Last September I nearly went to Avalon in Darlington, but on the way there I just felt too damn old, so I ran away. The story of that night can be found here
Unfortunately last night I managed to finally get in there. As you know, I've moved to Darlington now, so it's a lot easier to go to places that are in the town. Possibly where Avalon is concerned, this is not a good thing.
I went to Rob's house first, about 9 pm. I walked there from my flat, which was novel. I went for pre-drinks, and I actually took some alcohol. Gin and tonic and alcoholic ginger beer. I nearly bought some coloured drinks from the corner shop with names like Wkd and Sourz, but in the end that was a step too far.
I liked it at Rob's. It's like my flat but bigger, and with more comfortable chairs, and with a big telly, and stairs and well, the list goes on. He's very good at making people feel at home, so I did, even though compared to all the younglings who were there, I felt like an Alzheimer's patient who'd gone out for a walk and wandered into a young person's house by mistake.
It wasn't my place to say it, but I did anyway. 'That Glastonbury coverage is a bit loud, it's doin' me 'ead in!' or words to that effect. There was somebody on called Rizzle Razzle or something, who I thought was Dizzee Rascal, but it wasn't, but then Dizzee Rascal turned up anyway, although I couldn't tell the difference. And the two presenters were two of those annoyingly smug young people, who seemed to be just sitting around talking absolute crap about how great Glastonbury is, and I just wished they'd go away, especially the woman in the yellow raincoat. What was she even doing in a raincoat? She was in the studio. None of this was making me want to get a telly.
Eventually, well after my normal bed time, we got a series of taxis into town, for some reason these days if you order a 12 seater, you get 3 4 seaters. I know it still adds up to 12, but it would have been nice to go together.
Then when I got out of the taxi, Fuck me if I hadn't just been emptied out onto the set of 28 Days Later. There were bodies everywhere! I don't even like horror films! There was some bloke who had just decided to go to sleep on the floor. The incredibly young people I was with, starting yelling 'Snapchat' and getting their camera phones out to get a picture of this sleepy guy, and understandably this just seemed to enrage the guy's girlfriend who then proceeded to challenge us all to a fight simultaneously.
I usually go through that part of town at 7 in the morning on my bike, if I'm lucky there's a guy power washing the street, but 11 pm on a Friday night, it's unreal. I knew I should have just run off then, but 'Oh, !' no, just come for one! the young people said. I had to pay to get into Avalon, which I didn't mind because it was only a quid, but as soon as I got inside, I wanted my money back.
I queued up for my one drink for a while and had to shout really loud to get it. Well, I said I'd stay for one, so I thought I'd neck it as quick as possible and then revert to Plan A and run away. There were people falling over everywhere, the floor was a sticky slick of split drinks, and I felt like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, except without the option of just diving out of the way.
I am often left puzzled by what the point of things is, and Avalon was no different. Someone told me people go there to meet the opposite sex, and if that's the case there couldn't possibly be a more inefficient way of doing it. For a start everyone is drunk, the lighting is quite poor, and it's impossible to communicate with anyone except in sign language. I don't even know sign language.
The worst bit was, not only was I with people I know that I couldn't speak to, I kept meeting more and more people I know who I couldn't speak to either. It was a lot like being a work, but after having had my hearing removed. I saw Rochelle, and Michelle, and Jonny Tingate, and I also think I saw the new guy from my team, who starts on Monday, but even if I'd managed to flag him down, what the hell was I going to say to him? Rob was smiling all the time, and he really seemed to be enjoying himself. Whether he was enjoying himself more, because I looked so out of place, I don't know, but pretty much the only thing I heard all night was when he leaned over and said to me 'I bet you wish you were back at mine listening to Dizzee Rascal now!'. Too right I did.
I felt old, I mean really old in there, and then I saw this old guy stagger past. He looked like he'd just fallen out of a spaceship and landed in there and he couldn't wait to get out. I nearly went with him!
That wasn't even the craziest part. There was this girl in there, who was so far off her face I think her face was in a different time zone. She was trying to get us all to dance to something, it might have been Bon Jovi, I can't remember, and then she disappeared. A few minutes later I went to the toilet and as I was stood at the urinal I thought 'These walls are bloody thin, I can hear a girl singing through the wall from the women's toilets next door'. Except then the cubicle door behind me opened and she was actually in the mens' toilets with some bloke. I don't think they were getting up to much though, not with all the singing that was going on.
And the other crazy part was that all of the songs that were being played at deafening volume weren't even recent. And this was where the whole thing became a recurring nightmare within a dream. All the songs that were on, Blink 182, the Offspring, Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag etc were all the songs my step daughter used to play too loud in her bedroom 10 years ago. Except this time there was even less chance of me getting the volume turned down.
Anyway, I drank my one drink that I promised I'd have and then (by this time is waa a quarter to 12, wow!) I ran off. Which is maybe what I should have done, as soon as I fell out of the taxi.
I didn't go to bed as soon as I got in. For one thing I had developed a severe case of tinnitis. Then things got even worse. I don't generally drink, I mean, at all! And because I'd drunk my last drink so fast, even though I was now home, and not drinking, I was now getting more and more drunk. I tried drinking coffee and milk and eventually I went to bed, but it wasn't till about 3 am that I started to get less drunk instead of more. Except, then after I stopped getting drunker, I started getting more hungover. And boy oh boy, being humgover! There's a feeling I haven't missed since the last time it happened, which was probably about 5 years ago.
I got up at 7 am, and drank about another 9 coffees, and went for a walk, and drank some chocolate milk, and went out for breakfast, and eventually about 2 pm, I started to feel less hungover, and almost normal again.
So now, almost 10 months after I almost went in there the first time, I have been to Avalon. Although I would be very surprised if I end up in there again anytime soon!
