Boat Party
Much to Otter‘s chagrin, ‘Verticality‘ has entered the vernacular of the current London ‘UE’ Set. Discussed at length on Placehacking, where Brad first coined the concept, it sits alongside ‘Edgework‘ and the much derided ‘Prohobo‘ as a term that wouldn’t neccesarily mean a lot to anybody else, but is in somewhat regular usage among this group of individuals.
While the verticality of the city was irrelevant on this occasion, the ‘Horizontality’ was the one thing that did come up. Where do stand on aquatic based pursuits? Aside from advising any police officer searching the car (As they sometimes do) that our waders and inflatable dinghies are for these pursuits (which they are), we don’t really tend to get on the water much, we’re either on, under or above the city. Never ‘In’
This weekend was a reminder of why we should get on the water, I guess. Quite why October decided to gift us with the baking sun we had I don’t know, but it was the perfect weather for a get together. John brought Red Dwarf down to the banks and we loaded onto her 4 speakers, an amp, two crates of beer, shitloads of cables, a genny, and about 15 people…
True to form, this was another of the ubiquitous ‘surprise’ parties that are occurring on a far more regular basis that I guess they were first intended. Recognition of one’s achievement on this plane is some sort of precursor, and this time, SilentMotion was the recipient, thanks mainly to the efforts of his equally adventurous girlfriend, Sarah.
We’d been out on the wednesday night prior, floating an inflatable dinghie out into the Thames and drifting down the river using a plank of wood as an oar, before realising that we’d need to start much further upstream if we wanted to land on the jetty. We found the boat open and available, assuming that it had been left and forgotten about. Soaking wet, we ventured onto the roof of Battersea, despite being so tired I was almost falling asleep.
With some individuals electing to stay away due to the assumption that the river police may arrest us for piracy, the evening passed without major incident. Nobody ended up in the river, nobody got naked and we didn’t get arrested. With the usual three outcomes from a good party settled, myself and John ended up sleeping on the boat and getting woken up by the sun turning the cabin into an oven. We sat on the deck in the sun with Patch until the river police asked us if we owned the boat and if not, then what were we were doing on it please? Glorious though it was for the 2 hours or so that we loitered, eventually reality hit us and it was back to the hard work of lugging speakers around while being knee deep in Thames ‘water’.
I’d love to get out on the water more – there’s jetties, drain outfalls and derps lining the river in certain places and it’s an extra dimension to the city to enjoy.