Room 323 at a Blackpool Travellodge and Derren Brown

I woke up at 7am on a Monday morning. I went to sleep at 11PM but had since woke up in regular intervals for small periods of time. I raised myself up and out of bed at 7 out of pure distrust for electronic alarms (I had set 2, that's how sure I was that something would have to go so wrong to ruin something so good.) and I got myself dressed and ready. It had, infact gone quite as planned. In my bag was a laptop, plugs, pajamas, clothes, toothbrush, among other everyday items. I hitched a lift to Glasgow Central Station, and crawled the floor in my chosen black linen trousers, black and cream rose-decorated coat and brogues which I claimed for £50 off. (I soon realised why) As the train disembarked I had made comfortable arrangements in my very own seat situated at the back of an almost fully reserved carriage. I re-played the Fratellis, I ate a sandwich and I drank a bottle of water. Ten minutes later the train came to an abrupt hault just outside of Glasgow after having struck a mysterious object. I saw Police men monitoring the train, walking back and walking forth and talking into walkie talkies. This, I realised, would have had to be the thing to ruin the day. I grew more impatient in intervals of about five minutes, pondering every different situation and what objects we might have hit. Track rubble, a thrown object, an animal, a person, another train? The announcer finally announced that we were ready to re-embark but failed at his job miserably by not being able to quench my thirst for knowledge and leaving the unidentified object unidentifiable.

During a two hour and a half long journey I proceeded to stare outside half a window, gain a headache from earphones plugged into a loud iPod (I wouldn't have had to have it so loud if the train were a bit quieter), and sip water from my water bottle miserably, with only the process of exchanging texts to keep me company. I was then disturbed by two ladies in Lancaster who asked for their reserved seat back. Twice. I stood between two carriages for the remainder of fifteen minutes, with nothing but my heavy luggage and an inapropriate fit of giggles.

I had soon enough arrived in Preston, and after being made to fumble through a generously packed bag, managed to show one full price open return ticket to a railway man standing on top of the stairs. How do they sleep at night? I was more train station savvy than I realised and found platform 1 quickly and with pace and sat myself on a sideways seat facing the left window. The ultimately boring but nerve-inducing journey lasted no longer than twenty minutes and seduced me, afterwards, very quickly to the ladies toilets to freshen up and take an incredibly long piss into what looked like a metal cooking dish. Alas, as I opened the cubicle door, I winced in shock as the two people I had been waiting for had come to surprise me by waiting no further than two metres away from the door. makes me wonder if they had been there when I first walked in and I had been in too much of a rush to see them. But by now, everything had run smoothly and I was glad.

Claire, Natasha and me walked out into sun and clouds and paced along the station car park. I pointed out people I had known but don't anymore, places I used to stay and visit, and an old home. We walked down the golden mile, grabbed fifteen donuts immersed in sugar between us, and got lost in Blackpool's maze whilst looking for a football stadium and a Travellodge to dump the weight off our shoulders. We found a huge, divine looking place almost attatched to the stadium and paced back and forth outside wondering just how I would manage to sneak myself in. As the two of them queued for the reception area, I briefly and deliberately inched past it and stayed round a corner until the coast was clear. Little had I known that it was infact the wrong hotel, and they had both made their way past the window, ringing my phone twice while it vibrated silently in a black bag hanging by my waist. We walked back outside and laughed. The laughing was then cut short when I explained where and how far North Pier was. Half way there we stopped at a Home Bargains and bought what we thought we might want to feast on in the next 24 hours that we would try and stay awake for. Collectively we grabbed Nutella, honey, champagne, beer, vodka, coke, mini cakes, chocolate, and marshmallows. Natasha crept outside while Claire and I got hassled for proof that we were infact, probably eighteen, and I was once again forced to trail through a bag five foot deep and present a shiny passport photo which she studied and I noticed a wince of unsureness that it was really me.

It was now that I had begun to notice how much my heels were beginning to ache. I typically buy new shoes before a day out and this time I had done much of the same. A pair of brogues I had admired in Topshop a couple of days before had bargained themselves at merely a fiver. That's fifty pounds off their original price, and I knew there was a huge mistake, but the checkout girl seemed happy (enough) to give me them and I left the shop with my mum's instructions to "Run before they know they've made a mistake." Besides that story, I braced the pain and loosened my steps while we sat in a tram stop waiting for one of the oddest forms of transport I could think of. And I expected a measley price of about fifty pence to take us from one pier to the other, but it was worse than that and we were refused entry because the tram was "Full". Finally, eventually, we walked to a bus stop and paid one pound twenty five each to get us half a mile away.

The bus drove past the travellodge and in all my four years there I never realised it was the building that it said it was. To my joy the reception area was on level one and I didn't have to sneak like a ninja past some reception staff. Instead I took the lift up two measley levels and stood alone in one of the corners of the hall. I remember now hoping that there was no CCTV facing this particular area as I dropped the bag full of vodka and champagne and it made a shattering noise as the bottles hit against each other, and I almost tripped over my own aching feet. An embarrasing story if the staff were to label me as a binge drinker and suitably kick my arse out of the hotel before check in. The doors of the lift opened and I breathed a sigh of relief as it was just Claire and Natasha coming to collect me and drop us in room 323.

The walls were mental institution white, and the carpet was an unsettling dark blue, just like in the adverts they show you. I looked at the bed and how well prepared it had been for us, but I didn't expect any of us to sleep in it. We sat on it, and even laid on it, but not in it yet. We inspected the room and dropped off the alcohol and admired the windows. Claire put herself inside the window and tried to close the one which stubbornly stayed open.



