#oneaday Day 344: Very late night

It is 1am and, surprisingly, I am wide awake. And this is after an evening of drinking… well, I'm not sure I'd say heavily, but we all had a fair few cocktails over the course of 6 hours or so. None of those cocktails were astronomically, brain-fryingly strong, though, so right now I just feel quite… pleasant. Which is nice. The last few times I've had a drink I've found myself just skipping the "happy drunk" phase and going straight to "maudlin".

It was the Eurovision Song Contest this evening. I never feel like I particularly give a shit about this, but if it's on I always find myself getting curiously invested in proceedings. We missed most of the actual performances because we were out in the garden having a barbecue, though we did have them on the radio in the background, so at least we heard most of them.

Without getting too much into global geopolitics, it was looking a bit… risky for a while, shall we say, but I don't think many people will have had too many complaints about Austria winning. The song itself was a bit boring, but no-one can deny the impressive range and power of the Austrian chap's voice. Very operatic. Very impressive.

I find it curious that Eurovision is often described as being very "camp" and even "gay" or "queer" — and I'm not denying any of those things, I hasten to add — while simultaneously having plenty of performances and costumes that heterosexual people would also get a kick out of. I guess a sexy bod and a sexy outfit is always a sexy bod and a sexy outfit, regardless of what gender identity or sexual orientation you're looking at it from.

I suspect the "camp" and "gay" descriptors tend to apply primarily to the performances in their entirety: the flamboyant, overdramatic productions that most of them involve are, for whatever reason, associated with queerness, and that, in turn, gives the whole thing a distinctly queer identity of its own. At least, I suppose that's the case, anyway. I am not, I hasten to add and emphasise strongly, an expert.

Perhaps the argument runs something like "Musical theatre is flamboyant and overdramatic, gay people like musical theatre, therefore anything musical theatre-adjacent that is flamboyant and overdramatic must be gay." I think I've cracked it! Or maybe not. I don't know. I've drunk four cocktails this evening and consequently I'm not entirely sure my powers of reasoning are the best right now, and I probably shouldn't even be typing this. But oh well. It's done now. And, I think, without any spelling mistakes. Certainly a far cry from certain earlier entries on this blog. Or, rather, the tweets I sent the night before the blog after. In fact, you know what, let's revisit those for posterity. (Read from bottom to top for chronological posts.)

For context, these were sent on the 7th of May, 2010, when I was absolutely twatted off my face, basking in the misery of my first marriage having broken down and the prospect of having to move back home to live with my parents for a while. I, obviously, apologise for the errant homophobia, but, y'know, different times and all that. Not that it was particularly acceptable then, either. But I'm sure most of you reading this have some off-colour things you say when you're among friends. And, at the time, my Twitter account was pretty much entirely "among friends".

I haven't seen most of those lovely people for quite a while, though I did randomly run into "dollydaydream" at Specsavers a couple of weekends ago while I was getting a new pair of glasses. That was nice. Hopefully we can have a proper catch-up soon.

I kind of miss that (relatively) youthful exuberance. At the same time, I'm also glad I'm not going out in town on a regular basis, because going out drinking these days is expensive. Much better to just have a few nice drinks in your nice comfy home with people you enjoy the company of, and actually be able to hear one another.

Does that make me an old fart? Almost certainly. But y'know what, I don't give a shit. And now, as a great man once said: Going to bd. Fuck off. Nght night.

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#oneaday Day 189: A story from last night

I promised you a story from last night, didn't I? I'm afraid it's not super interesting, nor does it involve me personally getting into a hilariously embarrassing situation, but it was a noteworthy part of the evening nonetheless.

For our Christmas do, we started at a cocktail bar in Covent Garden called, inexplicably, Blame Gloria. While we were there, we were taught some basic drinks-pouring skills and also taught how to make a few different cocktails: a Zombie, a passion fruit Martini, and a Blow Job.

It was fun, though everyone retrospectively agreed that starting drinking at 3pm when a significant number of us are the wrong side of 35 was perhaps a misstep, but anyway.

After the cocktails, we took a wander over to a relatively nearby place called The Piano Works, where we were going to have dinner and some more drinks. I did not enjoy this place very much; the food was good (apart from some sprouts with the turkey dinner that were as hard as golf balls) but it was so very loud.

