BLOG: THE LEGEND OF ISLINGTON

Have you ever met someone and known beyond any shadow of a doubt that they’ll be in your life for many years to come?

I had this feeling about Valerio.

He once told me, of the group I was in, one of us was cool and another pretty while I possessed an energy that could light up any room.

At first, we were strangers, compelled to find each other because, like magnets, we were attracted to each others movement.

Every Saturday, on a crowded dancefloor in Islington, whether Valerio or I intended to come together or not, one of us would always drift into the other’s path.

I found myself looking for him on nights when I didn’t even know his name.

He told us, one evening, in a loud whisper that no one heard, so, in order not to appear impolite by repeating our request, we took inspiration from an old Facebook post and started calling him #Legend.

The name stuck.

At the beginning of my 36th year, he called me up to sing “Buon Compleanno” in Italian.

Later that evening, having agreed to meet for birthday shenanigans, we crawled through Camden, making vinyl records jump in a pub where an agitated bouncer encouraged us to leave because our moves were damaging their DJ’s rhythm, in front of patrons who kept giving us rounds of applause for our excessive gyrations, we then went clubbing in Joe’s until a curfew forced us to retire to my house so we could party until the following afternoon.

That was the first night we’d hung out together outside Angel.

I’m sure you can agree, our night… #Legendary