Yellow Zeds and Elbow Wars

Most of Thursday night I think I have already spoken about in more than enough detail. After the concert, Laura, Sarah and I decided to go and meet up with Aussie Mate for a few bevies. Walking from the Empire to the tube station, we annoyingly attracted the attention of some irritating bloke who appeared to be of the opinion that following us making lewd faces was the most effective route to our hearts - we ducked into a shop to lose him and made it to the tube, and then the posh hotel, without further drama. The lobby of the posh hotel isn’t easy to describe - it’s every so trendy, all minimalist white and instead of the usual clusters of sofas you find in hotel lobbies, there are weird seat type formations - it is difficult to ascertain whether they are meant to be sat in or admired like art - randomly scattered around. Aussie Mate texted to say that he wasn’t far from the hotel, so we chose a restoration style (although electric blue) chaise type thing that we were fairly confident was meant to be sat in - although we perched gingerly just in case - to wait for him.

I suddenly noticed a stunning, scarily sophisticated woman reclining in a bright yellow Z shaped chair, and watched in interest because surely if anyone could rise from the low yellow Z with dignity it would be her. I was more than slightly disappointed to learn moments later, that it was in fact beyond her. It was like that new Dove commercial in which the perfectly normal looking woman is made up then photographed, then the photos touched up until she looks like a supermodel - while I do appreciate the point the ad is making, that that level of perfection is only an illusion, on the other hand I like thinking that the potential for perfection exists out there. I have no interest in attaining it, but I like to think it’s there.

Well, I say I have no interest in attaining perfection - but I was interested to learn whether or not I would be able to rise from the yellow Z with dignity, so as Ms Sophistication had vacated it in her disappointingly ungainly manner, I skipped across the shiny white floor to launch myself into the challenge. It was only once I was wedged into a Z shape myself that I discovered the crux of the challenge - from the angle we’d been watching, we couldn’t tell that the leg rest of the chair was significantly higher than the seat of it. Naturally just as I realized that I was trapped in a position appropriate for a genealogical examination, the sliding front doors opened and Aussie Mate and his colleagues arrived. Aussie Mate was preoccupied - one of the blokes he’s travelling with is in a pretty bad way with a leg injury so had to be pretty much carried up to his room, poor bloke - so Aussie Mate just waved and shook his head in pity at my predicament before disappearing into the purple and silver lifts. However another one of their colleagues quite purposefully strode across the lobby and promptly lay down in what I can only describe as a human sized guitar case. That particular structure I am fairly sure was intended as decoration, but as this bloke doesn’t seem to be one for following rules and regulations, it apparently didn’t bother him and he passed a what appeared to be a happy few moments lying alone in a huge guitar case before popping up again and heading to the private residents’ bar. I’d like to think that it was a show of lying in weird objects solidarity with me but as my feet were somewhat blocking my line of vision I couldn’t be sure. Aussie Mate returned, I was rescued from my yellow prison, and we all retired to the swanky private bar where we drank lots and blethered nonsense until we were kicked out in the wee hours. This time, I managed not to physically maim any of Aussie Mate’s colleagues, although I did make a face at one (nope, no idea what possessed me either), and both waltzed with and informed that his moustache makes him look French, another. I suspect that Aussie Mate might not invite me to drink with him again.

Friday night, youngest brother Paul came up to London from his university in Wales, so he, Laura and I headed to our local club on Ken Church Street where somehow I managed to persuade the bouncer to let Laura and I in for free. We huddled in a corner and passed the evening drinking cocktails, occasionally doing impressions of various family members dancing and taking stupid pictures of each other on our phones. We had a brief excursion to the dance floor, during which I got into an elbow scuffle with a would be seducer of one of a group of girls dancing near us. Why, oh why, do English men think that hovering near the object of a their desire is all they need to do? I think it must be a bizarre form of fear of rejection - if they never get close enough, you can never be sure that it’s you they are hovering near so can never tell them to go away. The girl wasn’t aware of his presence whatsoever, so all he succeeded in doing was irritating me and therefore getting a few swift jabs to the ribs with my elbow (naturally followed by a wide eyed gasp “oh I am so sorry! I am so clumsy! Now bugger off.”) for his trouble.