I realise this makes me sound like the worst kind of old man, but as an autistic person I can be quite sensitive to noise at the best of times, and I think my absolute least favourite noise is the sound of a crowd of people all shouting in a futile attempt to have conversations in a room where the ambient noise level is far too loud to make this in any way practical.

In other words, the music was too loud, which meant everyone was yelling, and I found that exceedingly unpleasant. That is not the story; it is just context.

Anyway, after we'd had our food and had sat for a bit, we were ushered on our way so the next bookings could have our table. Several of us headed straight for the door; a few others went via the toilets. I was part of the former group.

After a few minutes, it became clear that the toilet group were not emerging. It didn't take long to discover why: the doors to the bar burst open and out came a screaming, crying woman that several people — both bar staff and friends, from what I could understand of the situation — were having trouble calming down.

"GET YOUR 'ANDS OFF ME!" she screeched. "YOU'RE BEING FUCKIN' 'ORRIBLE TO ME! I 'AVEN'T DONE NOTHING WRONG!"

This sequence of phrases repeated itself over and over for a few minutes, then she added "I WANNA SEE A POLICEMAN" to the mix. She was furious about something, but I couldn't really work out what. She was angry at the bar staff and the people who were presumably her friends, but primarily for them taking her out of the bar; I could not glean what the situation actually stemmed from. I suspect it was just "she was being a little too drunk" and she had been encouraged to move on.

The screeching and wailing went on for a good ten minutes or so, during which time the few of us who had managed to escape were ushered a little way down the hallway to get away from any potential "incidents". Someone finally managed to do something to calm her down, though, and by the time she finally tottered down the stairs and into the street, supported on either side by the people I assume to be her friends, she was giggling.

The whole scenario was a tad unsettling to watch, to be perfectly honest. I know this sort of thing tends to make for "funny stories", and immediately after these things happen, everyone tends to just sort of shake their head, go "bloody hell" and then attempt to make light of the situation, but it can be quite scary to be in the vicinity of something like that happening. It felt like there was quite a real risk of the screeching woman becoming violent, so kudos to whoever it was (and whatever they did) that managed to calm her down a bit.

I've been absolutely trollied in my younger days — I tend to stop well before I become foolish nowadays, on the rare occasions I do drink, because the depression tends to hit first — but I don't think I've ever been in such an absolute state.

Well, there may be one possibility. The only time I've been drunk and had absolutely no memory of what I did was on my brother's stag night many years ago, when I supposedly got so hammered (underage, too) I was sick on a waiter's shoes. I have no memory of this, though I do very much remember the hangover (my first, in fact!) the following day.

Even then, though, I don't think I ended up screeching and yelling at people. One might argue yakking on a waiter's shoes is worse than that. My situation probably also made people around me feel a tad unsafe, and I should probably be grateful to my Dad, who I believe is the one who managed to get me back to the place we were staying safely.

This ended up being about me after all, heh. Well, I don't make a habit of being like that any more. That was a very long time ago, and, as I say, I tend not to drink much now anyway. And when I do, I tend to find "sad drunk" hits faster than "silly drunk" these days. Which is a bit of a shame, but probably something we all need to come to terms with as we get older.

So that's my story. It may not have been super exciting, but I hope it painted a bit of a picture of my experience with London nightlife!

1329: Day After

It was the wedding of my good friend James to his good wife Charlotte yesterday — an event which, apparently, had been a very long time coming. (I've only known James for a relatively short period of time and only met Charlotte once or twice, so it felt like a perfectly reasonable amount of time to me, but judging by the jokes in the speeches, it was, as I say, apparently a long time coming.)

In stark contrast to my friends George and Mitu's wedding the other week, which was a vibrant, multicultural affair that must have cost a fucking fortune to put on, James and Charlotte's wedding was a much more traditional British affair: church service, followed by retiring to a stately home for afternoon tea (including an astonishing variety of finger sandwiches and cakes), barn-dancing, a selection of meats (beef, lamb and pork — with crackling) and, of course, various types of booze on tap.

