16th April. We were at the pub and it was potentially awry. Far cheaper than most others, and I don't understand how they still do that. Noone was saying anything new. Although we were, three-quarters of us, the same as three-fifths of us had been the previous week. I'm unsure what exactly was up with that, but maybe it was the just-eighteens at the table next to us, who were approached by a bartender: "I'm sorry, but my manager's asked me to check your IDs." They passed the test with barely a protest, whilst saying they were from Spalding, which is maybe somewhere, but it's not going to be near where we were. Why were they in such a damnable place? We left soon after that.
14th April. We were at the pub and it was expensive. I made the mistake of going in to buy something nice from the fridge. They came at drink-in prices. I felt more hungover later, as a result.
12th April. We were at a publike venue. The final and first work social I attended before being relieved of my duties. Everything went fantastically, clearly. Except for the very beginning. But everything that came after that. ? There was some chat, before activities commenced, about cyclists, for some reason. If I remember now, it's linked to my having cycled there. We moved to cycling being dangerous, and someone decided to blame that on cyclists. I feel even now ashamed for not having spoken up, but to my dismay, most of the group deigned to agree with the speaker. Something about cyclists running red lights and taking too many risks. I briefly protested that roads are quite narrow, and everyone hates cyclists, but it didn't work, because it turns out, they do, or did, there.
9th April. See a week later. On neither occasion did I accept the invitation to a sauna later on. Perhaps if I'd asked how the sauna had gone the next week, everything would have been smoother.
7th April. We were at the pub, from 3pm, exactly as instructed, and it was great. The other houses on the street, I feel, must have been constructed in the same manner as this pub. I'm quite sure that this was a house turned into a pub. It was difficult to find our friend on arrival, such was the hubbub of the garden, but was achieved it fairly quickly. We were the start of the group. We bought a lovely table beer from Queer Brewing Company at 3%, and there was another beer with an intriguing name, I forget which. I almost determined a second meeting with a fresh acquaintance, on the basis of his liking of the guitarist I was going to see the following evening. But he didn't show up. It was sold out. I'm not sure when the last ticket sold.
31st March. Everyone else was at the pub, but I went home in a taxi with two others straight after the theatre, to finish something off.
29th March. We were at the pub, for a 'Comedy Virgins' showcase. Our friend won the dubiously-adjudicated contest of: whose friends yell the loudest? Underneath the yelling, I've mostly forgotten what my neighbour told me about her life, except she was the comedian's brother's fiancee, however you spell that.
8th April. We were at the pub, and I forgot to write it in my diary. Until late, in fact. It'd been a cheap and rushed dinner for three, and I was clamped onto the end of a table in a manner whereby I was in the passage of a waiter almost constantly. We moved, afterwards, across the road, to a pub-or-bar, one that seeks to appeal to all kinds of London evening visitor, but not exactly to any one kind. Upon last orders, and following two tales of friendship and house-moving woe from my friend, we split, and the two-thirds of us walked to a bar near each of our homes, further east. Quite drunk at that point, I bought a round of cocktails - two - at a late night bar at the end of the nearest high street. Two margaritas. They were delicious, sweet and somewhat spicy, although the bar was loud, and I couldn't hear anything we said to each other, much less recall it now.
