On Monday I went to a Cambridge United "All Star" match to raise money for the youth system (I think). All "Star" would've been nearer the mark - Dion Dublin and Dave Kitson being the only people that anyone who doesn't follow lower league football will have heard of. Well, and Max Rushden from Soccer AM I suppose. It was nice to see some players from a few years ago when I started watching them. The linesmen were a bit hot on offside for a non-competitive game I thought, but it was all good fun. Dublin still looked like he was comfortably better than everyone else, and scored from the halfway line at one point, though there may have been a bit of collusion with the goalkeeper judging by the wink and thumbs up he got afterwards.

Last night I supported Erland and the Carnival at The Portland. I was slightly dreading it beforehand for some reason (I think because there was a bit of confusion about whether I was meant to be playing or not so I felt a bit unwanted) but, as often happens when I'm dreading things, it was great. I love The Portland so much - I play so much better there than anywhere else. Even though I was on first there enough people in the room for it to not feel awkward and they seemed to like it - I'm pretty sure I even detected some whooping at the end, which is always a good sign. I was more relaxed and into it than I've been for ages and the guy who's probably accidentally watched me play more than anybody else in the last couple of years said it was the best one he'd seen so that was nice. Setlist: A Folly or a Fortress, This Place is Dead Anyway, The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, Watertight, Muscle Memory, So Finally a Love Song, 60 Miles With a Slow Puncture. 

As usual I don't think I took proper advantage of having gone down quite well - I bet nobody came away knowing my name, but at least I feel good about playing for a minute. I did have a bit of a discussion with someone about what I meant by one of the lines in 60 Miles with a Slow Puncture which was fairly gratifying. His ideas were a lot more interesting than mine mind you.

The middle band, The Static Front, were unexpectedly great - especially considering it was their first gig. I've known the singer, Lauren, for ages, but didn't know she had such a top voice. The songs were really nice too. Check them out if you live round here - I think they're playing again soon.

I also enjoyed Erland and The Carnival a lot, though they weren't what I anticipated having listened to the album all day. They were less folky than I thought they'd be - they seem to have elected to rock everything up and sounded more like Franz Ferdinand than I'd have predicted. I think it had the potential to be totally incredible if they'd have gone for a bit more atmosphere rather than volume and upbeatness. But what do I know - and it seems to be working for them - they're supporting Paul Weller soon. If that's a measure of success. And it was really enjoyable. And I really like the album.

My living room is finally in a fit state where I can watch telly, which is good - I think it's going to be really nice when it's finished. Unfortunately Virgin seem to have unsubscribed me from everything in the interim and their helpline is either broken or tied up with Westlife fans who can't watch some godawful concert.

Hey, look at this prawn sandwich that Sam at work got from Tesco. I suppose that's why they don't call them prawns sandwiches.

The trouble with glass backed squash courts is that you keep seeing your massive belly and beetroot face out of the corner of your eye the whole time you're playing. I guess it does at least serve to remind you why you're doing it. I've played a few times in the last couple of weeks and the improvement in fitness has been surprisingly noticeable. If only some kind of weight loss was as noticeable.

The building work on my house is finally finished, but I won't be able to bring the telly down/be able to make enough room to use the upstairs until the dust has settled and the floor is in. Probably a week or two yet. I'm going a bit crazy without Two and a Half Men. I'm also having trouble deciding what colour to paint the walls. I've not said it for a while, but I could really do with a girlfriend. Even if only for interior decoration advice and to help me choose a suit. I think it'll be good though when it's all done.

I've been pretty obsessed with The Hold Steady's new album ever since it came out. It's a bit more epic than the others, and I don't think I like it quite as much, but I don't seem to be able to listen to anything else. I just sorted out tickets to see them in June. I wish I'd known how much I'd like them on repeated listens when I saw them at End of the Road last year. I might not have left before the end to get that goat curry. 

I did a semi-last minute gig the other day supporting Jesca Hoop at The Haymakers and had a pretty good time. I thought I had the audience for a while, but then one of a group of students who'd colonised a load of chairs at the front started chatting and there was no way back, so it feels like a failure even though I thought I played well. Setlist (in some order): Take it All, The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, This Place is Dead Anyway, Watertight,  Muscle Memory, So Finally a Love Song, You Won't Break My Heart, Radio Silence (I think I'm going to have to stop playing this - it just brings everyone down), 60 Miles with a Slow Puncture.

Jesca Hoop made a lovely noise (her and her backing singer have incredible voices), but the material is mostly a bit jazzier/kookier than I like. Though saying that, there were a couple of more folky songs that were really excellent. They seemed a bit aloof and I didn't speak to them at all. They're probably saying the same about me.

Oh! I saw a number plate with a 32 on it! It's been about a year. Onwards and upwards.

I can't believe it's taken me so long to finish this off. To be fair I did write a (much funnier) version of this post the other day but somehow it managed to get lost just as I was putting the finishing touches to it. Well annoying. Especially as 5 days of carousing and wallpaper stripping (7 hours I spent on Thursday removing woodchip inch by inch, only to realise today that the builder left a steamer, which makes things really easy) has left me sightly befuddled tonight.

So. On the Monday we got up at what, really? o'clock to get on a minibus to the Grand Canyon, via the Hoover Dam. On the way we watched an interesting video about the construction of the dam, and I got an excellent pastrami sub from a wild west store. The dam blocks off the Colorado River, forming a huge lake called Lake Mead (I think after the guy who thought of it - it really is massive, I saw it from the plane home and it took ages to fly over it) which I think supplies water to a lot of Nevada and California. It's a lot less full than it used to be, as you can tell by the height that the white residue is above the waterline.

