Fitness Regime: Spring 2011- kicking Winter's ass

Weel, my most recent fitness regime is going great. By some feat of technology I still have my spreadsheet from my last tranche of cross-trainer addiction, so its easy enough to add another few columns and track my progress against how I did a few months back.

We acquired a small cross trainer about a year ago, its a bit rattly compared to the ones you get in proper gyms, and the electronics are a bit basic, but its good enough for my purposes even if I do have to oil it up with WD40 every two days.

Back around Christmas I felt I was getting a bit fat, the reflection in the mirror had more jowls than I remember and the way my stomach spilled over my belt was a little sickening. So I got on the cross trainer.

My strategy would have two main tactics:-
Aim to exercise every single day
Every day do a little more than the day before, either faster or further

See, I reckon to really lose weight and get fit, its not enough to occasionally go to the gym, or while away an hour or so with a stroll. No, you've got to push yourself, not to the peak of human perfection, Lynford Christie, Zola Budd, Daly Thompson, Usain Bolt, better than everyone else in the world, just a little better than you were yesterday. That's all its takes.

Followers of my internet ramblings may remember the tumblr what I started back in January, Fat Ill and Ancient, that kind of petered out after around 40 days. I grew bored, or caught a cold or just didn't feel like exercising for a few days and by the time I'd skipped three days, the dream was over.

Now, some way into April, I noticed those jowls returning and my belly had no definition or recognisable muscles, so I hopped back on the cross trainer and started again.

That was about three weeks ago. Now look at this graph.

This graph shows that compared to day 20 of January's fitness regime, I've gone about 40km further. Admittedly crosstrainer kilometres don't map jogging kilometres very well, but I've done 50% more than I did fourth months ago.

Not only that but back in winter, it took me thirty-five days to build up the stamina to do the great 25km distance in one day, whilst this time round I've built up the stamina in half the time.

Not only is my distance better, but check out this graph.

This graph shows the average speed for each session. I don't know about you but I can clearly see that this time round, I'm going a lot faster than I was last time. I'm averaging 21.5km/h, compared to 20.5km/h last time.

I rule, I so kick the ass of my three months younger self. If I had some kind of time machine, and went back three months, and by some convoluted chain of events challenged myself to crosstraining race, I would so win. In your face 32 year old me, cos 32.5 is where its at. YEAH!

But I hear you ask, what does this mean in more visual terms?

It means, the first inklings of a six pack.

Ladies, steady yourselves.

Plants and stuff: An comprehensive introduction

Yeah, so, like, I'm growing plants at the flat. We acquired a multipack of seeds from possibly Wilkinsons on the high Street and planted them in compost in these dinky little pot things on the windowsill.

They take a lot of love and attention, well, watering and occasionally turning them round so they don't grow all lop-sided. For the sake of bloggery I've named them all.

This is Tim, Chris and Chris Tomato. They're doing quite well, the rest of their pot brethren have already been transplanted to bigger pots.

These are the Jockrock Tomatos, named after a website I used to frequent. They're doing okay, strapping great chaps, half of them have gone on to bigger and better things.

These are Franklin and the Power Pack Tomatos, named after some back up story from the Thundercats Marvel UK comic back in the day, they're teeny tiny, Franklin is the tall chap in the bottom left.

These are the Reinforcements from Cybertron Tomatos. They're going to grow up to be complete monsters, world beware.

Could be basil, I'm not sure, they haven't really grown much in the past week, I blame thems not being tall enough to get any sunlight from over the edge of their pot, so its their own fault really.

Nearby on a table in one of those propagator things we have a vast assembly of beetroot.

They're just starting to get a grip on this whole being a plant thing, they only put in an appearance above ground a few days ago, no distinct personalities have emerged yet.

In the bathroom, we've set up a staging area for plants that are too big for the windowsill, but not quite grown up enough for the outside world. I'm hoping to toughen them up on a diet of piss-drips and shower condensation, that'll turn them into real plants, like me!

This is the Baron Tomato, you don't mess with him.

