Strike a Light

To some, Thursday's strike is an inconvenience, a hindrance and is being perpetrated by a bunch of greedy public sector bastards who should be grateful for whatever they receive in these austere times. Not working at the moment, I find that it's largely passing me by, but that's not to say I haven't got an opinion and the opinion I have is worth looking at, in my humble opinion.

It's not the fault of public sector workers, the teachers or other people on strike. They didn't demand to be offered the pensions they received when they started working for the companies they do now. They didn't ask for these special provisos when they were offered the job they do by the people who set these figures.

Nor is it particularly far that you, me and most everybody else is made to pay for the mistakes of others. We are paying for the bankers' cock up over and over again and this, 'we're all in it together' bullshit has got to stop. we are not all in it together, some are in it more than others.

Just remember that on Thursday when you have a moan about unions, or complain about teachers - whom incidentally have to teach today's kids - or complain about being put out by these selfish striking bastards. They didn't ask for this; they didn't cause this mess and now they, like us, are expected to pay for it; like we've paid for previous cock-ups by Labour, Tories and local councils.

It doesn't matter who the politicians are, you pay and pay again for their desire to look after the super rich, so they keep their money in this country, which they barely pay any tax on at all.

If you're put out by the strikes; just remember, if it was you who was facing more contributions for less pension at a retirement age of 68 and, more importantly, no guarantee that your job is going to be safe in the next few years, anyhow. Would you just sit around and let the government royally butt fuck you? Or, do you think like that stupid woman on the TV last night, that its your prerogative to work like a cunt for your entire life to serve a greater master who will lord over all of us with their ill-gained riches. the woman who feels we all have to suffer to bail out subsequent idiotic governments who leave the economy in the hands of corrupt arseholes!

Don't be annoyed on Thursday; the people who are striking are already feeling the pinch and they won't get paid. If you feel some righteous indignation, you should write to David Cameron asking him what these people have done to be made to pay for the bankers' mistakes; what heinous crimes public sector workers have committed to make them pay for something they had no control over? Don't get pissed off at pickets, get pissed off with your local MP, whatever persuasion he or she is, because it's theirs and their predecessors' faults we're in this mess, and they need to be reminded.

We Are Not Worthy Farm

Watching U2 for a while, last night, on the HD channel, I was struck by the madness of people to stand in the rain and watch a band who might have rocked the place but seemed strangely muted. But Glastonbury has that affect on people. For some it doesn't matter that you're risking your health by staying out of doors for 3 whole days at a time of year notoriously poor for summer time sun. It's the experience.

It seems that this year might be a carbon copy of my first ever Glasto, in 1982. I was reminiscing about that just yesterday and coming to the conclusion that it wasn't memorable, because i couldn't remember much about it. However, what I can remember about it was quite vivid.

I mentioned Glasto 82 a few weeks back, but I don't think I went into any detail. I was living in Shenley in Herts, living with my folks (again), while they ran the Shenley Mental Hospital Social Club. I worked there for pennies and had fallen in with a good bunch of hospital workers and spent a lot of time getting drunk, stoned and having sex. My best mate at the time, Gertie, a man mountain of a Welsh guy whose real name was Geraint Wyn Owen, suggested that we go to this new Glastonbury CND Festival as we were all into that ban the bomb bollocks and it seemed like a good excuse to take loads of drugs, which I was into big time.

Gert was already coming on holiday with me and the folks to Westward Ho! in Devon and the festival tied in nicely with that. We'd go to the festy, then get to Devon by hitching or a bus and hook up with my folks on the Monday. it gave them the weekend to themselves and I got to go to real life music festival and they were rare things in those days. Reading was a fixture, but not much else.

He was seconded to Central Middlesex Hospital in Acton, London and was getting a lift to Pilton with some of them; I, on the other hand, was going to hitch down the M4 and find my way to Glasto in the time honoured tradition. My dad was even less sure than my mum, but I was 20 years old; I was a man!

I went prepared. I had my best Falmer jeans, a tee-shirt and a denim jacket. I had a toothbrush, £50 a change of pants and socks. I had everything I needed. I was sharing a tent with Gert and my clothes and everything would be waiting for me in a chalet in a childhood holiday destination. And to be fair, everything went swimmingly. I got a lift within ten minutes from an old hippy in an even older Volkswagen saloon and he took me as far as Warminster in Wiltshire. He would have taken me all the way but he was visiting his sick mother. It's about 20 miles from there to where I needed to be and it was early, about 11:00am. I was going to be laughing!

