Last Weekend

With YD in Cambridge with the Beast (taking young Patrick up with his evil Mother as he begins his first year at University) and OD doing her own thing as per usual, I had that rare event last weekend: an entire two days to myself. And did I spend it wisely? Well, on Saturday I hoofed into London and met the Wing-Commander for a coffee, a spot of book/CD shopping, and a visit to the Kandinsky exhibition at Tate Modern. (And what did I learn about Kandinsky’s work? He was rubbish until 1912; at that point his creative dawn broke but it took him four years to get the hang of it, but by 1916 he’d got to grips with this abstraction malarkey and was knocking out some right belters). On Sunday I bought a birthday present for BotS, played my bass, watched a Charlie Chan movie on DVD and then went to the Bull and Gate in the evening where I met the lovely Melinda and we watched La Momo (female French Velvet Underground fans with strange keyboard noises), Stuntdog (middle-aged blokes not sure what they want to be or what they are doing and with no dress sense whatsoever between them but have a few good songs lurking among the dross), and the excellent Bill Drake (a man, a piano, and Stars in Battledress backing him up on guitar and harmonium). I also bumped into my old friend MacDeath (for that is indeed his name) which was a treat too. The B&G is one of the few venues in London that is still run by people who are passionate about music and so I was pleased to see that the posters I dropped in at the door for my own band’s gig there on 22^nd October were actually up on the wall by the time I left. God bless ‘em. Home by midnight and thus another week begins.