I dunno what these are, I didn't plant them. Some kind of vegetable perhaps, just gonna have to wait and see what they turn into.

These are Nick and Chris Tomato, they're brothers.

This is Amelia Tomato, she's pretty cool in her own way.

These are Sarah and Susan Cucumber, they have a load of sisters who are hanging around outside, but we're going to keep these two inside for another week or so.

This is the Anorak vegetable assembly, named after a messageboard I used to frequent. Lettuces and onions apparently, although they're a bit peely wally the now, a bit more love and attention and water and sunlight and maybe they'll get their act together as vegetables. The long stringy things are the onions, but I don't see how they're going to become more onion-like.

And this mob is the Bowlie collective of tomatos, natch.

Out on the fire escape, we're blocking out fire escape route with some of the more hardly of our plants in a small array of pots.


This is Colin Rhubarb, he's not looking very well, he's only been out here for two days and hasn't really done much with his time.

This is Deborah Chives, she's lovely. Already we've been giving her a trim and eating her leaves with our salad and cheese. She's got this yummy oniony flavour just like chives. And she still loves us, I can tell cos of the flowers. We did go through a rough patch with her, we weren't watering Debs as much as we should have done, it was my fault really. I still feel bad about it, but we're okay now.


This is Louise Mint, she's yummy too, branches and leaves tumbling all over her pot like a malestrom of minty goodness. I think I used some of her leaves in this lamb marinade I made the other week, but other than that we don't use her leaves half as much as we ought to.


Nina Raspberry ain't growing so well. Out where I work, next to a sewerage works there's all these brambleberries and stuff and they love growing, you can't stop them, but their cousin Nina Raspberry, she's hardly grown at all in the last two months.

This is Rosemary Rosemary, she's a rosemary plant. She goes quite well with lamb too, or if I'm feeling bored and no one's around I just snarf one of her branches.

These are Sarah, Tabatha and Pauline, they are coriander, sage and basil respectively. The Coriander is doing well, the basil less so, poor Pauline.

Down in the actual gardeny bit of our garden, the soil is really poor quality. I think there used to be a patio on one side, so it all sand and stones and on the other side, its really dusty and the neighbourhood cats have been pooping there for years so the soils really acidic.

We're slowly sorting it out, I've got a midden for kitchen waste slowly composting away, and we're digging up and sieving the more compacted bits. Really hardy plants can just about survive in the grown, the medium hardy plants are going into a polythene tunnel of love, but most of the tomato and cucumber windowsill alumni are going into growbags and big plant pots.

This is Redtree Stolenfromwerk, he's a red tree-like plant thing that I stole from work. He seems all right in the ground, he hasn't grown much in the last month, but he doesn't look like he's died either, so I guess he's doing okay.

This is Huey Lewis the apple tree, I bought him for £7 from Tesco a few weeks back, I thought it was a bargain.

This one time 28 years ago, I tried to grow an apple tree from seed. I went quite well, upgrade from yoghurt pot to small plant pot to large plant pot over two or three years. I remember it got really tall, about five foot, and then somehow I lost it or forgot about it.

Anyhoo, this thing I got from Tesco was about five foot of apple tree, a dry stick with a small rootball at one end, Huey Lewis. I planted him in a fair sized pot, I give him love and affection, keep him watered and in the sunshine and well, he's still just a dry stick. I keep thinking that there's bits of new growth, or his bark looks less dry and more healthy, but I'm just fooling myself.

This is the Dying Bathroom tree, he's been with us for a long time. He used to stay in the living room when we lived in Wembley and was happy there, but when we came to Walthamstow, we moved him into the bathroom. The new climate upset him a little so we thought we'd put him outside to get more fresh air and sunlight, but that made all his leaves go brown so we brought him inside again. After a month or so in the bathroom, the season had turned so we are trying him outside again, but I reckon he's a lost cause.

This is Kristin Gooseberry, she's a bit of a lush.



