Hello wonderful people! I’m back from London, from Montpellier, from Nimes, from Cuba, from Liverpool! Ok, so Cuba was the club I went to last night, but still, I’m back. I’ve repaired my computer after my Dad dropped it at the start of the summer. It now has a nice new hard disk which if packing full of music to keep my alive! I had to reset everything and reinstall everything!!! It’s taken 3 days, mostly spent downloading bloody windows updates from service Pack 1 upwards!!! Stupidly I went downloaded a German Anti-virus program, which I can’t understand! Arse!!!
I’ve had a fantastic summer in London. I have to Morgan Stanley are a fantastic company to work for. They pay well, they hours are reasonable (basically work till you meet the deadline), they hold a lot of free drink nights for us interns (of course I made more than money’s worth back) and everyone is really good laugh! I shall give a run down of my top ten highlights of London this summer. (Top of the Pops music starts)
- The Binnie Court crew! Binnie court was where I was staying this summer. It’s a dump of a student accommodation in Greenwich, but it’s the people that made it! Richard, Bledi, Cristina, Amandine, Sidney, Yanyan, Jing, Ola, Paolo, Hamid, Dave, Alan, Antish and anyone else I can’t remember! We had a so many great (and stupid) times together! Check out
www.binniecourt.blogspot.comfor our on going saga’s (it’s a little bare at the moment) - Salsa. Cheers so much to Sidney for introducing us to wonderfully stupid world of salsa! I mean stupid as in I simply can’t do it. The beginner’s lesson was easy! Then we decided to intermediate and I trod on a few too many feet. The instructor was a woman who would teach us on spin and then we’d practice it once and then she’d teach us another. Then at the end of the lesson we had to chain them all together! I couldn’t remember of them and I just panicked!! I think she could see the fear in my face; I wanted to run to mummy (or the bar which was considerably closer). Following that though I had a great laugh with Amy and her mates!
- The quiz night at work where I nearly ended up doing a strip tease for a few points for my team. I was easily the best. I was using my belt to full effect and I got my shoes and socks off (after a struggle with my shoe laces). Everyone taking part then had a brief interview with the quiz show host (some cocky muppet). The conversation went something like:
Him: So whats your name?
Me: Do you want my stage name or real name?
(laughter from audience – 1 up)
Him: Go on then. Whats you stage name?
Me: (realising I don’t actually have a stage name, go for a stall) Umm…. I can’t say it on camera
Him: Ok then. (indicates to woman filming). So whats your stage name?
Me: Umm…. Barry…. Lovechild!
(roar of laughter from audience again – 2 up)
Him: Ok, my Lovechild. What’s your real name?
Me: Matt (with far too much emphasis on the “ttâ€)
Him: As that Matt as in Vinyl Matt, the paint…
Me: (drunkly grabbing mic from his hands) No, Matt with two “Tâ€s as in bath mat and beer mat.
Him: (trying to be smart and cocky) How the hell did we get on to your whole life history?
Me: (drunkly grabbing mic again from his hands) Well, you just asked me my name and I told you then you asked “as in vinyl matt†so I said…
(laughter from audience – 3 up)
Him: (moves swiftly on to next person)
(game, set and match to Mr lovechild)
- The Jazz Club with Chris! My dear buddy Chris decided to visit me for a day and we went to the most expensive Jazz Club ever! But it was well worth it; the food was exquisite and the music was fantastic! Cheers for recommending it and coming down to see me mate!
- Gay Paris!!! I had fantastic time with Kerrie in Paris! It was so so much fun! We saw a few sights and generally arsed around and had a good laugh! I’ll hopefully be hitting the streets of New York next summer if you’re around!
- The CC Club. My word, I’ve never been to a club so expensive, posh and cack, but it was a great time! Thank you Amy for bringing your camera out and taking lots of stupid photo’s most of which will appear online soon! £22 for a bottle of “cheap†wine! Tsk!!! Oh and then having to carry a very drunk Yanyan home and kip on her floor to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid (luckily she returned the favour the following week!)
- That Thursday night! OK, so on my second to last night we went out first for drinks with the chairman of Morgan Stanley in Cabot Square, Canary Wharf. He’d basically cordoned of the whole of this public square for all Morgan Stanley employees and bought everyone (a few hundred) free drinks ( Then we went to another where Sarah, our Graduate Recruitment and Internship Organiser type person, had organised a farewell drinks event (more free beer!). Some of us had a little too much beer (maybe 8-9 pints, I can’t remember). Then Rob put me on some Long Island Ice teas! Bad idea. I got home to Greenwich, got off the DLR walked down the stairs to road and then went to pieces! Thankfully my dear Binnie Court people were there to carry me home and provide me with the kitchen bin, which I clung to for dear life. Then they put me to bed. The following day my team at work took me out for lunch to Wagamama’s. I had to sit there and stir my noodle soup and apologise profusely for being unable to eat a thing. It was very funny in hindsight!
- Manchester!!! I decided to take everyone out for a night in Manchester because a lot of them had never been there. There were a total of 11 of us staying in the house and we had few people join us when we got there, Itai, Derek and Claire. It was night to remember forever! First we hit the curry mile for a cheap and tacky curry. Then we hit KroBar, ScuBar (Goldfish bowls of cocktails and £6 bottles of wine!) Then we did Fab Café, our favourite cult movie themed bar (where I once got hit on by a gay guy and his female friend within 2 minutes of each other!?!?) Then we hit Baa Bar for £1 shooters (I think between us we had about £40 worth! Then we went downstairs and gate crashed someone’s party (oops!). Then finally, we ended up in the greatest club in Manchester for some Tea and biscuits! Mr Scruff!!!! Before we went everyone was quite Anti-Scruff because I talked about him too much, within ten minutes everyone was convert, even Cristina!!! He, he, he… rules!!
- The Deptford Bridge night out. On my second weekend, Rick came to visit and we decided to explore the locality of Greenwich with Bledi and Joshua. We hit a few cheap bars had some drinks and then went on a mission to find Bubblegum (a club). It turned out to be underground in what seemed like the basement of someone’s house with an old man and woman serving Malibu and coke out of 2 litre coke bottles! Classy!!! However, the music was rocking!!! Electro-tech!!! I boogied for the 45minutes we had in there before the place shut! Quality!!! (
- Finally, I ended in Montpellier last weekend with my bad stomach from the Thursday mentioned above. I met up with Amandine and her boyfriend spent the night there and had a laugh with them and another of their friends, Dorien. Then on Sunday Amandine gave a mini-tour of Montpellier which I have to say is a very beautiful city!! Then I met up with the beautiful Laura for her 21st birthday. Laura will be featuring more often on here now because she is my wonderful ex-ex-flat mate (she was my flat mate, then she wasn’t and now she is again!!) Anyway, I discovered my 3 weeks of learning French from CD’s paid off! I can actually speak it ok-ish!!! Anyway, we had a brilliant time in a salsa where I once again made a fool of myself by being too self-confident only to discover Laura and her mates have been having lessons for a year!
Well there we have it! They weren’t in any particular order, but those were my high lights! There were of course many other great moments! Eating random food in everyone’s kitchen,
