London 2009

I met Amy at Central Station in Glasgow where we boarded a train to London! Both of us were very excited and not sure of what was to come. The train journey seemed to last forever but we had a ready and on arrival were heading to Camden to hang about until our friend Guy finished work.

When we arrived there we went to the first pub we saw "THE WORLDS END" and had our first drinks in London. Amy had vodka and orange and I had G&T. It was rush hour and fabulous sitting by the open window watching the diversity of London Zip by. I was amazed at so many bikes zooming past through the busy junction.

Amy returned from the bar and we laughed and drank, we didn't laugh at the prices of the drinks though. We got bored in Camden Town and decided to head for Kennington where Guy lives and drop off our bags. We got to Kennington Park Road and found Guy's address, although , we couldn't get into the flat because he was at work and his cousin, who had keys, wasn't answering her phone.

We hid our bags behind the recycling and had a wee wander then went into a local old man's pub, got very stared at and left. We were starving and there was nowhere to buy sit in food so we went to the 24 hour shop and bought cheese, ham, bread and hummus and had a picnic on Guy's door step. It was sweet, it reminded me of the old days when myself and Amy would hang around outside for hours on end smoking fags and chatting. However, eventually it got cold and we got bored, thankfully we are both 21 now and can go to pubs!

We ventured across the road to the White Bear Theatre Pub where we both had a pint of cider and black current. It was a curious little pub because there was a theatre upstairs. When we bought drinks there were old men and that was it. Half an hour later and half way through our pints all these smartly dressed good looking men and women started coming out the bar, we thought.... Is there another door? But no, a play had just finished, the moment felt theatrical.

We got chatting to the owner about how we were waiting for our friend and we were locked out. He was nice and friendly; he told us about the legend of the fox in the frilly knickers! Amy later saw a fox but not the frilly knickers. Eventually, Guy came and got us, he'd had a stressful day at work so we got into his and called it a night.

Friday is another day. We woke up early as you generally do in unfamiliar houses. Guy had left us his keys as he was working but we were free to roam. We decided to go to Hyde Park and the Serpentine museum; we wanted to take it easy that day as our plan was to go to Fabric Live that night. What better way to take it easy than a picnic in the park!

We wandered around Kensington Gardens, we thought was Hyde Park. It's just so big and our map reading skills aren't that great!! There were lots of birds and squirrels and a man tried to charge me money for sitting on a deck chair. I found a beautiful tree and gave it a hug. Amy laughed and called me a tree hugging hippy. Eventually we found a shop outside the park and bought some food for our picnic. Amy got new sunglasses, they are cool. For our picnic we had French bread, brie cheese, chorizo and fruit. It was lovely.

Whilst we were sitting I started feeding the birds. Before we knew it we were surrounded by pigeons and crows. The crows were weird, I've never been surrounded by so many of them and they were eating grapes. We were throwing them in the air and they were jumping like dogs to catch them. Fascinating stuff I hear you say. We walked farther to find our way to the Serpentine Museum, we walked past the Peter Pan statue; it looked very beautiful and was surrounded by people taking photographs of it.

The Serpentine was hosting an exhibition by Jeff Koon's. He made these sculptures inspired by everyday objects and also by making casts of inflatable animal pool toys. I swear they looked like the plastic blow up dolphins you jump onto in the pool but they were actually made from aluminium with plastic coating. They were hanging from fish hooks hung from the ceiling; I guess he was playing around with weight as there is juxtaposition between the weight of the metal hooks and the light weight of air in the inflatable toys. There was a cast iron moustache with two "inflatable" lobsters hanging from either handle bar. He had massive oil paintings with pop eye, hot chicks, swimming pools and the inflatable toys; it was all very pop art. I wasn't convinced by the oil on canvas I think some of it had been screen printed or done digitally. It was such eye candy, bright appealing colours. It was quite surreal because of the way he messed about with the weight of objects but I still prefer more conceptual art to this. I wasn't convinced by it.

After that we called it a day and headed back to Guy's place in Kennington to get ready for our night out! The plan was to meet Guy at his work, a bar called IMBIBE in Southwark at 9pm to drink and be merry. All the booze we got there was on the house, it was so decent of them. I was the only one drinking the bottle of Rose wine - should I complain? It was very generous of Guy's employees and a really nice pub to drink in!

We met these two gay guys that Guy said were regulars, they were very befriending. It got to about 12 o'clock.. witching hour and Guys work was closing so we drank up and they phoned us a taxi. Disaster struck when we got to Fabric, the queue was a mile long, it was one in one out and was going to take up to 2 hours to get into the club, by that time we'd have sobered up so we decided to go elsewhere for fun. Fabric is really popular, it's one of the largest clubs in the U.K and is renowned for having amazing live DJ sets every weekend. Fridays are busy because it's Fabric Live and the night we wanted to go was very busy. Skream and Benga, who are massive on the U.K dubstep scene right now, were playing.

We jumped in another taxi and went to THE EGG. Last time I was in London I got flyers for this club so it was good to actually go to it. The decorations were cool there were giant polystyrene sunglasses painted luminous yellow and luminous pink in the outdoor smoking area which was beach themed, sand and all. There were projected visuals in the outdoor area. We spent quite a lot of time out here even though I don't smoke.

