OBAMARAMA

UK AND AWAY: PART 2

They say the friends you make in your youth are the ones that stay with you for life regardless of how long it has been since you've seen them. All my friends in London fall into this category and most of them I had not seen in at least five years….the last time I was in London. To be honest I was a little worried before I left whether I was going to be a little lonely; I had not heard from many people when I sent an email out in September saying that I was coming over for a month in November. Two days prior to leaving, suddenly everyone came out of the wood-work. I pretty much had a social commitment every night of the 11 nights I was in London. It was fantastic as it enabled me to go wandering during the day and kick up my heels with my mates at night.

Two of my friends S & A had originally planned to host an Obama party themselves the night of the US Election: 4 November 2008. Due to overwork commitments and general disorganisation, the party didn't happen. Instead S & A organised tickets to go to a US Election Party at a bar in Leicester Square. There were about twelve us who went along. It was supposed to be a general US Election Party but it was obvious which side everyone at the party was on.

A arrived a little later with her new boyfriend….well who I thought was her boyfriend. S & A are old friends of my brother's and consequently friends of mine. We all went to the same law school and we've known each other for about 12 years. As the night proceeded and we knocked back more and more Obarama's (some lethal sambuca concoction made in tribute for the Democrat nominee), I started to realise that A's 'new' boyfriend was flirting with me. I couldn't believe it. In all the time I've known A, she has had about five boyfriends who have all turned out to be gay; her track record is unfortunately dominated by rainbow flags. The flirting continued between the 'new' boyfriend and myself. It didn't help either that he and I were also the only smokers in the group requiring us to head out into the 2 degree weather every 15 minutes for a fag. He wasn't my type at all. Short, shaved head and completely hairless, but the more I talked to him, the more he laughed at my jokes and he at mine, the more sexy I found him. He was a lawyer (yes another one) and he was from Paris. I made the first of many Colin Blonde moments by stating that I didn't know there was a Paris in the UK; he said "no, the one in France." I ordered another Obamarama. He sounded so much like an extra off Brideshead Revisited that I didn't think for a minute that he could be a frog. But perhaps by that stage the sambuca had taken over all my listening devices.

By about 3 in the morning all our friends had left and we were the last mugs swaying around the bar. We talked and talked and talked about everything from art to politics to religion to children to life to how we'd both would have bedded John McCaine in his war time years but not Obama….too much earlobe. By 4 in the morning, we were well and truly sambucked; he had an 8am meeting, I had a city to devour....we exited the bar and walked out into Leicester Square. The mood had changed. The air was stunned with anticipation. People were gathering around mobiles and available plasmas. A bloke next to us was watching CNN on his iphone: "McCain's conceding. He's in! Obama's in!" That's right there was an election on. The news spread fast. People started yelling and hugging each other. Then the whole square erupted into a roar. People were dancing around. Carhorns were being blown and people were running out of buildings cheering. Was this history changing gears? We stopped to catch our breaths. I looked at Frenchi. This was definitely a "where were you?" moment. So I pulled him in close and made sure we remembered it.


C