These three chaps are called Neville Johnson, Paul Johnson and Phil Johnson, they're tomatos, they live in a growbag together. I think I might have been a bit premature putting them in the growbag, as they haven't grown much since the move. In fact Neville has developed these freckles.
I'm a little bit concerned, but there's not much I can do. Neville's going to have to soldier along and sort himself out.



Next to the Johnson brothers we have Carlos, Cecil and Colin Cucumber, they're brothers too and also live in a growbag, but its a different brand to the Johnsons. I think there's a little neighbourly animosity between them, but they also seem to be suffering from being outside, although the Cucumbers do get a little more sunshine.

This is Paul Pumpkin, he lives in a polythene tunnel of love because we were scared that the cats would have a go at him when we first moved him outside. Paul is actually planted in the soil on the former patio side. He's doing okay, gets plenty of sunshine, and we keep him watered, but he's not exactly thriving.

These tomatos are Huey, Dewey, Andy and Louie, they share Paul Pumpkin's polythene tunnel of love. They've only been in that soil for a few days, I think the sunshine is doing wonders for them, it'll be interesting to see how they get on compared to their growbag brethren.

Shares and Stuff: A brief introduction

Yeah, so right, cos I'm all grown up now, I thought I'd invest some of my wealth in the stock market, or slightly more specifically, buying shares.

It was a rather pleasant surprise to find that the HSBC, who I've banked with for a number of years, have a share investy account thing which is really easy to set up. Just a few clickety clicks and a patient wait for the paperwork to go through, and I have an InvestDirect sharedealing account. This would enable me to buy and sell shares.

Now all I had to do was find some share to buy.

I've found that the easiest way to find companies to invest in and to track share prices is with Google Finance. To start with you search for companies, it tells you the share price and similar companies. What you want to do is find companies that you think are going to do well.

A brief sojourne...
Twenty or so years ago my mum was getting into the buying shares game and asked my advice, I suggested a company called Virtuality Group Plc, who in the early nineties pioneered virtual reality arcade games. I thought, this is the company of the future, Mother, invest now.

How could they fail? I mean, c'mon, VIRTUAL REALITY!! Sadly, they didn't become the new Microsoft, the new Nintendo, Apple or Google. And as home computer processing power increased, their products became pretty much pointless.

Sorry Mother, you asked the wrong twelve year old for stock market advice.

This time round I thought a bit less imaginatively, Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS), for their shares fell about 95% in the credit crunch and subsequent government bailout, from almost £7.00 to 19p a share. Imagine if you had £10,000 tied up in them in 2007, that would be worth about £300, after the crash. You'd be ruined. But my thinking is that the company is much undervalued now, sure they were a bit over-priced before the crash, but their low price now is more a symptom of investors not wanting to touch them with a barge pole rather than an honest valuation of the company. Get the shares now whilst they're cheap, and give them a year or two and I reckon you'd easily recoup.

Another company that caught my eye was Halfords (LON:HFD), the bike and car parts superstore. We are in a recession, everyone's skint, but we still need summer holidays and the sun is shining. So, instead of jetting off to Malaga, folk are going to be driving to Mallaig. If I'm right then in the middle of the summer Halfords is going to be booming, and I could make a profit.

A third company is Kenmare (LON:KMR), they mine in Mozambique, and since May 2010, their shares have more quadrupled, going from 9p to 40p. £10,000 invested this time last year would be £40,000. I reckon they haven't peaked yet, and once their new mine starts churning out whatever magic metals they can find, then the sky's the limit.

So, I've bought myself shares in all these companies, only £250 in each, and the £12.95 commission on each transaction. But, I hear you ask, where do I get this money from? Well, I'm skint, so this money has come out of my overdraft. Its magic money plucked out of the air. But that's okay, its only if their value falls that anyone loses money.

A week passed. I got scared that Royal Bank of Scotland was going to crash again so I sold my share in them at a loss and bought more in Kenmare.

That was probably a mistake too, they were doing their annual salary negotiations with the workforce in Mozambique, and the workers went on strike and shut the mine down.

No matter, the weather's been good and Halfords shares have gone up by about 10% since I bought them. Wehay!

