A few days ago, I went to The Complete History of Food, presented by Bompas & Parr. Despite the fact that the title was a bit of a misnomer (there was nothing "complete" about their history, and, given that it was sponsored by a cognac company, it didn't really feel much like a history of food), it was an entertaining and unusual night out with two of my best pals, Nikki and Billy. (Apologies in advance for the poor quality of my photos, but the light was very dim in there, and I only had my phone.)

We started in a dark wood-panelled room, which had the ambience of a gentlemen's club after hours, or perhaps the room where the body was discovered in some Agatha Christie murder mystery. (It was clearly a library, although the bookcases were mostly empty.)

There, a chatty young man gave an introduction on what we could expect to see later. He claimed that he was "The Doctor" (although I didn't spot any bowties or extra-long scarves), and that he would prescribe our first cocktail based on the medieval elements of Humours.

Our "prescriptions" were indicated by coloured stickers stuck on our lanyards and, after a rather cheesy recorded introduction, we were sent off down a darkened staircase to find the next room. At the bottom of the stairs we went through a doorway, only to find ourselves having to jump onto stepping-stones through a flooded basement. "Be careful, there are eels in the water, and they're feeling a bit frisky tonight!" warned our guide for this part, but we made it through the room without incident, and boarded the wooden ship at the other end.

As you might imagine, walking across a flooded room filled with eels to drink in a wooden ship moored in a cellar should be a singular experience, and it certainly was. The ship was very dark, mostly lit by candles, with the sound of waves washing up against the hull. There was a jar of leeches on the bar, and for one brief moment I worried that they might be some bizarre ingredient in our cocktails, but fortunately that was not to be.

The three of us had been given different prescriptions, which gave us an opportunity to try three of the four cocktails on offer. I'd been diagnosed with an excess of phlegm (not far off as it happens; my sinuses are always stuffed up) and my prescription was supposed to boost my yellow bile (lovely). My "Choleric" cocktail was a fruity mix of cognac with rose-water, although I must admit I didn't detect much of the rose flavour as it was overwhelmed by the huge amount of ice in my drink (hmmm… since when did they have ice cubes in medieval London?) and the slightly salty flavour of the rather boring amuse-bouche that came with it — a piece of toast with artichoke and red cabbage. Although it was tasty, it looked and felt more like a party nibble and didn't feel like it had been particularly chosen well to accompany the drink. I was also a bit disappointed with the extremely haphazard way the drink was poured, as the woman standing next to me got twice as much as I or the other chap did (maybe the bartender fancied her).

Having joined the three of us in the middle of a conversation about beards, The Doctor had suggested that Billy was a "chin-stroking melancholic" and should have something to boost his blood. To that end, he was prescribed the "Sanguine" cocktail, a spiced mead, which was nice but sweet, and came accompanied by a teeny portion of fig covered in beetroot sauce.

Ironically, given the fact that Nikki is pregnant and can't drink alcohol, she was prescribed the tastiest cocktail. She told the doctor that she was far too knowledgable about the state of her yellow bile at the moment, so he prescribed a "Phlegmatic" cocktail, which fortunately wasn't made with phlegm, nor did it encourage it. In fact, it was a bloody marvellous combination; a cognac and apricot martini paired with porcini and truffle popcorn. The popcorn was extremely moreish (even though none of us are fans of porcini), and the flavours really complemented each other, with the buttery richness of the truffle lightly cutting the sweetness of the apricot. I was a bit jealous that she'd got a better prescription than me, but soon stopped complaining when she handed me most of the martini to finish after she'd taken one teensy sip (there are benefits of going to cocktail-themed night with a pregnant woman).

I was getting quite relaxed in the dim candlelight, chatting to people I could hardly see as the sound of waves came and went, but we had to move up to the next room, so up we went. Literally. First we piled into a teeny box of a lift, then using the lift as a time machine (which was certainly no TARDIS) we left the medieval spice boat and went up to the roof for a twenty-first century "deconstructed" champagne cocktail and a meaty Rocher, overlooking the London skyline. Although the views across London were great, and the herb-garden covering the bar was pretty, aromatic and practical, in hindsight I wish there'd been something a lot more futuristic at this point. But that's just wishful thinking, because at the time I was too busy admiring the view, discussing herbs with the charming French bartender and gasping in amazement at fizzy grapes to complain about anything.

