As i pointed out in the last blog, I am back down London way for the Christmas holidays and so naturally, there had to be a reunion drink in the Wimbledon weatherspoons.

So being skint and all I decided that the best idea would be to start drinking at home so that I wouldn't spend as much money when I was out, the typical thoughts of a university student. So I polished off the bad whiskey that I had brought back from uni with me and had a little drop of the parents vodka before heading towards Wimbledon at around half seven. I met Mary at the statues and then we made our way to Weatherspoons and were just about to get in the first drinks when we got a text. A few of the guys were in O'Neils.. I mean really. Don't get me wrong, O'Neils is a great pub and has provided a good end to a night on more than one occasion but for the start of a night, no, there were no seats and it is more expensive which is just something I can't deal with. But we went over had a drink there before convincing the majority of people to leave and come back to Spoons.

So we proceeded to drink and reminisce about old times and new and of course a few little jabs at various people, I appeared to be taking most of it but I didn't mind I was already quite drunk. Despite my not wanting to spend much I managed to spend all of my £20 and I even think I probably scrounged some drinks off some other people but I did have some strange ones. I joined Dave in drinking lager and lime which is quite afemminate but they do taste quite nice its true. I also had my first ever shot of Jagermeister and i don't think I will be having another, it was disgusting. Needless to say by this point I was very drunk and thus I don't really remember very well what happened for the most part in Spoons, especially the saying goodbye to people. I can only assume I did it as I am such a well-mannered individual but if I didn't I apologise.

My next memory is standing by the cash point with John, Dan and Dom who proceeded to give me money so that I could order some gig tickets for them and myself. I don't remember discussing the said gig previously in the pub but I will just have to assume we did. So there I found myself with £90. I'm not entirely sure who thought it was a good plan to give the drunkest person all the money but I had it nevertheless - then theres another bit of a blank and it was just me and Dom and we were in south Wimbledon and we decided to go into some place and buy some pizza. You know, as you do when drunk.. obviously I used some of this money that wasn't actually mine and we ate and sat down at the bus stop.

This is where it gets quite amusing.. two drunks came over to us and tried to blag some pizza, I was not having any of this and so I hugged the box and told them it was all mine, but the woman kept asking so I had to keep saying no, I even resorted to calling myself an unsharing wanker before she got the point. Then as you do when you are drunk you talk to the other drunks and the woman said to dom "what are you then? a muslim? a hindu?" to which we were both a bit shocked but he answered politely saying he was a catholic and we used that awkwardness to get away and we moved down to the next bus stop to finish our pizza, but then we heard then coming so we hid around the back behind a bush. The drunk woman and man went passed and I clearly heard her say something racist about 'the black man' and so after letting them walk on a little and politely asking Dom if he minded, I went out and shouted at the top of my voice "YOU FUCKING RACIST SLAG" to which i heard a reply of OI, so we ran and hid and then walked the back paths round to make sure they didn't find us and beat us up. Of course we were now in tears of laughter as tends to happen when something is funny and your drunk. We walked down to Colliers Wood high street and Dom went to get a taxi, and went on to tell all the people there about the story, they seemed a little non-fussed, but we were still giggling like school girls. We said goodbye and then he went.

On the short walk I still had to do on my own I decided to write little happy messages in the frost covering the cars, I must have done about ten or so before I realised that I was only doing it because I was very drunk and so I stopped and walked home, still giggling to myself. I then made a sandwich and passed out on my bed and now here I am still hung over but I had fun so it's all ok. But my money problem probably won't be changing all that soon as I just phoned REED employment and they say there are no temp jobs going, which is a bit of a bummer, ah well here hoping I get some Christmas money. Au Revoir

END

Sunday the 16th of December was to be the day that I trundled home after my university term had finished, but a couple of days previous, my sister had contacted me and told me that I should come and see The Pan I Am playing free somewhere in Camden and if that wasn't enough of an incentive, it was free aswell. (Just to point out here, for those who don't know, The Pan I Am is a band formed by ex-Larrikin Love lead man, Ed Larrikin.)
Of course I thought that this was a great idea, Larrikin Love were one of my favourite bands and having only seen them twice before the split I didnt want to throw up this chance. So the morning came and I packed my bags and realised.. bugger I'm gonna have to take all my bags to the gig, but this didn't stop me, I went down anyway.

