The event started off well at the poetry cafe.  At £3 a concession, 23 poets seemed money well spent.  A woman called Lorraine took to the stage and while her daughter floated in a river somewhere, she hoped that the child would never have to wear machinery to fly in her dreams like she did on hers when she grew up, until she eventually could no longer lift off.  But soon  the mood turned with the perverts of the world obsessed about their own penises.  I often wonder about the day I will meet a woman who every piece of writing revolves around her vagina.  There were nice features like a poem entitled I’m a Rebel, specially a line that went a bit something like this “When queuing up and they say till number four is available, I go to till number two and wait there cause I am a rebel”.

After thirteen poets or so in a room badly ventilated, feeling a bit nauseated cause my skinny jeans were too tight over my stomach after a sandwich, I left.  Some of them were quite amazing, and I discovered that street talk does suit poetry as well as it suits comedy.  It was also nice to find out about creative people’s attempts to be innovative and fun all the time when a guy announced that he will be hosting a night of poetry, bingo and karaoke, all in one.  But it does get often tiring to listen to those arrogant who’s idea of what poetry is differs so much from mine, which has to have one of these – rhyme, pace, alliteration, rhythm…

If you are interested in checking out The Bingo Master’s Breakout just go down to St Nicholas’s Hall in Manor Park Saturday 2nd of February at 7.30 pm, or check the links to vintage poison press.

 Perhaps is time to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Perhaps is time to remind everyone not to stress if you won’t be able to keep up with your resolutions. And perhaps is time to simply accept ourselves with all our little flaws and take it a day of a time, rather than trying to talk it all in with one breath.

New Year’s eve ran the same way the rest of the year did. A random point of casual meetings, mixed matched plans, indecisions and discussions. Of course with the drunken acts and needless blurbs. It was our plan not to have a plan, to see how the night went, to wait until the last minute and crash somewhere. There’s a funny thing about plans, they always work but in an unexpected way. So the great thing about plans that rely on the unexpected is that they are always perfect.

My boyfriend Alex was far from impressed, he had been invited to some massive party in Paris. But now here he was with me and nowhere to go. I blame him! I said I wanted to make no plans, so if he really wanted I would come to Paris, but he said No. I always complain about the language barrier. So me and Dom, my best friend, called up another friend of ours and went into town to go to someone’s house party. But it was early so we stopped in the West End for some drinks. Dom wanted some Pizza, and as we approached the vendor guess the unpleasant surprise? They were just changing the prices from £1 to £2.50. Yes New Year’s Eve is all about exploitation.

After the dried over charged minimal slice of pizza we went down the KU bar. A place not to far from the station and with some space inside to get through to the bar. We ordered some pints and were disappointed to see nowhere to seat, until we noticed the upstairs lounge. By the looks of the lounge not many people had noticed it existed. We sat comfortably deliberating on what to do next. Did we really want to go to someone’s house party that would probably be crap, in which we knew nobody, that was probably filled with drama queens or did we just wanted to stay in town and get drunk amongst strangers and half naked bar man? Considering our lazy mode the choice wasn’t difficult. Plus e had just found some friends of Dom and were now having fun.

Unfortunately we decided to pay for a ticket to go to the club down the stairs part of KU. What a crappy choice from mine and Alex’s point of view. On top of being half filled throughout the night the bar bit had better music and was free and much more fun. Anyway, we moved between the club and the bar. We danced a bit, sat a bit, watched a bit… We go drunk, got tired and decided to make our way home before the tubes completely shut. Dom stayed with the guys, but me and Alex were way done with the place. More Alex than me, as he said ‘after a time it’s not so much fun being eyed by the guys when you are interested in girls’.

Now the journey home was something else… Why in the world were the tubes working to make it easy for us, but instead turned the streets into chaos? Everyone knows people get drunk in New Year’s Eve. Everyone knows how drunk people’s sense of direction and any sense for that matter becomes quite impaired. So here is the London’s Transport and Metropolitan Police great solution: let’s open all the tube stations and confuse everyone by not letting the people in through every door and every station. Let’s put barriers along the roads, mainly in front of zebra crosses so that the drunks can get to the other side of the road and find they can’t get through. Let’s be the dick heads our government wants us to be and give them the greetings by showing with our actions: Here Londoners we not only overprice your tickets and manage never to arrest the right people, we also like to make your drunken joyous journey home less pleasant as possible.

That’s us up there.  And down here the bar man that made part of th lazy choice easy.

A few weeks back I was asked to go and see Gogol Bordello at Hammersmith Apollo in order to write a review for it. I am ashamed to admit it now but my first answer was ‘No, I don’t even know what that is’. Still everyone else was going down to All Tomorrow’s Parties and the more I have in my portfolio the better it looks so I ended up agreeing.