Unfortunately, besides the fact that it looked exactly like a Ferrero Rocher, I don't remember much about how the Rocher D'or tasted. Obviously it tasted of meat, which was less of a shock than I expected, given how it looked, but I think the problem was that I was so bloody hungry I was actually too hungry to pay enough attention to the flavours. And there were only the teensiest blink-and-you'll-miss-'em singular specks of gold flake on each one, which barely justified their poncey name (not a problem, really, but everyone else's review seems to misleadingly imply that they were smothered in gold, which they weren't).

The cocktail, on the other hand, was a definite talking point. It was a classic champagne cocktail, but made with chardonnay instead of champagne, and with grapes as a garnish. Somehow, as the grapes soaked up the alcohol, the cocktail became paler and flatter, and the grapes got fizzy! Amazing. (Definitely one to try at home, although I suspect there's some secret trick they didn't share with us.)

The view was pretty good, too.

Then we all trooped downstairs again to find ourselves in yet another darkened room, this time with a vintage lampshade barely glowing and a vintage television flickering with vintage adverts. Ostensibly this was a celebration of the mass-production of the 1950s, and we were handed sheets of card and told to enjoy our TV dinners.

Our TV dinners were in fact scratch'n'sniff meals, although to be honest they smelled a bit disgusting. There was some debate between Billy and myself, as I was convinced that the roast chicken in fact smelled of coronation chicken (something that Cook Sister seems to agree on), and the peas smelled of mint toothpaste. Overall, it wasn't very appetising, and even now, days later, the artificial smell still lingers on the cards (which we took home as souvenirs), only now it smells even more disgusting! Fun idea, but not quite a success.

By this point we were wondering where our actual real dinner was and if we would ever get to eat it, but it was time to move onto the next room, down another set of stairs. There was nothing to eat or drink in the next room, the only thing to do was bounce. Or get bounced. Inside the room was a giant inflatable stomach that filled the four walls rather alarmingly, but a brief bounce around was quite good fun. (For anyone concerned about it, the pregnant woman sensibly eschewed this part.)

Then we followed a trail of mushrooms down a corridor, past a couple of rooms with hand-written "no entry" signs pasted up on the doors. One door was open, and the room was filled with junk and equipment. It was a peek behind the scenes, but it slightly spoiled the magic, as did the signs written in biro. The mushrooms reminded me a bit of mushroom tunnels, and looked almost as though Fairyland had gone through some kind of urban development.

At the end of the corridor, and down some stairs filled with flickering images projected onto the walls, we finally came to the dining room for our main course, which was good as by this time Nikki and I were ravenous (although we nearly wandered into the bar by mistake, as it was the first door we saw when we got to the bottom of the stairs). In the dining room we were greeted by a female maitre d' in a pretty dress. Unfortunately, given that this was the room for the grand Victorian banquet, although it was a pretty dress, it wasn't a very Victorian one (more like a noughties version of a sixties version of the twenties). I'd been feeling a bit sad that the staff hadn't been in period costume where possible because I think it would have enhanced the historical aspects of the theme and helped us immerse ourselves in each period to better effect. Probably nobody else noticed or cared, but this was one of those moments where my disappointment was reinforced.

Because the dining room was full, we had to wait a few moments before they could seat us for our own moment of recreating the famous new year banquet inside a Crystal Palace Iguanadon in 1853.

Waiting meant that we actually got to have our dinner seated inside the replica of the Iguanadon at Crystal Palace, rather than at one of the many tables at the edges of the room. Admittedly, in reality it was slightly awkward as I was over-conscious of not wishing to disturb the two women already seated at the other end, and the decor of the table cloth and place setting made me think of some stuffy municipal dinner, rather than anything as fantastical as eating dinner inside a dinosaur. Again, that was probably just me — and might have had something to do with the fact that I only had the back wall to look at, rather than out over the small balcony into the main room, like the other two.

