The Top Floor Flat

It’s been a few days since I last posted mostly due to the fact that I’ve been quite sick. So, it probably wasn’t the best plan to go out last night but I had been looking forward to this event for quite some time and was going with Sarah and Steven to The End of the World.

The End of the World is a brilliant party at 93 Feet East, a popular club on the famous Brick Lane in London. The premise of the event is that it is 1986, height of the Cold War era, and the US and the Soviets have declared all out nuclear war, have fingers on the big red buttons, and the world will be completely annihilated at midnight. Therefore, all of London is out to party like there’s no tomorrow.

I, after years of planning fancy dress events and themed parties at school, made an effort to dress up for the occasion with an attempt at being a Russian spy (I was looking for a blond wig but never found one). Although my friends hadn’t gone the costumed route, there were plenty of amazing fancy dress outfits at the event ranging from American flag caped crusaders to Russian astronauts to rubix cubes to Mr. T. The 80s, the Americans and the Soviets were out in full force.

Beyond the party-goers, 93 Feet East had done an amazing job of creating the event’s look and feel. A giant countdown clock ticked away the seconds to our ultimate destruction and every 20-30 minutes, the music would stop and a video clip of a newscaster came on the screen providing us with updates of the impending doom. We were also invited to email the DJs with our last requests, many of which were worked into the set for the night.

With only five minutes left until the end of the world, I turned to Sarah and told her somewhat sheepishly that a tiny part of me was actually kind of nervous about what would happen when the clock reached zero. She laughed and told me 93 Feet East hosted this party once a month.

Midnight came and we all waited with baited breath for annihilation but instead we rewarded with another video clip of the same newscaster (now clearly drunk in their own preparation for death) giddily explaining to us that after a meeting at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Resort, US and Soviet leaders had decided the whole nuclear thing was “silly.” There were hugs all around and the party continued.

I’m quite glad the world didn’t end last night but it really made for an amazing party theme. I think I’d like to try the end of the world again some time.