I'm the guy who sought asylum

Harmsway tells me that the hotel we're booked into is flooded, so me and Maffew proceed rain to our new one. The new one sounds grand -- The Wellington -- and outside first impressions seem to support this. It looks far too nice for us, and we wonder just what Harmsway has booked us into. Our worries are swept aside when we go in, however, and replaced with a whole new set of worries. The place is a dump. Maffew refers to it as an 'Asylum Seeker Hostel'. The receptionist doesn't seem to speak any English (this doesn't really surprise me, as we're in London). There are people sleeping in the lounge, curled up on the chairs like they're waiting for a coach late at night and the waiting room's heating has been turned off, there are broken panes in the stairwell windows, there is a radiator in the room that won't turn off. Only one of the toilet doors actually has a lock on it. It reminds me of my days in Halls of Residence at Uni, only instead of students prowling the corridors it's an army of foreigners, Maffew's asylum seekers.

We only pay £25 each a night, so we don't complain too loudly. All we really need is a place to crash at the end of the evening.

Harmsway, his girfriend and her friends are already out. We meet them in an Italian restaurant in China Town. Again, this place looks too posh for our type of people, so we walk down to the Golden Lion on the corner and have a pub lunch and watch the football.

Harmsway's girlfriend and her two friends are all French. Maffew speaks French. Harmsway and I are left standing around in bemusement whilst the other four talk away on the other side of the language barrier. It improves slightly when Dave arrives; now there are three of us looking confused. For myself, I can almost understand Maffew, as his speech is slower than the others. It doesn't help that I've not spoken the language in eight years and, despite my French teacher's insistence, the fact is that I don't believe I have ability at the language.

Harmsway's later revelation that I was to be set up with his girlfriend's mate (this after the girl has already left us) is a surprise. Harmsway is apologetic about it (really apologetic about it) and I tell him not to worry. I hadn't found the girl that attractive (and I'm sure that remark will come back to bite me in the arse), and . . .

. . . and it's just that French people don't get me. Some of it might just be the way I brutalise the Queen's English when I speak it, or the fact that my westcountry accent is a little thick, but the most popular expression on the faces of French people when I speak to them is that of utter and total confusion. My normal response to people I don't know is to crack jokes, to try and break the ice with humour, but the French just do not get my sense of humour. I was using some good material on Saturday (well good for me), but this girl spent the hour or so looking at me as though I was speaking backwards or something. The idea of being 'set up' with someone I can't even raise a smile in bewilders the hell out of me.

So anyway, we go for dinner at TGIF. Our waitress is a middle-aged woman under the mistaken impression that pig-tails make you look younger. She has that annoying TGIF attitude, taking your order and delivering your food in a manner that soon makes you think you're watching children's television. Maffew asks for the bill after our starter, and she brings us -- wait for it -- an empty chit. Hilarious. Now go and get us some more beer.

Tradition holds that we smoke cigars when we meet up, and sure enough Harmsway breaks them out in the last pub of the evening. We're still smoking them at chucking out time, and a tiny old homeless guy approaches us looking for a light. We spend the next ten minutes being riddled by this guy. Harmsway finally stumps the guy with a riddle he pinches from The Hobbit (I kid you not), and the homeless guy staggers off, looking for someone to buy him a can of beer.

Next morning, following a 'continental breakfast' (that's hotel speak for 'you're not paying enough for fried food') I decide to risk taking a shower. Only one of the showers has a shower head (the water dribbles despondently out of the other one), only one of the shower cubicles has a door. I choose the one with the shower head. If anyone really wants to see my naked arse whilst I'm showering, who am I to stop them?