I don't want to be a grown up

On the cold, wet and miserable day that was Friday, J-J and I fought against the elements, and made it to the champagne bar at St Pancras, as noted in a previous post. What a station. I really loved it - everything from the beautiful blue girders, through to the considerate announcements over the tannoy about a couple who had left a pink bag in their taxi. OK, so the waiting staff were bordering on outrageously rude, but they had great uniforms and frankly nothing was going to get in the way of a J-J/SP night out.

We were remembering previous evenings of fun. Like the time we rocked up at the Met bar at the height of its popularity. Our chances of getting in looked pretty glum, until some considerate soul hurled a cupcake (?? - don't ask me why) out of a window high above us. It landed on my head, and in alarm, the doormen waved us in. Or the time we ended up at G-A-Y getting a little too friendly with some randoms. The less said about that one the better, I think. Endless nights out in the shitty pubs of Westminster village also feature heavily in our back catalogue, alongside a host of random unidentified injuries, embarrassing texts and gender-bending antics. Happy times, guaranteed carnage and a lot of laughter. Who wants to grow up and have dinner parties?

Distractions

So sometimes a girl just doesn't want to go out. Tonight, despite every bone in my body telling me to go home, I attempted some fun at Skylon, which I am determined to get to one of these days. Turns out it wasn't going to be today, as S and I were barred from getting in thanks to some camera crew, no doubt filming the endless chic and delicious cocktails that I probably shouldn't have been drinking on a Tuesday night anyway.

So we had a drink to celebrate S's new and beautiful relationship in the main hall. Shame I forgot I'm a member of the Southbank Centre - although let's face it, their member's bar isn't a lot to write home about; that said, first call on tickets to Doris Lessing and JG Ballard makes it massively worth it...

Anyway. I found myself home earlier than necessarily planned and trying to ignore a certain amount of post-last-week-date radio silence. I've been distracting myself thinking about all the things I could be doing if I wasn't working so hard, courtesy of Kultureflash - surely the best site of the year, and much less commercial than Urban Junkies, which I was horrified to see advertised on the crappy TV, otherwise known as noise pollution, that blights every journey I take on the Heathrow Express.

I plan to do the lottery on Saturday so that I can quit all my jobs and become a full time Londoner.

Seduced at the Barbican

Another month, another raunchy exhibition at the Barbican. Should make me feel even more inadequate about my current celibacy...

Well - I went with R & P and as we dutifully went round carefully inspecting people shagging in various positions, men wearing hats made of cocks (whole new meaning for dickhead) and victorian porn, i couldn't help wondering how the exhibition got away with sex being so closely associated with penetration alone. hmm. no lesbian sex please, we're british. still, it was fun. best 'exhibits'? - robert mapplethorpe being fisted; and a brilliant video of a woman's face as she gets a blowjob. And, being a total sucker (ha ha) for all things neon - remember the tate 'butterflies' where the 'b' and 'f' flicked on and off so it became 'utter lies'? - I also liked Tracey Emin's 'Is Anal Sex Legal?' // 'Is Legal Sex Anal?'. Genius.

Panic Attack at the Barbican

On till Sept 9th, finally the punk show is on the road. Sounds like a pretty cool exhibition, taking in lots of the punk stuff in relation to gay liberation and feminism as well as music and the rest.

Hmm. Well I had high hopes for this one but went to see it today with Ix and we agreed that were we writing the reviews, it would be: 'ok but not great' for the Times and 'a lot of cocks but not enough tits' for NOTW. I was really excited about an exhibition that included the political dimension of punk - but annoyingly this show does that to the massive exclusion of music, visceral anger and safety pins. It felt a bit wrong walking around the gallery in hushed tones, everyone refusing to laugh at the video of the man beating himself up before smearing his arse with tomato ketchup. Hmm. Anyway we had a fun day and I do love the Barbican. every time I go there I have a little fantasy of my life as a mildly eccentric writer living on the top floor of one of the tower blocks. one day, one day...

girls rock night - 93 feet east on 8th june

featuring The Duloks, amongst others.... should be great.

Yes, and am now typing the day after the night before to say that it was great, despite my fatal mistake in choosing to go with people who weren't exactly into the girl band concept of the night... hey ho. Duloks were crazy, sex-obsessed, out of tune but inexplicably hot, especially their lead singer, whose energy was enough to make me feel ancient. Also The Scha-la-las were totally excellent. I dig their dresses...