1) on Wednesday we got a last-minute call to a sudden local pop-up – a night called “Masse und Macht”. We met outside an East-End pub before being escorted to the unspecified location – a derelict squat that we’d always wondered about, and were now going to eat in. The evening was intro’d as the “spatial redefinition of an C18th Manor House” – a hint at its faded grandeur.

We picked our way over the rubble in darkened rooms before winding up to a room with vast hanging cans, which we unwinched to lower as our seats for the evening – and slowly more food descended, like edible chandeliers. A gorgeous glutinous rice stew was eaten fingers only, with hands later washed in a vast bin of lemon-water. Leaning at the windows, you discovered little herb and fruit amuses-bouches hidden in the sills. Someone whispered that the building was a sleeper cell for MI6 – once an anonymous interrogation centre.

The floor began to vibrate and we were lured downstairs to a weird truncated space – the celestial leftover of an old ballroom – and an impromptu concert of deeply ambient electronica. The invisible trumpet player slowly emerged from under a rug in the corner. An inspirational evening, curated by an itinerant bunch of Berliner artists and performers. We are hoping to co-host an event there very soon, but meanwhile they’re laying on a range of other events. Email inkarmagewittern@gmail.com for more info; invites and directions will be texted to you.

2) on Friday – the very night itself of Mexican (& in our case, terrestrial) Independence, we boated out for an Aztec feast on the Floating Forest, drifting gently alongside the Olympic Stadium as the sun set upon East London.

We fed from food buried at the roots of our sheltering tree as we lounged across the grassy landscapes.

Three Mexicanos were on hand to weed us onto the Mescal and make a mountain of (beautiful) mole.

The evening extended into a lovely cinematic sequence of strippers and peelers, swingers and klezmers, and the glorious random-ness that Hackney Wick bestows you. Some pics here

3) on Saturday, Melissa decked her home with Mexicana and took us through a short history of the hot totty of the Cine de Rumberas.

She played clips of the most fabulous bit of raunchy flesh-shaking you’re ever gonna see while we gorged on a 2nd night of beautiful Mexico.

some pics here