Last night, at a club my friends and I have begun frequenting due to its lax ID rules, they played Sarbel (a favourite Greek/Lebanese pop singer) singing Se Pira Sovara.
It was most curious
.
I've already noticed that most of Oxford's weekend nightlife is made up of the Polish and Albanian lot. Both are in abundance in Oxford these days and seem to have taken over, especially the Albanians. Presumably they're nostalgic for Greek-style nightlife (shimmying till the late hours.) Unfortunately they're rather creepy, and persistent Albanian men can be found in the city centre bars and clubs from 9pm onwards on a weekend night - a fact not included in the guidebooks we sell at work.
The club usually plays mediocre dance or pop music, with the usual lasers and strobe lights and now smoke machines to make up for the absence of cigarettes now we have the smoking ban. We had gone early to get in free on a facebook promotion, and had spent a good embarrassing half hour or two watching an aged and over-keen couple bopping (there isn't another word for what the over 50-crowd will do on a dancefloor) away on their own in the middle. Gradually we watched the club fill up. The amount of lip-liner application going on in the ladies' room made me suspicious. Returning to the bar, I couldn't help but notice a drinks list on the wall not only in English, but also Polish.
Once the club was full it was clear that we English were the minority. The dancefloor was curiously packed with men. Shimmying. At each other. With greasy hair. I didn't live in Athens for two years for nothing - and there aren't enough Greeks in Oxford to explain it. The Albanians had come out in style.
As I said, most persistent dancers and we 4 girls were inundated with male shimmy circles going on around us, a very frightening prospect in any environment, let alone one where it's semi-appropiate.
Then, as we were contemplating leaving, Sarbel came on and I insisted we stay and join in. If it had been a shimmy-fest before, it was nothing now. A positive roar went up as the DJ played the most popular song of the evening and there were chests being flung left and right.
Given that most of the music played in Oxford clubs is of the Beyonce/Sean Paul genre, I just thought it was interesting. Sarbel must be pleased.
I'd apologise for the inconsistent blogging again but this time it's really not my fault. I've been internet-free since the last one. Virgin media are shit. It's as if they don't even care that I have no internet. I don't understand how a household is expected to successfully function without internet in this day and age and Virgin are entirely unsympathetic about this. Grrrr.
It’s half past midnight and I can’t sleep, so I have resorted to writing. I feel as though I should be puffing on a cigarette and clattering thoughtfully on a typewriter. Well, I’m halfway there. I live the teenage smoker’s dream – no parents around and a ledge outside my window perfect for crouching on. Alas, I find smoking repulsive. I feel I should win points for the typewriter as my once pristine laptop is now a creaking, dusty old thing lying forgotten in a corner, keyboard perched on top of its broken inset one (broken by Sony in an exchange for a free camera. It seemed fair at the time).
Anyway I couldn’t sleep because I’ve begun to narrate my own life. Not content with talking to myself and imagined companions, I have sunken to a new lonely person low. (My previous lonely person low is being the lonely guy from Scrubs – the one who nuzzles his own shoulder after someone brushes it.) Scrubs is partly the culprit for the life-narration. Protagonist JD is a renowned life-narrator. But worse than him is Carrie in Sex and the City. I’ve become fond of re-watching the series after discovering some box sets at my local video rental place. As it’s Sunday I’ve gotten through three discs and that means 18 episodes of ‘it got me thinking that…’ and ‘I couldn’t help but wonder’ as Carrie endlessly outlines the trials of being single and 30. The biggest trial, I suspect, is that she wears crop tops and she is long past the age of 13. Meow.
So I’m lying in bed, thinking about things I need to do and my weekend and all of a sudden I realise that they aren’t thoughts, I’m reading a script. “Then I noticed I hadn’t blogged in a while,” I thought. It’s sad, isn’t it. I shall have to have a Sex and the City break now, it’s clearly bad for me. Although it comes with fond memories of my mother and I watching it on Dutch TV in Greece and admitting the handsome, rich and seemingly perfect Russian man was an ideal candidate for my next father. This was, of course, until he was made the baddie (as Russians always are in American TV) when he slapped poor Carrie in a posh hotel in Paris. I suspect she had packed one too many crop tops. Still, now he’s single…