The drive to the bit of the Grand Canyon we were going to (the West Rim I think it was) was another few hours, and our entertaining tour guide gave us some fun background information about the canyon (it's 4000 feet deep where we went, and there's no handrail, but not that many people fall off) and the areas we drove through (land is very cheap, there is a big argument going on about who should pay for the road to the canyon - the Indians who own the land, the businessman who's bringing in all the tourists or the council, if it rains the roads often get flooded and people get stuck in the middle of nowhere). There were a lot of joshua trees, so-called because they look like they're praising God apparently (the first guys that came across them were super-religious). The whole drive looked like it was straight out of a road movie.

The weather was starting to turn a bit cold and cloudy by the time we got to the canyon. I'd been fooled by the heat of the other few days and hadn't brought a jacket. Nevertheless I resisted buying a hoody proclaiming that I was part of the Hualapai Nation (the Indian tribe whose reservation the part of the canyon we were going to is in). The first stop after the gift shop was Eagle Point, so called because, well, it looks like this:

As I may have already mentioned, you can go right up to a sheer drop, though it's surprisingly hard to actually make yourself do so. I'd back myself to walk up to the edge of a pavement without falling off but despite essentially picking my legs up with my arms and moving them, this was as close as I managed.

The other attraction of Eagle Point is The Skywalk - a glass bottomed walkway extending out over the edge of the canyon, much like the bit of glass floor in the CN Tower (what is it about the CN Tower lately?) that I failed utterly to walk across. I managed to do The Skywalk though, accompanied by a not terribly bright Kiwi girl from our tour, while Andy and her even less terribly bright mate, perhaps more sensibly given how much it cost, waited in another gift shop. They wouldn't let you take cameras onto the walkway (they even had a metal detector on the way in, though it went off whether or not you had a camera so I'm not sure how it helped) ostensibly to avoid damage to the glass by people dropping them (you had to wear paper overshoes too), but blatantly so they can take pictures of you themselves and then make you pay through the nose for them. It looks pretty weird from the side though eh?

The next stop was Guano Point, the highest point in the area. It's called that because people used to mine guano (bat shit) from caves in the side of the canyon for use in mascara (it makes Bat For Lashes make more sense, though I think Shit For Lashes might have been better on a couple of levels). The building you can see in the background is part of a pulley system for doing that. I think someone said they had pulleys going right across the canyon. Impressive.

We walked to the top, despite the deteriorating weather, and the views were absolutely incredible. Here's me stood on top of it. 150 takes and that was the best one. The reason I look a little bit uncomfortable is that it was blowing a gale and I was trying quite hard not to get blown away.

I look a bit happier in this one from on the way down, even if it does look like a backdrop in a photographer's studio. I don't know what it is about standing next to huge drops that makes me feel the need to stick my arms out.

I left that cap (which you may remember I got at Way Out West in Gothenburg last year because it was pissing it down) on the bus when it dropped us off at the hotel. Pretty annoying.

It actually started snowing while we were waiting for the bus back. Unbelievable. The Grand Canyon really is as awe inspiring as they say though - if you ever get a chance, go and see it. I'm not sure photos convey just how huge it is. 

We watched Rat Race on the way back which is a terrible film despite an all semi-star cast, but fair enough I guess given that it was set pretty much on the roads we were driving down.

We stopped off at the Hoover Dam again and got our fortunes told by an old miner version of one of those machines from Big, who said something along the lines of "have a bit of a flutter, go on, you know you want to" before giving me a card that said "Say farewell to those blues you have been nursing. Get into the habit of looking at the brighter side of life." So far so good. "A dark haired person who is trying to harm you will soon disappear from your life and you will be extremely happy." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

After a rest and a shower back at the hotel, and an abortive attempt to go to In and Out Burger, which turns out to be slightly harder to get to on foot than the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and neither of us was prepared to get a cab to get a burger, however nice a burger it might have been, we went to Fremont Street, which is the original gambling bit of the city.

We got the burgers we'd been craving, then I lost another $60 with some outrageously bad cards, though Andy won on a roulette table by betting on red when black had come up 11 times in a row. After that I restricted myself to video poker and getting really quite wasted with the aid of some stronger than expected margaritas. I'm not sure Andy was entirely sober either.

We had to wait for a good couple of hours for the bus back for no obvious reason. There was some good banter with other passengers. Andy was in his element, though I did feel a bit sorry for Jennifer the roaming ticket inspector who was also waiting to inspect the next bus.

I remembered the other film I saw on the way out - I Love You Philip Morris - not a good film. On the way back I watched A Serious Man, Men Who Stare at Goats, (neither of which were good films either, and I normally like any old film that's put in front of me. Sort it out Virgin) and Crazy Heart which was actually pretty good if a bit obvious.

All in all it was a genius weekend. Las Vegas, despite the ubiquitous annoying Paris Hilton accents, guys clicking fliers at you, and inevitable several hundred dollar gambling losses, is an amazing place, especially for the first couple of days before you become accustomed to the ridiculousness. Anyone want to go with me next year?

I've been exiled from my house by building work this week, which has meant a lot of meals out and nights in the pub. I ate out 3 times yesterday alone, assuming KFC counts as eating out. Pretty good going. I've also had to go without cable TV, which I was hoping would lead to some kind of productivity, but it hasn't. I just miss Bones. And I don't want to get my good mics out until the dust has properly settled, and the door to the room I record in won't stay shut now because the walls have all shifted. Bit annoying. 

Remember the trip to Bournemouth the other month? The results made it to the bbc website. Odd that they don't mention the fact that the minigolf was closed.

