Time to stop living in the past. 2010 was all well and good, but it’s a new year, a new decade. No more lists of what happened way back then.
So – went to the first gig of 2011. It was Junip – who I hadn’t heard of until about 2 weeks back, when the date was announced. But the name Jose Gonzalez jumped out at me, of course. To my limited and struggling understanding – I believe Jose may have actually gone to school in Sweden? And Junip is his schoolmates and himself? Or something. And looking it up – yeah, Jose Gonzalez is actually swedish. Odd. But – yeah, good little gig. Very small venue – Scala – but did the job. Nobody volunteered to accompany me – so once again, I went by myself, with a couple of spare tickets in my pocket. At the venue – I spotted a young couple being coerced by a scalper to “just stand there for 5 minutes – and I’ll get you tickets – for fifteen pounds yeah?”. Now – I had a couple of tickets which would go to waste – so I walked to the couple – and offered my tickets, for free. They were confused, but took them. And the scalper gave me dirty looks, and started walking alongside me saying something. I wasn’t really listening, as I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been friendly – as I was in quite a rush to get inside nice and safe. Another scalper, however, I understood quite clearly. “I knew that c*&£ was holding!” – he said. Yeah – I wasn’t the most popular chap amongst the scalpers. I wasn’t sure if I explained that I hadn’t sold my tickets to the couple – but given them away – if that would have made them feel better, or worse. But – went into the gig, the couple found me at the bar, and bought me a drink. I performed my second charitable act when I saw another couple trying to figure out what the pre-gig music was which was playing, by calling ‘Shazam’. I leaned over and kindly told them. Got referred to as “my own living Shazam”. Yep – that’s me. And watched the gig – then found Jess who’d been there, and went for a quick drink afterwards. Not especially good company, however. My new lifestyle of eating bugger all doesn’t do wonders for my energy levels. And yeah – that was the first gig of 2011.
And today – just had to verify some news that I thought I’d heard, but wasn’t sure if I’d heard correctly. The White Stripes have split up! Oh well – had to happen I guess. New year, new decade… It’s probably about time for Jack White to hook up with Kanye West, and make a Super-Album. Maybe through Karen O in there too. That would be sweet.
Also did the first home-cooked Sunday roast of the year. Which was also, I think, the first proper home-cooked meal in my flat. Had Dom, Caro, Malachy, Chook around – and had a fairly nice and simple roast lamb (it being the 30th – therefore a “red meat day” for me). Malachy tried some, and seemed rather taken by lamb. And then we headed to a pub up north, for dessert/soup, backgammon, and live music. Malachy was very taken by the live band – especially percussion. The lead singer lady was rather taken by Malachy, and I got lots of lovely smiles. While I was trying to figure out how to point out that nope – I wasn’t the father, I was actually very single, but gosh – look how great I am with kids. Need some further thought on that, I think.
Oh – and by the way, it looks like I’m doing a very quick visit Down Under in March. Plans are: I fly into Auckland on Sunday the 6th – will head straight to Rotorua. Probably just spend a few days in Rotorua, recovering from jet lag. Possibly do day trips to nearby locations – but probably not. So – if anybody happens to be near Rotorua – let me know. And on the 10th – fly out – Auckland-Melbourne. A few days in Melbourne. And then – maybe a few days somewhere else, Perth maybe? Bali maybe? Queensland maybe? I think Perth is the current front-runner. And – fly back to London on about the 20th. So yeah – not enough time to do anything, just to make a brief appearance – and annoy nearly everybody by not having more time. Sweet.