I walked for a while; headed to Frome, which would give me a direct road to Shepton Mallet. I finally got to Longleat and found a bus stop and figured the best thing I could do was wait for the next rural bus, but within five minutes a big old farm vehicle appeared round the corner, pulling a trailer which contained half a dozen people going to the festival. And, so was the bloke pulling the trailer - result. "Jump in," he says. So I did and my prized Falmers disintegrated!

They literally self-destructed. They split at the crotch, left, right, up and down and I didn't have anything to change into. It was leave them on with my underwear showing or take them off. This was 1982; I wasn't about to do that!

I sat, rather embarrassed in the wagon and eventually at a little after 3 - we were travelling at about 10mph - we got to the gates. I paid my £15 entry fee and got my wrist band and I found Gertie and his London contingency within 10 minutes of getting there; but they only expected 15,000 people...

All Gertie had for his holiday was his theatre greens; a baggy pair of things he wore when he attended any surgeries. They were all that was on offer and I had to accept them. I don't think I had much style at the time to cramp, so I was pretty oblivious to them after a while. I looked no different than all the other strange beasts attending this show.

The day down had been bright and warm, but by the time we got the tents up it had started chucking it down and it rained all evening and all through the night and until about 10 in the morning. It turned the site into a mud bath - the first, I believe of many - and I can't remember what we did for those first 20 odd hours. I think I got mashed and fell asleep. I remember waking up at some point and hearing the rain on the tent and some music being played loudly not far from me, but it didn't tempt me from my sleeping bag - which Gertie had brought with him from London.

By the time we grabbed some breakfast and had a look around, the sun had come out and by the middle of the afternoon, the mud had turned into a thick gloopy chocolate coloured ooze. I remember seeing two naked hippies walking through the turmoil; he was an old goat, but she looked like a goddess. The other thing we found weird and almost unsettling was the amount of drugs being sold openly and the way people were just walking around with big spliffs in their gobs flaunting the laws of the land. It was awesome!

I remember watching Randy California from the top of the hill in front of the old pyramid stage and thinking that the spectacle was amazing. Watching it on the TV last night, I thought it looked like a small town. Gone is the cottage almost Tolkeinesque feel of a village powered by love and small gas canisters. We went back to the tent about midnight, smoked some spliffs and crashed out.

The Sunday was roasting. It was in the high 70s and the mud had turned to crusts. We wandered around the site, saw a few things which I remember little about and then we hooked up with another bunch of nurses that Gertie's mates knew. Among them was this girl called Christine and she took a shine to my soiled theatre trousers and I spent the rest of the day with her, doing... stuff. We congregated at the main stage about 7pm and watched a succession of people I hadn't heard of and didn't really enjoy, until Judy Tzuke came on as the final act of the gig. That was pretty amazing for its time.

With the festival over, the Monday was targeting Devon. I also needed to find a pub to get a bite to eat and have a dump, having gone three days without success. We found getting a lift a lot tougher than we thought and ended up walking to Glastonbury and eventually a place called Street, where we got a bus to Bridgewater, which allowed us to get a bus to Westward Ho! It took us all day and we didn't get to my folks until 7pm. But we did have a little adventure along the way...

Just outside Glastonbury, we stopped at this pub. It was only early, but we decided to have a couple of pints of the local scrumpy. The bar man had told us that 3 pints and it pole axed you, but after I'd had two I wasn't fazed at all; but I was sitting on the bar stool. Halfway through the third pint and I needed to deposit some of the cider I'd borrowed and promptly fell over. My legs had turned to mush! By the time we got to Bridgewater, after dozing on the bus, I needed the loo again, badly. we used some public conveniences and they had no toilet paper. Gert tried the wom

en's and they too were void of anything. I won't tell you how I managed to solve the crisis, but I had no other option...

The holiday was poor. The weather peaked on the Sunday and it rained a lot. But we had a good time and a year later was the last time I saw Gertie in the flesh. I came back to Northampton and he eventually went back to Wales. I always think about that weekend whenever Glastonbury is on. I don't think of 1982 as being that long ago, but it's nearly 30 years and that's a lot of rain.

Utter Stumpage

If Hitler was alive and well and living in England, he'd be thinking up ways of exterminating great swathes of the population.