Back to Vegas. On the Saturday Andy got up bright and early to watch the Grand National/some premiership football in the hotel's ridiculous sport gambling area, which consists of a bank of huge TVs several times the size of the departure board at Liverpool Street station showing pretty much anything that's going on at the time, with rotating pages of odds. I slept in until lunchtime, then got a very satisfactory double quarterpounder meal from the McDonald's in the hotel food court. They were selling 50 McNuggets for $9.99, which blew my mind slightly. In the UK a McNugget meal consists of 6 nuggets. Here they suggest you get 2 lots of chips and drinks with your portion of 50 for an extra $5. By my calculations that means that two American McNugget portions equate to 8 British ones. What with that and the unlimited buffets it's amazing they aren't all really fat. Oh.

The Mandalay Bay (naturally) has a shark reef and we went thought that might be worth checking out, so we took the little train there rather than make the gruelling 5 minute walk. It's pretty great considering it's just a thing in a hotel. They have alligators, komodo dragons, pirhanas, parrotfish (they have mouths that look just like beaks), lionfish, sawfish, angelfish, jellyfish, lots of sharks (there's something really beautiful about the way sharks swim - it's so efficient, so streamlined)

and these guys that look a bit like I did this morning.

On the way out we went past the wedding chapel, the outside of which is tastefully decorated with carefuly chosen bits of statue.

The Mandalay Bay is connected to the Luxor by a walkway (presumably they're both owned by the same guys) that takes you straight in there. I knew in principle that the Luxor is a big pyramid, but I wasn't prepared for how big a pyramid it is. I've used the word ridiculous a lot in this, but...

Each one of those lights in the skin of the pyramid is a hotel room. That would be an interesting place to stay.

We went on another wander down The Strip, this time popping into the Bellagio, which is apparently one of the more expensive hotels in the world. There's a nice floral display on the way in.

It's also pretty much unique in that it has natural light in the casino bit, so you can get an idea what time of day it is. I tried to take a picture of a sign that amused me by only giving directions to baccarat and noodles, as if there's nothing else that could possibly be important, but got told off because you can't take pictures of bits of casino.

We went into Caesar's Palace and put a few dollars in the slots, which are ok, but a bit mindless for me. I don't play them here because they're complicated and I don't know the tricks, but the ones they have there do seem to simply consist of pressing the go button and hoping for the best. At least with blackjack you have to think about what you're doing, even if it is a level below poker as Andy repeatedly pointed out.

Saturday night was going to be the night we really went for it, but after several failed attempts to find a normal bar with seats that didn't have a cover charge, and a few drinks in a semi-cool rock club (the bar staff were swinging from tyres from the ceiling - not much rock music though) we went back to the hotel and I unwisely sat down at a $15 a hand blackjack table and started accepting the complimentary beers. Based on a facebook status update I made, I was $250 up at 4.30am, and I'm pretty sure that I got a bit further ahead than that, but I ended up losing everything I started with. God knows when I made it to bed. I had a great time though - everyone round the table was winning for most of the time I was there so there was a nice atmosphere, and the dealers were really friendly.

The next day was a bit of a write off - I slept in until lunchtime again, got a double quarterpounder again, and then Andy went off up the road to play some poker. I intended to go on the New York, New York rollercoaster and check out the swimming pool in our hotel, but I ended up watching crap TV (and Boston Legal) and snoozing. The drug adverts on American TV are insane. 15 seconds of "Does your depression make it hard to get up in the morning" and 45 seconds of "exampleoximolazone may cause drowsiness, itchiness, bowel irregularities and death". Andy came back having lost his stack in annoyingly unlikely circumstances and we went to the buffet at the Treasure Island hotel, largely because the guide book spoke of a "roaming chilli cart", but also because it offers cuisine from all corners of the world. There was no sign of the chilli cart, maybe it's not out on Sundays, but despite getting a massive electric shock from a handrail on the way in, I was impressed. The barbecue section alone was worth the entrance money. Prime rib is very tasty indeed.

I was hoping to get the whole trip finished off in this sitting, but it's getting long, and late so I'm going to leave it there for now. Maybe I'll get my house back this week...

I saw a really good band on Wednesday, completely out of the blue, when I went to The Cornerhouse to keep me awake until a sensible hour so I could get back onto UK time. Anyway, they're called The Momeraths and they made me grin a lot. A charming perfect harmony boy/girl twee poppy indie thing made more interesting by the girl generally taking a drumstick to anything that was near her, including a tom, a couple of chairs, a tambourine and a glockenspiel (though she probably used proper mallets, or whatever glockenspiel playing sticks are called, for that). It's the first time I've bought a CD off a band I've not seen before for ages.

In another extravagant effort to distract myself from the crippling loneliness of my day-to-day life, Andy and I went to Las Vegas last week (and got back just in time it seems - I'd probably be dead, or at least broke, by now if the volcanic ash crisis had trapped us there). I went down to London last Wednesday so that we didn't have to stress about getting to Gatwick in time, and we got there in plenty of time. I'd lost my sunglasses (along with my passport for a while - that was a horrible hour or two) at some point the previous weekend while clearing up my house ready for some building work (more of that another time probably) so once we'd checked in under the watchful gaze of a man with a gun that looked like something out of Aliens I went on a whistlestop tour of Sunglasses, Sunglass Hut, Sunglass Shack and Sunglass Lean-to in an effort to find some for less than £70, before resorting to Boots. Once that and some breakfast was sorted (9.30am) we started on the whiskey and coke and quiz machine until flight time. 

