Long weekend

Published on Fri 8 Jun 2012

The rest of the New York trip was fun. Other than a nice round of minigolf and ending up in a crowd of One Direction fans waiting for them to play across the road from where we were staying, this is most of what happened:

I wanted a Shake Shack (the penultimate photo is one of their amazing burgers - the last photo is what passes for a baconator there - who would have thought that the American version of anything would be disappointingly small?) dinosaur t shirt but unfortunately they only come in child sizes. Pretty stupid if you ask me - it's far and away the best design they have.

Also I got introduced to the delights of frozen margaritas (though I prefer them in the rocks), and frozen yoghurt of Pinkberry and Sweetfrog varieties. Pinkberry was superior but both are pretty great. Someone should open a bagel, pizza and frozen yoghurt shop here. It'd make a killing. Also with minigolf and Shake Shack standard burgers. Gourmet Burger Kitchen does not cut it.

Mike Doughty's book was strong until the end, though I liked the bits about his band and Jeff Buckley best. The Josh Ritter one is a bit flowery but quite gripping so far. The Marina whateverhernamewas one ended as weakly as it began. It's made nicely though and the cover is good, which is the most important thing really.

At the weekend I did a set at Strawberry Fair (a local one day festival with a slightly more threatening atmosphere every year and a very high dog on a piece of string to person ratio), for the first time in a decade. The sound was great considering we were in a tent, but there was quite a lot of noise from a drum and bass act on a nearby stage and it was a bit early in the day for me really. Setlist: The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, Watertight, The Forked Tongue and the Blind Eye Turned, Magnetic or Rhetorical, So Finally a Love Song, 60 Miles with a Slow Puncture, Closure. This wasn't the official programme, but still, quite a good misprint.

On Monday I played a short set as part of an all day thing at the Cambridge Folk Club which was a bit nearer my comfort zone (though still too early in the day). I played pretty well, though my guitar was out of tune for the entire thing - every time I thought I fixed it I hadn't so I ended up playing it more and more quietly and the sound guy turned it up and up. Oh well. I had my best CD selling hit rate for a long time, which was nice. I need to get another box of Scars from the loft. I've not been going to the Folk Club nearly enough lately. Everyone's so nice. Setlist: The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, So Finally a Love Song, Magnetic or Rhetorical, Phosphorus Burn, Edinburgh.

Other than that the holiday weekend was pretty relaxing. On the extra bank holiday we had pretty much my perfect day's activities with a trip to the seaside,  fish and chips, crap little bowling, a quiz machine win, a visit to an aquarium, a round of crazy golf and a visit to a castle in exactly the correct amount of disrepair (Castle Rising - you can go on all the levels, but there aren't any boring furniture rooms. The only thing I'd change is that the moat is dry now).

You can tell it was proper beach weather.