Topman CTRL MX Ultra Xtreme Plus good good doublegood 2.0

Some time the other week there was an RT from the band Veronica Falls, about getting tickets to be in the audience for a TV show. After running away scared from their Flashback Records show last month I felt kind of obliged to try to see them again as soon as possible, so I went along to the Topman CTRL website and duly applied.

The tickets arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday, and after a few moments of skipping round the office, I began to prepare myself. Along with Veronica Falls, two other Glasgowish acts would be playing, The Mighty Mighty Edwyn Collins and my arch nemesises from 2005, Glasvegas.

I was a little confused about what Topman CTRL MX is, some kind of all encompassing Topman-endorsed music TV, concert and website brand, with gigs in other major cities and a Top of the Popsish TV show on Channel 4.

Wednesday night had me illegally downloading as much music as possible from the three acts, just to familiarise myself with what to expect. It was the first time I'd consciously listened to Glasvegas, which may come as a surprise considering the legendary events of early March 2005 when they were pitted head to head against The Plimptons on a Radio Scotland demo competition. The Plimptons won decisively with 62% of the vote thanks to the huge effort by their fans voting online.

That didn't stop Glasvegas from complaining to Vic Galloway that we'd cheated and then getting their song played the following week, and then going on to have an album that reached number two in the pop charts.

Anyhoo, its all water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.

I have to say though, I was quite surprised on listening to them to find they're more vaudeville and cabaret than even the Plimps were back in the days, with cheeky songs about social workers called Geraldine.

Thursday night I spent trying to figure out what cool kids wear these days, and what I ought to wear for the show. I settled for stripey hoody, bootcut jeans and a Glasgow Indie Eyespy badge.

The thing was filmed in Hackney, at an industrial unit called The Stoke Newington International Airport. I was meeting my attractive young ladyfriend (whom I love very much) after work, but her phone died so I wandered the streets methodically for a while hoping to bump into her.

I did have this thought that perhaps if the presenter, Radio 1's Huw Stephens, was somehow incapacitated, and a new presenter was needed, then maybe with my experience of TV presenting (BBC 2's Culture Show and Last Night From Glasgow) and my experience of radio presenting (Strathclyde University's Fusion Radio 1999 to 2001), I'd be the ideal choice. I'd be good at interviewing the bands too, "so Patrick, when are Clockwork Bear going to reform?".

Alas, in wandering the streets looking for my ladyfriend, I arrived at the venue too late to incapacitate Huw Stephens (although we did have a wee together during an interval in the filming).

My companion and I soon got in, our names on the guestlist and everything, we found the free bar, grabbed a beer and another beer, and then hid in a shadowy corner watching other cool kids arrive. I recognised almost no one, except for some girl who looked like fashion blogger StyleBubble and then wee Patrick from Veronica Falls when he wandered in, but he doesn't really count.

There were two stages set up, a dark and moody neon-lit stage in one corner and a happy antiques fair sort of stage on the other side. The ceiling of the place was festooned with coloured shapes befitting the Topman CTRL brand, and amongst the creeping mould the walls decked with flea market/antiquey paintings and junk. I think I found an old Arthur and Martha residency flyer which seemed odd.

It wasn't long before Edwyn Collins and band shuffled on to the happy stage and launched into perfect rendition of Orange Juice's Rip It Up, I was so excited I think I weed just a little.

The crowd were urged to be all enthusiastic by some chap at the back with a microphone, and heck, I was enthusiastic, and obediently followed his directions bellowing at the crowd to move closer to the stage or crowd round the hosts. See, unlike some people, I realise that this wasn't a gig, it was the filming of a TV show, we were merely extras. Its all fake. When they film a link then the band start playing, of course they have to stop and film again to cover any mistakes or anything. Its not going out live, you don't just plough through regardless. And hell yeah, if someone's phone goes off, you stop and do it again.