It's about 10 hours from London to Vegas, so there was time for a few films though, as ever, the in-flight entertainment system was playing up. I'm tempted to write to Branson. I saw Up In The Air (ok, but not as good as I'd been led to believe), It's Complicated (a bit crap, but Alec Baldwin was in it, so I let it drift by while thinking about Tina Fey) some of Sherlock Holmes (meh, but it wasn't helped by the sound cutting out for about 70% of the time) and I'm pretty sure something else, but I forget what.

We got out of the airport at about 4pm local time after a monster queue at immigration, and took a taxi the long way round to our hotel, the MGM Grand, which was the biggest hotel in the world for a while, until they built an even bigger one up the road. We washed the metaphorical dust off our feet and then went to explore the hotel a bit before wandering up The Strip. The hotels in Vegas seem to need to have a gimmick, and the gimmick of the MGM Grand is that it has a lion enclosure. A lion enclosure. To be honest it was less impressive than it sounds - they were just lazing around on top of the walkway whenever I went past. One thing that all the hotels have in common is that if you touch any piece of metal (in particular handrails and door handles) you have decent odds of getting a fairly jolting electric shock. Dunno what that's about. Andy took to insulating his hand with his passport before going near anything.

There are a few things that strike you as soon as you get outside. First is how hot it is (in the 80s in early April, apparently rising to the 100s pretty soon) and how air conditioned the hotels are. Second is the lines of Mexican guys flicking cards advertising girls at everyone (they sound a bit like cicadas, and get right in your way on already crowded pavements), not to mention the massive trailers advertising the same thing which go past when you're trying to take pictures of things. Here are two separate attempts I made to take pictures of the Bellagio fountains (they make an appearance in Ocean's 11).

Third is how ridiculous most of the casinos are. The one over the road was New York themed, complete with Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and rollercoaster,

and there was one over the road from that shaped like a castle. Admittedly a plastic looking castle, but a castle nonetheless. The two most ridiculous though, in my opinion, are the Paris themed one, complete with Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe

and The Venetian, with an indoor Grand Canal (much like Venusfort the Italian themed shopping mall in Tokyo that I went to last year if you remember that - actally, quite a lot of the crazier things reminded me of Japan), a big campanile, and a model of the Rialto Bridge with, wait for it, travelators on. Travelators.

After a wander and takeaway margaritas from some cocktail themed bar and restaurant I got the second best steak I've had in the last few weeks, realised I was quite incredibly tired and went to bed.

We got up bright and early the next day, still not quite being accustomed to the time and went over the road to Hooters for a breakfast of "deadly deuces": 2 sausage "links", 2 eggs "over easy", 2 little rashers of bacon and 2 huge pancakes. Served with maple syrup and, for some reason, a small pot of clotted cream. The coffee was both bottomless and extremely nice.

There was a blackjack table with a minimum bet of $3 per hand, which was by far the cheapest we'd seen at that point, so I had a bit of a go, and pretty soon was $60 up. As ever with these things I carried on for longer than I should but, for the one and only time of the weekend, I still left the table in profit. We wandered down to the Mandalay Bay casino, and picked up a cab to a shooting range a couple of miles out of town to fire some guns.

When we got in there I was a little bit nervous about the guy toting something that appeared to take mortar shells and complaining that it kept jamming. It made a hell of a noise when he shot it. Anyway, we were given T-shirts to shoot at as well as a couple of man shaped targets and got through a selection of 4 machine guns (I think my favourite was the uzi, but it was the first one and I was still a bit tentative) a magnum, a desert eagle (which has a massive kick) and a pump action shotgun. I managed to hit my T-shirt with (I counted) 73 of 75 rounds and here's my effort with the shotgun.

I reckon I'd be ok in a combat situation, as long as the enemy stood motionless about 30 feet away, and I had someone to load my weapons. Shooting guns is cool. And big and clever.

We wandered back towards the city, pausing for me to buy some clothes (I hideously underpacked - don't know what was going on) and catching a cab at a hunting themed casino (after quickly losing my profit from Hooters to a lady that I thought at the time was the surliest blackjack dealer in the world) - the guys who stand out the front of places beckoning cabs for you from a queue of them for a dollar a time are onto a pretty good thing it seems to me.

After dropping our targets and stuff back at the room, we got the monorail from our hotel to the other end of The Strip to go up the tower at Stratosphere, a hotel whose gimmick is having a massive tower with fairground rides on the top (that go over the edge). "Sod that" was the general opinion of rides that go off the side of huge towers, but I do like looking down on things. It was incredibly hot, so on the way we wandered into this cool looking shop with the intention of buying some water and possibly tat. 

As we were about to go in there were two guys in CSI T-shirts coming out carrying souvenir CSI director's chairs, which Andy later said he thought was a bit of an impractical thing to take on a plane. Just inside the door were two guys in CSI T-shirts wearing souvenir replica CSI access all areas passes. Going a bit far I thought. Then I noticed Laurence Fishburne was standing in the corner, and before we could go up and congratulate him on his performance in Snakes on a Plane or The Pelican Brief (or Lethal Weapon) someone else with a souvenir CSI pass told us that the shop wasn't actually open and would we mind going away.

Stratosphere is pretty high. It looks a bit like the CN Tower, but is built in sections rather than being formed out of a single moulding of concrete (get me and my CN Tower knowledge).

At the top they sold a cocktail called Rocket Fuel in a novelty massive glass, and it would've seemed rude not to have one.

It was pretty disgusting, but did a job. Not as much of a job as it did on the old Australian woman that started talking to Andy when I popped to the loo.

"Ah possums, ah just wanted somethin' ta quench ma facking thirst and nah ah'm fackin' blotto - I gotta get back ta facking Circus Circus and take ma facking nephew ta see a facking show, and then we're goin' ta fackin' Anaheim for a fackin' week of fackin' disney shite tamarra - cud ya be a nice pair a poms and help me ta tha fackin' bus stop?".

