Lord of the Rings and Pizza Love!

So I wrote nothing yesterday, not because my day was devoid of interest (come on, my days are always interesting), but because a) it was Sunday and I decided to avoid anything that remotely seemed like any kind of work and b) I had a lot of TV to catch up on! Only a small proportion of which I managed to watch in the end, having been distracted by an invitation to watch Lord of the Rings in West Finchley.
The reason for this invitation has a bit of a back story which I shall proceed to relate (in bullet points):

• I have a friend called Mab who lived next door me for 8 years of my childhood, until I was 10, when she moved to Toronto, Canada.
• Over the years, as is wont to happen, we communicated less and less.
• After finishing school, Mab went travelling around Europe and, in December, went to stay with an old school friend, Tom, and his family, where she's been ever since.
• The three of us (and another friend, Jack) all found that we got on extremely well and decided to call ourselves Team Secret Society of Us (this isn't actually relevant to this story but I'm sure it will be in the future so thought I'd throw it in).
• Mab re-introduced me to Settlers of Catan, first introduced to me by a couple of Australian friends (and I am just going to name drop and say that it's the boys from the band, The Axis of Awesome that I'm referring to here. If you don't know what I'm talking about you should Youtube them because they're really great).
• I was with Mab for her birthday so we decided that she should come to London and stay with me for mine. So, on the Thursday before I turned 20, I picked up Mab from Victoria coach station (an hour late, but lets not dwell on that...) 
• On Friday, we went to the Tate Modern (with Settlers of Catan), where we met my friend, Josh (who I know through my waiting agency). We immediately sat down in the cafe, ordered two bottles of wine and played Catan for four hours.
• Josh eventually said he had to go meet his friends at a Bavarian drinking tavern in Old Street and, in our hazy, wine-fuelled states, Mab and I decided to go too.
• Once there we had meatball and Bratwurst and beer and then Josh's friends (Damian, Henry and Jay) arrived and we had more beer and then we had more beer and then we had vodka shots with sherbet and then Mab and I drunkenly discussed the fact that we didn't think we could pay for any of this. So, after my card got declined four times, the boys (but particularly Damian) paid for everything and we felt so bad! I felt so bad that I told Damian to write his bank details in my diary, but he wrote down his mobile number instead.

Lots of other stuff happened that weekend but that's all the relevant stuff. The Lord of the Rings invite was from Damian, and Henry, Jay and Josh were also there and it was so much fun! I arrived late so only saw the second half of Fellowship and then only the first half of Two Towers but it didn't matter. We ate popcorn and drank cordial and made inappropriate jokes all the way through. We managed to cover homosexuality, patriarchy, necrophilia and paedophilia, but we're saving incest 'til next time... 

My next stop was a new material night at the Hen and Chickens in Islington, which I took a ridiculously circular route to, and on the tube I saw two people eating a pizza and began to have major cravings! These cravings lasted throughout the show and were only satisfied when Lucy (who was also there) dropped me off at a pizza takeaway an hour later. I can honestly say that was one of the best pizzas I've ever had in my life. But I'm getting ahead of myself... before that there was the comedy show, which was hilarious! Naz Osmanoglu was compering and Nish Kumar, Allnutt and Simpson and Wittank (Naz's sketch group) were the acts. Apparently Mark from Wittank did Naz's set at the beginning and it was really funny but, due to my unintentional detour, I missed it, which was a little disappointing, but everything else was so good that I didn't mind too much. Nish's set was beautifully told and perfectly well timed; Allnutt and Simpson's sketches were wonderful (particularly one about being big headed) and Wittank were full of energy and sparkle as usual. 

So, back to the pizza! I ate it on the Hammersmith and City Line train and threw the empty box away at Baker Street. As I walked onto the northbound Bakerloo line platform I saw (and heard) three young people sitting on a bench singing Three Little Birds (Don't Worry About a Thing) a capella. It was so beautiful, and quite emotional. And then a random man sat next to me and asked if I'd enjoyed my pizza. Terror flickered across my face for a moment before I realised he must have been on the same train as me earlier and I politely told him that it had been delicious and then stared stonily ahead of me until the train arrived.

Back at home I had a Skype conversation with my friend, Lucy W (not housemate Lucy), watched Take Me Out, Take Me Out: The Gossip and the third episode of Sorority Girls. They were all excellent and I would have watched way more had I not been very tired and painfully aware that I needed to be up before 9.30am the next day. The next day in question (which is of course today) actually turned out to be rather fun, and a little bit surreal, but I shall talk about that tomorrow, after breakfast...