Friday night I was buzzing all the way to town, literally grinning and skipping my way down Gray’s Inn Road towards the arcade dive bar PimpShuei, where the legendary Clinton Cawood was celebrating his birthday:

Clint is a living legend, because he is a machine of parties and love. There are no limits to whom he can love and what he can drink. Eight years ago he walked into the bar where I was working and my life in London completely changed. And now he has the most amazing other half, Jeanne who is deliciously care-taking and plan-making and always glows with beauty:

We danced and drank and shouted storied that could only be half-understood over the noise, and I felt free and alive and bubbly with joy and love for all these people.

“And disappear again into a summer’s bliss,
Of staying out and sleeping in and getting drunk with my friends”

Then Veronica and Markus came with their suitcases straight from Gatwick to the basement technicolor dunka-dunka madness.

Between arcade games and cigarette breaks, Elvis and Bruce Lee, catching up with old friends and making new ones, at some point the birthday boy got behind the bar and suddenly the price for tequila was no longer £5 but a bared chest, so shirts flew off and sticky liquor was poured straight into people’s faces.And then everyone looked like this:

Much too early the night wore off and people dispersed, and Mike and I grabbed our two Swedish guests and stumbled our way to a hotdog place. Clinton’s generous tequila servings had made Mike rather floppy and when waiting for his hotdog he looked like this:

What an adorable creature.

Then Uber came and took us all the way home (I love taxis, what an amazing concept), and in the midst of the DIY chaos we settled down for a Gammeldansk nightcap before gratefully crashing into bed, saving some energy for the rest of the big weekend.