The view was pretty great - it looks like Sim City, albeit without the massive spider robot thing.

These were the first clouds we'd seen since we'd been there.

Once we'd helped Dame Edna to the bus stop we went to the Sahara casino where we'd seen some $1 blackjack and played that for a while, with the new surliest dealer champion, Pat. She spoke four languages, not including the clicking language of the African bushmen, had known Elvis (she said there was a photo of the two of them on ebay recently), toured the world as a dancer and now, in her 60's, was dealing extremely low stakes blackjack to the kind of people who play extremely low stakes blackjack. She wasn't best pleased. Fair enough I guess, but it's not much fun when the dealer isn't very nice to you.

Once we'd run out of dollars we walked all the way back down the strip, pausing only for some oversized beers, and to watch the eruption of the fake volcano outside The Mirage casino. Andy had to drag me past The Wynn, where Garth Brooks was playing. I'd have definitely gone if I'd not been overruled.

We got back to the MGM, had some pretty good dinner then went for a look round New York, New York, which has replica streets inside. The buildings aren't as tall as the real ones, so they've made the windows get smaller towards the top in an effort to instil some perspective. Andy was feeling tired so went to bed while I played some blackjack on a rare $10 table that we found in the MGM. It was really good fun. The best thing about blackjack is that everyone around the table including the (non-surly) dealers wants you to win, so it's really convival. Also in this case the dealer didn't know the rules so if you surrendered, instead of taking half your stake he treated it like a win. There was a lot of surrendering done until he twigged. I lasted a few hours until I lost the money I started with, and had a lovely time, and a fair amount of free beer.

That's enough for now. I need to get some sleep because I have builders coming at some ungodly hour, assuming my house, which is currently being held up by 3 metal poles, survives the piledriving they're conveniently doing on Coldham's Lane tonight. As I said every time a dealer got 21 in a particularly unlikely way, what are the odds? I'll leave it with some amusing adverts I saw.

It's been a good long weekend, though I have spent the last couple of days sneezing with streaming eyes because we took a partition wall down in my house and I've not managed to clear it of dust properly yet. I'm so allergic to things. Well annoying.

On Friday Chris and I went down to London to hang around for the afternoon and then watch Daniel Johnston playing with an orchestra. After a quick pint in the Wetherspoon by Liverpool Street, where we met up with Jason, who's just moved to London, we went to this place on Commercial Street, which is loveably grotty.

Being in the pub in the afternoon is one of my favourite things, especially since I've been working. I was about to say I wish I got to do it more, but it's probably a good thing I don't - there was an old guy wearing a straw hat and fluorescent green fingerless gloves who kept going up to strangers and telling them he'd just got divorced, and kept dancing to some tune that was only in his head. I guess it wouldn't be the worst way to end up mind you. We wandered across to Brick Lane after a while 

and went to Vibe Bar over the road from 93 Feet East, which is pretty cool but was full of pissed up lads (presumably a stag do) who kept hitting a metal tray and shouting. They were selling pretty nice burgers, which they claimed were the tastiest you'd find that side of London. Dunno how that works bearing in mind we were in London...

The gig itself was a bit of a mixed bag. The Troxy is a really nice theatre venue, if a bit hard to get to. The first act on, Tommygun (from Brussels as they insisted on telling us over and over - presumably that already makes them the second most famous band from Belgium, in fact it probably makes them the 8th-12th most famous people from Belgium) were ok. They shifted between genres quite a lot I thought which made it a bit hard to get into them. 

The female vocalist had a good voice, but seemed a bit unsure of herself and kept looking at the rest of the band for approval, and doing a Trevor and Simon swing your pants dance with her dress which kept us amused during the jazzier songs.

Jeffrey Lewis (semi-ably assisted by Franic from the Wave Pictures on the mandolin - forming what must've be the most cuddleable musical act in history) was predictably brilliant. I've come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't like Jeffrey Lewis doesn't much like music. His song about the guy trying to kill himself but seemingly not quite managing it was a highlight, as was the rap about killing mosquitos. No "Don't Be Upset" or "Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror" or "Good Old Pig, Gone to Avalon" but we did get "To Be Objectified" and we'll be seeing him again at Primavera in a couple of months so maybe we'll get the others there. 

I'm not massively familiar with Daniel Johnston, and to be honest haven't really been sure about what I have heard, but so many people claim him as an influence that I figured he must be worth seeing. He's obviously quite ill - he talks like a child and seemed genuinely confused about where he was at one point before remembering, and asking if there were and comic book shops nearby. It was actually pretty upsetting seeing him shaking and staring intently at his words - I felt a bit bad to be watching him go through it. He started off on his own with the worst sounding (and weirdest looking) guitar I've heard in ages (how does that happen in a professional gig?) and then the 11 piece orchestra came out. It was a bit of a strange combination I thought - Johnston shaking and mumbling and doing his best bless him, and a group of highly trained, everything spot on musicians. I don't know if it worked really, but they did sound good. Glad I've seen him, but I don't think I need to again. I'll watch that film about him though if I get the chance.

It's been a good while since I got a decent picture of Chris falling violently asleep. I'm hoping for some more at Primavera.

On Saturday night I went to The Globe on Hills Road to watch The B of The Bang and The Dawn Chorus, who are on tour together and are good bands and nice chaps. The B of The Bang have filled out their line up a bit and sounded even better than last time I saw them. There was a band in the middle whose name I didn't catch, and I didn't really like. They were doing that gypsy jazz vaudeville thing, so I was never going to be keen.

