Whitby, part II

From P&P's I headed back across the river to change. I must have either had a key or found the door unlocked, because I didn't have to wake anyone up. I seem to be an earlier riser than the other three (when on holiday, anyway) which is nice because I got to read the paper without being in their way. The day doesn't really stand out, although I know I spent a reasonable amount of time in the pub and wandered over to the spa, where I bought a couple of CDs. The evening was good. I paced myself rather better than the night before, and so i remembered it all the next day, unlike certain people I could mention. Three of the bands were pretty good. The second (Arkham Asylum) I didn't see because I was in the middle of a conversation with bootpunk and zoo_music_girl. I never played Arkham Asylum when it was out, but then I never played The Chaos Engine either. I wonder if Wasp Factory have bands waiting in the wings called Manic Miner or Attack Of The Mutant Camels? And if not, why not?
Action Directe had energy, but I couldn't make out what they were saying, so I don't really know whether their presentation's as leftish as I've been told. The Little Match Girl were quite fun. very NiNish, with a rather cute dreaded blonde on vocals. Good God. Pretty and talented. She'll be against the wall pretty quick when the revolution comes. Their version of Wish was an absolute photocopy, so CJ started shouting for Big Black songs. Honestly, you can't take some people anywhere. Anyway, as a band they were very slick and professional, and came over very well. They weren't really distinctive enough that I'd buy their records, but I'd recommend them as a live experience. The vote was won by the last band - inevitably. As they go on in alphabetical order, I will call any band I'm in "ZZZZZ", which will stand for "Zotz, Zebedee, Zachariah and Zoroaster's Zymurgy". No-one'll have a chance against us. The snoring jokes we'll deal with outside. Anyway, said last band were Synthetic. I saw them before in London, and as before I was struck by their guitarist, who's at least as old as me and playing the rock-god card to an implausible degree. I approve mightily. We didn't stay all the way through, as like the band before them they weren't really my thing, but they jumped around a lot, sang tunefully and wore very silly hats. Certainly worth a look.

CJ disappeared at some point, so I wandered round chatting to other people, who were all fascinating and wonderful. it turned out he'd popped back to his room for something and had fallen asleep, so unsurprisingly when i wandered past the Avalon later he was nowhere to be found. there were some other people looking for a party, a couple of whom I knew, so we all wandered over the river to a place below the abbey. I bumped into Maxine and Dave G as we arrived, and Grave and . . . Sharon? We all decided to blow the joint, as in Dave's view it was full of whizzed-up bundles of walking hair extensions labouring under the belief that they had chemically become avatars of Oscar Wilde, which he didn't really feel up to. So back along to G'n'S's place, which was handily about fifty feet from ours. We sat, we drank, we chatted, we laughed, and soon it was five in the morning. Various people sloped off and Dave crashed on our couch.

You'll have noticed that I haven't mentioned my flatmates today. I did see them, and I did talk to them, but for some reason I didn't bump into them that frequently. This was, happily, remedied later.

That friend who's after a room

She'll be in London from tuesday until Thursday poking around, so if any of you want her phone number, then just mail me.

gc1 at sanger ac uk will get to me during work hours. The zotz at livejournal bit will reach me outside of them.

Thanks.

Oh for Christ's sake.

What sort of nation could seriously elect this administration and over a year later not have collectively realised that they're a crowd of maniacs headed by a buffoon?

And who would pull this stunt close to an election without thinking the words "sympathy vote"? They guy strikes me as a steaming turd, but as well as being obviously wrong, killing him's seriously unwise. It worked for the Israeli extreme right, of course, but as far as I can remember it doesn't usually have the desired effect.

Bong. World goes to hell in a handbasket. Film at eleven. Bong.