I’m actually typing this on my iPhone, because I had to send in my beloved MacBook Pro to have its fan replaced.   I first discovered something was up when my usual torrenting of whichever Gilmore Girls season I didn’t yet have was accompanied by the sound of a tractor driving into the blades of a jet engine.  I know enough about Rory Gilmore to know that’s not normal.  Never fear, AppleCare was there to pick up the repair tab.

The Ambassador’s Theatre Group coupled with lastminute.com meant I went to see New Boy with Nicholas Hoult (Trafalgar Studios), I went to see La Cage Aux Folles starring Graham Norton (Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue) and I finally went to see On The Waterfront starring Stephen Berkoff (Theatre Royal, Haymarket).  I also hung around the Stage Door at each theatre like a groupie, collecting autographs like a seasoned fan. After studying Berkoff’s work during my A2 Drama & Theatre Studies syllabus, it was quite an experience to meet somewhat of a textbook idol.

Mr. Hoult, also known as thatguyfromskinsyouknowtheonewhat’shisnameohmygodTonythat’sit, was annoyingly charming. I’m just jealous.  I was a little disappointed with the production, though, which was in a tiny, tiny studio, showcasing none of the classical theatre-acting traits I wanted to see the actors cope with.

Mr. Norton was a bit smaller than I anticipated (although not as short as when I met Dawn French), yet my mum still managed to compliment the lead actor on his ‘lovely legs’, of which we saw a lot during the performance, seeing as there was a lot of drag-queen activity involved.

Mr. Berkoff casually dresses in oddly ghetto-subculture attire.  Think slack trousers and a large gold gangster hoodie. He also drives a Volkswagen Beetle.  I found this all so surprising that I missed out on an obvious Metamorphosis-jibe about his choice of vehicle.

No, actually, my night-time London pursuits didn’t stop there. I also went clubbing at 54London‘s Commercial Street venue, on one of their monthly Light nights.  That just sounds like another set  of buzzwords, doesn’t it?  To be honest, you’re probably right.  Along with two friends (Sahar & Morgan), I was there from 11pm until about 7:15am.  We’d had dinner and been to the pub beforehand, so by the time it came to leaving the venue, we were pretty worse for wear.  Not to mention Morgan and I were a little sick of the last-gasp attempts for the sexuality-questionable 95% male population of the venue to locate a breakfast mate.

The shock to the system upon seeing the bright light of day and hearing the sudden absence of a DJ in London’s East End meant it was probably time to go home.  Walking with Sahar to Aldgate East tube station, Morgan and I decided we were hungry.  Not realising that it was now 7.30 in the morning, we walked down the entire length of Mile End Road.  To find nothing open but ‘Billy’s 24hr…’ roadside shack.  Morgan chanced a ‘survivor bap’ from this one-man-stand while I decided I wasn’t that peckish after all.  The good news is that Morgan hasn’t got E.Coli. Yet.

Oh, and in a fit of SURHUL-inspired despair, we sort of broke into Queen Mary, University of London’s campus and tried to get into their spankingly-pretty Students’ Union building.  It was locked.  Now time to go our separate ways, I found that there were even fewer services operating on Sunday morning from Mile End than there were from Aldgate East almost an hour previously.  With my hatred in Transport for London renewed, sitting on the red-eyed Tube with various other shameful ‘shouldn’t-be-up-this-early-in-the-morning-normally-don’t-ask-me-where-I’ve-been’ citizens, that was the end of another chapter.

With some thrilling sights posted to Flickr entitled In which I discover the early-morning East End, (all ofwhich seemed far more fascinating at the time) and the everlasting quest to reach a photo-a-day in How I Spent April 2009,  I can safely say I don’t really want to post something this long from the iPhone WordPress client ever again.  Proofreading was…problematic.  Twitter‘s certainly on to something with a 140 character limit.

Before I begin, what’s happened recently? I received my NUJ press pass in the post (yay!) but ended up not being allocated tickets for the Guardian Student Media Conference (boo!).

Last night, I went to see Wintersleep support Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip in London, with a friend.  He shall hereby only be known as “BB”.  An simple evening out, one might think.  A train from Egham, up to our desired location via Waterloo and London Underground.  Back in time to catch last order’s at InsanityRadio‘s House Party at the SU.

On the tube. 1930 (doors open at 2000)

NS:  So, where are we going?
BB:  Club Koko?
NS:  Ah, cool.
BB:  Do you know how to get there?  I’ve got no idea.
NS:  (slightly perturbed) er…yeah, it’s in Camden, but it’s closer if we get off at Mornington Crescent.
BB:  Cool.

