Not every club experience is shit
Nightclubs are hell. Oh fuck yes. Between drinking Bud in a shitty house club aged 15 while every girl I ever fancied walked past with bloke on arm, and being offered half a line of coke in a vomit-strewn khazi shortly before my would-be dealer passed out with blood leaking from both nostrils, I have all manner of bad memories.

But not all of them are bad. I got my cherry popped in a nightclub.

Not a good nightclub. Hull* had just one good club when I left, but it had turned into little more than a late-night alcopop playground by 2003. This story starts in a classically shit club: LAs. A typical generic chart-playing hellhole which had dedicated 70s and 80s nights from the mid-90s on. The very last time I was in there was a Saturday night with a couple of mates, celebrating the fact that we were all fucking off to University on the Sunday after. A night of getting plastered, dancing badly to awful music, and trying (pronounced “failing”) to pull. In other words, a typical Saturday night.

I had a lot of experience of trying to pull. See, I'd tried pretty much every evening from when I first noticed girls, and now here I was, eighteen years old and no success. Barely more than a smile. So on the one night I'm not trying, just sinking my third vodka sling because it's L's round next. I get up to siphon the python, as you do. On my way back from the khazi, a pretty girl smiles at me. Odd, but I smile back. Before I can offer her a drink, she's come over and introduced herself. Says she's just seen her ex and doesn't want to face him alone. This was around midnight.

We spent much of the remaining hours joined at the lips. I buy her drinks. L wanders by with my vodka, and just sets it down on the table in front of me. I don't notice for a good ten minutes. At some point, I got her number. Not having a mobile telephone back in 1999, I didn't have one to give her.** I managed to articulate why in between the snogging-and that’s what it was. I couldn't describe what we were doing as "kissing"; that implies a degree of tenderness that was entirely missing from our animal passion. We went our separate ways out of the door, and I got to explain where I'd been for three hours to a couple of rather annoyed friends.

I didn't get a shag that night, but it's how I met the girl with purple hair.

Moving in was Sunday. Drive down to Stafford, meet the people I'm going to be living with for the next year, go for a drink with them. And what's this? Worthington's Creamflow for £1 a pint in the union? Surely this "Stafford" was the land of milk and honey... but for such a nice place, I really noticed the lack of girls. This was down to one core fact: the campus I was at was for computer science, engineering, and mathematics. Everyone else was ten miles away in Stoke. My chances of getting my end away with bohemian undergraduates while discussing Baudrillard were zero (at least, during the first year). On Thursday evening, I remembered that I had an ace in the hole. Better even than my intimate knowledge of free internet pornography: I had a phone number for the girl with purple hair. I arranged to meet her a week hence, on my first return visit home.

I don't remember the name of the club. It was just down from the Sugar Mill, used to do a night run by Viking FM that was notable for occasional good music. Upstairs in one of the old mill buildings, with a split-level dance floor and thick wooden beams for people to rest on. I don't remember the name, but I remember the sights and sounds and smells and even tastes. She introduced me to some of her friends. I, having re-invented myself over the past couple of weeks into someone a lot more likable than I had been***, actually talked to them rather than to my beer. And I talked to her, quite a bit. Neither of us really knew what was going on between us. But I liked her, and through sober eyes she was prettier than I remembered. And her purple hair did something to me that I was powerless to resist.

Her friends cajoled us until we went to dance. She took no time getting in close. Pulp's "Common People" started to play and she pressed into me. Pretty soon, we were doing everything but shagging in a dark corner of the dance floor, hidden from view by a speaker stack. We remained in that sticky, vibrating mess, exploring each other's bodies for the full five minutes and fifty seconds, until the sacred guitar chords had faded at last. The sick fuck DJing booth put on something by Lou Vega**** and we ran to the gents to fuck like horny rabbits.

I know it's fashionable to say that your first time is also your worst, but it remains above average in my estimation. I won't give any details of the actual deed, but every time I was back in Hull we'd go to the same club and have it off in the same gents. Tireless romantics, us.

That one night lead to three months of fun, three months of weird-but-still-fun, and three months of bunny-boiling insanity before I finally came to my senses, but that's a tale for another QOTW.

