Out in the City: Butterflies in my stomach - Is it Love?

10 April 2012

"What are you doing on the fourteenth of February?" I'm sitting with Arthur - that's the 21-year-old art school student I've been seeing - at the Portobello Star, the pub. It's the sort of cosy weekday night I like nowadays. Keeping it real, really. Normally one of my teenage fans will pop down from Notting Hill Gate to keep me entertained. But they're worried that now I've got an - ahem - boyfriend they are no longer needed. "Where the f*** are you?" one of them texts.

I never thought that liking someone would prevent me from going out, but it has. And I don't really consider Arthur to be my boyfriend, even though everyone else does, just someone I'm hanging out with. Maybe it's normal to be a bit in denial about something like this. But as I flicked through my diary to see what I was doing that day, I realised what his question meant. No one's ever asked me to be their valentine before. I went white, I'm not sure why.

And so I bolted out into the night. And headed to Dalston. I've always liked Dalston. And not just because it's where my favourite TV show, EastEnders, is set (fictional Albert Square, E20, is in fact Fassett Square, E8, the real life Ridley Road market is Walford market, etc etc). It's the borough where in 2007 I discovered April 77 jeans and The Horrors - though disappointingly the only place I spot their lead singer, Faris Badwan, who I used to think was so f****** cool, these days, is playing football with Old Etonians on the Astroturf underneath the Westway.

But word had reached me in west London of the existence of the hottest club in town. And this fabled club was meant to be in Dalston. And I wanted to go on a quest and find this Holy Grail of edge. So cool is it, it doesn't even have a name. You just have to wander around of an evening and you wait - hoping you're dressed trendily enough, I guess - to get the "magic tap" on your shoulder. After receiving the tap you get passed the information on how to get into the club, which is meant to be in a dingy basement on the Kingsland Road.

I never did get the tap. But it was nice returning to Arthur, who just laughed at me and gave me a hug.

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