Day 144-146: London to Berlin

Highlights:

• Torsten, EasyJet employee
• New German friend. Age 12 and 1/2
• House Music
• Alt-J at Astra Kulturhaus
• The ultimate Bucket List entry

Day 144
When I packed for 6 weeks around Europe, I wrote a list, set aside several hours and yet somehow came away without headphones, socks and, most importantly, underwear. On Thursday, very hungover after Dodgeball drinks and within 20minutes, I packed absolutely everything I needed. I think there's some sort of lesson there.

I checked in at Gatwick airport (through electronic boarding pass gates and after some chat with the first friendly baggage check assistant I've ever seen at an airport) and headed for some food. I felt adequately ashamed at heading straight for Wetherspoons, so I pretended to read the Cafe Rouge and Frankie and Benny's menus before slinking back to 'The Flying Horse' for some wine and Fish and Chips. The bartender 'warned' me that my food might take up to 10minutes to arrive. That was fine by me. I know if you eat food straight from the microwave it can be HOTTER THAN THE SUN. Better let that top quality cuisine have some resting time.

I'd been sitting for 3 minutes when my food arrived. Fish and Chips within 5 minutes. Hot fish and chips. Thank god for microwaves. I might have starved to death if I'd had to wait that whole 10minutes. 

I boarded my Easyjet flight via a tunnel. None of that walking out in the cold and boarding the plane from the ground for Easyjet anymore. Oh no. I sensed this was going to be a good flight. I picked a random seat on the plane before realising that Easyjet now have allocated seating. What's happened to this airline? It's suddenly become civilised, organised and not unpleasant. I was sitting next to a German woman before her 12/13 year old son swapped so she could sit next to his dad a few rows down. He started speaking to me in perfect English and after a few attempts at responding in German, I resorted to it too. I imagine this sounds patronising, but I'm pretty sure as a 12 year old I was scared of sitting next to strangers and yet this kid not only did that but also started a conversation in his second language. Impressive. If I were 13 years younger...This family were on their way back from London where they'd been visiting his older sister who was studying there for the year. With a twinkle in his eye, he told me he'd had to miss school to visit her...quite a sacrifice on his part. We took off after a funny introduction by Cabin Manager Torsten (Easyjet have started making jokes? This is mental!) and I watched this kid play Temple Run for the majority of the flight. We shook hands as we came into Berlin and I told him English was good. With a smirk he told me mine was too. I headed out from the airport to catch the train to Schonhauser Allee to where Gurk lived. It was snowy in Berlin, and there was a rail replacement service on the line I needed. Berlin; like home from home. 

Day 145
I did very little during the day. Aside from a quick coffee trip out and a visit to Netto, I sat in Gurk's apartment watching the snow fall on the Cuban embassy until she finished work. She came back for dinner and after some wine we caught the tram to Warschauer Strasse to meet my friend Harry who was staying at the Hostel Plus. Wow. What a hostel. It was massive and like some sort of Mediterranean hotel with potted plants everywhere and a 'super cool' (their words, not mine) swimming pool. Gurk and I headed to the bar to find lots of 18 year olds watching MTV videos and drinking sugary cocktails; we crashed back down to earth then. Harry was with a crowd, some of whom I imagine had risked hyperglycemic shocks with those sugary cocktails, though in his defence he only really knew one of the group; he warned us about two of the guys with a description that suggested they were embodying Dick and Dom. Stellar lads. They'd both gone to some sex spa whilst out there, paying €70 for use of the swimming pool, spa and sex workers. Classy. Last night one of them had slept with an insecure teenage blonde who kept coming over to us asking where he was. They appeared with childish energy and giggles and we had our first interaction when the guy leapt over to us having just spoken to the blonde, smacked his hand three times on the table gleefully, yelling 'what do you do when she tells you you've got a big dick!'. We left soon after.

We headed to a club called Prince Charles which was set in an old swimming pool. The bar area was in the sunken pool area which was still tiled over. We ordered a glass of wine and received BEAKERS of wine in return. We spent the next few hours dancing to House Music. Which apparently I love. House. I don't think I knew what that was before. 

When we were housed out, we caught a train back (they run 24h it's amazing!) and got a kebab.

Day 146
Gurk is moving back to London so is selling every single item in her apartment. We were woken around 9am when a guy came to collect a stand-alone clothes rail. Gurk dismantled it and put it in a bin liner. We were about to go back to sleep on her mattress without bed (that got sold last week) when we heard the comic sound of the bag ripping and metal poles bouncing down the stairs. For €3, he wasn't getting any extra assistance. We went back to sleep.

Gurk had to go to work (ON A SATURDAY) so I lounged about before going to join her at Zoologischer Garten. It was freezing cold. I was waiting a while outside Burger King before I became fed up with drunk men coming up to me (it was 1pm! There are so many drunks in Berlin) and headed inside to keep warm. The only people who come up to you in Berlin are people looking for ein feuer (a lighter) or drunks who I presume want the same but can't form words properly. Gurk arrived and we went to a really cool homely, unexpectedly spacious cafe called Schwarzes cafe. Apart from the slow service (because it was so busy) and the mammoth menu, it was great. Gurk says it's open 24h so she often comes here for a quick beer after she finishes work at 11pm. There's only one good thing in that habit. She ordered some sort of Kaiser crepes, deliciously crusted with caramelised sugar whilst I had ein Omelette. Gurk had to shoot back to work so I sat with a huge soup bowl of coffee, reading the New Statesmen, learning about the real issue behind the Horse Meat scandal. We're not cashing-in on British agricultural potential apparently. And we feed cows expensive soya, instead of the free grass.

