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Up North (of the River).


I went into North London today with my wife: officially because I had a gig, but unofficially, for a jolly. 

(I'd like to known henceforth as Rupert for using the word jolly in this context.) 

The sunny weather brought the people of Islington out in force. You couldn't throw a metre-square quadrat down at random without encircling three hipsters. Everyone was better looking and more financially solvent than me, though to be fair, you can apply that summary to the majority of the human race.

We went to the lovely tapas restaurant, Gem, on Upper Street, which just so happened to be the location of my final meal before proposing to my wife. I don't mean that in a death row sense. The food there was as lovely as my recollection of it; I ate so much, I thought it might hinder my performance (if anyone happened to see my set and didn't like it, this was clearly the reason).

We had a quick drink at the pub theatre the King's Head, which I've never visited before, despite having spent a lot of time in the vicinity. It's very pretty. I found myself getting unreasonably annoyed by a man at the bar who had pretentious theatrical type written all over him (I won’t make a ‘not literally’ joke).

The club Angel Comedy was lovely, but my five-minute set was a little middling. If nothing else, I lived up to the venue’s seraphic moniker, judging from the picture below: it’s not overexposed, I was literally glowing.


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