My blog seems to hit a happy note when it’s time for Britain’s Got Talent related shenanigans. Thankfully the fangirls have stopped thinking I’m George Sampson, but we’ll see what happens later on in the year 
Today I went on an eagerly anticipated trip to London to watch a bunch of people fail at showing Britain that they have talent. I found the tickets in my spam inbox when I was flicking through it randomly one day, so that was quite lucky. I put it on Plurk and got Jordan and Timi to pop along with me to the Hammersmith Apollo. Fandabbydozy.
I got there on the train at about 1pm, by which the other two, coming from Northampton, had stumbled into the Science Museum. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go, I’m not going to lie. I think I have been, but not in a long long time. But meh, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend looking round museums anyway.
But we made time for the Victoria and Albert museum. I mainly wanted to go to be a true IMP and look round Decode – the interactive art exhibition – but also being a student, I didn’t want to pay to enter it. So we looked around some other boring historical stuff. Pfft, what was it back in the day that everyone was naked. Geez, decency? Ever heard of that? Pfft…
Before we knew it (well, mainly before we could finish drawing sarcastic things on pads of paper), it was time to hop on the tube to Hammersmith and join the massive queue no doubt waiting us. It wasn’t as big as we thought it would be (that’s what she said) but we were in for a bit of a wait nonetheless.
The amount of people builds up and up as time goes on we get squashed together to fit more people in the queue. Seriously, if we were chickens, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall would be at Hammersmith faster than you could say “River Cottage”.
Night draws in and with it the cold and the snow. Everyone’s seriously pissed off now for waiting so long in such conditions. If you wanted to go get anything like food or needed the toilet, you lost your place in line. Applause Store really have a lot to answer for when it comes to their service of the public.
But finally, almost an hour after they said they would, they let us in to the vague warmness of the Apollo. I’ve always wanted to go into the Apollo, so it was nice to do it for free. The next challenge was getting into the actual theatre area and grab a decent seat. Of course, thanks to Applause Store’s pretty appalling crowd control, there’s soon a clusterfuck around the entry doors. We managed to squeeze through and get fairly decent seats. So we couldn’t see the judges, nobody could unless you paid for priority tickets and I’m no mug.
The inevitable pre-show quote-unquote “entertainment” was supplied by the stock entertainer Ian Royce, who wasn’t funny back when me and Timi saw him at the recording of Britain’s Best Brain, and the same jokes weren’t funny the second time round, neither. His jokes seem to be about making jokes about sex by making noises and doing embarrassing mimes on stage. He’s a bit of a nobber, if I’m honest, but we weren’t there to see him. We were here to laugh at the horridly bad acts.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of the acts’ names but there’s a dance one at the start which was quite good, an old couple singing in the middle who were quite quaint and a comedy dance group at the end who were really funny. I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw them in the final, to be honest. It certainly made everyone laugh.
The show airs sometime April-May time I do believe. Our auditions were the last of this year, but are going to be the first shown on ITV when the show starts again. So look out for our faces, yes?
We left it a little late so we could watch all the acts, but we had to get a wriggle on otherwise I’d miss my bus. I thought it stopped at Hammersmith as an afterthought so I had a bit of a look and asked this bloke who said it didn’t. Ack. Well, I wouldn’t have gotten to Victoria in time to catch it anyway, so we took it leisurely to Victoria where I split from the other two, who got the train back to Northampton.
Yeah, this is where it goes downhill.
There wasn’t another bus to Poole until quarter-past seven – a good… well, seven and a quarter hours away. There’s no other buses at all, so they shut the station. Nowhere to wait. Well, I wander round London a bit, until I realise Victoria train station’s still open. Well, until that shut at 1am. So I had to sample the delights of being homeless in London for a night. Believe me, as much fun as it sounds (urr…) it really isn’t.
It started snowing again about the same time as I got kicked out of the train station. So it was left to me to wander round this little outside shopping centre area with people who were either in the same boat as me, or really dressed up homeless people. I couldn’t quite figure it out.
Luckily the train station opened again at half three, so I could at least shelter from the snow and icy wind (well, partially, Victoria station isn’t completely shut off from the elements). Coffee shops started to open, too. So I spend a couple of quid on some coffee to keep me going. I spent about £1 on using the toilets, too. I make such a big deal about not paying to use them, too. Man, me and my morals split in a crisis…
Obviously, I eventually got to a bus. I almost missed it because the ticket office opened at 7 and the bus left at 7:15, and naturally the queue was stupidly long. But I got there just in time. I’m £20 out of pocket (minus the £6 I paid for the original ticket URGH) but at least I’m back.
I was going to document it on my camera, but I thought holding an expensive item out at night in London was a bad idea. But I managed to subtly Twitter. You can tell I got a bit bored…
Needless to say, I won’t be repeating that in a hurry.
lotso’lolz