I must confess to having had a little too much to drink yesterday. I don't drink a lot these days, you see — Andie doesn't drink, and I normally join her on that, since the last few times I've drunk I haven't really enjoyed it all that much, and I don't tend to "go out" to occasions that involve imbibing vast quantities of alcohol very often, either. As such, my tolerance is considerably less than it was when I was at university and drinking fairly heavily on a regular basis. This makes me a cheap date, of course, but also means that I have to be somewhat… careful, particularly when strong drinks are involved.

The reception began with some Pimm's, which was flowing pretty freely and getting regularly topped up by some ninja waiters and waitresses — the moment your glass was less than half-full, someone would appear as if from nowhere with a jug and refill it. Pimm's is delicious, too, of course, and so it's perfectly natural to just keep drinking it if it keeps coming.

Then there was champagne during the toasts and speeches. I'm not all that fond of champagne these days, to be honest — not that fond of wine in general, in fact. I had a bit of a "wine phase" at one point, but have since gone off it somewhat so I was rather underwhelmed by the champagne, even though I can probably safely assume — judging by the rest of the day, anyway — that it was probably quite expensive.

Later in the evening came the real killer, though — there were two different types of scrumpy, one of which just looked like orange squash, and the other of which was called "Bee Sting" and looked a bit like elderflower cordial. I tried some of the latter and it's some of the nicest scrumpy I've ever tasted — very sweet, not at all "alcoholic-tasting" — but by golly it had a kick and a half, and you didn't really notice until it was too late. In my case, it was looking up at the stars outside the venue and staggering unsteadily around that made me realise that yes, I was, in fact, a bit pissed. Not overly so — certainly not enough to make me want to take to the dance floor or do anything particularly outrageous — but enough to affect my balance somewhat. I felt all right, though.

That is, until about 2:30 in the morning, when I woke up to an unpleasant feeling and an accompanying mental image of an army advancing on my position. As the army got closer, I started to feel worse, and attempting to distract myself from the encroaching horde only made me pay more attention to it. Eventually, as the sound of marching boots was bearing down on me and mental pikemen started clashing with mental knights, I felt that there was only one real explanation for the battlefield in my head and stomach, and there was probably also only going to be one resolution to, it, too.

I was correct. Afterwards, however, I felt considerably better and have remained pleasantly hangover-free, too. Which is nice.

1225: Red Wizard Needs Z's Badly

May 27 -- Sleepy I'm exhausted. I'm not quite sure why I feel so utterly exhausted because I slept well last night and today hasn't exactly been a particularly strenuous day. We played a couple of short games this morning before departing the pleasant country farmhouse we'd been staying in over the weekend, drove back, then, presumably, did our respective "Things" once we got home rather than immediately falling into a coma like I feel like doing right now.

The only thing I can possibly attribute it to is the two gin and tonics I had last night. I don't really drink any more so even a tiny bit of alcohol tends to have quite a strong impact on me — disappointingly, this doesn't tend to take the form of getting amusingly giggly or wobbly any more; rather, it tends to just make me a bit tired, particularly the day after I've been drinking. I guess what I'm enduring is a sort of hangover, albeit a rather pathetic one that will be immensely disappointing to those who used to enjoy past drunken (and post-drunken) ramblings.

The other thing it could be, of course, is the fact that we stayed up until about 2 in the morning playing various combinations of board, card and computer games, then tumbled into bed (not together) before waking up relatively early (for a bank holiday Monday, anyway) today.

Either way, it's not a particularly good show, is it? I vividly remember the days when I'd happily stay up all night just for the hell of it (and regret it for the majority of the following day, particularly if there were any university lectures involved) and consume several gallons of alcoholic beverages before texting people I fancied messages with lots of X's on the end of them (the number of X's was typically proportional to how much I fancied them) and collapsing into bed, quite possibly fully-clothed.

Depressingly, the time when I was able to behave like that on a regular basis was over ten years ago now. Longtime readers will doubtless note that the posts I linked to above were from relatively early in this whole #oneaday lark, but they were isolated incidents rather than something I was doing on a regular basis.

Actually, I say "depressingly", but I don't really feel the need to stay up until ungodly hours in the morning and stagger in as pissed as a fart on a regular basis. At the tender age of 32, I'm more than happy to spend my evening lounging on the sofa watching some entertaining videos or playing a game. It doesn't stop me from indulging in a late night once in a while, of course — apparently I just have to be prepared to deal with the consequences the following day!