Unfortunately by this time I was so hungry that once again I didn't really pay enough attention to what we were eating, a confit of duck with puy lentils with a black champagne sauce, although — tasty as it was (which was very) — I can't say I really tasted much champagne in it, nor could I work out how they'd made it black. To be honest, the room was so dimly-lit there wasn't much way of telling what colour anything was anyway. The duck was nicely cooked, falling-off-the-bone tender, and the puy lentils were perfect. Sadly, the bread rolls they provided were a disappointment; the fact that our waiter arrived carrying a huge tray piled high with them only reinforced my mental notion that they'd been bought in bulk from a supermarket, which undermined the feeling of "decadence" that the chefs claimed to be aiming for in this room (at least, according to the programme).

The cocktail at this juncture was a bit disappointing too; a summer punch made with cognac, green tea, apple juice and elderflower. Much like my first cocktail, it seemed to have far more ice than necessary (if you must insist on ice, then one or two cubes is much better than five or six, especially in short glasses), and its light fruitiness didn't complement the meal as well as a glass of wine or something with more body would have done (I also would have liked the option of a glass of water at this point, and I'm sure Nikki would have as well!). However, it was quite refreshing as a digestif at the end of the course, and would probably work very well on a hot summer's day eating cucumber sandwiches and strawberries-and-cream. Of course, it wasn't really a digestif because it wasn't really the end of the meal, and there was one more course to go: the Renaissance Dessert.

I was quite surprised on entering the dessert room to discover that there was first an anteroom showcasing the gingerbread Gherkin from the Parliamentary Waffle House (which I sadly didn't get to visit, because I always passed when I had a full stomach). As impressive as it sounds on paper, it was — again — too dark in the room to really see it properly, and it was hardly the reason we were here. In fact, other than as an excuse to show off what they can do, I have no idea why it was even there: it's not like any of us got to taste it, and it wasn't even appropriate to the Renaissance Period anyway.

Although, to be honest, the rest of the dessert room wasn't really very Renaissance, either, as it was being soundtracked by cheesy 1980s pop music and it was full of pink frilly curtains that wouldn't have looked out of place on an 1980s soap opera. (I wanted to compare it to Barbara Cartland's boudoir, but another blogger already beat me to it, so I won't, in case I'm accused of copycatting. You get the idea, though.) Behind all the pink frippery was a giant cake turntable, with dishes laid out on it for us to take (here's a 5 second video).

This dessert was one of the highlights of the evening: an iris jelly with candied orange, ambergris posset and one perfect raspberry. The jelly had the colour and shape of a really good creme caramel, so the light, slightly citrussy flavour came as a (pleasant) surprise. The texture of the jelly was wonderful, too, firm but yielding, and it was complemented very well by the sweet dollop of creamy sauce on the plate.

The sauce provided one of the funnier moments of the evening, as there were people already tucking into their dish when the food guide started telling us what had gone into it. "Does anyone know what ambergris is?" she asked, to a responding chorus of "yeahs" from our corner (hey, we're nerds, we admit it). The look of slight shock and horror on some peoples' faces when she explained it was regurgitated by whales was mildly amusing, because I bet those same people eat honey without ever wondering or worrying where it comes from, even though it's regurgitated by bees. Billy muttered something about how expensive ambergris is, which prompted me to ask whether it had been gathered ethically. The guide was quick to reassure me that no whales had been killed in the collection of the ambergris, but I was no closer to finding out how it was (or is) sourced (but that's what Wikipedia is for). However, it was one of the only moments of the evening where people were confronted with the idea of where their food had come from, and I liked that it got them thinking and talking. I wish there'd been a few more moments like that, really, especially from an event marketed as The Complete History of Food.

Amongst the pretty pastel-coloured frou-frou frills and sugared ornaments, there was a funny little technical gizmo which provided much amusement. This was basically a table fitted with a heart monitor. You could stick your finger in the hole and make the table vibrate, and of course there was a plate of jelly on top of the table to wobble with as much thrust as you could muster. Sadly, because I have short, stumpy fingers, I couldn't even reach the sensor properly, so I couldn't manage much in the way of thrust, but Billy did better — here's a video.

