Hmmmm
I couldn't let this go by without digging out this old story from surrounding a b3ta bash in 2004ish. This was one of the "official" bashes that used to occur before Rob started getting freaked out by them (and who can blame him). The words are by esteemed, and now absent, b3ta user GR££DY. Took some finding on the wayback machine. Internet's changed a bit while 2004 it would seem...

Friday 11th April 2003

At 10.10 I got on a train at Meadowhall in Sheffield. This may seem like a fairly innocuous event, but I have a frequent habit of missing trains, so as far as I was concerned this was a very good start. The train was 9 minutes late, but I magnanimously take this in my stride.

At 10.45 I meet with Stouffer, Supermoore and his friend Sam in Manchester, slightly late but still on schedule.

11.50: Slight detour through Moss-side, no problems.

11.50 - 5.30: Nearly die on several occasions due to Supermoore's "unusual" line in motoring manoeuvres, and Sam's navigation;

Supermoore: "See if you can find Mile End"
Sam: "I can't read this map..."
Sam: "...Oh, it's upside down..."

Having reached London, and enjoyed an interesting and on several occasions nearly fatal detour through various London Boroughs, we finally arrive in Mile End, where the car will be parked over the weekend. We now take the tube from Mile end to Soho, during which journey, Supermoore and I conclude that I haven't arranged anywhere to stay for the two nights we're here. This would perturb any other human being, but a b3tan in a strange land is always amongst friends, I tell myself. Besides, I have my sleeping bag, and I hear Hyde Park is lovely at this time of year.

Saying goodbye to Sam in Tottenham Court Road Tube Station, Stouffer, Supermoore and myself leg it up Oxford Street, looking for Golf Sale signs. There were none. Finally, eight hours after leaving Sheffield I step into the John Snow, into the welcoming arms of a pint of unpronounceable lager and a group of lovely b3tans.

After drinking and talking for a bit (here time starts to distort), we decide it's time to line our stomachs in readiness for the main event. Thirdman suggested Wagamama's, and we all troupe down, surprising and possibly alarming a wonderfully camp waiter guy. I don THE T-SHIRT, amid much hilarity (apparently the thought of me wondering through Soho with BUM GAY written on my T-shirt was the sublimest comedy). If you're ever desperate for Japanese food in Soho, go to Wagamama's. The service is efficient, and the food superb and at a reasonable price.

Having sustained ourselves for the long road ahead, we walked to Insomnia, flanked as far as the eye can see by sex shops, and atop a Lebanese restaurant (a strangely fitting venue, I thought).
Here time starts seriously to distort. And the only events my brain has seen fit to file away are meeting Rob, Pep and Cal, Stouffer's dancing and Mike the Wonderhorse.
Needless to say the club was packed with lovely people, and a great time was had by all.

At approximately 2.30, and having drunk the club completely dry, Supermoore, 100% Kitten, 100% of Gibbon and myself exit the club (Supermoore exiting at terminal velocity, down a steep flight of stairs and into the street). Here things start to get ropy. We went to find a taxi, not the simplest of tasks when one of you is prone, and everyone else is four sheets to the wind. Locating a taxi, I begin a protracted discussion about the price. Upon reaching a consensus with the driver, I turn to the others to indicate that we have a ride.
The others aren't there.
Thinking with clarity, I wander off aimlessly, and completely miss the others returning in the taxi they had flagged (it turns out later it was five minutes down the road before they realised I wasn't there), luckily enough they had gathered my belongings and taken them with them.

It's OK though, because I know where they're headed - King's Cross Station - so I hop in a taxi and head there.
King's Cross Station is closed and locked.
Again, thinking with the utmost clarity, I utter a sob and wander around aimlessly for a further half hour.
I decide finally that I need to put out an All Points Bulletin, and fall upon the mercy of the board. To do this I will need an internet cafe. Not as easy as it sounds, having been drinking for a good seven hours and being a complete stranger in London.