Now I am going to go to bed and possibly sleep for about a thousand years. (Note: It will probably not be about a thousand years. Probably more like 8 hours or so, I imagine.) Good night, and hopefully I'll have a more lively brain that is willing to talk about something a bit more interesting on the morrow.

#oneaday Day 964: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I've never really been one to just "go out" unless I had a very good reason, usually in the form of some friends asking me to join them. (I have, of course, tried going out by myself a few times in the past, but as chronicled in this post, it rarely ended well.)

As such, I've never really had somewhere that I could call "my local" with any confidence, there's nowhere that I could accurately describe myself as a "regular" of. I'm not really bemoaning this fact — I have plenty of better things to do than sit in the pub — but it's an aspect of life that I feel may have passed me by somewhat.

It was a little different back when I was at university, of course. We regularly frequented a wide variety of places that could quite politely be described as "dives", but all of them had their own unique charms.

In the first year, there was Chamberlain Bar, which was the "local" for a group of several university halls of residence in the area. It wasn't a particularly exciting bar, bearing a closer resemblance to the sort of half-hearted establishment that exists to make a few extra pennies for a community recreation centre than a jumpin' nightspot, but it was "home" for a while. It was where most of us discovered the "Juicy Lucy" (pint glass, vodka, blue curaçao or however you spell it, double shot of Taboo, topped up with equal amounts orange juice and lemonade) and the "Passion Wagon", officially the laziest cocktail of all time (shot of Passoa with a bottle of Reef emptied into it). It also had a tendency to throw crap events — our flat were the only attendees to dress up for "Seventies Night" and a Hawaiian-themed evening consisted of them turning the heating up full and serving nothing but the aforementioned Passion Wagons all night.

Southampton had one big club at the time when I was studying at the university. I'm not sure what it's called now, but it used to be called Ikon and Diva, as it was one of those weird places that was split into two separate mini-clubs inside. It was shit. It was the sort of place that you went after you got really drunk and consequently barely remember anything from. Consequently, I barely remember anything about this place save for the fact I was clearly so impressed by it that I never went there ever again after my first visit.

There were plenty of smaller clubs, though. One that springs immediately to mind was New York's, which has been closed and derelict for several years now. It was also shit, and like Ikon and Diva, it was the sort of place you only went to when absolutely off your tits. I only have random flashes of memories of the one (I think) time I went to New York's, but I vividly recall looking down from a balcony to a stage-like area below, where a bunch of drunk men and women were stripping because the DJ had asked them to. Sure, I got to see tits, but even in my horrendously intoxicated state, I found the complete lack of human dignity on display to be more obnoxious than titillating. Consequently, I never went back there, either.

Then there was Lennon's, which I think is probably home to most of my best "going out" memories, perhaps largely because it's the place that several of us tended to frequent most often. I'm not entirely sure why this was, as Lennon's was a fairly bare-bones club, being essentially a moderately-sized wooden room with a bar on one side and a DJ on the other, occasionally accompanied by a nice man named Vince who sold chips. They played good music, though, and often played host to live bands. I even performed there myself on a couple of occasions, with our university band the Coconut Scratch Orchestra discovering the folly of leaving drumbeats up to a backing track rather than a live drummer. (We all swore after that to never, ever play Mission: Impossible again.) It was also nice in that it was not frequented by the sort of waxed-chest, greasy-haired chav that frequented places like Ikon and Diva.

Would I describe myself as a "regular" at any of those places, though? No, probably not. I see a "regular" as someone who knows the bar staff by name and is recognised by bouncers; someone who meets friends there without having to make prior arrangements; someone who sees it as a "home away from home" — a place to socialise, hang out and just relax. I never quite saw it that way — it was always fun to go to Lennon's, sure, particularly if my friend had enough to drink to get to the stage where he thought kebabs made him literally invincible, but it was never a place that I felt like I was a "part of".

I'm not really sure if I've "missed out" on something by not having that kind of experience. I guess I have another chance when I hit, what, 50 years of age and start liking real ales or something?

#oneaday Day 817: Countdown to a Non-Event

It's my 31st birthday on the 29th of this month, something which I am neither massively looking forward to or dreading — it's just happening. (That said, there is the distinct possibility of nerdtastic board game action in the name of celebration, so I guess I am sort of looking forward to it.)