In the space of 3 minutes, I saw two examples of why Britain is such a lovely place...

I walked down to the shops to find out why we hadn't received the paper and as I got to the end I saw two slack jawed yokels with two shaggy German Shepherds. One of the yokels as half-heartedly apologising to Fatmir, the owner of the shop. "I didn't know she was going to take a shit. I haven't got any doggy bags." I reached the men and saw at least four dollops of sticky dog crap; one of them had been stepped in and smeared across the pavement. The spokesperson of the two men then went off into a rant to his cohort about how could he be so stupid as to let the dog take a shit there, he should have taken it round the corner and then proceeded to shout at the dog.

Fatmir had reappeared and I was walking past. He had a couple of carrier bags and some kitchen towel and he was handing it to lummox #1 who was reacting like he had a big snake thrust at him. "Give it to him," he said pointing at his even more dimwitted friend. Lummox #1 then continues to shout at the dog, but Fatmir stops him and says that it is not the dog's fault, so lummox #1 starts shouting at his mate, who by this time was on his hands and knees scraping up dogshit from the path.

I turned and head to my destination.

In front of me were two young mothers, probably in their mid 20s. They had the obligatory tracksuits and bling and were both wielding pushchairs. Behind them was a child about 5; he had a face like thunder and had obviously been told off. Outside of my newsagent is one of those metal National Lottery standees; the kind with the heavy concrete bases. These things are difficult to move, but the kid tries to walk up the face of the advert, bending in further and further. Both women look at the boy, say nothing and continue to walk towards the dimwits and their dogshit. The boy succeeds in almost crumpling the sign and the owner of the shop comes out and says something. Suddenly both women have swivelled on their heals and are shouting at the newsagent; calling him a 'Paki bastard' and what's he complaining about, as the sign stood there at at 45 degree angle.

My newsagent pointed at the sign, but receives nothing back but blank looks, both women then burst into a fit of giggles and the little brat pretends he's superman in front of the newsagent and runs off. He looks at me and I shook my head. What do you do? What can you do?

I got my paper and walks back home. As I got to the shit-stained shop front, I saw Fatmir deep in discussion with lummox #1, but there was no sign of his dimwit accomplice. I rounded the corner and there he was, strapping the female dog with the handle of the lead. Now, I'm essentially a coward, but I do not accept anyone being cruel to a dog and I suddenly get more courage than is worth. I said very calmly, "Oi mate. Stop hitting the dog, okay?" He turned and looked at me and was about to say something, but I smiled, not a pleasant smile. "She was a bad dog. She should-un shit there." I looked at him, bent down and stroked the two dogs who both looked scared stiff. Stood up and said, "They shit where you let them. Remember that. Don't hit the dogs again." And I walked off and I didn't even get that adrenaline rush you get from confrontations.

Hit Me With That Funky Bass

I think it would be fair to say that the last few weeks have been not good. Having never actually been made redundant before, I think the experience had a more far-reaching effect on me than I ever could have imagined; this hasn't been helped by my apparent inability to get a job.

Agencies don't do much to fill you with confidence. The two I have contacted have not got back to me, despite constant reminders. My argument is, if they haven't got anything then let me know, don't fuck with my confidence any more by just ignoring me. Ignoring people is churlish and even a cursory acknowledgement helps me think that I'm not just wasting my time.

I've been pretty much worried out of my head (it's not been helped by my former employer being as good with money as Gideon Osborne has compassion) for the future. I've tried to get myself motivated and just occasionally I've managed it; but there really isn't anything worse than losing your job, while all the others around you, also at risk, don't. That is what happened at my place; everyone at risk are still there except me and two of my colleagues - the third leaves at the end of next month.

Essentially, my former employer uses an organisation to do some of its work. They pay them a fee and the people who work for this organisation do exactly the same job as I once did. I struggled to see why my union didn't campaign for the cuts to be put in the direction of this organisation rather than at us. We could have undertaken all of the work done by this other organisation; because we do it anyhow. So as a result, they were all put at risk in February and by the end of April none of them was going to lose their jobs. In fact, one of the girls who worked for that organisation was convinced that none of them would lose their jobs. Her conviction was based on no substance and I kept thinking that she was in for a rude awakening. Guess what? She was right. It sort of got me thinking that she'd been told by someone, higher up, that her job was safe and she'd neglected to be tight-lipped about it. I may theorise more when I've got all that they owe me; providing I do and I don't have to go to the press and tell them how I've been treated like a prize c*nt by my former-employer (again).