So the evening went on, Uncle Huw recording linking segments with Ryan from the Cribs, who seemed a little nervous and clunky. Whilst Ryan's hair was immaculate, his leather jacket was falling apart. Like my old gigging leather jacket is pretty rough, but at least the stitching only comes away on the inside, Ryan had shoulders all falling apart, its not going to last long in a live environment, I know, I've been in live environments. His anecdotes about Steve Davis and his 1999 fanzine were hilarious, look out for them when the show is broadcast on Friday 11th March 12:05am.

At some point Shug asked him about other new bands he was getting into and he checked Shrag, which reminded me I was missing a Shrag gig at the Lexington, bah, anyhoo, I'm going to be on TV.

Now I think about it, there were some really rough bits in Ryan's interview, like how he doesn't usually watch the Topman CTRL show, he didn't like the music industry, and also that The Cribs are not working on a new album, it made me wonder "why is he here?".

I reckon I could do a music show, just a wee bootleg one, hmm, do people still listen to podcasts?

Glasvegas did a song, I'm not sure about the sound quality, it'll sound different when its on TV compared to standing at the front behind the most enthusiastic Glasvegas fans ever. They were all right I guess, a bit epic like, a touch too far up their own arses, but that's just my indie bias coming through.

Veronica Falls did two songs, Fountain and Found Love In A Graveyard, which sounded good. Whilst Patrick and James's hair was pretty good, Roxanne's was about two points less cool than usual, when it should have won by a mile.

There's a couple of other people who were there who've blogged about the evening, so when future historians write about that night, there'll be some more balanced and reliable sources. Emily Anderson's Musical Bloggery and London Thein Side both present quite concise accounts, Bright Lights and Fairground Rides provides a more verbose and entertaining account.

I can't quite remember what order the bands played in, did Edwyn play twice? Must have done, possibly for the warm up, then again after Glasvegas. Then there was an interval or a wee and fag break and Veronica Falls played, then we grabbed out coats and did a runner before Glasvegas played again.

There's a wonderful kebab restaurant down the road, where they serve lambs testicles, its preferable to listening to Glasvegas.

My next scheme

I recently finished reading John Robb's book, The North will rise again: Manchester Music City (1977-1996). Its a collection of dozens of interviews with 'Manchester's proudest sons', all cut up and arranged in some kind of chronological and genre order. I found it refreshing and eye-opening: most books I've read on Manchester just cover Factory or The Smiths, but this one covers a longer time frame and black music as well as white.

It finishes just when I discovered music in Manchester in my own lifespan.

Anyhoo, long term readers of of this blog will remember my aborted project 'Glasgow Indie Eyespy: The Movie'. Churning out the script/treatment thing was quite a satisfying experience for a few weeks, but it was pretty futile in the end.

As Inuit Panda Scarlet Carwash points out "it could more appropriately be entitled The Life and Opinions of Christopher Gilmour, Gentleman", rather than the historical documenting of the Glasgow indie scene 1997 to 2009.

Maybe I could follow John Robb's template and just interview other people, then edit and compile, and spool it off as an e-book for $3 on Kindle or something.

I'd start off by interviewing folk I know and am vaguely in contact with, like the various Smiths, and then as they name-drop I pick up and paint more of the picture.

Alas, I'm 422 miles away so interviewing wouldn't be so easy. An alternative would be emailing and blogging, the questions and interviews.

Two questions:-
Can I be arsed?
Can my 'interviewees' be bothered writing it for me?

Actually, scratch that I don't think I can do it.

In my head I'd be chatting to Paul McDermot, or Smiths like Adam, Martin, Rowan and Iain, trying to get the history of the Owsley Sunshine out of Joe Kane and track down Jez from The Nova Express. But to actually write the damned thing, I'd need to be speaking to St. John McEwan from the Yummy Fur, Stevie Jackson, Stephen Pastel and Alex Kapranos from Franz, and I just can't do it. I come over all hot and bothered just standing in the same room as these people. This one time I had to run out of Mono cos Pastel was working the counter, and just last week I had to leave a gig early cos the Kapranos was stood next to me.

Then again, I am an established author, I've written booked before, I have a track record.

Hmm, gah, self-doubt.

