So after a massive two day week, what better way to celebrate the fact that you haven’t been fired than with a trip on the town? OK, I will concede there are better ways such as flying a plane, travelling around on a yacht sipping overly priced liquid, or if you are lucky to have a significant other, roger them silly until they can’t walk any more.

Having none of those options open to me at the time, a trip on the town was the next best thing, and why not?

There was a greater purpose to the weekend’s wanderings, as Saturday had an exciting event which lots of people would be celebrating greatly or at least in their own middle class manner, clap politely and say what ho. Oh I see, aside from the Queen’s birthday which also had some celebrations going on.

Terry Prachett was in town.

The creator/writer of the Discworld novels, Only you can save mankind (personal favourite there), and countless other books was down on the Southbank store of Foyles signing books, being recorded for the BBC and also it appeared taking a small amount of time to chat with people there as well as he penned away. And as I arrived, the queue seemed absent and with no real queue, you think you’re sorted.

Unless you arrived at the wrong store.

I was at the Tottenham Court Road store instead thinking it was there, and only by looking at the poster at the store, the true location became known. Bugger.

So after the confusion was lifted and the sprit was lowered, off we trundled to the south bank, where upon arrival you did see the queue and at least you had a queue that either Terry was there or the cafe next door made incredibly good tea.

However the queue was big enough for you to wonder if your next birthday would be celebrated with a bunch of strangers who had became your friends and possibly lovers, with a family being brought up on the street all wondering how it all started…

So what do you do when faced with standing a big queue possibly for the rest of your life? You start talking to people seeing who you can either arose or scare.

And that’s where a charming, bright American woman called Diane stepped into fill the conversational void. Yes, perhaps you may consider that to be an oxymoron (bright and American in the same sentence) but I can only assure you it’s true.

During the endless queue, we chatted about Hydraulics, Forestry, how to fail miserably to annoy your parents, Terry Prachett (well it’s rude not to talk about the author you’ve come to see!) how to attract people with award winning lines such as “You’re a either a woman or a man who’s really let himself go.” and finally remarking about the endless procession of aircraft flying overhead over the river, which was ordered for Her Majesty.

When you have your own air force, perhaps it’s nice to have them fly around where you live once in a while, just to see if they are any good or perhaps to settle an argument or two.

And then it was time to finally spend 30 seconds with the man himself. It was both surreal and interesting. Of course I was making an arse of myself like I do with most people, but I never expected to chat with him about picking up ladies in book signing queues.

After asking if I had got someone, I pointed to Diane, and after a chuckle, he said he knew someone who met their last three girlfriends in book signing queues. Of all the things to actually talk about, we got on that. It was more than worth it.

At this point, after such a meeting, the chatter continued between the American and the Lord of Leisure at some place on the river over a pint, and during the exchange of silliness and ideas, it occurred to me that the afternoon’s happenings basically were what London’s more about.

You come here to mingle and talk to different people and see what happens as a result. It’s not the place to keep yourself to yourself, no matter how hard you want to try.

After parting company, I wandered back to the West End, rather happier than I had been in a few days, the whole adventure so far have lifted sprits to a level more suitable. The debate than began as to what to do now.

On one hand you have the West End, filled with glitzy restaurants, bars with people dressed in well, clothes. There are also clubs selling silly named drinks, over-priced cinemas and the smattering of comedy clubs all vying for your hard-earned pound.

And on the other hand, you have sitting at home in front of the computer, watching repeats of Top Gear and then thinking about playing a game before retiring to bed, having eaten all the Penguin biscuits in the house first.
Decisions, decisions….

Having enjoyed some quality food at one of London’s top restaurants (Pizza Hut), the time was then taken making the way towards the Comedy Store, a place where lots of people go to see people stand on a stage and spout off endless amounts of crap in the hope that you will laugh, otherwise bad men take them out the back and beat them. Basically what happens when I fail to write something funny on the blog or podcast…

The first two were a bit rubbish and had a bit of a silly time dealing with the seamen on the front row. They were from the navy you see….But an unlikely champion came to the rescue in the guise of Will Smith.

Having been disappointed that it was the bloke from the fresh prince of Bell-end, he then proceed to actually make great jokes at his expense and wonderful stories, all written down in his notebook as to what was said, which was fantastically done when used to describe what two asbo hoody people on a bus was saying about bitches.

The final two chaps were a Scotsman who was only 21 yet still managing to create some great humour and a black American bloke who sounded drunk yet clearly knew what he was doing, and basically the last three acts were the reason for paying the admission price. The compare bloke was happy taking the michael out of the navy blokes and it was best left there.

After that chuckle, the new impression of London, being some place to keep going about the place and meeting people, to maintain that momentuim, it appears the Lord of Leisure’s presence was requested to some random person’s house in North London to drink and watch Muse, then changing the DVD to Max and Paddy. It was some fella called James who had people round for talking about stuff, and to be honest, I remember looking at photos of his lithuianian girlfriend, whose name escapes me now, who was also there along with my flatmates and frankly I can only remember making not much sense and being slightly withdrawn.

The withdrawn bit may have been left over with getting on a bus not really knowing where I was going and having a Gordon Ramsey lookalike in dirty trousers wanting to talk to me and I was still getting over the creepyness.
Still one sleep later, we left and then got back to the flat after some shopping for the week. Rather strange that just doing things willy-nilly allows you to encounter both scary and funny things all at once. Hell of a weekend, one can only hope it continues in the same fashion.