Acoustic night at Christchurch takes place every Thursday. For the last two years, attendance has been a ritual amongst what has evolved from "The Fellowship" - yet, for one reason or another, I've never been.

I was all set to go on Thursday. I told people I'd be there and I met up with the usual suspects in town beforehand, where everyone was wearing kerayzee hats that looked like a pint of Guinness on a shamrock, on account it being St Patrick's Day.

But then I ran into Stef for the first time in two years and all my good intentions went to pot. Well, to alcohol. Due to unemployment, I haven't bought myself a drink since mid-January, so Stef's subsequent generosity led to me getting wasted in no time. I fell out of the pub, danced at the bus stop while pondering over the shop behind it (a curtain shop, which claims to be "the little shop with the big reputation", and certainly it's small, but why would a curtain shop have a reputation? Unless customers can get up to dodginess behind said curtains?) and went back to Whitstable.

My house is a two-minute walk from the bus stop in Whitstable. I once ran into my fiend Russell during said walk, but for obvious reasons wasn't expecting to ever encounter anyone else I knew during it. Yet there was re-enactor Dave, who lives some twenty miles away, driving from a pagan soc thing on the beach to a party. He told me to come with, which, on reflection, would probably have been fun, but I how could I not say, "No, I don't get into cars with strange men"? Instead, I spent an hour rambling at Sleeve and Emma, and my Mum down the phone.

On Friday, I went to a gig in London. The first band, Firewind, were at times compellingly brilliant and at others deeply dull. Headliners, Nevermore, impressed though. I'd heard a couple of their tracks and found them ok, but they were much heavier live, and I liked much of their other material better.

My other problem (ok, one of my many other problems) seems to be that whenever I say in my journal I'm going clubbing, I never end up doing it. I'd been all set to go to Synthetic Culture, a goth'n'metal night that goes on til 5am, after the gig, but I was tired (I've not been sleeping much lately) and despite having had good music and company, I wasn't in the best of moods. I was concerned about my future (still no news from Oxford), I hadn't done any writing all day (just read Metal Hammer and "Tipping The Velvet" which is partly set a few metres from where I live), The Novel was in a major quandary, and it seemed I'd be best advised to sleep and work on it today. So I went home instead.

Nonetheless, the journey was interesting. On the first tube, there was a guy who'd been to the gig telling off some people for respectively wearing pink trousers and a blue fitted leather jacket, among other heinous crimes. Luckily, they and most of the carriage found this hysterical, although a few people did see fit to alight in Mornington Crescent, which - as Mornington Crescent is the most useless (but amusing) tube station in London (although Smill does get off there to go to work) - everyone was sure was just to escape the lunacy.

Then, on the next tube, I met a gig attendee, who was getting the same train back as me, miracle of miracles, and we had a pleasant conversation. At least, I found it pleasant. The chavs behind us saw fit to make The Chav Noise (which can only be transcribed as "Ehh!"), but too bad!