What Katie Did

2006-08-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

I heart the people of the Good Mixer, but not the people of Camden Town in general

On Friday, I was despairing over having nothing to do on a Friday night when my telephone rang. It was Karrie, my friend who was about to go to Sweden and suggested a night out to prepare herself for next morning's flight. I immediately agreed and dug a navy Joseph sweater dress (very short! but warm) and some skyscaping Miu Miu heels out of my closet. A lot of make up and a few spritzes of Chanel No 5 later, and I was ready for the ten minute drive to Camden - yep, my mum gave me a lift. But one day, I will learn to drive. One day.

Mum dropped me off on parkway and I walked down to Camden Town station to meet my comrades. I found Sarah BM (she of the scarlet hair, and my Bath buddy) and we discovered that Karrie was going to be late. A good couple of hours late. We flounced angrily around the station for a bit, lamenting Karrie's lateness, and our own stupidity for being punctual (we've known Karrie for 7 years now, and she's NEVER been on time for anything). Then my ankle strap came undone and I was faced with the Catch-22 situation of perhaps falling off my 5-inch heels and facing an ankle break, or bending down to fix the strap and showing off my knickers to the surrounding crowds, dodgy-looking Camden Towners. After much consideration, we headed to the Good Mixer on Inverness Street, just 4 or 5 minutes hobble away.

The Good Mixer is a wonderful place. One day I may dedicate a whole blog entry to describing it. For now, suffice to say, it's very rock, with an edgy indie crowd. They serve snakebites - liquid pink gold! - and you can even get them in plastic cups so when you trot off to a gig at any of the nearby venues you can take your drink with you. Genius. Lots of the boys there have very nice hair, too. It was busy and I needed somewhere to sit to fix my shoe. Sarah found a spare stool to sit on, and I found enough space at the end of a bench at a corner table. I asked a typically nice-haired boy if I could sit there, and he agreed. I had only been fiddling with my strap for a few seconds when his friend approached. "You gave away my seat!" he sulked to his friend, casting an accusative glance in my direction. "But she smelt so nice!" replied my benchmate. I explained that I was just trying to fix my shoe strap, and cheekily asked the newcomer to do it for me. He then very graciously bent down and struggled for about 5 minutes to fix it. With my full mobility restored, it was time for Sarah and I to nudge through the drainpipes and leather jackets to the bar.

Not much happened and eventually Karrie arrived, about 2 hours late. She decided for some inexplicable reason that we should go to the Misty Moon, formerly known as the Man in the Moon, primarily known to me as a haunt of the Camden school pupils. It was completely dead there, and I was too grumpy to drink. Karrie had brought along 2 of her friends, who while nice enough, were very young and not entirely fascinating. I flicked through a property paper, despairing over the prices of crumbling ex-council flats in Bow - how will I ever afford a decent place to live? I'm going to be stuck at home with my parents forever! - while Karrie drank some vile cherry beer. Eventually the others left and Karrie and I made our way back towards Camden Town, arguing about what we would do next. It had started to rain. Karrie's friend Fred and what I expect to be a bunch of terrifying army people were coming down later. Spending so much time in the company of indie boys, I have a slight phobia of men who aren't at all androgynous. I wanted to go to Koko (Club NME) - it's not the greatest place and the drinks aren't cheap, but there's usually quite a young, vaguely cool crowd. Karrie wanted to go to Underworld, which sometimes has good gigs but is generally a pretty shit club. I stood in the queue with Karrie for a bit but then the rain began spitting down on us vehemently, and I made my exit.

I had only reached Camden Town station when I looked in my bag to see that some fucker had taken my money. £15 had been fished out of my handbag at some point in the evening, probably standing in the crowd of people near the Underworld. Luckily they were only after cash - my phone and oyster card/driving licence were still safe inside. As an unemployed gap year person who wants to party every night, I need every penny I can get my hands on and I really couldn't afford to lose £15 - an amount which roughly translates as 2-3 nights out. I was furious, but I was also freezing cold and soaking wet. I called my mummy to come and rescue me. I trudged up Parkway in the rain to meet her at the crossroads. It was pouring down, huge cold raindrops, and my hair was wet through. I was so worried about my shoes. Cars driving past splashed through huge puddles, sending torrents of water at my legs. The inside of my shoes were wet and squishy, and I started to cry. I found shelter in the alcove doorway of the big glass building at the top of Parkway and stood there sniffling till my mum came to rescue me in her lovely car.

Damn Camden thieves and damn London weather.

2006-08-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

"I'm going to make a t-shirt for when I come to clubs like this. On the back it will say 'I fucking hate Panic! at the Disco' and on the front, 'Please don't step on my shoes! They're Marc Jacobs!'"

On Wednesday, I embarked upon a mini adventure to Bath. My friend Sarah had recently returned from interrailing in Europe which sounds like a complete nightmare to me, trawling your stuff around from country to country, strange, dirty countries, and probably getting lots of blisters. However, she enjoyed it and actually felt lost on returning to London and wanted to get out for a bit. In my usual spirit of enthusiasm, I agreed immediately and we hit the megabus and National Express websites. As we were leaving the next day we were too late for the amazing £1 megabus deal, but we booked ourselves onto National Express for a very reasonable £8 and when we arrived at the Victoria depot the next morning, we were thrilled to discover there was TV on the coach. We watched the Simpsons and Friends in the three and a half hour journey but decided against a lame episode of the occasionally-amusing My Family and the completely dire The Prime Minister's Daughter. I was reading Jack Kerouac's On the Road, the essential pointless road trip novel. After passing through the concrete-and-glass blot on the landscape that is Swindon, we arrived in pretty, pretty Bath.

