It had been a lacklustre week since Flatmate was away. Ok, there were a couple of fun nights, but they were nothing quite like yesterday. Yes, FM came back last night unannounced and primed for a good time out. It was business as usual.

To be honest, I was just expecting to grab a few drinks on nearby Upper Street and then head home to do some more work. But FM had a much bigger appetite.

We kicked off the evening at the same places as I did last week (yes, I did finally go out), Bar Rumba and Tiger Tiger in Picadilly Circus. Both spots were fairly busy for a Tuesday night but that still didn’t cut it for FM. So I brought him to The End.

The Players night at The End was massive. AKA, the bar upstairs, was packed at midnight and by the time we left, the bottom floor had filled up with a flirty crowd of twenty-something jamming to the sounds of electro funk and acid house. Hope FM’s day at the office goes well.

Note: Took a lot of footage, but yet again couldn’t use them due to lighting.

SWIFT INFO

AKA/The End, The Players on Tuesday night: free before 11pm, fiver after… crowd of about 300 in their early 20s working mostly in the hospitality sector (free entrance if you bring a pay stub from a bar, restaurant or hotel)… lots of Spanish, French and Italian clubbers… dress code: relaxed, trainers are ok.
18 West Central Street. Holborn Tube. www.endclub.com

Bar Rumba on Tuesday night: free before 10pm, fiver after… mixed crowd of all ages but that gets younger as the night unfolds.
36 Shaftesbury Avenue. Piccadilly Circus Tube. www.barrumba.co.uk

Tiger Tiger on Tuesday night: free before 10pm, fiver after… 30-something crowd, I’d say most are tourists or are in London on business… rnb and a bit of house.
29 The Haymarket. Piccadilly Circus Tube. www.tigertiger.co.uk

We were supposed to launch yesterday, but we decided to be a good sport and let Microsoft Vista get all the attention this week.

Jokes aside, everything’s in place minus the payment function, which is an important feature to have, and our Body Art T-shirt. We noticed that our suppliers printed it on a men’s t-shirt, causing the piercing to appear below the waist. Not quite the desired effect we’re after.

While our programmers are hacking away, I can now concentrate on the stuff I like – making T-shirts and going out. I’ll try to attend Margin London, a streetwear tradeshow, and review concept and T-shirt stores in London.

One I must see is Best. Here’s an amusing pic from the shop’s blog.

T-shirts have arrived. Website is functional. Once our developers finish integrating the payment processing, we will be kickin’ next week.

Time to run amok with the Aussies for their national holiday.

We received our first T-shirt today. It took a mere 5 days to ship from California to London. Ironically, the regular airmail shipping through the U.S. Postal Service was a day faster than its priority service, and $60 cheaper.

Four more T-shirts will be sent today via DHL, and the remaining one should get here early next week. If all things are in place (still on pace), we will start selling on 29 January.

I’ve gone from bar hopping to web coding the past two days. Now that the online shop is sitting on our server, I got to dabble once again with HTML and tinker with the site’s design.

It’s been almost non-stop since Sunday evening, understanding why there’s extra space between lines, why some pages appear wider than others, why the page displays correctly in Firefox but not IE, vice-versa, and other pesky browser issues.

With my HTML ordeal nearly done, the dilemma tonight is deciding whether and where to go out. Bar Rumba for some latin beats? A chill Open Deck night at The Chapel? Or the mother of ‘em all The End for a house jamming feast?