We saw one half of Zombie Disco, his tunes were banging. I didn't really know the rest of the DJ's but the music was quality and so were the sound systems and lasers. We sat outside in the Egg garden until it got light and we got cold. Apparently The Egg is open 23 hours a day as it is also a restaurant. We found the eggsit and left for Guys flat. Overall it was an eggstraordinary night! It was so eggciting to be clubbing in another city! Eggcelent choice of venue Guy (and so on and so on).

We went back to Guys place and I stayed up all night and all day talking nonsense, listening to beats and watching Amy draw strange rabbits and fidget burgers on Guys wall. At night we watched live at the Apollo and a gore film called Donkey Punch, it was quite weird and made by Warp. I then, finally got to sleep after pizza and fruity juice. Saturday was a wasted day, felt rather like a zombie and didn't go out anywhere except to the 24 hour shop!

Sunday we had big plans, disappointed In myself for not doing much on Saturday we had to make up for it today. The plan was to go to Camden Market then Brick Lane and then Fabric at night since we never got there on the Friday or the Saturday night. It was a beautiful day, the sun was gleaming and it was hot hot hot. It felt nice to feel the sun on my back again.

Camden was hoaching with tourists. It was a shame because it made it quite hectic but we did a little bit of shopping. Amy got sparkly ankle boots and some tights. Her boots were a bargain from one of Camden's discount shoe shops. I paid £8 for a pair of fishnets, am I mad? I think so. For some reason though, I just didn't care, I wanted them!

Eventually, we had kind of had enough of Camden and its busy, tacky street madness so we went to Brick Lane. I love just wandering around a city I've never been in before. Thinking to myself "I've never been here before" It's comforting and satisfies my constant urge for adventure London is just so cool; it feels continental, graffiti and stickers and art everywhere, the urban grounds I love to walk. People roller blading and skating on the road. Brick Lane was something else, Guy described it as Camden when it first started out.

There were people all sitting on the ground with what they were selling laid out in front of them on blankets. I found this fascinating; could anyone just come down here and sell their old shit for free? Apparently so, I know where I'm going when I finish art school! There were people selling everything from handmade jewellery to Pavarotti tapes and old records. This guy tried to sell Guy a 7"for 20p but he was selling it as a Frisbee! Ha-ha, weirdest thing I've seen anyone trying to sell. I didn't buy anything as most of it was old junk, I have enough of that. There was a good vibe though, it was certainly more interesting than Camden has become.

I did buy a record because there was a massive Rough Trade records shop and it's one of my favourite record labels! I bought a Crossover record for £3; they're on DJ Hells record label International Deejay Gigolo Records. We went into a wee pub on Brick Lane for a drink, Amy had a French martini and me and guy drank beer. I knew it was a good pub because they were playing Grace Jones Pull up to the Bumper when I walked in and that's one of my favourite songs by her. Good times. I can't remember what that pub was. On our way home Guy wanted to pop into a bar called Vibe that a reggae band were playing in because one of his mates worked in there. It had such a party atmosphere even during the day on a Sunday.

However, we didn't stay long as we were all quite tired after a long day out. Back at the flat we had pizza for dinner (again) and got ready to go out to Fabric. I wore my new fishnet tights and my pink metallic American Apparel dress; I thought I looked really hot! The fishnets got holes on the heels as they were badly designed, what do you expect for £8 eh? ! Joke.

So we arrived at Fabric around twelve which was early considering it is open until six! The temperature outside was twenty two degrees, so warm for midnight. It was lovely though. It was colder inside the club than it was outside and for a change the night club actually smelled nice! We paid ten pounds in even though only one floor was open which was a shame; it would have been amazing to see the whole club. The night was called Wet Yourself or WYS! for short. We were dancing straight away as the beats were so strong. I thought I was going to wet myself...............

Floor one in Fabric has a "bodysonic" dance floor, this means a vibrating floor, sections of the floor are attached to four hundred bass transducers emitting bass frequencies of the music being played. I think this is the room we were in because every time a bass line dropped in the place would shake.

The DJ's playing were Cormac, Corrie, Peter Pixzel and Jacob Husley. All the music was very danceable, there were some weird fashions, one girl had a banana hair accessories. Amy got a good photo of it. Never seen anything quite like it in a club! One thing I noticed about girls in London is that they all dress differently and do it really well. The lasers and the lights were over whelming. I took a film of the lasers; it was almost like capturing some wild animal on film. We met some really nice French people outside in the smoking area they all spoke really good English and the Chinese girl with them LOVED SCOTTISH ACCENT! She was called Violet and was very pretty.

Fabric was full and lots of tourists go there. However, most of the men in there were annoying, their best chat up line was to push you, keep on doing it until you turned around and then give you the eye. Sexy? Not. Also the toilets were unisex, which I found a bit strange. We left about quarter to six jumped into a taxi home and stayed up all night again. I got about three hours sleep before the train. London never sleeps, I slept a lot on the train though.

I kept waking up drooling on myself with Amy filming it on her iphone. It's depressing to be back in Glasgow when I have seen how good London is. I was never that fussed about living there before now. I think because I always done tourist things and wasn't old enough to drink or go clubbing. I have now seen a completely different side to it and I have fallen in Love with the city. I want to see more. Once I have done my time in Aberdeen, at art school, the world will be my oyster. New York, London, Amsterdam....?? My Playgrounds.

By Marianne Wilson