The weekend, numerically speaking:

Hours it should take to get from Carlisle to London or vice versa: 4.
Hours it took to get from Carlisle to London: 4.5.
Hours it took to get from London to Carlisle: 7.5.
Alcoholic drinks consumed: 1. (v.g.)
Expenditure: Roughly £123. (Gah! Why? All I have to show for it is a CD, some cheap nail polish, a few jelly bracelets and half a packet of wet ones!)
Bands seen: 6.
Club nights attended: 2.
Films viewn: 2.
Online friends met for the first time: 2.
Phone numbers acquired: 3.
Weight lost: 6lbs. (Yay, but eep, I must have acquired a tapeworm somewhere. Although I ate less than usual, not that much less, and I barely danced at all.)
Tube stations passed through: I don't want to think about it.
Hours sleep between 7am on Friday and 1am on Monday: 3.5.
Caffeine intake: 2 Pro Plus.
Enjoyment of weekend on scale of 1 to 10: 11.
Times I should have a weekend quite like that again: 0.

In more detail:

Did I ever mention that I hate trains?

On Friday, I set my alarm for 7am, so I could make the preparations I'd failed to make the previous night, due to posting loads of bumph in my livejournal. After three hours of work, I set off.

I spent the train journey reading the Suede biography. I was heavily into Suede between '96 and '99 (albeit more because they were one of the best bands in the charts and I didn’t know any non-chart music then, rather than me thinking they were utterly brilliant - although they did do a fantastic live show when I saw them), so I found it interesting. Also, unlike most music biographies it was well-written: concisely, intelligently but entirely comprehensibly, and somewhat humorously. (Notable, better, exceptions: “Heavier Than Heaven” (Kurt Cobain biography), “Everything Must Go” (Manics biography) and those Neil Strauss’s semi-ghostwrote.) But it wasn’t anywhere near as stunning a story as the hype promised. Bah.

In London, I met up with Bryn. We went to a few shops (why doesn’t a shop the size of Superdrug sell black nail polish OR Wet Ones?), went to the Intrepid Fox pub briefly (my first visit – a fleeting one, as it was crammed and I was suffering from intense claustrophobia from walking along Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road) and tried to work out what to do after the Electric Ballroom.

Whenever anyone mentions a place, I invariably finding myself mentioning that I have a friend that lives there. Eventually, people who know me well complain, “You’ve got a friend who lives everywhere!” but it’s true. Though I’m not very outgoing either online or in person, the sheer longevity of my Internet presence has allowed me to meet a lot of people; before then I had over a hundred penfriends; and going to university for over four years in four places and running a very social club-night-orientated society at one of them clearly paid off.

But I seemed to have a severe lack of friends in London who can offer me crash space after gigs and club nights there. There’s Smill, but she’s a busy girl, and was away AND had other visitors. There’s Darren (formerly of the rock societyyyyyyy), but as I haven’t spoken to him since March last year and that wasn’t on the best of terms, it seemed a bit off to contact him simply for this reason. Come to think of it, former classmate Kika might still live there, but she’s not the rock'n'roll type and might not have appreciated me strolling in at 4am, Bryn (who I don’t know that she’s even met) in tow. There’s penpal Julia, but after nearly ten years of correspondence, we’ve yet to meet, so that would also be a bit odd. And there’s a few people I know from the Internet and clubs and festivals and stuff, but not to the point of inviting myself round to theirs at an unsociable hour.

In the past, when I’ve been stuck in London after midnight, I’ve gone to an all-night cybercafe, but that apparently closed a while ago. So, before this weekend, I asked on the Electric Ballroom online forum if anyone had any suggestions as to where to go afterwards. They suggested a dodgy pool hall, a chicken shop, a rave, an all-night cybercafe, and an all-night McDonalds.

Bryn wasn’t too keen on any of the first three ideas, and some investigation proved that the existence of all-night cybercafes and McDonalds’ was a big hairy myth. We decided to look into hostels in Camden post-Cardiacs.

Unlike last time I saw them, where one of the support bands was Sikth (like the Cardiacs only by the virtue of being musically off-the-wall), this time it was a wholly suitable act: Scaramanga Six, punk only weirder (the percussionist played a guiro fish throughout one song). Not my usual thing sort of thing, but I like that in a support band, and I approved.