We headed back to Gurk's apartment at 5.30pm to find her Canadian friend Sam waiting for us. Sam's in a band called 'Dear Reader'. We drank a Magnum of champagne and then headed back to Warschauer Strasse to go to Astra Kulturhaus to see Alt-J perform. I've seen the band a few times. I mean, they're constantly touring. Barely a week goes by without another Alt-J tour being announced. And they're not known for amazing live performances. They're alright, but not much is normally added to the music seeing them live. Might as well sit at home listening to the album whilst doing a crossword. The band came on around 8.30pm. Pretty early for a headliner, eh? They started with intro and played their socks off. They'd really kicked it up a notch. Perhaps fuelled by the enthusiastic and upbeat audience, or just having got the hang of it after numerous shows, but either way they killed it. The songs were much more powerful than usual and the formats changed slightly to fit the live setting. Brilliant. I've never seen them smile so much. After an encore of Tarot, the house music came up and rather than some gentle post-gig Led Zeppelin folk number, some sort of house music came on and the crowd went mental. It really was a great show.

Afterwards we tried to break into the backstage area. Sam's in a band right? He just kept saying 'we're from the label'. It wasn't working. We didn't know what label we were supposed to be from*. This guy in the car wasn't having any of it. Undeterred, we went further back and Sam climbed over a metal gate whilst I pelted him with snowballs. He came back defeated a few minutes later and a mega snowball fight ensued. It was 11pm and as we became increasingly soaked and covered in snow, Sam kept yelling 'no really, we're from the label! Seriously!'. I fell and whacked my head and knee but that didn't stop my attacks. Gurk took photos as we finished the battle with some snow angels. Sam used the snowball battle to resume his break-in attempts but some angry English guy saw straight through it. Sam and Gurk went to smoke so I lingered in the snow watching the tour bus try to turn on the ice. Twiddling my thumbs looking for something to do, I had a brainwave. I was on my hands and knees rolling the body of a snowman when a man came and offered me drugs. As a 25year old making a snowman on her own outside a music venue in Berlin, I must have looked like the perfect client. "No thanks", I said. "I'm making a snowman". 

Gurk and Sam came back and politely waited as I finished rolling the head and added some stick arms. I stood back, proudly looking at my knee-high friend. Gurk was about to take a photo when a new item suddenly appeared on my mental bucket list. Without a second thought, I kicked the little snowman's head off.  

We briefly went to a bar called KPTN (Captain). Gurk hadn't even taken her coat off when some guy hit on her (presumably saying in German 'keep your coat on, love, you've pulled'). We left shortly after and got a taxi home. Gurk was worried he was taking us down some dodgy route when the guy announced that there were problems with traffic due to some guy called Mario Barth playing at the O2 venue. 12,000 fans were blocking the roads. He's a German comedian apparently. Gurk commented that she hadn't realised they existed. 

We got home and on thinking the snow had given my hair an exotic damp look, I realised I actually looked like a lion. 

*Infectious Records we later discovered.

Game 7 (Grudge Match): The Jolly Dodgers vs. Balls Deep

Highlights:

• Fancy dress Dodgeball grudge match against our friends and opposition, Balls Deep
• A Mariachi Band
• Tequila and wrestling chaos

The email had come through a few weeks ago announcing that fancy dress week would fall on the night of our match against friends and nemeses, Balls Deep. The ultimate grudge match with both pride and a night of drinks resting on it after a tipsy bet between Jolly Tony and Balls Santi. After last week's games, we'd decided on a Mexican theme but kept it secret even as we tricked other teams into revealing their plans. Let them squirm with suspense 'til Wednesday. 

It was a week of furious emailing. We all couldn't boast quick enough about what Mexican fashion delights we'd discovered. Greg's costume from the internet arrived, Ben sent us a teasing sultry shot of his outfit and Chris announced he could probably get his hand on a pack of nachos. I was optimistic he was fashioning the tortilla chip equivalent of the lady gaga meat dress between emails.  We struck gold when Chaotic Clare told us her new boyfriend had 20 Mexican wrestler masks under his bed. Kinky anonymous orgies or bank robber disguise? Now was not the time to question it. The plan was coming together. I'm no hippie but I somehow managed to pull three ponchos from my wardrobe. Yeah, you heard. Three. They were the onesie of the 2010s, weren't they? Even better was when Ellie announced she'd nicked an armful of sombrero from the school fancy dress cupboards. When the kids celebrate Mexican Day next week and she's forgotten to return them, I think there are going to be a lot of crying ninos in the classroom. You know we mean business when we risk the tears of the innocent.

