House Party, Norton, Constant Gardener, Pillow Fight Club, King Kong

Sat 17/12 - Had a big house party at ours. The turnout was a little disappointing, nobody came up from out of town and a bunch of the people who'd been out the night before were too lightweight to party again but there were still enough people to have a good craic. We kitted the flat out with a whole bunch of decorations, set Nadine's decks up in the front room and made a vat of mulled wine that was pretty horrible but people still drunk it!

Sun 18/12 - The party went on 'til well into daylight the next day when Tristan, boyfriend of Gary's mate Karen, suggested we head on to a club in London Bridge. It took us a while to find the place which was called Jack's Club. They had some sort of filthy Psy-trance night on. I was finding it quite amusing at first, the level of filth and munted people all around, but after a couple of hours of listening to what seemed to be the same thumping tune it got a bit much so I made a move home. Spent the rest of the day lounging around and watched Bad Santa in three parts because I kept dozing off.

Mon 19/12 - After a rather dazed day at work I turned down René's offer of going to see a preview of the new Woody Allen film, Match Point, with a q&a by Allen and Scarlett Johansen afterwards. Instead Nadine and I went round to Alice's for some mulled wine and nibbles as Vicky was visiting and Alice had invited a load of her old uni mates round. After a little while Nadine and I shot off, met up with Ellen, and went and saw my colleague Adam's band Norton at The Borderline. They were pretty good. Unfortunately, Adam's recently been sacked, apparently because he doesn't smile enough and therefore wouldn't be engineer material! I think it more likely that it was just because our MD, Ebbs, had taken a seemingly irrational dislike to him.

Tues 20/12 - Just went for a couple of drinks with Tim, Dan, Nick, Laura, and Anthony at The Lounge.

Wed 21/12 - Another fun (!) day at work then a busy evening. Tim helped me drive the decks back round to Nadine's then went and met up with Tom for a very quick Yaki Soba at Fujiyama's. After that headed to The Ritzy to watch The Constant Gardener, very good film about how big pharmaceutical companies use African tribespeople to test dodgy drugs on. Unfortunately I had to have a little snooze in the middle of the film as usual but, you know, I got the gist of it! After the film Aaron met us in the foyer and we went for a couple of pints in The Prince. Tom mentioned he may be off to Cuba for a couple of weeks in the new year and I got to thinking that I may join him.

Thurs 22/12 - Had the afternoon off work to head back to the dentist for more pain! She reckons I should have two wisdom teeth out. The choice is, get it done for free at Guys hospital by students or pay to get it done by pro's - with anaesthetic! - at another hospital. The problem is my last dentist x-rayed my jaw and showed me that the roots of my wisdom teeth go off at right angles in my gums, meaning it'll be a messy process to extract them. Might go for the anaesthetic option! The dentist also suggested I let her refer me to a specialist who may be able to operate on my jaw. Can't make up my mind. The option of being able to eat and speak better is definitely tempting but involves fairly major surgery and a whole lot of metal work in my mouth for a long time. What to do!? Maybe Canada has better (and possibly free!) dental care. Gotta look into that.

Apart from that, the evening was awesome. Jiggy came round 'cos I'd recorded a Radio 3 program off the BBC website's "Listen Again" section for him. It was a recording of a Carol Service at St. John's Chapel in Oxford that his Dad's girlfriend's son had sung in. Will doesn't like her too much so I think it was a good way of getting her a pretty novel present without actually spending any money on her!

We went for a quick pint then I headed off to Covent Garden to meet Alice, Vicky, Caroline, Kim and a couple of their mates for Pillow Fight Club!! There must have been about 200+ people who responded to emails sent out by some random nutters who organise these things every now and then. Everyone turned up at Covent Garden Plaza with a pillow and at 18:47 precisely (again! see Mobile Clubbing post) everyone started battering the crap out of each other. It was hilarious! I had taken a pillow and acquired another one off the floor and felt like someone out of Braveheart or some such film, trudging through the battlefield, taking out anyone in my way!As we were leaving I hit Alice then realised my pillow must have touched the floor and brushed through something that smelt like tramp! Cue much whingeing from her for the rest of the evening.

We headed back to Brixton to meet up with Nadine, Donna and Ed to watch the new King Kong remake. Awesome film! Starts off slowly then builds into a complete rollercoaster of a movie with the heroic posse getting attacked from all sides by the craziest CG monsters imaginable. Thought the crazy tribal people that try and sacrifice the heroine to Kong were a bit of a dodgy racial typecast, but maybe that was just me. Great film though, I even managed to stay awake through all 3 hours of it (with the help of a couple of Pro Plus)!

Ludes, March of the Penguins, Director's Half Cut, Fatboy Slim

Mon 12/12 - After work, met up with me old mucka Eveleigh and just sat in a pub off Oxford Street, catching up.

Tues 13/12 - Been feeling knackered and like I haven't had any time to myself so took the day off work to have a rest and try and do lots of proactive stuff, such as scan the jobs websites for better paid positions and fill out my damned Tax Return. As is always the way though, the day flashed past before I'd noticed it, with me achieving very little except recording off a bunch of the vinyl Tom had given me for The Director's Half Cut on Thursday. I was also bastardising a version of the Queen's Christmas speech from I think 1973, the year it was first televised. I was rearranging it so she said rude things (hope that's not treason!) and cutting it up with The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen". In the evening I met Will and we went to see a band called The Ludes at The 100 Club on Oxford Street. Will had wanted to check the venue out 'cos he was thinking about going there for New Years Eve with Jen. He decided against it though as the whole place felt far too much like a pikey student union bar. The Ludes were wicked though, I think they could go far.

