m to old to be clubbing I should point out that one if Slimelights oldest members put in an appearance last night making me closer in age to the youngest people there than the oldest

Tomorrow I’m off to London to wonder round Camden (I love browsing through Camden Market), catch up with some friends I have not seen in a while and go see [X]-Rx at Slimelight.

To allow me to cope with crap weekend trains, dump things and not have epic all nighters to content with I have me a cheap hotel room. As a result I’ll be heading to London earlier than I normally do (no getting kicked off the last train at Ingatestone due to fatalities at Shenfield for me this weekend), and heading out later than I normally do after having some actual sleep! Should be a fun weekend. Just wish The Zozo could come too (although she’d probably hate Slimelight )

I shall go to the ball after all. Got hone last night, checked www.nationalexpresseastangliabutnotweekendsordayswithbadweather.comto discover they are in fact running trains, and at vaguely the times I want and without busses getting in the way. The Zozo is working Sunday, I can get home before midday and there were still cheap tickets to be had to London. Normally things stack up to make it awkward to go, but with everything being this straight forward someone is obviously trying to tell me something. I’m not going to argue with that. Now I just need to order in some new blue glowsticks

So there I am, lamenting my return to work and desperately trying to summon up the motivation to get something done when up pops a tweet notification from VLRK:

Bit last minute, but: DJ VLRK + Live: DECODED FEEDBACK @ Slimelight’s Industek Floor/London/UK this Saturday. Be there!!!

At best this means very little to you lot, but if I explain that VLRK is the artist who is basically Grendel (one of my favourite bands) and Slimelight is the club I go to it does give one pause and consider if they might like to toddle along for this.

That said, however, I am away the weekend after and two weekends going out might be a bit much (both from a lack of sleep and a lack of seeing The Zozo perspective). I guess the first question to answer is: are there any trains running? If there aren’t then it will put the kibosh on any plans.

There are two bands I’d really quite like to see live: Grendel and Modulate. Both are on tour this year, although neither appear to be playing anywhere or anytime remotely convenient. What would be nice would be a Norwich gig, or Saturday in London so I could go to Slimelight afterwards. Better still having the gig in Slimelight would be ideal (to be fair Modulate did do Slimelight on New Years Eve but that wasn’t going to happen for me for a whole host of reasons). What is actually happening is London gigs midweek (Modulate) or Saturday gigs somewhere awkward (Manchester for Modulate, Derby for Grendel). Its not even like I could combine it with a weekend getaway with The Zozo thanks to the rather naff locations. It’s something I will have to ponder, but I may just have to settle with one gig this year ([X]-Rx are being nice and doing a Saturday, in London, in Slimelight. What more could you ask?)

The other thing I need to ponder is checking out the night in Norwich that does the music I like. Sadly it’s so obscure that this night happens 4 times a year and is lumped in with two other genres. Now, clubbing, as in going to a night club and dancing the night away is fun. Clubbing, as in going to a night club and standing around, drinking or otherwise not dancing doesn’t hold much interest. So do I take the risk and give it a go, safe in the knowledge I can drive home early if it turns out to be pants, or do I just accept that it’s almost certainly going to be a pale imitation of Slimelight populated by kids with a handful of tracks that I’d dance to? To make it an even harder decision one of the Slimelight DJs is doing a guest slot. Hmmm.

While we were honeymoon the Zozo and I chatted to a man who was staying at the same lodge as us. He was in his 70′s, looked like he was in his late 50′s and was happily yomping up jungle covered hills in the heat and humidity with people half his age. His secret? He’s never considered himself old and never used age ad an excuse not to do anything.

Too bloody right!

I may be 36 now but I’ll be putting kids half my age (literally in some cases) to shame this weekend as once again the wee hours of the morning come round, the kiddies give up and the average of the dancefloor shoots up.

I’ve accepted my fate for next weekend and have resigned myself to far too many hours on trains and busses and much milling about waiting for same. I do, after all, have the week after off so there is plenty of time to recover. The only thing haven’t worked out is what I’m going to do between 7:30am and 9:30am. Even if I walk from Angel to Liverpool Street I’ll still have well over an hour and a half to kill. One has to bear in mind that I’ll be tired, having been up all night; sweaty having been dancing all night; and dressed down because the clubs I go to are holes

I had considered swinging by the pool at the Barbican. It may be small but it’s cheap and would wake me up, keep me active and allow me to shower. Unfortunately this is closed for refurbishment until next year, so that idea is right out. Shopping is out, It’s a Sunday and nothing will be open. I don’t really want to sit somewhere doing very little because if I stop I will fall asleep so I’m rapidly running out of ideas.

