It was off to the wilds of Soho for LUXmas on Saturday night, which I think was rather fun, but I probably should have eaten something before drinking so much red wine, as I only remember drunkenly rambling at various people. I'm not sure if they were actively backing away and making excuses, but I wouldn't have blamed them if they had been, as I suspect I was mostly talking bollocks. The previous four nights had taken their toll and ravaged my senses somewhat.

Don't just take my word for it, Frazer Irving was apparently so stricken by his hangover on the morning after the Phonogram party that he was compelled to draw this picture on Saturday as a warning to others:

"What red wine does to a man's eloquence" – Frazer Irving 2008

Except it was too late for me, as I'd already had three or four buckets of wine by then. (I did ask for a small glass, only to be told, rather snottily, "we only do large glasses.")

There was some other fun stuff up on the walls. I especially liked Sally-Anne Hickman's glittery sexy cupcake, Cherry Bakewell, and the real-time sketch done in the bar, of someone sketching people in the bar, which can be seen on the left here.

It was a pretty good ending to a pretty good week. I was glad to have Sunday off, though. Of course, right now I'm off to Twinterval so the party season ain't over yet!

OM NOM NOM. Verily, it was good. Not too sweet like the one at the LUC birthday bash, which made me feel a bit sick. (photo by moleitau under a CC licence)

And there was a discussion of superhero movies (especially comparisons of The Hulks, which I couldn't add to, not having seen the Norton one, and still repressing all memory of the Ang Lee one), and a really great conversation about chasing muses (which I mostly don't remember, except that it was great), and there was a really welcome cup of tea in a tiny kitchen, and there was a night bus right at the stop when I got there, and it took so little time to get home that I almost missed my stop, and it was indeed a grand time.

And the first issue of the new Phonogram series is pretty sweet, especially the full colour, which looks bloomin' ace. The back-up story drawn by Marc Ellerby (whose lovely girlfriend made the lovely cake mentioned above) is pretty sweet too. Well done, chaps!

On Tuesday night I went to the Webby Night at the ICA, which was quite fun. The nice Webbies people provided us with free booze, though I also recall drinking rounds of hot rum and lemon, and eating stolen gingerbread cookies (NB. I did not do the stealing).

Due to finding out about the event so much at the last minute that it was already in progress, I managed to miss most of the presentations, including the two by people I actually knew. I expect they all would have paled into insignificance next to the revelation that the nice fellow I met at the Moo summer party, the one who said I looked familiar but neither of us could work out where from, was in fact right, but we'd met way back at a time that neither of us had actually considered. It was half a lifetime ago, in a different city; I was at a party where I didn't know anyone and a nice boy cheered me up by telling me about his newest favourite band. Who could have predicted he'd have ended up running a successful internet start-up with one of my pals from London's old school blogerati? Isn't the internet brilliant?

According to the post-it note I found on my bedside table on Wednesday morning, which I had obviously written before I poured myself into bed the night before, I may also have agreed to buy Matt a gorilla suit ("bonobo stylee"):

But neither of us can remember why he wanted a gorilla suit in the first place. (The Bagpuss postcard on the table relates to the post on Oliver Postgate and Rowland Emett that I haven't got around to writing yet, and at this point probably won't do until the new year…)

I went to Comiket on Saturday, part of this year's Comica festival, which was pretty cool. It was nice to catch up with some of the usual faces, but there were also loads of people whose work I'd never seen before, and seeing new stuff at events like these is always good.

Less good was the complete lack of any signs telling anyone where in the building it was actually taking place, which was poor show on the part of the ICA. Also, once again, hardly anyone had any business cards so I could make note of who they were to seek them out later, when I have some spare cash to throw down on such fripperies. People, people! If you want punters to buy your stuff, you have to make it easy for them to find you when they have money! It's not rocket science! I picked up a few good things to read, but I'll write about them in another post.

Most of the afternoon was spent having increasingly surreal conversations in the bar with Mr Jones, Mr Webb and Doctoe. Subjects included but were not limited to: FLCL, innovative restaurant ideas, honey badgers, fake band names, the mechanics of horoscope creation, cows, and Gay Bingo.

Our favourite restaurant idea was Cut Pig, where diners can carve their own cuts of meat, though Matt1′s Play With Your Food idea is a pretty good one, as well. I don't think I'll ever see truffles in quite the same light again, however, after hearing that there is a French term for women who put truffles into their private parts to get pigs to pleasure them¹. Finding out that there's a place in the Middle East where they bury dead people with honey and dig it up months later so the honey tastes better² was also a bizarre moment, but prompted a great conversation about honey badgers. I can't believe there are still people out there who haven't heard of honey badgers! Honey badgers are great! They're pound for pound the most dangerous land mammal! They're a secret weapon! And they're a Bond-girl name waiting to happen…

One of the less ridiculous tangents of the conversation, prompted by three of us having a fan-group moment over Madame Zee, was about whether there are any specific mechanics or distinct formulas to create horoscopes, and how these would be affected with different input. Maybe one could create useful horoscopes based on things that actually do affect a person's morning, like traffic and pollen count and Evening Standard headlines. Those things are more likely to affect whether you feel like you're having a good day or a bad day than whether Venus is in the house of Jupiter or something.

The Gay Bingo was the subject of much speculation. I had read about it on the ICA site and forgotten all about it, but there was a delicious moment when I realised that it was starting around the same time that the Comiket folk would have finished packing up, prompting fantastic images of the clash of cultures scrapping over who got served first and where everyone would sit. This latter was actually enough of a concern for one rather aggressive butch dyke to come over to warn us that we might not want to stick around if we weren't actually playing, because it would get so rammed it would be difficult to leave. "I'm saying this for the benefit of you two gentlemen, actually. The girls won't have a problem." She did have a point — for anyone who's been there during a very busy Tuttle, it was actually even more crowded than that. Srsly.

By that point, the comics people were starting to arrive in the bar, looking for places to sit, so we left anyway, so somewhat to my disappointment we didn't find out the difference between Gay Bingo and regular bingo. If anyone knows, please enlighten us poor ignorant souls.

¹"I read it on the internet, so it must be true!"^3
2This may only be the product of Matt Webb's fevered brain.
³Actual veracity of this statement may be in doubt, also.

Matt posted some photos of Comiket over here.