Well here we are again. Again I said I wished I wrote more often and Again it has been months, in fact more than a year since I last wrote a blog. There is no way I can be bothered to go back over the last year and a bit and tell you in detail about all of it because that would be long and stupid. Instead I shall do a flying tour of the big points in a list and then in detail tell you of my very recent weekend!

The reason I chose the above title is two fold, a) because this post is going to be largely based on the 'alumni weekend' I just spent and Essex University and b) because the fact that I have now finished university is effectively the biggest thing that happened to me within the last year. If you don't know what alumni means, it effectively means old student. Now for a quick list, 21st birthday (cartoon themed, dressed as Woody from Toy Story), Easter Hols, Ben's 21st Vague Computer game theme, dressed as Wrestler Jeff Hardy), Exams, Graduated with 2:2 in Government and Political studies, Moved out of Uni house, GOT A JOB (working for the UK Border Agency), Went to Rome for a week, Got drugged and mugged in the same night, got arrested and spent a night in jail for something I didn't do (and subsequently got released and apologised to), Christmas 09, New Years @ the Swan in Stockwell, Kalistra's 21st in London, my 22nd, went to Sheffield and saw baby Harry and then this weekend Alumni. It was actually a pretty intense year which I wish I could have blogged about but I don't wish to live in regret, thought there would have been some great blogs in there.

So onto Alumni weekend, I decided a couple of months ago that I would go to this event, along with my friend Mark (who I work with and turns out graduated from Essex Uni 2 years before me). I booked a couple of days off work and even made a Facebook event. Unsurprisingly the event flopped as my friends are all lazy, busy or in other countries, largely though it was the first which was a shame but I didn't fret. Dan and Steph now live in Colchester and so I would definitely see them, I would definitely see Mark and I would definitely see my friends who are now in the third year BUT I would also see my sister who now goes to the very same University that I went to. So it is not like it was a total wash out.

So I left work and made my way straight to Liverpool St. station and managed to catch the train with seconds to spare, I got to Colchester at about 8:30 where Dan was there to pick me up, what a nice man he is. We went back via the curry house, bought some food and sat down in front of the 3rd leaders debate which was pretty uninspiring with a lot of recycled drivel from the 1st and 2nd speeches. With Dan and Steph both working on the Friday (and the fact that they have both aged into their 50s since leaving university) they decided not to go out but that didn't stop me. So I made my way to Alternative night (now Oscillate). Here i met my sister, Steve, Soley and various others and I danced away to my hearts content. I do miss the days when I DJ'd mostly because it meant that I knew some decent music was going to seep into my eardrums which unfortunately I can't say happened for the majority of the night. It turned out that since my days the night had fallen by thet wayside a little, now heavily taken over by Colchester's 'the Lick' which was effectively just a metal night from town. Gone were the days of a mix of everything from guitar indie to metal via pop punk and drum and bass to be replaced by endless raspy voiced buffoons making noise. Due to this changeover it didn't surprise me that the turn out to the night had drastically receded to approximately a third of what it was last year. No matter, I grinned and bore the pain of all my (the teams) hard work going to waste and drunk and danced away and to be fair I still had a good night but largely due to the company rather than the music. It being the night Steve had finished his last essay of the year, he got himself well and truly sloshed and I had to walk him home, convincing him that I was not doing this for his safety but to see my old haunts. In effect it was somewhere between the two. It was nice to see the old house again, still with Ben's basketball hoop in the back garden. I then jogged back to campus and up to my sister's room where I was to spend the night, we talked until the wee hours and then fell asleep.