Unfortunately last night I managed to finally get in there. As you know, I've moved to Darlington now, so it's a lot easier to go to places that are in the town. Possibly where Avalon is concerned, this is not a good thing.
I went to Rob's house first, about 9 pm. I walked there from my flat, which was novel. I went for pre-drinks, and I actually took some alcohol. Gin and tonic and alcoholic ginger beer. I nearly bought some coloured drinks from the corner shop with names like Wkd and Sourz, but in the end that was a step too far.
I liked it at Rob's. It's like my flat but bigger, and with more comfortable chairs, and with a big telly, and stairs and well, the list goes on. He's very good at making people feel at home, so I did, even though compared to all the younglings who were there, I felt like an Alzheimer's patient who'd gone out for a walk and wandered into a young person's house by mistake.
It wasn't my place to say it, but I did anyway. 'That Glastonbury coverage is a bit loud, it's doin' me 'ead in!' or words to that effect. There was somebody on called Rizzle Razzle or something, who I thought was Dizzee Rascal, but it wasn't, but then Dizzee Rascal turned up anyway, although I couldn't tell the difference. And the two presenters were two of those annoyingly smug young people, who seemed to be just sitting around talking absolute crap about how great Glastonbury is, and I just wished they'd go away, especially the woman in the yellow raincoat. What was she even doing in a raincoat? She was in the studio. None of this was making me want to get a telly.
Eventually, well after my normal bed time, we got a series of taxis into town, for some reason these days if you order a 12 seater, you get 3 4 seaters. I know it still adds up to 12, but it would have been nice to go together.
Then when I got out of the taxi, Fuck me if I hadn't just been emptied out onto the set of 28 Days Later. There were bodies everywhere! I don't even like horror films! There was some bloke who had just decided to go to sleep on the floor. The incredibly young people I was with, starting yelling 'Snapchat' and getting their camera phones out to get a picture of this sleepy guy, and understandably this just seemed to enrage the guy's girlfriend who then proceeded to challenge us all to a fight simultaneously.
I usually go through that part of town at 7 in the morning on my bike, if I'm lucky there's a guy power washing the street, but 11 pm on a Friday night, it's unreal. I knew I should have just run off then, but 'Oh, !' no, just come for one! the young people said. I had to pay to get into Avalon, which I didn't mind because it was only a quid, but as soon as I got inside, I wanted my money back.
I queued up for my one drink for a while and had to shout really loud to get it. Well, I said I'd stay for one, so I thought I'd neck it as quick as possible and then revert to Plan A and run away. There were people falling over everywhere, the floor was a sticky slick of split drinks, and I felt like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, except without the option of just diving out of the way.
I am often left puzzled by what the point of things is, and Avalon was no different. Someone told me people go there to meet the opposite sex, and if that's the case there couldn't possibly be a more inefficient way of doing it. For a start everyone is drunk, the lighting is quite poor, and it's impossible to communicate with anyone except in sign language. I don't even know sign language.
The worst bit was, not only was I with people I know that I couldn't speak to, I kept meeting more and more people I know who I couldn't speak to either. It was a lot like being a work, but after having had my hearing removed. I saw Rochelle, and Michelle, and Jonny Tingate, and I also think I saw the new guy from my team, who starts on Monday, but even if I'd managed to flag him down, what the hell was I going to say to him? Rob was smiling all the time, and he really seemed to be enjoying himself. Whether he was enjoying himself more, because I looked so out of place, I don't know, but pretty much the only thing I heard all night was when he leaned over and said to me 'I bet you wish you were back at mine listening to Dizzee Rascal now!'. Too right I did.
I felt old, I mean really old in there, and then I saw this old guy stagger past. He looked like he'd just fallen out of a spaceship and landed in there and he couldn't wait to get out. I nearly went with him!
That wasn't even the craziest part. There was this girl in there, who was so far off her face I think her face was in a different time zone. She was trying to get us all to dance to something, it might have been Bon Jovi, I can't remember, and then she disappeared. A few minutes later I went to the toilet and as I was stood at the urinal I thought 'These walls are bloody thin, I can hear a girl singing through the wall from the women's toilets next door'. Except then the cubicle door behind me opened and she was actually in the mens' toilets with some bloke. I don't think they were getting up to much though, not with all the singing that was going on.
And the other crazy part was that all of the songs that were being played at deafening volume weren't even recent. And this was where the whole thing became a recurring nightmare within a dream. All the songs that were on, Blink 182, the Offspring, Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag etc were all the songs my step daughter used to play too loud in her bedroom 10 years ago. Except this time there was even less chance of me getting the volume turned down.
Anyway, I drank my one drink that I promised I'd have and then (by this time is waa a quarter to 12, wow!) I ran off. Which is maybe what I should have done, as soon as I fell out of the taxi.
I didn't go to bed as soon as I got in. For one thing I had developed a severe case of tinnitis. Then things got even worse. I don't generally drink, I mean, at all! And because I'd drunk my last drink so fast, even though I was now home, and not drinking, I was now getting more and more drunk. I tried drinking coffee and milk and eventually I went to bed, but it wasn't till about 3 am that I started to get less drunk instead of more. Except, then after I stopped getting drunker, I started getting more hungover. And boy oh boy, being humgover! There's a feeling I haven't missed since the last time it happened, which was probably about 5 years ago.
I got up at 7 am, and drank about another 9 coffees, and went for a walk, and drank some chocolate milk, and went out for breakfast, and eventually about 2 pm, I started to feel less hungover, and almost normal again.
So now, almost 10 months after I almost went in there the first time, I have been to Avalon. Although I would be very surprised if I end up in there again anytime soon!