Library closures and books

I've been meaning to blog about library closures for a while now, but I thought I'd wait until traffic to my blog fell to single digits to avoid hassle.

The most concise thing I can say is "It would be so much simpler if it was just about book-lending", but its not. Its about all the other things that libraries do.

Books, they're cheap, almost free, try the secondhand sellers on Amazon and eBay, or FreeCycle, or charity shops, or downloading PDFs. There was some suggestion on one of the blogs what I read about how instead of paying for libraries it would be cheaper to issue a Kindle to anyone on minimum wage or less, and they can bill the taxpayer for any books they download. Maybe the sums work out, probably not, but there won't be much in it.

But that's not what the controversy about library closures is about, in fact it shows my middle-class, well-educated, right-wing bias. I ignorantly assume that everyone has access to the internet, can use computers and has the time, space and inclination for reading.

Libraries offer internet access and computer to those who otherwise wouldn't have it, they offer the space, the peace and quiet to read or do homework, they offer somewhere to get away from home.

I had this great idea for a website, essentially it was a peer-to-peer book-lending system. Lenders can enter all the books they own and feel comfortable about giving away, you just enter the ISBN or the title and their postcode, and borrowers can search for any book they want and it gives you the contact details of the people nearest to them who have that book, send them an email ask if they can leave it on a park bench or a coffeeshop or wherever

Users would get points and badges for what they've read, what they've lent, whether they have complete serieses of books,  and so on. If no one has the book, then there's an affiliate link to Amazon and a source of revenue for the website, and the grim acceptance that sometimes libraries don't have the book you want. It would be a warped hybrid website of Zupa, Last.fm, FreeCycle, eBay, Amazon and FourSquare but for books. Actually, just making it an app for Facebook, iPhones and Android would be better than a website, using onboard cameras to scan barcodes.

I thought it would be great, public libraries become public, removing 'the state'  and any taxpayer burden from the equation.

But that just emphasises my bias, my misunderstanding of what public libraries are about, they're not just about book lending but the social services that such institutions provide.

On a similar note, I haven't been into a video shop in a while, but I imagine they don't really have many videotapes, they stock DVDs and computer games. Likewise for HMV, fewer vinyl records these days, more CDs, even more DVDs and computer games. Gor! Virgin Megastore died for it, diluting the brand. Maybe society moved on, play.com and amazon killed the high street.

But the internet can't kill libraries, cos they represent the floor, that anyone can have access to the internet. Maybe libraries shouldn't be called libraries after all this, some other name for the service provision they provide. Its not just about books, its not just about books.

If I had more inclination, I'd do a pie chart. Something showing that libraries are 30% about books, 35% about computers and internet access, 25% about helping the local community, 10% about other stuff. Maybe my percentages there aren't right, but that's the right ballpark, isn't it?

If it was just about books, this would be so much easier.

The Lovely Eggs - The Lexington 04-Feb-2011

Its 3am Sunday morning, I had a big mug of coffee before I went to bed and I can't sleep, so I'm going to rant and rave and review a gig I was at on Friday night.

There's a dark shadow over east London, and its up to me to bring light to the area, its my job, I am the light bringer, the illuminator, I illuminate, I am the illuminatus.

Earlier on Friday I was at work, at my desk, and I snapped, the bureaucracy was getting too much, too frustrating, ticking boxes and filling in forms and deadlines, instead of making London's street's safer, saving lives. Some woman is going to be waiting for her husband to come come, waiting and waiting and he's not going to make it, casserole dish clatters to floor when the voice on the phone tells her what happened. Some bloke waiting outside a cinema for his date, who's he's fancied from the other side of the office for weeks, to arrive, dreaming of that first kiss, he's going to be waiting in vain. Some old duffer heading home after a week's hard labour at the works, never reaching his destination. All because I'm doing sodding paperwork for paperwork's sake.

Christ, I have a degree in manufacturing, speak half a dozen languages, can run 25K in one go, play guitar and have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Manchester, Glasgow and London indiescenes 1995 to 2011, and I'm stuff doing sodding paperwork.

I've lost something.

