New Years Day - West End Stylee

Paul and I woke lateish after NYE festivities, thinking we’d been visited by the bottle fairy (how did all those empty bottles get in our kitchen). While Paul slept some more, I decided to take advantage of that large yellow ball in the sky. I washed over 24 empty glasses in the sun in the kitchen with my shirt off – it was almost like living in Southern Europe, except we don’t ride with eight people to a scooter….

After sorting out the house, we grabbed our brand new yearly travelcards (cheaper than the £4 per one-way trip the tube now costs – ouch!) and before you could say ‘What hangover?’ went to meet Stuie, Mark, and Angel in London’s barricaded-off West End. En route, as they say in France, Paul and I watched the London Parade for about 5 minutes, then decided we’d had enough. There are only so many brass bands you can take with a fuzzy head. And I was bought up watching the Bendigo Easter Fair Society processions, so the London Parade was always going to have to be top-notch to compete with that.

The boys had splashed out and been to Browns for lunch – no dining Alistair Appleton this time, but Connie Fisher (Maria in the Sound of Music) was there. She didn’t sing, and she wasn’t wearing curtains. While Paul and I grabbed a sandwich, the boys went to the National Portrait Gallery. After Paul and I tired of the woman in Pret talking WAY TOO LOUDLY (maybe she was caught up in the excitement of Bulgaria and Romania joining the EU), we found the boys, saw the Pet Shops Boys photography exhibition, and then walked down to Trafalgar Square to check out the Norwegian Christmas tree. It wasn’t suffering needle drop like our tree is. Isn't it good, Norwegian wood?

By this stage Stuie had already left us to meet Derrecks because it was beer o’clock. I think Stuie's clock is Swiss - it keeps very accurate time. Mark, Angel, Paul and I wandered slowly back up to Soho and the den of iniquity that is Rupert St. My resolve to drink less in January failed about then. Derrecks, Augusto and Lee were already there, so we had a few drinks to celebrate the New Year. I suppose there’s always February to drink less in – that could work for me, it being a shorter month and all. Augusto and I had a discussion about who was taller. From this photo it looks like Augusto is, but he is standing closer to the camera. Clearly I am the taller of us. There are more pics here.