A true 2008 student-to-student dialogue.  It was also revealed that BB was off too see Wintersleep the following night at Koko, too.  With a different main act.  Slightly odd, seeing as there was only that gig mentioned on the website…

We arrive at Koko in Camden.  There’s a large man dressed as Uncle Sam and people dressed as cowboys filing in to the venue.  Well, our acts for tonight have certainly taken a change in musical direction…

Camden.  2000

BB:  (walking up to the door, pulling out tickets from inside jacket pocket)
Bouncer:  Er…nope.
NS:  ….what’s going on?
Bouncer:  Not ‘ere, mate.
(pause)
BB:  Ah, mate – it says Club FANDANGO on here!  (chuckles)
NS: (exasperated) Well, where the bloody hell is that?

iPhone 3G to the rescue!  A quick Google reveals Club Fandango is located at 24 Highbury Grove, N1.  To the tube, to take us deeper into North London!  And we’re running late – doors are already open!

Tube takes us from Mornington Crescent to Highbury & Islington.

iPhone with Google Maps navigates us to Higbury Grove.  We start walking down the street, briskly.

2030, after walking for approximately 10 minutes.

BB:  (counting) 56…58…60
NS:  Oh, wait!
BB:  What?
NS:  Bugger.  Turn around, it’s at the other end.
(more time passes)
NS:  28…26…24.
BB:  Is this it?

We’ve arrived at a house.  Just a house in Islington. iPhone 3G now reveals that we’ve travelled to the record label’s registered address, not one of their many gig venues.  Cue tears of blood and frostbite setting in to my numbing hands.  Capacitive touchscreen sapping my soul.

2050

BB:  Aw, mate!  It’s on the ticket!
NS: (apoplectic exasperation)
BB:  229 Great Portland Street!  How do we get there?

Nervous twitching aside,  I navigate back to the tube, and get us to change onto the Hammersmith and City line at King’s Cross for Great Portland Street.  As we’re waiting for our train, we relax.  BB sneezes.  At the precise moment a shorter Oriental lady walks in front of him, resulting in BB sneezing right onto her face.  The most hilarious event of the journey thus far.

BB, shellshocked, and I board our tube train, arrive at Great Portland Street, ask for directions to the gig venue, get heckled by the bouncer and enjoy a gig. Wonderful.  The last train to Egham leaves at 11.30, so we’ve got to elave in enough time, which we do.  We board a train at Great Portland Street Station.  Scroobius Pip is on the platform opposite, a good time was had by all.  We’ll change at Baker Street and hop to Waterloo.

Until BB and I got chatting about university.  Our course, literature, etc.

2315

Announcer:  The next station is Finchley Road.
BB/NS:          Bugger.

We’ve missed our stop.  Fantastic.  A lengthy wait at Finchley Road to catch a train to Waterloo ensures we completely miss the last train to Egham.  Just our luck, really.  Our revised plan: a train to Staines and a cab.  We’re not talking by this point.

We arrive at Staines, befriending an Inebriated BusinessMan (IBM) at the taxi rank.  We agree to share a taxi.  When it pulls up, we are treated to:

0045

IBM:  Where’re’you headed?
Us:   Egham (for the second time)
IBM:  (to the Taxi Driver) Awright, c’n you go to Bracknell via Egham?
TD:   Sure, sir.

Now just repeat this dialogue for the next fifteen minutes:

IBM:  So, where do you guys live?
Us:   Egham.
IBM:  So, where do you guys….

Yep.  Until we revealed we were off to a student radio station party.

IBM:  Aw, mate, what is it?
Us:   Er…it’s a student radio station.
IBM: Yeah, yeah, but what is it?
Us:   Er…it’s a student radio station.
IBM: YEAH I KNOW THAT BUT WHAT IS IT?
Us:   Oh, er 1287AM…

IBM then wrestles with Taxi Driver to tune radio, with car swerving in road.  Not the safest of journeys, but we finally make it to Royal Holloway, unscathed.  InsanityRadio gains two more listeners.

0115

We arrive at the SU just in time to see the party wrapping up.

I’d like to say that I’d seen the last of the unexpected events of the evening…

I spent a week-end fixing that laptop with the “broken soundcard”.  As it turns out, a small cable on the motherboard had fallen out of its correct socket, and I spent £50 for Disking Godalming to tell me nothing could be done and I bought an external soundcard, after taking it inter-railing with me.  However, the minute I have some spare time when I get back, I can fix it.  I want my money back.  Computer specialists my arse.

No fewer than 96 hours had I been in the UK, I ended up being invited to tea at The Ritz by my family, which was posh.  Nothin’ like some scones and cucumber sandwiches for three hours.  It certainly makes up for budget-pizzas in Belgrade.

