Saturday 30th October

I'm not usually one for fancy dress or being particularly bothered about Halloween, but tonight is a party at Tristan's pub in Stockwell with the charming theme 'fucked up'. This is good, in that it allows me to put in the minimum of effort and dress up as a man called Damian Abraham from a band called, luckily, Fucked Up (pictured here). I don't know any of their music, but it's pretty easy to make myself look like him. So before Mike, Tim, Jenny, Nick and Rick come round I stick on a pair of shorts, a white t-shirt customised by K and a baseball cap - and the illusion is more or less complete. While we sit around drinking cans before heading out, I liberally apply fake blood to my forehead to Halloween-up proceedings. K, rather brilliantly, dresses as the infamous Cat Bin Lady in an old lady's dress and kitten-in-bin-bag accessory.

We head out to Stockwell at about 8, getting a fair few looks on the tube and surreptitiously drinking disguised Jack Daniels in water bottles. The pub is quiet when we arrive, but soon the Halloween pub quiz starts and later we watch a couple of middling bands while getting more and more drunk and taking pictures alongside Rick's giant polystyrene skull.

We leave Stockwell in good time for the last tube, stopping off at Big Red on the way through Holloway, which is, predictably, in full All Hallow's swing. The place is absolutely rammed but a display of magic and fire eating create a fun, festive atmosphere to soak up before we finally head home on the 29. I don't really do Halloween - and I don't think I'll ever enjoy dressing up - but this has been a fun one.