I do have big pockets in my coat so, despite traveling light, I could take a paperback with me and see if reading keeps me awake. What would be good is if I could find a coffee shop that was open and allowed charging of iPhones while drinking industrial quantities of tea.

Ideas on a postcard (or comment).

The Zozo has her birthday very close to mine which means that celebrations tend to get all mixed together. this year we’ve got some of my family coming up and the plan was to go out for a few drinks. The Zozo had then asked if she could go off with her girlie friends and have a girlie night. Not a problem, thinks I. I can head off into London and go clubbing. Job done.

But no. You see, to get to and from London I need a train. There’s no way I’m driving as I can’t drive back with no sleep, it’s simply not safe. While there are trains they are, thanks to engineering works, infrequent and beset with changes onto buses and then back onto trains. If I didn’t mind turning up a bit late I could leave Cromer at 8 rather than the more usual 9 but then I’ve got a huge problem coming back. My options are:

1. Leave Slimelight at 6am, walk to Kings Cross, get a train to Cambridge, train somewhere else, bus to Norwich, train to Cromer and arrive 5 hours later paying £48 for the privilege. That’s £10/hour.
2. Leave Slimelight at 7:30 (kickout time), kick about London for 2 hours (bearing in mind I’ll have been awake all night and really just wanting to get home to bed), then get the train, bus, train, train home for 1:30.
3. Leave Slimelight at 7:30, go to a hotel, crash and die, get a later train home.

The first option is a pain, expensive and morally reprehensive. The section option is doable, but real faff. The third option is expensive since I’m to early to check-in for Sunday and I’ll want to make use of the room for longer than most checkout times allow so I’ll need to book for two nights. I’ll need to mull over whether I can be arsed to deal with the faff and if I can get away with ditching the family early, and if I can occupy myself for 2 hours in London on a Sunday morning since, lets face it, that’s what I’m going to have to do.

In the mean time I’m also wanting to go down on the 18th of June to see [X]-RX. This is too far in advance for me to book at the moment and I’ve no idea if there are even going to be trains. Between now and me being able to book train tickets for that I shall be getting some extra toys for my pram because, believe me, if it’s not a case of normal service and easily getting to and from London on that night I’ll be throwing all my toys out of the pram.

Great. I’ve just been sent a document by a friend who has access to these things that would suggest there are going to be buses from Marks Tey to Ipswich that weekend. The London to Norwich line is just a joke.

The Zozo has her work Christmas do tonight which involves a meal at the zoo followed by heading out and getting raucous in Cromer, in so far as it’s possible to get raucous in Cromer. I understand karaoke may be involved. Knowing the people involved there will be much giggling and laughing involved too. I’d be willing to put money on the phrase “fwiend” being used once a few drinks are had. I will not be going. Instead The Zozo suggested I head into London for a night out there. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my wife very much and I love spending as much time as possible with her but she’s going out tonight, is working tomorrow and has handed me a late pass for free. Not something I, or indeed any sane man, is going to turn down

So I’m going to London. Train to Norwich, train to London, tube to destination, dance, tube to Liverpool Street, train to Norwich, train home. Simple, right? Wrong. This is England. At the weekend. On NXEA trains. No, we have to do the following:

Get the train an hour early to Norwich. Change at Norwich for a train to Ingatestone. Get off the train at Ingatestone where I get on a bus that takes me to Newbury Park where I then ‘transfer’ to London Liverpool Street. Transfer in this context means getting a central line tube which gets me to Liverpool Street, according to the TFL website, 1 minute later that NXEA said it would. Personally I trust (for a given value of trust) TFL more than I do NXEA so I’m going to go with thier estimate. What time I arrive, give or take a few minutes, isn’t so much of an issue as it’s a walk to Moorgate, tube to Angel and done and it doesn’t really matter what time I arrive.

Getting home, on the other hand, is going to be a laugh. It’s going to be early on a Sunday and NXEA tell me that I need to ‘transfer’ from Liverpool Street Station at 07:23 to arrive at 07:55 whereupon I get a bus that leaves at… 07:55. I’m thinking giving myself 0 minutes to get out of a tube station, find a bus, get on bus and head onwards is not exactly a sensible proposition.