And after that, dinner was sadly at an end, so we popped into the bar to prolong it a while longer. Unfortunately, after ending on such a fun note, the bar was something of a disappointment, especially for Nikki. There was only a choice of two cocktails: a pre-mixed Parisian Rendezvous punch, or a rather boozy cognac Sidecar. It's a real shame that the Parisian Rendezvous had been pre-mixed, because without the alcohol it would have made a very refreshing drink, and even though the evening was sponsored by an alcohol company, I think it's poor service not to provide an alcohol-free option, especially as they had the drinkaware website brashly emblazoned on our lanyards.

And this brings me back to my main problem with the night: it was misnamed. As a History of Food it wasn't really a great success, no History of Food would forget to mention potatoes, or honey, or fish (although there were eels in the water, there were none in the food, and the ambergris doesn't count because whales are mammals), or rice, or bananas, or cheese (I've just realised there was no cheese! How can you have a food event without cheese?) Instead, what they gave us was a very entertaining cocktail party with some food attached. Often, it felt a bit like the spectacle was the most important part of the night — especially the scratch'n'sniff dinner, or the inflatable stomach — and that was fine, but it meant that we sacrificed sating our appetite at the expense of sating our other senses, which is not really what we were there for. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound like I didn't have a great time, because I really did enjoy myself. It's more that the down notes of the evening dragged the high parts down as well, so that the overall good feeling at the end of the dinner was somewhat spoiled by the rather lacklustre experience in the bar afterwards (and to add insult to injury, we had to pay extra for that bit, which none of the reviews mention).

I'm still glad I went, and I did enjoy myself a great deal. After all, it's not every day you can drink cocktails in the bowels of a wooden ship in a flooded cellar, or nibble gold leaf and fizzy grapes in a herb-covered roof garden, or experience a scratch'n'sniff TV dinner, or jump around inside an inflatable stomach, or walk along a corridor that's been colonised by mushrooms, or dine on duck inside a dinosaur, or eat whale vomit and iris jelly, or wobble a plate by the power of your pulse alone. And I'm very grateful I got to do all of those things, because they all add up to a wonderfully eccentric evening of fun times with two of my best friends. And frankly, experiences like that are worth a little disappointment in less important areas.

Other reviews (and much better pictures) from:
Eat Like A Girl | Gourmet Chick | Fernandez & Leluu | Londonist | Cook Sister | the Telegraph | Domestic Sluttery { Crafts' Council | London Eater | The English Can Eat | Caroline's Miscellany

And of course one of the main reasons, for going to a convention — even more than buying all those lovely goodies — is to drink and talk to comics creators. Mostly to drink, to be honest, otherwise it feels like you're letting the side down. If there isn't at least one member of bar staff on the verge of a breakdown after a con, then it's because it's that very very rare occasion: enough staff and enough supplies at the bar. That doesn't happen very often.

Actually I didn't have that much to drink (just a couple of glasses of red and a Dalwhinnie single malt), but I hadn't even finished my first glass of wine before I'd introduced myself to 30 Days Of Night artist Ben Templesmith by sticking my head in his lap and giving him "a cheap thrill" (his words). It was an accident, as I'd had to crawl under a table to get to the available empty seat, but it was a perfect ice-breaker and we ended up having a very nice conversation, even if his side seemed to be peppered with non-sequiturs sometimes.

Here's Ben at dinner, in conversation with Si Spurrier.

Dinner was lacklustre as far as food was concerned (there are very few restaurant choices near the Excel Centre), but lovely as far as the company was concerned, which was the main thing. And then it was off to the bar, where I ran into Elephantmen artist Boo Cook and his missus, Gemma, who I've known for about ten years, but hadn't seen since the last time I went to a con in Bristol. We had a nice chat with Elephantmen writer, typographer and all-round-nice-guy Richard Starkings about weird 1960s teatime telly show The Owl Service (it's brilliant but very weird). Turns out Richard's 10-year-old daughter is a huge fan. I need to watch it again, actually.

After that it was the usual round of talking to old friends and new over an ever-increasing number of bevvies.

Here are Marc Ellerby and Kieron Gillen posing like the posey poseurs they are.

Not pictured is Marc's girlfriend Swedish Anna With The Assymetrical Fringe He Can Never Draw Right, who is one of the people who organises the Comics Village at Expo.