A certain member of the team used all the musicians and production equipment at his disposal (and a little extra nabbed from a certain national broadcasting company) and called in 27 years worth of favours to put together the finest Mariachi this side of the Atlantic had ever seen. Previous dodgeballers Bateson and Rainbow were joining the fray with bass and standard ukeleles. Ellie's husband Phil volunteered to play some sort of cajon box drum, and Ellie agreed to split her time between dodging and playing Mexican fiddle. But a trumpeter who was free late notice and could play Mexican tunes remained unsurprisingly illusive.

Feeling the anticipation of a male praying mantis on the way to his first and last sexual conquest (one for the naturalists), we awoke on a grey morning with fire and fear in our bellies. Would we beat Balls Deep? Would Matt's toeshoes make an appearance? Would we get a sodding trumpet player?!

Tony arrived early to set up a mini studio and soon after the Mexicans descended on North Clapham Leisure Centre.  We had wrestlers, we had farmers, we had a cool chilli, we had more moustaches than the 1970s and we had the best attempt at a cactus that two pairs of tights, a weeks' worth of Evening Standards and five minutes could produce. Balls Deep arrived, nicely accessorising their signature orange headbands with some orange jumpsuits: 

And with La Bamba playing in the background we danced our way to our starting points. With an UN, DOS, TRES! we were off. 

It took all of our concentration and will power to keep on track during the first set, and our strongest lip muscles to keep the cheap moustaches in place. Somehow we managed to plough through our fits of giggles and hysterics to hit the opposition and catch crucial balls. With my hands buried between crunched newspaper and under tights, as a cactus (or chilli?) I couldn't hold balls long enough to throw them (though boy could I catch) and due to the restrictive material, the mask wearers' sight was limited to whatever was directly in front of them. As the only female wrestler and adorned with a Mexican flag, Kira looked brilliant and Chilli Greg proved as fiery as his costume as he leapt over balls and into catches:

(a catch and the moustache graveyard)

(Check out the strain on that face)

The Ole Dodgers won the first set and casually fell into the second. The ref did his best to keep things ticking along in a timely fashion but we were having none of it as we all took shots of new player Thom's tequila from the sidelines. Ariba!

We were at some point in the second set when some Tony-led chinese whispers came down the line suggesting that if we won the next game, we'd win the match. This was the first taste of victory we'd had since playing the Dodger Moores. I think the tequila was starting to take it's toll though as after the whistle blew we all managed to get out within the first minute. All except for Canadian Matt. Toeshoes now firmly in his past and with his moustache long since stuck on the wall in our makeshift facial hair graveyard, Matt found himself the sole player against five. You might write lesser Dodgeballers off, but with his powerful throws, basketball player leaps and ballet spins we didn't lose hope. One by one he picked off Balls Deep, like a cheetah cruelly snatching the young, weak and innocent buffalo from a herd. Wordlessly the rest of us embodied David Attenborough. Commenting in hushed tones from the sideline but not interferring with this natural course of events even as we heard the cries of wounded Balls Deep players. Then, out of nothing Matt made a catch! The numbers were evening up! Greg pelted back on to the caught only to be hit almost immediately and the whistle blowing seconds later ending the game. What can we say, Matt? Player of the week let down by a slow chilli. 

Ole Dodgers won the next game though, sealing victory. Then, like someone had flicked a switch, the game descended into anarchy. Tequila shots were flying as frequently as the balls and Santiago dived across the line, flooring Tony in the process. We turned to see the lycra-clad Mexican-Wrestler Tony in a rough and tumble with prisoner Santiago. It was like watching two lion cubs, if the lion cubs were middle-aged men in fancy dress tickling each other. The Mariachi band were in a frenzy, and after disengaging himself from the wrestle, Santiago took over the mic to give us some genuine Spanish commentary. Who knows what he was saying? I presume lots of rude things about our mums, but it sounded amazing. The set finished with Tony Kamikazi-ing his way out of every game, a swirl of Ben, Chris and Abbie's ponchos, Thom finally learning not to cross the middle line and Santiago hiding behind a blow-up cactus. 

(more photos of the Mariachi band in the background hopefully to follow)

After sticking around to check out the other teams costumes and watch the brilliant Zombie team stay in character for their first game (Shanes of Grah), we headed to the pub for some well earned beers. 

People sometimes talk about London being too big a city, where it's hard to meet new people and your 20/30 somethings being less about fun, and more about building your career, settling down and being sensible. Go Mammoth Fancy-dress dodgeball, mid-game tequila shots, a mariachi band, cross-team wrestling, Spanish commentary, a win and hundreds of celebratory beers with our favourite teams. We had the night of our bloody lives. We are living the fucking dream. 

P.S. We didn't get a trumpet player. 

Bermondsey

Pronounced BURR-munzee. A bit like Chimpanzee and if you change the G to a B then it's also like ‘German Sea’. If you’re one of those witty people who turn Matalan into some sort of Debenhams Designer (Matt Allan) or All Bar One into some Italian bistro (Albaroni) then you may prefer to use the posh ‘Bur-MOHND-see’ pronunciation.  Located on the Jubilee line just one stop from London Bridge and in the ‘is that kid following me home?’(1) postcode district of SE16, Bermondsey is home to Shaltby Street Market(2), Shermondsey Street, Shouthwark Park and the Shite Cube Gallery (haha. Good one, Nicole).
 