The Dawn Chorus played almost entirely new songs which is impressive but a bit of a shame for me because they have a lot of good songs that I know. It was still great though - they're just so exuberant when they play, and seem to totally believe in what they're doing. Also, every time they seem to have more instruments. There were 3 trumpets this time (well, one of them might have been something similar that wasn't quite a trumpet). It was a great moment when one of the trumpeters got up on a table, not realising that that was going to mean the PA was right in his ear. I meant to buy their new CD but managed to not get round to it, and then they'd gone. The bits I've heard online sound great.

Last night I went to The Portland to see The Pony Collaboration and, as ever they were lovely. I put their album onto my iPhone recently (I never thought it'd happen but I got tired of listening exclusively to Okkervil River) and it has been making me happy on a regular basis. It was their last gig with their current keyboard player, so that seemed a bit emotional. It'll be interesting to see how they sound without him - he's very good at doing just the right thing. They were supporting a band called Last Harbour, who were alright I think, but didn't really grab me. Maybe if the bill had been the other way around...

All a bit music filled this time. Sorry. The next exciting installment will not be. Here's a picture of a "waxing" sign with a cleverly placed lamppost.

I went to Amsterdam at the weekend to meet up with Kate who'd been sent out there for work. What a great place it is to be. I went there a good few years ago for a stag do, and had a great time then too, the little of it I can remember.

I got to Stansted way earlier than I needed to because I got bored sitting around at home, though I nearly ended up in Birmingham by mistake because the train a few minutes before the Stansted train helpfully had Stansted Airport written on the front of it. There was something of an exodus when the driver (thankfully) said "This train is for Birmingham New Street". Good one guys. Having a couple of hours to kill in the departure lounge actually worked to my advantage - I got a glass of wine and settled in for a quiz machine session (Charley Boorman is back in my good books) in which I won enough money to buy a Rough Guide to Amsterdam. I also made friends with the guy on the machine next to me. I couldn't understand a word he said (I think he must have been from Chelmsford or something) but he seemed to be convinced of my genius by the time he went to catch his plane, several pound coins heavier.

The Rough Guide came into its own almost immediately when I got off the double decker train at Amsterdam Centraal station, by telling me how the trams work and allowing me to follow exactly where I'd got to. It's always one of the hardest things about getting buses/trams in a new place - figuring out where to get off. After I dumped my stuff at the hotel we went out for what was the nicest steak I've had in years, some ice cream and a look round the tat shops. The tat was amazing on a couple of levels - firstly the variety of everyday objects that you can attach massive wangs to, and secondly, how funny I still find everyday objects with massive wangs attached to them. I've not decided if the mug with one sticking up inside it which would slowly be revealed as you drank your tea or the windowful of surprisingly well endowed but otherwise very cute pink rabbit soft toys that I couldn't see anything unusual about for ages was the highlight. It led to a discussion later on about what the best object would be to shape like a wang. I think the wang car won, with the wangbrella a close second. I reckoned someone should open up a shop devoted entirely to that kind of thing and call it Nobjets d'art.

Amsterdam isn't exactly rammed full of touristy things to do, but one of the obvious ones is Anne Frank's house, so, next morning, after checking out a church by the main square which, oddly I thought, was devoted to an exhibition of middle eastern dress,

we went to join the queue. It was quite a long queue, but there was another nice church to look at.

Kate passed the time by trying to pretend she was somewhere else. Or just not with me.

I wasn't really prepared for how upsetting Anne Frank's house is. Obviously I know the story, but having it drummed into you that it actually really happened in the place where it happened and spending that time quietly thinking about that, and how many other people it must've happened to gets to you. The interview with her father right at the end of the tour is particularly heartbreaking. The mood was slightly lifted when the "beer bike" went past as I was looking out the window. It's essentially a market stall on wheels with seats running down each side each of which has a set of bicycle pedals. Groups of lads then career round the city drinking beers and shouting. I wish I had more friends...

After a massive burger and a couple of Long Island Iced Teas (or equivalent) at The Hard Rock Cafe while watching classic rawk videos we went on a boat tour round the canals and harbour. It was pretty good. Reminded me of doing the same thing in Gothenburg (though we didn't have to get on the floor of the boat). Actually a lot of the place reminded me of Gothenburg, and made me decide to definitely go to Way Out West again this year.

In one of those weird coincidences, Jason happened to be in Holland visiting his friend Christina, who I met a few years ago when Jason, Kaya and I played in Toronto, so we all met up on Sunday to go to the Van Gogh museum and the Heineken brewery.

I found the Van Gogh museum pretty moving too. The idea of devoting yourself completely to art and dying thinking you're a failure, despite having made something that people still love more than a century on... It made me want to try to learn to paint. Thankfully that's worn off now, but I am still really enthusiastic to actually Make something. I've resolved to get this little CD I'm trying to finish out of the way in the next few weeks so I can get on with something good. Weirdly (or maybe not), there was a poster advertising a Don Mclean gig outside. I never much liked that song.

We did the traditional holiday thing for lunch of buying a bag of rolls, some ham and some cheese from a supermarket and eating them on a bench. I also got some Milka because I remembered essentially living off it when I went on a school ski trip to Austria once. It wasn't that nice. Jason accidentally dropped one of his rolls and within seconds the sky was dark with pigeons. It was like something from The Birds. This photo doesn't really convey the true horror.

The Heineken Experience was a lot of fun I thought, once you accepted that you were paying 15 euros to be advertised at for a couple of hours. I've been on a few brewery tours now, and they're all pretty much the same (show you the ingredients in little bowls, the big vats they brew in, the bottling process and then give you a taste) except that this one had an added bonus. A "brew you" ride, a little bit like Star Tours at Disneyland, where you follow the progress of the beer on a moving platform, with realism being added by a spray with water as the hops are dropped into the vats, and having the room filled with bubbles as the beer becomes ready. 

