Saturday Night's Alright For... Getting Hideously Drunk Apparently.

When did I start drinking doubles?
I always used to have a rule. "Don't drink doubles, Axl. You get too drunk."
This year however I seem to have taken that rule, slapped it about and thrown it under a train.
Certainly when it comes to happy hour at Purple Turtle anyway.
Oooof.
So Saturday was interesting anyway.
After sinking some doubles at PT with some work peeps, a few of us went to Three Goats Heads where I drank cider and met up with some other peeps too and went with those peeps, but not the first peeps, to the Vacuous Pop birthday gig at the Cellar. Peeps.
Now, some of you know that Axl + Cellar = "Strawberry Brothers" consumption. Goddamn, I love that stuff. A bit too much. Yes, lots of it was drunk.
I don't really remember a lot about the bands that played but here's what I remember thinking about them:
Part Dinosaur: Alright.
Ice, Sea, Dead People: Before they played I hated them purely because of their name. After they played I thought they were ACE purely because of their music. Really enjoyed them. Me & James had dancing times in one of the alcoves at the Cellar and some people a lot younger than us came over and joined in. We were like the owners of Studio 54 or something.
Capillary Action: Pretty good. As my chum Mya pointed out, they sounded a lot like Youthmovies.
Friendship: Made me go "YEEEEAAAAAAAAH!!" with their sounds. Loved it.

So that was the bands. What about the rest? Well, there me & James were sitting in the same alcove we pretty much always do, when these 2 girls came over and ask if they could sit with us. After about half a second of consideration, we said yes. We were doing the polite introductory chat thing. They went for a drink or to "powder their noses" or whatever, and James said that one of them blatantly fancied me. I said "Oh whatever", but was kinda secretly a bit chuffed. Anyway, the one that he was referring to (I can't remember her name, sorry), came back with another friend and we were all talking, and James did his very unsubtle thing of just walking off when they weren't looking, leaving me on my own with them. So I carried on talking, and they carried on talking back, and things seemed to be going quite well. They went off to do whatever they went off to do. A bit later, we saw her again with a third friend. She introduced this friend to me and James by saying:
"This is James. He's really cool. And this is Axl. He's weird. I did think he was cool, but he's actually just a bit weird really."
So it seems that I don't need a lent vow to be un-sexy.
What's a man to do when he hears that? Drink more. I stole Mya's badge from her, put it on my coat and declared myself her "Number one fan", which I then shouted a lot to the tune of "Ready For the Floor" by Hot Chip. I got far too excited when "My Girls" by Animal Collective came on and grabbed everyone within grabbable distance either side of me on the bench I was on and did a bench dance with them while belting out the lyrics at the top of my voice. I talked general arse about nothing and then kissed everyone on both cheeks when I left, which would've been fine but apparently some people reeeeeeally didn't want that to happen. Oooopsie.
What does Axl do when he's drunk and embarrassed? Drinks more and then embarrasses himself more. And then leaves.

And then gets a kebab. Urgh. I'm about two kebabs away from getting "DO NOT EAT A KEBAB, AXL!!" tattooed on the back of my left hand. I almost didn't have one. I was 50p short, but the guy next to me gave me 50p, which was pretty sweet. Then we got chatting, you know the whole "What have you been up to tonight then?" kind of thing. Turns out he was down for the Oxford Folk Festival, which was on this weekend, for a gig with his band, Lau. Now, I'm almost certain that none of you will know who Lau are, but if you have any interest in folk then you should check out their live album "Lau Live" because it is ACE. And I told him this. He was off to the Half Moon, which was on my way home so we carried on chatting as we walked down there. We got to the Half Moon and he said "You've really cheered me up. Come on, I'll buy you a drink."
So at 2:30 in the morning we walked into the Half Moon and drank with some mates of his (who, for any folkies out there, were members of Kate Rusby's backing band). Anyway, after pleasantries were exchanged I became apparent of two things. 1: I had run out of things to say and was a spare wheel in the inner folk circle conversations that were going on around me, and 2: I was incredibly drunk, and was swaying and couldn't stand up straight. But how to leave without seeming very rude? I resorted to the "Pretend you're getting a phone call and can't hear the person on the other end so have to leave the room to hear them better" tactic, and it worked. The problem was that as soon as I got out of the pub I could hear ringing in my ear. My drunken fumblings with my phone had managed to make me dial someones number. I hung up as soon as I realised this, and haven't heard anything from them about it so hopefully I didn't wake them (I did send them an apology just in case though).
I have no idea how long the Half Moon was serving for that night, but when I left their night was nowhere near finishing.

All of which lead to an absolutely HIDEOUS hangover, AND I was at work yesterday, which was less than fun. Almost couldn't face meeting peeps for pub quiz fun at Far From The Madding Crowd, but I did and a pint of cider took me 4 hours to drink because I still felt pretty hideous.
We came joint 13th out of 20 teams. We ate awesome curry.

So it was a weekend of fun, with some demoralisation and randomness thrown in.
I'm not sure what the moral of this story is.