Bath, fyi, is a beautiful town comprising of 18th century/Regency buildings made out of immaculate uniform sandy stone (possibly sandstone, ha). There are lots of wide streets where people like me can vividly imagine sashaying down the raised pavements, layers of crinolines and petticoats and full-length skirts rustling, and horses gaily clip-clopping by, carriages in tow. As possibly the most nostalgic person in the world, who yearns for a time machine, I adore Bath, but it is quite tiny. Sarah and I must have circumnavigated the entire town at least four times during our fleeting visit. Our first stop was Bath Backpackers, our 'funky hostel,' their words, not mine. This was my first hostel visit, and it was actually quite nice. I was not impressed with having to share a room with randomers, or indeed, having to put the sheets on my bed myself, but the friendliness of the employees and the fact that our room was called 'Divas' with each bed named after a famous diva sort of made up for this. I wanted to be Britney Spears but that bed was gone so I opted for Madonna.

After locking our stuff in a locker, Sarah and I set off to explore. I adore Jane Austen, so I insisted we visit her museum in Gay Street (lololol). We learnt lots about her life, and the fact that she hated Bath, but I found it very interesting and her writing skills and her being a fellow Sagittarius make her one of my idols. Being extremely frugal on the trip, we avoided spending too much money, and decided not to visit the Roman Baths - £8.50! - I had been there before anyway. We continued our sightseeing, visited Bath Abbey, and were shocked by the huge number of Thai restaurants and chocolate shops in Bath. We walked in a pretty park, caught up on gossip, and had nice chats on all sorts of topics such as home decor, what sort of animals we look like (me: possum, Sarah: red squirrel), and how important visiting Auschwitz is. We repeatedly encountered a homeless alcoholic who performed impressive magic tricks. I gave him my change.

In the evening, we ate green curry at the cheap Thai restaurant adjacent to the hostel. We then deliberated over what to do and walked to a nice enough pub where we could watch some of the Arsenal match, and where there was a cute black cat in residence. At about 10pm we left and went looking for some gum and ice cream, two items I was severely craving. However, the rural world is far from suitable for late night consumer urges (10 is hardly late though!?), but eventually a friendly (slightly eccentric) young local walked us to Spar which was wonderfully still open. We continued to meander the narrow old streets in search of some form of club, preferably an indie club. To our joy we found Discord at Po Na Na, just minutes from our hostel, which was promisingly advertised as "a full tilt mix of the best Rock, Indie, Alternative, Metal, Punk and Beats anthems" but indie seemed to have been sacrificed in favour of that whiny Fall Out Boy/Panic! stuff that gets on my nerves, an obvious yet fair enough example of the DJs pandering to the desires of the studded-belt-sporting, jet-black sweep haired and occasionally trucker-capped clientele. Of course the emo kids were levelled out by the moshers with their long greasy hair and morbid clothes. I felt lonely and very London in my Radcliffe grey skinny jeans, urban layers of vintage glittery cardigan upon worn H&M vest, and beige Marc Jacobs shoes. People watching was fun, as was harassing the DJ (in clubs like this I always request my favourite band Biffy Clyro. He told me that they were one of his favourite bands but couldn't play them because not enough people like them. I've heard that before), as well as befriending the locals. I was happy to see that despite their sterotypical facades, moshers, goths and emo kids united on the dance floor for a Naive (the Kooks) singalong. It was a memorable scene.

We befriended one particular guy who happened to live in Camden, near Sarah. I approved of his music taste, he bought us drinks, all that jazz. Nice guy. When the club kicked out at 2am (everything ends so early out of London!) we went on to a local party. It was quite a walk as Raf (birthday boy)'s house is situated kind of between the Circus (pictured above) and the stunning Royal Crescent. We drank plastic glasses of rose wine, being very wary of spillages in his immaculate, strikingly modern inside, house while listening to Glassjaw. My feet were actually killing me, so it was begrudgingly that I removed my shoes upon his doorstep, knowing how painful it would be to put them back on. Thinking of the hostel's 10am checkout, we didn't stay too long and trudged downhill in the spitting rain through the deserted town.

We got back to the hostel and I dragged my stuff out the room so I could get changed into my little satin nightdress and struggle with my duvet covers without waking our sleeping roommates. Sarah went to bed and I hung out in the kitchen with 3 of the hostels employees - 2 guys from Spain and one Australian man. They were all very nice and told me about their travels and work, and gave me chocolate. Eventually I returned to the room, and clambered into my (ladderless!) bunk by way of the handy bedside table.

The next day Sarah and I walked to the Royal Crescent, a masterpiece of architecture. We sat on the green lawn in front of it and read our books - Sarah was reading L'Etranger by Camus, something I would enthusiastically consider reading if I hadn't overdosed on Sartre last year. The weather was gorgeous! Eventually we caught the coach back to London, having popped into a local internet cafe to book our coach with fun fares and saving £6.50 on what we would have paid in the ticket office. We slept on the coach and arrived back at Victoria at nearly 6pm. We met some cool people in Bath and wll be keeping in touch via the magical world of myspace.