Bouzoukia Night!

I've been aching to write this post since before I even thought of the Media Blog. This is the long-awaited Bouzoukia Night post. Buckle up everyone and upgrade to DSL if you can. It's a big one.

It all started with an invitation from the Hellenic and Cypriot societies here at the LSE. Now, I know the thought of me signing up to a Hellenic Society will raise a few eyebrows. I went to great lengths to avoid it. But I was registered, as it happened, by my ex-debater Roberto who is the President of the LSE Hellenic Society. Talk about networking. At the time I thought, poor kid, what sad and sorry mess has he gotten himself into? I have since had cause to reconsider.

There was to be a Hellenic Party that night, Wednesday, the 2nd of November. It feels like ages ago, but it's been less that two weeks. Amazing. Now my first impulse was to skip that sad celebration of culture shock and write my umpteenth application to some management consultancy instead. I have never been too fond of documents signed "The Committee" and had been spending rather too much lately.

Enter my colleague Thanos, connoisseur of bespoke tailoring and other masterpieces. He informed me over Skype that I could not possibly betray the crew by not showing up again. I had been touchy about matters of honour since I had come to London and so I reluctantly decided to follow. The evening was to start with a football game, Panathinaikos v. Barcelona, in the Underground Bar.

Now I have not followed the team's progress since we beat Ajax years and years ago, and could not name three people on the roster, but, even so, five goals are too many to watch and beer doesn't make it any better. We left the game early and solemnly made our way to the Quad...

...and into a whole different world. Well-arranged tables and surreal lighting gave one the impression of being in a decent (ok, yeah) Athens joint, minus the overwhelming smoke, for which I was grateful. With an ingenious arrangement of seats, we soon found ourselves seated at the front, a perfect vantage point from which to take pictures. I was not too excited about having two obviously stoned Cypriot musicians on stage, singing ever so slightly out of key, but they got better as the night wore on, and I was getting steadily drunk, so it didn't matter for long.

As with all good things, there was a catch. As massive organizational cock-up would have it, the Societies had not managed to get a late licence. You know what that means... Pub hours! At 11 we were politely informed that the party was over and we were to go home; the musicians packed up and made to leave. But they had underestimated us, all of them. Within seconds, we were singing our own enormously loud encore and the stage was busy all over again. If pressed to come up with the highlight of the night, the encore would be my unreserved choice.

One of the best things about being drunk is that you never notice how far you've walked. This is a good thing because the encore couldn't last forever and the rest of the party was to take place in Soho. To call that a five minute walk is the kind of understatement one can only make to the drunk, but that is what we were told. We were quite drunk, did I mention?

Now Jimmy's Bar is properly a koutouki by night. It is a small, terribly claustrophobic joint, tiptoing around licencing laws with the dexterity of a man on hard liquor. It was perfect. By now, most people were eyeing the remaining ladies and wondering how they ever got so pretty, and those of us who truly enjoy the music of a koutouki were preparing song requests. One such request by our striped friend from Thessaloniki was rewarded with cigarettes, courtesy of the musicians. Those of us who took a puff got more than we'd bargained for. We got a taste of home... George Linardakis' home in Kalamata.

After that, things really got out of hand. They tend to around 3, especially among people who have been eating too little and working too hard. People cheated on other people. Others puked on other people. Worse still, some freeloaded on all of us. But you expect such things in such joints, and we have never made mention of any of that ever since. Except the cheating I think.
With the party over, I made my way back to Earl's Court. This involved a Night Bus, which ought to tell you it was not nice. I didn't catch my death, for which I thank the gods of ridiculously big cities, and I even showed up for AC430: Corporate Finance and Asset Markets the day after. Cool.