Tag-Along

So I'm one of those people who gets brought along to all sorts of random events by friends who like all sorts of interesting things so a hence a #tag-along

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Visiting Bluebell vineyard estate in England... Sparkling English wine is delicious

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Fun movember themed crafternoon time

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Not only a great video but also a great sound that I first encountered at a Sofar Sounds gig (one of the aforementioned cool concepts that I first encountered while being a tagalong)... Jay Brown - Keep talking

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And is you need a little inspiration, here is some soul for your soul

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So the latest event that I was dragged along to (though dragged is a bit mean to use given my enthusiasm for it) by my dear musical theatre friend who I befriended at a pub quiz some years ago and boy was I glad she did! Not only was the music great but the sets were amazing... Well worth tagging along to

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What a beautiful song.....

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Well worth checking out...

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Tripoteca London 2013 - International Psychedelic Film and Arts Festival

Tripoteca 2013 London October @ The Horse Hospital. "Tripoteca is the only international psychedelic film and arts festival that features content revolving around metaphysical matters, the expansion of consciousness and abstract aesthetics."

That was definitely one of the more bizarre tag-along that I went to which involved sitting in a dark room watching short intense psychadelic films for hour long streches... maybe not something I'd head on to again following Friday night drinks!

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Shot taken at the Psychadelic Film Festival at the Horse Hospital October 2013

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Defining the term...

Click on the title above to see an illustration of my clear lack of foresight and research when identifying myself as a tag-along

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Clear lack of foresight

So only after choosing the title Tag-Along, did I decide to do some research into what the good folks at Urban Dictionary had collated about this term and the first thing was as follows: "1. tag along a person who can not take no for an answer and repeatedly follows people who he thinks he is friends with and he gets bullied." Yup, there you go, apparently I only think I have friends but in fact most others would call them bullies.....Epic Fail! And the next one was not particularly flattering either "2. Tag along A follower. Someone who'll do anything say anything to hang out with certain people. So apparently I'm also some sort of sheep...Hmmm Reading onto 3,4,5 and 7 did not necessarily paint it in a positive light either with douche-bag, loser and awkward being among the synonyms used to describe the term.  However the only light in the end of the tunnel did appear to be that there was one entry #6 that was a bit more positive by describing it as... "these mad good girl scout cookies with peanutbutter and chocolate" Never heard of them but hey gotta take any positives I can in clear lack of foresight!

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An illustration of a day in the life of a....

So yesterday evening was a typical example of me being a tag-along for my friend who I accompanied to a secret Twenty Something London event. While she had a legitimate reason to be there and had actually been invited, I was standing in for a mutual friend of ours who couldn't make it but also had a legitimate reason for being there. Me... time for #tagalong time! So while I don't think I'm massively impaired in the social skills department or anything, some knowledge of what the event is about is always useful. Chatting to random people in an intimate small venue midweek where inebriation wasn't yet on my side (in that people were very much aware and alert and appeared not to be incapacitated in any way) meant that my small talk and social niceties would only get me so far. At some point somebody was going to ask me what I thought about their website (and I confess luckily I had a vague idea of what it was and had visited it once perhaps, and I must also add liked it), and I was going to have to answer it.  There is also another aspect to this, in that if it were a bigger event with more people who were more drunk and my friend wasn't there to network then it wouldn't probably matter much how I responded as long as it would only reflect badly on me. The added pressure of wondering whether your vague/idiotic/clueless answer would also tarnish your friend's reputation does also raise the stakes a bit.  What also became apparent over the course of my interactions with some of the people there was that most people were in some way very much involved with the website so it was more difficult/less socially appealing to reveal that I in fact knew next to nothing (or at most very little) about the whole concept. And as it turned out, those that weren't involved in it directly were involved in other such cool entities created by more cool creative twentysomethings, while I in contrast am very much not. So while I'm not sure if I managed to conceal how little I knew or the awkwardness that I was feeling at times (we've all been in situations where you find yourself pretending you have urgent texts that need responding to while standing alone as you're friend has gone off doing the whole networking thing), it was a really fun evening. Chatting to interesting people working for on cool concepts with a free delicious cocktail thrown in is not a bad place to be on a rainy night in Soho.

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A tag-along bike... I guess my equivalent if I decided to become a bike

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It's come to my attention....

So recently it's come to my attention that I appear to attend many random events as a result of appearing to be that friend for many that will happily say yes to going to random things, often before I have any idea where, how or what they involve. This has meant that while I have often been introduced to many cool, previously unheard of events/things, it has also resulted in me blagging my way through awkward social situations with very little knowledge of why or what people are there. I guess the whole idea behind this blog is for it be a way to track all these random and interesting events/ideas/things that I come into contact with as a result of being that kind of person who says "Why not?" a lot.