A mere 4 hours later I was to be awoken as Caroline was working in the SU at 12. Unpleasant, yes but it did mean I got to make the most of my time at Essex. I watched a bit of TV and then went down to the SU to buy a drink off my little sister, which was quite fun. I then wondered around the campus a bit bumping into various people that I knew before heading back to Caroline's room. I then got ready for the night ahead. We were going to Waffles, I'm sure I will have mentioned Waffles before as it is effectively the greatest bar in the world but just in case I haven't I will describe it. Waffles is a magical place of 1950s, some may say tack décor, cheap cocktails, karaoke and the greatest atmosphere in the world. Whether it be the friendly manager Charlie who even a year or so after our last visit remembered us and asked how we were or the general acceptance of anybody of any background it is just amazing. Me, Dan and Caroline were the only 3 who made it waffles as many were still hungover from the night previous and weren't as determined as me to make the most of the weekend. We got there at about 8 and made the most of the half priced cocktails before 9. Dan more-so than the rest managing to buy 8 in one hour and finishing them all within an hour and a half. And so onto the karaoke, in waffles you get the good the bad and the trannys. As I said, waffles is the most accepting place in the world as 3 very much pre-op transvestites took to the stage singing in their very low and booming voices, my favourite song from these was the rendition of human by the killers sounding like it was being re-worked by Leonard Cohen. Then you had the Old man who sang sweet Caroline just for my 18 year old sister, now in any other place in the world I would have been worried for my sister's safety but not waffles, you genuinely knew he meant it in a nice way, later even telling Caroline that he wished he had had a granddaughter. And to our songs me and Dan started as usual with a camp rendition, this time it was sophie ellis-bexter's murder on the dance floor. Caroline then did a Beatles song in a strong American accent soon to be followed my my very long and sad version of Ralph McTell's streets of London (note to self, this song does not make ideal karaoke material). We did many more between us culminating in our final song of the evening which was me and caroline singing day dream believer which became a sing along. At closing time the whole pub sang along to a Coldplay song and then we soon left. We walked up back into town where we shoved Caroline into a taxi and me and dan walked home via the kebbaby. That should really be the end of the night but no, on the walk home me and Dan stupidly decided to steal a no entry sign and put it outside a local shop.. I say local I was carrying the bloody thing for over half an hour and it did become a bit heavy towards the end. This although stupid did make the walk home a little more amusing and eventually we made it home at about 3:30. We watched a little TV then Dan went to bed and I lay out on the sofa but before I knew it, I was awake again at 8am. 2 nights down with only 8 hours sleep between them.

So I woke up on the Saturday with a plan to watch Mark's hockey match at 2 and then out to Sub Zero in the evening, so naturally it  started with a lazy morning in front of the playstation, playing Heavy Rain which I heavily recommend. We left for town at about midday to pick up Dan's car which had been left in town from the previous night. We were in colchester around Lunch time, yes we did go to Embassy Chinese Buffet and as usual we filled ourselves to excess and felt worse for wear afterwards but I never regret it. Stomach full Dan gave me a lift back onto the campus where I made my way to the 'all weather pitch' only to find that Mark had pulled his hamstring in the warm up and thus would not be playing. Now I don't particularly enjoy hockey so I walked off back to my sister's room and watched some facejacker. Soon after I made my way back to Dan's house where we had a few brewskies and prepared for the night ahead. We made our way down to campus for around half 8 and sat in the SU where we met Bex amongst others and drank away into the night. At 10.30 we thought we should get stamped ready for sub zero, unfortunately it turned out that this was just about everybody's plan and we managed to join the longest, least organised queue in the history of queueing. 45 minutes or so later we got to the front of the queue only to find that there was still no one in Sub Zero, this did not impress me much (da da da da) so I persuaded Dan to come upstairs with me and get some more alcohol in a place where there was more of an atmosphere. The SU bar was too packed so we went to the newly 24 hour opening SU shop where we both downed a large bottle of smirnoff ice which was good and manly.. That done we moved back down to Sub Zero which was beginning to liven up and so we started to dance as you do. The music played and the dancing continued until Steph's friend Zara got too drunk, started crying and wanted to go home. Dan and Steph decided to go with her, luckily I had already instigated a back up plan should such a thing happen. I danced the rest of the night away finding various people along the way, Mark was there as was Michael Maloney and Ben Soley and various others. Dance dance dance, drink drink drink until 3am when the night finished. My backup plan was to sleep on Mike's floor which was in the University Quays, in my 3 years at Essex I had never set foot inside the Quays and so this was an experience in itself, not that I was too bothered being drunk and tired, so I soon fell asleep.

