Not quite squatting it

Juicelog Sat 290907: Tried to buy some empty capsules this afternoon and couldn’t find one shop/pharmacy in central London that sold them. After dim sum with Robbie & Danny, I picked up the biggest bday pressie I got which was a Veuve Clicquot orange manbag and headed home in preparation for the queer squat party I had been invited to.

Saturday night started with the highly entertaining Cabaret with Paul C, David M, David M’s folks, Ruben and Bent Dick. A song and a dance later, I assembled with Kevin’s cluster for liquor consumption. Unfortunately Kevin persuaded us to go clubbing instead and so had to abandon the squat party.

Boobita’s night out

Juicelog Fri 280907: Staying local we (Kate, Andy, Duchess, Boobita, Larma, Cindy, Christian and moi) absinthe’d our evening into blurriness at the Notting Hill Arts Club to mark Boobita’s invasion into the grey zone (i.e. she was turning 30) and her re-location into the London area.

With a luscious cocktail menu the place attracts a very unpretentious crowd. Projectors beam out motifs into the dimly light surroundings creating a relaxing chilled out vibe. The funk rare groove discotastic soundtrack came courtesy of DJ’s Phil Asher (Restless Soul) and Patrick Forge (Kiss FM). Socially, my ears rarely get exposed to such brilliant choons where we heard stuff like Labi Siffre’s “The Vulture”, Leroy Hutson’s “Lucky Fellow”, Linda William’s “City Living”, Cerrone “Hooked On You” and many many other such beauties. Tonight, we were also treated to some live sounds in the form a Swedish funk band called King Kong Crew. Definitely one for the soulheads.

X:periment

Juicelog Sat 220907: Linked up with Chemdan at Daddy Dick’s local brewery (Southside Bar) tonight for a new night called X:periment. Billed as an antidote to the tops off scene, I found it slightly uninspiring musically and no different to the stuff I heard at Fire this morning. Everyone seems to be going for the same sound.

The bouncers also had a slight problem with guys using the girls toilets even though there was only one cubicle inside the gents. Place was nicely decked out with their funky artwork on display inside the bar and accompanied by a video. If you fancy something different then drop in and give this a go.

My Bidet Celebrations - Part 1

Juicelog Fri 210907: After shopping in South East London this afternoon I went along to the Archduke for some din dins with a small group of mates. This restaurant is popular with theatre goers and the numerous plants give the venue a nice relaxing feel. Everyone seemed to enjoy the good food and the live jazz pianist providing the background music.

After dinner, we cruised down to Profile Bar (in Daddy Ouzo’s convertible) to see who should be on the guillotine list for not adhering to the diktat issued yesterday.

Blacked out and woke up to find myself in A:M. As Kevin had hatched up this nefarious trip down to SW9, I came unprepared and was fully reliant upon his crew for sunrise sustenance.

Tonight Matthew…..I am going to be 25

Juicelog Thurs 200907: The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army is currently being exhibited at the British Museum. This exhibition has attracted a lot of attention and massive ticket sales, as it’s one of the rare opportunities in the UK of being able to see the life-sized terracotta statues. From this stems the history surrounding the first emperor of China, Ying Zheng. King Zheng is regarded by many historians for being a tyrant and ruthless despot in the way he killed the lives of numerous scholars and civilians.

One of his legacies he left behind was building a unified China and he went about this by his philosophy of standardisation. His achievements include the precursor version of the current Great Wall of China, an enormous mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta army and a massive national road system. King Zheng introduced a single currency, a standardised system of weights and measurements as well as a common written language.

When I woke up this morning I jumped up to my bedroom mirror inspecting myself for wrinkles, grey hairs and to see how arched my back was. Hell, I even sniffed myself for that whiffy Soho backstreet urine smell. The hard thing about travelling up the age escalator is that for the first couple of days I always tend to forget how old I actually am because for the previous 300 days I have been so used to telling my brain to keep saying “I am 31”. And to break that habit takes some getting used to. So as a new decree, I am implementing my own bit of standardisation as declared by the Juicy empire. For the next 30 days when somebody asks how old Juicy is, everyone will need to give the answer of 25.

