As a City based Social Entertainment Webzine, one thing I hope unavoidably apparent to the average reader, is that it’s seen as either an advertisement or review, of London as a city. As a place to go out, to drink, eat, to experience. A place to live. So when I hear that two of my University friends were too making the move down to ‘The Big Smoke’, as most people in the North (a place with more coal mines and dirty factories than a Hanna-Barbera cartoon has rocks) call London, I was just as excited for their new lives as they were. Of course for them, moving to London isn’t like what it used to be, not how it was when I were a lad. I came down with only the one person I knew here already. I had an interview before I moved, and had to sleep on a girl’s sofa, I’d met once, 3 days earlier. I knew people, sure. But with a 2 hour round trip just for a few drinks, compared to our previous outings on the way back from lectures, they were more likely to sit sensibly in a queue for the tube than meet up with me.

That’s why, as someone who’s had the experience before, I always try to help out people moving down as much as possible. If they need a place to stay before finding a flat, a hand moving in, or if they just want to meet up for a few drinks in a mutual area. If you won’t get satisfaction from going a little bit out of your way to help someone, how can you call them a friend?

So when Oli (of LeedsMeUp fame) made the move a few weeks ago, I made the point of inviting him round, having a few drinks, and living it up like past times. When I hear Sean (also of LeedsMeUp fame) will be joining him in a few weeks, I get even more excited. And when he tells me they’ll all be together at a BBQ for Oli’s Birthday a few days into Sean’s New London Life, I promise him I’ll be there... And I am.

Luckily, both Sean and Oli aren’t quite as unpopular as I was during my first days in the city. Considering they’ve barely had a chance to curdle since getting off the train, it’s an all right turnout. There’s Oli of course, his Sister, Cousin and her boyfriend, a couple of people from Liverpool, then Sean. Apart from a girl called Emmy (guessed spelling) who I’d met a few weeks previous but had no recollection of me, I sadly wasn’t in a position to remember anyone’s name, but 6 or 7 people I wasn’t introduced to tuned up just as the sun started to sink, and the cold, burnt, extra burgers were taken away.

Some of the originals, the hardcore had some interesting stories about them. Without mentioning any names (not just because I don’t know them), there was the girl whose friend works in a Massage Parlour... that kind of Massage Parlour. She only does hand jobs mind. But now measures shopping items not in terms of monetary value, but in how many hand jobs it will take to get the money back once it’s been spent. ‘Is this bag really worth 3 hand jobs?’ I assume she has a lot of bags.

Then there’s the guy who is an actor, and looks so incredibly Turkish (despite not being), is only ever given roles as a terrorist. Talk to him for 5 minutes and he’ll mention only 2 things. His love of Jazz, and what he thinks of Ronnie Scott’s, and that he’s so paranoid about the FBI bugging his every move, he keeps looking up at the sky, into the bushes, and covering his bag when he speaks. This could either be because in researching his ‘Terrorist’ acting roles, he Googles everything from ‘Al-Qaeda’ to ‘Dirty Bombs’, or just because he smokes an immense amount of weed. Who’s to say?

Another highlight of the day (we hadn’t even got into the night yet) was the guy who told us he’d worked out how to con dirty old (gay) men from their money online. He’d register with a website to turn on his web cam, and perform sexually in front of it, whilst a man on the other end (who’d paid for the privilege) would tell him – through some sort of MSN Messenger style communication – what to do. Let’s say £30 gets you a 30minute session. He’d just ‘chat for the first 20 minutes or so, then the last ten, gradually get more ‘excited’, but not quite get there before the time was up. The customer would hurriedly pay for another 30minutes hoping to catch the ending, but as soon as he’d paid... this guy would have re-dressed and just chat again for 20 minutes before not having time to properly finish. It’s extortion!

At this stage, the BBQ was cooking along nicely, but with two cans of cider disappearing in my hands in not much time at all, I was in need of a bathroom. Sure, we were in a park, and there were bushes, but I’m not an animal! I went to McDonalds. McDonalds staff don’t care do they? They don’t have souls. Once inside, I noticed the cubicle was occupied. Not a problem for me, Sean came in soon after, for whom it was a problem. He waited for a fair enough while before knocking on the door, inquiring as to his further waiting time. Apparently not long, but not with much conviction. Sure enough, when the door did finally creak open, it did so to reveal a ‘man’ so far away from his head on heroin, that he could barely even stumble past Sean. From then on I just used the bushes.

That point saw the introduction of Gazz, and a few other choice revellers to the party atmosphere. When I’d asked Gazz to hold my drink during another ‘bathroom’ break, he (predictably) pretended to throw it back to me at 20 feet away. He didn’t of course... no-one ever does. But this mark of cowardice only attracted mockery. ‘No commitment’ I berated. At which stage, he did throw it at me, and it went all down my shirt. Brilliant.

A short walk to Oli’s Council Estate flat, 10 more minutes to wait for the girls to finish getting ready (they’d left the BBQ 2 hours before us), and we’re ready to go out again, to a bar no one knew what was called, or where it was. Luck was in our favour gladly, as on the walk from nowhere to nowhere, we ran into a girl Gazz works with. You shouldn’t ask me to recall her name. Such information would not be of use to you. She joined the conga line before leaving to catch her bus, however short her visit was, it was exactly long enough for one of our group to leave with her digits. Score (you might think)!.  But this is no ordinary guy. Think Swingers, think Jon Favreau. Don’t know what I mean? OK. Think of a guy who gets a girl’s number on a night out, then calls her, leaves an answer machine message, AND sends a text before he’s even left the bar himself! At least Favreau waited to get home first.

The plan from there, was to go on to some rave party in a car park. It’s £20 a ticket... to go to car park! Makes NCP look like a charity. But that’s not my kind of thing, no matter how friendly and helpful I’m being. So I (along with Gazz) called it a night.