Bowlarama at the Trocadero

Last night was the office "Bowlarama!", we all met up for a quick drink in the Lincoln Lounge (it of the naughty artwork) then managed to split up into about 10 different groups in the crush and confusion on the tube -

- arriving staggered over the space of about 20 minutes at the Strada in Panton Street (near Leicester Square) -

- as a result we were cutting it pretty fine for the alloted slot for the bowling alleys -

- thus it was straight to main courses, I went for the "Pizze rosse" (sic) which was spicy sausage, caramelised red onion, red peppers, tomato and cheese (and jolly good too, once I had added freshly ground black pepper and a generous amount of peri peri oil, which was thoughtfully left on the table) -

- then it was on to the Trocadero, which is much less exciting for the death of SEGA World (the owners just put a coke machine in front of the escalator that used to lead up there), "The Aliens Experience" and the IMAX cinema, the majority of the machines that comprised the former are now scattered around pretty much everywhere, so it looks like FunLand bought them all up and just expanded over the whole place...

...there is, at least, one cinema still in there, lending a small illusion to the contrary...the shops, of course, survive in various reinventions of themselves, and a slightly seedy undertone is lent to the place by the addition of a number of market stall affairs touting cheap jewellery and mobile phone accessories (this is not the Trocadero of old)...

The crew descended on the dodgems, with a similar enthusiasm to that witnessed at the climax of "Carry on at your Convenience" -

- and then onto the main event of the evening, amazingly they had bowling shoes in my size(!), and the finger didn't get in the way of an almost respectable performance from me (once I had warmed up)...but I was no-where near the league of the heavy hitters who seemed to manage to effortlessly get strike after strike (a mis-spent youth, obviously) ;)

Then, equally amazingly, "B" and I had a relatively stress free journey home, my train (from Victoria) dropped me right at Earlswood, so I had a lovely spooky walk through the (full moon lit) fog across the fields, back to the house, and bed...