We were also taught some fun Heineken facts, such as that they used to sell it in bottles that could be recycled, not by making them into new bottles, but by using them as bricks with which to build houses for poor areas of the world, and that the 'e's in the logo are "smiling" (a bit wonky) which I'd never noticed.

After that it was a tram back to by the station, a quick slightly uncomfortable wander through the red light district, and the train back to the airport. A really nice weekend, and a reminder that going to places is much nicer if you have other people to hang around with. Anyone fancy keeping me company in New York for a few days in June? The only disappointment about the whole thing was that the casino at Schipol airport was closed so I had to spend some time sitting on the floor waiting for them to let on which gate to go to.

Roll on Vegas.

Oh yeah, this is the best shop name I've seen in a while:

This is going to have to be a quick effort for two reasons, first that I didn't bring my laptop power supply home, so there's only an hour and a bit left on it and secondly that I need to go to sleep soon because I just got in from a Travis Waltons practice (I've discovered how to make my keyboard make massive squealing noises simply by twiddling a couple of the knobs - that'll be fun) and it's quarter to eleven. However, when I do have to get up I'll hopefully be extra energised due to the new sunrise simulating alarm clock I've been given as a bit of a thank you for website services above and beyond. It's meant to wake you up more naturally, and even though my phone alarm (which sounds a bit like someone's escaping from a high security prison, or Red Alert on the USS Enterprise) was what actually woke me up this morning I'm prepared to believe that I felt less awful than usual. Here's a picture of it glowing happily on my bedside table.

It's good fun. It has built in meditation tapes to help you sleep, which I've not listened to yet, but in a brilliant touch it also has them in German. Who on earth could sleep with someone talking German to them? 

Anyway. I had a meeting in Soho last Thursday which finished fairly early so I had a mooch around the National Portrait Gallery (I don't recall going there before, though possibly I did as a child) which seems to be as much an exhibition about who is famous these days as an art gallery. A bit like Madame Tussauds for paintings. I particularly liked the sculpture of an artist's head made with several pints of his own frozen blood. I then walked to Liverpool Street to meet up with Andy for a drink and to watch a bit of football. He's off the booze for Lent so I expect I got pretty boring by the end. I was certainly more amused than I should've been by the miniature plastic goals they had in the urinals of the pub we were in (I had to wait for a long time for the toilet to be empty so I could take this picture)

I also suspect I was hungry because I took a picture of a train seat because I thought the pattern looked like pieces of KFC.

On Friday I went to the Folk Club, and had a nice time - lots of old faces were out. I played "Tomorrow Morning" by Chris T-T to see if I could do it justice (almost) and "Wasted on the Young" which I keep not being brave enough to sneak into sets. Seemed to go ok. Afterwards a few of us ended up having pizza and beer round Greg from Upstairs' flat (Upstairs is their band name he's not someone who lives above me). They were really good actually - I saw them at The Cornerhouse the other week and thought they were ok, but in an acoustic setting they were much better. Nice guys too. I can't find a website.

On Saturday I spent about 3 hours getting weirdly addicted to scrubbing the lino in my kitchen and by the back door, which is a bit of a worry. Even more of a worry is how happy it makes me when I see it all clean. What am I turning into? In the evening I went to the Portland in the rain to see Twelve Clay Feet, who used to be called Delphi, only to discover that someone had drilled through a power line and their set had been moved to The Cornerhouse, right by my house. Gah. I'm glad it all happened though because one of the other bands on (that I wouldn't have got to see) was National Snack and they were absolutely fucking brilliant. Crunching guitar, virtuoso bass (in a good way for once), spot on shouty 3 part harmonies, Stage Presence, a PVC apron and a morning suit. It's great seeing unexpectedly good things - makes all the mediocre/terrible stuff I see worthwhile.

Twelve Clay Feet were good too, though we'd got a bit distracted making nautically based crisp art (I maintained that salt and vinegar Walker's are the National Snack) by then:

I was back at The Cornerhouse on Sunday and saw Jacqui and Geoff do a really good set - more spot on harmonies and some really amusing songs. Check out "Too Particular" on their page. I can get behind that.

Other than that I've been doing tiny amounts of work on my next Thing. I'm trying to decide whether to drop "Magnetic or Rhetorical" and "Grateful Smile" because they're going to be too hard to get up to the standard of the others and just have a 6 track CD ready really soon or to persevere with them. I'm much more excited about the thing I'm going to make after it and want to get on with that really. Ho hum. Maybe Grateful Smile is best just being The Burning Shed Session's USP, and I'm not sure Magnetic or Rhetorical is worth the effort it'd be. Maybe I'll do some kind of stripped down version of it.

Oh my God, Marilyn is returning to Home and Away. I blame Matthew Le Tissier.

There are some posters outside the gym round the corner from my house showing a particularly pneumatic woman standing facing away from you and a pretty weak cheek-based pun in order to try and tempt you to join (I'm not sure if it implies you'll end up looking like that or meeting people who look like that, but I guess either would do). Well, there were, until this happened to one of them, over the course of two days. The writing in blue one day and the response the next. I can see both points of view.

I feel like I've been too busy to write for the last week or so, but I can't think what I've done really - a Travis Waltons practice, watching a fair bit of football both at the pub and at The Abbey (Cambridge beat Histon on Saturday - it was the first local derby I'd managed to get to, because normally they have the home fixture on Boxing Day when I'm in London, and Histon, for some reason, seems to be too far to go) and a fair amount of work.