Here's Dan Boultwood, "making an effort to be good" (his words)

I wish I'd thought to get a photo of Dan and Ben together, as they almost matched, in their black suits and red ties, but I didn't — even though I think that's Ben's elbow next to Dan's. (Behind Dan is Paul Fryer talking to a bald guy I don't know). Dan was drinking absinthe, but had to take his glass back to the bar for them to add the sugar, because he wasn't allowed to do it himself for "health and safety reasons". Someone must have tipped them off about him.

Here's Ben Templesmith again, this time with Cassandra Conroy and the man they call Von Pud.

Cassie is the organiser of this year's Eagle Awards. This year they're introducing the Eagles Initiative, a special award to help fund a comics unknown, which is pretty cool. If you know anyone who should be considered, head over to the site and let them know. Pud is the lovely husband of lovely Emma Vieceli, one of the other organiser of Comics Village. The poor lass had completely lost her voice by the time we all were in the bar, so unfortunately I didn't get to talk to her.

And here's Templesmith again, this time with David Monteith from the Geek Syndicate podcast. David is one of the biggest tarts loveliest men in comics, who always gives the best hugs (he also gives good back rubs).

That Ben is such a camera hog, though! I did take other photos that didn't include him, but I believe he must have hexed the camera when it wasn't focussed on him, or at least made some concerted efforts at deliberate sabotage, because most of them didn't come out. I had a lovely one of John Allison that was ruined and blurry as Ben walked in front of the lens, and none of the pics of David came out until Ben was included in this one.

My phone started dying after that, and I had to stop taking photos, which is a shame, because I would have liked to have been able to show you pictures of Warren Ellis doing impersonations of Helen Mirren and Patrick Stewart. Not to mention the sight of Kieron Gillen, Si Spurrier and Jamie McKelvie dancing in the middle of the street to make the night bus come. They were using "rain dance" logic, which made perfect sense standing in a desolate road in Canning Town at two in the morning. Kieron and Jamie favour the Ska Attack Squad approach as made famous in an issue of Phonogram; while Si favours a cross between Cossack leaping and Riverdance.

On the night bus we came up with a crossover story featuring Miss Marvel and Miss Marple, due to Jamie mishearing me. Who wouldn't want to read that?

Lovely as the day was, I was glad to get home to my lovely bed.

Had fun at Frazer's birthday drinks last night, except for the bit where Dave from Geek Syndicate French-kissed my nose, which was disgusting (right in front of his lovely girlfriend, too). Had an interesting conversation with Joel about "odd" London, although we seem to have quite different ideas about what constitutes "odd" — he tends towards things that are anachronistic because they are out of time, rather than the downright strange and peculiar that I tend towards. Also, I unintentionally joined two separate groups of people and managed get two men on the subject of their hair and completely off whatever subject they were talking about before I arrived. And they complain when women talk about their appearance!

Anyway, a good night, and a good opportunity for me to flex my creative muscles in making a card. It's not a brilliant card, because it was a bit last minute, but it felt good to get my hands dirty and have scraps of paper scattered on the floor when I was finished (there was a bit on the back, as well, and some stuff I cut out but didn't have time to use). I've had a bit of a creative block over the last couple of weeks, but I think I might have broken the back of it with making this card. I even took some photos today, for the first time since before Christmas, practically. Again, they're not brilliant, but I literally felt light-headed after my little session, as though a weight had been lifted. Here's to flexing those creative muscles even more this year.

The venue. There really wasn't enough space in the Match Bar to comfortably mingle, causing everyone to either bottleneck uncomfortably in the middle of one long section, or else to get stuck 'round tables in The Bridge area (that's what they call it), where there wasn't really enough room to mix it up. As a result, it seemed that there was a lot of sticking with people you already knew instead of really mixing it up.

The cocktails. And here I'm going to get pedantic again, so if you don't care about well-made cocktails, just skip this bit. Firstly, their Bellini is too sweet, needing a bit more cava to cut the sickliness of the fruit (and, to be extremely pedantic, the "strawberry Bellini" they gave me is more correctly called a Rossini). Secondly, they claim that their American cocktail advisor invented the Bramble cocktail, when in fact it is a very English invention using very English ingredients. The Match Bar version is tangy and refreshing, but with too much lemon juice it's not as accurate as it should have been. (Sorry to get pedantic again, but if you're going to lay claim to the credit you could at least get the bloody thing right!)