I woke up at 11, having had a good 6-7 hours sleep, by far the longest I had had all weekend, so I felt remarkably refreshed. I left Mike in bed and walked up to campus only to find that Caroline was still on a training course, so I decided to walk down towards Tesco's and Ben Soley's house. On the way I passed a sports team of some sort who all gave me a round of applause. I was confused at first but then realising I was clearly still wearing what I had been the night before they had assumed I had 'got some' this thought proven when I heard a cry of 'the walk of pride'. Despite this not even slightly being true I found myself enjoying the praise and letting out a rye smile. I got into Tesco and bought myself a pasta salad, a pair of £5 shoes (so I could change out of my Converse which had a whole in and were letting in rain water) and some socks (for the same reason) and then up towards Soley's to collect my VHS and poster signed by the Holloways. Don't ask why he had it as all I will say is it's due to one of the stories of the last year mentioned in the 1st paragraph. I then walked from his house back to Dan's, thinking all the way that this kind of morning could only happen whilst at Uni and that although I loved it, it was time to move on. Got back to Dan's, watched some football, had a lovely meal cooked by Steph, got dropped off back on campus said goodbye to Caroline, hopped into Mark's car and drove home. All in all a wonderful weekend. At the moment I am 50/50 as to whether or not I will go back up for 'The End', it will prbably depend on anyone else going up.

Well that marathon was my return to blogging. As I am now finishing this the day after the General Election results I do have plenty of information to play with for my next blog. Hopefully I will be writing it soon. Either way, much love

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Hellooo blog land, this is more than likely to be just a flying visit again. I really wish that I could keep up a write about all the events that happen to me in my life because I would like to one day go back and read about all the amazing things that I have done. Unfortunately though as the ingenius title suggests, there is just something about being at university which makes it impossible to blog. I think it is probably due to the sheer amount of activity that happens, it becomes impossible to write one thing and not another - to write everything I would have to do nothing else and so I decide to write nothing which is a damn shame. So in this blog I am going to attempt to again do a bit of a catch up session on the things that have happened in the amazing life of Ant D in the three months between October and December 2008.

Ok let me see, the start of the year proved to be very fruitful in terms of gigging. On the tuesday of freshers week I saw the Mystery Jets who avid followers will know (assuming I did actually write this) that I wanted to see at Field day earlier in the summer but they pulled out. I forgave them though, they were nothing short of amazing on the night. I didn't realise that the lead singer couldn't actually stand up properly though which was quite exciting.

The second gig was to see Little Man Tate, this was the third time that I had seen them and they did not dissapoint. They were supported by a band called the Lines or something of the like who were cool, we started talking to them in a pub after the gig, throwing in that we were the execs of a society - this was the first time I used my society links to get up close and personal to a band but by no means the last.

The third gig of term was to see Dirty Pretty Things on their Farewell tour. Both my sister and my lovely girlfriend Kalistra came to see this with me. They were AMAZING, I had always been dissapointed with their second album until I saw it performed live. That night was the first time I got a backstage pass to a gig. I went backstage (one of the lecture rooms) to see the band who.. weren't there. Ah well I went back outside and enjoyed the gig. By the end I had enjoyed myself loads and so being the caring older brother that I am I sneakily gave Caroline the backstage pass and she krept in and gave Gary (the ex-Libertine drummer) a hug. I could have met two of my heroes but I genuinely didn't care - here comes the soppy bit - I was genuinely happy, I was with my best mate Ross, my girlfriend and my sister and I knew that giving the pass to her would mean more than me using it. Soon after we walked home in the rain.

The next gig was by FAR the most eventful of the term, it was to see the Automatic who have never been one of my favourite bands but it was still AMAZING. Me and Ben got a call the night before asking if we wanted backstage passes... erm free tickets and a chance to meet the band, Yes! so we walked down and helped get the band's ryder ready for when they arrived. I had also found out in the morning that one of the members was called Paul and used to be in a band called Yourcodenameis:Milo who I didn't particularly like but I remembered that he used to be one of my cousins best mates - turns out he cheated on her best mate with a stripper but that is neither here nor there I still said hello. Anyway into the early evening we were talking to the band manager and the roady as the band were in rehearsals and such but it was still really cool. Little did I know that after the bands had played we would be in the backstage (this time in Level 2) drinking and hanging out with the band. The time came when the band needed helping back to the tourbus with their stuff so I offered to help and just didn't come back, I stayed and chilled on their tour bus, it was such a cool experience and they gave me lots of drink. It was a little bit bad times though 'cos I did leave Ben on his own which was a bit wankerish of me. But i'm sorry, I still have to say it was an amazing night.

The final gig that I saw in this term was to see Ben's favourite band, The Levellers supported by Frank Turner at UEA. Frank was as good as I was expecting having been listening to his stuff dor a good while before the performance and the Levellers were really good although they didn't play their most famous song, 'What a beautiful day' which I had actually bought when it came out. Ben said that in the 30 times he had seen them play, that was the first time that they hadn't played it which was annoying and hilarious at the same time.