This part of the story always elicits a snort of mirth from people. Being my good natured friendly self, I fall upon the mercy of strangers. In London. At 4 in the morning. Drunk.
I know, I know. At certain times I have an unfailing faith in human nature, this is a mistake. Pull the ladder up Jack. Anyway, asking random strangers if there's an internet cafe nearby, I receive amongst other things, verbal abuse, strange looks and utter, primal, fear until one person stops and tells me yes, he does know one, but he comes from Camden, and it's there. I agree to share a taxi with him, and he promises to show me where the internet cafe is (snort here). When we reach Camden he manages to extract himself from the taxi and disappear into the night, leaving me with a £24 taxi fare.
Bugger.
I manage to persuade the driver that we have both been ripped off, and he agrees to take me back to King's Cross for £15 (those who know London may want to snort here too). The taxi drops me outside King's Cross Thameslink, and what's the first thing I see. A BLOODY INTERNET CAFE IS WHAT I SEE ISN'T IT?
I sit down at a computer, log into b3ta, and utter the immortal lines B3TAN IN NEED. The flood of sympathy and concern is almost overwhelming. I am home.
100% Kitten and Gibbon are monitoring the airwaves, and I'm into the final stretch and running strong. Or so I think.

It turns out that I should have gone to King's Cross Thameslink earlier on, and not King's Cross Station, I did not know the distinction then, it will now stay with me for the rest of my life.

There are no guards on these trains at this time of night, so all I have to do is board at King's Cross (Thameslink!) and alight at St. Albans, where I phone the 100%s who pick me up. Simple. Upon waking in Bedford, I believe I uttered a primal scream. It is now 7.15am on Saturday morning and I am roughly 50 miles north of where I want to be. There is, however, a train to St Albans in 7 freezing cold minutes, the game is not up yet. I board the train, will myself to remain awake, and arrive in St Albans. The place is literally crawling with guards, so I have to pay my remaining £9 odd to placate them (narrowly avoiding an £18 fine). At 8.00am I phone 100% of Gibbon, who is surprisingly happy to come and fetch me, and finally, blissfully, I can go to bed.


Saturday 12th April 2003.

We awake at about 2.00pm, and realise that we are not going to London to do any of the nice things we have planned. Instead we mooch around 'till 4pm, and have a pub meal. Never has chilli tasted so good. A tour of the lovely pubs in St Albans ensues, Including the oldest pub in the world.

Random Facts gathered in St. Albans.

1) The average running speed of an adult male domestic pig is 7 miles per hour.

2) The distance between the doorway and the counter in McDonalds in St. Albans, is the longest distance from the doorway to the counter of any McDonalds in the world.

3) The density of Pubs in St. Albans is the highest in the country.

4) A resident of St Albans is called a Verulamian.

5) St. Albans Cathedral is the longest Cathedral in the country.

6) The first significant battle of The War Of The Roses was fought in St Albans.

We wandered through the Cathedral Precinct debating paedophillia, surrounded by young families. We laughed and joked about pirates, saying things like "Yarrr" and "Mehearties" within earshot of a man with an eyepatch. It is a lovely day, spent in the company of wonderful people, I am happy again.

In the evening, we drank a cocktail of spirits, were invaded by random people (one of whom sat upon and nearly vomited on Supermoore) and slept the sleep of the very drunk.


Sunday 13th April 2003

What was left of the morning was spent pottering around, talking, smoking etc. Supermoore and I were secure in the knowledge that we had a lift to London, since we had drunk the rest of the money the previous evening. Sorted. Yeah right.

The lift we were to get was with one of Gibbon's footballing friends, and he had unnecessarily filled his car up with girls and mates, to which there was no room left for random smelly strangers. The cheek! So we were left with no alternative but to fall upon the kindness of b3tans again. Amid hoots of derision (random quote "Hahaha, you twats!", cheers Martian), we asked for help on the board. Time for plan C. Hitch-hike to London.

We were picked up approximately 3 minutes after we'd started, by a lovely old gent in a red VW Golf. He wasn't the least intimidated by the two of us, chatted amiably all the way to Enfield where he lived, and dropped us (a mile out of his way) where we were most likely to get a lift to Mile End. What a hero.

We were now over half way through our journey, and it was still only 1.00pm. Passing a guy rolling a cigarette, we stopped and asked if we could have one. He was pleased to help, and told us that we could get on a train at the nearby station, travel two stops and get off without paying. This would leave us within spitting distance of our goal. We thanked him profusely and set off again, our faith in human nature fully restored.

On the way to the station, we decided to try to post to the board from PC World, but they weren't connected to the internet. Undeterred, we carried on to the station, where I was shot.
No, seriously. Just as I was crossing the threshold, I heard a twang and a sharp pain in my left buttock. Someone had shot me with a catapault from a white pickup truck. At the time, I was unimpressed with this feat, however on reflection it was an extremely challenging, and accurate shot from a moving vehicle.
The station turned out to be closed anyway, so we began the weary trudge back to our drop-off point, pausing to buy a pint of frozen milk to sustain us.

