The time I went to Oceana

I dislike ‘clubbing’ as I don’t really drink so end up squashed in between lots of sweaty drunk people while they try and talk nonsense to me and I try to dance around a bit, like a fool.

There is a club in Kingston called Oceana. When I was at university, people used to love going to Oceana. They’d go a few times a week and be all into it. I was kind of under the impression that there might be something good going on there so one time, when we were getting ready for a night out, the plan started to include Oceana and I decided to go along, intrigued by what might be happening there.

It was like an assault on my eyes, people! An assault!

In the main room, there were people dancing as though they were auditioning for a soft porn film. Just so we’re clear, I’m not moaning because members of the opposite sex were dancing together. I’m moaning because they were dancing up against walls and leaving little to the imagination and making my eyes feel violated by seeing them.

We crammed into a corner amongst this madness and various members of our group attempted to get near the bar, which took forever. We watched the people dancing on the podiums around room and bobbed away, bashing into each other a little, as we were basically standing on top of each other.

After about twenty minutes of this nonsense (how it is ever categorised as ‘fun’ is beyond me), the closeness and the sweatiness and soft-porn all got a bit much and I started to feel wierd and breathless and needed to sit down. I left my friends and went downstairs to another of the rooms that was quieter and people sat talking calmly to each other. I stayed there with a glass of water for as long as possible before rejoining the madness upstairs, shortly after which, we decided to leave.

Surprisingly enough, I never went back. And after such a fun visit!? I must be mad.

And that was the time I went to Oceana.

The handbags and the gladrags…

It’s Friday morning and here I am again, writing about the time I jumped on a bandwagon, cause Emily and Ashley told me to. I’ve no idea what I’m going to write really, so let’s just see what happens.

I can start by telling you about a bandwagon I didn’t jump on. I didn’t jump on the Take That bandwagon when one of the popular girls in juniors, Amy, decided she loved them, as did a lot of other girls.

I did, however, jump on the PJ and Duncan bandwagon (that’s Ant and Dec to most of you). I don’t know if they had their own bandwagon, as such, but my friend Hannah liked them, hence I liked them. Her and I went to quite a few of their concerts.

My other friend, Ruth, and I once wrote them a letter before one of their concerts. We must have been about 11 years old. We were all into learning dance routines off Top of the Pops or making up our own so this one time we had tickets to one of their concerts. We had matching outfits ready for the concerts, by the way. O yes, matching outfits. We didn’t do things by halves, Ruth and I. We had black tight fit t-shirts that said ‘Right On’ in silver lettering, a white denim skirt (yes, white denim), black pump things with a bit of a heel, a pale denim jacket and a little black over-the-shoulder handbag thing. All matching. Boy, did we look cool!?

And we wrote them this letter which was something along the lines of “Do you need backing dancers for your next concert in Liverpool because we’re really good and already have dance moves to all your songs so we could be your dancers.” I’m also pretty sure Ruth asked PJ to send a pair of his pants with his reply.

We never got a reply. Which surprises me.

Actually, talking of having matching handbags, Ruth and I jumped on that bandwagon bigtime! We decided, when were maybe 15 years old, that it was time for us to join the world of grown ups and have handbags.

Our first foray into the handbag world was filled with nervousness and there was a lot of discussion about how best to go about it. I think Ruth’s first one was a cute grey fluffy backpack type thing. I’m not sure what mine was, probably more of a shoulder bag. We experimented with what exactly to put in it. I remember us both being like, “What on earth do people have in them?” So Ruth went on a discovery mission and looked through her Mum’s handbag.

I remember her being like, “Ok, she had a pen in there,” so we both ran off, got a pen, put it in our handbags and felt like we were real grown ups cause we had proper handbag items.

We were in such a rush to grow up, Ruth and I. We spent hours poring over Argos and Next catalogues, looking through the ‘home’ section and deciding how we would decorate the flat we would live in. Even down to the design of the taps in the bathroom. We had a little scrapbook where we cut out all the things we saw that we liked and stuck them in then spent ages looking through it all.

When we were about 17 and people had starting ‘going out’ drinking and clubbing, we decided to jump on the ‘clubbing’ bandwagon but in a comparatively rubbish way. My mum and her then-boyfriend were going for a drink at a kind of upmarket fancy pub-club place called Yates’ on Allerton Road (the cool girls at school went all the way into town to the proper over-18s clubs whereas Allerton Road was just a shopping road with one or two gastropubs at the end) so Ruth and I went with them.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. My first Big Night Out was to a slightly fancy gastropub with my mum.

