Snow

Wow, so the snow came as predicted then.

Having already got tickets to the Kisstory clubnight at Indigo2 at the London's o2 and finding it wasn't cancelled me and two close friends stuck to our plans and went out last night.

I feel I should also add I'm writing this after around four hours sleep or so, so excuse any mistakes...

We'd already arranged for both my friends to stay at mine and for my boyfriend to come pick us up at around 230am (the event finished at 3am). I don't think any of us really suspected the snow would be as bad as suggested. Come on they get the weather wrong ALL the time!!

What resulted was a 'fun' series of events which I'll round up below:

Boyfriend drops us at local station to get train into London, snow starting to lightly fall, at around 8pm
We get on District Line train and get stuck with some drunken rowdy West Ham fans on the tube, me panicking as always thinks they're having a row with supporters in the next carriage so we move
We get on the Jubilee Line - still running at this point - with only a light dusting of snow at West Ham we skid our way onto the tube
On getting off at North Greenwich we are faced with another oddball commuter (this was a common theme on our night - odd/annoying people)
After walking/tiptoeing along the partial undercover path we get into the o2, with people having snowball fights around us, so as you can tell the snow was pretty thick already at this point

What then followed was dinner at Frankie & Benny's - after a long time waiting in a pointless queue in the cold. We had an odd experience with a slightly nutty (but trying to be friendly in his own way) waiter and kept getting drafts of cold air as they kept leaving the side door open

Following our dinner we went for drinks at Slug & Lettuce and at around 1030pm saw the Olly Murs' concertgoers walk past, clearly their gig had finished.

Around elevenish we then went to go in the Indigo2. Now I've been to Kisstory in this venue before. About March time last year I think it was. The experiences did not match up.

We had bought tickets way in advance, around £20 each cost-wise. After trying to get in at two entrances we were told we weren't 'guestlist' or 'VIP' and told to go round the corner to the left to the side entrance.

This so called side entrance was actually outside, where we had to walk through the snow and were herded like cattle by the bouncers and told we had to 'carry our own ticket each'.

When we got in there was a cloakroom clearly labelled, but which after queuing turned out not to be a cloakroom but a makeshift extra bar... In the end we just kept our coats on us all night

We then hit the bar.

Where we proceeded to wait 40 minutes to be served thanks to the sheer and utter incompetence of the bar staff (and one guy in particular).

Thank goodness the Kiss DJs were playing some great tunes to keep our mood up! After a £45 round(!!) we went to go dance.

The rest of the evening saw us entertained by Kiss DJs Justin Wilkes and Jez Welham, Dane Bowers (who I'm ashamed to say I loved!) and the lady from Alex Party ("Don't give me your love your love gimme your love...")

Unfortunately my garage hero DJ EZ was "snowed in" and never turned up. We had a great time dancing regardless and my complaints are certainly not with the Kisstory night itself.

That great time dancing was of course spent around the sheer panic of the snow and transport situation and worrying for my boyfriend's safety.

We kept updates via text and that was how I found out the Jubilee Line had shut early, Olly Murs' fans were stranded and that the o2 was allowing people to wait in there to keep warm etc.

Unfortunately this didn't seem to get passed on to the 'lovely' security staff of the Indigo2 venue.

My boyfriend left at just before 2am to get us. The event finished at three so we tried to stay in the venue as long as we could to keep safe and warm as it became apparent my boyfriend was going through one hell of a journey.

When the event finished at three, the security staff - that couldn't wait to get us all out - knew nothing re the rest of the establishment and keeping warm etc. The DJ had warned everyone earlier on there were no trains, a three hour cab queue and little traffic getting to the area.

We were treated like rowdy yobs when simply waiting for our friend to come out the bathroom and were then shifted to various areas around the room and cloakroom area.

After around 30 minutes of trying to stay warm in the venue and ask about staying in the o2 itself we - along with many other people - were just herded out the Indigo2 into the cold.

I've since heard people stuck after Olly Murs were allowed in the o2 and into the VIP room to keep warm etc. When we'd asked we were told the main o2 shuts at 1am and nobody could get in there. End of.

We then tried to stay by the edge of the building to keep warm and eventually had to carefully walk towards the station. We ended up getting to my boyfriend and his car at gone 4am. He had been carefully trying to get to us all that time and had a nightmare simply getting close to the venue once he was near.

When we left there were still queues of people waiting for taxis and nightbuses.

Around 5am we made it home, along the A13 and then on dangerous un-gritted/not cleared roads nearer home. Me and one of my friends must have been a funny sight in heels trying to push my boyfriend's car through the thick snow on my estate to get it to move.

Then we all walked to my flat after thankfully safely parking the car nearby and traipsing through snow which came over our ankles depth-wise.

As the song goes 'oh what a night'. We were lucky not to be one of those poor stranded concertgoers that were quite simply stuck thanks to TfL and our country/capital yet again not preparing for weather we knew about.

I don't feel quite so lucky being a so-called privileged 'o2 customer' and bothering to pay my money to enter a venue so badly run and staffed by morons. Well done to those people working in the main o2 area who opened up the VIP room and looked after customers. It's a shame your Indigo2 colleagues were not in the same league...