Anarchy in the UK

This pretty much sums up our trip the UK. In this video, Dan, his brother Dominic and I sit in a Kebab Shop on Old Street at 2am as Dan explains the meaning of the Latin written on the one-pound coin and itemizes the amount of booze we ingested during the evening.

So what else did we get up to while in Londinium? Not a lot, really...

After we arrived at the new house of our awesome and gorgeous mate Suze, we were fed and watered and napped and then headed straight up to our old 'hood of Maida Vale, dahling, where we arrived in style to our private room at the Idlewild pub (which Dom had redesigned). We were joined by many mates, as well as bro Dom and sister Gab, the latter of which had come in from Zurich. My Biggest Loser-style reveal went swimmingly and mouths were agape at the halfness of me (okay, I gained most of it back by the end of the trip, but hey, it was worth every 1kg-Cadbury's Dairy Milk bar) and the reunited Taylors were very happy to see each other...

Dan is clearly so excited (read: drunk und jetlagged) to see his friends that in this picture below, he can hardly contain himself and thus has his eyes closed... (Thanks for pics, Gab!)

Though Dan did fall asleep when he decided to go back with Dom and girlf Kelly and pass out on their sofa (in their awesome pad) with snuffly Stanley the Dog. A dog, I hasten to add, is so bizarre-looking he's actually really cute. And he wheezes and burbles like a coffee percolator...

I went back home with Suze, only to be awoken early on Sunday by a clearly still-drunk Dan who had arrived back home with Dom and was insisting we leave NOW to go to their Mum's place to see her, the aunts and uncles and all our cousins. About three hours earlier than we'd agreed. So we got in Dom's posh ark (for it was flooding with rain), picked up Gab, Kelly and Sir Stanley Who Farted A Lot, and headed out to Wisteria Lane/Bedfordshire.

On Monday we were kindly escorted to Nottingham by Dan's dad, to see the Grandparents, eat at an old man's pub (Ploughman's Lunch for me, ta!) and have dinner at Eakely Grange with the family, including Dan's erm, excitable other sister Rachel who was sprung from her boarding school Stowe for our visit. She'd only been boarding for a few weeks and had much hyperness to share, bless her.

Tuesday we came back from Ye Olde English Cun'ree Side and headed into Hoxton. I popped in to surprise an old colleague at his office, then had dinner with Dom & Kelly. Dom then took us to a FABULOUS tiny basement-you-wouldn't-know-it-was-there bar in East London, called Lounge Bohemia. It was a fab night - the place was classic. Sits 40, is in a cavern, with elegant, minimalist 70s styling, an ice-cool EasternEuro who owns the place mixes some of the best martinis and cocktails with enormous care. AND they had absinthe dispensers....

Awesome presentation. As well as two twats who both hate the taste of licorice but thought it'd be fun to order. ;-)

Wednesday we had lunch with our workmates (well, I did, all but one of Dan's were too busy to see him, which totally bites), then asssembled for pie and mash at the infamous mashery, the Newman Arms. We were joined by Suze, Geoff and Tom. Why pie? Here's why pie:

Deeeeelish! Can you tell we were lard-asses on this trip? Speaking of food...

Thursday was dim sum lunch at yummy Ping Pong with John & Mayumi who were both eerily and entirely devoid of pre-wedding jitters. After a spot of extra shoppage around Covent Garden, we headed over for dinner to the home of ma famille, Martin and Kimberlee McCarrick. They are still stupidly good-looking, heelarious, adorable and talented.

On Friday, Dan left homebase at 6am to get into town to preside over John's stag do. He will fill you in on on what craziness they got up to, later, but here's a taste:Nice! So I took the day to bimble into Victoria, have a quickie (lunch) with my mate Alex K, then wandered down the King's Road, and bought $80 worth of the best chocolate salted caramel balls in the universe plus a dark-grey version of this t-shirt from criminally sexy/gothy All Saints for roughly the same amount. Then I met up with Suze for a trek to Twickenham to see a very-pregnant Meave for a tapas dinner.

Saturday, an exhausted Dan chilled chez Casa Suze while I spent a day in Islington. Had lunch at my fave gastro pub, The Elk in the Woods, and caught up on three years with my much-missed, and now preggers, mate Sabina. A truly blissful day, followed promptly by a visit to my favourite restaurant/bakery/shop, Ottolenghi, where we both purchased their stupidly divine passion fruit/meringue tarts, which Sabina and I ate in a church yard while the sun shone.

Best. Dessert. Ever. Best. Foodie. Shop. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Saturday night we went to see two bed-wetters from Bloc Party "DJ" at what was a very entertaining sarf-east London student pub for the kinda well-known Dirty South night. I think we purchased 112 alcoholic drinks in plastic cups for about a tenner and the highlight of my night is when the 16 year-old singer of one of the opening bands motioned to the six people in the crowd to part so he could jump off the stage in a huge rock dive with his guitar, only to try leaping and then getting caught on his too-short guitar lead. Classic. This is also the same kid who said if we didn't dance he would "rape us in the face" - while wearing a Cookie Monster t-shirt. But despite the sheer highschool dance absurdity (and hilarity) of the student wasteland that lay all around us, we had to leave (and I stormed out) when the Blocheads put on The Smiths.

FAIL.

Sunday, of course, was wedding o'clock for the amazing, formerly Fluffy John and his now good lady wife, Mayumi. It was an apt opportunity to see all our closest friends: Al (who did a reading during the ceremony and was best man at our wedding) Tom, Geoff (who MC'd and was also best man at our wedding), Roz, Enmin, Suze (who was a witness and a best woman), Matt, Lauren and Dave (who was the DJ and was also the DJ at our wedding...see where we're going here?). Needless to say, our tables rocked out. Albeit in a very day-timey, don't-we-all-look-posh-sort-of-way...The ceremony was lovely, Dan's speech was awesome, John & Mayumi looked happy, the food was good and the Barbican was a pretty nice place to watch others get hitched. And when it was all over, all-too-early, we headed to the only pub open in the City on a Sunday night: the one at Liverpool St station. There we had the London combo: pints, pasties and teary, bleary goodbyes with all our mates.

Monday was last-minute shopping, curry for lunch with Dan's mum Janine and then a really awful, dirty curry (double curry action on Dan's insistence) for dinner. Then it was over to meet up with Martin & Kim, who were playing a wee gig at a Hoxton pub. Then it was back home, to bed, up four hours later and back to Heathrow. And with that, our London trip came to a close.

So, like I said, we didn't get up to much. :-)