SURPRISE!!

A lot of you will know that my dearest darling sister organised surprise leaving drinkies for me this Friday. A lot of you will know because you probably recieved the message that she sent around to almost everybody in my phonebook! Raped and pillaged my mobile she did.

Apparently it was also all over Facebook, how I managed to miss it I have NO idea, clearly I'm not nosy enough!

Friday was excellent, I arrived at the pub under the impression that I was meeting a 6ft 4 policeman and his mates for a pub crawl (care of Wilf Porkie Enterprises) and found two tables full of a completely random assortment of lovely lovely people.

Caroline, Choy, Uma and Viv were there from the zoo, Bruce and Chris from work, my old housemate Steve, Wilfy and Jo who had got me to the pub in the first place, and of course the lovely Nicki were all waiting to surprise me! There were balloons and there was cake and nibbles and lots and lots of booze. There was also an exceptionally excellent white vest being passed around that people were writing messages on. I'm taking it with me and using it as a sleeping top....should be a bit of an ice breaker in the good ole dorm rooms.

After a while, Nicki recieved a phone call from someone who was coming, but neither of us recognised his number. He was described as having an indian accent and for the life of me I could not think of who it might be, until I saw Julio wandering through the pub. That would explain why I couldn't think who it was, he speaks with a very strong Spanish accent! Julio is a painter decorator that we've had in a couple of times to do some jobbies at work. He's absolutely lovely and proceeded to plonk himself at the bar with his mate, from this position he held court with all the ladies and purchased tequilas with wild abandon.

And later on the lovely Kayleigh and Tom turned up, by which point most of us were pleasantly pickled....apart from Steve who was driving...poor Steve.

The whole evening was excellent, Viv was totally on form. She gives the impression of being a very kindly, sweet and benign lady, which she totally is.......and then she gets her hands on the wine. She came out with some absolute gems and took a bit of a shine to our Steve ;), grabby grabby, NORTY Viv!! She certainly helped make the evening, I think I'm a little bit in love.

There were a couple of persistent themes of the evening, the first being spillage of wine! I don't think anyone got away without being splashed by wine at some point in the evening. I was sporting a particularly spectacular purple stain...very chic.

The second theme was JENGA! Perhaps contrary to expectations, as the evening wore on and we became slightly the more worse for wear...we actually got better at Jenga, check this baby out! WIN!


Cake was lovely and booze was lovely and company was excellently lovely lovely. When we got chucked out of the Castle, Kayleigh, Tom, Jo and I moved onto somewhere in Angel for a drinky....but being CONSIDERABLY inebriated by this point, it didn't last too long and soon Jo and I were headed for the nightbus.

We were woken up halfway home by a kindly man who took pity on us and let us know we were being booted off and onto another bus. We must have been a picture of beauty and gorgeousness. Faces squished up against the windows, snoring (probably not gently). I'm impressed he had the guts to approach.

Home for CHIKIN.......and the next thing I know I woke up on the sofa at about 5am.

All the signs of an excellent night I think! Thank you Nicki for organising such a lovely evening, thank you to Jo and Wilf for propelling me in the right direction and thank you to all those who came along to wish me well on my travels. I haz a big love for all of you :o)

Please....take a peek at the photies, these are in order....more evidence for why drinking is bad. There's distinct deterioration!

Nicki fails at Jenga!

Such concentration

Cheers!

Mmm, sexah Jenga pose

The lovely Julio

Tastes good

Hee hee, fab evening guys xxx

Absence of Amusement!!

I know I know....I'm rubbish....I'll never become Blog of Note this way! I have plenty to write about, and plenty to not write about too, but in the absence of having much time, I thought I'd send a little thank you to FunnyMan for sending me a CD of the pics he took at my birthday.

You may have already sated your desire for snaps of birthday fun, but incase you haven't, here are some more:

Funny how thereare more pics of FunnyMan on his camera than anyone elses!!

Ah....it was a very cool night :)

GLEE17

Oggers and I went along to a new, and very local, open mike comedy show last night at the Rose and Crown on good old Hoe Street, GLEE17

The Rose and Crown is an awesome pub that always seems to have something going on, be it theatre, comedy, live music, and even art installations I believe. It's a little known fact that E17 is actually an artistic haven, despite the unfortunate association with a certain boy band. Just check out these guys for a taster of what it has to offer.