Of course, I'm my own worst enemy in some respects. Having gone 8 months without smoking, I went and bought myself some hashish - at a time when I have no money and starting an expensive habit again is a bit like walking up to the biggest, baddest monster, kicking him in the nuts and calling him a big girly c*nt. It's stupid, unnecessary and will probably kill me!

Fortunately, the temptation to buy tobacco has been held at bay. I was given some baccy by a friend last Wednesday, so that I could have a few spliffs for the Amplifier gig, mainly because smoking a pipe stuffed with illegalities tends to be a little more obvious. But, I woke up on Thursday feeling like shit; I don't know if that was the late night, lack of food or the fact that I put a lot of nicotine in my body for the first time since September 2010. Probably, it was all three.

The cannabis has been the 'secret drug' I mentioned back in April. The 'analgesic' that seems to work a damned sight better than most of the faux opiates and painkillers I've been flooding my body with for 8 months. The results have been surprising - when I have it I function at a much higher rate than when I don't. I'm not completely convinced that it might just be my mind saying, 'hey I can deal with this better', but even if it is, it works, so what's to complain about? But the difference between having the odd puff on a pipe and not is being able to get out of bed in the morning without needing to grab hold of the wardrobe handle to pull myself up; it's being able to put my socks on without wanting to invent some contraption to make it easier; it's feeling a little better about my general aches and pains, which in turn makes me feel a little more confident. Sadly, during the last 2 months, it hasn't helped me lose weight; but it was always the tobacco that did that and the occasional tobacco slip up isn't really a slimming plan.

The biggest downsize is that my lungs aren't happy and I'm wheezing again; couple this with finding exercise more difficult because of putting on three stone in 8 months and you have one fucking unhealthy bastard, who doesn't ache as much as he did... Where is the balance? That's what I want to know!

A couple of friends have suggested eating it - that doesn't appeal really. I think the biggest problem is I like an immediate hit - forget the analgesic properties, I just want to be transported back to when I was 17.

The biggest and most obvious thing about this change in 'medication' is that since April my consumption of tramadol, co-codamol and general medication for my crumbling bones has all but stopped. Where I was taking painkillers all week, just to take the edge off the pain, I'm taking a tenth of the amount and where six months ago the thought of running out of meds was terrifying, I currently need to refill my co-codamol prescription, but ibuprofen will suffice... That has to be viewed as an achievement, if nothing else.

In fact, I appear to be in roughly the same physical condition I was last September, just before I had that prolapsed disc. The biggest difference is that I can no longer afford the pot, but the thought of the pain is probably a little more scary than not having any money. This is the Catch-22 situation polarised: I can't live with it, but I can't live without it. I mean, yeah, I can live without it, but the debilitating effects make me more depressed. I've started stopping thinking of it as a recreational drug and more of a pain management success.

Yet again, my life can't be simple...

***

Moving on...

The TV reviewer in this weekend's Observer needs to do his homework. He claims that Camelot is filmed in Wales, yet it states in the credits quite clearly that it's filmed in Ireland.

I urge anyone watching or thinking of watching this TV series to give up now. It is as good as having sex with a dead fish that has been buried in the ground for a month before the act. It's a load of old shite. Nothing happens for the entire series and the lack of budget gets more and more obvious the further we get into the story that will go nowhere. It is so naive, you'd think it was written by a 14 year old who wants swords, very little sorcery and a wealth of nudity... The nudity dries up pretty quickly, so be warned.

***

I've been pleasantly surprised by The Pierces - You and I, which reminds me of the Sixties and as much as I want to dislike it, I can't, even if there's a hint of C&W masquerading as pop music in there somewhere. It's worth spending 40 minutes of your free 10 hours of Spotify to see why I like it! Rock music fans should avoid like the plague unless they have soft spots for The Byrds and the Beach Boys.

***

Danny Alexander - now, there's a face you'd just love to slap! we can all hate Nick Clegg, but his little wanky sidekick in the Treasury is just as loathsome as Gideon Osborne. The fact he's supposed to be a Liberal is distressing; the look of joy on his face during PMQs makes me wonder if he parades around his bedroom at night dressed as Hitler and getting his wife (or boyfriend) to sieg heil him.

People with ginger hair should disown the little bollocked fuckwit!

