9th of April 2007 - Hoedown and Bunnython

This site has now been retired. I've moved to my new site Silverknife, where you'll find new blog posts and all my latest projects and photos. These pages will remain for at least a while, as I know some of you are still looking through the archives, but I'm reposting my travel journals and many other articles on the new site. Come and check it out.

Mark's Daily Weight Update: 93Kg.

God, what a weekend. Unbelievable stuff. Fabulous debauchery. I think my body chemistry has been permanently altered.

Saturday night was my mate Santi's Midnight Brockley Country and Western and Bluegrass Mini Hoedown, in Brockley Stone Circle, and Sunday afternoon was Bunnython, the easter bunny spinoff of Santacon. Then Monday morning (today) was Staying Fairly Still and Avoiding Thinking about Alcohol Con. It is currently taking place in my flat and is going rather well.

First: Saturday night, and the Midnight Brockley Country and Western and Bluegrass Mini Hoedown. I set out about half past eight in the evening, having to take two trains across London into an area I'd never been before, and I reached the park with a comfortable half hour to spare. The hoedown was taking place in a stone circle at the back of the park, and I spent some time wandering around the park in the dark with no luck until I crossed paths with a softly-spoken young man carrying a ukelele case who introduced himself as Goat. We spent some time wandering around mutually lost until we met another group who fortunately did know the area and led us to the circle.

The party started to gear up from 11 and more people kept arriving till well after midnight - there were probably 30 or 40 people there at the peak according to my increasingly battered brain. There was wonderful music, fabulous bacon and beans, a truly lovely crowd of interesting people most of whom I didn't know but made me feel totally welcome, and more alcohol than I can even face thinking about right now. Met a fair few fellow Santas as well.

Some top highlights: Endless friendly welcomes and introductions, Goat's astounding ukelele performance (occasionally drifting into George Formby impressions), and the three chavs who'd been sneaking up to ambush us and whom I met when I went down the hill to take a leak. They were welcomed warmly and ended up joining the party, engaged in interesting conversation and caused harm to no-one.

We carried on till pretty much dawn, and I crashed at a friend's house for about 3 hours before gathering my gear and heading out. I cut back through the park on the way to the station, and the morning was just glorious even to my rather-sickly brain.



		The circle in daylight.
	After some complicated travel arrangements due to most of the trains in London being cancelled I ended up by the river and just kicked around for a few hours feeling pretty ill and knackered out but gradually improving. Stunning weather helped.


	I stopped into the Tate Modern, but the crowds were manic so I moved on pretty quickly not really feeling up to all the noise. I did finally get to see Carsten Holler's (don't have the energy to look up the HTML code for an umlaut O, sorry Carsten) slides, which will be closing shortly. They're pretty amazing constructions, but I still feel like they're less "art with visitor interaction" and more "a visitor attraction that happens to be built in an art gallery". Ho hum. And yes, I know the editor has munged the thumbnail images. I don't care. I may fix them when I am not recovering from 5,000 gallons of alcohol.

	After that it was nearly Bunnython time, but frankly I was feeling thoroughly wiped out. Most of the nausea had gone on but I felt dizzy and extremely tired, and by the time I got to the Angel Pub for the kickoff I have never felt less like dressing up as a rabbit and going on the piss. Well, except that one time. Since I was there anyway, I stopped into the pub to say hello to everyone and apologise for disappearing, but that kind of evolved into a quick drink because I was thirsty...and then chatting a bit...and then Bluebeard insisted on putting bunny ears on me while I was there...and it was such a nice crowd...and finally I ended up going down to the toilets and putting on my ears and tail after all. Actually I had a really good time with it, and my second wind lasted till after 9pm. I've put the Bunnython pictures up on a separate page, for ease of access. Click here for the Bunnython 2007 pictures I got home at 11 last night, and fell asleep in my clothes about 5 minutes later. Actually feeling pretty good now, just tired and a bit vacant. Also every single surface in my flat is covered in black fluff from my rabbit kit. And my monitors. And the cooker for some reason.