There were other small gigs at the Twist such as seeing Don Broco and I have a feeling there may have been another gig at Colchester Arts Centre but I can't think of who it was - either way it was an immense term in terms of giggage.

This is long enough for now. Hopefully I shall return in a couple of days I will return and catch you up on other such activities. I'm not sure if I have previously mentioned that my good friend Ross is now living with us at Essex. That, our radio show, the shambles on my behalf that was Steph's 80s party, Christmas and more. See you soon blog fans

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This time it isn't really my fault that there is going to be more than one blog's worth of information in this here post. The events that you are about to read about occured on wednesday and thursday of this week and I would have been hard pushed to both blog and sleep in between so I chose the latter. It does unfortunately mean though that you die hard blog fans will have to sit through another extra-ordinarily long blog. I will though try to make it interesting and thus again have started with a moderately cryptic title so here you have it:

A Fashionable Drink in Holloway
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1. I am quite a big fan of a band called The Holloways, this outing was my 9th time seeing them, but despicably it was my first of 2008. Despite this poor show of form on my behalf I am still on the bands mailing list and so when an e-mail came through on Monday telling me that I could get free tickets to see them I was as good as there, I e-mailed back straight away asking for 3 places on the guest list, I probably could have asked for more but I decided to go for a number I knew I could fill rather than asking for 10 and only getting 5. So i decided on taking monsieur's Ross Savill and Leander Fernandes. The e-mail said 7:30 and I wasn't sure on the exact time schedule of the gig so I decided to get there bang on time and we did. Unfortunately the bands werent on for about an hour and a half after this and being a bar in London the drinks prices were extortionate and so we only had a couple each and found us some seats and sat there waiting for the bands to come on.

The first band emerged at about 9 o'clock and started to play, they were called InLight, they were inoffensive, unimaginative and a bit boring if I am going to be quite frank. They said that the song they played last was going to be in a film.. quite why I don't know but you can't always account for taste. They finished and there was a short break before the next band came on, page 44, the name straight away suggest pop-punk and after about 30 seconds of fairly indie-ish chords they reverted into that exact genre, the most pop-punk voices I had ever heard and so again I was not entirely enthralled by the performance but I would still suggest that they were slightly more exciting than the first band.

The main event though is what I was waiting for, THE HOLLOWAYS wooo! I am pretty sure they are beginning to recognise me, Rob Skipper deffinitely looked at me and smiled but then I did see a band he was in last week as well so maybe it is due to that rather than my long term Holloways fanship. One of the first things mentioned was that it was Dave Danger, the drummer's birthday the day after but you don't really need to know that, its just for my personal remembering really. Anyway enough pointless rambling and on into the more musical side of things. The set was largely the old material from the first album but there were 4 new songs, the ones that are currently on the band's myspace of which I am now addicted to Sinner and Winners. I of course though saved my most mental dancing for Generator, what a great song that is, especially when heard live. Within what felt like mere minutes the show was over, I made sure I got me a setlist (which was written on the back of a lager box) and then we made our way back to the tube station and travelled all the way home.

2. So yes, I slept and before I knew it, it was Thursday and the day that seemed so unlikely to ever happen to me. I went to a fashion show. Now I never have claimed to be the most fashionable person but my girlfriend, well, she is and so I decided to go along with her to London Fashion Weekend. I didn't really know what I was expecting from a fashion show but I thought I might as well go as I have never been to such a thing before and I might enjoy it and even if I didn't I was spending time with the woman which is always great.

We got up to South Kensington by about midday and waited for her Friend Kareece to meet us there, if you remember in the last blog she was late meeting up and again she was late. You could see the anger building in Kalistra's eyes but it didnt really matter in the end as we actually got in a good 15 minutes before the time stated on our tickets. And so we were inside and what was in there, rows and rows of fashionable clothes being looked at by fashionable people, 90% of whom were female, 7% were gay men and the other 3%, of which im included were guys who were there with their girlfriends. It wasnt awful, maybe not my cup of tea but nevertheless I wasn't as bored as I thought I might have been and the food that they were serving was not too overpriced. I had a nice chorizo, sweet potato and some kind of fancy lettuce sandwich for just £2.

out of the 50 or so stalls set up around the place there was only one for men's fashion which I decided was very sexist and thus complained about for 2 minutes until I got bored of that. We carried on walking around for a bit until it was about 3 o'clock and time for us to go and watch the catwalk. This bit I did genuinely find quite enjoyable. As I said I know nothing about fashion but seeing all the models wearing different clothes going down the catwalk was good. I took photos of just about all the outfits and obviously I am not going to put them all up but here are a couple, well here would be a couple if I could get the new pictures system to work. There were even some of the clothes which were a little revealing in that they were half see through and the models weren't wearing any underwear so I saw some boobies. The girlfriend did point out that I was maybe a little more interested in these fashions more than the other ones but obviously I denied the accusation.

