Monday 21st Feb 2011.

Blimey!  It’s been over 2 weeks since the date above,  could be difficult to remember what happened.  Let’s see…

After another eventful and thoroughly rewarding day at work I headed off to London again.  Yep, that’s right, barely 2 days had passed since the incident of the previous blog, but I had obviously not learnt my lesson as I was going to jump right back out of the frying pan and into the fire.  So here we go, hold onto your hats again and fasten your seatbelts as this could get bumpy (or not, you never know).

Climbed aboard the 18:15 crazy train to London, final destination Camden Town (again) via Waterloo Station and then the Northen Line.  Fairly standard journey into London, nothing out of the ordinary appeared to be happening.  I must admit I was beginning to doze off on the train (and this was at 18:00, let alone say 23:00 hrs).  Even though this train terminated at Waterloo, there was probably a reasonable chance I would fall asleep, the train would arrive in London, then leave and I would wake up to find myself back in Basingstoke and effectively missing the whole evening.  I had to find a way of staying awake, how about scrutinising the other passengers in the carriage?  Ok, let’s do that…So the guy in front looked normal enough, but unsure as to what he was listening to on his Ipod.  Can only be described as the sound of a wet cat bouncing up and down on a set of Bagpipes during a thunderstorm.  It was either that or he was merely listening to a loose Jazz trumpet solo.

So what about the 2 guys opposite you may ask?  Well it appeared that one had got dressed in the dark, as he was sporting a fashion faux pas of the highest order…Well, it looked decidedly wrong to me, but what do I know?  Especially as I gave up modelling a few years ago due to me getting fed up with being treated like a piece of meat.  Looking back they were some of the worst years of my life.  I hated the fact that people were only interested in my looks, they didn’t seem to realise I had brains as well as beauty.  Don’t even get me started on having to spend every night out partying with Heidi Klum, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell et al…  It was a very superficial world and I was glad to get out of it.  I digress…

Anyway, the guy opposite was wearing black trousers with vertical grey pin stripes, so far so Ralph Lauren you might say.  However he had matched the black trousers with vertical grey pin stripes with a black jumper with thick horizontal grey stripes!…This was too much for me to bare.  The combination of vertical and horizontal stripes had driven my eyes into a state of frenzy.  My eyes were crossed and my mind was discombobulated, somehow I had pull myself away from the human magic eye puzzle opposite me and focus on the job at hand, ie staying awake.  I know!  Focus on the wet cat bouncing up and down on a set of bagpipes during a thunderstorm….Ahh, and relax.

I made it!  I was now back in Camden (around 19:30).  I was on a solo mission as sadly nobody else was interested in seeing the bands.  No matter, I didn’t need to hold someone’s hand to Rock out!  First of all time for a swift pint in the pub upstairs, nothing really happened in here I’m afraid.  There may have been a couple of couple’s getting a bit smoochy near me, which was was mildly annoying.  However not as annoying or as unnecessary as seeing a couple in their late 50’s or early 60’s getting smoochy in the swimming pool the other day (Sunday 6th March).  Do I really want to see that?  No!  I’m swimming.  Anyway, I digress.

So pint 1 was consumed, so I headed back down to the Underworld, the scene of the crime barely 3 nights previous.  Pint 2 was bought, merch was avoided as it was expensive and cheap at the same time.  First band up were ‘Burn Alaska Burn’.  Unsure what to say really, they were ok, didn’t really get me going one way or the other.  Back to the bar for pint number 3, then back to watch ‘Carpathian’.  These guys were pretty good, much better than their name suggests, pretty heavy hardcore and very polished considering it was the first night of the tour, infact they sounded the best all evening.

Back to the bar for pint number 4, before watching the main band ‘Defeater’.  For a very heavy hardcore band with incredibly depressing songs and depressing lyrics, they had a very large following of ‘cool’ kids.  If you weren’t wearing a back pack and a hat and weren’t experimenting with a newly grown beard (and that was just the women…Joking) then you weren’t worth knowing.  Nonetheless, the band were pretty good although a short set mixed with long gaps in between songs gave the impression they may not have been quite with it.  A good gig though.

So 23:00hrs and time to hot foot it back to Waterloo and make sure I get the not remotely crazy train back to Basingstoke and at no point fall asleep and wake up in Bournemouth or France.  Stage 1 of Operation ‘Negative Snoozefest’ was to buy the now legendary Taw Valley Cheddar Cheese and Ham Baguette and a full fat sugar rush balls of war bottle of Coke.  Bingo.  Next up, consume them on the train in a timely manner, preferably using my time management skills so as not to finish the food before the train even leaves the station.  At least have something to eat by the time we get to Clapham.  I don’t think I lasted that long…

I could feel myself starting to doze off, dreaming about Heidi Klum and Cindy Crawford playing Jazz trumpet solo’s in the rain  (I don’t think that’s a euphemism, but not sure).  I couldn’t fall asleep on a school night, I had to work the next day.  I couldn’t miss another day of work in case they decided to take my pilots license away.  I decided to stick the Ipod on and crank the volume up 11.  The sheer Rock power was the only force which could keep me awake, and no doubt probably keep the rest of the people in the carriage awake.

‘Welcome to Basingstoke’, get in there!  I had made it, and not only that but I was also back home and tucked up in bed by 00:45.

A true story.