Hoxton Square and Shoreditch

On Saturday night I went out in Hoxton Square and Shoreditch. This was the first time that I had been out in East London; my preference is usually Central or West London. The East End has a reputation as being very trendy, with house and funky music. Whilst I do like the idea of trendy people I hate house music. I only like cheesy music on a night out which is the reason for why I often go to Fez Club and Tiger Tiger to party.

The cause for celebration on Saturday night was due to Canadian Steak finishing his midterms. Canadian Steak is one of my best friends and I met him during my second year at Sheffield University. We both studied Law and in fact Steak helped me a lot for my Commercial exams. He is one of the funniest, most outrageous characters that I know. The first thing that to note about Steak is that he is of Persian descent. He has an obvious Canadian accent and likes to refer to his friends as "bro". He is twenty-eight years old and therefore more experienced in life than myself. There is a running joke that he is like Ryan Reynolds from "Van Wilder" (2002) in that he is still studying and partying at a somewhat advanced age. He pretty much now qualifies as a mature student. I believe that he is now on his fourth degree; Business degree in Canada, Law LLB at Sheffield, Masters LLM at Kings College London and now currently on the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in Moorgate. For as long as I have known him, Steak consistently gets chicks. He will pretty much say anything to a girl irregardless of their reaction. If they react negatively to his banter then he simply dismisses them as having "no personality". This cavalier approach always gets him a result. Steak is one of those guys (and everybody knows at least one) who will fuck almost any girl. That is not to say that I have not seen him pull good-looking girls. However, I have seen him get with some absolute pigs in the past. More often than not he will do this just so that he can tell everyone a hilarious story.

Steak finished his final exam on Friday and went out to Whisky Mist with his course mates in Park Lane. I was invited, although a prior work committment prevented me from going. I informed Steak of my predicament on Friday night and we agreed that we would go out on the Saturday night to make up for it. After training on Saturday morning I went to visit my good friend Hon, at her new flat in Vauxhall. Along with Pri, Hon is my closest girl friend at work. I first met Hon in December 2008, when she had just joined the company, at a Christmas sales conference. Although I was not aware of it at the time I made a particularly bad first impression: I had unsurprisingly come across as cocky and obnoxious (no surprise there) and it led to her telling her family the next day that she had met some Chinese guy who was an absolute wanker.

However, a couple of weeks later when I moved into my flat in Chiswick I discovered on the first day that Hon lived on the floor above me. I recognised her as I held the door open for her (and I was certain that she recognised me), although I did not speak to her for fear that it was not her and that I would come across as a desperate loser trying to chat her up. We started chatting and hanging out a few weeks later and became incredibly close. I trust Hon as much as anyone else and was deeply saddened when her tenancy ended and she moved out in the middle of December last year. On Saturday Hon invited me round to check out her new house in Vauxhall and with Aces in Leeds visiting his girlfriend I decided to make the trip. Before I left for Hon's I gave Steak a missed call and sent him a message to touch base on plans for the evening. I wore a tight fitted grey polo shirt (Farah), black slim jeans (Topman) and white Converse trainers.

It was not until a few hours later that I received a call from Steak saying that he was planning to go out in Hoxton. I was initially disappointed: not only is Hoxton not my kind of place to go out, but it would also cost me a fortune to get back from by myself in a black cab at the end of the night. At that point I was having a really nice time catching up with Hon; we walked her pet rabbit and had gone to her local pub for some food (we both had Chicken Pesto burgers) and when Steak informed me that we were going out in Hoxton I was half tempted to sack the night off and continue hanging out with Hon. Eventually I made up my mind to hit the town with Steak, for the experience more than anything else.

Steak lives in a plush single bedroom flat in the heart of St Paul's. From his room, you can literally hear the chiming of the bells from the cathedral. Normally it is not too much of an issue to get to his crib - 10 minute walk to Turnham Green Tube Station, take the district line to Hammersmith, change trains and ride the Piccadilly Line to Holborn, change trains for the final time and ride the Central Line for two stops to St. Paul's. His flat is a three-minute walk from the station. However, on Saturday they closed Turnham Green station and the replacement bus service was far from frequent. To my frustration I had to get a black cab to Knightsbridge, which cost me £15.60 to catch the Piccadilly Line.

When I reached Steak's place he showed me the reason for why we were going out in East London instead of Central. He displayed a bill for £1477.75 from the previous night at Whisky Mist. In case I forgot to mention earlier, another one of Steak's qualities is that he knows how to party. He parties the North American way, i.e. VIP and bottles of spirits. The bill included the following drinks to my recollection: bottle of Belvedere (£185), Jack Daniels (£150), magnum of Grey Goose (£380), bottle of Dom Perignon champagne (£260) along with other small drinks. This was all topped of by a £192 service charge. If I got a bill this large after a night out I know that I would be borderline suicidal. Steak wanted to ensure that the Saturday night would be relatively cheap. Going out in Central would offer too many temptations for both of us, namely expensive strip clubs.

We took the tube to Old Street and met his course mate, Birdman at a pub outside the station. After couple of bottles of Corona there we made our way to Hoxton Square. We went into a bar called Zigfrid and Underbelly. The first thing that I noticed when I got in there was that I was not dressed for the occasion. The bar was colourful and trendy, although from the music blaring out of the stereos it was clearly indie. I wore a pink shirt, multi-coloured stripe tie, charcoal waistcoat (all from asos), black slim jeans (Topman), white studded belt (Guess) and white pointy shoes (Zara). Although I thought that I looked sharp I would concede that I probably looked like a cunt to everyone else in there. I have a new rule based on this night: any club which has more than one girl with a pink wig is just not going to be my kind of venue. We left there after one drink and made our way to another bar called Legion. Once again the music in here was shit. No one was dancing, preferring to stand around looking miserable. At one point Birdman pointed out that it might have been a gay bar. However, a quick check with the cute barmaid allayed our fears.

Birdman went after a couple of drinks at Legion, leaving Steak and I to our own devices. I would have been quite content to go back to Steak's at this point. It was about 1am and up to that point the night had been mediocre and relatively expensive. However, Steak had other ideas and led me to Club Aquarium on Old Street itself. Entry into Club Aquarium was £12 each and we were informed on the door that it was 70s music night. I am not a fan of 70s music, although at least one can dance to it. The inside of the club itself reminded me of Fusion and Foundry at Sheffield Student Union. It very much had that feel about it. There were a lot of women and hardly any men which was a positive, albeit most of the women were over the age of thirty-five. There was generally a fun atmosphere, although the club's unique selling point is that there is a swimming pool located next to the main room. I peered in to see that there were a few bikini-clad girls frolicking in the pool which made me regret not bringing a pair of swimming shorts to join in the debauchery.

I got dancing with one girl on the main stage, called Becky. She was quite tall, brunette and had a angular face with pretty features. She approached me to dance and I started to think that I was in there after ten or so minutes of grinding up against each other. She was slim but had a great peach of an arse. However, after this time she told me that she had to leave as there was a taxi waiting outside to take her to a different club. She thanked me for the dance, gave me a peck on the cheek and made her exit. From that point onwards people started leaving in dribs and drabs so that by 3am there were no hot chicks left, with the exception of the stunning twenty year old barmaid who told me that she was half English, half Moroccan. Steak and I left soon after even though the club was open until 9am. The night did improve once we got into Club Aquarium, although I cannot say that I would go back to the East End to party again. At least I can say that I have been out there and can tick it off the list of things to do in London.