Aliens, Fat Slags, Ikea and the sun.

Originally uploaded by the tiniest man with the tiniset camera.*

Friday night started with the best intentions. Don't they all. I went out with Smackie for dinner at Yelo in Hoxton Square. First thing i noticed was the temperature. It was positively tropical. When we hit Hoxton Square, there were people friggin' everywhere. Supping beer from plastic cups on the grass, punters spilling out of pubs, and everyone had on t-shirts and had smiles on their dials. Amazing. This instantly put me in a good mood.

We then proceeded down to Bethnal Green Road to see Smackies mate Nick's Band. We were early so went to possibly the worst pub in history. The Marquis of Cornwallis. Karaoke. What is it with Karaoke? A machine that poorly masks some idiots idea that they might be albe to sing. Play a jukebox, or get a band in. Don't let punters sing, because usually, as a rule of thumb, they can''t. If they could, they'd be in a band right? Right!

Next stop is a tiny little pub up the road to see Nick's band the Zapitistas. The were first on, and sounded good, a cross between The Gang of Four and The Cramps. Alas it was over in 4 songs. Five more bands to come. The next on offer were 3 old men who had been listening to The Pixies for the last 15 years in their bedrooms. The lead singer even looked like Black Francis. Uncanny. This got too much and we went to the set of Eastenders.

Well you would have thought so. We set up camp in the corner and watched the freakshow. At first we thought the "entertainment" was another round of ear bleeding Karaoke. It was worse. It was one guy doing Karaoke. Correction. It was one shit guy doing Karaoke. It made you want to get boozed. Which we did. The place was full of big bellied old West Ham supporters, complete with navy tattoos with the fat slags from Viz in tow. As for the younger generation, there was a lot of scary dough faced women, with bad taste in clothes, bad tattoos, who were on the pull for equally chavish pasty wide boys from the outer suburbs, who had gone for a big night out in Bethnal Green. Woohoo! Scary. There was even a guy with a hugely deformed face, which I just couldn't stop looking at. It was surreal. But the drinks we're cheap and the giggles were a plenty. On a side note, everytime I went to the loo, everyone I talked to was from Newcastle, and I could not understand a word. We left at closing time. Surprise surprise.

We walked to a nightbus which number was a new one to me. But apparently it went through Brixton. On the way, I found a mop on the road, which with my excellent puppetry and ventriloquist skillls became a skinny rasta headed northerner which was my date for the night. You had to be there. I mopped the floor with the lot of them. A clean sweep, you could say. The bus got us home eventually, and I hid till morning.

What a morning it was. I woke up with the sun streaming in my window. In the afternoon I went to Brockwell Park and sat around with friends and attempted to play frisbee. Such a difference a few hours of sunlight makes to peoples attitudes. People were everywhere, kids, dogs, smiles around. It's a taste of things to come I'm hoping.

Later that night I had my first ever Ikea experience. I strayed from the arrows on the floor and got hopelessly lost in 5 minutes. It took me 45 minutes then, to figure out what what kind of desk i wanted, what kind of legs I wanted, with what type of wood. All I wanted is a friggin desk! Too many options makes Reilly's head pop rather quickly. I eventually got what I wanted and a few other things like lamps and duvet sets. I think the quality of products is good, and the range on offer is outstanding and the prices are very cheap. It's just the actual act of shopping at Ikea that makes my brain start to hurt.

The rest of the night was me swearing at a screwdriver in my bedroom and looking at a set of instructions like my life depended on them. Eventually the desk got made, my room looks 100% better and I went to bed a happy chappy.

Woke rather late and surfed the net on my laptop on my new desk happily for a few hours, until I went to meet a mate at The Effra pub in Brixton. The place hasn't been decorated for 30 years, and is full of old Jamaican dudes playing dominos. Quite a quaint charm, and I got stuck into what is possibly the strongest white rum I've ever tasted. There should be a law against this rocket fuel. Honestly. It sends you loopy. Not that I need any encouragement in the loopy stakes. My mate played the "got an early start" card which I was secretly going to play if he didn't. We then shuffled off to Satay Bar and some Indo grub, which wasn't all that bad considering I haven't really ventured out food-wise in Brixton yet. Unless beer is a food group.

The weekend was rounded off nicely with some good news from the doctor on Monday. What I thought was an ulcer in my belly, which has been plaguing me for what seems like months, is actually this. Thank Christ. Fucking gross really, but with the marvels of antibiotics I will be free from the stomach aliens that have been having a party in me for way to long.

(By the way the pic is an actual screenshot of the inside of my belly. Apparently doctors have little photograhers that can fit on the head of a pin with tiny cameras that live in tiny capsules that they make you swallow. How they get the photos developed, I haven't got the foggiest, but it looks pretty alien eh? The little wormy things with the whispy tendrils are the offending little bastards.)