Roxy, I Heart.

Although I obviously spent a lot of my time at burlesque events and urgo, with other burlesque performers. They tend not to make it into my circle of aquaintance outside of work hours. I feel one self-obsessed performer is enough for any group of friends to deal with. Added to this, most performers live their job in a way that I tend not to. Outside of my twilight working hours you're not likely to find me at another burlesque event. I'll be headbanging naked a in a gutter in east London, dancing in some grotty warehouse party or pretending to like some cute boy's frankly appauling band in Camden. I've found that lots of the burlesque girls tend to frequent the the same venues that they perform in, even when they aren't working and while I applaud their dedication to the burlesque cause, I'd rather take my custom elsewhere. Somewhere without naked girls who can't dance and somewhere the drinks won't cost the same as a pair of new shoes.
But recently whilst working within the performer collective The Victor and Vanquished with Roxy Velvet and Ivy Paige, I feel like I've made my first real burlesque friend. The slighly insane but wonderful Roxy Velvet.
The other week my friend Charlotte sent me a text asking what I was up to that evening. It was a Tuesday and I hadn't much planned because the boy was on tour and I didn't have a show, so Charlotte invited me to come out with her. It transpired that 'out' translated into a table at William and Harry's favourite hangout Boujis. Ugh. I am allergic to Kensington. It brings me out in a cheap rash, principally because I am cheap. However, the night out came resplendant with the promise of free booze and I've never been one to turn down a free drink so I asked Roxy to join me as East London back up. I rocked up to the Sloane's venue of choice first, wearing some rather natty spandex leggings, a band t shirt so old you can see the outline of my bra through it (yet curiously not the name of the band), 7" battered heels and a waistcoat I got in Vegas. The look was topped off by my Miss Selfridge fake-mink and waaaaaaay too much red lipstick. When I finally made it into Boujis I was greeted by two guys, both in shirts and a pair of identikit blondes who were drinking water and complaining that the table they were seated at wasn't prominant enough. My friend Charlotte had cried off and not seen fit to mention it. Brilliant. I was on the verge of tottering back East as fast as my massive shoes would carry me, but I recieved a text from Rox saying that she'd already left the house looking like 'Shannon Doherty circa 1985'. That was reason enough to stay. And stay I did, cursing Roxy's lateness. I laboured through a conversation with the blondes who by this time had dismissed me as a nutjob with too much make up on, then turned my attention to the texan half of the be-shirted men on my other side. It turned out that he was 'in oil' and when I asked for a dark rum and diet coke, he returned with a bottle. The evening began. Roxy turned up in an 80's dress complete with shoulder pads and we drank the table dry then started requesting more from our poor beliguered waitress. The blondes saw themselves possibly outclassed and certainly out-drunkened so headed for the hills. I got so pissed that I snogged the none-texan half of the two men, which turned out to be a mistake because he then spent the remainder of the evening trying to lock me in various bathrooms with him in the mistaken belief that he could get me to have sex with him. Shudder.
Boujis closed and so on the promise of omlette and possibly gear, Roxy, the guys and I headed to Balans. We ended the evening raiding the laurent perrier from the texan's mini bar in The Dorchester. What they expected when they got us back there was not what actually happened. Rox and I drank the mini-bar dry and then re-enacted the Eddie Izzard 'Cake or Death' sketch repeatedly whilst cackling like witches. We stumbled out of The Dorchester at about 11am and back to Balans where Roxy had a meeting. She attempted to hold it togther while I drank mimosas and chipped in with innapropriate comments along the lines of 'Cake or death?' (Girl with a one track mind...)
To her credit, Roxy laughed every time.