Anywhoo! It seems that E17 and the surrounding areas are also a hotbed of aspiring comedy talent, clearly I already knew this, care of the lovely Oggers, but it was really excellent to see so many people turning out for the opening of a new night. There were plenty of acts, but more importantly there was also plenty of audience. I've been to quite a few nights where, at least at the start of the evening, acts outnumber the audience...and even a couple of nights where the night was cancelled due to no audience whatsoever, which is a shame for the acts who've travelled out to perform. These evenings usually end up very drunken....why waste a good evening in a pub eh?

Jo did absolutely famously with her brother set at this gig, she stormed the night as far as I, and a few others whom I'll come onto later, were concerned. I've noticed a pattern, Jo does really well when she faffs around with the set a bit and ad-libs in front of alien audiences. I mean, new audience, not an audience of aliens, because that would just be weird. Take Monkey Business, Giggling Gibbon, and last night. All nights Jo has never done or doesn't do often, chances are they've never seen the set and she blows them away. I think with nights like Party Piece it can be a bit foreboding because you're wondering just how many people have seen this set before, how can I make it a bit different, and also, a sense of complacency can set in, it's too familiar.

From my point of view it was great because she threw bits in that I hadn't seen before, Linda pissed herself laughing and the audience really enjoyed it, especially the Guinness banter!

MORE NEW NIGHTS JO!! WE WANT MOAR MOAR MOAR!

Now, when we'd originally walked into the pub, Jo elbowed me and whispered 'Did you see Billy from Eastenders is in the pub?!'

I hadn't, for I am blind, but when we came back down into the pub proper I saw him with his mates, chilling with some drinks. No one was bothering him, but you could see people clocking him and doing a double take. We perched on a table nearby and stole glances every now and again, trying to be cool and subtle like everyone knows we are.

As the time for comedy approached more people started wandering upstairs to take their seats and...lo and behold, Billy (as we knew him at this point) and Co. got up to take their seats in the comedy audience.

Jo was playing to celebrity....Oh Em Gee

As I've already described, Jo stormed it, and during the break as we wandered past, 'Billy' grabbed her attention and started telling her how fantastic her set had been and that he'd peed himself laughing (actual words? Not sure). He then introduced Jo and I to his mates, shook our hands and introduced himself as Perry, which was a relief, I didn't want to accidentally call him Billy like the lameass I am.

The more Guinness I drank, I started to refer to him as Perry Mason...only to Jo thank gawd. It's clearly the only Perry reference I have stored away in my brain, and these things do tend to just pop out of the memory banks at inappropriate moments.

During the second half I was afforded the dubious pleasure of being invited onstage to punch a large comedian in the stomach, which I did with relish and glee. He'd dropped his codpiece earlier in the set and was clearly paranoid that I was going to miss and mash his testicles. I could see the fear in his eyes. If I was being given this opportunity I was going to make the most of it, so I didn't pull my punches (get it?). There was an audible 'oooooooh' from the audience as I walloped the fine fellow, and let me tell you, that gut was made of rock, my hand actually hurt a little bit afterwards.

After the show Jo and I faffed around a while, and as the night wore on and there were less and less people around, Perry and Co. invited us over to sit with them. I'm ashamed to admit that I have forgotten the lovely lady's name, though I seem to recall Julie or Julia maybe? I'm awful with names, that's clearly wrong, but I'm reasonably certain that his best mates name was Phil. Thus began a long, slightly drunken conversation about comedy, with the group lavishing Jo with the utmost praise and adoration. Jo's a bit like me in that she doesn't accept compliments well, and at some points she looked completely embarrassed which was very sweet.

I spent most of this time eyeing up a biscuit that was sitting on the table.

I resisted...just.

I also managed to resist asking for a picture to put on my blog. After we'd been so cool about the situation and managed not to mention Eastenders ONCE, I didn't feel I could turn around and expose myself for a gibbering star-struck FOOL of a woman who wanted to put what would probably be a rather poor photo of him up on tinterwebs.

I should have taken a photo of the biscuit!

We have pride...we managed to get home before we celebrated our new status as 'celeb' friends. Fab evening, and we learned that not all telly actors are vain knobends, Perry was the sweetest bloke!

Who ever knew basking in Jo's reflected glory could be so much fun?

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