***

I'd just like to remind people that Tuesday is both the best and worst day of the year. It's the best because there is nearly 18 hours of daylight and the worst because the year is already half over and the nights will be drawing in. Before you know it I'll be shitting and stamping in it about the autumn, winter and lack of sun, warmth, optimism... Just thought I'd remind you!

The City is Silent

My mate Martin loves London, if you read my report of the march on the 26th March, I explain why. Considering I spent so many years working there, travelling there and treating the place like a second home, I always find going to The Smoke or The Village as some call it, a bit daunting. It's the pace and with my back, I always feel as though I can't go at my own pace - which is a lot slower than it used to be. I used to charge around everywhere, now I stroll. I took to it amazingly easy.

Driving is another matter. I have a heavy right foot and whenever I have to travel to venues via a motorway I feel the urge to achieve my personal best time at covering a specific distance. Last year, when Roger and I accompanied our friend Phil Walker to two gigs - he drove to Leicester and the following day I drove to Wolverhampton. We got home from the Black Country in less time than it took us to get home from Leicester, despite being almost twice the distance away. Driving in a car with Phil Walker is like all your driving nightmares rolled into one. If I ever got stuck behind a driver like him, I'd risk my life to overtake.

I'm broke. A pauper. Thanks to my former employer's inability to pay me the right amount of money and get my redundancy to me in a humane time scale, I am struggling and on Tuesday, the third party of our trip to see Amplifier cried off with apparently self-inflicted food poisoning. The designated driver wasn't driving and that meant I had to. My car, a diesel, has been something of a guzzler, but a lot of that is how I drive. It would be considerably more economical if I drove it sensibly, but ask anyone who knows me, I've always driven sensibly, I just drive to fast. Not in restricted areas - had too many speeding fines for that - but if I know there's no cameras and the road is open... well, I just like speed! Subsequently, I put lots of fuel in my car.

I'd been chatting to a mate of mine about driving recently and he said that I have to drive my car with lower revs and I'd see the difference pretty quickly. So for the last week I've been keeping the Sedici below 2,000 revs and having my consumption monitor on the dashboard switched on. I said to roger that we were driving to London in a Phil Walker style and he gave me a look similar to that of Mr Spock in Star Trek, a raised eyebrow and a slight smile that suggested I was blowing smoke out of my arse.

I fucking did it! We never exceeded 65mph on the way down and the revs never went higher than 2,000. Roger rightly suggested that I am quite a restrained driver on the way to places, but the journey home at 1:00am with an empty motorway would be the ultimate decider. It was, I got off the motorway and came home via the A5. I put 10 miles on the journey, but avoided 25 miles of restrictions, which trust me is as boring as reading comics.

I probably saved about £7 in diesel and if you see an old duffer chugging along in a bright orange car it's probably me.

We got to London in 80 minutes, despite the traffic calming devices and parked up at East Finchley tube station, using this as our base as we needed the Northern Line and our destination was on the same network. East Finchley delivered nothing but expensive beer, so we decided to go down the tube and get off at Camden Town. A vibrant place but devoid of much in the way of decent beer or reasonable takeaways, we were getting hungry.

We decided as it was gone 7pm that perhaps we should go to Old Street and find a pub near the venue. We did, sort of, but they offered no bar snacks, poor beer and a dull game of football on the myriad screens dotted throughout the place. We decided that this being London, we'd grab something after the gig.

After the gig, it was 11.30 and there was nothing in that corner of Shoreditch, so we figured East Finchley would have something and I wanted some fuel from the garage there as it was cheaper than anywhere else we'd seen. We got back to the car at 12.10 and drove up the main drag and saw one convenience store open; even the garage was shut. We drove to Finchley, hoping to find something, but other than a Domino's Pizza and another convenience store everything was shut. Roger commented that all the houses we were driving past were dark; there were no lights on; everyone was asleep!

Deciding we needed fuel and maybe some snacks, we headed for Scratchwood or London Gateway as it has been known by some for years. It was shut. The garage was open charging 6p a litre more than anywhere else in the entire world and the attendant was as humourless as a housebrick. I considered pissing in their coffee, but opted to buy a bag of peanuts instead.

London on a Wednesday night is as dull and boring as Dunstable, but at least we saw a pub open at 1:00am there, which was one more than we saw in London. I'm sure there were parts of London where we could have bought anything for hours more, but this visit was decidedly underwhelming.

