Vlad's sisters and my near-impalation
I don't have a habit of endangering my life in stupid ways. I'll freely admit that I've said and done a wide variety of very stupid things in the past, but I'd like to think I'm doing reasonably well as far as natural selection is concerned.

Nevertheless: it was a Friday evening, the week after my third-year exams had finished. My guitarist and I decided to spend an evening in the Blues Bar just off Regent Street.

Turns out we made a good choice - they had a fine pint of Arran Fireside on the pumps, and Ian Siegal* was playing at the back of the bar.

It also became very convenient at this point that my guitarist is Russian. During a quiet point in conversation, he gestured over to three women stood behind us and said "sounds like they're Russian." So I went to the gents a little later, and, when he came back - well, bugger me, he'd only gone and struck up conversation with them.

In short, we had a superb evening drinking a large amount of beer and trying (unsuccessfully) to chat up three Russian sisters to the backdrop of some of the best modern blues in the UK. In fact, I'd had such a good evening, I decided to walk home. Walk, that is, from Regent Street to Barons Court.

A bit of a long trek it was, so by the time I'd got to Park Lane, I thought it would shave some time off the journey to cut through Hyde Park. I knew of a fence at the far end which is able to climb over, so as long as I could find an open gate on the Park Lane side, I'd be fine. Granted, this was 2 or 3am, but someone had forgotten to close one of the side gates. Bingo!

Well, almost. I'd forgotten about the fence which runs up the middle of the park. I got this far, in the middle of the park, in the pitch darkness, and decided it was too late to turn back.

So how to get over this fence? I tried to lift myself up to climb over it, and realised that if I wasn't careful, I'd put the (very pointy) railings into my abdomen.

So I decided to take my chances and jump over it. I took a few steps back and prepared to run up.

Then I took a few more steps back.

Then I tried a different angle.

Then I dawdled a bit.

And then I jumped.

I've made it!
Oh, almost...seems my jeans are snagged on the railing...
Hmm...okay, they're snagged quite firmly. Let's have a look...
Oh, crap.

It wasn't so much my jeans that were snagged as my thigh. I was halfway over a fence in a deserted Hyde Park, in the small hours of the morning, with a fence in my leg.

I'd like to think that the beer kept me level-headed, because I'm normally quite squeamish. Cursing and grunting enough to make a BNP rally seem family-friendly, I lifted myself off the railing and hobbled off to find a bench.

There, in the middle of the park, I tried to administer first aid. The position of the wound required me to pull my trousers down, and as I tried to wrap a handkerchief round it, I realised that my thigh was, in fact, far too large for the handkerchief to encompass.

I pulled my trousers up and decided the best course of action was to get home. I got to the fence I knew I could scale and left the park, to hobble the last half-hour to Barons Court.

I thought I was doing alright at the time, though in hindsight, I must have been in some sort of shock as I remember being convinced that the couple walking 100yds or so behind me were, in fact, following me home.

The following day I woke up with very little memory and a splitting headache.
Fuck...I didn't have that much to drink last night...
I pulled back the sheets to find a broad smear of blood all over them.

I've never been so grateful to live with a medical student. V, you're a legend. (And I'm an idiot)

*_{If he's not a legend yet, he bloody well ought to be.}
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 12:26, 2 replies)

Yes
Ian Siegal FTW!!
(EllsBells, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 13:01, closed)

He was awesome that night
His own stuff was great, and he also covered a Who song and a Tom Waits song, so I couldn't really have asked for more.

And Swagger has to be one of the best albums I've bought over the last couple of years.
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 16 Feb 2009, 14:11, closed)