In the next few paragraphs, I'm attempting to put Bermondsey on the map beyond being the home of Jade Goody’s mum and in a way that Patrick Wolf’s ‘Bermondsey Street’ album track never accomplished (from that difficult fifth album). You will read a few interesting facts not entirely sourced from Wikipedia, learn some etymology and/or toponymy (and what the words ‘etymology’ and ‘toponymy’ mean if need be) and discover a few celebrity residents you could bump into in the area. So the next time we meet and you ask where I live, I hopefully won't have to describe it as ‘the place where they found the girl’s body in the corporate scandal episode of Silent Witness in the last series’.
 

In brief, the name Bermondsey is thought to derive from Beormund’s Ey, where Beormund was the name of a local Saxon lord and Ey was Norse for ‘Island’. It’s now definitely not an island but there are various rivers running below ground, historically used to power local paper mills and factories and allowing the Morning Chronicle to coin Bermondsey as ‘The Venice of Drains’ and ‘The very capital of cholera’ in 1849. One of these rivers is the river Neckinger which is now completely subterranean aside from a few man-holes (hence being a useful dumping point for the Silent Witness victim) and only links up to the Thames through St Saviours Dock. As you all know (don't let me down, guys), St Saviours Dock is where Bill Sykes gets it in Dickens’ Oliver Twist and where James Bond’s speed boat leaps out from in The World Is Not Enough.

Neckinger, quite upliftingly, derives from the Devil’s Neckerchief i.e. the hangman’s noose, because they used to hang pirates in the area and display them out above the river as a deterrent to other would-be pirates. I think this sets the scene as to the sort of place Bermondsey used to be, and lets me tell the story of its rise from resting place of uber-villain Sykes to the heady heights of being the chosen location of hit TV show starring Gordon Ramsay and Mary Portas, ‘Hotel GB’.

  

Away from St Saviours Dock, after Tooley St has become Jamaica Road and you've turned and gone a little way down Abbey Street (presumably named after the now-demolished Benedictine Bermondsey Abbey) you pass the listed Neckinger Mills building, which was first a paper mill before more famously becoming a tannery (at its end, this was owned and runby Bevingtons & Sons Ltd.). Tanneries were a big feature in Bermondsey; huge names such as Hepburn and Gale, The Grange and Bevingtons & Sons meant that in c. 1792, a third of the country’s leather came from the area. In my research I’ve come across several claims that tanneries used to hire lots of women for the finishing process and as a result of working with fish oil in the glazing process, Bermondsey women were renowned for their beautiful skin and hair. Nothing says sexy like locks smelling of kippers and a face glistening with cod liver. Further on down Abbey Street, you also find the ‘Simon the Tanner’ pub, either named after St. Simon the Tanner/Shoemaker (this Egyptian Coptic saint who plucked out one of his own eyes because he saw it in the bible, before helping Pope Abraham to move a mountain) or a local tanner called Simon (“Alwight, Si. Can ya make me some leath-ah boots, innit? I need ‘em to protect ma plates of meat. Fanks, guv”).

Another famous factory in the area was the Peek Frean Biscuit factory, originally founded in Dockhead (read that street sign from a distance) in 1857 before moving to Bermondsey in 1866, which created both the Bourbon and the Garibaldi. Seriously. The exotic Garibaldi is actually from Saaafff London. Named after a folically-challenged geezer called Gary(3).

In 1838, a railway line was built from London Bridge to Greenwich, splitting the Neckinger estate owned by Bevingtons & Sons and creating lots of arched retail and storage units along Druid Street and Enid Street. During WW2, an arch on Druid Street under the railway line also suffered when 77 people sheltering from an air raid were killed by a bomb. This included the parents and sister of Bermondsey website maintainer ‘Bermondsey Boy’(4), from whom I’ve gathered a lot of information/hearsay. Things are looking up for the street now though; whilst no there are no specific biscuitries (is that a word?) in the arches, a walk past these in the morning now provides you with a good whiff of croissants from St John’s Bakery and Bea’s of Bloomsbury (which hosts film viewings in the evenings) and a stinky cheese nasal sensation from Neal’s Yard Dairy. On Saturday mornings, these units open up to sell to the public, fulfilling all of your bread, coffee, grocery and mattress (thanks, Beddy Buyz) needs. You might even spot Andrew Kojima from 2012's Masterchef holding a baby(5).

An essential sporting mention is the proximity to South Bermondsey station of noble footballing greats, and my Grandad’s team, Millwall Athletic. Originally from north of the river, The Lions moved first to New Cross then finally onto Bermondsey in 1993 to their current home ‘The Den’. I’m pretty sure they’re not exactly trying to dispute their rough hooligan reputation by calling their ground The Lions’ Den (also see chants such as “No one likes us, we don’t care” and the recent Millwall chant against Luton about the Taliban) and not even having Daniel Day-Lewis as a fan(6) can counteract one of your strikers being convicted of murder (I hope we’re just looking at you, Gavin Grant). Having started as the football team of a preserve factory (the Scottish-founded J.T. Mortons), they grew in size until WW2 during which they suffered alongside a lot of other British teams with the loss of young men and players in the fighting. The stadium also experienced bomb damage during the Blitz and then a few weeks later, some bozo burned down a stand with a discarded cigarette. You stay classy, Millwall Athletic.