I always felt awkward at gigs, lonely, on my own, but this is different. Well, its the same as the last couple of gigs. I've lost something.

Looking back at my writings and verbage over the past 17 years, I used to churn it out. God, the shite I was writing, I had a passion, its was complete nonsense, but I had a passion, there was fire. Not any more. If it was turgid before, its worse now.

Despite feeling lonely at gigs, there were people with me. In Manchester Nosni, Zee, Roz, all the people at Flyer shows, Jim Bean, Timbo, Sap. Then in Glasgow, the first time round with Rab, Nick, Faye and Cleggy and the early Bowlie kids. The in round two, Alan, Adam, Martin, the whole Note and Sleazys scene.

But now, in London, I've lost something. Am I just old? I'm missing something, its gone.

Sure, I see Bob UnderExposed, nodding recognition, and I stand two and a half metres away from Nik from Moustache of Insanity, but its not the same. I'm in a room full of strangers.

Sure, I'm seeing bands that I've seen half a dozen times before in countless guises. The first time I saw The Lovely Eggs was on the train to my first Indietracks, they were playing to about three of us in a carriage. I didn't quite know what to make of them, but they were full of love. And there was history too.

Cos Holly was in Angelica, way back in the day, who did "Teenage Girl Crush" and "Why did you let my kitten die?", god knows if I saw them in the Manchester days, but I definitely saw them in Glasgow, I reckon twice, maybe three times. Flatmate Faye reckoned she knew them from school in Lancaster. I remember seeing them play the Art School, somewhere I still have photies, then one time I saw them at Ladyfest at the old 13th Note on Clyde Street. I was stood at the bar, next to Manda Rin from Bis and Faye's brother was up visiting too. I think I even did my old 'Wonderwall' shout. I remember these things clearly, I still had a soul in them days.

Its a White Light club night at The Lexington, probably related to the old White Heat club night at Madame Jojos in Soho, Matty with a moustache is the DJ type person. I definitely still had whatever I've lost back when I went to Madame Jojos. Dananananaykroyd were playing, I saw big Duncan and Wee Susan from Glasgow, and it was okay.

About an hour before I had my rant at work, I was ploughing through paperwork, frustrating building up inside, head in my hands and a colleague from across the room started at me with what's wrong, a guy your age shouldn't have his head in his hands on a Friday afternoon, you should be living it up, the weekend's about to start, etc.

I've lived it up, I was there then. Look, here's my achievement badge, 584 gigs, 32 years of age, from The Boardwalk, to The Admiral to The Lexington.

And I'm stood two and a half metres from Nik from Moustache of Insanity, wondering where Andrew Bulhak is. Also wondering whether I should have brought along my missus or a friend who doesn't like gigs. That's it.

I'm reading John Robb's The North Will Rise Again, about the Manchester music scene 1976 to 1995, and I'm looking at the scene before me through polarised 3D specs. Is there a scene amongst the crowd at The Lexington? Are The Lovely Eggs here as part of that, hallowed guests from on high? High priestess Amelia Fletcher ministering the flock?

Am I here at all?

Is this just telephoned in from my flat, I'm hiding under the bed, scared to come out, exhausted after trying too hard? or not hard enough. Where are people I know and talk to?

Why aren't they here wearing whatever twenty-first century faces they have?

There's this timeless scene in my head, a paradigm, NPL in Glasgow, its dark outside, yellow streetlights, people from bands and other gigs walking the same way. When I get inside, there's a seat the first table, Jef and Gill are there, Adam's on the dancefloor, Andy Diamond too, other friends off of the internet in the near corner, friends I'm scared of talking to on the other side of the dance floor, Alan will be along later. Lots of drinks, plans and schemes, foolish ideas followed through and then a drunken stagger home.

But its not like that here. Occasionally there are echos and shadows and smokey reflections, like Hawthorns in Bolton in 1997, but its not like that here.

I drink three bottles of Tiger, enjoy Tender Trap and The Lovely Eggs songs, try to shrug off moldering resentment of something I can't quite put my finger on and head back to Walthamstow.