2-0

After lunch at Wagamamas [mmmmm - hadn't been in about 15 months] with the lovely Emma, I headed back home to theoretically do some work. An hour later I woke up, disoriented, realised it's 4:30 so got my swerve on to Hammersmith, where I met M & S outside the Palais.

If you've grown up in West London, the Hammersmith Palais is kind of a rite of passage - fuck it, maybe it's one for those that've grown up in North, South and East London too, I have no idea. But it's one of those clubs that have been around forever. It's a little bit grubby now, it's gone through various ownerships and name changes, but of course has still always been known as the Palais, even when it was technically Po Na Na. It's now home to School Disco on a Saturday night - not a place I'd recommend.

For the England v. Trinidad & Tobago game on Thursday, they'd opened up the Palais to mailing list members. They had two big screens, table and chairs and so on. We walked in from a bright sunny afternoon and I was instantly blind it was so dark inside. We stumbled our way through to the main club area to see the two screens and a lot of people [and smoke. I always forget it's smoking in bars here until I'm actually in them. Drives me mad. The smoking ban is a good thing.] We made ourselves comfortable by one of the bars - the HD TV above the bar had a much better picture than the big ones - and watched the game. It was kind of a weird place to watch the game, but it did provide for a good atmosphere with that many people. And holy shit, when Crouch finally fucking scored in the 83rd minute, the place went craaaazy.