Birthdays are one of those things that seem massively important when you're a kid but decline in relevance as you get older, with only the big "decade change" birthdays being a particularly big deal in most cases. My 30th was pretty awesome, as it happened, since not only did my awesome girlfriend take me to London for happy funtimes (on royal wedding day, as it happened, but that didn't make things as inconvenient as I expected it might) but I then got to hang out with a goodly proportion of my UK-based friends (and one US-based friend who happened to be in the country at the time!) and eat lots of curry. Which was nice.

Thinking back on it, though, I'm not sure I can remember that many birthdays from my past. I was never particularly big on the whole "party" thing even when I was little — I remember going to plenty of other kids' parties at the local village hall, eating cake and playing Pass The Parcel, though I don't have any traumatic clown experiences to have revelations about in therapy (unless they're particularly well-hidden and repressed) and I was rarely — if ever, I forget — the actual "host" or "guest of honour" of such an event.

I'm fine with this, as it happens, though it may have begun to carve my personality into the shape it is today. A big "party" full of people I don't really know very well all putting pressure on me to have a good time is not a situation I particularly want to put myself in, particularly as it's considered impolite and/or drama queen-ish to tell everyone that you've had enough and you'd just like them all to, you know, fuck off right now please.

I think the best birthday celebrations I've had were loosely-organised affairs where I maybe had the opportunity to hang out with a few friends, but there was no real pressure on anyone to be wild, wacky or drunk. Oftentimes there was all of the above, but rarely was it forced.

One particularly memorable occasion came during my first year at university, so I guess it must have been my 19th birthday. The halls of residence flat in which I lived had become a pretty close-knit group (most of us, anyway — there was one girl who perpetually did her own thing) and so we decided that we would go to local student hotspot and well-known grot spot Clowns, a "wine bar" that had an attached basement nightclub known as Jesters.

To call Clowns a "wine bar" was to polish a turd, really, since it was simply a "bar". Okay, it served wine, but the phrase "wine bar" implies a certain degree of classiness that Clowns most certainly did not possess. Rather, it was the sort of place in which you stuck to the floor if you stood still for too long, and its companion nightclub Jesters (which seemed to be perpetually open, even during the day) was the kind of place whose toilets regularly overflowed and coated the dance floor with a sloppy mess of urine, cigarette butts and all manner of other unpleasantness. The theory was that by the time you got into Jesters, you were usually so wasted that you didn't mind what you might be stepping in/on, so it was something of a moot point.

I digress. This particular birthday celebration was one of those "unstructured" sort of occasions. Clowns was running some sort of summer special whereby they'd provide you with a four-pint jug of its signature "Juicy Lucy" cocktail for about four quid, and as such most people there were clutching said jugs like giant tankards, pouring the luminescent green concoction down their throats with gay abandon.

I remember relatively little about what we were actually doing at the pub — drinking, probably — but for some reason I have oddly lucid memories of what happened upon our return to the flat. My flatmate Chris, for one, decided that the thing to do would be to sit in the corner of my bedroom with a pair of my (clean) underpants on his head. (I believe he was later sick on his door and subsequently refused to come out of his room for the rest of the evening, though this may have been another occasion.) My friend Simon, who did not live in the same halls of residence as us, fell asleep on my bed. All I really wanted to do at this time was fall asleep, too, so I opened up my wardrobe, rested my head on the bin-bag full of laundry that was in there (surprisingly comfortable) and drifted off for a little while.

I awoke a couple of hours later to find Simon just rousing from his slumber, too.

"I'm just going to run my head under the tap and then leave," he said blearily. He stood up, and from my low vantage point I heard him go into the kitchen, run the tap as he suggested, and a few moments later, the front door banged to indicate that he had indeed left.

This occasion was clearly a silly situation in which almost nothing of any note whatsoever occurred, but for some reason it has stuck in my memory for many, many years. I can only wonder what strange memories future celebrations may burn onto my brain.

#oneaday, Day 42: The Hangover

It's been a while since a truly drunken night, and as I commented in one of my favourite posts of last year, it's important to take stock of your situation the day after in order to ensure that no lasting damage has been done to yourself, your friendships, your relationships, your internal organs or the bathroom in the place where you were living or staying at the time.

