Top
  Nonsense
    These We have Loved
    BLOGADOON
        latest
        next week
        previous week
        first week
    Links


Responses to:
    blogadoon@iansie.com

º December 18th-24th 2000
Monday Vauxhall
Tuesday Nigel at Popcorn
Wednesday photo-me
Thursday come a long way
Friday Kirsty MacColl
Saturday photo-me2
Sunday pretty boys

º Monday 18th December 2000

If you're a regular at the Sunday chill-out in Vauxhall, you'll already know that it's one of the most riotous, cruisy, attitude-free sessions in town.

You'll be able to sing every word of Dame Edna's opening Karen Carpenter tribute ("...for two donuts per hour they come UP with such power and I cram them all back down, ain't that unreallllll").

And you'll also be dimly aware that the Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been a breeding-ground for class drag acts like Lily Savage and Adrella for more than ten years. (James McConnon, who spent the Eighties growing up there, has an interesting page on how, even then, the pub was attracting a keen interest from the local police.)

What you may not know is that Vauxhall's history as a centre of metropolitan debauch dates back for more than three centuries.

Spring Gardens, the grassy knoll that sits behind the Tavern (and from which the Real IRA launched a rocket attack at the nearby MI6 headquarters earlier this year) is the last remnant of the notorious Vauxhall pleasure-ground, a wooded enclave of candle-lit grottoes, concert halls and supper-houses whose reputation for easy sex and drunken riot peaked in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Boswell described the Vauxhall music as "not too refined for the general ear" and, despite one punter's complaint that the venue needed "more nightingales and fewer strumpets", contemporary engravings show huge crowds avidly enjoying the loud histrionics of over-dressed entertainers.

So: no change there then.

º Tuesday 19th December 2000

I've known Miranda since before she was born: her parents and I lived together for most of her life. I've been similarly privileged to know many of Miranda's young friends, especially Nigel, whom I think I first met when he was ten, screaming and running up and down the stairs.

What a pleasure to bump into him at Popcorn last night.

(Sobering? Nah.)

º Wednesday 20th December 2000

Well at last: an up-to-date photograph of myself that doesn't make me want to go out and throw myself under a train. (Clue: I'm the one with hair. And severe conjunctivitis, by the look of it.)

º Thursday 21st December 2000

Last night David needed to go to the Retro Bar (to retrieve a bag he'd abandoned there in a drunken stupor the night before) so we met at nine. It being karaoke night, we only stayed for one pint. David flatly refused to check out Halfway to Heaven, and I didn't fancy Kudos, so we sauntered north (passing Brief Encounter without a second glance) aiming towards KuBar or 79CXR.

Then David remembered it was Singles Night at West Central, so we had a couple of pints in there, sporting our sticky-backed numbers to no avail ('How many times will 187 go into 180? And now, the Spice Girls').

Almost 11 o'clock by then, so we didn't bother with Compton's or Manto, and headed directly to Bar Code, bumping into Phil on the way and dragging him with us. Queasy by midnight, I headed home (stopping for a club sandwich to take-away from Compton Street Cafe) and last saw David aiming towards Central Station.

And in all that time, and in all those venues, we only saw three other people we know. I guess we've come quite a way since the only options were The Salisbury or some third floor piano bar with the same old faces. Which must be good. Mustn't it?

º Friday 22nd December 2000

Am I the only one who received an e-mail suggesting that Kirsty MacColl had joined the Propellerheads - and thought it was true?

º Saturday 23rd December 2000

A companion piece to the photograph that I can live with:

º Sunday 24th December 2000

What is wrong with this list (apart from the fact that I've never heard of half of them)?

"i wanna plow these pretty boys: kevin dipalito (the squirrel), jared leto, ryan phillippe, tony blair (prime minister of england), prince william, matthew lawrence (yum), nick carter (before he gained weight), taylor hanson (middle one, you know?)..."

......previous week