The people. Although I was mostly catching up with people I already knew, I did meet some nice new people. Unfortunately, I was a bit too spaced to remember who they all were (should have eaten something). If you're reading this, say hi!

The pants. Why? I mean, srsly, why? Nope.

The goodie bags. More to the point, the fact that I don't want any of this stuff and now I don't know what to do with it! Not because I'm a prude, but because I already have the stuff I need (I'm not stupid), and this looks like it's just going to end up getting chucked. Makes you wonder just how much landfill is taken up by unwanted sex accoutrements, eh?

The bloke dressed as a ringmaster. Again, why? We still don't know. Or who he was. Anyone have any ideas?

Hmmm… Looks like I had a lot to say, after all.

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!

And then it was Friday, and I was late for Tuttle, but Lloyd said it was the best excuse he'd heard (so that's all right), and I got to experience what is fast becoming one of my favourite weekly rituals, a really good natter about random shit over coffee with my mate Guy (who has minimal web presence despite doing lots of web stuff). We had a great conversation about the way language has been changing, and other such things, and then I wandered off to a nice lunch at Mildred's with Annie, where we gossiped about boys and talked about all our friends who've had babies this year (it was eleven of them at the last count. Still time for a twelfth between now and January, though).

After that, I wandered to Leicester Square to see the funfair, where I gazed at the pretty lights and bad airbrush art. I have a real weakness for bad funfair art, and cannot resist taking photos of any I see. The worse it is, the better! I probably have enough for a whole book's worth of photos on my hard drive. (Hmmm… That's not a bad idea, actually.) I also popped over to Covent Garden to take a look at the Spinvox wishing well, which is really lovely. It's everything good interactive art should be: funny, touching, thought-provoking and pretty to look at. Go take a look!

I spent Friday evening in Leon, in the delightful company of some old-school LFMU Flickrites, which was very pleasant. It was a rather low-key affair, which suited me well after the debauched shenanigans of the night before (maybe "debauched" is too strong a word. No, maybe not). After dinner, we unwisely moved onto The Refinery, a rather horrid bar at the other corner of the BlueFin, where I had a very poor gin martini, despite Kevo's efforts to ensure it was a good one.

There were several bad points against them: firstly, the fact that Kevo had to walk the bartender through every step of mixing the drink (which is, sadly, not unheard of even in better bars). But in this case, it seemed to be because the bartender didn't have a clue what a martini even was, and kept mispronouncing the name. That's pretty shocking, especially for a busy central London bar. Even with Kevo holding the bartender's hand, and all but mixing the drink himself, it wasn't very good (though not for lack of effort on Kevo's part, for which I thank him). Not only was it shaken — something you should never do with a good gin martini — but it was poorly shaken to boot, with slivers of ice resting on the surface of the drink, which was tasteless at the top of the glass, and undrinkable at the bottom of it. They even had to fetch an olive from the kitchen, which is why it's sitting on the giant wooden skewer, instead of a small wooden toothpick.

But take a closer look at the picture, and see why I definitely won't be going back to The Refinery any time soon. Here, let me make it easier for you. Did you spot it? Or more precisely, them? Not one, but three chips in the rim of the glass. Somehow, I managed to miss them and was drinking from the unchipped side of the glass. What you don't see, because it doesn't show up in the photo, is that under the small chip on the left, there was also a lipstick stain. As you might imagine, I stopped drinking when I discovered that. I'd suspected I wasn't going to like The Refinery the moment I walked past its huge goldfish windows and saw the braying hordes of liquored-up business suits, but I didn't expect such an appalling drink. Ironically, their own website lists among their selling points "innovative cocktails", "staff that are there to make your experience one you will never forget" and "more importantly, The Refinery is about getting what you want from a bar." Sure it is, if what you want from a bar is poor service, uncomfortable seating, cramped tables and dirty glasses. Never again. Avoid avoid avoid.