Incidentally, I boasted of this exploit to my brother when home for Christmas. In my defence, I may have been drinking. He picked the wrong club, and was ejected from LAs for having his knob out in the VIP area (they have cameras, who knew?). So that's one lesson: go into any nightclub with your eyes open.

* The city of my birth. I assume I must have been a real cunt while still in the womb.
** I, like many people, didn't have a mobile in 1999. And as of tomorrow, I'd have a new address in a new county and a new phone number.
*** If nothing else, that's why I went to university: to shake a reputation ten years in the building. I look back at myself now and shudder.
**** Or some other popular beat combo of the time. It's hard to say.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Wed 8 Apr 2009, 23:50, 16 replies)

Fucking hell, LA's was ace in the early '90s!
And the other club you're on about was Waterfront. - Did they rebuild it after the fire?
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 0:01, closed)

I thought LAs was ace at the time
but then I discovered Spiders. Far more to my musical taste, and cheap cocktails.

And yeah, it was the Waterfront. Apparently it re-opened after the fire (says a lot that I didn't know there'd been a fire) but I've not been back there in many years.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 7:22, closed)

My sister
had her face smashed in in LAs. Some bloke chasing her pushed her down the stairs.
(Land of Green Ginger It's dreamy weather, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 16:02, closed)

I wish I could say
that I'm at all surprised.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 20:59, closed)

For once I can tell this is no exaggeration
I sound engineered for a living for a long while (1990s), including Stoke and Stafford SU's gigs occasionally...
Stoke.. main campus (opp train station) and new site (Leek Rd?) were normal union bars.

Stafford. was NOT a place for a hetero male.
( Want Bartender Time gentlemen please.., Thu 9 Apr 2009, 0:44, closed)

Not a word of a lie
Yup. The old campus and Leek Road were for normal people. Stafford had something like 10:1 male/female ratio. There's a reason I used a society as a chance to meet lasses from Stoke.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 7:20, closed)

Barren
I spent 3 years on Beaconside (Stafford) campus. May as well have spent it at a monastery the amount of action I saw.
(mcgriffto, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 13:36, closed)

My Plan
Step 1: Join a society that's got links with one in Stoke.

Step 2: Enjoy teh sexytime with an incredibly hot blonde who runs your society's counterpart.

Step 3: Get an award for "encouraging links between the two societies".

I still have that certificate somewhere...
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 21:01, closed)

ahhhhh 'Ull, land of my fathers
I used to run pubs in Hull, they read like a who's who of chav bars....... Pepi's, Harveys (behind LA's and part of the old 147 club) Biarritz and Circus Circus.

The odd night out for you B3tans that have ventured out in Hull was a fucking picnic compared to being there EVERY CUNTING NIGHT!
(airliebird Has now found Twiglets in Sydney!!!!!!! yay!, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 11:55, closed)

Hahah, I used to
work at Circus Circus!
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 16:00, closed)

Harveys
A friend of mine had her 21st in Harveys back in 2000 (or so). Fuck me, it was grim.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 21:02, closed)

I lived in Hull for 3 years between 1995 and 98...
... and never once set foot in LAs. Mind you, I didn't contract any STDs either, and the two facts may be linked.

Spiders, on the other hand, became something of a second home.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 13:15, closed)

Yay for Spiders
The best club in the world..... anybody for a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster?
(airliebird Has now found Twiglets in Sydney!!!!!!! yay!, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 15:19, closed)

Was great until 2003
Then the playlist shifted from Iron Maiden and the Sisters of Mercy to Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne. Place full of bloody children.

My record for Pan-Galactics was four in a three-hour period. Needed carrying out of there, but it was worth it.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 21:05, closed)

I never did go in Spiders.
I was a townie, me.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 16:01, closed)

Ahh, Spiders.
I lived in Spiders for a while as well. Mostly when revising for A-levels.

Those two facts are definitely linked, by the way. I remember telling my bro to go get checked out after his... incident.
(DigitalRaven will have to make do with gin, Thu 9 Apr 2009, 21:08, closed)