Eyes Down Ears Up and don't forget to Touch The Frog

A very lovely weekend – which included an all day family get-together at my parents' house, a friend's engagement party, a good work-out at the gym and some sewing – was sandwiched between two excellent nights out. It all started on Thursday night...




EYES DOWN EARS UP

This year, for her birthday, my sister had asked for "things to do" as opposed to "things to have" so I got her (and myself of course) a ticket to Musical Bingo at Drink, Shop & Do! It's quite probably one of the best nights out to be had in London. The last (and first) time we went was for my birthday last year - I wrote a post about it here.

Not much has changed in terms of set-up - you still get four themed rounds of glorious bingo, the chance to win some truely ace/horrendous prizes, a lovely list of seriously tasty cocktails including the signature tipple, bingotini (although they're nowhere near as strong as they used to be - which, it being a thursday night, I was grateful for), excellent tunes and your fabulous host for the evening, Jess Indeedy. Although we were blessed with beginners luck on our last visit, we weren't so fortunate this time. However, as DS&D have moved Musical Bingo to their downstairs bar area, Katie and I managed to get two seats at the bar, right in the middle of the action, and had enough space to have a good old dance (which we didn't last time). So, I didn't get to win to an awesome dinosaur poster but I did get to dance like a looney on a thursday night (my memory is hazy but I have a sneaking suspicion that there might be photographic evidence of this thanks to Jess's photographer...). As ever, if DS&D in Kings Cross is a bit of a faff to get to, you can catch Jess Indeedy and Musical Bingo at various other locations in London.

TOUCH THE FROG

On sunday night I met Mitch in Hammersmith and after a pizza at Pinch, we headed off to the Apollo to see comedian Adam Hills. Last summer when the paralympics were on, Mitch and I were ardent followers of the show The Last Leg, hosted by, largely un-known to us, Australian comedian, Adam Hills. Thanks to the frankly hilarious conversations of Adam and his regular sofa occupiers/co-hosts Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe, the people at Channel 4 granted them their own show of the same name after the conclusion of the paralympics. We even got to be in the live audience of one of the recordings of the show earlier this year. Mitch booked tickets to see Adam perform live soon after the recording and we had to wait about 9 months before the day finally came! It was definitely worth the wait!

alex brooker, adam hills, josh widdicombe

 image source

The performance on sunday night was actually being recorded for Adam's DVD - Happyism and thanks to a mix-up about the start times printed on the ticket we (those who arrived early) got a bonus performance from Josh Widdicombe! It was such a great night, I basically laughed my ass for two and a half hours. Adam Hills is an excellent story-teller, that's basically what he does, tells stories, really funny stories. Also, on all (or at least most of his tours) he has on stage with him a sign language interpreter who repeats everything, and I mean everything, for the deaf members of the audience. It sounds rude but this was pretty funny in itself as a lot of the signs for words such as 'wanker', 'balls' and 'cockfosters' (as in the end of the piccadilly line) were surprisingly easy to recognise! Live comedy is bloody great, I just wish I got around to seeing it more often! Oh, and incase you were wondering 'touch the frog' was in reference to Adam meeting Kermit the Frog and doing a show with The Muppets - cool no?