Whirl-y-gig, 30th July

Whirl-y-gig, being very much of the Planet Angel style of raving, was therefore, of course, an incredibly fun and friendly night. Borne out of a dancing self-expression event for the Association of Humanistic Pscyhology, they outgrew them and now host an almost monthly clubnight in London and their own festival Whirl-y-fayre. It has a bit of a festival feel to it – like Wonderland – lots of decoration and colours everywhere. They try to keep the music eclectic but dancey. This didn’t work for me quite so well as it meant they chopped and changed styles, so you didn’t know if you would like what was playing one song to the next. And the sound levels in the Camden Centre, I felt, were woefully low. You could easily have a conversation at the back of the dance floor, which is not what I want from my raves.

However, I had a brilliant time. When the music I liked was played, it was great, and I have to say it did veer towards my style of thing as the night wore on. Everyone seemed so up for it and so happy to mingle and chat to people they didn’t know. I lost track of the number of people I befriended. They have interesting bits and pieces around - such as a board to stick messages on (someone wrote something very kind about me!) which makes the night feel a little more interactive and encourages getting to know people. I came away from the night with a huge smile on my face.

They finish each night with a parachute – you know, like when you were at school. This does feel a bit random as you all just sit underneath it and natter to yourselves, but the visuals are really quite cool!

One other small niggle would be that it ends at 4 am which is, of course, far too early. But there are always afterparties…

Club Rub, 21st May

So many fetish events, each offering something slightly different, but mostly to the same fun and friendly naughty crowd.

And so I went to one of the longest-running fetish events last month, Club Rub – also touted as one of the friendliest. It’s certainly one of the smaller ones, held upstairs at The Garage, making it quite intimate and meaning you can chat to people quite easily. (I rather enjoyed being at a kinky party while there were people in the very same building beneath likely having no clue as to what was going on above them.) 

They were celebrating their 19th birthday and it really did feel like a birthday party for the hostess, the lovely Miss Kim – a doyenne on the fetish scene – and her friends. For the special occasion there was an Animal theme, and the end stage, normally reserved as the play area, was decked out with a paddling pool and dog bowls containing doggie treats for the pet play people that had been hired for the occasion.

We also had the wonderful world pole dancing champion doing several pole dancing shows throughout the evening which were truly outstanding. How she can manipulate her body around that pole, sometimes hanging vertically beside it, was jaw-dropping.

So there was perhaps less play going on at Club Rub (and certainly no sex) but it was a lot of FUN. Slightly unusually for events of this ilk, the music was fantastic – slightly mainstream dance tracks that you’d definitely recognize if you like that kind of music and that would probably sound familiar even if not, and people actually did take to the floor to dance. 

Well done Miss Kim - keep it up!

Chick 'n' Sours, Feeling Gloomy, 7th May

Chick n Sours. Oh yes. Oh yes yes yessssssssss.

I’m a fan.

It took me a while to get here, took me a while to try any of Carl Clarke’s food in fact but it was worth the wait. This place is chicken heaven and we loved everything. Except the fries. The fries were way too ordinary. But everything else was fabulous. Stephen and I shared a chicken burger between us (which is a monster of a burger) and a plate of the guest fry chicken – black bean and ginger, spring onion and pickled bamboo shoots, plus the aforementioned boring fries, and the charred hispi, kimchi salad cream and bacon salad. Plus a bit of bone marrow BBQ which was delicious but in some ways superfluous because the chicken was delicious enough on its own.

The ‘salad’ was a well needed bit of crunch and freshness to act as a counterpoint to all the fry going on elsewhere. It also packed a welcome poke!

The chicken was definitely the star of the show and we couldn’t help remarking to each other as we ate how much we were enjoying it. That burger! Firstly, it was a behemoth. One of the biggest burger specimens I’ve seen. And secondly, it was just delicious. Crunchy, spicy, well balanced in terms of meat to topping to bun. A joy.

The plate of fried chicken we equally well received, with the Asian, slightly sweet flavours really complementing the juicy, crunchy chicken. I’m salivating just thinking about it now. I need to get more in my person as soon as possible. 

I then went out to Feeling Gloomy to dance to 'miserable' disco. I seemed to pick a bad night because the place was rather empty but the night itself was fun. Of course, the songs aren't all downbeat and miserable at all - the lyrics might be but the music is still danceable. They played The Smiths and The Cure, a bit of Kate Bush, and that was all good fun. Just a shame it wasn't busier. 

Des was a Bowie fan, 30th January

I don’t know who Des was, and so I cannot vouch for whether or not he really was a Bowie fan. And I cannot say how much Bowie would normally be played, as we went the weekend after Bowie’s demise so there was a LOT of it.

It was an odd night. It took place in The George, which is a pub. Not even a pub converted to a venue the way The Macbeth is. It’s just a pub. But people made do and danced where they could (including, at one point, on the tables – one woman was terrifically hammered). The crowd was mixed – mainly fairly young but with a few of an older generation who maybe group up with Bowie. Again, couldn’t say if this was due to his death, or due to the fact they’d been drinking in the pub the whole day and just found themselves at an indie night.

The music wasn’t completely my cup of tea – I like indie but I like all the stuff I grew up with and this went a bit further back and a bit deeper, playing quite a bit that I didn’t know. I made the most of it and danced along but wasn't left wondering when I could possibly get down there again.