The clocks have gone back. At 6am on the Sunday morning, when most people are meant to be spending an extra hour in bed, I get up, put on a suit and tie, and do some work. When the conventional world does something slightly strange, the slightly strange must act conventional.
Earlier this year when the clocks went forward, I didn’t notice for four whole days. I had no appointments, and I wasn’t tuning in for any live TV or radio broadcasts. I was still conversing with friends in the street, online and on the phone, it’s just that none of the exchanges required checking what time it was. So I really was wandering around in a world of my own. I know I cultivate an air of detachment, but even so.
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Petty annoyance today: anyone erroneously referring to the Queen as HRH rather than HMQ. The Simpsons episode featuring Tony Blair makes the same mistake.
Also: one of the writers in London: City Of Disappearances refers to the ubiquity of Robbie Williams’s song ‘Angel’ (sic). Not nearly ubiquitous enough if they can’t get the title right.
Strange thing is, pop culture types getting institutional acronyms wrong seems more forgiveable than literary types getting pop song titles wrong.
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In valetudinarian news, I currently have a cold. Feeling woozy and feverish and headachey, with gooey coughs and sneezes into the bargain. Found it hard to stare at a computer screen the last few days, hence the gap in diary entries.
Walked around Highgate today in my warmest of suits and shivered (‘it has a lining’ making me think of Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan). It’s officially winter coat weather.
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A few left-over photos and words from the Stockholm trip.
Friday Bridge Niklas has sent this one, taken by Photo Niklas. Here I am posing in Gondolen, the vertiginous restaurant:
After the soundcheck, I finally checked in at the hotel. A small room in a town house-like building tucked within a narrow cobbled street, but with a perfectly formed breakfast the next day. You could help yourself to pretty much everything you’d ever conceive as breakfast-shaped. Multivitamins. Pancakes. Cereals. Toast. Juices. Pastries. Scrambled egg and mushrooms. Warm milk. Soya milk. Every type of tea and coffee. A delicatessen table.
It was the same for the catering at the venue. Coffee, tea, juice, bread, fruit, pastries, sweets and more, all laid out along the bar purely for the soundcheck, followed by an evening meal (veggie compatible) for the bands and venue staff together. A club venue in London providing food for a soundcheck is pretty rare, to say the least. UK soundchecks are meant to be gritty, blokey, Herculean ordeals of broken connections, sudden bangs, and someone always saying ‘it’ll sound better when there’s people in the room.’
Watched Hot Fuzz with Swedish subtitles:
Using Ylva’s laptop at the hotel, the three of us rehearsed the songs one more time in a spare moment between dinner and showtime. Made all the difference to our performance.
This is an attempt at artiness using the dressing room mirror at the venue, taken just before I went onstage to sing with Friday Bridge:
I was also DJ-ing for 45mins or so before they went on, and chose to play ‘Crush The Flowers’ by The Wake by way of an intro. With its girl & boy vocals over a springy programmed backing, it seemed to fit okay.