Back into non-violent Bermondsey, and just off of Abbey Street you find Bermondsey Square, location of Hotel GB, the relocated Caledonian Market and Gregg’s Table. There’s also a convenient Sainsburys and cashpoint. Well, convenient if you need some bread and over-priced tinned goods. And cash. From the square, leading you up to Tooley Street and London Bridge station, is the adventurously named ‘Bermondsey Street’. This is one of the rare streets that has actually upped and came (upped and comed?) in frequently labelled by estate agents 'up and coming' Bermondsey. But before Gok Wan and his pooch made it the it-place to let your dog poo whilst you drink a freshly-brewed skinny latte, the street well and truly saw some dark days. It was so smelly in the olden days because of all the tannery work and all the fishy ladies that only the most anosmic(7) or cholera infected stuck around. After years of the road used mainly as a route to Bermondsey Antique Market, the street was eventually built up and is now lined with restaurants, cafes, independent shops and cocktail bars, along with the White Cube Gallery and the London Fashion and Textiles Museum. If you’ve ever visited me in Bermondsey, I may have overruled your google maps route to direct you away from the urine-soaked tunnels and dimly-lit estate paths, and down past the middle-class delights of this street.

In terms of local residents, you may find yourself running into Gok Wan (twice), Patrick Stewart (I wish) and Masterchef’s Buttery Biscuit Base(8) in the form of Gregg Wallace (we did when dining at Gregg’s Table. Subsequent googling of him has made me wary of harmless fish and vegetable meal paring tweets(9) but also made me wiggle my eyebrows and say hubba hubba only slightly ironically(10)). Beormund’s-ey-ians by birth include Boxer David Haye, Entertainer Michael Barrymore, Economist Alfred Marshall and whilst-she-did-think-Rio-De-Janeiro-was-a-person-she-did-signficantly-raise-awareness-of-cervical-cancer-in-young-women Jade Goody. A dream dinner party if ever there was one.

End.

(1) He was already going to the flat above mine, but he definitely didn’t need to speed up (he had a limp, but still managed to catch me up), cross the road and walk directly behind me at midnight, before asking if I’d go up to the flat to hang with him and is teenage mates.

(2) Names have been changed to protect the limited visitor capacity of certain visitor hotspots.

(3) Not really.

(4) http://www.bermondseyboy.net/2010/04/17/druid-street-arch-bombing/.

(5) This only happened once, back in March 2012.

(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millwall_F.C.#Notable_supporters.(7) Google tells me Anosmia is the smell equivalent of deafness or blindness.

(8) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfeyUGZt8nk.

(9) Wallace met his third wife Heidi, a teacher from Cumbria who is 17 years his junior, in 2009 after she asked him a question about celery and pollock on Twitter.

(10)http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/15/article-2248527-168655FC000005DC-53_306x494.jpg

Game 6: The Jolly Dodgers vs. Reservoir Dodge

So I've been a little quiet over the past few weeks on a Dodgeball blogging front and if I’m honest I was sulking a little and felt as emotionally battered as we were physically battered on the court. In brief, we were stupendously beaten two weeks in a row and encountered a distinct amount of what we felt was referee bias. Though, in hindsight and with a healthy pinch of sportsmanship I think we can admit that after a few (probably) honest ref mistakes, we were a little overly suspicious and judgemental of further refereeing decisions.

It was ok though; Tactics Greg was back! We were in no doubt why he'd been absent the past week. In a team-building group email chain, we all received some delightfully taunting out-of-offices explaining that unfortunately he couldn't get back to us at present because he'd decided to take a spontaneous holiday to Las Vegas where he was living it up and having the time of his life. Thanks, Greg. That made all of us feel great as we trekked to Clapham in the cold after long days at the office.

Still, the global home of gaming can only have helped him pick up some more TACTICS. Andy was absent once more (another date, eh?) but Dr Ben was present (if wearing non-regulation attire of a noticeably different pantone). Still, after watching a few episodes of BBC Three’s ‘The Year of Making Love’ (IN AN ATTEMPT TO SPOT MY COLLEAGUE, NOT BECAUSE WE LIKE IT. Seriously), we had strong faith in 'Science' and how it could help us win. Thumbs up Science!*

We were nervous about this week though; The Jolly Dodgers 2.0 were facing the one and only Reservoir Dodge, Grammy nominated and two-time Clapham Dodgeball league winners. It was like the Mighty Ducks vs. The Hawks. Or more realistically, like actual ducks trying to beat the Hawks now after they’ve had 21 years of practice at ice hockey. No, more like blindfolded actual ducks trying to beat the 21-year strong Hawks whilst being shot at with machine guns by their substitutes. Not a chance, mate.

Still, we had Greg, Kira and Tony back (who actually sacked off a money-making opportunity to attend) and Matt's toe shoes were nowhere in sight. The referee was late so another team's dodger had stepped up to help out and we were off! Aside from a comical fall over then line into our side by a Reservoir Dodger, and then a nothing-to-see-here backwards worm slither to his own half which we let slide because it was funny, it was an honest and well-fought first set.