So i got to the Lock Tavern, to find that to my surprise it was not just the Pan I Am playing but also, the Metros, 2 members of the View and the Magic Numbers, a less useful surprise was that the gig did not actually start until 5:30 when my sister forced me to get there by 2:30. That was ok though, we took an expedition up to the the less market-like parts of camden and even when into a large morrisons where we sat and ate a late lunch consisting of sandwich, crisps and salad, all of which were a little off, but for £1.69 I couold hardly complain. We made our way back to the pub for about 4:30ish and sat down and waited. Soon enough Ed Larrikin came in and to our delight so did Drew McConnel, the bassist from Babyshambles. Me being me I couldn't let this opportunity go so I had a photo. When I asked them for a photo, first Ed said ok and tryed to move out of the way so I could have a phto with drew but then I said no and dragged ed back in and drew tried to walk off but I said No again and dragged them both in with me. Ed unfortunately had his eyes closed and after complained of the light being too bright (I think he was stoned) but apart from that another great photo for my collection.

We sat back down and conversed, waiting for the first band, The Metros to come on, Little did we know, they were actually playing in the room upstairs. the acoustics must be very good in there because we had no idea this was happening. So we missed that and thus were sitting around doing relatively little until 6:30 when the band showed life and by 7 they had started playing.

As far as the Pan I Am go they were pretty good. The band consisted of a violinist, a cellist, drew mcconnell and ed larrikin and a man on the marracas. They played a few songs which i hate to admit I didn't at all know but I enjoyed thouroughly especially one song which I am informed is called something about Lucifer. Unfortunately due to the situation I found myself in with the bags and Caroline had some home work to be getting on with (ahh little sister still being at school) we decided to leave and thus not see the two members of the view nor the Magic Numbers who I am sure both put on a stirling performance. So we trecked off back to the tube station and made our way home.

A very enjoyable performance despite my less than gig-like apparel. I shall be seeing them again with less baggage.

And that is that for my Pan I Am blog, it was a little bit of a kop-out as I just adapted my 'last.fm' review into a more blog-worthy state. anyone who hasn't yet, join last.fm it is amazing. anyway ta-rah for now

END

Ahhhh! the relief of having finished all of my essays for the term, there is really nothing much like it. I didn't realise quite how much the essays were bringing me down, but when I was finished it was like a huge weight had been lifted from me, I now have a licsense to party all the time. I was doing it anyway but now it almost feels like I deserve it. How is this story going to lead to a hilarious misunderstanding though you are thinking, I shall now explain.

As per usual, I was leaving all my work to the last minute and so it was the day before the due date for the essay and by around 9pm, eleven hours before it was due I was about ready to start.. reading the questions me and Ben realise that we actually needed a program that was only available on campus. Off we trot to the university with a blank CD hoping to get the program and then return home and we thought we had done that but no, when we got back we realised the CD didn't work. Grr.

So we decided that why not write the essays in the labs, we needed the program and it was a nice working environment. Off we trot again down to campus again, with our bags, some books and paper and we were ready for busines. We sat down and started to write. Here comes the first misunderstanding. After a few hundred words, a couple of diagrams and some time later we realised that ACTUALLY due to the nature of the question in hand we in fact did not need the program at all. We had spent 2 hours going back and forth in freezing weather all for a program that we didn't even need. Not letting it phase us we carried on working in the computer lab before we decided to go back home to finish the rest of the essay. Besides we both had a half eaten curry waiting for us there.

We went back ate some curry and then proceeded to write our essays. Bearing in mind we got home from uni at about 3 in the morning, five hours before deadline we had to write like the wind. (I do realise that the wind doesn't write but it still sounds like a good phrase). Ben finished his essay at about 6am and submitted his essay online as we have to do.. but wait, what does he see when he does it? Hilarious misunderstanding number two. We had actually got the due date wrong. The essay was not actually due until the day after... we had spent all night worrying about an essay that didn't have to be in for another day. What were the chances. I still carried on writing though and finished my essay at around 7:15 am, went to bed and then woke up at about half 3 in the afternoon and even re-read and edited the essay just because i could.

So unintentionally, I did an essay early and thus have almost solved my problem of leaving everything until the last minute. Well this is obviously untrue, luckily the due date was one day later and not one day before I still wouldn't have known. So ultimately i actually learned nothing.

Nevertheless I went out in the evening and got hideously drunk to celebrate the fact and here I now am, a little hungover and writing a blog.

and that is where I shall leave it for today.

END