So what time do I need to leave Liverpool Street? According to the TFL website I need to depart at 07:20 to get to Newbury Park at 07:44. So either NXEA are lying about the departure time, journey time or arrival time. Or all three. So I realistically need to arrive at Liverpool Street at 07:15 so I can get to the Central Line platform. This isn’t going to happen on a tube, there being no Northern Line trains at this time in the morning. It could happen by bus, but I tend to avoid those where possible in London given, historically, the timetable has been more of a serving suggestion than anything they’ve stuck to. No, I’m going to take the only form of transport that’s reliable, available to me and cheap. I’m walking. Leave at 06:45, should get to Liverpool Street for before 07:15 allowing me to get the tube to arrive at Newbury Park in time to get my bus.

The bus then arrives at Ingatestone with a good 11 minutes to spare so I’m hoping that, this time, I won’t be getting to the station to watch the train pull off and strand me there for an hour making me late and buggering up my connections. Spending an hour at Colchester station last time was dull enough. An hour at Ingatestone will be torture.

Assuming all is well I get on the train to Norwich which has to arrive on time as I have 7 minutes to transfer to my train to Cromer. NXEA do not have a good track record of making tight connections to Cromer, although my experience is generally on a Friday evening with the train having come all the way from London not further down the line and a Sunday morning. It’s this bit that is causing me the most stress. If I miss that train I am stuck in Norwich for two (2) hours. Bearing in mind that, at this stage, I will have been awake for well over 24 hours my mood will not be such that I will accept this with good grace, or indeed any grace at all. I will be using those two hours to prize whatever compensation I can out NXEA for the grief and inconvenience caused.

So there you go. A simple 6 hour round trip is going to take over 8 hours, involve many transfers and much stress and could take over 10 hours and much shouting. It should be so simple and yet it isn’t. And this, this is why I hate the trains. Still going though

Having been awake for some stupidly large number of hours due to me deciding I wanted to go clubbing on a night with an extra hour in it (self inflicted, no sympathy) I need to keep myself occupied and my brain active so I don’t fall asleep and miss my county (never mind my stop). To this end I shall list a number of lessons that people should have learned last night:

1) In a club with a strict no photography policy, while you might get away with mobile phone pics, you’re not going to be left unchallenged when you pull out a ruddy great big SLR with huge flash gun. One assumes you’ll be picking that up at the end of the night now.

2) Men who are overweight should not take their tops of and expose their chests. Ever. No matter how hot it gets. End of discussion.

3) Men who think they are trim and in shape should not take off their tops and expose their chests. You’re not quite as trim as you think.

4) Men who are trim and in shape should not take off their tops and expose abs and 6 packs. Bastards!

5) Covering your friends in beer on the train on the way to your Halloween party greatly reduces the number of friends you have.

6) Banging on my window at Witham station while I snooze on my way to London is not big, nor is it clever.

7) Ripping the signs that say “out of order” from the cash machines won’t suddenly magically make them work. Not even if you remove all of them.
Brave though it was to wear a g-string and fishnet top with those trousers (male, and not dissimilar build to me, which is something you want to hide rather than flaunt) you might want to check for labels. They glow under the UV light and the visible label on the thong was very disconcerting.

9) The clocks went back an hour last night. It happened after 01:59. After this time some, older time pieces may need manual intervention. Asking “are you sure” after enquiring about the time and canvassing a large number of people (presumably so you can take an average, or go with the majority vote, or something) really isn’t needed.

10) And last, but by no means least, this is Slimelight. The fact you’re not peeing into a trough after wading across a floor covered in piss, beer and puke while women (and men) check their makeup is a small miracle. You’ve got your own, men only toilet, it’s relatively clean and there’s even a thing of hand soap by the sinks. Accept that hand towels or a working hand drier is too much to ask. I take my own little towel. It Comes in very handy.

Todays best phrase was overheard in the gents toilets: ” Dude! How is your makeup not running?”. Given it’s Halloween you would be forgiven in thinking that it’s not a completely off the wall question. Let me take it completely off the wall, therefore, and tell you they weren’t in costume. At least not a Halloween one. They weren’t in drag either

And now I must leave you and change onto my bus replacement rail service