We met in Chinawhite, where everyone met their dates in 2008 (ish). The girls and I went every week, we dressed up like we were going to The Grammys. We took the same table, drank the same magnum of vodka and my little sister usually got thrown out for being too rock and roll, banned for life and then let back in the next week like nothing had happened because she was beautiful and most importantly, we were the life and soul of the party.
We were all single, most of us lived together in an apartment in Greenwich village we called Princess Towers, those who didn't, stayed there so often that is made no difference. We mainly went on dates so we had something to gossip about on Sundays which were usually our day off from going out out.
On this particular week I met an individual I will call Keith, although this is not his name. Keith had been a judge on a TV show and was a little bit famous. Not uncool enough to be bumped down to a B or C list celeb but not exactly paparazzi fodder.
He seemed interesting and we swapped numbers. A few days later, I'm impressed with his choice of dinner spot, Cafe Boheme on Old Compton Street. A whimsical, Parisian speak easy type of a place deep in the heart of soho, with golden lighting and fabulous cocktails. Apart from a touch of "I'm going to change your life" chat, which I never appreciate, the conversation and the drinks flowed and we had a great evening.
As we finished dinner, he mentioned his friend had a birthday party going on in Mayfair that he had said he would drop into, would I like to join him? I said I would and this is where it got very weird and then very cool in extremely quick succession.
We got up to leave, it was the summer, he had a jacket which he wasn't wearing. We stepped outside the restaurant onto Old Compton Street which isn't known for it's swathes of paps and journalists waiting outside venues. But we're unlucky, he swings his jacket around our heads to shield us from the glare of hundreds of flashing bulbs and starts running like our lives depended on it. One arm around me and the other protecting us from the cameras.
It wasn't my first rodeo when it came to paparazzi, but this was particularly dramatic, the only thing weirder than the matador moves with his jacket and the sprinting through the crowds, was the fact that, to my knowledge there wasn't actually a single photographer in sight. Not one. I'm not sure if he had been mistaken or he wanted to assure me he was a really, really ridiculously big deal.
We hop in a cab, me, totally bemused, and ask the driver to take us to Berkley Square where we climb out and stroll nonchalantly to the entrance of Nobu.
Here there was a very real, very large mob of paparazzi photographers.
Closed to the public, on a Thursday evening, which is kind of a big deal and I start wondering what type of person has the means and contacts to rent out the whole of Nobu for a birthday bash.
I was about to find out, and, incidentally, so are you.
We walk in and in place of customary welcome drinks, a champagne, a cocktail, each guest was handed a bottle of Jack Daniels. This was beginning to look very quickly like my kind of party. We squeezed through the packed room to hunt out and congratulate the birthday boy. Keith spied him heading up the sweeping staircase and we followed him up. At the top of those stairs I said a very happy birthday to Liam Gallagher.
The rest of what happened that night was naturally, very rock and roll, and also totally top secret but it will always be up there with my weirdest dates I've ever been on. We didn't go on a second date because the suggestion was that I went to his and cooked for him, that isn't my idea of a date in the first trimester so he was Ciao Bye'd but I will be forever grateful for the invite to a real life rockstar's birthday party.
This blog was for Amy who requested "more disastrous dating stories" on my instagram story. Hope you, and everyone else enjoyed it.
See you tomorrow my loves. Ciao Bye!