Much-delayed and fragmented.

This entry, as the saying goes, has grown in the telling. It just covers a couple of points that have come up lately, from motorbikes to dancing.

Point numero uno :

I remembered something at work today that I haven't thought about for a while.

Just before I moved away from Edinburgh, I did my CBT with the Edinburgh Motorcycle Training Scheme, a voluntary group who do, much as you'd expect, training courses. Unlike most commercial outfits, it wasn't an intensive course - rather, it was two or three hours, two evenings a week, for about six weeks. As it wasn't commercial, the cost was very reasonable - basically what it took to cover petrol, insurance and maintenance - and the ratio of instructors to pupils was high. At this time - and maybe still - it was headed by Sheila Rinning.

Towards the end of the course, I was out on a run round some local roads. It was awful. I'd done the route before, but this time went badly. It was cold, dark and wet (being in the middle of a Scottish winter), and I stalled the bike on a roundabout. Traffic was quite heavy, which already had me on edge, and these little 125s can't drive the ignition and the lights off the battery at the same time, so I had to turn the lights off to kickstart it. Of course, I forgot to turn them on again and got pulled over by the instructor a hundred yards down the road. I'm sure you know how it is. Once things start going wrong, you get rattled and make more mistakes. After the first couple it gets its own momentum.

By the time we made it back I was white as a sheet and trembling. The guy who'd taken me out told me not to worry - it'd be better next time. Then he went for a word with Sheila, who came over, looked me in the eye and said "Graham, you're going out again, and you're going out now. Because if you go home tonight without being out again, you won't be back."

It was awful. But it didn't touch the one before. She'd been right. I wouldn't have come back. But I went out, and I did come back.

There's a moral in there, I'm sure. Never trust a welder in flipflops, probably.

Point the second :

Sandy's annoyed.

Point the third :

I don't really know how to describe this conversation. Unsettling, at the least. "The gods of synchronicity" is putting it about right. The runup to this starts with me playing mrph a recent Half Man Half Biscuit song when he was in town the other week, and him mentioning this to a mutual friend of his and swisstone's - the latter not knowing until then that I had an LJ. Confused? You will be, after this week's episode of . . . Livejournal.

Point the fourth.

Last night, of course, was the first post-lhiss iteration of The Calling. It went fairly well, I think. Attendance was a little down on last time, but we haven't been at the new venue for long enough to really tell what a normal attendance is. Still, I should really try and knock off another flyer at some point. I suppose I should really make sure all the online stuff is up to date as well - apart, obviously, from this one, which we're very proud of. The Calling - officiallyBritain's most hostile goth club. We don't want that review altered in any way. Worryingly, they've already taken off the comment they had at the bottom about standing by the review and welcoming the debate it caused. The "debate" in question happened on uk.people.gothic and consisted of everyone who'd ever been to the thing reading it and then laughing themselves sick.

It was very odd getting ready without Patrick around. Obviously it was a little quicker with the bathroom bottleneck eased (expect that to change as soon as Raven's moved in). I had the first set to myself, so I did my usual semicompetent noodling. I played Gimme Danger really early on and somebody (Hi Kit!) danced and then asked what it was. It's great when that happens. And why have I never played that before? I've been doing this for over a decade now. Moon Over Marin went down very well too. I'd no idea we had so many Dead Kennedys completists in the house. Worryingly, my setlist includes the entry "S&N". I remember writing it, and I can remember thinking "and it doesn't stand for Scottish and Newcastle," but I can't now for the life of me remember what it does mean. If anyone can remember what it was I played between Joy Division and Clan of Xymox, could they let me know? I was a little disappointed that nobody danced to the mighty mighty Leechwoman, but you can't have everything. Incidentally, Billy Bragg had a wonderful story about similar metalbashing industrial bands back in the Eighties - demand to hear it from anyone who's seen him recently.

razornet was on second, with myself as assistant (and, I suppose, tutor). It was odd, and a little frustrating not being able to be quite as controlfreakish as when it's my own set, but he played Finland Red, Egypt White, which is always good to hear, and finished with some Tom Lehrer. A good job overall, I think. This meant that I didn't actually finish working until 12:20. I have, incidentally, just noticed that he has his setlist on his LJ now, so if you feel a morbid curiosity, have a peek.

Loki was on last. He commented that both I and Grim had played several songs he'd been going to, so he'd been sitting listening to his set evaporate under him. He did a grand job, though, as usual. There seemed to be a slight "women being rude" theme, with plenty of feminine voices cursing, blaspheming and generally being obscene all over the dancefloor. This was offset nicely, though, by that other version of Useless Man (by Minty) that he's mentioned before but I've not heard, which definitely includes enough male invective to balance them.

Fun all round.

Want the other two setlists? No, of course you don't, but here they are anyway :

DJ Controlfreak (9:00pm-10:40pm)

Locust - Master & Servant

Cristina - Is That All There Is?

Iggy & the Stooges - Gimme Danger

New Model Army - Vanity

Machines of Loving Grace - Butterfly Wings

Ohgr - Kettle

Killing Miranda - Angelfly

Dead Kennedys - Moon Over Marin

Joey Ramone - Wonderful World

Hole - Violet

China Drum - Wuthering Heights

Virgin Prunes -Baby Turns Blue

The Horatii - Darrel & Alicia

Lords of the New Church - Russian Roulette

Swarf - Fall

Front 242 - Headhunter

The Chaos Engine - Employee of the Year

Leechwoman - Tool

Creaming Jesus - A Froest

Dream Disciples - OPS

NiN - Heresy

Joy Division - Dead Souls

S&N (Wolfsheim's "The Sparrows and the Nightingales" - I remembered)

Clan of Xymox - Jasmine & Rose (always makes me think of Jo Moy in her PVC frock now. Mmmm . . .)

The Shysters of Mercy - Alice.

Loki (12:20-2:00 am)

Covenant - Like Tears in Rain

Ultraviolence - Psychodrama [R]

Nitzer Ebb - Let Your Body Burn (12")

Lords of Acid - You Wanna Suck My Pussy [R]

Clan of Xymox - This World

Pop Will Eat Itself - Ich Bin Ein Auslander

Evil's Toy - A Girl Called Bitch

NiN - Closer (Jack Madonna mix)

Minty - Useless Man (Keoki mix)

Corpus Delicti - Saraband

London After Midnight - Kiss

In Extremo - This Corrosion

Miranda Sex Garden - Peepshow

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Do You Love Me?

Danielle Dax - Yummer Yummer Man

The Creatures - 2nd Floor

Lords of Acid - The Dude [R]

De-Vision - Hear Me Calling

Rammstein - Stripped

Ultraviolence - Hardcore Motherfucker

Rammstein - Barbie Girl

Point the fifth :

The builders have been back. There are definite signs of roofing materials covering the beams now. And the house is very empty tonight.

Very annoyed

I can't make updates to this of any more than a few lines (as you can probably tell by the obviously incomplete last post). Anyone any ideas?