Last Friday was the Circle Line Party III (http://circlelineparty.org.uk/), a carefully planned, meticulously organised event which appeared to implode under its own popularity before exploding into a supernova of spontaneity across the city. At *ten* minutes to kickoff, I counted about 150 people at the back of the Liverpool Street platform, and more were arriving every second. By the time a Circle Line train limped into the station, it was abundantly clear there was a huge surfeit of revellers, and many waited for the next train, making the party into a two train, 8 carriage spectacular. There was music, canapes, tequila, cider, whisky, wine and cheese and music from a dude with a portable record player (http://www.vestax.com/products/HandyTrax.htm) hooked up to battery powered guitar amps! Past Circle Line Parties had relied on a degree of stealth to allow the party to go ahead under the noses of the Man, and amusingly the music stopped as we pulled into each station, despite the fact that several hundred people rammed on to the trains like cattle might alert the station staff rather sooner than a bit of music.

At stations I ran up and down the train joining different carriages, checking the vibe, but to be honest I wasn't unhappy about stopping - having party on the Underground in August is not a clever idea. On gettting out we converged on Sloane Square for an awesome mini carnival. The anti-capitalist percussion band Rhythms of Resistance got the party going with some sustained samba, which I barged in on eager for some fun. After graduating from a shaker to a small drum to the big bad drum, my arm was on fire as I tried to keep up with the band. A bit of flagrant drum-n-bassing made up for not really knowing the groove though!

As the party wound down after midnight I opted to wander home rather than go on to Spitalfields, reasoning that I had to get up the next day to go to Lyme Regis. For one reason or another I barely slept at all anyway and should've just gone to the party, but I wasn't to know my housemate was going to bring home a 7-piece funk band at 3am. My head was spinning with the excitement anyway, so I'm not sure how I would've slept anyway. Luckily, the next day all I had to do was make it to Southfields by 10am and Rob and Charlotte could drive me to Lyme Regis, which all happened smoothly but slowly in the scorching Saturday sun. It took us 6 hours to get from London to Lyme, but boy was it worth it. In the afternoon and evening sun the bay was lit with a light which deepened from daisy yellow to golden syrup as the evening wore on. Dinner was booked for 8pm at a seafront restaurant, which meant we missed the sunset, but the meal more than made up for it.

"What's fresh?" I asked. The waitress replied, "The plaice came in this morning, the mackerel at 4pm and the gurnard just a couple of hours ago." Wow! What a choice, but in the end I picked plaice, because it's one of my favourites. Charlotte and Rob shared gurnard (in Japanese it's called sokohoubou, but I don't know any Japanese who know this fish!) and big prawns from Madagascar, both of which were delicious, while Mat opted for poached salmon. I tried everything, and the gurnard was the best. In case you don't know, it's a deep sea fish with delicious, firm white flesh, not unlike cod. The piece of Mat's salmon I tried was more like mousse than flesh, so softly had it been poached, and my plaice was fantastic, with flesh dripping off the bones and the surprise bonus of several roe sacs inside! Fireworks in the evening and the dregs of my pouch sealed the night, and the cost of the previous, sleepless, night made itself felt and I crashed out to the sound of distant thumps from the Powerboat Owner's Club disco...