Charity

On the local television station we have a very beautiful sports reporter, newsreader and presentress whom I adore. She’s dangerously close to being ginger but gets away with it spectacularly, and has a reputation as a drinker and a bit of a bike – even better.

The beautiful newsreader is a patron of a local cancer charity which organises a competition for local bands each year. I did manage to talk to her once when I was competing in the battle-of-the-bands. This year the charity asked me if I would provide sound and lights for their competition. I said I would do it for either fifty quid or the opportunity to take the newsreader out for a meal – for which I would pay.

My offer was put to the woman, and a few days later I got my answer. She wouldn’t go out with me even for charity.

Richard “what a bitch” B

Shhh

This weekend was all about not making noise. On Friday night I was working for a Beatles tribute act and I got shouted at by the venue staff because apparently the band had started too early. I hadn’t made any of the arrangements and didn’t know what time they were supposed to start, but I was much more convenient to shout at because the band were already on stage.

On Saturday morning I needed to test a bass guitar amplified that I had mended. I did it in the garage, but it’s still very loud, and I expected to have to apologise to the neighbours. After about 5 minutes a man approached me, I shut up and started to apologise. The man had actually been admiring my bass playing (it wasn’t admirable) and wanted to warn me that he was going to be running a chainsaw for a couple of hours.

On Saturday night I was working for a show that had three bands, finishing with the Oasis tribute. The second band couldn’t sing or play their instruments, they should have been quiet. At the end of the night, one of the barstaff said to us, “I wasn’t expecting that tonight: You guys sounded just like Oasis”. I don’t know what he thought an Oasis tribute would sound like, but maybe he’s grown used to the bands that can’t sing or play.

Richard “stop that racket” B

We Are the Mods

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, when all music jars the soul is out of key. Much of the reality we experience is just a matter of perception, but until this weekend I didn’t realise that seemingly simple and definite facts could also be so variable.

I was at a scooter rally at an old country pub in the middle of nowhere (I haven’t got a Lambretta or a fish-tail parka, I was there helping the band). The girl’s toilet was accessible from the bar, but to get to the boys you had to leave the pub and walk down the side of the car park.

"I haven’t been in a pub with an outside toilet for a hell of a long time." I said to an interesting and exceptionally drunk mod who was p**sing next to me. "Ah! That’s a matter of perception" he said. I stared back blankly wondering if he was deranged/setting up a terrible joke/commenting on the passage of time/ or challenging me with some zen koan. "If you go through that door, you end up in the restaurant." He was right, whether the toilet was inside or outside really did depend on how you looked at it.

Richard "don’t talk to strange men in public toilets" B

Middle Class

On Friday my work took me out heavy drinking, it was excellent fun and very generous of them, but it also contained a very middle class disappointment for me. I ate a squid ring from the buffet only to find that the batter contained onion, rather than squid.

A few weeks ago I had a house guest, and we had two even more middle class experiences in one day: We drank overpriced, organically produced, Cornish grown tea in the café of a farm shop, and we were on the wrong end of a hard sell from the National Trust when we used one of their car parks.

The only way I can think of to have had a more middle-class relaxing weekend would have been to smoke a joint made of organically grown weed, broken up between my oak cheeseboard and a mezzaluna, rolled on the back of a large and valuable hardback book of fine art prints, and tipped with an specially produced unbleached roach torn from a little book.

Richard "never happened" B