On Friday I did a gig at The Portland supporting Chris T-T and had a properly great time. Jazz, who was also doing the sound (and wearing one of the few "At Least I'm Not Paul Goodwin" T-shirts still in working order) was on first and was great. He played "Hey Jealousy" and reminded me that The Gin Blossoms are on my list of acts I've not seen and want to (it currently stands at them, Springsteen and Aerosmith) so I checked to see if any of my jaunts to America this year coincide with a show, but they don't. And none of the shows are anywhere I could possibly justify going. Sort it out The Gin Blossoms.

I felt better about my bit that I have for ages - it felt like the crowd were actually on my side. It makes such a difference to me when I think that the clapping is genuine rather than polite. My between song talking was more bumbling than ususal, and I did manage to drop my plectrum into my guitar (that seems to happen more often recently), but the whole thing was really encouraging, lots of people said nice things to me afterwards, and I felt fairly good about myself right through until the end of Saturday night (which turned into a lesson in why you should just stay at home when you're feeling good so that nobody can spoil it for you). I'm not playing much these days, but the gigs I am doing do seem to be decent ones. I do wish I had some more stuff sorted out though. Setlist: Take it All, Muscle Memory, Watertight, This Place is Dead Anyway, Radio Silence, The Ghost of Paddy's Night Past, So Finally a Love Song, Edinburgh.

Chris T-T mostly played songs off his new album, which was great, but was never going to be quite as much fun as a show when I know nearly every word. Though obviously you can't know every word having never heard the songs. He seemed to have a few technical struggles, which was a shame because it seemed to get to him a bit, even though I couldn't hear what was wrong. We did get What if My Heart Never Heals, Tomorrow Morning and English Earth for an encore, which would've been worth the entrance fee on its own. Not that I had to pay to get in (though I had bought a ticket before I found out I was playing). Oh, I nearly forgot, he told the audience I was like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. I'll take that - Eeyore is the best one.

On Monday I went to see Justin Grounds at the Junction, largely because Emily was supporting with her band (which includes Jonny who played the drums in Summerhouse when I was playing clumsy keys). And because I wanted an excuse to go to Nando's. Emily's band (Shallow Falls) sounded really good, and it was lovely to see Jonny play again.

I'd not listened to anything by Justin Grounds until the afternoon, though I'd heard the name, and the stuff on Spotify is really, really good - extremely atmospheric. It reminded me a little of Joseph Arthur's earlier stuff. I hadn't realised that he's from here, and that gave the gig a bit of a family atmosphere, which could've been nice but I kind of felt there were lots of people there because they used to know him rather than they like the music, and there was a lot of forced laughter at jokes that were intended to produce smirks. He seems to be doing well enough that he doesn't need patronising. I wasn't sure how the recordings, which do seem to rely on instrumentation and atmosphere as much as songs, would translate to a solo show. In the event it was nearly brilliant, but wasn't quite. He tried to recreate them using loops and I think the complicated laptop and millions of pedals setup he had meant that he was controlling the levels of everything himself and didn't always get it right, and also if you're looping violins and get the tuning even a tiny bit wrong, it becomes more obvious than it would otherwise be by being present for the rest of the song. I dunno. I did enjoy it a lot, but I wonder if on another night, or with a band, or if we'd been somewhere we could stand up, it'd have been jaw-dropping.

Like the rest of the country with no particular connection to Ireland, I normally go somewhere and drink Guinness on St Patrick's Night. I have no friends tonight, so I'm staying in and watching even more football (Barcelona appear to be stupidly good) before getting an early night. Apart from anything else, I wouldn't want to run into any leprechauns - look what they do to people:

The suitcase in my garden disappeared at some point on Friday, just as mysteriously as it turned up. I've put not looking inside it on my already quite long enough list of things I've regretted not doing in my life (though admittedly 90% of that list involves not asking people out). I've now convinced myself it was either full of money or Guylian chocolate seashells.

The Cambridge game last Tuesday was fun - much better than they've been lately and, best of all, at half time we got to see the (hopefully) never to be repeated sight of ex U's captain Paul Wanless trying to kick a giant testicle past a man dressed as a moose.

I played some keys for Dave at the Globe on Saturday, which was fun, but a little disappointing because I didn't play anywhere near as well as I had done in the practice a couple of days before. I got all nervous/shy and it went straight to my hands. There's no point playing things apologetically. I didn't get anything actually wrong and we'd only had a couple of run throughs I guess - I'm sure I'll do better if we do it again. The Pony Collaboration were on after us and, as they always seem to be, were lovely. I know I say it every time, but watching them makes me really happy. Go and see them if you can.

What else has happened... I did some singing for the Travis Waltons album last night. It was a bit of an adventure getting to the studio - I got the bus to a nearby Park and Ride, not realising that this particular one wasn't designed to be walked to, and ended up having to clamber along a grass verge next to a fairly busy A road and then creeping past some roadworks trying not to get hit by flying gravel/shouted at by workmen/run over by a steamroller. When I did get there it took me about half an hour to get my 20 second part in tune and in time. Impressive stuff. I think it'll sound ok when it's buried under a multitude of Dans. The finished and rough mixes I've heard are sounding really, really nice. It's going to be so good when it's done.

Scars turned up on Spotify (hopefully that link'll work when it's been myspacified), and sounds ok. Tell your friends. It's nice to see it there - makes me feel like a real person.

This made me laugh, spotted during Midsomer Murders on Saturday afternoon. It's amazing how even the biggest companies manage to balls up the details. Or maybe it isn't.

My friend Ciaran sent me this link. What an incredible idea. I'm going to have to start having more mornings off...