Some outstanding catching from our opponents; they often dropped down with no warning and scooped up our best ankle shots. One particular strength in their team was a girl in long shorts who threw and caught amazingly, though was got out time and time again as she turned her back and bent to pick balls up. If she'd remembered to face forward, we wouldn't have stood a chance. The first set reached 2-2, and then a few nifty catches later, Reservoir Dodge were one set up.

Despite another set loss, we were pumped. Both teams were clearly having fun, were playing honestly and were enjoying the fact it was fairly close. Ben, Tony and Greg 1920s-danced their way slowly to the other side in time to the music and we readied ourselves for set 2.

'Put it all on black' yelled Tactics Greg, helpfully. The game began and he must have gone all BlackJack with a ‘Hit me! Hit me!’ as that seemed to happen a few times. After warning Abbie about the perils of the old easily-catchable netball chest pass, during the games where he wasn’t hit, Greg proceeded to follow suit (an unintentional card game reference) with a few ridiculous high balls. Kira just went for it throughout the game, consistently lobbing well aimed low balls to the opponents. Ben kept himself up front on the offensive quite admirably and along with Tony and Greg did some great leaping and diving. Resident statistician and teacher Ellie continued making some great cross court lobs at our opponents and got a fair few out. Abbie made a few catches, but as is now standard hadn’t quite worked out how to not get hit immediately after re-joining the team mid-game. Every time, Abbie!

We were 2-1 down in the second set, and the next game was make or break. Could the Jolly heroes claw a victory after weeks of defeat?

No. Of course they couldn’t. We lost the game without putting up even a hint of a fight. After a brief droop of our muscular shoulders, we resigned ourselves to our fate and resolved to drop the defensive and just bloody go for it. Second set also finished with a 2-3 result. We may have been defeated this time, but it was as close as it could have been.

We had nothing to lose and it seemed that’s when our best play came out. The third set began with laughter and kamikaze spirit. As mentioned in previous weeks (and presumably discussed behind my back by my teammates) I had yet to catch a Dodgeball since I began playing in September 2012. Not one. I think I told you; I’m a dodger, not a catcher (insert own Michael Jackson ‘The Girl is Mine’ spoken banter with Paul McCartney voice). But my time had come. It was fate. One by one my comrades fell and I found myself alone against four eager and ruthless reservoir Dodgers. The noise around me faded and all I could hear was my heartbeat. Guided by some inner genius I suddenly discovered my sixth sense. It was obvious. I just had to catch it. Bam! A ball hit the wall to my right. Wham! A ball shot by my left. Then with slow motion, my eyes locked onto a ball speeding towards me. I braced myself and closed my eyes. Whooomph! Silence fell. I staggered back. Regaining my balance, I opened my eyes and looked down in absolute shock to the dodgeball clutched in my arms. Yes. Victory!

I'm pretty sure a choir started singing 'Hallelujah' in the background as a teammate came back in as a result of my catch (presumably Tony, as he really is one of our best). A few more shots came towards me and with disbelief I caught another ball. I got it. I finally understood Dodgeball. Me and the balls were at one. Admittedly a ball then hit me in the hip and I had to slink off to the side, but that didn’t matter. We won the final set 3-2, and I caught another two balls in that time. We ended on a high and after we warmly thanked the Reservoir Dodge for bringing their best game, we headed to the reserved seating area at the Loft to discuss next week’s game. The ultimate grudge match against our friends ‘Balls Deep’ happened to also be on fancy dress night.

(We presume this was reserved for us and not a outrageously coincentally-named rival company, operating in the Clapham area on a Wednesday evening)

With a bonus point up for grabs for the fancy dress and a night of free drinks waged with Balls Deeps’ Santiago, this was truly going to be the match of the season. The preparation starts now.

League table: see here 

*See the end of this article for some official suspicion of this so-called science.

Week 2: Go Mammoth Circuits

Highlights:

• School electronic gates complete with Stephen Hawkins intercom
• Tyrone the instructor being the only man in the world to work the 3/4 length trouser over leggings look
• The it-must-be-worth-it muscle ache of not being able to get out of the bed normally for a week

Having sacked off my expensive gym membership, caught up in the heady delights of Dodgeball and with the seductively subtle marketing talk of Go Mammoth’s Fitness Manager James, Jolly Dodgerettes Abbie and I had enrolled on the Tuesday night Circuits class in Stockwell (this). Yes, you heard. 100% a good idea. Not one horror story of senior-school circuit training where you couldn’t even do one pull up and you got hit in the face by a medicine ball came to mind. Hello ripped abs and Amazonian strength; we look forward to meeting you.

With a full belly of carb-y pasta, last week (our first class) we hadn’t quite left ourselves enough time to get to the venue. It took us about five minutes to work out local parking, and then ten minutes to work out how to break into the school where the class was held. We eventually found a gate and were patched through an intercom system (with a Stephen Hawkins ‘You. Are. Now. Being. Transferred’ message) to the 24h receptionist (mental! Even my office isn’t manned beyond 5.30pm). After going through the electronic gates, we walked to the main block and signed in. If I’m honest, I was slightly disappointed that this wasn’t one of those schools that had metal detectors on entry. Bloody sensational media! Letting me think that all South London yoofs carried knives and wanted to stab me up so that they could join a gang called All Bout Money*, and schools were now just prisons and teachers over-qualified riot police. Ridiculous. If it’s not true in Stockwell, I don’t think it’s true anywhere.

