The main reason for my trip to London in May (when we had already arranged to go in June) was because one of oldest best mates Simon (actor, director, writer, photographer) was getting married, and was arranging to have a Stag Party in May. For those of you who are not of the British persuasion, a Stag Party is what Americans call a Bachelor Party, and attended traditionally by male mates. It’s also traditionally very drinky, and this one was certainly that. I brought along my sketchbook to try and document some of the fun for posterity. I’ve known Simon for many years, we met at university, and it was a fellow university friend Will, who I’d not seen in about six years, who organized the whole day, which took a lot of work. The first activity was one I’d never done before nor had much thought about, urban axe throwing. It was at a place called Whistle Punks just off of Oxford Street, and turned out to be a lot of fun. I was pretty useless at first, but then starting racking up loads of points, albeit no actual wins – out of 14 of us, I came second in the points tally, but somehow lost all three of my matches. I’d definitely do that again.

Beers started even at the axe place, and continued in a nearby pub. The groom to be had lots of friends from schooldays there, who I think I only met once before at his 21st birthday party (late 90s, Rat and Parrot in Harrow; that evening had a similar outcome!) and they made sure he never went thirsty. I remember my own stag party back in 2004, well I say ‘remember’, I remember it starting, and some details after that, but the remaining details are just what Simon told me about afterwards! This was a month before my actual wedding; on the night before my wedding, in Las Vegas, Simon and I had a much quieter evening watching Spider-Man 2 on the IMAX at the Luxor hotel, while my wife and her friends all went to watch the Thunder From Down Under, whatever that is). It was nice talking with Simon’s friends I did not know, and adding them to the sketchbook.

We all took the Elizabeth Line across London before going to an early dinner at a place called Gunpowder, which served very nice food, and as it turns out also sold tequila. After that, we headed to the main event, which was a ‘mixology’ place called the Moonshine Saloon, a kind-of interactive theatre event, where you provide the alcohol and they mix all these exotic drinks for your party while you’re all dressed in Wild West garb, and actors playing cowboy era characters play this whole bootlegging storyline around you (in not super authentic American accents, but hey, I’ve lived here for 18 years and I still can’t do one). It was a lot of fun, the ponchos were comfy if a little bit warm!

The last place of the night was a little east end bar, and I drew a bit more in my new Fabriano Venezia sketchbook (I had picked it up that morning from the London Graphic Centre, very good with pencil and watercolour), sketching some of Simon’s actor friends, and you can see I’ve had my fair share of the liquid stuff by that point too. I don’t know how much of that part the groom-to-be remembers, but it was a fun day and evening all in all, and I’m glad I was able to fly out there and share in it, and Will did an excellent job putting it all together. As I walked back toward Central London through the City late at night, I passed by, of all things, a costumed charity fun run, at 1am through the dark streets of the City. Bizarre. I flew back to America a couple of days later. Simon’s married now and he and his new are wife currently on honeymoon, somewhere in Alaska…