Monday, 8th May, 2006

Beer And Clothing In Lost Vagueness

london out photos randy dress lostvagueness

I have been working on that title for over a week

One of the (seemingly infinite) problems of running a weblog that you write in almost everyday, is that if you take a little time off — for whatever reason — it's sodding hard to get back into the swing of things. Not because you lose your 'voice', so to speak, but because so many bloody things happen that you haven't a clue just where to start.

I think, the easiest thing for me to do is just dump a whole bunch of pictures here, and hope to God that they gve some kind of impression of what's been going on in World Of Siobhan™ since Monday...

I, as I probably said far too many times over the course of last week the week before last, have been down in That London™ since Thursday, mainly for the "one event to mortgage your cat for"¹ joy of Lost Vagueness, but also because our students had an opening at a gallery and it was deemed 'appropriate' that a few of the staff showed their faces

With a ton of time to myself on Friday (April was at work), and a total lack of organisation resulting in me failing to arrange to meet up with anyone, I went for a long walk up the Thames — from Kingston to Teddington and back again...

Oooh — pretty swans

Oooh — not so pretty dead fish

I suppose it's pretty obvious really — but I had no idea that nettles had flowers.

Just outside Pinewood Studios, this tree caught my eye. It had two trunks, which had grown together half-way up and kinda merged into one tree.

Well, I thought it was rather neat anyway

Kingston Upon Thames took me rather by surprise — I wasn't expecting it to be so pretty. I had 'urban sprawl' in my head when we were on our way in the train, but it turned out to be all quainty-market-towny with an 12th Century bridge and some kind of ancient coronation stone.

In the churchyard, all the trees were blossoming...

...and in car parks, business men were proclaiming their sexuality...

So pretty it was, that I just had to buy sunglasses and drink coffee in Starbucks.

Anyway...

Loads of things happened. Loads and loads and loads and loads. On Saturday, April and I spent most of the time sorting out stuff for the night ahead. She'd already managed to secure a bit of a coup by getting in as an official photographer (I was officially her "bitch assistant"), so we knew it was going to be a night that required a huge effort on our part to make everything just right.

We trawled around where she lives for ages in the rain trying to find feathers and ribbon to make headdresses with — in the end, finding a rather lovely shop that sold us some with a special 'trannie' discount².

I had brought down every single permutation of Big Dress™ that I could fit in the car, figuring that preparation is the key. I'd my huge red dress, the stoopidly big hoop skirt, and the 300-feet-of-fabric petticoat that arrived the other day. And my corset

...

God, this is hard to write about. I'm still buzzing from it all really. I'll try and do an abridged version:

Sid the taxi driver was lovely April had a hard time explaining to the taxi company just why two passengers need a people-carrier to take them across London, but I think Sid understood the minute he saw the pair of us running across the road to his car clutching swathes of fabric.

There was a bit of confusion when we got there — us not understanding that because we had tickets, we didn't have to queue. There were a lot of gawps and stares-of-amazement from the queue as we pushed our way to the front, smiled sweetly and walked straight in.

Inside, there was a VIP pass waiting for April, but not for me.

"But she's my assistant"

"Well, we reckon she deserves one for effort"

Up in the VIP lounge, champagne was quaffed, Important People™ were talked to (One of the organisers want me and April to get together a tranny-can-can group together for the future. Applications to the usual address...)

We sneaked Gillian in (seeing as April had blagged herself an Access All Areas pass), and as herself wandered around the club taking pictures and getting in everyone's way in my hoop skirt, Gillian and I hob-nobbed.

I pulled Joan Rivers's nephew. Apparently he has a show on Paramount. His name is Joss (or Josh maybe) — I can't find him on Google, but if anyone knows who I'm going on about, let me know

(Oh yeah, get me! No more fumblings with minor Q-List celebrities — I now get groped by full-on D-Listers! )

I also got chatting to the editor of Bizarre Magazine — mainly because certain people wanted to know if he was gay or not.

(I don't think he is )

...

To be honest with you, the whole thing is a complete blur for me. I didn't get totally shit-faced — opting for Vodka and Red Bull, seeing as how I didn't want to pass out at 2am like I normally do — but I spent the whole evening:

1. Grinning like a loon at just how amazing the whole thing was
2. Having people standing on the back of my dress
3. Telling people how amazing they looked
4. Being told how amazing I looked
5. Getting narked every five minutes when April got told she looked the most amazing person there, considering it was MY FUCKING DRESS that she was wearing
6. Dancing
7. Causing howls of laughter in the toilets by pulling my usual Trannie At A Urinal™ routine
8. Grumping about the guy who came up to April and said "OMG, you're April Angell!" only to follow it up with "And aren't you Fiona Curran?"
9. Talking to badgers.

(There were badgers there! Full on totally realistic Beatrix-Potter-On-Ice-type badgers!)

Oh look, sorry. I'm really not doing this whole thing justice. Here's a picture of me in the loo...

...

The most amazing thing for me about the whole night, was just how natural — no, not 'natural', how exhilarating the whole thing was. It wasn't just your everyday, run-of-the-mill chance to wear a dress (where you get to stand around in a room and (a) compare how good each other looks, and (b) bitch about them ones that look better than your — it felt, well, right.

True, we were blokes in dresses (huge FUCK OFF DRESSES, admittedly), but we fitted right in to the whole affair.

Nobody said anything bad — in fact, it was the exact opposite. Everyone looked wonderful, and spent most of the night telling everyone else how wonderful they looked.³

Earlier on in the week — while I was still in Leeds — I was talking to a colleague (who doesn't know about Siobhan — he's newish), and he was describing a similar night out he'd had a while back.

"It was amazing — there were caberet girls and transvestites"

And it struck me, that in a way, we were some kind of 'stage decoration' for the night. We added to everyone else's experience (in a good way )

It just felt so right

...

We got back to April's at about 7am, after a crappy taxi driver tried to over-charge us (do not mess with London trannies wearing oversized lamp-shades), where things like the following happened:

(Full set available, in an unmarked envelope, for £50 in used fivers — usual address)

...

Sunday was spent sleeping, drinking, and saying things like "That was the BEST. EPISODE. EVER!", and today was mainly just me wobbling my way up the A23, M23, M25, M40, M42, M6 Toll, M6 A6.

Can I just say one thing about the journey BTW? All the way out of London, and up the various motorways, the weather was like this...

...but with lashing rain and nasty spray. The minute I got 'North', it turned to this...

I tell you — it's grim dahn saff

¹ © April Angell, 2006

² "You boys are lovely. You can have a fiver off"

³ Permit me to come back to this at a later date — when I'm not still in an OMG it was wonderful! frame of mind. I really want to explain just how good it was, but now isn't the right time. Permit me also, to write about the presents that were waiting for me at the Post Office when I got home at a later date too. I now have two Harajuku maids dresses hanging up in my bedroom.

@Tiffany

You should have seen me and April's "trannies bouncing off each other" routine

@NRT

Aye — but with fifteen bloody cycle lanes

@Gillian

That'd be "Check out my website, yeah? Kiss my panties dot cock"