Last night was what we shall politely call "a heavy night". The reasons for said night out are either unimportant or possibly under embargo right now, so let's just say that there was me; a group of people from whole other countries; lots of free-flowing alcohol, mostly in the form of Kamikaze shots or Jameson's and ginger beer, which seemed to become the "official drink" of the evening (I initially judged the first one as disgusting but it either grew on me or I stopped caring after the first one. I forget which.); a basement bar called Roppongi; some girls in very tight dresses including one with a very 80s haircut and her friend who was still dressed up but looked like she had made less of an over-the-top "conscious effort" and was consequently far more attractive; and… well, I don't think I need to go on—surely all the ingredients for a great night are already there.

I managed to conduct myself with an appropriate degree of decorum, however, and found myself on more than one occasion confronted with some very pleasant company who were probably mostly using me as an excuse to get away from some somewhat more lecherous company but at least did me the courtesy of seeming interested in the things I had to say. I can remember their names and everything. See, perfect gentleman, me. (Well, all right. There's one I can't quite remember the name of. But I'm not convinced I ever knew it in the first place, so I think we can let me off on that count. Also it was very noisy, and I was very drunk.)

The basement location of aforementioned bar precluded any possibility of drunk livetweeting the evening, which is probably for the best. It also prevented drunk texting and phoning, also probably for the best, though I can't recall a time I've ever actually phoned anyone when drunk. (People phone me, though. The words "Lana no sleep!" and the sounds of the person in question frantically scrabbling at their front door attempting to get in and failing still haunt me to this day.) I am occasionally guilty of the odd drunken text, however, as that previous post will attest.

In fact, the whole evening was thoroughly pleasant—no-one got into a fight, no one pissed anyone else off (or if they did, the one who was pissed off hid it well) and no-one made too much of a fool of themselves. Everyone made it back to their respective sleeping quarters safely with no "unexpected guests". And no-one was sick.

Until this morning, of course, when the hangover came. I can't speak for my companions but if they felt anything like I did when I woke up at 8am after about 5 hours' sleep, I sincerely pity them for having to be up, about and ready to be driven to the airport.

The trouble with a hangover is it takes time for you to work out its severity. When lying down, you might be able to judge that Today Will Not Be A Good Day. Standing up is the next text, as is attempting to walk to the bathroom. Breakfast offers an additional challenge, carrying the risk of your stomach going "AHHH. NO MORE. SRSLY" when confronted with… well, anything, really.

And all the while your brain is going through a constant cycle of thinking "Please don't be sick. I won't be sick if I don't think about being sick. But trying really hard not to think about being sick is making me wonder if I'm actually feeling sick. And wondering if I'm actually feeling sick is making me think about how far it would go from here to actually being sick, and if I can make it to the toilet if I do suddenly feel sick. And oh. I feel sick. BLAAAARF."

Sometimes you can overcome these urges, of course. It would be ungentlemanly of me to reveal whether or not I succeeded in this, however. You'll have to make your own mind up.

#oneaday, Day 14: Is A Tardy Person Called A "Tard"?

Some people are habitually late for everything they do. Some more so than others. Some of them justify it under the guise of being "fashionably late", that obnoxious concept where people, for some inexplicable reason, believe that the time on an invitation is open to negotiation, particularly if the event in question doesn't involve people talking, singing, dancing or stripping (forget that last one) for your pleasure on a stage.

Where has this concept come from, though? eHow gives a frankly unnecessarily detailed five-step guide of how to be fashionably late. Urban Dictionary defines it as anywhere between 5 and 45 minutes depending on the event. But then they also define it as "showing up 5 minutes late with a supermodel on your cock", so perhaps take their word with a grain or two of salt. The ever-reliable Ask Yahoo! fails to come up with any conclusive answers whatsoever. And no-one seems to be able to quote a reputable source pointing out where this concept came from in the first place, besides something vague about "rich and famous people at parties".

So why do people do it, and where are they taught to be this way? I'm typically on time for things, unless it's something REALLY IMPORTANT, in which case I will usually arrive three hours early, get bored, go and find somewhere that sells sandwiches, eat them, realise I'm going to be late if I don't hurry the fuck up and end up rushing to get to the place at which I arrived exceedingly early in the first place. But social occasions? If I say I'll be there at 8pm, I'll be there at 8pm.