We went for one more walk round after the catwalk, managed blag ourselves a free cocktail which was actually one of the most disgusting things I had ever tasted and then we left, taking Kareece back to South Kensington before going off our seperate ways.

After the Fashion show me and Kalistra went to see another one of her friends, well I should say old school friends who she hadn't seen for 3 or so years and after meeting her I am not all that surprised that she hasn't kept in contact, she was a bit too hyper-active and very much all over her boyfriend. We first went to the trocadero arcade in Piccadilly where I won a car race, which was nice, then we moved down to Leicester square where we sat and awkwardly talked for about half an hour. I used the excuse that I was going out in the evening to get us out of there and I wouldn't be lying if I said I could happily not see her ever again. Me and Kalistra then walked round the corner, bought some pizza, ate and then took the tube home. We left each other at Colliers Wood station and so I had to get ready for the next stage in my eventful day.

3. I had planned to go out in the evening for a nice drink with my mates, it was to be the last time we would all see each other before going back to university so we thought why not go to Kingston and maybe onto the Indie night at McCluskeys. I invited the normal crowd who were still around, me, Ross, Tate and Blondie but I also invited John, mr unpredictable and unfortunately this night was to be one of the ones that I regretted invited him rather than enjoyed it.

Due to me being up in Central, I was a little late in getting Kingston, the original plan had been to get there at about 7:30 but it was closer to 9 by the time we got there. John was already there when we arrived and he intorduced us to a few of his friends who you know seemed nice enough. We proceeded to drink and John's friends were seeming to get a little drunk which you know can't be helped. One of the girls though, a Belgian girl was trying to get the guys to buy her drinks by fluttering her eyelids, obviously this didn't work on me but unfortunately it did on just about everyone else and thus she got even drunker. This carried on for a bit until 2 of John's friends decided to go home and now it was left with the 5 guys mentioned earlier and this Belgian girl who was flirting with everyone at this point at one point I remember her asking someone to 'prove they were a man' then winking. Tate being a bit of a desperate ended up going to the bar with her and kissing her.. it was shortly after this that we were told that she was a prostitute. Or an ex-prostitute, but either way not the most lovely thought after Tate and eaten her face off. The night got weirder and then her and John dissapeared for what must have been half an hour, so we decided to leave.. well most of us, Ross being the nice guy that he is thought we should wait, so we tried to find him and no he wasnt in the man's toilets. He was in the ladies toilets with the Belgian girl. He denies that anything sworded happened but I find it hard to believe.

I then got fed up and just left John and the girl together and went off to find the indie night and hope to make the night better but no, it got far worse first. John who was quite drunk decided to drive. But i was in a mood now so still didnt care until he drove up next to us and practically pushed her out of the car and then drove off leaving us to deal with a now crying girl who had the cheek to have a go at us. Saying that we didn't 'want her' and despite the abuse being thrown at us we tried to help her but without her listening there wasnt much we could do, so I kept phoning John and made him come back, which eventually he did and I shouted at him to his face and he went and got her and drove off with her, after that I don't really know what happened to her but we did our best. At the same time as me shouting at John, 2 drunk twats came over and started saying we were having a lover's tiff, me already in a mood started having a go back and despite them being very mouthy I don't think they had any intention of doing anything as when I shouted back at them they quietened down. By now I was in the worst mood but I didnt want this to ruin my night so I went on to McCluskeys with the guys.

I calmed down when I got into the queue and then they took my chewing gum off me which again made me a little annoyed but I let it pass. We then went into the club, bought some shots and got on with what was a good night. A good couple of hours of indie heaven with teh highlight undoubtibly being Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire which everyone in the club went mental to. We left at closing and then bussed it home by about 4 o'clock in the morning. The best way describe the night is different. See you all soon for hopefully some more 'normal' adventures in the life of Ant D

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