The Cardiacs (purveyors of punk Christmas carols, or something) – though not as good as last time in my opinion – were brilliant. Though they’re good recorded, I'd forgotten how much they rock live, as well as being visually quite bizarre. Their frontman also gave some utterly unique between-song speeches.

Grr, 'cos they only normally do one gig a year, but they’re supporting The Wildhearts in London soon, who I’d quite like to see again too, only I really can’t afford it / to take the time off work.

There was a human soap dispenser in the toilets.

We failed to find any hostels, but we did find my online friend Michael with whom we decided to go to Kings Cross Station post-Ballroom, as it apparently opened an hour after the Ballroom closing.

I haven’t been to The Electric Ballroom since late 2001 and the night’s changed a fair bit since then. I wasn’t wholly impressed. They were playing a pretty cool combination of power metal, death metal and metalcore in the chillout room, but no one was dancing, and the main floor was too rappy nu-metal for my tastes. Although I used to dance to that sort of stuff all the time at The Beercart and Pit, I’m out of the habit and my tastes have got a lot more extreme in the last year, and I’ve discovered DV8 and Rock World in the last year, which I liked better. (But they did play Beeping Hostile! Good Mykos, I love that song, and it’s been too long since I’ve been able to dance to it!) Besides, the Beercart and Pit have a Circle, and DV8 has a few, and everyone dances so enthusiastically in Rock World, whereas the dancefloor at The Ballroom was too large and full of people just standing around for that sort of camaderie. Michael enjoyed people-watching though (except the tacky hired non-gothic cage-dancers), which was cool, as I didn't want to have suggested he go somewhere he ended up hating.

Kings Cross station opening at 4.30 also turned out to be a big hairy myth. We got there at 4 and it didn’t open until after 5. It was REALLY BEEPING COLD, and once we got in, the departure lounge wasn’t open, so we had to sit in the main bit, which was almost as bad, although some random bloke started talking to me. Ahhh, people. The tubes started running at 5.30, though, so me and Bryn got day-long travelcards and set out on them, until somewhere opened.

I kept dozing off and getting really confused, but I came back to life a bit in a McDonalds toilet: I got changed, used some Wet Ones, took a Pro Plus tablet, and was sort of ready to start the next day. How rock 'n' roll am I! Sadly, it didn’t feel very rock 'n' roll – had it been an impromptu decision to stay out all night, it would have done, but because we had no choice, it was really quite depressing. In a rock 'n' roll sort of way!

We committed further shoppage in central Nodnol and Camden, then went to the cinema to see “Hero” (no walking or brainpower required, we thought). My tiredness kicked in again, and I couldn't keep my eyes on the screen for the first half if the film, but I suddenly recovered completely, and found my understanding wasn't hindered. (And just as well, as it cost £8.50 to get in. I suggested we found somewhere cheaper, but we decided we couldn’t be bothered.) Very simple, very contrived, but the plot was nifty enough and the choreography was beautiful (if insane).

I accompanied Bryn back to Victoria Station (as he’d said he’d told his parents he’d be home that evening to attend a "fizz and quiz" - apparently this is a less alcoholic version of a "wine and some-game-that-rhymes-with-wine". Spine, where you have to remove each other's spines without laughing? Something too middle class for me to have heard of anyway). Then I headed back to the cinema to see “My Summer Of Love”, as I’d read the book it was based on, and although I didn’t especially *like* the book, it was interesting, and I wanted to see what they’d done with it. Seemingly, reduced it a lot of shots of lesbian schoolgirls kissing. Much as I like that (no, really, though I couldn’t say why, being female and straight and everything [ok, maybe not quite everything - I'm not the queen of Bolivia, for example, at least not as far as I know]), the book was very dramatic and powerful, while the film was really quite pointless.

After that, I went to see Dream Evil. METAAAAAAAAAL!!! YAAAAAAAAY!!! It had been far too long since I'd been to a proper metal gig. Powerquest were the first support band. I didn’t even know they were having one, so one I’d heard of was cool. They were pretty good, though one of their songs sounded far too much like “Jump” by Van Halen, which they played last thing at the Electric Ballroom, and compelled us to leave post haste. I think everyone’s heard that song too many times for their liking, but I feel I’ve heard it a ridiculous amount – I’m pretty sure it used to be a keyboard demo, so, growing up in a musical instrument shop, argh.