Good job the gig was so good, really.

***

There were a stack of (well, four) jobs in the paper this week and I shall be spending the weekend filling out application forms and building up my hopes and expectations yet again. Let's hope they're not cruelly dashed, yet again...

***

I was chatting with a friend and ex-colleague of mine called Helen recently; we occasionally exchange emails and her partner is a laugh, who also supports Spurs. She was telling me about a case she had to deal with recently; she's working out Wisbech way and is teaching at a junior school. She's part of a pre-school group, where kids who are going to be going to school can go, three mornings a week, to get them used to going to school. Her school starts this after Easter for an entire term.

Anyhow; the new kids are brought in by their parents, all are introduced to each other and eventually the folks leave and this continues for the first week or so. There were no kids who stood out and Helen thought it would be relatively easy. There was one young girl, very small and sweet looking who was playing with some crayons when another kid interrupted and tried to take one of the crayons. The sweet little kid pushed the kid away, turned on her and said, "Fuck off, or I'll kick your c**t in!" Helen and the two classroom assistants were stunned.

Later in the morning when the parents came to pick up the children, Helen took the little girl's mother to one side. She was a well spoken women, in her late 20s and Helen wondered how her little girl could have discovered such language and to be able to use it the way she did. Helen took a deep breath and told the mother what had happened. The woman shrugged her shoulders and said, "I told her father that talking to me that way would make an impression, but he doesn't listen." Horrified, Helen asked, rather tentatively if she was being abused. "Isn't everybody?" The mother took her daughter out of pre-school the next day and reported Helen to the school governors.

She didn't lose her job.

Turns out the parents were wealthy locals, possibly related to each other, distantly one would hope, who come from backgrounds where physical, sexual and mental abuse within the family has been common in the past. Helen thinks they escaped detection from Social Services because they lived in a posh house on a selective estate. Just because the father was good at his job, didn't mean he could be trusted not to abuse his family.

Several years ago, when the wife was working in IT, one of her colleagues based out in King's Lynn always said to her that Wisbech was possibly the strangest place he'd ever been to. Seems like he was right.

***

What is it with dogs and their ability to find the stinkiest pile of shit in the world and then roll in it? As much as I love them, this new bunch of dogs have got some truly disgusting habits which my old two dogs would have been appalled by.

Gig Guide 8: Amplifier at XOYO, Shoreditch, London; 15th June, 2011

Had Amplifier been around in the 1970s they would have been so massive that Led Zeppelin might have supported them. Okay, perhaps not, but had this band's music happened at a different time then we might have been seeing them playing in venue befitting their chaotic cosmic rock brilliance, rather than a basement arena hosting 500 people. The thing was, the band seemed made up to be playing London to so many people, they even wanted to know what 500 people sounded like.

But this modern day Cavern wasn't about to quash a set that was raw, undiminished and remarkably audible - it's amazing the sound you can get in a coal bunker now days.

Amplifier's 2010 double CD concept album - The Octopus - is a true modern classic, mixing prog, space and hard rock in equal measure and weaving a sprawling tale of a Dystopian world and 8 legged monsters (I wonder what the band thought of Gareth Edwards' Monsters?). It is, quite simply, the best concept album to have been released in the 21st century and last night they played half of it - the half that transfers best to grubby little venues with minions of sweaty, bouncing fans.

I remember seeing the band for the first time at the 2000Trees underwater rock festival in 2009; having discovered the hard cosmic rock eccentricity of the band after listening to Last FM. I remember thinking that a day that dragged on in the torrential rain suddenly sped up as the hour long set by the Manchester trio (augmented by an extra Oceansized guitarist last night) disappeared in a flash. The sun came out, the band cemented themselves into my personal musical database.

I'd expected the place to be packed with kids moshing and generally cavorting around like whirling dervishes - there had been a number of young people at 2000 Trees who seemed to think that Amplifier were Slayer in disguise; so I was a mixture of pleasantly surprised and slightly disappointed that the core of the audience were all between 30 and 50. I was, however, very impressed with the amount of young nubile things who go crazy for Amplifier's oeuvre. At times I was hard pressed for where to be looking! It did get hot and heaving, but because of my bad back and fear of looking like a psychotic hippo, I hung at the back, with a handy wall to lean on and a reasonable view of the stage, although I only saw Matt, the drummer, when he walked on and off the stage.