Wed 14/12 - Met up with Rupe again and went to see March of the Penguins with Kelly, an old uni friend of his, at The Screen On The Green, a really nice little one-screen cinema in Islington.

Thurs 15/12 - Tonight was Tom's night, The Director's Half Cut at the South London Pacific bar again. This time the theme was Christmas! Humbug! Once again the little fancy dress shop on Berwick Street sorted me out with a pretty good costume. I had a black PVC Santa suit with "Bah Humbug!" written across the furry band round the hat. It wasn't as good as my Rambo costume last time though, especially since the trousers were very sweaty and constantly fell down. The night went ok. I was doing the music and sound effects for the theatrical parts again. There were more people there than last time but quite a lot of them were students on the piss who had no interest in the performance stuff and just wanted to dance.

Fri 16/12 - Went to see Fatboy Slim at Brixton Academy. Phat night. A load of peeps came round for a few drinks beforehand. The whole gig was in 'Palookavision' which meant everyone was given some crazy glasses on the way in that made holographic smiley faces appear around any bright point of light. Fatboy's DJ booth was a giant video wall, at least 20ft square, with the centre section recessed and that's where the decks are so as he's playing he's got all these crazy graphics moving all around and behind him. All of this, together with Fatboy dropping all the usual big tunes, made for quite a show.

Xmas party, Prodigy, Mobile Clubbing, K*nt and the Gang, Chemical Brothers, Narnia

Fri 2/12 - Had our work Christmas Party at the Soho Hotel. 'Twas a fairly lavish affair. Even if the wall paper in some of the rooms reminded me somewhat of The Shining. Or maybe that was our beloved MD. We had a very nice dinner followed by some fairly bullshit speeches then all opened the secret santa presents we'd bought each other. The most popular of which was a long cane that someone had bought for Flip. We moved into the dimly lit Moroccan style bar next to the dining room and much caning ensued!

I left relatively early before everyone got too hammered and it got too boring and cliquey. I went to meet Toby and Karina who were up for the day as Karina had had an interview with Storm, the modelling agency. We went back to the hotel so I could scrounge them a free drink then went to one of the dingey little Spanish bars off Oxford Street. After a few tequilas we wandered around 'til we found a little Greek place where the entertainment was singing, dancing and an awful lot of plate smashing. Kate came and met us and I went back and crashed at hers.

Sat 3/12 - Met Toby and Karina again for a couple of lunchtime beers at The Lock Tavern in Camden. Had a wander round the market then left them to head home to chill out for a bit. A bunch of the regular London Monkeys came round for a few drinks before we headed off to see The Prodigy at Brixton Academy. Cracking night, mental moshpit, Audio Bullys and Pendulum supporting.

Sun 4/12 - Had to be at work at 9am! Only to let the builders in which wasn't too bad as they were two and a half hours late and I spent that time snoozing on the sofa and getting paid time and a half for it.

Mon 5/12 - Tubs was up for a training do so met up with her for lunch then again in the evening when me, her, Alice and Jo went to a crazy thing called Mobile Clubbing. Basically this is a flash mob, where somebody comes up with a crazy idea, advertises a time and place via the internet and a bunch of random people turn up and do it. The idea for this one was that people would be waiting on Villiers Street between Charing Cross Station and Embankment Station. At 18:47 (to be precise!) everyone would switch on some form of personal stereo and start dancing to whatever music they chose. It was hilarious!! There must have been about 100 of us all bopping away to different tunes. One guy was rocking out with an inflatable guitar, loads of passers by were looking bemused, some joined in, a load of chuckling drivers passed through. I changed tunes several times to keep it varied, switching it up with a bit of everything from Metallica to Burt Baccarach to De La Soul. Great laugh.

Tues 6/12 - Met Jiggy for a pint after work then Joe, Flip, and Andy came along and we went to a night called Tourettes at The Heavenly Social on Great Portland Street. This was to see an amazing act that Joe had told me about called Kunt and the Gang. Kunt is a bloke in some Y-fronted thermal underwear and his gang is a glove puppet called Little Kunt. They sing beautiful songs such as "Wank the Dog". Pretty wrong but hilarious!

Wed 7/12 - Night in!

Thurs 8/12 - Worked late, then went home and played Texas Hold 'Em with my housemates James and Gary.

Fri 9/12 - Few beers with work people in the Crown and Two Chairmen, the work local, then went home. Quietest Friday night in a long time!

Sat 10/12 - Lazed around the house all day then got a call from Caroline, arranged to meet her for a drink that evening when she randomly offered me a ticket to go and see the Chemical Brothers with her and her mate Kim at the Academy. Awesome tunes and a mental light show, my only slight niggle being they didn't play Sunshine Underground :-( Was gonna head to my old housemate, Ben's house party afterwards but I spoke to Gary who was on his way back from it and said it was fizzling out so I gave it a miss and we just went back to ours and got mash-up there instead.

Sun 11/12 - Had a rehearsal for Tom's next "Director's Half Cut" night, which all went very smoothly. Met up with Alice in the evening and went to see The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at The Ritzy. Thoroughly enjoyed it, found it quite moving - felt like I was gonna cry about half a dozen times throughout the movie. The only worrying thing about it was that Mr. Tumnus came across as a bit paedo!