Ah, and I went up to London on my own to get a 16Gb white iPhone, something Carphone Warehouse and O2 Guildford have never even heard of.  I then proceeded to screw up putting on the ill-fitting invisibleSHIELD, while my number was transferred a few days later.  Apart from my dirtily rough edges, it’s a great phone do-it-all device.  Apart from the dodgy 3G coverage, the lack of MMS, a built in tasks app and the learning curve on the keyboard.  Actually, the keyboard exceeded my expectations, so I’ll hush my mouth.

My friend Nick Manners’ surprise birthday party went without a hitch, too.  Unless you count him getting paralytically drunk and vomiting on people a hitch.  A good time was had by all, even the comatose.  Racing around the streets of Guildford in my newly-repaired Fifi rounded off another week.  Fifi being my car, and no, I didn’t break it, there was a manufacturer’s fault with the doors.

Seeing as I’m having a bit of a rant (I started this blog on the 14th and it was to be an eloquent, mildy-philosophical piece of web poetry, but now I’m tired and ratty…), I’d like to have a little bit of a go at the NHS.  I had an eye check-up appointment with my lovely doctor at the Royal Surrey County Hospital.  Except, I didn’t see my doctor, because due to some administrative cock-up, she wasn’t allowed to work.  I don’t know.  Anyway, I get told that I need to have my pupils dilated (something that I haven’t had since I was a short-sighted fidgety five year-old.), which is a non-negotiable procedure (good job I didn’t drive to the hospital, wasn’t it?) and I see a stand-offish doctor and another, unintroduced man in my examination room.  What is he doing there?  Why wasn’t he introduced?  I hardly had time to bring this to the attention of my “doctor” (well, I didn’t see any qualifications on the walls…) before my pupils were the size of dinner plates and the fluorescent lights felt as though they were burning into the very centre of my retinae.  Even quicker was my examination, a few more painful lights shining into my eyes and I was told that my prescription had worsened.  By almost two dioptre.  Psh.  He didn’t even do the “Number one…or number two…” bit.  No “red or green?”, no “which line can you read?”.  And my pupils didn’t go down for nearly three days.  First thing Monday morning I went to a reputable Guildford optician, and had my examination re-taken.  This time, only a difference of -0.5.  Well there we bloomin’ go, that’s better.

What else happened?  Er, I went to a “Monster Mash”, I enjoyed the Olympics, my Sky+ box got fixed..?

Oh, wait, yes.  Results day.  That was it. Refreshing the UCAS system ’til 3 in the morning while watching BBC Three late-night crap/comedy gold/crap (delete as applicable).  Well, that didn’t prove very fruitful, as no-one from UCAS seems to actually operate in the small hours of the morning (they haven’t outsourced to a non-GMT place….yet.), so I groggily drove myself to school at about 11 am.  I got an A in English, an A in Drama & Theatre Studies, a B in French and a B in Spanish.  If you’re an Edexcel Drama A2 practical invigilator, I now detest you with a passion, given that my favourite performance piece, for which I had the largest part, garnered a module-crippling C.  Cheers, love.

Anyway, these results mean I comfortably got into RHUL.  Cue lots of enrolment letters and an online ‘campus-connect’ registration. Funky. I’ll meet my fellow captains of industry on 21st September.

In between all the exciting university correspondence, I went to Reading Festival 2008!  My third year at Reading, I saw lots and lots of bands, as to be expected from a music festival….but I also met Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, The Teenagers (exercising my A-level French) and We Are Scientists.  And made some new [Facebook] friends in the queue.  I’ve already booked for ’09.  I love student credit cards.  Credit crunch? Is that a cereal?  Turns the milk into….debt?  Repossesses your bowl?  Okay, okay, I’ll stop.

You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m off to Cyprus from 3rd-10th September, but hopefully I’ll start blogging more regularly than once a month, or in this case, once every two moths.  These late-night/early-morning sessions don’t seem to be good for much, sitting at home watching TV and rambling on the internet.

Bugger.  I’ve just taken a break from watching the US Open (it starts at 4pm and ends at 4am, coinciding with my new sleeping pattern…) to see Manchester Utd (yay!) get beaten by Zenit St. Petersburg (boo!) in the UEFA Super Cup.  Hear that?  That’s the sound of no-one, apart from me, caring.

I’m preparing for uni at the moment; buying exorbitant amounts of books but not reading them, looking at bed linen and crockery but not buying anything…actually, I’d better get on with some of this.  Time to get the next chapter of my life kick-started.

The first time is the next time
This time is the last time
And this time is the last time
’cause this time I’ll fight.

Ah. I didn’t factor in Freshers’ Week, did I?