Sel Balamir, the head of AmpCorps, was a commanding presence, even if Neil Mahoney handled the majority of the MC duties. Balamir looks like the kind of frontman a rock band needs, chiselled looks, a degree of charm and a voice that belittles the metal tag this band occasionally gets labelled with - he is a master lyricist, with a deep melodic pitch that enhances the riffs and pedal wizardry he seems to fiddle with every time I see him.

It astounds me that this band are not bigger; but perhaps the world isn't ready for them. I like a lot of bands that should be getting the recognition that other, less talented, individuals get, yet Amplifier are possibly this good because, after 11 years together, they seem more concerned with their fans having a good time than living in mansions drinking champagne from the bra cups of nymphs. I'm sure they wouldn't turn down the offer if it was forthcoming, but I believe they've realised the worth of the people who buy their records, follow them to gigs and become unofficial AmpCorps members; doing the necessary to imprint their masters into the conscious of the rest of the ignorant world. I was over a mile from the venue and found Octopus stickers in the men's room!

Anyhow, after a raucous 75 minute Octopus set, the band had a short break before coming back out for what was essentially the encore. Here they resurrected four classics from their back catalogue, much to the delight of the young girls squealing around me: Continuum, UFOs, Motorhead and Airborne brought the resounding success to a close. The punters left happy and one wonders where to now for this fiercely independent band.

I should mention that Pineapple Thief supported and this is the third time in just over a year I've seen the band and while they rock the boat of my good friend Roger, I find them a little too whiny for my liking; but they are accomplished musicians, their songs are always pleasant (which, I'm not sure is the desired reaction) and they are perfect to support bands such as Amplifier, especially as there seems to be a direct correlation between both sets of fans. I saw one Amp fan buy 3000 Days, the best of compilation PT released when they changed labels.

I saw Bruce Soord, the driving force behind the poor man's PT, watching the closing moments of Amplifier's set and you could see he was impressed.

I also saw good old Charlie Barnes. (pictured left in a dayglo pink glow) He appeared to be acting as a roadie kind of person for the band - he's just been touring Europe with them, so I figured he stopped around for the London show. Sporting a beard that belies his tender years, it would have been good to see him support the band - I would have paid more attention - but maybe his rather un-rock set wouldn't have set the right tone. I did manage to say hi and shake his hand and promise to get out and see him live again soon.

All in all a great gig, a ridiculously cheap price (£12 plus a 30p booking fee!) and the knowledge that I'm one of 500 people who have again witnessed the future of rock music! 8.5 out of 10

The Adventures of Unemployed Man (Part 16: Mowing the Lawn)

I find it quite amazing that for someone who used to put magazines together for a living can't make this poxy blog editor do more for my $0.00 a year fee!

Today saw (or heard, depending on where you were) both of my neighbours in fine fettle. Fishwife woke me up at 7.30 by getting his bins out. steady on, girls, it's not as exciting as it sounds! This set not one but two of the dogs off and subsequently I didn't get back to sleep so I was answering emails at 7.40 and wondering what the hell I was going to do with my day. The main reason for my not getting back to sleep wasn't the clattering of his bin or the piercing dog barks, but his conversation with someone on the opposite side of the house from where I was trying to get the pillow to drown out the noise. The man's voice carries like malaria and all I could hear was wah fucking wah wah waaah!

By 11:00am, he'd gone off to fight fires or be a good Samaritan somewhere else, so I decided it was a good time to hit the deck chair, top up the tan and prepare to mow the lawn. I had a cup of strong coffee, a lack of sleep headache and the main section of The Guardian. I was sorted.

Fuckwit and Oaf Woman were in the garden and they weren't alone.

Various bits of snatched conversation passed me by and then, "Nice day. My mate reckons it's here for the week."

"What is?"

"The weather. It's going to be like this for the rest of the week."

"Who said that?"

"My mate. I said."

"Yeah, which one?"

"Tony."

"Yeah, Tony's usually right about that kind of thing. He picked the Britain's Got Talent winner weeks before the final."

"I told him he should of had a few quid on that."

There you have it. The Met Office reckon it'll be raining by tomorrow lunchtime, but Tony can pick the winner of a talent show. We are all sorted.

I went and mowed the lawn.

Next time: Unemployed man wrestles the hoover, cleans up stinky dog poo and contemplates dinner on a budget. Stay tuned for the next crazy adventure!