So that week we arrived with mere tenths of a second before the class started, un-stretched and Abbie with a full bladder. Lesson learnt, Stockwell.

This week we arrived twenty minutes early, and raced over to the fitness studio block to prepare for the class. With the fishy smell of another 24h receptionist’s dinner lurking in the air, we stood lunging/stretching/chatting on the stairs until the Go Mammoth Boxfit class finished. An Australian teacher and classmate turned up and after a brief chat about Caitlin Moran, we watched in disbelief as in Mary Poppins bag/Tardis style, person after person left the studio in what seemed to number bodies well and truly beyond the room's capacity. Perhaps Boxfit was actually some sort of survival of the fittest fist fight for access to the limited amount of air in the studio?

Instructor Tyrone must have quickly swept the oxygen-deprived Go-Mammothers into the cupboard, because the floor was clear when we entered and the only evidence of the hunger games battle was a few open windows with survivors standing by, victoriously breathing in the fresh air.

This was only mine and Abbie’s second week of Circuits, as we’d signed up slightly late to the classes and had nervously joined on week 3 fearing that we’d enter a room full of committed triathletes and sports fanatics who would scoff at our pitiful attempts at a press-up and would have furthered the already gaping fitness gap with those two extra sessions under their maxi-muscle belts. But after an amazing workout, with an enthusiastic and carefree instructor (Ty) and friendly group of Go-Mammothers of varying fitness levels, we were well up for our second week, and the fourth official week.

There were a few less attendees than week 3 but given that our aches from that class had only just subsided (if this were an arrested development episode, it would flick to footage of me repeatedly attempting to lift myself into a sitting position in bed two mornings later, before having to roll onto my front and fall sideways onto the floor, and of Abbie having to be dressed by her boyfriend because she couldn’t get her arms to work) we presumed the muscles of others had put up better protests than our own and were imprisoning their eager-to-work-out bodies to comfy sofas and forcing them to watch bad TV. Tyrone gave us a high-five when Abbie announced her surprise that we’d made two classes in a row before we got down to business and started warming up.

The warm up was different from the previous week (when we’d used skipping ropes) and as the class progressed, we subtly noticed that the instructor had taken everything up a notch, forcing us to all push ourselves a little harder. He went through various circuits, each focussing on something different (be it power, biometrics, resistance or cardio) and being long enough to cause you a little pain, but short enough that you don’t start praying to God to KILL YOU NOW. As a small, insider tip, I found the easiest way to stay focussed was to count the number of repetitions you were doing, rather than spending the 1m work-out wondering how on earth life would ever be the same again and wondering if Tyrone needed the battery in his watch replaced because you’ve clearly been doing lunges from a bench for FIVE HOURS NOW ALREADY.

I won’t reveal the structure of the class, as one of the best parts of the first week was not knowing when the circuits were going to end, and the euphoric relief when Tyrone changed the pop music (which I say with absolute delight is not the sort of dance shi*e that you get at a spinning class) to some calmer numbers for a quick abdominal workout and the warm down.

We're by no means uber fit. Aside from Go Mammoth Dodgeball, Abbie cycles to Uni and I run home from work once a month. And so whilst effective and tough, we found the class in no way intimidating or suited only to the mega fit. The instructor is encouraging, without having to resort to aggressive TOUGH LOVE and doesn't bring group attention on you when you're struggling. In fact, it's such a personal work out and about individual effort that you can't focus on anything but trying to coordinate a press-up hand clap without falling on your face or fighting not to accidentally star-jump backwards into the wall. If you ever are struggling, Tyrone will just come and quietly do the moves next to you to keep you on pace, and when explaining the moves in each circuit, generously lets you ogle his strong, sculpted arm muscles and toned body do the moves for a few minutes without making you feel like a trench-coated man at a children’s playground.

*Note, ABM is actually a real gang, and gang culture amongst children is not something to joke about. I think Dappy and that Bloods and Crips documentary have taught us that.

Day 129: London

Highlights:

• Wellcome Collection people watching
• Death: A Self Portrait, and particularly 
• Argentinian Collective Mondongo
• Subversive Spanish painter, Francisco Goya

Sitting in the Wellcome Collection cafe was an experience itself with its impressively diverse clientele. I sat with a coffee watching the raised eyebrows and smirks of the middle-aged woman opposite me clearly discovering the S&M delights of 50 Shades of Gray; the old guy to my left peering through his glasses at his touch screen phone whilst adjusting the cord that held them around his neck; two modern vikings with woolly coats walking past talking in a Scandinavian language and finally a 20-something guy dressed like a backpacking Crocodile Dundee. It was the finest visitor crowd that a European museum could offer. 

The glasses cord old guy next to me had a friend who was clearly a journalist. After discussing how newspapers should be bound by the shit-loads of stalker legislation currently in existence, he told a story about an article he'd recently written about a man who had called the police to report that his neighbour had stolen all of his plant pots. The police arrived at the neighbour's house later that afternoon and said if the plant pots weren't returned in 24 hours, they'd have to arrest him. So the guy returned the plant pots. Probably like you, I admit I was expecting a twist in this story and so was a little disappointed to find out that the whole purpose of the story was that sometimes police are good, quick to respond and use common sense. I suppose his point was just an extension of his criticism of media and the ridiculous sensationalism of modern journalism. I openly eavesdropped until they stood up, put on almost matching Canadian Mountain hats (like this), and left.

