I arose at the crack of noon to bathe and dress for the forth coming luncheon. Jon (T&F) picked me up from outside my flat and we set out. After a few telephone calls we determined that everything was running late. We were informed that most people were "waiting outside covent garden tube" given the weather, when invited to join them I hung up. Turning to Jon I uttered those most beautiful of words "bugger that, let's go to the pub".
1st Double Gin and Tonic - 1:38pm
Eventually we were summoned to 'Belgo's' for a traditional
Belgian christmas lunch. We had to wait in the bar for our table hence I managed to consume another large g&t. In attendance were, T&F, deepflow, minty, flavius, blasto, idi, piglet, furball, myself and Lex Luther. Allow me to describe my companions; pig is massive, idi wisely stood next to pig thereinby appearing thin, minty was doing a convincing impersonation of a popular cake, blasto is short, furball will soon reach double figures, deepflow looks like a druggie, flavius cunningly avoids the greasy deigo stereotype by looking like a greasy deigo, T&F is adorable, and tomkat keeps mumbling about beating superman.
Presently we were seated. At which point a team of highly skilled thieves (later identified as terrorists from their constant mumbling of "dakka dakka mohamed jihad", but originally confused with traffic wardens) stole pig's pack of cigarettes. This would normally have been a non event except for the fact that the gobby little shite wouldn't shut up about it**. Served by trappists monks, and in keeping with sa sense of righteous self deprivation; we dined on modest fare - i myself nibbled on a tiny little lobster. One G&T at lunch.
We then moved on to a wine bar. Except we didn't. Because London being London the wine bar had turned into a tapas bar. Struck dumb by this horrific metamorphosis I allowed Tomkat to take us to a weatherspoons. The ungrateful cancer ridden git however kept insisting that we were not in a weatherspoons (even though we clearly were). 5 G&T's and Dace calls. I leave to let him drop off things at mine.
We return, dace having 'dolled himself up'; which consisted of fumigating himself against insect investation with something he described as 'after shave'. General chat and 4 G&T's later Tomkat gets wanderlust. I tried to argue against this maddness on the basis that we were all happily seated in a place where gin was plentiful; to no avail. Deciding then to just watch him **** things up we all left.
As we wandered, tomkat apparently oblivious to the fact that if you keep turning right you eventually travel in a circle, we were set upon by a sea of santas. Abandoning his pretence at leadership we were then litterally swept by santas down into leicester square. In LS I was approached by a police officer who politely asked me if these badly dressed people were bothering me, momentary temptation to have them all arrested passed as tomkat had now spotted a bar. He approached and when asked how many of us there were he said "ten", the muppet. As you can expect the bouncers replied "we don't let large groups of men in". This was a monstrous calumny because furball at least ought to have qualified as a child.
Tomkat then abandonded his charrade of control begging me to assist. I pointed out a destination, Waxy O'connors, and despatched piglet, idi and deepflow as advance scouts. I then recommended that we who remained took some food. Dace however apparently 'knew better'. Deciding that eating is for wimps he headed into waxy's.
The rest of us set out for food. I was taken to KFC. Where the sweet waiter apparently didn't have an opinion on what the speciality was
. I recited my list of things i vaguely remembered from the neon boards and was served. They then proceeded to consume their food in a matter of seconds. Flavius was kind enough to go downstairs and find me some salt (i had mistaken picked up pepper), much to the consternation of tomkat. Pushed to immitate this feat of culinary insanity, I instantly got indigestion.
We left to go to Waxy's which was HEAVING with people. I fixed TK with an ironic eye recalling the seats we had left behind and went and ordered myself 2 large G&Ts. Eventually I found us a table. Where it was swiftly pointed out to pig that if he didn't sit on the bench then we would have enough room to seat half the population of uganda. After 6 more G&Ts I became merry and started singing along to the music. Dace however became extremely drunk. Insisting on texting his 'girl' despite our advice to the contrary.
We then moved on to Los Locos, the only club in London bad enough to allow these people in. After a brief stop for idi and deep to play on the carousel in covent garden (while i introduced flavius to such cultural songs as 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts' 'maybe it's because I'm a Londoner' and 'my old man said follow the van') we arrived. 2 more G&Ts (one for flavius). Some dancing. Mostly by me. Cancer boy chatting up 2 dumpy women. Some more Gins (2). An essex boy telling me that I looked sexy and proceeding to strip for me, then stopping stripping with the words "you were going to look weren't you?". This confusing incident was too much for my gin addled mind so I dutifully forgot it.
By this time Dace was passed out. I therefore decided to take him home. I made him buy a sandwich on the way home (he also bought a bottle of irn bru to avoid any danger of an onlooker thinking that he was English ... or sane ...). We stayed up chatting and I had my final gin at about 2:40am.
I was greated this morning by the words "oh my god I texted Gemma 14 times" ...
I ask those who remained to finish the tale ...
(** Pig's cigarettes were later found ... in his coat ... which to be fair is easy to misplace things in as it doubles up as a sleeping blanket for HMS Invincible)