Mother and boyfriend went and stood a little way off so as not to ruin our Cool Factor and it was at this point that we decided to give ‘drinking’ a go. I think we probably got some kind of bottled soft drink thing with about 0.2% alcohol content that wouldn’t even get a toddler tipsy. I was doing a bit of dancing cause I’d heard that’s what people did when they went out. Ruth, however, was having none of that silliness. She sat on a high stool while I bobbed about and sang “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!” in her face (while also changing the word ‘roof’ to ‘Ruth’ and feeling terribly clever).

I can’t remember if we Talked To Any Boys on this occasion (another bandwagon I was pretty keen to jump on) or even if we stayed out past midnight. I imagine we didn’t. I’m pretty sure we just walked to the car and drove the five minutes back home and got into bed.

When I’d be in school after this occasion and girls would sometimes ask who’d started Going Out Clubbing, I would always pipe up.

“O yeh, I have, yeh. I’m mad for it, me! Can’t stop going out! Yeh, I love all that. The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!”

It was quite a long time, after this one evening out before I actually did start clubbing and we all know how that turned out.

The time I won a dance competition

Firstly, I’d just like say a huge congratulations to myself for passing the 500 post mark earlier this week. Woop woop for me! To celebrate this, I have an apple and rhubarb cake in the oven.

In the meantime, I would like to tell you a story about the time I won a dance competition. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. You didn’t realise I had so many skills. You knew I was talented but this was a side of me you hadn’t seen yet. Yes, I know. Calm down, calm down. Let me tell you the story.

My friends and I were travelling around Asia. One friend had been living and working in Thailand in a town called Khon Kaen so we spent some time there on our trip. In Thailand in April, at the beginning of the monsoon season they have a big street party called Songkran. In the whole country. And they seemed to be doing it in Laos too when we were there. It lasts about three days and the basic premise of it is that everyone throws water and talc at each other.

Yep. Talc. Talcum powder. People have it all over their hands and when you’re jammed in a big crowd, they will work their way around and smother everyone’s wet faces with talc. Not sure why.

It can turn into an all out war with the water throwing. People get high tech water guns and use water that’s had ice sitting in it. They soak everything and anything. People sitting on a bus. People just trying to walk to work. Anyone’s a target.

In amongst all this, there are bits of entertainment being put on in the streets, to keep the revellers happy. There are different stages with performances or competitions etc. And one of these, on the day we were there, was a dance competition. As we approached the stage to see, the man with the microphone was asking for one more participant.

Somehow, without consciously expressing an interest, I was being pulled/pushed/carried onto the stage. And I was the final participant!

Before I had time to realise what was really happening, the music came on and I was ordered to dance. And dance I did! They were screaming and loving it. I was dancing and loving it. And there was general lovage all around. I felt like a major Hollywood celebrity!

Whilst getting down with my bad self, I decided to do a little sideways lunge type of move, to mix it up a bit, you know? With being completely drenched from Songkran, the thin fisherman’s trousers I was wearing, stuck to my skin so that when I lunged, the seam on the inside of the leg just ripped.

There I was – dance, dance, dance, then RRRRRIP! Oops! My cool sideways lunge move stopped immediately and I changed to more standing-up-straight-and-not-bending-legs-moves.

Then the music stopped and microphone man asked the crowd to shout for their favourite. He pointed at each of the other three, who had been very good dancers. Then he pointed at me and the shouting was louder. Now I’m not fooling myself that I was the better dancer. I was, however, the only foreigner up there plus I had split my pants live on stage so I think it made me look a bit exciting and that got me through.

I was handed a t-shirt which read ‘YAMAHA’ and told that it was my prize. So I took my t-shirt and my broken pants and off I went, the official Dance Competition Winner!

The bus journey of memories

I get on, beep my Oyster card and sit down. I have a magazine with me, intending to read it, but I know deep down I won’t actually read it. Because this bus journey is one which runs through the memories I have made since coming to London. I’m always drawn to look out of the window.