Half an hour trying to hitch on the A10 in Enfield taught us several things:

a) All Londoners are comedians of the highest order i.e. putting their thumbs up at us as they sped by, slowing down as if to pick us up and then speeding off etc. etc.

b) All cockerneys are bastards. I apologise to any cockerneys reading this, but you must admit that it's true.

c) Sunday is D.I.Y day. We only realised this after perplexedly watching numerous two seater sports cars zooming by with doors and immense flat-packed furniture poking out, and more numerous cars seemingly infested with undergrowth.

d) There was a huge MFI not 200 yards from where we were standing.

Deciding not to hitch was an easy decision, but what to do now? We'd considered phoning Sam and asking him to rescue us, but this was the very last option, we were now up to plan M, or something.

Plan M consisted of wandering around Enfield and Edmonton, visiting various decidedly closed and locked train stations. At 5.30pm, exhausted and nearly beaten, we collapsed at Edmonton Green. Immediately a loony comes and sits far too close to us and starts rhythmically clapping, very loudly. My nerves were so tattered at this point, I nearly swore out loud, but managed to retain my composure. We decided to go over to the bus terminus, and see if we could scrounge up a cigarette.

The loony duly followed us, although his moment of insanity seemed to have passed. He asked us for a spare fifty pee, at which request we laughed. He went away. Upon asking another loverly cockerney for a cigarette, Supermoore was rudely given the brush off. My time had come for action. Spotting an idle bus complete with driver, I sauntered over and explained our predicament, embellishing a few minor details. He said he would take us free of charge to Liverpool Street, but he knew nothing of it if an inspector came on. No decision.

Our heavenly bus ride was only slightly marred by one of the ugliest children I have ever seen yelling at the top of her voice and winding her equally ugly and loud baby sibling up. Thankfully they alighted before I was forced to put the entire family out of it's misery (I was the tiniest bit weary at this point). Finally we arrived in Liverpool Street Station. I could nearly smell Mile End, and it was the nicest scent I'd ever smelled.

Looking at the sheer number of guards in Liverpool Street Tube Station, we decided that we had reached the end of our run of luck. We would phone Sam and he would rescue us from there. It was infuriating, we had come so far, and were now two tantalising stops from Mile End.
Supermoore went into Burger King to change our last few coppers into a 20 pence piece, whilst I accosted a guard who was smoking a cigarette and asked him for one. He seemed unimpressed as he handed it over, so to placate him I told him of my adventure, and of our travels that day. He listened politely, and then said "I'll let you on".
We grinned like loons all through the station, on the train, and up through Mile End Station, the last hurdle was the guard there, but there was no way he was going to stop us now. We waved away any objections he may have had, and walked into the sunshine free men, yelling Woo Yay as loudly as we could.

The car was still there, it had neither been vandalised nor clamped, and Stouffer was waiting as arranged. We were home and dry.


Epilogue

We telephoned our loved ones from Bob Dino's house (cheers Bob), and went to pick Sam up from The Angel, Islington. He was in a pub opposite the tube station, and written in chalk on the board outside: Live Jazz.

Unfortunately my camera was full, so I haven't got any pictures of these people, but thank you to the guy who picked us up in St. Albans, the guy from whom we sponged a cigarette, the bus driver and G. Giles the Tube Guard. Not to mention, of course, 100% Kitten and 100% of Gibbon. If any of you happen to read this, you are our heroes.
( supermoore: HUNG, Sun 17 Jul 2011, 23:23, 4 replies)

epic
journey. and yes, londoners are cunts until you're introduced by a mutual acquaintance, then they're fine
( elgordo, Mon 18 Jul 2011, 14:44, closed)

Forty quid for KC-Camden return?
Even given London prices, they saw you coming...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 18 Jul 2011, 15:25, closed)

yeah
hate to say it but he could have taken a cab all the way back to St Albans for £40 from Kings Cross.

Still, wouldn't have been half as exciting would it?
(Roopy all is not what it seams, Mon 18 Jul 2011, 15:30, closed)

Long story short:
you are incapable of planning a journey to/from anywhere (and are easily confused by trains/taxis/London).
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 18 Jul 2011, 21:50, closed)