After a thorough inspection Natasha whipped out the Fratellis photos she had printed out and brought specially. There was a dumbfounded-looking Mince, a photo of Jon playing guitar and a photo of the three of them that had come out smaller than we had hoped. At least that Natasha and I had hoped. Jon found himself being placed firstly on a spot underneath the TV which was situated, rather poshly, on a wall framed with wood, and secondly pinned on the bed headboard as for us to get as close as possible. I had hoped that it would distract whoever dared to watch the TV but instead the clumsily typoed subtitles did that job for us. Mince and his evil and peculiar looking gaze was blue tac'd to the mirror just as you go in the room door. The photo of all three was placed above the bed to the left wall framed in another wooden board. They looked beautiful, and Mince especially, since we had found time in our heavily packed schedule to give him a beautiful makeover.







We put the bags of food on the floor and instead took the drink out of the bag and arranged it nicely on the table beside the kindly contributed kettle, cups, tea, coffee and wall stains. We got changed and brushed teeth and applied mascara and whatever else it is that people do. I took out my laptop, showed how appauled I was at being charged a fiver an hour for wifi, and instead of browsing the net, listened to The Fratellis and watched Rocky Horror movie clips on loop. Vodka had been cracked open in moderation, and cheap plastic cups had been drunk out of.



Upon being quite finished arsing about, we acquired some plasters from the reception, sat on the bottom of the stairs so I could put them on my bleeding heels, and then walked mere metres to the nearest Subway. Two girls and one lady who were sitting at the table in front were coincidentally just the group that sat infront of us during the theatre later on that night.

We walked up a newly cobbled road towards the Blackpool Opera House, and witnessed crowds gathering outside. We must have been at least twenty minutes early and so to pass the time in such a heavily populised place, we retreated to a public photoart-esque cubicle in the centre of the bustle and made fun of everything we could possibly think of. Having noticed there was only room for two, I stood outside with my head poked inwards, and realised that any loud laughter would point eyes directly at myself. I was already amidst avoiding anybody I might know.

In about twenty minutes time the stage doors opened and we obediently queued and walked into a wonderous looking room. I thought that where we sat was amongst the best seats, close to the stage, on the aisle, and en route to toilet, stage, exit, and every other place you would possibly need. The music played beforehand sure entertained, and set Natasha and Claire off bobbing away. I was too nervous to dance. The theatre filled up unbelievably quickly, with people aged between twelve and one lady I saw who was at least sixty. People had minstrels and ice cream and coke and hot food but I hadn't bothered to dare if I faced the possibility of being pulled like an unwilling horse and cart onto the stage. It felt like an eternity before Derren Brown made an appearance, and when the lights finally dimmed, and his television-like voice burst through, I sat back and started unwillingly shaking at the thought of going anywhere near that wide open stage, and even more so at having to speak.

To tell the truth, watching Derren Brown at a reasonable distance from the theatre stage is much like sitting at home with a wide-screen TV and watching him there. There were tricks that impressed me little and tricks that impressed me more. The less impressionable tricks probably just looked a little dumbed-down from having watched Derren on internet television too much at my own pleasure and witnessed even greater things there. Under strict rule which forbids me to tell anyone what happens in the show, I can say few things only. To our delightful pleasure, one of the men standing stood in our row a few seats away, which prompted Derren to ask Claire if he could get in our row, and which made us have to stand to let him through. He briskly walked past like a man late for a meeting, and inspected the standing man before whisking him out and very molly coddly grasping his hands to gently haul him on stage. He was short and gentle and almost frail looking, with a soft and warm voice.

Another part of this same trick was to take another girl still asleep from trance and make her sleepwalk through the entire audience to pick out any audience member she wanted to. She walked past our aisle like a visible ghost with her hands by her frail side and her hair masking her face like some kind of horror movie character. I faced the stage instead and saw Derren facing our direction to keep his eye out for said character, and I liked to imagine that he was staring at me as I walked away like a long lost love. And I absolutely loved it and did not give a shit.

The climax to the show involved a dancing Derren holding a thin stick with a bauble on the end, pointing at pictures. Running back and forth hitting them in an exciteable manner, and eventually leaving to an array of applause and standing.

When he had finished we had proposed two different decisions we could make. Number one, we could go home and drink and have fun, or number two we could wait outside the Stage Doors like desperate little school girls. Realistically there had been no choice and we had to do the latter. We stood amongst an irregularly small crowd of people (More like a neat queue) and waited for a Derren to make his way out. We blethered, stood around, laughed and eventually sat on the top of the stairs where the toilets were after getting sick of standing, thinking up absurd excuses as to why there were people backstage who hadn't had to wait for Derren like everyday people. The best excuse I ever heard came from Claire and stands too easily offendable to type in print. I was busy thinking up ways to come across when he came out. I could smile and tell him my name so he could write it down and never be thought of again. I could say I loved the show, but he'd have heard that a million times. I could have said a really interesting and philosophical question relating to magic and psychology. Infact, when he came out I must have panicked because I took out my camera and forgot to say anything at all. I asked the guy in front if he would mind taking our picture in return after Natasha had taken his, and he said it was fine and no bother.

We abruptly jumped up from our spot on the stairs when we heard the gentle voice coming out the door, and skidded back to our place in line. He looked far too busy to acknowledge anybody really, but he did have a certain enthusiasm and menace in his eyes and his voice with each and every person he passed. He asked Natasha her name, and proceeded to sign her booklet she had bought for a fiver. He then asked Claire her name and in turn how to spell it, which I thought odd. Then the camera was on and we jumped in quickly for a photo.




Part two will be written tomorrow.