It starts by the pharmacy where I would come and get Bio Oil every week or so after my operation last year. To try and make my huge hideous scar fade a little. Next I’m at the garage I used to walk to when I was allowed off bedrest, to try and get my energy back. There’s the bike shop where I wheeled my bike in despair one day when I had a puncture while cycling to work. It was a brand new bike and I felt very protective of it. I hung around nervously while they took it in the back to fix, trying to catch a glimpse of it. And there’s the shoe shop where I worked for six weeks before leaving because the manager was awful. And opposite is the Waitrose I don’t like because it’s laid out differently to the one I usually go to. There’s the pub I once went on a date to. One of those dates where you realise that someone is much more likeable from a distance. Moving on to the getting-to-know-you stage had been a mistake. The Oliver Bonas shop is next. I’ve never been in there. I had a friend who worked at one of their other shops. On the left is the running shop which used to be a running and cycling shop. I lost faith in them when they got rid of the cycling part of the shop. I was quite a regular visitor, used to get kitted out in my lycra there. Then here’s the garden centre on my right. I used to cycle down here for compost and seeds etc, when I started keeping an allotment in my final year at uni. Next is the Memories of Mortlake shop. I always look at it from my bike or from a bus window and think it looks lovely but have never been in. Next, we are at the traffic lights and the bus stop on the other side of the road is where I used to wait when I worked at a coffee shop where the shifts started at 5.30am. Once, while waiting for the bus there, an old man started mumbling and shuffling over to me and when I listened to his mumbles, he was asking me what colour my knickers were! I promptly set off walking fast for the next bus stop. Next we come onto a road which is flooded with early London memories. We’re passing my old university on my right and the council estate where I lived for two and a half years having loads of fun but with the worst landlord in the history of the world.

The university buildings cover the whole right side of the road until it ends at the road I used to cycle down when going into the park. I went through a phase of cycling around Richmond Park twice every morning first thing, before I did anything else. Next is the little cobbled road on my left where my uni friends and I would get a takeaway from Dong Phuong’s at least once a week, minimum. Next, up the road to the motorway and on my right is the other council estate where my friend, Sophie, and I viewed a flat before ending up at the one we passed earlier. We pass by Putney Heath and another council estate where Sophie and I viewed a flat with a girl we didn’t know, who never got back to us about whether she wanted to move in. It was a bit of a walk from uni anyway, so we opted for the one just over the road! Turn left and follow the motorway through Wimbledon Common, which I used to cycle across when the coffee company I worked for, needed me to cover shifts at the Wimbledon branch. I once got very very lost on the common for over an hour. I was quite frantic by the time I found a dog walker and asked him for directions. We’re now in Wimbledon Village and the bar where my friend, Robyn, brought me years ago, when I first came to her house and we had gone out dancing. We danced to Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. I had learned the dance moves from the video and we did them, over and over. Down the hill and approaching Wimbledon station, where we dropped Joe off to get the train, before going to the bar I just passed. We turn before the station and it starts to get into unchartered territory. We pass through Southfields, where I thought for years that my friend Jay lived. She would always leave early in the evening to get home on time and I wondered why she was being so over-cautious. After all, she just needed to jump on the one bus…. I think it was Sophie who pointed out that she did not live down the road in Southfields. She lived significantly further away in Southall…. Oops! Well it’s all south, that’s what I say. We go through lots of areas which are unfamiliar until we hit Tooting, and the cafe on my left where I once met Joe so we could go and explore Tooting, to report back to a friend who was soon to move to a campus there from abroad. And the restaurant shortly after where I met an old uni friend for dinner a few months after my operation, still feeling a bit fragile. This is where I get off, to do a bit of exploring and to make some more memories.

Dancing in public

Just a brief note about this important subject.

Dancing in public eg, going to a club.

Now if you’ve had a drink or two, this is no real problem. You’re loosened up, you’ve got your groove on, you seem to be able to know what the music is going to do next and follow it. All is well. People who are watching admire your sense of fun and adventure, you’re unafraid and actually quite a good dancer. You’re loving the music, the people are watching you, you’re loving being watched, your favourite song just came on … There is lots of mutual dancing appreciation going on.

The difficulties come when you’re not a drinker.

I’m not a drinker.

There is less temptation to act with such reckless abandon. You keep yawning a little, you fall back on the trusty two-step, you don’t quite know what to do with your arms. It makes for a lot of gentle knee-bobbing and unrhythmic arm-swinging.

Dancing is also different when you know the song that’s being played. You liven up a little with excitement and the dancing becomes more energetic. The arms get involved. Then the song finishes while you’re still on your high but is followed by one that everyone else but you knows. They’re singing along, throwing their hands in the air in unison, yelling “Get ready for the next bit!” and you’ve no idea what to do.

Your moment has passed, you fade to the edge of the crowd and start knee-bobbing and arm swinging again.

I used to tear up the dancefloor when I was younger and as I knee-bob, I wonder if I’ve really become so boring in my ‘old age’? And then I remember the point I made at the beginning, alcohol was always involved. I was 17, loud and highly intoxicated. I stop doubting myself whilst I two-step and just enjoy my solitary tame little dance over here in the corner.