"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

So! London happened! On Friday Kyle went down (or up, I guess?) for the London tattoo convention, and on Saturday I headed in, having apologised profusely to Yuki for leaving her (she has abandonment issues). We went into Camden for a good old poke around the market, and I was reminded that I hate Cyberdog and everything associated with it. For those who don't know, Cyberdog is a clothing brand, and their Camden shop is basically a rave where you can buy glow-in-the-dark everything and I hate it. It's hot, they play fucking awful rave music, and I hate it. Kyle loves it, so we always visit when we go to Camden, but it's my least favourite part of visiting.

Anyway! We didn't spend long there in any case, and there's so much else to look at in Camden that I don't really mind visiting too much. And actually, our main mission was to find somewhere to eat before the Scandal gig, so once Kyle had bought a glow-in-the-dark t-shirt, we headed off to scout the local restaurants. We ended up at a grill called Q, having been lured in by the promise of sweet tea and whiskey cocktails.

Cheers!

The food was amazing - the kind of soul food you know is contributing to your eventual heart problems, but is just too good to say no to anyway. I had fried chicken with cornbread waffles and maple butter, and Kyle went for buttermilk chicken with sweet potatoes, and oh my god, I wish I was eating it all again right now.

Heroic amounts of carbs were consumed.

Adequately fuelled for the gig, we headed to Islington, planning to find a pub near the venue and kill some time before the doors opened at 7pm. We got to Islington about 5pm, walked past the O2 Academy and saw the queue was already stretching around the block, so figured we'd better join in. As it turns out, because Kyle has an O2 phone for work, we were allowed to jump the queue a bit, so that's worth knowing if you're going there for a concert, I guess!

I had no idea what to expect from the concert crowd. Scandal are a Japanese band (I hesitate to say girl band, because they're all in their late twenties), and I guess I'd made some assumptions about what sort of fans they might have. Some of those assumptions were correct (there were a lot of single men there, just standing at the back of the hall, staring at the stage, not dancing or interacting with anyone), but by and large, there was a really good vibe.

This was somewhat marred by the merchandise vendor who tried to sell me wrist bands I didn't want, and who then asked Kyle why he was letting a woman make financial decisions in a "haha, but I'm not really joking" kind of way. I didn't quite make a scene, but we both made it clear we weren't amused and I really hope he didn't subject every woman he tried to force wrist bands on to the same treatment.

Inside the venue, we were pounced on by a random girl who ran up to us and yelled, "you live in Milton, don't you?" then proclaimed she recognised Kyle's beard and my hair, and that she had seen us walking to Tescos, which...was weird? But she was nice, and it turns out we did vaguely know her boyfriend, so I managed to master my anxiety over strangers running up to me and acting like we're friends.

The gig itself was great - I didn't really know the music, but it was easy to get into and the band were really fun.

 

Afterwards, with our new friends in tow, we headed back to Cambridge prepared to be soundly told off by Yuki for going out without her.

She couldn't decide whether she was sad about being alone or delighted we were home, and settled for just spying on us for the rest of the night and all day Sunday to make sure we didn't do it again.

My plan for Sunday was really to just chill out and finish writing Thrown to the Wolves, and hopefully submit it. Instead I just chilled out and lazed around on the sofa all day with a terrible head cold. I'm slightly annoyed with myself for not getting on with it, but to be honest, I think I probably made the right choice, as I don't think I would have been producing my best work in any case. This does mean I'm now unlikely to get Blood Canticles 3 started this month, but since the only person I have to answer to as far as deadlines go is me, I've decided to be lenient with myself. Maybe I haven't been as productive as I was last year writing-wise, but I haven't exactly slacked off either, and I probably need to remind myself that two novels and two novellas, with another one nearly in the bag and two re-published works under my belt for the year is nothing to be sniffed at. And in my defence, I was still pretty full of fried chicken and cornbread waffles.

So the plan for this week is now the same as it was last week - finish and submit Thrown to the Wolves. Since I have almost finished writing it, this is a pretty doable goal. I say that confidently, like I haven't been saying it for two weeks now...but this time I mean it! Watch this space.