 

Abbie arrived a little later and after she’d eaten we lurked in the foyer waiting for her speech therapy mates; Canadian Kira and Chaotic Clare*. I picked up the Wellcome Trust guide and on the first page I opened, slap bang in the middle was new Dodgeball team mate and friend Ben Thompson, sporting the stylish cardigan/exposed socks and brogues look:
 

I mean, we knew he worked at the Wellcome Trust, but we presumed his science writing work kept him desk bound rather than allowing him time to pursue his museum brochure modelling career. Abbie sent him a ‘who’s this handsome devil?’ email and we sacked off waiting for her mates and just went into the exhibition.

We’d seen adverts over London for the past few months, but didn’t know a great deal about the actual exhibition other than that it was entitled ‘Death’ and we’d liked how that looked in our diaries (“Oh Thursday evening? No, I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment with Death then”). But I impressed even myself when literally the first piece we examined, a photo of a skull-topped cane, I already knew the entire biography of the photographer. Complete fluke, but a few years ago when I was on a wave of reading musician biographies, I read Just Kids by Patti Smith, an account of her first serious relationship, which happened to be with tortured artist Robert Mapplethorne. He and Patti broke up owing to his commitment to being homosexual, though remained emotionally connected until he died of AIDS in 1989. I imagine the inevitability of his death at that time was the reason for the move away from BDSM art to photos like this skull cane, and his inclusion in the room titled ‘Contemplating Death’. 

The exhibition was nicely curated, with each room presenting a different stage of approaching, experiencing or coming to terms with death. We were examining a painting of the Good Man and the Bad Man, which indicated how the level of purity in your life will dictate the manner of your death (basically, don’t drink or have wild sex, kids. You’ll die like the baddie in Patrick Swayze’s ‘Ghost’) when Dodgeball Dr Ben turned up. He gave us a useful express tour of the good stuff in the exhibition (or at the least the stuff he knew a little about) and with his Wellcome Trust staff identity pass, we felt like we were hanging with a VIP. In the next room, the highlight was this incredible plasticine skull made by Argentinian Collective ‘Mondongo’. It’s so intricate and made up of such a large number of popular culture references, there’s no way any photos online do it any justice. You really should go see it yourselves. We’re talking Pacman meets A Clockwork Orange. 
 

The next room was called ‘Violent Death’ and mainly consisted of art about war, by Jacques Callot, Otto Dix and Francisco Goya. I’m mentioning these names in a way that suggests I knew who they were. I really didn’t. I’d completely peaked at Robert Mapplethorne. But later that evening, attempting to be a proper socially-aware grown-up, I was downloading some Radio 4 podcasts and stumbled across ‘Great Lives’ and a podcast specifically about Goya. Using the selection process of what to learn that I’d developed on my trip around Europe (whereby if the same thing coincidentally appears twice or more in a short space of time, I’ll read up on it) I figured I should have a listen. So turns out Goya was a Spanish painter whose works were pretty subversive and at times risque (he painted a nude woman with pubes. Goya, you ruddy devil). The podcast explained his progression through royal and noble courts, and his reliance on his wife Josefa as a sometimes muse and as a carer after he went deaf and suffered a mental breakdown. Over his lifetime, his non-commissioned work became pretty macabre, and it was some images from his series entitled ‘The Disasters of War’ that were in the Wellcome Collection. These were relatively miserable, though Otto Dix was probably a bit more disturbing and this was presumably because he’d actually been a soldier during WW1 and so all of his paintings were versions of his memories on the battlefield. Pretty dark. 

In later rooms there were some clever paintings with scenes that could also be viewed as skulls if you looked at them the right way (called ‘metamorphic postcards’, apparently. See here), and some sculptures, models and mexican puppets as well as some random photos of people holding skulls (and I use random in the correct sense; the curator Richard Harris had just found a selection of photos of unknown people who were holding skulls in their holiday snaps). Abbie liked the Victorian photograph of some science students standing next to a skeleton on a table, all typically unsmiling even as the guy on the end turns the skull to look at the camera. 
 

The last room contained an infographic about death and the causes of death during 20th century. Those Chinese have got a lot to answer to apparently. Two civil wars and then all that communism? Rotters. We were discussing non-communicable diseases when Chaotic Clare, Canadian Kira and Toe-Shoe Matt turned up. After briefly looking at the bone chandelier (see the timelapse installation of that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TioV1BWjiyM) Abbie and I went to the permanent collection upstairs as they looked around, though called it a day after looking at the mummified man and the extracted, preserved tattooed skin of some 19th century LADS (minging). 

I figure if I end this post with the following, I’ll look look a prop-ah writer:

Death: A Self Portrait, curated by Richard Harris, is displaying at the Wellcome Collection in London until Sunday 24th February.

*A week doesn’t pass without Abbie coming home with a story about how Clare has lost something important, forgotten about an exam or locked herself INSIDE her own flat. I’m impressed how she happily functions in such chaos.