Redheads not Warheads

Thursday 18 September

Started at 9am in the lobby again, with our last addition, Alex from Hicalorie, joining us and headed down to the studio. Got everyone doing their thing, checked out some artwork on the roof with Pure Evil, before heading back to the hotel to get a little work done and meet a business partner over lunch. Headed up to Camden after that to visit Koko, an iconic music venue with some potential for more work next year. Got shown around the beautiful converted theatre, met one of the directors and bounced some ideas around.

Starting to feel like things were getting a little hectic, I found a nice sunny pub and sat down with a Guinness to get my thoughts, papers and media presentation in order. Well worth it. Headed back to the studio to check on the progress of the artwork and take the team back to the hotel so they could have a little down time.

By 7:30pm the Thai band had arrived along with the Singapore media, so we had a formidable group of about of 25 people for me to host for dinner and drinks! Luckily I had a thick wad of pounds in my pocket and a clear plan, so after sunset we set off on foot from the hotel towards Thai Sqaure Angel in Islington. Hit a slight hitch when the back half of the ambling group followed an errant guest into the tube station, within which there was no hint of mobile phone reception, so I had to troubleshoot and get some help to rescue them from the warren-like underground.

Dinner went well at a big long table and I chatted with the Danish guys (I think a shared disdain for Ikea was the foundation for our bond) and our 'celebrity bloggers' (www.dawnyang.com and www.kennysia.com). Eight hundred quid later we rolled up the road to a nice bar called Living Room where most of our group headed home and were replaced by a couple of Malaysian English blokes with strong affinity to Tiger Beer! With a writer from Vice magazine Denmark, we caught a cab down to Shoreditch and had a pint at a nice and trashy bar called Old Blue Last. Shit stereo quality, bright lights and a friendly vibe, apparently this is the place where all the 'it' bands choose to play to launch their new albums to the London hipsters. To me it was just trashy and bright, but at least they had beer.

Down the street we went into a darker bar called Tea and had what would turn out to be our final drink, and here I was struck by normal-looking people, drinking normal drinks and dancing to normal-sounding dance music. Perhaps my expectations for something mind-blowing were a little too high. The rest of the night was spent wandering the streets with our Danish and English friends, finding one closed bar after another. Yay England.