Still, the company was lovely and it was great to catch up!

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 see Neil Gaiman read from The Graveyard Book at LSE, thanks to a spare ticket from Ade. It was pretty good, and I've decided I want my own pocket Gaiman that I could carry around so he could read me stories when I'm feeling bored or depressed. Not just his own stories, either; I have a feeling that he would be a great story-teller reading work by other people, too. Actually, I think that everyone would feel better with pocket Gaiman to carry around and tell them stories. Maybe we should clone him.

———

I decided not to go to Thought Bubble up in Leeds next weekend, since it clashes with some other things I want to do in London. Instead, I'm spending Friday evening bidding farewell to Adam and Beth before they move to Tennessee, and going to see Dave McKean being interviewed by fellow artist Andrzej Klimowski at Comica on Sunday. I'm also thinking of going to see some silent movies and artists' films accompanied by live music at the Barbican on Saturday; either the Millennial Territory Orchestra meets Laurel & Hardy, or Bill Frisell scoring Jim Woodring and Buster Keaton. Or both. If anyone else wants to come? I am sad to be missing everyone going to Thought Bubble, though. Hope it's a good weekend!

———

I stumbled upon Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Frequency and Volume at the Barbican, which was good fun, but would probably have been more effective with more people there.

———

I went to the Polaroid retrospective at the AOP gallery with Paul. It was both interesting and disappointing. I was interested to see how much of the work on display looked nothing like yer basic humble medium format everyone-could-afford-one Polaroid photos that most people would be familiar with — but that was also the first disappointment. There were a lot of very interesting techniques used, but, frustratingly, absolutely no information about what those techniques were, or what type of Polaroid camera was used. Since most of these techniques are going to be lost once Polaroid film becomes completely obsolete, and since this was ostensibly a celebration of what Polaroid had to offer in its heyday, it seems such a shame not to have documented the processes to an audience that would obviously be interested. But it's a nice little gallery, and it was good to have the opportunity to visit it in the evening, so I'll be looking out for other shows there.

———

I went to Tuttle Club a couple of times, and I signed up to Amp08, but I'll write about that some more in its own post.

———

I went to the launch of Street or Studio: A Photobook at Tate Britain. The book is pretty good (see the pictures here), but the party was a bit odd. We weren't allowed to take drinks into the section where the book table and the projections were, and there was a room full of old masters that had been done out like a disco, with pumping music and flashing lights. It wasn't part of the Flickr party, just a regular part of the Late at Tate event, but it was somewhat surreal and, frankly seemed pointless since no one was dancing and it was too loud and too dark to actually look at the pictures! I'm not sure who they were trying to appeal to, except that it was so full of business suits that I thought it was some kind of private corporate party. Only it wasn't. Very weird. So we escaped to the Morpeth Arms just in time for them to have stopped serving food. It's had a refit, with all the normal height tables and chairs replaced by those stupid high tables and towering bar stools that make you look like an undignified idiot when you try to climb onto them, and are a liability if you're drunk. Fortunately, the furniture upstairs is at normal proportions, and the Tribute ale was tasty.

———

I popped into Handmade & Bound at the awesomely kitsch and untouched St Aloysius Social Club, a place I've been past many times but never gone inside. I didn't buy much from the fantastically packed stalls, though there was a lot of beautiful stuff to be had, including one woman who makes the most gorgeous pop-up books. Unfortunately, once again, most people didn't have any kind of business card for me to to take so I could remember who they were afterwards. It was nice to see Xtina, Marc, Mark and Gav, anyway. Next time I'll try and buy more stuff!

———

I went to Tarek's leaving drinks at The Couch, where they have no couches, and they serve disgusting Gordon's gin when you ask for a G&T, rather than the better-tasting Bombay Sapphire that's become the more standard basic gin of choice in most pubs and bars. But the company was great and we ended up in the New Evaristo (No.3 in Gentry Style's top five London bars); one of those after-hours basement drinking dens that is ostensibly a members' only place but, according to the lass who signed us all in, it seems that to become a member, all you have to do is get on well with the doorman so that he remembers you next time. Great end to a great night, anyway. (Good luck in Qatar, dude!)