Jimmy’s Bidet

Juicelog Sun 160907: Masked up a few of us went down to wish Jimmy a happy bidet. Things got a tad bit messy when we had started having a food fight (fairy cakes and tuna sandwiches).

Thorpe Park

Juicelog Sun 160907: Ali G may be the famous thing from Staines but the most fun is heading down with your mates and getting high on the rides. Apart from being relatively close to London, the rides are quite close to each other so you don't spend too much time getting from one ride to the other.

Juan’s Chicken Paella

Juicelog Thurs 130907: Went round to Rob G and Jason’s flat in elephant and castle for dinner tonight. Juan (a PR student from Valencia who had recently hooked up with Rob G) cooked us a lovely chicken paella made in a wok. Whilst we were waiting for dinner to be prepared Rob showed me a funny video of him walking into a lamp post. Absolute classic.

All About My Mother

Juicelog Monday 100907: Dan E, David M, myself and an Ozzie pop singer by the name of Kylie sat in the fourth room of the stalls at the Old Vic watching Samuel Adamson’s theatre remix of Pedro Almodovar’s Todo Sobre Mi Madre. The first half of the play follows the sequence of events as depicted by the film with numerous set changes to accompany the introduction of the characters. The positioning was at times questionable, as we were sat so close to the front there were a few moments where it was hard to view some of the scenes that took place towards the back of the stage.

Throughout the scenes Manuela’s dead son Esteban comes back in a ghost form revealing how he would like to be closer to his mother. What this does is try to guide the audience along the emotional journey but this didn’t work because what I wanted to feel was the raw feelings of Manuela’s hidden past and not the diarized spirit in regret.

Sister Rosa’s death occurs in the second half which didn’t move me at all. Her transition from leaving the nunnery to seeking maternal companionship after discovering she is pregnant and HIV positive felt slight and left me feeling disconnected from her plight. Diana Rigg’s diva like Huma outshines Mark Gatiss’s overdone Agrado. The whole thing rounds off with the women sitting together celebrating how this bunch of females came together.

Seis Gramas

Juicelog Sun 090907: After checking out the Brick Lane curry festival I was beckoned to do some minor troubleshooting. Daddy Dick was in the process of inducting Olivier (his new 23yo French nephew) to London but in order to establish him into the appropriate shady circles he required some additional expertise. Circulating around the western end of central London inevitably leads to damage to the interior of the human vessel. Luckily the extent of our casualties was inconsiderable and we even managed to gain new recruits along the way. Steve SP (one of Aunty Stu’s friends) was very eager to join the clan and as such his membership is to be reviewed.

Igor’s Brazilian friends joined us towards the end of the evening and whilst hanging out with us they carried out some market research to see how much they acquire for seis gramas. This educed two discussions about market rates between Ross’s posse and Igor’s importers. Eventually after a bit of negotiation, an agreement was reached and everyone went home satisfied.

Fragiler’s Daddy

Juicelog Fri 070907: After dinner with Julien G, Ross & Igor we repeated ourselves with yet another outing to the two sewers. Not being very original, Fragiler decided to copy me and take a big massive bite out of the daddy pie. His piece was so big he is still having problems trying to swallow it at the moment.

Juicy @ Juicy

Juicelog Sun 020907: This is only fun when you do it every now and again. Can't say I've missed it much but I have to admit it still managed to draw in the crowds this morning (given the recent lull on the London gay disco circuit).

Vision

Juicelog Sat 010907: Growing tired of the same ol' shit, we opted for something different and experimented with something on a smaller scale and went to Vision (at Southside Bar in Brixton Hill) tonight. Descended upon daddy dick’s house first for some warm up drinks and then stormed it down to RJ’s place (a couple of blocks away).

Vision was good fun and attracted a mish mash crowd. The whole bar was nicely decorated with balloons and candles and had a quite relaxed atmosphere. Music was run of the mill housey type stuff and didn’t really do much for my ears. It was nice that there was also a big garden outside the front of the bar. As the night came to a close, most of us went back to RJ’s flat to get ready for part two of the morning.