Saturday

I get up feeling, once again, less than clever - it's been a heavy few days booze-wise and I'm not sure whether the pace is going to abate any time soon. We have some breakfast and potter around for a while while K packs her bags and digs out her tent - she and Faye are off to the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth to see the formidable Teutons that are Rammstein, among others. I chose to stay at home, partly because they're not really my cup of tea, but also because I know how easy it is to blow money at these things.

Ironically, in that sense, my plan for today involves heading into town with the express purpose of buying a new computer. I've recently come into a wee bit of money which I've set aside for this - and I've been thinking about buying a small netbook-type laptop for a while. It will be mainly for blogging and other general writings; I find myself increasingly frustrated that I can't get into the mood to write anything sat at my desktop Mac, which is in the kitchen. I'm also in K's way if she's cooking or sewing, so the idea of being able to be shifted around or taken on the train appeals to me. I realise I'm writing this as if I was the first person ever to consider that a laptop might be a great way of writing stuff on the move (and also the first writer to vainly plan to buy one 'to get more writing done on' while more likely sitting in front of the telly gazing blankly at Twitter) - but I've never owned one before, having previously dismisssed their relative lack of processing power and HD space to get nice big desktop machines. My iMac G5 is great, but the old girl's a bit unweildy for quick, mobile blogging.

I get on the tube with K and head towards town, and we say our goodbyes at Finsbury Park station. I get off at Holborn and walk up New Oxford Street towards Tottenham Court Road - the central London Mecca of technology shops. Having forgotten how hideous central can be on a Saturday afternoon I bundle my way through the crowds with gritted teeth and am eventually relieved to find myself safely inside one of the shops, chatting to an eager salesman. It's been a long time since I was 'sold to' - and this guy even brings out the classic "I use this machine myself" line on me - so I enjoy playing up my umms and ahhs in order to squeeze a free case out of him (having decided to go for the Samsung model he'd shown me some minutes before).

I walk out of the shop several pounds lighter (sadly not in weight) and walk down to Fopp, before dawdling generally through Soho towards the other end of Oxford Street. I have a little money left over from my netbook budget so I had planned to get a little present for K; and I fought my way through my least favourite part of Oxford Street to get to John Lewis. I can vaguely picture the bottle of a brand of perfume I know she likes - so I wander through the stinky fragrance section hoping that it will jump out at me at some point. Amazingly it actually does, and I'm relieved to head home with a new toy, a decent present and having survived Saturday shopping in the West End.

At home I get right on setting the computer up and installing the necessary evil of Windows on it, before heading out to meet Mike. Today, Mike and I are the only people either of us know not to have gone to Sonisphere, so we find ourselves in the odd situation of a one-on-one pub session. Luckily we usually have plenty to talk about, so I walk up through Crouch End towards The King's Head - and am startled to find myself ordering a pint of Old Rosie. The King's Head is one of the only pubs nearby that serves this vicious, demanding wench of a cider, so it seems the right thing to do to partake of at least one. Mike arrives shortly after, and feels similarly compelled - perhaps knowing that when someone else is drinking this 7.8% sui-cider and you're not, you're basically a pint and a half behind them all night.

We chat about various things from comedy to religion to girls and whatnot - and find ourselves a horrifiyng five pints of Old Rosie to the wind at some upsettingly early hour. Feeling in need of a change of pace, I suggest we cross the road to the Harringay Arms, where we are inexplicably joined by a group of middle-aged women out celebrating a birthday. I pop outside for a cigarette with a pint of Kronenbourg and return to find that Mike has "run home" (their words). Unperturbed by my apparent abandonment, I finish my pint before walking home listening to Radiohead's In Rainbows very loud in my headphones.

After grabbing a laughably unnecessary further can of beer from the shop on my street corner I arrive home - and promptly pass out on the sofa. Like a dick.