Many embittered experiences and mournful tweets from a lonely booth in the corner of a bar haven't taught me my lesson yet. I turned up on time for my own stag night and my guests waltzed in the door approximately two hours later. I'd been having some fun on Twitter in the meantime, of course, but that meant by the time we were all drunk enough to collectively pretend we were a hot 18-year old virgin on Omegle my phone battery was almost flat. We went on to have an awesome night, incidentally, but it could have been two hours longer had people showed up when I'd asked them to.

People don't change easily, so there's no real sense complaining about this in the long run, though. So with that in mind, I think I'll just keep on being the barfly for two lonely, Twitter-filled hours while I wait for people to show up. And the rest of you can take your time washing your balls, applying supposedly-attractive smelly liquids, polishing your shoes, swearing at holes in your trousers/pants/tights, realising that your boots don't fit any more, finishing watching that hilarious series of 200 cat videos on YouTube or having a nervous breakdown in the meantime.

I'll see you at the bar! (And just because I got there first does not mean I will be getting the first round in, just so you know. Actually, it does. I will have got the first round in. A round of one drink. For me. Yeah.)

#oneaday, Day 285: Questions You Probably Never Wanted To Know The Answer To

[Yes, I know I forgot to rename this comic. Deal with it.]

Sometimes topics come up in conversation that make you wonder how on Earth you got onto that subject in the first place. Such was the case when I had a conversation last weekend about whether or not any of us had taken a piss in the shower.

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, though, it's possible to get answers to these burning questions at any time. Everything from Twitter to Formspring is set up in such a way to make asking stupid questions very easy.

Sometimes, though, you can't think of a decent question. So with that in mind, I present to you the answers to five different questions which I have thought up off the top of my head. And if you'd like to ask me anything else, please feel free to do so in the comments or via the "Ask Me Anything" link at the top of the page. Or by clicking here. It's anonymous and everything.

Have you ever had a wee in the shower?

No. No I haven't. But I was alarmed to discover that quite a few of my friends – both male and female – have. One friend, who shall remain anonymous, said that "there's no reason not to, apart from the fact your shower smells a bit of piss afterwards".

Me, though, I tend to prefer bathroom activities to take place in the receptacles for which they were intended. Piss goes in the toilet. Dirt from your filth-encrusted body goes in the shower or bath.

Have you ever cross-dressed?

Yes. I made a beautiful fairy. See?

So pretty.

What is the strangest thing you have ever put in your mouth?

Deep-fried garlic at some Japanese restaurant in St Marks, New York. (I think.) And yes, deep-fried garlic is exactly what it sounds like. Take one lump of garlic. Deep-fry it. Eat. Surprisingly tasty, but definitely odd.

How many fingers am I holding up?

Four, because you're too rockin' for one hand.

Would you rather die from chronic flatulence or ebola?

Chronic flatulence. At lease you'd entertain people as you passed away. And you'd have a priceless moment of everyone you were with looking around slightly uncomfortably, not sure whether they should giggle or call an ambulance.

Of course, you wouldn't be around to see it. But the sentiment stands.

What is the most horrible noise you can think of?

I have two horrible noises that I dislike. First is that nasty sound polystyrene packaging makes when you pull it out of a box and it goes all "scrapeyscrapeyscrape" and sets your teeth on edge. Second is the sound of people chewing noisily. I know it's a natural bodily function. But it inexplicably bugs me.

Also, Tinie Tempah is pretty horrendous, too.

Where is the strangest place you have ever slept?

On my birthday during my first year at university, some friends and I went to local "wine bar" Clowns. Calling Clowns a "wine bar" is something of a stretch, as it is actually one of those places with a sticky floor and toilets which regularly leak all over the building. They were offering four-pint jugs of Juicy Lucy for £4 at the time, though, so it seemed like an excellent idea for all of us to drink as many of these as possible.

When we finally got back to our flat, one of my flatmates wore a pair of my (clean) pants on his head for some time. Then another friend who didn't live in our flat fell asleep on my bed. I fancied a nap too, so the appropriate thing to do appeared to be not to wake up the person in question, but to open up my wardrobe, use my laundry bag as a pillow and fall asleep.