I called up my friend, Seun Mustapha (the same one that gave me free passes to CSS’ gig the week before) to come with me. I wanted it to repay him somehow. He told me his magazine was planning to interview the band, so despite the fact that he also didn’t know nothing about them he accepted to come. Before going to the gig I spent some time in YouTube trying to prepare myself to whatever it was I was about to see. Little did I know there was nothing that could prepare me for it. I arrived mid way through some uninteresting DJ set, but that’s just my opinion since everyone else in the room was definitely going for it. Me and my friend after scanning our nice seats in the balcony decided to go for some drinks until Gogol Bordello came on stage. We chatted crap and watched the very Eastern European crowd wondering what was about to happen.

When Gogol came on stage it was like something out of this world and to better give you a picture of it here’s the review I wrote:

Gogol Bordello @ Hammersmith Apollo 08.12.07

Gogol Bordello is gipsy punk, a big fat party and the most random fun you can have with music. They are an Eastern European band New York who‘s motto is inspired by Nikolai Gogol, a novelist, dramatist, and satirist who through his work brought Ukrainian culture to Europe. Their sound ranges from gipsy traditional music with anarchic punk, a touch of metal and a bit reggae thrown in. So if anyone out there suffers from ignorance of not knowing who I’m talking about, as I did until a couple of days ago, now is time to get out of the dark and get surfing the net or down your local music shop to find the anarchic Gogol Bordello sounds.

They had no need for funky light displays, or gimmicks, the music made it on its own accord. As soon as Eugene Hutz (the band’s lead singer) walked on stage the crowed roared, jumped, whistled and screamed in excitement. Me in my ignorant private corner looked dubious at the scene not sure what to expect. Then the music started – the accordion, the violin, electric guitars and the drums… My mind was completely blown away by their show. THE CRISPRY PUNK REVOLUTION written on stage was spot on for what I was about to experience. Bodies shacked and shook and twirled, hands clapped in time with the music… and this was just the crowed. Hutz was a contagious wave of energy; he danced with red high hills on for a while, and then went on to throw in a red wig for head banging effect. The band was just having a great time. The instrumental solos were out of this world, and these party could have been down anywhere in the world, the affect would still be the same. The engineer looked lost on stage as he trolled backwards and forwards to straighten wires, move objects out of the way, and be knocked over by a flying mic. If that doesn’t give you a clear picture of what it was like, let me add some last words that latter came into the stage backdrop ‘THINK LOCALLY – FUCK GLOBALLY’.

All pictures taken by Seun Mustapha

Lately I have been trying to escape what seems to be a big psychological experiment that is the house I live in. The people I share a house with in Brixton are future mental hospital patients. There are days when I feel I will turn into one of them if I don’t leave, but then there are worst stories then mine going around London. I and a few other friends decided to get together and look for a flat somewhere around Hackney. Why? Sometimes I wonder myself, especially because I do love Brixton. So after looking at a place in Shoreditch (yes I know I said Hackney) we went for drinks, and one of them invited me down to the Brixton Academy to watch CSS and Justice completely free. These are the benefits of friends in the journalism world. So while he left for a date with his new girl, me and another friend took the chance and went down Brixton Academy using the Justice Guest list.

‘Because we are your friends’ roared through the double doors. It was a great big party and I had free passes. Justice just happens to be one of my favorite acts in the planet. Despite the heavy bag with coursework on my shoulder: FUN FUN FUN was all I had. Crashing against jumping people and getting deaf because so the screaming around. What a night!!! And CSS was yet to arrive. During the break off we went in search of the cloak room, but as always the queue was a killer. So back again we dived in the sea of people and their dripping pint plastic cups.

At the center stage in front of the drumset there was a big Christmas tree and in came CSS dressed as presents. They were pure high party energy, and the crowd responded in the same key. How refreshing to see a girl band or any band for that matter that are out for fun, and not to pose and look too cool for school. The highlights of the night were ‘Music is my Hot Hot Sex’, ‘Alcohol’, ‘Off he hook’, and ‘Meeting Paris Hilton’. Reality is that there were no lows whatsoever. Lovefoxxx (the lead singer) jumped around in green glitter cat suit, and then stripped into a very comic red cat suit, finishing with another cat suit resembling a mix of something military with a bit of graffiti art attached in. Their performance had everything seasonal about it, dancing presents, a dancing Christmas tree, fake snow flakes, a troll (???), you name it.

And then I ask myself why my coursework its so behind…

This life of mine is a hectic experience from highs to lows, passing by the comic façade.  There are tragic moments here and there reminding me that time will never return.  It’s all from here to there – LIFE.

So at an age that everyone’s bloging, mobliging, and so forth… Why not me?  A writer from Southern Portugal moved to a Bedford artistic nightmare only to escape into a chaotic, vibrant, lonely, filled London.  And after all, realizing here is my home – not the place where my family comes from, not the place where I was born, and most definitely not Bedford where I spent 5 years of my life.  London – that’s my home!  So let me share with you, whoever you are this London life of mine, or at least the moments worth telling like the random music gigs I get pulled into, the strange parties I land in, and the curious bars and people.