The next band, Labyrinth, were the real reason why I’d bought my ticket, and although they didn’t play my favourite song of theirs, they lived up to expectations. But Dream Evil were flipping amazing (and much heavier live than recorded) and lovely with it. I bounced a lot, and everyone seemed to be in similar awe. They weren’t planning to do an encore, but we forced them to. Metaaaaaaaal!

Then I went to Slimelight, where I finally remembered to do my nails (oh dear, applying black nail polish in a goth club, how poserish can we get?) After an hour of dozing, I went to dance and ran into Darren! Everything was cool, it turned out, and he said he’d invite me to stay over at his afterwards if he hadn’t already got visitors. Saw Assemblage 23 who were much better than they were last time I saw them. Met someone who turned out to be from Melbourne, who knew people I knew there! (Working out second-degree-of-separation links with UK goths is too easy - between a handful of people on my friends list, I have foolproof connections - but that was cool!) And I met Nicolai and Kitty, the latter of whom said I (too) could crash at his place (a converted church!) in Islington afterwards.

Ok, I know going home with two men you’ve just met isn’t the cleverest of ideas, but you can never trust anyone entirely, and how long should you have to know someone before you agree to do a thing like that? If someone seems absolutely fine from an hour of chatting, how likely is more going to make you reconsider? I am careful here – I won’t even give my phone number to anyone who seems slightly shifty – but these two couldn’t have seemed less so, and it seemed much safer than riding the tubes on my own and probably falling asleep. (I would have asked Darren for 1x2m of floor, but I’d lost him by this point.)

Went to sleep at 6.30am and as I’d agreed to meet Soppygit at 10, I set my alarm for 8.30. Of course, I had mad hallucinatory dreams and missed both my alarm and her calling me. At 10.15, I realised what was happening (and felt fine, too) and asked her to meet me at Angel tube station. I got my stuff together (slowly - beeping goths, having all their stuff the same colour as mine!), then learned Highbury & Islington tube station was closer, so when she next called, I told her to go there. Of course, despite the simplicity of getting there, I got totally lost and ended up at Angel. We finally met at 11.30.

Still, we had a pleasant chat, then met my online friend Peter for the first time, which was cool. We went to Camden and introduced Soppygit to the strange marvels of Cyberdog. Then I went home.

A fine weekend, albeit not a sleeping pattern I care to repeat (although hopefully, what with two more possible avenues of hospitality, I won’t have to. Hurrah for Darren and Kitty!)

And, for my next trick: Edinburgh again, avec Alex, to stay with Ibid, this weekend.

I know I'm completely insane - just because I've got a disposable income doesn't mean I have to, you know, dispose of it. In fact, it would be rather more prudent to save it, considering my future plans. But after four years of university, I'm used to having a brilliant social life, and I somehow can't cope with not going out every weekend, and, living in Cumbria, out means away. The one weekend out of the last seven I stayed at home (and I only did that because I realised I really didn't feel like driving 100 miles in a huge van I've only driven one mile in, which I spent being followed by the police - coincidentally, but always a bit unnerving - just to see Killing Miranda in Dumfries), I felt really sad and lonely, playing The Sims while most of my friends were at Whitby, The Pit and Alcoholocaust (a big metaaaaal festival in Melbourne). Even though I was in my pink glam-rock satin pyjamas and pale blue dressing gown (need black one!) by 10 on the Sunday night, I was glad when Tony appeared, and invited me round to his house-to-be, which is all of two minutes' walk from mine.

It was amazing, by the way - like a student house, only a student house from 1910, complete with chintzy furnishings, enormous vase that looked like a trophy from some distant part of The Empire), gramophone, ancient blackened sewing machine, and greyhound. If it hadn't been for the bad alternative dance music on the stereo, I would have been confused. We spent most of the evening trying to convince our friend James's former stepdad (I think) that when you're gay (as Tony is) you don't find women attractive.

For now, though, I have no idea where he's living, and apparently his new phone only works when it feels like it, so I have to go and see my more distant fiends.

Also, I *am* going to Bournemouth on Saturday 4th December to see Screaming Banshee Aircrew. (Well, it's free to get in!)