A couple of hours later, the person in question sat bolt upright, walked to the kitchen, ran his head under a tap and then left.

So, to answer the question in a slightly less cumbersome manner… "my wardrobe".

Want to ask me something else? Do it! I like to think we've learned a little something about each other via this process.

Or perhaps you just learned more than you ever wanted to know about me.

#oneaday, Day 230: In Da Club

Last night I went out with a bunch of friends. It was my last chance to see a lot of them as I'm leaving Southampton at the start of next week. A great deal of alcohol was imbibed, hugs were had, tears were shed.

And realisations were reached.

They say that you've reached adulthood when you don't enjoy clubbing any more. Actually, they don't. I just made that up. But it's as good a measure as anything. I used to enjoy clubbing at university. At least I think I did. We used to go to a local shithole called "Kaos" every Monday night from the university Theatre Group, imbibe a great deal of cheap alcohol and dance until the early hours. And I have plenty of fond memories of those occasions. Again, at least I think I did. They're a bit hazy.

So last night we went to a couple of places. First up was the Orange Rooms, which is a reasonable-ish place full of girls in dresses that barely qualify as dresses, comfortable-ish chairs and overpriced drinks. It was cool to see everyone but the conversation was gradually muted by the fact that the music got so loud that the bass was shaking books off the shelves on the walls. And frequently onto our heads.

I don't know if I'm going deaf, haven't attuned my hearing properly or am just ill-versed in the fine art of conversation during loud noises. But other people seem well-equipped to continue a conversation under these circumstances. I find myself having to say "Huh?" and "What?" a lot, or feigning that I've actually heard them when as a matter of fact I haven't.

This becomes doubly troublesome when it becomes clear that the other participant in the exchange has asked a question. I have two choices at this point—yes or no. No-one ever asks a question requiring a complicated answer under these circumstances, which is a small mercy, I guess. So I have to work out whether the question which has been asked is one which requires a yes or no answer, and then pick one of the two. I have a 50/50 chance of my answer making sense. Sometimes it doesn't. Then I just shrug and let the pitiful attempt at conversation fade.

Late in the evening, a few people disappeared and the rest of us were dragged to a nearby club called "Junk". Aptly named. At "Junk" I had my first experience of a style of music a bunch of people I know have been banging on about for ages, which is, I believe, dubstep. I didn't really know what dubstep was prior to tonight, but I had a feeling I probably wasn't going to appreciate its finer artistic merits.

As it happened, that was a correct assumption. Dubstep, or at least the Junk interpretation of it, appeared to be playing songs as they originally sounded, only with a bassline that goes WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB over the top of it, and an occasional klaxon solo. So the whole thing ends up sounding something like TURN AROUND BRIIIIGHT EYES EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL A PAAAAAAWUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB HOOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOOOOOONK WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART

Sorry guys. I know you dig it and all. But I really don't get it. Like, even a little bit. It hurt my brain. The thumping beats are fine for dancing, but I couldn't see myself just sitting listening to it.

Dancing is weird, too, isn't it? People wilfully gathering together in order to gyrate suggestively and/or spastically presumably in the hope of attracting someone to have some form of sexual congress with. Well, okay, no. Not everyone is there to get laid. But the ones who are make themselves very obvious. I'd hate to be an attractive girl. The sight of a bunch of men gradually gathering around you making overtly sexual motions is probably enormously intimidating. And that, besides the fact I'd think I'd look like a dick, is why I don't do that. It is also why I don't go to clubs to look for a potential mate. Or indeed at all.

So there you have it. At the age of 29, I am officially Over Clubbing. (Note: this is different from "overclubbing", which generally leads to a significantly larger hangover than I had today) I like going out for a drink at a decent bar. I like having a laugh with my friends. I even like going to smaller clubs that play decent music. The Dungeon here in Southampton is a great example, largely because it attracts nerds, geeks, goths and other outcasts of "mainstream" culture. But spending time in what appears to be a darkened warehouse that plays music that doesn't make sense and getting surrounded by perverts in Ben Sherman shirts? Sounds like a dream come true to some, I'm sure. But I think you can count me out!