In which Sam Tom scrapes together some festive spirit

[sam_tom_sam]

I've had a strange few weeks, without much paid work but a general feeling of having rather a lot to do. Over the past week or so my mind has been doing its weird thing of dredging up old stuff from the depths of my beleaguered psyche to fret about, now that the practical stresses of the driving test and house move are over. Nature abhors a vacuum, as Tea Hen says. I've also had some wranglings with the unsatisfactory doctors at my local surgery.

However I've managed to force myself to look outwards a bit and had some fun times, with a nice 80's prom-themed birthday party thrown by Sarah's flatmate Zara at Lati Ri in Shoreditch (where they hold Reeperbahn). Most of Zara's mates seem to be DJs so there were some fine sounds, including Bitter Heart by Ricky Gervais' old band Seona Dancing! The song that pulled the most glitterati to the dancefloor was Sussudio by Phil Collins, oddly. I suppose a top tune trumps coolness even in those circles.

A lot of people upheld the dress code, so I was glad Jack and I had gone to the thrift store in Bethnal Green earlier in the day to pick up some suitable items. I'd never been there before but was impressed by its vast wealth of 80s clothes at unusually reasonable prices for that area. I guided Jack in the purchase of not one but two fruity shirts (I suppose they are technically blouses but gender is for stupid people anyway). One is lilac satin with a rose pattern and a pussy bow, Revolution-era Prince stylee, and the other is dark purple with a pin tuck front and slightly puffy sleeves. I myself got a pussy bow shirt too, which is lilac/blue chiffon with a blue and green feather pattern. (I'm going to wear it to the John Waters-themed New Year's Eve party we're going to.) All the items are 100% polyester, obviously.

We later repaired to Maison Ponce to drink vodka and do our make-up, and also, in my case, unscrew the smoke alarm from the ceiling and stamp it to death, to Jack's great amusement. It has been very annoying recently, emitting squeaks for no reason. The battery said "non-removable" on it so I just had to remove the whole thing. It screamed hysterically as I finished it off, but I eventually defeated it.

Yesterday and today I've been making a lot of cards, wrapping presents and consuming ice-topped mince pies and gin. I also made three batches of flapjacks, using vegan margarine as the pot luck Christmas dinner I'm going to will involve a lot of vegetarians and vegans. The first batch was made using a BBC recipe and was a disaster as it stuck to the pan and the mixture was rather dry and crumbly. So I found another recipe from some obscure vegan website and it was much better - probably because Lyle's Golden Syrup was involved, adding much-needed moisture and deliciousness. I improvised a bit, adding cranberries, almonds and cinnamon for a festive twist.

Later Sarah came round to give me my presents, which turned out to be a Miami Vice poster and a signed photograph of Don Johnson as Sonny Crockett! He is pointing at the camera and everything! I'm going to have them framed.

Happy Christmas everybody!

Comments

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

I am glad you are having some fun Sam-Tom! You seem to be better at contributing to parties than we have been. I suspect that battery-stamping nights will become the new piano-bashing contests over the next few years. I don't know anyone who doesn't have a horror story about them. On my last night at my Bristol flat I had to smash the smoke alarm control panel for the whole building with a crowbar because it wouldn't shut up (it was designed to make a literally unsilenceable noise in some "fault modes".) I didn't care though, I moved out the next day and all my other neighbours were rubbish (they probably set the alarm off with their endless weed-smoking in the first place) so I don't care if they burned in their beds.

The Miami Vice present sound very good!

[sam-tom-sam.livejournal.com]

I've never come across a smoke alarm that worked properly, they are a bit like car alarms in that respect. The one in my old halls of residence used to scream its head off when anyone grilled anything, but remained silent when a fire broke out and the whole ceiling was covered in flames.

Did you roll over some fruit for that shirt?!